Ok I bought this

I kept talking about getting this, and I finally made good on my threats. I traded in Mario 3D Land and Luigi's Mansion for it. Won't be picking up any DLC until I beat the main game probably. Is that a good idea? Example, in Mass Effect it's always better to have the DLC before you play through. I'm guessing this isn't like that, but a heads up would be nice if there's something that would add to the middle of the game.

I never played Fire Emblem before, btw, despite having the GBA one from the ambassador thing. I hear something about permanent character death, and it being optional. I'm no pussy when it comes to difficulty, and I'm quite good at RPGs, yet I have this fear that I'll get the main character killed in the first battle or something. Or my best non-storyline required character. No idea how it all works. What do you guys think? Play with fire?

Any other tips or shit to warn me about would be appreciated. I have some stuff to do before I boot it up so I'll come back and see this thread before I do.

Dunno why I'm so excited about a game I never played, but everyone seems to think it's amazing.

The dlc is side stuff and just offers grind points if you need it. I bought the scramble pack myself, haven't played it yet.

I just started too, and story required chars (mc and chrom) can't die. If they do, auto game over.

As for the death, you can turn that off.

Just save before every encounter and if you think things could have gone better (someone died for example) you can just reload your save.

If I had the perfect mission then a dude died right at the end I just press on, but a silly mistake early on can be redone. Totally up to you.

If past fire emblems show as an example if the main character goes down it's game over.

Great point. Death on!

The in-game guide should explain most of the basic mechanics quite well, and if you click on just about anything on the bottom screen, it gives you a tooltip explaining it. Everything else I have to say is sorta inside baseball that isn't going to mean much until you're several more hours into the game.

When you start building up "supports" between characters, know that each character can only have one "S-rank" support, as this signifies marriage. So if you happen to use two characters together a lot in the early game but think their support is kind of lame and don't want to marry them, just don't ever open their S-rank support conversation, and instead wait until they S-rank with someone else.

Most of the DLC is balanced to be post end-game content. Though there are a few DLC maps intended for fast grinding of XP and money (EXPonential Growth, Golden Gaffe) that have powerful enemies that don't hurt you unless you initiate a fight. Also, when you Streetpass with someone, you encounter whatever team they have selected, and if you chosoe to fight the game doesn't scale it to your level or anything, so unfortunately the majority of people with Streetpass data have probably finished the game by this point and will thus be throwing impossibly strong endgame Streetpass teams at you. However, you have the option to parley and choose to buy items from them as well, so look into buying Master Seals or Seconds Seals, as those are relatively rare early game, and are necessary at various points to change the classes of your units.

The game has "paralogues", which are side missions. The first 4 or so appear one at a time, during the first half of the game, and I recommend doing them right away. After a significant moment in the story, you will probably notice an additional like 2-5 of them open up all at once; before you do any of them, look through all of your characters's skills, and reorder them so that each character's best equipped skill is the lowest on the list. The purpose of this will become apparent as you do the paralogues that appear after that significant story moment.

Also, when you're in a mission, be on the lookout for any enemy or NPC character with a name; if they have a name, then often that means they are a character you can recruit. The boss of each level has a name, and obviously you must defeat them, but other than obvious bosses, just about any named character that appears in a mission can be recruited. You do this usually by walking up beside them with Chrom, and then selecting the "Talk" option (in certain scenarios, other character can "Talk" as well). Some notable recruiting exceptions are missions where you have to protect an important NPC, as that NPC usually stays an NPC for the mission to make any sense.

If it's your first time in I would play with the perma death off. Maybe I'm just an idiot but as someone who went into the game having never played Fire Emblem before I found the combat really frustrating to wrap my head around and when characters I liked died I just gamed it and restarted my 3DSXL and started the map over. I tried to play it like other turn based strategy games and that is something you can't do. If you move one guy too far ahead of the group he will get ganged up on by the enemy and killed on their turn and theres nothing you can do about it. Your guys are super weak and they all pretty much die in 1-2 hits from the enemy.

