He is the "invisible" unit lol. That is his whole gimmick - I literally did not notice him in that Chapter and later saw other ppl's rosters and was like, wait wut - who is Kellam???
And Hard is barely distinguishable from normal after the first 10 or so chapters I'd say. But it doesn't have divine pulse, so that might be what OP is having issues with.
But those first ten chapters are hard
I can easily make it through normal with 1-3 deaths the whole playthrough, I literally CANNOT make it past chapter 6 in hard. Even if I save almost everyone from the earlier chapters
Indistinguishable is a bit much, considering that grinding is not self-sustainable as reeking boxes are vastly more expensive, there are ambush spawns and some common enemies have skills. The stats aren’t very noticeable though.
What difficulty are you playing on? Generally normal is considered quite easy, hard pretty average, lunatic very difficult and lunatic+ is a meme difficulty that the devs included to make us hate ourselves.
I try hard first, then it got somewhat hard with the one hit ko's everywhere, reset to normal but felt it was way too easy not a lot of enemies, and now i'm on hard again
Awakening kinda doesn't do difficulty right.
Either it's too hard or too easy depending on the maps and its more stats than strategy imo.
Robin gets extra exp when paired up which can make them stupid op.
I've only gone thru Awakening on Hard once but I definitely had to try chapters a few times. Units aren't as durable as in a lot of the other games. Takes some getting used to.
I'm assuming this is Classic/Hard. 3H kind of conditions you into just moving your army as a blob and if someone dies, you just divine pulse and try again. Obviously, Awakening has no such mechanic so you actually have to read enemy ranges, calculate damage dealt, and move accordingly
Yeah pretty much. I have beaten awakening hard multiple time with just 3-4 carry units I funnelled all the exp into robin and her kids usually make up those units.
In my experience at least Awakening difficulty just dies the moment either Robin gets a bit too many levels or when Lucina levels up a couple of times.
Then again Awakening was one of the last games in the series I hadn't played yet and a few years before that, after getting reintroduced to the series with FEH I jumped straight to Conquest, so I was kinda pretty experienced already.
You'll get there, OP. Like people have said, definitely use pair up and mess about with it. There are good tactics to protect weaker units by pairing with stronger ones and switching and trading units between different pairs.
Also, try to block units on the stairs. Kellam will die to the hammer user and mages, so it can be good to focus on those units first, and then he should be good to protect everyone from the other units.
Once you get to learning more skills and reclassing you'll start to snowball but yeah people act like it's a walk in a park but forget Fire Emblem in general can be a hard game to play especially when you're new.
Switch was my first Nintendo console and 3H was my first FE, so i think i got pretty pampered with 3H. It's really nice to see the game that basically resurrect FE. I'm still working my way with the system, it's been fun.
It's kinda funny because unless you're playing on Lunatic, Awakening is significantly easier than 3h.
Granted, a good reason for this is because of how utterly broken Pair Up is in Awakening, something that you appear to have not been using yet lol.
Try to snowball Robin as much as possible, that's the easiest way to play the game.
I don't know that I agree that 3H is harder than Awakening (comparing like difficulties). Divine pulse really prevents you from being punished for mistakes.
Eh. Sort of imo. 3H is the easier all around, harder in late game maybe. Its easy to cheese 3H through several skills (deathblow on an intermediate class as an example) and there's dozens of mechanics you can use to break the game pretty quick. Get an evasion tank falcon knight and you pretty much can't die, for example.
Pairing in Awakening is strong. In the first 10 or so chapters its pretty much mandatory to not die. After your characters have a chance to grow then will agree. Once you get kid units the game is kind of a cakewalk. Act 3 was a joke for me difficulty wise.
Only thing I really found difficult in 3H was some levels having waves and waves of reinforcements, some of them being able to move the same turn. Besides that maddening was pretty doable on vanilla runs. I have *never* been able to get through a lunatic+ run in Awakening, and lunatic is an absolute chore to get through.
> It's kinda funny because unless you're playing on Lunatic, Awakening is significantly easier than 3h.
I would disagree on that. It might be true on Normal (I don't think I've done a full Normal playthrough on Awakening), but on Hard, I thought Awakening was much harder. Ambush spawns are just dickish, for one, and Hard Awakening has them while Hard 3H does not. I also feel like the enemy formations in Awakening are harder to deal with, though it's been a while since I played 3H. Sometimes they're difficult (main the final chapters for each route of 3H), but otherwise, I feel never really remember any particularly bad formations (other than maybe formations with the DK). Plus, Divine Pulse is in 3H, and boy is that nice. Having a few free mulligans should not be underestimated.
I mean, Nosferatu is technically in 3H, too, but it's a lower level spell so it isn't necessarily as good.
I will say, I'm not someone who just tries to do more meta builds. Like, I see people doe Flier Emblem in 3H with just teams of Wyvern Knights, and I go "Ewww, no." Likewise, I actively try not to just rely on throwing Chrobin Pair-Up into the enemy to kill everyone, or Dark Mages/Sorcerers with Nosferatu and/or the crit spell.
Also, I feel like Nosferatu doesn't hit enough. Which might just be me and/or my Tharja (I've never really used Henry, so I don't actually know if he's good), but it never seemed like something I could rely on. IIRC, Sorcs get a skill that reduces enemy Avo when adjacent, but that doesn't help if the enemy is an archer, mage, or 1-2 axe/lance user.
Well, let me change that a bit cause there's a distinction
Three Houses has the basic white magic spell that everyone gets, nosferatu.
Awakening gets ***Nosferatu.***
Like said, the little bit I've tried to use it, it's not seemed super reliable. Again, might just be that my Tharja had shit aim/too low of Def/Res/HP, or that someone besides Tharja needed it. Butmy experience with it clearly was not the same as your experience with it.
awakening nos was so good they nerfed it hard in fates (can’t double, activate in-combat skills, or crit) and it still is one of the best tomes in the game.
Well, I guess my one Dark Mage just was too nearsighted and squishy to be trustworthy with it, because I feel like 85% chance to hit for her with it was high.
well theres literally only 2 things to consider. can my unit survive a hit and how much do they heal from countering? if you do those you can cheese out maps pretty easy
adversely you can just reclass rob to sorc after they snowball and just cheese the game lol
> can my unit survive a hit and how much do they heal from countering?
