Why Ironmans Are Fun!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ม.ค. 2024
- Ironmans are one of the classic Fire Emblem Challenge runs, and one of my favorites to play. I talk about why I like Ironman runs, how they influence gameplay and storytelling, and what games I recommend for your first ironman.
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You May Call Me Marth - Lolo
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"To this day, historians look back and question how these incomprehensible strategies ever led to victory."
The first 30 seconds of this was a true emotional rollercoaster of "wait now how did you get Duessel killed so quickly" to "oh it's Forde, that explains that"
Im too attached to my units so i cant ironman
Try ironmanning a game you've never played, bonus points if it's one of the older FE games where you were lucky if your characterization was more than 5 words across the entire game
@@nicocchi I will try to do that
I honestly thought that doing a game I’ve completed with all of my units alive on another file helped me cope with perma death
Same
@nicocchi funny bc I'm the opposite, I always want my first playthrough of a FE to be no death bc I don't want to miss out on supports or make the first playthrough extra hard with unit deaths. And then after I've seen the entire story once I'll do ironmans bc I'll feel like I'm not missing out on anything/tainting my first run lol, not saying it's better or anything though just interesting to see the opposite perspective!
My FE Conquest Ironman led to the most memorable experience I've had with the series. As I started the invasion of Hoshido, I found my run suddenly possessed by an evil Hoshidan curse. First Elise got assassinated via an unforeseen use of Pass in the Ninja Tunnel, then Xander got taken out due to me underestimating some Armor Knights in the fight against Zola, and Camilla got overwhelmed by the Kitsunes. When we reached Fuga's wind tunnel, I was determined to break the chain, as it almost seemed scripted how the Nohrian royals were getting taken out one chapter at a time, right before we reach the Eternal Stairway. Sure enough, after taking out every unit on the map except Fuga and his bodyguards with zero casualties, I got caught off-guard by his final trick of the maids lunge-chaining a unit right to Fuga, and it just so happened to be Leo. Fuga was able to both double and one-shot Leo, so I immediately lost all hope in saving him. Luckily, the attack from the maid gave Leo a guaranteed block from the first hit thanks to Guard Stance, so he'd at least be able to deal one last attack as a parting gift. Leo then proceeded to roll a 6% crit, one-shot Fuga before the second attack could connect, and pose dramatically while saying "failure is no option."
I've never much cared for the Conquest storyline, but the new narrative of my siblings being fated to die as a consequence for our war against Hoshido only for Leo to survive thanks to the mercy of a Hoshidan (Kaze) saving him from certain death elevated it to a new level. Factor in that it was a single continuous storyline with no resets or do-overs, and it became the most satisfying narrative experience I've had with a Fire Emblem game. Leo and I proceeded to storm Hoshido and demolish their forces. I was able to leverage my remaining troops to take out the enemies with minimal casualties. And then, on the final chapter the run came to an abrupt end due to Corrin being taken out, as I've never been able to beat that map on my first try. Though it was an unfortunate loss, it was an oddly satisfying one. The curse eventually came for Corrin, and the rivalry between Leo and Takumi finally came to a head. How fitting it was that the final two royals to square off in the throne room were the two younger brothers who cheated death. My headcanon is that the spirit of the curse left Takumi after eliminating his final target, leaving Leo as the only living Nohrian royal to work with Hinoka and Sakura to establish some semblance of a brighter future.
It's an extremely bittersweet ending, but it manages to avoid being a shaggy dog story due to how it all played out. All the main villains were defeated, and peace was restored at great personal cost. The protagonist not living to see that peace gave it that extra bite that you don't really get in a Fire Emblem game. It felt more fitting to the Conquest route than the canonical ending, and the Ironman ruleset definitely played a crucial role. Great stuff.
That really is a great story! My memory of fates is a bit fuzzy though so I have to ask, do the other royals in fates actually die when they die? Or do they do the "damn, I've been defeated. But I can't fall here, I must retreat" shtick that some of the important non lord playable characters do when they die to justify them still showing up in later cutscenes?
@@zannax351 Yes, they do all "I'm sorry I must retreat" on me, since they still have to participate in the cutscenes. I did have to ignore that for the narrative I was constructing, but luckily I already knew the story from previous playthroughs and could skip it.
My Awakening soft-ironman on my blind playthrough resulted in a side story about Vaike becoming Kratos that was more interesting than the main story.
>Joins the local hobby-guard squad
>Becomes one of the better fighters, and friends with the prince of all people
>Starts a relationship with his sister
>His love dies before getting married :(
>Becomes depressed, starts falling behind in battle
>Meets another princess from a distant country, with some axe skills and a wyvern pet to boot!
>Gets pumped up with steroids... er, trains hard to get back on track
>Once again becomes a good unit, and finally manages to get married
>His wife dies the day after, as the army is escaping from a castle and siege tomes, he barely escapes himself
>As he almost spirals into more depression, he finds and rescues his son from, er, alternate world (pretend that Cherche's dead, alright?)
>Joins together with him and fights alongside his son, the only thing left of his wife and his hope for living, to save the world
(All while putting on a smile to boost morale, by being the local clown! What a champ!)
Also, my general best experience was my Shadow Dragon blind ironman, but not for story reasons, at least not regarding specific characters - only Caeda dying and getting resurrected before the ending.
