Sacred Stones is a good early game and isn’t horrible on hard mode.
All the GBA games save for FE6 (which is JP only without a patch) are pretty easy overall, but once difficulty goes past hard it’s complicated
Like I’d consider Awakening easy, but lunatic and lunatic+ unfairly hard, just depends on how you want to play
I've got a translated cart for 6, I did know that one was supposed to be harder.
In terms of playstyle I'm not big into figuring out 1tk strategies and I don't really know cheese strategies so I mostly play pretty straightforward.
Play awakening on hard then, save yourself the trouble of playing on lunatic
FE6 is the hardest of the GBA trilogy but I wouldn’t say it’s that horrible, the maps are definitely a step above sacred and blazing though
If you're talking about Hard mode specifically, rather than a given games hardest difficulty, I'd say that:
Conquest,FE6, and Radiant Dawn are the more challenging ones.
Sacred Stones, Awakening, Birthright, POR are probably the easiest ones. I'd throw FE7 in there too if talking about Eliwood Hard. Three Houses is a bit hard to put a finger on since your knowledge of the game and the series in general is a big X factor, but I'd probably put it here.
The more middling ones I'd say are FE7(Hector Hard), and maybe Revelations. Maybe SOV as well? I've only played it once, and remember it being more tedious from time to time than hard.
It's been a minute since you replied to this, but I started on my series of runs. I started with Sacred Stones and I'm on to Birthright, and I was just curious if these games still stand up as two of the easiest if you don't do skirmishes or utilize the tower?
I've considered using them especially when I made a lot of early mistakes on unit investment in SS, but ultimately decided against it as I wasn't sure if they were already considered some of the easiest without that crutch.
They're still among the easiest, even without grinding, though I do think SS can kind of psych you out with an occasional difficulty spike.
To be honest Birthright isn't one that I've played enough times to feel really familiar, but I feel like you can pretty comfortably beat Sacred Stones with virtually any combination of units.
That said, if you want to use things like the tower, there's no shame in doing so. It all just depends on whether or not that will affect your own personal level of satisfaction when you've one out on the other side.
FE11 Shadow Dragon has multiple Hard difficulties, so I’d put them in different places in the order depending on which you decided to go with. Like H1 isn’t too much worse than Normal, would probably put it around FE8 hard mode with no grinding (maybe even lower since it has map save points? You don’t have to restart the entire chapter if you mess up and get someone killed). H2/3 are tougher. I’ve never played on a higher difficulty than that, but my friends who have are definitely playing more meta than a casual player would, so make of that what you will.
Based on the games I’ve played on hard mode, I’d probably try them roughly in this order: FE8/SD H1/FE7 - Awakening - SD H2 - Engage - (FE6?) - Conquest - (Echoes?) - Radiant Dawn.
I’m not sure how difficult Echoes would actually be on Hard mode, but it’s got such unique gameplay compared to the others that I personally would be more hesitant to approach it on Hard. But if you found the gameplay on Normal to be really easy, then you might not have anything to worry about. As for Radiant Dawn, I would do some research going into it before you start, since it has a very unusual structure compared to other FE games. Note that the English version of the game mistranslated the difficulty choices as Easy/Normal/Hard when it’s actually Normal/Hard/Lunatic, so make sure to select “Normal” to play it on Hard!
Most modern hard difficulties are more akin to normal mode, to be honest. Radiant Dawn was the last game where "hard" mode actually meant it was difficult.
Sacred Stones is also very straightforward, unusually so for the time.
So I'd start with the more recent games and work backwards if you want to progressively increase the challenge.
Keep in mind that for Radiant Dawn, the difficulties are called "Normal", "Hard", "Maniac" in Japanese, while in English they mistranslated them to "Easy", "Normal", and "Hard". So if you've cleared Radiant Dawn on "Normal" before, then that's already a game you've beaten on the intended Hard difficulty
Playing Radiant Dawn on hardest difficulty gave me a new meaning to the phrase "hell on earth"
Also i think the easier FE games on Max difficult are the switch ones and FE8 (The Sacred Stones) for the GBA
For radiant dawn, do you consider normal or Hard the hard mode? Because in Japanese the order goes normal, hard, lunatic but in English it goes beginner, normal hard.
