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FIRE EMBLEM:Critical Hits Suck (NSF56K)
Eliot Dubois
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I stole this from Imran, who did a really good job on it.
Stolen from Imran begins here:
This is a Fire Emblem appreciation thread. I only really know about the English Fire Emblems, but that is what Wikipedia is for: telling me about things I am too lazy to research otherwise.
The series is developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. It started in 1990 with Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Tsurugi, translated to The Dark Dragon and Sword of Light. It was the first game to star Marth, who most English-speaking players are familiar with from Super Smash Bros. Melee. An interesting note is that the game was the inspiration for the (terrible) Fire Emblem anime, but the show crashed and burned after two episodes.
The second Fire Emblem title is barely one at all, known as Fire Emblem Gaiden, or Sidestory in 1992. As the name indicates, it's a sidestory of the original Fire Emblem game before the idea of different worlds or areas of Fire Emblem were even thought of. Fire Emblem Gaiden is the most "different" title of the entire series. It was far more like other RPGs at the time and allowed city exploration, unbreakable weapons, and being able to fight without weapons at all. While some changes, like branching job classes or an overworld map, appeared in later games, such as the Sacred Stones.
The third game in the series is a remake of the first game, The Dark Dragon and Sword of Light, on the Super Famicom. It included some things from Fire Emblem Gaiden, such as a navigable map and the explorable towns that made Gaiden so different from the first game. It also included dismountable units, making mounted units (dudes on horses) able to get off their horse and take a sword to some enemy army heads. The game is also one of the best selling Nintendo titles period, staying at the top sales spot for over a year.
Due to the incredible success of Fire Emblem 3, Intelligent Systems went straight to work on the fourth game of the series, Genealogy of the Holy War. The strangest of all Fire Emblem games, Genealogy of the Holy War focused more on keeping bases rather than keeping characters alive. As such, it's the first game in the series to do away with perma-death, instead allowing fallen characters to survive with 1HP. The game came out in 1996, at the tail end of the SNES's lifespan, but was not the last SNES Fire Emblem. It was the last Fire Emblem to come out until 2000, however.
The final game ever to be released on the SNES at the start of the millenium, Thracia 776 is known as the most obscure Fire Emblem (I don't care if that's contradictory, shut up). It was the first game to introduce Fog of War, which became a staple of both Fire Emblem and Intelligent Systems' other strategy game, Famicom Wars.
The next game is Fire Emblem's first jump in to the handheld sector with the Gameboy Advance. Sword of Seals stars Roy, the redhead most American gamers known from Super Smash Bros. Melee. The game has still not seen American release despite numerous petitions and is unlikely to ever appear on these shores.
Now we move on to the first American Fire Emblem, Blazing Sword, known simply (and confusingly) as "Fire Emblem" in America. Taking place twenty years prior to to Sword of Seals, the game stars Roy's father's Eliwood during the conflict of the Lycian Rebellion. The game features several characters from Sword of Seals in their younger incarnations, such as Hector. It's considered likely that the game was brought over due to the success of Marth and Roy in SSBM.
The game was followed up quickly with The Sacred Stones, best described as "a great game, but not that great a Fire Emblem game." It shares many traits with older Fire Emblem games, even the oft-neglected Fire Emblem Gaiden. It's thought to be a marriage of the NES titles and the GBA's refinement and includes branching paths which are obviously marked as difficult or easy.
The last released Fire Emblem game, Path of Radiance, came out on the Gamecube last year. It is the first console Fire Emblem since Thracia 776. It follows the story of Ike and the Greil Mercenaries as they become involved in a war across the continent. The game includes a new Base system which allows for lots of planning before actually going in to battle, as well as Bonus Experience. Bonus EXP allows you to level up less used characters at the base by beating levels quickly or following obvious mission goals (like defending NPCs).
The next game in the series was revealed at Nintendo's E3 2006 press conference. The as of yet unnamed Fire Emblem Wii stars Sothe, a rather unspectular thief from Path of Radiance, now older and far more badass. Nothing is known about the game aside from Sothe's involvement, nor if it will feature any different play mechanics from using the Wii controller.
UPDATE:It has a name now. Fire Emblem:The Goddess of Dawn. That's right, Fire Emblem:GOD. Awesome.
