**One day later:** President Roy faces charges from the League of Lycia that he was using funds earmarked for the National Javelin Fund for Killing Edges. He defended his actions, saying, 'But Javelins totally suck in this game, I NEED that extra +10 hit'. Rutger could not be reached for comment.
@@maltheopia this is the only time I will consider tolerating javelin slander, but even still they're so important for chipping down the nuts prepromotes to preserve action economy from safety.
I liked how you had this little tweak in Path of Radiance, where Soren at the beginning of every chapter tells you your money gains and losses. Especially during the three chapters in Begnion, where you get paid for the tasks Sanaki gives you. It helps reminding that Ike still leads a merc company.
@Dark Dumbsville (Anti Dumbsville) Communist Cult You mean charge in money? If yes, than no, you are not playing wrong. The bonus xp is earned in fight due to meeting certain conditions (ending the map in a certain amount of terms, sparing certain enemies/npcs, letting certain characters escape, etc.) and is the only thing you use to level your units. No monetary charge required.
Managing gold in fe4 to buy the paragon band and brave weapons on units who need it is one of my favorite part of the game. It's super rewarding to pull off
When he goes over Three Houses, I wonder if he's going to factor in rare materials as well as gold. I figure it'll get a mention, but mostly we'll stick to the gold itself, and the regular and killer crafting materials, since you can just buy those. Of course, factoring in buying gifts does make things more interesting. At least until the time skip, anyway.
@meatballsahoy 92 You lose church funds after the timeskip in every route, no? And every route provides you with a monthly quest to deliver specific resources to get some gold. And you can easily just spend a day off doing gold auxiliary battles. Three Houses does not give any reason not to hoard items and weapons after the early game. The late game is a joke for gold management. Your units are strong, you have the option to do 3 (or infinite on normal) auxiliary battles per week, and a lot of enemies in said battles will drop bullions. Sure, CF gives you less time than any other route to build up your units. But I don't think that really means anything. It's not hard to get every unit in their desired master class (or otherwise final). Probably won't master it, but that's not really even necessary.
@@jedimasterpickle3 You retain the church funds for every route save Crimson Flower (it's heavily implied Cichol ["Seteth"] or anybody who still works for Seiros ["Rhea"] gives you the church funds post time skip)
@@AngelKnightZeo713 No? You don't get a monthly income post-timeskip in any route. The church isn't in a position to keep paying you on non-CF routes, and they're the enemy on CF
@@prisma5849 i just finished a Silver Snow run and i am pre sure i did not get monthly funds after the time skip, after the time skip u are at war and all funds from the church would be going to fund that war effort and not any of the 3 houses participation in that war (especially the one actively at war with the church).
I like that you brought up how knowledge of a future Silver Card can inform future purchasing decisions. I think FE plays with decisionmaking in its game design a lot, although I think the Silver Card is one of the few instances where knowledge of future events comes into play more, which indirectly helps FE games be more replayable. Also Marth as the Trashman was not something I was expecting
FE7 so weird because, I would argue, it has a high knowledge floor and a low knowledge ceiling. For a new player, or a dum dum such as myself, money is tight because big-ticket items like the ocean seal, silver card, fell contract, promotion items, etc are hidden, locked behind Matthew being alive (and meeting speed thresholds), or require meta knowledge. For example, first you have to find the ocean seal and then you have to know it sells for obscene money and that Dart isn’t worth it. I agree that it’s not a good money system, because, as you said, there’s not many good rewards for managing money well, but I would add the stipulation that it’s a fun system for less experienced FE7 players that becomes progressively less engaging the more you know
Another interesting part is regarding Ranks. I don't know how lenient it is, granted, but keeping that Ocean Seal (and Fell Contract) unused in your inventory seems like a great way to help maximizing it. When to say your Money Items is potentially an interesting bargain (again, need to look into that further).
@@xxProjectJxx I think Berserkers are a lot more fun to use on Fire Emblem romhacks rather than the vanilla games because you don't have to worry about the optimal plays in the romhacks after all.
I played FE4 for the first time last year, and I did know that every character had their own wallet, but I never imagined how intricate the gold management would be. I really really liked having to plan ahead where and how to earn the money to make important trades and other meaningful inventory management. I thought it was great, and you can tell the game was balanced around it, so you can't just slap it on a different FE game. I loved the originality.
“Limitations inspire creativity” Thank you! One of my problems with a lot of new games is that things are just wayyy too open and in doing so, makes things boring and homogenous. We need limits to make interesting decisions in a video game and a notable limitation of resources. Side note: you mentioned the con system in Thracia and how mounted units can rescue essentially anyone, and I think this is the best rescue system in the series because con being able to be leveled up, having both good and bad aspects, and allowing mounted units to have their niche makes each unit much much more interesting. Thoughts?
I'm a bit surprised that Mekkah didn't bring up the Funds rank in Elibe in this video. I think it's kinda interesting that a couple of pitfalls can be directly linked to perverse incentives caused by the Elibe ranking systems; specifically, over-focus on exp management (exp thieves!) and hoarding items (and I think there's an argument for growths over bases being linked to the experience rank, too). Also, the money in FE1 does have a purpose: buying Boots! At the end of the second-last chapter in the game...
What I like about FE4's gold system is that while yes, your strongest units will just generate a critical mass of gold from the arena and be able to afford anything they want, there's still things you can do when your entire main squad's wallets is already bursting. Passing around the Paragon Band is expensive as all hell for everyone involved, but if you have the money to spare, it makes for very satisfying arena grind sessions, and it's interesting to play around with just how much of it you can get away with while still making sure that everyone ends up with the weapons and items they need for the upcoming chapter, and that the Paragon Band ends on the right person by the end. (plus, if you actually put resources into Dew to make him competent, he breaks the economy wide open and that's also a very satisfying thing to pull off bc you do have to work for it but it's so nice when you do)
One way to view the Paragon Band - it costs 40K, but anyone who buys it can sell it back for 20K. If a unit completes the arena, they earn 17.5K. So buying the Paragon Band, completing the Arena, and selling it back results in a net loss of just 2.5K. At least, before accounting for weapon repairs. If you seize every castle, and keep it intact, that's usually enough to make up the margin by next chapter. As for Dew, my favored approach is to get a magical sword onto him. Not only does it increase the range of enemies he can steal from, it also lets him rob most foes without fearing a counter-attack, regardless of his actual combat competence. Even with his meager C-rank, he can wield any magical sword in the game.
