Early video this week because I'll be playing Engage all weekend! Feel free to drop by the stream if you want to hang out and check out the new Fire Emblem with me: www.twitch.tv/actuallizard
We'd never have Excelblem strats without Permadeath. You simply cannot recreate the glory of his FE11 Ironman in any other franchise. Memes like Jitaro, Blood Emperor Marth, and Ross the Boss just cannot exist in other sRPGs like Front Mission and Shining Force.
Ah, a fellow Excelblem enjoyer. Can't wait to kill- I mean, *meet* all of our friends in Engage with Emblem Marth controlling- I mean, *helping* Alear throughout the way
I almost exclusively reset for character deaths, but I do that *because* I like making the explicit decision to fight for a perfect ending. The *threat* of the permadeath and having to grieve the potential of a character’s story is just what makes the tone for me, you know? Ideally, I want characters to have just enough plot and dialogue to make it really *sting* when they die, but be replaceable in gameplay, so that that threat can be at its maximum potential for both ironmanners and resetters. I also desperately want SD-style save points back, they were the single best way to balance the annoyance of resetting imo and no mechanic since has come close.
I went into Fire Emblem with no knowledge of Permadeath. When I went onto the second chapter after getting Wolt killed only for him not to be there, I knew it'd be my favorite series.
@@enigmatic3194 me who got Matthew and Florina killed before chapter 18: "Oh man I feel so bad for Hector now." *Fiora appears* "OH NO I CAN'T EVEN TELL HER ABOUT FLORINA"
For Mila's turnwheel, Divine Pulse etc I generally don't like it if the game is specifically balanced with it in mind (looking at Three Houses' maddening mode ambush spawns), *but* I really appreciate its convenience whenever I mislick something like wait or end turn which I know will happen to me at least a few times a playthrough. Pretty much I like how I can fix things I didn't mean to do in the first place.
Honestly I've played the series for only about 4-5 years with my first game being 7 going into 3 houses I had mixed feelings on divine pulse I loved that I could go back and fix minor mistakes. But I also didn't like how I got so many. That being said when you're on a final map and you're like me burning divine pulses because you missed an attack only to have none left by the end of the chapter, it gets tense and fun. Knowing that you can save a unit with it feels nice but you get that classic feeling when you're all out and you have to have that "leaning forward position" when you have to start taking the game seriously.
Because my math skills are non-existant. During my time with Three Houses I often used the turnwheel in case my plan or math were wrong, and I just placed a character in certain death. I remember rewinding for a character death 3 times, once in blue lions and twice in black eagle, have yet to play golden deer and church routes though.
I've played a different tactics game that allow you to undo any number of movements, but any combat or new information cannot be undone. So revealing fog of war, doing any %to succeed action, etc. would go a long way considering half of my major mistakes are botched rescue drops.
Something I wish you would have talked about is how permadeath handicaps the story relevance of characters. If any unit in your army can die at any point, then the writers are kind of forced to not make them too important in the plot or relegate all of their development to supports and maybe a paralogue, which means you don't get to know the characters or care about them as much. I think classic mode should absolutely still be a thing, but a new difficulty setting should become the new standard. Not casual, but something that still punishes you for letting your units be defeated
If I remember right, FE7 on the GBA had a couple characters who, if they died, they didn't die. They got like injured or something, and would stay around for story stuff, but couldn't be used in battle again. I'm fine with that approach.
See 3H literally only adds the teachers in late game with the only post time skip unit that's recruited being Gilbert, so you have an extremely limited cast, however literally all the students are just one liners in almost every story relevant scene besides the lord and the retainer (besides Hilda she's literally irrelevant to the story) and so u have situation where literally if the students are dead or not just make the png whole gang rolls up scene just go by faster and thats the only difference. And the game forgoes this in silver snow anyways by just having generics feed you information for the little actual relevant lines they actually have. As I'm playing through engage, they literally just have 5 characters that besides the jaegen occasionally who could easily just be replaced by the first lord you meet. Earlier entries to fire emblem far outshine newer games for how many characters are actually relevant to the story at hand.
@@channelnumber52 admittedly, this was a little bit less about story relevancy, and more so the fact that the previous game was technically a sequel to it, meaning that they couldn't die, or it would create a time paradox! ...Although it is a game. it's just a nice nod in that way.
@@channelnumber52 or they could just do another thing that FE7 did, and that I think more FE games should do. Just say "so what?" and LET THE PLAYER MISS OUT ON SHIT. Fire Emblem is a fucking strategy game with RANDOMIZED STAT GROWTHS, and you *can't* use every unit in your army. Everything about it's design lends it be a great game for replay value, so stop being scared to let people miss things. Oh, you let your Jagen Die? Too fucking bad, I guess you miss out on his arc entirely, keep him alive in the next run or go watch it on YT. FE7 blew my mind with some of the things it attempts, and I don't think people even really know about half of it because of the vapid as fucking metagaming lizards that have to reset every single time a single mistake happens or they lose one unit. Here's an example of the kind of shit I'm talking about - Did you know that in FE7 Hector Mode, the dialog and following scene of the first chapter are entirely different if Matthew dies vs if he lives? Hector has a completely solitaire scene where he reflects on Matthew's sacrifice in order to help him escape Ostia if he dies in ch.11. I wish more FE games weren't afraid to do this. I get why they are with how people usually interact with stories in video games (skipping shit on subsequent playthroughs is very common) but I think people would be a lot more willing to explore the characters and story if there was something actually *there*. We live in a modern age where information travels fast. One person finding something like that starts a wave of people actually looking towards your creation with a critical eye and that makes them more invested in your world. Look at what happened when Undertale came out, and it's fandom was so invested by all the small details that they found all kinds of crazy easter eggs and stuff doing more playthroughs and really trying to see all of the content it has. Fire Emblem could be like that, if they leaned into permadeath more and weren't so terrified of letting people feel like they're missing out.
Permadeath is my favorite gameplay mechanic in the whole series because of the tension it creates and its ability to make you care about your units. Despite its flaws, Shadow Dragon is my favorite FE game because of how well it incorporates permadeath. In Three Houses, despite the abundance of support conversations and characterization, I had a hard time getting attached to anyone because I just never felt that kind of tension due to Divine Pulse and the lack of new recruits. I always feel that FE is at its best when units are given most of their characterization through the gameplay and the unique experiences players create with them, and permadeath is what makes that approach work so well.
Yeah Shadow Dragon has some issues, but the gameplay is kind of mint. Ironmanning and dealing with unit deaths create some really unique experiences that have been somewhat lost with the way permadeath is implemented in more recent entries.
newer games actually removed that, the turn back the clock which i dont mind to mutch the fact that you dont really get new characters anymore as you stated. so if someone dies you always reset there is no point of being ok with people dieing cause there will be casualies in war. war of the shadow dragon showed this is ok. try doing this in 3 houses the worst FE game to date
Ironically 3Hopes despite being a Warriors game has that tension of death in spades compared to 3Houses because it has some really high difficulties and classic mode in there too That and a bunch of other reasons is why I prefer 3Hopes to 3Houses nowadays
@@Hebleh yeah RIP my Seteth after going Deep behind enemy lines and completing an objective, but getting combo'd from Green health to dead by a Swordmaster in Chapter 5 of Azure Gleam. I still had permadeath happen in Three Houses but having the Ashen Wolves join for backup units really helped mitigate the losses on Maddening NONG+!
