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cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

MMania posted:

So apparently I can only play the demo... 30 times? That doesn't make any kind of sense to me, but whatever.

drat this game looks slick, I might actually play with combat animations on for the first time in years. The FMVs are breathtaking, basically everything other than the overly-simplified map sprites look simply amazing.

Lissa jumped in front of an attack on my archer and blocked it, that was definitely the highlight of my first play through. I'm guessing it's just a % chance to nullify an attack, happened a few times and it was always a "miss." The support system in general has had a much needed face-lift, the little hearts popping up showing friendship gains and the "you rock" shout that gives you bonuses are all superbly executed.
When you attack (in classic-style attack overview, no idea how it displays in the useless new attack summary), in the bottom right corner are some percentages next to a sword and shield. The sword is the % chance of getting a dual attack, and the shield is the % chance of getting a dual guard, which as you guessed negates all damage. Dual attack chance is based on support level and the skill of the two characters; dual guard chance is based on support level and the def/res of the two characters.

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cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
Apparently the demo has a bug that crashes the game--if you obtain Leif's sword from an event tile, and kill an enemy with it, the game tries to give you a bullion. But bullions aren't in the demo, so it just crashes.

Watch out for that I guess.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Aphrodite posted:

Someone earlier said you can get the old style battle prediction screen back somehow?

I think you get it by having the "full" stats screen on the bottom rather than the summary. I wouldn't swear to that though.

The full status screen is way more useful anyways, just like the old battle window.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

BrightWing posted:

So, Lunatic mode in the demo. 9 str/12 spd myrms at lvl 1. They can 2 shot Krom. Mages with El- lvl tomes. Boss has 14 str and 34 HP and the Throwing Ax upgrade.. This is all in the prologue level, mind. :suicide:

As a side note, how is AS calculated in this game? I noticed that weapons don't have a weight stat, but 4 spd on a target does not a double attack make.

AS is jsut speed. Weight is entirely gone. You need a 5-spd advantage to double, not just 4.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
The only way I've been able to consistently get through chapter one in lunatic is to pair Chrom with Frederick, put Fred on the fort, and pray to dodge the hammer.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
You're assuming that letting characters die is the "correct" way to play and that all we need is a slight nudge in the right direction and we'll see the light. The developers have known since at least FE3 that some players will accept deaths and move on, and some will reset incessantly to save everyone, and have designed the games accordingly.

It also seems to me that it's not that Fire Emblem wants you to let characters die and is failing to communicate that--it's communicating the exact opposite message! Having unique characters each with their own portrait and personality communicates the message that each character is irreplaceable.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Miftan posted:

I was discussing this game with a friend and he brought up the point that this whole reclassing mechanic seems like it would essentially force you to hop online and look for guides for the optimal set up on each character, or at least play through the game one or twice so you know what's coming and what skills everyone wants. I agree in principle that it's not very good game design but it doesn't really scare me in the same way because I don't mind not playing optimally. At least not when I'm not playing the hardest difficulty. Is he right or is there some in game way to check these things?

The main campaign only has about 40-50 levels worth of experience in it. You're going to be reclassing maybe once per character in the main game--wandering from class to class to pick up skills is a postgame mechanic (and even then, there's only one DLC where simply having maxed stats isn't good enough and you have to have quality skills in addition, and it's the final DLC with the difficulty listed as "MAX").

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

fount of knowledge posted:

So I know everyon plays differently, but as someone who won't be able to play the demo in the forseeable future but still plans on picking up the game, would it be good to make the first run on normal or hard?

For reference, I've played through all three GBA games and am currently on Path of Radiance, and managed to play through all of them with no casualties and very little restarts. Between the demo and those who've played the Japanese version of this game, where does Normal difficulty fall along those lines?

Normal mode is incredibly easy. It's easily soloable with MU starting around chapter 4 or 5 or so. Hard mode is legitimately hard, but feels like slightly too much of a jump upwards--it's somewhere around the "fair" chapters of HHM in difficulty (so once you've gotten your army going, but without bullshit like Cog of Destiny or Battle Before Dawn throws at you). Some of the characters (I'm looking at you, Stahl) are extremely difficult to use, but nobody is useless from the word go like they can be in lunatic.

