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[MushroomSamba]

As far as FE12's difficulty goes, Normal and Hard are standard Normal and Hard difficulties for the FE series. Maniac gives enemy units ridiculous boosts, and reclassing becomes a need early on due to requiring fliers/mages/archers to get past certain maps.

Lunatic is just stupidly frustrating. You WILL get mauled to death and you WILL get frustrated. It makes FE7's Hector Hard Mode look like a cakewalk.

There's a hidden fifth difficulty unlocked when you beat Lunatic. It's called Lunatic' (Note the apostrophe) and it's basically the same as Lunatic, except

Spoiler

all enemy units have a hidden Vantage skill that's "always on". This means that whenever you initiate an attack, the enemy unit will ALWAYS attack first (provided he is range of countering).

Lunatic was kicking my ass...I think Hard is probably the sweet spot for me in terms of being challenging, yet not frustratingly so.

I hate enemy reinforcements though. You never know who is coming and from where, and even worse, they get to act as soon as they arrive. There's no way to prepare for it. I guess it's a fun twist to make you improvise and adjust on the fly, but I hate it when they kill a character outright and force me to restart the chapter (yes, I'm doing that again).

Now let's see some impressions, people!

My impression so far? It's fucking great. I wasn't expecting it to be this good after the disappointing Shadow Dragon, but it's shaping up to be pretty damn worthy of the Fire Emblem moniker.

 

[Crash Station]

So I assume I shouldn't be using the level 10 people in the prologue chapters? Are they essentially pre-promoted units that just sap EXP and end up with meh stats?

 

[Javier]

So I assume I shouldn't be using the level 10 people in the prologue chapters? Are they essentially pre-promoted units that just sap EXP and end up with meh stats?

Most units in this game are usable since growths here are pretty generous, so the high level units you get in the prologue are still perfectly fine to use. Even pre-promotes are somewhat usable since they can grow better, but their base stats are pretty bad compared to a trained unit. Just remember those level-10 units leave after the prologue and return much later with the same stats, but they are still usable if you want to.

The only units with no potential whatsoever are Arran and Bantu (and in Arran's case, the game reminds you several times you should bench him after a while).

 

[MushroomSamba]

The only units with no potential whatsoever are Arran and Bantu (and in Arran's case, the game reminds you several times you should bench him after a while).

Yeah, his only use is pretty much as a decoy early on. Strip him of weapons and use him as a lure.

 

[Necrovex]

So I assume I shouldn't be using the level 10 people in the prologue chapters? Are they essentially pre-promoted units that just sap EXP and end up with meh stats?

In past Fire Emblems, those guys were always my meat shields.

 

[Aeana]

I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the translation. There are some issues, but it's much more well-made than I expected.

 

[The Awesomest]

My impressions: Finished prologue, 3.5 chapters in and I'm loving the heck out of this game. This is the best FE7 I've played since FE7. This is probably a better FE7 than FE7 itself.

And nearly all my units are usable! It's great! I'm having trouble deciding who to bench because everyone is so goo! I was trying to play through Shadow Dragon in anticipation of this, and quit like 9 chapters in because all my units, except like Caeda and two others, were TERRIBLE. Marth had like 6 Str. It was baaad.

So I assume I shouldn't be using the level 10 people in the prologue chapters? Are they essentially pre-promoted units that just sap EXP and end up with meh stats?

Not in the prologue chapters at least. They come back and can kick butt and have good growths.

 

[OceanBlue]

I'm at chapter 9 and am I missing something, or does no one gain RES except for Clerics? Even my Pegasus Knights have more DEF than RES, and most of my other characters have 0 RES except for Mages, which probably have less than 5 (with their other stats at ~10-15), and Clerics.

All I can do when I see a Mage is kill them and heal my character immediately or hope that no one else can get at him because, unless the Mage misses, my character is coming out of that battle with <10 life.

 

[The Awesomest]

growths chart

Yeah, looks like mages and clerics are the only ones who have a significant Res growth. Marth and Cavaliers have 5% growth, Peg knights have 10% growth.

 

[Starwolf_UK]

That reminds me, this should use the slightly odd growth rate system of Shadow Dragon. Basically whenever you gain a stat on a level up, the change of gaining a stat in that field goes down by a few percent. Likewise not gaining a stat increases the chance.