I recently played a run of Fire Emblem 7 where I don't reset on unit deaths, and even though it pained me when a unit died, it was a very interesting way to view the game. Gameplay-wise, a unit on the bench is just as useful as one in the grave, and the game gives plenty of pre-promotes to replace fallen comrades. But still, I still didn't want my units to die, so i learned to get better at making difficult choices: you learn that some treasure isn't worth putting your men at risk, and "wasting" rare weapons doesn't feel so bad when the alternative is a 20% chance of making Natalie a widow. And, when it comes down to it, sometimes you have to decide which unit you want to save more And it made me more attached to the characters, knowing death is more than just a quick time event where you press the reset button. I don't remember my whole endgame team, but I do remember the units I lost, the risks I took that got them killed, and all the times I wished they were there in the rest of the game. And when a character experienced tragedy in the main story, I would be able to empathize with them more I know most fire emblem fans don't want to play the games like they're experiencing a Greek tragedy, but I'd recommend giving it a try at least once. I'm currently playing a run of Thracia 776, which I've never actually beaten, but I'm progressing steadily now that I've accepted that you can't save everyone and to treasure the people that are still alive (which I think is the theme of the game)
Great point about how casual mode can trivialize side objectives like saving a village if you can just send a mounted unit over to save the village and then die but still come back next chapter. I hadn't thought of it like that before but it is so true. Also Mila's Turnwheel in Echoes actually couldn't be used if Alm or Celica died. It was player phase only for that first iteration of the mechanic. Three Houses fixed that issue with Divine Pulse being usable immediately if any of the defeat conditions happened in a battle.
I've played through Fates (usually Revelation) multiple times on Phoenix mode. Fates includes a logbook feature that allows you to copy your characters into a logbook that would be retained between playthroughs. Using the Logbook, you can spend gold to give a skill on a character in the Logbook to your unit in your current playthrough. Because getting skills is based on your class, and your class options are based on which S and A+ rank pairings you made, the Logbook is the only way to get certain skill loadouts. Phoenix mode made it very easy to blitz through the game, make a certain pairing, get a skill, and add them to the logbook so you can get those skills in another playthrough.
I'm a big fan of the limited used of the Divine Pulse mechanic in Three Houses mostly cause it gives you some wiggle room for dumb mistakes and I also loved how it was contextualized in the story itself so you don't feel belittled for using it. The limited uses also incentivizes you to not just brute force objectives like you would on a casual mode, so it's a pretty good compromise. I suppose it's sort of overpowered, but most people not using it would just end up just resetting on a classic a playthrough anyways, so it's mostly just a time saver. One game that I think does perma-death really well is Valkyria Chronicles. If a unit loses all their HP in battle, they get knocked on the ground for a couple of turns and can be rescued by another unit who will call for the medics to take them off the battlefield to save their life, but if you can't reach a downed unit in time, they will be killed off for the rest of the game. It's effectively the same system as FE, but it's not as punishing for mistakes, so you don't need a Divine Pulse and can fix problems on the fly. The combat system also has a suedo-real time turn based system where enemy units can still fire bullets at you as your moving your units, so it also forces you to think more with strategy because if your unit gets killed in a deadly chokepoint, you cant rescue them until the enemy units in the area are killed.
I think having that fear of permadeath is a good thing. Like sure, you may reset or use the Rewind features, but it still results in you being a better player and learning instead of just, "Oh, X got knocked out? Oh well, he'll be back next chapter." Sure, lucky crits and other things may happen to even the most cautious players but they have enough ways to mitigate that now that it's not really an issue. Engage has the option to just restart the level at any point in game. I first played Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn when I was 12 or 13 and while the game was tough, it wasn't unbeatable.
For what engage did with the story and character design, it nails it in the gameplay department. Being able to retry on the map right then and there, is amazing. That it took that long to just implement a retry button...
@@hickknightWhy do people feel the need to give back-handed compliments to games? You could have just said: “Engage introducing a retry button was a neat-o addition”, but you decided to add the caveat that the game failed in other areas that are completely irrelevant to the current statement. Why can’t we just levy unconditional praise on a game where it’s due?
@@wakkaseta8351 It’s just that no one can admit the game did something well without saying “oh, well it messed up a lot of other things completely irrelevant to my current statement!” Like, the game did something good, you can just admit that without having to defend yourself by saying it messed up other things. It’s just a means to protect yourself from people who will see even the slightest bit of praise for the game and jump down your throat for daring to like anything about the game.
As someone who’s been playing these games for several years I never reset for anyone anymore and the iron man rule set is basically my default (unless the game has a rewind mechanic) and it’s really nice to always have the threat of someone dying but knowing that no matter what you have the skills to carry through with the playthrough. Going forward I would like to see larger cast sizes with late game promoted units being very common and useable, like PoR or RD.
As very much a noob to the series (I have tried a few entries but I haven’t finished any game for various reasons including not having time) permadeath is has been a little bit of an obstacle for me to fully get invested in the games. I found the possibility of losing units forever to be very stress, to the point where I abandoned the first few FE games I tried when I found out about it. Especially since I am very inexperienced and bad at tactical rpgs like fire emblem. So the inclusion of casual mode and divine pulse mechanics definitely help me to overcome those obstacles. I have want to really get invested in Fire Emblem, and they definitely help me do that. Maybe once I get more experience with FE’s style of gameplay I can become confident enough to play with permadeath.
Personally I think the series is a little too basic in how it handles permadeath. Tellius and Echoes did the most interesting things in terms of narrative consequences with permadeath (altered base conversations, altered supports, slightly different cutscenes), but I think there's still more they could do from a gameplay perspective.
I like how the credits tell you what everyone does after the war in some of the games and if a unit died you have to face that mistake one time and reflect on it. Though I wish dead units would get more than "Died on Chapter x" and would instead get a blurb about how that loss affected others. Like uhhh, say for example Lute dies in Sacred Stones on the chapter you get her somehow. (ik it's possible but to me it'd be pretty impressive to lose her *that* early since it's possible to accidentally rout that map if you're quick enough) instead of saying "Lute: Died on Chapter 4 (I think that's the one)" it said "Lute: Died in The First Battle With The Monsters. The world never to see her greatness."
@@JJSquirtle Yeah but that makes tons of more work. You need to write unique blurbs and set up conditions for each blurb to occur. Not only is that a time-sink, but it might even push a gba cartridge over its storage limit.
@@TuskyBaby we're talking hypotheticals, I didn't take anything off the table. Honestly, you could definitely fit obituaries in sacred stones, it's the dev time that would have been the biggest limiting factor. Devs still understood advanced assembly optimization back then
All of my favorite fire emblem moments are the times when a character has died in some sort of memorable way and i dont reset for them. Keeping units dead is part of the appeal of the game, so im not much of a fan of the way its become so easily mitigated. The tension increasing as you play further into the chapter is kinda the whole point of FE. One turn away from clearing and you lose a character, do you reset and lose good level ups? A lucky crit that saved the life of another important character? Time spent collecting the side objective? That weight of benefits and drawbacks is what makes this series so fun.