That said, MU can still mostly solo hard mode if you lean on them too hard. You'll need to do crazy shenanigans with rescue staves and pairing in creative ways for some of the harder chapters, but MU is pretty insane.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Terper posted:

General consensus seems to be that Normal is sort of like FE8 Hard.

Eirika route maybe.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Louisgod posted:

Does anybody know if Awakening has side levels or towers you can choose at any time to fight in? I really enjoyed the inclusion of a multi-storied tower you can turn to instead of relying on chapters to level up your characters.

There are skirmishes just like in FE8, and DLC maps can be repeated endlessly. No side dungeons though.

e: ^^^ the aum staff was all the way back in FE1.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Ryanbomber posted:

How bad is Hard for anti-grinding? Normal sounds like its too easy, but I do want the option to do OCD grinding if the game has enough side content to support it.

Hard mode has skirmishes that are perfectly doable--they're upscaled from normal by the same amount as any other map.

In lunatic, grinding is still possible, but it basically requires using DLC maps. Skirmishes in lunatic scale based on the farthest chapter you've unlocked, while in normal and hard they scale based on which map they spawn in.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Iceclaw posted:

What can Thiefs do in that game, by the way? Is stealing weapons still a thing?

Thieves have the skill that lets can pick locks (anyone can do that if they reclass into thief to get the skill). Nothing else about them is particularly thief-like

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

ImpAtom posted:

They do.

to clarify, the battle model and map sprite change, but the talking head portrait does not. this is true of all characters.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Blackbelt Bobman posted:

welp, I know what I'm getting if I somehow stumble upon a large pile of money!

On topic, if I for some reason chose the girl avatar, would there be a shoehorned love story between her and Chrom? If so I'll stick with the bromance.

Only if you get MU and Chrom to an S rank support, which is optional and requires you to specifically choose to do so. FeMU can romance any male character, while MaMU can romance any female character.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
I haven't actually found it to be that great, unless you get a lucky drop from an event tile. The game showers you in money, and it's not really that difficult to just buy 20 nosferatus rather than try to do some crazy mercenary -> dark mage reclass scheme. It could be good with forges, but it's still basically limited by who starts as a mercenary in-game and limited by opportunity cost to put on skills that actually effect combat in the postgame.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Neo_Crimson posted:

How fast do you level up compared to the rest of the games? It seems to me all of the really crazy reclass shenanigans won't come to fruition until the endgame, even with skirmishes.

I've found that when you reach the final chapter, your team will be level 40-50 or so if you do all the gaidens. If you save some of the gaidens for postgame, it'll be lower.

e: ^^^ there's an internal list of what order it rolls for skills. I don't recall how it breaks ties, but generally, the less often a skill procs, the earlier it's rolled. So Letheality will get checked first, and then if it didn't proc, aether will be checked.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
I find that gold is easy enough to grind for in the postgame that it isn't significantly harder to just give each character multiple brave weapons. Even the hardest DLC map had the characters I leaned on the most only go through two (partially because attacking from range is important enough I couldn't just use braves everywhere). That said, the opportunity cost of armsthrift in the extreme DLC lategame probably exceeds its benefit.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Miftan posted:

Can someone elaborate on the 'recruiting your own children' thing? Are they born 15 years old and combat ready? How does this work?

Spoilers. So much spoilers I won't even put it into tags. Go to Serenes if you really want to know now.

Somebody fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Jan 20, 2013

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
If we're counting the thing I quoted as a spoiler, then maybe it should be removed from the OP as well.

EDIT: It's a thing that was revealed in the media blitz surrounding the Japanese release and will probably be revealed again before the american release, if that makes a difference.

cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jan 20, 2013

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Slate Action posted:

Wait, there's 120 legacy characters you can recruit via the free Spotpass DLC, each encountered in their own mission? So there's 120 free DLC missions out of the box?

:stare:

Not out of the box. they get released at the rate of one set of ten characters every other week (I think the rate is right, it's been a while).

