Oliver is a joke character, and the joke is at the expense of the rest of the cast. These days, I just kill him. I think that's unironically a better ending for the rest of Tellius than recruiting him.
In my first playthrough I legit had no idea you could recruit him, and when I saw him rushing towards the heron I thought "Well thats a reset" and then he just recruited himself and I was laughing like crazy
Fun fact on the Nagi recruitment. If you give Tiki the Falchion and then allow her to die then it counts as both not having Tiki and the Falchion, so you can reliably recruit Nagi and keep Tiki if yo keep your one charge of the Aum staff
@@Raharu95 I did that in every playthrough once I learned about it! I'm not an ironman runner (I always restart when someone dies), so I didn't have anyone else to use the Aum staff on.
@@gyppygirl2021 The first time I played I lost Cord early on and used Aum to resurrect him because I didn't have any other options. Obviously, he was useless at that point. But Gotoh is underrated, he comes with a siege tome!
@Raharu95 same. It was fun to have both dragons against Medeus. I waited until the last chapter before the chance to recruit Nagi so Tiki could level up and I wouldn't have to worry about not having the Falchion
@@BoneyGaf Sure that's a trend and probably why it was so specific but all the set dressing is a natural extension of a specific convention introduced in 1994 and general ones from gaming history. Not only is it in the desert chapter that already has hidden treasure, (and this game tells you that is a thing) he still appears and gives you his sword if you don't use the right character, is in a suspicious dead end, the solution is related to the chapter and the easter egg that gives more information about who recruits him is a prominent mage in said desert.
I think Path of Radiance Shinon deserved a mention. To recruit him the second time, a player needs to first talk to him with Rolf, then defeat him specifically with Ike. I suppose defeating him Ike isn't that tough a requirement since Ike just promoted and can get experience again, and narratively, having Ike beat Shinon up after being such a jerk earlier feels good. But there's no clear signs that Rolf and Shinon interact. Even if a player deduces that Rolf must have learned how to use Bows from the only Archer in the Greil Mercenaries, there's no actual confirmation until they have their conversation. And after said conversation, Shinon stays an enemy with no clear clue that Ike defeating him will make him survive post chapter. I also wish non-standard recruitments would make a return. There's so much character work that can be done in them, and they also make the side objective more engaging that "move main character in that direction".
Yeah I remember looking it up and not understanding how Rolf tied into recruiting him and then actually doing it and going “awww!” when the anti-social sniper felt bad for the kid and taught him everything he knows.
I would argue that that unorthodox way to RE recruit shinon is a stroke of genius. Not only do you have to do some guessing and learn that Rolf can’t have just taught himself, but you have to fight and beat Shinon with Ike. You have to prove to Shinon through the Daein way he follows that you are stronger than him. And I love it for that.
The thing about PoR Stefan is that there _is_ a base conversation that hints at his existence ("occasional reports of strange figures wandering the dunes in the northeast"), and that oddly isolated area of the map is rather suspicious in general, but there's no hint at all that you need to get him with one of your Laguz, and you need to step on a specific singular tile to do it. So it's both a little easier to realize he exists than your summary mentions, and also a bit harder to actually recruit him blind. And then in Radiant Dawn, he's just completely hidden, and you only get the _chance_ to find out you missed him because of a base conversation just before the tower several chapters later -- which is just mean.
If I recall right, if you step on that space with anyone else. He atleast gives you his sword. So its a consolation prize if you don't figure the whole thing out
@@Yarharsuperpirate Yeah, that helps. Though, what doesn't help is that the most valuable prize in my opinion isn't the Vague Katti, or even Stefan himself. It's the Occult scroll you get from a base conversation if you recruited Stefan.
It is a Laguz chapter and there is a hint to that if you get the sword with a certain mage character in a dessert map. The game also lets you know hidden treasure exists so that's another thing to go off of.
@@jemolk8945 The Occult scroll is an interesting one because the convo that gives it to you is Stefan offer some swordfighting lessons to Ike, subtly encouraging you to use it on him, so the game basically suggests Stefan was the one who taught Ike his signature Aether technique.
Recruiting Sylvain immediately just for playing female Byleth will always get me. And I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually lock a character recruitment behind fishing. (whether through impressing them or literally fishing them up)
Makes me wish male Byleth had an alternative instant recruit. Maybe could have done that for Leonie? So she can get on his good side and learn more about Jeralt?
@@CaTastrophy427 Imagine tiki being a joke unit that you could get that would body literally everyone in the game but has a super low chance to spawning in that fishing mini game?
You know what shouldn't have been a missable recruitment but ended up being one for me? Kellam on my first playthrough of awakening. I guess his character gimmick was so strong it affected me in real life, huh. Also surprised you didn't mention Oliver
I'm now imagining Kellam is always in the background in the story‚ just that no one notices him. Grima reveal‚ he's there. Lucina reveals her identity‚ he's there. On the final map‚ there and gives his line if Robin sacrifices themselves.