Great video. I always try to talk about why FE4’s economy is actually great but I’ll refer to this video. Because it seems limiting on the surface. But actually opens up so much room for creativity
@@Sines314 many of the items are busted and can really fix a faulty character, thus managing their gold to get said weapons and choosing which units you want to spoil becomes quite fun. An easy example is the pursuit ring. In genealogy you need a skill called pursuit to double enemies, most characters get the skill at base or after promotion but there's some who don't and giving them the ring effectively makes them twice as powerful. The catch is you only have 1 of that ring and multiple characters who need it and it costs a small fortune so you can't just give everything to everyone
The FE6 boots shop is one of my favorite parts of the game. One to prepare to buy them in bulk but also the payoff of having high movement on everybody youre using is just so much fun. Plus its not the most broken thing ever since you only will have that power for a few chapters, but its great while it lasts.
I think Sacred Stones is in a weird position in regards to the way it handles money. I think a lot of Sacred Stone's flaws actually stem from the problem that a lot of people stop playing the game after the credits, where the game was most likely designed as a whole to take into account the entire game including Creature Campaign. Once Creature Campaign starts, there's a lot of decision making to how exactly you want to spend your funds, things of such good value actually that it's worth considering maybe not buying twenty Javelins every time you visit in armory so that you can better afford stat boosters and insanely good weapons. Unfortunately, most people stop playing the game after they beat it, so this system goes unrecognized (I'm not saying that Creature Campaign is a great mode and should be played because it's quiet tedious, I'm just saying that this is probably how the money was considered when making the game). This is the case with a lot of FE8s mechanics, but it is an interesting case study on how post-game should be developed.
@@butteredsalmonella You need to do the Glitch first in preparation for the CC though. Arena Abuse too. You nearly need to play the whole game in preparation for the CC (since you won't get Nagflar until you pretty much end CC). Sure, the CC character comes with extra buck, but that's still an interesting relationship.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 My idea is that you can be a little bit more reckless when it comes to spending (just don't overdo it) when it comes to the early to midgame so long you go through the glitch process (which you can start doing from Chapter 18 onwards). Crimson Eye is almost as powerful as Silver Axe, has 1~2 range and has infinite usage, rendering almost all weapons well into the lategame useless and you can sell them for more gold. Arena Abuse isn't necessary either as Tower of Valni exists and what EXP you gain from the main course of the game is more than sufficient for all three potential Bishops. Chapter 20 and the Final Chapter gets shredded by the Bishops and Creature Campaign will be too and the gold you get from both maps is a pretty hefty amount
About the secret shops in FE8 chapter 14 secret shop has also stats boosters, angelic ring and energy ring and chapter 19 one doesn't have all the stat boosters, not talisman or body ring. Those last 2 are exclusive to the creature campaign because now you can buy in secret shops if someone has the member card and the stranger thing is that in the International this doesn't change and now between the 3 shops they have the 4 brave weapons too and the Japanese weapons instead of the International weapons. Why did they make this decision? I will never know it.
A lot of JRPGs were changed over in the west to make the game harder because of the video game rental market at the time, which was banned in Japan, so devs changed Western games to make them harder. This is probably also why there are also things like effective weapons in FE7 being 3x in JP but only 2x in international. A similar thing can be happening here where they wanted to take things away for the international release to make things harder. You can argue that this is where the idea of the Creature Campaign comes from as well, however it still is very strange because this isn't as drastic as a change for the game's overall difficulty.
Well, yeah, but in the postgame you're on an infinite money grind anyway. There is no real campaign - theoretically the only time between chapters is between tower and ruins runs. Everything on the map is already unlocked. So I don't think looking at that was very interesting.
I started working on a hack about a week ago, and this came out just in time to help me figure out how to budget the player's gear - the timing is genuinely uncanny, lmao. I'm honestly a bit shocked that this subject isn't talked about as much
I'm... very surprised you didn't mentions preps shops when covering the gba games? FE6's isn't available on hard mode and FE8's has a markup. Which item management decisions are meaningful, and which are just tedium/pointless ocd-triggering? I feel like there's definitely some ground that could be covered there. Also, bullions aren't in FE1, since **you can't sell anything in FE1**. That... seems like a pretty egregious error to make in a video specifically about money?
I like that the games give you way more money than you can ever spend on normal items. That way noobs get to never run out of weapons and pros get to enjoy hardcore secret shop money management. I think it's a good balance. I also really like the FE4 stuff. Since all your characters are nobles it always felt like they were just too stuck up to trade and they just like to hold onto their prized possessions lol.
Playing FE5 for the first time and found an exploit to indefinitely get gold. Not sure how well known this is but on 17B if you steal the snipers' silver bows their AI goes to buy another from the armory, which you can steal again, selling excess to the vendor right next to. Curious how many people found this or anything similar on other maps
You can do the same thing on chapter 22 by stealing the hero's paragon sword. He'll run to the armory, and if he has enough sword rank, buy a killing edge. Steal it and he'll buy more.
This feels very very much like he disregarded a casual playthrough where you don't know where all the secret shops or silver cards are. The beginning seemed to be casual friendly, although he didn't talk much about key items you could go around buying on like certain chapters. The closest we got was like, getting killer weapons from a certain shop and that was it. It really seems to focus on secret shops and silver cards as the end all be all when it came to economy and the gold aspect of a playthrough. I would have liked to have heard more about what a playthrough was like gold wise without these things factored in, nd then talk about these shops and items since they are still important.
Without the secrets, the whole series pretty much floods you with way too much gold to be relevant, at least past early game. There's not much to talk about.
Definitely an interesting discussion topic, and I agree with most of what you're saying. But I do wonder if the fact that secret shops are well, secrets, removes a lot of the 'choice' aspect you mention with regards to them. Sure, an experienced player obviously knows where each secret shop is, but someone playing the game for the first time is unlikely to really stumble across one, considering a character with the member card NEEDS to step on just random tiles to enter them. As such, they don't really get to make those interesting decisions about money; instead whether or not their money management matters beyond killer weapons turns into a game of pure luck. I feel like Secret Shops don't really lose anything if they're just made visible on the map. It doesn't have to be as obvious as regular shops are, maybe just defined cracks in the walls or small tents, but a new player is unlikely to ever find one (except maybe fe7's dragon gate?), and an experienced/guided player already knows where they all are, so what does the game actually lose from making this change?