At this point, is it worth importing an SFC copy of Monsyo no Nazo (or however you romanize that) and playing a fan translation? Because I can't stand Shadow Dragons art style.

You'll be missing the grossly overpowered my unit character, a lot of new dialogue and maps. Plus the SFC is very sluggish (but you'll probably be playing on an emulator so not such a problem). There isn't a dialogue skip (though after seeing pre-chapter banter you can skip that if you've seen it).

One thing to note is SFC version is a lot cheaper though. It sold 600,000 units so is the most popular FE game in Japan (Awakening is most popular as of recent but I don't think its pulled those numbers). Also in a way not having the prologue campaign makes the start more of a rough landing (plus not having reclass means you have to use the medicore archers/hunters as there are a lot of strong flying units).

Pretty sure that literally the only "DSi Enhancement" on FE12 was Region Locking.

The DS could connect to the Internet and there are some bonus maps to play. The DSi supports WPA connection which due to how the firmware was on the cart (but talked to the system for connection values) means using WPA is using a DSi feature.

I also heard it takes picture of you when a unit dies but that may have been a troll.

On that note (FE4/5), did Thracia or Genealogy ever receive (competent) translation patches? To the point where there are no drawbacks for someone playing in English?

As have been said there are drawbacks. The FE5 translation uses this script but randomly changes parts (normally a whim). If you don't mind Felgus being called Fergy (this one was for font width IIRC) and Sety speaking more like Sanger Zonvolt/Zengar Zombolt you could use the patch.

 

[Chrom]

I also heard it takes picture of you when a unit dies but that may have been a troll.

Haha, I've never heard of this before but that's a funny idea. As far as I know it isn't true, however.

 

[dragonlife]

I'm so excited to play this. I guess I should force myself to beat Shadow Dragon first, though.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

I'm so excited to play this. I guess I should force myself to beat Shadow Dragon first, though.

Ugh. After Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, that game was so dissapoiting that I hated IntSys for a while.

I can't bring myself to finish it.

 

[dragonlife]

It was so disappointing that it's still the only localized FE game I have yet to beat. Bought it day one, too. Great localization... bad everything else. I'm pretty far in, though, so it shouldn't take me much longer... I hope.

 

[Necrovex]

It was so disappointing that it's still the only localized FE game I have yet to beat. Bought it day one, too. Great localization... bad everything else. I'm pretty far in, though, so it shouldn't take me much longer... I hope.

I get that feeling of disappointment. It the is lone localized FE I have not beat yet, and you guessed it, I bought it on day one.

 

[The Awesomest]

I also heard it takes picture of you when a unit dies but that may have been a troll.

It can't take a picture of you; the cameras are on the outside.

 

[Chrom]

It can't take a picture of you; the cameras are on the outside.

In addition to the one inside.

 

[Akito]

Goddamn the last chapter is a pain in the ass, the respawning dragons annoy the hell out of me and you can not rush the boss either if you don't want to kill off any character. I'm not sure if I have enough warp and rescue staffs to pull it off >_>

 

[dragonlife]

Haha. Figures. I was on chapter 24 in Shadow Dragon... beat it, did 24x, and am now in the endgame. Will probably finish it up later. It's just like me to unknowingly drop a game right at the end.

 

[Javier]

You know, it's kind of a troll move that in the last map in FE12

Spoiler

you HAVE to bring four specific characters if you want to recruit the four final characters and get the perfect ending. I mean, I understand the "only that special someone can break the spell" angle they were going for, but with such a huge cast in this game and so very few deployment spots, forcing those spots on four characters in addition to Marth and My Unit leaves very little choice for characters you want to train. They could have easily given more options to recruit some characters, like Marth for Elice, Matthis for Lena, etc.

 

[The Awesomest]

You know, it's kind of a troll move that in the last map in FE12

Spoiler

you HAVE to bring four specific characters if you want to recruit the four final characters and get the perfect ending. I mean, I understand the "only that special someone can break the spell" angle they were going for, but with such a huge cast in this game and so very few deployment spots, forcing those spots on four characters in addition to Marth and My Unit leaves very little choice for characters you want to train. They could have easily given more options to recruit some characters, like Marth for Elice, Matthis for Lena, etc.

Oh I know, right? At least Merric, Sirius, and Minerva are usable characters.

