The Dark Pontifex

Day 373

It's starting to look like I'm going to be behind schedule on finishing Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem. I fully intend to finish it tonight, but it could easily be well past midnight by the time I do. I do this mostly because I'd like to be done with the game. I love the series but New Mystery is definitely not a highlight, though I'd say it edges out Shadow Dragon in a few key areas. Above all else, I supremely regret my decision to play the game on hard mode. It has made the game so much longer than it had to be.

I'm going to go into more detail on what I liked and disliked about New Mystery tomorrow (or possibly some day soon after that) but tonight I'd like to discuss the units I used in this playthrough, much like I did for Super Robot Wars J and Alpha Gaiden.

 Like many games in the Fire Emblem series, randomness is a huge factor in developing your characters. I prefer the games in the series that add features that help to combat this randomness. In Path of Radiance on the GameCube for instance, it was possible to somewhat compensate for poor luck with stat growths by using Bonus XP accrued between chapters. Levels gained from this method would guarantee at least three stat ups. This is very much appreciated in a game in which certain characters will occasionally receive no benefit from leveling whatsoever. I've had more than a couple of these levels in this playthrough of New Mystery.

I was particularly screwed by RNG with the My Unit character I named Brea. I started her as a Myrmidon, an agile sword-wielding class. In most Fire Emblem titles, these units are glass cannons with extreme speed and offensive capabilities. However, they were somewhat protected by their high evasion due to a sky-high speed stat. I'm not sure how New Mystery's mechanics work, but despite capped speed, Brea's evasion is not spectacular. She'll dodge more than the average character, but it's not nearly enough to protect her from danger. Frequently, she'll be taken out in one or two hits. This is doubly concerning because her offense is frankly not that good either. I don't know if her growths are really just that poor or I have very bad luck but she still had about 12 strength well into her promotion. I've been forced to recall her to Paladin just to be at all relevant in combat. At the time of this writing, she still only has 17 strength when other characters like Palla and Catria hit their strength cap many many levels ago.

My star units have been my flyers Caeda, Palla, and Catria. Est seemed to show promise but she comes so late in the story that it's almost impossible to train her. Palla and Catria spent most of the game as Pegasus Knights and Wyvern Riders, but I was forced to reclass them to Generals to better deal with stronger enemies in the late game chapters. It turned out to be a good decision especially for Catria, who ended up capping four of her stats. Her resistance is still very low, but Generals have traditionally been very weak to magic in the series.

My two magic users are also very good. I had had plans at certain points of the game to attempt to use Merric and Elrean, two mages available starting from chapter 12. If I'd put more effort into it, I might have been able to get them to work--but they were very difficult to train and didn't seem to have very good stat growths anyway. That's one thing that's disappointing about New Mystery compared to other Fire Emblem titles. Many characters are comparatively very weak. When playing hard mode, I'm forced to use whatever I can get ahold of that's strong. It really does limit my choices. Linde and Malicia are both very good though, with Malicia surprisingly capping her magic stat at promoted level 15. Linde has been extremely useful at various stages of the game by tanking enemies with the absurdly useful Nosferatu spell that drains HP from enemies.

Barst is my only real dedicated axe user. I really wanted one on my team but Bord and Cord seemed mercilessly dull--and everyone else you encounter in the game is prepromoted with poor stat growths. Have I mentioned how irritating that is? The game gives you the illusion of choice. I guess it wouldn't matter in Normal, but I'm playing Hard here! Barst has absurdly high stats in pretty much every area but defense and resistance. Despite this, he's been pretty hard to train. Many of the game's missions are tough enough that you frequently can't rely on weaker units to get through.

My other units are unfortunately less impressive. Warren started out as a Hunter, which as far as I know is exclusive to this game and Shadow Dragon. Hunters are thematically no different from Archers, but they promote into Horsemen, which--you guessed it--are bow users who ride horses. They of course have excellent mobility but his stats are only average. Ranged units in general seem to be a tad underpowered in New Mystery. It seems better in most cases to rely on weapons like javelins and hand-axes--both of which can be wielded by classes with much higher stats. Like Warren, Cecille has been similarly unimpressive. None of the mounted units seemed noticeably strong, but Cecille in particular could not accrue many points in strength at all. Every time I bring her along, she seems like more of a liability than anything else.

My tone would indicate that I don't particularly enjoy this game. My tone is correct. It's not a terrible game per se, but it's definitely not a great Fire Emblem game. I'm only completing it as a measure of loyalty to the series--and after I'm done, it's bye-bye. I'd like to play the other games in the series that I haven't finished yet, but if this one is any indication of the quality of the others, then I may not be missing much.