Quick note! We are aware of the audio issues. This video was mixed and rewatched by me in a setting that, as I learned, is not conducive to most audio setups that people watch videos on. There is, unfortunately, no way to fix it without a lot of tomfoolery and re-uploading the video. In case there are any bits that you can’t hear well, but are curious about, I will be adding a link to the script to the video description. But, all engagement is good in the eyes of Mr. UA-cam, so continue to write comments about the music!
I felt like Dimitri's route in three houses was by far the best, and does deserve to be called well written. I feel this way because his story is not one about overcoming weakness, or taking down the evil empire, his story is about the survivor's guilt he feels being the only one of his family to survive Duscar. He is haunted by what he saw, how he was powerless to do anything as his own father bleed out in front of him all the while the Duscar and it's people are left to burn. In all the slaughter and flames he was only able to save a single child of Duscar. Dimitri is haunted by his past to the point he feels the only way he can live is to find a way to avenge them. The scenes like Remire Village all but bring out this side of him that wants vengeance. All the while trying to remain this Prince Charming facade when he's slowly losing control over it. Post time skip, he doesn't even believe Byleth is alive and if they are they are plotting against them. He doesn't greet you with a meal and warm smile like Claude, or a hug and just happy to see you are alive like Edelgard, his first order of business with Byleth is to murder bandits, and not bandits that are attacking them, but bandits are doing their own thing. It isn't until Rodrigue, his surrogate father, willing sacrifices himself to save his lord and tell him that he'd gladly do it again it meant he could protect Dimitri. It is only then that Byleth can then get through to Dimitri and tell him he doesn't need to live on the wills of the dead but for himself. I can not recommend Blue Lions to be the first route people play more. No evil mole people, no obligatory dragon boss fight, just a group of people that all can draw their misery back to the Tragedy of Duscar (except Mercedes, who's misery comes from being separated from her brother, only to end up being reunited with after killing him.)
I always thought they should've made Roy the "Good Lord" class. Not because it's a step down from Great Lord, but because its what I say every time I look at his stats beyond chapter 7
@@joeyjose727 Roy is notorious for having terrible growths and basically being nothing but a nuisance at least until he gets the binding blade. Pretty bad considering fe6 likes to throw a New York square during new years amount of same turn reinforcemnts at you every turn. To make things worse, Roy is less durable than Great Value paper plates from Walmart. Looking at his stats makes you say "GOOD LORD- WHY DIDNT ELIWOOD PULL OUT?"
@@joeyjose727 In summary, Roy's stats are much more terrible than other Lords. Furthermore, his promotion (becoming high tier class) comes very late in the game, when other units easily surpasses him. His only saving point is a cheating sword with huge stat boost, but at that point, it's still better to use other units. Other Lords get their promotiob earlier, higher stats and even good signature weapons. In short, they can carry the whole map, but you have to babysit Roy since the game forces you to use him.
Dimitri being able to reach over 700 Damage without needing him to OD on Energy Drops gave me the joke of "Good Heavens would you look at the time, it's Atrocity Time"
Micaiah was tragically made the lord who can heal people in the game where vulnearies were at their strongest, giving 20 hp per use and having 8 uses. A single vulnerable could do more for two units than Micaiah
Well...technically, Thracia Vulneraries were essentially Elixirs, while still maintaining the common Vulnerary rarity, but RD is still a close second, so yeah! :D
We all know that the best lord is Seth from FE8. He has good base, he doesn't take every role for his own, he supports people both in the story and in the game, he doesn't gain massive powerspike and cripples the team, he is handsome, he is lovely, and he doesn't need legendary weapons to be good. The only problem in him is that he is a Paladin class instead of a Lord, pretty sure that's just a bug but they never fixed it, so yeah. Seth is best Lord.
One of the fastest ways to beat FE4 is to solo gen 1 with Sigurd since using anyone else just slows the game down, he's the best, Seth is definitely 2nd or 3rd though.
Sigurd is interesting as a contrast to seliph. in gen 1 you are large and in charge and sigurd clearly demonstrates that, perhaps too well. But then shit hits the fan, and seliph as well as his scrub brigade are supposed to feel much weaker overall, and it works. Seliph grows into what sigurd started as, and that's exactly what they were going for. Problem is that seliph gets busted way too easily, ideally promoting after only one chapter, but that's besides the point.
Yeah, I guess that could happen going into gen 2 if you're playing the first time. The change is less noticeable when the kids are inbred gods with the best weapons passed down and the ground quakes beneath their steps 😅
Yeah, the problem with Seliph is that he actually gets easier if you've been soloing everything with Sigurd, since he inherits all of Sigurd's stuff. Like, hey, boy, you may have that 7 Strength, but you've also got a Power Ring, a Defense Ring, a Brave Sword with 62 kills on it, the Leg Ring, and the Paragon Band! Who the hell needs stats?
I actually disagree, the only really good character in gen 1 is Sigurd and maybe Lachesis but she requires a ton of babying/staff spamming, the rest are usable if you want but if you wanna be efficient you just use Sigurd to kill everything, I almost always steamroll everything in gen 2 with eugenics so.
@@jamesfitzgerald8267 gen 2 units grow stronger eventually, but gen 1 has you start out much stronger. You have several mounted units including the promoted quan, a mounted staffer, and generally the enemies are very weak. At the start of gen 2, you have almost exclusively foot units except for oifey and dermott, and enemies are still weak, but stronger.
@@jerry3115they may be mounted but they are mediocre at best and just bad at worst with the exception of Finn and Ethlyn, I'd take a Dermott with Beowulf as a father anyday over Noish and Alec, and you get Lester as well who is better than Midir in every way with Midir as a father, as for Quan, you get Oifey who is so much better than Quan since he has pursuit, Lex's closest replacement would be Johan but Johan is worse in every way pretty much so I'll give gen 1 that, with inheritance Seliph is basically a mini Sigurd with the leg ring and usually promotes by the beginning of chapter 7 and becomes even better than Sigurd in the span of 1 chapter, oh yea you also get Fee in chapter 6 who usually inherits things like the brave lance which makes her a very useful unit and almost makes up for not getting Ethlyn, not to mention you literally get Nanna in the next chapter who is Ethlyn but better, also Ares and Shannan who are both fantastic characters with holy swords and Finn and Leen AND Leif who can hold his own with a light brand and pursuit ring and once promoted becomes better than Lachesis, gen 2's start is not bad at all and is debatably even better than gen 1's, I almost always have issues with the beginning of gen 1 especially on that horrible forest section in chapter 1, you can steamroll everything in gen 2 easily as long as you dont completely mess up your pairings, the game may try to make it seem like you're supposed to be weak in the beginning of gen 2 but in practice it isn't accurate at all.
I feel like Micaiah's game design is good on paper, but Fire Emblem's gameplay can be simplified too much for her to really do her stuff. Alas, that game is forever doomed to be a hot, beautiful mess that I will forever cherish.
The idea is fine I guess : high magic nuke but glass cannon problem is that stats don’t even go up to 40 and many mid to late game units have 40+ hp. Nukes need to actually be able to nuke or double micaiah can’t do either
She honestly really suffers with not having enough effective magic... When she has Thani in early DB chapters her design as a nuke with utility works really well... Later when armor knights and cavaliers are spam enemies instead of singular dangerous targets she falls off hard. Radiant Dawns endgame being quite unfriendly to mages doesn't help. Add to that that her personal skill is only good for exp-cheesing after she promotes which actually hurts her staff rank and you have a mess even if you get lucky with her levelups (and I once managed to get a hard magic-screwed Micaiah on top of that)
It also doesn't help that in Radiant Dawn in particular enemies are strangely magically bulky, besides the Wyvern-line and the Fighter-line, whom you don't even fight often with Micaiah besides Part 1. Micaiah's strenghts in having utility at least flourish in a game where most of the people that give utility besides the Herons kind of suck; also Thani is lowkey OP and could be absurd in any other FE game.
Nah man stan Lucius the magic tank and never erver worry about any magic users of any type ever again while healing your gang and one shotting anything with the audacity to wear armor.
@@aaronchapman8864 I once got a glass cannon Lyn she leveled strengh and speed to a point where i had no use for heroes or swordmasters but she died to a gust of wind
oh come on shadow dragon marth isnt that bad all you have to do is give him like 3 completely forged rapiers, give him all the stat buffs you find, get the true falchion, sacrifice tiki so that medeus has enough HP to die to a single falchion hit, and then by that point he's pretty good! also new mystery is the best game ever and I will never acknowledge the ambush spawns as a flaw because im a little prissy save stating baby
No true gamers use the geosphere 3 times to massacre the entire map and then warp marth with a forged wyrmslayer and wait to have medeus lower his hp attacking you
To anyone who has made a FE hack or in the process of making one, how good the lord should be is a very good question. It's easy to make a lord good. Just slap on some sky high bases and call it a day. But making a lord interesting through something other than combat is an entirely different challenge.
I don't know if you've played these two, but as much as I love these hacks, I'm going to criticize them. Staff of Ages pulls a Blazing Sword where you have three main lords - Two being magic users (one Anima and one Dark) and a Peg Knight. The two magic users are great - They're not able to use physical weapons, unlike most lords, and they steadily grow with your army. Eventually, a route split occurs where the Peg Knight and one of the lords departs from your group, but that's not important. What *is* important is that the Peg Knight is awful, and I want to know who thought making a lord unit a Peg Knight was a good idea. She's Eirika on a squishy flying horse. Not only that, outside of Rescue, she has very little utility, and sort of just bogs down your group. Another hack I recently played, Justice and Pride, has another magic user lord (Light) - The difference here is that she is much, much better than almost all the other magic users you come across, and gets her promo mid game - Allowing her to use Light, Anima, and Staves, along with a mount. Her growths are insane, her skills are insane, and she has the potential to get a skill later on that allows her to Re-Move on a Luck%. I've gotten 6 moves in one go with this. Almost all the "PowerMcguffin Tomes" are Light and Anima, so she can use them. I one-rounded the final boss on hard mode with a dance and her personal tome. Two very different perspectives, and I kinda just wanted to rant.
I feel like the solution is already there in FE8, but not on the lords ephraim and Eirika. Make the main lord a trainee class, so they can get one promotion midgame and another towards the end. This way you can counteract the problem of late promotion that most lords have.
Leifffff my boyyyy! Such a relatable and amazing character. He’s a young boy who makes actual mistakes and when he gets his promotion he gets… nothing. But then later he becomes a beast.
At least hus promotion gives him one good thing, 19 levels that level up super fast (If I am not wrong he the same experience that a no promoted) with the +30% strenght growth scroll.
Roy's biggest problem imo is that, in regards to his stats and growths, it feels like the developers were trying to make him akin to a jack of all trades, with decent stats across the boards but nothing amazing. Problem is, due to how RNG in general likes to treat Fire Emblem players, Roy just ends up being mediocre in too many ways. Not fast enough to reliably double, not enough HP and defense to reliably enemy phase, not enough skill to be reliable with a killing edge and not enough res to reliably tank mages and dodge statuses. The only stat that's pretty reliably above average is luck, which is bittersweet because Roy needs high luck because he gets OHKO by any crit due to his shitty bulk. Still my second favorite lord because of how well written he is, but pls nintendo give Roy something to specialize in for the eventual FE6 remake.
