Not on Normal, it won't.

Yeah, later on the game throws a couple tricks at you in the late game which can use your own unit's strength against you if you aren't careful or attentive to certain things, and enemies become more numerous and actually can deal decent damage if they connect. I also have a tendency to make shit harder on myself, because I want character X to get all the experience so I might be way too aggressive with them and then it might suddenly come back to bite me if the dice rolls don't go my way.

But the mid game was the easiest part and it's not ever as rough as those first few missions where all your guys are about as sturdy as a pinata, if you pay attention to some things that I just forget to notice.

I thought I mentioned being careful about how much aggro you draw in one of my first posts but it seems I didn't. So oops. That's definitely a key tactic for the early part, and explains your troubles.

He's playing on hard. But I still wouldn't say it spikes. It just gets to a point where you have to do more than move your strongest units to the center of the map and end the turn till all the enemies charge at you and are dead, maybe using a concoction every once in while when a few manage to take a good whack at you.

That's exactly how it still works where I'm at. I just move my units forward at this point. I actually kill more enemies on their own turn than on mine. The AI is kind of weird. I mean, it forecasts they will do 0 damage and I will do 36 x 2, yet they move in to do that attack anyway. I guess the AI is good at wearing out your weapon's durability that way, but otherwise I don't see the point of them rushing to their death.

Still a lot of fun though. I really like leveling and choosing new classes. Although I haven't found much use for the Second Seal. I get that you can level up, use Second Seal to change to whichever class while keeping your stats (or most of them anyway) and skills and then level up further, but I found I don't want to change classes with anyone. I guess I'd want another Mirmydon because they are awesome, but otherwise doing that stuff seems more of a leveling hassle since some stats will be affected negatively when you change classes.

Either way, a lot of fun. I had no idea children where part of the game. Seems like something to consider for a second playthrough. I hope it's a bit self explanatory and I won't have to go digging through FAQ's to find out how to get certain offspring though (if they are in fact influenced by parents; seems to me like they are so far).

@zevvion:

The skills you can get by using a second seal are really rather helpful, and you kind of plateau at a point skill point wise, so if you aren't accruing skills it lets the enemy catch up with you a bit and I imagine the game would be tougher later on. But if you find more skills you can keep your advantage. My guys all have crazy skills at this point, and like I said it isn't quite a cake walk, but it's almost a cake walk. Just there's a scary as hell moment every so often if an enemy does land a blow or one of the tricks I mention that the game throws which turn your own strength against you catches you unawares. Or if I get careless with a weaker character I'm dragging into a level for purposes other than fighting.

I felt the same way initially, didn't want to change my dudes classes. But now I'm eager to switch things up and get some new cool skills to mess with and make my unit even better.

Unfortunately the kid stuff is not explained all that well, neither is the skill stuff, and to truly master the game you kinda need to seek out that info, but apparently that's mostly unnecessary except for in the dlc anyway.

@pyromagnestir said:

Yeah, the difficulty never spikes once you're past the first like 10-ish missions. Anyone who thinks zevvion is going to be at all challenged by the remainder of the game is full of shit. The only enemy skill that is remotely dangerous is Counter, and only a small number of enemies ever have it, and it's always super easy to just obliterate those guys with a mage or archer of some sort. Once you have a few promoted units and A-rank or S-rank supports, the game on Normal and Hard becomes a cakewalk. Lunatic is hard only because you have to grind your ass off early game because no one can take a hit except for Frederick. Is Lunatic early game actually possible without just grinding DLC a bunch as soon as you open up the Outworld Gate thing?

I liked Fire Emblem Awakening and think it almost did supports perfectly. My biggest issue is that all the focus on marriage means there are very few same sex supports where you see people just be friends, with the exception of the player character tactician since they support with everybody. It also means for characters like Lon'qu, I had to endure endless supports where he is awkward around women, and barely got any supports where he talked to another dude and I maybe learned a little about his past or something. Supports aside, I do really miss the more traditional structure of stuff like Path of Radiance, where there isn't grinding and the game does a reasonably good job of offering you a decent challenge relative to your level (except for the part where Ike is godlike).

@bisonhero:

I like the supports, and I like the skill system and class change system. But one thing I really miss from Path of Radiance is mission objectives that aren't just "kill everybody" or "kill the boss, which usually also means you kill everybody anyways."