This one was for gameplay. You know the story of how chess was created, and the Emperor/King learning that he sometimes needs to sacrifice to save someone else? That's precisely what happened when Ogma was about to die early, and I eventually realised the only option was body blocking with one of the weak axe bros you get earlier. It quite literally changed how I played Fire Emblem since then, being more open to moving on rather than resetting, even if I'm not ironmanning completely.
I also managed to make it to the penultimate chapter with no resets, Until Marth got killed because the stat screen lied about dragon stats. I then save scummed to beat the last chapter, and had something like 15/55 people left alive by the end. It was tragic yet hilarious.
Love to see someone praising Engage for being a good Ironman game.
Especially since character deaths have impact afterwards, all the related units will mourn a death of a friend or loved one
A note: Awakening's reason for adding the parallel worlds lore is to just really hammer in that everything that happens in YOUR run is as canon as the main story. Tragedy and triumph naturally rise out of a no reset run, and overlooked characters can suddenly shine in a new light for your run when they can suddenly what your usuals just can't. Honestly I've reached a point where doing reset runs creates a tiring and unrewarding cycle that burns me out, I basically only iron man now. It makes its own story, it's great
As someone who doesn't play FE a ton, I started playing FE6 for the first time recently, and I thought I'd do it in a soft Iron Man. I knew you got a lot of units, and that there were some punishing maps that would be a big pain to have to reset. If anything, I think not having to worry about resets has made this one of my favorite FE playthroughs in recent memory. I've lost some important units along the way, like Lance and Shanna, but it's just made me think outside the box, and - I think - get better at Fire Emblem.
I've been streaming it to my friends in Discord as well, and the bit about making up your own storylines rings very true. There was a point where Lot and Wade had to keep a bunch of ambushes from getting through a chokepoint, and my friends were cheering intently for the axe bros, and felt genuinely bad when Wade didn't make it. In another map, I had set up my units poorly against one boss, and we were absolutely sure someone was going to die, but Allen ended up getting a lucky dodge and a lucky crit on Enemy Phase, and now my friends regale Allen as this gigachad despite never seeing a single of his Support Convos. It's super fun.
When I first played FE, I started with 7, and I just accepted the game at face value since I was like 11 and had no clue what FE even was. My first experience with the game was a soft iron man. Every single character besides the lords died and I still managed to finish the game, albeit with some difficulty 😅
The next playthrough I did, I told myself that I was going to do better and not let my army get killed like before, and I had FAR less casualties. Soft iron manning it actually made me a BETTER play overall, because it allowed me to make mistakes and learn from it in a more meaningful way.
Resetting whenever you lose a unit is kind of like removing the consequences of your mistakes, and I feel that makes it more difficult to learn from them, because you don't have any reason to - "if I mess up, I can always just reset the chapter".
In terms of ironmanning FE1, there's also the different enemy AI to consider. Being the first game in the series, it doesn't have the enemies try to inflict maximum casualties, but instead has them attack Marth whenever possible. This may be a boon as it allows Marth's quality as a combat unit to carry enemy phases that in other games would result in unit deaths.
doesn't seem to be 100% true. had some horse archers kill my Sheeda instead of attacking mars who was literally just standing in front of them :/
There are exceptions to the rule, clearly. If they can't attack Marth, or if the enemy somehow sees an incredibly effective engagement with the rudimentary FE1 AI, then they will actually attack other units. I reckon that horseman just saw "hey look, he's got a flier, i have a bow, *I CAN MATH*" and went "pew pew your majesty, your waifu now have no laifu".
The new AI is actually super annoying because they just suicide their units into yours with the sole purpose of inflicting one (1) casualty. It feels like the developers are saying "we know you're gonna reset, pussy". They do it for the increased time to beat and it's annoyjng.
I usualy call them on their pathetic bluff and I trivialize half of their maps by sacrificing a unit. No way I'm spending 10 hours resetting their map lmao learn to level design
Can confirm (it fulfills my masochism)
Real talk, I like the stakes that it provides. A Game Over actually feels impactful, and I find character deaths add a certain uniqueness to playthroughs.
You are the truest masochist among us for those Three Houses Ironmans
My favourite way to play FE games on a first playthrough is with a soft Iron Man, not because of the challenge, but because the permanent loss of units makes me more invested in everyone's story, the fact that I could lose them makes everything more tense, and I'm sad when I lose a unit not because I lost their function but because their life and story was cut short
I recently started my first soft Ironman in H1 shadow dragon. It's very easy to overpower most enemies once you start promoting, and I've lost surprisingly few units. The only death that really hit me was losing Minerva after overextending her too much. It does make you look at things differently, being scared of low crit chances and reclassing fliers on maps with lots of bow units.
4:12 YES. This is why I only play soft Ironman. I struggle with perfectionism IRL, so I don’t want that in my video gaming experience
My only ironman has been a soft ironman of fe11, resetting if marth or caeda died because it felt it fit the game. After a truly harrowing death count, 8 units walked out the other end. Was quite the experience.
As the fire emblem games have changed I'm very glad of tools like casual mode and the turnwheels. In a heavy investment game, choosing between an hour's reset or losing something irreplaceable feels awful. And casual mode letting you make minor mistakes and still finish feels nice. It definitely does change how you play the game though. I see a lot of discussion on whether luck or res is the worst stat, usually concluding in favour of res. But playing on casual with turnwheel, luck feels substantially less important unless it's catastrophically low.
I would love to see a "back to basics" style of fe with a ton of units. That feels like the best sort of game to let unit death sit in.
