Fire Emblem Is Horribly Balanced And That's A Good Thing 

Surprised you never mentioned how some units are supposed to be worse replacements of other units in case they die.

The Three Houses points can be honestly summed up with: "Play Maddening, because Normal/Hard unironically deprive units of uniqueness". The game is harder but with the way the mechanics line up unit individualism gets to shine through. And hell, you even get your weak archer trope in Ashe who's either the worst unit or the 2nd worst. There does exist homogenization but honestly the 3H units are more unique than just the GBA's "bases/class determine basically everything". Higher enemy power tends to bring diversification, as for example bow users are excellent in New Mystery.

The creator has said that his intentions with the weak mid-game units was to make them weaker replacements to the earlier ones. Reset-culture just screwed this idea over. Also, archers are super good in 3H, so meme strats need to change.

Neimi is also my favorite unit from sacred stones, its so much fun seeing her grow and rushing that promotion. Also im sure youve beaten 3H by now but bows are actually super OP in that game since they can counter at close range with a class skill.

I don't think Fire Emblem units have to be unbalanced to be interesting, but to steal a term from Professor Bopper (good channel), they have to tell a story. Bad units are captivating because they make for really good stories. They're either a zero to hero or an extremely outclassed unit who has to go 110% and pull out all of the stops just to remain somewhat relevant. Someone like Zealot does not tell a story like this. He comes with stats that are slightly better than your cavs. He will end the game with stats that are maybe 2 points higher everywhere. Reliable, but boring. But the newer games have introduced ways to make for interesting stories outside of stats. Odin in CQ has one of the most boring stat lines of any characters, being almost even across the board with "meh" in every single stat, but he has a cool story to tell because that balance makes him amazing at tanking with Nosferatu and then he can later become a Samurai and use that same balance to stick around for a long time with Vantage Astra nonsense. Reclassing might have led to homogenization before in FE11-13, but I think they hit it in Fates because now characters can exploit their reclasses to hold niches no other character could ever take from them. 3H isn't as good with this, but still does an ok job with this because of the character specific skill sets. Bernadetta is one of the craziest units in any of these game because of how she transforms from a meek archer to a berserking vengeance spammer. Not through her character arc. Not over the course of the game, but over the course of every map.

Modern Fire Emblem still doesn't do game balance these days. If you want a perfect example, let's look at Ferdinand. So, Ferdinand in Three Houses is a Lance unit with solid prospects for armor and cavalry usage and decent ability to use all 3 of swords, axes and lances on hard mode. On Maddening, he's a one trick pony with the ability to learn Swift Strikes at A rank Lances, a combat art that lets you hit twice (very VERY important considering that doubling is basically impossible on Maddening.) He has a very very difficult recruitment because he requires you to have a solid rank in Heavy Armor, and if that wasn't enough, you can get a B support with almost every recruitable character in 3 Houses before the time skip, with the notable exception of Ferdinand, so his otherwise more lenient (but still annoying) recruitment conditions become borderline impossible to fulfil without screwing over Byleth. Now let's look at Sylvain. Sylvain has better base stats, similar or better growths, a better base Axe rank which lets him use Smash immediately, good lance and axe rank boons, the same access to Swift Strikes, some surprisingly useful utility in the form of a reason budding talent (because even on Maddening, Armor Knights have fuck all for speed and it's tough to punch through them with just physical damage) and his recruitment comes down to "pick F!Byleth and he'll join you no matter what other conditions." It's just like that. If you want anything close to a balanced game design with each unit having a different purpose to fulfill in Fire Emblem, the closest thing you can get to it is Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. Each class either has really good movement, really good stats, or actually busted skills. Each unit is very differently made, with there being limited reclassing into most classes but using a limited resource in the form of who they marry or get an A support with. Not only that, all of this diversity actually serves a purpose because unlike games like FE6, there's actually more than one map condition and it takes all types to get through Conquest. Outside of Conquest, though, IS has never and will never be bothered with game balance and I can guarantee that.

I put more time and effort into turning Rolf into a goddamned killing machine than any other character in the entire series. Oscar, Boyd and Rolf were like a mirror reflection of my brothers and I and so the attachment I formed to those three characters was insane. Of course it helped that Boyd and Oscar were absolute units pretty much from the get go. Otherwise I generally play each FE game the same way. Develop the lord fully, have a tanked out axe unit, a slick sword user and then a whole load of cav and mages, not super creative given how OP those units are and how well they complement eachother, but being able to rush your army into the thick of the enemies lines and just watch as said enemies all immediately get themselves killed is pure art.