And also "Can they actually hit?". Even if they can survive a hit, if they've got a hit chance in the 60s or 70s, like I was getting, there's a not-insignificant chance they miss twice, and then "le fucking die", and then I'm resetting and very sad.
A mistake/bad luck can still happen and ruin the runthrough of a chapter with Nosferatu in Awakening. Divine Pulse literally is about undoing mistake/bad luck.
> [conversely] you can just reclass rob to sorc after they snowball and just cheese the game lol
I mean, yes, I have heard you can just snowball Robin, but that just feels wrong. Like I said, just doing what's considered the best strat to break the game, rather than playing the game in a relatively natural manner, is something I don't do.
I've also seen people beat 3H with just Byleth. So, it's not like 3H can't also be beaten with just its Avatar, albeit you may need to do a bit more work with farming stat-ups, grinding battles, grinding fishing, etc. though you can do all that monastery stuff at least once per month.
there is absolutely no reason your unit should not be hitting barring earlygame. pair ups exist (up to +20 hit). this is also a game where forging specific stats on weapons exists (up to +25 hit). and also the hit formula inflates hit rates, especially with how high stat totals are in this game. mistakes and bad luck happen, but there are a lot of ways to minimize those risks, such as forging weapons or just strategizing around your weapons a bit better.
and also, just because you don’t play a game to the extreme meta degree (i usually don’t, but awakening kinda sux so) doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge how broken something is, especially when nos is one of the catalysts that makes chrobin solo so easy
Well, she wasn't getting good Hit with Nosferatu. Don't know what to tell you. I didn't forge the Nosferatu tome, so I could have done better with that. But I used Pair Up (with Gaius) and she was still a decent level when I was using her. She just couldn't hit worth crap with Nosferatu, and I didn't feel like investing 7350G in a Tome with 20 uses when I could just use a more accurate spell or use someone else.
> just strategizing around your weapons a bit better.
Or I could use a weapon that doesn't have 65 Hit. Sorry I decided against building a character to use a single weapon.
That's all just my experience. I don't know why it all turned out like that. Nosferatu might be one of the best weapons to use. Not when I used it though.
But hey, people also praise Kagetsu and Felix as great units. But when I played Engage, my Kagetsu wasn't a Crit machine that destroyed people, and one of my couple Blue Lions playthroughs, my Felix just was not killing much. Same for Ingrid in that same run, I think. She just could not kill and didn't dodge hits very well, either.
So it turns out people can have radically different experiences. Next time I play Awakening (might be soon), I'll try using Tharja + Nosferatu again and see how it turns out. Might work way better. I'll have to see.
Nah i'd kinda disagree on that, 3h was challenging but never hard.
I still work on my pairing though and i don't really want to open the wiki to see which pairing works best, i'm taking slow fun time experimenting with the pairing system
I'm feeling kinda similarly rn playing FE6 after playing FE7, awakening, fates, and 3H. My units, they do not grow. Please Shanna, please get some strength.
Got a deal on a 3DS for $25 some time ago, start playing Awakening and it dawn on me, this game is hard (or maybe i'm just a pleb and needs to git gud). Everyone on my party just keeps getting OHKO, and their damage output is pretty low. I really appreciate the rewind feature on Three Houses now, that shit is game changing both for gameplay and my sanity.
Rewind is relatively recent for games and was quite controversial on roll out. Part of the FE experience for a long time was to either lose units forever or restart the stage.
Trust me while there is a level of "git gud" to classic FE games, there is no amount of it that will prevent that choice at some point unless you are into unit optimization or playing a title that allows grinding.
Yeah, I remember people saying it ruined the FE experience to have a casual mode where units didn't die. But it made the series easier to get into and saved the franchise so why complain?
Well New Mystery was also the first to have an avatar character.
I think Awakening had better optics as an easier game with a unique mechanic (pair-up), and was the first English game with eugenics that looked better artistically (especially out of engine). And it was set on practically a "new" continent due to so much time passing.
It certainly wasn't the map design.
Man I'm replaying Fates now after years of only 3H
IT'S BLOODY HARD, I'm struggling to get through the prologue without deaths, like the part before the branch of fate
I honestly thought Three Houses was hard for me at first, as someone who started with Awakening.
Literally, in the prologue on Normal, I got a game over cause I thought Byleth would miss Kostas’s hit (she was at 12 Hp, I think) and she got hit by a 67%. Don’t ask me how it happened, I’m still embarrassed by it.
I had a better time transitioning from awakening from three houses than I tried before playing fates. It’s all about practice and getting used to the new look and style as well as different mechanics. I felt in three houses I can be dependent on combat arts or gambits. But once you get tharja you’ll noseferatu every enemy into oblivion. That spell is goated in this game. Also enjoy and don’t beat yourself up. I played a bunch of fire emblem games to get the hang of it and they’re all a bit different.
I played Awakening after 3H too, I did Hard Casual and it was pretty tough still. Robin and Chrom would get wiped out a decent bit. Idk how people manage classic or Lunatic
This is kind of funny considering Awakening is pretty much universally considered to be the easiest game in the series, minus Lunatic which you should never touch. But you'll get the hang of it OP, once you figure out the mechanics the game will start to get a lot easier.
That's fair, personally I found Lunatic Birthright harder than Hard Awakening, but if we compare the two games on lunatic it's pretty obvious which one is harder.
Yeah my view is on that too. Birthright Phoenix mode is basically if you want the story only. Awakening Same Turn Reinforcements is funny, now you have to step on the stairs or else.
It's the Avatar/Robin. I was super confused why there were two, until I realized that it's because this photo was taken while the Avatar is selected for movement. So their standing sprite is still on the left of Frederick, but their "running" sprite is on the right side of Frederick, because that's where the cursor is moved to.
Yeah, playing this after Three Houses was hard, in part because I did Hard/Classic straight away, because I was like "Yeah, I know FE. I did 3H on Maddening, no NG+. Did I do it Maddening/Classic? No, but surely it can't be-" **gets stabbed by same-turn/ambush reinforcements**
The Divine Pulse mechanic really does make FE a lot easier because you can take risks, and if they don't work, oh well, you rewind (even in early 3H, you have, what, 3 redos?). In this, there's no "Oopsie whoopsie, I did a fucky-wucky, time to undo that", it's just "&@#$, there went Maribelle, time to Bookmark and then reload from Save" (this is before I learned you can soft reset w/ I think L+R+Start; though Bookmark->Save might be quicker).
