In Fire Emblem: Fates, you can make it so that if you lose one of your characters in battle, they’re gone for good. You can also make it so that’s not the case, and they return in the next chapter.
I’m curious how those of you who are playing are approaching that question. Since I’d imagine it makes a difference whether you’re playing Birthright or the comparatively more difficult Conquest, I’ve done two polls. I know there are two non-permadeath difficulty options, but for this poll, I really only care if you have it on or off.
Are you a permadeather? Or do you choose one of the gentler options? Let’s see how it breaks down.
Comments
18 responses to “Fire Emblem Players: Permadeath Or No Permadeath?”
Permadeath, but you reset your game if someone dies, Obviously.
It didn’t happen 🙂
Obviously.
Permadeath is a very refreshing way to play a game.
For me it’ll be:
Birthright – No Permadeath
Conquest – No Permadeath
Revelation – Permadeath
I actually tried the permadeath (but with resets) option back in the day during my time with Path of Radiance, the first FE I ever played.
Now, there were some characters I ended up ‘leaving behind’ regardless, and soldiered on. However, the game broke my heart in a different way. Maybe FE experts can help me on this but I didn’t upgrade the protaganist with a certain skill at some point (Aether) so now I’m in the late-game duel with the Black Knight, and I can’t beat him 🙁
yeah, reload buddy, reload.
Black knight it brutal.
amazing game to come in to the series with too. Ike is a boss.
the sequel was pretty good too.
but Path of Radiance is easily my favourite FE game.
Ugh, it’s a ten year old save game on my Gamecube memory card, I was quite distraught while reading about my error in judgement. Well, errors. So much so I even looked at Action Replay discs to cheat my way past. I’m not going to blame the game, but geez I am not sure I’m entirely at fault. I had no idea what to do with that skill when I got it nor if it was going to be required hours on. I never played Radiant Dawn, though I wish I could.
Was it you who helped me with Awakening recently or was that someone else? I want to try and finish at least one of these games I’ve already bought before Fates.
hmmm, dont think i helped with Awakening. ive normally got a shocking memory for game tactics.
Aether is a brutal skill to have on heroes, i always equip it.
http://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Aether
anyway, good luck. if you are in to emulation, i know you can get Radiant Dawn working on PC.
Vandal Hearts had perma death and played that before FF Tactics or Disgaea and did not realise the other two games brought the characters back to life at next level. Many, many re-starts for me.
I’d use permadeath if it were more like XCOM or Final Fantasy Tactics where you can recruit more characters with the disadvantage that they are less experienced. Resetting after each death, or getting to the final chapters and finding you just can’t finish the game with your current character pool isn’t what I call fun. The most hardcore I’m willing to go is managing the XP gains of each unit in Conquest.
Yeah I feel permadeath would make me reset my DS too much. I fully approve of the idea and I think I’d love to try it one day. But these days I’m lucky to find 30-60mins a day to play so I don’t want to spend that time feeling like shit.
Being an adult has made me so fucking casual :*(
I think I would like to try out Birthright on Permadeath and see how I go. I’m told you can adjust that setting later in the game if you want.
As Conquest is meant to be absolutely brutal I want to force myself to become more strategic and tactical (but I probably won’t turn permadeath on for Conquest).
I think Conquest is better with Permadesth because it’s the classic Fire Emblem experience with limited resources. Birthright on the other hand has near unlimited resources with grinding available, so losing a character can essentially be replaced in a mechanical sense just by grinding out one of your reserves. I think Birthright with its more casual nature might be better without Permadeath tbh.
And SPOILERS (Birthright til chapter 16)
Birthright has a storyline character death anyway (unless you get the character’s support up to A or more with the main) that fills the role of loss in the game.
No permadeath for me, i’m not great at tactical games and i get very attached to characters easily.
That and also the fact that if i lose someone i feel i miss out on their story, and who knows if you just lost someone who could have turned out to be your favorite character.
I have permadeath on… but it doesnt seem so permanent on way too many of the characters so far (im not very far in and very bad at this game ^^)
I used to play fire emblem for the permadeath, but i just dont have time to fuck around anymore.. i just want to get through the story
I’ll probably play them both through once on Non-Perm and then if they are worth the second playthrough (which is looking likely at this stage) then I’ll switch to Perm.
BTW, why do we need to call it Permadeath and non-Permadeath? Shouldnt it be Death and Downed or something considering that Permadeath is actually, you know, death, and non-permadeath is just a long way of saying they aren’t dead…