For me using savestates (in the older games) and the turn wheel in the modern games is my preferred way to play. Turn reseting is a good mechanic so long that it’s limited enough to trivialize death. A good example of this would be fe echos hard mode. Most of my resets came poor from strategic decisions I’ve made realizing I needed a new strategy to tackle a map. Once I had a working strategy the turn wheel was nice to help mitigate my mistakes or ward against the rng screwing me over.
what banner of maid did is there's no permadeath because there's not many unit but the gold reward at the end is lessened by every units retreated and there's a cap of how many units can retreat before you get a game over like around 1 in early maps and up to 3-4 in later end game maps. gold is also important to buy new equipment so you kinda want to deathless everytime.
This is a neat breakdown! It’s interesting to look at the different phases of the series and how that impacts how easily players accept unit death & why. I have always enjoyed the permadeath mechanic myself, though having loved the difficulty balance of Triangle Strategy a lot, I have found it a little less appealing as I’ve returned to the series with Engage. I loved how threatening enemies in TS were, and the balance of the benefits of sacrificing a unit vs losing their utility for the rest of the fight. I suppose that’s easier when units each have their own locked in niche, tho. In any case it definitely has me considering the merits of trying harder difficulties on casual in the future 🤔
I think one of the key things about the turnwheel/divine pulse is how it makes unit deaths you'll reset for less frustrating. If you run out of rewind uses and can't use it to save a unit, it feels less frustrating than losing a unit in the older games. One dumb mistake forcing you to restart an entire lengthy map can be incredibly frustrating. But when you've been slowly losing rewinds over the course of a chapter, it's a lot easier to envision how you can play it better throughout the chapter to save your rewinds. When you replay it, every challenge you overcome without using a rewind where you did previously is a little victory.
I played through Binding blade recently and on chapter 23 my nuke Lilina with speedwings and boots got hit by a 38% berserk then proceeded to kill Igrene before I accidentally used the saint staff and realized it cured status effects. I was pretty deep into it and hadn’t made a save state since it wasn’t too difficult. I gave Igrene a salute and pushed on, won’t forget that moment
One way permadeath could work its way into future games is if they adopt more of an arc format, where you control different groups of characters for a handful of chapters then move on (something like Lyn mode in FE7, but more than just two swaps). That way, characters would stay dead for the rest of the arc, but could potentially come back in future arcs. One downside is that the last map or two of each arc would have a lot more potential for characters sacrificing units to trivialize side objectives though
This was Radiant Dawn. I really hope they learn from that ifbthey ever do it again. The way RD worked, your first squad of characters, the Dawn Brigade, ends up pretty useless by the time they return to the story since they were used early on and outpaced since they had to share story with 2 other teams that had screen time in the harder mid game chapters.
In fates, perms death was well paired with tense battle music that changed if one of your currently fighting units was doomed or otherwise deeply in peril. I hadn’t seen this music change in earlier games like Radiant dawn and stuff.
As someone who joined the series with the GBA/3DS games (hello there 3DS ambassador program introducing me to sacred stones!), permadeath has always been something that has felt at odds with itself, necessary for the gameplay stakes, yet L+R+A+Start levels of frustrating. I can better understand _how_ we got there thanks to this retrospective look at the first half of the franchise's life, but it's definitely a very vestigial system that Mila's turnwheel can only mitigate so much (if you somehow run out of charges and have a character die again, we're right back to pressing the magic combination and throwing your console against a corner of the room until feelings cool). Weirdly enough, XCOM 2012 (and its sequel) is another game that has permadeath, but I find myself rolling back the clock less for that series. It still happens frequently that I'll reload a save for a beloved custom character, or for a sergeant that stuck through thick and thin over the course of the game, but anywhere up until about the mid level of promotions, I'll usually take the L, even if we reach the level of total squad wipeout. But the idea of simply introducing expendable units to fire emblem doesn't feel right for the modern direction of the series. When Fates did that with the prison, I outright never touched the system because it felt so _wrong_ to have randomly named generic portrait guys next to normal characters. I guess my point is while Firaxis's XCOM managed to make permadeath work for it, it doesn't feel like the right fit for FE. I still want to be on the lookout for an idea that'd work better than the turnwheel, but in the absence of one, it is acceptable enough.
Really digging your most recent content. I like the breakdowns of how the core mechanics have changed/evolved over the course of the series. Permadeath may be more punishing now, but I still can’t play on Casual and always find myself resetting less on the first run of a new game
The xcom series has similar issues in the new games with permadeath. In the old games unit progression was minimal and most progression was in the from of equitable items rather than individual stat increases. It wasnt really a big deal if units died. As more rpg progression and skill trees were added in the newer games losing units feels so much worse because of how much more time investment was required in making units
Even if a person resets the map, that still means permadeath is playing a role to the game. Resetting is a chore, but the player still feels the need to reset, and so they are at an important decision with stakes that no narrative can equal.
I like to have a more casual run on my first playthrough of a game, which usually means literally playing on casual mode, to get a feel for the specifics of the game and have a relatively breezy blind story experience, before my second "serious" playthrough where I can plan ahead knowing what I'll have and play on harder settings. Honestly though, I just cannot see myself playing through Three Houses on classic mode, it's clearly built around keeping a cohesive army you grow attached to, and if I end up just divine pulsing after every death that kinda defeats the point of permadeath for me.
FE Conquest was my first Fire Emblem, after growing up intrigued by the series starting with SSB Melee and finally being encouraged my an old partner to try it with them! My first playthrough was on Phoenix as I was *very* intimidated by the concept, especially having been told Conquest is pretty hard even for FE. I haven't played on Phoenix since, but I do NOT regret it. I was crying at the end of the game and half of my units were dying every turn but I was finishing that story no matter what LMAO -- it was a really great introduction. silly, sure, but i still love it
Fates was my first game, and I loved phoenix mode for easing me in to a new series/gameplay Then I discovered using it for grinding skills on people to build them exactly how I wanted on higher difficulty haha
I think an injury system could work well if they just sit out a few battles because it allows you to cycle all your teammates so no one is super underlevelled
I feel like permadeath is part of Fire emblem’s identity it’s a fundamental part of the franchise that always gives the player the pressure of keeping units alive. Very good analysis! A slight correction: in echoes you can’t turnwheel if Alm/Celica die, if they die that’s it game over.
I want a TRPG with two things: 1. A "main cast" of characters who are fully customizable but aren't affected by permadeath (except maybe through story events) distinguished from a much larger cast of "followers" which don't require direct investment but affected by permadeath. 2. A gameplay loop which requires that you split your units into multiple groups to carry out missions asynchronously. That way you can still group your favorite units together, but you're not completely "benching" anybody.
I think one aspect of Permadeath you kind of touched on with Three Houses is how stat inflation makes it difficult to make up for losing units. In Thracia, losing units sucks but the gap between A-tier and C-tier is much smaller than it would be in FE16 or even FE6. Because the advantage broken units like Fergus and Asbel have over B-squad units like Halvin and Shiva isn't that huge. Thracia still encourages resets because of the Stamina mechanic, but it's easier to continue in that game after a bad string of luck than any other entry in the franchise except for FE1 and arguably FE11. It would really help the series going forward if the caps were something more like 20 instead of 50+.
I'll shoutout Berwick Saga for how it deals with permadeath by giving the player game-changing items when a certain number of units die. When 4 units die you get a charm which increases hitrate by 17%. The next best replacement item gives +5%. When 8 units die you get an item that increases avoid by 17%, and when 12 units die you get a charm that makes a character invisible outside of 1-range. In effect, permadeath becomes another new way to experience the game, while keeping the difficulty at relative parity.
