The Fire Emblem Discussion

[A Black Falcon]

I always hear about Nino. How the hell are you supposed to get a decent mage out of a level 5 Nino with only 3 missions left. Having someone as weak as her in missions that late in the game is just asking for trouble.

Oh, and if you just included Raven to build his support with Lucius, what's the point? I tried to build supports between the characters I actually USED so they could benefit from them...

You have Nino for six and a half missions, actually -- you get her midway through mission 26, then she's there for 26x, 27, 28, 29, 30, and the final mission (there is also 29x, but that's just five turns of buying stuff, so it doesn't really count). To get her to this high level (20/19) I used her a lot... First, I used the Afa's Drops on her, to increase bonuses, as well as Speedwings and a healthup item. She starts at level five and when used properly gains levels very quickly -- she reached level 20 in two missions, essentially, since I didn't really use her in 26, but began instead in 26x and hit level 20 before fighting Lloyd at the end of 27, so when I finished level 27 she was 20/2 I believe.

Nino certainly is not a whole-game mage solution, of course; for that I use Erk, and he ended up at a reasonably high level. I also used Lucius a lot this playthrough, and he was one of the highest-levelled units this time... but once you get Nino I can't help but use her a lot, and she got really good quickly -- as I said, she maxed out FOUR categories. Of course, that is probably thanks to the Afa's Drops, but even so... she levels pretty fast. I remember the first time having to be really careful and protect her with troops in front all the time in order to level her up, but this time with better strategy I minimized that while still levelling her quickly. She did usually need protection, but so does almost everyone...

As for the supports, why not? It was for the conversation as much as anything... it's not like it says what bonus the supports give you anyway as far as I can tell, so I've never really paid much attention to that side of it, even if it is perhaps the more 'important' aspect of the support system (which, as I said, I think is broken).

Out of curiosity, who here prefers the Advance Wars games over Fire Emblem?

Advance Wars is good, but Fire Emblem is definitely better. I like the setting better, for one thing... I've always loved fantasy. The death system and stories are quite good too, unlike Advance Wars' more normal 'throw units at it' system and horrible plots. still, Advance Wars was a great, great game (series) too.

So since most are leaning towards FE, who here would compare Final Fantasy tactics (and advance) to FE?

To me, the gameplay of FFT trumps FE and is much more of a role playing game as each character can be built from the ground up, learn specific skills as well weapon and armor upgrades, magic and summons, etc. So who's with me?

Fire Emblem is a lot better than FFT. It's more strategic, simply! FFT is much more RPG-ish, while FE is a lot purer strategy game. I prefer the strategy-game approach. Oh, FFT is a good game, but I definitely would rank FE much higher. Really though, I think that they are two very different kinds of approaches to strategy game design, so a direct comparison can be somewhat misleading...