FIRE EMBLEM FAQs
Q. Is it true that characters stay dead in the game?
A. With the exception of Geneaology of the Holy War, yes, characters die and stay dead. The only way to get them back is to restart the mission. You can usually prevent character death, however, as long you pay attention to the battle and learn to expect reinforcements.
Q. What's the best Fire Emblem to start with?
A. I'd personally recommend Path of Radiance, as the selectable difficulty levels and bonus experience make it as hard or as easy as you want it to be.
DIFFERENT TAKE: I say Sacred Stones is the best to start with. It's on clearance at Toys R Us, its the easiest, and it isn't connected storywise to any other game.
Q. Why don't we have more Fire Emblem Wii info?
A. Because Nintendo's a bunch of cocks who don't want me to be happy.
*UPDATE* A few new scans appeared last week, one of which shows a laguz attacking in humanoid form. This is very nice.
Now I'll add some more bits to the FAQ.
Q. critical hits suck? How can this be?
A. When they happen to you, of course. They can also suck if you are trying to fight only one enemy at a time and you keep killing him, thus allowing for more enemies to rush through and hit you. But nine times out of ten if you are getting criticals you are doing well.
I've heard this game is nothing but a Shining Force ripoff, what gives Nintendo?
A.Fire Emblem came out before SF, and was wildly popular. You do the math.
What does this game play like?
They all play something like Advance wars, only instead of representing units as groups they are individuals, most of which you don't want to see dead. They level like a normal RPG, and have stats like an RPG. The battle system in the later games revolves around a weapons triangle. Think rock, paper, scissors. Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, Lances beat Swords. It's more complicated than that, as there are various stats to figure in, and certain weapons that cheat (swords that act like axes, etc.) Its really fun.
Q. When are we getting a Fire Emblem for the DS?
A. Man I wish I knew.
Time for the posting.
Stolen from Imran begins here:
This is a Fire Emblem appreciation thread. I only really know about the English Fire Emblems, but that is what Wikipedia is for: telling me about things I am too lazy to research otherwise.
The series is developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. It started in 1990 with Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Tsurugi, translated to The Dark Dragon and Sword of Light. It was the first game to star Marth, who most English-speaking players are familiar with from Super Smash Bros. Melee. An interesting note is that the game was the inspiration for the (terrible) Fire Emblem anime, but the show crashed and burned after two episodes.
The second Fire Emblem title is barely one at all, known as Fire Emblem Gaiden, or Sidestory in 1992. As the name indicates, it's a sidestory of the original Fire Emblem game before the idea of different worlds or areas of Fire Emblem were even thought of. Fire Emblem Gaiden is the most "different" title of the entire series. It was far more like other RPGs at the time and allowed city exploration, unbreakable weapons, and being able to fight without weapons at all. While some changes, like branching job classes or an overworld map, appeared in later games, such as the Sacred Stones.
The third game in the series is a remake of the first game, The Dark Dragon and Sword of Light, on the Super Famicom. It included some things from Fire Emblem Gaiden, such as a navigable map and the explorable towns that made Gaiden so different from the first game. It also included dismountable units, making mounted units (dudes on horses) able to get off their horse and take a sword to some enemy army heads. The game is also one of the best selling Nintendo titles period, staying at the top sales spot for over a year.
Due to the incredible success of Fire Emblem 3, Intelligent Systems went straight to work on the fourth game of the series, Genealogy of the Holy War. The strangest of all Fire Emblem games, Genealogy of the Holy War focused more on keeping bases rather than keeping characters alive. As such, it's the first game in the series to do away with perma-death, instead allowing fallen characters to survive with 1HP. The game came out in 1996, at the tail end of the SNES's lifespan, but was not the last SNES Fire Emblem. It was the last Fire Emblem to come out until 2000, however.
The final game ever to be released on the SNES at the start of the millenium, Thracia 776 is known as the most obscure Fire Emblem (I don't care if that's contradictory, shut up). It was the first game to introduce Fog of War, which became a staple of both Fire Emblem and Intelligent Systems' other strategy game, Famicom Wars.
The next game is Fire Emblem's first jump in to the handheld sector with the Gameboy Advance. Sword of Seals stars Roy, the redhead most American gamers known from Super Smash Bros. Melee. The game has still not seen American release despite numerous petitions and is unlikely to ever appear on these shores.
