Ranking All Fire Emblem Games by DIFFICULTY

Looking at every Fire Emblem game through the lens of how challenging they are at the highest difficulty. Which results in a weird looking list!
Patreon: / mekkah
Twitter: / mekkkkah
Subscribe: kzbin.info?...
Discord: / discord
Design by Ryn: / ryntai / spo.ink/ryntube

[@Just_a_Nameless_Cat]

My favorite thing about F12 lunatic mode is the fact that the armor knights enemies have more speed than defense.

[@1calv]

It's actually because FE12 does not inflate defense at all except for a couple of bosses. Therefore they have the same defense as Normal mode funnily enough. That's also why dracoknights in FE3 are harder to take down than lunatic FE12 dracoknights.

[@FiboSai]

@@1calv FE12 Lunatic is somewhat the opposite of FE9 maniac. The former features enemies are easy to kill, but also deal a lot of damage to you. Most of your units can only take 2-3 hits and have very little chance to dodge. FE9 maniac goes for the opposite approach by making the enemies very bulky and numerous. Almost noone is able to oneround enemies in FE9 maniac, and the ones that do need very high strength and/or strong forges to do so. But the enemies also don't deal that much damage to you, which results in huge grindfests on wide open maps.

[@luizguilhermelunardi8270]

It’s very interesting how saying “this unit can’t double armors” is not a death sentence to their viability in FE12 because that just describes like 90% of your units. I do like that design decision, however, as it means armors aren’t the joke enemy type they usually are

[@TuskyBaby]

​@@luizguilhermelunardi8270 Thats why I like Fates as well. Generals get "Wary Fighter" and it changes the dynamic quite a bit

[@Spore9996]

@@TuskyBaby Wary Fighter is such a GOAT skill for Generals - it enhances their durability far and beyond what most other things do.

[@menhirmike]

24:45 Radiant Dawn also had mistranslated difficulty levels, so people that picked "Normal" were playing on Hard mode, which makes the game even worse for first timers.

[@DarrienGlasser]

On the flip side, it was my first FE game (English normal mode) and I was so disappointed to find out all of the games weren’t like that. Shadow Dragon normal was so easy I lost my mind. I tried Path of Radiance and just couldn’t finish it for a few years. I still wish there were more games like it :(

[@menhirmike]

@@slywerk5070 Yep. Normal, Hard, Maniac are the actual difficulties, and Easy, Normal, Hard is what they were called in the UI.

[@GrampsSteel]

Fun fact: it's actually intentional, and not a mistranslation. EU and US versions of FE10 are actually easier, in JP version there's no autopromotion at level 21 so there are way more Master Crowns in the game, Also the DB members don't get their personal weapons such as Caladbolg or Tarvos.

[@leaffinite3828]

​@DarrienGlasser humble braggart! Just kidding lol. I prefer a more medium difficulty, but ideally all comers should find a difficulty for them

[@lpfan4491]

@@GrampsSteel Kek. They have made similar localization changes since FE7 and that never compelled them to change the names. It is a localizationerror, full stop.

[@Hanesboi]

I do like how you say FE7 isn't just a baby game. It's really challenging on a first run, and some of the maps are designed to make it more difficult in ways that I think people overlook. I like this tierlist overall!

[@Boukansha]

HHM is still fairly challenging for experienced players if they're not too familiar with FE7, in my opinion. I don't think Eliwood Hard Mode is challenging due to the lack of bonus levels. I actually did struggle a bit with FE7 on my playthrough because my first game FE8. FE7 is my second game. Oh, and for the tier list, I'm not too pleased with 3H's and Engage's placements. Engage Lunatic is no joke, I tell ya. I would say that 3H and Engage Lunatic should be in the hard tier. Oh, and FE10 should be downgraded to mid.

[@lanceareadbhar]

I'm always surprised when people say HHM is not that hard. That may be true 75% of the time, the remaining 25% is still pretty difficult when excluding arena grinding and save states.

[@PurpleRupees]

​@@lanceareadbharIt depends on if Lyn Mode is considered or not. Lyn Mode Hard to train up units significantly makes HHM easier. Going straight into HHM I'd argue it's the hardest GBA difficulty.

[@ZappBranniglenn]

I think the best case for "FE7 is a baby game" is just the flood of great pre-promotes, and the general strength of low manning with 6 or so growth units. You'll outpace the difficulty curve pretty early.

[@TuskyBaby]

@@PurpleRupees nobody considers Lyn mode in these discussions

[@LillianKoi]

Mekkah this is your member speaking if you don't do a tier list on "Ranking All Fire Emblem Games by HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM" I will be an unhappy lady

[@domicraft6341]

Wrong tactic. Say that you will be a Happy lady if he does it. It sounds more motivating.

[@me-fp3cg]

women ☕

[@JCDGAMING01]

Good.

[@voltron77]

Fe5 would be first.

[@Frank-ux6hs]

Xenoblade music is so peaceful to the soul and heart

[@mihaimercenarul7467]

Stop with the music obsession. This îs about The tier list

[@lordeisschrank]

first thing I noticed when the video started xD

[@mcm426]

​@@mihaimercenarul7467Yeah! How dare he comment on an aspect of the video!

[@hrisl]

The main challenge of fe9 is surviving the enemy phase. Not from the enemies but from old age

[@samhall5096]

Echoes was beautiful because it made archers the S tier class.

[@TrueYankeeFan]

I started my first playthrough of Echoes about a month ago, and assumed archers were bad like they usually are so I didn't make any villager into one. Imagine my surprise the first time I encountered enemy archers with 5 attack range 😂

[@meinman7591]

whatthefuck

[@segafreak2000]

But then the question is, why make the guys into an S tier class when you have the S+ tier class Dread Fighter available to you as well.

[@Spore9996]

@@segafreak2000 Dread Fighters are OK, but the striking power of Bow Knights and Oliphanters at range is astounding.

[@gallalameblook9911]

@@segafreak2000 Because the most efficient thing is going Dread Fighter then reclass into Archer

[@lanceareadbhar]

Engage has a great difficulty curve for first time players and for that I would put it in mid, but I agree that it can be very easy once you know how everything works and use everything the game offers especially after the free DLC updates. The thing I love about Engage is that it can be made challenging again by excluding specific Somniel features or even the Somniel itself. I think only using the Forge in the Somniel gives it a more old school feel without feeling unfair.

[@korinoriz]

This goes for all the games, but I feel Engage and Three Houses are a testament to how game knowledge can make a game considerably easier. With Three Houses it's things such as, but not limited to, doing rather precise lessons or even save scumming if one wanted to. Engage, as you said, is typically knowing how to use the Emblems and SP management. Compared to most other games, mostly the older games, where it's not as free form. To be clear, one isn't inherently good, bad, or better, it's just an observation.

[@HolyStarXL]

engage sucks

[@tezereth]

Honestly engage gave me much more challenge than 3 houses (granted I played engage in hard and without dlc), despite having emblems, I still felt like I really needed to think thoroughly to get out of some situations. Sure there’s way to break the game, but it requires you to really know the game, which isn’t relevant for first runs.

[@RSimpkinuk57]

"... after the free DLC updates": that rather begs the question, do Mekkah's rules for "hardest difficulty" allow any DLC at all?

[@researchinbreeder]

​@@RSimpkinuk57 Almost certainly not, simply bc DLC (outside of maps like Awakening's Apotheosis) exclusively makes the game easier. At the very least, its likely he isnt accounting for the extra characters and items like Fates Anna, the Ashen Wolves, the Edelgard Emblem, the various promotion items like Echoes' Pitchfork or the Witch and Dark Flier items, or anything else. At most, he might be accounting for the free update bonuses in Engage like the Well and the Steel weapons you get on first Somniel visit? But its unlikely hes accounting for DLC bonuses like the free stat boosters or the massive money boost.

[@luizguilhermelunardi8270]

One important thing to say about FE12 is that, if you beat Lunatic, then Lunatic Reverse is absolutely within your grasp. This might sound weird to have to point out, but the jump in difficulties in this game is something that I believe impacts its reputation a lot despite not being brought up that often. In Normal, enemies just fall over and die, it’s Very Easy tier for the context of this tier list, on H1, they match your units’ stats more closely and surpass them far more often, it’s Mid, but maybe still Easy tbf. But them we get into the big ones: the jump from H1 to H2 is palpable, enemy density starts to become worrisome, AI becomes more nasty and enemy inventories start getting less amateurish, with group AI notably becoming more prevalent, you can’t just bait things as easily as before and often need 2 units to kill most enemies, Hard for sure. H3, however, is where all hell truly breaks loose: everything has a silver/bolganone or forged weapon (archers/snipers almost always have Longbows), ambush reinforcements appear earlier, non-group AI becomes much more easily provokable, making you prone to pincer attacks, enemy density is through the roof in certain maps, and stat creep finally shows its ugly self, with most classes having speed bases that just don’t hold up anymore, and several units facing low % crit chances from the bloated enemy Skill. There’s no two ways about it, H3 is a COMPLETELY different game from H2, it’s by far the biggest jump in difficulty, almost becoming a puzzle game, and is what gets most people to give up on FE12. That leaves H4, or what its name should’ve been, H3.5; since the ONLY difference (apart from more lenient gaiden map turn count requirements) is that enemies attack first; quite simply, you’ve got this. Yes, managing damage becomes more difficult, but if you’re clever about your 1-2 range options, it’s more doable than you’d think. However that does mean something: maps where enemies have a lot of 1-2 range themselves become HELL, with chapter 12 in H4 having a strong argument for becoming the hardest map in the series, since EVERY enemy has 1-2 range there, but all the other chapters are something you’re perfectly capable of dealing with. In conclusion, the difficulty mode leaps in FE12 are one of the sneaky reasons this game has its infamy, with H3, in effect, being the true hardest one bc H2 players will inevitably be shocked at what it expects them to do, whereas H4, once you unlock it, is just another day ending in y for H3 players 95% of the time.

