Fire Emblem 12: Had a copy of this on my laptop at work and a whole night of nothing else to do. Decided to give it a replay. The fan translation of this is awesome. I have a new appreciation for the whole Archanean saga of FE games. FE12 made the story and character almost good!
So for my replay I did a Normal/Classic run with Plot-Important-Only Characters. Might as well give them some time to shine. How am I determining what "Plot Important" is in this game with over 70 recruits? Well, the easiest way was "Do they have lines in any other maps besides the one they are introduced in?". This gives me access to a good combination of awesome units (Caeda, Merric) as well as forces me to use some terrible ones (Yubello, Wendell, most of the Prologue PCs). I also generally decided that if they weren't forced into my party, they probably weren't that important to the plot, so I guess they have to die. (Exceptions: Tiki, arguably the most plot important PC outside of Marth; and Katarina, the only -new- character with any plot worth a damn.)
Also, since it's a Plot-Important run, clearly PCs have to stay in their plot-mandated roles. No reclassing. (This is why I did Normal instead of Hard.)
Oh, how liberating it is to slaughter the useless deadweights in this army. It -does- cut me off from some of the best recruits (the Whitewings, a lot of Marth's former army buddies, and a whole heck of a lot of awesome gear attached to sub-par units). It was a nice balance of challenge and schadenfreude.
Party:
Marth & Avatar: Obviously had to keep these guys. Went with Male Mercenary->Myrmidon Avatar. Named him Robin. I tried to keep them out of the fray too much once I had a full party so they wouldn't take all the challenge out of Normal.
Luke: Yay, a cavalier! Backbone of the earlygame since I was trying not to abuse Marth and Robin. Ended up replacing him with Sirius eventually.
Rody: Yay, he was useful early on, though fell out of favor quickly. Basically replaced him with Cecille as soon as I had enough units.
Cecille: The best. I wore her headband the entire game. Kept her through to the endgame. Was particularly STR and Luck blessed, so she criticaled a lot.
Ryan: Has enough lines, but I didn't feel like he was even close to plot important enough, so I let him stay dead the second time he ran afoul of axes to the face. No bows in my army, dammit!
Linde: My main source of magic damage for basically the entire first half of the game. Got a ridiculous magic growth. Didn't leave her out of a fight until her Aura tome broke. Eventually my main healer too.
Julian: Well, only two options for Thieves, and Julian's actually a decent front-liner. Also, Rickard died a horrible death and it was awesome. Kept Julian the whole game.
Ogma: Not as awesome as I'd hoped. I used him when there was extra space on the field.
Yumina: A healer! Useful! The first plot-mandated one. Staves are awesome in this game. I kept getting free staves from How's Everyone bonuses, so she got to gain a lot of levels. Kinda wasted most of them though. Had crappy magic and never amounted to much when she could mage.
Yubello: The worst. LVP by a wide margin. In a game where there's a few maps that you really need some good mages, Yubello just disappoints all around. Basically dead weight in every map I tried to use him. Eventually let him die so he'd stop hogging my How's Everyone bonuses from my -good- characters.
Sirius: My main Paladin from the moment I got him. He grows slowly, but it doesn't matter. His stats are perfectly timed for a low-PC run like this. Got a decent amount of How's Everyone bonuses on critical maps, too. Eventually gave him the Gradivus and watched the fun.
Caeda: MVP. No surprises. Flight + dat STR growth + Wing Spear surpremacy. After I got her, I literally would field the extra units just to throw them unarmed at the enemy and watch them die since I knew I wouldn't need them anymore.
Wendell: Not good. Better than Yubello! My backup mage for a few maps before Merric joined, then became a secondary Yumina.
Feena: Okay, she doesn't technically fulfill the requirements for Plot Important, but she's a unique unit type and I just like Dancers. Obviously made things a lot easier. Had a decent STR and DEF growth so she was never dead weight in combat either.
Minerva: More fliers, thank god. Minerva was so much help in keeping people from dying all over the place whenever they would miss. Hauteclere is also awesome. It ended up getting Hammerne'd.
Merric: It was cathartic letting him slaughter Elrean straight up then Rescue staffing him to safety. Best mage in the game for me, almost solo'd the desert map.
Xane: A necessary evil. Xane is an experience sponge, but when you need another Caeda, he can't be beat. Only used him on maps where I needed extra fliers or mages.
Tiki: My cheating concession. Ended up with the third-most kills in my army. She is as good as advertised. I liked giving her the How's Everyone bonds and drops to see her stat numbers get to ridiculous levels.
Katarina: Another cheating concession. I basically ended up doing this because I needed more PCs that didn't suck (fuck off Rody and Ryan). Also, I like her character arc with Robin. She made a great mage and staff user.
Characters I sorely missed:
The other pegasus knights: Jesus christ I didn't realize how much I had depended on those guys.
Malicia: I actually kept her around the whole game in case I wanted to use Hammerne. (spoilers: I did.)
Gordin and/or Jeorge: Or basically anyone who could use a bow. I considered letting either of them be considered plot important because there is a disgusting amount of fliers in FE12 and Wind Tomes are harder to come by. Also, the Parthia~!
Navarre: I considered letting him be plot-important, too. For style points. Also because I like Myrmidons and Ogma/Robin didn't always cut it.
Nagi: It would have been nice to actually have a second Tiki on those final maps, but at least she was nice enough to share her Divinestone.
Collecting all the Star Shards was a royal pain in the ass on this run, though. Damn.
Best part of the whole run was getting How's Everyone bonuses... on PCs I actually wanted to USE! Clearly the game was designed for this kind of full-scale ally slaughter. I also tended to enjoy deploying the useless fodder as meatshields for the early turns of some of the harder maps. I know that technically means I 'used' them, but I'm not gonna let that stand in the way of my enjoyment of a game I beat in like 2 days.
