Just now got around to playing this game after being curious of it for so long due to Roy being in Smash Bros since Melee and not knowing much about him. Same with Fire Emblem Geneology of the Holy War, the fans will do what Nintendon't. That being allowing people who live outside of Japan to being able to play the game in languages that are not Japanese.
Anyways, the game is pretty good. It's another solid game in the series. I have some general thoughts below.
With this being the first game without Kaga, I definitely felt that while playing it. The story felt like a re-imagining of FE1 with Marth for a good bit until the story later on adds some neat twists. I am guessing they did not know what to do story-wise when Kaga left, and so looked at the past games to get a general understanding of what worked and went with it. Not just story-wise I felt it, but definitely gameplay-wise too. The game to me felt like it was not play-tested enough with its low growth rates and hit rates, but that's just my headcanon as far as what went on in development. All I know is that the growth rates being low was oof, and the hit rates being low I definitely felt it even on Normal mode. Not sure if I will ever try Hard mode. Maybe one day.
To summarize some thoughts in a list below:
1. The low growth rates sucked, as well as the hit rates.
2. Sucks to see another game where axes suck.
3. The story feels heavily borrowed from Marth's first game until later on where they decide to change it up.
4. Roy is definitely the weakest lord I have played in a Fire Emblem game, but he is not as weak as people play him up to be. Maybe it was cause I did not play on hard mode and beefed him up with every stat booster I found (Not counting any secret shops), but he wasn't terrible in Normal. I do think I started getting lucky level ups with him.
5. I did find myself to be more invested in the story of this game after already having played the prequel that came out after this game. It really sucked to see how dirty the FE7 cast got done but ah well. Does make me wonder where Lyn even was during Binding Blade because she got killed off screen by someone or a virus. There is no way she would not help in Roy's cause against Bern. I understand she did not exist in FE6, and only did loosely once she was made in FE7, but still, makes me scratch my head.
6. Even in Normal mode I am surprised at the amount of bleh/bad units in this game. It feels to me like you are just supposed to abuse Marcus, Rutger, or Dieck to get through the game for the most part. I personally found myself only abusing Rutger and sidelined Marcus and Dieck.
7. If it was not for Rutger I feel as though I would have struggled with the bosses of each chapter with those massive throne bonuses.
8. I really do hate that the legendary weapons have such low durability. Sucks even more that if they break you lock yourself out of the true ending if they break before you get to the true ending chapters.
9. Some of the ambush spawns were truly ambushes. They caused me to reset the whole chapter because they came out of nowhere and killed my squishy healer that was with my team. No forts or stairs were nearby at all, they just popped up in a few chapters just to troll me.
10. Most of the difficulty I faced in this game was me not knowing which units were bad and which were good upon a blind playthrough and struggling hard to make weak units work. As far as I know, some units I believe to be good are Marcus, Rutger, Melady (If she gets good level ups), Percival, Alan, sorta Lance, Lugh, sorta Dieck, Astolfo, sorta Sue, sorta Niime (if you want a user that can quickly get S rank for Apocalypse), Yoder, Karel, sorta Fae, and sorta Cecilia.
11. I am glad I decided to look up a recruitment guide for this game, because not being able to throw Roy at everyone to recruit them had me scratching my head sometimes. It's fine to not having the main lord recruit everyone, I just think some recruitments should be more heavily hinted at, such as why Lilina has to be the one to recruit Gonzalez instead of just anyone being nice to him and telling him to stop.
12. I do not think getting the true ending is hard in itself once you know what to do. It's easy to get to for most of the requirements, except for the part where you have to not kill Douglas. On a completely blind playthrough where you look absolutely nothing up, you gonna kill Douglas and then wonder why you didn't get the True Ending. The other thing I can see someone messing up on their first playthrough is not knowing that you have to not break any of the legendary weapons you get.