I once got the vast majority of my army massacred in ch.7 and 8 of an FE6 ironman. Popping the knight crest on Barth ASAP and sticking him in choke points managed to hold off the reinforcements and save the run, but I left chapter 8 with like 6 useful units. Resulted in a dreadfully slow run where I would turtle and/or choke a point every map in order to not get overrun, but Barth somehow carried my team of squishies all the way through the western isles and arcadia before finally hitting a game over on the Miledy chapter (not his fault, I goofed positioning Roy). Gained a new respect for Barth, and is still my favorite Ironman memory to this day
I generally play what you classify as a "soft ironman", but if I get a game over/reset, I put all my characters on a "wheel of death" and spin it to decide who I will 'sacrifice' to continue the run. It alleviates some concern with soft ironman runs where you sometimes feel incentivized to throw the run just to reset when it isn't necessary.
I like how you mention the difficulty of Radiant Dawn, as I have done both these soft resets and full restarted many iron man runs to it. Shout outs to the Brom and Nephenee chapter in part 2, and 3-13 for being my most notorious run killers to arbitrary game overs (brom or neph dying, or a hawk flying into the defend zone in 3-13). Despite its difficulties, it is my favorite game to replay and ironman.
I used to play FE with no unit deaths but moved to ironman overtime. I enjoy saving all units on first playthroughs and then do an ironman afterwards. Ironman is the funnest playthrough for me but I like trying to recruit everyone and get all the secret objectives for first playthroughs. After that it's a free for all.
My first playthrough of FE11 was an ironman. A few highlights for me:
Hardin getting crit by the Silver Bow sniper in chapter 10.
Cain and Abel both being killed in chapter 16 from the riders bane wyverns.
Having to kill Tiki because Bantu ended up getting killed in that map.
Finally endgame rolls along, I was unaware of Medeus' door trap. Caeda's squad in the northeast is trapped and pelted by Pachyderm ballistae, which quickly put every unit there in danger. Est is locked out of the keep while Draug, Astram, and Ogma attempt to escape into the palace proper. Palla, Jake, and Sedgar are quickly overrun by the palace guards and slaughtered. Marth, Gotoh, Xane, and Elice are surronded from forces from the west, north, east. Caeda's squad including Boah, Jorge, and Midia are decimated by the flames of the Pachyderm. Caeda narrowly holds on to life with the Grativis, but uses are limited. Astram is killed as Ogma and Draug are trapped within another room. My Level 15 Marth and Xane are warpped in right before Paladin's run over Ellice and Gotoh. Marth had to train on the Manaketes leading to Medues' room, powerleveling him into the mid 20's. With his loves life on the line, Marth strikes deep into the throne room to take out Medeus's guard and the snipers within, dodging the flames that took his allies' lives. Marth retreats heals, and goes for a death or glory attack on the earth dragon himself. After 3 rounds of combat, Marth slew the shadow dragon and rescued Caeda aganist all odds.
This could be a novel in itself lol. Really shows how gameplay decisions can lead to a unique story in itself
I am doing a soft ironman for my first Binding Blade playthrough right now only resetting for gaiden chapter requirements. I am on Chapter 21x and I've had a lot of rough deaths (Marcus, Larum, Rutger, etc.) but it has been a blast as the units that survived (Allen, Lance, Lugh, Milady, Zeiss, etc.) became really good. The perma-death mechanic is actually what got me into Awakening years ago, so I always play this way with two expectations (Echoes and Three Houses). Also with the older games, I am too lazy to reset for an entire chapter and I don't bother save-stating too much.
Hey! I love your content. I had a situation in FE8 on the ghost ship chapter where Ephraim got sandwiched at the chokepoint between the first and second ship. I secured his back, but I needed a front blocker on the chokepoint. No available units were bulky enough to tank for Ephraim without him getting killed, too, so I sent Franz and promoted him to great knight just so he could tank for Ephraim. Franz died tanking the hit that would have killed Ephraim.
Then I ended the run by OHKOing The DK with Myrrh.
RIP Franz.
"Soft Ironman" was never a term that particularly felt correct to me, so I started referring to those kinds of runs as "Copperman" runs!
I read this as Coperman run for some reason
First time I iron manned conquest I got to the endgame having already lost a few units, one of the big ones being Charlotte who my Corrin had married. The map was going fine until I got jumped by the bomb faceless a turn or two earlier than I remembered, so I went from a fairly brisk but manageable pace to a mad dash to the boss. By the end of that map only Corrin and Leo were still alive of the units I deployed (Soleil was benched for the map and I didn't even bother getting Forrest or Nina).
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your open-minded approach to game difficulty and finding a fit that matches each player. It's never just Hard 5 or bust, Maddening only, Lunatic Reverse, etc. Even in challenges, there's a place for players of all skill levels to not only try to improve but to enjoy the game at their competency. As someone who is pretty mediocre at these games but still enjoys them, it means a lot when you take the time to recommend certain games, add different variants and options to make a run more accessible for every player, so thank you.
I recently did an iron man of FE7 (the game I'm most familiar with by far), and it made the playthrough feel smoother and more memorable too. I felt lighter knowing that I wouldn't need to reset and slog through a chapter again. There were some sad deaths that made me get creative (Florina dying in her join chapter meant I had no flyers until heath joined) and there were some VERY close calls (jaffar died on turn 2 in battle before dawn, so Zephiel had to survive way more attacks that would have ended the run). At the same time, it disincentivized me to use Lyn, which is a bit sad, since she is one of my favorite units. At the same time, it made me realize that there are way more options at my disposal than I usually consider. Highly recommend.