You can only have a total of 20 spotpass/DLC/streetpass characters with you at any given time, as well.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Endorph posted:

The legacy characters come in groups. So, for instance, you fight the FE10 characters (Micaiah, Sothe, Edward, Leonardo, Brom, Nephenee, Sigrun, Sanaki, Sephiran, Black Knight, Oliver) as one enemy army and they're recruited in that mission.

This is wrong. They all unlock at once (or rather, they all get sent to your 3DS via spotpass at once, and they unlock at a rate of one per day in a random order). You can then summon them, one at a time, to the world map, where they can be recruited, one at a time.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

DrManiac posted:

Do your dudes give you an option to change you avatar sometimes like in FE 12?

No. Your appearance, once chosen, is locked in and never changes.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Adelheid posted:

You know, I get the feeling that most people who say reverse is dumb, haven't actually played it. It's lots of fun and I really enjoy it. I'd probably like FE12 way less if it weren't for Reverse, and, I'm looking forward to playing Lunatic+ with its Vantage+ even if it's not on every enemy.

I got up to chapter 7 of reverse and thought it less fun than normal lunatic. I hit a wall where Catria was one hp short of pulling off the strategy I came up with and never kept going. (Of course now that I'm thinking about it months later, I realize I could have just bought a robe/shield from the shop).

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Terper posted:

This is life. This is death. This is the Fire Emblem Awakening TV Commercial:siren:WARNING SPOILERS REGARDING MARTH IN THERE WARNING:siren:

I'm sort of surprised they were willing to show Marth without a mask in the ad. To my recollection, NoJ still hasn't shown that anywhere free (though maskless Marth is standing proud on the cover of the artbook).

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
Growths are for losers, it's all about the cap modifiers.

e: VVVV we don't know her localized name yet. I really hope they keep the theme of her name being an unpronounceable mess.

cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jan 22, 2013

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Slate Action posted:

Do characters recruited through Spotpass or DLC have much/any dialogue? (I assume they don't have supports)

No. Any time they would be required to have some dialogue (e.g. when they level up), they say "..."

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Neo_Crimson posted:

We've got a class reel video for the English version with localized class names.

Highlights include:

Dracoknight -> Wyvern Rider

Gryphon Knight -> Gryphon Rider

Battle Monk/Cleric -> War Monk/Cleric

Dark Pegasus -> Dark Flier

Pretty much what you'd expect for the most part. "Dark Flier" is kinda iffy but you can get used to it. Though I'm surprised they didn't change Bow Knight to Ranger or Horseman or something.

We're back to wyverns then? I'm kind of disappointed, I thought dracoknight was going to be the name going forward.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
In my experience with the high-end DLC, male children who inherit Lightning Speed from their mothers (meaning Azure, Brady, Wood, and male Mark) are the most powerful characters you can make, because quick slash is by far the best non-lightning speed skill and is both male-only and uninheritable.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Captain Oblivious posted:

Do skill scrolls exist at all in Awakening or are skills gained entirely through reclassing around?

Some of the DLC maps (Micaiah, Celice, Lyn, and Ike) give you a skill scroll each time you beat them. Other than that, it's reclassing only.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Sir Ilpalazzo posted:

Where did those localized old FE character names come from? I looked around a few pages back but I didn't see anything.

The event tiles in the demo can give you items like "Aversa's Darkness" and "Seliph's Sword" that clue us in to new localized names.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
One of my better characters in the early postgame (so everything but the actual hardest map) was A female Mark pimped out to have the highest possible defense cap and the manakete class. Skill set was like Limit Breaker/Lightning Speed/Magnificent Flame/All Stats+2/Life Absorb. In retrospect, after understanding how the postgame works a bit better, I'd have either replaced Life Absorb with Luna/Aether or Magnificent Flame and Life Absorb with Great Shield and Holy Shield.

