hello viewer! Hope you enjoyed my review of the Fell Xenologue and understood where I was coming from with my feedback! Please don't forget to leave a like and comment down below. And if you'd like to support the channel, you can become a Member!!!

"Pick one of these: a) Good gameplay b) Good story" - Intelligent Systems, apparently

The maps would’ve been more bearable if Nil wasn’t a complete liability

Engage is so strange. It’s so at odds with it’s own design at almost every turn. I see they’ve continued this into the DLC as well.

One thing that frustrates me story-wise is that Alear is the only character from the main timeline to (canonically) be in Fell Ellyos but there's no explanation as to why their army can show up in battle. Even if it was just something as simple as "Alear can summon illusions of their friends to help" I'd be satisfied.

One of my BIG issues with FX is that Vander ALSO losses his Jeagan Promotion and thus prevents him from even being useable.

One thing positive i gotta say; the lines with the respective retainers can be heartwrenching. I had Pandreo attack Fogado and he sounded so.. dead inside, it almost made me tear up. Ivy and Zelkov had a really loaded conversation as well. That out of the way, i was really saddened on how it was handled in terms of difficulty, or rather lck of balancing. Mauvier would just tear through everything (thank god i guess) while the four (three) winds had to be constantly babysat, not to mentuion Nel and Nil.

> For reference on how easy Normal is, for me the first four chapters were just Louis and Jade sweeping the map by themselves and taking no damage EVER. > You forgot to mention the lack of scaling for the OCs when they join in the base game: They will always join as Prepromoted/ Level 20 Unpromoted no matter what. If you recruit them too early, their high level will over-inflate the difficulty of the skirmishes and Divine Paralogues. If, like me, you recruit them near the end of the game, you now have five underlevelled units you have to waste time babying up to the current level of your roster. In Three Houses, the Wolves would always scale with the progress of the story by the time you recruited them, just like students from other houses when they transferred over to your class.

I would also just love it if I could recruit the new characters without having to do the Fell Xenologue every single time. Mostly because I think they could be fun units. I just wish I did not have to do it every time and maybe not have them at Lv. 20.

outside of FX, i personally found the four winds to be really powerful and really helpful units. honestly one of the only things that really annoys me about FX is the fact that you have to complete it from start to finish every playthrough

One little thing you didn't touch upon is the fixed promotions. They follow a very strict formula. Axe Fighters ALWAYS promote to Berserker, for example. The problem is, several characters obviously do not have this as their cannon promotion. Clanne starts off with a Sword Talent without having to train him in it, and it matches up with his decent Strength growth, making it clear that the intention was for him to go for Mage Knight and be a mixed attacker. He's a Sage, instead. I don't think there are ANY Mage Knights in FX. What's worse, Anna has not just an innate Bow talent, but it's her BOON talent. Which means the game rewards you for using it. She gets B-Bows as a Warrior, and Warrior is the only good way to make use of her good Magic stat, through the Radiant Bow. She gets to be a Berserker, and thus be terrible. I can forgive Chloe not promoting into a Sword Griffon and getting Levin Sword. I can forgive Anna not being made into a Sage or Mage Knight. But I cannot forgive Berserker Anna.

I played this on Hard and it was the hardest FE has been for me. The final map got me to say screw this I'm going to normal (at least 9 hours were spent on that map) and I was blown away by how easy it was. It soured my experience because I felt like I cheated and beating all the other stages on hard was so damn satisfying. Like this isn't Normal Hard and Maddening. It's easy, maddening and Maddening+.

I seriously recommend everyone who just wants to try the new OCs in the main game to beat the Fell Xenologue on Normal and as early as possible (Chapter 9-10 is the best spot for it imo) and then make a separate save where the sidestory's done for subsequent play-troughs.

I had lost Nil on Chaper 3 to three cannoners hitting three 9% shots at the same time. Twice

In a nutshell: FX needs a patch baaad.

7:55 The funny thing about that is, that that's extremely unlikely to be a programming accident, because that restricting equipment function doesn't exist anywhere else. Which means somebody actively decided that was a good idea and ordered it to be programmed in.

I suspect some working condition problems at IS. Alot of these things should have been noticed with proper testing, but weren't. It's likely that this thing was rushed out. Which is a shame. Alot of it seems pretty easily and quickly fixable by just changing some configurations.

I had to switch to normal for that last map, it was just hours of failed attempts and pure frustration. I feel validated that I’m not alone in these feelings about the dlc

I think going the route of Fate's "Heirs of Fate" maps would have been fine giving you set characters for each maps with each map being its own puzzle to solve. The Cindered Shadows route would have been best in my eyes to agree though. I was excited to see maps designed around using the Braclets also assuming we would unlock them as the maps went on...