Vision Quest, good choice. I also recommend Sun God's Wrath, probably one of the biggest redemptions in Romhack history (considering it is a sequel to Corrupt Theocracy, one of the worst copy-and-paste Fire Emblem romhacks). Sun God's Wrath is crazy good

I made every one of my villagers in Echoes not their canonical class, and with the exception of Mage Gray, I loved all of them. Mercenary Tobin wasn’t great, but it was fun. Archer Kliff was great, and Cavalier Atlas was… rough at the time, but still as fun as I would have with him otherwise.

Now I could go over a bunch of stuff that happened between videos but honestly the thing I’m most excited about is the Metroid Dread announcement. I literally cannot wait for that game to come out.

Bad units are so fun. It means I can use Bors, both archers, and Sophia in an fe6 run. Is it optimal? No. But damn it's fun seeing how blessed they got

I hope you kept playing 3 Houses. Its such a good game. The most fun with it is making units into different classes instead of the same thing over and over like other games.

Damn I'm suprised you only have 619 subscribers you are an amazing channel and deserve to have more honestly

Glad to see another archer enjoyer! I'm right now playing a Low Tier run of Binding Blade and I swear is so fun just to see how useless characters become good or at least useful, now I love Wade and Lot so much more. And yeah, the "build your characters system" of Three Housed made me feel that the game didn't have unique moments for them. Keep up the good work!

Umm..... how is a 6th grader with family issues slower than a normal 6th grader?

I think everyone should at least viable. Fe6 is typically great if you ignore the shit tiers. Every character has such noticeable weaknesses that make them stand out people unironically lie to themselves repeatedly that the mages are bad so they can swear they r smrt because characters have problems so must be bad. This gives everyone a job to do that makes people interested to use. Even archers have a job because wyverns are so common and unstoppable and even chip damage has use. If the completely useless ones like wade and the armors were at least on par with the ok characters like lugh dayan or geese It’d basically give infinite replayability.

1:22 Erk can attack from 2 range... you could have avoided that counter-attack.

This is an amazing video, and it raises a great point about gameplay balance in FE; for an FE to ultimately be good, it needs to have more uniqueness to the character than there being good options. Obviously, some options are going to be strictly better, but who cares how you play or not? I'm still making Amelia into a General because she never let me down and she's one of my favorite characters in the series, to the point I play as a variant of her (complete with a Greatsword, Greataxe and Lance) in Dark Souls 3. Hell, it's probably the reason why I have such utter adoration of FE8 and FE9; despite having extremely lopsided balance, there was so much freedom in how YOU wanted to play that that's ultimately what mattered. Units like Seth were always better by default, but they weren't as dramatic or interesting as seeing scrubs like the trainees grow strong enough to take on gods and demons. There's just an immaculate amount of catharsis in the fact ANYONE is usable if you so wish, and that left a massive freedom to play the way you want to play above all else. I think this, conversely, is something IntSys has been made aware of given how lopsided tier discussion often is, so they've made increased attempts arguably since Awakening to correct it, to... mixed results, IMO. On one hand, Fates' mechanics are so amazingly designed that it arguably *_surpassed_* the balance of FE12 (already a fantastically-balanced system of classes with only one really bad classes), and gave every class and strategy not just that personality trait that was so desirable, but also genuine tactical use in all stages of the game. Using Generals on the frontline but want them to catch up to your speedier units? Pair up with a mount or thief to help them zoom across faster! Need an Archer to help compensate for melee weaknesses? Pair up with a Swordmaster or Berserker! The magic that I think Fates accomplished in even the routes with decidedly worse map design is that decidedly flawless balance where classes have a purpose overall to your liking, yet still were decidedly unique. And most importantly, no matter your playstyle, you'd have *fun!* FE12 is indeed one of the best games in the series, but I can definitely see why it wouldn't be fun to some on the highest level of difficulties, given those strategies mandate playstyles that are traditionally seen as "boring" like Armor Knight and Archer turtling, rather than fast, aggressive playstyles that'd be fun for more people like in FE14. I think that's where 3H falls apart gameplay wise; Fates gave a lot of individual restrictions on what units could reclass into and even what their Personal Skills are, making every character feel unique in their own way. In 3H, with no logical restriction on what classes you can change into and the fact everyone can become a Wyvern Lord even if they're not "meant" for the class, the only thing that ultimately matters is what Arts and Magic the unit can learn, which is simultaneously a palsy way of giving individuality to each unit and yet too restrictive, given damnit, what if my Sylvain wants to learn Wind and Thunder magic than Fire magic?! Because lord knows my Robin in Awakening was a Fire Mage Tactician. This is the reason why I adore Fates' cast on the wholesale despite the story woes while 3H's cast, despite being far better written, occupies a nil space in my mind. A lot of the individuality of each unit feels removed, and as such playing the game the way you want to feels really dull overall. Anyways, that's why I think it's important for FE to have unit individuality, but also good balance because it *_is_* a strategy RPG at its heart. Either way, amazing video; thanks for teaching me why the imbalance is a good thing!

