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Ranking All Fire Emblem Games by DIFFICULTY
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- čas přidán 17. 06. 2023
- Looking at every Fire Emblem game through the lens of how challenging they are at the highest difficulty. Which results in a weird looking list!
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My favorite thing about F12 lunatic mode is the fact that the armor knights enemies have more speed than defense.
It's actually because FE12 does not inflate defense at all except for a couple of bosses. Therefore they have the same defense as Normal mode funnily enough. That's also why dracoknights in FE3 are harder to take down than lunatic FE12 dracoknights.
@@1calv FE12 Lunatic is somewhat the opposite of FE9 maniac. The former features enemies are easy to kill, but also deal a lot of damage to you. Most of your units can only take 2-3 hits and have very little chance to dodge. FE9 maniac goes for the opposite approach by making the enemies very bulky and numerous. Almost noone is able to oneround enemies in FE9 maniac, and the ones that do need very high strength and/or strong forges to do so. But the enemies also don't deal that much damage to you, which results in huge grindfests on wide open maps.
It’s very interesting how saying “this unit can’t double armors” is not a death sentence to their viability in FE12 because that just describes like 90% of your units.
I do like that design decision, however, as it means armors aren’t the joke enemy type they usually are
@@luizguilhermelunardi8270 Thats why I like Fates as well. Generals get "Wary Fighter" and it changes the dynamic quite a bit
@@TuskyBaby Wary Fighter is such a GOAT skill for Generals - it enhances their durability far and beyond what most other things do.
24:45 Radiant Dawn also had mistranslated difficulty levels, so people that picked "Normal" were playing on Hard mode, which makes the game even worse for first timers.
On the flip side, it was my first FE game (English normal mode) and I was so disappointed to find out all of the games weren’t like that. Shadow Dragon normal was so easy I lost my mind. I tried Path of Radiance and just couldn’t finish it for a few years.
I still wish there were more games like it :(
@@slywerk5070 Yep. Normal, Hard, Maniac are the actual difficulties, and Easy, Normal, Hard is what they were called in the UI.
Fun fact: it's actually intentional, and not a mistranslation. EU and US versions of FE10 are actually easier, in JP version there's no autopromotion at level 21 so there are way more Master Crowns in the game, Also the DB members don't get their personal weapons such as Caladbolg or Tarvos.
@DarrienGlasser humble braggart!
Just kidding lol. I prefer a more medium difficulty, but ideally all comers should find a difficulty for them
@@GrampsSteel Kek. They have made similar localization changes since FE7 and that never compelled them to change the names. It is a localizationerror, full stop.
I do like how you say FE7 isn't just a baby game. It's really challenging on a first run, and some of the maps are designed to make it more difficult in ways that I think people overlook.
I like this tierlist overall!
HHM is still fairly challenging for experienced players if they're not too familiar with FE7, in my opinion.
I don't think Eliwood Hard Mode is challenging due to the lack of bonus levels.
I actually did struggle a bit with FE7 on my playthrough because my first game FE8. FE7 is my second game.
Oh, and for the tier list, I'm not too pleased with 3H's and Engage's placements. Engage Lunatic is no joke, I tell ya.
I would say that 3H and Engage Lunatic should be in the hard tier. Oh, and FE10 should be downgraded to mid.
I'm always surprised when people say HHM is not that hard. That may be true 75% of the time, the remaining 25% is still pretty difficult when excluding arena grinding and save states.
@@lanceareadbharIt depends on if Lyn Mode is considered or not. Lyn Mode Hard to train up units significantly makes HHM easier. Going straight into HHM I'd argue it's the hardest GBA difficulty.
I think the best case for "FE7 is a baby game" is just the flood of great pre-promotes, and the general strength of low manning with 6 or so growth units. You'll outpace the difficulty curve pretty early.
@@PurpleRupees nobody considers Lyn mode in these discussions
The main challenge of fe9 is surviving the enemy phase. Not from the enemies but from old age
Mekkah this is your member speaking if you don't do a tier list on "Ranking All Fire Emblem Games by HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM" I will be an unhappy lady
Wrong tactic. Say that you will be a Happy lady if he does it. It sounds more motivating.
women ☕
Good.
Fe5 would be first.
Xenoblade music is so peaceful to the soul and heart
Stop with the music obsession. This îs about The tier list
first thing I noticed when the video started xD
@@mihaimercenarul7467Yeah! How dare he comment on an aspect of the video!
Engage has a great difficulty curve for first time players and for that I would put it in mid, but I agree that it can be very easy once you know how everything works and use everything the game offers especially after the free DLC updates. The thing I love about Engage is that it can be made challenging again by excluding specific Somniel features or even the Somniel itself. I think only using the Forge in the Somniel gives it a more old school feel without feeling unfair.
This goes for all the games, but I feel Engage and Three Houses are a testament to how game knowledge can make a game considerably easier. With Three Houses it's things such as, but not limited to, doing rather precise lessons or even save scumming if one wanted to. Engage, as you said, is typically knowing how to use the Emblems and SP management. Compared to most other games, mostly the older games, where it's not as free form. To be clear, one isn't inherently good, bad, or better, it's just an observation.
engage sucks
Honestly engage gave me much more challenge than 3 houses (granted I played engage in hard and without dlc), despite having emblems, I still felt like I really needed to think thoroughly to get out of some situations.
Sure there’s way to break the game, but it requires you to really know the game, which isn’t relevant for first runs.
"... after the free DLC updates": that rather begs the question, do Mekkah's rules for "hardest difficulty" allow any DLC at all?
@@RSimpkinuk57 Almost certainly not, simply bc DLC (outside of maps like Awakening's Apotheosis) exclusively makes the game easier. At the very least, its likely he isnt accounting for the extra characters and items like Fates Anna, the Ashen Wolves, the Edelgard Emblem, the various promotion items like Echoes' Pitchfork or the Witch and Dark Flier items, or anything else. At most, he might be accounting for the free update bonuses in Engage like the Well and the Steel weapons you get on first Somniel visit? But its unlikely hes accounting for DLC bonuses like the free stat boosters or the massive money boost.
One important thing to say about FE12 is that, if you beat Lunatic, then Lunatic Reverse is absolutely within your grasp. This might sound weird to have to point out, but the jump in difficulties in this game is something that I believe impacts its reputation a lot despite not being brought up that often. In Normal, enemies just fall over and die, it’s Very Easy tier for the context of this tier list, on H1, they match your units’ stats more closely and surpass them far more often, it’s Mid, but maybe still Easy tbf.
But them we get into the big ones: the jump from H1 to H2 is palpable, enemy density starts to become worrisome, AI becomes more nasty and enemy inventories start getting less amateurish, with group AI notably becoming more prevalent, you can’t just bait things as easily as before and often need 2 units to kill most enemies, Hard for sure.
H3, however, is where all hell truly breaks loose: everything has a silver/bolganone or forged weapon (archers/snipers almost always have Longbows), ambush reinforcements appear earlier, non-group AI becomes much more easily provokable, making you prone to pincer attacks, enemy density is through the roof in certain maps, and stat creep finally shows its ugly self, with most classes having speed bases that just don’t hold up anymore, and several units facing low % crit chances from the bloated enemy Skill. There’s no two ways about it, H3 is a COMPLETELY different game from H2, it’s by far the biggest jump in difficulty, almost becoming a puzzle game, and is what gets most people to give up on FE12.
That leaves H4, or what its name should’ve been, H3.5; since the ONLY difference (apart from more lenient gaiden map turn count requirements) is that enemies attack first; quite simply, you’ve got this. Yes, managing damage becomes more difficult, but if you’re clever about your 1-2 range options, it’s more doable than you’d think. However that does mean something: maps where enemies have a lot of 1-2 range themselves become HELL, with chapter 12 in H4 having a strong argument for becoming the hardest map in the series, since EVERY enemy has 1-2 range there, but all the other chapters are something you’re perfectly capable of dealing with.
In conclusion, the difficulty mode leaps in FE12 are one of the sneaky reasons this game has its infamy, with H3, in effect, being the true hardest one bc H2 players will inevitably be shocked at what it expects them to do, whereas H4, once you unlock it, is just another day ending in y for H3 players 95% of the time.
So I beat H3 and it was awesome. It was my first FE12 playthrough and I thought it was a good challenge and tons of fun. I started H4 afterwards and it was noticeably harder but you just need to make more of your army archers and mages than in H3, it felt very manageable.
Then I hit chapter 12 and I had to take a break lol because it was such a spike. I came back to it like a year later, managed to beat it, and I’ve fought my way to chapter 19. That map is also kinda nutty if you play it the normal way, which I did, and now I’m trying to prep for the final few maps. Send prayers or, more usefully, practical advice lol
H3 clean save is actually the hardest difficulty in FE12 since you have no Rainbow Potion, no stat boosters in prep shop, and no merged male reclassing sets. H4 means you at least have access to some of those resources.
@@typhooncarter I mean it comes down to whether the limited class set and Rainbow Potion is more valuable than being able to safely initiate combat. It will probably just depend on your play style.
Echoes was beautiful because it made archers the S tier class.
I started my first playthrough of Echoes about a month ago, and assumed archers were bad like they usually are so I didn't make any villager into one. Imagine my surprise the first time I encountered enemy archers with 5 attack range 😂
whatthefuck
But then the question is, why make the guys into an S tier class when you have the S+ tier class Dread Fighter available to you as well.
@@segafreak2000 Dread Fighters are OK, but the striking power of Bow Knights and Oliphanters at range is astounding.
@@segafreak2000 Because the most efficient thing is going Dread Fighter then reclass into Archer
Kinda surprised to see Engage in Easy tier. My blind Maddening playthrough gave me a run for my money. Like, Maddening Lynn's map was ridiculously hard compared to Hard mode.
Of course, it gets easier in my subsequent Maddening runs. Knowledge and all. Also now there's the Well too.