The thing about warp staves only becoming available in chapter 6 is because of story reasons I can't talk about in relation to what happened in the previous chapter, which is hilarious gameplay to story integration.

Engage: Surprisingly fantastic gameplay, absolutely laughable story. FX: Surprisingly satisfying story, absolutely disappointing balancing.

First map I loved a lot. Same as the last one with nil as a dragon. The rest I could do without. I hate how engage has infinite enemy waves coming to force you to rush. I'm fine with 1-3 waves and then it stopping but it's not fun. Units were worth it as they are cool

Honestly, the FX show exactly what's been a general issue I've had with Engage; it's overreliance on the various OP-ish gimmicks. Engage gives the player a giant list of rather OP gimmicks, with emblance, reclassing, crafted weapons, etc. To "balance" this, the AI gets an obscene amount of reinforcements, often ends up bumrushing you with a large amount of units at once, and AI units are on the powerfull end, often more than capable of one or two-shotting your units, and "tanks" really only seem to work reliably in perfect matchups (without engaging at least), only to be murdered if a bad matchup shows up (e.g. I had a random Mook with an armourslayer literally oneshot Jade. Sure he has an armourslayer, but is oneshotting really necesary?). FX then takes a lot of the player power away, forces you to use a bunch of fairly bad units. And if you're not at end-game, you won't really be able to cover for those losses with the more powerfull inherited skills/emblems. At the same time, the AI stays relativly powerfull, aggresive, and with loads of reinforcments. Which ends up showing just how reliant the design in Engage is on the various OP gimmicks. And honestly. I wish Engage hadn't go so hard on the gimmicks. It ends up undercutting the core gameplay, and it becomes increadibly noticeable whenever you're forced to work without (some) of the gimmicks.

Players:bad maps Game: but good characters Players:.....ok I'll play it.

I get it why Nil is super weak and it makes sense because of [spoilers]. But having Nel and the winds be super underwhelming was so annoying and got in the way of my attachment to these characters

I enjoyed the Fell Xenologues, mostly because of the story. However, I really wanted to add some of the OCs to my main team, so I did the FX around chapter 12, meaning I had barely any bond levels with my main team which was really frustrating. As someone who normally plays on hard/maddening, I ended up playing on normal just because it was so impossible to keep Nil alive

My issue is that you only get the 4 dragon stones that are held by the twins when they are recruited. I know you can’t get any more for canonical reasons, but considering that you have several possibilities for how they exist(forge or whatever it’s called changes them) and that the twins are meant to be deployed together, it’s just annoying to get only four

I made a mistake on playing through it all on Maddening so your experience with FX is literally how I felt, ESPECIALLY when I got into chapter 3 and so on. It took me 64 turns with no usage on the time crystal and even then I barely beat the boss before the reinforcements cornered Nil and Nel.

I'm happy to see I'm not alone on thinking this DLC was mishandled. At first when I saw you can bring your units over from the main game I ws excited because it meant the units I'd raised can be put to more use so when I saw that tutorial pop telling me everything was preset I just sighed so hard that I thought a monster would appear. And I think what makes this worse is how well-handled the main game was, they clearly play-tested the main game as unlike FE:TH Maddening, that mode actually feels properly made. But then you get to this and it's like....what happened? How did they mess this up so much? The good thing is a lot of the issues can be fixed via patches so hopefully Nintendo will acknowledge our criticism and address them.

Still hate it that the new classes are not given to Gregory being a enchanter and Madeline as a Magic Canonneer. Because in Cindershadows it let you get a great understanding of the classes strength and weaknesses are so you can understand which builds would be the best for your main campaign units. Plus I feel like Madeline having a more mature personality she would found it more reasonable to attack from afar. While Gregory being a more reasonable timed person would rather support plus I can see the wings let him have knifes because he isn't gonna cut himself with it. plus the other OCs have new classes or classes that are not playable in base game.

Fun fact the OCs are NOT scaled when you beat it, they will always be level 20 and level 1 promoted Even if you’re almost done with the game Man if only the game could read your average level or something That would be crazy

It terrifies me that I'll have to go through this all over again every new file. Cindered Shadows rocked for letting you keep your clear bonuses, but Fell Xenologue is even more of a slog thanks to Emblems and skills not being pre-built on your pre-built units. Demon Twink Nil's pretty groovy though. It also hurts that Gregory and Madeline weren't the appetizer for Enchanter and Mage Cannoneer.

I loved it when bonded shield 'just happened' to not proc on Nil and only Nil on Maddening, leading to a game over. Then the enemy phase lands two crits in a row on my units.