@@TheAxeLord47911 For most unit its manageable thanks to specialized growth rates, promo gains and, if all else fails, replacement units. Roy just suffers a lot more from FE6 bugged RNG because 1) his growth rates are too spread out, 2) he promotes so late into the story that his promo gains barely help him and 3) he's the main lord, so no replacing him. In short, when Roy gets fucked by RNG, you're gonna feel it for a looooong time, up until you get Deus Ex Binding blade basically
I've always preferred weak lords to strong ones. The argument that "if a lord is strong, it prevents you from soft-locking yourself," is theoretically sound, but practically speaking I don't think it really matters much. There are other ways to prevent the player from getting stuck, such as providing a steady stream of new units, especially high base/low growth units. And if the player ends up in a situation where they unintentionally end up basically solo'ing the game with their main lord, often the game isn't fun anymore at that point anyway. That's definitely how it was for me trying to play Awakening Lunatic (which I ended up just stopping around the start of the Valm arc, because it just sucked). But yeah, even though I'm somewhat lukewarm on FE5 for other reasons, I do agree that Leif is probably the best designed lord in the series. FE3 Marth as well, who is similar to Leif in a lot of ways (in fact, I consider FE3 and FE5 in general to be pretty similar games, even if FE3 doesn't have a lot of FE5's crazier mechanics). Speaking of crazy mechanics, another piece of utility Leif has is that he doesn't get fatigued, which encourages you to use him when you can.
I think that is less softlock, and more that if i am forced to field an unit, at least make it an unit that i would want to field if given the choice. It's the reason why if i replay gen 1 pokemon is always Red or Blue and never yellow. They can shove that Pikachu in their asses. If the game require a weak lord for narrative reason i'd rather have it be a green unit, so at least i don't feel it's wasting one of my precious deployment slots.
@@noukan42 it's not really "using one of your deployment slots" though, as the deployment slots are designed around being forced to take your lord. Would it feel better (despite being functionally identical) if the game didn't count your lord towards your deployment number, but gave you one less deployment slot on every map?
@@DarthChocolate15 i would still feel like shit knowing i have this walking piece of garbage on the map. Something like Roy or H5 Marth has no good unit feel, and their role as an escort mission can be replicated, and arguably done better, by a green unit. I am generally not a fan of mandatory characters unless they are very versatile or are mandatory only for a short while. And ludonarrative dissonance can go to hell, as i feel the buggest flaws of Kaga games came from trying to avoid it too much.
@@noukan42 Well Pikachu in Yellow isn't forced either, you can ditch him in your PC like any other starter as soon as you get a second pokemon. The point about not wanting to be forced to use bad units is certainly valid though.
@@OmegaTyrant i remember him getting angry and refusing to go into the box, but the last time i played was like 15 years ago, so i may very easily remember wrong.
I feel compelled to mention Eliwood as a lord who is, in my opinion, a good example of being designed weak (at the start) for the purpose of narrative. Eliwood's primary character arc is about confronting weakness, both physically and emotionally, and growing in response to it. Without spoilers, over the course of the game time and time again Eliwood is forced to confront his weakness and inability to save people. And this is mirrored by his pre-promotion weakness and struggles leading up to it-- you feel through gameplay that Eliwood is weaker than, for example, Hector. Or most of his companions, really. It makes his eventual deveopment from "noble but weak" to "noble, relatively powerful and heroic" all the more satisfying, because you yourself feel the change in his ability as he is overcoming his personal struggles in the story. At least that's my take on it. I think Eliwood gets a bit more flak than he deserves.
Eliwood and Lyndis both get a lot of flack for starting out so weak, but if you actually give them exp they become total beasts, and it fits thier narrative too. In my playthroughs Lyndis regularly becomes a double hitting, always dodging crit *monster* who will sweep entire levels on her own. Eliwood meanwhile gets a mount and gains insane movement range on top of getting good stats as well.
Yeah and that’s why I love Roy too, because he was designed to be weak. He’s a 15 year old fighting in a war that he should never have joined and he he needs to carry the legacy of hector and eliwood on himself, but he’s just a boy. It makes his promotion and the binding blade he gets so much more epic because now he can actually fight back and make sure no one dies, now he can be useful in the war!
Can't say the same thing about for Lyn. I love Lyn, she's my favorite unit and Lord in the trio but I have to accept that she's bad. Her Sol katti is terrible, frail defenses, low strength, late promotion plus no crit boost. I still love her tho.
@@tablematts9055 Yeah but if you train her in Lyn mode she’s actually pretty good cause she doesn’t have a bad early game which is normally her big problem.
I personally subscribe to the train of thought that if there is a unit you must deploy, then it must be a unit worth deploying. That also applies to Marth in SD, since he’s the only twat that can visit villages for whatever reason. So no, Roy is most definitely not my boy.
The audio mixing in this one was a little off. The music was really loud to the point where it was difficult to tell what you were saying sometimes. Aside that, great essay.
7:57 Fun fact, I once tried to make Marth as good as possible, playing on the lowest difficulty. Even after being fed a ridiculous amount of EXP in the prologue (and some str rng manipulation), he still fell of because of this. He was always to busy walking all over the map recruiting, visiting and pillaging that he saw to little combat.
Personally I like the idea of Blazing Sword having three distinct lord types that each should have their strengths and problems. Hector is a frontline beast but can have issues with magic. Lyn is a double striking high dodge swordmaster-esque fighter that can do a lot if you invest in her. The problem with Eliwood is that he doesn't really have an identity before promoting. I think he's supposed to be a middle ground sort of thing, but with everything so mediocre and a slow base speed he doesn't really do anything well. He neither really tanks any attack well, doesn't move fast, doesn't attack a lot, doesn't dodge, doesn't have a large hp pool. He has no mechanical identity. Hector is a Figthter with great defense that can hit while Lyn feels like a ninja. A way to have done it is to make Eliwood the high def one and make Hector more of a life pool Fighter type with his current proper hit chance and speed to make him feel different than like Dorcas. Or to give Roy high resistance which is rare for non pegasi and non magic users. But I think they wanted to reflect the feel of Roy. Imo Lyn doesn't need any design work. She "feels" right with the speed, dodge and crit, even if she isn't a great unit. That said, as you pointed out, the sense of progression through weird promotion timings is kind of a shitshow. I don't think a balanced lord is the way to go, to be clear. The way they play different from base classes can give them a lot of identity. I don't want my lord to just be a worse mercenary. Or heck, a better mercenary. Both makes the lord feel mechanically unimportant. Beside that they should just be an above average unit or a strong unit with weaknesses.
Problem is that the game should not make characters essential that require lot of investment and babysitting. Lyn and Eliwood are like that. Can they become good with investment and babysitting - yes, but so can be pretty much every character in game other than Roy obviously. (and even he just becomes good in the last moment of the game, because even game realizes what little turd he is and wants him to best the boss so ups his stat).
@treeghettox well kinda not try many times I beat fe 7 with lyn because she does get like 30 speed. shes not bad as people say she is. but yea as a lyn fan. she does much better in fire emblem heroes though
Always love the video essays, but it did feel like the first half was padded by basically saying the same thing twice. I assume that the first time was meant as a quick summary, but it was barely any quicker than the following detailed run through of the lords so it just felt a bit redundant.
I feel like if you consider Ike's arch from Path of Radiance to Radiant Dawn, he actually makes a pretty compelling case for best lord. But not through his single game.
I don't think my Roy EVER died in my first and only playthrough of Binding Blade. He hit lv 20/0 pretty early on and then I was keeping him out of combat, not to keep him safe, but to keep him from guzzling useless exp.
Oh hell yeah Ive been waiting for this since I saw the Jagen video. Also Roy is well written you just have to read all his supports and infer a bunch of subtext that isnt explicitly stated. Fe6 just is kinda like that sometimes.
I think the old translation patch took alot of the spice out the dialog. I think because that patch has been around the longest and people still use it when they get a English rom is the reason why many view Roy as boring. The new translation patch made fe 6's story so enjoyable for me. It was almost like going from Gaiden to Echos imo.
If Ike didn't have Aether going for him, it would be near impossible to beat the Black Knight in PoR honestly. Even when you have it, it only has a chance to proc, so if you get screwed by RNG you're gonna lose anyway. I don't like the way they handled the Black Knight fight in PoR.
@@masterblaster2678 Aether's not even good. Relying on proc skills is unreliable at best. And aside from that, Aether's not even the right way to go for Burger King, you wanna go Wrath/Resolve iirc.
@@andrebryant3312 I never went for Wrath/Resolve, just seems too risky imo. You do need to get your HP low somehow, and you may just die before you even get to that point.
@@andrebryant3312 You remember incorrectly - Ike can't use Wrath/Resolve versus the BK because you get the Resolve scroll in the map right before fighting him and thus can't return to the base to equip it. You can still use Wrath with Adept, but that's even more luck-based than just sticking with Aether, and having roughly a 1 in 4 chance of proccing it every attack regardless of Ike's health (27% if Ike capped Skill), and since he generally only needs to proc it twice over the course of 5 turns to win, it's really not that bad. It's not like anyone else has any use for the Occult scrolls at that point either because all of the other occult skills basically suck outside of Sol. Still a very bullshit fight though if you get unlucky or your Ike is strength screwed.
My answer is that it depends upon the game and the lord. Basically gameplay should reflect the story and vice versa. That said though I hope we never get another case of Roy. I'd say Ike (FE9) and Eliwood are about as bad as it should get if they don't have other utility. 17:00 I love how Thracia talks the talk and walks the walk (somewhat).
@@absoul112 Context is very important. A sword footlock is atrocious in fe7, while actually fine in fe6, due to enemy composition and accuracy. Harder, more player phase oriented gameplay also means Roy's contributions are more helpful, while Eliwood can be more safely ignored in favor of juggernauting. Hector mode Eliwood can be even more ignored since is barely ever force deployed, and on hard mode slots are super tight already. Eliwood mode, he is stuck with a very late promo and even later divine weapon. Roy meanwhile puts some boots, grabs the very overpowered sword, and is instantly godlike in a segment of the game your army will be struggling. He feels worse to use, because the game is harder, but is better as a unit. Bad units, if forced, are typically more useful to hace access to the harder the section is. Also compare Guy and Rutger, to see how the game context affects sword footlocks.
