If you're that much into strategy I wouldn't tranfer the PoR data, because it will make the game easier, since all maxed characters gain stats.

I'll do that on my second playthrough.

I do think criticals are fun though.  During my 1st playthrough, I went up against an enemy who attacked my character and got a critical hit.  My immediate thoughts were along the lines of "You jerk, you almost killed him!"  Of course, on the counter attack, my character gets a critical and kills the enemy.  What made it doubly amazing was that both characters had about 2% chance of scoring critical hits (neither had Crit+ skills either).

Quite funny. 

Well, that's pretty much the response I was expecting. I've seen this on many other message boards: anyone who dares to criticize any of the gameplay elements in Fire Emblem gets labeled with the "your tactics suck" label. Thanks to Words of Wisdom and Benga Benga for intelligent responses. (ookaze, please explain to me how losing a unit to a critical hit at 1% or 2% means "this is a case of your tactics sucking really"?)

For the record, I'm damned good at the Fire Emblem games. (How many of you have actually played the Japanese FE games? I have.) I'm halfway through Hard mode in Radiant Dawn, and had to replay levels about four or five times so far. I've had to do LESS replaying on Hard than Normal, because on this second time around I know where the enemy reinforcements are going to appear, I know which characters/supports to build, and I know where the enemies are located on the night maps. My point though is that Radiant Dawn is as much about memorizing the scripted events as it is about forming a tactical plan for victory, and there's really no need for it to be that way. Some very simple tweaks to the gameplay would remove many of the most tedious and frustrating elements.

As I said, I really like this series. But it has its flaws, major flaws too.

Oooh me, me! That's why I found the True Hit article so interesting. It really does explain a lot.

As for the flaws... agree to disagree? ^_^

I am playing Fire Emblem 3 (1+2) for the Snes right now. All that I can say is that Math sucks and Jeigan and Machis are like some kind of developer`s joke.

Never got past Chapter 2. The game is rape in a bottle. It's tough!

I have finished Fire Emblem, Sacred Stones, and Path of Radiance though.

I just didn't want to muster up another 60 hours of my life to play Radiant Dawn ;)

One correction to your awesome description..........there are bows that can attack enemies in adjacent squares (crossbow and bowgun I think).

Yep.  Crossbow, bowgun, Taksh, Aqqar, and Arberlest all let you attack adjacent enemies but they're not particularly useful since they don't let you apply strength to the damage.  The Double Bow, on the other hand, not only has a 1~2 range but also gives you +3 Strength for extra damage.

Man, I haven't even come into contact with the last 4 weapons yet.  Do they still attack regularly from 2 squaes away, or is strength gone for all attacks?

All strength is gone.  I dislike the xbow line of weapons.  They're never useful unless you have nothing else at your disposal and even then they can barely penetrate defense (if at all).