I think it's fair to assume a blind player never sees a Secret Shop. But in a way that creates an interesting difference between a blind and a knowledgable player. For a blind player I think you just need the system not to be very complicated, with shops every 3-4 maps or so, and it'll be fine. The analysis focuses on non-blind players because, well, if you don't know a Silver card is coming up then there's no interesting dilemma in its shops beforehand, is there?
@@Mekkkah That's an interesting point, yeah. Obviously the more knowledge you have about the game's economy, the more interesting decisions you'll be able to make. If you have no knowledge, you'll just be making reactionary choices/prediction-based choices (as in, I'm assuming there'll be a good shop in the near future, so I shouldn't spend all my money now), which is always gonna be less deep. So the secret shops being visible or not really doesn't matter. Alright, you've totally convinced me mekkah lol
i cant speak for all th games but at least some of them have little hints on th map abt th secret shops (and i think some of th houses would tell u abt their existence). i remember wen playing fe11 blind i was able to spot one or two, but th games definitely are/should b designed around th player not knowing them
In sacred stones You can access to the secret shop from the world map if ephraim por Erika (depends of what's route You picked previously) holds the member card.
Tbf to FE7, there's a bit of nuance in Dragon's Gate between buying Physics and Killer Weapons, as even with the Silver Card you can't really but a shitton of both. In fact, Physics are usually what I spend my gold on.
Yeah real talk long distances healing is probably more useful then needing a lot of overkill weapons in a game where good characters are 1RK with iron or steel.
-Hello good sir. I'd like to buy an Iron Sword and 30 Hand axes. -That'll be 9360 g -On second thought forget about the Iron Sword. I'm trying to do a ranked run here
The analysis kinda assume you already know what item do you want to buy in specific chapters especially secret shops and that always require guide. In a base game guide are readily available so you can planned ahead in a hack rom game not so much because it's rare finding people playing it let alone someone making a guide.
Really interesting topic and I agree it doesn't get quite the discussion it warrants. I think a general "Resource Management" rather than specifically focussing on gold could also be very interesting, since its very apparent in some games that the weight of gold is much higher or lower compared to other resources available.
Fe 8 shops actually have variations in chapter vs on the world map. So you can actually miss out. For example ch 17 has reaver weapons available in the armory in the chapter but not in the world map.
A thing I dislike in Fire Emblem is weapon durability on the lowest tier of weapons. Sometimes, it's nice to just have the guarantee that you'll have a weapon that will last until the end of enemy phase.
I mean, you can absolutely plan to have an enemy phase weapon in your inventory before starting combat in very game in the series. Just stick something with over 20 durability in your tanks inventory, and save it for when they'll need to bait/bottleneck a group of enemies.
Yeah I find 1-2 full iron weapons on some of the more intense/very slow maps are always a safe bet, while a varied toolkit of random garbage is great for the faster/strategically messy chapters
@@Anonymos185 Fair enough, but for the lowest tier of weapons, I would like to not have to care is what I'm saying. More out of laziness than anything, really.
Fe4’s Lack of free trading really hurt that game for me. I’m the kind of player that does “deposit all” on the newer games and painstakingly rearrange all the gear before a chapter.
Minor thing on Thracia though maybe someone said already: Thieves need con higher than the weapon weight, not equal to or more - Lifis at 20 con can’t steal the Loptr Sword from Raydrik
I think the interesting view point in this video is from the perspective of someone who has a lot of knowledge about the game for example secret shop locations and desert item locations. Compared to someone who isn't looking up this knowledge isn't going to know they missed anything and therefore gold is different for them. We didn't get to Path of Radiance but I remember people saying "ohh the game gives you so much gold" but when I play and not really knowing how the best way to forge weapons was that I'd lose so much of my money on two or three over inflated forged weapons.
FE4 inventory system doesn't get enough credit for what it does right and wrong. When most characters start as complete strangers to one another (as is the case in FE4), then this system is a great starting point. Problem is it never evolves and as the game progresses it feels wrong when friends and family members can't give each other spare weapon when needed. If they do remake it, i hope they do something like in Fates where you unlock additional reclassing options upon reaching A+ or S support. Here you could instead get more options when it comes to trading items or maybe rescuing if they added it in. Support system is so underutilized and it has potential to be so much more than just avenue for getting your avatar laid with whoever you choose. You could give the player a very powerful character that is unwilling to trade items and maybe get penalties (like gaining no exp) when being near allies so killing enemies with him benefits that character alone and any valuable droppable items will be unavailable if he gets them. Maybe the only way to gain support with him initially is through your priest(ess) providing him with heals when he needs them and through this he eventually becomes more amicable with the rest of the army, unlocking trading options. You could then have powerful items being droppable early, unable to be used untill later, giving player something to look forward to. That's just one idea of how much potential FE4's system has that IS never experimented with.
I don't want Reclassing In FE4. I would like it if Holy blood characters can use their Weapon ranks regardless of class though (Edain being able to wield Iron Bows despite being a healer because she has Minor Ullr blood, Any Son of Claude can use the Valkyria staff, Even Lester, etc). I think free trade should be reserved to married couples only because it's stupid for one to sell it in the pawn shop just for the other to buy it (at half price if you gave them the gold).
I started playing Conquest again which is more notorious for it's management of gold. If you play like me (usually on hard) and mostly use what the game drops you can beat the game that way, and if you really learn the game you may wind up mostly spending money on essentials +seals or weapons/staves like beastslayer/freeze that counter certain BS maps, and then blow it all at the end on whatever to beef up your guys to the max
I think the thing we need to account for is that early fire emblem is based on imperfect play. A lot of this gold stuff is quite different to a blind or casual player. Fe 1,3,6,7 are based on the idea that most players are not going get all of the gold so playing well usually means being overloaded on funds. This also changes fe4s gold economy as well because casuals are more likely to just use low gold investment units like the sword fighters or Jamake who also clear the Arena easy or just use Sigurd. The funny thing about 4 is that it is one of the few games where money is more of a concern if you are trying to play somewhat optimal versus casual since a lot of optimization requires a lot of gold. Just a really funny thing about the game.
