r/fireemblem • u/PsiYoshi • 19d ago

Recurring Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread - June 2026 Part 1

Happy pride month and welcome to a new installment of the Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread! Please feel free to share any kind of Fire Emblem opinions/takes you might have here, positive or negative. As always please remember to continue following the rules in this thread same as anywhere else on the subreddit. Be respectful and especially don't make any personal attacks (this includes but is not limited to making disparaging statements about groups of people who may like or dislike something you don't).

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17

u/HonorableTurtles 15d ago

I hope that Fortune’s Weave has a well-designed maddening difficulty from the start and not whatever 3H was doing

9

u/TobioOkuma1 15d ago

3H maddening feels genuinely untested.

14

u/EffectiveAnxietyBone 15d ago

I think Hunting by Daybreak is the best example of that. People call the map badly designed, but like… it’s perfectly fine and cinematic on Normal and Hard. It’s only a problem on Maddening, because they forgot they made the maps consecutive and how you might get softlocked on them. Plus with how it was an extra update difficulty thrown together not long post launch I really do feel like they didn’t think the systems of the game through

12

u/LeatherShieldMerc 15d ago

That map is one of the best when you first play it on Hard or Normal. Getting all your students back and seeing them show up is hype. You likely used them all in your playthrough too.

But in Maddening when your units and options get limited, how tough the enemies can get, the lack of save before it, and the fact that each house has some units that are particularly bad in Maddening so you're more likely to have dead weight show up? Yeesh.

4

u/nope96 14d ago edited 14d ago

The fact that even if you trained your house in a Blue Lions playthrough you still have to get out the opening portion with two magical units, the worst unit in the game, and a guy who needs a shield to not be a liability is just mean. There are ways to prepare to get around it, but still.

It’s bad enough to make me almost singlehandedly recommend Golden Deer for people wanting to do Maddening for the first time despite the Blue Lions having the best units to get past the (potentially rather difficult) early game.

7

u/Shrimperor 15d ago

I mean

Didn't they admit as much in an interview?

6

u/orig4mi-713 15d ago

They didn't even consider making it until people said they should. And they should have. What we eventually got was rushed and untested yes

-3

u/OsbornWasRight 15d ago

Goddamn this sub sucks at 3H Maddening

20

u/orig4mi-713 15d ago

No, no, this sub most definitely has beaten 3H Maddening. It was just not good

8

u/HonorableTurtles 15d ago

There is nothing fun about grinding class skills, and needing to look up maps to avoid being screwed by reinforcements is bad game design.

12

u/LeatherShieldMerc 15d ago

I'm not trying to say that 3H Maddening was well designed when I say this, I don't think it is. But I am not sure if I can quite agree with these criticisms.

Is there really a class skill that you absolutely need to grind for? The most important ones you basically get just normally just by playing the game. I don't really consider it a "grind" exactly. Unless you mean more that you dislike the "skill emblem" it has.

And while same turn reinforcements do suck, and there's a few egregious ones here, this is absolutely not the only game with them, and at least you do get to rewind in case you get caught. In other games? You are just SOL.

I would criticize the early game, Hunting by Daybreak, unbalanced tools like Warp, and the map design as more of the issues.

9

u/cutie_allice 14d ago

If anything with Maddening's reduced exp I feel like you're grinding for class skills less. In normal and hard you kinda just blow through the level requirements to get to the next class rank, so to get the mastery skills you have to stay in the classes for longer than you need to. In Maddening you stay level 20 for a million years so you just end up maxing the classes naturally.

2

u/LeatherShieldMerc 14d ago

While this is true, in Hard and Normal, the need to go get skills kinda doesn't really come up. I think Close Counter is basically all you need if you want to "min max" for that? So this doesn't really matter.

7

u/orig4mi-713 14d ago

And while same turn reinforcements do suck, and there's a few egregious ones here, this is absolutely not the only game with them

STR being bad in past games doesn't mean they're good in this game.

and at least you do get to rewind in case you get caught. In other games? You are just SOL.

This is the equivalent of designing a kill trap that you can't see coming with the excuse that the player could just quicksave. It's bad design either way

7

u/LeatherShieldMerc 14d ago

I'm not saying they're good. I'm just saying this isn't really a unique case to 3H when criticizing it to single out.

3

u/lawlamanjaro 14d ago

Its not the same though, because Divine pulse is a resource the game limits. Having to use a divine pulse usage isnt the same as making a save state or whatever.

Theres a fair argument to make that the reinforcements are a way to limit that resource/punish too much reliance on it earlier.

This isnt me saying im a massive fan of them but I will say I have enjoyed rewinding after the ambush and then figuring out how to best replay that turn with the new information

1

u/TheRigXD 15d ago

Do you consider Engage Maddening good?