I mentioned when the Xenologue first came out that it truly is the opposite of the base game. Base game has fantastic gameplay, but only ok story Xenologue has fantastic story and characters, but meh/bad gameplay It's just so weird that they dropped the ball this hard with the Xenologue

I'm not ashamed to say that it took me all of 2-3 maps to drop from maddening to normal. Trying to keep Nil alive was forcing me to play in the least fun way possible, and on top of that I quickly realized Nel would also need to babysat because despite turning into a giant fell dragon, her damage is okay at best and she needs to get her hair out of her eyes so she can actually hit something. I genuinely feel like they intentionally made FX miserable. Either it's an effortless stomp on normal or it's an infuriating babysitting adventure on hard and maddening.

Thank you for the video Ghast!! Awesome analysis as always.

That last map was a nightmare, it would have probably gone a lot smoother if had realized earlier that won't outright attack your units so putting them in his danger zone would have been fine, but otherwise it took me WAY too long and the only way I could finish him had to be with draconic hex, and even that took me quite a while

I was able to do most of the maps on Hard difficulty until that last one. I restarted the map twice on Hard difficulty until I gave up and just completed it on Normal because I was wanting to be done.

I would've appreciated more variety in the preset classes, like being able to use a Mage Knight or High Priest instead of just Sages and Martial Masters

Main game: Gameplay>story Fell Xeno: Gameplay

Nil is the most appropriately named character in all of fire emblem

Though I feel that the fell Xenologue is a mixed bag for me, overall I like it. The story with Nel and Nil was good and I really like the four winds and how they are almost polar opposites of the four hounds, well except for Mauvier of course. And right now I am enjoying them as units when you get them. Some things to note: The fell Xenologue hits so much harder when you figure out that the people you fight are actually corrupted, yes corrupted as in they already died corrupted. And somehow you can figure it out already, before the big reveal, when you play the second map when fighting alternate Alfred and Celine. How I figured it out was when I had Celine engage with Celica and used Seraphim against them and the corrupted symbol popped on a unit I was fighting. However when I said mixed bag at least to me was the difficulty to finish the Xenologue. I definitely agree with you on the gameplay portion so for me, First off, Nil is a walking losing condition as he has abysmal stats and will get two shot by enemies. At least because he is a dragon he gets the emblem benefits of the dragon so I stuck him Veronica though Micaiah is also good too. I see your point with the OC's stat spread with auto battle. Wolves, I hate the status condition it gives that if you don't heal it your base hp stat itself lowers by 5. So have a very good tank with Hector equipped. Mage Cannoneers constantly attacking you. Deal with them quickly chapter 3😮😮😮 Emblem Veronica, just Emblem Veronica, not the one we have, the one the enemy gets. Spawns too much reinforcements. Chapter 5 in a nutshell and due to story reasons the condition that you have to through with this map sucks but I am glad that you ended up liking it, I don't like it Final Chapter if you decide to play on higher difficulty mainly due to the constant reinforcements. I just said screw it at that point and wanted the characters so played it on normal to get over and done with. And it just becomes easier, way too easy. But if you do decide to play this map have a healer with Micaiah equipped on the ready, you will need her specifically.

Completely agree with everything you said! The reinforcement spam is what really got to me-but in chapter 5 not chapter 6. I Warp Ragnorok’d Nel out of her box in the first turn, which made Nil, Fogado and Hortensia advance earlier, with Fogado continually summoning reinforcements. It got to the point where reinforcements were 5 deep in that narrow corridor so I just had to give up and it made me want to give up on the whole DLC. Great video mate!

My biggest gripe for FX was not being able to access inventory in the prep menu for the new OCs. This made it unnecessarily cumbersome and a waste of time. I played FX on hard and after beating the campaign, I didn’t want to immediately replay FX and felt no need to touch FX ever again. This was the opposite reaction for me when I played cindered shadows from 3H for the first time: I wanted to replay it to optimize my run.

No final chapter should take 5 HOURS to just finish

Honestly I’m glad we got the winds and the twins but I expected right away Nil was evil or I should say rafal. I loved the story and different characters too.

Story spoilers below. I'm sure others have stated something to this effect, but I agree with the slight caveat that Nil being a liability is deliberate, and honestly some of the most interesting gameplay and story integration I've seen from FE in a while. Carrying him is part of the challenge, he is a complete pain in the ass who will rarely if ever see combat, and yet Wounded Pride procs over and over regardless. The result is that you viscerally feel his conflict as a "failure." I actually really, really like this, and I played on Maddening. It took less than two chapters for me to feel more invested in the implications here than literally anything in the main story. Nel and the Winds being almost just as bad, however, is insanely stupid and I could not agree with you more. You know there's a problem when the Winds "die" in chapter 5 and my immediate reaction is "oh thank god I won't have to use them again." Followed shortly thereafter by a frustrated string of curses when they're totally fine and get forced into my roster in the final battle. I think a lot of your proposed fixes would go a long way in mitigating the issue, but I maintain that you fundamentally alter, and IMO worsen, the overall experience by making Nil anything other than a borderline deadweight. (Also, I, too, am devastated they all give NPC type support boosts in the main story ☹)

It's so unfortunate how I get a semi-version of my endgame team. My team just got the new bracelets, has the classes and skills I want, but there's no more content to actually use them to their fullest potential outside a tempest trial. They balanced the bracelet DLC maps totally fine with scaling difficulty. They could have just done the same here and let you use your main team. Even let them gain Exp and bound levels like any other paralogue. And then give Nil and Nel bond level 10 or 20 with all rings depending on your team's highest bond level.