Doing my SoV Ironman run rn, after some early deaths I've recovered and adjusting to the losses has been fun and unique!
I'm such a softie, I've considered draft races more seriously than ironman runs, but I do see the merit and have enjoyed watching them both too
Ironmanning also goes really well with another alt. play staple: Randomizing! Some FE games don't even require modding to randomize, just creativity.
Regular playthrough: "My unit died so I will reset the chapter"
Ironman playthrough: "My unit died so I will reset the game"
Ironman is what Kaga had in mind when he made FE in the first place. He simply told everyone not to attempt to save everyone and just forge forward in completing the game, while dealing with the consequences of your own actions. For which is why the Gaiden Chapters in FE11 are behind a threshold wall in order for the player to access, complete and 100% the game if they are in pursuit of that.
Ironmanning works in FE1 and SD, because most characters are basically generics with portraits and the only time they say anything is when they die, but the further into the series characters become more developed and losing them becomes harder to accept. Not to mention, in most games, the narrative doesn't acknowledge their deaths so you just end up with worse experience for the rest of the game if you're not into challenge runs. It's a hard sell for a casual player.
I recently tried my first soft ironman on fe6 lmao I can't wait, on chapter 7 so far and 4 people bit the bullet already but I'm having lots of fun flowing through chapters and having that fuck it attitude !
One of my favourite fire emblem experiences was playing fe3 book 2 for the first time as an iron man. There were so many memorable moments to me, like Phina getting killed by Astram, or training Arlen in the last couple chapters because almost all my other staff units died. That is a game I very much recommend iron manning
I finally accepted losses in a gba rom hack. On the 2nd map of the game I lost my "jaegen," a freshly recruited SECOND pre-premoted character, and my flier. Didn't even want to consider restarting I just let them die for failing to wall off enemies properly for us. My lord is now my power house carrying if we get in a sticky situation.
I was about to give up on a Normal-Classic Ironman run on Echoes yesterday and this video was just the right push for me to continue it. Losing Silque and Genny on Alm's and Celica's route, respectively, gave me a right headache (who loses units on Normal difficulty, anyways?). I also hadn't finished the game before so hadn't known if losing these healer units would be detrimental for the rest of my run. This video reinforced my subconscious belief that this sense of loss and unknown is an integral part of an experience, so I say que sera, sera. Whatever happens I will see that ending credits, no matter what.
Thank you for the video!
The frustration of restarting a long chapter is so real, to the point that it kept me from finishing every FE game I played until I decided to soft ironman FE7 for my 3rd attempt at beating it. By the time I did that, though, my skills had improved to the point that I only lost a single unit by the end - Rebecca in Ch. 30, when I didn't check the boss's inventory before moving and so Limstella sniped her with Bolting.
Yet that became the most memorable part of that entire playthrough! I remember feeling so sad because of how she was just a child, and how her father almost didn't let her go because of the danger.
Every run after your first should be an Ironman. It makes the games way more fun
I was surprised when I was replaying Blazing Blade recently that the game straight up tells you to make a separate save when you do side-chapters in case something goes terribly wrong
I've only ever done one Ironman run, and it wasn't that long ago. I decided just for the heck of it to try a Thracia blind Ironman and it went as well as you expect (I quit after Osian died a few chapters in). It was, however, a lot of fun, and I totally see the appeal of them.
I remember having a similar experience as your Sacred Stones chapter 19 in my FE12 H2 iron man run where I had to do an inpromptu warp skip in chapter 16 because I forgot to check which of my units would be able to survive two of the heroes from the hero room and had sent both Kris and Darros who where the only two that lived chasing after thiefs because of their dracoknight movement. This resulted in me getting pincired from three sides but I somehow managed to get out of the chapter without any deaths.
I’ve been doing an engage Ironman recently and it has simultaneously been the most fun and the most stress I have ever experienced playing a fire emblem game
I remember my first blind playthrough of FE9 was explicitly an ironman from the word go. It was a fucking *disaster* in the early game, and it got bad enough that the only units I had for the defend map with Ilyana in it were Ike, Titania, Mia, and Soren. Four units, one of which was a fresh recruit from the previous chapter. Gatrie and Shinon had *just* left. I felt HOPELESS, even with Titania on deck, and genuinely thought I might have to restart my run because I wouldn't be able to clear the map.
Soren wound up being one of my best units. He died to a 4% crit from the Wishblade. I forget what happened to Mia, and I stopped using Titania because I don't like using Oifey-esques. All in all, that playthrough was one of my favorite experiences with Fire Emblem period, and I constantly wish I could relive that playthrough someday, a playthrough that never would've happened if I reset even once during the earlygame
Love Conquest as an Iron Man because the entire cast you get is so well balanced, they all feel like viable units or replacements, losing units feels even bigger because you're not just losing units but also potential children and reclasses, AND Niles gives you an opportunity for endless, lesser filler units through capturing in case you fuck up. It's a pretty neat experience that feels very much like it rapidly evolves the deeper you get into it.
I unintentionally did an iron man the first time I ever played Fire Emblem like 20 years ago. That was because I was a kid and didn't pay attention enough to know you even could restart if a unit died. It was FE7 and I only made it to Dragon's Gate. My 12 year old self only had like 5 units left besides the main Lords at that point. I just couldn't do it so I had to start the game over. Now that I am much more experienced with Fire Emblem I might do an intentional iron man run. I'm sure I'll do much better at it now than I did back then.
