Poll of the Day > Should I play FE Awakening with permadeath on or off?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Background: I've never played a FE game before.

On. Don't be a bitch.
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Tropic_Sunset posted...

On. Don't be a bitch.

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I don't want to be a bitch...

It won't make much of a difference on normal difficulty. The game is not very hard.

Off.

No reason to turn it on since all that does is just make you have to restart the mission if you happen to get screwed by one of the reinforcements.

Veedrock- posted...

Tropic_Sunset posted...

On. Don't be a bitch.

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Dead even

The game's piss easy either way but I chose on for the ideal fire emblem experience
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That kinda depends what kinda person you are, are you okay with some of your army members possibly dying permanently? Or would you be the type to save scum/restart the mission if they die in battle?
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If you play with it off you can just zerg every level.
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BlackScythe0 posted...

No reason to turn it on since all that does is just make you have to restart the mission if you happen to get screwed by one of the reinforcements.

Resetting in FE whenever someone dies is objectively the wrong way to play it.
Sorry not sorry.
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Lightning Bolt posted...

BlackScythe0 posted...

No reason to turn it on since all that does is just make you have to restart the mission if you happen to get screwed by one of the reinforcements.

Resetting in FE whenever someone dies is objectively the wrong way to play it.
Sorry not sorry.

Being able to shrug off your mistakes is the wrong way to play FE. It's a strategy game. Your poor strategies shouldn't be taken so lightly.
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My poor strategies? I play with permadeath though. I'm gud!
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Lightning Bolt posted...

My poor strategies? I play with permadeath though. I'm gud!

Well when you lose someone its generally because of a poor strategy lol.

Though, i'm not sure that in fates its possible to get through the game if you keep pressing on after losing people. That game is truly brutal.
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It's a tough decision.

No permadeath means the optimal strategy is pretty much to always run in guns blazing.

But permadeath is also annoying and will probably just cause you to restart the mission. Getting one hit KO'd by a critical hit that only had a 3% chance of activating is beyond frustrating.
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The people have spoken. On it is.

Definitely off

Because I'd waste time resetting after deaths anyways

Losing characters for good is dumb and leaving it off enables me to actually play the game instead of never progressing because I'm not good enough and characters keep dyimg
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Never played a fire emblem game

What happens if your whole team of dudes die?
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Mead posted...

Never played a fire emblem game

What happens if your whole team of dudes die?

as long as the two main characters are alive the game will continue

When I first played Awakening, by the time I got to chapter 6 I only had Robin, Chrom, and Freddy.
That's when I realized they weren't coming back and started the whole game over :\
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I feel like I'm thinking this choice over too much. I was gonna start the game last night. Still haven't.

You got your answer. Go play the game!
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I will!

...When I get off work tonight

Off. Nothing sucks more than losing a character to a 2% critical.

Off, But that's what I would do, I wouldn't want to lose a character I either spent so much time making strong, or a character I got attached to, because of some BS game mechanic....
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You leave it on if you want to actually play a strategy game. If you just want to play the dating sim crap and mindlessly blitz through everything then turn it off.
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On.

It's Fire Emblem.
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Tropic_Sunset posted...

On. Don't be a bitch.

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Off, but kick the difficulty up to Lunaric. With permadeath on, you're bound to lose your favorite character at some point, and you WILL reset to keep them alive. It'll inevitably happen. It's up to you whether or not you find the prospect of repeating maps until you get lucky fun. This ain't FFT, where you're given a grace period to revive fallen units. They die to a bullshit critical or reinforcement, they're gone.

If you're starting and aren't sure, go without permadeath just so you get used to the game and mechanics. Then, if you want more challenges, start a newgame with permadeath.

chaosbowser posted...

Lightning Bolt posted...

BlackScythe0 posted...

No reason to turn it on since all that does is just make you have to restart the mission if you happen to get screwed by one of the reinforcements.

Resetting in FE whenever someone dies is objectively the wrong way to play it.
Sorry not sorry.