Found your channel recently, it’s been very interesting to see your take on certain things! Your map design video has helped with a rom hack I’ve been doing lol
I don’t mind that units die permanently in these games, but I dislike that the narrative doesn’t react to it any way. Maybe this would be hard to implement, but I’d like for characters to acknowledge that someone they are close to passed away in some way or another.
In the gba games I remember that some do. Like if Matthew dies Hector or eliwoood says to bury him beside the other thief that he cared for. But most people reset if Matthew dies and never sees that cut scene.
It is like that in recent games. For example in Path of radiance some character supports will change depending on who might died, like makalov putting flowers on Marcia's grave in one of his supports.
When i first started the Series, i played on Casual cause i didnt know what to expect from the games and i started with Awakening. Now i play Classic when offered and have mostly reset for any deaths cause i want the perfect endings, though now im more open to it being "my ending" if i fumble a recruitment and all that. I will say, the Turnwheel mechanic has been a favorite of mine as i really disliked resetting a map cause of bad luck or a general misplay.
I started with permadeath because my very first game was an English translation of gaiden but when I got to fates and watch fe content more resetting seemed really common so i did it after any death. Upon playing fe4/5 I've been way more into permadeath as I think that it makes fire emblem more enjoyable. I can always replay an fe game and just skip the story but there's only one blind playthrough i can have. Making mistakes is fine as long as i learn and grow. Plus it makes for some really funny interactions. Going through fe7 with genuine intention of completing it has been a ton of fun. I've had a couple really dumb deaths, some outta my control, others that weren't and even though I'll complain in the moment it's so much more exciting to me. However, for a game like 3h playing on casual is probs best. I haven't done it myself but at least on paper, that game promotes resetting. Aside from divine pulse being a mechanic, 3h typically only gives you around 10-13 units to use per map. Excluding Byleth and whatever lord that's 2 slots. The other slots are usually filled up by the rest of the house. The remaining slots vary from new recruits to teachers. With such a small unit pool(if you don't recruit)the game makes it hard to not reset. If you recruit everyone that's different but new players don't have that foresight. I think with Engage coming out there's gonna be more leeway with how the game subconsciously guides a player through the game but most people are already so used to resetting from the past 3 games that it's so common place. Unless we get another game like fe11/12 that show the player that there's many assets to spare, permadeath will be harder to attempt for both new and older players
For me personally i am mostly neutral to the concept of permadeath but it also depends on the game. In say, Pikmin, when just playing the game normally, i will not reset progress if i lose some pikmin as they can be replaced easily and are not entirely unique individuals. But in fire emblem, it is an immutable fact that i will reset if a unit dies permanently. I don't actually play any differently without the threat of permadeath as losing units mid battle is still a downward spiral if not managed. Casual mode just makes actually playing the game less frustrating as i won't have to reset against a 1% crit on an hour long map. Permadeath is generally an extreme punishment that doesn't offer anything in return. Not every unit is going to be lost in an interesting way, if they do. We are also in an age where they are creating characters who vibrantly display their quirks and qualities and i don't think more characters to choose from will make this much better as people will still not want to lose their favorites, even if there are backups available. People get attached to characters and then don't want to lose them for nothing in return, which is a very natural response. Honestly, perhaps if instead of permadeath, the character sticks around but just isn't able to fight anymore, they would be taken out of battle but not gone from the game, and maybe they can return after healing over the course of like 1-3 maps, just as an idea. I totally get how permadeath raises the stakes for some folks, but if it doesn't for you, then you only stand to lose which will make some people either play super conservatively to an unfun point, or make them reset when a unit dies. Having less options can be super fun sometimes like eventide isle in breath of the wild. But to a lot of people there's not much fun about losing someone forever. Sorry this was so long, it's def an interesting thing to talk about, especially over the series. The X-com devs had their own struggles of wanting permanent consequences and interesting choices, but then their playerbase reacted to only playing in super safe ways to mitigate loss.
it's surprising to me how well fe4 works even if you half ass gen 1. On my first playthrough I didn't pay much attention to pairings, so I ended up with a Dew+Aideen Lester. I had lost the brave bow, but items that you lose from gen 1 often appear as drops on certain enemies, so I was able to get the brave bow back and make Lester a much better unit, which was really rewarding. To me, fe4 works by giving the player ridiculous obstacles, but also giving them a ridiculous amount of resources, even if they "screw up" gen 1. Not to mention, it feels like fe4 was designed around being able to save every turn, so I often feel like fe4's difficulty comes from being handed a situation and being asked to figure it out, regardless of how many tries it takes
A big issue with permadeath that has me reset constantly is the loss of content. A character dying not only deprives the player of all future content around that character such as relationships, satisfying moments of growth and triumph, etc, but it actively leaves a hollow void filled with nothing. It's not an interesting choice for the player. If I wanted to simply not use a character I could just bench them, so not having them for later isn't very engaging. I don't know if regret is that good a feature here. And to compensate we either make crazier and harder maps to compensate for players who reset and reset until they master each level perfectly or come up with literal time travel to trivialize it. I say keep permadeath, but make the death of a character actually mean something in ways they do if they hadn't died. Let me see survivors who were close to them reminisce or even grow from the memory. Maybe introduce new characters only unlockable (or unlockable earlier) if that character died. Let the manner of their death have interesting mechanics, like an armor knight that held off a dozen enemies on their own before dying giving your whole army some special bonus in honor of their deeds. Maybe have each death impact the mood and personality of your heroes so that there's some noticeable difference in your main character if they end the game with everyone alive versus if they end the game with just the bare minimum. Maybe have dynamic difficulty where enemies start to underestimate you after inflicting losses or begin to take you more seriously if you keep winning with no deaths. As it is permadeath is just punishing the player for mistakes by taking away content. Whatever reward there is for letting units die and moving on is entirely player derived, meaning if you personally don't enjoy the feeling of having made sacrifices in order to feel more accomplished like some Pokemon Nuzlocke player, the game doesn't care and you'll get nothing from it in return. So restarting becomes the standard response.
I think a decent way to handle permadeath, while still maintaining the character development of the recent games, would be to make them permanently injured instead. You'll still be able to talk with them, and raise supports with them, but they'll no longer be able to battle. They could even implement a system where units that don't battle can instead do various jobs around your base, giving you resources for later.
Great video. I would love it if they made the turn wheel mechanic customizable at the start of the playthrough so you can between 0 to infinite resets allowed per map with the default set to 10. Even if I say I'll restart the map if a character dies, it doesn't have the same stakes as seeing that Game Over screen if the main protagonist dies because I set it to zero resets.
I think trying the FFT method in some form might be an interesting choice for FE going forward. Downed units sit for three turns before permanently expiring. This often means having to drop all your plans and attempt a rescue with your other units. Those units also need the proper abilities and resources. The time limit forces the player into a series of tough decisions since they can't wait very long to get to the body and raise their comrade, especially depending on their range of their chosen method. Non Chemists will need to equip the Item Throw skill alongside the Chemist skillset if they want to toss items while being a different job, or have access to white magic to have a ranged raise method that doesn't require anything but magic but can fail. I personally feel like FE is at it's best when I think I have a plan and I have to rethink everything quickly and hold it together. So this would turn unit death into a possibly pleasant experience? At least from a thrill perspective?