[@illialidur8244]

So I beat H3 and it was awesome. It was my first FE12 playthrough and I thought it was a good challenge and tons of fun. I started H4 afterwards and it was noticeably harder but you just need to make more of your army archers and mages than in H3, it felt very manageable. Then I hit chapter 12 and I had to take a break lol because it was such a spike. I came back to it like a year later, managed to beat it, and I’ve fought my way to chapter 19. That map is also kinda nutty if you play it the normal way, which I did, and now I’m trying to prep for the final few maps. Send prayers or, more usefully, practical advice lol

[@typhooncarter]

H3 clean save is actually the hardest difficulty in FE12 since you have no Rainbow Potion, no stat boosters in prep shop, and no merged male reclassing sets. H4 means you at least have access to some of those resources.

[@illialidur8244]

@@typhooncarter I mean it comes down to whether the limited class set and Rainbow Potion is more valuable than being able to safely initiate combat. It will probably just depend on your play style.

[@Lucisev_]

Kinda surprised to see Engage in Easy tier. My blind Maddening playthrough gave me a run for my money. Like, Maddening Lynn's map was ridiculously hard compared to Hard mode. Of course, it gets easier in my subsequent Maddening runs. Knowledge and all. Also now there's the Well too. Shout out to Awakening Lunatic (non-plus). Playing through it actually gave me the confidence to play on any FE games after it in the hardest mode available. 😅

[@yeahman7263]

Engage maddening the first time was really what made me feel ready to try other fe games on the hardest difficulty and I definitely felt that about how not really understanding everything about the game made it way harder than it was and thus way more fun but also made me feel way better at the game as a result. Like I didn't realise that the power skills need to be inherited I was slapping Ike on units and thinking why is their axe damage so low shouldn't this be boosted and shit and also just totally wasting some of my team by putting them in wrong classes or just basically giving them next to no levelling and still using them the whole game so it really was a lot harder than it needed to be, I eventually tried a second run after beating it and it genuinely wasn't anywhere near as fun at all but now I'm playing fe6 hard mode or fe10 hard mode and actually feel like I can manage it somehow despite how frustratingly diffiuclt it can be because of it

[@bo5935]

That's kinda why I wish this list was more of the 1st-3rd playthrough variety. I'd personally find that more interesting than when you already know exactly how to tackle them

[@grit1]

Engage can be beaten with all F tier units because the rings are so busted. If you use the actually good ones, it becomes incredibly easy.

[@HyperTornadoHD]

@@yeahman7263I concur. I gave up a 3 houses maddening run at Chapter 5 years ago because of all the bs that 3H tosses in maddening along with the early game sucking. Beating engage maddening multiple times gave me the confidence to give 3H another go. Can say that other than that bullshit hunting by daybreak chapter, I’m doing much better overall and I’m probably going to finish this run. Endgame has me scared with the mage siege tome spam but we’ll manage. Going to finish echoes of valentia as well before I either finish Awakening, do H2 FE12, or do Conquest Lunatic maybe on Fates

[@timm8998]

I would put engage in very easy. It's the first game I can iron man on the highest difficulty.

[@leomoller2902]

Completely agree on FE12. Not to forget that the late game is ridiculously hard. Those chapter 19 ambush spawns still give me nightmares

[@EZog58]

When I learned you could turn them off by killing the boss turn 1, that made me happier than it should have.

[@askiia8713]

Dude I first tried the game blind on Lunatic. Palla's first chapter took me 8 hours. EIGHT. I know there's an easy route to take, but I wasn't aware when I first played it. I just couldn't get Palla to survive. It was fucking hell. But that made me really enjoy 12 haha.

[@illialidur8244]

I’m on chapter 19 right now! It’s epic!

[@illialidur8244]

“Echoes has the same maps as Gaiden, how hard can it be?😂” Me looking at FE3’s placement vs my experience with Reverse Lunatic and FE12’s placement. “😢”

[@mitsuruhype]

I actually agree with all of this EXCEPT for Genealogy being Very Easy. I've played it numerous times over so it isn't hard to me any more at all, but my first couple of playthroughs were kind of painful, mostly because every unit that isn't Sigurd tends to struggle at the start of Generation 1, and my personal lack of understanding in regards to the mechanics of FE4 as well as I do now, I will say without a doubt that a blind playthrough can be a bit painful in the opening chapters of Gen 1. Not enough to say the game as a whole is hard, but definitely not low enough to be very easy, despite understanding the reasoning behind the placement. I would definitely put the game more as an Easy difficulty game bordering on Mid Level difficulty rather than a very easy experience.

[@GoonCommander]

Not knowing about Brave Axe, Pursuit Band, maybe missing Bargain Ring, investing in Leonster only to essentially be robbed.

[@Sashitoge]

Yeah, it should def be above Fe1/3, SS and PoR at least. It has some legitimately difficult moments for a new player, like the Jamke forest, Ishtore castle and so on.

[@boredomkiller99]

Gen 2 can also be a pain if you don't properly set up your inheritances and what not. Gen 2 is actually a pretty big difficulty spike it is just that people usually min/max some godlike characters including Selpih.

[@Trail_Lentil]

@@GoonCommander Me not knowing that you had to visit a specific castle with Lewyn to get forsetti. Didn't even know that spell existed until after I had finished the game lol

[@GoonCommander]

@@Trail_Lentil Sigurd has a conversation with Lewyn in that chapter where he tells him to go see his mother (to get Forseti) :^/

[@Rhy2412TitanGamer]

Awakening on Lunatic is likely near the top of hard tier for newcomers. This mode forces the player to understand what classes give the best pair up bonuses to keep up with the huge stat buffs opposing enemies have. Enemy offensive occult skills become a lot more common. Those Risen skirmishes that are used to help level up your army & obtain valuable items become death traps, as the Risen have capped stats mostly & crazy weapons. You effectively must give Robin a + Def growth & sack Luck to reduce the physical damage received. class changed my robin into a mercenary & got Lucky Strike & broke the early game by having her soften up enemies with bronze swords & axes. Female Robin becomes absurdly busted here as well. Pairing her up with Chrom is the best thing for both on this difficulty. The game does become slow until you level up your other units though, but Robin can easily help with that when she's overleveled. Lunatic+ is a hair ripping experience I would never recommend anyone ever do. It just exists to make you angry.

[@lagspike7763]

As a fates apologist/ brainrot victim, I still think that CQ goes into very hard just because of the fact that it requires the kind of skills (not like in-game skills, I mean skills like money management and stat stack preparation, planning reclasses etc) that other games just don’t require to that extent. If you know the meta, it definitely gets easier, but “knowing the meta” requires a lot of trial and error, familiarity with the game, and just play time.

[@korinoriz]

While I also have similar issues with the way Mekkah made the list (somewhat inconsistent tiering), I feel it should stay in Hard if Three Houses and Engage are in Easy. Because, particularly Engage, requires somewhat similar management skills, imo. Three Houses you can basically look up a guide online and copy it to a T, but it's still a fair amount of hoops especially the god awful early game for Maddening (with no NG+ obviously). Unless I'm missing something, which I probably am cause now that I think about it, it might be the idea of what you can do at the "highest level of play" with cases like FE 12 where the game still kicks your ass even if you have game knowledge. Compared to Engage where if you know how to LTC it's rather easy cause of how powerful Emblems are.

[@blahmaster6k]

Three Houses falls into the same category in my opinion. Learning the meta will make it a much easier game than Conquest, but if you don't know the meta they're both probably extremely difficult games to beat.

[@coolguy1215]

As a fate hater, you are 100% correct. I hate fates because I’m bad at planning promotions and who to max bonds on

[@lagspike7763]

@@korinoriz well the thing with engage is that the tools the game gives you are fucking beyond broken to the point of being cheap as shit. Micaiah, Goddess Dance, bonded shield, the units you get, even shit like Ike and Eirika are so easy to use and so obviously and irreparably broken that the flowchart basically construct itself. Meanwhile, in CQ, you often need to 1. Figure out your win con and 2. Implement your win con. If you’re on kitsune lair, you need to know how you’re going to cheese it; if you want to not suffer on Takumi, you need to prepare your units for a fast clear; if you wanna beat c26 you need a way to not take effective damage in the bottom room. Many of these problems have pretty simple solutions if you look at it from a big picture perspective but it makes you interact with its mechanics and to really make it “easy” you need to know where to look, and in a game jam packed with so many mechanics that’s what makes it hard

[@blapblapblapblap]

@@blahmaster6k Three Houses was my very first FE game. I played it on Hard(albeit on casual), but I went into Silver Snow and I was practically soft locked because I invested in Hubert and Edelgard.

[@sohn7767]

Thank you for not pretending awakening higher difficulties don’t exist

[@korinoriz]

I don't think it's necessarily that people pretend those difficulties don't exist, it's more so that they're "unfair", so people don't talk about it as much due to this perception, founded or not. I can see the argument Luncatic isn't that bad, but Lunatic+ is pretty unfair. Then there's the whole other can of worms of does this include event tiles? Grinding? DLC? etc.

[@sohn7767]

@@korinoriz L+ funnily enough fixed some issues Lunatic has. Awakening is known as THE solo game and that applies to Lunatic too. However counter alone already makes soloing hard. Imo, while Lunatic is a mode with meaningful difficulty that still has a lot of room for sauce (believe it or not, you can train up a lot of people) to play around with, Lunatic+ is for when I want to have a run for my money and solutions do not get simply memorized. It’s not too often, but I do feel like it every once in a while. Like if you actually study Lunatic mode without soloing like how people are used to, L+ just forces you to do some adaptations and play safe and then you are fine. Naturally, this is only experienced by a very small minority of players, but for the existence of L+ is cool. More modes to accommodate more players is always a plus for imo. I think players should just come to terms with “Mode x isnt for me” instead of calling any difficulty that’s too much for them as bullshit. I’m not making this up, hard FE are generally disliked more. Afterall, people don’t say mode y is bad because it’s too easy; they just say it’s not for them.

