Fire Emblem

^Again about those films: didn't the defence of white Dragons lack behind a bit? I can't remember for sure, but I don't think it would be impossible for an endgame soldier to outrank white dragons in defense.

That, and myrmidons might be skilled, but they are also very, very frail, and lack in real killer power most of the time. Sure, they can rack up the pain when you give them a bravesword, but without one, all you got is someone really useful for killing mages with ease.

At least that's how I imaging things. Never played a FE game on hard.

Brave Sword has the same might as a Steel Sword. For the last missions in the game, you're probably throwing down the Too Awesome to Use things you've been accumulating, like Wyrmslayers and forged weapons instead of things that hit like vendor trash.

^^ Sorry, that isn't a Soldier in Mia's video, but a Warrior. I'm sleepy and confused the two. Though now that you mention it, it might be a boss, which would change things a bit.

As for dragons, while they favor HP over most everything else, typically have some of the highest armor in the game, aside from Generals. I can't say for sure if their color alters their stats though - I never really noticed a difference between dragon colors in FE, to be honest.

Also, as far as frailness goes, IF they take a hit then they will take loads and loads of damage. The point is though that they should be able to dodge most attacks. That's why its a good idea in the recent games to give them skills like Cancel, Adept, and especially Vantage, so that they can get in more attacks without fear of reprisal.

edited 14th Feb '10 8:37:49 PM by Bioelectricclam

^Just for your information: There IS a difference between differently colored dragons. White dragons have loads of resistance and use the magic stat for their attacks. Red dragons have a lot of defence and use the strenght stat. Black dragons have loads of everything, but also use the strenght stat.

And the reason why Ena sucked was because she had white dragon stats (high res and magic), but used the strenght stat for attacks. Whoever came up with that idea needs to get his ass kicked.

^Neat, I learned something new today. To be honest, I've only really used dragons as a StoneWall, mostly due to the fact that that was what Ena was like back in Po R...now I want to go back and try using them as offense, haha.

And concerning Munchkin-ing, isn't that the point of Fire Emblem??

^To me, RPG's, no matter which one, are about the story. To have an adventure that you unfortunatly can't have in the real world. I consider stat-grinding to be the nagging job needed to earn that reward.

^Seconded...

^Ah, that makes sense. I see Fire Emblem as a Turn Based Strategy first, RPG second, though it definitely has good stories...most of the time anyways. I am still trying to push Sacred Stones out of my head, though...

On my play through, Mia was one of my best units with Alondite. And she had enough skill to get 100% crit rating with Gamble with a Killing Edge.

My endgame team was aside from forced units:

• Mia
• Nephenee
• Boyd
• Shinon
• Soren
• Elincia
• Kurthnaga
• Gatrie
• Caineheghs
• Death with an eyepatch Haar
• Titania

Out of those I regret taking Titania, she was speed screwed at the last minute and had a hard time doubling foes.

edited 15th Feb '10 8:05:42 AM by Neo_Crimson

I've never understood why people hate Sacred Stones so much. It wasn't as deep as the others plotwise, but it was by no means bad. The branching upgrades were actually pretty cool.

That's a pretty solid endgame team. To be honest, practically any character can be good (well, except Makalov... they didn't give him frackin' clown hair for nothing), so long as you don't have too many of the same class, though if it were possible to give every Trueblade a Vantage I'd probably try to include them all in my final team with the exception of Lucia, haha.

So far as the Mia vs. Edward argument goes, Mia has more Skill but less Strength, Edward has more Strength but less Skill. Mia having less Strength doesn't really matter though if you plan to use her to destroy enemies with low Defense (which is, really, what Trueblades are meant for). So in conclusion, they are just about equal and both will do well, it just comes down to whether you prefer power or grace.

Though I don't really use Warriors because missing all the time pisses me off and Soldiers tend to fill a similar role but have better armor, if I did use one I probably would go with Nolan over Boyd, though their stats are about the same. It really comes down to the fact that you HAVE to use Nolan in Part 1, so he is going to get experience anyways, but Ike's team is strong enough for you to bench Boyd and give the experience that he would be getting to other more useful characters like Soren and Mist (Mist is another one of those characters that people assume suck but is actually very good if you know how to use her right. Give her an Imbue and she suddenly goes from being a fragile Staff Chick to something more like her class's namesake, the mighty Valkyrie). Otherwise that's a great final team.

^Makalov a bad character? I remember him having a few problems with speed, but also that he had some incredible defence stats. He was so good at that that I mostly used him to block choke points as if he were a Armored knight that doesn't get double-attacked.

He was certainly harder to raise then most other characters, but certainly not without his uses.

And Mist can indeed pwn. Too bad that she is outclassed by Elincia when it comes to actual battle. And a FLYING mount is hard to beat for healing units.

@Pykrete: I didn't get the point of the Creature Campaign, they recycled most every sprite but then put the setting in a completely different universe, and it had less characters and less chapters than the other games (which says something when they didn't have to really spend money animating new sprites). Going from Fire Emblem classic to Sacred Stones just feels like a step backward, not forward, at least to me.