Yeah I noticed FE1 wasn’t on the Eshop anymore even though I had it downloaded. It’s pretty bizarre, that should be the sorta game included in the Nintendo online membership shit.
I'm surprised there's no mention of ranking systems in FE6/FE7 where gold is a factor. If the player wants the maximum funds rank, they have to be conscious of both their excess gold and the value of all of their items and factor in whether they want to use them. For instance, the decision to recruit Farina or promote Dart can be very costly in a ranked run.
The FE1 arena entry fees actually overflow when wager exceeds 255. FE5 introduced the battle preparations armoury I guess as a panic button to have access for iron weapons (at 1100 gold for iron axe and 2200 gold for the others). For FE7 I find the interesting part of gold is the funds rank. While it is probably is not as as restrictive as it feels in my head it is an ever hanging presence influencing gameplay decisions. Still I found it weird hard mode has more lenient requirements despite the silver card existing there (which doubles your gold assets but makes any items you sell break even after silver card whereas before it's 50% funds rank assets lost). FE7 having no silver card in normal difficulty (outside of Mario Kart bonus disc items) feels like an accidental design choice (evidenced by the prototype builds having an enemy thief in Chapter 18E/19H drop it in normal difficulty, the torch staff in the final game is probably a better fit of generously give the player resources useful in a fog of war map). As was hit upon in the video weapon access was one of the biggest factors for spending gold on a first playthrough as the franchise has a tendency to have drought periods of no shops (literal FOMO), abrupt cut-offs or red herrings (e.g. FE6 Chapter 23). Modern games tend to have more universal accessibility.
Man I wish I could sell items in FE1. Never have enough gold to fully trick out the folks I wanna trick out! (Mainly because I have no stopping sense and want to trick out like half the cast) It's definitely an interesting topic. Gold limiting your resources. Recently I've been playing the Vision Quest rom hack cause you turned me onto it with your streams. Getting gold in that game is a struggle(IMO), and a lot of the shop items have less durability than normal as well as inflated prices. You can tell that Pandan wanted that hack to be a thinker's game, but golly jee, it's pretty unenjoyable to me to get to a set of shops that sell A rank weapons of every type, but I can only afford maybe 2 A rank weapons (actually I managed a little bit more than that but still). I think that, just as it isn't fun to have too much gold, it's also not fun having too little. Obviously designing a game around having to steal and scrape by puts more value on Thief type units, and if there's a narrative lean on it, then it's great, but... It's a pretty awful feeling to enter a secret shop and not have enough money for anything special.
This makes me wish that Anna's Secret Shop in 3H sold unlimited stat boosters. It's late game content and they literally gave characters lvl 99/Max stat quotes, so it wouldn't be that OP.
can't wait to talk about DSFE, FE12 probably has the most interesting gold management, it gives you so much to spend on. Also has the very funny silver card turning into a vulnerary on lunatic/lunatic reverse
You mean The National Javelin Fund?
Yes haha
Don’t forget the Hand axe Foundation investment
Javelins, hand axes, and 20 heal staves that you swear you'll use up once you promote your mages
**One day later:**
President Roy faces charges from the League of Lycia that he was using funds earmarked for the National Javelin Fund for Killing Edges. He defended his actions, saying, 'But Javelins totally suck in this game, I NEED that extra +10 hit'. Rutger could not be reached for comment.
@@maltheopia this is the only time I will consider tolerating javelin slander, but even still they're so important for chipping down the nuts prepromotes to preserve action economy from safety.
"Are these funnies worth my monies?" Is one of the best things I've heard in a while
I liked how you had this little tweak in Path of Radiance, where Soren at the beginning of every chapter tells you your money gains and losses. Especially during the three chapters in Begnion, where you get paid for the tasks Sanaki gives you. It helps reminding that Ike still leads a merc company.
@Dark Dumbsville (Anti Dumbsville) Communist Cult You mean charge in money? If yes, than no, you are not playing wrong. The bonus xp is earned in fight due to meeting certain conditions (ending the map in a certain amount of terms, sparing certain enemies/npcs, letting certain characters escape, etc.) and is the only thing you use to level your units. No monetary charge required.
Managing gold in fe4 to buy the paragon band and brave weapons on units who need it is one of my favorite part of the game. It's super rewarding to pull off
Successfully cycling the paragon band between every single one of your units throughout a chapter is better than sex
@@yoel9396 I just completed a ranked run, and it was super super fun and rewarding
@@casualjacob776 congrats man ^^
Anna: I think I'm going to be married to my true love in my life
Jake: :D
Anna: Money
Jake: God fuckin Damn it
lol
yeah I feel the same way with my rubbies
oh goodness gracious my Lord control your greed
goodness gracious that's a lot of cheddar
good Lord boy get ahold of yourself you and your money and your women
When he goes over Three Houses, I wonder if he's going to factor in rare materials as well as gold. I figure it'll get a mention, but mostly we'll stick to the gold itself, and the regular and killer crafting materials, since you can just buy those. Of course, factoring in buying gifts does make things more interesting. At least until the time skip, anyway.
@meatballsahoy 92 You lose church funds after the timeskip in every route, no? And every route provides you with a monthly quest to deliver specific resources to get some gold. And you can easily just spend a day off doing gold auxiliary battles. Three Houses does not give any reason not to hoard items and weapons after the early game. The late game is a joke for gold management. Your units are strong, you have the option to do 3 (or infinite on normal) auxiliary battles per week, and a lot of enemies in said battles will drop bullions. Sure, CF gives you less time than any other route to build up your units. But I don't think that really means anything. It's not hard to get every unit in their desired master class (or otherwise final). Probably won't master it, but that's not really even necessary.
@@jedimasterpickle3 You retain the church funds for every route save Crimson Flower (it's heavily implied Cichol ["Seteth"] or anybody who still works for Seiros ["Rhea"] gives you the church funds post time skip)
@@AngelKnightZeo713 No? You don't get a monthly income post-timeskip in any route. The church isn't in a position to keep paying you on non-CF routes, and they're the enemy on CF
Crimson Flower fans making things up to support their narrative. Never seen that before
@@prisma5849 i just finished a Silver Snow run and i am pre sure i did not get monthly funds after the time skip, after the time skip u are at war and all funds from the church would be going to fund that war effort and not any of the 3 houses participation in that war (especially the one actively at war with the church).