[@sohn7767]

@@korinoriz grinding is not easy, you can try lol. Event tiles? Well sure why not, L+ is hard enough where they do not take away from the glory of beating the game imo. DLC? well you can grind with dlc, if you think you have more fun by having more team members trained up. Naturally you can do it excessively and not have fun, maybe you do, but I am not the one to decide that

[@Hiiyapow]

@@korinoriz Lunatic+ is unfair but in a good way. Like, games that are "fair" don't tend to be hard enough. The punishing apsect of the game is what makes it enjoyable. I feel like the other issue, that of "what you include" is not particularly hard to navigate. While you technically "can" get a beaststone+ before Panne joins by beating "Gregors Swell Swords" in the double duels, and have her 1 round KO lunatic+ enemies at base, that's pretty clearly something outside of the game that you're doing to get a bonus that you aren't "supposed" to have when fighting through the main game. I don't feel like its particularly hard to discern what isn't and isn't "meant" to be used, because you have to make an active decision to do it, whether it's buying a random dracoshield from an anna shop, stepping onto a sparkly tile for a brave tome in the prologue, or summoning someone from the wireless menu to buy mire tomes. The only kind of grey area is renown awards on lunatic+ because you can argue that the player will always have access to them because of the requirement of beating lunatic beforehand and the fact that they are consistent and pretty well balanced. And even if you chose to play without them it's not like the game would be impossible, just a bit harder in some instances.

[@lance5691]

@@sohn7767 Not really. Lunatic+ was a game mode thought to be literally impossible when the game came out, and while it obviously has been found to be possible now, it is only that way with certain enemy layouts and stat level ups in the early levels, nearly requiring a certain nature on Robin and an excruciating amount of resets even then to beat. You can argue because of how broken the lategame is for the player in these games Lunatic+ then becomes a reasonable challenge, not too bad, but prior to that point, when the player has no tools to work with, it's just plain bad game design to have levels that would require resets on stat level ups and enemy skills to even beat. If they just had the skills not randomized and placed in a possible configuration for the first levels of the game, that on its own would make me far more amicable to the difficulty, but unfortunately that is not the case.

[@Dakress23]

Yeah Three Houses should be Mid IMO, mainly because its difficulty is heavily reliant on 2 key points: * 1. The actual difficulty picked. Normal and Hard are very manageable, but Maddening has a big difficulty spike and more or less forces the player to know what skills you get from which classes and ranks + which classes raise your stats to optimize your units the best, meaning it's very beginner unfriendly. Not to mention, due to Maddening featuring same-turn reinforcement, some maps from Normal and Hard just can't be played the exact same way in Maddening (ie. the Embarr city map from VW Ch19/SS Ch 18). * 2. The class & route you pick. Map reuse aside, these directly impact: A. Your starting roster; B. Your available resources (gambits, hero relics, paralogues, deployment slots, etc.); and C. The enemy quality you face (ie. CF's bosses and sub bosses' have some of the best equipment overall and later maps force you to beat +4 bosses to beat chapters, AM's lategame spams a heck ton of siege tomes & ballistas at you, VW is a more manageable SS with an easier final map, while finally, the opposite statement applies to SS).

[@Yangblaze11]

I agree.

[@Dragonite43]

Reunion at Dawn/Hunting by Daybreak have also got people stuck.

[@Sujinpuffy]

I've played 3H Maddening so many times that I've started to find it to be easy... until I mistakenly thought "I could do a challenge run in Maddening, let's go for Silver Snow." I was right up until the final map of SS. And it was going well up until then because I was not expecting that map to actually be borderline IMPOSSIBLE to beat. Route definitely plays a big part in difficulty. But I think the variety here is what makes 3H so fun to replay (personally).

[@DigitalStarry]

Ranking Engage that low but some other games that high feels dishonest. You can trivalize several of the higher difficulty ranked games with knowledge of how it works (especially Thracia as you said). But Engage gets ranked low because someone who can abuse the Emblem system correctly makes it easy? Either knowing the battle does or doesn't count.

[@boredomkiller99]

Meanwhile fe7 is beaten by just using Marcus, Hawkeye, Pent, Harken and Athos. No need to learn a complex system just throw overtuned prepromotes at everything

[@DigitalStarry]

@@boredomkiller99 Yep. You can basically throw an OP prepromote at a group of enemies in FE7 and clear the map with no thought for many maps, but if you do that in Engage you will be eaten alive with chain attacks and much stronger enemies. Emblems might be OP, but you have to be proactive on player phase and use them well to abuse them to their fullest extent.

[@carpediem6841]

I’d say it’s less dishonest and more suffering from recency bias. Engage has some insane tools that are pretty OP, but go back to FE6 or FE5 and you’ll realize that the moment to moment gameplay of Engage tends to be harder despite how much cheese the game has (and it’s not like Engage doesn’t have its own difficulty spikes)

[@RobotGuy405]

@@carpediem6841 I'd argue the mere fact that bosses in Engage can have up to 4 health bars makes it a harder game overall than many of them. You can't just warp your strongest unit to the throne and end the map turn 1, and very often you won't be able to kill the boss or bosses in a single turn so you have to not only minimize counterattacks but also positioning for enemy phase, this is especially prevalent in midgame. Let's not forget that nearly every boss in the game actively approaches you when you get too close, so you can't sit there pelting arrows at it for 20 turns, as well that bosses often move in groups with other enemies.

[@bigsommiegaming]

@@carpediem6841 ​ @carpediem6841 He also didn't consider Engage without DLC/Well because he never experienced Maddening that way, the game is much more tightly balanced without these things

[@CarbonMalite]

Conquest Hard i believe is the best way to experience that game. It's plenty difficult but stops right before it begins to stop being fun (to me). Ryoma is a fine stopping point if Iago's is too annoying, but the final map is pretty fun with the right stave usage if you choose to push through. Lunatic is fun too, but certain specific maps become really teeth grinding to me

[@TuskyBaby]

Tbh I had MUCH less trouble with Iago's chapter than I did Ryoma's. Team composition def plays a part, but his debuffs just aren't too big a deal 🤷‍♂️. If you keep units adjacent to each other and don't spread yourself too thin, you can even completely negate their effects (like pairing up a unit that got hit with freeze). Most bow users in Conquest also have high Res, so he's not too tough to kill either. Combine that with using Entrap on Hans to take him out quickly, and the toughest part of the chapter ends up being the Berserkers and Generals with effective weapons, unless of course you reclassed everyone into Wyverns 😂. Just saying there's plenty you can do to make Iago's chapter no big deal. Source: literally just finished a run on Hard and loved it

[@CarbonMalite]

@@TuskyBaby Iago's on hard isn't awful. Bulk-build Dragonstone+ Kana can just solo that last room. Lunatic is usually where i say "yeah Ryoma is the final boss of this adventure." Iago's just uniquely stresses me out.

[@TuskyBaby]

@@CarbonMalite I haven't played Lunatic yet. What's different about Iago's?

[@CarbonMalite]

@vidsman625 He has infinite uses of staves, and all the enemies come in higher quantity and have extra skills that make the experience really strenuous

[@TuskyBaby]

@@CarbonMalite I think Iago already has infinite uses in Hard, doesn't he? I didn't bother trying to wait them out regardless. But yeah, the main thing I hear about the jump to Lunatic is that they go even harder with the abilities. Not sure exactly how I feel about that, but may try it one day.

[@ieattables]

Three Houses was the only placement that really surprised me. I understand the argument around it not being too bad if you know all the tricks, but I think that's a very big "if". Not to mention, chapters 1-5 are all pretty tough regardless. For players who don't know the meta strats (and I personally don't), I'd say 3H ranks pretty high up there, at least mid and honestly is probably more on par with like RD, I'd say after a few playthroughs of RD on Hard and Maddening 3H, I personally find 3H harder. Would this change if I looked up all the tricks people have found? Probably. But playing with only your own knowledge and experience, it's much tougher than the other games in Easy. I think probably medium is a fair place for it. FE7 HHM seems like a fair difficulty conparison for it to me.

[@blahmaster6k]

I was looking at Serenes forest and the wiki almost the whole time I was playing my first maddening run which was Silver Snow. The early game was brutal, and it's going to be brutal no matter what you do because there isn't really room to make use of any "tricks" at that stage of the game. The only way I could have made it easier for myself would have been to grind for Warp to skip the tower map but I hadn't done that. It got easier as the game progressed because my units got overleveled from doing one week of aux battles every month and learned all the meta skills, but if I hadn't I imagine it would be extremely difficult through the entire game. The joke about Three Houses is that stats don't matter only combat arts and abilities/gambits, but all of those things are exactly what new players or average casual gamers won't have access to optimal combinations of. The only reason "stats don't matter" is because of all the tools the player has. Take most of those away, and stats very much do matter.

