Echoes also has pitchforking and Dread fighter looping! But I didn't talk about it because frankly my experience with it is very limited. But wanted to pin a comment explaining why it's not mentioned here
I was interested as to why it wasn’t mentioned, but overall I can also sort of see why iirc all female units & all male units in the mercenary or villager line have a unique spell list, meaning you can have a good flexibility when it comes to Male mages, but female units tend to do worse outside of there base class, any unit that the game didn’t plan to become a mage only get fire at Lv 1, thunder at Lv 8, and recover on promotion The exceptions would be Conrad who despite not having a way into the Mage class without a pitchfork, gets his entire spell list at level one, And Faye who has a big different in spells available between mage and cleric, with the dance spell “Anew” in the Cleric camp We do also have the stars shards that have pretty massive growth swings with some of them going +50% in a specific stat, and springs that can split stats between units Actually, now that I think about it, it is a bit of a shame it wasn’t mentioned, like my personal example is I remember people talking about making Tobin an armored knight because of his high speed making him just about double everything on Alm’s path with great stats everywhere else, but I was able to get the same affect out of Lukas by using the the star shard + a spring or too, I also make Faye a cavalier holding the shards to maximize her growth rate potential so I can re-class into a magic Faye without worrying of the penalties to her hp/atk/def growths I guess I’ll have to play more because based off of my experience, I’m really two minds about re-classing in these games, for me, I wouldn’t use these pitchforks on any male character, instead taking Faye from Cavalier to Gold knight then to Magic, and saving the last two to take a female Mage out of Magic, then back into Magic after some good growths, I also remember Mae being a better falcon knight over mage Damn I wanna replay SoV now
I feel like it's probably important to mention that, while Engage's class balance isn't dominated by one class like many of the other games mentioned here, I wouldn't necessarily say it's good- some classes are almost strictly worse than others (swordmaster vs. sword griffin is just SAD).
@@athath2010 I don't think the class balance is perfect, but I think it's pretty good. A wide variety of viable classes is the main thing I'm looking for in a class system and Engage provides that even if some of the options are weak.
@@athath2010 I was kind of shocked on my first playthrough when reclassing swordmaster Lapis: "So if I reclass to griffin I get a bit more of every stat AND plus 1 move AND flying AND C staves in exchange for uh no terrain bonuses and a weakness to bow/wind... sign me up!" Though I would argue you could get to some interesting shenanigans playing with run through, canter, an avoid skill and defensive terrain. But that's pretty niche --> griffin better 90% of the time. Edit: Ah, and you don't need a "super-proficiency" in swords to wield S-rank swords, so there's that. Overall, maybe you could have your 10th/12th/14th unit be a swordmaster for those times you need a fast sword wielding unit that's not shredded by bow.
Minor correction, but Fates units have 1 base class and 1 reclass option with the exceptions being units that can only support with Corrin (Scarlet, Gunter, Fuga, etc.) having 2 reclass options to compensate.
The reason class limitations in Shadow Dragon are the way they are is because they're based on how many of that class you would've had in the base game with no reclassing, +1. The reason you have so many slots for Paladins is the original game gives you a ton of Cavaliers, you have 6 Dracoknights because Caeda + Minerva + the Whitewings + 1. It was essentially the game's way of keeping the map design philosophy you discussed in FE7: the original maps were made assuming you could have no more than 5 fliers, 9 Paladins and so on. The problem is the original FE1 gave you a lot of the good classes and few of the weaker classes... probably on purpose, since its design very much expected you to lose units so as a mercy they give you a lot of "spares" of the good classes.
fun fact: moulder is the only sage in fe8 who gains a speed bonus from wielding excalibur due to his high con stat and the fact that excalibur has an incredibly high wt, most other mages will in fact gain a speed penalty so there is a very real reason you'd want to use moulder as a sage
@@AndrewChumKaser Bishop is only better against monsters because of the slayer skill it preforms worse against humans due to light magic generally being weaker than anima magic from a Sage. Fe8 has a good number of monster maps at the end but not enough to call bishops busted.
@johnlynch1353 is there even a single human map post the last map with Valter and Calleach at the end of the split? Edit: I'm stupid and both the Vanessa's sister and Rausten + Reiv map are full of human enemies for a reason that is not adequately explained by the plot
Fates' reclassing was the best system so far imo, especially in the restrained environment of Conquest. It gave a ton of depth to the support system as well, making plans for who to S support and A+ sypport who to open new class options. The way the skill system works also incentiveses smart class changing if you just want to grab a buncb of skills from 2 or 3 classes.
Based . Enough options for players to try while still limiting it so each character could have its special niches instead of havin everibody being an edgy wyvern rider
Agreed, it made it so units can still feel unique without being able to just make them become anything on a dime. I'm a fan of Beruka with Kaze to give her that ninja class line which fits for her character and can work in tandem with her personal skill.
Especially when other games that are more limiting in your class changes, they also reset your level to 1 which makes it feel incredibly unbalanced. Or in Engage's case, makes keeping track of real levels harder.
While conceptually I agree, having played Conquest and Engage recently I personally prefer Engage's reclassing. At its core it's not as good or deep, but my issue with Conquest is you often have to plan character supports, reclasses and levelling FAR in advance to get the skills you want, often before you start playing. Getting decision paralysis before I even start playing is not a feeing I like. The other thing I like about Engage is class skills not being transferable. It means if you're using a character in a class, it's because you want them to FIGHT in that class. In Conquest you'd often have people hop into a class for 2 levels just for one skill, or in Three Houses make everyone Bandits temporarily just for Death Blow.
@@Blitz_Spencer of the top of my head, rider/flying classes. There's probably some exceptions, but I haven't reclassed to everything yet so idk. I remember somebody made a video about which classes give her a ponytail.
I feel like the ideal solution would probably to make class changing more limited on initial runs but allow you to do anything you want on new game + or future runs. Also can they please add a official randomiser mode to fe games already.
Here's a pitch for this idea! Imagine Fates' reclass system the different seals allow reclassing based on supports etc. But then in newgame+ you get a special shop, like the journal in three houses. You can spend renown on various things, but one of those is the "memoriam seal" which allows a unit to class change into any class that they could have on a previous run. This would mean that in fates context marrying a character to Kaze would not only unlock Ninja as reclass option in that playthrough, but with the power of the Memoriam Seal, that unit could be Ninja on any and all subsequent playthroughs. This would mean to have 100% freedom you would require multiple playthroughs, but it also means that new game plus allows you to continue a units growth into a new playthrough (which is the point of new game +) Now you can marry them off to somebody else while you dip into Ninja for the skills you got last playthough then use the new classes to build on top! This is kinda similar to how you could just buy class mastery in three houses to instantly get their skills, but more balanced cause you actually have to level the class like normal. Edit: I realize thus would require using the same characters over and over so maybe it would work best on a game with a smaller roster, like how three houses have the individual houses.
I feel like fe8s method makes the most sense as a balance of the "class as identity" and total freedom options. Idk why it never returned, outside of IS thinking its too hard to make the choices equally viable (not that they need to be, sometimes its good to have unbalance in your single player video game).
Probably cuz itdoesn't give the same feeling of player agency/player choice as the freer systems. And unfortunately, gamers have been obsessed with player agency/choice for the past decade or so. Restricting players is often viewed as bad, even if those restrictions ultimately serve a greater purpose (e.g. more class identity, better designed maps cuz they don't have to design around players having either 0 or 12 flyers etc.) It's a shame, but it's a rather common issue nowadays.
I think fe7 is an interesting example of the benefits of no reclassing, as so many units in that game are defined by their class. Units like Pent, Hawkeye, and Jaffar would be much less unique in a system with reclassing. Also on Dread-looping, the real benefit is that you can very quickly gain ~30 levels due to resetting your level, so the class you pick only matters in regards to what attributes you want ( ie bow knight for high move and range)
I don't understand how reclass would hinder fe7 preproms. Are you arguing other units would steal thier roles? I don't see how, when the game itself has units that can promote to their class and still the preproms are ahead of them at base.
@@marcoasturias8520 I'm pretty sure he's talking about how reclassing would kill character identity. There's something deceisively lame about reclassing Jaffar out of assassin because "he's better as a paladin or wyvern."
On the other hand, having a character's role defined solely by their class means that most characters of the same class are interchangeable and/or competing against each other for a deployment slot. There isn't gonna be much difference between a run using Sain and Will, and a run using Kent and Rebecca. And most people find hard to justify training Erk when Pent fill the exact same role, but better. Personal skills would help, but I think a limited reclassing system could work very well in the Elibe games.
@@RockyTorres43 And on the example of Erk and Pent, look at Nino, with how underleveled she joins, regardless of class there's really no reason to raise her -looking at the Est-archetype in general here I guess- , but Pent existing just makes her so much less viable. I'd say if you were able to reclass her into a Healer, there'd be much more of a justification to use her, since being a Healer would mean she could gain Exp much more easily without really needing to "be fed kills", as a Healer would almost always have something to heal, and while she'd still be way behind any Healer you already have, there's still way more reason to raise her than if she was a Mage imo, since having more Healers never hurts.
@RockyTorres43 yeah but thats where different actual characters matters. Someone might think one mage is lame looking, but that another looks badass, or is badass as a character. Its not just about pure viability remember, it is a game not a puzzle
I dislike reclassing in FE, it robs units of their individuality by allowing any unit to be any class- everyone is less memorable in the gameplay since they don't have their own role.
I think Awakening and Fates still allow characters to fill certain roles, but I understand your point. Engage and Three Houses are especially bad at robbing characters, apart from lords, of class Identity. Personally I enjoy the concept of making a unit I love the personality of better by swapping their class. I see your argument though.
3:58: this isn’t completely true as Amelia and Ross only have 3 second tier classes, since they can promote into Great Knight and Warrior respectively no matter the first class pick
For Shadow Dragon and New Mystery the class limit is based on the units recruited in their base class plus an extra slot. The reason why there are a lot of Cavalier slots is because the game throws a lot of units that start at that class. Each chapter has set class limits, which I said, is based on the units recruited
I want each character to be able to switch between 2-3 classes freely. Because I liked bouncing between classes in 3H and Shadow dragon, but don't like how much it took away from a units uniqueness. Fates was too complicated for me to follow along on reddit, every time someone posts a build it feels like the meme with the guy with all the papers and strings and a crazed expression
Out of all these, I think Fates definitely did the reclassing system the best since it balances making them important choices for making units and building them. Unit individuality to me is at it's peak here compared to later games like 3H and especially Engage since units come with their base reclasses and have to get other reclasses from support partners, which usually leads to pretty fun builds. You didn't mention this here but certain units can get different reclasses depending on who it's with (usually with someone of the same base class) which means you get the support partners secondary class tree instead of their primary one. Nyx and Leo for example can get Vantage from Odin, Selena can get Ninja from Laslow instead of Kaze, Camilla can get Fighter from Beruka instead of Arthur and Keaton and so on. It helps units have specific niches each run as you can't get every class or skill you want (unless you use the logbook for skills but idk if that's worth counting) and makes the game fairly sandbox-like without being too open ended, particularly in Revelations since units get more support partners to mess around with. It isn't without it's complications though and is a lot easier to appreciate when you replay and plan through things which makes it a lot more fun on repeat playthroughs. Hope that we get to see this style of reclassing come back in later games but I imagine it probably won't tbh
There's also interesting cases, or at least one interesting case, with Nyx and Niles, where they share the same main- and sub-classes, although swapped, so a Nina parented by these two has access to the Diviner class-line. Can't think of any other parents that share classes like that, but it definitely makes them an interesting pairing on Conquest.
@@Justic_ I’m pretty late to this but a Shigure fathered by Jakob gets Wyvern Rider! In fates, the father passes down their class first, because most children are tied to their fathers. so Jakob gives Shigure Troubadour, and then it’s Azura’s turn, but she can’t pass down Dancer to her kids. Her subclass is Sky Knight, but when Azura’s child, husband, or friend already has Sky Knight, she gives them Troubadour instead, but Shigure already has Troubadour. Thus, she passes down the Nohrian equivalent to Sky Knight, Wyvern Rider instead. Fun!
I think the biggest defense for shadow dragon-style reclassing is that it has some really neat interactions with stat caps on higher difficulties. When I played fe12 I ended up swapping classes around a LOT in the lategame to hit various thresholds. The big downside is if the difficulty doesn't make you want to reclass (like fe12 does) than you end up with the loldracoknight of fe11.
fe12 actually forces you to change out of dracoknight towards the end because, on higher difficulties, 23 maximum speed isn't gonna cut it anymore. Thus, you actually get an incentive to switch in the faster classes like swordmaster, sniper, berserker or horseman.
@@IschmarVI yeah thats my point, that type of reclassing is really fun when there's enemies strong enough to make you play around with it but it sucks if the enemies are weak enough you can just sit in 1 class all game
Don't read this, it's too long to be worth it. I think my favorite class systems are Fates and 3H. 3H I know, you can just make everyone wyvern lords and I'm sure that's optimal or whatever, but I never did that. What I liked was the compromise between flexibility and commitment. You earn flexibility by comitting to teaching a unit the necessary skills. Sometimes offered neat benefits. I remember doing maddening golden deer, I would choose between grappler and war master Raphael depending on how much terrain a map had, and between Paladin and Dark Knight Lorenz depending on if I thought I needed more magic or physical damage. Not sure if I'm unique in that playstyle. I love Fates. Being initially locked to 2 trees and unlocking more through supports is great, and the finite level progression was nice after Awakening. It also made unlocking skill sets...interesting. In a good way, imo. I dislike the infinite leveling of most recent games, but I appreciate at least that 3H kept each unit's level across classes. The game's finite levelling maps (even if it can be excessive if you want) also helps. The game ends eventually whether you like it or not. Engage is possibly the worst in this aspect, with how it keeps data on an internal level that it does not reveal to you while still using the base class/advanced class levels to denote map difficulty. What I _do_ like about Engage's class system are that class skills don't transfer and each character has an innate weapon prof. In a game where you can do any unit any class, I like that limitation. For weapon profs, I like that it makes units slightly more able in certain classes, and lets you do stuff that might otherwise sound kinda funky. Like, I made Citrine a high priest and Pandreo a a sage, giving them both acess to A tomes and staves. And it lets you do something like making Jade a mage Knight to take advantage of her decent mag and res growths while still allowing her A axes. Idk, I think that stuff is neat.