I love those weirder recruitments because it really sells your army as this ragtag group of anime people who are only here because they share some common goal. It's not just a story of a bunch of important guys that were already on the same side (ehem... Fates... ehem), sometimes you just have to go out of your way to prove your respect for an enemy general's troops to sway them.
That's why I love Fire emblem 6's army, it has both randoms and important dudes. Makes It seem cooler, like how Roy needs anyone he can get his hands on in order to stop Ezekiel and his mighty army.
@@aureliodeprimus8018 I personally enjoy the retainer with noble thing because you're getting characters that have pre-established backgrounds and to me, that makes it more interesting.
One interesting missable case in Three Houses is that Hilda from the Golden Deer is normally not recruitable through the first half of Red Eagle playthrough unless the player chooses Silver Snow route. Only then, she is recruitable for only ONE chapter (CH 12) and no others, and she also has her prereqs to recruit like normal students.
Which, as a side note, makes her the only "right hand" unit for the leader that turns out to be recruitable in all stories -- Her counterparts in the Eagles (Hilbert) and Lions (Dedue) never cross this line, which also helps show how different the Deer are to the others (being that they're a loose coalition of allied independent territories as opposed to the Empire or Kingdom for the other two)
@@DrakonLamethI think it’s even more apparent in Hopes where the Lions and Eagles have in increased amount of non recruitable characters (Caspar and Ferdinand for the Black Eagles, Felix, Sylvain, Ingrid and Annette for the Blue Lions) meanwhile in the case of the Golden Deer you can still recruit Lorenz’s despite (though it’s also more of a ‘because’) how much more relevant they’re considered.
Oliver. He’s an extreme PoS and major boss in PoR that you’re glad died in that game…only to find out in RD that he was secretly kept alive so you’re incredibly eager to “correct this error”…only to find out that despite being the boss of the map, he’s fully recruitable with a unit that wasn’t in PoR and the reason is also kind of infuriating because he clearly hasn’t learned any lesson lmao.
@@jouheikisaragi6075 Don't forget Sephiran, he literally says "I confess that your presence has me bewildered. Could this be part of Yune's plan? I simply never would have imagined you here. Your presence proves that Tellius is unravelling at the seams. Judgement cannot come soon enough."
I think a pretty interesting one is Lysithea for 3H. Specifically because she's the only character who can be recruited post-timeskip without having recruited her previously and she's the only on map recruitment who wasn't a part previously of your army. On Crimson Flower, if Byleth or Balthus defeats her during Chapter 14, they can recruit after the map and she'll join as a level 29 Mage. It's not too unique by the rest of the series' standards, but it's very unusual in Three Houses since no one else is recruited like that.
@@BigKlingy I mean, saying she *sucks* is a little strong, because Lysithea, but yeah. Even when recruits come to you with above average bases, you really feel the lack of skill ranks. It takes a lot of effort to get them up to speed and often times it isn't even worth it.
Tbh with how rushed 3H very clearly is, this feels like a feature they probably wanted to implement more and they just didn't have the time. There's more than enough "grey area" characters that really should be recruitable this way.
@@BigKlingy Yeahhh. She’s still Lysithea, so the growths, subject strength and spell list is still there, but her stats have lagged behind in Mage, she’s extremely behind in skills (B Reason, B Authority, E+ Faith) and she’s at a point your other mage like Dorothea is probably a Gremory already. Combined with the fact that it’s Crimson Flower, so you only have 3 Chapters+ The Final Map left to fix her, recruiting this way is extremely detrimental, if you wanted to use her, you ought to have recruited her pre-timeskip. Still, neat that it exists at all
Delthea in echoes had a very easy solution given to you basically right before this chapter. Leveling up Alm's royal sword gives him the subdue art, just whack her with that and she'll be at 1 hp for the rest of the battle be unable to do anything for the rest of the map.
Stefan is interesting to me, particularly with Mordecai's recruitment of him. Because the way the dialogue goes implies Mordecai found the sword and Stefan revealed himself. Which in general seems weird because that's the same sword he starts with meaning he just drops his sword and lets anyone pick it up. But he reveals himself if the one who finds said sword is a laguz.