@@ylnysanchez3859 I agree, context is important, but there’s more to this. While Roy can contribute, due to how FE6 is most of the cast can replicate or exceed his contributions. On top of that, Roy is often at a high risk of death due to how strong enemies are in FE6. Similar to Eliwood, you can ignore Roy with no consequence. Eliwood meanwhile can’t contribute as much due to a lack of 1-2, but doesn’t die as easily. Due to how weak fe7 enemies are Eliwood can be trained to the point he can one round them (it’s not worth the effort but it is a thing one can do). Also worth mentioning is that Eliwood gains lances and canto upon promotion. Said promotion is either as late as Roy’s (in Eliwood mode) or a couple of chapters earlier (in Hector mode). Also the fact that he can be benched means he isn’t as much of a liability. I’m not saying Eliwood is league’s better than Roy, just that he’s a better kind of bad unit.
@@ylnysanchez3859 Isn't Eliwood not being force deployed all the time actually a point in his favor? It means he's not guaranteed to be a liability for almost every map like Roy is (Roy might be slightly better in context of fe6 swords, but still a pain in the ass. For example how he always gets one shot by any siège tome in the game which means he always eats up one angelic robe) , which he absolutely is until the last few chapters. Actually, I don't even think swords being better in one game is a sound argument because ennemy quality is also superior in fe6 and you do face a crap ton of non-axe ennemies when the game gets hard. And you don't even mention Roy's contribution as a support, I felt like that was his only redeeming quality since he has a better affinity. At least, I think that's better than going from a garbage unit to a below average unit for 3 chapters.
wish you at least talked a bit about Corrin, but maybe that's just because I'm that guy who beat conquest 25 times lol. I think they are very well designed. Dragonstone makes them a jagen in the early game. Supportive makes them great for improving your other units. They always have a weakness to wyrmslayers so you can't use them for everything (although I wish this was relevant more often). And they are given a training chapter (in conquest at least) to make sure that they keep up
In conquest and revelation corrin has nohr noble and the skill dragonic hex which debuff all stat by 4. In a game has hard as conquest, something as powerful as dragonic hex is needed. So corrin can also be a good support unit.
@@starmaker75 this is also helped by gaining access to tomes upon promotion which allows for debuffs at a distance and the fact that in conquest your personal weapon increases bulk only encouraging a bulky debuffer instead of using swords and wrecking like you can in birthright which is kinda just bad on corrin in conquest heck if you wanna go all in on offense later on magic corrin heavily exceeds physical corrin.
@@ryan_uwu the Reason for fate's sloppy story, is because the writers where trying to achieve too much with not enough time. Intelligents Systems had an idea for Fate to have three stories to appeal to everyone, but they realized that they didn't have enough writers. So they hired an outside writer, Shin Kibayashi was that writer. Intelligent Systems wanted Shin to write the outline for each pathway, what happened instead is that Shin wrote 500 pages for each pathway. Nintendo knew this was too long so they cut the story into pieces without the writers permission and the fact the Nintendo demanded Fates come on the Fire Emblem Anniversary only made things worse. Which resulted in this hilariously mess of a story. Not Helping matters is that Nintendo Treehouse didn't do a good job with Localization, so maybe that's why Corrin is portrayed as unintentionally unlikeable?????? The good news this that there is a manga based on Fates that is a little better. Its called Fire Emblem If: the Crown of Niberlung.
Sigurd is only there for the first half. With a game with maps as big as FE4 its good to give players a way to lower the stress levels and just kill entire battalions and bosses occasionally for the first half. In gen 2 and thracia 776 npcs talk about Sigurd with reverence and his strength and his character help sell that. Seliph starts out much weaker with a huge task he inherited from Sigurd. Having to work hard for Seliph to eventually reach Sigurd's level and possibly surpass him is narratively satisfying. I think Sigurd works for this reason.
Congratulations on 776M subscribers, see you at one billion! On an unrelated note, I've never played a single fire emblem game and don't know how I got here.
you made a good point about leaf, but I feel like him being a good combat unit is also due to thracia's mechanics. the fact that every unit's stat cap is 20 makes it so that everyone can be usefull, and scrolls make it even easier
Great summary of the Lords throughout the series, really interesting when you think about how far spread across the spectrum the various lords are, makes you wonder if it is intentional.
The only thing I want from an FE6 remake is that Roy (and a few others) acquire FE4-style leadership stars over the course of the game. It would help him as a character/unit to not be so bad and it would help alleviate the terrible hit rates
Short Answer: They Don't Long Answer: they "Technically" are the most important unit and you usually never want to fight with them in Dangerous situations, but by Feeding them experience, they can become one of the greatest units in the team. Since they are deployed every map, that is a good incentive to train because good lord = easier game. The Best Lords (Like Sigurd) Don't need training and can steamroll their respective game with base stats. These Lord get better by using them and excel to make the other units feel like "A unit", not "The unit". The average lords are those that Don't dominate the early game but usually become somewhat better than your other units if trained. The best Example of such lord is (Although most hate him) Corrin. A very good unit with good skills and tons of versatility but does not dominate his respective games. This makes them more of "A Unit with Potential" and not "The unit with Potential". The worst lords are those That are so bad they are a hinderance to use even on the long term. Best and most known Example is Roy. This is probably done in order to show that "The Lord" should not be playing in the very dangerous Battlefield but since he is "The Leader", he must be the one to sieze. These lords are more of a "Map Objective" to "Keep Safe" than a unit that you want to use. Using them is beneficial but since they can't excel, the Usage and focus is better off going to someone else.
let's say we get a whole list of remakes of every FE game that's been on the GBA, Gamecube, and SNES, if the lords were given a promotion halfway through the game that's based on they circumstances they're facing we would see some characters getting a ton of HP, defense, strength, or skill
They figured out the perfect game design for lords already, auras have been around for ages. WHY AREN’T MORE LORDS BALANCED LIKE THIS?! Also can we pour one out for our homie Roy? Gets the best weapon in the game and still somehow walks away being the worst/second worst lord in the franchise…. At least the boy has a huge harem.
I really enjoy Alear as a lord that starts out weak but has utility like Divinely Inspiring making the army stronger and the unique Dragon property making them useful despite their weakness, but over time grows into one of the strongest characters in the game. This goes very well with their story going from a reluctant hero who wants to run away at the first sign of danger into a matured brave hero who's prepared to save the world. I think the writing could have done more with Coward/reluctant Alear, but I really enjoy how the gameplay reinforces their journey.
Imo good gameplay lords should always have another option thats more utility based outside of stab/supply/seize. It can be buffed item usage, staff ranks, rally buffs or hell, even summoning. Leif shows that this can work with the support buffs and leadership stars, so i wish IS experimented more with the idea
If you’re going to force me to use a character, just make sure they are decent at least. I don’t need them to be OP, I just need them not to be a liability
Heya Bopper! Just found your channel and I really like how insightful your Fire Emblem videos are. I’m a newcomer looking to get into the series and I was wondering on which Fire Emblem you think is the best one to start. I know you covered a video of the starting maps but this hypothetical video would feel a bit more personalized as I’m also curious on how you started. Anyway, keep up the passion dude!
15:05 I agree to being shot into the sun, but only if it's done like this: ua-cam.com/video/kEr61gB58t0/v-deo.html Also, didn't expect you to like Leif game design wise after just 1 playthrough, but I absolutely agree, he's the most interesting lord in the series in terms of what makes him useful, beyond his godlike or shit combat.
My personal philosophy is, if the game is gonna make me use a character the whole way through, he/she better be useful. So I like powerful lords. A strong lord can create ludonarrative dissonance if it's supposed to be weak in the story, but as I always say, gameplay before story.
I know it was a joke, but I'd call the 3 Houses lords and Chrom well written. Edit: Not counting Byleth. I was counting Byleth, Kris and Robin as Avatars not Lords
I think low bases and high growths is generally the way to go as it is the best way to show growth but it does have some issues (mainly reliance on growth rates) Alternatively if Corrin wasn't OP to begin with, it might have been a good example as he gets his personal weapon upgraded twice. You could slow this down so the lord's personal weapon gets stronger as the game goes on, one upgrade per arc sounds good.
How have I not found this channel sooner??? Great vid (J personally think that at least Claude was well written n seeing IKE in Fe 9 not be put as strong was surprising, might need to replay that one myself tho as I could have got lucky with my last run)
That's crazy to think about. My Eliwood capped level 20 about 2 chapters before his forced promote and he kept pretty even with Hector the entire time. Especially in Chapter 30 Victory or Death where he soloed the middle path of the map
The very concept of a consistently-force-deployed 'lord' is often at odds with one of the core design pillars of Fire Emblem: other than main lord, you *choose* which characters you want to go through the game with. You *choose* when to utilize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. You *choose* who to feed EXP to. The lords force you to use them -- so then the only question becomes: are they good on every map, bad on every map, or something in between? Are they good at everything, nothing, or somewhere in between? The answer, from a game design perspective, should be obvious: lords should be something in between. There should be maps where the approach is "protect the VIP" and other maps where the lord happens to be good (weapon triangle advantage, the lord has the special ability to recruit someone or do something that's important), and the player 'choice' determines where the lord belongs for that particular map. Now that the ideal is clear, I will say this: a terrible lord is preferable to a busted OP lord. Terrible lords at least have a plausible gameplay purpose that creates interesting decisions (do I rescue protect this shitty lord, or use them to cover my flank here / do chip damage?) Busted-ass OP lords present the player with no interesting choices at all: "Oh they're good at everything and I'm forced to use them. Cool. Wow, big number big." Terrible lords leave the question of how you compose your army with every other character pristine (if anything, it's *more important*). OP lords seriously harm (and sometimes completely undermine) the entire question of how to compose your army. That's just terrible design. A game shouldn't require terrible design to ensure completion.
it took me several videos to realize it's always better for your bgm to be too quiet rather than too loud. the devices in which people watch videos vary so wildly in terms of audio frequency response. I recently watched a few older vids with friends and was cringing at my own mixes. so I can relate to this greatly. its easy to fall into this trap since the music can feel like such a huge part of the engagement of a video when editing. Just remember, nobody ever said "can u turn up the music on this argumentative video essay?"
Yeah, I learned a lot from this essay’s production specifically. Nin always streams the rough cuts to me, and we (and by we, I mean me) overcompensated the audio loss on Discord. Sadly it can’t be fixed, but an important experience nonetheless!