I think the only bad reclass system is 3H's. It basically replaces planning with extremely tedious grind. They clearly didn't have confidence on it, since boons and banes have no effect on the battlefield, making it optimal to box archers and spam broken weapons in them. Its either play below the curve or grind unintentional jank. Neither are good options.
For me, a mix of Awakening and Fates would be amazing for a class system; really liked how FE13 gives every character some clases to pick and fhat are lore relevant to them, which is my favorite aspect of it (Cherche having cleric bc she was studying to be one before meeting Minerva, Libra dark mage because of his parents thinking he was cursed, and so on and so forth) but I quite liked the planing Fates required; partner and friendship seals were so much fun to manage, like a big puzzle, allowing for some crazy and fun buildings; I will always held dear my Felicia mothered Siegbert; I married him to Ophelia and changed him into Dark Knight, it was so cool. I don't like 3H one though, is like in The Incredibles with Syndrome saying "if everyone is super, nobody will be" or smth, it takes out any personality and uniqueness of characters, which is imo what makes every character an important piece of your army, everyone can be the OP class in the game and that's just... boring, doesn't help 3H is already a boring game to play either. Also the comeback of gender locked classes is lame. As for Engage I like classes have fixed wepon ranks so I don’t have to bother leveling it up and can just brr the moment I change it.
I really liked Shadow Dragon & Awakening’s reclass systems. Shadow dragon was cool because I could make more pirates. I really liked their art style and flavor. For Awakening, it was fun to plan out the classes for parents and children. Wondering what the parent should be, so the child could inherit a cool skill
I love fates reclassing, it keeps unit customizability while not completely trivializing the challenge of getting the builds you want, making it ultimately feel rewarding. Also for those who think reclassing kills unit diversity, it does not. Weapon ranks bases and growths are incredibly important for a unit's performance. If an FE doesn't have unit diversity that's because the units themselves are uninteresting, it's not a fault of the reclassing system itself.
My favorite reclassing system in the series is definitely the one we got in Fates, because it makes supports extremely impactful and overall I just really like the planning aspect of that system
I haven't played the newer Fire Emblem games, but these are my thoughts after this video. The best system of classes and reclassing I've ever played was FFV's Jobs system. Awakening and Fates seem very similar to this. Three Houses seems the closest, though, and it's a system that could be largely translated to a new game, though obviously without the certification exams and school setting. Just having stat requirements would be good enough. Not being able to carry over skills from one class to another is a negative for me with Engage. It was one of the things that was really cool about FFV's Jobs system.
I dont think total freedom in reclassing is good at all, it makes the game entirely sandbox and takes away from the value of classes even existing as a mechanic. Like in shadow dragon they may as well be weapons with how easy it is to switch.
12:55 “units have 2 class options by default *in addition* to their base class” that’s only for the child units lol, the first Gen only get their base class +1 I do like the Fates’s limitations over Awakening since I did feel a little overwhelmed by the options while also feeling it really doesn’t matter, but every time I play fates my goals drive me & I’m excited to see them grow Yeah I didn’t do it much through my first play through, but I feel like it’s common to only reclass like 2-4 units throughout your first play through, heck, I knew a guy who played awakening without second seals, because he didn’t notice them lol I feel like if you want to fix the “issue” of not knowing what skills you’d get from certain classes, just have the enemies come with those skills so you know how they feel when you fight them, or just straight up capture enemies so you don’t have to commit to hard on anyone while also knowing the most about what you’re getting Yeah it would cost you at least 4 levels (6 if you wanna see the skills of both promotions) but I would say that balances out since you would also get a feel for how the class plays as well as on Lunatic you would see how high the weapon caps are Also engage is nice and I definitely see where you’re coming from about a high mag physical class locked unit, with breaking, hurricane Axe, if the reclass system was any more restrictive, than she’d be the most notable unit in the army as a Mag Backup unit Overall I like Fates’s reclass system the most, with using Capture and Einherjar units as methods of figuring out in game what classes give what skills, but mechanically I like Engage’s breaks, weapons, bld stat, and backups more for making classes *feel* like you need to have a good mix around, together I’d feel like it would make a very enjoyable balance, but that’s just me lol, thank you for your time
I have mixed feelings about reclassing. On one hand yes the customization can be a lot of fun. But on the other hand any game that allows units to reclass inherently makes them a little bit less unique. I'm not considering branched promotion as reclassing in this context. It gives the player a choice, but usually the options make logical sense and aren't that different. Like Wyvern Lord and Wyvern Knight are very similar. I don't think there is a right or wrong approach to reclassing or not, but I would like to see both represented in the future. I do also like that the developers have tried new things and experimented from game to game. It helps to make each one feel more fresh overall.
I honestly am not a fan of the super open reclass systems. I don't hate them, don't get me wrong, but when anyone can be almost anything, it really limits unit individuality (which can be fixed with personal skills sure, but honestly I don't usually like personal skills either) My favorite reclass system is easily Sacred Stones. Yes, the class balance is extremely bad, but it gives almost the perfect amount of options to the player imo. Personally I think it'd be neat if each class had three choices of promotion instead of just two, or if there was a third tier of classes perhaps, and of course the class balance needs a lot of tweaking, but its just really fun to me
This is a really late comment but you mention that Engage's Bow Knight is great in its own right; I've felt it's one of the weakest classes due to a generally poor stat pool and a skill which emphasizes turtling in an otherwise hyper aggressive game. What are your thoughts on it?
my only issue with Fates' class access methods is that the S supports also determined how the child units ended up. if that conflict didn't exist (the child units made no sense in fates anyway and seemed just tacked on. or just split the systems up), I'd get behind it way more.
One thing about Fates’s reclass system that I’m personally sort of mixed on is skill buying which I like because it acts as a sort of new game+ allowing you to buy skills from previous playthroughs which cuts down on the unit planning a little bit but at the cost of a lot of gold. It allows for more customization in that you can basically take skills from previous playthroughs and use them in different classes for the same unit. Though again it kinda comes at the cost of sort of cheapening the unit planning aspect of it especially when you take into account the multiplayer aspect but I thought it was worth mentioning
One thing I really like about the series, and can count on the devs to do, is experimenting on new systems. Reclassing is definitely one of them and with how Engage handled reclassing by merging parts of it with class type bonuses Im really looking forward to what they'll do next.
Personally I love Fates class system. Previous linear games had units defined by their class (like 7). Games with an either-or progression (like 8 or Radiance) opened up some options but kept similarities (Magic casting or mounted classes). Fates allows units to have some breathability with their classes like previous games but if the player really wanted to turn a bishop into a ninja, that door was open of the player met some prerequisites. It kept units from feeling like just a sprite and personal skill for me.
Fates us my favorite but I also think the best one. Yes it CAN be complicated but it doesn't have to be, it's simple enough that you should have a rough idea on what kind of skills you get and you know at which level. Also real quick shout out to if you make use of the NG+ profiles, you don't have to if you feel it's cheating or whatever but sometimes just slapping the 5 most busted skills onto Kana and murdering everything is fun.
I usually play with very limited reclassing outside of conquest because that's the only time it was cool because heat seals added flavor as the reclasses where uniqe to units and required more investment to jump to unusual stuff through the support system tying into fe's emergent story elements, and with the any unit to any class system it loses that and meshes all units together with few exceptions, I see reclassing in this way like perma death without perma death you lose that gameplay story, in a sense unlimited reclassing loses the same thing. My feelings on reclassing usually has me only reclassing if i feel it makes sense for the character e.g. Engage! Anna to axe mage knight I also find i treat promotion in engage the same e.g. Mages go sage mage knight
3 houses was crazy with how many units ended up flyers despite me not planning to make them flyers. Run 1 Byleth: Obviously should be a flyer with chest keys in the convoy who can leave the exp to the students and get all the chests. Claude: I'm going to make him a Bow Knight or War Master. Game forces him into a unique wyvern class and it was so good I kept him on a wyvern forever. Hilda: I'm going to make her a great knight. At some point I realize all she needs is flying to become a pegasus or wyvern knight. Lorenz: I guess he's a mage, but he sucks. I drop him for Sylvain, who becomes a flyer, because he's got similar growths to Hilda. Cyril: Oh wow, he's a perfect wyvern knight. Shamir: I'm going to make her a mortal savant. On the way, i have to make her a Pegasus Knight because of her lance growths, I realize MS isn't very good and she goes back to flying. Run 2 Byleth: There were no problems with my plan, she even still took a lot of exp. Dmitri: It worked well for Claude. I play the long game and he becomes a flyer too and kills everything. Sylvain, Cyril and Shamir: Get back on those flyers. Ingrid: Well she's literally built to fly. Run 3 Edelgard and Petra: Ok they and Byleth are gonna be my 3 flyers. Ferdinand: I'm gonna make him a great knight; but he gets lots of flying exp helping grind Edelgard and Petra and with those axe growths ends up a flyer. Bernadetta: I'm going to make her a bow knight and maybe great knight. She also ends up getting lots of flying exp helping others grow and doing seminars... and that's a nice lance stat you got there. She becomes a pegasus archer that deletes other flyers. Shamir: I'm going to make her an archer this time. How did she end up a flying archer too?! It's these damn lance and axe growths. That final Edelgard map was a joke. Look at all these walls... it'd be a shame if they meant nothing to half my army and those pegasus knights... would be a shame if I could just fly over and snipe them and these archers... real shame they can't hit me from over the wall, but I can fly over and delete them.
I’d disagree with Engage’s class balance being good compared to Three houses. In Three houses you’ll be using Wyvern lord, Grappler, War master, Sniper, Gremory, Dark knight, Paladin, Assassin/Swordmaster (only really on Catherine), Bow knight, Bishop, and Claude’s personal class, In Engage you’re using Wyvern, Griffin, Warrior, Mage knight, rarely Great knight/Paladin,Hero for dual assist + bots, and Ivy’s, Alear’s, Hortensia’s, and sometimes Fogado’s personal class (excluding dlc classes for both). There’s even less physical class options in Engage with Warrior and Wyvern outclassing any other option for a physical combat unit unless their combat is questionable so they go Hero or sometimes make use of great knights bulk and there’s no reason to use anything other than Mage knight for most units for magical combat unless you’re Citrinne or have a personal class, Griffin knight being a fine option for either physical or some magical combat. This compares to three houses having more unique toolkits for each unit and having Sniper, Wyvern, Bow knight, Grappler, War master, Paladin, etc all being useful physical class options and Dark knight and Gremory being useful magical ones. The amount of good classes in both is about the same with Three houses honestly having slightly more. Apologies for the rant though, found your content recently and like your overall analysis. Just find that Three houses receives a lot of flack when Engage honesty has the same issue.
Player choice is great and all, but restrictions are needed to actually make a fun game. Completly free reclassing creates too many issues, with units losing their identity, with maps design suffering because they need to design around every possible absurd team composition, and with the game itself quickly becoming a chore that requires homework because playing blind is basically impossible when you have to plan out how to get skills from a bunch of unrelated classes for every single unit.
My favorites are awakening and fates reclassing, I see why it may be fun to give the same classes to many units based on meta but I find it better if there is more uniqueness to the characters thanks to their available classes.
I will throw in a nitpick because it satisfies my need to be a know-it-all while fueling the algorithm. Paladins' second weapon in PoR is also a non-choice. Axes are the best weapon type by a massive margin. They have better might than their equivalents in all the other physical weapon types, the delta on their hit is usually only 5-10 in a game with high base accuracy and a generous hit formula, and their weight is a non-issue thanks to strength based weight mitigation. It's also one of those weird games where Steel Axes are E rank while every other steel weapon is D, so axe paladins can jump straight into using steel weapons instead of having to grind their way out of E rank hell. Oscar, Astrid and Makalov should basically always choose axes, unless you are very specifically going for meme-y triangle attack nonsense on Oscar. Kieran's weapon choice is technically free but only because it doesn't matter; he should never be using anything other than axes. You would think that he'd maybe want to pick up lances to cover his weapon triangle disadvantage, but since he will start at E lances the hit and damage penalties are better made up for with higher tier axes than by busting out an iron lance.
If they were to make another instalment with Three Houses styled class acquisition then perhaps they could also be more flexible with the skill requirements, such as: Cavalry needing Lances OR Swords. Armour Knights needing Axes OR Lances (nod to how Soldiers became Armour Knights in Gaiden & SoV). Hero needing Swords as well as Axes OR Brawling (maybe Lances as a third option). Just a thought. Oh, and balancing the classes better (obviously).