It really ruined my enjoyment with the game and after several hours in I just restarted a new game with perma death off. Once I feel that I have a better understanding of how the game works I might try it again with perma death on, but going in new I think you will find the game extremely frustrating to play. What made it worse for me is that I don't find a lot of the characters in the game all that interesting, so I quickly found myself with all the characters I liked and wanted to learn more about dead while the only guys left where those that I actively disliked or couldn't care less about. So it's hard to get motivated to push onward when you don't care about anyone in your party.

@crusader8463: Tip: You can reset the game without restarting the 3DS. L + R +Start. And resetting when people die is a common way to play the game.

Just dont play classic. there is zero point in doing it unless your a hardcore person, either do it all or dont do at all, I got to the point I start just restarting cos of someone died and it just gets stupid, i am fine in letting a little death...but maaaaaaaaan so much death sometimes.

Now that's exactly the kind of thing I wanted to know. Thanks for the warnings.

@akyho: Sounds like you need to employ better strategies. Casual mode encourages sloppy play.

@hailinel: Iits just ganging up one no matter how my strats are and Ill lose 2 that way.

Just to be clear, this "significant story moment" after which a bunch of paralogues open up is about 10-15 hours in, at the earliest.

I swear if this series had been developed by a Western studio (or any rational person, really), they would've added something to the interface that let's you choose what you think is the best skill from each character as you enter those paralogues, or they would at least find some way to give you advance notice. Instead, despite explaining the basic mechanics of the combat quite adequately, at no point does the game directly inform you that the way you've ordered the skills is significant just during these paralogues. In the skills menu, there is a "reorder" button for basically no reason other than to help you set up the end result of those particular paralogues, and the result is kind of a big deal.

The game is lucky it's so damn good and I still highly recommend it, because that kind of esoteric JRPG design where they expect you to be clairvoyant is maddening. Before or after those paralogues, the game never hints that the ordering of skills is important in any way. I'm not trying to sound furious or anything, but I'm really trying to emphasize how bizarre it is that Japanese developers (more than most) seem to not tell the player some fairly important things.

@akyho said:

When you pair units up, you can think of it as effectively raising the unit several levels temporarily, assuming you match up magic-users with magic-users and strength-users with strength-users. And if you do that with some or most of your units, and then find a reasonable choke point that is only 1-2 squares wide, you should be able to make a stand there, preventing the enemy from flanking around you and attacking your vulnerable archers/healers/magi/whoever it is you keep letting die. Combine that with checking enemy movement range so you're not leaving yourself in range of everybody at once, and that should get you through a lot of missions.

Yes, some missions like to throw you into situations where you have to run across the map to protect some useless NPCs and you sadly have to throw the "cautious advance using chokepoints" strategy out the window, but there are still ways to group your guys and leave your defenseless guys out of range such that you don't totally screw yourself.

@bisonhero: Culture has nothing to do with it. You're asking for a detail only the most obsessive minmaxers would really care about. I didn't do any skill ordering my first go and loved how things turned out.

@bisonhero: Oh that's basic strat I use that. early on I was doing that one on a bridge choked pointed had everything sorted...but nope 5 wyvern riders flew round my side murdered the first archer you get.

Other times as much as I am managing weapons axe vs lance and such. Dosnt stop 4 riders riding up and going to town on a pair.

@hailinel said:

I'm not trying to make the most broken team ever or anything, but it was a bit of a bummer when "Rally Resistance" was the last skill on one of my characters. My immediate thought was "Hmmm, is there some way to change what skill gets used? Because I sure as fuck didn't want it to be that one". Sorry, but that's the last skill I would've chosen from that character if I had been made remotely aware that I was even making a choice by starting that paralogue. I'm not some asshole trying to give all of my characters Lethality and Galeforce, but it would be nice if they would be a little more up front about how those paralogues work.

Or if they're not going to tell the player how to influence the ordering of skills to be not lame, then I honestly think it would've been better design to just make it randomly pick a skill.

@akyho said:

Yeah, if there are too many flying units, then your best option is probably just pairing your archers and whatnot under the protection of tougher fighters. That's actually a pretty easy out, compared to previous Fire Emblem games that didn't have the pair up system where you did just have to keep your archers well protected within your formation.