Permadeath is the best thing ever. I still remember the day I lost my best sniper in Xcom enemy unknown hor how My knight Allos died in tactic ogre knight of lodis. None of them had even a lore sheet. But they saved me more than a single time yet i failed them. It's now in my memory forever. And for Fe? They are so easy i don't remember when i lost a unit.
Palla died? Don't care, won't reset. Sirius died? Don't care, won't reset. Bantu died? Holy fucking shit I'm going to reset the game baby. Bantu my beloved, i will give you every stat booster that i have.
Honestly it all sounds good. Give people who wants a harder game have permadeath, but for them they should also have 1 save that deletes after use so it can't be reused to save scum. Load the file, it deletes, save the game, it stays till loaded. I feel you also would need a way to prevent back ups for that particular difficulty...and that leads to other issues...then there's casual which is fine. Having multiple ways to make a game easier isn't bad, giving people time saving ways to undue critical mistakes also isn't bad. Thanks for the vid.
I think the turnwheel and pulse are good solutions to the (good) problem they created by making units actually likeable characters. Something you didn't talk about that I think is a perfect solution to "Perma"death is the revival fonts or Valkyria staff from 4. Death isn't permanent but can only be reversed in extremely limited amounts through serious effort and the revived units won't fall so far behind they are unusable, but you are punished in the immediate for not having them with you.
My first Fire Emblem was FE7 and I didnt realize perma death was a thing so when new recruited characters died and had a cutscene where they retired, I just thought that was supposed to happen in that chapter. Then I started to wonder why my party shrank so much...
Awakening was my first Fire Emblem game I tried playing on original mode then Lissa got murdered, because I wasn't paying attention. I was heart broken, the only other thing that put me off is. After Lissa died Chrom just moved on without mourning, so I said nope and used Casual mode ever since.
To me I think having permadeath be replaced by a few chapters of a forced bench could be fine for adding stakes by having what is possibly a hard carry unit not allowed to be deployed for a short time if they’re ever defeated
I'm making an FE styled game and I've got it set so that units retreat like in casual mode, but they lose 3 in every stat. That way I can make players not need to reset after a unit death, but they still want to avoid death because it makes them weaker
I honestly feel like rewinds/turn wheel/divine pulse have fixed my problems so far. Limited uses, so that way I only have to make the decision to reset or move on if things get truly bad. That being said, interesting you mention the series needing more late game pre-promotes. Engage had a TON. So many units, idk what to do with most of them.
yea whenever i try to do a run of a fire emblem game where i only reset when i get a game over, i usually tend to break my rules after getting a 1/3 through the game because i just don't want to train up anyone else. i usually tend to play on casual mode for my first playthrough of fire emblem games because i want to enjoy the characters and i like mechanics like divine pulse because i'm just not very good and resetting an entire chapter just sucks edit: also i used phoenix mode in my main fates playthroughs because it was the second fire emblem game i played after three houses so when the casual mode description said "characters come back at the start of the next chapter", the idea that was put into my head was that the calendar system from three houses was in fates and i'd have to go a month without a unit. yes, i am quite stupid
When I was younger I played on casual. I wasn't too confident in my ability to play the games. Since I was a under 10 when I originally saw my brother playing path of radiance on my GameCube. When I turned 14 was the first time I ever turned did classic mode.......that playthrough of awakening was the worst playthrough of fire emblem I have ever had in my entire life. I kept playing as if I was on casual. So I'd have my units just charge in and get oneshotted. After about 3 months of habit breaking I started an actual playthrough and had so much more fun. Knowing my units could die if I screwed up was careless was somehow very exciting.
I'm glad Mila's Turnwheel/Divine Pulse/Time Crystals were added to the series. They really do just give some welcome cushioning to some of the brutal RNG that you can get that simply couldn't have been planned around. Why am I playing a strategy game if my strategy gets completely shafted by a one-in-a-million chance? That being said, they are WAY too forgiving. I haven't had to restart a full map a SINGLE time in the THREE ENTIRE games that have come out since the feature was added. Permadeath may as well not exist while this feature exists in its current state. Anyone not doing an Iron Man Run has been unwittingly forced into effectively playing on Casual and most don't even realize. When I first played Fire Emblem (7) on the GBA when I was in 3rd grade, I went through Lyn's story allowing my units to die, but by the time I got to Lundgren I didn't have enough units left to complete Lyn's story at the skill level I was at at the time. So I started a new game, told myself I would restart a chapter if someone died, and proceeded force myself to get better at the game by protecting them. Despite what I told myself, I found that sometimes a difficult map could take dozens of attempts that could sometimes take more than an hour to do, and that sometimes letting a unit die was worth it in order to get through the ordeal. I will never forget sacrificing Rebecca to recruit Harken and that delicious friggin Brave Sword. Yes, the Turnwheel mechanics have reduced the unfairness that RNG brings to the game, but it's so forgiving that a map never really feels like an ordeal at all anymore. Why should I consider letting a unit die when I still have SIX charges left to reset just far enough back to fix the situation and not even have to replay the beginning of the map? I know there are fans of the series who think restarting the game is awful and would rather quit the series entirely than restart a chapter to save a unit, but to me I don't see resetting the chapter as a bad thing. It's an opportunity to reevaluate the starting conditions of the map and put yourself in the best possible position at the earliest time, while repeated Turnwheel uses sometimes feels more like slapping multiple bandaids on a situation or finding a way to abuse the RNG so that you just get lucky. I would like to see something done to make Turnwheel uses less "free," whether that's a reward for unused uses or a drastic reduction of how many we are allowed per map. If the casual players who can't stand the idea of having to redo the map from the beginning have a problem with that, then they are welcome to play the game on the easiest setting, but as it stands the Turnwheel is a fantastic feature that is implemented in a way that strips Fire Emblem of a decent chunk of its identity. As for the other changes the series has gone through that make players more attached to their characters and less willing to let them die... I don't really know. I don't think there's a good argument to be made for taking away the uniqueness of the characters, and I don't think replacements actually solve the main problem most players have with letting characters die. The only solutions I can think of are: 1) The implementation of limited revival systems such as in Echoes (and I assume Gaiden) and Genealogy. 2) An injury system like mentioned in this video. Just because a balance is hard to achieve doesn't mean that attempting that balance isn't the best path. I will say that the point that injury systems tend to punish players who are already struggling isn't much of an argument against it since you can make that same argument about permadeath. My personal idea would be for the unit to take some very minor permanent stat reduction(s) and a major stat decrease that only lasts 1 or MAYBE 2 chapters. If the unit is defeated while already injured, then they die just like they would in any other Fire Emblem. 3) Some system for keeping benched units leveled up alongside a player's A-Team. Especially, in modern Fire Emblem where you'll naturally get supports even with units you aren't actively using, it could be possible to mitigate the perceived loss of a unit by having the replacement be someone the player has already had some time to see interacting in the army who isn't too far behind the rest of the team.
In the few games I played permadeath is more annoying than anything else, since you'll reset the chapter anyway. One possible solution is doing it like Valkyria Chronicles (took it from a Steam comment): "When someone is KO'd, they can be revived either by an allied unit touching them within 3 turns or the map ending before 3 turns have elapsed. If you do recover them, they'll be available again after a bit of recovery. The unit will also instantly permanently die if an enemy unit walks over them while they're downed." Maybe just put it only on hard/Lunatic difficulties although the Turn Wheel seem like a perfect solution.