Now we move on to the first American Fire Emblem, Blazing Sword, known simply (and confusingly) as "Fire Emblem" in America. Taking place twenty years prior to to Sword of Seals, the game stars Roy's father's Eliwood during the conflict of the Lycian Rebellion. The game features several characters from Sword of Seals in their younger incarnations, such as Hector. It's considered likely that the game was brought over due to the success of Marth and Roy in SSBM.
The game was followed up quickly with The Sacred Stones, best described as "a great game, but not that great a Fire Emblem game." It shares many traits with older Fire Emblem games, even the oft-neglected Fire Emblem Gaiden. It's thought to be a marriage of the NES titles and the GBA's refinement and includes branching paths which are obviously marked as difficult or easy.
The last released Fire Emblem game, Path of Radiance, came out on the Gamecube last year. It is the first console Fire Emblem since Thracia 776. It follows the story of Ike and the Greil Mercenaries as they become involved in a war across the continent. The game includes a new Base system which allows for lots of planning before actually going in to battle, as well as Bonus Experience. Bonus EXP allows you to level up less used characters at the base by beating levels quickly or following obvious mission goals (like defending NPCs).
The next game in the series was revealed at Nintendo's E3 2006 press conference. The as of yet unnamed Fire Emblem Wii stars Sothe, a rather unspectular thief from Path of Radiance, now older and far more badass. Nothing is known about the game aside from Sothe's involvement, nor if it will feature any different play mechanics from using the Wii controller.
UPDATE:It has a name now. Fire Emblem:The Goddess of Dawn. That's right, Fire Emblem:GOD. Awesome.
FIRE EMBLEM FAQs
Q. Is it true that characters stay dead in the game?
A. With the exception of Geneaology of the Holy War, yes, characters die and stay dead. The only way to get them back is to restart the mission. You can usually prevent character death, however, as long you pay attention to the battle and learn to expect reinforcements.
Q. What's the best Fire Emblem to start with?
A. I'd personally recommend Path of Radiance, as the selectable difficulty levels and bonus experience make it as hard or as easy as you want it to be.
DIFFERENT TAKE: I say Sacred Stones is the best to start with. It's on clearance at Toys R Us, its the easiest, and it isn't connected storywise to any other game.
Q. Why don't we have more Fire Emblem Wii info?
A. Because Nintendo's a bunch of cocks who don't want me to be happy.
*UPDATE* A few new scans appeared last week, one of which shows a laguz attacking in humanoid form. This is very nice.
Now I'll add some more bits to the FAQ.
Q. critical hits suck? How can this be?
A. When they happen to you, of course. They can also suck if you are trying to fight only one enemy at a time and you keep killing him, thus allowing for more enemies to rush through and hit you. But nine times out of ten if you are getting criticals you are doing well.
I've heard this game is nothing but a Shining Force ripoff, what gives Nintendo?
A.Fire Emblem came out before SF, and was wildly popular. You do the math.
What does this game play like?
They all play something like Advance wars, only instead of representing units as groups they are individuals, most of which you don't want to see dead. They level like a normal RPG, and have stats like an RPG. The battle system in the later games revolves around a weapons triangle. Think rock, paper, scissors. Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, Lances beat Swords. It's more complicated than that, as there are various stats to figure in, and certain weapons that cheat (swords that act like axes, etc.) Its really fun.
Q. When are we getting a Fire Emblem for the DS?
A. Man I wish I knew.
Time for the posting.
Eliot Dubois on
0
Posts
Though the AW team has been quiet, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a DS game soon.
From our perspective, FE is mainly a portable game. To long time fans over in Japan, its mainly a console game, so I don't know. FE6 was a test run for awesome N64 -> GBA downports, with Mother 3 being the other awesome example. I love FE7 so much though, so I do find it a bit weird playing it on the GCN.
Branched paths that failed to stick in future iterations and it was really, absurdly easy.
Leveling outside of battles, allowing you to make a joke out of the story mode. Also lets you make 20/20 specialist armies of doom, making the normally fairly difficult bonus maps/dungeons hella easy. The abilities are a bit of a dry run on those in FE:PoR and are hella overpowered, especially the one the Bishops have. Bonus dungeons are hard, but full of monsters. Bishops get superpowered when fighting monsters, and you can have up to 5 of these healing killing machines in your group. It's just not fair.