Shout out to Awakening Lunatic (non-plus). Playing through it actually gave me the confidence to play on any FE games after it in the hardest mode available. 😅
Engage maddening the first time was really what made me feel ready to try other fe games on the hardest difficulty and I definitely felt that about how not really understanding everything about the game made it way harder than it was and thus way more fun but also made me feel way better at the game as a result. Like I didn't realise that the power skills need to be inherited I was slapping Ike on units and thinking why is their axe damage so low shouldn't this be boosted and shit and also just totally wasting some of my team by putting them in wrong classes or just basically giving them next to no levelling and still using them the whole game so it really was a lot harder than it needed to be, I eventually tried a second run after beating it and it genuinely wasn't anywhere near as fun at all but now I'm playing fe6 hard mode or fe10 hard mode and actually feel like I can manage it somehow despite how frustratingly diffiuclt it can be because of it
That's kinda why I wish this list was more of the 1st-3rd playthrough variety. I'd personally find that more interesting than when you already know exactly how to tackle them
Engage can be beaten with all F tier units because the rings are so busted. If you use the actually good ones, it becomes incredibly easy.
@@yeahman7263I concur. I gave up a 3 houses maddening run at Chapter 5 years ago because of all the bs that 3H tosses in maddening along with the early game sucking. Beating engage maddening multiple times gave me the confidence to give 3H another go. Can say that other than that bullshit hunting by daybreak chapter, I’m doing much better overall and I’m probably going to finish this run. Endgame has me scared with the mage siege tome spam but we’ll manage. Going to finish echoes of valentia as well before I either finish Awakening, do H2 FE12, or do Conquest Lunatic maybe on Fates
I would put engage in very easy. It's the first game I can iron man on the highest difficulty.
Awakening on Lunatic is likely near the top of hard tier for newcomers. This mode forces the player to understand what classes give the best pair up bonuses to keep up with the huge stat buffs opposing enemies have. Enemy offensive occult skills become a lot more common. Those Risen skirmishes that are used to help level up your army & obtain valuable items become death traps, as the Risen have capped stats mostly & crazy weapons.
You effectively must give Robin a + Def growth & sack Luck to reduce the physical damage received. class changed my robin into a mercenary & got Lucky Strike & broke the early game by having her soften up enemies with bronze swords & axes. Female Robin becomes absurdly busted here as well. Pairing her up with Chrom is the best thing for both on this difficulty. The game does become slow until you level up your other units though, but Robin can easily help with that when she's overleveled.
Lunatic+ is a hair ripping experience I would never recommend anyone ever do. It just exists to make you angry.
Completely agree on FE12. Not to forget that the late game is ridiculously hard. Those chapter 19 ambush spawns still give me nightmares
When I learned you could turn them off by killing the boss turn 1, that made me happier than it should have.
Dude I first tried the game blind on Lunatic. Palla's first chapter took me 8 hours. EIGHT. I know there's an easy route to take, but I wasn't aware when I first played it. I just couldn't get Palla to survive. It was fucking hell. But that made me really enjoy 12 haha.
I’m on chapter 19 right now! It’s epic!
“Echoes has the same maps as Gaiden, how hard can it be?😂”
Me looking at FE3’s placement vs my experience with Reverse Lunatic and FE12’s placement. “😢”
As a fates apologist/ brainrot victim, I still think that CQ goes into very hard just because of the fact that it requires the kind of skills (not like in-game skills, I mean skills like money management and stat stack preparation, planning reclasses etc) that other games just don’t require to that extent.
If you know the meta, it definitely gets easier, but “knowing the meta” requires a lot of trial and error, familiarity with the game, and just play time.
While I also have similar issues with the way Mekkah made the list (somewhat inconsistent tiering), I feel it should stay in Hard if Three Houses and Engage are in Easy. Because, particularly Engage, requires somewhat similar management skills, imo. Three Houses you can basically look up a guide online and copy it to a T, but it's still a fair amount of hoops especially the god awful early game for Maddening (with no NG+ obviously). Unless I'm missing something, which I probably am cause now that I think about it, it might be the idea of what you can do at the "highest level of play" with cases like FE 12 where the game still kicks your ass even if you have game knowledge. Compared to Engage where if you know how to LTC it's rather easy cause of how powerful Emblems are.
Three Houses falls into the same category in my opinion. Learning the meta will make it a much easier game than Conquest, but if you don't know the meta they're both probably extremely difficult games to beat.
As a fate hater, you are 100% correct. I hate fates because I’m bad at planning promotions and who to max bonds on
@@korinoriz well the thing with engage is that the tools the game gives you are fucking beyond broken to the point of being cheap as shit. Micaiah, Goddess Dance, bonded shield, the units you get, even shit like Ike and Eirika are so easy to use and so obviously and irreparably broken that the flowchart basically construct itself.
Meanwhile, in CQ, you often need to 1. Figure out your win con and 2. Implement your win con. If you’re on kitsune lair, you need to know how you’re going to cheese it; if you want to not suffer on Takumi, you need to prepare your units for a fast clear; if you wanna beat c26 you need a way to not take effective damage in the bottom room.
Many of these problems have pretty simple solutions if you look at it from a big picture perspective but it makes you interact with its mechanics and to really make it “easy” you need to know where to look, and in a game jam packed with so many mechanics that’s what makes it hard
@@blahmaster6k Three Houses was my very first FE game. I played it on Hard(albeit on casual), but I went into Silver Snow and I was practically soft locked because I invested in Hubert and Edelgard.
I actually agree with all of this EXCEPT for Genealogy being Very Easy. I've played it numerous times over so it isn't hard to me any more at all, but my first couple of playthroughs were kind of painful, mostly because every unit that isn't Sigurd tends to struggle at the start of Generation 1, and my personal lack of understanding in regards to the mechanics of FE4 as well as I do now, I will say without a doubt that a blind playthrough can be a bit painful in the opening chapters of Gen 1. Not enough to say the game as a whole is hard, but definitely not low enough to be very easy, despite understanding the reasoning behind the placement. I would definitely put the game more as an Easy difficulty game bordering on Mid Level difficulty rather than a very easy experience.
Not knowing about Brave Axe, Pursuit Band, maybe missing Bargain Ring, investing in Leonster only to essentially be robbed.
Yeah, it should def be above Fe1/3, SS and PoR at least. It has some legitimately difficult moments for a new player, like the Jamke forest, Ishtore castle and so on.
Gen 2 can also be a pain if you don't properly set up your inheritances and what not. Gen 2 is actually a pretty big difficulty spike it is just that people usually min/max some godlike characters including Selpih.
@@GoonCommander Me not knowing that you had to visit a specific castle with Lewyn to get forsetti. Didn't even know that spell existed until after I had finished the game lol
@@Trail_Lentil Sigurd has a conversation with Lewyn in that chapter where he tells him to go see his mother (to get Forseti) :^/
Ranking Engage that low but some other games that high feels dishonest.
You can trivalize several of the higher difficulty ranked games with knowledge of how it works (especially Thracia as you said). But Engage gets ranked low because someone who can abuse the Emblem system correctly makes it easy? Either knowing the battle does or doesn't count.
Meanwhile fe7 is beaten by just using Marcus, Hawkeye, Pent, Harken and Athos. No need to learn a complex system just throw overtuned prepromotes at everything
@@boredomkiller99 Yep. You can basically throw an OP prepromote at a group of enemies in FE7 and clear the map with no thought for many maps, but if you do that in Engage you will be eaten alive with chain attacks and much stronger enemies. Emblems might be OP, but you have to be proactive on player phase and use them well to abuse them to their fullest extent.
I’d say it’s less dishonest and more suffering from recency bias. Engage has some insane tools that are pretty OP, but go back to FE6 or FE5 and you’ll realize that the moment to moment gameplay of Engage tends to be harder despite how much cheese the game has (and it’s not like Engage doesn’t have its own difficulty spikes)
@@carpediem6841 I'd argue the mere fact that bosses in Engage can have up to 4 health bars makes it a harder game overall than many of them. You can't just warp your strongest unit to the throne and end the map turn 1, and very often you won't be able to kill the boss or bosses in a single turn so you have to not only minimize counterattacks but also positioning for enemy phase, this is especially prevalent in midgame.
Let's not forget that nearly every boss in the game actively approaches you when you get too close, so you can't sit there pelting arrows at it for 20 turns, as well that bosses often move in groups with other enemies.
@@carpediem6841 @carpediem6841 He also didn't consider Engage without DLC/Well because he never experienced Maddening that way, the game is much more tightly balanced without these things
Conquest Hard i believe is the best way to experience that game. It's plenty difficult but stops right before it begins to stop being fun (to me). Ryoma is a fine stopping point if Iago's is too annoying, but the final map is pretty fun with the right stave usage if you choose to push through.
Lunatic is fun too, but certain specific maps become really teeth grinding to me
Tbh I had MUCH less trouble with Iago's chapter than I did Ryoma's. Team composition def plays a part, but his debuffs just aren't too big a deal 🤷♂️. If you keep units adjacent to each other and don't spread yourself too thin, you can even completely negate their effects (like pairing up a unit that got hit with freeze).
Most bow users in Conquest also have high Res, so he's not too tough to kill either. Combine that with using Entrap on Hans to take him out quickly, and the toughest part of the chapter ends up being the Berserkers and Generals with effective weapons, unless of course you reclassed everyone into Wyverns 😂.
Just saying there's plenty you can do to make Iago's chapter no big deal.
Source: literally just finished a run on Hard and loved it
@@TuskyBaby Iago's on hard isn't awful. Bulk-build Dragonstone+ Kana can just solo that last room. Lunatic is usually where i say "yeah Ryoma is the final boss of this adventure." Iago's just uniquely stresses me out.
@@CarbonMalite I haven't played Lunatic yet. What's different about Iago's?
@vidsman625 He has infinite uses of staves, and all the enemies come in higher quantity and have extra skills that make the experience really strenuous
@@CarbonMalite I think Iago already has infinite uses in Hard, doesn't he? I didn't bother trying to wait them out regardless. But yeah, the main thing I hear about the jump to Lunatic is that they go even harder with the abilities. Not sure exactly how I feel about that, but may try it one day.
Yeah Three Houses should be Mid IMO, mainly because its difficulty is heavily reliant on 2 key points:
* 1. The actual difficulty picked. Normal and Hard are very manageable, but Maddening has a big difficulty spike and more or less forces the player to know what skills you get from which classes and ranks + which classes raise your stats to optimize your units the best, meaning it's very beginner unfriendly. Not to mention, due to Maddening featuring same-turn reinforcement, some maps from Normal and Hard just can't be played the exact same way in Maddening (ie. the Embarr city map from VW Ch19/SS Ch 18).