In the actual hardest map, just run around with Lightning Speed, Limit Breaker, forged brave weapons, and A-rank supports between your entire team. All of those seem to be both necessary and sufficient so whatever else you do is up to preference.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
I'm just going to pronounce all the apostrophes as glottal stops.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
I've had a lot of success with +def/-luk in lunatic. +hp would probably do the same thing--the point is to just escape the awkward stage where you get 2hkoed as quickly as possible. Chrom gives a large spd bonus when paired, so your offense will take care of itself.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Cake Attack posted:

Oh hey, whoops, I meant to say class caps, not bases. We still don't know how base stats are inherited.

There's a list of each parent's max modifiers, but it's got some recruitment spoilers.

We actually do know how bases are inherited! It's the three way average between the mother's base stats, the father's base stats, and the child's inherent base stats (all done before class bases are added in, of course).

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Cake Attack posted:

Are growths known as well? The inheritance section on SF said neither was known, but looking again it hasn't been updated since July.

Yeah, it's the same thing--a three way average between the growths of the mother, father, and child. Serenes has the formulas listed in the base stats and growths pages but apparently not the inheritance page.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Evil Canadian posted:

If you go to hard right away does that disable tutorials? I love a challenge but my knowledge of how everything works is a bit limited. I know for FE12 picking anything but normal disabled tutorials.

I believe you can turn them back on in the menu.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

SloppyDoughnuts posted:

Is casual and classic a toggle-able thing or a one-time choice at the start? If it's something you only pick at the beginning I might just have to play on casual. I can't see myself playing Katarina's dlc with permanent death.

Just going to chime in and say that it's not significantly harder to beat Katarina's DLC deathlessly than it is to just beat it at all. Pretty much the only difference between the two is that to keep people alive you need almost everyone to have lightning speed, instead of just a lot of them.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

RuBisCO posted:

I'm assuming you've played all the DLC? How are they? Would you say it's worth it to shell out for all of them?

Yeah, I have all the DLC. Here's my general opinion (ignoring the actual aesthetics of the characters and only caring about the gameplay value):

Marth - is free at launch so why not get it
Roy - not worth it
Micaiah - gives an important skill and is the best grinding map on lunatic for characters level 40-60 or so
Leaf - not worth it
Alm - gives a neat class
Celice - gives an incredibly important skill for grinding and is the best grinding map on lunatic for characters level 60+
Elincia - not worth it
Eirika - gives a class that's kind of neat but largely skippable. Optimized teams will have one character sniper a single skill from it and then reclass back out
Lyn - gives a bad skill, skippable
Ephraim - the first truly postgame DLC. Worth it if you want a challenge that tests your endgame team rather than a crazy minmaxed team
Celika - not worth it
Ike - gives a skill that is an absolute prerequisite for some of the later DLC
Gold and Silver - only easy way to go infinite on money in lunatic
Entombed Heaven - practically the only way to grind level 1-40 characters in lunatic. Not actually faster than doing skirmishes if in normal or hard
Infinite Divine Weapons - kind of a pain to grind weapons out of, and the only divine weapons that even come close to mattering are Swanchika, Ragnell, Gradivus, and Fala Flame, and Fala Flame and Ragnell are the only ones that can't be approximated by forging 1-2 range weapons. Forged brave weapons are better than all the 1-range divine weapons.
Future of Despair series - probably worth it, I can only understand about 50% of the dialogue without poring over a dictionary but the extra story seemed ok
Ultimate Training series - 1, 3, and 4 are all very good, interesting maps with plenty of strategic depth. 4 mostly requires limit breaker, whereas the first 3 don't (and 2 is trivialized by it).
Bonds series - almost certainly worth it, though I can't say for sure because I'm not super-fluent in Japanese.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

ImpAtom posted:

You can have 5 at any time and through careful marriage end up with characters who have skills they don't otherwise have access to.

A manakate with the +20% to Growths skill is the absolute best thing. At least a point in every single stat every single level. :allears:

Unless they majorly increased the growths, HP will be the only growth over 100% with Donnel/Nowi, so I'm not sure what to make of this post.

e: also every single manakete in this game is an absolute wrecking ball, and I'll be damned if any character traits short of Makalov's bright pink afro are enough to stop me from using a good unit.

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cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Terper posted:



Canada got it early.

loving Canada. At least I have overnight shipping and pre-ordered early enough it'll be there on the 5th.

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