I used to like reclassing in FE but overtime I grew to hate it especially in 3H. Character design used to be based around what a character's starting class. 3H having a school setting is one of the most damaging things done to class clarity. I had no idea what starting class anyone would be until I saw them in-game. As an example I fully expected Bernadetta to be a mage given her general face and hair design but she's actually an Archer??? Some of the time skip designs don't help in this class clarity issue either. Class design also suffered thanks to reclassing. In Awakening every class has to have some list of skills players can reclass over and over and work towards if they wish. A lot of the time you want to get specific class skills then swap to a high move class once you're done unless you just really like an unmounted class. Or want to Nosferatu + Vengeance spam thanks to the Dark Mage niche of having access to Dark Magic. Engage has this Character Design and Class clarity issue with some characters. It's reasonable to think characters like Celine, Citrinne and Ivy are mages. They just have that look you know? Meanwhile, as much as I adore and love everything about her, there's Hortensia. Her design is so jarring that you can't accurately determine what her starting class could even be and it turns out to be the same as Ivy's, the brand new Wing Tamer class. The same goes for Timerra, Rosado and a few others. Somehow Engage gets class clarity somewhat well despite all of the bashing the character designs get. I do hope IS goes back to traditional character designs and heavily limits class changing for character and class deign clarity. It's just nice to know what you're getting into when you see a Fire Emblem character from just seeing their official art or even their in-game portrait. It really isn't a bad thing to have the traditional Christmas Knights looking like just some dudes with with medium armor and on a horse or Pegasus Knights having the light breastplate, short dress/skirt and long boots like they've had since FE1.
I do think there is such thing as giving the player too much freedom, but I'm not against reclassing as a whole, I think it would just be better if limited. Either each unit has only up to 3 other classes to choose from or you can only reclass once, maybe twice, and bounce between those classes. That way it could still give the freedom of customization however not potentially trivialize the game. It makes it an actual decision with some weight
its really funny finding out wyvern units were really really good in fire emblem three houses considering despite playing multiple times weve almost never used any wyverns none of the black eagles really work with wyverns that well
Only class I probably never use are the bow in anything other than a sniper. I like the longbow and it's uses and especially in fates where pirage shot basically makes snipers the best class being able to crit and use skills with the stronger weapons with no drawbacks and especially takumi and his fujjin bow. I treat warriors and any class who sub type with bow as just one weapon and only exception is probably the bride class but I just give a brave bow to knock out the foe and switch back to a javilin weapon
This is a super hot take because criticizing the newer fire emblem games will automatically count you as an elitist but god reclassing is so brainless. It’s pretty sick in FE11/22 I’ll admit it’s the best iteration but it takes away from the fun of using the bad archer or the bad cavalier because you can just make them the usable warrior and call it a day
I've done some strange reclassing in 3 Houses, and some of them are surprisingly suitable. I remember at least one martial doing better as a mage than with actual weapons.
Only major units I reclassed were just a better class like In awakening I make niore a dark mage so she can use mire and since I marry tharja that gives her a lot of magic potential way better than her attack and armthrift to keep the dark tombs in use. Dlc wise most sword fighters become dread fighters as those classes have more to them. Fates I only reclass the capture units as unique classes help them stand out more aside the lancer who is a unique class and is fun to build. Engage Anna I go from thief to magic user due to thief being great at dodge and her earning money would be very useful in front
I quite enjoyed Engage's reclass system. After the 3DS games and Three Houses it was honestly really refreshing to have something that was much simpler. I think it fits really well with Engage as a whole too: Not a whole lot of big bells and whistles, but solid execution on Fire Emblem's core gameplay mechanics. I've only done one playthrough and haven't messed around with it too much but I like that it's there. What was notable for me was taking Goldmary and putting her into Great Knight when I felt I needed another tank after Louis. Didn't feel like grinding up Jade, Goldmary already had lances and swords so...super easy swap, and I was extremely happy with how she did. And yeah I totally agree on 3H's class system: works very well for that game, but wouldn't work in most settings.
IIRC the Shadow Dragon class limits are the way they are because the limits are based on the base classes of the units you aquire. You can have 10 paladins and 6 dracoknights because you get 9 cavalier/paladins and 5 pegasus/dracoknights; the limit is just "how many of X you get +1". Otherwise you'd have to reclass units just to deploy them. This also 'fixes' the issue of needing to use units you don't like to do an oddball comp; the limits are such that if you don't like the default X, you can reclass them out and make room for someone else.
I think character uniqueness and game balance often suffer under the more free reclassing options, but having none whatsoever can be a bit restrictive and shallow as well. I think my favorite reclass system was sacred stones, it just needed better class balance and reclass decisions where both classes have merit or some sort of utility you want. I think the skill emblem reclasses especially, on the 3DS were probably the worst. It's probably possible to make a system like that very good, and it'd be really rewarding if well balanced, but it kills character identity and in return you get to have a clown army that shifts through the mandatory classes with the best skills to create your endgame meta team. For most of the game at any given time you aren't even holding a class on a character because you think it's a good fit or you like the class, you're taking that class because you can get x skill, which will synergize with y skill later, and z skill to make your broken unit that invalidates the game mechanics. Fun.
I really like Branching promotions as the avenue of choice. I'd want to see a game with better class balance than Sacred Stones and with the number of class tiers you see in Three Houses, with skills inherited from each class the unit goes through on the branching promotion tree, with where the unit can promote each time restricted to one weapon/magic proficiency more and less than what they currently have and class type specific promotion seals for the restrictions on how to branch out. Basically, you'd have a similar rewarding ending build flexibility of Conquest, but from linear forward momentum through multiple tiers of classes, making it as simple to figure out as Three Houses. And no slotting in a limited number of skills, the path you took the unit through is their total build (though pre-promotes might have additional personal skills instead of the skills of any logical previous class, making the difference between early, late, and specialty units more pronounced). Preferably no Second Sealing or side promoting at all. Actually have all kinds of design ideas on this concept. Also, I hate Flying units changing mount type with promotions, so that and going between flying and horse mounted would be off limits. Once a unit has a type of mount, they're locked into it (so units that start with a mount are bound to it, though dipping into some non-mounted classes while still being mounted could still be on the table). As such, the distinction between Pegasus, Wyvern, and Griffin is that they'd be different class lines, with starting, middle, and final classes to go into, each focusing a weapon type at base: Pegasus Sword with the traditionally high Res, Wyvern Lance with the traditionally good Def, and Griffin Axe with more balanced stats. There could also be mini support chains with mounts, kinda like with the Emblem Supports, and they'd have separate stats that modify the unit's stats that are improved by going through Mounted classes' promotion bonuses. Similarly, Armored classes would improve the stat modifiers of wearing armor, and deploying unmounted or unarmored would be an option for units locked into having those. One of the main reasons units get locked into certain movement types and a way to still encourage army diversity would be a between battle mechanic of hosting military parades, with slots to fill for each movement type for better benefits. The "Lords" of the game could have special beginner classes of Commoner that starts with all weapon proficiencies, able to go through any weapon class but locked out of hybrid and magic classes, and Noble, starting with all magic proficiencies, able to promote through all magic classes but not hybrid or weapon ones. Dark, White, Black Magic magic effectiveness triangle, with Black magic classes split into learning elemental spell specialties for Anima (balanced), Wind (minor 50% effectiveness to Flying, 100% if that spell's Tome as an Accessory is equipped), Thunder (Armor effective), Fire (horse effective), and Ice (Infantry effective). Mountaineering and swimming classes spread between the weapon type. Thievish classes of different weapon types. Armored Mages that trade Res for Def. Armored Bow classes which are the only space the Close Counter and Far Counter skills can be earned. Archer actually having good Str, with Hunter coming back as the more thievish mountaineering alternative. Infantry Lance classes. I'm rambling. Lot's more I could say and have said before, but the general gist of it is that the branching promotion structure has so much untapped potential left to be explored.
Something I think that's interesting is that the Fates classing system is weirdly similar to Final Fantasy X of all things. Instead of getting new classes as the game progresses, and swapping classes to pick up skills so that the endgame just kind of turns into using every skill from every good class all at once, or to create some sort of internal logic error to do a million billion damage per turn like in FF5 or bravely default (Think using Rapid Fire or Swordmaster/Pirate builds), you instead have character customization as a commodity. You have a single use item (seals, orbs) that allows a unit to deviate from their standard statistical progression (heart seal, key spheres) off onto a different pathway, or as a rare prize for performing well, using other party members abilities (partner seals, teleport spheres). What I think is most interesting is that changing role isnt just a commodity, it's a *committment*. Normally in games with class systems you can just hop in a menu to change back after you pick up the skills you want after a short bout of grinding but until you get another of the class change item you just gotta stick with it. It makes the prospect of putting a character in a weird class to pick up like one skill you sort of want less appealing because you dont know when you'll be able to change back. This I think is a really good sort of replayability, more so than a new game plus because having knowledge on the structure of not just the story and mechanics and bosses but also the where and when of items and gameplay pacing will let you get an advantage by using you knowledge to know when and where you can class change and how big a return on your investment you'll get. I also think it's kinda neat how the 3ds games dont quite tell you what a class does skill wise before you get them. The second playthrough, after not really deviating from the standard path on your first run on normal mode probably you see hardmode, and after a game of having relatively simplistic characters with defined roles you'll be more comfortable changing them after not only seeing what classes get which skills on your side but also which enemies have what and which "cheat" skill combinations that are normally unobtainable which enemies have you could be inspired to try to mimmick the neat stuff bosses and minibosses bring to the table. FFX tries something similar with the Expert Sphere grid, but I think FE is more graceful because the thing that changes on the second playthrough isnt how the mechanic works, it's how willing the player is to engage with experimentation and the harder difficulty modes making some of the more overkill builds actually quite practically helpful the second go around
Reclassing feels very tame in Engage, there is barely a noticeable stat change between High Priest and Sage for example, and weapon ranks are like those in FE4 meaning you don't have to work for them and are class based. The unique classes always felt better than the generic ones based on them (Avenir is better than Paladin, Sucsesseur is better than Hero, Tireur d'Elite has 2 more speed than sniper etc) and Wyvern Lords didn't feel as broken as they were in 3H
I’d say Fates did it best, I despise how levels reset in both Awakening and Engage or how you can just bring a units level back to 1 as I think that just promotes steamrolling a game with over inflated stats.
I picked mage for my Kris' calss in new Mystery, and I recalssed him to dark mage, as it is implied he is Robin's ancestor, the only other recall I did is change Aron to a wyvren
i really wish the all of FE8's split promotions were as good as Gerrick. the choice between reliable 1-2 range as Hero and access to a mount + longbows is the one of the few meaningful promotion options in the game. While everyone emphasizes handaxes for enemy phase, I've found longbows in the lategame are really useful for eliminating Gorgons with stone on enemy phase. When your other options for longbow users are Neimi and her terrible bases or Innes who, IME, has been a wildly unreliable unit on higher difficulties, I've gotten a lot of use out of Ranger Gerick since it's a niche that's otherwise hard to fill.
i admit the fates system is pretty good though it suffers from having a new wpn system wich they didn't quite hit the mark since they were testing some things here and there and made hidden wpns the best wpns in the game making all classes that have acess to them very good, when i play fates i aways want my team to be mostly of master ninjas though acess to them is kinda limited you can still make a full team with then pretty consistently and they aways perform pretty stelarly against all enemies it really is a strong all rounder unit
I'd honestly say that Fates was my favorite reclassing system also. One of my best memories of Conquest was a run where i paired Silas and Azura and used that to reclass Azura to Great Knight. Azura was actually stupid strong in Fates and with full weapon triangle access in GK she was a menace. And if you might be thinking "but why would you reclass your Singer?", well the main point of a refresher is to get another action on a combat unit, but Azura becomes such a competent combat unit that she already accounts for the extra action by herself without needing to refresh someone else. She's also good in Master Ninja. And she was represented well in Heroes because even in her default release she was quite capable in combat if you decided to build her for it.
In terms of individuality, Engage has one helpful feature in that each unit has an "innate" proficiency that boosts the weapon rank for that proficiency in some classes. For example, Pandreo's innate Staff proficiency means that in Sage his Staff rank is not the regular B but an A, allowing him to use all staves other than Nodus (and nobody but Hortensia should use that anyway). Unfortunately, that in itself is a double-edged sword because it means that there's no real cost to reclassing Pandreo out of High Priest (the "main" staff user class) and into Sage even if you want him to be a healer. Bow-innate Warriors are another notorious combination, with Warrior being commonly considered as the most attractive option for "archer" units.
I really didn't like Engage's reclassing system. The menu felt really clunky to me, especially with how it handled variations on a class being listed as a separate class. I didn't like how myrmidon got rebranded into "sword fighter" because I felt like it kinda stripped away what made the class feel distinct when it's now treated as a sword flavored variant of the fighter class. I also felt that the reclassing system was weirdly bogged down by its ties to the engage system. I remember it took me to the half way point to realize nothing was actually happening when I kept trying to train up a unit's weaker weapon proficiency because I didn't have an emblem on that unit.
I know you did mention weapon ranks, but it was pretty brief and I think it needs to be emphasized. In the DS games with free reclassing every battle preparation, weapon ranks are the biggest limiting factor to functioning in different classes. Being a in a strong class isn't so good with E rank weapons, and Shadow Dragon only has one arms scroll pretty late in the game. I don't like Engage's reclassing because the biggest factor in most titles, weapon rank, is fixed per class. It used to be that a unit's identity was their stats, skills(if the game had them), and weapon rank. Engage removes weapon ranks as part of unit identity and has very lackluster personal skills with no learnable skills based on classes, at least none that can be taken into a different class. So the only thing a unit has left is their stats, and I guess whether they join before or after the emblem split. There's very little for me to work with in this game.