I told this to my friend about some the cool add-ons like the well being used but something that could have been an improvement was allowing the map difficulty to be adjusted when trying to level up your units

Thank you for talking about this Faer. I loved engage enough to spend $30 on the dlc just for FX. FX borderline made me hate all fire emblem. I wanted a refund but of course you can’t refund DLC. You hit almost everything on the head, but I feel like you missed a few things. First, while yes the story is compelling, there are some problems. It’s never made very clear why Nel killed the corrupted royals outside of “she’s edgy”. Fell Alfred in particular is a great example of how even in FX, when you get corrupted the way Veyle corrupts people, you basically just become alive again and being corrupted is pretty much irrelevant. I also feel like the story is kinda pointless. We don’t know what “Sombron’s goals” are, and so Nil becoming a dragon when he wishes to grant him what Sombron wanted feels forced to me. The other, more egregious, problem is the state of the OCs once you recruit them to Engage. They’re so unbalanced I actually found it to be malicious on the part of the developers. FX is supposed to be this hardcore mode you can only really reasonably beat in the postgame, but then they give you unusable internal level 20 characters as a reward. They might as well not be recruitable if they don’t join with levels scaled to your progression in the game (which ironically scaling was their problem in FX as well). If I’m paying half the cost of the base game for this DLC, I had better feel rewarded after I actually complete the DLC, and this almost felt like being spat at in the face.

The restore staff that Nil can’t use in chapter one is a great example of the general confusing and sloppy experience of FX. I think the idea is that you either give him micaiah (which you might not even have) or have him trade it to a staff unit, but the game doesn’t poorly explain that until after you start the map and he can’t access the convoy prior to starting. It’s so poorly conveyed that everyone I’ve seen play that chapter for the first time has been confused at why he has that staff he can’t use lol.

I feel people forget in addition to fell xenologue, we got maps for each bracelet. I agree that the restrictive gameplay mechanics for difficulty sake sucked, but that doesn't make the dlc as a whole a hot mess. Being able to recruit and see supports from the 4 hounds/winds was actually something I really wanted in the base game. So I kinda like this dlc despite how frustrating the Fell Xenologue felt. Also I just want to say, this dlc is the exact reason why the time crystals and mid battle saves are necessary. The amount of times I got screwed over by a miss or enemy crits would of had me quit the game entirely.

It is so abundantly clear that nobody play tested FX.

i thought that the fell xenologue was fucking insanely difficult because i tried doing it on maddening from chapter 8 what a fool i was

Chapter 1: I sure hope there aren't MORE wolves on Hard/Mad. Chapter 2: Good thing Zelestia has an Elthunder tome, so the Enchanters can ruin their own prospects. Chapter 3: I sure am glad Gregory is _just_ good enough to handle the units here-- oh shoot, I'm on Normal. Chapter 4: Kamikaze-bombing Hortensia into Ivy is goated. I've heard that Maddening removes effective weapon damage, and I do not like the thought of that. Chapter 5: The slight lag from fighting the wolves in that one chamber nearly killed me. Chapter 6: Just rush to the last island with fliers; Fell Nil heads to the furthest-up island with three people at it.

I have to say, having the retainers of the main lords and ladies in the alternate universe be killed off was a massive missed opportunity, or even other supporting characters like Yunaka not being mentioned at all. I would have found it interesting how psychotic they could've made her, especially if the more murder hungry part of her character was the main personality.

Excellent review.

Hello! Nine months into the future here where we have discovered new Rafal cheese tech: Give Alear Edelgard and re roll until he starts on Claude, then we engage to forcefully keep him on Claude and attack Rafal with poison gambit Liberation. Then use Veronica’s contract skill to force him into another poison gambit rush. This can also be made easier by giving him a revival stone through tiki’s divine blessing and buffing his stats through chrom’s rally.

The fact its not like CS and you have to do it more than once is my biggest gripe. Those 6 levels are an absolute grind that had my eyes rolling into the back of my head at some points then wondering how its even meant to be possible on higher difficulty at others and now you have to do them every single time you want to use any of the characters in a playthrough. Like, just make it optional to replay for those masochists that actually wanna go back to it and put themselves through that again.

