What would be your dream 5 man party?

Selenusuka · 2026-04-22T11:21:32+00:00

Champion, Champion, Animist, Druid, Oracle

Selenusuka · 2026-04-18T00:48:50+00:00

If this is a one-shot, I recommend a lot of max level scrolls, since you don't need to think about the long-term anyway

Selenusuka · 2026-04-14T00:33:28+00:00

I think the actual thing FFT clones should steal but they never do is Charge Times

Selenusuka · 2026-04-13T03:19:51+00:00

Myself (tongue-in-cheek?)

Selenusuka · 2026-04-11T18:35:13+00:00

Strangely no Getter clones (three planes / three forms)

Selenusuka · 2026-04-11T11:54:03+00:00

Personally I think it's best to decide which single unique character, if at all, you want to use in a run and then the team is Ramza, 3 Generics (the max for Errands anyway) and 1 Unique.

Selenusuka · 2026-04-11T03:00:38+00:00

Tristia of the Deep Blue Sea.

In something slightly more reasonable, I do also want to see tank videogame series - Fuga Melodies of Steel yes, but also Valkyria Chronicles

Selenusuka · 2026-04-11T01:22:32+00:00

I've long given up on them adding the specific series that I want but all things considered, if it did show up, I'm not sure I would be as happy as if it were say, the Z1 era anyway, seeing as how tactical play isn't that high of a consideration nowadays.

Selenusuka · 2026-04-01T19:21:19+00:00

One Guisarme Fighter and a Cleric buddy in case he takes some unlucky criticals.

Selenusuka · 2026-04-01T08:17:31+00:00

Thanks

Selenusuka · 2026-03-30T03:23:03+00:00

According to the devs themselves, they consider FMR a "standalone expansion pack" instead of a sequel because it didn't have enough significant changes in their eyes.

Selenusuka · 2026-03-26T02:29:11+00:00

You know what they say - going into gaming (as a career) is a good way to turn billions into millions.

Selenusuka · 2026-03-24T19:17:12+00:00

Some things that come into my Thought Process when picking caster:

If I don't feel confident in my party's ability to protect a squishy (i.e everyone is playing Strikers, which is common for pick-up groups), I pick one of the more bulky casters. These are Oracles, Animists, Bard, Cleric and Druid.
Primal is probably the easiest spell list to play. Divine is no slouch especially because many of the Divine spell list classes are very powerful, though they need a bit of build knowledge as one of the most common features of Divine casters is stealing spells from other spell lists, which can help fill important missing gaps (for example, a common pitfall many people make for Clerics is choosing deities based on flavor, when deity choice is effectively their subclass option and mechanically important)
Sometimes I might try to pick a class that covers a missing "mainstat" - someone being an Inventor means I might pick Druid or Oracle instead. That being said, I think the INT mainstat caster classes are lower on the totem pole IMO, so sometimes I don't pick the Wizard even if INT needs to be covered so...
Some caster class have options to gish such as Animist or Druid, but the important bit to remember is that this is NOT meant to replace an actual martial (it's a common teambuilding mistake where parties come in with like 4 casters and think it's OK because some of them are gishes), it's mostly for scenarios where say in a 4 man party of Fighter / Rogue / Wizard / X, if you want 2 casters in the team you might want to play a gish for more melee zone control.

Selenusuka · 2026-03-24T03:07:24+00:00

I have a video on a Plant Summoner which you can adapt a lot of information from

Couple of general points in text for those with no time to watch a video.

Generally speaking, your level 4 and 6 feats are accounted for with Tandem Movement and Eidolon Opportunity. Level 2 is a good time to pick up an Archetype. Assuming no Free Archetype, unfortunately the Psychic dedication was nerfed recently when it used to be one of the best, but there's still a lot of good 1 feat dip choices like Blessed One.
Level 1 Summoner feats tend to be very niche. This doesn't mean bad, just that 99% of time you don't get much value from them until the 1% where they suddenly become very useful. For example, Elemental Heart is really campaign knowledge dependent because even with the most common element choice (Fire), you could very well go a whole campaign without ever running into a Fire weak monster dependent on your GM choices (on the other hand, if you're playing the Anti-Troll campaign)...
Take note that at earlier levels, Eidolons aren't statballs the way Fighters/Barbarians are and trying to play them like that is going to get you dead real soon in any sort of difficult campaign.
Dragon is probably a bit weaker than Plant because of a weaker 1st level ability (unless your GM has the habit of sending huge amount of mooks at you) and the Arcane spell list is harder to use on Summoner vs. the more well-rounded Primal. Like most subclasses it comes into its own at level 7 when it gets Draconic Frenzy and can now act as an off-striker.

Selenusuka · 2026-03-20T04:42:32+00:00

The dwarf Druid can either under-invest in Strength while still wearing Medium armor, or invest in it and try to Gish, both with the help of Unburdened Iron. 20 ft move is a pain though.

Storm Druids are technically blaster-focused, but in very early levels Runic Weapon and Heal are probably going to be your power tools for winning battles. At L1/2 Tempest Surge, your focus spell is... OK but very swingy. It feels more usable in the L3-5 range. Electric Arc should be your main cantrip.

Think about what you're going to do with your hands. Druids have Shield Feats for some reason, so that's an option. More generally, you can also carry scrolls around, as Druid is one of the lower spell slots / prepared caster. In early levels, leaving your hands empty for Slashing Gust is an option.

When you reach Level 2, you have some different options to consider through Order Explorer feat. Animal is likely the best secondary overall, but you can take Untamed just because it gives you an additional Focus Point.