My favourite "unconventional recruitment" is Jaffar in FE7. On paper he's simple, talk with Nino and he joins after the battle. But in context, you've just gone through a several chapter mini-arc of him and Nino questioning their loyalty to the Black Fang. Battle Before Dawn makes protecting and recruiting both major side objectives, with Jaffar throwing himself into a horde of enemies to save Nino. It's the perfect climax to the Bern arc and as a kid I replayed BBD over and over. I missed him on my first playthrough due to a few tripups: he stays green after Nino talks to him and the recruitment theme doesn't play. But I managed it on my second run, which was its own reward. He was my Xavier. I feel modern FE can't do these methods anymore because how people engage with the characters and get attached to them has fundamentally changed. Now, it's all about supports, design and marriage with the Avatar, and I think the developers are afraid of having players miss these. In an interview, the Three Houses developers said players often didn't get attached to late-game recruits and they wanted to fix that by introducing everyone at the Monastery from the start. I feel this takes the "mystery" out of recruitment though. I like having some rando pre-promote with a portrait show up late game and figuring out how to get them to join. (They did that with Lindon, but he was the ONLY enemy recruit so many people didn't know what to do with him) 4:26 My favourite thing about this is in the remake, Sheema and Samson will return to being enemies if you kill any of the Gra soldiers AFTER recruiting them. (You can make the game unwinnable this way if you give either the Lightsphere first, but if you did that you 100% deserve it) Fully agree with "losing a character just hits different, especially if you had to kill them." There's a character in Unicorn Overlord who seems to join you via beating an Arena, and they're very popular for... reasons. I think Rennac's method could be a good antidote to the modern FE games being afraid of players missing things. Let anyone recruit the character for a fee, but someone specific can do it for free. 18:18 Or when you look at the portrait gallery unlocked after beating the game and see there's still one ??? there. That got me so damn intrigued when I first played. What's also cool is I then looked up a guide that explained how to recruit him, but it was text-only, so his appearance really surprised me. (Wasn't expecting an adult green spikey haired guy with purple robes and a rainbow sash). I like the Severa recruitment too.
I'm still upset that you don't get any unique dialogue for visiting the house containing Nino and Jaffar in Four-Fanged Offense, not even with Legault. First time I played BBD I had the Uber Spear from Vaida (thank you mine glitch!) so the chapter never posed any problem.
Awakening has some great ones. Donnel is literally a training arc where he has to earn his spot in the army and if you pre plan with glass lances and rally boosts or backpack a good unit donnel can solo the map while everyone else is cheering him on. Severa one is very fun. Kinda reminds me of gordin in shadow dragon where you actually have to read the dialogue so any skippers or auto battle modes give you an auto off. Course my severa is always op so she can take care of herself when going through map. Fates is alright. Mozu is a less interesting donnel map. Kaze is reverse recruitment as you need to get support up or lose him. 3 houses boring. Just solo byleth to get everyone early and beat up any traitors before getting them back. Simple.
@@actuallizard i think it's because it's so well known it sorta brushes aside. Could be an easy part two to this as Fe has so many unique ways to recruit units
Kaze is basically a recruit able unit because he is meant to die in the story. I was so upset when that happened to me because I liked his character. I was going to promote him!!
Say'ri is a another really cool one too. In the midst of needing to save her, you also get to see how badass she is. Unless your RNG is pretty bad, Say'ri can dodge those Knights for basically the whole map. It makes you want to give her a sword ASAP.
Pairing Donnel up with Kellam is always the easiest way I found to get him that level he needs. Since the extra defense makes him able to survive basically everything on the map. Then its just planning what kills you can safely give him
Everyone knows the best recruitment is capture in fates. Niles and orochi making friends by kidnapping them and breaking their souls or feeding them until they switch sides Jokes aside. I love the fates capture system it's amazing and basically gives you a third army. I wish they were your main party in the third route where corrin and azura need to recruit bandits and sell swords to help them keep norh and hoshido off their backs and get these characters side stories. Niles and orochi wouldn't be needed and we'd get a true third route. Honestly sounds good for a fated remake. Also personal skills and give them to the amiboo too.
bonus points for 2 specific units. 1. Haitaka: a hoshidan spear fighter boss in CQ Chapter 9 with Rally Def 2. a Master of Arms unit in CQ Chapter 23 with 4 different Rally skills
@@lilsunny7399 yeah haitaka is probably the best known capture. He has it all. A class you don't get in norh. Rally to help your army prepare for attacks. Good growths. Great class as a lance unit Rally man indeed. But some of the others have good uses or classes to them that can balance the team. It would be so cool to see Corrin pull up with all the capture bosses and amiboo against anakos
I understand it would have been too much to make all the capturable portrait enemies full-fledged characters, but it is a shame they didn't do anything special with them, especially since some of them have unique character models too.
One of my favourites is Saber in SoV who you recruit by giving him Celica's Golden Dagger. Immediately on the next map you can trade it off him. Saber you got played brother.
@@trashman3319 Sorry but you thought wrong then as the Golden Dagger can be unequip and Forged into Celica's personal sword, Beloved Zofia. Before forging it into Beloved Zofia, the Golden Dagger can be wielded by any sword wielding unit
im honestly glad xavier is as weird as he is because it gives a definite answer to the most annoying recruitment. i dont think anyone else comes close. like karla and stefan are easier to miss completely but xavier is hard even if you know what to do.
I would argue PoR Shinon is a pretty solid 2nd place, as you have to somehow get Rolf (an archer that by this point is likely either grossly underleveled because you haven't been using him or slightly overleveled because you have) over to him without accidentally killing either Rolf or Shinon and then make sure specifically Ike kills him. That being said, it is a very distant second place.
