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Fire Emblem: Awakening -- What difficulty level should I choose?
- Thread starter Camwi
- Start date
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
I was new to the series, and normal classic worked out fine for me. People died though.
It may be presumptuous, but it's a natural conclusion to arrive at. They even included a new mode if you find it impossible to let go of your guys when they die. Replaying 30+ minute segments is unacceptable in most any other type of game, but somehow it's encouraged in FE? If a game asked you to replay more than 5 minutes after you died nowadays it would be absolutely lambasted. Most of the character's in your average FE are more or less unimportant to the story and it is without significance when they die, save for your own pride and the expectations/baggage you carry from playing other games.
The_Darkest_Red
Member
Nope. If you restart you are working until you get a perfect run, which is unnecessary in Casual.
DocTarHeel
Member
It's not really permadeath if you reset, though.
Pretty much everybody did so every game until the second DS one,its how people are used to playing this series.
what they say, I really turn in some kind of perfectionist playing this game, it doesn't matter if I've been playing that map for 10 minutes or 1 hour, if one of my characters die I restart and make things again untill I get a satisfactory result
Anoregon
The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
It isn't "necessary" in normal either, it's self-imposed nonsense.
DocTarHeel
Member
I understand that. I also understand that playing Casual makes sacrificing units a viable strategy, but it also does reduce tediousness if you are planning on resetting after every character death anyway.
Spideyknight
Banned
Hard or Lunatic, there's not much difference between them. Lunatic+ is when you get the real fun. The real decision is do you turn on classic or not? Frankly, I reset if someone dies. So all turning on Classic would do is cause me to reset a few times. Not worth my time.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Because you clearly understand each person's motivation to play the game the way they want to? If all you care about is having each character available, then yeah, casual is the same thing as restarting.
Personally, I would restart on casual if someone died. To me, losing a character (or in most cases NPCs as well) means I failed to properly complete the chapter. It's not any different to me than replaying a level in NSMB/3D Land when I didn't get all the star coins. I'm going to play it until I get all of them, then I'll move on.
Ayup, I loved the flexibility provided by this system. I play casual but I reset ... To an in game battle save especially on a hard map like Apotheosis. Fuck you celica's gale equipped sages with the luna skill.
DocTarHeel
Member
Ironically, my worst luck usually came when my own characters got crits. Quite a few times one of my units who could only take 1 hit ended up critting on the counter attack and killing the enemy unit, which then allowed another enemy unit to run up and kill my unit. the RNG loves playing mind games.
The_Darkest_Red
Member
Go find me someone who has beaten the game on Hard without restarting a single mission and then I might take your claim seriously. Better yet, show me that it's common, which would at least give some evidence to the claim that the game was designed with no restarts in mind.
Jim E. Rossler
Banned
Can you unequip weapons in FE:A or do you still have to physically remove them to create meatshields with your Titania mission 1 tanks and whatnot
Ayup, sometimes archers are the best at holding a choke point against a lot of melee because the can't attack back and have high avoidance stays.
thats worst, there was a time one of my characters got 3 crits in a row, killed 3 enemies but perished at the fourth -_-
Yeah you can.
I'll pretty much echo what everyone else is saying, and say that Normal is definitely not for you. I was totally new to FE, played Normal/Classic, and only lost one character early in the game when I wasn't really sure what I was doing.
As a somewhat related question for more seasoned FE folks: does hard ever not feel cheap? I understand that it starts out pretty tough, but even minor skirmishes I'm finding unfun because it seems less about strategy and more about luck. Am I crazy?
As a somewhat related question for more seasoned FE folks: does hard ever not feel cheap? I understand that it starts out pretty tough, but even minor skirmishes I'm finding unfun because it seems less about strategy and more about luck. Am I crazy?
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
They automatically re-equip as soon as the character enters battle. It's good that it works that way though, so you can use trading to swap a character's weapon after they attack.
Edit: Or at least I assume they will, they will automatically equip the first weapon available if you do a trade-swap, which leaves no weapon equipped.
The first part of hard was nicely balanced and didn't feel luck based to me. It felt like a "hard mode." The more the game went on the more hard felt more like a "normal mode" though.
Easy gets way too easy. I only lose characters if I'm extremely reckless and a character gets attacked 4-6 times in a row (or get to close to a weakness, ie. a flying horse vs an archer). It was only difficult for the first 5-6 missions.
This has been good for me though, as it is teaching me a lot about positioning and strategy without destroying me for my mistakes.
This has been good for me though, as it is teaching me a lot about positioning and strategy without destroying me for my mistakes.
NeonZ
Member
I'm pretty sure in the interview with the developers (maybe from Iwata Asks?), one of the developers themselves talked about resiting after losses. The game has soft reset for a reason.
