I put Fire Emblem's HARDEST Difficulty into its EASIEST Game (FE8 Lunatic Reverse, Seth-less)

[@osfe_]

Something I forgot to address in the video was whether or not any of our recruitable units that started as enemies benefited from the boosted growths: they didn't! While some recruitable units that start as enemies in FE6 & FE7 _do_ benefit from the extra autolevels enemies get in hardmode, this "quirk" doesn't exist in FE8 so none of our units received any extra stats from the boosted growths. We'll just have to hope Cormag and Joshua can find _some_ way to get by with their completely un-boosted Vanilla bases :)

[@cullenhutchison6528]

The real Seth was the Franz we met along the way.

[@stellarknight04]

*bans Seth *proceeds to use Seth Lite *does not elaborate further *leaves

[@TheMoogleKing93]

Lol at Seth-less. It must be done.

[@osfe_]

Wouldn't be able to call it a true FE8 challenge run without it lol

[@flextape467]

How dare you disrespect molder the Boulder

[@KaitoKenny]

This is the first I've heard of your channel, and I gotta admit that you have a real skill for storytelling!

[@osfe_]

Thanks! I spent a lot of time working on it & had a lot of fun making it so that makes me happy to hear

[@Dethraxx]

FE12 Lunatic (reverse) is my favourite Fire Emblem experience, so it's really awesome to see this in Sacred Stones which was one of my first Fire Emblems. Great work!

[@osfe_]

Thanks! I was actually kinda surprised at just how much Lunatic Reverse forces you to approach the game differently; it was a really fun way to play

[@erigor11]

I did play it and it has good things... but restarting continuously until you get perfect level ups is quite far from my ideal gameplay.

[@Dethraxx]

@@erigor11 You don't need perfect level ups. There are 0% growth runs

[@no_life45678]

Seth had 2 experience when you benched him. Tainted run

[@osfe_]

Yeah he ended up tanking a couple attacks while unarmed from the reinforcements in Chapter 1 because I forgot to move him from his starting position lol

[@Gofer925]

i like how fe8 is like the pokemon fire red of fe challenge runs people will get up to some absolutely devious shit to make it actually hard lol also, big fan of using the average growths patch. it fits challenge runs very well imo.

[@osfe_]

Yeah FE8 in particular has a bunch of modding tools and patches available that make it super easy to mod the shit out of the game and do all sorts of fun stuff; especially when you combine multiple different patches/gameplay alterations at once. And yeah really glad I chose to go with fixed growths for this. I never really know how to treat growths in challenge runs since with standard growths the challenge can be made substantially easier or harder just on the basis of how lucky you get with level-ups, which I feel like kinda takes away from the challenge itself. Planning around knowing how units will grow and what benchmarks they'd be able to reach was a fun addition, and I def think I'll be using fixed growths more in the future

[@furiouscorgi6614]

​@@osfe_do you think it would have been worth it to give fixed growth rates to the enemies? Or did it apply to them as well and I'm just stupid lmao

[@osfe_]

Nah you're right, enemies still had variable stat spreads due to RNG, but it totally would've been a good addition to the mod! At the time I wasn't exactly sure how you'd implement that and wasn't aware of any existing patches that already did so; however, I actually just finished creating a mod that accomplishes something fairly similar for another run I've been working on, so it might still be worth it to go back and add that for future use

[@ThereIsAnExtension2UndoHandles]

didn't implement ambush reinforcements, still too easy

[@osfe_]

Ooh that's actually a great idea, wish I would've thought of that. Even if I already know about all the reinforcements I still could've easily forgotten they were ambush and been caught by surprise

[@ThereIsAnExtension2UndoHandles]

​@@osfe_ honestly, i was joking, but the element of surprise is the least dangerous thing about ambush spawn. if you make them ambush, but don't push them 1 turn back to compensate, they accelerate maps with tight timing like the first fog map even more, not to mention having to face enemy phases without being able to size them down

[@osfe_]

​@@ThereIsAnExtension2UndoHandles Oh yeah that's actually a really good point; not being able to scout what their boosted stats look like while also having the time pressure pushed up a whole turn could have some pretty drastic effects on how certain maps play out, especially in a map that already has pretty stringent time pressure like Chapter 14. Ghost Ship could also get pretty sketchy with all the gargoyles

[@GodBlessYou176]

Great vid, hope more people will see this!

[@osfe_]

Thanks!