As for the branching classes, it was a decent idea, but I felt they implemented it poorly, because they tended to get classes that either had no real purpose or were too similar to other classes (and face it, if two classes are identical then why not have just one class?). If you want a game with branching classes that does it right, see Final Fantasy Tactics.

I don't want to come off as some nitpicker though who can't see the good in something, so I will point out that though Sacred Stones is probably the worst of the Fire Emblem series, its still one of the better games out there. Though short, the story is still fun and interesting, the characters are likeable enough, and though they didn't do much with the gameplay the few changes (like removing the caravan) did improve the game. I just felt like they could have done more with it, and didn't, and instead the designers were willing to toss together an inferior "sequel" and ride on the coattails of the first game.

^^ I'll admit that you are right in that I shouldn't dismiss any character in Fire Emblem, because to be honest if you are willing to show them some love they all turn out great. You are right about Makalov being a great Defense-oriented knight, I just prefer ones that focus more on balance (like Oscar and Kieran) than ones that focus on offense or defense. Just my style, but again, I really shouldn't badmouth any character because they can all be good once they reach their full potential.

The Creature Campaign was just a postgame romp; and again, if anyone says map encounters made the game easy and grindable, they obviously never tried Lagdou Ruins on hard. And I see your other points — I actually agree that FE 8 is one of the less impressive of the series, but it's by no means bad like people keep saying, just Overshadowed by Awesome.

And Mist can indeed pwn. Too bad that she is outclassed by Elincia when it comes to actual battle. And a FLYING mount is hard to beat for healing units.

Yes Mist is indeed awesome. I made the mistake of using Rhys for 50% of part three, then dumping a large amount of B.exp. on Mist for the lulz and finding that she was far better than Rhys could ever hope to be.

Despite this I benched both of them in favor of Elincia. You just can't beat an infinite use Brave Sword, Staffs, and insane movement.

You guys are making me want to play my second playthrough and start that live blog that has been stirring around my mind for a while.

When I first heard Shadow Dragon had six difficulties, I wonder why.

The I played through Path of Radiance in normal, then in hard, and realized how easy it would be. I can see the things they're doing to modify the difficulty, and it is unbelievably annoyingly steep and difficult to do hard mode "correctly" because not only are the enemies tougher, they give a lot less experience points. I was rather irritated to find that I didn't get any characters up to 20/20, as is necessary for the bonuses. Normal mode, meanwhile, becomes pitifully easy in the second half and more EXP is racked up all the time. So irritating. Why couldn't there be a mode where the enemies get stronger, but you still receive EXP at the same rate as normal?

If that's not what the Shadow Dragon difficulty system does I'll be very disappointed.

From what I've heard it throws 20/20 Generals with maxed stats and forged Brave Weapons on you as mooks.

Have fun ~_^.

;; Wow...that's tear inducing.

At least that's the kind of thing you can see coming. What's worse is the way a mounted unit will come at you from behind fog of war and smack someone with a Zanbato/Heavy Lance/Killer weapon. Needless to say, while someone can probably take one such hit on Normal, it'll probably be gratuitous overkill on Hard.

edited 15th Feb '10 1:58:43 PM by Pykrete

For me, the RNG rendered Edward useless and Mia very good. Odd things happen.

I didn't know Laura had that potential; I'll have to experiment with her.

And eek that sounds hard. Would this be H1, H2, H3, H4, or H5?

^H4 or H5 I believe.

edited 15th Feb '10 2:55:07 PM by Neo_Crimson

The trick with Laura is to combine stuff like the Nosferatu spell with her mastery skill Corona and Miracle. Also remember the Light/Dark/Elemental triangle - in the earlyish parts of the game, Laura won't be effective but you won't use her offensively anyways (she's a staff chick till she hits 20+, after all), but towards the end when you start to see more and more Dark Sages, she's very handy.

One thing about Laura is she has high Luck and Skill growths, so she tends to crit a lot. She also isn't Speed screwed like Micaiah, so she also tends to double attack. The result is that she usually can kill off enemies with crits, and with Corona and Miracle she will be able to survive if the enemy manages to get in a counterattack. Nosferatu heals her quite nicely too. She is low on the HP side though, so treat her more like you would an Archer than some of the tougher Mages. Still, Saints are an underestimated class, and are definately worth bringing to the final chapters.

and then, there's always, ahem, sex appeal (Warning: Terrible Music)

edited 15th Feb '10 3:47:47 PM by Bioelectricclam

The problem with saints is that they often start out as Staff Chick, which isn't the class most people actually train into killing machines. They just have them around for when they are needed the most, but prefer character that can keep themselves alive, so the chick won't get much exp from that.

Now, if they would start out as magic users themselves. Lucius from FE 7 may not be my favourite character, but he sure is lethal once promoted.

Unless I forgot something, aren't there only about 3 stages where Dark magic users appear. And in 2 of those chapters they are the bosses?