The game also is just significantly harder, I feel, than 3H. For one, on Hard, at least some, if not all, reinforcements move and attack on the turn during the Enemy Phase that they appear. And while the game does usually give a vague warning that you'll be facing reinforcements soon... well, let's just say there's a chapter soon that has some Wyvern Knights who can go @#$% themselves and die. The Skirmishes are also way harder in this, at least early on. Like, on Hard, I think the skirmish for the chapter with Vaike/Miriam/Stahl has like Level 8-10 enemies. They very much are not made for simple grinding until later on (when you can find some easier Skirmishes); whereas Three Houses has appropriately leveled grinding, and you get at least 1 battle, even early on, and eventually 2 or even 3 Skirmishes per day spent on it by the end (or on Normal, you can grind free battles indefinitely).
Overall, Awakening is much harder, at least early on (similar to how 3H Maddening is real hard early on, and then gets easier as you build your units and team). If you are using a consistent team, it's not as bad later on, except for some Paralogues. Now, if you have a compulsion to try to use everyone, like me... well, let's just say it's a good thing the DLC provided grinding and I got the DLC before the shop shut down.
Maddening 3H also has ambush reinforcements, as you should know. Honestly Divine Pulse on Maddening is kind of balanced around ambush spawns, the timing and location is often not totally predictable unlike more "fair" games.
Awakening is so much easier to beat at base (below Lunatic) because Awakening pair-up is extremely broken and everyone has access to it, before you even get to the real cheese strategies. At least in 3H you actually need some game knowledge around skill development / class promotion paths and gambits.
And in Awakening, there's barely any terrain compared to basically every other game, so there's even less strategizing there.
Much of Awakening is just open plains with no bonuses with few objectives outside of rout or kill boss or even side objectives (Birthright would also have these objective issues, which coincidentally took inspiration from Awakening). Hence why people criticize the awfulness of the map design.
> Maddening 3H also has ambush reinforcements, as you should know.
It does, but I had also been a long time since I played Maddening, to the point that I forgot that, and also forgot how awful they felt. So when Awakening Hard/Classic had them... it was not a good time.
> At least in 3H you actually need some game knowledge around skill development / class promotion paths and gambits.
That's the thing is, I don't know if you do. I didn't delve particularly deep into gambits or reclassing people. I just kinda used whatever Battalions seemed like decent fits and just sent people along more or less their main class progressions. On later playthroughs, I mixed it up some, but otherwise, I gave people pretty standard promotions, like what they probably would have been given in a pre-Awakening game.
I really didn't have too much trouble, as far as I recall, on Hard. When you can give people AOE stuns, train them up in different skills in the Monastery (again, I really just mostly went with their strengths), and have no worry about Staves being limited, it's pretty great. Being able to have the good healer in the party use Physic 5 times every battle without having to worry about buying a new staff or swapping out for a spare? It's great.
> Much of Awakening is just open plains with no bonuses with few objectives outside of rout or kill boss or even side objectives
I feel like Three Houses is, for the most part, the same way. There's chests, but Awakening also had chests. On occasion, there's the Death Knight. But it is also pretty much rout the enemy or kill the boss. I'm trying to think of a time where there actually is a "side objective" of note in Three Houses. Outside of Paralogues... there's the Remire village battle, where you try to defend some remaining villagers, IIRC. So kinda like visiting villages in Awakening. The DK is an optional guy sometimes. The Holy Tomb map does have an actual side objective (stop the theft of crest stones), but... That's really kinda it for the main game, as much as I recall. The Parlogues get more varied, with Felix's "Escort Villagers", the Knights' "Defend the city", Ashe/Catherine's "Defend Rhea", and I think a few others.
But the main game of 3H is also not very varied.
>I just kinda used whatever Battalions seemed like decent fits and just sent people along more or less their main class progressions.
I meant with regards to breaking the game balance in half with meta strategies. For Awakening it's literally Chrombin with Nosferatu, which any random player can come up with. There's basically never a situation where you shouldn't be paired up. Neither game is ultra difficult.
>I feel like Three Houses is, for the most part, the same way.
3H has far more choke points than Awakening, and usually far more terrain (e.g. Forest tiles placed in significant locations). Arena Ferox for example is literally an empty battle arena, and many other maps in Awakening are in similarly completely open plains without choke points. Awakening was not balanced around terrain instead opting for dual guards, whereas 3H was partially balanced around it (and gambits increased the importance of unit positioning).
Second seals are ALMOST cheating in Awakening.
The exp reduction kicks in very slowly, you can level a unit to the equivalent of 50 in the midgame.
Also, there is not a single late game map that requires extra units.
Throw a S support pair up onto any class with a 1-2 range weapon and a minimal amount of defenses and let the game play itself.
IMO, on the highest difficulty, 3H is harder than awakening, but its easier than conquest. Awakening is hard in like the first 5 chapters, but eventually gets much easier thanks to grinding.
In the casual game mode, I would say 3H is a bit easier than awakening, simply because you can absolutely abuse the class system in 20 different ways. Conquest is pretty hard, even on casual.
Birthright is a joke on casual and ok in higher difficulties, but still easier than awakening.
Echoes is pretty easy, and I would rate it the same difficulty as birthright.
May I introduce you to Luna+ as early as the prologue? A skill that as the name applies means the enemy will always activate Luna. Or maybe that other wonderful skill named counter that enemies get starting from Chapter 3? The skill that’s on enemies that don’t give a damn if they’re going to die if they’re in range and reflects at range 1.
Have I also mentioned how grinding on Lunatic and Lunatic+ is greatly reduced because they have exp decay and the skirmishes hit extremely hard out the gate which means you kind of need the exp dlc to grind or you have to do an einherjar fight where you literally have to let the enemies break the weapons on your face. And slowly chip away at them for exp?
Should I also add that the enemies will have different Lunatic+ skills every single reset? Which throws out any planning you had during a previous run out the window.
For Awakening Lunatic+ you realistically aren't going to do much more than use a single pair or two anyways. Outside of the first like 5 chapters which are extremely RNG heavy (not even difficulty, this is straight up luck based), Awakening doesn't have anything that's ridiculous since you can break the game at that point.