[@fadeemblem7665]

It's funny, all the changes you made in this playthrough made this feel a lot like FE6's hard mode. A tough time one-rounding units, accuracy issues with ranged weapons, enemy druids with status staves with capped magic, using your own long-range tomes and staves to make maps easier, and even a busted enemy-recruit Wyvern halfway through. This makes me wanna give this a playthrough myself, this looks like a lot of fun playing FE8 on actual hard mode.

[@osfe_]

Haha I didn’t even realize there were so many similarities to FE6 but you’re totally right! And yeah I’d definitely recommend giving it a try if you think it sounds fun, I really enjoyed the level of difficulty it added

[@Zorothegallade-rpg]

"Greatshield, son! It hardens in response to enemy attacks! You can't hurt me, Franz!"

[@cielunetoile]

This was honestly so much fun to watch. Your commentary was great and never felt lacking. RIP Bozo to Seth, but as it turns out, he wasn't necessary anyway.

[@lrrrrulerofomicronpersei8688]

Didn't FE12 remove warp staves on Lunatic?? Your run is invalid 😐

[@osfe_]

I’m a fraud😔

[@riemaennchen]

Looks like KZbin recommended something to me that I actually find interesting for once.^^

[@chanc1867]

Wow great video. I especially loved the fact how excited and intrigued you were in the matter of how to tackle the early and mid game maps. Your love towards this awsome game really came to shine and i do appreciate it much more than other youtubers to only belittle these amazing games

[@osfe_]

Thanks, glad you liked it! I absolutely adore FE8 so I always have a really fun time when I can come up with challenge runs/playthroughs that force me to approach my favorite maps in new/interesting ways

[@aBlackMage]

Amazing video. I love challenge runs where you can tell the player is already really competent but is still having a hard time and having to adapt. Very nice narration as well!

[@mackowens7234]

Please do more videos like this! I think KZbin likes it better when you do one condensed video instead of an entire play through series.

[@osfe_]

Haha well I definitely enjoy doing the bigger, condensed videos anyways so if that's how it works then it's even better

[@Hex17alv]

THANK YOU FOR THIS! This is exactly what I wanted for FE8, I love it so much and have played it way too much over the years. The reverse combat wasn't of my liking as much but it adds so much difficulty that I think it will be fun. Thank you ❤

[@madamemoonie]

I am a longtime FE fan and this is just...mind-blowingly cool. I really enjoyed this video and I hope your channel continues to grow. You deserve it!

[@osfe_]

Thanks so much! I had a lot of fun making it so that makes me happy to hear

[@ashdust9832]

having an entire bit explaning why franz should get the boss kill on chapter 4, just for it to be a singular point of res is such a fire emblem rng moment

[@craigyeah1052]

Fun, simple run, and good narration pacing. Nice!

[@IAARPOTI]

Omg you made a new video hooyay. I love your previous challenge attempt

[@marcelosolano7878]

This is easily one of the best FE challenge videos I’ve seen. Very nice

[@osfe_]

Thanks! Glad to hear you enjoyed

[@Bunnymafia8150]

Dude you have no idea how big of a breath of fresh air this video is, nice to watch someone who’s actually good instead of relying on degenerate grinding. Video was also paced and narrated very well, nice job. Bold of you to use the warp staff unobtainable in fe12 lunatic though🤔.

[@osfe_]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed! I actually completely forgot about the warp staff not being obtainable in FE12 Lunatic, I think as soon as I got to the last few maps the LTCer in me just automatically went into warpskip mode lmao

[@Bunnymafia8150]

@ yeah, I totally understand why they took it out, infinite warp range is pretty dumb. But I’m still sad it’s gone, way too fun to pass up.

[@tallpaulpoker9542]

"or I could use the warp staff" never fails

[@empressmako]

ooh i might have to play this. sounds super fun

[@Automarkt.Austria]

Good idea. Good Commentary. Great Video. Well done.

[@quinnlee-miller9792]

Sethless, or rather, the only way to have fun with FE 8 ☠️ you could cut his growths in half and he'd still be viable

[@papacheikhndiaye6026]

No growth and he would still be a powerhouse with how easy he will make the early game

[@wingofshu]

​@@papacheikhndiaye6026but if you give Seth 0% growth he will be useless later

[@Marc-o2g6b]

Iirc isn't he a staple in most of no growths?