I fully disagree with the argument that free reclassing kills unit individuality, I think it’s more accurate to say that free reclassing lets units play to their statistical strengths. But I don’t think that kills unit individuality as much as people think it does, not every character has the same stats or growths, even units in the same class will grow differently, and tons of units have different join times. If every unit you have can enter the same class, it’s very unlikely that any of them will have the same stat line. If you make Kellem a theif he doesn’t just become an exact copy of Gaius, not even counting skills, his stat-line and growths means he functions differently and grows differently even if he technically is the same class. Free reclassing in FE usually makes units more usable if their only issue is their base class, if you want to use a unit that you like, but who has an intended class path that isn’t good, reclassing them lets you make them more viable by changing them from a less viable class to a class they’d be better in. Yes, you don’t have units that are forced to have funny stat distribution or funny growths, like FE engage anna, but you can just, not reclass units you think have funny stat distribution, or reclass normal units into classes that are silly for them. Like armor knight Lysethia, or troubadour charlotte. Units aren’t made unique by what classes they are stuck in, they’re made unique by the things they can actually do, and more often than not, reclassing doesn’t stifle that. FE3H’s issue isn’t that any unit can be a wyvern, it’s that wyvern is a better class than a lot of its contemporaries and that the balance heavily favors it, if reclassing wasn’t possible, you’d just be using good units instead, who’d likely just so happen to be the units that have wyverns. Wyvern being a class anyone can access just means more units have potential to be more viable, not that you wouldn’t be using any wyvern you can get away with using. Edelgard has a personal class that she reclasses out of to go wyvern instead. FE3H’s issue is just that Wyverns are too good.
You are right that Kellam and Gaius would be two different units as a thief. However, if everyone could become a thief, Cordelia and Chrom are now just as effective as thieves as Gaius is. Gaius, Chrom, and Cordelia (assuming Pegasus isn't gender locked) are now all less unique since you can literally replace them with each other. The reason why people say it hurts their unit individuality is because turns a unit from being _the_ unit with a certain class to just another unit. It becomes a comparison of unit stat lines instead of unit versatility (which comes from classes). When it comes to large casts, there are only so many ways to distribute stats.
@@123christianac except Chrom joins earlier, and Cordelia joins later, and doesn’t have sword rank, and Gaius is faster, and functionally Chrom’s Lord class and Gaius’s Thief class are basically identical. Myrmidon and Mercenary are also in the same boat, they promote into different classes (with some overlap.) but aside from learning different skills and having different stats, the 4 classes are functionally the same. Thief only has the extra utility of not needing keys, which is neat, but keys exist In Awakening. If every unit was exactly the same, that probably would be more boring, but classes usually aren’t the things that make units feel different to use, it’s a culmination of everything they can do, class access does have something to do with that, but it’s not a linear scale of “more class access is less unit individuality.” How a unit preforms is ultimately the thing that’s going to make them unique. And classes are actually only a small part of a unit’s combat viability, they change stats a bit, weapon ranks in some games, and they learn different skills, but it doesn’t always make that big of a difference if your unit is fighting with a lance or an axe, or if they have 6 movement or 7, what’s going to make them standout is going to be things like interesting abilities or utilities, that are unique to them as a unit, rather than unique to them just because of their class. Celine is the only mystical unit in engage that can use levin swords with sigurd, and that’s unique to her because of her personal class, but Fogado’s personal class is just bow knight with different stat allocation. Although personally I don’t mind it that much than not every unit fundamentally feels different to use. I think that also free reclassing lets you do more with the same character. You could make a mage a levin swordmaster, or a general into a wyvern rider, or your lord into a dedicated staff unit. Yes they’re not THE (class) units anymore, but nothing stops you from using reclassing to make units weird or unique units.
It feels like Fates and Three Houses were very unique in how you customized units into basically anything you wanted, and for the Sake of Balance, Engage toned the possibilities down quite a bit
I really like how Engage has the different class types since it can help more classes be interesting. Like, even though arts are usually bad, qi adept's chain guard ability makes it worth having someone in martial master. Back up units are also super fun I also like how weapon rank is just based on the class, with each character having a special one. That way, you can change classes without having to go back to E rank while still having some amount of weapon preference
My favorite system for reclassing is Awakening. A big part of this might be that I started with the GBA games and I really feel like class should be an important part of a unit's identity, this is what their training led them to and how they will contribute to your army. With that said, I think the best system is 3H, sure anyone can be anything, but they have their boons and banes and magic lists. But 'best' here is specifically in terms of it being both logical and fully realized, it still comes with the massive trade-off of requiring a game where all your units are villagers and you get them all at the beginning, which I don't mind once, but another game like that would just feel like 3h2.
i think it often goes understated that even in games like shadow dragon, 3h, and engage where basically any unit can be anything, FireEmblem units still have infinitely more individual uniqueness than characters in other SRPGs
I believe that reclasing is at its best when it is another resource to manage, which is why I like Conquest's take so much, specially on the early game. At the beginning you are limited by how much gold you have and by the amount of seals you can buy, so if you want to use Wyvern!Elise early to take advantage of her new growths, it'll come at the cost of not being able to reclass other early game units like Corrin, Jakob and Odin; which means they won't be able to build their weapon ranks until later. And buying a seal also means you might not be able to afford other neat stuff like the Levin sword for a while. And by tying the classes to supports they still allow most units to access most classes or skills, but it limits how many units can access the most broken classes. So no Wyvern armageddon. As for unit uniqueness, a fun way to keep it could be through Combat Arts, spells and personal weapons/skills. This applies a lot to 3H but if a unit has Entrap, Vengeance, Swift Strikes or Hunters Volley they are immediately more unique and powerful than others, and it can also help dictate what weapon ranks a player might invest into. If the same character has a good enough spell list and Combat Arts, he or she can reclass into multiple classes to either keep playthroughs fresh or to be a unique mixed kind of unit. 3H failed with it since most units had a shitty spell list and most of their combat arts belonged to the same 1 or 2 weapon types, so there wasn't much uniqueness even with it. There were also almost no spells or CA that were more support or usefulness oriented. But I would like to see this approach again in the future. It can be very interesting if done correctly.
Personally speaking i didn't like the fates reclass system and that is because of how extremely limited it is since the second seals didn't reduced the level to 1 but you stayed at level that the character you choose was and if your at max level 20 in th promoted class there is no other way to learn other skills. Aside from buying an Eternal seal which raised the level cap of the unit by 5 making it an maximum of 99.
I've always preferred characters holding on to every bit on individuality that they can, it's what helps make side characters stand out more without loading on supports that may or may not be full of gags that get tiring quickly. I also think they design maps better when they know what you'll have, which is why in more modern titles we've seen later maps be very hit or miss in terms of balance. I actually think that a blend of the way Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance treat it where you have branching promotions but classes have different weapon combos that you have to pick from would be a fantastic way to go about it. This would also be reminiscent of Engage where we have 3 different Heroes, 3 different Paladins, etc for each possible weapon combo that could fall into the class. In this system you hold onto each character's individuality while providing meaningful decisions and player agency. Awakening and Fates I feel have great ideas although I personally think the balancing of their systems is off even if the format is functionally very well done, and it's not very friendly to new players like other games. Three Houses loses almost all sense of identity with the way that it works because despite the existence of personals and variance in learned skills, many personals become negligible later and there are plenty of character that get the relevant skills so it's more noticeable when you don't have access to say, Battalion Wrath. Thematically, it's excellent for the game, mechanically, it fell short because even if you don't spam one class, by the end of the game you still end up with fairly similar classes just because of the oddly limited pool of endgame classes. Engage introducing weapon based options for each class was definitely worthwhile, letting you put someone into a different class with the same weapon to give them something different without gutting their weapon options. However, the way that proficiency works and the ease of reclassing and gaining proficiency absolutely destroys individuality because anyone can get any skill and any class with not a lot of hassle, while most personal skills are rather negligible, leaving differences up to stats and growths, which as you mentioned, you can just reclass someone into something better and not have to play around what they are. Almost every class is relevant in some way, and you can put everyone into any class, but every unit has stats that want them to be in a certain class, so that's at least something going for individuality. I will say that the weapons the game provides (even if I dislike unbreakable weapons) does allow for some funnier options since many of them are good, like Swordmaster Ivy with a Levin Sword. It's definitely fun to mess around with, but it's not something that plays into the characters, which is what I personally prefer. Also Break is a curse and a blessing because it encourages you to vary your weapon types using all the class variations it has, but it does prevent you from doing some meme teams for funnies without getting a headache. I can finally put everyone into Halberdier but at what cost? (ALSO WHY IS THERE NO NG+ FOR ENGAGE THIS CLASS SYSTEM WOULD ABSOLUTELY LOVE A NG+) All things considered, I'd have to say that I like the ideas that Engage brings to the table, but I would love to see them be refined into a system that works more like Sacred Stones mixed with Path of Radiance, as it would be simple enough for first timers and relaxed playthroughs, maintain class based characteristics of the cast, and at the same time provide decisions for the player that make a difference in the way that impact how they use their characters. Some of my friends and I enjoy conceptualizing ways to mix up and improve the systems, and we did like the idea of a branch promotion system that also contains a decision on what weapon type you learn upon promotion for many classes that would have an additional weapon, while providing something else for mono weapon classes (7 out of 17 games have an invisible crit bonus for certain classes, and Radiant Dawn attaches and locks a crit bonus skill to some).
Reclassing is the only thing making FE replayable. As you mentioned, we like using characters we like so its better to reclass for characters we like rather than using people we dislike (Thats why I bench Takumi and his son in the Rev/Birth runs).
As someone who started with Awakening and has a soft spot for its reclassing system, Fates' reclassing-system has got to be one of my favorite ones for basically just expanding on it and making it more interesting. I do think the criticism that it leads to people prioritizing pairings for builds rather than for chemistry is valid, although I feel that has already been the case since FE4 and then Awakening due to child-units, and honestly the GBA- and Tellius-games as well to a somewhat lesser extent due to support-affinities. As for its complexity... I don't think it's too much more complex than Awakenings, in both cases a blind player would have no idea what to reclass to in order to create certain builds, and I don't think choosing "wrong" S- or A+-supports is really punished in any way, so... yeah, I don't think there's any disadvantage for blind players that wasn't already a thing with Awakenings reclass-system. I also love Three Houses' reclass-system, but at the same time, it feels a bit too harsh with its reclass-requirements in some respects, like, I feel like requirements for most non-Master-classes could stand to be half a weapon-rank lower to really make gaining the certifications for multiple "class-lines" more viable, although at the same time you could argue how important reclassing into certain class-lines even is since any class can use almost any weapon in the first place, meaning you go into certain classes only just for their skills, but ultimately, a Swordmaster can be just as viable of an axe-user as a Hero or a dismounted Paladin for example, the nature of Three Houses' gameplay makes reclassing feel simultaneously like the core of its gameplay yet somehow also almost irrelevant. And in that sense, I feel Engage improved on Three Houses' reclassing system a bit, by limiting classes to the weapons they can use, even if the unit has proficiency in other weapons as well, but in exchange also offering more variations of classes that can use different weapons, like the different Armor Knights or the different combinations of Wyvern Knights. So while I do miss having bow-users in any class, with bows in Engage being locked to 2 promoted classes, or would've at least liked them to expand on physical-magic hybrid-classes, which... basically didn't happen at all, I do think this system has its merits over Three Houses. Another criticism I have is with HOW the proficiencies are aquired, I'd have liked there to have been at least ONE way other than just the Emblems to gain proficiencies, like, being able to learn the main-proficiency of an ally once they reach A-support, similar to Fates' A+-supports, or being able to reclass into a class without having the EXACT requirements, maybe primarily through Master Seals since that'd give a reason to reclass back into pre-promoted classes after promotion, where you'd gain the proficiency you originally lacked. In general, I miss the weapon-rank system, not the biggest fan of it being like Geneologys weapon-system, I'd have rather seen it more of the Fates-route instead if anything. I'm also not a fan that you can't keep any skills from classes you go through, pretty sure that wouldn't break the game, ESPECIALLY since the game only gives you 2 skill-slots to set stuff in, which the inherited class-skills would have to share with skills learned from Emblems.
And he was correct. Compared to the series as a whole, engage does have good class balance. Aside from warrior, nothing feels too dominant and warrior isn't as broken as wyvrens have been across half the series.
@@Starwars-Fanboy it's less that classes are completely dominant, but more that most of them serve no purpose whatsoever. Outside of extremely niche stuff like specific type bonus builds or dumb memes, most classes are just strictly inferior to wyvern warrior sage and mage knight. And unlike, say, fates, there's no point in entering an suboptimal class to carry over a skill or something, and unlike dsfe, you can't feasibly swap around frequently to make use of any fringe niche stuff that might exist. As a result, the vast majority of classes serve zero purpose. Does that sound like good balance?
@@jerry3115 I somewhat agree that some classes feel redundant like paladin< GK, royal knight < Griffin, berserker < warrior ect. But I wouldn't call those classes useless either. I think the issue is that they feel too samey and not enough variety. I can see a use case for most classes just for the class type bonuses and how they interact with emblems.
Echoes also has pitchforking and Dread fighter looping! But I didn't talk about it because frankly my experience with it is very limited. But wanted to pin a comment explaining why it's not mentioned here
I was interested as to why it wasn’t mentioned, but overall I can also sort of see why
iirc all female units & all male units in the mercenary or villager line have a unique spell list, meaning you can have a good flexibility when it comes to Male mages, but female units tend to do worse outside of there base class, any unit that the game didn’t plan to become a mage only get fire at Lv 1, thunder at Lv 8, and recover on promotion
The exceptions would be Conrad who despite not having a way into the Mage class without a pitchfork, gets his entire spell list at level one, And Faye who has a big different in spells available between mage and cleric, with the dance spell “Anew” in the Cleric camp
We do also have the stars shards that have pretty massive growth swings with some of them going +50% in a specific stat, and springs that can split stats between units
Actually, now that I think about it, it is a bit of a shame it wasn’t mentioned, like my personal example is I remember people talking about making Tobin an armored knight because of his high speed making him just about double everything on Alm’s path with great stats everywhere else, but I was able to get the same affect out of Lukas by using the the star shard + a spring or too, I also make Faye a cavalier holding the shards to maximize her growth rate potential so I can re-class into a magic Faye without worrying of the penalties to her hp/atk/def growths
I guess I’ll have to play more because based off of my experience, I’m really two minds about re-classing in these games, for me, I wouldn’t use these pitchforks on any male character, instead taking Faye from Cavalier to Gold knight then to Magic, and saving the last two to take a female Mage out of Magic, then back into Magic after some good growths, I also remember Mae being a better falcon knight over mage
Damn I wanna replay SoV now
I feel like it's probably important to mention that, while Engage's class balance isn't dominated by one class like many of the other games mentioned here, I wouldn't necessarily say it's good- some classes are almost strictly worse than others (swordmaster vs. sword griffin is just SAD).