Your point about conclusions is wise, and I’ve often felt that “landing the plane” so to speak, is the weakest part of your videos. That said, I think this was one of your best efforts in that regard. And beyond that, I’m just a simple man - I see a Bopper Video Essay, and I click. I’m excited to watch it a few more times! With the caveat that I’ve never played FE4/5, I think I’ve found that Hector, Ephraim, and RD Ike have the best Lord Feel, but their Lord archetype is that of “veteran soldier with high combat prowess” that works well in both story and gameplay. Eirika and Micaiah’s compassionate personalities at least justify their weak gameplay. Eliwood might be more inexcusable than the rest in that regard, as he is just very bad. It’s also interesting how much the timing of a Lord’s promotion dictates Lord Feel too.
in regards to what you said about the whole "veteran soldier with high combat prowess" lord archetype, i do think that sigurd is definitely by far the best example of this and, imo, should be the standard for lords whose gimmick is being strong. while ephraim, hector, and ike all kick complete ass, they still have to start at level 1 because of balance purposes. which is fine, but it makes them kinda feel like complete weenies when you know they'd get absolutely decimated by midgame enemies at their current state. they feel strong in a vortex, and lore-wise they're supposed to be complete powerhouses, but sometimes they can feel like they barely live up to that for reasons like an underwhelming early/midgame or poor movement (i'm looking at you hector). with sigurd, it's clear instantaneously that the dude doesn't fuck around. unlike a lot of other lords, he isn't in the 15-18 age range, he's a grown ass man who has already gotten strong as fuck and at base he'll already be tearing through the game. his storyline is pretty much just him conquering half of jugdral on accident, and this wouldn't make nearly as much sense as it does if sigurd wasn't the complete freak of nature he is. what makes this even better is that when you play as seliph, he's weak, he's footlocked, and he doesn't feel anywhere close to sigurd. it makes you realize that the *real* fire emblem game starts with seliph, who is much more similar to the other FE lords, and that strength gap between base sigurd and base seliph helps emphasize just how badass sigurd really was at the time of his storyline.
@@quinoalove I think my favorite part about Sigurd's strength is how it's so justified. He attended a military academy that trained young nobles from all across the continent and he has the benefit of major holy blood. These two factors alone make Sigurd's strength make more sense than how Ephraim can wage guerrilla warfare on the continent's strongest army.
@@quinoalove "and ike all kick complete ass, they still have to start at level 1 because of balance purposes. which is fine, but it makes them kinda feel like complete weenies when you know they'd get absolutely decimated by midgame enemies at their current state." Eh? RD Ike starts off promoted at level 11 with bases alone that would keep him good until his part 4 promotion, he definitely doesn't suffer from mid-game stagnation.
Yeah a lord should ideally provide neat and precise utility over the sledgehammer kind. I think technically the game should be allowed to softlock you if you really are that bad though. It is ultimately a video game and losing is part of life.
If a person is stopped and unable to progress in a game, and it's their first time playing, why would they wanna play this game more? They've been told "no, fuck you, you've gotten restart, and because you aren't experienced, you don't know what you did wrong", so soft locking them would probably just drive them out of wanting to play the series as a whole
@@CottonCandyCrisis17 I think it's very difficult to actually be locked out of any Fire Emblem game on the easiest difficulties - it's more accessible than people think it is.
Corrin is in a very interesting lord unit. In its main class line it can be switch between two units: a balanced swordmaster and a tank that hits the lower defensive Stat. There are very few stat allocations that can leave any of this two play styles completely unusable, making it a unit that will never like a burden on your team while never centralizing the game play entirely. Then we got the more intricate quirks of fates that makes it a valuable resource, capable of boosting other units' capabilities, some to ridiculous heights. If only it wasn't a Fates character.
@@vanjagalovic3621 the Reason for fate's sloppy story, is because the writers where trying to achieve too much with not enough time. Intelligents Systems had an idea for Fate to have three stories to appeal to everyone, but they realized that they didn't have enough writers. So they hired an outside writer, Shin Kibayashi was that writer. Intelligent Systems wanted Shin to write the outline for each pathway, what happened instead is that Shin wrote 500 pages for each pathway. Nintendo knew this was too long so they cut the story into pieces without the writers permission and the fact the Nintendo demanded Fates come on the Fire Emblem Anniversary only made things worse. Which resulted in this hilariously mess of a story. Not Helping matters is that Nintendo Treehouse didn't do a good job with Localization, so maybe that's why Corrin is portrayed as unintentionally unlikeable?????? The good news this that there is a manga based on Fates that is a little better. Its called Fire Emblem If: the Crown of Niberlung.
recently did an Awakening challange run with Robin Solo, no DLCs on Hard difficulty... with Bronze type weapons only and no forging. Everything bar the final map was insanely easy, and the only issue with the final map was the many healers spawning and healing Grima back up. So yeah, Robin is definitely a well balanced Lord, 100%
Anakin, Siegfried, and Kelik are unironically some of the best-designed lords in the series. Anakin has a ton of strengths that give him utility but even if he gets totally stat-screwed and you don't grind his staff rank, he's still good. Siegfried is one of the best-designed Jagens in the series, where if you don't want to use him you don't have to (unlike, say, FE6 or FE11 where you pretty much have to use them) and if you do decide you use him either constantly or now-and-them he'll keep up and be your best units. As far as Kelik goes: he may have been designed as a Mary Sue but the structure of the game, especially lategame, makes him surprisingly balanced -- the game is very enemy phase-focused, which makes Kelik not as gamebusting as he could be even with Flamberge. And when you get to Lanmark's chapter and the game becomes permanently player phase-focused, you have a bunch of other units that have caught up to him while still needing a strong enemy/boss-killing unit.
I think PoR is done really well, just it’s a lot easier to use horsies towards the middle of the game. With the game’s promotion system he’s probably promoted before a good amount of your units (besides BEXP dumping and your scarce supply of master seals).
I think Sigurd works do to what happens to him, his power, general awesomeness & the like make what does happen to him all the more crushing. You love Sigurd, you see him as a true holy knight, an unstoppable sword of justice leading your brave hero's. It sets an expectation for the second generation, it makes Seliph's rise up to power feel more meaningful & makes one's desire to see him reach his father's heights feel good.
Ike in FE9 was goated, I think you missed the mark on that one, its very possible and not even that hard to solo the last level with just ike on maddening
Ah finally, a new Bopper Essay. This is what I've been waiting for, while I enjoy your stream sometimes I find your analytic type of videos! Keep up the good and positive vibe!
Based on what was happening with babying Roy and Marth, I'm wondering if a stat distribution of higher spd and def would help them be less...baby. Hard for enemies to kill, but hits weakly too. I dunno, fast bulky units are cool to me, and the one character who can't die being given that makes sense. The attack deficiency then can be made up late game with deus-ex-prf. Huh, what if there was a game where the Lord's prf needs to be assembled out of pieces that the game puts behind extra challenges? Imagine if I'm 3H, fighting the Death knight got you pieces of a powerful prf to make you need to Earn the weapon. I imagine you could even put more than one prf in the game if you made it out of collectible pieces, which would be a cool reward for going above and beyond. Just a fun thought.
Like you mentioned, I find merit to all types of Lords gameplay wise. Sigurd being a God among men does have some story-gameplay integration due to emphasizing the significance of Holy Blood. As much as I love to crap on Roy, there was something enjoyable about a Lord who really does need to rely on his allies and can't dominate on his own. Although purely from a gameplay perspective, I think my favorite Lords are the likes of Ephraim and Hector: solid combat units more than capable of contributing throughout the entire journey but will not quite be on par with some of the game's other units. Looking at more recent titles, it feels like Intelligent Systems is moving in the direction of making the game over conditions as strong as possible. Kris, Chrom/Robin, Corrin, Byleth, and the three house leaders are among the best units in their respective games.
Quick note! We are aware of the audio issues. This video was mixed and rewatched by me in a setting that, as I learned, is not conducive to most audio setups that people watch videos on. There is, unfortunately, no way to fix it without a lot of tomfoolery and re-uploading the video.
In case there are any bits that you can’t hear well, but are curious about, I will be adding a link to the script to the video description.
But, all engagement is good in the eyes of Mr. UA-cam, so continue to write comments about the music!
Lyn, Erika and Eliwood still have some use
I felt like Dimitri's route in three houses was by far the best, and does deserve to be called well written. I feel this way because his story is not one about overcoming weakness, or taking down the evil empire, his story is about the survivor's guilt he feels being the only one of his family to survive Duscar. He is haunted by what he saw, how he was powerless to do anything as his own father bleed out in front of him all the while the Duscar and it's people are left to burn. In all the slaughter and flames he was only able to save a single child of Duscar. Dimitri is haunted by his past to the point he feels the only way he can live is to find a way to avenge them. The scenes like Remire Village all but bring out this side of him that wants vengeance. All the while trying to remain this Prince Charming facade when he's slowly losing control over it. Post time skip, he doesn't even believe Byleth is alive and if they are they are plotting against them. He doesn't greet you with a meal and warm smile like Claude, or a hug and just happy to see you are alive like Edelgard, his first order of business with Byleth is to murder bandits, and not bandits that are attacking them, but bandits are doing their own thing. It isn't until Rodrigue, his surrogate father, willing sacrifices himself to save his lord and tell him that he'd gladly do it again it meant he could protect Dimitri. It is only then that Byleth can then get through to Dimitri and tell him he doesn't need to live on the wills of the dead but for himself. I can not recommend Blue Lions to be the first route people play more. No evil mole people, no obligatory dragon boss fight, just a group of people that all can draw their misery back to the Tragedy of Duscar (except Mercedes, who's misery comes from being separated from her brother, only to end up being reunited with after killing him.)
Lol! You forgot deadweight Lucina?! That’s awesome!
How the hell is Ike a bad unit in FE9?! When he gets promoted into a lord, he’s a beast.
Excuse me but no Eirika is a good lord she's a useful myrmidom
I always thought they should've made Roy the "Good Lord" class. Not because it's a step down from Great Lord, but because its what I say every time I look at his stats beyond chapter 7
LMAO
Can you explain for someone who’s never played that game? I’m so curious but idgi
@@joeyjose727 Roy is notorious for having terrible growths and basically being nothing but a nuisance at least until he gets the binding blade. Pretty bad considering fe6 likes to throw a New York square during new years amount of same turn reinforcemnts at you every turn. To make things worse, Roy is less durable than Great Value paper plates from Walmart. Looking at his stats makes you say "GOOD LORD-
WHY DIDNT ELIWOOD PULL OUT?"
@@danie8944 NO HE DESERVES TO EXIST EVEN IF HE SUCKS HE IS BABY
@@joeyjose727 In summary, Roy's stats are much more terrible than other Lords. Furthermore, his promotion (becoming high tier class) comes very late in the game, when other units easily surpasses him. His only saving point is a cheating sword with huge stat boost, but at that point, it's still better to use other units. Other Lords get their promotiob earlier, higher stats and even good signature weapons. In short, they can carry the whole map, but you have to babysit Roy since the game forces you to use him.
Dimitri being able to reach over 700 Damage without needing him to OD on Energy Drops gave me the joke of "Good Heavens would you look at the time, it's Atrocity Time"
Bless Atrocity all my homies love atrocity
Micaiah was tragically made the lord who can heal people in the game where vulnearies were at their strongest, giving 20 hp per use and having 8 uses. A single vulnerable could do more for two units than Micaiah
micaiah's healing power is more like a heal staff
Well...technically, Thracia Vulneraries were essentially Elixirs, while still maintaining the common Vulnerary rarity, but RD is still a close second, so yeah! :D
@@TwoHeadedMeerkat True , but in Thracia you're so poor you can't afford anything without having to resort to thievery
Just realized that edelgard is sometimes renamed to Edgelord
I asumed it was Dimitri at first lol
@@catelyntully9494
I mean he is the biggest actual Edgelord in the game
@@Cure-Skywalker
Found the Edelgard shitter
What do you mean that's her default name
prefer edgelard
We all know that the best lord is Seth from FE8. He has good base, he doesn't take every role for his own, he supports people both in the story and in the game, he doesn't gain massive powerspike and cripples the team, he is handsome, he is lovely, and he doesn't need legendary weapons to be good. The only problem in him is that he is a Paladin class instead of a Lord, pretty sure that's just a bug but they never fixed it, so yeah. Seth is best Lord.