I really felt the losing a unit during the end of a long map ang taking a break, 1 week break
I might argue that FE3 is an even better potential ironman than 1 or Shadow Dragon. Book 1 is the shortest version of FE1 and similarly easy to the original while still just a touch more interesting for its changes and also having that ‘no NES era Fire Emblem Jank’ appeal. Book 2 has more challenge to it but also still gives you a great amount of units to juggle and the dual challenges of going for the good ending and side objective saving the girls at the end can also add a lot of tension. Star Shards obviously a great way to get replacement units up to speed fast.
Thracia is one of the best game to ironman, given you've finished it once to know how to play around the jank (and use it yourself)
Any unit can become good thanks to lower cap, and movement level ups can suddenly make any random dude a sudden star of your team, creating so many stories and memories.
Great balance of difficulty and fun imo.
Might have a shot at one when I finally get around to finishing FE7.
Great video that I think you do a great job getting across a lot of the enjoyments on ironmans I have done 3 ironmans so far and am in the process of doing a 4th
My first ironman was of Fire Emblem Awakening which I beat
My 2nd ironman was was og Fire Emblem Fates Birthday which I stopped halfway through because I thought that an ironman would make the game more interesting but I still didn't have fun with Birthright even then so I dropped it
Then my 3rd ironman was of Fire Emblem Fates Conquest which I ended up losing on the ninja hideout chapter
And finally my 4th ironman ehich I am currently in progress of doing is of Fire Emblem Engage
And I have had a lot of fun with all of them (except Birthright but that's just with me not liking the game itself) win or lose the challenge makes me play in a different way and allows me to use units I would never used otherwise and makes all the tense moments even more tense they are super fun
As I was watching this video my FE6 level 5 promoted lance got wrecked by a horseslayer I didn’t see in chapter 15 lol.
This video landed while I was playing through Shadow Dragon Hard 5, taking notes and figuring out safer strategies to make an Ironman run of it later...I have never done an Ironman FE run before but I'm not finding Hard 5 quite so overwhelming it seems unfeasible for me. Granted, I just hit Chapter 8, so let's see how I feel about it later!
I started playing with the 3ds games and just assumed that Ironman was just the default way of playing the game so that's what I did.
I was almost finished with the game and I complained about it being kinda short to my friends who are veterans of the series. That's when I learned that the accepted standard way of playing the game was autistically resetting your save and pouring hundreds of hours into it.
I called them casuals and finished the game with half of the roster dead lmao
Yoo imagine streaming an "Ultra Fire Emblem Ironman" where you have to play every game (ignore one's that have remakes if you want) and if you get a game over you have to move onto a different game. End the series with a graph of how far you made it into each game
The issue with ironmaning FE is that I 100% think it would make my gameplay experience more fun, but I really care about seeing all the story content and supports. And I don't tend to replay games very often, so if I don't do it on my first run, I'll never do it
I think "copperman" would be better to use than "soft ironman".
My first, and so far only, ironman was a soft ironman of Radiant Dawn. Could have gone better from what I recall.
My first FE7 run was a soft iron Man by your definition.
One funny loophole: i lost my wyvern and became very sad for the rest of the level, but was delighted when my lord died to a crit and I got to reset once without "cheating" 🤪
Given my entry into the series being Three Houses, a massive part of why I like Fire Emblem are the characters of my roster, supports and everything. I literally like the members of my army too much to Ironman, I just wouldn't play an FE where I don't like my roster
rip fire emblem 3 then 😔
I think Sacred Stones is my favorite game to ironman, usually without overworld shops and Tower grinding, sometimes paired with a benched Seth as soon as preps are available. The game is pretty easy already, so you'll be able to scramble your way through somehow even if you mess up a few times. Although units tend to snowball like crazy, most are rather squishy until they get their first few levels, so if you're set on using a specific unit, things might get hairy here and there.
An early death might even change up if you want to go Ephraim or Eirika Route based on recruitment order and the kinds of maps you need to get through.
I personally also try to get a user for every Twin Weapon by endgame, except Gleipnir because grinding up Knoll's Ranks just isn't worth it.
And training ewan takes too long
I'm very OCD completionist, so ironmanning seems like it would be a really bad time. That said, Fire Emblem _has_ been helping with that in other ways -- normally, I find that it feels like a compulsion to recruit everyone, get every chest, etc., etc. Made a bit of headway on breaking past that, though, when I decided that in Radiant Dawn, the ending of the game was overall better for Tellius as a whole if Oliver was dead rather than recruited. So now I've started killing Oliver when I play RD. If I can do that, then maybe I can be okay with otherwise suboptimal outcomes more. That said, for me, a lot of the challenge in Fire Emblem comes from that complex dance of getting everything with the limited time and limited resources you have at your disposal, and I actually worry that ironmanning would _remove_ some of that challenge for me. One of the more brain-busting, and therefore fun, challenges I've set for myself in my recent replays of Path of Radiance, for example, is in the desert, getting every hidden item and killing no enemies but the boss for the bonus EXP condition. Be a lot easier to do if I could allow people to die rather than having to figure out a way to do it perfectly all in one go.