Again, I had my fun and this is another solid game. Has some issues I think happened because Kaga left Nintendo and so other employees had to step in more to figure out what Fire Emblem was and where to take it. It's rough around the edges, but worth a play in my book.
Anyways, the game is pretty good. It's another solid game in the series. I have some general thoughts below.
With this being the first game without Kaga, I definitely felt that while playing it. The story felt like a re-imagining of FE1 with Marth for a good bit until the story later on adds some neat twists. I am guessing they did not know what to do story-wise when Kaga left, and so looked at the past games to get a general understanding of what worked and went with it. Not just story-wise I felt it, but definitely gameplay-wise too. The game to me felt like it was not play-tested enough with its low growth rates and hit rates, but that's just my headcanon as far as what went on in development. All I know is that the growth rates being low was oof, and the hit rates being low I definitely felt it even on Normal mode. Not sure if I will ever try Hard mode. Maybe one day.
To summarize some thoughts in a list below:
1. The low growth rates sucked, as well as the hit rates.
2. Sucks to see another game where axes suck.
3. The story feels heavily borrowed from Marth's first game until later on where they decide to change it up.
4. Roy is definitely the weakest lord I have played in a Fire Emblem game, but he is not as weak as people play him up to be. Maybe it was cause I did not play on hard mode and beefed him up with every stat booster I found (Not counting any secret shops), but he wasn't terrible in Normal. I do think I started getting lucky level ups with him.
5. I did find myself to be more invested in the story of this game after already having played the prequel that came out after this game. It really sucked to see how dirty the FE7 cast got done but ah well. Does make me wonder where Lyn even was during Binding Blade because she got killed off screen by someone or a virus. There is no way she would not help in Roy's cause against Bern. I understand she did not exist in FE6, and only did loosely once she was made in FE7, but still, makes me scratch my head.
6. Even in Normal mode I am surprised at the amount of bleh/bad units in this game. It feels to me like you are just supposed to abuse Marcus, Rutger, or Dieck to get through the game for the most part. I personally found myself only abusing Rutger and sidelined Marcus and Dieck.
7. If it was not for Rutger I feel as though I would have struggled with the bosses of each chapter with those massive throne bonuses.
8. I really do hate that the legendary weapons have such low durability. Sucks even more that if they break you lock yourself out of the true ending if they break before you get to the true ending chapters.
9. Some of the ambush spawns were truly ambushes. They caused me to reset the whole chapter because they came out of nowhere and killed my squishy healer that was with my team. No forts or stairs were nearby at all, they just popped up in a few chapters just to troll me.
10. Most of the difficulty I faced in this game was me not knowing which units were bad and which were good upon a blind playthrough and struggling hard to make weak units work. As far as I know, some units I believe to be good are Marcus, Rutger, Melady (If she gets good level ups), Percival, Alan, sorta Lance, Lugh, sorta Dieck, Astolfo, sorta Sue, sorta Niime (if you want a user that can quickly get S rank for Apocalypse), Yoder, Karel, sorta Fae, and sorta Cecilia.
11. I am glad I decided to look up a recruitment guide for this game, because not being able to throw Roy at everyone to recruit them had me scratching my head sometimes. It's fine to not having the main lord recruit everyone, I just think some recruitments should be more heavily hinted at, such as why Lilina has to be the one to recruit Gonzalez instead of just anyone being nice to him and telling him to stop.
12. I do not think getting the true ending is hard in itself once you know what to do. It's easy to get to for most of the requirements, except for the part where you have to not kill Douglas. On a completely blind playthrough where you look absolutely nothing up, you gonna kill Douglas and then wonder why you didn't get the True Ending. The other thing I can see someone messing up on their first playthrough is not knowing that you have to not break any of the legendary weapons you get.
Again, I had my fun and this is another solid game. Has some issues I think happened because Kaga left Nintendo and so other employees had to step in more to figure out what Fire Emblem was and where to take it. It's rough around the edges, but worth a play in my book.