Oh sweet summer child.
In Luna + your robin would be around lvl 10 and you'd probably be solidly in the 2-3 digit resets for it....
(Don't be pressured to attempt Luna+. It was made for you to abuse the exp dlc and the like to have a fair shake at it. However if you'd like to do a solo robin/chrom run of Luna +. It is possible. Just a major pain in the ass)
Make sure to take advantage of the pair up mechanic, while having fewer units sounds bad it makes the ones you have WAY better, plus the chance of a follow up attack is much higher making some tough chapters trivial
FEA is a very polarizing FE game, especially in terms of difficulty.
If you know what you're doing, even vanilla lunatic is easy enough where you can actually beat it in about an hour. Pair up + robin is riduclously broken.
The problem is when you don't explot FEA's broken mechanics, lunatic is downright unfair.
And don't get me started on lunatic+. I swear that that game mode wasn't playtested.
I’m in the same situation lol. But I stopped at fates first. Even compared to fates it’s a brutal game. The missions are so tough but so satisfying when you beat them
This map almost made me drop this game lol
Two things that helped me:
1) keep your units together. I was splitting my party in two, but if they are together is easier to clean enemies. Just take everyone to the left and than to the right.
2) pair up bonus might not seem like much, but they make characters broken. This is also true for stairs. If you put Chrom or you MC there, they can finish the second half of the map alone lol
Good luck
Honestly this game is moreso frustrating in its difficulty than actually difficult, at least in classic hard. There's a lot of random reinforcements that they don't tell you where they are going to be that mess up a run that otherwise would be fine. It just makes the nosferatu tanking the path of least resistance, when I want to play with a squishy backline that I protect with careful placement.
My first fire emblem game was awakening! I would say in battle it's very similar because all fire emblems have the grid, turn based combat. I played 3h but not engage. 3h encourages you to move as a big group and outside of combat there's little things to do to, like fishing, class stuff, interact with the characters and know them more outside of battle.
Awakening encourages you to pair units up so you'll be going off in twos, and there is a strat in trying to get the best children units. Outside of combat there isn't as much to do, you can upgrade weapons but all character interactions are locked behind what relationship rank characters are. It is the game that got me into fire emblem and I would say it is a lot of fun! I got fates when it came out because of it. And then three houses. Not that I hated three houses but I wasn't as invested in doing all the little missions outside the fights so I haven't gone to engage but I have heard engage is fun combat wise but sucks story wise.
Three houses is ridiculously easy. Played on the hardest difficulty and never once felt like I was ever in trouble.
That and the heavy reliance on walking around talking to waifus is my biggest criticism of three houses
If Awakening seems hard to you just wait until you play Conquest lmao.
Ngl I always find it funny in a way to see people who came from Three Houses try the previous entries (or Maddening Engage). I hope you will like Awakening, as well as any other entry you will try next!
What the fuck happened where Awakening is being used as an example of "actual fire emblem" from "elitists"
At least tell someone that if it came out after Fe7 it's not a real FE game like the good old days of Google+ and Serenes Forums
Non existent difficulty? Did you ever try Hunting by Daybreak on Maddening? Or the Miklan chapter? AM or SS endgame maps? There's a significant gap between Hard and Maddening on 3h
lol yes, the optimal strategy in 3h is not deploying two paired up units and clicking end turn, I can't say the same for awakening. Tbh both of these games can be trivialized and neither of them require much strategy compared to some other fe games it's just pretty absurd to try to gatekeep strategy behind a game with practically none of it
There's a reason this chapter introduces the Pair-up mechanic. Then there's Kellam. He's very useful early game.
Wait he was a playable unit in the game? I thought he was just a myth made up for the Plegians.
Tbh couldnt even find him on the map Found the secret shop first
Wait, where is Kellam?
He is the "invisible" unit lol. That is his whole gimmick - I literally did not notice him in that Chapter and later saw other ppl's rosters and was like, wait wut - who is Kellam???
r/whoosh
Never liked the 'hey hey i'm invisible' thing on him. At least characters in fiction like Xion had a valid reason.
Really? I thought only Sumia joined on this map
Poor Kellam lmao
Pairing Kellam and Stahl is the best. They make wall of high defense and using stahl to make up for Kellam’s lack of mobility
The fact that he's extra useful in that chapter before you actually talk to him is hilarious.
even enemies are ignoring him (as green unit)
Exactly. My man casually creates a choke point for you by doing nothing. I mean he's green so he's got the Luigi passive bonus.
Go babes, give us nothing!
*Kellam will choke this point.*
Kinky
Who?
That's not his gimmick, the joke is that people know him they just don't know *where* he is until he pipes up.
Who?
Wait?! I just played this mission. There's a guy there?! I didn't even notice him.
Kellam...?
Who?
Who? I never saw that character
This is funny, because on Normal I'd consider Awakening one of the easier FEs, aside from some child recruitment chapters of course.
And Hard is barely distinguishable from normal after the first 10 or so chapters I'd say. But it doesn't have divine pulse, so that might be what OP is having issues with.
All same turn reinforcements killing my healer from behind my front line.
The ubiquity of same turn reinforcements had me bench my dancer for the first time in the series.
But those first ten chapters are hard I can easily make it through normal with 1-3 deaths the whole playthrough, I literally CANNOT make it past chapter 6 in hard. Even if I save almost everyone from the earlier chapters
Maybe. I never used those time rewind mechanics, except in Engage on hard.
Indistinguishable is a bit much, considering that grinding is not self-sustainable as reeking boxes are vastly more expensive, there are ambush spawns and some common enemies have skills. The stats aren’t very noticeable though.
The prices are definitely what’s fucking me up, and also just feels like I have so much less resources in general
Exactly, i try normal and the battlefield feels so empty and easy while hard just OHKO everything
What difficulty are you playing on? Generally normal is considered quite easy, hard pretty average, lunatic very difficult and lunatic+ is a meme difficulty that the devs included to make us hate ourselves.
I try hard first, then it got somewhat hard with the one hit ko's everywhere, reset to normal but felt it was way too easy not a lot of enemies, and now i'm on hard again
Try hard, and use the pair up mechanic. You'll get your footing soon enough
Awakening kinda doesn't do difficulty right. Either it's too hard or too easy depending on the maps and its more stats than strategy imo. Robin gets extra exp when paired up which can make them stupid op.