You can play it like that, but it was also clearly designed for people attempting "perfect" runs. The fact that they haven't ever put much effort into the death sequences just highlights how they aren't that central to the game design in any of the titles of the series.
Man, I guess I just suck then, because I cna't finish a battle without losing a character
I shall try to perservere, but it just seems like even good positioning has me just eeking out a win (if a win at all).
Incandenza
Banned
I'm on chapter 4 or 5 playing Hard/Classic. It is definitely difficult, in the last two battles I've had to reset 3+ times each. I knew what I did wrong each time, but there's a lot to keep track of and it likes to fuck you on the tiniest slip-ups.
I think I'm having fun? I'm not really sure yet.
I think I'm having fun? I'm not really sure yet.
Anoregon
The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
Go find me someone who made that claim? I'm pretty clearly talking about the idea of restarting for every character death. The whole idea of permadeath characters is the risk and impact of losing those characters. Resetting for every death totally negates that and just adds a level of tediousness to the game that I can't find the least bit appealing.
The_Darkest_Red
Member
Well you don't have to look far...
Resetting for every death does not negate the impact of losing a character because oftentimes you'll have to replay a mission that could take a solid hour to complete. The design forces you to either replay the entire mission because of your failure or continue on without the character you lost, but each time it happens you are forced to make that very difficult decision. I can understand why you find that particular aspect of the game to be unappealing and tedious, and you have every right to feel that way, but you have to understand that a lot of people love that very thing about the FE series.
Casual is great and I'm glad it exists, but classic with restarts will always be the way FE was meant to be played for me personally.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
If you're good at the game every character death should not be all that frequent. Like once every few chapters, not resetting one chapter a dozen times.
Man, I guess I just suck then, because I cna't finish a battle without losing a character
I shall try to perservere, but it just seems like even good positioning has me just eeking out a win (if a win at all).
By nicely balanced I mean reasonably challenging for a series veteran, without being overbearing or ridiculous (like Lunatic).
Man, I guess I just suck then, because I cna't finish a battle without losing a character
I shall try to perservere, but it just seems like even good positioning has me just eeking out a win (if a win at all).
This game has some pretty severe balance issues that if you aren't abusing that increases the game difficulty.
Dark magic being overpowered, not using pair up etc...
Crash Station
Member
I started on normal, but it was way too easy, so I switched to hard. You'll be resetting a bunch in the beginning, but it evens out to a reasonable challenge after that.
Uh, what? Even the developers themselves reset when their characters die.
Hah.. no (in my case at least).
Casual allows for someone to just continue the fight if someone dies. I don't like that, I also don't like to left anyone behind, that's why classic is for me. Having played a 30 mins map and make a mistake left me with the question : "Should I reset and play 30 mins again, or go ahead with a crippled army?" in classic, instead of the "Should I go ahead, or go ahead" in casual.
The_Darkest_Red
Member
Have you ever finished any FE playing that way?
Even though the game is designed to allow reseting and the devs play it like that (not all of them of course)
Edit: Playing Fire Emblem on casual is like playing Mario with an extra rule "every time you fall into a botomless pit, you respawn at the other side of the pit. Every time you die to a enemy, you respawn pixels after the enemy".
So basically, yes you can play casual in a perfect way, but if you fail, you get rewarded for it, you could theorically use your units in suicide missions with no penalty, like just dieing on purpose on mario with this new rule to get to the end of the stage.
LiberaTeExInferis
Member
You are absolutely right, but I can't see why the devs all these years have not added a sort of farewell scene to each fallen comrade..Sometimes, it seems that no one pays any attention to the death of a comrade..
Get a sorcerer, nosferatu tomes and break the difficulty in half.
I will once I manage a way to beat Side Story 1.
Took me a good hour to realise I can swap out weaker units for Sumia and Kellam.
If you've already played a Fire Emblem game, and you figure out how Pair Up is amazing, Hard/Classic is pretty damn easy outside of a few missions. Lunatic is too ridiculous though. So go with Hard/Classic if you're a veteran.
Exactly. In casual you can set up units to "die" for you, so you can get the last few kills, while classic you have to still plan out every move carefully if you want to continue onward with all your characters.
Exactly. In casual you can set up units to "die" for you, so you can get the last few kills, while classic you have to still plan out every move carefully if you want to continue onward with all your characters.
WrenchNinja
Member
Hard Classic.
Bah ironman is the only way to experience fe!
Gotta learn to appreciate those lost soldiers!
That said normal is kinda too easy and hard turns the strategy into a pseudo puzzle game where you start doing some cheap pull tactics. Biggest issue is that I never found the game to have a solid balanced diff.
Gotta learn to appreciate those lost soldiers!
That said normal is kinda too easy and hard turns the strategy into a pseudo puzzle game where you start doing some cheap pull tactics. Biggest issue is that I never found the game to have a solid balanced diff.