I've never done an iron man for FE because I'm just bad at the games generally and I get way too attached to units. Maybe I'll try one, but I wanna finish every game at least once normally before I tackle that sorta challenge
I thought up till right now that “classic” mode was literally an Ironman run, like I never considered restarting to be intended, so I never did classic cause honestly I’m kinda bad lmao
I always focus on the 12 units I want. I will push the others to die. It makes me more focused during preparation phrases. 😂
I feel like ironmanning does sound like fun, but I tried to do a deathless run of Binding Blade and goddamn was that tedious. Still haven't beaten it because a loss of a single unit undoes all my progress on chapters where I really do not have fun. And I want to grab items to promote what I can, but sometimes it is INCREDIBLY difficult to do when I'm trying to get the true ending...
Ironmans are the opposite of a deathless run tho
I love iron mans and it's basically my default way to play even when it's a new FE for me. ...Because of that I still have never used Jade in Engage because she always dies before I recruit her lmao
I remember when I first played FE3 book 1 ogma died after a long map and I just said fuck it. I wasn't actively ironmanning the game I just didn't wanna reset but he became a hero in my brain because of it.
one thing that I like about ironmans is you are forced to use different units. most of time I find me using Marcus o Isadora more than I used to.
strats are also diferent, in some maps I have to turtle instead of splitting my units o promote armored and heales ASAP.
In 3H, I've tried what I called bronzeman: No divine pulse, except death to crits. As stated, 3H doesn't shower you with replacements. I wanted the challenge of having to make careful decisions. But you can't really plan around randomly getting tripple damage, unless you are so overpowered that normal attacks are trivial, and the game gets boring.
(This was my problem playing Awakening after 3H. After seeing what passed for normal in 3H I started on hard. Had to reset 3 times in the first two missions, mostly after crit deaths. So I started on normal, which was a roflstomp after the first few missions, even though I wasn't properly (ab)using that game's overpowered mechanics.)
FE6 definitely deserves a mention as a great iron man game imo, at least on normal mode for those not super familiar with the game. The only real caveats are the gaiden chapters, where you can miss out on the true ending if some characters die and you can't get tto the gaidens, and if you're playing on hard, some bosses are so absurd that they're really not fun in an iron man setting. But on normal, it has an immense cast to replace your fallen units with and the small route splits can make each run of the game very variable. If you don't mind FE6:s more rng-heavy jank elements, or rven like the chaos they can bring to an iron man, it might be the best iron man game in the series.
I was doing an FE6 hard iron man but am on rage-hiatus after killing Larum on 12x. I think it does a lot of good things for iron mans, but also has a lot of very frustrating parts. Some that I noticed were: Some very good units are locked behind other units that are you may kill (Larum for Percival and Milady for Zeiss are the best, but Fir, Ray, Garrett, Gonzales, Juno, and Karel all risk becoming unrecruitable). Some units also have low enough luck that they risk crit deaths for a long time. Lance and Rutger are the worst here, especially since Rutger is somebody you'd rather keep alive. And then just some of the ambush spawn locations are pretty dumb, but you can avoid frustration by keeping map guides open.
In it's favor, low hit rates help you not get killed when you make mistakes. Also, the early game has some great maps, 4 and 7 especially.
I would personally mention Fates birthright for Ironmans it’s pretty fun and you can always hire generics at the castle
my first Iron man wasn't even intended to be an Iron man, it was my first playthrough of FE7 and i'd lost Rebeca late into a chapter and didn't feel like resetting, so i just kept running with the deaths (It was a soft iron man, i reset upon lord deaths) While it was fun i felt guilt over each death
I've been doing my first (loose) Ironman recently with Engage. "Loose" as in if I do make a move and then within a few seconds realise I made a mistake or didn't check something I should have I rewind back a bit, and if I get a game over I'll rewind back to wherever I feel like so I don't have to waste any more precious real life time than necessary
and yeah it's definitely fun
Just lost Jagen on FE11 doing an arena. I’m 100% ok with this. I would rather my actions have consequences than to take chances and reset cheese. The losses feel greater and it creates memories for replacements
Gaiden/Echoes is *not* made for ironman. Case in point: I lost an ironman *horribly* in Alm's side ch4, as every unit in the Deliverance got picked off one by one by one. First I lost Silque, then Clive, then Mathilda, then Luthier, followed by Python, then Emma (yes I have the DLC), then Delthea, then Kliff, then Faye, then Gray, then Randal, and then the last chunk of my party made it to Marla before Tobin, Forsyth, Lukas, Clair and finally Alm got picked off.
For reference, Celica's party only lost Kamui, Valbar, Est (who got res'ed), Leon (who got res'd), Genny (guess what I brought her back), and then Est *again*.
I still enjoyed the run more than my normal ones.
I used to hate ironmans but since fe shadow dragon is one of the games I own it got me used to losing units especially when it forces you to sacrifice one.
THIS. I know people hate Prologue 4 because of that, but if it's one's introduction to the series, it's basically telling the player that it's OK to lose units and sometimes you have to make difficult decisions.
Wait, I was playing this game wrong by accepting the failures and shortcomings of my strategic decisions?
I am ironmaning these games by default.
the amount of resets on my fe conquest lunatic been crazy, i have lost my sanity
Would love to do an Ironman of Engage but that genuinely sounds hellish. Idk if it's just a me problem, but the chapter battles never feel like anywhere near enough to keep even the bare minimum of units correctly leveled for the next chapter battle. It basically requires you to play skirmishes and Engage's skirmishes past normal difficulty are... I mean there's no better way to describe them besides downright unfair. If I ever did an Ironman of Engage on Hard or higher, I'd probably ignore the Ironman rule for skirmishes specifically because it'd become unfun *real* quick.