Fell xenologue should have been included in the base game as the endgame content lots of games always have endgame content

Honestly, what screwed the FX over (and all of Engage), is that the game was finished... and then shelved for 2 years... then released... but the original team was gone by now, so we can't get any new updates to the game. If the DLC and updates were released soon after the game was completed, all of these issues would have most likely been fixed. This also applies to updates that people wanted (like a new game + or using the somniel clothes in battle). At the very least... this game is a case study for why Modern Games need post game support. Because some features and fixes will naturally be missed by the developers. This was acceptable back during the SNES and the N64 era, but now in 2023.

thank god i found out about this video when i was doing a base game maddening run cause i was about to do a dlc maddening also

I had a completely different experience when going in hard from chapter 9 save file. I had most of the OCs do equally as well as my units since I had low bond levels and no abilities. Being able to double with levin sword was extremely useful for Zelestia and Nel worked as a decent finisher for most battles. Nil was meant to be useless and I can’t say much about Gregory and Madeline as Gregory was my decoy applier for my dodge tank and I barely played with Madeline.

I totally agree with your thoughts on this DLC. It's so sad because it fixed most of the problems (story) from the main game while taking MASSIVE steps back with player experience. I can't see myself playing this more than one or two times to say I did it. Which is different from the main story where I'm on playthrough 3.

I actually thought the Winds were great units in my playthrough. Madeline was a tank, Gregory was powerful magic user, and Zelestia was a great sword flyer. I also really enjoyed the Ivy and Timerra chapter because we never got a Rival faction on any base-game maps.

It's interesting because I do see a lot of people praise the DLC's story and characters and I just can't agree at all. "What if the same characters but OPPOSITE!!" is such an amateur writing idea. It's a fanfiction I wrote when I was 10. Nil and Nel were fine and the twist with Nil was interesting. Everything else about it was really bad including the cheap way they tried to pull at my emotions and then the cop out they hastily added to make us feel okay about killing familiar characters. Anyway, nice analysis of the gameplay! It was well worded.

Gameplay Wise: Cindered Shadows > Fell Xenologue Storywise: Fell Xenologue > Cindered Shadows

I... didn't realize you could change the difficulty until watching this. I pushed through hard with gritted teeth, taking six hours of play time just to beat the last map.

2:52 yuri got a 0% crit

Well "was this ever play tested?" is pretty par for the course in fe

Yes yes… but consider the following: Madeline and Zelestia are best girls so it was all worth it. 10/10 would look up a guide for chapters 5 and 6 again. Chapter 3 was honestly fine for me, felt challenging enough where I had to think but not outright bullshit. Chapter 4 I guess I got lucky on cause I surprisingly didn’t have too hard a time with it. Chapters 5 and 6 like I hinted at were bullshit though. Literally had to reset multiple times for Chapter 5 and just gave up and looked up a 1 turn guide for chapter 6.

I'd have way fewer complaints if I only had to play it once to get the items and characters on every playthrough after, like everyone else has said. They did this with cindered shadows and I'm absolutely baffled why they didn't do that with this game. I hope enough complaints will get them to patch "once and done" in somehow.

I wish I could get into modding (I'm just not smart enough and also can't risk getting my switch banned from online play) so I could try messing around with making small adjustments like letting you increase bond on the OC units and see if that makes it all a much better experience. That and I've always wanted to play a FE randomizer

The other really bad thing is, if tou wait till you have all the emblems to havw more flexibility for doing this...all the dlc units are completely unusable without heavy grinding because they join at a set level. 20 for Nel Rafal and Zelestia, and 1 for Gregory and Madeline, whereas all your units by that point would be wither max level, close to it, or evwn reset to level one of their class to gain more stats Meanwhile if you do them as early as possible you have 5 hilariously op units that will erase all the challenge for a good while. Even if 3 of them recruit wirhout any weapons

I believe that fx is genuinely impossible on the highest difficulty as soon as you get access to it. The fact that late game units are just better due to higher bases and lower growths meaning even when leveled down they are significantly stronger for most of fx, early on your skill inheritance will likely only be small things like avoid+10 or canter unlike the spd taker and vantage wrath settups you wont have axcess too until much later. And on top of all that, you won't have the emblem rings to equip everyone unless you get the dlc rings or complete most of the original campaign. Also, the units levels, when recruited to your main party, are stagnant and dont change no matter when you complete fx on a run. Do it super early and you will have monsters capable of destroying the first 2-3rds of the game but if you recruit them around the time you have all your rings, their bond levels and poor stats for that time will make them almost as useless as they are in the campaign of fx. Awful design

I have been trying to get through the fell xenologue on maddening mode and I have been stuck on the brodia map because half my team are complete liabilities. LOOKING AT YOU NIL, NEL, AND GREGORY!