One of the fastest ways to beat FE4 is to solo gen 1 with Sigurd since using anyone else just slows the game down, he's the best, Seth is definitely 2nd or 3rd though.
@@jamesfitzgerald8267 I was gonna say. Sigurd is essentially if Seth was a lord.
Sigurd is interesting as a contrast to seliph. in gen 1 you are large and in charge and sigurd clearly demonstrates that, perhaps too well. But then shit hits the fan, and seliph as well as his scrub brigade are supposed to feel much weaker overall, and it works. Seliph grows into what sigurd started as, and that's exactly what they were going for. Problem is that seliph gets busted way too easily, ideally promoting after only one chapter, but that's besides the point.
Yeah, I guess that could happen going into gen 2 if you're playing the first time. The change is less noticeable when the kids are inbred gods with the best weapons passed down and the ground quakes beneath their steps 😅
Yeah, the problem with Seliph is that he actually gets easier if you've been soloing everything with Sigurd, since he inherits all of Sigurd's stuff. Like, hey, boy, you may have that 7 Strength, but you've also got a Power Ring, a Defense Ring, a Brave Sword with 62 kills on it, the Leg Ring, and the Paragon Band! Who the hell needs stats?
I actually disagree, the only really good character in gen 1 is Sigurd and maybe Lachesis but she requires a ton of babying/staff spamming, the rest are usable if you want but if you wanna be efficient you just use Sigurd to kill everything, I almost always steamroll everything in gen 2 with eugenics so.
@@jamesfitzgerald8267 gen 2 units grow stronger eventually, but gen 1 has you start out much stronger. You have several mounted units including the promoted quan, a mounted staffer, and generally the enemies are very weak. At the start of gen 2, you have almost exclusively foot units except for oifey and dermott, and enemies are still weak, but stronger.
@@jerry3115they may be mounted but they are mediocre at best and just bad at worst with the exception of Finn and Ethlyn, I'd take a Dermott with Beowulf as a father anyday over Noish and Alec, and you get Lester as well who is better than Midir in every way with Midir as a father, as for Quan, you get Oifey who is so much better than Quan since he has pursuit, Lex's closest replacement would be Johan but Johan is worse in every way pretty much so I'll give gen 1 that, with inheritance Seliph is basically a mini Sigurd with the leg ring and usually promotes by the beginning of chapter 7 and becomes even better than Sigurd in the span of 1 chapter, oh yea you also get Fee in chapter 6 who usually inherits things like the brave lance which makes her a very useful unit and almost makes up for not getting Ethlyn, not to mention you literally get Nanna in the next chapter who is Ethlyn but better, also Ares and Shannan who are both fantastic characters with holy swords and Finn and Leen AND Leif who can hold his own with a light brand and pursuit ring and once promoted becomes better than Lachesis, gen 2's start is not bad at all and is debatably even better than gen 1's, I almost always have issues with the beginning of gen 1 especially on that horrible forest section in chapter 1, you can steamroll everything in gen 2 easily as long as you dont completely mess up your pairings, the game may try to make it seem like you're supposed to be weak in the beginning of gen 2 but in practice it isn't accurate at all.
I feel like Micaiah's game design is good on paper, but Fire Emblem's gameplay can be simplified too much for her to really do her stuff. Alas, that game is forever doomed to be a hot, beautiful mess that I will forever cherish.
The idea is fine I guess : high magic nuke but glass cannon problem is that stats don’t even go up to 40 and many mid to late game units have 40+ hp. Nukes need to actually be able to nuke or double micaiah can’t do either
She honestly really suffers with not having enough effective magic... When she has Thani in early DB chapters her design as a nuke with utility works really well... Later when armor knights and cavaliers are spam enemies instead of singular dangerous targets she falls off hard. Radiant Dawns endgame being quite unfriendly to mages doesn't help. Add to that that her personal skill is only good for exp-cheesing after she promotes which actually hurts her staff rank and you have a mess even if you get lucky with her levelups (and I once managed to get a hard magic-screwed Micaiah on top of that)
Paper is the keyword here
Agreed . Alas I'm the only person in my friend group that uses mivaiah . Paragon on her solves everything
It also doesn't help that in Radiant Dawn in particular enemies are strangely magically bulky, besides the Wyvern-line and the Fighter-line, whom you don't even fight often with Micaiah besides Part 1.
Micaiah's strenghts in having utility at least flourish in a game where most of the people that give utility besides the Herons kind of suck; also Thani is lowkey OP and could be absurd in any other FE game.
Blazing Blade in a nutshell: forget the Lords, stan Canas
Hector and his axe would like to have a word with you
Canas and his Luna tome would like to have a word with you
Nah man stan Lucius the magic tank and never erver worry about any magic users of any type ever again while healing your gang and one shotting anything with the audacity to wear armor.
In my last play through of blazing blade Canas didn't do very good at all but hector and Lyn got really good eliwood still didn't
@@aaronchapman8864 I once got a glass cannon Lyn she leveled strengh and speed to a point where i had no use for heroes or swordmasters but she died to a gust of wind
oh come on shadow dragon marth isnt that bad all you have to do is give him like 3 completely forged rapiers, give him all the stat buffs you find, get the true falchion, sacrifice tiki so that medeus has enough HP to die to a single falchion hit, and then by that point he's pretty good! also new mystery is the best game ever and I will never acknowledge the ambush spawns as a flaw because im a little prissy save stating baby
Goodness
No true gamers use the geosphere 3 times to massacre the entire map and then warp marth with a forged wyrmslayer and wait to have medeus lower his hp attacking you
Don’t forget a steady prayer to RNG-sus for good level-ups when you spoon-feed him as many kills as possible.
beary sad
I like new mistery of the emblem... :(
To anyone who has made a FE hack or in the process of making one, how good the lord should be is a very good question. It's easy to make a lord good. Just slap on some sky high bases and call it a day. But making a lord interesting through something other than combat is an entirely different challenge.
I don't know if you've played these two, but as much as I love these hacks, I'm going to criticize them.
Staff of Ages pulls a Blazing Sword where you have three main lords - Two being magic users (one Anima and one Dark) and a Peg Knight. The two magic users are great - They're not able to use physical weapons, unlike most lords, and they steadily grow with your army. Eventually, a route split occurs where the Peg Knight and one of the lords departs from your group, but that's not important. What *is* important is that the Peg Knight is awful, and I want to know who thought making a lord unit a Peg Knight was a good idea. She's Eirika on a squishy flying horse. Not only that, outside of Rescue, she has very little utility, and sort of just bogs down your group.
Another hack I recently played, Justice and Pride, has another magic user lord (Light) - The difference here is that she is much, much better than almost all the other magic users you come across, and gets her promo mid game - Allowing her to use Light, Anima, and Staves, along with a mount. Her growths are insane, her skills are insane, and she has the potential to get a skill later on that allows her to Re-Move on a Luck%. I've gotten 6 moves in one go with this. Almost all the "PowerMcguffin Tomes" are Light and Anima, so she can use them. I one-rounded the final boss on hard mode with a dance and her personal tome.
Two very different perspectives, and I kinda just wanted to rant.
@@batpug7457 I played staff of ages about 3 years ago so im not up to date and im sure much has changed since. I loved what I played though
TL, DW: Leif is based, Conquest is easy and Berwick Saga is the best FE Game.
Wait what is Berwick saga
True.
correct and true
@@TheTrains13 A PS2 SRPG made by Kaga, the creator of Fire Emblem.
@@TheTrains13 it’s not good and only hardcore Kaga fan boys like it. Most people who play it realize it’s overly complicated and just not that fun.
Ngl, the fact the Thracia Support chart I sent you months ago for your Let's Play ended up in this video brought me joy.
I feel like the solution is already there in FE8, but not on the lords ephraim and Eirika. Make the main lord a trainee class, so they can get one promotion midgame and another towards the end.
This way you can counteract the problem of late promotion that most lords have.
Leifffff my boyyyy!
Such a relatable and amazing character. He’s a young boy who makes actual mistakes and when he gets his promotion he gets… nothing. But then later he becomes a beast.
At least hus promotion gives him one good thing, 19 levels that level up super fast (If I am not wrong he the same experience that a no promoted) with the +30% strenght growth scroll.
Roy's biggest problem imo is that, in regards to his stats and growths, it feels like the developers were trying to make him akin to a jack of all trades, with decent stats across the boards but nothing amazing. Problem is, due to how RNG in general likes to treat Fire Emblem players, Roy just ends up being mediocre in too many ways. Not fast enough to reliably double, not enough HP and defense to reliably enemy phase, not enough skill to be reliable with a killing edge and not enough res to reliably tank mages and dodge statuses. The only stat that's pretty reliably above average is luck, which is bittersweet because Roy needs high luck because he gets OHKO by any crit due to his shitty bulk. Still my second favorite lord because of how well written he is, but pls nintendo give Roy something to specialize in for the eventual FE6 remake.
Question, is bad luck with unit growths really that common?
@@TheAxeLord47911 For most unit its manageable thanks to specialized growth rates, promo gains and, if all else fails, replacement units. Roy just suffers a lot more from FE6 bugged RNG because 1) his growth rates are too spread out, 2) he promotes so late into the story that his promo gains barely help him and 3) he's the main lord, so no replacing him. In short, when Roy gets fucked by RNG, you're gonna feel it for a looooong time, up until you get Deus Ex Binding blade basically
@@daveash9146 isn't fe6 rng being bugged like a myth? Or are you saying it for the meme
@@aetherius6221 yeah i'm saying it for the meme. I know it's not actually bugged
@@daveash9146 fair enough, i like to put a little indication when I do that but I understand it ruins the comedic effect
I've always preferred weak lords to strong ones. The argument that "if a lord is strong, it prevents you from soft-locking yourself," is theoretically sound, but practically speaking I don't think it really matters much. There are other ways to prevent the player from getting stuck, such as providing a steady stream of new units, especially high base/low growth units. And if the player ends up in a situation where they unintentionally end up basically solo'ing the game with their main lord, often the game isn't fun anymore at that point anyway. That's definitely how it was for me trying to play Awakening Lunatic (which I ended up just stopping around the start of the Valm arc, because it just sucked).
But yeah, even though I'm somewhat lukewarm on FE5 for other reasons, I do agree that Leif is probably the best designed lord in the series. FE3 Marth as well, who is similar to Leif in a lot of ways (in fact, I consider FE3 and FE5 in general to be pretty similar games, even if FE3 doesn't have a lot of FE5's crazier mechanics). Speaking of crazy mechanics, another piece of utility Leif has is that he doesn't get fatigued, which encourages you to use him when you can.