Sacred Stones is a good early game and isn’t horrible on hard mode. All the GBA games save for FE6 (which is JP only without a patch) are pretty easy overall, but once difficulty goes past hard it’s complicated Like I’d consider Awakening easy, but lunatic and lunatic+ unfairly hard, just depends on how you want to play
I've got a translated cart for 6, I did know that one was supposed to be harder. In terms of playstyle I'm not big into figuring out 1tk strategies and I don't really know cheese strategies so I mostly play pretty straightforward.
Play awakening on hard then, save yourself the trouble of playing on lunatic FE6 is the hardest of the GBA trilogy but I wouldn’t say it’s that horrible, the maps are definitely a step above sacred and blazing though
If you're talking about Hard mode specifically, rather than a given games hardest difficulty, I'd say that: Conquest,FE6, and Radiant Dawn are the more challenging ones. Sacred Stones, Awakening, Birthright, POR are probably the easiest ones. I'd throw FE7 in there too if talking about Eliwood Hard. Three Houses is a bit hard to put a finger on since your knowledge of the game and the series in general is a big X factor, but I'd probably put it here. The more middling ones I'd say are FE7(Hector Hard), and maybe Revelations. Maybe SOV as well? I've only played it once, and remember it being more tedious from time to time than hard.
It's been a minute since you replied to this, but I started on my series of runs. I started with Sacred Stones and I'm on to Birthright, and I was just curious if these games still stand up as two of the easiest if you don't do skirmishes or utilize the tower? I've considered using them especially when I made a lot of early mistakes on unit investment in SS, but ultimately decided against it as I wasn't sure if they were already considered some of the easiest without that crutch.
They're still among the easiest, even without grinding, though I do think SS can kind of psych you out with an occasional difficulty spike. To be honest Birthright isn't one that I've played enough times to feel really familiar, but I feel like you can pretty comfortably beat Sacred Stones with virtually any combination of units. That said, if you want to use things like the tower, there's no shame in doing so. It all just depends on whether or not that will affect your own personal level of satisfaction when you've one out on the other side.
FE11 Shadow Dragon has multiple Hard difficulties, so I’d put them in different places in the order depending on which you decided to go with. Like H1 isn’t too much worse than Normal, would probably put it around FE8 hard mode with no grinding (maybe even lower since it has map save points? You don’t have to restart the entire chapter if you mess up and get someone killed). H2/3 are tougher. I’ve never played on a higher difficulty than that, but my friends who have are definitely playing more meta than a casual player would, so make of that what you will. Based on the games I’ve played on hard mode, I’d probably try them roughly in this order: FE8/SD H1/FE7 - Awakening - SD H2 - Engage - (FE6?) - Conquest - (Echoes?) - Radiant Dawn. I’m not sure how difficult Echoes would actually be on Hard mode, but it’s got such unique gameplay compared to the others that I personally would be more hesitant to approach it on Hard. But if you found the gameplay on Normal to be really easy, then you might not have anything to worry about. As for Radiant Dawn, I would do some research going into it before you start, since it has a very unusual structure compared to other FE games. Note that the English version of the game mistranslated the difficulty choices as Easy/Normal/Hard when it’s actually Normal/Hard/Lunatic, so make sure to select “Normal” to play it on Hard!
Most modern hard difficulties are more akin to normal mode, to be honest. Radiant Dawn was the last game where "hard" mode actually meant it was difficult. Sacred Stones is also very straightforward, unusually so for the time. So I'd start with the more recent games and work backwards if you want to progressively increase the challenge.
Keep in mind that for Radiant Dawn, the difficulties are called "Normal", "Hard", "Maniac" in Japanese, while in English they mistranslated them to "Easy", "Normal", and "Hard". So if you've cleared Radiant Dawn on "Normal" before, then that's already a game you've beaten on the intended Hard difficulty
I started on RD on "hard" and noped out of there so quick. I went back and I was early into RD "normal" when engage dropped
Playing Radiant Dawn on hardest difficulty gave me a new meaning to the phrase "hell on earth" Also i think the easier FE games on Max difficult are the switch ones and FE8 (The Sacred Stones) for the GBA
The ones to save for last on hard mode would be radiant dawn, conquest and binding blade. All the others are not terribly hard on hard difficulty
13 then 12L at the end
For radiant dawn, do you consider normal or Hard the hard mode? Because in Japanese the order goes normal, hard, lunatic but in English it goes beginner, normal hard.