19:50 Uh, Ghast. You know if you're worried about spoilers in this review, you should probably remove that "Fell XXX" labeled character scene here aswell as a bit earlier with the fat dragon who also shows his label a few times. (around 15:00-15:40)

Oh my goodness, i made it into a ghast video, im honored :,)

Completed FX in maddening finally. On my second playthrough in maddening, the only time i had to restart a chapter was FX final.. but made it on my second try.. Pure hell.. and had to use all the crystals, though

How Fell Xenologue should have worked: - No relation to your ongoing main campaign playthrough at all - Most importantly/related to the above, no bringing over any Emblems that you haven't earned within the FX campaign -> you got a bracelet in the campaign? Wow, it actually matters! - Related to that, auto-set bond level to (whatever) for all characters (you could also let them build bond level within the campaign but eh) - Fixed roster of OCs plus maybe a handful of handpicked units that came with Alear for whatever reason (similar to Cindered Shadows) - YOU CAN F***ING TRADE WITH THE OCS IN PREPS OMG

I think you hit the nail on the head. I played through Hard, started but did not clear Ch. 6, and I think I might just cave and drop the difficulty. You mentioned Anna's reclassing specifically. Funny thing, you don't need to make her a mage, her natural class change to Warrior makes her a terror with a Radiant Bow. But FX makes her a Berserker instead, ugh... Ch. 3 was grueling. I actually did run out of time stone charges and would have been up the creek if not for the fact that I had a mid-battle save. The reinforcements coupled with the low hit rates threaten to be overwhelming very easily; you need to get unintuitively aggressive and snipe the boss units, all while praying for good RNG. Ch. 5 being so good by comparison makes Ch. 6 feel like a real letdown. In Ch. 5, Nel actually can beat Nil alone if you equip her with Tiki's Fog Breath, which bypasses the need to fight the other bosses. Ch.6 doesn't do a good job of actually explaining its unique mechanics, either. You're just told to flee in a general direction, and the significance of FNil killing a Bracelet holder as opposed to a normal enemy is not explained.

Honestly kinda surprised you liked the story and characters! Personally, while I love the supports, I thought the writing of the characters and story was genuinely awful lol. Just the worst. But I'm glad to hear you liked that part! I'm interested in watching your video and seeing your thoughts on it!!

To bypass the inventory dysfunction of the forced deployed units, I selected the units that I wanted to use, and then cleared the inventories of every other character that was not going to be deployed, so that I have all of the gear and items available in the convoy to grab on turn 1. A very makeshift workaround, I know. For the bond supports of the pseudo-green units, they should have had the bond levels of every single Emblem ring/bracelet gradually increase with each chapter. FX 5 would have been easier if Nel had access to Tiki's Lifesphere, which is at bond level 8. But since we're stuck with bond level 1 for every force-deployed units, the tedium of these lackluster units are retained.

I was wondering if I was the only one to find such big issues with the Xenologues, glad I'm, not alone... And honestly, it seems like an oversight the Winds and Fell Twins have both unused SP and can't raise their bond levels, even giving them all 2-3 Bond 5 options would go a long way to helping them out

I was dreading the maps especially the 5th and 6th

FX 6 suffers from bad communication. When you're on the second platform you can either take the north route straight to the final sigil into reinforcement hell, or stick to the boss by diving the center. However, on the first run you don't exactly know that the top-left platform is the last on the route, and if you pull the Elusian air force and end up pushing north by mistake, then you're stuck with that choice as the map collapses behind you. Going along the "intended" route, I actually ended up routing the map on Hard, though I did need to abuse battle saves because Diamant and the boss together create a lot of pressure when moving to the top right. And Zelestia was pulling her own weight with her marginal speed advantage over Ivy, letting her actually one-round axe wyverns with Excalibur. Her main issue was that she came with garbage default gear, as lightning is absolutely not the type of tome she should be using with her Spd. Nel was also serviceable with dragonstone attacks, though hardly a star of the show. Madeline and Gregory were really bad though, and with the singular exception of Zelestia the performance of the new units in FX gave me no indication of how they would work in the main campaign, nor could I assess the value of the new classes when they were only shown among the enemies. To go back to the CS comparison, each Wolf came in one of the DLC classes, so you could tell what you were getting when picking those up for the main game. Here you instead only experience Enchanters and Cannoneers as highly scripted enemies, leaving you with very little idea of how valuable such utility would be in your own team.