@@athath2010 I don't think the class balance is perfect, but I think it's pretty good. A wide variety of viable classes is the main thing I'm looking for in a class system and Engage provides that even if some of the options are weak.
@@athath2010
I was kind of shocked on my first playthrough when reclassing swordmaster Lapis: "So if I reclass to griffin I get a bit more of every stat AND plus 1 move AND flying AND C staves in exchange for uh no terrain bonuses and a weakness to bow/wind... sign me up!"
Though I would argue you could get to some interesting shenanigans playing with run through, canter, an avoid skill and defensive terrain. But that's pretty niche --> griffin better 90% of the time.
Edit: Ah, and you don't need a "super-proficiency" in swords to wield S-rank swords, so there's that. Overall, maybe you could have your 10th/12th/14th unit be a swordmaster for those times you need a fast sword wielding unit that's not shredded by bow.
Minor correction, but Fates units have 1 base class and 1 reclass option with the exceptions being units that can only support with Corrin (Scarlet, Gunter, Fuga, etc.) having 2 reclass options to compensate.
The reason class limitations in Shadow Dragon are the way they are is because they're based on how many of that class you would've had in the base game with no reclassing, +1. The reason you have so many slots for Paladins is the original game gives you a ton of Cavaliers, you have 6 Dracoknights because Caeda + Minerva + the Whitewings + 1. It was essentially the game's way of keeping the map design philosophy you discussed in FE7: the original maps were made assuming you could have no more than 5 fliers, 9 Paladins and so on.
The problem is the original FE1 gave you a lot of the good classes and few of the weaker classes... probably on purpose, since its design very much expected you to lose units so as a mercy they give you a lot of "spares" of the good classes.
fun fact: moulder is the only sage in fe8 who gains a speed bonus from wielding excalibur due to his high con stat and the fact that excalibur has an incredibly high wt, most other mages will in fact gain a speed penalty so there is a very real reason you'd want to use moulder as a sage
If only bishop wasn't busted
@@AndrewChumKaser Bishop is only better against monsters because of the slayer skill it preforms worse against humans due to light magic generally being weaker than anima magic from a Sage. Fe8 has a good number of monster maps at the end but not enough to call bishops busted.
@johnlynch1353 is there even a single human map post the last map with Valter and Calleach at the end of the split?
Edit: I'm stupid and both the Vanessa's sister and Rausten + Reiv map are full of human enemies for a reason that is not adequately explained by the plot
@@effluxi9587 their is also when you retake your country’s capital to promote your lord and get your nations s rank weapons.
Fates' reclassing was the best system so far imo, especially in the restrained environment of Conquest. It gave a ton of depth to the support system as well, making plans for who to S support and A+ sypport who to open new class options. The way the skill system works also incentiveses smart class changing if you just want to grab a buncb of skills from 2 or 3 classes.
Based . Enough options for players to try while still limiting it so each character could have its special niches instead of havin everibody being an edgy wyvern rider
Agreed, it made it so units can still feel unique without being able to just make them become anything on a dime. I'm a fan of Beruka with Kaze to give her that ninja class line which fits for her character and can work in tandem with her personal skill.
@@SonicLegendsKaze and Mozu giving hoshido classes on conquest is such a fun resource to work with
Especially when other games that are more limiting in your class changes, they also reset your level to 1 which makes it feel incredibly unbalanced. Or in Engage's case, makes keeping track of real levels harder.
While conceptually I agree, having played Conquest and Engage recently I personally prefer Engage's reclassing. At its core it's not as good or deep, but my issue with Conquest is you often have to plan character supports, reclasses and levelling FAR in advance to get the skills you want, often before you start playing. Getting decision paralysis before I even start playing is not a feeing I like.
The other thing I like about Engage is class skills not being transferable. It means if you're using a character in a class, it's because you want them to FIGHT in that class. In Conquest you'd often have people hop into a class for 2 levels just for one skill, or in Three Houses make everyone Bandits temporarily just for Death Blow.
Female Alear reclass for the hairband/ponytail is the only reclass I need.
which classes have that feature?
@@Blitz_Spencer
Sage promotion for sure. The others I am not sure since I haven't really explored it after finishing the game.
@@Blitz_Spencer of the top of my head, rider/flying classes. There's probably some exceptions, but I haven't reclassed to everything yet so idk. I remember somebody made a video about which classes give her a ponytail.
I feel like the ideal solution would probably to make class changing more limited on initial runs but allow you to do anything you want on new game + or future runs. Also can they please add a official randomiser mode to fe games already.
Here's a pitch for this idea! Imagine Fates' reclass system the different seals allow reclassing based on supports etc. But then in newgame+ you get a special shop, like the journal in three houses. You can spend renown on various things, but one of those is the "memoriam seal" which allows a unit to class change into any class that they could have on a previous run.
This would mean that in fates context marrying a character to Kaze would not only unlock Ninja as reclass option in that playthrough, but with the power of the Memoriam Seal, that unit could be Ninja on any and all subsequent playthroughs.
This would mean to have 100% freedom you would require multiple playthroughs, but it also means that new game plus allows you to continue a units growth into a new playthrough (which is the point of new game +)
Now you can marry them off to somebody else while you dip into Ninja for the skills you got last playthough then use the new classes to build on top!
This is kinda similar to how you could just buy class mastery in three houses to instantly get their skills, but more balanced cause you actually have to level the class like normal.
Edit: I realize thus would require using the same characters over and over so maybe it would work best on a game with a smaller roster, like how three houses have the individual houses.
I know it was broken but making a galeforce army in awakening was the most fun ive had with reclassing in fire emblem.
Overpowered can be fun, forseti is fun.
It is a kind of one playthrough pleasure, though.
I feel like fe8s method makes the most sense as a balance of the "class as identity" and total freedom options. Idk why it never returned, outside of IS thinking its too hard to make the choices equally viable (not that they need to be, sometimes its good to have unbalance in your single player video game).
Probably cuz itdoesn't give the same feeling of player agency/player choice as the freer systems.
And unfortunately, gamers have been obsessed with player agency/choice for the past decade or so.
Restricting players is often viewed as bad, even if those restrictions ultimately serve a greater purpose (e.g. more class identity, better designed maps cuz they don't have to design around players having either 0 or 12 flyers etc.)
It's a shame, but it's a rather common issue nowadays.
I think fe7 is an interesting example of the benefits of no reclassing, as so many units in that game are defined by their class. Units like Pent, Hawkeye, and Jaffar would be much less unique in a system with reclassing.
Also on Dread-looping, the real benefit is that you can very quickly gain ~30 levels due to resetting your level, so the class you pick only matters in regards to what attributes you want ( ie bow knight for high move and range)
I don't understand how reclass would hinder fe7 preproms. Are you arguing other units would steal thier roles? I don't see how, when the game itself has units that can promote to their class and still the preproms are ahead of them at base.
@@marcoasturias8520 I'm pretty sure he's talking about how reclassing would kill character identity. There's something deceisively lame about reclassing Jaffar out of assassin because "he's better as a paladin or wyvern."
On the other hand, having a character's role defined solely by their class means that most characters of the same class are interchangeable and/or competing against each other for a deployment slot. There isn't gonna be much difference between a run using Sain and Will, and a run using Kent and Rebecca. And most people find hard to justify training Erk when Pent fill the exact same role, but better. Personal skills would help, but I think a limited reclassing system could work very well in the Elibe games.
@@RockyTorres43 And on the example of Erk and Pent, look at Nino, with how underleveled she joins, regardless of class there's really no reason to raise her -looking at the Est-archetype in general here I guess- , but Pent existing just makes her so much less viable. I'd say if you were able to reclass her into a Healer, there'd be much more of a justification to use her, since being a Healer would mean she could gain Exp much more easily without really needing to "be fed kills", as a Healer would almost always have something to heal, and while she'd still be way behind any Healer you already have, there's still way more reason to raise her than if she was a Mage imo, since having more Healers never hurts.
@RockyTorres43 yeah but thats where different actual characters matters. Someone might think one mage is lame looking, but that another looks badass, or is badass as a character. Its not just about pure viability remember, it is a game not a puzzle
I dislike reclassing in FE, it robs units of their individuality by allowing any unit to be any class- everyone is less memorable in the gameplay since they don't have their own role.
I think Awakening and Fates still allow characters to fill certain roles, but I understand your point. Engage and Three Houses are especially bad at robbing characters, apart from lords, of class Identity. Personally I enjoy the concept of making a unit I love the personality of better by swapping their class. I see your argument though.
3:58: this isn’t completely true as Amelia and Ross only have 3 second tier classes, since they can promote into Great Knight and Warrior respectively no matter the first class pick
I was thinking super trainee as the 4th for them. Though that makes 5 end classes for Ewan.
i just want them to do away with gender locked classes. idc how long female only pegasus knights have been around, its nonsense.
I agree, I would be happy if they got rid of gender lock. Feels like a relic of the past
For Shadow Dragon and New Mystery the class limit is based on the units recruited in their base class plus an extra slot.
The reason why there are a lot of Cavalier slots is because the game throws a lot of units that start at that class. Each chapter has set class limits, which I said, is based on the units recruited
I want each character to be able to switch between 2-3 classes freely. Because I liked bouncing between classes in 3H and Shadow dragon, but don't like how much it took away from a units uniqueness.
Fates was too complicated for me to follow along on reddit, every time someone posts a build it feels like the meme with the guy with all the papers and strings and a crazed expression
In radiant dawn they had a 3rd tier change, i really loved those
Out of all these, I think Fates definitely did the reclassing system the best since it balances making them important choices for making units and building them. Unit individuality to me is at it's peak here compared to later games like 3H and especially Engage since units come with their base reclasses and have to get other reclasses from support partners, which usually leads to pretty fun builds. You didn't mention this here but certain units can get different reclasses depending on who it's with (usually with someone of the same base class) which means you get the support partners secondary class tree instead of their primary one. Nyx and Leo for example can get Vantage from Odin, Selena can get Ninja from Laslow instead of Kaze, Camilla can get Fighter from Beruka instead of Arthur and Keaton and so on. It helps units have specific niches each run as you can't get every class or skill you want (unless you use the logbook for skills but idk if that's worth counting) and makes the game fairly sandbox-like without being too open ended, particularly in Revelations since units get more support partners to mess around with. It isn't without it's complications though and is a lot easier to appreciate when you replay and plan through things which makes it a lot more fun on repeat playthroughs. Hope that we get to see this style of reclassing come back in later games but I imagine it probably won't tbh
There's also interesting cases, or at least one interesting case, with Nyx and Niles, where they share the same main- and sub-classes, although swapped, so a Nina parented by these two has access to the Diviner class-line. Can't think of any other parents that share classes like that, but it definitely makes them an interesting pairing on Conquest.
@@Justic_ Percy gets the Sky Knight class if his mom is Beruka because her classes are the exact same as Percy’s for the same reason as Nina!
@@Justic_ I’m pretty late to this but a Shigure fathered by Jakob gets Wyvern Rider! In fates, the father passes down their class first, because most children are tied to their fathers. so Jakob gives Shigure Troubadour, and then it’s Azura’s turn, but she can’t pass down Dancer to her kids. Her subclass is Sky Knight, but when Azura’s child, husband, or friend already has Sky Knight, she gives them Troubadour instead, but Shigure already has Troubadour. Thus, she passes down the Nohrian equivalent to Sky Knight, Wyvern Rider instead. Fun!
I think the biggest defense for shadow dragon-style reclassing is that it has some really neat interactions with stat caps on higher difficulties. When I played fe12 I ended up swapping classes around a LOT in the lategame to hit various thresholds. The big downside is if the difficulty doesn't make you want to reclass (like fe12 does) than you end up with the loldracoknight of fe11.
fe12 actually forces you to change out of dracoknight towards the end because, on higher difficulties, 23 maximum speed isn't gonna cut it anymore. Thus, you actually get an incentive to switch in the faster classes like swordmaster, sniper, berserker or horseman.
@@IschmarVI yeah thats my point, that type of reclassing is really fun when there's enemies strong enough to make you play around with it but it sucks if the enemies are weak enough you can just sit in 1 class all game
I always play without reclassing as it seems boring and cheap to do so, it takes away from the individuality of every character
Don't read this, it's too long to be worth it.
I think my favorite class systems are Fates and 3H.
3H I know, you can just make everyone wyvern lords and I'm sure that's optimal or whatever, but I never did that. What I liked was the compromise between flexibility and commitment. You earn flexibility by comitting to teaching a unit the necessary skills. Sometimes offered neat benefits. I remember doing maddening golden deer, I would choose between grappler and war master Raphael depending on how much terrain a map had, and between Paladin and Dark Knight Lorenz depending on if I thought I needed more magic or physical damage. Not sure if I'm unique in that playstyle.
I love Fates. Being initially locked to 2 trees and unlocking more through supports is great, and the finite level progression was nice after Awakening. It also made unlocking skill sets...interesting. In a good way, imo.
I dislike the infinite leveling of most recent games, but I appreciate at least that 3H kept each unit's level across classes. The game's finite levelling maps (even if it can be excessive if you want) also helps. The game ends eventually whether you like it or not. Engage is possibly the worst in this aspect, with how it keeps data on an internal level that it does not reveal to you while still using the base class/advanced class levels to denote map difficulty.
