I'm actually surprised of the divisive this expansion turns to be, some things are fair, like the amount of reinforcements and the way they appear in some maps, that definitely can use some adjustment, but things like Nil being useless seems weird to me, after all, that's the idea, you have to protect him, and even so, there are plenty of ways of use him, personally I put him the Micaiah emblem and I used him as support, so the only time I lost for his dead was my fault.
The map design in general is more forgiving than people seems to give credit to, I played in hard and granted, it is, but, for example, chapter 5, the one which most hate seems to being receiving isn't so bad, in this map, you have to take care of 2 units, your avatar and Nel, the first one starts being attacked by a mage cannoneer which isn't very precise, giving you more than enough time to reach and heal them, then appears a dragon, if you have Lyn's Astra, is dead and that issue is resolve, if not, it's a 50/50 hit that gives you 2-3 turns to heal if it always hit, virtually taking away only one unit for you to heal him, after all, reinforcements doesn't appear from behind, making that healer safe. Nel is even less problematic, she's is principally being attacked by one enemy and even without rings (And you have access to them), it's not like she can really be one shotted, and she has more than enough elixirs to live until someone reach her, as a matter of fact, she can even take the reinforcements in the room if you know how to move (I sure did), if anything, is the amount of summons Fogado do to the end of the map what is unfair, because you have very little time to respond and it's a lot. I actually think the big offender of the flaws in the map design is the final one, it has a very specific way of being played and if you don't follow that way, it punishes you extremely hard, this map actually was the only time I lost and had to reset in the entire Xenologe. I completed the rest of the maps in the first try, and I don't think I am specially good at the game.
I really enjoy this fixed challenges, makes easier to mess with different strategies, even if some quality of life improvements would be appreciated, like the possibility of change the inventory of the new units in the preparations or that the inventory doesn't reset between maps
Therefore, the gameplay is not as good as the main game, but not as bad as some people seem to believe. As for the story, I find it more compelling and interesting than the main one, even if it needs the other to be appreciated, at least most people seem to agree on that.
The map design in general is more forgiving than people seems to give credit to, I played in hard and granted, it is, but, for example, chapter 5, the one which most hate seems to being receiving isn't so bad, in this map, you have to take care of 2 units, your avatar and Nel, the first one starts being attacked by a mage cannoneer which isn't very precise, giving you more than enough time to reach and heal them, then appears a dragon, if you have Lyn's Astra, is dead and that issue is resolve, if not, it's a 50/50 hit that gives you 2-3 turns to heal if it always hit, virtually taking away only one unit for you to heal him, after all, reinforcements doesn't appear from behind, making that healer safe. Nel is even less problematic, she's is principally being attacked by one enemy and even without rings (And you have access to them), it's not like she can really be one shotted, and she has more than enough elixirs to live until someone reach her, as a matter of fact, she can even take the reinforcements in the room if you know how to move (I sure did), if anything, is the amount of summons Fogado do to the end of the map what is unfair, because you have very little time to respond and it's a lot. I actually think the big offender of the flaws in the map design is the final one, it has a very specific way of being played and if you don't follow that way, it punishes you extremely hard, this map actually was the only time I lost and had to reset in the entire Xenologe. I completed the rest of the maps in the first try, and I don't think I am specially good at the game.
I really enjoy this fixed challenges, makes easier to mess with different strategies, even if some quality of life improvements would be appreciated, like the possibility of change the inventory of the new units in the preparations or that the inventory doesn't reset between maps
Therefore, the gameplay is not as good as the main game, but not as bad as some people seem to believe. As for the story, I find it more compelling and interesting than the main one, even if it needs the other to be appreciated, at least most people seem to agree on that.
2 Comments
Glad I'm not the only one who finds the knee-jerk bashing too overblown. I actually liked FX5.
Yoshistar_123
11 months ago
I think the last two Xenologue chapters include traps that are the bane of existence for first-timers, and it's a common theme that had also been seen a lot in Maddening Three Houses. I think those two chapters could have been reworked to be more fair, since they more-so punished people who unknowingly played them. That said, whilst my opinion is slightly more negative than yours on FX, I can at least agree that the fixed challenge was an interesting take on the DLC formulae, and it provided some fun to be had. It just slightly punished those who didn't grind for certain skills, and at times it can feel like a little bit of a roadblock - especially if you're early game and don't have much SP to use.