* 2. The class & route you pick. Map reuse aside, these directly impact: A. Your starting roster; B. Your available resources (gambits, hero relics, paralogues, deployment slots, etc.); and C. The enemy quality you face (ie. CF's bosses and sub bosses' have some of the best equipment overall and later maps force you to beat +4 bosses to beat chapters, AM's lategame spams a heck ton of siege tomes & ballistas at you, VW is a more manageable SS with an easier final map, while finally, the opposite statement applies to SS).
I agree.
Reunion at Dawn/Hunting by Daybreak have also got people stuck.
I've played 3H Maddening so many times that I've started to find it to be easy... until I mistakenly thought "I could do a challenge run in Maddening, let's go for Silver Snow." I was right up until the final map of SS. And it was going well up until then because I was not expecting that map to actually be borderline IMPOSSIBLE to beat.
Route definitely plays a big part in difficulty. But I think the variety here is what makes 3H so fun to replay (personally).
I do contest your choice to put FE7 higher than 3h specifically. Like you had a lot of examples of changes that they made in Hector Hard mode but no real mention of how those changes actually make the game any harder. Like for example you brought up how HHM turns every enemy into a mage, and that's an interesting design decision to be sure, but it also means that base Marcus with a javelin and a pure water ORKOs more than half the map and takes 0 in return. I think even a base+promo Heath has higher stats than the wyverns in victory or death. Pretty much no generic in fe7 has stats good enough to threaten even just base Harken, and of course units like Hawkeye, Pent, and the aforementioned Marcus join about halfway through the game with stats that are perfectly serviceable for endgame. Even someone with dancer caps can oneround promoted sages holding legendary weapons in the final map.
Yes I understand that there's a lot of maps in 3h where you just use your movement tech to run to the boss and kill it while skipping all the generics, but I don't see how that makes the game easier than fe7 where the generics can just be killed for free by most of your units at your base stats. I also think the whole "lol just kill the boss" thing is completely oversimplifying all the steps you need to undertake to get your units at the point where they can actually do that. Sure Acheron is a chump but things like SS final boss or AM final boss or the Immovable or the Wind Caller are not simple chumps. Even ignoring multiple bosses with multiple health bars, there are tons of bosses for whom killing them requires either lots of levelups or lots of greenhouse. Besides, there are still plenty of maps (over 1/3 of the game) that aren't kill boss, or that can't realistically be completed like a kill boss map without some serious grinding. Maddening chapters 2 and 5 are probably more troublesome than any fe7 map.
I understand that both games are perfectly beatable and frankly pretty straightforward when you approach them from a perspective of already knowing things about them ahead of time, but that's true of all FE games. What you have to look at is how many steps you have to go through to get yourself to the point of actually beating the game and in that regard 3h completely trounces fe7. Fe7 you literally just grab a prepromote and give them a 1-2 range weapon and maybe a pure water or a ring like Ninis' Grace and they just pwn everything because fe7 enemy quality is possibly the lowest in the entire series. 3houses you still have to tutor and you still have to master classes and you still have to think about and manage your supports and ooh recruitment and you still have to level your batts and yeah sure it all culminates in a lategame 1turn boss kill but you're ignoring all the work that went into making your unit able to do that in the first place.
Just adding on here that the ambush spawn thiefs in chapter 5 are unavoidable and if you didn’t hard rush to get catherine or you’re on black eagles then the game is like *difficult*… or the fog of war chapter where you fight Ashe’s dad *shivers*
"I understand that both games are perfectly beatable and frankly pretty straightforward when you approach them from a perspective of already knowing things about them ahead of time, but that's true of all FE games. What you have to look at is how many steps you have to go through to get yourself to the point of actually beating the game"
i strongly agree with this!
I think comparing the games is a great idea. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, and we could learn a lot seeing what did and didn't work.
Putting FE7 at mid but then FE 3H, Engage, ... lower seems off. Yes, compared to older FE games the newer ones give you many tools to break the game or simply farm but the base difficulty is so much higher. The other games can atleast be difficult while FE7 will always be easy unless you do some extreme challenge.
he said that FE7 is hard on a first run, but that applies triple to 3H so idk
On a first, blind run, you could say 3H is harder.. but I was stringing together strides and warps/rescues just off of my own game sense. FE7 doesn't have any of that. You have to know how to trivialize FE7 up front, or at least know not to put resources into the wrong units. Which you have no way of seeing which units are the right ones to use, there's no growth displays after all, no way to grind outside of risky arena abuse.. so in this context I think he's right.
I think we do have to consider the impact of divine pulse/time crystal on perceived difficulty. If you're not playing the GBA titles with save states, it's way easier to "lose" a map on them than on modern titles. 3H/Engage may be harder on an ironman run but rewinding makes playing them far less mentally draining and allows you to take calculated risks with a fallback instead of being forced to abandon a play to not lose a unit to low hit/crit chances.
Always nice to see Mekkah getting more and more on the Birthright Good train! I wouldn't put anyone besides Corrin and Azura above Ryoma in a tier list setting, but the thing that makes him really annoying in practice is his relatively bad reliability since his high crit chance destroys his guard gauge. While Astra does help, there's a way larger and more meaningful variance in outcomes than with bulk stacking mages that take close to 0 damage, meaning they don't care if they miss or an enemy crits. I'm always be happy to talk more about Birthright if you want, though my tier list would be really controversial
How controversial are we talking?
Controversial tierlists make for some of the best tierlists IMO
Putting 3H and Engage a tier below FE7 and two tiers below Radiant Dawn seems very strange to me. There are ways to trivialize all of these games, of varying degrees of difficulty to identify and understand, and it doesn't feel like you applied consistent evaluation criteria to these games in assessing those methods. If you're going to knock down 3H and Engage for the advanced player tools, I think you should also knock down Radiant Dawn and FE7 for being so susceptible to juggernauting. Or vice versa. Certainly, I found both 3H and Engage to be more challenging on initial playthroughs than I ever did FE7 despite being a significantly better player when encountering 3H and Engage. And that's the reason that regardless of where they should all slot relative to everything else, I think at a minimum 3H and Engage should be at least as high as FE7 (and I'd put them higher). It's just easier to figure out how to trivialize FE7.
The one caveat to this, I suppose, is how you view the turnwheel mechanic. When I mentally assess the difficulty of a chapter in a game with a turnwheel, I include turnwheel uses to recover from unit deaths as counting toward the chapter difficulty (as opposed to re-rolling RNG or fixing an oversight during the same player phase, though those things certainly make the game effectively easier). I have unquestionably restarted chapters at a higher rate in FE7 and Radiant Dawn than in 3H or Engage, but in the absence of the turnwheel, I have no doubt my restart rate would be higher in the latter two games. This is not just due to the fact that I think they have higher enemy quality, but also they just have more complex mechanics/systems, which make it easier to make mistakes, even when you know what you're doing in general. I might even go as far as to say that one of the things that allows FE to introduce increasingly complex mechanics is the presence of the turnwheel.
Three Houses was the only placement that really surprised me. I understand the argument around it not being too bad if you know all the tricks, but I think that's a very big "if". Not to mention, chapters 1-5 are all pretty tough regardless. For players who don't know the meta strats (and I personally don't), I'd say 3H ranks pretty high up there, at least mid and honestly is probably more on par with like RD, I'd say after a few playthroughs of RD on Hard and Maddening 3H, I personally find 3H harder.
Would this change if I looked up all the tricks people have found? Probably. But playing with only your own knowledge and experience, it's much tougher than the other games in Easy.
I think probably medium is a fair place for it. FE7 HHM seems like a fair difficulty conparison for it to me.
I was looking at Serenes forest and the wiki almost the whole time I was playing my first maddening run which was Silver Snow. The early game was brutal, and it's going to be brutal no matter what you do because there isn't really room to make use of any "tricks" at that stage of the game. The only way I could have made it easier for myself would have been to grind for Warp to skip the tower map but I hadn't done that. It got easier as the game progressed because my units got overleveled from doing one week of aux battles every month and learned all the meta skills, but if I hadn't I imagine it would be extremely difficult through the entire game.
The joke about Three Houses is that stats don't matter only combat arts and abilities/gambits, but all of those things are exactly what new players or average casual gamers won't have access to optimal combinations of.
The only reason "stats don't matter" is because of all the tools the player has. Take most of those away, and stats very much do matter.
Yeah when I played Three Houses on Maddening for the first time the first 5 chapters were a lot harder than the rest of the game, after that it got significantly easier
yeah, I would put 3H at hard personally. The only thing in Mid was Blazing Blade which is significantly easier than 3H. You can cheese some maps, but there are plenty you can't. the first couple chapters are very hard and then there are some part 2 chapters that are very hard. In particular the first and last chapters in part 2 are ridiculous in most routes. The paralogues can also be very hard if you do them as early as possible but I guess that doesn't really count since you can delay if you want. IMHO Any FE title in 'Easy' shouldn't give you crazy hard maps even if you can delay doing them until you are overleveled.
The sheer complexity of the game mechanics and knowledge that you have to use to beat 3H puts it above anything from the lower tiers. You need to have your strategy for chapter 20 worked out by chapter 7 or you won't have invested in your army correctly to be able to execute it. If you have a perfect plan and preparation you can easily win, but that is to be expected from a strategy game. The only easy thing is that almost all units are good enough to use if invested in so you can't really mess up team construction if you know what you are doing.
Hector Mode in Blazing Blade is pretty straightforward since there aren't that many things you can do. Level up good characters, manage your weapons, tank with the tanks, kill with the killers. That is pretty much a complete guide to the game assuming you don't care about getting every side chapter, recruitment, and support.
Yeah 3 Houses is definetly on par with Radiant Dawn. I almost softlocked on Chasing Daybreak and that final Blue Lions level is hell on Earth.
@@RDA000 LOL, everyone who plays Chasing Daybreak feels like they maybe have a softlock at some point. Even on Hard mode it is no joke if you play it blind and don't invest in enough of your original students. On maddening it is ridiculous.