I think that is less softlock, and more that if i am forced to field an unit, at least make it an unit that i would want to field if given the choice. It's the reason why if i replay gen 1 pokemon is always Red or Blue and never yellow. They can shove that Pikachu in their asses.
If the game require a weak lord for narrative reason i'd rather have it be a green unit, so at least i don't feel it's wasting one of my precious deployment slots.
@@noukan42 it's not really "using one of your deployment slots" though, as the deployment slots are designed around being forced to take your lord. Would it feel better (despite being functionally identical) if the game didn't count your lord towards your deployment number, but gave you one less deployment slot on every map?
@@DarthChocolate15 i would still feel like shit knowing i have this walking piece of garbage on the map. Something like Roy or H5 Marth has no good unit feel, and their role as an escort mission can be replicated, and arguably done better, by a green unit. I am generally not a fan of mandatory characters unless they are very versatile or are mandatory only for a short while. And ludonarrative dissonance can go to hell, as i feel the buggest flaws of Kaga games came from trying to avoid it too much.
@@noukan42 Well Pikachu in Yellow isn't forced either, you can ditch him in your PC like any other starter as soon as you get a second pokemon.
The point about not wanting to be forced to use bad units is certainly valid though.
@@OmegaTyrant i remember him getting angry and refusing to go into the box, but the last time i played was like 15 years ago, so i may very easily remember wrong.
That "Nowi is a crime" curveball at the end got me good. Well done
I feel compelled to mention Eliwood as a lord who is, in my opinion, a good example of being designed weak (at the start) for the purpose of narrative. Eliwood's primary character arc is about confronting weakness, both physically and emotionally, and growing in response to it. Without spoilers, over the course of the game time and time again Eliwood is forced to confront his weakness and inability to save people. And this is mirrored by his pre-promotion weakness and struggles leading up to it-- you feel through gameplay that Eliwood is weaker than, for example, Hector. Or most of his companions, really. It makes his eventual deveopment from "noble but weak" to "noble, relatively powerful and heroic" all the more satisfying, because you yourself feel the change in his ability as he is overcoming his personal struggles in the story.
At least that's my take on it. I think Eliwood gets a bit more flak than he deserves.
Eliwood and Lyndis both get a lot of flack for starting out so weak, but if you actually give them exp they become total beasts, and it fits thier narrative too.
In my playthroughs Lyndis regularly becomes a double hitting, always dodging crit *monster* who will sweep entire levels on her own.
Eliwood meanwhile gets a mount and gains insane movement range on top of getting good stats as well.
Yeah and that’s why I love Roy too, because he was designed to be weak. He’s a 15 year old fighting in a war that he should never have joined and he he needs to carry the legacy of hector and eliwood on himself, but he’s just a boy. It makes his promotion and the binding blade he gets so much more epic because now he can actually fight back and make sure no one dies, now he can be useful in the war!
Can't say the same thing about for Lyn. I love Lyn, she's my favorite unit and Lord in the trio but I have to accept that she's bad. Her Sol katti is terrible, frail defenses, low strength, late promotion plus no crit boost. I still love her tho.
@@tablematts9055 Yeah but if you train her in Lyn mode she’s actually pretty good cause she doesn’t have a bad early game which is normally her big problem.
Music should be turned down slightly compared to your voice
I personally subscribe to the train of thought that if there is a unit you must deploy, then it must be a unit worth deploying.
That also applies to Marth in SD, since he’s the only twat that can visit villages for whatever reason.
So no, Roy is most definitely not my boy.
But.... :{
Nah Roy’s our boi! Train him and he’ll become pretty good!
The audio mixing in this one was a little off. The music was really loud to the point where it was difficult to tell what you were saying sometimes.
Aside that, great essay.
2:03
Thought you could hide that "Edelgard" eh? lol
Indeed
"Edelgard"
7:57 Fun fact, I once tried to make Marth as good as possible, playing on the lowest difficulty. Even after being fed a ridiculous amount of EXP in the prologue (and some str rng manipulation), he still fell of because of this. He was always to busy walking all over the map recruiting, visiting and pillaging that he saw to little combat.
The most balanced fire emblem lord?
well it has to be
Reese from tearring saga: berwick saga: Lazberia Chronicle Chapter 174 for the playstation 2
He might actually be
Personally I like the idea of Blazing Sword having three distinct lord types that each should have their strengths and problems. Hector is a frontline beast but can have issues with magic. Lyn is a double striking high dodge swordmaster-esque fighter that can do a lot if you invest in her. The problem with Eliwood is that he doesn't really have an identity before promoting. I think he's supposed to be a middle ground sort of thing, but with everything so mediocre and a slow base speed he doesn't really do anything well. He neither really tanks any attack well, doesn't move fast, doesn't attack a lot, doesn't dodge, doesn't have a large hp pool. He has no mechanical identity. Hector is a Figthter with great defense that can hit while Lyn feels like a ninja. A way to have done it is to make Eliwood the high def one and make Hector more of a life pool Fighter type with his current proper hit chance and speed to make him feel different than like Dorcas. Or to give Roy high resistance which is rare for non pegasi and non magic users. But I think they wanted to reflect the feel of Roy. Imo Lyn doesn't need any design work. She "feels" right with the speed, dodge and crit, even if she isn't a great unit. That said, as you pointed out, the sense of progression through weird promotion timings is kind of a shitshow.
I don't think a balanced lord is the way to go, to be clear. The way they play different from base classes can give them a lot of identity. I don't want my lord to just be a worse mercenary. Or heck, a better mercenary. Both makes the lord feel mechanically unimportant. Beside that they should just be an above average unit or a strong unit with weaknesses.
@treeghettox Yea she's a bad unit. It was more that she does have an identity. Eliwood doesn't really.
Problem is that the game should not make characters essential that require lot of investment and babysitting. Lyn and Eliwood are like that. Can they become good with investment and babysitting - yes, but so can be pretty much every character in game other than Roy obviously. (and even he just becomes good in the last moment of the game, because even game realizes what little turd he is and wants him to best the boss so ups his stat).
@treeghettox well kinda not try many times I beat fe 7 with lyn because she does get like 30 speed. shes not bad as people say she is. but yea as a lyn fan. she does much better in fire emblem heroes though
Yeah but eliwood should have wielded lances to end the weapon triangle lords.
@@gediminaskucinskas6952Nah roy is actually alright if you train him and he becomes a beast once he gets the binding blade!
Roy's not that bad he's a really good character if you skip his turn
?
Always love the video essays, but it did feel like the first half was padded by basically saying the same thing twice. I assume that the first time was meant as a quick summary, but it was barely any quicker than the following detailed run through of the lords so it just felt a bit redundant.
I feel like if you consider Ike's arch from Path of Radiance to Radiant Dawn, he actually makes a pretty compelling case for best lord. But not through his single game.
I don't think my Roy EVER died in my first and only playthrough of Binding Blade. He hit lv 20/0 pretty early on and then I was keeping him out of combat, not to keep him safe, but to keep him from guzzling useless exp.
Same here, although I played normal mode so that's probably the reason
Alternate title: How to become a based af lord in three* easy chapters
Oh hell yeah Ive been waiting for this since I saw the Jagen video.
Also Roy is well written you just have to read all his supports and infer a bunch of subtext that isnt explicitly stated. Fe6 just is kinda like that sometimes.
I think the old translation patch took alot of the spice out the dialog. I think because that patch has been around the longest and people still use it when they get a English rom is the reason why many view Roy as boring.
The new translation patch made fe 6's story so enjoyable for me. It was almost like going from Gaiden to Echos imo.
PoR Ike can't hurt you, he's a weak lord...
PoR Ike after getting an occult :
"Aether go brrr he he... 🤪"
If Ike didn't have Aether going for him, it would be near impossible to beat the Black Knight in PoR honestly. Even when you have it, it only has a chance to proc, so if you get screwed by RNG you're gonna lose anyway. I don't like the way they handled the Black Knight fight in PoR.
@@masterblaster2678 I would have prefered not to be able to learn Aether on the first playthrough so that you can see both happenings.
@@masterblaster2678 Aether's not even good. Relying on proc skills is unreliable at best. And aside from that, Aether's not even the right way to go for Burger King, you wanna go Wrath/Resolve iirc.
@@andrebryant3312 I never went for Wrath/Resolve, just seems too risky imo. You do need to get your HP low somehow, and you may just die before you even get to that point.
@@andrebryant3312 You remember incorrectly - Ike can't use Wrath/Resolve versus the BK because you get the Resolve scroll in the map right before fighting him and thus can't return to the base to equip it. You can still use Wrath with Adept, but that's even more luck-based than just sticking with Aether, and having roughly a 1 in 4 chance of proccing it every attack regardless of Ike's health (27% if Ike capped Skill), and since he generally only needs to proc it twice over the course of 5 turns to win, it's really not that bad. It's not like anyone else has any use for the Occult scrolls at that point either because all of the other occult skills basically suck outside of Sol. Still a very bullshit fight though if you get unlucky or your Ike is strength screwed.
Berwick Saga is the best Fire Emblem game, now please throw me into Enid’s sun
Elincia I'd say also counts as a lord. She gives you a game over in both PoR/RD if she dies, and in RD she's specifically the lord of Part II.
“Roy capping is unlikely”
Me, who capped him back around Arcadia: *confused screams of pain*
My answer is that it depends upon the game and the lord. Basically gameplay should reflect the story and vice versa. That said though I hope we never get another case of Roy. I'd say Ike (FE9) and Eliwood are about as bad as it should get if they don't have other utility.
17:00 I love how Thracia talks the talk and walks the walk (somewhat).
Eliwood is worse than Roy tho
@@ylnysanchez3859 Not really.
@@absoul112 Context is very important. A sword footlock is atrocious in fe7, while actually fine in fe6, due to enemy composition and accuracy. Harder, more player phase oriented gameplay also means Roy's contributions are more helpful, while Eliwood can be more safely ignored in favor of juggernauting. Hector mode Eliwood can be even more ignored since is barely ever force deployed, and on hard mode slots are super tight already. Eliwood mode, he is stuck with a very late promo and even later divine weapon. Roy meanwhile puts some boots, grabs the very overpowered sword, and is instantly godlike in a segment of the game your army will be struggling.
He feels worse to use, because the game is harder, but is better as a unit. Bad units, if forced, are typically more useful to hace access to the harder the section is.
Also compare Guy and Rutger, to see how the game context affects sword footlocks.
@@ylnysanchez3859 I agree, context is important, but there’s more to this. While Roy can contribute, due to how FE6 is most of the cast can replicate or exceed his contributions. On top of that, Roy is often at a high risk of death due to how strong enemies are in FE6. Similar to Eliwood, you can ignore Roy with no consequence. Eliwood meanwhile can’t contribute as much due to a lack of 1-2, but doesn’t die as easily. Due to how weak fe7 enemies are Eliwood can be trained to the point he can one round them (it’s not worth the effort but it is a thing one can do). Also worth mentioning is that Eliwood gains lances and canto upon promotion. Said promotion is either as late as Roy’s (in Eliwood mode) or a couple of chapters earlier (in Hector mode). Also the fact that he can be benched means he isn’t as much of a liability.