Yeah, what he said.
To be fair though, there hasn't really been a hard FE game for quite awhile.
So let's share FE horrible kill stories. You know, stories where a guy with a 1% critical gets your best character while you're 2 enemies away from finishing a mission. I love those.
What people usually say is that SS is a good game, but not a good FE game. As another example, think of Super Mario Sunshine. Super Mario Sunshine is a good game, but it is not a good Mario game (when compared to the rest of the series).
Off topic, but SMS is really a very good mario game, and being a good Mario game makes it a great game.
Sacred Stones is a Fire Emblem game. It's an easy one, especially compared to the other two domestic releases.
Speaking about difficulty, I love Path of Radiance. They really turned up the enemies stats and made the AI a hell of a lot better. They won't go needlessly attack a low HP unit with vantage, they run away and heal, and will go out of their way to find a cleric on their side and stick by them. A marked improvement. I also like how PoR brought back a bunch of new goals, and the improved Support system is how it should have been done since the beginning.
That said, Sacred Stones is inferior because it doesn't have Hector. In fact, all games that don't have Hector, Fire Emblem or not, get docked a few points because they don't have Hector in them. Hector is fucking pimp.
Who the hell is this Hector????
No, I think the best bet would be Hastings and Gamecrazy in store.
If memory serves me, they don't appear. This can be a blessing and a curse. Since it is SS, you don't have to worry about levels as much, so this is a good thing. You can block stairways. The only time I do it is if it stops a thief from appearing, but there is only one situation where that happens.
Hmm, that could be very very useful on that one level where you need to survive for a bunch of turns, and a swarm of enemies appears near the end along with a sage boss.
I'll have to try positioning all of my units against the edge, and commencing rape when he appears.
Anyway, I got PoR for my birthday a few weeks back, SO GODDAMN GORGEOUS AND WONDERFUL but I'm a little stuck on precisely how I should do Mission 10 (minor spoilers ahoy):
[spoiler:f3ca4b0c7b]OK, so obviously I tell Volke to help my ass out. It took me a few tries to figure out how LoS on the patrols works (if they can move to you in a turn they "see" you etc.) but I'm wondering. Is it easier just to charge forward and spring the trap, then fight your way out? Or is it really a good idea to sneak through the entire thing? (And by entire thing I of course mean freeing everyone to boot. Nepheneeeee~) I've tried going sneaky but I keep getting caught.
I ask because the reinforcement groups are actually fairly weaksauce and don't seem that hard to kill. Do they reinforce fairly quickly?[/spoiler:f3ca4b0c7b]
Finally, when the hell can Ike promote? He's already dinged 20 on my game and I'm on mission 10.
EDIT: spoiler edit.
The prospect of [spoiler:1dbd7a1b7c]getting near him without dying or killing any of the other crows[/spoiler:1dbd7a1b7c] seems like a real pain in the ass and I haven't attempted it yet.
[spoiler:75e8f8d35b]Are you playing on easy or something? That's a ton of Ike levels. The end of mission 17. Which has four parts, some of which are as long as normal missions. Anyways, it is a tradeoff. You make more exp by killing everyone on easy mode, but on normal/hard you get a ton more just sneaking by. Its not that hard, just take a few turns and watch how they move.[/spoiler:75e8f8d35b]
The difficulties involved in sneaking through the whole thing were stupidly immense, and I didn't think the reward was worth it (it's another one of those things I just FAQ'd immediately). I just charged the first guy right away to spring the trap and get all that nice XP from killing the reinforcements.
Watch out for the boss, though, he's kind of a bitch.[/spoiler:1b789ebfcc]
[spoiler:e032394c0d]Beating Hard gives you a different ending, right?[/spoiler:e032394c0d]
[spoiler:2cbee94fd6] Eh, PoR on easy is as such that you can probably go through the game with just Ike and two other characters that you raise with bonus XP. Ike is so ridiculously overpowered with Aether. It's not like doing things like sharing experience actually matters [/spoiler:2cbee94fd6]
I've also played through Sacred Stones 4 or 5 times and have never entered a power-leveling extra stage or taken part in a random encounter.