It's always a good day when we have a scripted mekkah video
I like that you brought up how knowledge of a future Silver Card can inform future purchasing decisions. I think FE plays with decisionmaking in its game design a lot, although I think the Silver Card is one of the few instances where knowledge of future events comes into play more, which indirectly helps FE games be more replayable.
Also Marth as the Trashman was not something I was expecting
FE7 so weird because, I would argue, it has a high knowledge floor and a low knowledge ceiling. For a new player, or a dum dum such as myself, money is tight because big-ticket items like the ocean seal, silver card, fell contract, promotion items, etc are hidden, locked behind Matthew being alive (and meeting speed thresholds), or require meta knowledge. For example, first you have to find the ocean seal and then you have to know it sells for obscene money and that Dart isn’t worth it.
I agree that it’s not a good money system, because, as you said, there’s not many good rewards for managing money well, but I would add the stipulation that it’s a fun system for less experienced FE7 players that becomes progressively less engaging the more you know
Another interesting part is regarding Ranks. I don't know how lenient it is, granted, but keeping that Ocean Seal (and Fell Contract) unused in your inventory seems like a great way to help maximizing it.
When to say your Money Items is potentially an interesting bargain (again, need to look into that further).
There's also the whole issue of the Mine Glitch reducing the challenges to gold management, _Especially if you know how to steal the Uber Spear._
@@aegisScale
With Hammerne and the Uber Spear, Oswin is all but invincible.
Dart may not be optimal, but I still use him every time. He is worth the ocean seal money lol
@@xxProjectJxx
I think Berserkers are a lot more fun to use on Fire Emblem romhacks rather than the vanilla games because you don't have to worry about the optimal plays in the romhacks after all.
I played FE4 for the first time last year, and I did know that every character had their own wallet, but I never imagined how intricate the gold management would be. I really really liked having to plan ahead where and how to earn the money to make important trades and other meaningful inventory management. I thought it was great, and you can tell the game was balanced around it, so you can't just slap it on a different FE game. I loved the originality.
Glad to see some higher production content! Enjoy your Monday off!
“Limitations inspire creativity”
Thank you! One of my problems with a lot of new games is that things are just wayyy too open and in doing so, makes things boring and homogenous. We need limits to make interesting decisions in a video game and a notable limitation of resources.
Side note: you mentioned the con system in Thracia and how mounted units can rescue essentially anyone, and I think this is the best rescue system in the series because con being able to be leveled up, having both good and bad aspects, and allowing mounted units to have their niche makes each unit much much more interesting. Thoughts?
ooo you should consider making this a series. something like “staff users in FE”, other mechanics ect.
I'm a bit surprised that Mekkah didn't bring up the Funds rank in Elibe in this video. I think it's kinda interesting that a couple of pitfalls can be directly linked to perverse incentives caused by the Elibe ranking systems; specifically, over-focus on exp management (exp thieves!) and hoarding items (and I think there's an argument for growths over bases being linked to the experience rank, too).
Also, the money in FE1 does have a purpose: buying Boots! At the end of the second-last chapter in the game...
I can never unsee Rick Harrison as the Pawn Broker in FE4 anymore, Thanks Mekkah
I always wonder who the first person to actually find the secret shops were. Must have been incredible.
What I like about FE4's gold system is that while yes, your strongest units will just generate a critical mass of gold from the arena and be able to afford anything they want, there's still things you can do when your entire main squad's wallets is already bursting. Passing around the Paragon Band is expensive as all hell for everyone involved, but if you have the money to spare, it makes for very satisfying arena grind sessions, and it's interesting to play around with just how much of it you can get away with while still making sure that everyone ends up with the weapons and items they need for the upcoming chapter, and that the Paragon Band ends on the right person by the end.
(plus, if you actually put resources into Dew to make him competent, he breaks the economy wide open and that's also a very satisfying thing to pull off bc you do have to work for it but it's so nice when you do)
One way to view the Paragon Band - it costs 40K, but anyone who buys it can sell it back for 20K. If a unit completes the arena, they earn 17.5K. So buying the Paragon Band, completing the Arena, and selling it back results in a net loss of just 2.5K. At least, before accounting for weapon repairs. If you seize every castle, and keep it intact, that's usually enough to make up the margin by next chapter.
As for Dew, my favored approach is to get a magical sword onto him. Not only does it increase the range of enemies he can steal from, it also lets him rob most foes without fearing a counter-attack, regardless of his actual combat competence. Even with his meager C-rank, he can wield any magical sword in the game.
Great video. I always try to talk about why FE4’s economy is actually great but I’ll refer to this video. Because it seems limiting on the surface. But actually opens up so much room for creativity
Yah, it's weird to think of it having not played it, but a limited game economy is an interesting economy.
@@Sines314 many of the items are busted and can really fix a faulty character, thus managing their gold to get said weapons and choosing which units you want to spoil becomes quite fun.
An easy example is the pursuit ring. In genealogy you need a skill called pursuit to double enemies, most characters get the skill at base or after promotion but there's some who don't and giving them the ring effectively makes them twice as powerful. The catch is you only have 1 of that ring and multiple characters who need it and it costs a small fortune so you can't just give everything to everyone
The FE6 boots shop is one of my favorite parts of the game. One to prepare to buy them in bulk but also the payoff of having high movement on everybody youre using is just so much fun. Plus its not the most broken thing ever since you only will have that power for a few chapters, but its great while it lasts.
When he got to thracia 776 and said you had no gold i got a Applebee's commercial and for a bit i thought it was a joke in the video lol.
I think Sacred Stones is in a weird position in regards to the way it handles money.
I think a lot of Sacred Stone's flaws actually stem from the problem that a lot of people stop playing the game after the credits, where the game was most likely designed as a whole to take into account the entire game including Creature Campaign. Once Creature Campaign starts, there's a lot of decision making to how exactly you want to spend your funds, things of such good value actually that it's worth considering maybe not buying twenty Javelins every time you visit in armory so that you can better afford stat boosters and insanely good weapons. Unfortunately, most people stop playing the game after they beat it, so this system goes unrecognized (I'm not saying that Creature Campaign is a great mode and should be played because it's quiet tedious, I'm just saying that this is probably how the money was considered when making the game). This is the case with a lot of FE8s mechanics, but it is an interesting case study on how post-game should be developed.