I've never done an iron man, but I've definitely let some units die on my conquest playthroughs for my sanity's sake. R.I.P. Niles, your daughter came in clutch, though later
i like fates and Awakening as soft ironmans because the lords can solo the game in the worst case scenario
The funny part is using different units/strategies
Oh we're...not supposed to ironman on the first run of a game? Well that explains why I haven't picked up Engage in months. I MIGHT'VE managed to get all but 9 of my units killed by the boat chapter (the chapter has a max 9 unit deployment anyway but still XD). I was worried that if I kept the run going I'd get softlocked by having too few units to complete the game, so maybe using the time rewind ability a few times is in order. It's good to know even the longtime pros see the games aren't designed to do a blind ironman playthrough, which takes the weight off my shoulders.
Soft Iron-man also I believe it was the way Kaga intented FE1 to be played.
I do think ironmans do lose their magic if you're overly familiar with the game. I was doing a Conquest Lunatic ironman a while back and it got to a point where I just... didn't lose units for long periods of time. And the ones that did die I was more than willing to let go cuz they weren't very useful anyways. It just resulted in a regular old playthrough except I couldn't do any of the fun daring strategies, which was kinda lame. Though that could just be a general Conquest thing, I've had better experiences when ironmanning other games.
i did an iron man recently and honestly i felt sabotaged by my own adhd. i was making Strategies and planning things out and then kept making the mistakes i had actively planned not to make.
things like trading items after combat to cover wpn triangle, messing up positioning because i was playing without the mod that let gba fe show enemy reaches, saying out loud to equip certain gear on a character at chapter start and then just... forgetting. it was frustrating because i was constantly acknowledging my own strategies and then not following through because of my disability.
i can see the fun in the format, i was just craving a turn wheel to correct minor positioning mistakes and silly under errors that sent ripples thru my playthru in a way i disliked
lute in the thumbnail is obviously a subliminal message to convey to your viewers that ironmans are good because you can get your least favourite character in the franchise killed
I get the appeal, but frankly I'm so easily stressed over playing Fire Emblem that have to play on Casual like a scrub lmao
I do try to play cleanly though, so I'm not just getting units carelessly killed
Is it okay to ironman while also use time rewind mechanics though?
It kind of defeats the point? I’d argue that the games with the rewind mechanics aren’t good to Ironman anyways. The witches in echoes make it unfair as there’s no consistency as to when they teleport and who they’ll attack on top of the game being designed around you using every unit in most main battles, you only have to limit in dungeons and the final battle. Three houses is also about long term investing into your units, and ironmanning can softlock you out of part 2 in all but edlegards route with reunion at dawn. And you get up to 12 rewinds in both of those games by the end, so it’s unlikely you’d use up enough and still have anyone die. Fates is the best game to Ironman, birthright specifically, (revelations has more units as buffers but the endgame is quite difficult with a not well built team. If you pick a team of even gender, you can try and marry them off as quickly as possible so if one dies you can get their child as a backup, and if both parents die, you can recruit one of the other children or there’s about 4 extra adult child bearing units. Birthright also allows grinding for money and supports , which isn’t considered a true Ironman by most, but you can still die in these battles and the benefits aren’t as game breaking as 12 do overs, you still have to properly plan and make it through a battle even if you might have slightly better weapons of supports (you can also ignore them but for people afraid of ironmans they’re great.) if you don’t want those battles you can do some of the children missions for extra battles as you still have to put in effort to unlock them. Awakening is similar but less consistent in its pairup mechanics and the child missions do not scale to where you are in the game.
Fates also has pair up bonuses so even if you have a lot of late game deaths and have to pull in very under leveled units they can still be used to give your front line stat boost, as well as being a staff unit or rally unit depending on class availability.
Path of radiance wasn't really that easy on hard, unless you're talking avout the western release. Either way, the last chapter is really annoying and you'll probably lose a lot of ironmans at the very end :D
For a soft iron man I'd be concerned about the incentive to suicide the Lord if things are going poorly. I like the idea of, if you lose your Lord, you have to kill a random other character.
Got to disagree with you on Ironmans. Yes it's super annoying to restart chapters if you lose a unit. I can't move on if a unit dies. I tried it the first time I ever played fire emblem with 7, but then reset and started over again because It was too stressful and not fun to not have access to characters. Might be my OCD but I can't continue the chapter if I lose someone. It's the opposite for me. It would create way too much stress for me to move on after losing a unit because then who knows what happens down the line and you screw yourself because you lost a unit and now you don't say have access to staves or you can't use A or S rank weapons because you lost those units. It's way too stressful for me to continue on after losing a unit. It's annoying and frustrating but I will always reset.
If you were to actually attempt an Iron Man you'd realize those fears (depending on the title) aren't warranted. I wouldn't reccomend Iron Manning FE4, Echoes, or 3H, but most other games give you plenty of items and new characters to make it through.
Take FE7 for instance. You're consistently given powerful pre-promoted units up until the very end, some of which surpass your potential training projects in the same class (Hawkeye, Pent, Louise, Harken, Renault, Vaida). Then to really make sure you can finish the game, you get Athos for free in endgame. There's really no need to get so stressed out.