What I _do_ like about Engage's class system are that class skills don't transfer and each character has an innate weapon prof. In a game where you can do any unit any class, I like that limitation. For weapon profs, I like that it makes units slightly more able in certain classes, and lets you do stuff that might otherwise sound kinda funky. Like, I made Citrine a high priest and Pandreo a a sage, giving them both acess to A tomes and staves. And it lets you do something like making Jade a mage Knight to take advantage of her decent mag and res growths while still allowing her A axes. Idk, I think that stuff is neat.
I think the only bad reclass system is 3H's. It basically replaces planning with extremely tedious grind. They clearly didn't have confidence on it, since boons and banes have no effect on the battlefield, making it optimal to box archers and spam broken weapons in them.
Its either play below the curve or grind unintentional jank. Neither are good options.
For me, a mix of Awakening and Fates would be amazing for a class system; really liked how FE13 gives every character some clases to pick and fhat are lore relevant to them, which is my favorite aspect of it (Cherche having cleric bc she was studying to be one before meeting Minerva, Libra dark mage because of his parents thinking he was cursed, and so on and so forth) but I quite liked the planing Fates required; partner and friendship seals were so much fun to manage, like a big puzzle, allowing for some crazy and fun buildings; I will always held dear my Felicia mothered Siegbert; I married him to Ophelia and changed him into Dark Knight, it was so cool.
I don't like 3H one though, is like in The Incredibles with Syndrome saying "if everyone is super, nobody will be" or smth, it takes out any personality and uniqueness of characters, which is imo what makes every character an important piece of your army, everyone can be the OP class in the game and that's just... boring, doesn't help 3H is already a boring game to play either. Also the comeback of gender locked classes is lame.
As for Engage I like classes have fixed wepon ranks so I don’t have to bother leveling it up and can just brr the moment I change it.
fire emblem is FAR better WITHOUT reclassing, this whole reclassing thing makes everything generic and boring
I think Awakening where you have like 2-3 options is the best. I think too much freedom makes units not feel like individual units anymore.
I really liked Shadow Dragon & Awakening’s reclass systems.
Shadow dragon was cool because I could make more pirates.
I really liked their art style and flavor.
For Awakening, it was fun to plan out the classes for parents and children.
Wondering what the parent should be, so the child could inherit a cool skill
I love fates reclassing, it keeps unit customizability while not completely trivializing the challenge of getting the builds you want, making it ultimately feel rewarding.
Also for those who think reclassing kills unit diversity, it does not. Weapon ranks bases and growths are incredibly important for a unit's performance. If an FE doesn't have unit diversity that's because the units themselves are uninteresting, it's not a fault of the reclassing system itself.
My favorite reclassing system in the series is definitely the one we got in Fates, because it makes supports extremely impactful and overall I just really like the planning aspect of that system
I haven't played the newer Fire Emblem games, but these are my thoughts after this video.
The best system of classes and reclassing I've ever played was FFV's Jobs system. Awakening and Fates seem very similar to this. Three Houses seems the closest, though, and it's a system that could be largely translated to a new game, though obviously without the certification exams and school setting. Just having stat requirements would be good enough. Not being able to carry over skills from one class to another is a negative for me with Engage. It was one of the things that was really cool about FFV's Jobs system.
I dont think total freedom in reclassing is good at all, it makes the game entirely sandbox and takes away from the value of classes even existing as a mechanic. Like in shadow dragon they may as well be weapons with how easy it is to switch.
12:55 “units have 2 class options by default *in addition* to their base class” that’s only for the child units lol, the first Gen only get their base class +1
I do like the Fates’s limitations over Awakening since I did feel a little overwhelmed by the options while also feeling it really doesn’t matter, but every time I play fates my goals drive me & I’m excited to see them grow
Yeah I didn’t do it much through my first play through, but I feel like it’s common to only reclass like 2-4 units throughout your first play through, heck, I knew a guy who played awakening without second seals, because he didn’t notice them lol
I feel like if you want to fix the “issue” of not knowing what skills you’d get from certain classes, just have the enemies come with those skills so you know how they feel when you fight them, or just straight up capture enemies so you don’t have to commit to hard on anyone while also knowing the most about what you’re getting
Yeah it would cost you at least 4 levels (6 if you wanna see the skills of both promotions) but I would say that balances out since you would also get a feel for how the class plays as well as on Lunatic you would see how high the weapon caps are
Also engage is nice and I definitely see where you’re coming from about a high mag physical class locked unit, with breaking, hurricane Axe, if the reclass system was any more restrictive, than she’d be the most notable unit in the army as a Mag Backup unit
Overall I like Fates’s reclass system the most, with using Capture and Einherjar units as methods of figuring out in game what classes give what skills, but mechanically I like Engage’s breaks, weapons, bld stat, and backups more for making classes *feel* like you need to have a good mix around, together I’d feel like it would make a very enjoyable balance, but that’s just me lol, thank you for your time
I have mixed feelings about reclassing. On one hand yes the customization can be a lot of fun. But on the other hand any game that allows units to reclass inherently makes them a little bit less unique. I'm not considering branched promotion as reclassing in this context. It gives the player a choice, but usually the options make logical sense and aren't that different. Like Wyvern Lord and Wyvern Knight are very similar. I don't think there is a right or wrong approach to reclassing or not, but I would like to see both represented in the future. I do also like that the developers have tried new things and experimented from game to game. It helps to make each one feel more fresh overall.
I honestly am not a fan of the super open reclass systems. I don't hate them, don't get me wrong, but when anyone can be almost anything, it really limits unit individuality (which can be fixed with personal skills sure, but honestly I don't usually like personal skills either)
My favorite reclass system is easily Sacred Stones. Yes, the class balance is extremely bad, but it gives almost the perfect amount of options to the player imo. Personally I think it'd be neat if each class had three choices of promotion instead of just two, or if there was a third tier of classes perhaps, and of course the class balance needs a lot of tweaking, but its just really fun to me
This is a really late comment but you mention that Engage's Bow Knight is great in its own right; I've felt it's one of the weakest classes due to a generally poor stat pool and a skill which emphasizes turtling in an otherwise hyper aggressive game. What are your thoughts on it?
my only issue with Fates' class access methods is that the S supports also determined how the child units ended up. if that conflict didn't exist (the child units made no sense in fates anyway and seemed just tacked on. or just split the systems up), I'd get behind it way more.
One thing about Fates’s reclass system that I’m personally sort of mixed on is skill buying which I like because it acts as a sort of new game+ allowing you to buy skills from previous playthroughs which cuts down on the unit planning a little bit but at the cost of a lot of gold. It allows for more customization in that you can basically take skills from previous playthroughs and use them in different classes for the same unit. Though again it kinda comes at the cost of sort of cheapening the unit planning aspect of it especially when you take into account the multiplayer aspect but I thought it was worth mentioning
One thing I really like about the series, and can count on the devs to do, is experimenting on new systems. Reclassing is definitely one of them and with how Engage handled reclassing by merging parts of it with class type bonuses Im really looking forward to what they'll do next.
Personally I love Fates class system. Previous linear games had units defined by their class (like 7). Games with an either-or progression (like 8 or Radiance) opened up some options but kept similarities (Magic casting or mounted classes). Fates allows units to have some breathability with their classes like previous games but if the player really wanted to turn a bishop into a ninja, that door was open of the player met some prerequisites. It kept units from feeling like just a sprite and personal skill for me.
Let's be real we just choose based on the outfits
Fates us my favorite but I also think the best one. Yes it CAN be complicated but it doesn't have to be, it's simple enough that you should have a rough idea on what kind of skills you get and you know at which level.
Also real quick shout out to if you make use of the NG+ profiles, you don't have to if you feel it's cheating or whatever but sometimes just slapping the 5 most busted skills onto Kana and murdering everything is fun.
I usually play with very limited reclassing outside of conquest because that's the only time it was cool because heat seals added flavor as the reclasses where uniqe to units and required more investment to jump to unusual stuff through the support system tying into fe's emergent story elements, and with the any unit to any class system it loses that and meshes all units together with few exceptions, I see reclassing in this way like perma death without perma death you lose that gameplay story, in a sense unlimited reclassing loses the same thing.
My feelings on reclassing usually has me only reclassing if i feel it makes sense for the character e.g. Engage! Anna to axe mage knight
I also find i treat promotion in engage the same e.g. Mages go sage mage knight
3 houses was crazy with how many units ended up flyers despite me not planning to make them flyers.
Run 1
Byleth: Obviously should be a flyer with chest keys in the convoy who can leave the exp to the students and get all the chests.
Claude: I'm going to make him a Bow Knight or War Master. Game forces him into a unique wyvern class and it was so good I kept him on a wyvern forever.
Hilda: I'm going to make her a great knight. At some point I realize all she needs is flying to become a pegasus or wyvern knight.
Lorenz: I guess he's a mage, but he sucks. I drop him for Sylvain, who becomes a flyer, because he's got similar growths to Hilda.
Cyril: Oh wow, he's a perfect wyvern knight.
Shamir: I'm going to make her a mortal savant. On the way, i have to make her a Pegasus Knight because of her lance growths, I realize MS isn't very good and she goes back to flying.
Run 2
Byleth: There were no problems with my plan, she even still took a lot of exp.
Dmitri: It worked well for Claude. I play the long game and he becomes a flyer too and kills everything.
Sylvain, Cyril and Shamir: Get back on those flyers.
Ingrid: Well she's literally built to fly.
Run 3
Edelgard and Petra: Ok they and Byleth are gonna be my 3 flyers.
Ferdinand: I'm gonna make him a great knight; but he gets lots of flying exp helping grind Edelgard and Petra and with those axe growths ends up a flyer.
Bernadetta: I'm going to make her a bow knight and maybe great knight. She also ends up getting lots of flying exp helping others grow and doing seminars... and that's a nice lance stat you got there. She becomes a pegasus archer that deletes other flyers.
Shamir: I'm going to make her an archer this time. How did she end up a flying archer too?! It's these damn lance and axe growths.
That final Edelgard map was a joke. Look at all these walls... it'd be a shame if they meant nothing to half my army and those pegasus knights... would be a shame if I could just fly over and snipe them and these archers... real shame they can't hit me from over the wall, but I can fly over and delete them.
I’d disagree with Engage’s class balance being good compared to Three houses. In Three houses you’ll be using Wyvern lord, Grappler, War master, Sniper, Gremory, Dark knight, Paladin, Assassin/Swordmaster (only really on Catherine), Bow knight, Bishop, and Claude’s personal class, In Engage you’re using Wyvern, Griffin, Warrior, Mage knight, rarely Great knight/Paladin,Hero for dual assist + bots, and Ivy’s, Alear’s, Hortensia’s, and sometimes Fogado’s personal class (excluding dlc classes for both). There’s even less physical class options in Engage with Warrior and Wyvern outclassing any other option for a physical combat unit unless their combat is questionable so they go Hero or sometimes make use of great knights bulk and there’s no reason to use anything other than Mage knight for most units for magical combat unless you’re Citrinne or have a personal class, Griffin knight being a fine option for either physical or some magical combat. This compares to three houses having more unique toolkits for each unit and having Sniper, Wyvern, Bow knight, Grappler, War master, Paladin, etc all being useful physical class options and Dark knight and Gremory being useful magical ones. The amount of good classes in both is about the same with Three houses honestly having slightly more. Apologies for the rant though, found your content recently and like your overall analysis. Just find that Three houses receives a lot of flack when Engage honesty has the same issue.
Its nice to see someone seriously considering something about Awakening without just trashing it straight out 😊
Player choice is great and all, but restrictions are needed to actually make a fun game.
Completly free reclassing creates too many issues, with units losing their identity, with maps design suffering because they need to design around every possible absurd team composition, and with the game itself quickly becoming a chore that requires homework because playing blind is basically impossible when you have to plan out how to get skills from a bunch of unrelated classes for every single unit.
My favorites are awakening and fates reclassing, I see why it may be fun to give the same classes to many units based on meta but I find it better if there is more uniqueness to the characters thanks to their available classes.
I will throw in a nitpick because it satisfies my need to be a know-it-all while fueling the algorithm. Paladins' second weapon in PoR is also a non-choice. Axes are the best weapon type by a massive margin. They have better might than their equivalents in all the other physical weapon types, the delta on their hit is usually only 5-10 in a game with high base accuracy and a generous hit formula, and their weight is a non-issue thanks to strength based weight mitigation. It's also one of those weird games where Steel Axes are E rank while every other steel weapon is D, so axe paladins can jump straight into using steel weapons instead of having to grind their way out of E rank hell. Oscar, Astrid and Makalov should basically always choose axes, unless you are very specifically going for meme-y triangle attack nonsense on Oscar. Kieran's weapon choice is technically free but only because it doesn't matter; he should never be using anything other than axes. You would think that he'd maybe want to pick up lances to cover his weapon triangle disadvantage, but since he will start at E lances the hit and damage penalties are better made up for with higher tier axes than by busting out an iron lance.
If they were to make another instalment with Three Houses styled class acquisition then perhaps they could also be more flexible with the skill requirements, such as:
Cavalry needing Lances OR Swords.
Armour Knights needing Axes OR Lances (nod to how Soldiers became Armour Knights in Gaiden & SoV).
Hero needing Swords as well as Axes OR Brawling (maybe Lances as a third option).
Just a thought.
Oh, and balancing the classes better (obviously).
I used to like reclassing in FE but overtime I grew to hate it especially in 3H.
Character design used to be based around what a character's starting class. 3H having a school setting is one of the most damaging things done to class clarity. I had no idea what starting class anyone would be until I saw them in-game. As an example I fully expected Bernadetta to be a mage given her general face and hair design but she's actually an Archer??? Some of the time skip designs don't help in this class clarity issue either.