Or just do that enemy control glitch, get a bunch of Crimson Eyes and proceed to blast through the entire Lagdou Ruins with three Bishops
@@butteredsalmonella You need to do the Glitch first in preparation for the CC though.
Arena Abuse too.
You nearly need to play the whole game in preparation for the CC (since you won't get Nagflar until you pretty much end CC).
Sure, the CC character comes with extra buck, but that's still an interesting relationship.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 My idea is that you can be a little bit more reckless when it comes to spending (just don't overdo it) when it comes to the early to midgame so long you go through the glitch process (which you can start doing from Chapter 18 onwards). Crimson Eye is almost as powerful as Silver Axe, has 1~2 range and has infinite usage, rendering almost all weapons well into the lategame useless and you can sell them for more gold. Arena Abuse isn't necessary either as Tower of Valni exists and what EXP you gain from the main course of the game is more than sufficient for all three potential Bishops. Chapter 20 and the Final Chapter gets shredded by the Bishops and Creature Campaign will be too and the gold you get from both maps is a pretty hefty amount
Misinformation at 2:01
You cannot sell items in FE1
But like, you don't really need to sell stuff, this game throws tons of gold like it's nothing.
whoops
I love edited content like this. Your editors always do amazing work, Mekkah!
looking forward to the talk about gold in the last promise, that is a super unique scenario
Angelic robes, then you are poor without Karina and later on you are stupidly rich.
About the secret shops in FE8 chapter 14 secret shop has also stats boosters, angelic ring and energy ring and chapter 19 one doesn't have all the stat boosters, not talisman or body ring. Those last 2 are exclusive to the creature campaign because now you can buy in secret shops if someone has the member card and the stranger thing is that in the International this doesn't change and now between the 3 shops they have the 4 brave weapons too and the Japanese weapons instead of the International weapons. Why did they make this decision? I will never know it.
A lot of JRPGs were changed over in the west to make the game harder because of the video game rental market at the time, which was banned in Japan, so devs changed Western games to make them harder. This is probably also why there are also things like effective weapons in FE7 being 3x in JP but only 2x in international. A similar thing can be happening here where they wanted to take things away for the international release to make things harder. You can argue that this is where the idea of the Creature Campaign comes from as well, however it still is very strange because this isn't as drastic as a change for the game's overall difficulty.
@@samu1414 the enemies are weaker and your units in general stronger so it wasn't for this reason.
Conditions for Pairing people on fe4:
"Canon" pairings ❎
Cute pairings ❎
Optimal children pairings❎
Pairing people to get gold ☑️
*furiously mates Dew with Ayra so that the Sword Twins will literally be oozing money for their respective future spouses to enjoy*
@@14bj337
Gee...
I never got to play FE 4 at all.
Stat boosters in Sacred Stones are still buyable in the localized versions. They're just exclusive on Creature Campaign.
Well, yeah, but in the postgame you're on an infinite money grind anyway. There is no real campaign - theoretically the only time between chapters is between tower and ruins runs. Everything on the map is already unlocked. So I don't think looking at that was very interesting.
I started working on a hack about a week ago, and this came out just in time to help me figure out how to budget the player's gear - the timing is genuinely uncanny, lmao. I'm honestly a bit shocked that this subject isn't talked about as much
I'm... very surprised you didn't mentions preps shops when covering the gba games? FE6's isn't available on hard mode and FE8's has a markup. Which item management decisions are meaningful, and which are just tedium/pointless ocd-triggering? I feel like there's definitely some ground that could be covered there.
Also, bullions aren't in FE1, since **you can't sell anything in FE1**. That... seems like a pretty egregious error to make in a video specifically about money?
Definitely an odd mistake, I wonder how that happened?
Looking at the Wiki, apparently Bullions debuted in Shadow Dragon. Hopefully Mekkah amends this mistake in part 2 of the video.
I like that the games give you way more money than you can ever spend on normal items. That way noobs get to never run out of weapons and pros get to enjoy hardcore secret shop money management. I think it's a good balance.
I also really like the FE4 stuff. Since all your characters are nobles it always felt like they were just too stuck up to trade and they just like to hold onto their prized possessions lol.
Hoarding all the gold isnt a pitfall right? I mean, we have enough playable dragons for the RP aspect
Playing FE5 for the first time and found an exploit to indefinitely get gold. Not sure how well known this is but on 17B if you steal the snipers' silver bows their AI goes to buy another from the armory, which you can steal again, selling excess to the vendor right next to. Curious how many people found this or anything similar on other maps
I didn't even know AI could do that
Finally, a reason to play B route.
You can do the same thing on chapter 22 by stealing the hero's paragon sword. He'll run to the armory, and if he has enough sword rank, buy a killing edge. Steal it and he'll buy more.
Wow this was so thorough and genuinely interesting. Also massive props to the editor for this one
WIll this be the first Mekkah video that talks about the game that needs the most gold, Heroes?
I mean, strictly speaking, Heroes has no gold. Lots of other resources, but no actual gold...
@@Sines314 sure it does, many countries have gold in their currencies and you can exchange that for gems.
@@Sines314 oh and gold tickets and golden week
This feels very very much like he disregarded a casual playthrough where you don't know where all the secret shops or silver cards are. The beginning seemed to be casual friendly, although he didn't talk much about key items you could go around buying on like certain chapters. The closest we got was like, getting killer weapons from a certain shop and that was it. It really seems to focus on secret shops and silver cards as the end all be all when it came to economy and the gold aspect of a playthrough. I would have liked to have heard more about what a playthrough was like gold wise without these things factored in, nd then talk about these shops and items since they are still important.
Without the secrets, the whole series pretty much floods you with way too much gold to be relevant, at least past early game. There's not much to talk about.
Definitely an interesting discussion topic, and I agree with most of what you're saying.
But I do wonder if the fact that secret shops are well, secrets, removes a lot of the 'choice' aspect you mention with regards to them. Sure, an experienced player obviously knows where each secret shop is, but someone playing the game for the first time is unlikely to really stumble across one, considering a character with the member card NEEDS to step on just random tiles to enter them. As such, they don't really get to make those interesting decisions about money; instead whether or not their money management matters beyond killer weapons turns into a game of pure luck.
I feel like Secret Shops don't really lose anything if they're just made visible on the map. It doesn't have to be as obvious as regular shops are, maybe just defined cracks in the walls or small tents, but a new player is unlikely to ever find one (except maybe fe7's dragon gate?), and an experienced/guided player already knows where they all are, so what does the game actually lose from making this change?