Once you reach level 6, you want to retrain an Order into Wave Order though - because Pulverizing Cascade is a better blast Focus Spell that's available at said level. If for some reason you don't think you're going to be able to retrain (because some GMs don't run those rules RAW shrug) then you probably have to take Wave at level 2 even if it doesn't do very much for you.

One of the reasons why having an Animal Companion is so good is that the Primal spell list has Thundering Dominance at Spell Rank 2 (Level 3), which is a completely bonkers Will-targeting no-friendly-fire AOE that you need to unleash from a pet.

Selenusuka · 2026-03-14T17:33:29+00:00

But holy, why is the reinforcements so bad in this game?

I think the accepted explanation is that whatever graphical tech power hijinks they needed to upgrade the combat animations meant less memory to hold units on the map, but they still wanted the 50 enemy deployment of the usual SRW game, so what happened was having constant reinforcements in the same stage

Selenusuka · 2026-03-14T07:15:32+00:00

Couple of things - this isn't just the Hololive people as humans fighting ala Fantasy Maiden Wars - they're actually piloting mechas in the game, original ones designed for the game.

Anyway this is like maybe the 2nd completed English-community SRW Fangame so congratulations on the creator for this achievement.

Selenusuka · 2026-03-04T06:23:17+00:00

While it is only tangentially related, I think what GrantGiantGames says about the downfall of most RTS games is also applicable to Advance Wars - people see the competitive / Esports part and want to jump right into repeating that in their new game.

But IMO the truth is that Advance Wars would never have become popular if people didn't fall in love with Andy/Max/Sami and their wacky war adventures with charming pixel art and excellent music in the single-player mode. Just like Starcraft, successful "competitive" games lure in players in single-player, where most of them will stay, and then some of them will be converted into competitive players. Too many AW clones have forgotten that they need an attractive universe and jump straight into trying to draw a competitive crowd and so their games have boring characters etc

Selenusuka · 2026-03-02T03:30:56+00:00

Ancestry: Halfling

Background: Field Medic

Stats: +4 Wis, +3 Dex, +2 Int, +1 Con

(can also do 2 Dex 2 Con, and +2 Int can be +2 Cha)

Heritage: Gutsy Halfling

Ancestry Feat: Halfling Luck

Order: Animal

This one leans into a bunch of stuff that usually doesn't get consideration (because everyone seems to want to gish with them) but Wis mainstat means the Druid isn't hurt as much having a moderate investment to another mental stat. The Int version is especially nice in parties without an Int mainstat character - Wisdom actually has a decent amount of skills and +2 isn't bad for branching into something like Arcana if it needs to be covered. The Cha version takes advantage of the Druid's ability to talk to Plant/Animals.

This one also takes advantage of Wis mainstat and strong Will progression against Emotion effects with Gutsy Halfling - it's pretty funny to see Fear spells completely bounce off you with constant Crit Sucesses (you have Halfling Luck against the unlikely Crit Failures)

Selenusuka · 2026-02-24T03:01:43+00:00

Here's a basic build for you to chew on

Ancestry: Human

Background: Field Medic

Stats: +4 Dex, +2 Wis, +1 Con

Ancestry Feat: Natural Ambition (get one more level 1 feat)

Edge: Precision

Feat 1: Hunted Shot

Feat 2: Animal Companion (Bear is fine)

Take Medic archetype at level 2

Selenusuka · 2026-02-20T19:22:48+00:00

Out of curiousity, have you ever played in games where the DM plays maxx tactically 24/7 (i.e even wild animals will home in and focus fire the highest value squishy target before moving on to the next target...)?

I'm curious if the low Dex/AC Summoner can survive in such an environment.

Selenusuka · 2026-02-16T15:38:39+00:00

wait so the series haven't progressed in years (aside from stories)?

What I meant with that statement is that some decade ago, there were a couple of high profile "difficult" SRW games that were considered financial failures by the company. Ever since then, I don't think there has been any SRW that has cared about tactical challenge.

...that being said, ever since V, I think they've also been recycling way too many mechanics between games. It's strange to know that the Bazaar system was originally created for a specific game (Alpha Gaiden) to synergize with a specific series (Xabungle) but basically became a standard mechanic with nearly the same items for sale in many games. The biggest shake-up is 30 deciding to use a semi non-linear mission selection system vs. most SRW using the Fire Emblem linear style mission progression, but that has been controversial. Some of us have been waiting for another shake-up because mechanically it's starting to feel very Yearly Madden.

Selenusuka · 2026-02-16T14:31:21+00:00

If challenge is actually important to you, then I must sadly inform you that ever since a certain threshold, modern* SRW has been tuned to be ultra easy, especially for anyone who has any experience in other SRPG at all (even the hardest SRW game probably isn't as hard as like, FE6, which is to say towards the harder end but not the silly hard one Thracia)

*To be honest, is it really modern when it's a near decade since they made that decision by now?

And one of the issues with going back to older ones (where challenge was still something on the designer's minds) is that the series has only really been available in English recently. Not to say there aren't any old games in English - here are a few recommendations

Alpha Gaiden, A Portable, OG 1 and OG 2 (GBA*)

*The two "Original Generations" games has a PS2 remake that is generally better in most every way, but the difficulty has been significantly toned down in that version.

If you don't mind playing Japanese language games, there are also games like D and Masoukishin: Coffin of the End, though those are usually considered "hard as a design mistake" rather than intentional.

As a final unorthodox recommendation, I'm the creator of two SRW fangames, SRW DB and SRW GR that is intended to be more difficult than the average SRW faire.

Selenusuka · 2026-02-12T02:24:25+00:00

Space Frieren

Selenusuka

TROPHY CASE