Class design also suffered thanks to reclassing. In Awakening every class has to have some list of skills players can reclass over and over and work towards if they wish. A lot of the time you want to get specific class skills then swap to a high move class once you're done unless you just really like an unmounted class. Or want to Nosferatu + Vengeance spam thanks to the Dark Mage niche of having access to Dark Magic.
Engage has this Character Design and Class clarity issue with some characters. It's reasonable to think characters like Celine, Citrinne and Ivy are mages. They just have that look you know?
Meanwhile, as much as I adore and love everything about her, there's Hortensia. Her design is so jarring that you can't accurately determine what her starting class could even be and it turns out to be the same as Ivy's, the brand new Wing Tamer class. The same goes for Timerra, Rosado and a few others. Somehow Engage gets class clarity somewhat well despite all of the bashing the character designs get.
I do hope IS goes back to traditional character designs and heavily limits class changing for character and class deign clarity. It's just nice to know what you're getting into when you see a Fire Emblem character from just seeing their official art or even their in-game portrait. It really isn't a bad thing to have the traditional Christmas Knights looking like just some dudes with with medium armor and on a horse or Pegasus Knights having the light breastplate, short dress/skirt and long boots like they've had since FE1.
I do think there is such thing as giving the player too much freedom, but I'm not against reclassing as a whole, I think it would just be better if limited. Either each unit has only up to 3 other classes to choose from or you can only reclass once, maybe twice, and bounce between those classes. That way it could still give the freedom of customization however not potentially trivialize the game. It makes it an actual decision with some weight
its really funny finding out wyvern units were really really good in fire emblem three houses considering despite playing multiple times weve almost never used any wyverns none of the black eagles really work with wyverns that well
Only class I probably never use are the bow in anything other than a sniper. I like the longbow and it's uses and especially in fates where pirage shot basically makes snipers the best class being able to crit and use skills with the stronger weapons with no drawbacks and especially takumi and his fujjin bow.
I treat warriors and any class who sub type with bow as just one weapon and only exception is probably the bride class but I just give a brave bow to knock out the foe and switch back to a javilin weapon
This is a super hot take because criticizing the newer fire emblem games will automatically count you as an elitist but god reclassing is so brainless.
It’s pretty sick in FE11/22 I’ll admit it’s the best iteration but it takes away from the fun of using the bad archer or the bad cavalier because you can just make them the usable warrior and call it a day
I've done some strange reclassing in 3 Houses, and some of them are surprisingly suitable. I remember at least one martial doing better as a mage than with actual weapons.
Only major units I reclassed were just a better class like In awakening I make niore a dark mage so she can use mire and since I marry tharja that gives her a lot of magic potential way better than her attack and armthrift to keep the dark tombs in use. Dlc wise most sword fighters become dread fighters as those classes have more to them.
Fates I only reclass the capture units as unique classes help them stand out more aside the lancer who is a unique class and is fun to build.
Engage Anna I go from thief to magic user due to thief being great at dodge and her earning money would be very useful in front
I prefer a more limited reclass options simply because too much options gives me analysis paralysis.
not a fan of reclassing in principle it just seems like extra units in a game that already has so many superfluous ones.
Reclassing should be banned. It takes away the uniqueness of the character.
Reclassing is fun. End of story.
I quite enjoyed Engage's reclass system. After the 3DS games and Three Houses it was honestly really refreshing to have something that was much simpler. I think it fits really well with Engage as a whole too: Not a whole lot of big bells and whistles, but solid execution on Fire Emblem's core gameplay mechanics. I've only done one playthrough and haven't messed around with it too much but I like that it's there. What was notable for me was taking Goldmary and putting her into Great Knight when I felt I needed another tank after Louis. Didn't feel like grinding up Jade, Goldmary already had lances and swords so...super easy swap, and I was extremely happy with how she did.
And yeah I totally agree on 3H's class system: works very well for that game, but wouldn't work in most settings.
IIRC the Shadow Dragon class limits are the way they are because the limits are based on the base classes of the units you aquire. You can have 10 paladins and 6 dracoknights because you get 9 cavalier/paladins and 5 pegasus/dracoknights; the limit is just "how many of X you get +1". Otherwise you'd have to reclass units just to deploy them.
This also 'fixes' the issue of needing to use units you don't like to do an oddball comp; the limits are such that if you don't like the default X, you can reclass them out and make room for someone else.
I think character uniqueness and game balance often suffer under the more free reclassing options, but having none whatsoever can be a bit restrictive and shallow as well.
I think my favorite reclass system was sacred stones, it just needed better class balance and reclass decisions where both classes have merit or some sort of utility you want.
I think the skill emblem reclasses especially, on the 3DS were probably the worst.
It's probably possible to make a system like that very good, and it'd be really rewarding if well balanced, but it kills character identity and in return you get to have a clown army that shifts through the mandatory classes with the best skills to create your endgame meta team. For most of the game at any given time you aren't even holding a class on a character because you think it's a good fit or you like the class, you're taking that class because you can get x skill, which will synergize with y skill later, and z skill to make your broken unit that invalidates the game mechanics.
Fun.
I really like Branching promotions as the avenue of choice. I'd want to see a game with better class balance than Sacred Stones and with the number of class tiers you see in Three Houses, with skills inherited from each class the unit goes through on the branching promotion tree, with where the unit can promote each time restricted to one weapon/magic proficiency more and less than what they currently have and class type specific promotion seals for the restrictions on how to branch out. Basically, you'd have a similar rewarding ending build flexibility of Conquest, but from linear forward momentum through multiple tiers of classes, making it as simple to figure out as Three Houses. And no slotting in a limited number of skills, the path you took the unit through is their total build (though pre-promotes might have additional personal skills instead of the skills of any logical previous class, making the difference between early, late, and specialty units more pronounced). Preferably no Second Sealing or side promoting at all. Actually have all kinds of design ideas on this concept.
Also, I hate Flying units changing mount type with promotions, so that and going between flying and horse mounted would be off limits. Once a unit has a type of mount, they're locked into it (so units that start with a mount are bound to it, though dipping into some non-mounted classes while still being mounted could still be on the table). As such, the distinction between Pegasus, Wyvern, and Griffin is that they'd be different class lines, with starting, middle, and final classes to go into, each focusing a weapon type at base: Pegasus Sword with the traditionally high Res, Wyvern Lance with the traditionally good Def, and Griffin Axe with more balanced stats. There could also be mini support chains with mounts, kinda like with the Emblem Supports, and they'd have separate stats that modify the unit's stats that are improved by going through Mounted classes' promotion bonuses. Similarly, Armored classes would improve the stat modifiers of wearing armor, and deploying unmounted or unarmored would be an option for units locked into having those.
One of the main reasons units get locked into certain movement types and a way to still encourage army diversity would be a between battle mechanic of hosting military parades, with slots to fill for each movement type for better benefits. The "Lords" of the game could have special beginner classes of Commoner that starts with all weapon proficiencies, able to go through any weapon class but locked out of hybrid and magic classes, and Noble, starting with all magic proficiencies, able to promote through all magic classes but not hybrid or weapon ones. Dark, White, Black Magic magic effectiveness triangle, with Black magic classes split into learning elemental spell specialties for Anima (balanced), Wind (minor 50% effectiveness to Flying, 100% if that spell's Tome as an Accessory is equipped), Thunder (Armor effective), Fire (horse effective), and Ice (Infantry effective). Mountaineering and swimming classes spread between the weapon type. Thievish classes of different weapon types. Armored Mages that trade Res for Def. Armored Bow classes which are the only space the Close Counter and Far Counter skills can be earned. Archer actually having good Str, with Hunter coming back as the more thievish mountaineering alternative. Infantry Lance classes.
I'm rambling. Lot's more I could say and have said before, but the general gist of it is that the branching promotion structure has so much untapped potential left to be explored.
Something I think that's interesting is that the Fates classing system is weirdly similar to Final Fantasy X of all things. Instead of getting new classes as the game progresses, and swapping classes to pick up skills so that the endgame just kind of turns into using every skill from every good class all at once, or to create some sort of internal logic error to do a million billion damage per turn like in FF5 or bravely default (Think using Rapid Fire or Swordmaster/Pirate builds), you instead have character customization as a commodity. You have a single use item (seals, orbs) that allows a unit to deviate from their standard statistical progression (heart seal, key spheres) off onto a different pathway, or as a rare prize for performing well, using other party members abilities (partner seals, teleport spheres).
What I think is most interesting is that changing role isnt just a commodity, it's a *committment*. Normally in games with class systems you can just hop in a menu to change back after you pick up the skills you want after a short bout of grinding but until you get another of the class change item you just gotta stick with it. It makes the prospect of putting a character in a weird class to pick up like one skill you sort of want less appealing because you dont know when you'll be able to change back. This I think is a really good sort of replayability, more so than a new game plus because having knowledge on the structure of not just the story and mechanics and bosses but also the where and when of items and gameplay pacing will let you get an advantage by using you knowledge to know when and where you can class change and how big a return on your investment you'll get. I also think it's kinda neat how the 3ds games dont quite tell you what a class does skill wise before you get them. The second playthrough, after not really deviating from the standard path on your first run on normal mode probably you see hardmode, and after a game of having relatively simplistic characters with defined roles you'll be more comfortable changing them after not only seeing what classes get which skills on your side but also which enemies have what and which "cheat" skill combinations that are normally unobtainable which enemies have you could be inspired to try to mimmick the neat stuff bosses and minibosses bring to the table. FFX tries something similar with the Expert Sphere grid, but I think FE is more graceful because the thing that changes on the second playthrough isnt how the mechanic works, it's how willing the player is to engage with experimentation and the harder difficulty modes making some of the more overkill builds actually quite practically helpful the second go around
Reclassing feels very tame in Engage, there is barely a noticeable stat change between High Priest and Sage for example, and weapon ranks are like those in FE4 meaning you don't have to work for them and are class based. The unique classes always felt better than the generic ones based on them (Avenir is better than Paladin, Sucsesseur is better than Hero, Tireur d'Elite has 2 more speed than sniper etc) and Wyvern Lords didn't feel as broken as they were in 3H
I’d say Fates did it best, I despise how levels reset in both Awakening and Engage or how you can just bring a units level back to 1 as I think that just promotes steamrolling a game with over inflated stats.
I picked mage for my Kris' calss in new Mystery, and I recalssed him to dark mage, as it is implied he is Robin's ancestor, the only other recall I did is change Aron to a wyvren
i really wish the all of FE8's split promotions were as good as Gerrick. the choice between reliable 1-2 range as Hero and access to a mount + longbows is the one of the few meaningful promotion options in the game. While everyone emphasizes handaxes for enemy phase, I've found longbows in the lategame are really useful for eliminating Gorgons with stone on enemy phase. When your other options for longbow users are Neimi and her terrible bases or Innes who, IME, has been a wildly unreliable unit on higher difficulties, I've gotten a lot of use out of Ranger Gerick since it's a niche that's otherwise hard to fill.
Fates had it best. the hart seal was great
i admit the fates system is pretty good though it suffers from having a new wpn system wich they didn't quite hit the mark since they were testing some things here and there and made hidden wpns the best wpns in the game making all classes that have acess to them very good, when i play fates i aways want my team to be mostly of master ninjas though acess to them is kinda limited you can still make a full team with then pretty consistently and they aways perform pretty stelarly against all enemies it really is a strong all rounder unit
reclassing allowed young me to replay the gba and ds games endlessly, back when i didn't care about minmaxing lol
honestly I prefer either sacred stones or engage: flexible, yet limited, or all bets are off
I personally don't mind limited classes or re-classing, as long as it is done well.
I'd honestly say that Fates was my favorite reclassing system also. One of my best memories of Conquest was a run where i paired Silas and Azura and used that to reclass Azura to Great Knight. Azura was actually stupid strong in Fates and with full weapon triangle access in GK she was a menace.
And if you might be thinking "but why would you reclass your Singer?", well the main point of a refresher is to get another action on a combat unit, but Azura becomes such a competent combat unit that she already accounts for the extra action by herself without needing to refresh someone else.
She's also good in Master Ninja. And she was represented well in Heroes because even in her default release she was quite capable in combat if you decided to build her for it.
In terms of individuality, Engage has one helpful feature in that each unit has an "innate" proficiency that boosts the weapon rank for that proficiency in some classes. For example, Pandreo's innate Staff proficiency means that in Sage his Staff rank is not the regular B but an A, allowing him to use all staves other than Nodus (and nobody but Hortensia should use that anyway). Unfortunately, that in itself is a double-edged sword because it means that there's no real cost to reclassing Pandreo out of High Priest (the "main" staff user class) and into Sage even if you want him to be a healer. Bow-innate Warriors are another notorious combination, with Warrior being commonly considered as the most attractive option for "archer" units.
Aren’t shadow dragon class limits just based on the number of that class you naturally recruit?
+1. Yes.
Lizard back at it again
I'll die on the warrior Lady Anna hill. I generally tend to like units that can flex between phys and mag damage.
Oh I love warrior anna! I made a whole video about it
@@actuallizard :o I must needs find this
I really didn't like Engage's reclassing system. The menu felt really clunky to me, especially with how it handled variations on a class being listed as a separate class. I didn't like how myrmidon got rebranded into "sword fighter" because I felt like it kinda stripped away what made the class feel distinct when it's now treated as a sword flavored variant of the fighter class. I also felt that the reclassing system was weirdly bogged down by its ties to the engage system. I remember it took me to the half way point to realize nothing was actually happening when I kept trying to train up a unit's weaker weapon proficiency because I didn't have an emblem on that unit.
I know you did mention weapon ranks, but it was pretty brief and I think it needs to be emphasized. In the DS games with free reclassing every battle preparation, weapon ranks are the biggest limiting factor to functioning in different classes. Being a in a strong class isn't so good with E rank weapons, and Shadow Dragon only has one arms scroll pretty late in the game.
