FESD - Finished the H3 play. After the first 3 chapters and their hax bosses the game got a bit easier, but generally maintained a certain bite to it, a bit easier than FE10 NM but not too much? Pretty good area for challenge of a FE game to me. Definitely liked the multiple Hard Mode settings the game had, great idea. Think I chose well, and H3 was just a guess!
Final map got super-buffed, though, definitely one of the harder FE finals out there. Enemies were entirely outfitted with Brave and +5 forges, which is kinda hax. The mobile 36-atk Pachyderm ballisticians may have been the real threat, though. Medeus himself is kinda psycho, 30 speed/50 atk is brutal. I planned out a strategy to beat him but made two errors, in forgetting his throne bonus (27 def instead of 25 def = whoops) and some untimely reinforcements which forced me into a panic. THAT SAID, the combination of both Tiki and Nagi is hax, so I could sacrifice one and together they 2HKO. If I'd missed things could have seriously gone south, but so it goes. The FE6 style reinforcements are really a bit much, least favourite thing about HM.
Kill leader was Caeda, reprising her role from last game, again with the same 94 kills! The Coyote trio of Hardin, Sedgar, and Wolf came next, in that order. PC notes...
Marth: Gave him Boots. This makes him notably better, but I didn't realise it at first (didn't think of this until I got the boots) so I let him get too underlevelled again. No big, he loses one of his main niches (fighting Medeus) on HM because of lol30speed.
Caeda: We know the story here. Winged Spear is even more valuable on HM, you really need its oomph, particularly on someone as mobile as Caeda. Made her a Paladin for a few fights where flight wasn't needed so she could avoid arrow weakness... just great options for her.
Lena: For what it's worth, I was wrong about holding onto the Starsphere being worth it. This is because Hammerne is ridiculous. Game gives you a bunch of stuff worth repairing - A rank weapons, Divinestones, the Pachyderm, ANYTHING you forge. And at 12 shots you can do it all. This singlehandedly vaults Lena into top tier to me, but even without this she's still the best staff level (initial Warp!) you have.
Merric: Only other person I used all the way through to Endgame in both files as a combat unit, besides Caeda. Easy enough to see why, probably the best mage statistically and best suited to fighting Gharnef.
Hardin: Probably the best cavalier? Technically his stats are slightly below Abel/Cain/Frey, but he wins because of weapon levels. B/D where the others start at D/E... yeah. Can use Jagen's Silver Lance initially (not to mention Javelins, damn you Cain), can class over to Myrm and have Steel, and later into SM and use Silver (was close to Mercurius DESPITE my mainly using lances for him) or into a Dracoknight to fly. Just awesomely versatile. My final boss strategy involved him attacking Medeus because he was the only person on my TEAM who could take a hit and do real damage back as a SM, although this ended up not mattering.
Sedgar: Starts bad, but once he gets some levels in him he starts rockin'. Nice def, decent otherwise. I had him as a General at first, even though I hate Generals and they suck, because it helped him at least survive while he levelled. After about 6-10 maps I made him a Horseman again and he started kicking ass. Fell off a bit at endgame, his speed just couldn't keep up, but always had some Def, and made a reasonable bow user.
Wolf: Somewhat less impressed. Probably just RNG, he's similar enough to Sedgar and went through the same pattern. I made him into a Hero and he basically stayed there to be my axeman, which probably wasn't worth it, Hauteclaire isn't THAT badass and it was final chapter only by which time Wolf's stats had fallen off some. Main thing that bugged me about him is I noticed that 20/1 Palla had better stats than 20/11 Wolf in like everything, kind of a bummer.
Palla: Because I used her instead of Catria this time to be different. She's no Catria. She does have massive Strength, but Speed's just not good enough. Means that after promo I had her go SM, which meant dropping to C, but... she did get back to B and then she hurt things pretty well. Low speed for a SM only really hurt her against the final boss.
Horace: Oh yeah, Horace rant time. Anyway, I missed 12x last time, got it this time. I was pleasantly surprised; the scene at the end of 12x is, without a doubt, the best in the game. Basically Horace is being all emo about being an honourable knight and that you should kill him for betraying his (your) country, and Nyna basically bitchslaps him and tells him that dying would shame all his soldiers who fought and died believing he was doing the best thing (which he was, Dolhr had threatened to raze his lands if he didn't cooperate), not to mention ensure that they would be remembered as followers as a dirty traitor, instead of someone who found redemption. It was actually rather powerful by the game's (Very, very low) standards. Surprised it was Nyna because she's so worthless in all her other scenes, but there you go. Anyway, after this I decided I was using Horace until endgame. At first he was pretty good, better than Wolf as a Hero, although the low weapon levels sucked, I burned an Arms Scroll on him (And shouldn't have, those are too valuable). Bad growths caught up eventually and he was definitely the Endgame LVP.
Jake: Other ballistician. For all intents and purposes they are clones, with Jake being a couple maps earlier but harder to recruit (and you need to recruit Beck anyway because he has the only Thunderbolt).
Tiki: Best manakete in the series that I've seen. It's her or Nagi. Though she was a liability at first, she wasn't -that- big of one, and after a couple maps (of a modest number of kills, not a killfeed fest like Nino needs) she started holding her own just fine. Then in Chapter 23 she is great because of her monstrous Res, then in 24 she is EVEN BETTER because hey manakete central and she has 54 might on them, lulzOHKOed and manaketes are monstrous bastards (26 speed, IS? Really?) so this is great. Endgame well she and Nagi are by far the best killers of the final boss, and although in H3 they are nowhere near as good offensively (way more enemies they don't double, or don't 2HKO in the case of ballistas and generals, although manaketes still get raped) they are very effective tanks (Sedgar has similar Def, but lacks the Res and Luck) while having said offence. Just wish they had more Move. Tiki's a bit better than Nagi if levelled, for what it's worth, a bit more Strength and Luck.
Nagi: See above basically. Using both at once is basically cheating (and needs you to burn your Aum Staff on Tiki, but this is quite fine!).
Castor: I should mention him because he showed promise with his Str/Spd and HM is less archer-unfriendly (more tanking) but he was still clearly tending towards LVP in my party so eventually I made the move to make Sedgar an archer and sacrifice him instead.
BAntu: Oh dear god he's bad. What the fuck is up with those growths? Needing to keep him alive until you get Tiki is just rude (although worth it).
Julian: Note to self, raise him as a combat unit sometime. Wait, I don't actually plan to replay the game.
So yep. Enjoyable enough experience but I'm definitely done, all the other FEs I've played are better and now that I've basically experienced FESD to completion (H5 sounds like the same as H3 just with better enemy stats, no map redesigns) I don't plan to return to it any time soon if ever. 6/10 can stay.
XS2 - I love Vanderkam. Why didn't I nom the Naglfar Cannons scene in Meeple's topic?
Ace Attorney Investigations and Mega Man 10 are next, as promised by Capcom stuff earlier!