Being able to shrug off your mistakes is the wrong way to play FE. It's a strategy game. Your poor strategies shouldn't be taken so lightly.

What poor strategies?

This is a game where reinforcements will appear, sometimes at really bad places, that you have no knowledge are coming unless you've done that level before.

It's more fun with it on, otherwise you don't feel the heat or real strategy of what makes Fire Emblem Fire Emblem

Raganork10 posted...

They die to a bullshit critical or reinforcement, they're gone.

I once lost my strongest units to guy who had a %13 crit chance and a %60 hit chance

shit happens :/
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Perma-death forces you to think more carefully about every move you make, as any good strayegy game should. Otherwise you could just brute force your way through every battle. You could probably beat the game with auto battle this way.

I suspect you'll find it too easy with permadeath off. That said, it might make more sense from a story perspective to leave permadeath off, since PCs who "die" seem to walk and fight just fine in later cut scenes, and sometimes when you "kill" a named NPC in a stage, the next cut scene shows a character pointing a weapon at the NPC and saying something like, "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you!" >_>

I know at least in Fates it's implied at various points that the protagonists never actually kill most/any of their foes, and only incapacitate them.

I don't know if that's a censorship thing or not.
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On.

The game is really easy (assuming you're playing on normal difficulty) even without Permadeath and it's balanced on the assumption that you're playing to try not to get anyone killed. Even as a newcomer, you shouldn't have too much difficulty with permadeath on.
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Not starting tonight. I am sick.

SkynyrdRocker posted...

Not starting tonight. I am sick.

Tropic_Sunset posted...

Don't be a bitch.

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Tropic_Sunset posted...

SkynyrdRocker posted...

Not starting tonight. I am sick.

Tropic_Sunset posted...

Don't be a bitch.

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Off, IMO. You can turn it back on in a second playthrough if you really want to see why they added the option to turn it off. ... Yes, I'm aware that there are hardcore fans who think that it's not really Fire Emblem without permadeath. I, on the other hand, don't really have enough free time to restart long-ass chapters after losing somebody.
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Permadeath is a staple of the FE series.

....But most people just reload anyways.

With that said, I can't imagine playing FE without it.
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On. We must all suffer the 1%hit/1%crit curse. It is... destiny.

Okay, in all seriousness, it does matter but not how you think. You see, if you play with it on you'll end up caring a LOT about each character and doing your best to make sure that they're alive and everything, only to inevitably lose one to some stupid critical and either end up resetting or moving on with a hole in your team. While the latter is supposed to be what you are 'supposed' to do, the number of people that actually DO it is roughly akin to the number of teens who read the Swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated 'for the articles'.

If you play with it OFF, however, your strategies will drastically change as you will likely throw caution to the wind and haphazardly deploy units in strategies and ways you'd never even consider if perma-death was on. Sure, you won't throw your DS through a window when some lucky SoaB pulls off a seemingly impossible 1% crit for JUST enough to kill your favorite unit but you'll also do stuff like leave mages more exposed and be perfectly willing to lose a few guys to take down a tough foe instead of finding ways to carefully handle/work around them.

Neither is superior or inferior. One is better for tactical experience the other is better if you don't want to end up screaming at your DS because you decided to get just ONE more kill and now your favorite character is pushing up daisies while their loved ones weep over the corpse and curse whatever fool of a tactician decided that 'eh. A 1% hit/crit chance would NEVER happen!'
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SkynyrdRocker posted...

Not starting tonight. I am sick.

Jeez man. I started FE: Radiant Dawn because of this topic (holy balls this game is hard).
You need to get to work before I straight up lap you.
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Unbridled9 posted...

only to inevitably lose one to some stupid critical and either end up resetting or moving on with a hole in your team. While the latter is supposed to be what you are 'supposed' to do,

Did anything "official" actually imply this? Like a manual or something? I remember that the manual for the NES light gun game Wild Gunman said it was considered cheating to draw your gun before the game said "Fire!", not that there was anything stopping you.

Unbridled9 posted...