@@webbowser8834 I mean if you aren't used to unequipping units to avoid killing weaker enemies in a counterattack or keeping weaker units from being killed by those they recruit, a lot of units have unusual recruitments.
Honestly Karla was not easy for me to miss since i did not benched Bartre so he was a Warrior for me and he needs to be at least a level 5 Warrior for Karla
@@webbowser8834 Was not that hard for me as i kept every one out of Shinon's Range while having Ike close enough to attack him as soon as i talk with him with Rolf and yes i'm not the type bench a charatcer just because they are "weak" as me in any Fire Emblem game my so called "weak and should be always be bench for someone else of the same class" tends to do just fine
Not a weird recruiting in Path of Radiance but Jill is actually capable of leaving your army if she sees her dad in one of the chapters while Ike is marching through Daein. She will turn red and become an enemy if her and her father see combat or if he talks to her on enemy phase and Jill is left next to him. So sort of a weird recruitment for the enemy?? She can avoid this only if she A rank supports Mist prior to seeing her father. Then, when they talk. She will say she cannot join him, something I think about making friends and discovering who she is. Very cool moment.
@wholesome_masochist4113 yeah exactly! It's been a minute since I've seen the exchange because I either just don't field Jill that chapter, just in case, or I make sure just keep her way away from her father. There's even a base convo warning you about it right before where Mist begs Ike to think about who he's fielding and who they might be tied to. I think Haar comes and visits Jill right before it? It's such a cool little thing that can happen and I've never seen it happen anywhere else.
Three Hopes has a funny one. To get Leonie in Scarlet Blaze, you need to be on the Byleth recruitment path, because if you killed Jeralt, Leonie will refuse your aid and die of poison.
If Three Hopes counts, recruiting Byleth themselves is already a pretty unsusual one and hard to figure out how to pull off. The game clearly tells you that you can recruit him but the specifics are left for you to figure out (or look up). The only one that's fairly intuitive is Golden Deer route where it boils down to "keep Byleth the hell away from Claude".
@@ManuCarrotman312 Well it was easy for to get Byleth in Azure Gleam in Three Hopes as they don't skip the side battle that gives them the Locate Ambushers strategy as using it highlight which bases to avoid and you can order all of your Blue Units to avoid the flashing bases by having guarding a base and don't let them just move around freely and it was also not hard for me to get Byleth in Scarlet Balze as well
Sylvain's Alternate recruitment is one of my favorite conditions. " Hey, that new teachers pretty hot.I should Abandon my country" Also obligatory Jill anti-recruitment mention bc that shiz is always funny
I love the fact that Jill can defect from your army if you aren't careful with her around Shiharam. The game makes it obvious that something will happen if father and daughter encounter each other on the battlefield... so it's not like there's no warning. :p
Reminds me of Scarlet from Fates in a way. Not because she's difficult to recruit or because she can be anti-recruited, but because of her fate in the three routes. One route, she is recruitable and stays with the group all game (but weirdly can only get a support with the main character), one route she's executed after the chapter she's introduced in as an enemy, and in the final, she's obtained for all of 2-3 story chapters before she's killed in a cutscene and removed from the army.
Yeah, kinda sucks that most of the recruitments in Engage are just "noble and retainers swear loyalty to your cause because you're The Divine Dragon [TM]". Even something as simple as needing to have Ivy talk to Hortensia to recruit her would be better
there is one funny recruit in 3h, where sylvain will immediately join you without needing to boost your stats or supports at all if you are girl byleth.
Indeed as my first playthrough in Three Houses was with Black Eagles as Female Byleth so i got him as soon the game lets them recruit people from the other houses without the need to have the stats a certain way and supports was just to lower the needed amount of stats and certain weapon rank
Fates also has a few memorable Child paralogues. Midori’s map is a kill boss map but the boss is trying to escape which is sort of a rarity in fire emblem. And also Nina’s map is the same but she is the boss of her map.
If I were to guess, I think the fact that Sheena's soldiers don't attack you (thus making it easier to not kill them) while the mercs in Blood Runs Red will attack you makes a big difference. One weird thing about the Stefan recruitment is that only Mordecai and Lethe can recruit him. I really don't get why a specific character I won't name because p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ c̶a̶r̶e̶ t̶o̶o̶ m̶u̶c̶h̶ a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ s̶u̶r̶p̶r̶i̶s̶e̶d̶ spoilers doesn't get to recruit Stefan and just gets a slightly altered version of the Vague Katti dialogue.