[@HoangNguyen-pg3sd]

0:21 seth go brrrr, classic fe8

[@emblemblade9245]

Y’know this just provides further evidence that vanilla FE8 has awesome maps, just terrible enemy stats

[@osfe_]

Exactly! I've always felt like FE8 has a lot of solid map design that gets held back a bit by lower enemy quality (and, of course, the existence of Seth). Chapters 5, 13/14 Ephraim route, and 15 (and def some other maps, those are just my personal favorites) are all maps that become a lot more interesting/fun when playing with some sort of restriction that ups the difficulty a bit

[@gabodevilmaycry22]

I enjoy so much this video since i just got into hackroms for the gba fire emblem since these game are the more popular to mod, but this one really takes one of the higher spots i have seen specially since i finish sacred stones years years ago in my youth so i dont remember any of the maps or mechanics but i do remember the game being easier than the other two, so with this video it really spark my younger self to beat the game again and try this mod, it really looks like the original dev team of the fire emblem game of the gba would have thought of, like it looks natural, since the game start harder and you need to adapt to the new mechanics but feels so rewarded at mid and end game with the long journey and how powerfull the characters are, thanx so much for this video is really a good present for all fire emblem fans to enjoy once again the glory of the gba games, hope to see more videos like this with amazing ways to enjoy these beautiful games once again.

[@osfe_]

Thanks, glad to hear it! Finding new fun/interesting ways to play through the older games is exactly what I aim to do with my runs

[@USELESSDCK]

Lyon profile picture spotted, will like and subscribe

[@tanphamnhat969]

FUN, real fun journey that you have. I should adopt one in the future

[@ZenithBreeze]

14:46 how dare you...

[@MegaphoneFranke]

Dude, I did the SAME thing. Like… HOW DARE YOU disrespect my man Moulder the Boulder!

[@ruanedson2250]

25:06 Fire emblem fans not being masochists challenge: Impossible

[@kizunoV]

How about the fact every enemy have silver weapons/ spears/ tomahawks starting chapter 1 haha

[@soapsatellite]

Oh hey, a fellow Natasha enjoyer

[@Mixxium]

I know I'm being a bit dumb, but it'd be nice to see a fe8 romhack where they get rid of Seth by having him die to Valter in the opening. But this is quite a bit of work to change the story to make this still work

[@osfe_]

Yeah unironically just removing Seth from the game really makes the earlygame a lot more interesting imo. Gameplay-wise, having him die/retreat after fighting Valter in the Prologue shouldn't be too difficult, since I think the story already accounts for Seth just "retreating" when he dies normally. Completely removing him from the story, on the other hand, would def take a lot more rewriting though

[@Gl1tchycat]

lol when I played this game, I never used Seth until people told me he was good

[@Era2Sunrise]

We, the FE community since GBA times, love challenge runs. Glad KZbin's frontpage does its job.

[@KuroiRenge]

I don't even know what they were thinking making Sacred Stones as easy as it was. Even on Hard it was painfully easy.

[@LukeDavis-sb7kw]

The delivery of ‘RIP Bozo’ killed me 😂😂

[@zacharymcvicker5820]

This is a very interesting idea for a Fire Emblem challenge run. What is y’all’s favorite map from this challenge? I’d have to say mine was Chapter 10 or 15

[@Aeroblade141]

11:05 saying the level meant more on franz seems silly to have said when he got 1 resistance from the level 😂

[@osfe_]

Yeah it is a bit ironic that it was such a comically underwhelming level-up lol

[@Marc-o2g6b]

Tbh one thing I would have changed was increasing the caps, like how Lyon was faster and... that was basically it as far as differences went by then, making the late game not that differentfrom normal. Still, very fun run to watch, I may do this myself it looked fun

[@osfe_]

Yeah, thankfully Lyon2 was pretty much the only boss to be at/near caps, but that definitely would've been a nice addition! Especially if stat cap increases were extended to the unpromoted enemies that all started hitting their caps of 20 pretty early on

[@Marc-o2g6b]

@osfe_ yeah, change the caps to like 50 so they wouldn't cap ever. Actually that'd be a good idea for a harder lunatic fe8. I may do that for fun (I'll probably cry)

[@sebastianvasquez4175]

Did cormag get buffed by the enemy growth rate modifier?

[@osfe_]

If only! I believe FE8 is the only GBA game where recruitable enemies don't get any hardmode bonuses at all, Cormag's just that insane in Vanilla lol

[@yeah167]

i know nothing about fire emblem but im watching anyway. nice gaming

[@Automarkt.Austria]

What a great idea.