The way that the game was set up, the non-standard "kill everyone/kill boss" objectives in Awakening were mostly in the Paralogues. So if you skip them, you skip a lot of the game's objective variety.

I did all the paralogues I could, 2 of the potential mothers are dead and I let them die because the game has too many good characters already and I was already being all crazy and leveling up everybody, and I don't really recall them being much different. They had some neat but small twists, but the way to end the missions were still killing the boss or killing everybody. There was just something slightly different optional thing along the way, like getting a certain number of kills with a character or keeping the villagers alive. I really like that one. It was fun. And tricky.

Hell it didn't even have a true night level, did it? I'd rather have one of them instead of the one of the desert levels... Altough I went with a pegasus heavy party so the desert wasn't that much of a pain.

Well, I mean things like Tiki's Paralogue where you have to defend her before you could go on the attack. in Fire Emblem, the objectives are generally:

1. Kill the boss.
2. Kill everyone.
3. Seize a point/escape.
4. Defend X.

The game does have its occasional odd scenario, as well. There's a paralogue, for example, where you have to choose which side you're actually going to support in battle. Though you are right in that the game doesn't have any fog-of-war missions, which is unusual. It didn't really bother me when I was playing, though. There's also nothing truly as mind-boggling as the Radiant Dawn mission with the unexplained (until after the mission is over) kill counter:

Though it didn't really bother me, I do think you're right in that the mission objectives could have been more diverse, particular in the main story path.

@zevvion: Are you doing a lot of non story battles? You sound overlevelled. If you do a lot of side missions you can really bend the games difficulty curve in your favor. If you're wanting a challenge I recommend you just stick to the main story missions and paralogues. However if you're enjoying yourself now, maybe just keep doing what you've been doing.

Also worth mentioning is the often completely arbitrary conditions that decided how much bonus XP you get in Path of Radiance. A lot of times it was number of turns, but let's not forget the desert level, where you get more bonus XP the fewer beast laguz you kill, since it turns out they're actually the good guys. So you're rewarded for basically beelining it towards the boss with a mobile character and barely touching all the enemies on the map. Not that the game ever explains that before or after the mission.

But yeah, the victory conditions in Awakening were pretty bland. The Yarne paralogue with the two mercenary sides, and the Tiki paralogue where you have to set up a defensive perimeter were really the only missions I remember being particularly interesting. On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure I prefer some of the stuff in past games, like Path of Radiance's late game classics, such as "asshole boulders roll down set paths that you can't possibly know beforehand", and "SURPRISE this bridge is covered in pitfall traps that are invisible until you get stuck in them". The latter is basically like that asshole level of Blackguards that Drew played for the Quick Look where the lady got hanged.

I do really like that Awakening's "items you find on the battlefield" are clearly marked (either in villages or sparkly spots), and all the sparkly spots are random anyways. The hidden items in Radiant Dawn were SO BULLSHIT and you just needed to look at a map FAQ constantly because of how stupid that whole system was. God, Radiant Dawn is such a bad game.

@bisonhero:

Oh boy... The bridge level. *shudders* There was a "stealth" level, too wasn't there? Where you got bonus exp if you didn't kill guards? That basically required a turn by turn guide to solve. Or was that RD? But I liked that PoR and RD had some actual secret stuff, though as you say I'd never have found any of it on my own and I used a FAQ to find it all. Maybe Awakening has something hidden, but I've not looked at any FAQs for this first time through.

I thought Tiki's paralogue was the weakest of the bunch, since it basically required I line up my units so no enemy could get in range of her and then they'd throw themselves at my party and die. Not much room for strategery. Now I've got a bunch of units with galeforce and I could probably knock out that mission on turn 1 or 2 at most, but at the time it wasn't an option.

...and I like Radiant Dawn. At the moment I'm not sure which out of Awakening and Radiant Dawn I'd say is better, actually. In my mind they're on similar levels, though I've yet to play the final chapter of Awakening. Some minor issues, some cool stuff, stories that kinda go all over the place, plenty of experience to go around so you can use a bunch of characters, early chapters that are a bit overly harsh because your party is made up of pinatas. Awakening might be a bit more consistently solid, but also doesn't quite hit the highs that Radiant Dawn hit from time to time. But I haven't played Radiant Dawn for a couple years so some of that could just be rose colored glasses, might be time for a replay soon.

