The Gnamer Hellfire Emblem Challenge

Greetings forumites and welcome to my second challenge, of which will be based upon the series 'Fire Emblem'.

The Gnamer Nuzlocke challenge has been an enjoyable experience of which I'm sure most of the participants would concur, I hope it continues to be as such, however with the release of 'Fire Emblem: Awakening' I had the idea that we could have a similar competition based upon a popular series, Fire emblem fits the bill with its emotional bonding between characters and the impending threat of their permanent death.

I hope that this challenge can inspire more people to take part and write down stories of both their inspired victories and flawed defeats, which have been of a great quality over on the Nuzlocke challenge.

Since we are at a founding stage of this idea, I would like some discussion on what rules should be applied to make this both challenging and accessible, as well as the criteria on which each contestant will be judged upon.

EDIT: just noticed that I have put this in the 3DS section, hope this isn't a problem!

Green for rules/criteria/games that are completely confirmed
Orange for rules/criteria/games under discussion

Eligible Games:

• Awakening (3DS)
  Path of Radiance (GC)
  Sacred Stones (GBA
  Fire Emblem (GBA)
  Radiant Dawn (Wii)
  Shadow Dragon (DS)
  

Rules:

• Must be played on Hard mode (And classic if on Awakening) with the exception of Radiant Dawn, which can be played on Normal
  No use of Arenas
  If you get a 'Game Over' that is the end of your run. No loading.
  No 'Forge' weapons
  Starting super unit cannot attack excluding Sothe. (Titania, Seth, Marcus, etc)
  Only one weapon proficiency per unit

Assessment Criteria:

• Number of Deaths
  Number of chapters completed
  Number of S rank supports
  Game completion
  Amount of Gold
  

So yeah, I hope this generates some anticipation and maintains a level of popularity. Please do identify other rules and criteria that would benefit this challenge, while also debating the current outline of rules I have thought up myself.

I eagerly await your responses, hopefully we can get this preliminary stage sorted soon then ill devise some tables to keep track of scores!

Radiant Dawn on Hard O_O You are joking right? You might almost survive the tutorial XD I might give it a shot with Awakening when I eventually get it but I only just played Path of Radiance.

Hoo boy. I'm definitely for this, but I have never beaten a Fire Emblem game on Hard difficulty. I'm not even sure if I've reached the half way point of any Fire Emblem game on Hard!

As to the rules up for discussion, I think Hard mode is a must for a challenge run in Fire Emblem. Intense would be for the truly suicidal, I wouldn't do it. I don't see why Radiant Dawn or any of the non-EU releases wouldn't be eligible either. Don't forget Shadow Dragon too, as meh as it may be. Obviously Arenas should be banned, I could easily Arena abuse my way to victory if they were in.

I think Journeyman units should be allowed. It'd be a real risk/reward scenario - do you risk babying up a crappy unit to become something awesome, or do you roll with units that can take a couple of hits? I think it's like using a Magikarp in a Pokemon game. Yes, you'll end up with something amazing if you battle through, but you run the risk of losing stronger units/Pokemon in protecting that beginner. What do you think?

andyman949 wrote:

Radiant Dawn on Hard O_O You are joking right? You might almost survive the tutorial XD I might give it a shot with Awakening when I eventually get it but I only just played Path of Radiance.

Yeah I agree completely, I guess for Radiant Dawn we opt for Normal?

Also from Jay's point's, I think that Hard mode is now a definite yes apart from the aforementioned Radiant dawn. I had completely forgotten about Shadow Dragon, it shall be added to the list. I'm not as completely sure with journeyman units, partly because I haven't gauged how hard they are to raise on hard difficulty, as well as how powerful they become upon promotion. If anyone else has any thoughts about them ill come up with a definitive answer.

Outside EU releases should be included I agree, however I was thinking along the lines of inter competition, limiting the games to the EU releases would see more people playing the same game in the series. Its up to you guys though.

As for rules, im not sure if we need many since the games on hard are a challenge in themselves, ill throw down some ideas off the top of my head and see what people think.

Ideas:

Rules:
Unit cap per map.
No use of starter super unit. (Seth, Titania, Marcus, etc) excluding Sothe.
Only one weapon/spell type per unit.


Criteria:
Gold upon completion/death


Let me know what you think and of any other inspired ideas you can think up.

I think having a unit cap beyond what the game already gives you would make this a little too tricky to do. Agreed with the non-use of the super unit - although, I'm assuming it's perfectly okay to employ them as a wall (eg. taking their weapons off them) early on when you're forced to use them. The restriction of one weapon/spell type seems good to me as well.

The amount of gold is a good further indicator too, I like it.

Sweet, I never spend my gold anyway Wouldn't Paladin's be kind of lost without a second weapon type. Also Rhys (who ranked my 6th best killer last time) would be sad without Light magic and staffs Though I guess that's what makes it a challenge

This might finally give me an excuse to play Sacred Stones on my 3DS

Just ordered FEA today think I may attempt this but only after I do a normal play through, natch.

Vidofnir wrote:

Outside EU releases should be included I agree, however I was thinking along the lines of inter competition, limiting the games to the EU releases would see more people playing the same game in the series. Its up to you guys though.

I reckon this is fair as well. Non-EU releases are a little harder to procure.

I'd probably start with Sacred Stones.

I think the rules look fine now. The challenge allows for journeyman units to be used because of the risk/reward. Ill add the tables after our first few posts.

Excellent. Probably won't be able to make a start on this until after exams, but I'll be keeping a close watch on everyone's progress.

I think ill make a start tomorrow, Sacred stones would probably be the safest choice to start, however I think ill opt for 'Fire emblem' on the GBA.

I'm gonna get that game for my free game.

Vidofnir wrote:

I think ill make a start tomorrow, Sacred stones would probably be the safest choice to start, however I think ill opt for 'Fire emblem' on the GBA.

Yeah, I was thinking one of the GBA ones to begin with. They are the easiest two in the series, after all.

I just went to do it on Radiant Dawn. I died on the first mission

I've not finished awakening yet on noob mode, but would start it again once I've done it. So let me get this straight i play on hard, characters die and i can only use standard weapons (not forged), i guess i can level up and use master seals, and only main story and side missions (so not random risen & dlc).

The single weapon proficiency per unit rule just means units with one or two weapon options can only use one of them, and you can't re-class in to a unit that doesn't use your original chosen weapon class, correct? And I assume since Awakening doesn't have an Arena the Reeking Boxes are off limits instead.

Finished game last night, so now going to start this challenge i don't reckon i will get far.

I've just noticed that Awakening clashes with some of the rules. Its easy to grind through risen spawns and class changing is now more accessible, we will have to think up of a way to incorporate this hmmm.

How about banning the use of more than one random Risen spawn per chapter? If you ban them completely I fear that choices for the party will get limited as with no ways to prepare new recruits later in the game they will simply just get ignored in favour of the established party.

And how about banning Seal purchasing from anywhere outside Anna shops? I would say ban them completely but the game doesn't hand anywhere near enough Master Seals for that to be viable, and if you can't promote your guys properly you'll just either end up using three or four guys to tank absolutely everything or get killed because everything outclasses you in the final six or seven chapters once the enemies start using mostly promoted classes. Too much restriction can be a bad thing.

I started this on hard, characters can die. I got to chapter 4 then Chrom was killed so GAME OVER for me.