The biggest problem with 3H is that maddening is too difficult not to use optimal builds, but hard is too boring if you want to try out some non-optimal builds. Some maps in maddening is just very annoying, find myself wishing maddening to be simultaneously more difficult and more easy at the same time. Should be medium IMO
After completing Golden Dear on maddening i decided to do a silver snow run on hard newgame+. I completed Golden deer before the DLC came out so I'm using the wolves as my main units. I'm also trying to get some skills that i wanted to try in maddening but couldn't find a place to train for them. I'm really curios if the long range support trick that Dorothea can do with meteor can be done with Hilda with bolting. Also I want to see how tanky i can make Raph by giving him renewal and lifetaker.
I am in agreement with a lot of things on this list, but then I respectfully disagree on Fe7 being harder than Maddening 3 Houses. It has its difficult moments for sure but as long as you know what the game's throwing at you, completing maps with very few casualties isn't a big deal any longer. On the other hand, 3H basically requires you to play pretty cleanly or to use good strategies because enemy stats are so bloated. Getting softlocked on hunting at daybreak was a real joy, too.
Definitely agree with the people saying 3H should be bumped up slightly. It's less so its difficulty in map design, but more the fact that 3H requires so much knowledge specific to 3H.
Like I think we can assume going into maddening, a player knows not to stick with personal classes for Byleth and Edelgard, but there's so much more that one needs to know to truly make Maddening an easy experience. What to do in the Monastery itself requires a decent amount of knowledge, especially early on.
52:50 Engage also just makes LTC more accessible in its own right, thanks to having both built in fixed mode and time crystal for rigging. It's a lot easier to get into LTC when you don't have to worry about rigging level ups and you have a much better idea of what your units will look like at certain points in the game.
Dude put 3 houses maddening below Blazing Blade Hector mode. XD
I do not understand. I thought that 3 houses was going to Hard for sure.
Engage and Shadows of Valentia are very hard, rewinding just reduces the feeling of difficulty because you don't have to restart everything from the beginning again.
Conquest is also very hard.
Awakening you just pair up and break the game - especially with strong children. Mid difficulty playing with pair up, very hard if you do not play with pair up.
engage can be completely trivialized by the busted emblems you get
Early game Lunatic+ in awakening is basically reloading chapters until the enemies don’t spawn in with broken skills, enemies can extremely one round anyone who isn’t chrom fredrick or Robin, and you have tons of squishy units. Enemies in chapter 2 can spawn in with hawkeye and luna+ and then the only way to avoid massive damage is for a dual gaurd proc from a C support at most. If enough enemies have hawkeye and luna+ you basically just lose, and even without hawkeye the hit rates of enemies aren’t bad at all.
It’s basically just retrying the map until you can win.
For three houses, I do want to mention something. The difficulty spike in part 2 on maddening, particularly for the Blue Lions, is insane. I still remember playing the first part 2 map for 12 hours trying to beat it, hoping I wasn't soft locked, because I didn't realize I should train mostly in house units on maddening. Then the final Blue Lions map is kind of ridiculous. (32 range and one shotting some of my mages without a crit). With knowledge the game is trivialized, but that's the thing. I imagine most people played a route they hadn't played before with their first maddening run, and that means learning maps while dealing with part 2 maddening bs.
Point is, I'd make the case that 3h is harder than fe7, though that may also be my lack of knowledge of fe7, and the fact that 3h was my first fe game while fe7 was my nineth, so I had a lot more experience by that point.
in my opinion three houses most difficult maps where the paralogues in maddening. my third run in maddening and i am stuck because i saved bad and now i cant save a caspar no matter what haha
The problem with Awakening Lunatic Plus is that the optimal strategy is Robin solo. This steamrolls so hard that I'd argue that everything after chapter 6 is very easy
Chapter 7 on lunatic+ is generally considered to be a very difficult map. I don't think anyone who has actually played through lunatic+ would really call that map "very easy".
Also, Robin solo is not optimal for lunatic+. Ignoring the fact that basically the entire gangrel arc is 500% easier if you deploy any other units at all (so the first third of the game), plenty of maps have points where it's either faster to beat the map without Robin, or more consistent and less of a headache, whether it be skipping to the end of the map with rescue, or using a few more powerful characters to help snipe out counter.
@@Hiiyapow I have played lunatic plus multiple times. I do believe everything past 6 is pretty braindead and can be beaten by throwing Robin at the enemies
@@Neefew I really wouldn't say that's true.
If you just charge Robin into the enemies in chapter 7, they will die. That's not me being dramatic. Mathematically, they will die to counter.
So lets say you forge an elwind to deal with the counter wyverns and you have a Dark Mage Robin with the early second seal.
Even in this situation, you need 40 flat attack to oneshot the barbs and 32 to oneshot the thieves (which is the only safe way to play around counter if all you are doing is "throwing Robin at the enemies")
Let's say you have a 15/15 Dark Mage Robin with 3 points forged into Elwind and a magic tonic. That's 27 attack, or 33 with an A Miriel pairup. Even ignoring all enemy damage from sources such as luna+ and what have you, you're essentially guarateed to die if you just charge in.
Maybe I'm sandbagging Robin? Fine. Have a 20/20 Dark Mage Robin with a max forged Elwind as well as a mag tonic and A miriel. That literally *barely* gets you to 40 attack, so something as simple as a barb attacking you from a forest will cause you to take 39 counter damage.
This is all of course completely ignoring the damage you are forced to take from hawkeye luna and also the massive elephant in the room, aegis+ which will turn your attempts to oneshot into a 2 shot and ~20 counter damage to your face.
I think rating games largely based on how easy they are if you've mastered the game might be a mistake. It may not be obvious in the Fire Emblem community because a lot of the people watching these videos or discussing the games have or will replay each game a lot, but most players are casual gamers who just pick up a game, beat it, and then move on.
Not just Three Houses, but also Thracia and Awakening/Fates in particular with all the skills, or other games with warp. Sure, you can break a game on its head if you know how to build characters perfectly, plan around enemy skills, or just warp skip everything, but your average player isn't going to have the knowledge to do that.
A lot of the reasons given in this video for a particular game being easier (particularly Three Houses) boil down to "once you know what you're doing the game can be trivialized." But someone playing blind or semi-blind on a first playthrough of the hardest difficulty won't be doing that.
Even simpler games like FE6 with all of its ambush spawns can be hard for the average casual gamer who's just playing through hard mode for the first time, and this video has FE6 in the Hard tier.
That being said, I like and agree with most of the list. However, if FE6 is in Hard I would put Three Houses also in Hard, or I would drop FE6 down to Mid and put Three Houses also in Mid with the potential for hard or even very hard depending on the criteria. I just personally think Three Houses (at least on NG Maddening) should be harder than FE6, at least for the average player. If only for the fact that FE6 is for all intents and purposes a very simple game. Meanwhile the parts of Three Houses that make the game easy are all relatively complex, and the game basically requires the player to constantly be looking at a guide website to figure out how to make good decisions or even understand most of the game's mechanics.
Honestly looking at this list I don't really understand how FE6 hard mode gets the game a spot in Hard when its stat inflation is nothing like Three Houses Maddening, and its early game is significantly easier. The early game is the hardest part of most Fire Emblem games and nearly all of them become significantly easier as the player's units scale. Maybe the justification is that Three Houses is easier to break and gives the player a lot more broken tools, but in my opinion if you justify putting Three Houses in easy by saying that you can break it FE6 also has the warp staff available for a lot of the hard maps and you can play around ambush spawns and reinforcement zones once you know about them. FE6 also has one of if not the easiest final boss in the series if that matters at all. You also can't underestimate the simplicity of the game. You can trial and error your way through FE6 and be a decent player by the end of it since most of the difficulty comes from enemy stats (which can be checked) and ambush spawns(which can be learned). Just playing through the game once will give you a pretty solid understanding of the game. You can't really do that for Three Houses.
In particular, I'm pretty sure the game doesn't tell you anywhere within the game how to get specific skills, or which characters learn which spells/combat arts and at which level. If you want to build characters in any decent manner looking up a guide is mandatory. Gardening mechanics too. You just can't pick up and play Three Houses on maddening like you can most other games in the series and expect to be able to learn as you go through trial and error. Or if you do, it certainly won't be easy and will take many playthroughs until you have tried out every class and every weapon type with every unit. Gambits are about the only tools in the game that are self explanatory in both acquisition and effect since you can see what they do in the battalion guild. And even then, the game doesn't tell you the stats battalions will have once they level up fully, you have to figure that out by using them.
The game likes to guide you towards what units are "supposed" to be, but recruitment is completely open ended and a player might not go down the routes the game wants you to regarding weapon levels. A new player isn't going to speedrun getting to swift strikes on Ferdinand or Warp on Lysithea because the new player doesn't know what swift strikes is or that Lysithea learns Warp. Especially with Lysithea, players might think she's just a typical mage and focus on her offense while neglecting her white magic. Players might promote a sniper to Bow Knight before realizing that Hunter's Volley exists, or might promote to an advanced class without learning key intermediate class masteries. More likely, a new player is going to put most of their units in "recommended" intermediate classes instead of just about everyone going Brigand. There are many other examples I could use.
Basically, I would say Three Houses deserves to be up there simply because in order to learn how to make it easy you basically have to be looking at a guide the entire time while playing until you learn everything for yourself. Without game knowledge, it's probably one of the hardest games in the series. I can't imagine trying to tackle maddening without brave weapon arts, hit+20, death blow, stride+warp+rescue, retribution, unbreakable wall, you name it. A new player will only ever stumble upon any of those in a very inefficient manner and may completely miss some if playing the game mostly blind.
Also, the video justified Thracia in Hard tier for much the same reasons that Three Houses can be hard (casual players playing blind), despite bringing up the fact that Thracia also gets significantly easier with game knowledge and could be considered mid difficulty for an experienced player. But the same treatment doesn't apply for Three Houses? I know the video isn't intentionally making a double standard, but it does seem to me like there is one here.
I didn't intend to type up all of this when I started, but I ended up writing an essay. Oh well. Just so I'm not only adding criticisim, it was a great video and I learned a lot about the earlier games in the series that I haven't played yet(FE1-5)!
I think for Three Houses, if you go in for a first playthrough, or don't allow use of Renown in subsequent playthroughs can actually make it hard...