@pyromagnestir: I think the idea of a game where you switch point-of-view is really cool, I just think the way they implemented it in Radiant Dawn was really jarring because you're so used to holding onto your party for the entire game in almost every other FE game. The revolving door of party members (sure hope you weren't planning on using Tormod for very long!) got irritating whenever people came and went for plot reasons.

Conversely, because I had pre-existing expectations, I really liked the way The Banner Saga handled that even though it screws your party lineup in similar ways. Sure, did The Banner Saga randomly kill off people I had leveled up a bunch? Yep. Did I somehow think it was super cool that the game had the balls to do that? Also yep. And the way it switches perspectives between "fairly well stocked Varl army" and "super fucked caravan of human refugees" was done really well. I found it more interesting than the different factions I played as in Radiant Dawn (I have yet to make it to even the halfway point of Radiant Dawn, full disclosure).

The stealth level in Path of Radiance, such as it was, wasn't too bad. The stealth route was totally optional, and as I recall, the reward for completing the stage that way would have been a bonus experience total greater than what you would have gotten from killing all of the enemies in the stage.

I liked Tiki's stage, as that's the sort of defense mission that I tend to like. (Stationary defense point rather than having to escort someone that is inevitably suicidal.) Otherwise, my favorite stages in the game are my favorites for their roles in the story more than for the challenge they present. And DLC maps with the classic characters gets me right in the nostalgia cortex.

I think if you stick with Radiant Dawn, you'll have a better time with the second half. The revolving door in Act 3 is actually more balanced, as you alternate between the Daein characters and Ike's forces. Act 4 brings all of your units from Acts 1-3 together and up until the endgame alternates between three different arms (of which you are able to customize the lineups when the division occurs). The thing you really need to be prepared for is the Act 4 endgame, where you have to select your all-star line-up for a five battle gauntlet. However, all characters get their equipped weapon made into a divine weapon that doesn't degrade, so running out of weapons isn't a real concern.

I didn't at first, but yeah, I'm doing everything now. Every challenge and side-story. I like the side story stuff as it often gives me a new character (or kid) and I do the challenge stuff to try and level up Donnel. He's so shit, he must become a war god or something when he reaches level 10. Don't tell me.

What's this DLC stuff though? How much does it cost/is it any good?

EDIT: Just tried looking up the children stuff. Geez, that made my head hurt. All the information I found was written down in a way I didn't really understand. Growth rates, bonus points from everywhere. Didn't really seem clear which pairs would be the way to go. The only thing I get are the skills inheritance. Does anyone have a source where the information is displayed clearly? And perhaps more importantly, is complete?

I thought it would be fun to come back here after I had so much trouble with this game. A couple of months later now, I've finished Hard twice and am over half-way through on Lunatic.

I really like this game. Though, it's the RPG-ness and characters that I really like and keep coming back for. I think the actual tactics in this game are... rather poor. The AI is not the worst I've ever seen in any game, but it is rather bad. You can exploit them heavily. They adhere to two very simple rules that makes them suicide themselves:

1. They will attack any unit in range. If the projected outcome is they will do 0 damage, they will still attack. If the projected outcome is that they will die doing no damage, they will still attack.
2. They will take short-term success over long term victory always.

Those two rules make it disappointing. Hilariously so, often. If they have 8 units left, all of which will die at the hand of one of my units which they can't damage, they will throw themselves at it regardless and not even try to destroy my other units which they can easily kill but are out of their attack range by 1 tile. Similarly, if they have a change to damage one of my units, they will take it. Always. Even if that means that on my turn I can destroy every last unit they have, they will still desperately do anything they can do deal a minor amount of damage to that one unit they can hurt.

This is how I am playing through Lunatic right now. The game isn't really about tactics, it's about memorization and exploitation. I am still very much having fun with it. It's more of a puzzle game than a tactics game. You're not supposed to win your first Lunatic run. You just retry and restart until you know what to do. From that point on you can do it every single time moving forward.

After playing this game a ton more I am definitely moving it up to my favorite 3DS game of all time so far and one of my favorite titles that year. But it is wise to take the game for what it is. An RPG, arguably a puzzle RPG if you could say that. As a tactics game it's not really good. But then, I don't think it is that, so it shouldn't be judged as one.

I'm having trouble even imagining playing Classic on Hard/Lunatic. I'm playing Normal Casual and characters are getting smoked left and right.