[@Iron_Ratinum]

Yeah when I played Three Houses on Maddening for the first time the first 5 chapters were a lot harder than the rest of the game, after that it got significantly easier

[@harmonicarchipelgo9351]

yeah, I would put 3H at hard personally. The only thing in Mid was Blazing Blade which is significantly easier than 3H. You can cheese some maps, but there are plenty you can't. the first couple chapters are very hard and then there are some part 2 chapters that are very hard. In particular the first and last chapters in part 2 are ridiculous in most routes. The paralogues can also be very hard if you do them as early as possible but I guess that doesn't really count since you can delay if you want. IMHO Any FE title in 'Easy' shouldn't give you crazy hard maps even if you can delay doing them until you are overleveled. The sheer complexity of the game mechanics and knowledge that you have to use to beat 3H puts it above anything from the lower tiers. You need to have your strategy for chapter 20 worked out by chapter 7 or you won't have invested in your army correctly to be able to execute it. If you have a perfect plan and preparation you can easily win, but that is to be expected from a strategy game. The only easy thing is that almost all units are good enough to use if invested in so you can't really mess up team construction if you know what you are doing. Hector Mode in Blazing Blade is pretty straightforward since there aren't that many things you can do. Level up good characters, manage your weapons, tank with the tanks, kill with the killers. That is pretty much a complete guide to the game assuming you don't care about getting every side chapter, recruitment, and support.

[@RDA000]

Yeah 3 Houses is definetly on par with Radiant Dawn. I almost softlocked on Chasing Daybreak and that final Blue Lions level is hell on Earth.

[@harmonicarchipelgo9351]

@@RDA000 LOL, everyone who plays Chasing Daybreak feels like they maybe have a softlock at some point. Even on Hard mode it is no joke if you play it blind and don't invest in enough of your original students. On maddening it is ridiculous.

[@GibbsGibbsGibbs94]

I wish it was for normal or hard difficulties. Not everyone plays the 'kick me in the nuts' difficulties but we all play every game on either normal or hard.

[@Meanlucario]

I think comparing the games is a great idea. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, and we could learn a lot seeing what did and didn't work.

[@badatlife]

Always nice to see Mekkah getting more and more on the Birthright Good train! I wouldn't put anyone besides Corrin and Azura above Ryoma in a tier list setting, but the thing that makes him really annoying in practice is his relatively bad reliability since his high crit chance destroys his guard gauge. While Astra does help, there's a way larger and more meaningful variance in outcomes than with bulk stacking mages that take close to 0 damage, meaning they don't care if they miss or an enemy crits. I'm always be happy to talk more about Birthright if you want, though my tier list would be really controversial

[@NotRealAkira]

How controversial are we talking?

[@brunaolinto560]

Controversial tierlists make for some of the best tierlists IMO

[@Sashitoge]

I honestly believe that no game with lunatic/maddening difficulty (not counting fe9), that being every game after RD, should be below mid. Maybe you could argue Br for easy, but it being two tiers below FE7 is honestly pretty outrageus imo. Like, they are still games where the enemies have actual stats that can threaten most of your units, they should never be in the same tier as stuff like fe1-3, which are essentially locked to normal difficulty with occasional difficulty spikes to hard. I think you are valuing how much easier game knowledge can make a game way too much and a bit unevenly. It's not just most fe games that get easier with knowledge, it's literally every skill in life. Stuff like "engage gets easy because you can use build x with unit y" and "3h gets easy when you know how to optimise teaching" are fine points on their own, but they are essentially saying that this strategy game gets easier when you learn the best strategies. No shit. Then there is Awakening, where the early game will admittedly always be brutal, but afterwards all you need to know is "abuse robin" and you can stop using your brain pretty quick. Comparatively, many 3h/engage skips and such still take planning and execution. (This comment might have come off as more aggressive than intended, oops)

[@SharurFoF]

Putting 3H and Engage a tier below FE7 and two tiers below Radiant Dawn seems very strange to me. There are ways to trivialize all of these games, of varying degrees of difficulty to identify and understand, and it doesn't feel like you applied consistent evaluation criteria to these games in assessing those methods. If you're going to knock down 3H and Engage for the advanced player tools, I think you should also knock down Radiant Dawn and FE7 for being so susceptible to juggernauting. Or vice versa. Certainly, I found both 3H and Engage to be more challenging on initial playthroughs than I ever did FE7 despite being a significantly better player when encountering 3H and Engage. And that's the reason that regardless of where they should all slot relative to everything else, I think at a minimum 3H and Engage should be at least as high as FE7 (and I'd put them higher). It's just easier to figure out how to trivialize FE7.

[@SharurFoF]

The one caveat to this, I suppose, is how you view the turnwheel mechanic. When I mentally assess the difficulty of a chapter in a game with a turnwheel, I include turnwheel uses to recover from unit deaths as counting toward the chapter difficulty (as opposed to re-rolling RNG or fixing an oversight during the same player phase, though those things certainly make the game effectively easier). I have unquestionably restarted chapters at a higher rate in FE7 and Radiant Dawn than in 3H or Engage, but in the absence of the turnwheel, I have no doubt my restart rate would be higher in the latter two games. This is not just due to the fact that I think they have higher enemy quality, but also they just have more complex mechanics/systems, which make it easier to make mistakes, even when you know what you're doing in general. I might even go as far as to say that one of the things that allows FE to introduce increasingly complex mechanics is the presence of the turnwheel.

[@AllBeganwithBBS]

I am in agreement with a lot of things on this list, but then I respectfully disagree on Fe7 being harder than Maddening 3 Houses. It has its difficult moments for sure but as long as you know what the game's throwing at you, completing maps with very few casualties isn't a big deal any longer. On the other hand, 3H basically requires you to play pretty cleanly or to use good strategies because enemy stats are so bloated. Getting softlocked on hunting at daybreak was a real joy, too.

[@ninpo3439]

52:50 Engage also just makes LTC more accessible in its own right, thanks to having both built in fixed mode and time crystal for rigging. It's a lot easier to get into LTC when you don't have to worry about rigging level ups and you have a much better idea of what your units will look like at certain points in the game.

[@sijankhan7796]

The biggest problem with 3H is that maddening is too difficult not to use optimal builds, but hard is too boring if you want to try out some non-optimal builds. Some maps in maddening is just very annoying, find myself wishing maddening to be simultaneously more difficult and more easy at the same time. Should be medium IMO

[@MrGhosta5]

After completing Golden Dear on maddening i decided to do a silver snow run on hard newgame+. I completed Golden deer before the DLC came out so I'm using the wolves as my main units. I'm also trying to get some skills that i wanted to try in maddening but couldn't find a place to train for them. I'm really curios if the long range support trick that Dorothea can do with meteor can be done with Hilda with bolting. Also I want to see how tanky i can make Raph by giving him renewal and lifetaker.

[@kylegrefe4399]

For three houses, I do want to mention something. The difficulty spike in part 2 on maddening, particularly for the Blue Lions, is insane. I still remember playing the first part 2 map for 12 hours trying to beat it, hoping I wasn't soft locked, because I didn't realize I should train mostly in house units on maddening. Then the final Blue Lions map is kind of ridiculous. (32 range and one shotting some of my mages without a crit). With knowledge the game is trivialized, but that's the thing. I imagine most people played a route they hadn't played before with their first maddening run, and that means learning maps while dealing with part 2 maddening bs. Point is, I'd make the case that 3h is harder than fe7, though that may also be my lack of knowledge of fe7, and the fact that 3h was my first fe game while fe7 was my nineth, so I had a lot more experience by that point.

[@juanmartin631]

in my opinion three houses most difficult maps where the paralogues in maddening. my third run in maddening and i am stuck because i saved bad and now i cant save a caspar no matter what haha

[@pksprite6401]

Really fun video to watch. Cross-game analysis is pretty cool.

[@harmonicarchipelgo9351]

Dude put 3 houses maddening below Blazing Blade Hector mode. XD I do not understand. I thought that 3 houses was going to Hard for sure.

[@cooperm4185]

Noy sure why Maniac PoR isnt being counted, since its the most difficult mode. I know you said you were going by English, but 6 of these games werent released in English at all

[@mithos789]

you have marcia and oscar to carry you. not really hard.

[@cooperm4185]

@@mithos789but not the easiest FE game either like Mekkah said

[@samkeiser9776]

I think difficulty in FE should be considered how hard it is to really figure out winning strategies blind, barring Lunatic+ Awakening, most FEs can be reliably beaten using winning strategies, the difficulty is what you have to do to put those strategies in motion and the brain power that goes into figuring them out. Engage is a pretty easy game imo because of this, bonded shield might not seem broken the first time you look at it, but then you use it and it’s clearly amazing. But in FE3H, battalion vantage wrath isn’t incredibly obvious to someone not paying attention to the effects, or who just doesn’t intend to use them out of not thinking they’re worth while. Awakening’s lunatic+ is in my experience the only FE where you’re dependent on rng for the maps to be possible. Then again, difficulty is entirely case by case from person to person, so it doesn’t really matter.

[@MasterStacona]

Engage and Shadows of Valentia are very hard, rewinding just reduces the feeling of difficulty because you don't have to restart everything from the beginning again. Conquest is also very hard. Awakening you just pair up and break the game - especially with strong children. Mid difficulty playing with pair up, very hard if you do not play with pair up.

[@beybladefan271]

engage can be completely trivialized by the busted emblems you get

[@mvjbass9561]

Definitely agree with the people saying 3H should be bumped up slightly. It's less so its difficulty in map design, but more the fact that 3H requires so much knowledge specific to 3H. Like I think we can assume going into maddening, a player knows not to stick with personal classes for Byleth and Edelgard, but there's so much more that one needs to know to truly make Maddening an easy experience. What to do in the Monastery itself requires a decent amount of knowledge, especially early on.

[@mjbrownii]

3 houses is easy until you stop using pulses, grinding, and gardening. Imagine the entire game being as hard as the first few levels where every student dies in 1 hit.