[@luiscarlosmairenasiu7142]

Franz the Goat

[@bob4960]

great script and very well edited. Did you actually edit in all those gba button presses on the bottom right or was it a feature of your totally normal cartridge?

[@osfe_]

Thanks! The button presses are actually recorded while I'm playing live using an input overlay plugin that I used to use back in my speedrunning days, so I didn't have to do anything special for it during editing. I technically designed the specific visual components it uses in photoshop, but the OBS plugin handles the rest

[@PokeShadow77]

FE8 with FEH proportional growth rates Now finally Seth bad

[@FarCritical]

20:16 Tirado jumpscare

[@ElHarmonyV]

Of course it had to be Sethless.

[@RuneTacticss]

No Neimi love, this is so sad

[@osfe_]

I know, going into it I was actually hoping she'd be cracked as a consistent 2-range attacker but didn't end up finding too much need for her after actually starting the run. I will say though, I may or may not be working on another run currently where she gets plenty of action ;)

[@voltron77]

NO ONE INSULTS MOULDER THE BOULDER!

[@yashinebrown9179]

You get Palla chapter 3

[@hajoeijgenraam295]

45:43 did you just attack with cormag not at max hp and within range of getting killed by a pierce from valter 💀 Honestly i kinda wish you got punished for that because that is such an unnecessary risk to take at the end of such a long map

[@osfe_]

Lmao you’re totally right, went back and checked and it looks like Cormag _just barely_ would’ve died from Valter’s Pierce proc (Valter had 37 atk to Cormag’s 34 HP). I somehow always manage to forget about the one enemy in the game that has Pierce; one of these days that’ll get the best of me haha

[@tiredwhitemagesquared]

Maybe this was answered in the video and I missed it, but wouldn't enemy recruit units have their growths buffed the same way the other enemies do? Or does the game handle their growths and whatnot separately?

[@osfe_]

That's a great question that I totally forgot to address in the video haha. While recruitable enemies in FE6 & FE7 _do_ get extra stats on hard mode if they show up as reinforcements, this quirk doesn't exist in FE8 so none of our units saw any benefit from the boosted growths. I'm not exactly sure what's going on in the game's code that was changed to fix it but all recruitable enemies in FE8 have pre-defined base stats that aren't affected by the extra auto-levels that enemies get on hard mode (there are a few units with different bases based on whether you're playing Eirika or Ephraim route, but that's completely unrelated iirc)

[@tiredwhitemagesquared]

@osfe_ Ohhhh, that’s neat. Thanks for takin' the time to reply.

[@zedek6709]

Doesn't FE 11 and 12 hit rates can't get lower than 50%? I remember this being a big thing in DS games and a big difference to GBA gsmes because you can't put speedy units to just dodge-tank stuff.

[@metroid7299]

Gillam could have been great for this run if the early game didn't have too many axe users. 😢

[@bibohbi-br9gj]

now do luna+

[@Janinechicken2]

and erika only

[@Limligant]

can we get a download for this?

[@osfe_]

I can definitely try to make a patch for the ROM I used, if that's something you'd be interested in!

[@Limligant]

@@osfe_ yes, please!

[@Trombonesforlife]

​@@osfe_I'm definitely interested in this as well! 😁

[@osfe_]

@Limligant Just finished making a UPS patch with all the mods/patches I used applied, download link should be in the description! There are a few visual bugs I found during the run that probably resulted from so many different patches being applied to the same ROM (mainly Myrrh’s map sprite being bugged, which you can see at 49:14), but otherwise everything should be working properly!

[@osfe_]

@@Trombonesforlife Just made a UPS patch with all the mods/patches I used applied, download link should be in the description!

[@TruMikuel]

Curious you didn't use Gilliam... Being able to take hits safely with general would have been useful, at least in my opinion.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

The armor knight slander has reached critical levels. People now assume Armor Knights are just bad, because they're bad in playthroughs where you just kill everything instantly and want to go fast.