But with New Game+ renown uses... can almost trivialize it. Obviously not completely, but you could very easily prep your units on your first run and then get the required stuff in the next playthrough with renown. Not to mention how incredibly valuable getting max prof level actually is.
Noy sure why Maniac PoR isnt being counted, since its the most difficult mode. I know you said you were going by English, but 6 of these games werent released in English at all
you have marcia and oscar to carry you. not really hard.
@@mithos789but not the easiest FE game either like Mekkah said
I think difficulty in FE should be considered how hard it is to really figure out winning strategies blind, barring Lunatic+ Awakening, most FEs can be reliably beaten using winning strategies, the difficulty is what you have to do to put those strategies in motion and the brain power that goes into figuring them out.
Engage is a pretty easy game imo because of this, bonded shield might not seem broken the first time you look at it, but then you use it and it’s clearly amazing.
But in FE3H, battalion vantage wrath isn’t incredibly obvious to someone not paying attention to the effects, or who just doesn’t intend to use them out of not thinking they’re worth while.
Awakening’s lunatic+ is in my experience the only FE where you’re dependent on rng for the maps to be possible.
Then again, difficulty is entirely case by case from person to person, so it doesn’t really matter.
Thracia is the hardest FE for me because of the mechanics unlike other FE games where the difficulty comes from arbitrary numbers. I think it's more fair to judge the difficulty based only on the normal mode.
Thank you for not pretending awakening higher difficulties don’t exist
I don't think it's necessarily that people pretend those difficulties don't exist, it's more so that they're "unfair", so people don't talk about it as much due to this perception, founded or not. I can see the argument Luncatic isn't that bad, but Lunatic+ is pretty unfair. Then there's the whole other can of worms of does this include event tiles? Grinding? DLC? etc.
@@korinoriz L+ funnily enough fixed some issues Lunatic has. Awakening is known as THE solo game and that applies to Lunatic too. However counter alone already makes soloing hard.
Imo, while Lunatic is a mode with meaningful difficulty that still has a lot of room for sauce (believe it or not, you can train up a lot of people) to play around with, Lunatic+ is for when I want to have a run for my money and solutions do not get simply memorized. It’s not too often, but I do feel like it every once in a while.
Like if you actually study Lunatic mode without soloing like how people are used to, L+ just forces you to do some adaptations and play safe and then you are fine. Naturally, this is only experienced by a very small minority of players, but for the existence of L+ is cool. More modes to accommodate more players is always a plus for imo.
I think players should just come to terms with “Mode x isnt for me” instead of calling any difficulty that’s too much for them as bullshit. I’m not making this up, hard FE are generally disliked more. Afterall, people don’t say mode y is bad because it’s too easy; they just say it’s not for them.
@@korinoriz grinding is not easy, you can try lol. Event tiles? Well sure why not, L+ is hard enough where they do not take away from the glory of beating the game imo. DLC? well you can grind with dlc, if you think you have more fun by having more team members trained up. Naturally you can do it excessively and not have fun, maybe you do, but I am not the one to decide that
@@korinoriz Lunatic+ is unfair but in a good way. Like, games that are "fair" don't tend to be hard enough. The punishing apsect of the game is what makes it enjoyable.
I feel like the other issue, that of "what you include" is not particularly hard to navigate. While you technically "can" get a beaststone+ before Panne joins by beating "Gregors Swell Swords" in the double duels, and have her 1 round KO lunatic+ enemies at base, that's pretty clearly something outside of the game that you're doing to get a bonus that you aren't "supposed" to have when fighting through the main game.
I don't feel like its particularly hard to discern what isn't and isn't "meant" to be used, because you have to make an active decision to do it, whether it's buying a random dracoshield from an anna shop, stepping onto a sparkly tile for a brave tome in the prologue, or summoning someone from the wireless menu to buy mire tomes.
The only kind of grey area is renown awards on lunatic+ because you can argue that the player will always have access to them because of the requirement of beating lunatic beforehand and the fact that they are consistent and pretty well balanced. And even if you chose to play without them it's not like the game would be impossible, just a bit harder in some instances.
@@sohn7767 Not really. Lunatic+ was a game mode thought to be literally impossible when the game came out, and while it obviously has been found to be possible now, it is only that way with certain enemy layouts and stat level ups in the early levels, nearly requiring a certain nature on Robin and an excruciating amount of resets even then to beat. You can argue because of how broken the lategame is for the player in these games Lunatic+ then becomes a reasonable challenge, not too bad, but prior to that point, when the player has no tools to work with, it's just plain bad game design to have levels that would require resets on stat level ups and enemy skills to even beat. If they just had the skills not randomized and placed in a possible configuration for the first levels of the game, that on its own would make me far more amicable to the difficulty, but unfortunately that is not the case.
Blazing Blade and Radiant Dawn aren't *that* hard.
Shadow Dragon, on the other hand, can feel free to move up in the highest tier, imo.
I put down Awakening forever after one particular map. I didn't deploy anyone but Chrom and myself, stuck Chrom behind me, and autobattle soloed the entire map. I loved the game and wanted to test myself with lunatic(+?) classic. I didn't pay attention to an xp imbalance until too late to rectify. My strat for the map was to put myself on one flank, my entire army on another, and just try to get somebody leveled. The army was the weak flank and casualties were pretty much everyone. Then, frustrated, I did the autobattle thing, saw I won, decided not to save, and haven't played Awakening since.
I think ranking by harshest difficulty skill curve (E.G. 3H's hard to maddening curve is much steeper than Engage's hard to maddening) is a better way to rank these. It helps players familiar with the newer players breech the gap between the easier and harder difficulties. 3H maddening being your first introduction to maddening as a concept is a lot more evil than Engage's.
I finished Awakenings Lunatic +
Pro tip, don't play it. It's just an unfair RNG bullshit fiesta. Finishing it wasn't satisfying at all. I can't think that anyone in IntSys played through it and thought "this was a fun challenge".
I don't think anyone at IS played through regular lunatic either. They just arbitrarily changed some numbers and made some enemies randomly get class skills and called it a day.
@@gameboyn64 Lunatic enemies are quite specifically mathed out to hit certain benchmarks vs certain units with pairups. You might not like the mode, but it was evidently tested thoroughly.
@@Hiiyapow Mathing out benchmarks does not imply that they actually play tested the game. I could do that with a spreadsheet and never look at the map once. Kind of assuming a lot saying that i don't like the mode. I've beaten awakening lunatic probably 4-5 times by now so obviously i don't hate the game but I'm not going to say that the maps were well tested like conquest or radiant dawn. I kind of doubt that the devs actually have the time to play through the entire game several times, especially when developing an entirely new engine. That's why most often difficulty levels in fire emblem become mostly adjusting enemy base stats, growth rates, or level because that is the most time efficient thing to do from a developer standpoint. I've played the shit out of shadow dragon h5 and 3 houses maddening but neither of those games were play tested either.
Looking at awakening specifically, i kind of doubt the strategy the devs intended for the players to survive the early game with was to have Fredrick go ahead alone to fight most of the enemies and kill half of them solely because your other units lack the survivability required to be near the action and the player is given no means to protect them. Ch 2 is specifically a good example. You can't trade in the preps despite the chapter putting you on an immediate timer and Fredrick really wants both the bronze sword and the elixir immediately. The only reasonable way to save miriel is to have a prepared escape route which requires you to be omniscient to the events of the game. Due to how packed the opening of the chapter is you realistically wont be giving vaike his axe any time soon dispite it being a story element. The chapter literally revolves around Fredrick doing his best to handle every enemy as the rest of the team hides in a corner. There are other issues later in the game such as risen spawns effectively locking you out of shops for hours of real time and the game difficulty dipping quite a bit in the mid and most of the late game.
@@gameboyn64
I mean, the benchmarks clearly MATTER though. That isn't something you can magically design into your game from a spreadsheet without looking at the map first. I feel like you have to ignore the deliberately intentionally designed numbers and mechanics if you want to go that far.
As for saying you didn't like the game... I didn't. I said you MIGHT not like it. That is to say, you might like it, or you might not, I don't really know. I didn't assume anything other than that you might have a different opinion to me on it.
I don't think it's fair to say "yeah well I don't THINK it was playtested" with little to no evidence, when almost all actual evidence (ie the physical numbers in the game) point to at least some playtesting and intentional design. Like, are you really telling me that in the ENTIRE dev process, no one spent literally 2 hours playing through the first 4 or 5 maps of awakening lunatic? With all the art, programming, design, story, writing and all that taking hundreds of hours, they couldn't spare TWO hours to realize that they didn't want it that way?
Ch2 is a difficulty spike but I'd argue that has nothing to do with the enemies being significantly stronger than 0 or 1, but because the map is a lot more open and the hard bit (enemies rushing you) goes over a longer number of turns so there's more mistakes to make.
Frederick can get the bronze sword and elixir from Robin and Virion in earlier maps, but even if you didn't know that he was going to need them (and I would argue that the player SHOULD know that he is going to need them- lunatic should be testing the players knowledge of the game and expect them to know things, not be something you juts play blindly), you can still get them to him without too much hassle.
And yeah the game makes you use your jagen. I don't see how thats bad. Hard modes SHOULD make you use your jagen. It's not like everyone else is completely unuseable. Miriel and Virion will die to a lot of things, but they have 2 range they can use to chip down enemies. Vaike only needs his axe and a cav pairup to straight up survive 2 hits from the soliders. Stahl survives facetanking a single hit from any enemy on the map (even a luna+ barb) and only needs a sully/chrom/robin/fred pair to not get doubled by soldiers. Sully actually avoids getting doubled by everything with at least a Stahl pairup and Chrom/Robin/Fred/Lissa are all genuinely strong units in this map anyway.
The risen on shops thing is annoying but it doesn't often matter and can be brute forced by changing the system clock. It isn't a big deal. And the difficulty going down as you play the game is pretty common in basically every fire emblem game ever.
@@Hiiyapow You can totally design your game from a spreadsheet. Say I've decided that the enemy type i want on the map will have 11 attack; i want my unit to survive 3 hits so i calculate 19hp and 5def; then i build my map and place the enemies accordingly. I want to make a higher difficulty where this unit only survives two hit so i increase the enemy attack to 13. I want an even higher difficulty where my unit survives one hit so i set the enemy attack to 15. I don't need to look at the map to know what benchmarks I'm hitting because i can see combat forcasts from the spreadsheet. When you look into how the devs implement enemy units you see that the enemies are auto scaled based on bases and growth arranged in basically a spreadsheet. They change difficulty largely by changing the bases, growths, and/or level of the enemies. I've done this myself with sacred stones making my own hard mode.