 

[Akito]

Well, with enough rescue staffs (thank god for the online store) the last chapter was a breeze, no need for leveling up the 4 required characters.

Spoiler

It's s pity the final boss is exactly the same as the one in SD, once again he was down after 2 hits.

While the story sometimes feels like a rehash of SD, overall this is a well improved sequel, I like the characters much more this time around, maybe because they actually have decent stats :lol
After having played one of the bonus chapters, I'm not sure if I'll do the rest. They do have some connection to the story but the characters you are forced to play with have seriously bad stats.

 

[MushroomSamba]

Is it just me or are there not many options for mages in this game? I'm only on Chapter 7, but so far Linde and that prince kid are the only ones I've encountered so far, with really only the former being somewhat serviceable. I'm kinda paranoid I missed some characters here.

By the way, who are the four mandatory characters?

 

[ohlawd]

Does this game allow for touch screen only movement or very little D-pad use?

My DS' dpad is borked. The right direction works only if I press hard and it cramps my thumb.

 

[Aeana]

Does this game allow for touch screen only movement or very little D-pad use?

My DS' dpad is borked. The right direction works only if I press hard and it cramps my thumb.

Yeah, you can use the touchscreen only if you want.

 

[Starwolf_UK]

By the way, who are the four mandatory characters?

Well three of them were posted above but:

Spoiler

Julian, Sirius, Meric, Minerva

 

[Javier]

Palla and Catria are flippin' broken. Raise them in the Base Arena and promote them early and you pretty much got the best units in the game.

 

[Extra Sauce]

I had Ryan die in the first non-training mission today

Spoiler

(when that purple-haired girl betrays Chris)

and he just said he'd retreat for now.

I thought character deaths were permanent in this game? Pretty sure I selected "Classic" mode.

 

[OceanBlue]

I had Ryan die in the first non-training mission today

Spoiler

(when that purple-haired girl betrays Chris)

and he just said he'd retreat for now.

I thought character deaths were permanent in this game? Pretty sure I selected "Classic" mode.

You're in the prologue, right? Deaths in the prologue aren't permanent.

Palla and Catria are flippin' broken. Raise them in the Base Arena and promote them early and you pretty much got the best units in the game.

For me, the protagonist and Caeda are pretty good so far. I think my protagonist has 16+ of every stat aside from RES and MAG pre-promote.

 

[InsaneZero]

I had Ryan die in the first non-training mission today

Spoiler

(when that purple-haired girl betrays Chris)

and he just said he'd retreat for now.

I thought character deaths were permanent in this game? Pretty sure I selected "Classic" mode.

I haven't started this particular iteration yet, but typically in Fire Emblem games plot-necessary characters "retreat" from battle rather than actually die. They're treated as permanent removals from your roster all the same.

 

[GSR]

My Unit is absurd. I'm classed as an archer and have better strength and defense than armor knights.

 

[Laughing Banana]

I am playing on hard since I heard it unlocks more classes to use for MU and the rest of the gang on replays.

I retried the final prologue mission exactly 3 times due to various AAAARRGGHHHH moments. Mostly because I misjudge enemies' movement range and the seemingly never ending supply of goddamn reinforcements that just keep coming and coming and coming and coming...................

You definitely can't rush and enemies need to be baited one by one if you want to keep everyone alive and well in the end. Damn that guy with the Silver Axe!

Of course, me having difficulties on this stage can also be contributed to the fact that I insist on using all the rookies and not the level 6/10 characters. Most of them are still on level 4-5, with MU on level 7 going to 8. Pretty much almost anyone with an axe can kill Cecille in one shot, hahaha.

Got stupidly unlucky with one level ups with Rody with just ONE level up in Skill! I want to kick that guy so hard. But then at his next level up he levels up 5 attributes at once! *Sigh* I don't know what to do with this guy. At least Luke has always been consistent when he levels up with 4-5 attributes raised nearly all the time.

 

[MushroomSamba]

Yeah, I ended up benching Rody, only because I was already going with Cecille (who I eventually benched later on) and Luke. Cecille had mediocre growths for me, but Luke turned out to be a friggin' powerhouse. He's quite possibly my best character right now.

Made the mistake of classing my protagonist as a myrmidon though. She's pretty badass with insane speed and relatively high strength and defense for her class, but most of the enemies so far are lance/armored units. She's kinda redundant with Marth, too. I'll probably reclass her later on. Going with an axe-capable class would've made more sense, since there don't seem to be a lot of great axe-users in this game either, especially early on.