Even though it nearly drove me mad at times, I was determined to beat FX on maddening, and I almost did. But the final map completely broke my spirit. I did the unthinkable and dropped from maddening to normal since I was completely burnt out and just wanted to be done with it

Very true video. I play on hard, and would do maddening if it had skirmishes (never letting my starter units in the dust), but while I had fun and needed to be crafting in certain chapters, enjoying the challenge (in spite of the crap you mentioned which I hated just as much), at times it truly became tedious. Chapter 2 comes to mind (very much dislike its design), and chapter 6 was horrible: I put hours in it, followed the rules that I was given (go NW), only to be rewarded by the neverending spam of units AND Rafal changing the rules I had been taught at 1st (turn1: nothing, t2: spawns, t3: destroy all). I save-scummed for like 80mn to find an exit to my Timerra predicament (Team A: NW; Team B: SE), eventually managed by the skin of my teeth to get all of my team B NE, only to be rewarded with the same inescapable cleave damage I had just barely escaped + infinite wyvern/knights spawns. I felt FX had betrayed me: Ice coffee Gaming's channel had a strategy in normal to kill Rafal in early game, I adapted it (no Chrobin at the time) and don't want to play this chapter, or the whole DLC ever again in Hard or above.

Upon having a terrible experience with the Broadia map, I spent A LOT of time grinding my Emblem inherited skills to create a team that would pull me through the final map. The big stars were: 1) Chloe with inherited Alacrity++ and Spd/Dex +5, while equipped with Sigurd, max bond. This allowed her to move across the entire map, kill units without retaliation, and then retreat. Perfect for hit and runs. 2) Alcryst, with Canter+ and Str/Dex +5 and max bond Lyn. He would never miss, have the strength to kill an enemy in one round (w/out retaliation, thanks to Lyn), move back from the front lines, and constantly proc Luna. 3) Merrin with canter+, draconic hex and max bond Edelgard. She could hit and run while weakening enemies, and/or use Claude's bow to attack from three range, inflicting the hex w/out risk of counter. 4) Timerra with +5 Def, +5 Str/Dex and max Emblem Hector. She proved to be a tank that could take any and all things, and killed most things in enemy phase. With support bonuses with Merrin, she constantly proc'd sandstorm. During the fight with the final boss, every time she attacked sandstorm + Armads hit, doing over 50 damage. She was a killer. 5) Seadall with Dual support (Lucina's skill) and Canter +, paired with maxed out Emblem Corrin. He played a support roll, though when paired with Chloe and Alcryst, could get my two strongest heavy hitters to wipe the field. Later when reinforcements came from Corrupted Diamant, he could halt the entirety of them into one place, where they were picked off without issue. 6) Hortensia, Canter + and momentum +, Byleth max bond. Basically she became a magical Sigurd, though with the Byleth Divine +, would never miss. She came in clutch for healing and killing stragglers. 7) Ivy Mag/Dex + 5 and Momentum+, max bond with Soren. She could strike most enemies across the map, and her Rexcalibur meant that she could deal with all of the corrupted wyverns, one shotting them w/out issue. She saw less use than I expected, though that was mainly due to Chloe and Alcryst being too powerful. She also was helpful physic-ing when necessary. I ultimately completed it on hard, though with luck this team could transfer over to Lunatic. In any case, the OCs were all but useless. I agree with what Ghast says.

Everything was great but damn I hate the restrictions the last one on normal I got so damn lucky but feels Satisfying when I got all the new character so I’m happy with this dlc lol

PSA to all who are going to do the DLC for their first playthrough. Please do all the Divine Paralogue maps before finishing the FX if you're planning on getting the characters around chapter 6-10! If you finish the FX as early as chapter 6 on Normal, you'll inadvertently make the DLC paralogues and skirmishes harder as they scale to your highest members level. The 5 characters you get are set at level 20 and lvl 1 promoted respectively regardless on where you are. So, all the divine paralogue challenges will scale the enemies to that level and with additional skills. I really don't know what IS was thinking when they made this DLC in regards to the balance of the game. I felt the devs had the expectation of players to do the final 2 chapters on mid to end game at least on Hard, and definitely end game for Maddening. But by that point all the DLC characters would be next to useless since you've already had an army built for the occasion, and are beating the end of the main game by the time you beat the DLC. However, if you decide to do early normal at about chapter 6 just for the characters, then you're overkilling your army, snatching previous xp for earlier characters, and making the following skirmishes and DLC paralogues harder. If you want my personal (appropriate) order to get the characters on FX Normal for a standard Hard/Classic playthrough then it'd be: - Play until chapter 9 so that you have as many rings to use for the other paralogues. - Do the Tiki Paralogue. - Finish the rest of the Divine Paralogue maps (Chrom is imo the hardest so you could save that for later) - Finish FX before or around chapter 10 -13 so that the DLC units are on par to where you are in the game. This is just a suggestion and ya don't have to listen to me. Just have fun and enjoy what we can outta this mess of a DLC! PS: I'm now in a conundrum on who to marry lol.

I would like for the characters level and classes to match where you are in the story. Like say if you did this at chapter 6 the characters you would get outside of nel and rafal would be in base classes and level 6-8 with nel and rafal would be level 1 in in their classes while later game they would be in higher level and classes.