What I'm saying is i really don't think they play tested the higher difficulties much at all. They likely just quickly played through hard to make sure it played kind of the way they intended it and figure the player base would figure out the rest. You are talking about numbers but ive already stated that you can check any statstic by using a spreadsheet. In fact using a spreadsheet is quite literally the optimal way to check your math because it's literally just numbers. My evidence as I've stated before is the counter intuitive and specific strategy required to beat most of the early chapters. Some of the early chapters straight up betray intention of the map
There are a few issues with your assessment of developers free time. I think you are overestimating what the art, programming, design, story, writing teams can do. Its obvious they worked really hard to complete the game with how much content that is in the game which puts into question how much free time they have to just play the game. Saying that they worked on this for hundreds hours means they must have had time extra time doesn't make sense when you look at the inverse statement which is they didn't spend much time developing the game so the didn't have much extra time. Then there is the issue that the game is likely only playable in a state close to the final product very close to the end of production. The next issue is how good you think these people are at the game they created. Many devs openly admit to not being particularly good at the games they themselves create. Some devs have to use developer mode cheats to get through their own games let alone what you think writers and artists skill levels will be. The next issue is your assessment that it only takes 2 hours to get through the first 4 maps. When you realize that most of the people who played awakening spent tens if not hundreds of hours to get through lunatic or just quit altogether, it's impractical to expect the average dev to clear 4 maps in 2 hours. Its more likely that it would take 1-2 hours to get through one map. Besides, most of the playing the devs are probably ever doing is testing functionality and addressing issues through a debugging/developer mode.
If you really don't think time constraints is an issue, just look at the quality of the games that reused assets from the previous entry. Gaiden greatly expands the scope of f1. Genealogy was able to create a much more actualized world with gigantic maps compared to mystery; thracia was able to bring in a a whole host of mechanics and map design absent from genealogy. Radiant dawn has significantly better constructed maps and animations than path of radiance. Fates has fully realized 3d environment, refined mechanics and maps, 3 full routes, significantly better graphics, and most importantly the feet they could not figure out in awakening. Echoes has the best character models of the 3ds era by far and stellar combat animations. Whenever they reuse an older engine and assets, the quality goes up tremendously because they could spend more of their time improving the product. Pokemon is similar in this regard where successive games on each console tend to be much better than their predecessors and first attempts on the new platform tend to be more barren and lacking.
I agree that ch 2 is difficult not because of the enemy strength. Its difficult because most of your units get 2 shot while 3 shoting the enemy back, you are out greatly out numbered, and there is no functional defensive terrain. This brings me back to what i said about the spreadsheet. On paper your units have enough stats to survive but in practice they don't because of how exposed they are.
This is my opinion but locking the ability to manage inventory is not good game design. It's not a mechanic that's like get gud player, it's more like oh what's this bullshit you are making me deal with. Besides, I actuality feel that it's possibly an oversight as you are locked from trading items till ch2 on normal mode.
There is a huge difference in using your jaigen because you should and using your jaigen because you literally have no other choice. Not even the name sake jaigen in shadow dragon h5 is demanded to solo and kill so many enemies. Even he needs help from his allies. I don't think a single jaigen in the entire franchise is forced to shoulder the load Fredrick has to and frankly it feels unhealthy.
Have you been playing on citra or something? I'm pretty sure touching the clock on native hardware just locks in the risen spawn for the next 24 hours. Literally just tested it and changing the clock did nothing. Also every forum on gamefaq and reddit says the only answer is to battle or just wait.
Sure a fair amount of the games tend to get easier as the game goes on but awakening lunatic has one of the largest drops of any of the games. It's been a while since I've played birthright but I'm fairly sure birthright's late game is much more difficult than awakening's late game. Echoes late game is honestly kind of close in my opinion
Genealogy of the Holy War in very easy? I love that game but that was one of the hardest fire emblem games I have ever played lmao.
My most broken units were threatened with death on multiple occasions and that was even with me getting some ideal pairings.
Edit: Ok I just realized this list is on the hardest difficulty. I normally play on normal lol my bad.
Hear me out on 3houses, Playing maddening blind is the most impossible thing you can do. Like if you know what to expect any game can be easy but these freaking ambushes were always a unit lost followed by rewind (if you actually use rewind). But if you know where they’ll come from you’ll be alright. But the dlc was actually maddening since Xp was scarce.
I'm hardly a Fire Emblem master, but I loved Awakening enough to play it a lot and I have beaten Awakening on Lunatic. It took me a couple of resets but eventually I figured exactly what you said. Once you get past the first few chapters, not just Robin but all the main characters and their offspring can get so hilariously broken. Even things like Donnel with unlimited weapon durability through Armsthrift can turn the game inside out once you get the ball rolling. There's so much knowledge to pairing up characters and getting them broken skills that once you get that down it becomes very fun. Lunatic+ is some horrendous bullshit though, I have no desire to ever even attempt it.
Lunatic+ is honestly not that bad. The only skill worth freaking out about is counter. All the other + skills are pretty much fodder for a maxed out robin. Lunatic+ requires immense patience (lots of resetting), but that's about it. I don't think it's actually "difficult." It's moreso "frustrating and time consuming."
DIFFICULT should mean your decision-making skill is put under pressure. Lunatic+ does NOT do this. In that sense, Conquest is way more difficult (strictly speaking) that Awakening Lunatic+ will ever be, IMO
My first time playing FE6 on normal mode was probably the hardest run I’ve ever had at that game, worse than my subsequent hard mode runs. Going into that game blind sucks because
1) Ambush spawns. I think everyone lost a character to that infamous Rutger ambush spawn their first time. For me, it was Wade.
2) Many of the characters you get are straight up bad (Wolt, Gwendolyn, Dorothy, Sophia, Ogier, etc.), and it can be difficult to guess which characters will eventually be worth the investment and which will suck the whole game.
3) The side quests are pretty crucial to the game, and if you go in blind you might miss them. Not only will this cost you the true ending, but will also cost you valuable opportunities to level your units.
In terms of starting up a game for the first time with no prior knowledge and selecting the easiest difficulty, FE6 should be near the top of the list. I’m glad I played FE9 and FE7 first.
Mekkah. Thracia 776 is "Very Hard" in my opinion. Many people are blocked or get pain on this game.
Looking at this from the other end, I think FE6 has the most difficult Easiest/Normal mode. I beat HHM and then I had tons of trouble with FE6NM even with savestates. It didn't help that I was playing semiblind and ended up in Sacae. FE6 hit rates mean that basically nothing is reliable and the enemies do good damage. I can't imagine what it was like for Japanese kids whose mom bought them a new strategy game on the GBA and it was their first FE game.
Haha same. Yeah, tierlists based on hardest low difficulty and how much the difficulty jumps from normal to hard to maddening would be interesting too.
3 houses is easy until you stop using pulses, grinding, and gardening. Imagine the entire game being as hard as the first few levels where every student dies in 1 hit.
I can't speak to lunatic reverse but as far as new mystery is concerned, there are some ways to make it easier on yourself, especially if you dont care about turn counts. In general taking some extra time in the early and mid game to train your units and then going fast for the last few chapters (16-20, 22-final) is what I would recommend. The 4 Dragon chapters in the mid game are perfect for training units like Sirius and Palla, which will pay off in a huge way later. Just hand Sirius a forged dragon pike and let him go to town. Palla is very good when reclassed as a swordmaster. Abusing the Ladysword and the wyrmslayer to get easy kills on Dragons, Legion and other Axe users Is how mine reached a very high level by chapter 15. I would also say that in the late game Dracoknights fall off a because of their low speed cap so I had everyone except Minerva reclass into something else (mostly paladins and I kept Palla as a swordmaster). Also make sure to train a mage for an easy one turn on Gharnef. I used Linde but someone like Katarina should do just as well. Just give your mage of choice every spirit dust in the game and rig a crit. This is incidentally my advice of every tough boss in the game because for some reason the all have 0 Luck. For that very reason I would implore your to forge a max Might Thoron with as much crit as you can afford. Use that to kill Hardin and Medeus. Speaking of Medeus, you should at least save 3 charges of the Rescue Staff and 1 or 2 charges of the Again Staff just for one turning the final fight. You should also train Marth and give him enough stat boosters so he caps at least strength and so he has enough hp and defense to not get OHKO'd by Medeus. With this setup you can easily kill him in one turn and wont have to deal with the bullshit reinforcements.
As far as less ethical tips are concerned:
You can abuse Xane to get pretty much infinite money. For some reason he gets very favorable matchups in the arena when copying a very strong unit (like a high level swordmaster Palla). You can use this to easily cap your staff users in chapter 15 or 21 and also make more than enough money for all those insane forges I mentioned. Shoutout to Exelblem for this trick.
I also found that sometimes it is worth to deploy some scrub just to sacrifice them to trigger enemy agression. In some chapters, like the Hardin map it is much better to have the enemy come to you than to walk into an enemy kill box.
This is mostly advice for the mid and late game since I assume you know the early game well because you started a bunch of playthroughs already.
Even though I've played this series for years. I do think in general this is quite an incredibly challenging series. With the exception of playing on easier difficulties in some games. Relative to only other Fire Emblem games this seems about right from the games I've played.
You're right Mekkah, after playing Awakening Lunatic a few times I think it's not as bad as everyone says. In my opinion Chapter 2 is the only hard chapter in the game. Lunatic+ is definitely as bad as everyone says though
Most FE games have been manageable at their highest (except awakening lunatic +), however, Radiant Dawn was the only game that actually soft locked me to the point I had to start a new playthrough, because my dawn brigade was too underleveled and weak in part 3, and I just couldn't beat the chapter where they try to ambush Sanaki.
I honestly believe that no game with lunatic/maddening difficulty (not counting fe9), that being every game after RD, should be below mid. Maybe you could argue Br for easy, but it being two tiers below FE7 is honestly pretty outrageus imo. Like, they are still games where the enemies have actual stats that can threaten most of your units, they should never be in the same tier as stuff like fe1-3, which are essentially locked to normal difficulty with occasional difficulty spikes to hard.