 

[The Awesomest]

Yeah, I made My Unit into a myrm in hopes of having a dodge-crit machine, but I was harshly reminded that dodge tanks don't really exist in the DS games and crit rates are typically pretty low. Bleh. Rody had a few good levelups in the prologue but then petered out. Luke is quite good. Cecille is... alright. Caeda and Catria are machines. Frey showed up and decided to fight Cecille for a roster spot by getting several consecutive 4% crits and 70% dodges. In an earlier pre-patched playthrough, I made My Unit a Str/Def Cavalier, and then gave her boots. She could take on dragons without breaking a sweat.

In other news, the Heroes of Shadow have found a fix for characters names getting cut off, and are currently playtesting it to make sure it doesn't break anything.

 

[Extra Sauce]

Am I doing it wrong, or is there no way to compare weapon stats when shopping and equipping? One of my biggest RPG pet peeves.

 

[Aveyn Knight]

Weapon stats add exactly to a character's stats. So 15 Might on a weapon plus a character eith 10 Strength gives you 25 attack power, possibly slightly more with bonuses.

The game shows the weapon stats when purchasing, which is all you need to know.

 

[PataHikari]

Plus it's not like weapons are particularly complex in Fire Emblem.

 

[The Awesomest]

Am I doing it wrong, or is there no way to compare weapon stats when shopping and equipping? One of my biggest RPG pet peeves.

Have you tried pressing select? In any case, the weapons are pretty simple. Iron upgrades to steel which upgrades to silver. Killers add crits. Javelins and handaxes have more range. Everything else can be assumed to be either awesome or crappy.

 

[chaosblade]

Have you tried pressing select? In any case, the weapons are pretty simple. Iron upgrades to steel which upgrades to silver. Killers add crits. Javelins and handaxes have more range. Everything else can be assumed to be either awesome or crappy.

The stats don't really scale that way though, steel is less accurate and harder to double with early on due to it's higher weight, so you might find iron to be a better choice at times. Just as an example.


But weapons are pretty simple, you'll gradually run across more different kinds and can see their effects, like weapons that are effective against armored enemies, or weapons that reverse the weapon triangle (if those are in this game).

The only time the basic weapons (iron, steel, silver, etc) are ever different is if the game has a crafting system and you make something yourself.

 

[OceanBlue]

The stats don't really scale that way though, steel is less accurate and harder to double with early on due to it's higher weight, so you might find iron to be a better choice at times. Just as an example.


But weapons are pretty simple, you'll gradually run across more different kinds and can see their effects, like weapons that are effective against armored enemies, or weapons that reverse the weapon triangle (if those are in this game).

The only time the basic weapons (iron, steel, silver, etc) are ever different is if the game has a crafting system and you make something yourself.

Actually, CON and weight don't factor into double attacks in this game, as far as I can tell. I think it's only if someone's speed is 4 higher than their opponent.

 

[Javier]

Yeah, Weapon Weight and Constitution were taken out of this game completely. The only drawback between Steel over Iron is that Steel has 10 less Hit. Other than that, you should use Steel as soon as you reach the Weapon Rank.

 

[Chrom]

Actually, CON and weight don't factor into double attacks in this game, as far as I can tell. I think it's only if someone's speed is 4 higher than their opponent.

Yeah, Attack Speed technically doesn't exist anymore, since they simply use units' Speed stats to determine whether or not they double, with the threshold being 4 or greater. Nothing else. Weapons don't have a Wt stat in FE12, and this is also true for FE13.

That said, because Wt doesn't exist, there's no reason not to use a stronger weapon like Steel or Silver unless you're trying to be efficient with weapon uses or are favoring Hit.

Edit: Con as well, yeah.

 

[The Awesomest]

Silver has the same hit as iron even! It's great!

 

[kswiston]

So I finally have my copy and got some good time in with the game.

A few thoughts:

- I wish I realized that the My Unit's stat growths depended on how I answered those questions at the beginning of the game. I randomly made some bad choices (+2 def, no growth for the first, +10% luck/+5% res growth for the second, and +30% health growth for the third), so I am stuck with a My Unit with fairly average stats. I decided to make him a Mage with a souped up fire scroll though, so he is still plenty useful.