I think it's fair to assume a blind player never sees a Secret Shop. But in a way that creates an interesting difference between a blind and a knowledgable player. For a blind player I think you just need the system not to be very complicated, with shops every 3-4 maps or so, and it'll be fine. The analysis focuses on non-blind players because, well, if you don't know a Silver card is coming up then there's no interesting dilemma in its shops beforehand, is there?
@@Mekkkah That's an interesting point, yeah. Obviously the more knowledge you have about the game's economy, the more interesting decisions you'll be able to make. If you have no knowledge, you'll just be making reactionary choices/prediction-based choices (as in, I'm assuming there'll be a good shop in the near future, so I shouldn't spend all my money now), which is always gonna be less deep. So the secret shops being visible or not really doesn't matter.
Alright, you've totally convinced me mekkah lol
i cant speak for all th games but at least some of them have little hints on th map abt th secret shops (and i think some of th houses would tell u abt their existence). i remember wen playing fe11 blind i was able to spot one or two, but th games definitely are/should b designed around th player not knowing them
It seems today I have really struck gold! A new scripted FE video from Mekkah!
In sacred stones You can access to the secret shop from the world map if ephraim por Erika (depends of what's route You picked previously) holds the member card.
Holy shit, a new Mekkah analysis video? Blessed upon us this fine day? LET'S FUCKING GO!
Great video Mekkah, very beginner friendly. Fantastic editing too.
Tbf to FE7, there's a bit of nuance in Dragon's Gate between buying Physics and Killer Weapons, as even with the Silver Card you can't really but a shitton of both. In fact, Physics are usually what I spend my gold on.
Yeah real talk long distances healing is probably more useful then needing a lot of overkill weapons in a game where good characters are 1RK with iron or steel.
-Hello good sir. I'd like to buy an Iron Sword and 30 Hand axes.
-That'll be 9360 g
-On second thought forget about the Iron Sword. I'm trying to do a ranked run here
The analysis kinda assume you already know what item do you want to buy in specific chapters especially secret shops and that always require guide.
In a base game guide are readily available so you can planned ahead in a hack rom game not so much because it's rare finding people playing it let alone someone making a guide.
Really interesting topic and I agree it doesn't get quite the discussion it warrants. I think a general "Resource Management" rather than specifically focussing on gold could also be very interesting, since its very apparent in some games that the weight of gold is much higher or lower compared to other resources available.
I was one of the lucky 7 people who got my hands on Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and all the extra stuff that came with it is pretty fun
It took me way too long to realize the Wario Land music is there because this video is about gold
Good! I'm happy there will be part 2! Good vod.
This was a really interesting video. Very excited for pt 2.
Appreciate the deep dive into specific FE mechanics. Hope to see more of this kind of content in the future on the other mechanics.
Fe 8 shops actually have variations in chapter vs on the world map. So you can actually miss out. For example ch 17 has reaver weapons available in the armory in the chapter but not in the world map.
A thing I dislike in Fire Emblem is weapon durability on the lowest tier of weapons. Sometimes, it's nice to just have the guarantee that you'll have a weapon that will last until the end of enemy phase.
I mean, you can absolutely plan to have an enemy phase weapon in your inventory before starting combat in very game in the series.
Just stick something with over 20 durability in your tanks inventory, and save it for when they'll need to bait/bottleneck a group of enemies.
Yeah I find 1-2 full iron weapons on some of the more intense/very slow maps are always a safe bet, while a varied toolkit of random garbage is great for the faster/strategically messy chapters
@@Anonymos185 Fair enough, but for the lowest tier of weapons, I would like to not have to care is what I'm saying. More out of laziness than anything, really.
play code of the burger king, it has infinite durability iron weapons (and fire/flux/lightning tomes)
Honestly having infinite bronze weapons would be nice. I use them when grinding in awakening
Fe4’s Lack of free trading really hurt that game for me. I’m the kind of player that does “deposit all” on the newer games and painstakingly rearrange all the gear before a chapter.
Minor thing on Thracia though maybe someone said already: Thieves need con higher than the weapon weight, not equal to or more - Lifis at 20 con can’t steal the Loptr Sword from Raydrik
These longer scripted videos are really great! I'm looking forward to more content like this
Hard guess but part two is going to mostly focus on forging weapons
paper mario music always appreciated
The more it gets brought up, the more I think people want an FE4 remaster and not a remake.
I'd be totally fine with that!
All i want is to see alvis' home video 'springtime barbecue 760'
With that nice new Sigurd model, too.
never thought discussing gold could be interesting but you made it so! great vid
I think the interesting view point in this video is from the perspective of someone who has a lot of knowledge about the game for example secret shop locations and desert item locations. Compared to someone who isn't looking up this knowledge isn't going to know they missed anything and therefore gold is different for them.
We didn't get to Path of Radiance but I remember people saying "ohh the game gives you so much gold" but when I play and not really knowing how the best way to forge weapons was that I'd lose so much of my money on two or three over inflated forged weapons.
Yeah the crazy amounts of gold seems to be so you can mess around with the forge system
Having visited the actual Gold and Silver pawn shop just last month made the joke at 11:00 so much funnier
Mekkah Spending over 1/5 of the video on Genealogy is awesome. Jugdral is My favorite Saga
FE4 inventory system doesn't get enough credit for what it does right and wrong. When most characters start as complete strangers to one another (as is the case in FE4), then this system is a great starting point. Problem is it never evolves and as the game progresses it feels wrong when friends and family members can't give each other spare weapon when needed. If they do remake it, i hope they do something like in Fates where you unlock additional reclassing options upon reaching A+ or S support. Here you could instead get more options when it comes to trading items or maybe rescuing if they added it in.
Support system is so underutilized and it has potential to be so much more than just avenue for getting your avatar laid with whoever you choose. You could give the player a very powerful character that is unwilling to trade items and maybe get penalties (like gaining no exp) when being near allies so killing enemies with him benefits that character alone and any valuable droppable items will be unavailable if he gets them. Maybe the only way to gain support with him initially is through your priest(ess) providing him with heals when he needs them and through this he eventually becomes more amicable with the rest of the army, unlocking trading options. You could then have powerful items being droppable early, unable to be used untill later, giving player something to look forward to. That's just one idea of how much potential FE4's system has that IS never experimented with.