Slightly? It's more than half different text in english? And the game shows exactly why that character didn't/couldn't recruit him. (maybe if they put that chapter later on but this is about the worst time on that front)
Shoutouts to Ilios in fe5, a character who on the surface is a very straightforward recruitment. He’s just an enemy you talk to, but is notable for the fact that completely arbitrarily, Olwen has to be dead or skipped entirely for him to be recruited(it doesn’t work if she’s been captured), and you have to talk to him with Karin, which the game gives you absolutely zero hint of this, because it’s not even like they know each other or something. Karin just kinda annoys him into joining. So not a difficult recruitment, but one that practically no one would get on a blind playthrough. Also not a recruitment exactly, but shoutouts to Zihark in Radiant Dawn who can defect to the Laguz Alliance in 3-6 by having him talk to Lethe or Mordecai. Jill can also defect, but you have to talk to her as an enemy like a normal recruitment, but Zihark can talk to an enemy to turn into an enemy, who you then get to use next chapter.
Ilios always baffled and annoyed me. LOL If they ever remake that game, they'd better give us a good reason why Olwen has to be dead! Or... just make it so you can recruit both of them...
The only reason he joined you was because Leif's army promised him a position in nobility...that got opened up when Olwen died/was executed. Both Ilios and Olwen are from/work for house Freege.If she was alive, that position would have been filled already and there would be nothing to bargain with on Leif's end. Honestly I never liked Ilios as he's greatly inferior to Olwen once she gets the ambush skillbook+Dime Thunder and Fred is a fantastic support for her as well. If you really don't want to bother with the small bit of effort to make Olwen good though, Ilios can be handy. EDIT: Ilios is also one of the very few characters with ZERO PCC vs Olwen's 4 which means he NEVER crits on a counterattack, actual dumpster tier.
@@ThatWanderingDude Great theory, but this doesn’t really add up because Ilios is offered a noble position in Leonstar, not Friege, which are completely different countries. Olwen’s ending has her return to Friege, Ilios’s has him become a noble in the new kingdom of Thracia, so they don’t really correlate in any way.
I really like Delthea's recruitment specifically because if you can position yourself well enough you can warp skip the map. The requirement is defeat Tatarrah iirc and defeat boss maps are extremely rare in Echoes/Gaiden
Can't warp skip. Delthea will RETREAT if you defeat the boss, but you must still rout the enemy. My strategy was to use Clair to rush in for a crit kill on Tatarrah, but she does need several dodges + the crit itself.
@@Averi0 Thank you for correcting me. Most of the time I use Clair to bait out delthea because she's one of the few decent res tanks available in the game. I then rush Alm and Silque up to take care of Tatarrah. I suppose the rest of my army devours the rest of the arcanists before alm can finish off the boss so I didn't remember.
I had a few ideas for potential unusual recruitments: -Spend a certain amount of gold at a certain shop and the unit joins you. The idea is the unit was needed at the shop because business wasn't going well, but you just paid off their short term debt and you're clearly getting plenty of gold. -Have one temporary unit that is force deployed for a few chapters and has immediate access to a strong weapon, but who clearly doesn't want to fight (perhaps because the enemies are the temp unit's countrymen, or the temp unit is a pacifist). Then, if that unit's level is still low enough at a certain point, another more powerful unit is grateful that you spared the temporary unit from too much fighting and joins your side. -A monster unit (or maybe even some kind of dragon or wyvern) that you get by finding an egg item and holding on to it for a while. The unit might even immediately have a one sided A Support with the unit carrying the egg when it hatches.
Something to note about Severa in Awakening is that while she can be recruited that's only if Holland lives. if Holland dies she will turn hostile and become an unrecruitable red unit. She even has unique dialogue that plays if he does die.
Three Houses does actually have a pretty funny unique recruitment. As you said in the video, to recruit students you need to have a stat and a skill be at a particular level before they'll agree to join you (i.e. Dorothea wants Charm and Authority) with the required being lessened the higher your support with the character (possibly even getting waived as a requirement). Sylvain is no different, wanting the player to have 25 Charm and C rank Reason magic before he'll join you if you have no supports with him. ...But that only applies for Male Byleth. Female Byleth can recruit him simply by asking him to join as soon as possible. It's a funny nod to his skirt-chasing mannerisms.
Also you forgot two unusual recruitments from FE6: 1. Clarine She appears out of the enemy castle as a green unit and walks towards your units. The unique part is that the enemies won't attack her while she is a green unit and she will immediately beeline for Roy, talk to him and become a blue unit right after. 2. Douglas He appears at the beginning of the chapter and will attack your units once he reaches them(with the exception for Larum/Elffin for some reason). Not defeating him is one of the requirements to unlock chapter 16x and he will join you at the beginning of 16x. Edit: you did mention him, my bad😅 I feel like these two are unique enough.
Another part of the vigilantes is that they are in the way of recruiting zihark. Bit, they aren't worth much xp so it is better to try and spare as many as you can.
I've never bothered with the vigilantes. It's more dangerous to try and recruit Zihark later because of the Black Knight timer, so I just send Mordecai or Lethe up there, get Zihark, and leave the vigilantes to their fate. If one or two of them survive, it's a nice bonus, but going out of my way to save all of them isn't worth it in my eyes.
