Are SRPGs more RPG than Strategy? 

Curious if you've ever played Into the Breach. That game is pure strategy, and is practically one of the best if not my favorite strategy game of all time. Never had a video game where I had to sit down and think so much.

I would argue that understanding the games systems and building the op units is part of the "strategy" and the reward is making the game easier. It lets players who might not be great at strategy games and thinking still overcome challenges. I get what youre saying though, once youve "solved" the rpg side of the game the challenge is trivial. You want to remove the emphasis on the unit stats and put it into the gameplay positioning. So like a mode where all the units are locked to lvl 1 and you can only make minor changes to their equipment and stats

My biggest gripe with players preferring hard-core difficulty is that they act like they can break the game so easily but that's literally because their doing the cheesiest strategies. Warp skipping to boss isn't min-maxing, it's straight cheesing the game. If anyone warp skips to a boss and then complains about difficulty, then that's on them. I wouldn't even say choosing not to use warp is making yourself a "challenge run", most players choose not to use warp not to set up challenge runs, but because it inherently feels cheesy when you skip fighting enemies. Same with unicorn overlord, just because all your teams either use a pre-charged special attack / enemy board freeze doesn't mean the game isn't difficult. It's still difficult if you don't do these things, and even using them is fine, just not when you make certain that every single squad is using them. Of course the game would become easy when all of your squads are designed to freeze-lock / nuke the enemy. Saying that not using these abilities is called a challenge run is weird, because most players don't use these strategies not to challenge themselves, but because they realize it takes the fun away from designing their own skill combinations that work. These powerful strategies aren't bad game design by themselves, but are cool, special skills that allow for special gameplay moments. Using warp to defend an ally, for example, is perfectly valid and *feels* good. Using it to skip across the entire map, of course not. Same with unicorn overlord, having one particularly power squad that uses the freeze/nuke strategy is good but only when you're not dedicating every team to doing it. With all that said, I'm all for more difficulty options that challenge the best players willing to use every tool given to them, and wish more developers were thoughtful of adding these modes, i just think it's weird people act like their challenging themselves by not using warp/etc, when in reality most players don't use them just because they simply take away the fun of the game.

Also I agree what you said about unicorn Overlord. I was having fun in the beginning but as it went on it just became more of a grind because it's just simply min-maxing as you said. I still think I want to go back to engage, as well as XCOM 2 because it's more strategy than RPG, and that just feels a lot more satisfying. I definitely agree that most people want to play rpgs for the story, characters, and workd building. But games like the previous two i listed are more strategy with rpg elements yet still labeled as a form of RPG. I prefer the term Tactical Strategy. It's still viable to win with just tactical gameplay instead of Simply leveling up your characters. Most people don't want to worry about strategic gameplay play game to see another cutscene. I swear all the people who love three houses and hate engage have only played the former on normal/casual and could never handle pure strategy games. I love games that make me try to think my way out of the situation.

Has you filmed / put this run on youtube? I am interested to watch the streams

Regarding your point on Canter, it would've been better if it was non-inheritable so that only 1 unit can have it. Sigurd could've given Movement +1 instead. Like you said, Canter trivializes too many positions. That's one of the things I like about FE Fates Conquest. No Canto.

I still enjoy newer FE, but this is sorta of why I like older FE a bit more. Making your whole team Wyverns or giving everyone Canto just wasn't a thing back then, you had some more natural limitations. To be clear, the older games weren't perfect either, you just couldn't break the games in quite the same way. I wish they could find a balance between old and new, but I think the reality is that they've found more success with the whole dating sim + busted customizable units style.

Never stop with the MS paint edit thumbnails, they’re SOVL 😭

These are good Fire Emblem critiques (and you're definitely right that the FE community is more interested in the RPG stuff than they are in the strategy side of things)--but "SRPGs" are a whole genre! Try playing Telepath Tactics Liberated on Tactician difficulty; I promise you, you will have to think about your moves. 😉

tbh I used to think I enjoyed strategy more than RPG but either I've changed in recent years or I didn't really understand what I was actually enjoying about the games that I played. I've found myself much more enjoying the recent trends of games becoming less strategic, or rather *requiring* less strategising. I've wholeheartedly enjoyed modern pokemon despite the very noticable drop in difficulty and while I was introduced to fire emblem with the newer games I've tried to go back to some of the older ones and really struggled to get into them. One of my favourite turn based strategy games, Library of Ruina, heavily nerfed one of the final encounters in the game during early access. instead of requiring you to prepare all 10 floors at once using limited equipment, you now only need to prepare in sets of 4 or fewer. I actually didn't struggle at all with the old version of the reception, but a lot of the playerbase did, apparently. the new version is, I think, objectively worse from a purely strategy game perspective: it requires less strategy, resources don't need to be spread as thin and not as much forethought is required. however, Library of Ruina is more than just a strategy game, it's an emotional story-based game filled with turbulent characters and lore. it's the kind of game that makes you *feel* things, so I think allowing players to play moreso at their own level to still experience that story was probably a good move. (and somewhat funny, considering that the previous game in the series gatekept the true ending behind some absurdly unfair and borderline evil challenges) idk, maybe I'm just becoming a casual with age, or maybe my lack of free time since becoming an adult has something to do with it, but these days I much more enjoy games that let me put as much strategy into them as I feel like rather than requiring a certain level of play from me. just my perspective, though. and I do agree with the point that you made early in the video that, for games with selectable difficulties, the 'hard' setting should probably still be difficult even for people who are familiar enough with the game to know its tricks and cheeses. though it's tricky to balance, since the cheeses and OP builds are fun for more casual players, so should probably be left in the game, but if you were to balance around them for the harder difficulties it would often make them into the only viable strategies, which isn't particularly fun for anyone.