I’m not saying Eliwood is league’s better than Roy, just that he’s a better kind of bad unit.
@@ylnysanchez3859 Isn't Eliwood not being force deployed all the time actually a point in his favor? It means he's not guaranteed to be a liability for almost every map like Roy is (Roy might be slightly better in context of fe6 swords, but still a pain in the ass. For example how he always gets one shot by any siège tome in the game which means he always eats up one angelic robe) , which he absolutely is until the last few chapters.
Actually, I don't even think swords being better in one game is a sound argument because ennemy quality is also superior in fe6 and you do face a crap ton of non-axe ennemies when the game gets hard.
And you don't even mention Roy's contribution as a support, I felt like that was his only redeeming quality since he has a better affinity.
At least, I think that's better than going from a garbage unit to a below average unit for 3 chapters.
wish you at least talked a bit about Corrin, but maybe that's just because I'm that guy who beat conquest 25 times lol. I think they are very well designed. Dragonstone makes them a jagen in the early game. Supportive makes them great for improving your other units. They always have a weakness to wyrmslayers so you can't use them for everything (although I wish this was relevant more often). And they are given a training chapter (in conquest at least) to make sure that they keep up
In conquest and revelation corrin has nohr noble and the skill dragonic hex which debuff all stat by 4. In a game has hard as conquest, something as powerful as dragonic hex is needed. So corrin can also be a good support unit.
currently stuck on ch8 of birthright normal/casual, when's the dragonstone?
@@AndrewBlechinger You should've gotten one after finishing the prologue/before choosing a side.
@@starmaker75 this is also helped by gaining access to tomes upon promotion which allows for debuffs at a distance and the fact that in conquest your personal weapon increases bulk only encouraging a bulky debuffer instead of using swords and wrecking like you can in birthright which is kinda just bad on corrin in conquest heck if you wanna go all in on offense later on magic corrin heavily exceeds physical corrin.
@@ryan_uwu the Reason for fate's sloppy story, is because the writers where trying to achieve too much with not enough time. Intelligents Systems had an idea for Fate to have three stories to appeal to everyone, but they realized that they didn't have enough writers. So they hired an outside writer, Shin Kibayashi was that writer. Intelligent Systems wanted Shin to write the outline for each pathway, what happened instead is that Shin wrote 500 pages for each pathway. Nintendo knew this was too long so they cut the story into pieces without the writers permission and the fact the Nintendo demanded Fates come on the Fire Emblem Anniversary only made things worse. Which resulted in this hilariously mess of a story. Not Helping matters is that Nintendo Treehouse didn't do a good job with Localization, so maybe that's why Corrin is portrayed as unintentionally unlikeable?????? The good news this that there is a manga based on Fates that is a little better. Its called Fire Emblem If: the Crown of Niberlung.
FE9 Ike is strong. He’s not as strong as people thought back in the old days, but he’s very, very good.
@treeghettox not gonna argue about all that. But it’s off-topic. Just responding to the placement in the video.
So you ARE gonna marry Leif in FE Heroes?
Great video, really stroked my Roy hateboner, but I think the background music was too loud.
Another gold nugget in the form of a 20 minute video. Great work boper.
Sigurd is only there for the first half. With a game with maps as big as FE4 its good to give players a way to lower the stress levels and just kill entire battalions and bosses occasionally for the first half. In gen 2 and thracia 776 npcs talk about Sigurd with reverence and his strength and his character help sell that. Seliph starts out much weaker with a huge task he inherited from Sigurd. Having to work hard for Seliph to eventually reach Sigurd's level and possibly surpass him is narratively satisfying. I think Sigurd works for this reason.
I really like the music compilation. Oh and the essay is pretty interesting too.
Congratulations on 776M subscribers, see you at one billion!
On an unrelated note, I've never played a single fire emblem game and don't know how I got here.
"Sigurd can solo his game" sure, the part he is alive in
the WHAT
@@AndrewBlechinger Uh oh...
This is why you still have spoiler warnings for even the oldest games
Good job on ruining someone's experience lmao
you made a good point about leaf, but I feel like him being a good combat unit is also due to thracia's mechanics. the fact that every unit's stat cap is 20 makes it so that everyone can be usefull, and scrolls make it even easier
Great summary of the Lords throughout the series, really interesting when you think about how far spread across the spectrum the various lords are, makes you wonder if it is intentional.
The only thing I want from an FE6 remake is that Roy (and a few others) acquire FE4-style leadership stars over the course of the game. It would help him as a character/unit to not be so bad and it would help alleviate the terrible hit rates
with characters like Klein, Cecilia and Douglas having set leadership stars while Roy progressively acquires more as the story goes on/
Short Answer: They Don't
Long Answer: they "Technically" are the most important unit and you usually never want to fight with them in Dangerous situations, but by Feeding them experience, they can become one of the greatest units in the team. Since they are deployed every map, that is a good incentive to train because good lord = easier game.
The Best Lords (Like Sigurd) Don't need training and can steamroll their respective game with base stats. These Lord get better by using them and excel to make the other units feel like "A unit", not "The unit".
The average lords are those that Don't dominate the early game but usually become somewhat better than your other units if trained. The best Example of such lord is (Although most hate him) Corrin. A very good unit with good skills and tons of versatility but does not dominate his respective games. This makes them more of "A Unit with Potential" and not "The unit with Potential".
The worst lords are those That are so bad they are a hinderance to use even on the long term. Best and most known Example is Roy. This is probably done in order to show that "The Lord" should not be playing in the very dangerous Battlefield but since he is "The Leader", he must be the one to sieze. These lords are more of a "Map Objective" to "Keep Safe" than a unit that you want to use. Using them is beneficial but since they can't excel, the Usage and focus is better off going to someone else.
let's say we get a whole list of remakes of every FE game that's been on the GBA, Gamecube, and SNES, if the lords were given a promotion halfway through the game that's based on they circumstances they're facing we would see some characters getting a ton of HP, defense, strength, or skill
Marty is my favorite lord.
A lot of things you said in the video doesn't makes sense to me =(
They figured out the perfect game design for lords already, auras have been around for ages. WHY AREN’T MORE LORDS BALANCED LIKE THIS?!
Also can we pour one out for our homie Roy? Gets the best weapon in the game and still somehow walks away being the worst/second worst lord in the franchise…. At least the boy has a huge harem.
I really enjoy Alear as a lord that starts out weak but has utility like Divinely Inspiring making the army stronger and the unique Dragon property making them useful despite their weakness, but over time grows into one of the strongest characters in the game. This goes very well with their story going from a reluctant hero who wants to run away at the first sign of danger into a matured brave hero who's prepared to save the world. I think the writing could have done more with Coward/reluctant Alear, but I really enjoy how the gameplay reinforces their journey.
Imo good gameplay lords should always have another option thats more utility based outside of stab/supply/seize. It can be buffed item usage, staff ranks, rally buffs or hell, even summoning. Leif shows that this can work with the support buffs and leadership stars, so i wish IS experimented more with the idea
This should've been Sigurd but they made him his own Jagen for some reason
If you’re going to force me to use a character, just make sure they are decent at least. I don’t need them to be OP, I just need them not to be a liability
Heya Bopper! Just found your channel and I really like how insightful your Fire Emblem videos are. I’m a newcomer looking to get into the series and I was wondering on which Fire Emblem you think is the best one to start. I know you covered a video of the starting maps but this hypothetical video would feel a bit more personalized as I’m also curious on how you started. Anyway, keep up the passion dude!
15:05 I agree to being shot into the sun, but only if it's done like this: ua-cam.com/video/kEr61gB58t0/v-deo.html
Also, didn't expect you to like Leif game design wise after just 1 playthrough, but I absolutely agree, he's the most interesting lord in the series in terms of what makes him useful, beyond his godlike or shit combat.
I was really hoping you had linked "The clowns save christmas" by Joe Gran
My personal philosophy is, if the game is gonna make me use a character the whole way through, he/she better be useful. So I like powerful lords. A strong lord can create ludonarrative dissonance if it's supposed to be weak in the story, but as I always say, gameplay before story.
I know it was a joke, but I'd call the 3 Houses lords and Chrom well written.
Edit: Not counting Byleth. I was counting Byleth, Kris and Robin as Avatars not Lords
I think low bases and high growths is generally the way to go as it is the best way to show growth but it does have some issues (mainly reliance on growth rates)
Alternatively if Corrin wasn't OP to begin with, it might have been a good example as he gets his personal weapon upgraded twice. You could slow this down so the lord's personal weapon gets stronger as the game goes on, one upgrade per arc sounds good.
I like FE6 but next time someone complains about how bad Roy is in Melee I'm gonna send them this to show them how much worse it could be
Hector = Axes
Ephraim = Lances
Ike = Sword
HOLY SHIT THEY ARE THE ACTUAL WEAPON TRIANGLE
How have I not found this channel sooner???
Great vid
(J personally think that at least Claude was well written n seeing IKE in Fe 9 not be put as strong was surprising, might need to replay that one myself tho as I could have got lucky with my last run)
!! Fellow Claude fan! I love him too
Implying that Berwick Saga is not the best Fire Emblem game. Smh.
That's crazy to think about. My Eliwood capped level 20 about 2 chapters before his forced promote and he kept pretty even with Hector the entire time. Especially in Chapter 30 Victory or Death where he soloed the middle path of the map
The very concept of a consistently-force-deployed 'lord' is often at odds with one of the core design pillars of Fire Emblem: other than main lord, you *choose* which characters you want to go through the game with. You *choose* when to utilize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. You *choose* who to feed EXP to. The lords force you to use them -- so then the only question becomes: are they good on every map, bad on every map, or something in between? Are they good at everything, nothing, or somewhere in between?
The answer, from a game design perspective, should be obvious: lords should be something in between. There should be maps where the approach is "protect the VIP" and other maps where the lord happens to be good (weapon triangle advantage, the lord has the special ability to recruit someone or do something that's important), and the player 'choice' determines where the lord belongs for that particular map.
Now that the ideal is clear, I will say this: a terrible lord is preferable to a busted OP lord. Terrible lords at least have a plausible gameplay purpose that creates interesting decisions (do I rescue protect this shitty lord, or use them to cover my flank here / do chip damage?) Busted-ass OP lords present the player with no interesting choices at all: "Oh they're good at everything and I'm forced to use them. Cool. Wow, big number big." Terrible lords leave the question of how you compose your army with every other character pristine (if anything, it's *more important*). OP lords seriously harm (and sometimes completely undermine) the entire question of how to compose your army. That's just terrible design. A game shouldn't require terrible design to ensure completion.