I turned Rebecca into a beast on my first run of Hector Normal in Blazing Blade. I think it helps that I chose Fire Affinity for the Tactician, but it's still hilarious. Even accounting for the enemies being relatively weak in Blazing Blade she was dodging most attacks and landing a million criticals. I also just like archers from a design standpoint. Not so much because they're bad and I have to put work into them, but because they bypass the weapon triangle (barring Fates) and just require more creative manuevering.

The only reason why I'm still playing Genealogy, Thracia and Biding Blade even to this day it's not because of the good characters and history, it's just because I love playing with shitty units and turn them into gods (or at least into mid units) so I can enjoy getting my ass rekt while I'm also having a good time. Genealogy is the absolute GOAT at unbalancing a game, and that's fine, the legendary weapons are cool, it's extremely fun trying to take on Eldigan, Arion and Julius, not because they are well balanced but because it is fun to suffer, just the way Kaga intended. Amazing video dude!.

Honestly, as a person who started with Awakening but ended up playing 6 after beating it... I sorta get it. Like the fun is praying your underdogs survive and buff up so that they can eventually stand up. I mean I'd still play Awakening, but honestly the series doesn't seem off-putting in terms of how you make do with what ya got.

Both approaches have their merit I think. Players can grow attached and enjoy using a character because they are weaker but some players might just want to play the game with characters they like due to writing, voice or design without having to play on hard mode. Maybe a fair compromise would be to let players choose how to play the game, similar to the permadeath setting let them choose if units are normalized or not.

6:27 "no reason to become an archer" odd because a lot of units typically go though archer for mastery and Sniper is one of the better endgame classes

Opinion on VQ? Its my favorite fire emblem experience

Instant Sub with this title. The thing is if you have someone like Marty or Arden it's awesome to use them and see that they can be pretty good despite their big flaws and terrible start. It doesn't matter how good those you use are (unless you wanna play perfect but even on the hardest difficulty this mostly isn't nessecary). But that you use those that you like. To play in your way. Inbalance is okay especially if it's not a competetive game. Due to RNG blessed Level Ups and Stat Boosters everyone could become good or terrible.

Your sense of humour is still on point.

I agree , not with archers but my favorite units are usually twink early mages like Soren or Azelle

1:12 this was good. I like you, m8

As a wise man once said, Who needs balance when you can have FUN!?

Snipers are perfect for softening beserks in binding blade

And some of the stat growth in gba fire emblem makes sense. Military or experienced folk are obvious better than say some hunter, simple bandit, or thief. Point is, the games should make sense storytelling and gameplay wise

My Sophia was a monster max mag and res and doubled everything late

how can you say something so controversial and yet so brave? liked.

Incredible commentary on why its 100% okay not to be balanced!

NGL, Bow users are actually insanely good in Three Houses because of the Bow Range + skills. You need high Dex to get around the Hit penalties at 3+ range, but having, for example, a Bow Knight, is awesome. Bow users are also much better in combat thanks to Close Counter.

Love the video! Definitely agree that balance is not a good thing in single player games, especially RPGs. Although I will disagree on a few points. As a fire emblem player who plays slowly, every character is usable, and especially in games like FE9/10, almost every unit likely gets all their important stats within a couple points of their caps by max level. I would argue that with this being the case, awakening's and fates' system of classes and skill access provides greater differentiation and imbalance. A Laurent will never be able to completely compete with a Brady because Brady can get galeforce. If you choose to have Tharja marry anybody not named Gaius or Donnel, you've made a worse Noire. Ryoma and Xander's prf weapons make them better enemy phase units than any other units in the game. I agree if you use the framework of class-bases-growths, the newer games will make all the characters look the same, but that's just a result of the newer games choosing other avenues to make their characters unique. In three houses, personal skills, combat art, and spell lists determine what makes a great unit. I didn't realize how much these mattered until my first maddening run, but I think it's a general fact that units will only really show their uniqueness when sufficiently challenged.

I've only played Fates and couldn't finish it since my 3DS broke, but I know exactly what you're talking about. In a game of royals, badasses, and mages, my favorite characters were the absentminded archer Setsuna and the last surviving villager Mozu. And their stats suck.

Imbalance adds to the fun of the series in some ways, but honestly Ive never had fun hsing archers in the GBA games (specifically FE7 and 8). If their weapons had like 5 more MT it'd be fine, but as it stands theyre not even good on player phase, which is like the one place theyre meant to excel. Making them good on player phase still wouldnt make them balanced in FE7 and 8, because those games are enemy phase heavy, but it would give them a use and make them more fun to use imo. Also trainees and ests need better growths

"No reason to become an Archer in Three Houses" Three Houses Meta: EVERYONE GRAB YOUR BOWS NOW!!!!!! Just a thing I found funny

Yay, Neimi is also my favorite FE character. It's nice when others recognize her greatness.