[@blahmaster6k]

I think rating games largely based on how easy they are if you've mastered the game might be a mistake. It may not be obvious in the Fire Emblem community because a lot of the people watching these videos or discussing the games have or will replay each game a lot, but most players are casual gamers who just pick up a game, beat it, and then move on. Not just Three Houses, but also Thracia and Awakening/Fates in particular with all the skills, or other games with warp. Sure, you can break a game on its head if you know how to build characters perfectly, plan around enemy skills, or just warp skip everything, but your average player isn't going to have the knowledge to do that. A lot of the reasons given in this video for a particular game being easier (particularly Three Houses) boil down to "once you know what you're doing the game can be trivialized." But someone playing blind or semi-blind on a first playthrough of the hardest difficulty won't be doing that. Even simpler games like FE6 with all of its ambush spawns can be hard for the average casual gamer who's just playing through hard mode for the first time, and this video has FE6 in the Hard tier. That being said, I like and agree with most of the list. However, if FE6 is in Hard I would put Three Houses also in Hard, or I would drop FE6 down to Mid and put Three Houses also in Mid with the potential for hard or even very hard depending on the criteria. I just personally think Three Houses (at least on NG Maddening) should be harder than FE6, at least for the average player. If only for the fact that FE6 is for all intents and purposes a very simple game. Meanwhile the parts of Three Houses that make the game easy are all relatively complex, and the game basically requires the player to constantly be looking at a guide website to figure out how to make good decisions or even understand most of the game's mechanics. Honestly looking at this list I don't really understand how FE6 hard mode gets the game a spot in Hard when its stat inflation is nothing like Three Houses Maddening, and its early game is significantly easier. The early game is the hardest part of most Fire Emblem games and nearly all of them become significantly easier as the player's units scale. Maybe the justification is that Three Houses is easier to break and gives the player a lot more broken tools, but in my opinion if you justify putting Three Houses in easy by saying that you can break it FE6 also has the warp staff available for a lot of the hard maps and you can play around ambush spawns and reinforcement zones once you know about them. FE6 also has one of if not the easiest final boss in the series if that matters at all. You also can't underestimate the simplicity of the game. You can trial and error your way through FE6 and be a decent player by the end of it since most of the difficulty comes from enemy stats (which can be checked) and ambush spawns(which can be learned). Just playing through the game once will give you a pretty solid understanding of the game. You can't really do that for Three Houses. In particular, I'm pretty sure the game doesn't tell you anywhere within the game how to get specific skills, or which characters learn which spells/combat arts and at which level. If you want to build characters in any decent manner looking up a guide is mandatory. Gardening mechanics too. You just can't pick up and play Three Houses on maddening like you can most other games in the series and expect to be able to learn as you go through trial and error. Or if you do, it certainly won't be easy and will take many playthroughs until you have tried out every class and every weapon type with every unit. Gambits are about the only tools in the game that are self explanatory in both acquisition and effect since you can see what they do in the battalion guild. And even then, the game doesn't tell you the stats battalions will have once they level up fully, you have to figure that out by using them. The game likes to guide you towards what units are "supposed" to be, but recruitment is completely open ended and a player might not go down the routes the game wants you to regarding weapon levels. A new player isn't going to speedrun getting to swift strikes on Ferdinand or Warp on Lysithea because the new player doesn't know what swift strikes is or that Lysithea learns Warp. Especially with Lysithea, players might think she's just a typical mage and focus on her offense while neglecting her white magic. Players might promote a sniper to Bow Knight before realizing that Hunter's Volley exists, or might promote to an advanced class without learning key intermediate class masteries. More likely, a new player is going to put most of their units in "recommended" intermediate classes instead of just about everyone going Brigand. There are many other examples I could use. Basically, I would say Three Houses deserves to be up there simply because in order to learn how to make it easy you basically have to be looking at a guide the entire time while playing until you learn everything for yourself. Without game knowledge, it's probably one of the hardest games in the series. I can't imagine trying to tackle maddening without brave weapon arts, hit+20, death blow, stride+warp+rescue, retribution, unbreakable wall, you name it. A new player will only ever stumble upon any of those in a very inefficient manner and may completely miss some if playing the game mostly blind. Also, the video justified Thracia in Hard tier for much the same reasons that Three Houses can be hard (casual players playing blind), despite bringing up the fact that Thracia also gets significantly easier with game knowledge and could be considered mid difficulty for an experienced player. But the same treatment doesn't apply for Three Houses? I know the video isn't intentionally making a double standard, but it does seem to me like there is one here. I didn't intend to type up all of this when I started, but I ended up writing an essay. Oh well. Just so I'm not only adding criticisim, it was a great video and I learned a lot about the earlier games in the series that I haven't played yet(FE1-5)!

[@KratosAurionPlays]

Genealogy of the Holy War in very easy? I love that game but that was one of the hardest fire emblem games I have ever played lmao. My most broken units were threatened with death on multiple occasions and that was even with me getting some ideal pairings. Edit: Ok I just realized this list is on the hardest difficulty. I normally play on normal lol my bad.

[@septimus5729]

I can't speak to lunatic reverse but as far as new mystery is concerned, there are some ways to make it easier on yourself, especially if you dont care about turn counts. In general taking some extra time in the early and mid game to train your units and then going fast for the last few chapters (16-20, 22-final) is what I would recommend. The 4 Dragon chapters in the mid game are perfect for training units like Sirius and Palla, which will pay off in a huge way later. Just hand Sirius a forged dragon pike and let him go to town. Palla is very good when reclassed as a swordmaster. Abusing the Ladysword and the wyrmslayer to get easy kills on Dragons, Legion and other Axe users Is how mine reached a very high level by chapter 15. I would also say that in the late game Dracoknights fall off a because of their low speed cap so I had everyone except Minerva reclass into something else (mostly paladins and I kept Palla as a swordmaster). Also make sure to train a mage for an easy one turn on Gharnef. I used Linde but someone like Katarina should do just as well. Just give your mage of choice every spirit dust in the game and rig a crit. This is incidentally my advice of every tough boss in the game because for some reason the all have 0 Luck. For that very reason I would implore your to forge a max Might Thoron with as much crit as you can afford. Use that to kill Hardin and Medeus. Speaking of Medeus, you should at least save 3 charges of the Rescue Staff and 1 or 2 charges of the Again Staff just for one turning the final fight. You should also train Marth and give him enough stat boosters so he caps at least strength and so he has enough hp and defense to not get OHKO'd by Medeus. With this setup you can easily kill him in one turn and wont have to deal with the bullshit reinforcements. As far as less ethical tips are concerned: You can abuse Xane to get pretty much infinite money. For some reason he gets very favorable matchups in the arena when copying a very strong unit (like a high level swordmaster Palla). You can use this to easily cap your staff users in chapter 15 or 21 and also make more than enough money for all those insane forges I mentioned. Shoutout to Exelblem for this trick. I also found that sometimes it is worth to deploy some scrub just to sacrifice them to trigger enemy agression. In some chapters, like the Hardin map it is much better to have the enemy come to you than to walk into an enemy kill box. This is mostly advice for the mid and late game since I assume you know the early game well because you started a bunch of playthroughs already.

[@HammerspaceCreature]

I'm hardly a Fire Emblem master, but I loved Awakening enough to play it a lot and I have beaten Awakening on Lunatic. It took me a couple of resets but eventually I figured exactly what you said. Once you get past the first few chapters, not just Robin but all the main characters and their offspring can get so hilariously broken. Even things like Donnel with unlimited weapon durability through Armsthrift can turn the game inside out once you get the ball rolling. There's so much knowledge to pairing up characters and getting them broken skills that once you get that down it becomes very fun. Lunatic+ is some horrendous bullshit though, I have no desire to ever even attempt it.

[@Psyche_Up]

Lunatic+ is honestly not that bad. The only skill worth freaking out about is counter. All the other + skills are pretty much fodder for a maxed out robin. Lunatic+ requires immense patience (lots of resetting), but that's about it. I don't think it's actually "difficult." It's moreso "frustrating and time consuming." DIFFICULT should mean your decision-making skill is put under pressure. Lunatic+ does NOT do this. In that sense, Conquest is way more difficult (strictly speaking) that Awakening Lunatic+ will ever be, IMO

[@samkeiser9776]

Early game Lunatic+ in awakening is basically reloading chapters until the enemies don’t spawn in with broken skills, enemies can extremely one round anyone who isn’t chrom fredrick or Robin, and you have tons of squishy units. Enemies in chapter 2 can spawn in with hawkeye and luna+ and then the only way to avoid massive damage is for a dual gaurd proc from a C support at most. If enough enemies have hawkeye and luna+ you basically just lose, and even without hawkeye the hit rates of enemies aren’t bad at all. It’s basically just retrying the map until you can win.

[@GiantFrog]

I put down Awakening forever after one particular map. I didn't deploy anyone but Chrom and myself, stuck Chrom behind me, and autobattle soloed the entire map. I loved the game and wanted to test myself with lunatic(+?) classic. I didn't pay attention to an xp imbalance until too late to rectify. My strat for the map was to put myself on one flank, my entire army on another, and just try to get somebody leveled. The army was the weak flank and casualties were pretty much everyone. Then, frustrated, I did the autobattle thing, saw I won, decided not to save, and haven't played Awakening since.

[@werewolf4925]

Most FE games have been manageable at their highest (except awakening lunatic +), however, Radiant Dawn was the only game that actually soft locked me to the point I had to start a new playthrough, because my dawn brigade was too underleveled and weak in part 3, and I just couldn't beat the chapter where they try to ambush Sanaki.

[@Marz776]

As somebody that has beaten FE12 lunatic reverse semi blind I can say it is the hardest experience in the franchise, but okce you beat it once it's like the game looks different to you on the next playthroughs and lunatic reverse starts becoming more fun once you know what to do, you can even train bantu if you really want at that point

[@kevinbach7148]

Mekkah. Thracia 776 is "Very Hard" in my opinion. Many people are blocked or get pain on this game.

[@xBox360BENUTZER]

Putting FE7 at mid but then FE 3H, Engage, ... lower seems off. Yes, compared to older FE games the newer ones give you many tools to break the game or simply farm but the base difficulty is so much higher. The other games can atleast be difficult while FE7 will always be easy unless you do some extreme challenge.