I think the perfect lord is Ike in radiant dawn, very strong but not too strong that he makes everything easier
Also Leif is my second favorite
Really loved this video. But I do feel like the background music is too loud. It’s difficult to hear you throughout several points in the video
it took me several videos to realize it's always better for your bgm to be too quiet rather than too loud. the devices in which people watch videos vary so wildly in terms of audio frequency response. I recently watched a few older vids with friends and was cringing at my own mixes. so I can relate to this greatly. its easy to fall into this trap since the music can feel like such a huge part of the engagement of a video when editing. Just remember, nobody ever said "can u turn up the music on this argumentative video essay?"
Yeah, I learned a lot from this essay’s production specifically. Nin always streams the rough cuts to me, and we (and by we, I mean me) overcompensated the audio loss on Discord. Sadly it can’t be fixed, but an important experience nonetheless!
@@ProfessorBopper at least your moulder healed colm.
New Bopper essay! LETS GOOOOOO!
Why isn't Eliwood a good lord? He's noble, realistic, compassionate, pragmatic, caring. A great caring ruler.
The good and bad list refers to how the lords are in gameplay, not story
Your point about conclusions is wise, and I’ve often felt that “landing the plane” so to speak, is the weakest part of your videos. That said, I think this was one of your best efforts in that regard.
And beyond that, I’m just a simple man - I see a Bopper Video Essay, and I click. I’m excited to watch it a few more times!
With the caveat that I’ve never played FE4/5, I think I’ve found that Hector, Ephraim, and RD Ike have the best Lord Feel, but their Lord archetype is that of “veteran soldier with high combat prowess” that works well in both story and gameplay. Eirika and Micaiah’s compassionate personalities at least justify their weak gameplay. Eliwood might be more inexcusable than the rest in that regard, as he is just very bad.
It’s also interesting how much the timing of a Lord’s promotion dictates Lord Feel too.
in regards to what you said about the whole "veteran soldier with high combat prowess" lord archetype, i do think that sigurd is definitely by far the best example of this and, imo, should be the standard for lords whose gimmick is being strong. while ephraim, hector, and ike all kick complete ass, they still have to start at level 1 because of balance purposes. which is fine, but it makes them kinda feel like complete weenies when you know they'd get absolutely decimated by midgame enemies at their current state. they feel strong in a vortex, and lore-wise they're supposed to be complete powerhouses, but sometimes they can feel like they barely live up to that for reasons like an underwhelming early/midgame or poor movement (i'm looking at you hector).
with sigurd, it's clear instantaneously that the dude doesn't fuck around. unlike a lot of other lords, he isn't in the 15-18 age range, he's a grown ass man who has already gotten strong as fuck and at base he'll already be tearing through the game. his storyline is pretty much just him conquering half of jugdral on accident, and this wouldn't make nearly as much sense as it does if sigurd wasn't the complete freak of nature he is. what makes this even better is that when you play as seliph, he's weak, he's footlocked, and he doesn't feel anywhere close to sigurd. it makes you realize that the *real* fire emblem game starts with seliph, who is much more similar to the other FE lords, and that strength gap between base sigurd and base seliph helps emphasize just how badass sigurd really was at the time of his storyline.
@@quinoalove TL, DR: Sigurd is op
@@quinoalove Interesting - that totally makes sense within the context of FE4, from what I read people say about it!
@@quinoalove I think my favorite part about Sigurd's strength is how it's so justified.
He attended a military academy that trained young nobles from all across the continent and he has the benefit of major holy blood. These two factors alone make Sigurd's strength make more sense than how Ephraim can wage guerrilla warfare on the continent's strongest army.
@@quinoalove "and ike all kick complete ass, they still have to start at level 1 because of balance purposes. which is fine, but it makes them kinda feel like complete weenies when you know they'd get absolutely decimated by midgame enemies at their current state."
Eh? RD Ike starts off promoted at level 11 with bases alone that would keep him good until his part 4 promotion, he definitely doesn't suffer from mid-game stagnation.
I love how the picture of Hector overshadows Lyn and Eliwood, much like how he constantly overshadows them in gameplay
The issue with fe5 leif is that he was a master knight in fe4. The leif promotion in fe5 might be one of the biggest disappointments in the series.
Berwick Saga has best girl Enid. Therefore, Berwick Saga is best FE.
Yeah a lord should ideally provide neat and precise utility over the sledgehammer kind. I think technically the game should be allowed to softlock you if you really are that bad though. It is ultimately a video game and losing is part of life.
Was gonna formulate a counter-argument, but I honestly respect the dedication to nihilism
@@ProfessorBopper Ve believe in nothing, Lebopperski!
If a person is stopped and unable to progress in a game, and it's their first time playing, why would they wanna play this game more? They've been told "no, fuck you, you've gotten restart, and because you aren't experienced, you don't know what you did wrong", so soft locking them would probably just drive them out of wanting to play the series as a whole
@@CottonCandyCrisis17 I think it's very difficult to actually be locked out of any Fire Emblem game on the easiest difficulties - it's more accessible than people think it is.
Don’t really agree that the game should put you in a position where you are softlocked.
Maybe on the hardest difficulties
Corrin is in a very interesting lord unit. In its main class line it can be switch between two units: a balanced swordmaster and a tank that hits the lower defensive Stat. There are very few stat allocations that can leave any of this two play styles completely unusable, making it a unit that will never like a burden on your team while never centralizing the game play entirely.
Then we got the more intricate quirks of fates that makes it a valuable resource, capable of boosting other units' capabilities, some to ridiculous heights.
If only it wasn't a Fates character.
Corrin is definetely a centralising unit in Rev, the main start there is to get Corrin to master ninja or similarly strong class ASAP.
@@vanjagalovic3621 the Reason for fate's sloppy story, is because the writers where trying to achieve too much with not enough time. Intelligents Systems had an idea for Fate to have three stories to appeal to everyone, but they realized that they didn't have enough writers. So they hired an outside writer, Shin Kibayashi was that writer. Intelligent Systems wanted Shin to write the outline for each pathway, what happened instead is that Shin wrote 500 pages for each pathway. Nintendo knew this was too long so they cut the story into pieces without the writers permission and the fact the Nintendo demanded Fates come on the Fire Emblem Anniversary only made things worse. Which resulted in this hilariously mess of a story. Not Helping matters is that Nintendo Treehouse didn't do a good job with Localization, so maybe that's why Corrin is portrayed as unintentionally unlikeable?????? The good news this that there is a manga based on Fates that is a little better. Its called Fire Emblem If: the Crown of Niberlung.
Great video!
recently did an Awakening challange run with Robin Solo, no DLCs on Hard difficulty... with Bronze type weapons only and no forging.
Everything bar the final map was insanely easy, and the only issue with the final map was the many healers spawning and healing Grima back up.
So yeah, Robin is definitely a well balanced Lord, 100%
When the video came out, I was laughting during the top 5 FE players. Now, I feel directly attacked by all 5 categories
Truly ahead of its time
So which incarnation of Roy is worse Binding Blade or SSBM
I just love how Roy is just in a middle of mercs, bandits and bow cavs XDD
Anakin, Siegfried, and Kelik are unironically some of the best-designed lords in the series. Anakin has a ton of strengths that give him utility but even if he gets totally stat-screwed and you don't grind his staff rank, he's still good. Siegfried is one of the best-designed Jagens in the series, where if you don't want to use him you don't have to (unlike, say, FE6 or FE11 where you pretty much have to use them) and if you do decide you use him either constantly or now-and-them he'll keep up and be your best units. As far as Kelik goes: he may have been designed as a Mary Sue but the structure of the game, especially lategame, makes him surprisingly balanced -- the game is very enemy phase-focused, which makes Kelik not as gamebusting as he could be even with Flamberge. And when you get to Lanmark's chapter and the game becomes permanently player phase-focused, you have a bunch of other units that have caught up to him while still needing a strong enemy/boss-killing unit.
Anakin is a dancer. Whatever else he does is irrelevant compared to his true purpose.
I think PoR is done really well, just it’s a lot easier to use horsies towards the middle of the game. With the game’s promotion system he’s probably promoted before a good amount of your units (besides BEXP dumping and your scarce supply of master seals).
I’m glad you realized the music is too loud, otherwise good video.
And yes Thracia 776 is badass.
I think Sigurd works do to what happens to him, his power, general awesomeness & the like make what does happen to him all the more crushing. You love Sigurd, you see him as a true holy knight, an unstoppable sword of justice leading your brave hero's. It sets an expectation for the second generation, it makes Seliph's rise up to power feel more meaningful & makes one's desire to see him reach his father's heights feel good.
The best lord is Kelik, actually
How much weight (of the truth) can we handle?
you dont mean that fucking shadow the hedgehog wannabe from “The Last Promise” do you?
Ike in FE9 was goated, I think you missed the mark on that one, its very possible and not even that hard to solo the last level with just ike on maddening
I remember my first fe6 Playthrough where Roy had pretty decent lvl 20 stats except attack, which was 9.
Ah finally, a new Bopper Essay.
This is what I've been waiting for, while I enjoy your stream sometimes I find your analytic type of videos! Keep up the good and positive vibe!
Based on what was happening with babying Roy and Marth, I'm wondering if a stat distribution of higher spd and def would help them be less...baby. Hard for enemies to kill, but hits weakly too. I dunno, fast bulky units are cool to me, and the one character who can't die being given that makes sense. The attack deficiency then can be made up late game with deus-ex-prf.
Huh, what if there was a game where the Lord's prf needs to be assembled out of pieces that the game puts behind extra challenges? Imagine if I'm 3H, fighting the Death knight got you pieces of a powerful prf to make you need to Earn the weapon. I imagine you could even put more than one prf in the game if you made it out of collectible pieces, which would be a cool reward for going above and beyond. Just a fun thought.
Hey man, lay off Radiant Dawn 4-4 for being a shit map. It's a Radiant Dawn Part 4 map; it's trying it's best.
Music is much louder than your voice, Bopper. Especially early on
very good fire emblem lords iceberg would watch again
You say ike is the only one who can keep up with the Oliver map enemies, but I had Fiona solo that map lol
For anybody wondering why there's still no FE 4 remake is because the game deals with very controversial topics like child sacrifice and incest.
It's been a whole year, and I never questioned which thracia translation is being used. Such a fool I've been. Missing out on a peak 776 experience
Love the music
Like you mentioned, I find merit to all types of Lords gameplay wise. Sigurd being a God among men does have some story-gameplay integration due to emphasizing the significance of Holy Blood. As much as I love to crap on Roy, there was something enjoyable about a Lord who really does need to rely on his allies and can't dominate on his own. Although purely from a gameplay perspective, I think my favorite Lords are the likes of Ephraim and Hector: solid combat units more than capable of contributing throughout the entire journey but will not quite be on par with some of the game's other units.
Looking at more recent titles, it feels like Intelligent Systems is moving in the direction of making the game over conditions as strong as possible. Kris, Chrom/Robin, Corrin, Byleth, and the three house leaders are among the best units in their respective games.