Just finished FIre Emblem (1st GBA one)

[Ivo]

I really liked it. I think I prefer the Tactics Ogre style of turn-based combat, but I prefer the RPG stuff over Advance Wars (all very good games though).

Any other fans of the series?

I feel like ranting a bit about the unclear requirement for S ranking "Funds", which made me miss out on S ranking all the modes, essentially. It's rather counter-intuitive until you know how it works and then you understand why it works that way (I now know how it works after reading it on the net, but I'm not replaying it; put loads of time into this game already and there are more to play!).

Ivo.

[noiseredux]

(raises hand) I'm a fan!

[flojocabron]

yep I beat it too.

this game made me a little OCD, I just couldnt let anyone die, but I kinda cheated at the end of the game. some did die.

if you play the game over again and you make different friendships, you get to see more of the story.

[Ivo]

yep I beat it too.

this game made me a little OCD, I just couldnt let anyone die, but I kinda cheated at the end of the game. some did die.
.

I didn't find keeping everyone alive terribly difficult. What makes it difficult is doing that while also keeping your exp gains going along nicely, saving up stat-boosting items ALL while trying to finish missions without wasting turns!

I had to restart some missions several times. Then I get to the end and I only get A ranks on Funds because I promoted more people than I should have (annoying as the "extra" promotions didn't really affect my turn count). I thought you were supposed to promote everyone you could...

Ivo.

[AmishSamurai]

Beaten Rekka no Ken two or three times, but I had troubles keeping everybody. I think at the last chapter I lost two people my most recent run, where my first run was a bloodbath. Characters I have a fondness of include- Guy, Heath, Pent, Matthew (who I lucked out with once and killed Nergal using the Assassination attack), Wil, Raven, and Lucius. Favorite Lord was Lyn, which made me sad because she was easily the weakest by the end. Eliwood was bleh, and Hector was an unstoppable rape-tank towards the end.

I'm still playing Fuin no Tsurugi, have a rom of Shadow Dragon somewhere, about halfway through Path of Radiance, and beat Sacred Stones too. The latter was disappointing because it was easy-mode with the tower and encounters. Just repeat the first floor over and over, the boss always gives 100xp, regardless of level. Boom. I have Ewan as a level 20 Summoner who can tear his master in half.

[ChimairaGT]

I have a horrible problem not finishing strategy RPGs. I really like the Fire Emblem games that I own, but I quit that one about 3/4 of the way through since I couldn't let people die and got frustrated. I got part way through the Wii game, but other games got in the way and I never returned. I still plan on getting back to that one since the save mechanic makes my OCD a little better.

I finally beat Shadow Dragon not too long ago. The save points are a great feature. Less hardcore, I know, but I can live. I did let a couple of characters die, but not the ones I really care about. There are so many new characters that come in that I know I would never use that I often let them serve as distractions to keep my main force alive. The only real problem with the game is that I got a little anxious to finish the game towards the end, so I exploited the teleport spell. Basically, have two characters with a teleport spell. Have one send your most powerful character to the boss and have them kill them, or come close so they can do it on the second round. Then, once the seize square is open teleport Marth onto it and you win the stage.

I'll probably pick up the DS sequel when it comes out and hopefully beat it legitimately.

[Ivo]

Beaten Rekka no Ken two or three times, but I had troubles keeping everybody. I think at the last chapter I lost two people my most recent run, where my first run was a bloodbath. Characters I have a fondness of include- Guy, Heath, Pent, Matthew (who I lucked out with once and killed Nergal using the Assassination attack), Wil, Raven, and Lucius. Favorite Lord was Lyn, which made me sad because she was easily the weakest by the end. Eliwood was bleh, and Hector was an unstoppable rape-tank towards the end.

There are some rather overpowered "mini-bosses" (more dangerous than the actual bosses) in that last chapter - The ultra-fast nomad trooper and the 3 Reeds (although the two sword using ones are much worse than the Axe user which is slower). To make matters worse one of them has a Brave Sword which will always double up on anyone at melee.
You can easily lose people to any of them, but the chapter is relatively short.

It is very possible to run into problems if you don't have enough people sufficiently leveled up you won't be able to do much as it is hard for Athos to deal with the 2 brothers just by himself.

I fortunately didn't quite get into this problem even though on my Eliwood mode run as I fielded every single character and had nearly everyone underleveled. Without Athos I wouldn't have had a chance. The game is pretty fair there at least, giving you Athos and as long as you recruit one of the higher level pre-promotes you will have a shot of finishing it after you get to that point.

In the Hector mode I already knew more about the game and had leveled up less people (and the A-listers I chose were higher level).

My experience is that Lyn turns out better than Eliwood (she dodges pretty reliably). Hector is a tank (he doesn't need to dodge). Eliwood has neither enough defense nor enough dodge. Eliwood says it best "We are all weaklings compared to you, Hector" (granted, Oswin is also a similar beast).