Binding blade is a good example for this case. It’s was both rushed, unbalance(for the early game), and didn’t programmed correctly(in terms of chapter/enemies design) but we still love it…. Roy, you suck even if the game did get a remastered title(no offense, Roy fans).

But what if you dont know in the beginning how strong they are?

Bad units are the best mechanic in the franchise

So you gonna take a relook into Engage?

Being unbalanced is one thing when your fighting AI. So it’s okay for the mainline FE games to be unbalanced, but when you regularly fight the unbalanced and broken units like you do in FEH, it’s a problem. And yes, I’m aware that the video isn’t about FEH, I’m just saying that FEH shouldn’t be unbalanced like the mainline games are.

Unbalanced characters are fine, but the caveat is that even the bad units should be at least viable on some level. Units like Sophia and Wendy in FE6 HM are a bad design, simply because they're extremely bad units with no potential and no contributions to speak of. Niche picks like Wolt, Dorothy, Ogier, Fir, Zeiss are very fun to play with because they have redeeming qualities that make raising them worth it. I like Hugh for this reason, because despite his horrible joining circumstances, he's a unique mage that specializes in physical bulk at the cost of resistance, and has the highest base con of usable mages, which lets him use every tome without speed loss. He is basically an unpromoted version of Pent in FE6. On the other hand, you have Sophia, who when built up, just becomes a worse Raigh, and Wendy, who is obsoleted entirely by the likes of Bors, Barth or even Treck

Archers were OP in Shadows of Valentia

You play them because you like the characters, not because of their stats.

A lot of people don't understand what's balance at all. The sole purpuse of balance is optimizing fun, if you make a game less fun to make it balanced you are just a bad designer. On the other hand your game might be perceived as absolutely unbalanced but perfectly fun and excellently designed: that is just a matter of perception, the fact that is fun and well designed is all that matter and that game would be absolutely balanced for it's purposes! You can optimize the balance to create new fun stuff to do for players and it often feels like the game is even more unbalanced after that but that's irrelevant, that's how real balance looks like: giving variety to what a player can do introducing viable and fun options to have a better experience

My favourite example of imbalance will always be arden He is literally the butt of Chalphy's joke and he literally cant reach enemies if you dont leave them alive for him So using him is conscious choice,you are deliberately shooting yourself in the foot because you want to The game even rewards that type of thinking by giving him the pursuit ring,making him double now And it all culminates in him promoting into general And becoming meh at best,still garbage at worst Because you cant wash away who Arden is with a fancy promotion He is still slow,he will still be a liabilty But damn if he isnt fun to use for that reason

Neimi is god tier ❤

good

I love you.

Fire Emblem Fans know that this games balancing is terrible. That's why we love it. It's a unique experience that can't exactly be fulfilled by anything else. I could play Final Fantasy Tactics... or I could play the hell hole that is Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 with its brutal map design. Fire Emblem plays like it was designed by a person banging their head on a keyboard and translating the resulting mess of characters into code, but it's FUN. Seeing a bunch of numbers go up when none of them could have is FUN. Watching my frail mage decimate an entire army is FUN. Having my units die because of bulls**t map design is... nevermind I hate Fire Emblem.

And meanwhile I mainly grow attached to my strong units, grow apathetic towards my weak, but the only thing that changes it is supports. For 3H as my example: Ignatz is a really weak unit in my experience but I really enjoyed his relationship with a few characters so I would deploy him more than otherwise to see him interract. Meanwhile a character like Lysithea is my favourite because she was my most reliable character and was enjoyable in most supports. But uh, f"ck Marianne, useless in combat and has terrible supports. When I do future runs I know I will recruit Lysithea but never Marianne.

4:48 I love how you say this but then put Rath on screen. Dude. Rath is actually crazy. Absolute Juggernaut after his promotion.

Tru

It's also really important to have weak units so you know just hoe strong your strong units really are. If everyone in path of radiance was Titania you'd steamroll the game obviously, but if they buffed the enemies too to make it "balanced" you'd just have an army of identical units with different character sprites. Oscar's story in path of radiance has nothing to do with any of his written dialogue, it's a story about how the conflict turns him from Titania's subordinate to her equal. I've never seen any of Rolf's dialogue before, but his story has nothing to do with whatever he says. His story is a little boy growing up too fast and trying to do whatever he can to help his brothers, even if he can only do a little and his brothers have to protect him and bail him out of bad situations. If he dies, that's how the story ends. Reset culture sucks.

Emblem itself seems like a decent game, I'm just getting sick of how Smash treats it.

Bro the 2% will crit