I think you are valuing how much easier game knowledge can make a game way too much and a bit unevenly. It's not just most fe games that get easier with knowledge, it's literally every skill in life. Stuff like "engage gets easy because you can use build x with unit y" and "3h gets easy when you know how to optimise teaching" are fine points on their own, but they are essentially saying that this strategy game gets easier when you learn the best strategies. No shit.
Then there is Awakening, where the early game will admittedly always be brutal, but afterwards all you need to know is "abuse robin" and you can stop using your brain pretty quick. Comparatively, many 3h/engage skips and such still take planning and execution.
(This comment might have come off as more aggressive than intended, oops)
I disagree with Three Houses because have go Silver Snow path (Church Route) I have very pain to finish (Chapter 13 and 21 are hell). For me I place in "Mid"
FE9 was my second FE game and it was hard on hard, not following any guide. Experienced players forget about the awkward interactions necessary to progress through the game, leveling up Ike so that he has a chance against the final boss (or the optional fight with the Black Knight), the need to find an item /assign Aether to Ike otherwise there’d be few chances to beat the game, etc. I noticed the need to invest in Ike very late, and thankfully I grew him up to level 20, 6 levels in the last chapter. The final boss is a tank and only a leveled up Ike can beat him. Experienced players take all of that for granted and forget what the experience is like if you don’t check any guides.
You don't need to train Ike. Ena is more than capable of killing Ashnard.
@Aeddy35 Interesting, thanks. Does she get doubled, and does her high def make up for it? Got to try it next time 🙂
@@thiagoaraujos It depends. Her base speed transformed is 19 but she doubles with Resolve. Resolve is basically required to beat Ashnard with Ena unless you give her a bunch of levels. At base she does 0 damage but with Resolve she deals 24 damage.
As somebody that has beaten FE12 lunatic reverse semi blind I can say it is the hardest experience in the franchise, but okce you beat it once it's like the game looks different to you on the next playthroughs and lunatic reverse starts becoming more fun once you know what to do, you can even train bantu if you really want at that point
To be honest, I feel like you’re severely underestimating TH/Engage difficulty, possibly because of how much content you’ve put out for them. Ranking Maddening ambush spawns from TH as easy when they’re some of the most overkill the series has seen seems odd, and Engage ch11 can screw you over much more than the Manster arc in Thracia.
There’s a lot of arcane knowledge in these two games that eventually makes their Mad modes fairly solveable, but it feels like you didn’t take similar knowledge into account for other entries (esp Thracia, where just knowing the manster arc exists and looking at a support chart fixes 99% of issues)
The only other thing I can think to make the difference is Turnwheel, but you didn’t mention that in your discussion that I recall. Even with it, they feel at least mid.
I’m playing through revelations and I got kaze killed. Not because the game itself is hard but because I forgot about how the pair up mechanic works after not playing fates for a few years. And that pissed me off. I was just chilling and there was 1paired enemy left so I checked his range made sure kaze was just outside of it and killed the main unit. Then the backup unit a cavalier with 1 more mv than the first guy 1shot kaze and I felt soooo dumb for forgetting how that worked after playing some other games where pair up doesn’t exist.
Then I made a different mistake the very next map and got one of my flyers killed. I swear the games not hard I’m just dumb and forgetful. Also got Hayato killed but if I’m being honest I may have done that on purpose.
I gotta agree, New Mystery is the hardest game in the series on the hardest difficulty.
Maybe but i bet there is an RNG seed in Awakening Lunatic+ that makes the game actually impossible
@@windwaker0rules What would that seeding be?
@@Rhy2412TitanGamer Probably one where every enemy has pavis+, Luna, and aegis at a concentration that makes it impossible for fred to kill anything and geets one shot over and over and you saved in the battle menu
@@windwaker0rules I got to chapter 4 & had to reset over 20 mins because I kept getting counter & pavise+ on the boss.
It's not challenging. It just exists to bullshit you. Such a mishandled difficulty.
@@Rhy2412TitanGamer i couldn't be bothered with Lunatic+, Lunatic already put me to sleep with Chrobin soloing the game with Nosferatu and then forging the Nosferatus in the end game.
I think FE4 really should be higher up. It's super easy to just miss out on all the stuff that makes FE4 a "very easy" game on a blind playthrough. On my first blind playthrough, I didn't know I had to enter a specific castle with Lewyn to get forsetti and just totally missed out on it in both gens and never even knew the spell existed. That's just an example. And with subpar pairings or bad item setups, it can become quite difficult to beat some of the harder encounters. Lategame holy weapon bosses like Arion, Brian or Ishtar just destroyed me over and over on my first playthrough, since Shannan died in his joining chapter to sorcerers and my non-optimized Seliph/Ares/Oifey didn't cut it.
If you're completely going in with no information on anything, I'd probably put it in mid or the upper part of "easy" tier.
I think even going in completely blind, the fact that you'll always have Sigurd/Seliph keeps FE4 very easy. It's really hard to miss the Silver Sword and from there Sigurd just kinda destroys everything. Yeah some bosses are tough but you get Oifey, Shannan and Ares no matter what.
@@Mekkkah I totally agree that Gen 1 is very easy due to Sigurd. But I guess I'm just speaking from my personal experience with Gen 2 and I found it overall more difficult than Gaiden, at least. I also think Gaiden is easier than Echoes Hard.
I wish it was for normal or hard difficulties. Not everyone plays the 'kick me in the nuts' difficulties but we all play every game on either normal or hard.
I played Thracia for the first time last year and I will honestly say it was a lot easier than I expected. I would put it in Mid or even Easy tier. The reason is that all stats cap at 20, like unpromoted GBA units, and that makes enemies unlikely to outstat you. Couple that with infinite range (and infinite duration of status) Sleep, Silence and Warp that you can stock up on because you can steal everything not nailed to the floor, and I felt like the second half of the game was a cakewalk. Then again, I am experienced in FE in general, so maybe the average player won't think to put the enemy bishop to sleep turn 1 to rob him blind of staves when you reach the other end of the map.
The recruitments and side objectives are quite tricky. Recruiting Xavier is infamous for a reason. Illios is a huge pain having high move, canto, and bolting. Chapters 9-13 are quite rough as well but it calms down around chapter 14. Still, I don't think Fire Emblem by nature should ever be put in the easy category.
How would this list change if every game had the higher difficulty modes of some of the newer games?
Perfect choice of music Mekkah. Xenoblade always has sublime music
Hearing that xenoblade song. Love to hear it.
FE6 blind was terrifying. I feel bad when characters die so I had to reset a lot from ambushes
Man, how can u put Blazing People as being more difficult than 3H and Engage?
Geez….that’s bizarre and totally untrue for me.
On Awakening in particular as someone who played quite a lot of Lunatic+ that I believe contributes to how difficult the game is viewed is how much Robin's value is revealed on that difficulty. On lower difficulties I don't find it difficult to make any unit very good so it isn't as obvious how much Robin will snowball as the game progresses. On Lunatic and Lunatic+ though they start as one of your only viable units and quickly spiral out of control to the point that I find the easiest way to beat Awakening is bench everybody except Robin after about chapter 6 and let them take you to the promised land.
yup, I've beaten Lunatic 3 times and Lunatic+ once now. In all of these runs it was a chrobin duo lmao
Living for the gameplay in the corner like a subway surfers attention keeper 😭The way it works too LOL i was enraptured
> Skips to the end
> Awakening in "Very Hard"
Huh... Guess I'll have to watch the full video now.
I don’t understand how radiant dawn can be considered harder than three houses, after the explaining I just still can’t see the point of view. In radiant dawn literally everyone is better than the enemy, in three houses literally every enemy unit is better than mine’s.
FE12 deserves a new tier below sacred stones, literally the easiest game, just kill and don't die
Or, as Mekkah would say, just crit
I definitely see where you’re coming from with 3H. That Lorenz paralogue example you gave I feel is way too common throughout the game lol. However, I’m still unsure whether it should be in Easy or Mid because of some part 2 maps being insanely obtuse. The final few maps of AM SS and CF are just stupid hard when you’re blind. Like for example CF (ch17) if you don’t know about the side where Rhea’s group appears I can see that easily running people over. And there’s a lot of stuff like that especially when the game doesn’t warn you in advance
More, Chapter 13 in SS, AM and VW could be a nightmare.
lol, awakenings lunatic+ is nasty enough that the rng for which enemies get which abilities can make the level impossible to beat in the first couple of chapters
This is a myth.
It's funny how FE13 can arguably lay claim to both easiest and hardest title at the same time, generally pretty easy balance of enemies, cheap weapons, pair up system, free skirmish access, spotpass recruits plus the inclusion of the super-kids that you can practice eugenics with, the Normal and Hard mode are significantly easier than many other titles.....then there's the kick to the nards that is Lunatic+......
I'm replaying FE5 now. Years ago, I had a really hard time with it. But I've gotten much better at Fire Emblem.
It's on the harder end for sure. But what jumps out at me is that it's not hard due to clever level design or strong/numerous enemies. It's mostly RNG, unfair mechanics, and maps that just slow the game to a crawl so that when something does go wrong, the setback feels extra frustrating.
I don't feel I need to explain why sleep staffs that reduce all stats to 0, have unlimited range, and last forever are bad. But I think the more unusual part of my statement is the RNG complaint. I'd generally chock complaints like this up to bad players that are taking needless risks. Thracia I feel has some... design decisions that make it stand out, especially compared to later games.
First (and most obvious): Movement stars. You plan out your turn so all of your units can guarantee survival, and your tanky units restrict enemy movement to keep your frailer units safe. Then an enemy just gets another turn, walks up and murders somebody they shouldn't be able to reach.
Second: Staffs missing: It's been a persistent issue throughout my playthrough. You need to heal somebody, but miss, and now they're in danger when they shouldn't be. This is especially aggravating when you need to heal sleep or berserk.
Third: Hit rates cap at 1 and 99. You won't see these too often. But it sends a message: This game was designed with a disdain for certainty. If it's essential to finish off an enemy or retreat, you have to retreat. This leads to slow play. And when playing slowly and something goes wrong, it's extra frustrating.