I don't want Reclassing In FE4. I would like it if Holy blood characters can use their Weapon ranks regardless of class though (Edain being able to wield Iron Bows despite being a healer because she has Minor Ullr blood, Any Son of Claude can use the Valkyria staff, Even Lester, etc). I think free trade should be reserved to married couples only because it's stupid for one to sell it in the pawn shop just for the other to buy it (at half price if you gave them the gold).
Can you upload that pawn stars bit as a short? That things hilarious
IS THAT MISTER PLINKETT FANART? Icing on an already awesome video
It's a pretty old piece of art made by Sowen for my Plinkett Emblem video series, haha.
Will you finally address secret shop addiction?
that intro is so good!!
21:35
"And if you don't care about boots..."
I was expecting you to finish with "Well, first of all, how dare you"
The biggest lie of this video is that Azel can clear the arena.
Mekkah I feel like you should do the chapters feature on youtube for video essays like this, helps ppl are lot looling around
The only thing I would change about the way gold works in FE is allow units to sell things to each other
Spending money on items? Pitfall. Hoarding money? Pitfall. Using the arena to MAKE money? Ohhhho, you better BELIEVE that's a pitfall.
Simply put, you're ALWAYS playing Fire Emblem wrong lol
I started playing Conquest again which is more notorious for it's management of gold. If you play like me (usually on hard) and mostly use what the game drops you can beat the game that way, and if you really learn the game you may wind up mostly spending money on essentials +seals or weapons/staves like beastslayer/freeze that counter certain BS maps, and then blow it all at the end on whatever to beef up your guys to the max
I think the thing we need to account for is that early fire emblem is based on imperfect play. A lot of this gold stuff is quite different to a blind or casual player.
Fe 1,3,6,7 are based on the idea that most players are not going get all of the gold so playing well usually means being overloaded on funds.
This also changes fe4s gold economy as well because casuals are more likely to just use low gold investment units like the sword fighters or Jamake who also clear the Arena easy or just use Sigurd. The funny thing about 4 is that it is one of the few games where money is more of a concern if you are trying to play somewhat optimal versus casual since a lot of optimization requires a lot of gold. Just a really funny thing about the game.
The arena guy probably makes all of that 10x back on ticket sales.
Yeah I noticed FE1 wasn’t on the Eshop anymore even though I had it downloaded. It’s pretty bizarre, that should be the sorta game included in the Nintendo online membership shit.
I'm surprised there's no mention of ranking systems in FE6/FE7 where gold is a factor. If the player wants the maximum funds rank, they have to be conscious of both their excess gold and the value of all of their items and factor in whether they want to use them. For instance, the decision to recruit Farina or promote Dart can be very costly in a ranked run.
22:22 Pizza rolls are a secret item in FE7?
woooo yeah longform mekkah content
The FE1 arena entry fees actually overflow when wager exceeds 255.
FE5 introduced the battle preparations armoury I guess as a panic button to have access for iron weapons (at 1100 gold for iron axe and 2200 gold for the others).
For FE7 I find the interesting part of gold is the funds rank. While it is probably is not as as restrictive as it feels in my head it is an ever hanging presence influencing gameplay decisions. Still I found it weird hard mode has more lenient requirements despite the silver card existing there (which doubles your gold assets but makes any items you sell break even after silver card whereas before it's 50% funds rank assets lost). FE7 having no silver card in normal difficulty (outside of Mario Kart bonus disc items) feels like an accidental design choice (evidenced by the prototype builds having an enemy thief in Chapter 18E/19H drop it in normal difficulty, the torch staff in the final game is probably a better fit of generously give the player resources useful in a fog of war map).
As was hit upon in the video weapon access was one of the biggest factors for spending gold on a first playthrough as the franchise has a tendency to have drought periods of no shops (literal FOMO), abrupt cut-offs or red herrings (e.g. FE6 Chapter 23). Modern games tend to have more universal accessibility.
BTW Radd is unironically insane in fe1 I highly recommend having him spend his join chapter in the arena w a healer on stand by.
I wish this video came out after Engage, considering how that game handles your army's funding is super weird and oddly restrictive.
"I LOVE GOOOOOOLD"
I cannot wait until we get to the wonderful world of forging.
Hi Mekkah!
Who is more terrifying?
The FE1 convoy keeper or the FE11 arena keeper?
Killer Bow Janke Hype
I definitely think that conquest did gold management the best
Man I wish I could sell items in FE1. Never have enough gold to fully trick out the folks I wanna trick out! (Mainly because I have no stopping sense and want to trick out like half the cast)
It's definitely an interesting topic. Gold limiting your resources. Recently I've been playing the Vision Quest rom hack cause you turned me onto it with your streams. Getting gold in that game is a struggle(IMO), and a lot of the shop items have less durability than normal as well as inflated prices. You can tell that Pandan wanted that hack to be a thinker's game, but golly jee, it's pretty unenjoyable to me to get to a set of shops that sell A rank weapons of every type, but I can only afford maybe 2 A rank weapons (actually I managed a little bit more than that but still).
I think that, just as it isn't fun to have too much gold, it's also not fun having too little. Obviously designing a game around having to steal and scrape by puts more value on Thief type units, and if there's a narrative lean on it, then it's great, but... It's a pretty awful feeling to enter a secret shop and not have enough money for anything special.
Theres a game missing
This makes me wish that Anna's Secret Shop in 3H sold unlimited stat boosters. It's late game content and they literally gave characters lvl 99/Max stat quotes, so it wouldn't be that OP.
can't wait to talk about DSFE, FE12 probably has the most interesting gold management, it gives you so much to spend on. Also has the very funny silver card turning into a vulnerary on lunatic/lunatic reverse
Lmao, I never even realized that using the convoy in FE1 cost money. That is how inconsequential it it.
Would you be able to do a similar series on Experience?
As someone who has played through all of FE4, I had no idea that churches and castles cost gold to heal
Ah yes, the wing spear forge fund
the money aspect of fe4 is the only fun part of that game imo
All of my gold goes to Anna. It’s not intentional, she took it all while I was sleeping.
Damn, what a cool intro
Farina = wife.
Also, me who has Rupoors as the currency instead of gold in my own FE GBA game project:
It’s funny how in some games I always have a lot of gold and in others like Radiant Dawn I’m always broke