[@dooooooook3610]

he said that FE7 is hard on a first run, but that applies triple to 3H so idk

[@IamHattman]

On a first, blind run, you could say 3H is harder.. but I was stringing together strides and warps/rescues just off of my own game sense. FE7 doesn't have any of that. You have to know how to trivialize FE7 up front, or at least know not to put resources into the wrong units. Which you have no way of seeing which units are the right ones to use, there's no growth displays after all, no way to grind outside of risky arena abuse.. so in this context I think he's right.

[@en5184]

I think we do have to consider the impact of divine pulse/time crystal on perceived difficulty. If you're not playing the GBA titles with save states, it's way easier to "lose" a map on them than on modern titles. 3H/Engage may be harder on an ironman run but rewinding makes playing them far less mentally draining and allows you to take calculated risks with a fallback instead of being forced to abandon a play to not lose a unit to low hit/crit chances.

[@horsejohnson7499]

Looking at this from the other end, I think FE6 has the most difficult Easiest/Normal mode. I beat HHM and then I had tons of trouble with FE6NM even with savestates. It didn't help that I was playing semiblind and ended up in Sacae. FE6 hit rates mean that basically nothing is reliable and the enemies do good damage. I can't imagine what it was like for Japanese kids whose mom bought them a new strategy game on the GBA and it was their first FE game.

[@craigyeah1052]

Haha same. Yeah, tierlists based on hardest low difficulty and how much the difficulty jumps from normal to hard to maddening would be interesting too.

[@mjbrownii]

Hear me out on 3houses, Playing maddening blind is the most impossible thing you can do. Like if you know what to expect any game can be easy but these freaking ambushes were always a unit lost followed by rewind (if you actually use rewind). But if you know where they’ll come from you’ll be alright. But the dlc was actually maddening since Xp was scarce.

[@thalloutboy]

My first time playing FE6 on normal mode was probably the hardest run I’ve ever had at that game, worse than my subsequent hard mode runs. Going into that game blind sucks because 1) Ambush spawns. I think everyone lost a character to that infamous Rutger ambush spawn their first time. For me, it was Wade. 2) Many of the characters you get are straight up bad (Wolt, Gwendolyn, Dorothy, Sophia, Ogier, etc.), and it can be difficult to guess which characters will eventually be worth the investment and which will suck the whole game. 3) The side quests are pretty crucial to the game, and if you go in blind you might miss them. Not only will this cost you the true ending, but will also cost you valuable opportunities to level your units. In terms of starting up a game for the first time with no prior knowledge and selecting the easiest difficulty, FE6 should be near the top of the list. I’m glad I played FE9 and FE7 first.

[@wayzerz2799]

Great video, also every time I hear it again I remember how much I love the xenoblade 2 music

[@PurpleRupees]

Even though I've played this series for years. I do think in general this is quite an incredibly challenging series. With the exception of playing on easier difficulties in some games. Relative to only other Fire Emblem games this seems about right from the games I've played.

[@dryzalizer]

Interesting list and explanations. Tear Ring Saga probably goes in Very Easy if you know all its secrets, but it has so many of them and such sneaky mechanics maybe it should be in Easy.

[@PocketPepsi]

You're right Mekkah, after playing Awakening Lunatic a few times I think it's not as bad as everyone says. In my opinion Chapter 2 is the only hard chapter in the game. Lunatic+ is definitely as bad as everyone says though

[@ridleyroid9060]

I am going through the games currently (am on chapter 24 of Thracia) and am using this list to see how to proceed with the rest, given that Thracia is now my measuring stick.

[@UrinalPissbert]

You actually inspired me to give fates another try!

[@golfer435]

Perfect choice of music Mekkah. Xenoblade always has sublime music

[@galgamesful]

its a really great video ! if you can show the game footage when you are talking about on the bottom right instead of fate start to the end it would be a greater video

[@chackle5002]

Hearing that xenoblade song. Love to hear it.

[@thiagoaraujos]

FE9 was my second FE game and it was hard on hard, not following any guide. Experienced players forget about the awkward interactions necessary to progress through the game, leveling up Ike so that he has a chance against the final boss (or the optional fight with the Black Knight), the need to find an item /assign Aether to Ike otherwise there’d be few chances to beat the game, etc. I noticed the need to invest in Ike very late, and thankfully I grew him up to level 20, 6 levels in the last chapter. The final boss is a tank and only a leveled up Ike can beat him. Experienced players take all of that for granted and forget what the experience is like if you don’t check any guides.

[@Aeddy35]

You don't need to train Ike. Ena is more than capable of killing Ashnard.

[@thiagoaraujos]

​@Aeddy35 Interesting, thanks. Does she get doubled, and does her high def make up for it? Got to try it next time 🙂

[@Aeddy35]

@@thiagoaraujos It depends. Her base speed transformed is 19 but she doubles with Resolve. Resolve is basically required to beat Ashnard with Ena unless you give her a bunch of levels. At base she does 0 damage but with Resolve she deals 24 damage.

[@KumaKing]

I definitely see where you’re coming from with 3H. That Lorenz paralogue example you gave I feel is way too common throughout the game lol. However, I’m still unsure whether it should be in Easy or Mid because of some part 2 maps being insanely obtuse. The final few maps of AM SS and CF are just stupid hard when you’re blind. Like for example CF (ch17) if you don’t know about the side where Rhea’s group appears I can see that easily running people over. And there’s a lot of stuff like that especially when the game doesn’t warn you in advance

[@kevinbach7148]

More, Chapter 13 in SS, AM and VW could be a nightmare.

[@cullenhutchison6528]

How would this list change if every game had the higher difficulty modes of some of the newer games?

[@MangoMarc]

> Skips to the end > Awakening in "Very Hard" Huh... Guess I'll have to watch the full video now.

[@BlueLuck17]

I'm glad you said the games in each tier weren't ordered because I was gonna be one of those people to ask about it (I think Shadow Dragon 5 is a lot harder than Thracia) I feel like the games are a bit hard to compare for difficulty because a blind playthrough is always gonna be harder than replaying the game. Thracia is pretty tough on a first playthrough but there's a lot of strong tools in that game that you can abuse to trivazls a lot of stuff. If you have the knowledge you can kind of break a lot of the games though; so it kind of depends if you're playing the game normally or doing a specific strategy to break the game.

[@hisen3.146]

I think ranking by harshest difficulty skill curve (E.G. 3H's hard to maddening curve is much steeper than Engage's hard to maddening) is a better way to rank these. It helps players familiar with the newer players breech the gap between the easier and harder difficulties. 3H maddening being your first introduction to maddening as a concept is a lot more evil than Engage's.

[@Magicat27]

FE6 blind was terrifying. I feel bad when characters die so I had to reset a lot from ambushes

[@efrenarevalo2025]

Thracia is the hardest FE for me because of the mechanics unlike other FE games where the difficulty comes from arbitrary numbers. I think it's more fair to judge the difficulty based only on the normal mode.

[@CursedWulfGaming]

I actually did my first playthrough (BL) of 3 Houses on Maddening because I didn't get the game until it had been out for a few months. I had played other FE games but not on a difficulty higher than normal so I went in expecting it to be tricky. I knew that anyone could use any weapon beforehand so I gave everyone a bow and I looked up paralogue rewards before commiting a lot of time to them. Other than that I didn't know what was coming. The first couple maps took a few tries using hit and run tactics and the one with Sylvain's brother was really annoying because of the ambushes. After that I thought it wasn't that bad until the time skip. I needed to reset occasionally but I still got through while beating the death knight and trying my hardest to recruit all the characters and grind supports. The time skip chapter was really hard. I had to go back to an earlier save and redo the map before because I had taken swordbreaker off of Dimitri because there weren't many swords. I also didn't use many Blue Lions characters because I was picking up all the other students. This meant that half my house died on that chapter. After that it was pretty easy until the one in the city near the end and the final chapter but I just let most of my units die instead of resetting because I didn't need them anymore. It definitely felt like it was designed for someone familiar with the game so the ambush spawns and time skip chapter felt like complete BS. There were a few paralogues I tried but gave up on after reaching hitting the 3rd ambush spawn. I didn't utilise the farm for stat boosters, grind fishing for teacher levels, or reclass everyone into wyvern lord. I remember checking a video on chapter 13 to see if there was some cheese and it started with Byleth eating a bunch of stat boosting plants I had never seen in my life. The further I got the more I realised how poorly I was playing and still getting through just fine. I think a second playthrough would be a lot easier.

[@vhenaris]

Living for the gameplay in the corner like a subway surfers attention keeper 😭The way it works too LOL i was enraptured

[@Trail_Lentil]

I think FE4 really should be higher up. It's super easy to just miss out on all the stuff that makes FE4 a "very easy" game on a blind playthrough. On my first blind playthrough, I didn't know I had to enter a specific castle with Lewyn to get forsetti and just totally missed out on it in both gens and never even knew the spell existed. That's just an example. And with subpar pairings or bad item setups, it can become quite difficult to beat some of the harder encounters. Lategame holy weapon bosses like Arion, Brian or Ishtar just destroyed me over and over on my first playthrough, since Shannan died in his joining chapter to sorcerers and my non-optimized Seliph/Ares/Oifey didn't cut it. If you're completely going in with no information on anything, I'd probably put it in mid or the upper part of "easy" tier.

[@Mekkkah]

I think even going in completely blind, the fact that you'll always have Sigurd/Seliph keeps FE4 very easy. It's really hard to miss the Silver Sword and from there Sigurd just kinda destroys everything. Yeah some bosses are tough but you get Oifey, Shannan and Ares no matter what.