If you play with it OFF, however, your strategies will drastically change as you will likely throw caution to the wind and haphazardly deploy units in strategies and ways you'd never even consider if perma-death was on. Sure, you won't throw your DS through a window when some lucky SoaB pulls off a seemingly impossible 1% crit for JUST enough to kill your favorite unit but you'll also do stuff like leave mages more exposed and be perfectly willing to lose a few guys to take down a tough foe instead of finding ways to carefully handle/work around them.

Why aren't you playing Disgaea?

In my opinion, it's purely up to you. Ignore those who say you're a bitch for not playing it with it on, as they're not the one's you're trying to satisfy by playing, you're trying to satisfy yourself. I personally play with it off because I want to get the whole story and don't have the time to dedicate to really mastering it like I did when I was in middle school and beat FE Radiant Dawn (my first Fire Emblem game that I got for Christmas). I beat that game several times just trying to memorize everything so I could get through the game with no casualties, and at the time, I enjoyed it. Now as an adult, I have other responsibilities and can only enjoy something like that when I have an extended break, otherwise, it's just frustrating for me. Also, one note about Radiant Dawn, it is artificially the most difficult fire emblem game in the world (at least the English version is) due to a translation error. What they put as easy is supposed to be the normal while normal is supposed to be the hard, so if you play it on normal (like I did) you're in for a much more difficult time than the rest of the world on normal.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Unbridled9 posted...

If you play with it OFF, however, your strategies will drastically change as you will likely throw caution to the wind and haphazardly deploy units in strategies and ways you'd never even consider if perma-death was on. Sure, you won't throw your DS through a window when some lucky SoaB pulls off a seemingly impossible 1% crit for JUST enough to kill your favorite unit but you'll also do stuff like leave mages more exposed and be perfectly willing to lose a few guys to take down a tough foe instead of finding ways to carefully handle/work around them.

Why aren't you playing Disgaea?

Who says I don't? I can play more than one series.
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It's really up to you. If you've never played an FE game before, I suggest off, unless you're really into punishing turn based tacticals.

If you're not prepared for the FE permadeath experience it can get frustrating pretty fast as you keep resetting because you made a mistake or lost against the RNG.
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I love how everyone is saying permadeath requires a strategy when you can beat almost every game with one unit.
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EvilMegas posted...

I love how everyone is saying permadeath requires a strategy when you can beat almost every game with one unit.

Well... Sort of. You see, when you use only one unit all your resources end up going to said unit. This means all the EXP, weapons, stat-ups, and the like going to one unit. So if you had, say, two talismans (+2 RES) that means the unit would get +4 RES. Put that across the board and of course you're gonna have a powerhouse. Assuming 2 stat-ups per stat per game that's +14 HP, +4 STR, MAG, SKL, SPD, Luck, DEF, and RES not to mention +2 movement. Since you have all the gold and items going to said unit they're going to always have the best gear, skills (in some games), and BEXP. So of COURSE it's going to be powerful. While the early game might be a hump at first the unit would eventually snowball into super-power status.

Thing is, that doesn't last. Be it because they hit 20/20 (or 20/20/20 depending on the game) or because they hit their stat-caps they'll eventually stop growing. If you aren't RNG abusing it can get worse if the unit gets unlucky in its level-ups resulting in a unit that's mediocre. If they use a weapon type that lacks 1-2 range (or, God forbid, an archer) they can have it even harder. Eventually, even boasting max stats and so-forth, they will start to struggle. Nevermind that they'll never be as efficient as a fully functioning team. Heaven forbid this super unit isn't your lord which would make a lot of chapters souped up escort missions. You'd likely miss out on a lot of characters as well and may not even get all the stat-ups. Not to mention that supports can really make or break certain units.

So, while certain units (especially lords) *could* solo the game, it's a pretty bad strategy that will eventually put you in a struggle once the enemy levels catch up to yours. Not to mention that the final boss could probably wreck you. I love Mia but there is no reasonable way she could beat Asheruna solo. She'd need healing at the LEAST, but then that wouldn't be a solo.
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