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Pajderman said:
I can sort of agree with this. The later games have introduced more layers to the strategy with additional elements to tweek in order to win. I do however feel like those elements have taken more of a backseat role, it is not in focus. It maybe never was in focus but the modern games to me does not feel like strategy games with relationship elements it feels like relationship games with strategic elements. When it comes to the difficulty I got to say that I might be a bit wrong because I never played long enough in the latest games to experience the more difficult parts. Most people like options but for me being able to turn off permadeath at all killed the DNA of what I liked about fire emblem. Designed with an option in mind.
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I recommend playing them on higher difficult settings, they are so hard that I actually wished they were less hard because it has a clear lack of balance between "Hard" and "Maniac/Lunatic/Maddening". Some games are way too easy on hard (Awakening, Three Houses) but become extremely hard in their Lunatic and Maddening versions, the difficulty spark is stark and they are clearly not balanced with Maddening in mind. They were designed with Hard Mode in mind
I think Engage is the only game with a balanced Maddening I think, there is a difficult spike of course and the game is really brutal on Maddening (more so than 3 Houses even), but I feel Hard make an okay job preparing you for it. Next games should follow Engage in that regard
The games design Philosophy around Permadeath was always variable. But even new games absolutely design the maps around permadeath, that's why it's an optional feature implemented in Fates for people who only wanted to play for the story, it's simply the norm for JRPGs to have an "story mode" now
The first games and to some extent Thracia expect you to sacrifice your party. This was acceptable because enemy quality was low, growths were smaller (and in Thracia caps were low too) and many characters were interchangeable, they could easily replace others. Engage follows this, as your early game units are so weak you can let them get killed without major consequences. And the game never stops throwing you workable prepromoted units to save your ass even in the late game (Rosado, Goldmarry, Saphir, Lindon, Mauvie, Veyle, etc) and reclassing system allows you to turn units in useful replacements
I never played Gaiden, but assuming Echoes was a faithful remake the Philosophy was a bit different. With fatigue system and parties that were split between Alm and Celica the game expect you to save as many units as you can, hence the turn wheel was implemented in Echoes to avoid players having to reset so many times. It was a good addition for a game that need it. Three Houses is equal to Gaiden/Echoes, small cast (per house), villager-class starting party that needs train and also and larger class system progression. This all means you need to save your units to not soft lock yourself
Awakening and Fates follow Jugdral Philosophy of pairing characters to have better second generation characters. The game expect you to let the parents die as long you have children replacement and encourage you to keep the parents alive at least enough to make them have offspring
So as you can see even modern games clearly ascribe to very early games Philosophy. I think the perception of them being a bit different is because in west almost everybody started with FE7 games, and games that followed FE7 (Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance) are so easy with enemy quality so low that players got a bad impression FE was about sacrificing your units to progress the maps, as you always will have great units and enemies will always be so weak that you don't care to invest specific units to carry your playtrough.
It's no surprise Radiant Dawn was so badly received, with people addressing bad balancing (as many units having shit availability) and overall unfair difficulty in some stages. It's because Radiant Dawn wants you to SAVE your units, without saying you so, so people who played this like they played FE7, 8 and 9 will scratch their heads and don't understand what they did wrong
Didn't recruit Haar? Let Marcis, Leane, or Lucia died? Sacrificed your cavalry in Geoffreys Charge (part 2 fourth map) then Good lucky to play Elincia's Gambit (part 2 final map)...