I never missed the DLC characters as the whole point of me getting the DLC characters is to recruit them by doing the Cindered Shadows DLC for the Ashen Wolves and did the Fell Xenologue DLC story to the get the DLC characters in Engage
@@actuallizard Berwick is very much a culmination of everything Kaga has learned over the course of making games. It showed me just how much potential an FE game/FE like has.
Seems like a good place to talk about Volo from Berwick Saga. His normal recruitment is just hire him a bunch and then he joins but you don't get any of his story/dialogue. So most people go this route and now Volo has a reputation as this brooding edgelord who never talks. To get his backstory, you have to... 1a.) Defeat the endgame boss when he shows up in chapter 3. Technically possible, but requires savescumming. 1b.) Get Faye killed before she talks to the endgame boss. This can only be done in chapter 3, since if you kill her anywhere else before then she just respawns next chapter. 2.) Hire him a few times (5+ happiness) 3.) Deploy him in Ch. 7, then have him visit a random church on the map. As an aside, Volo's unit design as a replacement for Faye/Faramir is fantastic, since he has his own exploit to fight the final boss if you can't use her endgame weapon. The Miracle Charm item prevents death once and then breaks. The deathmatch skill initiates 5 rounds of combat. But the miracle charm doesn't break until after all 5 rounds have passed. So you get 5 whacks at the final boss and then live. The game even hints at this because there's an inaccessable unit on the final map, and if you check his stats you'll see he carries a miracle charm and the deathmatch skill.
The FE12 prologue has quite an odd way of "recruiting" units. The unit you get is entirely dependent on the dialogue options you choose at the end of each prologue chapter. Of course, this doesn't carry over to the main game, but it's definitely a unique way to build your army.
Delthea’s recruitment is a tricky puzzle Rapier and Royal blade: “Laughs in subdue” My first time playing Hector mode and I couldn’t afford to recruit Farina as I could never get much money in the GBA games, but also because my overpowered Florina was murking everybody in sight so there was no point using her even if I could have.😂😂
Path of Radiance Shinon. You have to first talk to him with Rolf, then kill him with Ike. At the end of the map it's revealed that he survives and rejoins your army. That, and it's genuinely a good question if you want him back or not. Not only did he abandon you in your darkest hour, he went and joined the enemy army that conquered your country. Being a constant jerk to Ike and unapologetically racist really don't help his case.
It actually kind of bothers me that he canonically survives and rejoins the Greil Mercenaries in Radiant Dawn. That feels like something that should have been a transfer data bonus - if you re-recruited him in Path of Radiance, you can get him back in Radiant Dawn. A strong reward for going out of your way (since he's the best sniper in the game bar none).
I miss the cast being a ragtag group of misfits and really don't like how recent FE games hand you over the vast majority of the cast. I think Thracia does it best where most of them require at least some effort to join you - only third of the cast joins automatically and even among those, Nanna, Selphina, Alba, Kain, Robert and Glade start far away from your army and are about to get overwhelmed so you still have to put an effort to keep them alive - it's like FE9 Geoffrey's recruitment but without stupid green units. I do agree about the new game+ making more characters playable. After RD, Awakening kind of does this with spot pass paralogues, but then Fates didn't do that with Lilith, Echoes didn't do that with Berkut and Fernand despite them being almost fully functional playable characters and neither did Three Houses despite having actual ng+.
Shoutouts to TearRing Saga for having two crazy recruitments with Sierra (who normally joins in Chapter 31, but can be recruited much earlier if you kill Shigen before the end of Chapter 24, and he comes back alongside her anyway lol) and Leteena (whose recruitment is basically Lehran's recruitment on steroids) Also in Rev, Fuga joins instead of Izana if you build a hot spring, cuz stupid story death moment
Stefan's recruitment in PoR is definitely weird. I'm surprised you didn't mention the similar odd requirement to get him in RD. It also involves one specific tile, but this time Micaiah has to be the one who stops there. I think Mordecai or Lethe can still do it if you have transfer data though. Overall I agree, I would like to see these odd types of recruitments make a return. Not Xavier level though. I only played Thracia 776 once and didn't bother with recruiting Xavier. I knew about the requirements and decided it wasn't worth it. It's hilarious that killing Shura and taking his boots is an option. I completely forgot that one exists. Maybe because I didn't do it. Still funny though!
Yeah, Katarina is interesting as you have to talk to her with Kris tnrice, while she is busy blasting you with Nosferatu. I like her because she is one of the few lategame recruits who is actually worth using, and because her story is good, and makes Kris more than just "that weird self-insert". And you remember wrong with Karel, IIRC he always shows up when you progress the map, the unusual thing is that depending on how you handle the map (how many doors you open for one version, or how many promoted enemies you kill for another), either him or Harken will appear.