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I do it the same way, and the first time on Hard I beat it without losing anyone, ever. It's still easy, because Ephraim is the Lord of Lords. Hector is a better character but he is even more powerful. His first unique weapon is better than some of the other game's final weapons!
They're moved one square in whatever direction they come from, I know because they landed on top of a small party I had occupying the space once who were not equipped to handle what had arrived and I flipped out. At least, I'm relatively sure that's what happened when I checked their deployment area later.
Nintendo Network: ProfHydron
XBox Gamertag: ProfHydron
Friend Safari: Fighting ~ Machoke, Pancham, Breloom add me and tag or msg me and I'll add you back
I'm sure I've blocked enemies from appearing by standing on forts before though. Maybe it depends on if they spawn from forts/stairs or just appear from the edge of the screen.
Oh yeah, standing on forts def. blocks reinforcements. I was referring to those that just come from mountains or hills n'things.
Nintendo Network: ProfHydron
XBox Gamertag: ProfHydron
Friend Safari: Fighting ~ Machoke, Pancham, Breloom add me and tag or msg me and I'll add you back
You can't stop off screen reinforcements, at all. I guess I just didn't understand it. You can totally meet them and kick their asses though, which is what I usually do.
If you're fast enough you'll be able to pull all this off before any of the crows transform, which rather improves your odds of getting the Knight Ring. However, this is more dangerous since there will be more enemy units lounging around and more ballista bolts to be shot at you. If you don't much care for the knight ring, doing the exact same thing, but a bit more slowly, taking the time to clear out the field, should be the best way of doing it.[/spoiler:c11f63680f]
I can't believe that I didn't pick up the GBA games. PoR is awesome, and I will be buying all future domestic releases. Titania for the awesomest character ever.
Bugger. Yay for mounted units, though.
Uhm...
I'm going to hide the rest behind a spoiler tag just in case. Not that it spoils anything about the plot or anything, but because Titania is a prime example of a certain type of unit that has shown up in pretty much every Fire Emblem game ever.
[spoiler:a86fc07e29]Titania is a Jeigan. In the first Fire Emblem, Jeigan was an old knight who started out as the strongest unit in the army, but had such bad growth rates that in the end he likely ended up as the weakest unit in the army. Jeigan was there to help out if the other units were still a bit too weak to take on the enemy all by themselves and to weaken bosses so that other units could then finish them off and get the EXP.
Titania isn't nearly as bad as Jeigan was. Her base stats are actually pretty mediocre or even low for her level (remember: she's a Paladin - a promoted version of Oscar, you might say. So she doesn't really start at level 1, but at level 21). However, her growth rates are high enough for her to remain quite useful throughout the game. It's just that she's basically a support unit. She's there to handle all the tough jobs early on and she's very good at it.[/spoiler:a86fc07e29]
Thats the way I felt when I played PoR. Can't wait for the Wii FE.
Things to note about finding FE games.
For the longest time every local Best Buy had dozens of copies of FE in their bargain bin for $9. It is a crime not to get the game at that price. I personally gave it to four people at that price. If your BB has a Gameboy bin, look carefully.
Sacred Stones is a bargain bin game at Toys R Us. Take a look for it.
PoR is RIGHT THIS MOMENT selling for $10 at Best Buy. Most stores seem overstocked, but you should buy this game, even if you don't have a Cube.
Which makes me wonder... when Intelligent Systems creates the characters and the plot and everything, do they make the characters first and assign them fitting unit classes or vice versa? I mean, I know how I would do it, but stil.
I suppose you could change Zihark into a mercenary, but other than him I don't see many unit changes happening. Except maybe change Geoffrey into a General. And Makalov into a Brigand.
Methinks the term both of us were searching for was unit choices. Funny thing about Malakov, while he's the goofest looking fucker in the game he's probably the best Paladin. Keiran starts nice but he always ends up average, and oscar is pretty good too, but nothing too fancy. Titania actually holds up really well, she's like a hot Seth.
I only started to like Heroes after I used the one from Sacred Stones. They are such a good unit that its not even funny.
As for Heroes, I never really used them. After all they start as sword-users, and I usually have plenty of sword-users lying around to need another one. Axe-users, on the other hand are a bit rarer, but I'm not always willing to level up a Mercenary to just get one (besides, in Blazing Sword, there's one guy who provides all the axe you could possibly need).