I like Permadeath, as it forces tension. I do like the turn wheel, but I feel like the one in 3 Houses is a little too strong. I personally would limit it to about 5 uses, and it would only let me reset my pervious turn from the start. I would also have the player gradually gain uses until they cap at 5. I would also have it when the player doesn't gain turn wheel until chapter 3 .I think one way Permadeath could work, if at some point in the game, the player is gifted a revive staff. The staff would only have 1 use. The player can use it to bring back up one character who has died. The unit would be the same level as they died. However, maybe if they are revived, they gain something in return. For example, they get a personal skill that increases the experience gain from 2x or even 3x for that unit. If the game has 24 chapters, then the player might get the revive staff on chapter 17. Another option is to allow any unit not deployed in a chapter, to gain one level. I think that would increase the likelihood of allowing permadeath, because then the player would feel less annoyed about having to grind up another unit to replace the unit that died.
I always play my Fire Emblem games on Classic mode when given the choice and I always reset for character deaths. My first Fire Emblem game was 7 and so I've always been a product of the Support system. These characters have lives on their games and it always feels bad to lose them. Three Houses was the first game that truly made me feel the horrors of war as you don't just meet your students but also possible enemies for later in the game. Not only do you meet them, but you get to know and like them. If you don't recruit them, you're gonna have to kill them and that always felt so painful. You can't reset for those. I feel like many people reset for character deaths and that has informed the series regarding their mechanics. Mid map saves, Casual Mode, Divine Pulses and the like all came about since the developers started giving their characters life and personality. I don't think permanent will be going anywhere in the series to come, but I do expect more of these mechanics to crop up, drop out, and expand on future installments.
exactly, I think a very limited divine pulse can be good esecialy on a long map that has multiple difficult encounters (great wall of takumi) so that way a small rng bs 40 minutes into a chapter doesnt cause a restart, but I hate that the games like 3H are balanced around the idea of having an absurd amount of pulses and the devs want you to use them, causing them to make bs enemy reinforcements.
It depends on the character, if it’s one I like then it might warrant a reset/turnwheel but most of the time they can just stay dead unless I poured a whole lot of investment into them.
I feel like that’s a good balance. There’s usually two camps when it comes to permadeath: the ironman puritans, and the reset-when-useless-units-I’m-going-to-bench-anyway-die club. I feel fine letting units die most of the time because I don’t really care about them enough to waste time resetting, and losing them doesn’t hurt in the long run most of the time. But you can be damned sure that if Morgan or Veyle die I’m pouncing on the power button before their bodies even hit the ground.
It's ironic as I've met someone who used Phoenix mode. In person Honestly, I don't see it as a huge issue for the series, as long as it isn't standard and player has to specifically choose it. similar to how casual mode is treated in most of the recent games. Thank you for pointing out that the games have changed in terms of map design and enemy formations since permadeath no longer became a core feature of the series. And yeah, Mila's Turnwheel has really helped with the drawbacks of permadeath
I think Engage does a very nice mitigation for playing on Casual or Classic. The difficulty to me at least seems pretty increased but also has an incentive to let units die by having back up units more prevalent. Not only that but if a chapter becomes too difficult from too many lost units, game overs don’t mean you’re stuck you can start over and retain the exp you were able to gain before losing. It’s helped me a lot playing on hard without a guide as the Avatar is like tissue paper if you don’t get good stat growths
Yes, I cannot stand losing even a single unit and will spend the free time I have for days in a row either grinding to get my units to be stronger or just retrying the map I'm stuck on.
I play on Casual but with the mindset of Classic. I'm not going to send a unit off on a death mission, and pretty much always reset on death, but there are times where I've spent enough time in a map and can't really be fucked resetting when a unit dies, so I call it an L but get to take them into the next mission.
I reset on death for the first playthrough just so I know who all of the characters are and see all of the “content”. After that, I like to Ironman it because all of the things that you mentioned that make deaths harder to accept are there specifically to add weight to the mechanic and it’s a powerful feeling to have to take responsibility for that death and move on. It’s that feeling of loss that is unique to Fire Emblem. As for mitigation, I generally appreciate them as convenience features. I don’t like casual mode for the reason you mentioned because it breaks the risk/reward balance for side objectives. Phoenix mode is good for a laugh. The turnwheel mechanic is genuinely time saving and is great for quickly undoing mis-inputs. I would also say that FE4 being the first game to make you want to reset also came with its own mitigation system. It actually introduced battle saves on every turn. There’s even a menu option to automatically save on the beginning of every turn. Beyond that, it featured the first “unlimited” revival system because the Valkyrie staff could revive units and be repaired infinitely if you had the 50k gold to repair it (which isn’t actually that hard to fund if you had a competent thief). Additionally, FE4 could also be considered the first game to give you a reason to kill off units in gen 1 because gen 2 subs, while clearly weaker in gameplay, I actually find far more interesting from a story perspective because they are far more rooted in their setting since they are fixed, unlike their descendent counterparts, and the game gives you unique conversations to reflect this.
I think the game Dark Deity has my favorite death system. You get meaningfully punished with a stat drop, but it's workable enough that i'm inclined to play through it. I find that my biggest gripe with modern fire emblem is that permadeath feels too annoying, but casual mode lacks a punishment for ridiculously agressive plays (ones that the game is not designed for).
I'm curious how you feel about how Engage handles this. I've been doing a no reset playthrough for my first time through the game and it's been a total blast.
When it comes to permadeath I with newer games I think they need to add death to the narrative. As you stated a big reason to not let a unit die in newer titles is 1. Less used units are much weaker, and 2. It removes the character from the narrative of the story. Which I do think the latter being a bigger issues with the shift to more social aspects of the game. You don't want to miss out on content for no benefit. It would be a lot of work, but I would like to see some sort of narrative and mechanic around a death of a character. When someone dies characters they had bounds with (or who ever fills their role) could get some sort of bonus. You have a few support conversations or cut scenes the come up about the death. Like you can mention a dead character and build a support bar which has scenes of you reflecting on them. Otherwise I really never want to advance after a character dies since I just miss possible conversations, missions, cut scenes with them. If those had a change to be replaced with someone else I would be more adapt to letting a character die and continue. I still want a tactics game, which a big focus is not letting units drop to 0. So I don't want deaths to be removed, but I do think it is time to modernize or change that mechanic.
7:58 I played my third route of FE: Fates on phoenix mode because at that point I was just pushing to finish the story and didn’t care at all about playing through the third reuse of a gimmick map.