One idea I once had was having recruitable monsters that the player can unlock via fulfilling specific requirements such as say, finding a tome that allows promoted dark mages to summon them or full on recruitable monster characters who have extremely obscure methods of recruitment specifically because they're non humans(like say, bribing them with money like if they were an SMT demon or the Stefan method of walking onto a specific tile as a specific unit). One in particular I imagined was a Necrodragon you could recruit by casting restore on it as an enemy and they regain their sanity or will and join the player to get back at the villain who denied them their peaceful rest
I mean Stefan is important in that it's strongly implied that he taught Ike Aether. In a base conversation right after Stefan is recruited. He sees Ike training and notices that his swordplay seems "incomplete" as though he had lost his master unexpectedly. He then helps Ike train and the player is rewarded an Occult Scroll (one of which is necessary to teach Ike the Aether skill).
Also he's a branded, which is a very cool bit of character and world-building in the background of Path of Radiance, and a central plot point in Radiant Dawn
Yeah there's been no shortage of stupid recruitments. I once tried to make a Top 10 list, it ended up as a Top 20. 7:05 Oh, you mean like Vaida in FE7--boss of a Survive map, becomes a recruitable enemy 3 chapters later if spared. 18:55 ...Wait we're just moving on to Radiant Dawn? Because while I understand your reasoning for Karla being the recruitment you were referring to in Chullain's recruitment, the first thing that came to my mind was rerecruiting Shinon. Having red units that you have to keep alive to recruit at the end of the chapter is one thing, but here's a unit that you have to talk to with one unit, then _bring to 0 HP_ with a different unit. It's a really unique recruitment method. ...And you're also going straight to the units that are only available on a second playthrough, skipping the absolute insanity that is Oliver's recruitment. For starters, Oliver is nominally the boss of the level. He is, you would expect, not going to move off of the throne tile. But if you put your *heron* of all units, your unit that can't even counterattack and can only attack using the stupid spell cards, within his movement range, he will, on enemy phase, go up to your unit and recruit himself into your army.
You missed mentioning that Vadia has a flashing (literally) "don't fight me" sign (though it's the opposite if a challenge is what you are into) on her.
Killing Shura for the boots is such an absurd moment in the context of Conquest. During after battle dialogues, Corrin keeps talking about how they managed to avoid killing a single enemy soldier because they're unwilling to take a single life even on a battlefield, and now you can just kill a guy to steal his shoes. I get what they were going for, deciding whether Corrin has become more cynical and pragmatic or if they're still optimistic and trusting to a fault is on paper interesting, but it just doesn't come across that way at all and it feels like a joke. And it is funny, it's a great joke, but it definitely wasn't supposed to be one.
I like unusual recruitments, but there are definitely times where the process feels overly obtuse. I love FE9 and FE10 to death, but Stefan just never has any sort of hints or clear methods. You just have to stumble upon his singular tiles. It's fitting for his character, and he doesn't need to be found because he isn't super relevant. The sword is pretty damn good, though, and I do feel like I'm missing out if I don't at least grab that from him. Either way, I don't know what you mean by giving a "better hint" I think any hint is a "better hint" than no hint at all, lmao.
Stefan I knew because I think it was in Nintendo Power or something X3 so I'm glad to see it on this list because I still think that was so bull that you needed to know a specific, non special tile for it
I built a system in Lex Talionis which revolves around your augury being a necromancer. In laymans it uses the dnd concept of reviving units with gems and depending on the value of the gem the unit is revived with differing stats Red gives all conventional stats -1 Blue revives with no penalty And White revives with a +1 to all conventional stats Gold and black did other things, but I also made it to where bosses can be recruited this way and some bosses have supports if you wanted to to try out some of the weirder enemies like fe8 monster units or an army of starter brigand bosses
My memory is a little hazy on that chapter but I seem to recall that after Xavier's men talked to their respective child, they don't need to make it out alive. I definitely remember a few of those knights turning green then getting immediately capped by Xavier and his bow... then he goes "spare them your justice"(in the translation).
Personally id argue that completely staffless misha is a more obtuse recruitment or Non 24x eyvel but xavier is definitely the most obtuse intended one
Have you not played BSFE yet? The Satellaview game. I recommend checking it out! It has a very unique recruitment due to its live-broadcast nature. Basically, Satellaview let you play the game while it transmitted audio and some data in real-time over the satellite transmission. This makde it possible for characters to be recruited in a sort of "real-time" manner. In the case of Malice and and Dice, they have a conversation with your characters over the audio and then get recruited through that. It's extremely unique and relies on Satellaview's unique aspects, which I find super interesting!
This reminds me of a rom hack that I've been working on and off on that has some really wacky recruitments, since I challenged myself to have at least 3-5 recruitable characters in each chapter, bar the final one. Some are normal like joining automatically, or talk convos, but others are weird. For example: there's one character with an Xavier like recruitment, but different. Essentially, you need to talk to him with a weak unit you get earlier in the chapter, and then him and his officers all turn from red to green. Then, while they're green, you need to help all of his officers return to their families (this battle takes place in a city, so it's not as hard as you think). then, after that, you speak with him again with the same weak unit. Btw, did I mention that this unit is required to get two other recruitments the next chapter, in which he needs to kill a specific mini boss, and then talk to that boss's children to recruit them. And idk if this is even the hardest one, because there's some real tricky ones, like the ambush spawning boss that you have to kill none of their soldiers to get, or the unit in which you need to fail a Donnel type mission in order to recruit at a late-game chapter. Overall, there's some fun ones I have planned, but most players will definitely miss some.