[@osfe_]

Gilliam was actually one of the units I'd initially considered using, but his higher defense ended up being a lot less useful than I anticipated once I actually started playing. His atrocious speed meant he was constantly getting doubled by basically everything, and he often ended up taking more damage than many of our other units that were a bit lower on defense but still had the speed to not get doubled. As a quick example, a 15/1 General Gilliam has 6 speed and 15 defense, while a 15/1 Paladin Kyle will have 11 speed and 12 defense. In this scenario, any enemy that has at least 10 speed and 19 physical attack will do more damage to Gilliam than Kyle, which would cover the majority of enemies that you face by the time you reach the route split. This is just one specific example/instance but I think it demonstrates how valuable speed and the ability to double/not get doubled can be. This was something I hadn't really expected/thought about too much going into the run, and is the main reason why I was so surprised at Franz's performance compared to Kyle's

[@cptnomar492]

So… this is just FE6 then lol

[@theelixirdefender2714]

I'd say fe6 hardmode since I don't really find normal mode that atrocious

[@KINFIN123]

Why the disrespect to the Boulder?

[@osfe_]

Because he could never be Natasha :)

[@voltron77]

Seth is clearly the worst unit in fe8.

[@jonatoncopeland4798]

Why not a train everyone challenge?

[@osfe_]

👀

[@jonatoncopeland4798]

@osfe_ I can help make rules to make it challenging

[@osfe_]

Sure, I'd be interested in hearing what you have in mind!

[@delmattia96]

Nice

[@shadoweclipse8357]

How different is it from the fe8 lunatic reverse on feu

[@osfe_]

I assume you're referring to this patch (feuniverse.us/t/fire-emblem-sacred-stones-lunatic-reverse/9259), which I actually considered trying when I was initially looking into doing this run but ultimately chose not to in favor of a custom version that has some notable differences that I think makes the challenge more fair/enjoyable. First, the FEU patch gives enemies a flat 20% or 30% growth boost (instead of multiplicative) to _all_ the enemies stats. I actually already tried something similar a few years back when I did an FE8 Ironman where all enemies got a flat 30% growth boost (no reverse combat though) and in practice, this just results in basically all enemies becoming super bulky damage sponges that all have similarly hyperinflated stat spreads. Multiplicative growth boosts, on the other hand, still made enemies more threatening while preserving their own unique strengths/weaknesses, like Fighters having notably higher HP/Str and Myrmidons higher Skl/Spd. As a result of the hyperinflated stats enemies had from their flat growth boosts, the patch creator also made a series of changes to some maps throughout the game to make them easier, like removing the Chapter 6 Spider's weapon to make the Orion's Bolt NPCs easier to save, nerfing Ghost Ship "to hell and back" to make it beatable, and changing Rennac's AI in Chapter 14B to run towards you instead of trying to escape. While I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with any of these changes, it just wasn't the type of challenge I was looking for, and I thought I'd have much more fun with the custom changes I chose to go with for this run.

[@mikeng1805]

i thought you would have hard mode bonus tho

[@osfe_]

Unfortunately that's only a thing in FE6 & FE7 so none of our units saw any benefit from the boosted enemy growths

[@vergillives9890]

Why are the speed wings highly contested?

[@osfe_]

The speedwings being so highly contested (relative to the Energy Rings/Dragonshields) mainly comes down to my choice to use Cormag. Cormag already has fantastic Str/Def at base, even being able to hit the Str cap in Wyvern Knight naturally pretty quickly after promotion. The only thing that kept him from _completely_ stomping the game was his somewhat middling speed. With the 2 speedwings we had, he'd be able to double and one-round basically everything in the late game

[@voltron77]

Did Joshua have better stats since he was a red unit and got hard mode bonuses?

[@osfe_]

I wish! Unfortunately I think FE8 is the only GBA game where recruitable units don't get _any_ hardmode bonuses, though I still think it'd be kinda cool to find out how many units would change if they did. Eirika route Cormag would probably be insane, as would Marisa (or I guess since it's Marisa, it's more like she'd actually have somewhat passable combat when she joins lol)

[@voltron77]

@ yeah, I know that hard mode bonuses mess with game balance and all, but it’s always insane to have absolutely bonkers units like in fe6 with Rutger and Melady.

[@hotshowerh2o356]

Why did you make the difficulty curve look like a zit lol.

[@osfe_]

I’m a bit of an artist, what can I say :)

[@funnynamehere1261]

Playing rn and got to say f ambush spawns I thought they wernt in fe8 but chapter 8 its a trap has some and now im down 2 cavs. Oh and its a iron man. Atleast I got kyle and if he dies I guess amilia can try her chance as a good unit.

[@osfe_]

ambush spawns are cringe

[@rileyg1307]

12:16 Communism is on the rise eh?

[@redsilversnake]

You really need to stop misusing words like "we" and "us".

[@batarnakdekosse1312]

EEEYYYYY