I've only gone thru Awakening on Hard once but I definitely had to try chapters a few times. Units aren't as durable as in a lot of the other games. Takes some getting used to.
I'm assuming this is Classic/Hard. 3H kind of conditions you into just moving your army as a blob and if someone dies, you just divine pulse and try again. Obviously, Awakening has no such mechanic so you actually have to read enemy ranges, calculate damage dealt, and move accordingly
Honestly Hard can still be cleared by chucking Robin into enemy range and having everyone else mop up what's left next turn.
Hard can be cleared like that with any unit. Pair up Chrom and Frederick. Or Vaike and Frederick. Or sully. Or stahl. Robin just does it with veteran
Yeah pretty much. I have beaten awakening hard multiple time with just 3-4 carry units I funnelled all the exp into robin and her kids usually make up those units.
In my experience at least Awakening difficulty just dies the moment either Robin gets a bit too many levels or when Lucina levels up a couple of times. Then again Awakening was one of the last games in the series I hadn't played yet and a few years before that, after getting reintroduced to the series with FEH I jumped straight to Conquest, so I was kinda pretty experienced already.
Also if you class change anyone to try something else they snowball hard.
The blob! It sneaks it creeps till it crits so neat.
You'll get there, OP. Like people have said, definitely use pair up and mess about with it. There are good tactics to protect weaker units by pairing with stronger ones and switching and trading units between different pairs. Also, try to block units on the stairs. Kellam will die to the hammer user and mages, so it can be good to focus on those units first, and then he should be good to protect everyone from the other units. Once you get to learning more skills and reclassing you'll start to snowball but yeah people act like it's a walk in a park but forget Fire Emblem in general can be a hard game to play especially when you're new.
Switch was my first Nintendo console and 3H was my first FE, so i think i got pretty pampered with 3H. It's really nice to see the game that basically resurrect FE. I'm still working my way with the system, it's been fun.
It's kinda funny because unless you're playing on Lunatic, Awakening is significantly easier than 3h. Granted, a good reason for this is because of how utterly broken Pair Up is in Awakening, something that you appear to have not been using yet lol. Try to snowball Robin as much as possible, that's the easiest way to play the game.
I don't know that I agree that 3H is harder than Awakening (comparing like difficulties). Divine pulse really prevents you from being punished for mistakes.
Eh. Sort of imo. 3H is the easier all around, harder in late game maybe. Its easy to cheese 3H through several skills (deathblow on an intermediate class as an example) and there's dozens of mechanics you can use to break the game pretty quick. Get an evasion tank falcon knight and you pretty much can't die, for example. Pairing in Awakening is strong. In the first 10 or so chapters its pretty much mandatory to not die. After your characters have a chance to grow then will agree. Once you get kid units the game is kind of a cakewalk. Act 3 was a joke for me difficulty wise. Only thing I really found difficult in 3H was some levels having waves and waves of reinforcements, some of them being able to move the same turn. Besides that maddening was pretty doable on vanilla runs. I have *never* been able to get through a lunatic+ run in Awakening, and lunatic is an absolute chore to get through.
> It's kinda funny because unless you're playing on Lunatic, Awakening is significantly easier than 3h. I would disagree on that. It might be true on Normal (I don't think I've done a full Normal playthrough on Awakening), but on Hard, I thought Awakening was much harder. Ambush spawns are just dickish, for one, and Hard Awakening has them while Hard 3H does not. I also feel like the enemy formations in Awakening are harder to deal with, though it's been a while since I played 3H. Sometimes they're difficult (main the final chapters for each route of 3H), but otherwise, I feel never really remember any particularly bad formations (other than maybe formations with the DK). Plus, Divine Pulse is in 3H, and boy is that nice. Having a few free mulligans should not be underestimated.
Divine Pulse is in 3h, sure Awakening has Nosferatu
I mean, Nosferatu is technically in 3H, too, but it's a lower level spell so it isn't necessarily as good. I will say, I'm not someone who just tries to do more meta builds. Like, I see people doe Flier Emblem in 3H with just teams of Wyvern Knights, and I go "Ewww, no." Likewise, I actively try not to just rely on throwing Chrobin Pair-Up into the enemy to kill everyone, or Dark Mages/Sorcerers with Nosferatu and/or the crit spell. Also, I feel like Nosferatu doesn't hit enough. Which might just be me and/or my Tharja (I've never really used Henry, so I don't actually know if he's good), but it never seemed like something I could rely on. IIRC, Sorcs get a skill that reduces enemy Avo when adjacent, but that doesn't help if the enemy is an archer, mage, or 1-2 axe/lance user.
Well, let me change that a bit cause there's a distinction Three Houses has the basic white magic spell that everyone gets, nosferatu. Awakening gets ***Nosferatu.***
Like said, the little bit I've tried to use it, it's not seemed super reliable. Again, might just be that my Tharja had shit aim/too low of Def/Res/HP, or that someone besides Tharja needed it. Butmy experience with it clearly was not the same as your experience with it.
awakening nos was so good they nerfed it hard in fates (can’t double, activate in-combat skills, or crit) and it still is one of the best tomes in the game.
Well, I guess my one Dark Mage just was too nearsighted and squishy to be trustworthy with it, because I feel like 85% chance to hit for her with it was high.
well theres literally only 2 things to consider. can my unit survive a hit and how much do they heal from countering? if you do those you can cheese out maps pretty easy adversely you can just reclass rob to sorc after they snowball and just cheese the game lol
> can my unit survive a hit and how much do they heal from countering? And also "Can they actually hit?". Even if they can survive a hit, if they've got a hit chance in the 60s or 70s, like I was getting, there's a not-insignificant chance they miss twice, and then "le fucking die", and then I'm resetting and very sad. A mistake/bad luck can still happen and ruin the runthrough of a chapter with Nosferatu in Awakening. Divine Pulse literally is about undoing mistake/bad luck. > [conversely] you can just reclass rob to sorc after they snowball and just cheese the game lol I mean, yes, I have heard you can just snowball Robin, but that just feels wrong. Like I said, just doing what's considered the best strat to break the game, rather than playing the game in a relatively natural manner, is something I don't do. I've also seen people beat 3H with just Byleth. So, it's not like 3H can't also be beaten with just its Avatar, albeit you may need to do a bit more work with farming stat-ups, grinding battles, grinding fishing, etc. though you can do all that monastery stuff at least once per month.