My issue when people say that save spot in DS games are a good replacement for divine pulse is that they ignore the fact that a save spot is just a checkpoint that punishes you less for resetting Every DS map has 2 save spots : one that's so close to your starting position that it may as well be useless since you're basically restating the map from the beginning again, and the other one is far ahead in the map that you're basically resetting the map when 75% of it is over The difference between save spots and time rewind mechanics is that time rewinding mechanics are limited per map, while if you want to reload a save spot you can do it as MUCH as you want, so basically with save spots instead of restarting the whole map, you only need to restart from the save spot that's close to the Enemy throne when 75% of the map is basically already over and you can do that as much as you like How's that " better " than divine pulse ? Any time for an example you want to take a break or are afraid you'd make a mistake so late in the map, you can just save and reload your save as much you like, at least with divine pulse even though you can reset anywhere, you have limited uses per map, however in DS games there's no reason to not reload spam any time you make a mistake
For me, I think permadeath feels best when it feels plausible to beat the game blind ironman, even when you're bad at the game. So, out of the games I've played, FE8 was my favorite in this regard, as, even though 18 of my units died over the course of the game, I never found myself questioning my capacity for me to complete the game. Furthermore, I found that the amount of characterization left a lot to the imagination, which caused me to get really invested in the stories of certain units. For example, Garcia's story ended up being very tragic, as Ross died literally the chapter after recruiting him, so Garcia gave up his time in the military to raise his family, only to be stirred by a rousing speech about being a warrior at heart, and then he lost everything again. And then he died many chapters later because he got swarmed by Pegasus knights. That caused me to get about as attached to my units in FE8 as I did in FE16, despite FE16 having easily the best character writing in the series. I really hate how permadeath feels in FE16, to the point where I feel like permadeath really shouldn't have been put in the game in the first place. The timewheel mechanic is super generous, to the point where I usually used it to correct minor positioning errors instead of worrying about unit deaths. The one time a unit did permanently die, they literally showed up in the story in the next chapter, which a lot of the FE games are guilty of. Meanwhile, I'm currently playing FE4, and I'm running into the issue that without abusing the save every turn mechanic, I feel like I'm losing units way faster than I can gain them. Given, part of the reason is because I'm not very good with careful play, but it does feel like I end up just getting half my army killed and having to reset, which isn't particularly fun unless I reset the game every time I get one unit killed, which isn't really how I want to play the game. But yeah, my feelings on the permadeath system is that I really like the combination of low difficulty & high punishment for failure provided by FE8, but I can't say I like how the mechanic functions in Awakening, Fates (Conquest), or Three Houses. I'm not going to clump FE4 there quite yet, on account for me having not gotten very far into the game yet. Though, I'm thinking that I might want to try FE7 before jumping into FE5, since I really want to play FE5, I'm just worried about the game's difficulty forcing me to play in a way that I don't want to (I'd prefer to blind ironman the games where plausible, I'm just, also, not the best at these games).
And, like, I do try to blind ironman games before my first playthrough. FE8 is the only one where that lasted longer than a few hours because permadeath just wasn't particularly fun to deal with in 3H, Fates, Awakening, or Genealogy, which caused me to drop running with the idea rather quickly. And that sucks since the thing that got me curious about this series in the first place was the permadeath.
oh yeah, also with the "permadeath shouldn't have been a feature in FE16," like, I think the best map in the game was the Battle at Grondor Field map in White Clouds, where the game decides to balance the map around permadeath being disabled, which allowed for the map to be hard. I think 3H in general would have been better if it was balanced around casual mode because of how bad death feels for the game on a mechanical level. 3H has the weakest gameplay out of the FE games that I've played, and I think the decision to have permadeath in the game contributed to that, which hurt both classic and casual mode because maps were balanced around classic mode despite every other mechanic in the game feeling like it was designed for casual mode. And that feeling is present for FE13 & 14, but it's very magnified in FE16. Here's what I would do if I were to rebalance the permadeath in FE16. Instead of having a classic/casual mode, I'd do this. Disable permadeath during white clouds but then enable it during the war phase. Divine Pulse would be relegated to an Assist Mode option (so, it's meant to help players who can't beat the game's intended difficulty or otherwise don't want to engage with this aspect of the game). Units from other factions cannot be recruited during White Clouds, but you can recruit them during the war phase by having a unit with at least a C support with them go up and talk to them. This would allow the other units to function as potential replacement units during the war phase and it would reward the player for building inter-house relationships. I think it would also say something about the concepts of war and friendship. This could be taken further by saying that certain units require extra high support levels to be swayed. So, characters like Ferdinand and Petra, who are particularly loyal to their houses would require a B support to be swayed, while extremely loyal characters like Hubert and Dedue would require an A support in order to listen. I'd also apply this to White Clouds, where I'd make it so that the Church characters will only join your army by default in White Clouds, but otherwise you have to go out of your way to recruit them (and in White Clouds, you just straight up lose the Black Eagle kids, but they'll naturally be easier to sway back to your side since you spent the entire first half of the game bonding with them, so Byleth will likely have pretty high supports with everyone). I'd also do some minor things like nerf the tea time & dining events. Perhaps limit both to be once per month instead of being spammable, both to cut down time in the monastery and to make it much harder to save everyone. I think this approach to permadeath in 3H would make the war phase sting a little harder. It would give you potential replacement units late game as you wouldn't be obligated to train up these units until you encounter them. It would give you more side objectives. I'd also make the "kill boss" maps in war phase require you to kill all bosses, meaning that, like, if you have to either kill or ally with every boss, which could spice up gameplay. It would also sidestep the issue of "unit dies prevents character recruit causing anxiety" because, like, say you got Dorethea and Ingrid up to C support, Ingrid probably also has a C support with Byelth. I'd probably also want to pair this with some systems to foster inter-house relationships. Perhaps the dining thing could be adjusted so Byleth can only join dining once per month, but you can arrange characters between houses to dine together from a menu every week. Or just something to ensure that units can get supports with units outside of their house, since I think getting the player emotionally attached to these units will be good whether the player turns around and cuts them down or recruits them. Forcing White Clouds to be casual mode for everyone would also have some benefits. I think it would support how every unit is weak and how you're expected to spend a lot of time with your units. By the time the war phase happens, your units generally have one promotion left in them at best and are pretty much done evolving, so you can more organically slot in a replacement unit with their more standard build. Like, if your Wyvern Rider Ferdinand dies, he could theoretically be replaced by a Great Knight Sylvain. They're different classes and you'll still feel the loss of Ferdinand, but Ferdinand's death wouldn't be mechanically devastating, especially if the War Phase stripped away a large number of the unit growth mechanics to compensate for the reintroduction of permadeath. but yeah, that's how I'd personally rework permadeath for FE16 since the current version of it is just really badly designed.
oh yeah, another thing to fit in with the system I made up. To support the reworked recruitment system, I'd make it so that sometimes units can just unlock low level supports with each other without the player's input. This would be a less common occurrence for higher difficulties, but it would accomplish quite a few things. Firstly, it would provide a safety net for players who fail to understand the mechanics of White Clouds Supports, as it wouldn't be fair to expect a blind player to realize that they'll be needing those later. Secondly, I think it would add some agency to the characters, which is immersive. Like, atm, Byleth basically controls their souls. Fair enough since it's a video game, but that bit of immersion is nice. It would also get the player more attached to units outside of their class since you'll likely see one or two conversations involving them before the war phase. It would also make the inter-house supports much more accessible. Like, I don't really get to see a ton of them because you usually have to recruit a character before getting to know them properly. When paired with the edits to the lunch event, it would make recruiting enemy units a unique challenge on a chapter by chapter basis. I feel like if Byeleth was consistently the person with the best support levels with everyone, it would make recruiting other units really easy and a bit monotonous to plan for, since you could just strap them to a dragon and have them fly over to the units. Compare that to, say, if you're only unit capable of befriending Ingrid is Dorothea, you'd have to figure out how to get Dorothea over to Ingrid safely, but, you'd have to get a different unit over to Felix if you wanted to recruit him. I think this would also benefit more planner-like players since you'd be able to plan out who you want to recruit who, reaching those support thresholds in White Clouds alongside how you'll want to best transport those specific units to each other.