[@Trail_Lentil]

@@Mekkkah I totally agree that Gen 1 is very easy due to Sigurd. But I guess I'm just speaking from my personal experience with Gen 2 and I found it overall more difficult than Gaiden, at least. I also think Gaiden is easier than Echoes Hard.

[@RuneTacticss]

I gotta agree, New Mystery is the hardest game in the series on the hardest difficulty.

[@windwaker0rules]

Maybe but i bet there is an RNG seed in Awakening Lunatic+ that makes the game actually impossible

[@Rhy2412TitanGamer]

@@windwaker0rules What would that seeding be?

[@windwaker0rules]

@@Rhy2412TitanGamer Probably one where every enemy has pavis+, Luna, and aegis at a concentration that makes it impossible for fred to kill anything and geets one shot over and over and you saved in the battle menu

[@Rhy2412TitanGamer]

@@windwaker0rules I got to chapter 4 & had to reset over 20 mins because I kept getting counter & pavise+ on the boss. It's not challenging. It just exists to bullshit you. Such a mishandled difficulty.

[@windwaker0rules]

@@Rhy2412TitanGamer i couldn't be bothered with Lunatic+, Lunatic already put me to sleep with Chrobin soloing the game with Nosferatu and then forging the Nosferatus in the end game.

[@harmonizing_spellian]

I agree that New Mystery is probably the hardest of the old FE systems (no combat skills, etc etc). Idk if you mentioned it but that game also has some very silly enemies and ambush spawns. (The 1-2 range wyverns on the desert maps on Lunatic are so stupid). I'm less sure about Fates vs Awakening. But then again its because the hardest modes are a bit more random.

[@Neefew]

The problem with Awakening Lunatic Plus is that the optimal strategy is Robin solo. This steamrolls so hard that I'd argue that everything after chapter 6 is very easy

[@Hiiyapow]

Chapter 7 on lunatic+ is generally considered to be a very difficult map. I don't think anyone who has actually played through lunatic+ would really call that map "very easy". Also, Robin solo is not optimal for lunatic+. Ignoring the fact that basically the entire gangrel arc is 500% easier if you deploy any other units at all (so the first third of the game), plenty of maps have points where it's either faster to beat the map without Robin, or more consistent and less of a headache, whether it be skipping to the end of the map with rescue, or using a few more powerful characters to help snipe out counter.

[@Neefew]

@@Hiiyapow I have played lunatic plus multiple times. I do believe everything past 6 is pretty braindead and can be beaten by throwing Robin at the enemies

[@Hiiyapow]

@@Neefew I really wouldn't say that's true. If you just charge Robin into the enemies in chapter 7, they will die. That's not me being dramatic. Mathematically, they will die to counter. So lets say you forge an elwind to deal with the counter wyverns and you have a Dark Mage Robin with the early second seal. Even in this situation, you need 40 flat attack to oneshot the barbs and 32 to oneshot the thieves (which is the only safe way to play around counter if all you are doing is "throwing Robin at the enemies") Let's say you have a 15/15 Dark Mage Robin with 3 points forged into Elwind and a magic tonic. That's 27 attack, or 33 with an A Miriel pairup. Even ignoring all enemy damage from sources such as luna+ and what have you, you're essentially guarateed to die if you just charge in. Maybe I'm sandbagging Robin? Fine. Have a 20/20 Dark Mage Robin with a max forged Elwind as well as a mag tonic and A miriel. That literally *barely* gets you to 40 attack, so something as simple as a barb attacking you from a forest will cause you to take 39 counter damage. This is all of course completely ignoring the damage you are forced to take from hawkeye luna and also the massive elephant in the room, aegis+ which will turn your attempts to oneshot into a 2 shot and ~20 counter damage to your face.

[@nightknight498]

I'm really not sure on how to factor in the warp staff (and Rescue I guess) in difficulty discussions, especially on harder difficulties. Yes, it's a feature that's part of the game and as such is intended to be used at some point, but it also leads to most experienced players actively avoiding the harder parts of the game. Three Houses' Magic System is the worst offender here. Lysithea and Linhardt are able to get Warp stupidly early, and the amount of kill boss objectives and easily having access to 2-4 Warp uses per map (up to 8 even with Manuela and Hapi once they reach A Rank) as early as chapter 5 and literally skipping over every challenge the game poses you trivializes the entire point of even starting a Maddening run in the first place, not even accounting for Gambits like Stride and Goddess' Dance. Similar logic applies to Micaiah's Rewarp/Rescue shenanigans in Engage, although it's not as bad here because she's gone for most of midgame and enemy stat inflation actively punishes you for warp skipping too much lategame. I always thought of Warp and Rescue as a 'get out of jail' option, or pure utility for maps where your army is separated and you need an additional combat unit to help you out somewhere else, maybe yeet a General over to hold a choke point or block a reinforcement zone, stuff like that is something that I feel like Warp and Rewarp were designed for initially. That's not to say that you shouldn't warp wkip a map, btw. You're free to do whatever you want, I skip some maps literally every playthrough because I don't feel like dealing with them. But overcoming a challenge and avoiding it entirely are two different things, so rating a game based on how much of it you can avoid actually playing it doesn't sit right with me.

[@PseudoUematsu]

To be honest, I feel like you’re severely underestimating TH/Engage difficulty, possibly because of how much content you’ve put out for them. Ranking Maddening ambush spawns from TH as easy when they’re some of the most overkill the series has seen seems odd, and Engage ch11 can screw you over much more than the Manster arc in Thracia. There’s a lot of arcane knowledge in these two games that eventually makes their Mad modes fairly solveable, but it feels like you didn’t take similar knowledge into account for other entries (esp Thracia, where just knowing the manster arc exists and looking at a support chart fixes 99% of issues) The only other thing I can think to make the difference is Turnwheel, but you didn’t mention that in your discussion that I recall. Even with it, they feel at least mid.

[@diethylmalonate]

I was watching with the tiny window on mobile and thought for a bit "man never remembered the early games to have such good graphics xD"

[@OriginalRaisins]

I do contest your choice to put FE7 higher than 3h specifically. Like you had a lot of examples of changes that they made in Hector Hard mode but no real mention of how those changes actually make the game any harder. Like for example you brought up how HHM turns every enemy into a mage, and that's an interesting design decision to be sure, but it also means that base Marcus with a javelin and a pure water ORKOs more than half the map and takes 0 in return. I think even a base+promo Heath has higher stats than the wyverns in victory or death. Pretty much no generic in fe7 has stats good enough to threaten even just base Harken, and of course units like Hawkeye, Pent, and the aforementioned Marcus join about halfway through the game with stats that are perfectly serviceable for endgame. Even someone with dancer caps can oneround promoted sages holding legendary weapons in the final map. Yes I understand that there's a lot of maps in 3h where you just use your movement tech to run to the boss and kill it while skipping all the generics, but I don't see how that makes the game easier than fe7 where the generics can just be killed for free by most of your units at your base stats. I also think the whole "lol just kill the boss" thing is completely oversimplifying all the steps you need to undertake to get your units at the point where they can actually do that. Sure Acheron is a chump but things like SS final boss or AM final boss or the Immovable or the Wind Caller are not simple chumps. Even ignoring multiple bosses with multiple health bars, there are tons of bosses for whom killing them requires either lots of levelups or lots of greenhouse. Besides, there are still plenty of maps (over 1/3 of the game) that aren't kill boss, or that can't realistically be completed like a kill boss map without some serious grinding. Maddening chapters 2 and 5 are probably more troublesome than any fe7 map. I understand that both games are perfectly beatable and frankly pretty straightforward when you approach them from a perspective of already knowing things about them ahead of time, but that's true of all FE games. What you have to look at is how many steps you have to go through to get yourself to the point of actually beating the game and in that regard 3h completely trounces fe7. Fe7 you literally just grab a prepromote and give them a 1-2 range weapon and maybe a pure water or a ring like Ninis' Grace and they just pwn everything because fe7 enemy quality is possibly the lowest in the entire series. 3houses you still have to tutor and you still have to master classes and you still have to think about and manage your supports and ooh recruitment and you still have to level your batts and yeah sure it all culminates in a lategame 1turn boss kill but you're ignoring all the work that went into making your unit able to do that in the first place.

[@gabrielduguay5783]

Just adding on here that the ambush spawn thiefs in chapter 5 are unavoidable and if you didn’t hard rush to get catherine or you’re on black eagles then the game is like *difficult*… or the fog of war chapter where you fight Ashe’s dad *shivers*

[@DoTtA1123]

"I understand that both games are perfectly beatable and frankly pretty straightforward when you approach them from a perspective of already knowing things about them ahead of time, but that's true of all FE games. What you have to look at is how many steps you have to go through to get yourself to the point of actually beating the game" i strongly agree with this!

[@yaycupcake]

I'd actually like to see an "easiest difficulty" tier list since I'm not that good at the harder difficulties but I want to play all the games and I'm trying to figure out what order I should play them to ease myself into the harder entries. I already played the 3DS and Switch era games, and I'm making my way through 1, 8, and 9 right now, but I'm not super sure where to go from there. I've been attempting Conquest on normal/classic and it's still kicking my butt. (I've only beaten it on casual before.) I don't think I've even attempted lunatic or maddening on any of the games I've tried.