@bisonhero: This was before pairing but I had a support next to them and juust nope no chance. I am 25 hours in so restarting on "normal" would stupid.

I think I'm really gonna like this game. I'm only on chapter 5 I think, but it's essentially Shining Force with extra bells and whistles, which is a series I loved on the Genesis. I find the story and characters and dialogue to all actually be quite acceptable too, which I'm not used to with JRPGs. I went Normal Casual and figure I'll pwn my way through that before trying Hard Classic. Gotta learn these systems.

That Stahl guy fucking sucks,

I'm going to work at a Canadian Tire store today so I'm gonna see if I can get some Streetpasses there.

Stahl's main role is to essentially be another Fredrick, he has a high HP and Defence but his Luck, Skill and Speed suck balls. If you put him next to Sully, who has a high Luck, Skill and Speed but a low Defence, you force the AI into attacking Sully who is more likely to dodge that attack. The only problem you have here is Sully can't take too many hits in the early game so It is a good idea to back her up with a healer.

Just remember to give your streetpass team weapons, I dump all their equipment back into the convoy after every round and end up sending out a high level team that can't attack at all.

Permadeath isn't so bad, I managed to finish the game without losing anyone.

But it also means I had to re-start some battles like 50 times.

haha I'm so terrible right now I end up doing battles multiple times even without perma death. I need to read up on the pros and cons of pairing. Putting them side by side is an obvious advantage, but pairing seems to be a whole other beast.

So the thing with putting people side by side is that when you enter combat, you get the support bonus from everyone adjacent to you, not just the one dude that actually appears in the battle animation beside your guy. Pairing people up gives a stat boost based on the better stats of the paired character. So for example, when you pair Vaike with somebody (meaning Vaike isn't the main attacker, but is the backup guy), that somebody will likely gain several points of strength because that is far and away Vaike's best stat. Pairing people also obviously gives the usual support bonus.

That stuff I more or less understood, except I didn't know it counted everyone around you for the support bonus, and not just the guy in the battle animation.

If I paired everyone up they'd all be stronger, but I'd also lose half my turns, right? I'm having trouble deciding when it's worth it and when it's not. Sometimes I do it and it seems like it was a great idea, other times not. I just have no idea why haha

@mideonnviscera: For me personally, in the mid and late game I just pair people off immediately, but that's partially because you tend to get pretty powerful in mid and late game anyways, so when you pair up you become very hard to kill and losing some turns isn't a big deal.

In the early game, sometimes you just want to have as many player turns as possible to wipe out everyone nearby. However, look at the stat bonuses conferred by a pair-up before you commit to it: if it considerably boosts a unit's Strength/Magic, it might be worth it because then you can just plow through guys. Look around at the Speed stat of the nearby enemies; if you have two characters, who separately have average speed and will only get in a single attack against an enemy, but together will have enough of a speed bonus that you get in 2 attacks, then it may be worth it to pair up. Similarly, if you can pair up two people who both have good defense, the pair will likely have god-like defense and take almost no damage, useful for luring enemies out and tanking.

Also, aside from all that, pairing up is all but necessary when you get characters that are very low level relative to where the rest of your team is. If they're incredibly weak then you can make the weak guy the backup character and hope that he jumps in for some kills occasionally, and as he gets a little stronger then maybe you can put him out front and have someone with high Defense be the backup guy (someone like Frederick or Kellam). I don't know if you've encountered them yet, but you can potentially get a guy named Donnel/Donny who starts off at level 1 with pretty low stats, but if you stick with him he is quite good, and a little later the game also randomly gives you this girl Olivia at level 1 who isn't quite as amazing, but again, if you want to use her, it's gonna take some pairing up.

@bisonhero Ok thanks man. This has been a lot of help.

I'm late to the party, but keep in mind that none of the DLC scales with your level, and a lot of it is balanced for relatively low levels. This chart will give you a better idea about the difficulty of the various DLC. As a general rule, I'd say around 10-levels per ★ is a good guideline to go buy, but on higher difficulties the 4 and 5 star maps become fucking insane where you're fighting larger forces with multiple maxed stats and high-quality equipment forged beyond the regular limits of the game.