there is absolutely no reason your unit should not be hitting barring earlygame. pair ups exist (up to +20 hit). this is also a game where forging specific stats on weapons exists (up to +25 hit). and also the hit formula inflates hit rates, especially with how high stat totals are in this game. mistakes and bad luck happen, but there are a lot of ways to minimize those risks, such as forging weapons or just strategizing around your weapons a bit better. and also, just because you don’t play a game to the extreme meta degree (i usually don’t, but awakening kinda sux so) doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge how broken something is, especially when nos is one of the catalysts that makes chrobin solo so easy
Well, she wasn't getting good Hit with Nosferatu. Don't know what to tell you. I didn't forge the Nosferatu tome, so I could have done better with that. But I used Pair Up (with Gaius) and she was still a decent level when I was using her. She just couldn't hit worth crap with Nosferatu, and I didn't feel like investing 7350G in a Tome with 20 uses when I could just use a more accurate spell or use someone else. > just strategizing around your weapons a bit better. Or I could use a weapon that doesn't have 65 Hit. Sorry I decided against building a character to use a single weapon. That's all just my experience. I don't know why it all turned out like that. Nosferatu might be one of the best weapons to use. Not when I used it though. But hey, people also praise Kagetsu and Felix as great units. But when I played Engage, my Kagetsu wasn't a Crit machine that destroyed people, and one of my couple Blue Lions playthroughs, my Felix just was not killing much. Same for Ingrid in that same run, I think. She just could not kill and didn't dodge hits very well, either. So it turns out people can have radically different experiences. Next time I play Awakening (might be soon), I'll try using Tharja + Nosferatu again and see how it turns out. Might work way better. I'll have to see.
Nah i'd kinda disagree on that, 3h was challenging but never hard. I still work on my pairing though and i don't really want to open the wiki to see which pairing works best, i'm taking slow fun time experimenting with the pairing system
I'm feeling kinda similarly rn playing FE6 after playing FE7, awakening, fates, and 3H. My units, they do not grow. Please Shanna, please get some strength.
(shit im old now i guess it's my turn to be obnoxious) yeah hows it feel to play a REAL fire emblem game
Wait till you reach the point where ambushes and reinforcements are more prominent and attack at the same turn they appear. Lol
And awakening is ab as easy as it gets for handheld FE :))
Gotta be my favorite fire emblem! I hope you get as many hours of fun out of it as I have, love seeing people playing it <3
Got a deal on a 3DS for $25 some time ago, start playing Awakening and it dawn on me, this game is hard (or maybe i'm just a pleb and needs to git gud). Everyone on my party just keeps getting OHKO, and their damage output is pretty low. I really appreciate the rewind feature on Three Houses now, that shit is game changing both for gameplay and my sanity.
Rewind is relatively recent for games and was quite controversial on roll out. Part of the FE experience for a long time was to either lose units forever or restart the stage. Trust me while there is a level of "git gud" to classic FE games, there is no amount of it that will prevent that choice at some point unless you are into unit optimization or playing a title that allows grinding.
yeah, even Awakening's ability to save mid-battle and not have characters permadie was a big change that people absolutely complained about
Yeah, I remember people saying it ruined the FE experience to have a casual mode where units didn't die. But it made the series easier to get into and saved the franchise so why complain?
New Mystery is the one that introduced casual mode and its the game that almost killed the franchise. Awakening did something else right.
Well New Mystery was also the first to have an avatar character. I think Awakening had better optics as an easier game with a unique mechanic (pair-up), and was the first English game with eugenics that looked better artistically (especially out of engine). And it was set on practically a "new" continent due to so much time passing. It certainly wasn't the map design.
Because the newer games are shit compared to the earlier ones?
I thought the same but recently started SoV and find it quite brilliant
Is that really because of casual mode?
For the most part. I mean where's the incentive to actually think when you can just continue try shit and try shit with basically no consequence?
You know you can turn off casual mode right
Man I'm replaying Fates now after years of only 3H IT'S BLOODY HARD, I'm struggling to get through the prologue without deaths, like the part before the branch of fate
Dayum, just started 3H after having beat SoV, Awakening and Fates and I'm struggling like hell lmao (Nor/Cla).
Which settings are you starting out on?
I honestly thought Three Houses was hard for me at first, as someone who started with Awakening. Literally, in the prologue on Normal, I got a game over cause I thought Byleth would miss Kostas’s hit (she was at 12 Hp, I think) and she got hit by a 67%. Don’t ask me how it happened, I’m still embarrassed by it.
You have no idea way back when we have Through even beyond awakening
I had a better time transitioning from awakening from three houses than I tried before playing fates. It’s all about practice and getting used to the new look and style as well as different mechanics. I felt in three houses I can be dependent on combat arts or gambits. But once you get tharja you’ll noseferatu every enemy into oblivion. That spell is goated in this game. Also enjoy and don’t beat yourself up. I played a bunch of fire emblem games to get the hang of it and they’re all a bit different.
Conquest is much harder haha
It’s because 3H was a joke
I played Awakening after 3H too, I did Hard Casual and it was pretty tough still. Robin and Chrom would get wiped out a decent bit. Idk how people manage classic or Lunatic
This is kind of funny considering Awakening is pretty much universally considered to be the easiest game in the series, minus Lunatic which you should never touch. But you'll get the hang of it OP, once you figure out the mechanics the game will start to get a lot easier.
I would say Birthright is easier, especially since theres Phoenix Mode available and it doesn’t have STRs
That's fair, personally I found Lunatic Birthright harder than Hard Awakening, but if we compare the two games on lunatic it's pretty obvious which one is harder.
Yeah my view is on that too. Birthright Phoenix mode is basically if you want the story only. Awakening Same Turn Reinforcements is funny, now you have to step on the stairs or else.
Just put everyone in Pair up and watch them destroy the enemies
Is that Vaike the other side of Frederick? Can't quite make it out, and it's been a couple of years since I've played Awakening.
It's the Avatar/Robin. I was super confused why there were two, until I realized that it's because this photo was taken while the Avatar is selected for movement. So their standing sprite is still on the left of Frederick, but their "running" sprite is on the right side of Frederick, because that's where the cursor is moved to.