[@arcanelizard4646]

As someone who has played exactly two FE games (7 on NSO, and Awakening over the last couple days because my friend got it for me for my birthday), Awakening normal/casual is very approachable. Already, not being punished for side character deaths is MASSIVE, but you almost don’t even need to try to become completely overpowered in the late game. The early game definitely still has its tricky moments, and not knowing when/where ambush spawns happen can make it a little overwhelming for first playthroughs, but on the whole it really isn’t too bad. And you’ll know exactly when you hit the “easy mode” part of the game once a specific item becomes permanently available in one of the shops. When its counterpart becomes available and you suddenly have access to the ability to fully abuse the game’s class mechanics, it becomes a complete power fantasy, and you suddenly become an absolute juggernaut that quite literally cannot be stopped, since you can reach a point where certain characters take exactly 0 damage from any source in the game, up to and including the final boss. Long story short, if you can push through the definitely-not-trivial early game, you can utterly explode the mid and late game, which can be very rewarding as a show of the hard work you put into learning the mechanics of the game. Also, abuse “pair up” and supports as much as possible. It really bails you out of some sticky situations you may find yourself in

[@Jonathan-sg8ob]

I feel like your reasoning behind Thracia and 3H contradict one another. Both are very breakable, but super difficult to play blind. Sure, people are less likely to play 3H maddening without playing easy or hard first, but like you said, most of us found our first maddening playthrough extremely difficult even with that knowledge. With the knowledge I now have of the game, Maddening is a breeze (although some chapters are tough every playthrough), but I think the same can be said for Thracia, which most players agree is quite difficult.

[@Jonathan-sg8ob]

That said, I agree with the placement of just about every game outside of 3H

[@marcgomez8391]

I played Thracia for the first time last year and I will honestly say it was a lot easier than I expected. I would put it in Mid or even Easy tier. The reason is that all stats cap at 20, like unpromoted GBA units, and that makes enemies unlikely to outstat you. Couple that with infinite range (and infinite duration of status) Sleep, Silence and Warp that you can stock up on because you can steal everything not nailed to the floor, and I felt like the second half of the game was a cakewalk. Then again, I am experienced in FE in general, so maybe the average player won't think to put the enemy bishop to sleep turn 1 to rob him blind of staves when you reach the other end of the map.

[@PurpleRupees]

The recruitments and side objectives are quite tricky. Recruiting Xavier is infamous for a reason. Illios is a huge pain having high move, canto, and bolting. Chapters 9-13 are quite rough as well but it calms down around chapter 14. Still, I don't think Fire Emblem by nature should ever be put in the easy category.

[@scraiza4900]

FE12 deserves a new tier below sacred stones, literally the easiest game, just kill and don't die

[@xsmu1729]

Or, as Mekkah would say, just crit

[@mjbrownii]

I’m playing through revelations and I got kaze killed. Not because the game itself is hard but because I forgot about how the pair up mechanic works after not playing fates for a few years. And that pissed me off. I was just chilling and there was 1paired enemy left so I checked his range made sure kaze was just outside of it and killed the main unit. Then the backup unit a cavalier with 1 more mv than the first guy 1shot kaze and I felt soooo dumb for forgetting how that worked after playing some other games where pair up doesn’t exist. Then I made a different mistake the very next map and got one of my flyers killed. I swear the games not hard I’m just dumb and forgetful. Also got Hayato killed but if I’m being honest I may have done that on purpose.

[@waitingforwonderland6036]

I think three houses maddening and thracia 776 both have the issue of: "If you go in blind your fucked, but if you know what your doing it's stupidly easy." imo I would put them in mid tier but that's just me lol.

[@GRK_2024]

its funny how in engage trying to grind is way tougher than playing main campaign maps cause every single enemy rushes towards you and you can get sorta overwhelmed

[@Scarecrohh]

Interesting watch! About a month ago I finished marathoning the FE titles for the first and have been thinking about replaying them on the hardest difficulties since I only played all of them on Hard difficulty , with only the older and early/mid 2000 titles being exceptions. So hearing these opinions on each game on the hardest difficulty gives me some great insight on what I'll be taking on soon. I 100% agree with you though on FE12 and Awakening. FE12 is just an outright hard game on all difficulties while Awakening on Lunatic difficulties are just bs that IS throws at you for the sake of giving you something to rage about. They can be trivialized if you manage to tough out the first 3-4 chapters and grind out your avatar units, but regardless from what I've heard, both just seem like dreadful slogs. I'm definitely still not looking forward to replaying Conquest on Lunatic though, I had like ten mental breakdowns on the endgame chapters. Add that and that "analysis paralysis" for each of the enemy skills that I also had when playing Conquest for the first time, and It's no surprise why I'm intimidated by it.

[@getkosiorekt8345]

FE4 is much easier when you know the optimal pairings, the optimal use of rings, how the mechanics work and about all the secret events, it's easy to break the game that way. If you go on blind then there are a lot of moments that can actually trip you up hard. Leaving the mechanics aside, Chapter 1 is a massive difficulty curve compared to the prolouge, which gets even worse in Chapter 2 and even late in gen 1 there are things that can get you (Eldigan, Reptor etc.). Sigurd is very strong, but trying to get all the side-objectives and keeping your other units alive and well, as well as trying to pair them up can be a pain on the first run. Gen 2 is doable with Seliph, Ares, Shannan, Ced or his substititue, yes, but when your pairings aren't optimal in terms of inheritance or when you missed out on getting certain children (I didn't get Ced and Fee on my first run because Silvia married Lewyn and I realised that when it was too late...) the maps such as C7, C9, C10 and especially the final map become a pain in the ass. Hell, even with decently strong children a map like the finale or C7 can still wreck you. It was not easy on my first run so I was very surprised when I found out that people put this game as easy. Sure it's easy to break, but for a newcomer this is a rough and tedious experience at times

[@m.m.5815]

On Awakening in particular as someone who played quite a lot of Lunatic+ that I believe contributes to how difficult the game is viewed is how much Robin's value is revealed on that difficulty. On lower difficulties I don't find it difficult to make any unit very good so it isn't as obvious how much Robin will snowball as the game progresses. On Lunatic and Lunatic+ though they start as one of your only viable units and quickly spiral out of control to the point that I find the easiest way to beat Awakening is bench everybody except Robin after about chapter 6 and let them take you to the promised land.

[@Psyche_Up]

yup, I've beaten Lunatic 3 times and Lunatic+ once now. In all of these runs it was a chrobin duo lmao

[@notfabio9858]

Yeah for most of these once you understand the “meta”, the hardest difficulty becomes much more manageable, after that I kinda comes down to your playstyle too. For me even though the fates games were some of the first games I played, I still don’t really know about what’s “good” that much (I’ve been learning more and more recently tho) so lunatic conquest is kind of intimidating. Meanwhile for 3h and engage I was absorbing that info with everyone else as the strategies developed, so I felt fully prepared jumping into maddening eventually. Both had some tough moments but once I was able to get some powerful enemy phase offense win condition (dimitri wrath vantage and Lucina bonded shield) it was smooth sailing

[@Slenderquil]

Skipping to the end and seeing engage in easy and echoes in very easy means I just HAVE to watch this video now.

[@jamesfitzgerald8267]

FE6 was my first of the older FE's I tried, and yeah it is not beginner friendly, Arcadia alone was a nightmare the first time I played and basically came down to luck if I got through without someone dying, and Sacae is a pain if you don't know how to play it and don't have a strong team if you get unlucky and got that route because you didn't know how the routesplit works.

[@bigtimetimmyjim6486]

I agree with your placement of FE6, but I remember playing through it the first time and felt that the Western Isles was not really a difficulty reduction; having Shanna as a Falconknight makes that entire series of maps so much easier, and a new player may not appreciate just how good she is despite her weakish stats on paper. so they will be ill-equipped to deal with the enemy types that prevail there.

[@Arkholt2]

Just a quibble, but I would argue that Gaiden is easier than Echoes due to the nerfing that was done to certain classes and items. Gaiden Falcon Knights being able to one round absolutely any terror, including zombie dragons, immediately after promotion, completely trivializes certain maps. Gaiden Dread Fighters having 15 res at base does the same for others. Things like the speed ring giving +5 movement, mage ring giving +5 magic range, and angel ring fixing your luck to 40(!) can create some incredibly OP units. Both games are still in the same tier, obviously, but there are some pretty busted things about Gaiden that make it an extra easy game.

[@quickpawmaud]

If they are further to the left are they harder or easier?

[@Anonymos185]

Blazing Blade and Radiant Dawn aren't *that* hard. Shadow Dragon, on the other hand, can feel free to move up in the highest tier, imo.

[@svelvet119]

What are the songs playing in the background? so good

[@pluubooruu]

I think for Three Houses, if you go in for a first playthrough, or don't allow use of Renown in subsequent playthroughs can actually make it hard... But with New Game+ renown uses... can almost trivialize it. Obviously not completely, but you could very easily prep your units on your first run and then get the required stuff in the next playthrough with renown. Not to mention how incredibly valuable getting max prof level actually is.

[@kevinbach7148]

I disagree with Three Houses because have go Silver Snow path (Church Route) I have very pain to finish (Chapter 13 and 21 are hell). For me I place in "Mid"

[@danielknapp689]

I find it funny how FE12 was listed as the hardest game on your list, it is literally the first FE game I have ever played on Lunatic and I have more playtime in it than I do on Fates and Awakening which I bought a few years back but never really played. I wonder what that says about me.

[@nathanjohnson2382]

DS Emblem is a challenge I haven’t even finished those hard modes are something I haven’t gotten past the early game. I want to try getting into Awakening lunatic and such.

[@runaway74]

This is exactly the kind of content I missed

[@craigyeah1052]

For the most part I agree, I struggled with both enjoying and beating FE12. Shocked to see FE4 so low... I'm not that far into it yet, and I am trying not to let Sigurd do everything, but it can be really harsh with the enemies in huge groups with canter and the random reinforcements in castles. Possibly just a big first playthrough thing though.

[@MagicGoatBlue]

one issue with FE games is if you want to rate there difficulty you sort of need to have different tires for everything. Playing one of these games as a fresh player vs coming back for the harder difficulties are radically different exprines. Now you cant possible control for all these factors but it might be interesting to one day have a list of easist to hardest for new players vs hardest difficulty.