I agree 100%. I only played Cindered Shadows once, because I just hated the last boss THAT much. It was my most hated map in all of Fire Emblem for a time - though Engage did Tie it with seemingly infinite reinforcements in such huge numbers that you literally cannot defeat them all each turn. But I only NEEDED to play it once. I still got all the rewards for every subsequent playthrough, and didn't need to replay CS just to use Yuri, Hapi, Balthus, and Constance, or their new classes. I could use the Ashen Wolves as early as I could enter Abyss (so after the first mock battle but before the Red Canyon), and their classes as soon as I could reach Level 20. It was great! It was worth suffering through Cindered Shadows' final boss at least once for that! But Fell Xenologue? I need to do it EVERY time? I did it on a postgame file first because it was my "main" file, and imagine my disappointment when all the new characters joined at level 1 promoted, and completely unuseable because of how late it was. I also missed my chance to try fielding the Winds against the Hounds, which really interested me. Lastly, I'd already given the pact ring and I was especially curious to see how Nel reacted, considering her past with Alt-Alear, so yet another missed opportunity. Soooo... I need to... start a new file, get to a far enough chapter, play through the DLC again but with weaker units, less rings, and a more limited roster, and THEN I can check all this out? I struggled enough as is WITH all those extras, and I even lowered the difficulty to Normal for the DLC because it was just pissing me off and not worth the effort. Why can't I just... get the rewards because I already beat it, like with Cindered Shadows!? It wouldn't be so bad if it was JUST the new characters locked behind the DLC - I can live with not using them every file since you only have so many deployment slots. But I've been eagerly awaiting the new classes - The Enchanter and Mage Cannoneer - and was super excited when I spotted them as enemies in the Bracelet DLC Maps, because I knew they were hinting at things to come. I want to run at least one of each on new playthroughs from now on. But they're also locked behind clearing the Fell Xenologue on a playthrough. Freaking heck! If I only needed to play the Fell Xenologue once, I'd love it. But honestly, the maps are tediously annoying, and needing to complete it early if you want to explore all the content it has to offer in the main game makes it even worse since you can't rely on useful lategame units like Veyle or useful lategame rings like Corrin or Eirika. It gets worse and worse the earlier you try to play it, but the rewards get worse and worse the longer you put it off. You just can't win! What were they thinking?

The way I see it, the different difficulties work best if you see them like a scaling difficulty based on your main story progress. Maddening is going to be awful if you play it early because you have so little to bring with you, and normal is going to be dead easy late game because you have access to your *entire* bag of tools so to speak.

They should have also allowed bond increase and support building for the main game, given how they've made the DLC part of the game safe file anyway. The game could certainly use more opportunities to get those

One particular aspect of FX6 that I found really weird was that Hard difficulty specifically was the only difficulty that DIDN’T give you the S-Rank Weapons as obtainable items. I can understand Normal giving you them, considering that it was designed to be the easiest difficulty, but why does Maddening give you them? And why does Hard not give you them? You would think that it would be the other way around, with Maddening taking away such high might weapons as added difficulty. As someone who played through FX on Hard, I’m confused as to why IS decided to restrict only those who played on the middle difficulty in this way.

LET HIM COOK HE’S SPITTING 🔥🔥

Literally just finished the Fx and what can I say? You have encapsulated my every grievance with the gameplay. I started out with hard, but nearly immediately changed to normal. I was really disappointed with how easy it was on normal difficulty. I hoped it was like how normal was for CS. It’s a shame cause the story was great, and the characters were also great. It presented some of the depth the main game was missing. It’s wonder how they fumbled the gameplay when the main game’s gameplay is so stellar. I hope they patch it in the future. There was a lot of good there, but the balancing was non existent.

I played through the whole thing on hard, but on ch6 with the reinforcements I got so frustrated I went down to normal. I've beaten the main game on Maddening, which definitely had some frustrating moments, and yet I just couldn't find anything fun in ch6 on hard because I was being punished no matter how "well" I played it (I refused to try it on Maddening due to the fixed stats. I'd built my units for a reason.). There were other maps (like Tiki's) with a lot of reinforcements, but they ended eventually, so they still felt okay, if a bit annoying. I could sit in one spot and deal with them until they ended and then focus on the rest. Obviously ch6 has the added stress of the areas getting destroyed so you can't turtle anyway, so it baffles me why they thought infinite reinforcements were a good idea. I did love the characters and story (and ost!) but I wish it felt more fair.

I did the FX early and on normal (base game hard tho), the oc characters are then pretty even with power, so it seems to be balanced for that. I don't know if the oc characters are stronger on hard, but if not i think an early game squad cannot do the dlc on hard. Maybe normal is for early, hard for middle, late (with escort of the oc as extra) and maddening as an challenge mode?