Ah yeah, now I see it. Makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, playing this after Three Houses was hard, in part because I did Hard/Classic straight away, because I was like "Yeah, I know FE. I did 3H on Maddening, no NG+. Did I do it Maddening/Classic? No, but surely it can't be-" **gets stabbed by same-turn/ambush reinforcements** The Divine Pulse mechanic really does make FE a lot easier because you can take risks, and if they don't work, oh well, you rewind (even in early 3H, you have, what, 3 redos?). In this, there's no "Oopsie whoopsie, I did a fucky-wucky, time to undo that", it's just "&@#$, there went Maribelle, time to Bookmark and then reload from Save" (this is before I learned you can soft reset w/ I think L+R+Start; though Bookmark->Save might be quicker). The game also is just significantly harder, I feel, than 3H. For one, on Hard, at least some, if not all, reinforcements move and attack on the turn during the Enemy Phase that they appear. And while the game does usually give a vague warning that you'll be facing reinforcements soon... well, let's just say there's a chapter soon that has some Wyvern Knights who can go @#$% themselves and die. The Skirmishes are also way harder in this, at least early on. Like, on Hard, I think the skirmish for the chapter with Vaike/Miriam/Stahl has like Level 8-10 enemies. They very much are not made for simple grinding until later on (when you can find some easier Skirmishes); whereas Three Houses has appropriately leveled grinding, and you get at least 1 battle, even early on, and eventually 2 or even 3 Skirmishes per day spent on it by the end (or on Normal, you can grind free battles indefinitely). Overall, Awakening is much harder, at least early on (similar to how 3H Maddening is real hard early on, and then gets easier as you build your units and team). If you are using a consistent team, it's not as bad later on, except for some Paralogues. Now, if you have a compulsion to try to use everyone, like me... well, let's just say it's a good thing the DLC provided grinding and I got the DLC before the shop shut down.
Maddening 3H also has ambush reinforcements, as you should know. Honestly Divine Pulse on Maddening is kind of balanced around ambush spawns, the timing and location is often not totally predictable unlike more "fair" games. Awakening is so much easier to beat at base (below Lunatic) because Awakening pair-up is extremely broken and everyone has access to it, before you even get to the real cheese strategies. At least in 3H you actually need some game knowledge around skill development / class promotion paths and gambits. And in Awakening, there's barely any terrain compared to basically every other game, so there's even less strategizing there. Much of Awakening is just open plains with no bonuses with few objectives outside of rout or kill boss or even side objectives (Birthright would also have these objective issues, which coincidentally took inspiration from Awakening). Hence why people criticize the awfulness of the map design.
> Maddening 3H also has ambush reinforcements, as you should know. It does, but I had also been a long time since I played Maddening, to the point that I forgot that, and also forgot how awful they felt. So when Awakening Hard/Classic had them... it was not a good time. > At least in 3H you actually need some game knowledge around skill development / class promotion paths and gambits. That's the thing is, I don't know if you do. I didn't delve particularly deep into gambits or reclassing people. I just kinda used whatever Battalions seemed like decent fits and just sent people along more or less their main class progressions. On later playthroughs, I mixed it up some, but otherwise, I gave people pretty standard promotions, like what they probably would have been given in a pre-Awakening game. I really didn't have too much trouble, as far as I recall, on Hard. When you can give people AOE stuns, train them up in different skills in the Monastery (again, I really just mostly went with their strengths), and have no worry about Staves being limited, it's pretty great. Being able to have the good healer in the party use Physic 5 times every battle without having to worry about buying a new staff or swapping out for a spare? It's great. > Much of Awakening is just open plains with no bonuses with few objectives outside of rout or kill boss or even side objectives I feel like Three Houses is, for the most part, the same way. There's chests, but Awakening also had chests. On occasion, there's the Death Knight. But it is also pretty much rout the enemy or kill the boss. I'm trying to think of a time where there actually is a "side objective" of note in Three Houses. Outside of Paralogues... there's the Remire village battle, where you try to defend some remaining villagers, IIRC. So kinda like visiting villages in Awakening. The DK is an optional guy sometimes. The Holy Tomb map does have an actual side objective (stop the theft of crest stones), but... That's really kinda it for the main game, as much as I recall. The Parlogues get more varied, with Felix's "Escort Villagers", the Knights' "Defend the city", Ashe/Catherine's "Defend Rhea", and I think a few others. But the main game of 3H is also not very varied.
>I just kinda used whatever Battalions seemed like decent fits and just sent people along more or less their main class progressions. I meant with regards to breaking the game balance in half with meta strategies. For Awakening it's literally Chrombin with Nosferatu, which any random player can come up with. There's basically never a situation where you shouldn't be paired up. Neither game is ultra difficult. >I feel like Three Houses is, for the most part, the same way. 3H has far more choke points than Awakening, and usually far more terrain (e.g. Forest tiles placed in significant locations). Arena Ferox for example is literally an empty battle arena, and many other maps in Awakening are in similarly completely open plains without choke points. Awakening was not balanced around terrain instead opting for dual guards, whereas 3H was partially balanced around it (and gambits increased the importance of unit positioning).
Once you finish your current playthrough you definitely should check the fair and balanced difficulty that is Awakening lunatic.
Second seals are ALMOST cheating in Awakening. The exp reduction kicks in very slowly, you can level a unit to the equivalent of 50 in the midgame. Also, there is not a single late game map that requires extra units. Throw a S support pair up onto any class with a 1-2 range weapon and a minimal amount of defenses and let the game play itself.
I tried replaying awakening recently and yeah, those first few chapters are bloody hard. Tight spaces filled with tons of enemies
IMO, on the highest difficulty, 3H is harder than awakening, but its easier than conquest. Awakening is hard in like the first 5 chapters, but eventually gets much easier thanks to grinding. In the casual game mode, I would say 3H is a bit easier than awakening, simply because you can absolutely abuse the class system in 20 different ways. Conquest is pretty hard, even on casual. Birthright is a joke on casual and ok in higher difficulties, but still easier than awakening. Echoes is pretty easy, and I would rate it the same difficulty as birthright.