- Holy hell does this game have a lot of units. Is this a record for the most units in a Fire Emblem game? I am on Chapter 14 and I think I have close to 60. Looking through character lists it looks like I will get at least 15 more before I finish. This game has at least as many characters as Radiant Dawn without the game mechanic that splits them into 3 different parties until the end. As such, I have barely touched/haven't used two thirds of them.

- I miss in-battle support conversations, but at least they are present in some form.

- It makes sense given the vast number of characters you get (and therefore large number of good units), but this game is much harder at the beginning than it is in the middle. I had to worry about unit placement a lot more when my units died in 2 hits. Now my main units can kill multiple enemies with ease. I would imagine this is not the case in the harder difficulties, but the main challenge right now is recruiting characters before I accidentally annihilate them in a counter attack.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

So I finally have my copy and got some good time in with the game.

A few thoughts:

- I wish I realized that the My Unit's stat growths depended on how I answered those questions at the beginning of the game. I randomly made some bad choices (+2 def, no growth for the first, +10% luck/+5% res growth for the second, and +30% health growth for the third), so I am stuck with a My Unit with fairly average stats. I decided to make him a Mage with a souped up fire scroll though, so he is still plenty useful.

- Holy hell does this game have a lot of units. Is this a record for the most units in a Fire Emblem game? I am on Chapter 14 and I think I have close to 60. Looking through character lists it looks like I will get at least 15 more before I finish. This game has at least as many characters as Radiant Dawn without the game mechanic that splits them into 3 different parties until the end. As such, I have barely touched/haven't used two thirds of them.

- I miss in-battle support conversations, but at least they are present in some form.

- It makes sense given the vast number of characters you get (and therefore large number of good units), but this game is much harder at the beginning than it is in the middle. I had to worry about unit placement a lot more when my units died in 2 hits. Now my main units can kill multiple enemies with ease. I would imagine this is not the case in the harder difficulties, but the main challenge right now is recruiting characters before I accidentally annihilate them in a counter attack.

Nice impressions. I would like to play this game, but I don't have the money to be importing at this time of the year.

In-battle support conversations disappearing was the best thing from FE6/7/8 to FE9/10 because I had to waste turns to get them to converse. So I won't be missing that.

 

[Chrom]

Fire Emblem Awakening offers almost 200 different playable units thanks to SpotPass and DLC.

 

[kswiston]

Fire Emblem Awakening offers almost 200 different playable units thanks to SpotPass and DLC.

Are the Spot Pass characters just randomized generic units? 200 units is overkill. Can you use all of those in the main campaign or just on special maps?

 

[totoro'd]

This is a sequel to Shadow Dragon right? Not sure if this has been asked yet, but if I wasn't that fond of Shadow Dragon and didn't finish it, will I need to in order to play this one (if they're connected story-wise etc)?

 

[Peff]

This is a sequel to Shadow Dragon right? Not sure if this has been asked yet, but if I wasn't that fond of Shadow Dragon and didn't finish it, will I need to in order to play this one (if they're connected story-wise etc)?

It's a remake of a 1990 game, the good guys use the legendary artifact/sword to defeat the evil tyrant . The characters from the first game return and you may get the feeling of "ah, it's that guy!", but you won't be lost. It's not like they were really fleshed out anyways.

 

[Chrom]

Are the Spot Pass characters just randomized generic units? 200 units is overkill. Can you use all of those in the main campaign or just on special maps?

Most of the SpotPass ones are legacy characters that are more or less generic in a sense, yeah. They're all usable in the story in the same way that anyone else in the game is, but I believe that there's a limit to how many you can have at once per file in addition to the DLC characters. The number escapes me but I'm fairly sure it's a relatively large number anyway.

This is a sequel to Shadow Dragon right? Not sure if this has been asked yet, but if I wasn't that fond of Shadow Dragon and didn't finish it, will I need to in order to play this one (if they're connected story-wise etc)?

That is right, this game is the direct sequel to Shadow Dragon. You really don't need to play Shadow Dragon in order to efficiently enjoy this game, though. I'm fairly sure that Shadow Dragon's events are summed up quickly in the beginning. I honestly wouldn't worry about it if I were you, since Shadow Dragon didn't have much of a plot anyway.

You could always refer to Shadow Dragon's game script if you want.