@@TuskyBaby fine for you. But I can't play FE like that. Everyone lives no exceptions. I cant move on if someone dies. I hated how shadow dragon forced you to lose a character in the prologue. It really made me not want to continue. Losing characters isn't for me> I know FE 7 like the back of my hand. But still I would never move on if I lost someone.
@@Jaknize1 You absolutely can, you're just not allowing yourself to. Its okay. They're just 1's and 0's.
@@TuskyBaby I like how you're taking such offense to the way I play the game lol. You play it how you want to, and I will play it how I want to. Not sure why you feel the need to talk down to me because I play it the way I do. I'm not changing my stance. I don't move on if a unit dies. End of story. So I guess...deal with it.
@@Jaknize1 Not offended, but I do think you're goofy. We're talking about video games. Its not that serious
Honestly, I haven't considered Turnwheel/Divine Pulse/Time Crystal as against the rules of an Ironman. I only deemed it as "you lose when the lord dies and you don't reset for character deaths" and considered the rewind mechanics as part of the way the game is designed and figured that they were fair game. After all, if you run through 11 uses of Divine Pulse to try and save someone, I think it's 100% your own fault and you should just move on. That's a lot of attempts. The rewind mechanics to me are just an integration of the Casual mode that only holds your hand with deaths until you're reached a quota where it says "Ok, let's get you to bed." There's a whole other topic of if Casual mode is redundant or not with the integration of rewind mechanics that I don't want to get into.
I was wondering what an ironman is. Isn't that just playing the game as intended tho, or am I missing something?
to clarify, I mean, like, in any instance where you click classic mode or where permadeath exists. playing through the same map repeatedly sounds boring.
anyways, i'm playing sacred stone for the first time. I just reached the point where you're green man. I'm pretty sure, like, five people have died already. It's great.
first death was Erica at, like, Chapter 2, doesn't count because she comes back. anyways, death counter.
1. some guy with an axe gives a heartfelt speech about how he left the military to raise his son but his son is like "no, we must fight." Anyways, chapter immediately after, son dies. Rip bozo.
2. Bow lady dies the first chapter I get to use her. I sent her to kill a guy at 1HP but forgot to check if the counter-attack could kill her if she failed the hit. Rip bozo.
3. I obtained Bernie Sanders the Instrument. I was like "I love her, she's purple and she commits arson by dabbing." Anyways, I forgot she was mortal and she got speared by several guys. Rip bozo.
4. The incel murdered the horse guy with green hair. Sad day. Rip bozo.
5. Then Seth killed the incel in self-defense before the green lady could say hi.
Anyways, then Colm survived on 1 HP. So, thievery may continue.
This is significantly better than my 3 Houses playthrough, where, if I remember correctly, I managed to get literally everyone killed within the first four hours of playing the game (I was on easy mode, Edelgard's route).
One of my personal favorite iron man moments was my first ever playthrough of fe12 which I decided to do on hard 2…BIG MISTAKE but it was so fun in retrospect. It was a complete train wreck, by the start of the final chapter most of the 80+ cast was dead and it was up to yumina, dice, and tomas to finish off Medeus. I’ll never forget Tomas’s valiant sacrifice your name will forever be etched into the halls of Valhalla 🫡
My tism says NO
I'm more surprised as to somewhat little mention (at least from what I saw over the years) of another Nintendo game-related variant of ironman challenge: Pokemon nuzlockes. Your mons die, they die. You get a limited pool of mons more than a casual playthrough of Pokemon will offer, and depending on how far your own rules of nuzlockes can go, you enact a bunch more of masochistic challenges on yourself. And the obvious: these challenges make the game harder than the devs wanted it to be.
Even with new gimmicks in each franchise, I find it more fun to deny myself these new gimmicks to give myself a truly maddening challenge. Especially in Engage.
The key difference between these things though is that you need to actively go out of your way to enforce Nuzlocke rules.
Iron Man runs just mean you don't restart chapters. The game already has perma-death and limited units. If you think about it, Nuzlockes really just aim to recreate the classic FE experience in a different franchise.
@@TuskyBaby that's only true for permadeath but thats just either throwing dead mons into a PC or just releasing them. Limited units don't really matter either since all you're doing is catching one mon per route. Classic nuzlocke rules are just permadeath and limiting one pokemon per route.
If you're referring to hardcore nuzlockes, that's just extra challenges added to the basic one. If you want something like that in your Ironman, then try Engage Ringless Ironman no Time Crystal no kagetsu/pandreo rules. Or FE11 H5 no levelling marth.
I don't think the harder difficulties of FE12 are good to Iron Man, even if you're familiar with the game, unless you're okay with resetting the whole run because you missed the Anew staff or your Marth's growths didn't turn out. FE12 goes a step above other hard games like Conquest and Engage in that it's much harder to recover from a bad string of luck, especially in the late game. Unless you cheese the game with Xane Arena strats, but Xane might not even be available.
I thought this is just how you are supposed to play the game
why is it called an ironman run?
I'd rather play a roguelike. What makes every run in those games truly unique is not the permadeath, nor the procedural generation. It is how those two reinforce each other. Would i ironman FE it would just be "normal run but slower and safer". While on something like darkest dungeon i actually have to prepare for the unexpected all the times.
With FE maps being 100% fixed i don't feel playing ironman woukd change my way to approach things significantly enought.
The only ironman i would consider is a SD excelblem run lol.
*favorite unit dies to a 3% chance crit
*purposely force main lord to die
"Oh no i guess i have to restart the chapter"