As someone making an SRPG themself, I see the problem’s that it’s heavily leaning towards vertical progression, objective improvement, over horizontal, an improvement for a penalty, give and take. We can see all the characters here improve without much downsides it, all relationships between the certain partymembers without a sense of toxicity, the items an improvement from the previous without any problems of their own, and skills not without a flaw that can open the actor up to certain forms of danger. I feel a true SRPG would be this gritty ass horror tradefest where you have to pay attention to every detail, tradeoff, move, and piece of dialogue to get yourself the best ending possible.

Personally I play mostly for the rpg elements, I like the process of building units. I don’t like when the game is set in stone like chess. Obviously there is a scale, for example I think conquest is a game scaled more towards strategy, and I still enjoyed it. I think the rpg elements adds a lot to replayability, other wise once you know the the best moves, there is nothing more to figure out.

I’m haven’t played many strategy games. The only one I can think I have played a lot would be disgaea but that’s barely a strategy game but brain neurons activate when big numbers. It’s like 5% strategy max 95% grinding

Something like Engage is definitely more RPG than strategy. In a way it is the opposite of a pure strategy game like chess. In chess, the teams and staring position are exactly the same every game. It is your opponent’s moves that change, and that is what you must adapt to. In Engage, the AI responds to the same moves in the same way deterministically every time. Once you have learned to beat the maps with a certain team comp / resources, the only thing you can do is mix up your team and builds.

To be honest all these wants of modular gameplay. Sorta just sounds like you would have a fun time with Tactics Ogre.

Level ups and stat checks aren’t really fun imho. Take a game like Triangle Strategy where the only difference between easy and hard mode is a raw stat check that ultimately just makes you play slower or grind, compared to a game like Advance Wars where enemies don’t have stats at all and it comes down to making formations and trades vs superior numbers.

I agree mostly with your take on difficulty. I think fire emblem is particularly hard to balance due to iron man’s being a relatively large part of the community. Are you a fixed growth guy? I think random growths adds some variance to adapt to between runs although that is more rpg less strategy.

What I gathered from this video: - Canter is still a OP, triple-S, game-breaking skill - Engage should have Awakening-style Lunatic+ difficulty

Imagine using Canter to go back instead of forward 😂

I wouldnt mind if Fire Emblem toned down the RPG elements a bit. I would like seeing a low growth and stat caps make a return. Easier for me to calculate around too. That said, compared to most other TRPGs, I do find Fire Emblem more tactical than most. Not as tactical as Valkyria (if you plaly it hte way it is meant to be played) or Jagged Alliance, but more tactical than FFT or Tactics Ogre, and especially disgaea.

no matter how hard the game is you will have somebody doing self imposed challenges I see what you mean but numbers bigs boom damage big

you find me fully agree that they are + rpg.. in fact all those who use the acronym srpg is a big mistake because these are tactical rpg ... strategists are starcraft age of empire etc xD

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So i watched some of your unicorn overlord VODs, and i found it kind of baffling how you would complain about how easy the game was while hot swapping the one lucky coin you have across 8 different characters to ensure you always had favorable outcomes after assist manipulation spam. Seemed like way bigger cheese than using consumables or valor skills. With that said, i think UO is actually a puzzle game dressed as a strategy game. Figuring out how to beat Gerard was one if the most satisfying experiences the game had to offer. Youre just not going to find real strategy in a single player game because the developers are creating an experience thats meant to be beaten. Chess is a bad comparison because black isn't designed to be beaten by white.

Tis os alwo becose The tre thngs that defictt unites are not the rin engelge the are 3 tings that difety units, Stats clas , and sikils, First clas clas is varible du to secon sels sou it ist a isu ,Stats stats can be maxd out du to havevong and infet number of levle ups nd gindirn, Sikis can be alterd like having a carter have all the sikleis that you whant . Comper this to telios or fIer embel 8 .All the carter have difnet stats du to not hvin infit leups have difnet skils and difnet clase du to the lack or reclasing andd the ebn 3 hose Wich has unlide reclasnig catte have lited lebel ups. The oly game wher one of this ther thisng cna eb malbuel is New mistry. Adn that is oly dur tostat botesr adn the lack of skils

This whole video was "So if I use strategy to make things easier, its no longer a strategy game". Its not a roguelike, its not a soulsbourne, its an rpg with Strategy, just because it isnt incredibly ball busting strategy doesnt make that not true like bro, crawl out your own ass.

hay could you recommend some games that are mostly strategy