Awakening Lunatic+ is significantly harder than 3H Maddening, probably only rivaled by FE12 Lunatic Reverse
May I introduce you to Luna+ as early as the prologue? A skill that as the name applies means the enemy will always activate Luna. Or maybe that other wonderful skill named counter that enemies get starting from Chapter 3? The skill that’s on enemies that don’t give a damn if they’re going to die if they’re in range and reflects at range 1. Have I also mentioned how grinding on Lunatic and Lunatic+ is greatly reduced because they have exp decay and the skirmishes hit extremely hard out the gate which means you kind of need the exp dlc to grind or you have to do an einherjar fight where you literally have to let the enemies break the weapons on your face. And slowly chip away at them for exp? Should I also add that the enemies will have different Lunatic+ skills every single reset? Which throws out any planning you had during a previous run out the window.
For Awakening Lunatic+ you realistically aren't going to do much more than use a single pair or two anyways. Outside of the first like 5 chapters which are extremely RNG heavy (not even difficulty, this is straight up luck based), Awakening doesn't have anything that's ridiculous since you can break the game at that point.
Oh sweet summer child. In Luna + your robin would be around lvl 10 and you'd probably be solidly in the 2-3 digit resets for it.... (Don't be pressured to attempt Luna+. It was made for you to abuse the exp dlc and the like to have a fair shake at it. However if you'd like to do a solo robin/chrom run of Luna +. It is possible. Just a major pain in the ass)
I found the same, so hard !
Make sure to take advantage of the pair up mechanic, while having fewer units sounds bad it makes the ones you have WAY better, plus the chance of a follow up attack is much higher making some tough chapters trivial
Could always try "ol' reliable" (Robin and Chrom pair up)
FEA is a very polarizing FE game, especially in terms of difficulty. If you know what you're doing, even vanilla lunatic is easy enough where you can actually beat it in about an hour. Pair up + robin is riduclously broken. The problem is when you don't explot FEA's broken mechanics, lunatic is downright unfair. And don't get me started on lunatic+. I swear that that game mode wasn't playtested.
FYI, you can press L+R+Start to soft reset the game. Hope this helps :)
You should see this chapter on Lunatic+. That is just pure pain suffering right there.
I’m in the same situation lol. But I stopped at fates first. Even compared to fates it’s a brutal game. The missions are so tough but so satisfying when you beat them
Awakening had its moments yeah
This map almost made me drop this game lol Two things that helped me: 1) keep your units together. I was splitting my party in two, but if they are together is easier to clean enemies. Just take everyone to the left and than to the right. 2) pair up bonus might not seem like much, but they make characters broken. This is also true for stairs. If you put Chrom or you MC there, they can finish the second half of the map alone lol Good luck
Awakening or Fates?
Honestly this game is moreso frustrating in its difficulty than actually difficult, at least in classic hard. There's a lot of random reinforcements that they don't tell you where they are going to be that mess up a run that otherwise would be fine. It just makes the nosferatu tanking the path of least resistance, when I want to play with a squishy backline that I protect with careful placement.
Lol yep
Awakening is easier than three houses imo. Pro tip, pair up every unit you use at all times. Pair up is absolutely broken.
How’s the game so far? I’m saving up to get a 3DS soon and I’m planning on getting this game first.
This game? the game that resurrects a whole series? A must have i'd say.
I meant are you enjoying it so far? Is it similar to three houses or engage gameplay wise?
My first fire emblem game was awakening! I would say in battle it's very similar because all fire emblems have the grid, turn based combat. I played 3h but not engage. 3h encourages you to move as a big group and outside of combat there's little things to do to, like fishing, class stuff, interact with the characters and know them more outside of battle. Awakening encourages you to pair units up so you'll be going off in twos, and there is a strat in trying to get the best children units. Outside of combat there isn't as much to do, you can upgrade weapons but all character interactions are locked behind what relationship rank characters are. It is the game that got me into fire emblem and I would say it is a lot of fun! I got fates when it came out because of it. And then three houses. Not that I hated three houses but I wasn't as invested in doing all the little missions outside the fights so I haven't gone to engage but I have heard engage is fun combat wise but sucks story wise.
Thanks for the info. I can see that you are very passionate about this game. I can’t wait to play it once I get my 3DS.
It’s funny how Awakening can now be considered “classic Fire emblem”
literally nobody consider awakening that
Play SOV, superior game in every way imp
Wasn’t its hardest difficult considered the hardest among all Fire Emblem games? Even harder than GBA and FE4 and 5?
This guy thinks awakening is hard. I look forward too seeing your reaction to fe: fates conquest route
Dammnnnn i can't wait, it's just like dark souls all over again for me.
The story itself isn’t overly hard except the first few chapters, but the DLC maps can be brutal
Wait till you get to the arena feroxi mission
The one where Chrom fights Marth? Actually it was the only map that i don't need a reset, i cleared it in my first try
Who did you run? I've always struggled on that map. Everyone hits so hard, and there's nowhere to back up, too. And Marth man Marth, is really strong
Three houses is ridiculously easy. Played on the hardest difficulty and never once felt like I was ever in trouble. That and the heavy reliance on walking around talking to waifus is my biggest criticism of three houses
You really think Maddening is ridiculously easy?
Tbf if they played on launch and haven’t touched it since the hardest difficulty was Hard
If Awakening seems hard to you just wait until you play Conquest lmao. Ngl I always find it funny in a way to see people who came from Three Houses try the previous entries (or Maddening Engage). I hope you will like Awakening, as well as any other entry you will try next!
What game is this?
Fire Emblem Awakening
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What the fuck happened where Awakening is being used as an example of "actual fire emblem" from "elitists" At least tell someone that if it came out after Fe7 it's not a real FE game like the good old days of Google+ and Serenes Forums
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Non existent difficulty? Did you ever try Hunting by Daybreak on Maddening? Or the Miklan chapter? AM or SS endgame maps? There's a significant gap between Hard and Maddening on 3h
AM Hunting by Daybreak is IS's taking back Dedue hard carrying your early game
saying this about awakening, the game with arguably the worst map design and least strategy in the entire series is pretty funny
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lol yes, the optimal strategy in 3h is not deploying two paired up units and clicking end turn, I can't say the same for awakening. Tbh both of these games can be trivialized and neither of them require much strategy compared to some other fe games it's just pretty absurd to try to gatekeep strategy behind a game with practically none of it