Fire Emblem 4: Finished. Narga and its stat boosts mock puny Julius, reducing his 60 effective attack power down to 13 with less than a 50% chance to hit. Overall, with the exception of Ishtar (who is pretty much certain to reach one of your units by staying in the back of your squad. She also has very good magic, a great weapon, and 180+ hit. Yeah.), the final map wasn't too bad. Ended up using people with legendaries + Aira's kids + Fee + Delmud + healers. Keeping Julia alive is a bit of a bother but a horse can play hide and seek with her in the forest and she doesn't hit Aless very hard.
Overall, the game was definitely different from the GBA FEs, with most of the changes being things I really did like (limited arena/chapter, skills, longer chapters but less of them). On the other hand, the inventory system is a pain and not being able to trade gold freely is immensely annoying. Pairings might have angered me more, but all of the ones I wanted were predestined and thus easy to get. Balance and polish don't exist at all. Axes are beyond worthless, spears are less worthless but not as good as swords, and swords own everything due to being far lighter; it is the same with magic, where Wind deals the same damage as Lightning and Fire but is like 10 weight lighter and autocrits fliers. Good ideas with bad execution probably combine for a 4/10 game~
Gen 1 Unit Analysis:
Sigurd: Being promoted to start with helps you out of tight spots, and despite his apparent jeiganness he is still largely worth using. He also gets a nice legendary weapon late. Excellent skills, too, most notably Pursuit (lets you GBA FE double if your speed is even 1 point higher).
Noish: Cavalier without Pursuit. Has other offensive skills which are not as useful as Pursuit. Goodbye. (benched after C1)
Alec: Actually has Pursuit so he can hit pretty well. Awareness stops skills, which is good to deal with enemy Aira Meteor Sword and that guy with a Horseslayer in C2. Should probably have been used more but meh. (benched after C2).
Ardan: Guards the castle. Can do absolutely nothing else, Armor Knights fail beyond reason in this game. (benched pretty much permanently)
Lex: It's an axeman! So that means he fails, right? Not exactly. He is on a horse, has early access to a Hero (Brave) Axe so he hits twice anyway, and his defenses are awesomeness. Can also pass down Elite (EXP gain up) to kids, which is just sexy.
Azel: Mage with Pursuit. Only way to hit res for a while and he isn't bad otherwise.
Midir: Generally average horse archer, but can pick up a Hero Bow to make him pretty decent.
Dew: Thief who starts off awful but who apparently becomes good if you use him. I didn't, but he holds his own in C1 pretty well mocking axemen from forests. Also monies.
Aideen: Standard useful healer. Also hands Brigid the shiny Ichival~
Aira: Is a FE swordmaster and a great one. Meteor Sword (5 straight physicals) pretty much kills anything when it activates, and combined with the typical swordmaster speed and skill makes her a contender for Gen 1 MVP.
Jamka: Immensely awesome. Pursuit + Continue (%Skill chance of attacking again) + Charge (chance to fight another round) + starting Killer Bow means things die, and he has the stats to back all of this up.
Lachesis: Princessy healer. Also apparently promotes to awesomeness, but I didn't get her there, which is unfortunate.
Beowulf: Very solid Free Knight with Pursuit + excellent stats. Constant frontliner.
Fury: Decent peg. Lacks strength, but can fly and Pursuit + kickass speed makes that not matter anyway.
Levin: Obscene. No Pursuit, but Continue + Elwind allows for potentially heavy damage while being insanely evasive. Then he gets Holsety and is suddenly unhittable by, uh, everything. Contender for Gen 1 MVP.
Sylvia: Dancer. Dancing is AOE in this game so it owns fairly hard. Prayer (evasion boost at low HP) means she might actually be able to go near the front.
Claude: Awesome promoted healer with AOE healing. Also REVIVAL of all things, even if one-shot.
Tiltyu: Outshadowed by Levin pretty horribly, there's not a lot of reason to use her. Crit below half HP is nice, but it's not enough. (benched after C3)
Brigid: Starts off pretty decent as a promoted Sniper. Then she gets the Ichival from Aideen and proceeds to completely waste what gets shot by it. <3.
Deirdre: Silences the C1 boss. That is literally all she does.
Ethlin: Mounted healer who can squeeze out offense with a Light Sword. Would probably have been used to the end of Gen 1 except for leaving.
Cuan: Don't remember him much except for the legendary he gets...1/4 of a chapter before he leaves. Kind of wasted potential.
Fin: Seemed more solid than Cuan, and gets a Hero Lance to play with. Probably would have ended up nicely enough.
Gen 2 Unit Analysis:
Celice: Lousy start, great finish. Ends up on a horse and being a complete magic tank with the Tyrfing, with nice damage + leadership boosts.
Lana: Is a priest who does priest things.
Delmud: Great Free Knight, but generally felt relatively worse than Beowulf for obvious reasons.
Julia: Kills Julius, and can tank earlier maps with Rezire. Very effective unit, and of course Narga is sick and wrong.
Lester: Horrible. Hero Bow didn't save his bad durability, and he was useless for C7 (got OHKOed). Bad growth in general.
Lakche: TANK SWORDMASTER. Ended up laughing at enemy physicals (go 2 damage Javelins) IF they hit, which they pretty much never did. Starting with that Hero Sword only let her shred the game into pieces that much more effectively, especially with Meteor Sword off of 30 Skill. Comparable to people with legendaries, which is just scary.
Skasaha: Worse than Lakche in every way, which means he is an evasive and hard hitting Swordmaster who is great all around. Too bad I couldn't hand him down a sword, though.
Oifaye: Not a bad Jeigan but pretty much everyone is better than he is.
Johan: Lex without everything that made Lex usable, and in a gen where there exist far better options. But he came with a free Speed Ring, at least~
Fee: Badass. Low strength is made up for by capped speed + flying + Pursuit/Continue/Critical. Excellent village saver and defensive unit in general.
Arthur: Alright early mage, but he wishes Sety did not exist. Never felt crucial at all.
Shanan: Worse than Lakche in every way but gets a legendary so you can say goodbye to hitting him at all while he murders you.
Patty: Beyond worthless. Starting Sleep Sword is neat in theory, but when you start in an enemy infested area the 2 evade you end up having is not great. Starting at L1 doesn't help this either.
Tinny: Tiltyu Mk. II.
Nanna: Parasitic healing, leadership, staves, she has it all...except for some of the worst durability ever, which doesn't help due to the way the game throws enemies at you. Not overly useful.
Leaf: Promotes to awesomeness but I found it hard to use him before then, so he didn't really get a lot of time to BE awesome.
Fin: Is Fin but this generation is far more awesome than the last one. Ends up not needed.
Aress: Gets a legendary so is automatically good. Being able to tank magic helps immensely in the last chapter, and he shows up pretty early in gen 2.
Leen: Sylvia Mk. II
Faval: Comes with the Ichival, so he deals death to grunts and fliers. Middle of the road as far as legendary weapon users go, though.
Sety: Levin Mk. II...with Pursuit, Critical, and even better speed. Ow. Gen 2 MVP.
Althena: Gae Bolg hits incredibly hard and makes her the physical tank from hell. Too bad she has typical Wyvern Rider res. Worst legendary user.
(still solid)
Corple: Worse Claude in all regards, but can revive and you will need it.
Hannibal: Is actually not a bad castle guard, but he will never get anywhere in enough time to do anything else.