But really what I'm trying to say is, if you want the DLC to pose any sort of challenge, you'll want to do a fair bit of it before you beat the game.

Actually I'd recommend the opposite, keep your weak recruits separate and use some careful turn planning to bring enemies just into killing range so they can land the final blow and reap the XP. This could potentially give you a full level's worth of XP, which is significantly quicker than relying on a ~30% chance at 12 XP every turn. Also Olivia actually gets a significant amount of XP just from using her Dance command which works on any teammate that has already taken their turn. An especially cheap way to level her is to find a map with a stationary boss, clear everyone else, then just have her spam Dance turn after turn on one of your guys to power her up to 15 or higher before hitting her with a Second Seal.

@starvinggamer Holy shit they have a lot of DLC for this game. Something tells me a $20 3DS points card won't quite cover it haha

@mideonnviscera: Yeah, but also keep in mind that a lot of the draw of the DLC is seeing the old characters and getting a chance to recruit them. Only a handful of them offer you tangible benefits that will impact your core experience. Since this is your first FE and you don't have any context for all of the callbacks in the DLC, I'd read through the rewards on that same link I posted earlier before you decide which maps you feel are worth buying. Stuff listed in Red is a character and stuff listed in Black is an item or something else. Off the top of my head, Lost Bloodlines 2 and Smash Brethren 2 give you access to special classes for your characters and Champions of Yore 3 and Rogues and Redeemers 3 give you access to some significantly powerful skills. Even then, they're only really worth it if you plan to put in a lot of time with the game post-campaign.

Great tips overall here and sorry if this was said above but on the paralogues you want to pick up donnel and work with him in the early game. He will be weak at first but it will be worth it at the end.

Fredrick is you tank and will be your beast early game so if you want use the crap out of him. Just keep in mind that you don't want to overuse him while letting your main crew become weak.

Mark sure you use pair ups when facing tough times because units paired up will do better overall.

@phantomzxro: That second bit really wasn't very spoiler-free, and you may as well edit it out because yes, it was said earlier, and in a more nonspecific way that still got the point across about skills.

I will probably just wait until my second playthrough for the DLC then. Being on Normal Casual is pretty much just tutorial mode. By the time I get into a Hard Classic playthrough I'm sure I'll be into the game enough to want ALL DLC. I'm kind of anal about that stuff.

So Lunatic+, has anyone actually beat this game on that setting? It must be insane.

Even crazy hardcore Fire Emblem fans think Lunatic+ is over the top and unfair, with random enemy units getting skills like "Always attack first" and "Always halve enemy defense". Of course, regular Lunatic is enough to scare me off, even on casual mode where sloppy play is allowed. I don't mind my Fire Emblem games to be a bit sadistic on the difficulty end, but Lunatic is where the line is crossed for me.

@mideonnviscera: If you're getting all the DLC, Lunatic and even Lunatic+ really just becomes a matter of surviving past Chapter 4 then grinding DLC for levels, skills, and items to make things a bit more "fair".

Surviving past Chapter 4 on Lunatic+ is still incredibly fucked though. So fucked.

corrected

I bought a 3DS for this like a month ago. Money well spent. I hope Project x Zone is as good. Though I doubt it Awakening is pretty damn great.

Ok so I beat it last night on Normal/Casual. It got way too easy around chapter 10, and we were invincible super demons by the end. I finally understand the whole children thing, and pairing, and leveling, and all that stuff. It was good to play on easy just to figure all that out.

Now I'm on Hard/Classic. I'm on about Chapter 5, but I cheaped out and used this low level bonus team to grind on at the first opportunity. They were even easier than the random Risen on the map. Actually, I did so much grinding that Chrom is now maxed out and I don't even have any seals yet haha So I'm thinking I'll move on, seeing as these bonus battles give no gold and I'm actually running out of weapons.

My renown is getting up there really good. There's a guy on my street who has this and I Streetpass him every day, and it was super satisfying when I was finally strong enough to beat him. Now I'm gonna make sure nobody ever gets that feeling off me haha