Fourth: Randomized enemy growth rates. I've run into units with the same class, level and weapon, that have 5 point gaps in speed and attack power. And some of them even have an extra point of movement. Enemies are usually weak enough you don't want to obsessively check all of them. But this can really throw a wrench in the works, especially the movement.
Fifth: I think this is the most subtle, but actually the most impactful. The developers dug themselves a design hole with their combat math.
A point of skill gives 2 hit, 1 crit. Luck gives 1 hit, 1 avo, 1/2 crit resistance.
Crits don't just multiply damage. They multiply attack power. If an enemy has a 20 attack, 11 skill, and my character has the maximum 20 defense and 20 luck, the enemy normally deals 0 damage, but has a 1% chance of doubling attack to 40, dealing 20 damage. I've got a literal perfect character for minimizing crit risk, and this enemy with low attack and medium skill can still deal heavy damage unless I equip a scroll that negates crit (which are admittedly really common, although most players would want to give these to characters to improve growth rates.)
You've got plenty of units with high speed and luck that can become potent dodge tanks. Most weapons only have 60-70 hit. Even in the mid game, your units hitting 50+ avoid before terrain is really common. If the developers try to fix enemy hit rate, they would need to boost skill, but then they become crit machines. So instead, the developers leave enemy skill rates low, and most enemies hit only 10-20% of the time. That's too easy, so the game just tosses hordes of enemies your way in hopes that some of them can pull through. And now... 8 enemies that deal 8-12 damage each at 5-15% hit rate are up against your swordmaster that has 24 HP. On average, the swordmaster gets hit once and is fine. But this is exactly the type of situation that risk averse players want to avoid. But actually avoiding this scenario means you're proceeding at a snails pace, which is really boring, so players are really tempted to do this.
If the developers could boost hit rate without boosting crit, they could reduce enemy count. Players would have to take enemy threats more seriously, but since there are fewer enemies to deal with, the pace wouldn't slow down as much as it would in the game's current state. But they can't. If they boost enemy hit significantly, that means making every enemy a crit threat, which is even worse.
At the end of this, I actually still like FE5. I think it's much better than 1-4, and has made a lot of important mechanical contributions to the series. I think a remake only needs to make a few small changes to make it truly great. But there are just a few things about it that keep me from loving it as much as most of the games that come after it.
FE4 is much easier when you know the optimal pairings, the optimal use of rings, how the mechanics work and about all the secret events, it's easy to break the game that way.
If you go on blind then there are a lot of moments that can actually trip you up hard. Leaving the mechanics aside, Chapter 1 is a massive difficulty curve compared to the prolouge, which gets even worse in Chapter 2 and even late in gen 1 there are things that can get you (Eldigan, Reptor etc.). Sigurd is very strong, but trying to get all the side-objectives and keeping your other units alive and well, as well as trying to pair them up can be a pain on the first run.
Gen 2 is doable with Seliph, Ares, Shannan, Ced or his substititue, yes, but when your pairings aren't optimal in terms of inheritance or when you missed out on getting certain children (I didn't get Ced and Fee on my first run because Silvia married Lewyn and I realised that when it was too late...) the maps such as C7, C9, C10 and especially the final map become a pain in the ass. Hell, even with decently strong children a map like the finale or C7 can still wreck you.
It was not easy on my first run so I was very surprised when I found out that people put this game as easy. Sure it's easy to break, but for a newcomer this is a rough and tedious experience at times
I think I have issues but as someone who exclusively plays all games on the hardest difficulty available BLIND and someone who doesn’t try to finish maps within 2 turns if possible. 3 houses felt waaaay harder than conquest and FE 6 especially in the early game.
And I just started playing POR and that difficulty is a joke. But it’s an interesting game and story.
Just a quibble, but I would argue that Gaiden is easier than Echoes due to the nerfing that was done to certain classes and items. Gaiden Falcon Knights being able to one round absolutely any terror, including zombie dragons, immediately after promotion, completely trivializes certain maps. Gaiden Dread Fighters having 15 res at base does the same for others. Things like the speed ring giving +5 movement, mage ring giving +5 magic range, and angel ring fixing your luck to 40(!) can create some incredibly OP units.
Both games are still in the same tier, obviously, but there are some pretty busted things about Gaiden that make it an extra easy game.
Uh, 3H and Engage easier than FE7?
Lol
For what I actually played, from easiest to hardest (that I actually beaten): SS, PoR (I beat all 3 English difficulties, and PoR English-hard, to me, was more or less where RD English-normal wss to me), SD, FE7 and RD (RD is significantly harder than FE7, and I only beat RD once on English normal), and I gave up on FE6 at Ch5.
I am usually not the kind of player to play harder difficulties when I play single-player games, though, since I don't want to sacrifice my fragile mental health over a game, which is why even RD on English-hard just wouldn't be for me, let alone FE6 on hard. As such, I'd err on the side of too easy if given the choice, every time.
FE1's map design is still pretty good
Maybe I'm just bad, but the final chapter of FE3 Book 1 is one of the hardest challenges I've ever had in a FE game.
I haven't played all of FE2, but it seems mostly easier than SoV Hard, mainly due to the enemies being significantly weaker.
I would probably put Tear Ring Saga in Mid, and Berwick Saga in Hard. In my opinion, TRS has enough challenging maps that it goes up to Mid, otherwise it would be Easy. I've beaten TRS but haven't gotten past chapter 9 in Berwick, and my ranking of Berwick is more of an average, as some maps are Mid and some maps are Very Hard (and if you plan to 100% the game, Berwick probably goes in Very Hard).
You are right on your money about FE2. SoV normal mode IS FE2, barring just downright changes and new fights, it is largely identical if you compare stats and AI of important enemies. SoV hard mode is harder by virtue of being a hard mode.
As someone who played the GBA versions of Fire Emblem games, I found Genealogy of Holy Wars hard.
one issue with FE games is if you want to rate there difficulty you sort of need to have different tires for everything. Playing one of these games as a fresh player vs coming back for the harder difficulties are radically different exprines. Now you cant possible control for all these factors but it might be interesting to one day have a list of easist to hardest for new players vs hardest difficulty.
Thracia 776 is not a hard game by itself
However, it is a game that explains jack shit about the most important mechanics and options you have, so the first run feels really hard without a guide
Funny balistas, reinforcements, not explaining about the Growth modifiers from the scrolls, not explaining the Crit Multiplier, star moves, leadership and some wonky ass recruits (Xavier mostly) are just part of the list of things the game never actually explains well
By the second time however it gets easier as you know all of that and you are already ready
i feel like shadow dragon (DS) is much harder than awakening in its hardest form.
I feel like your reasoning behind Thracia and 3H contradict one another. Both are very breakable, but super difficult to play blind. Sure, people are less likely to play 3H maddening without playing easy or hard first, but like you said, most of us found our first maddening playthrough extremely difficult even with that knowledge. With the knowledge I now have of the game, Maddening is a breeze (although some chapters are tough every playthrough), but I think the same can be said for Thracia, which most players agree is quite difficult.
That said, I agree with the placement of just about every game outside of 3H
Fe conquest is in my opinion the hardest game, with the least bs, it’s not “the hardest” I can agree but it’s also the most fair games in the series. It strikes that balance of hard to learn and master but also not agonizingly bull crap. It’s what I would refer to as the “hardest fair game” in the series with everything that’s “harder” being so because of poor rng and game design. Fe6 for example only really being harder because of how inconsistent the general gameplay is, etc
Super agree with this. The only map I did feel was actually BS was the final one, since you basically need to dance/warp assassinate the boss to reasonably complete it. Even Iago’s map is mostly fair.
I just zoomed to the end, watched tierlist and said to myself, "Oh yeah, I agree. Now let's see his reasoning behind it" Than i watched video
People do not talk enough about Awakening's Lunatic. Lunatic alone is very poorly designed and very tedious to play. Sure it is in fact "difficult", but its the very unfun type of hard where you need to things a very specific way and hyper optimize and min max to counter the even more ridiculously inflated enemy stats from Valm onwards.
I think three houses maddening and thracia 776 both have the issue of: "If you go in blind your fucked, but if you know what your doing it's stupidly easy."
imo I would put them in mid tier but that's just me lol.
I agree that New Mystery is probably the hardest of the old FE systems (no combat skills, etc etc).
Idk if you mentioned it but that game also has some very silly enemies and ambush spawns.
(The 1-2 range wyverns on the desert maps on Lunatic are so stupid).
I'm less sure about Fates vs Awakening. But then again its because the hardest modes are a bit more random.
I think using the hardest difficulty for this kind of list tends to unfairly inflate the perceived difficulty of games like New Mystery and Three Houses. Using Hard rather than modes like Lunatic or Maddening provides a better measurement for the kind of challenge that most players will experience
Echoes overall is definitely Very Easy, but a Hard Mode Classic Blitzkreig is at least Easy.
Also, I think a fun tier list would be how easy/fun each game is to Iron Man.
I think you underestimate FE3's endgame. Specially the final chapters. All dragons do true damage and can two shot capped units
I think we can all agree that Fire Emblem Heroes is by far the hardest game of all time
WAIT, since when is FE12 one of the "least liked games in the fandom"??? It is and always was one of my favs, i replayed it twice immediately after i played it the first time 😢 I thought it was relatively well liked
FE12 is in my top two games, but I think it's definitely unloved by the fandom. JP exclusive, 2nd worst selling game in the series, sequel to another game that's divisive (I also love Shadow Dragon though) and people complain a lot about stuff like the avatar or how the game has waaaaay too many characters.
Most people haven't played it and many who have haven't played above H1.
Kinda disagree about Radiant Dawn being so highly tiered since the game is constantly giving you busted units to trivialise the maps. Even the Dawn brigade chapters give you an onslaught of carry units (Sothe, Volug, Tormodsquad, Tauroneo etc.). I'd bump it down to mid.
for real, i dont see how people can say RD is hard when the overstated jeagan/lord/royals dont fall off ever
Three Houses belongs in mid. Doing a blind play through of maddening without using the “metas” cause I didn’t know them yet was extremely challenging. Yes the “metas” can trivialize things but if you don’t know them and don’t use guides then it’s very challenging and should be in mid strictly because of a blind play through aspect