I always play with permadeath on, but Fates Conquest seemed to be so built around not having permadeath with its enemies that can one shot you that I just stopped having fun and never picked up the game again, so I definitely think they need to actually either embrace not doing permadeath or go back to building the game more around it.
Personally, i've NEVER been a fan of Permadeath, so it was the 1 feature that honestly kept me away from the Franchise for so long until I got Fates, so I'm generally more comfortable playing on casual move and enjoying the game of not dealing with permadeath (because i don't wanna feel so damn stressed out with that mechanic)
Divine pulse and other time-turning mechanics are definitely a quality of life feature I appreciate, but it just depends how it interacts with the game design. Three Houses expects you to Divine Pulse, especially since you get no one to replace your units in the time skip, along with unfair reinforcements positions and the like Engage really improves on this, you can definitely play the game without the Draconic time crystal and still have a good time, compared to Three Houses ( you can invest in characters, like leveling up bond level and inheriting skills from emblems, but it isn’t time consuming, bond fragments are plenty and everyone has their own SP for example) Echoes is basically just the original game with a new coat of paint (gameplay wise) so it does give some leeway when it comes to the 1 roll system + map design and makes it much more enjoyable to play
Personally i don't mind the turnwheel since it's optional but i would love one out of the two things to return but i'd love them to return what they did in shadow dragon or return being able to recruit and convince enemy generics to join you which i'd love would love to see characters react to the death of a character and might change some supports and some supports can lead into a paralogue for a new character espially if said two or more characters had a history with each other
It's funny, recently I got around to playing Front Mission 3 and I just assumed it was going to have permadeath so I played super defensively and slow but after a unit (that I didn't care about too much) died at the end of a difficult level it was weird when he was in the next cutscene. Then the next level, and from then I could play quicker and more aggressively so when the game is built around a lack of permadeath I feel it can work. I wanted to play through one of the modern games I hadn't played in a while once on classic and once on casual to see which was actually more fun. Watching a lot of fe content makes me second guess what opinions of the games are my own and what are just regurgitating others ideas. Maybe casual is fun (though I don't think it'd work for every game since they weren't designed with that in mind)
IMHO balancing around casual is all about perspective since FE is not a pure strategy game but an strategy RPG, cuz on the one hand there is indeed what you said of the Hail Mary strategy if you go for the objetive, on the other hand you also have to keep in mind that in most of the FE games grinding is not an option because of its completely linear progression without repeatable batles, so unless you do either some risky strategies or abuse some quirks your EXP is fixed. In that sense you could say that despite you not losing the character you may already have mapped your EXP distribution and losing a character temporarily due to a mistake then causes a level equilibrium, making it harder to those units to catch up if you're not careful because it can snowball.
FE7 was my first FE and in chapter 17 with the boats I got Florina killed. The post-chapter dialogue described the boats as bloody and with bodies everywhere and it made me imagine a dead Florina. Then chapter 18 came and Fiora shows up, but the fortune teller told me she was related to Florina so I knew I couldn't recruit her and I tried to anyway. Ever since then I always reset because I felt bad for having someone killed and I never knew if I'd need them for another recruitment or other objective later on. When I get to endgame, then I kinda stopped caring about that and just wanted to finish the game (that same FE7 run I used Marcus up to the end and sacrificed him to finish the game). Nowadays I do it just because it's how I've been playing FE. Obviously with turnwheel mechanics I've used that instead of full resetting because it's just more convenient and less time-consuming, especially since I'm an adult now and I only have so many hours to myself.
I like chaos I did an iron man on FE7 HHM. When my level 13 paladin Sain died I almost cried the carry with him since I went with no prepromotes to challenge myself
I reset for pretty much any character death, especially the more recent games. It adds tension, but losing a unit, to a simple mistake or RNG just sucks. Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (Which was my first when it released on switch) I let a handful of units die, but they were new to that chapter (Wolf, Sedgar, and the like. They sacrificed themselves to let Hardin escape). The Turnwheel in echoes was my favorite permadeath experience though. I didn't let any units die, but instead of resetting I only used the Turnwheel. With its limited uses, the mistakes and RNG weren't a threat, but the tension of running out of those during long dungeons made the experience a lot more enjoyable, especially the final dungeon/Berkut Fight/Final Map. Apologies for the long comment.
I feel permadeath is better suited for repeat playthroughs than your first ones. One of my favorite Fire Emblem moments is when LPers like Mekkah get themselves into a really bad situation and are forced to come up with a way out of their situation. However, that's only possible if you're very familiar with the game. For example, Fates: Conquest provides a number of ways to let you continue the game even after all of your best units get massacred, but they're not obvious or exploitable by a new player.
I just completed a fire emblem fates revelations no reset run,was left with my main character and felica last 2 missions after most team died in chapter 26.started 27 with all my benched stuff and just used it as fodder to spread my enemies out while my main and Felicia took care of everything else,sorcerer and dark falcon btw if anyone curious lol
I think, with the way FE games are designed these days, that the Permadeath system should at the very least be tweaked a bit. Or maybe some of the other mechanics needs to be tweaked a bit to better support the permadeath system. Ultimately I would not want to go back to the olden days where characters were just personalityless pawns. Anyway, two ideas that springs to mind regarding how to "fix" permadeath would be: -Give characters a lives counter. You can see this in games like Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters, where characters are allowed to "die" a certain number of times before they are permanently dead. This would still make losing characters sting, but it would not mean that a random crit that kills a character out of nowhere would sting quite as much. I guess the lives count would still need to be kept pretty low to make the system punishing, but it is an option. This could also be turned into another difficulty setting, like you can chose to run the game with infinitive lives, 3 lives or 1 life per character. -Make the games less random. The way crits tend to work is something I find is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to losing characters. Sometimes the odds are so low of the enemy critting that you just can't plan around them actually doing that, and on the flipside sometimes the odds are so low that your character crits that you figure you can use them to block a chokepoint, but then the crit happens, and one of your character dies. This just feels bad. Random ambushes are also pretty bad, particularly in instances where the enemies gets to move the turn they show up. There's really nothing you can do about them other than restart the game and know that the enemies will show up, so you avoid the place next time. This I think is pretty bad level design, and also works pretty poorly in a game with permadeath. At least in a game without permadeath you can try to muscle through the mission anyway.
During my first ever playthrough of FE7, I went to fight Linus with only lords, and Marcus. The reason being, all of my other characters were dead! Lol then one of my friends told me that you need to keep them alive to actually enjoy the game, and from that point onwards, FE became my favourite game franchise. So yeah, permadeath is extremely important and I'd think twice about playing any FE game (or hack) without this.
I personally prefer to do first playtthroughs in casual, as well a more "chill" playtthroughs. I have started various playtthroughs on clasic, but due to me wanting to play other things not long after starting them, I leaved them. I only finished one, an ironman (I personally don't like reseting), and I was succesfull... kinda: it was birthrigth hard, and yet only Corrin and Kaze made it to the end credits... I need to get better. I'm planing on doing a clasic normal for my second Engage playtthrough, without turn rewinds (also ironman).