I don't like Engage's reclassing because the biggest factor in most titles, weapon rank, is fixed per class. It used to be that a unit's identity was their stats, skills(if the game had them), and weapon rank. Engage removes weapon ranks as part of unit identity and has very lackluster personal skills with no learnable skills based on classes, at least none that can be taken into a different class. So the only thing a unit has left is their stats, and I guess whether they join before or after the emblem split. There's very little for me to work with in this game.
I fully disagree with the argument that free reclassing kills unit individuality, I think it’s more accurate to say that free reclassing lets units play to their statistical strengths. But I don’t think that kills unit individuality as much as people think it does, not every character has the same stats or growths, even units in the same class will grow differently, and tons of units have different join times. If every unit you have can enter the same class, it’s very unlikely that any of them will have the same stat line. If you make Kellem a theif he doesn’t just become an exact copy of Gaius, not even counting skills, his stat-line and growths means he functions differently and grows differently even if he technically is the same class.
Free reclassing in FE usually makes units more usable if their only issue is their base class, if you want to use a unit that you like, but who has an intended class path that isn’t good, reclassing them lets you make them more viable by changing them from a less viable class to a class they’d be better in.
Yes, you don’t have units that are forced to have funny stat distribution or funny growths, like FE engage anna, but you can just, not reclass units you think have funny stat distribution, or reclass normal units into classes that are silly for them. Like armor knight Lysethia, or troubadour charlotte.
Units aren’t made unique by what classes they are stuck in, they’re made unique by the things they can actually do, and more often than not, reclassing doesn’t stifle that.
FE3H’s issue isn’t that any unit can be a wyvern, it’s that wyvern is a better class than a lot of its contemporaries and that the balance heavily favors it, if reclassing wasn’t possible, you’d just be using good units instead, who’d likely just so happen to be the units that have wyverns. Wyvern being a class anyone can access just means more units have potential to be more viable, not that you wouldn’t be using any wyvern you can get away with using.
Edelgard has a personal class that she reclasses out of to go wyvern instead. FE3H’s issue is just that Wyverns are too good.
You are right that Kellam and Gaius would be two different units as a thief. However, if everyone could become a thief, Cordelia and Chrom are now just as effective as thieves as Gaius is. Gaius, Chrom, and Cordelia (assuming Pegasus isn't gender locked) are now all less unique since you can literally replace them with each other.
The reason why people say it hurts their unit individuality is because turns a unit from being _the_ unit with a certain class to just another unit. It becomes a comparison of unit stat lines instead of unit versatility (which comes from classes). When it comes to large casts, there are only so many ways to distribute stats.
@@123christianac except Chrom joins earlier, and Cordelia joins later, and doesn’t have sword rank, and Gaius is faster, and functionally Chrom’s Lord class and Gaius’s Thief class are basically identical. Myrmidon and Mercenary are also in the same boat, they promote into different classes (with some overlap.) but aside from learning different skills and having different stats, the 4 classes are functionally the same. Thief only has the extra utility of not needing keys, which is neat, but keys exist In Awakening.
If every unit was exactly the same, that probably would be more boring, but classes usually aren’t the things that make units feel different to use, it’s a culmination of everything they can do, class access does have something to do with that, but it’s not a linear scale of “more class access is less unit individuality.”
How a unit preforms is ultimately the thing that’s going to make them unique. And classes are actually only a small part of a unit’s combat viability, they change stats a bit, weapon ranks in some games, and they learn different skills, but it doesn’t always make that big of a difference if your unit is fighting with a lance or an axe, or if they have 6 movement or 7, what’s going to make them standout is going to be things like interesting abilities or utilities, that are unique to them as a unit, rather than unique to them just because of their class.
Celine is the only mystical unit in engage that can use levin swords with sigurd, and that’s unique to her because of her personal class, but Fogado’s personal class is just bow knight with different stat allocation.
Although personally I don’t mind it that much than not every unit fundamentally feels different to use.
I think that also free reclassing lets you do more with the same character.
You could make a mage a levin swordmaster, or a general into a wyvern rider, or your lord into a dedicated staff unit.
Yes they’re not THE (class) units anymore, but nothing stops you from using reclassing to make units weird or unique units.
It feels like Fates and Three Houses were very unique in how you customized units into basically anything you wanted, and for the Sake of Balance, Engage toned the possibilities down quite a bit
I really like how Engage has the different class types since it can help more classes be interesting. Like, even though arts are usually bad, qi adept's chain guard ability makes it worth having someone in martial master. Back up units are also super fun
I also like how weapon rank is just based on the class, with each character having a special one. That way, you can change classes without having to go back to E rank while still having some amount of weapon preference
My favorite system for reclassing is Awakening. A big part of this might be that I started with the GBA games and I really feel like class should be an important part of a unit's identity, this is what their training led them to and how they will contribute to your army.
With that said, I think the best system is 3H, sure anyone can be anything, but they have their boons and banes and magic lists. But 'best' here is specifically in terms of it being both logical and fully realized, it still comes with the massive trade-off of requiring a game where all your units are villagers and you get them all at the beginning, which I don't mind once, but another game like that would just feel like 3h2.
i think it often goes understated that even in games like shadow dragon, 3h, and engage where basically any unit can be anything, FireEmblem units still have infinitely more individual uniqueness than characters in other SRPGs
I believe that reclasing is at its best when it is another resource to manage, which is why I like Conquest's take so much, specially on the early game.
At the beginning you are limited by how much gold you have and by the amount of seals you can buy, so if you want to use Wyvern!Elise early to take advantage of her new growths, it'll come at the cost of not being able to reclass other early game units like Corrin, Jakob and Odin; which means they won't be able to build their weapon ranks until later. And buying a seal also means you might not be able to afford other neat stuff like the Levin sword for a while.
And by tying the classes to supports they still allow most units to access most classes or skills, but it limits how many units can access the most broken classes. So no Wyvern armageddon.
As for unit uniqueness, a fun way to keep it could be through Combat Arts, spells and personal weapons/skills.
This applies a lot to 3H but if a unit has Entrap, Vengeance, Swift Strikes or Hunters Volley they are immediately more unique and powerful than others, and it can also help dictate what weapon ranks a player might invest into.
If the same character has a good enough spell list and Combat Arts, he or she can reclass into multiple classes to either keep playthroughs fresh or to be a unique mixed kind of unit.
3H failed with it since most units had a shitty spell list and most of their combat arts belonged to the same 1 or 2 weapon types, so there wasn't much uniqueness even with it. There were also almost no spells or CA that were more support or usefulness oriented.
But I would like to see this approach again in the future. It can be very interesting if done correctly.
Personally speaking i didn't like the fates reclass system and that is because of how extremely limited it is since the second seals didn't reduced the level to 1 but you stayed at level that the character you choose was and if your at max level 20 in th promoted class there is no other way to learn other skills. Aside from buying an Eternal seal which raised the level cap of the unit by 5 making it an maximum of 99.
Your voice is awesome for these long form dissection type videos, keep it up brother
I've always preferred characters holding on to every bit on individuality that they can, it's what helps make side characters stand out more without loading on supports that may or may not be full of gags that get tiring quickly. I also think they design maps better when they know what you'll have, which is why in more modern titles we've seen later maps be very hit or miss in terms of balance.
I actually think that a blend of the way Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance treat it where you have branching promotions but classes have different weapon combos that you have to pick from would be a fantastic way to go about it. This would also be reminiscent of Engage where we have 3 different Heroes, 3 different Paladins, etc for each possible weapon combo that could fall into the class. In this system you hold onto each character's individuality while providing meaningful decisions and player agency.
Awakening and Fates I feel have great ideas although I personally think the balancing of their systems is off even if the format is functionally very well done, and it's not very friendly to new players like other games. Three Houses loses almost all sense of identity with the way that it works because despite the existence of personals and variance in learned skills, many personals become negligible later and there are plenty of character that get the relevant skills so it's more noticeable when you don't have access to say, Battalion Wrath. Thematically, it's excellent for the game, mechanically, it fell short because even if you don't spam one class, by the end of the game you still end up with fairly similar classes just because of the oddly limited pool of endgame classes.
Engage introducing weapon based options for each class was definitely worthwhile, letting you put someone into a different class with the same weapon to give them something different without gutting their weapon options. However, the way that proficiency works and the ease of reclassing and gaining proficiency absolutely destroys individuality because anyone can get any skill and any class with not a lot of hassle, while most personal skills are rather negligible, leaving differences up to stats and growths, which as you mentioned, you can just reclass someone into something better and not have to play around what they are. Almost every class is relevant in some way, and you can put everyone into any class, but every unit has stats that want them to be in a certain class, so that's at least something going for individuality. I will say that the weapons the game provides (even if I dislike unbreakable weapons) does allow for some funnier options since many of them are good, like Swordmaster Ivy with a Levin Sword. It's definitely fun to mess around with, but it's not something that plays into the characters, which is what I personally prefer. Also Break is a curse and a blessing because it encourages you to vary your weapon types using all the class variations it has, but it does prevent you from doing some meme teams for funnies without getting a headache. I can finally put everyone into Halberdier but at what cost? (ALSO WHY IS THERE NO NG+ FOR ENGAGE THIS CLASS SYSTEM WOULD ABSOLUTELY LOVE A NG+)
All things considered, I'd have to say that I like the ideas that Engage brings to the table, but I would love to see them be refined into a system that works more like Sacred Stones mixed with Path of Radiance, as it would be simple enough for first timers and relaxed playthroughs, maintain class based characteristics of the cast, and at the same time provide decisions for the player that make a difference in the way that impact how they use their characters. Some of my friends and I enjoy conceptualizing ways to mix up and improve the systems, and we did like the idea of a branch promotion system that also contains a decision on what weapon type you learn upon promotion for many classes that would have an additional weapon, while providing something else for mono weapon classes (7 out of 17 games have an invisible crit bonus for certain classes, and Radiant Dawn attaches and locks a crit bonus skill to some).
Reclassing is the only thing making FE replayable. As you mentioned, we like using characters we like so its better to reclass for characters we like rather than using people we dislike (Thats why I bench Takumi and his son in the Rev/Birth runs).
As someone who started with Awakening and has a soft spot for its reclassing system, Fates' reclassing-system has got to be one of my favorite ones for basically just expanding on it and making it more interesting. I do think the criticism that it leads to people prioritizing pairings for builds rather than for chemistry is valid, although I feel that has already been the case since FE4 and then Awakening due to child-units, and honestly the GBA- and Tellius-games as well to a somewhat lesser extent due to support-affinities. As for its complexity... I don't think it's too much more complex than Awakenings, in both cases a blind player would have no idea what to reclass to in order to create certain builds, and I don't think choosing "wrong" S- or A+-supports is really punished in any way, so... yeah, I don't think there's any disadvantage for blind players that wasn't already a thing with Awakenings reclass-system.
I also love Three Houses' reclass-system, but at the same time, it feels a bit too harsh with its reclass-requirements in some respects, like, I feel like requirements for most non-Master-classes could stand to be half a weapon-rank lower to really make gaining the certifications for multiple "class-lines" more viable, although at the same time you could argue how important reclassing into certain class-lines even is since any class can use almost any weapon in the first place, meaning you go into certain classes only just for their skills, but ultimately, a Swordmaster can be just as viable of an axe-user as a Hero or a dismounted Paladin for example, the nature of Three Houses' gameplay makes reclassing feel simultaneously like the core of its gameplay yet somehow also almost irrelevant.
And in that sense, I feel Engage improved on Three Houses' reclassing system a bit, by limiting classes to the weapons they can use, even if the unit has proficiency in other weapons as well, but in exchange also offering more variations of classes that can use different weapons, like the different Armor Knights or the different combinations of Wyvern Knights. So while I do miss having bow-users in any class, with bows in Engage being locked to 2 promoted classes, or would've at least liked them to expand on physical-magic hybrid-classes, which... basically didn't happen at all, I do think this system has its merits over Three Houses. Another criticism I have is with HOW the proficiencies are aquired, I'd have liked there to have been at least ONE way other than just the Emblems to gain proficiencies, like, being able to learn the main-proficiency of an ally once they reach A-support, similar to Fates' A+-supports, or being able to reclass into a class without having the EXACT requirements, maybe primarily through Master Seals since that'd give a reason to reclass back into pre-promoted classes after promotion, where you'd gain the proficiency you originally lacked. In general, I miss the weapon-rank system, not the biggest fan of it being like Geneologys weapon-system, I'd have rather seen it more of the Fates-route instead if anything. I'm also not a fan that you can't keep any skills from classes you go through, pretty sure that wouldn't break the game, ESPECIALLY since the game only gives you 2 skill-slots to set stuff in, which the inherited class-skills would have to share with skills learned from Emblems.
bro really said the class balance in engage is good... i can't
And he was correct. Compared to the series as a whole, engage does have good class balance. Aside from warrior, nothing feels too dominant and warrior isn't as broken as wyvrens have been across half the series.
@@Starwars-Fanboy it's less that classes are completely dominant, but more that most of them serve no purpose whatsoever. Outside of extremely niche stuff like specific type bonus builds or dumb memes, most classes are just strictly inferior to wyvern warrior sage and mage knight. And unlike, say, fates, there's no point in entering an suboptimal class to carry over a skill or something, and unlike dsfe, you can't feasibly swap around frequently to make use of any fringe niche stuff that might exist. As a result, the vast majority of classes serve zero purpose. Does that sound like good balance?
@@jerry3115
I somewhat agree that some classes feel redundant like paladin< GK, royal knight < Griffin, berserker < warrior ect. But I wouldn't call those classes useless either. I think the issue is that they feel too samey and not enough variety. I can see a use case for most classes just for the class type bonuses and how they interact with emblems.