It's not a recruitment per se, but Volke's PROMOTION in Path of Radiance is interesting. He demands an enormous sum of money to reveal his true identity, which Ike acquires in the story at a certain point and can give to him. If you pay Volke -- as you would probably expect you would, especially on a first run -- then your in-game funds don't change, because Ike is giving Volke the money he looted after a battle, so you'd be forgiven for assuming this is non-diegetic cash. This is not so. If you REFUSE Volke's offer, he remains in the army but doesn't promote or reveal his information, AND you get 50,000 gold, because Ike didn't pay the money and thus gets to keep it. 50k can get you some pretty decent forges, and Volke still functions as a Thief, so this is a pretty tempting deal. Or... non-deal, as the case may be.
Funny that you bring up vanilla Shadow Dragon. There is a full content patch of Shadow Dragon you can play that allows you to explore every chapter. Including the prologue even if you play on hard 5 aka merciless. And you get all the gaiden chapters without needing to kill off anyone
One notable thing a friend of mine and I discovered while I was playing through Thracia about Xavier's recruitment that's potentially useful, is that once the Named Armor knights turn Green, they can die and it won't count against the recruitment. I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but it saved my single recruitment of him since I made my friend a promise I'd do it once.
@@evanedwards4598 if you have a switch online and have access for gba games, FE7 is on there and you can try recruiting her now! The game will also be easier because of the rewind feature
Norne is especially interesting in fe11. the only people who are recruiting her most of the time are noobs at fire emblem trying out fe11 or people specifically trying to get her. its never optimal to get her and especially since she is a normal difficulty only character (i know frey is too, but he is usually optimal to keep if you are running normal mode). She is always a character that optimally you would never get. her cost of recruitment always outweighs her benefit.
Fun Fact: In Fire Emblem 3 houses in the first part Sylvain (from the Blue Lions) required a High Charm Stat and a decent Reason Stat to recruit.... HOWEVER if you select the Female Avatar for your playthrough Sylvain will join your class with NO requirements what so ever. So you can bypass his requirements by just being a woman lmao
I think the reason it feels worse to miss a character you never use vs missing bonus xp you will use is tjat the character represents several unique possibilities while the xp is a resource you will get more of. A character, no matter how little you actually use them, are still a unit you can use. They have stories you can experience. They might unlock more things for you down the line. A character is, relatively, unique and irreplaceable. While there might be characters that can fill the role they offer, for better or worse, you only get one Steve Buscemi the Red Cavelier. Meanwhile, gold, items, and xp is everywhere. And while their scarsity is the crux of Fire Emblem's difficulty and fun, none of it represents a unique object with an irreplaceable function in your head. While there might truely be only one Throngler with 99 attack, you can still win with your 3000 iron swords if you think really hard. Basically FOMO sucks
In 3 houses the most anoying character to recruit by far is Ferdinand von Aiger. What if a student requieres a stat outside of your path? Well you reach B support with him and increse the chance it will join on his own at the end of the week. Not Ferdinand, you can't get B support with him untill time skip and by then the recruitment time has long past. You need to have a C in heavy Armor at MINIMUM Hevy armor its the most situational stat in the game! Its onlly requierd for 3 classes Why woud you want to waste time raising heavy armor in a regular playtrough is beond me. Unless im in New game+ and have time sloths to spare Ferdinand dies at the bridge... working for her rival, his unrequited love and the woman who took everything from him and vowed to destroy everything he represents. Thats right Ferdinand die Like a Simp.
Personally I did _not_ like the building ones in Fates. The hot spring one does kind of say something about Izana as a character, but there are problems with them as a whole: -NOTHING hints at it. The desert guy at least has the precedent of weird stuff being hidden on desert maps in past FE games, and once you talk to him, it's clear that there was a guy hiding in the sand and you unlocked him by discovering him. But when Flora et al. join you, there is no indication, in dialogue or otherwise, that it was because you upgraded your facilities. -They don't even _try_ to give a decent reason for them to be able to join. The child units at least have the weird "shadow realms" thing, but for these 3, they just...somehow sneak in there. Into a _pocket dimension_ which they should not even be able to find. -Some have little to do with the character. Yukimura and the puppet being associated makes sense, at least if you picked up on his puppetmaster thing from his 5 lines of dialogue. Izana and hot springs have the tenuous connection of party guy = likes relaxing = hot springs? Not good enough for me. And as for Flora, why would a member of the ICE Tribe want your FIRE Orb upgraded? Huh?
Slightly surprised not to hear you mention Shinon in FE9, where, with no reason to think the obvious result won't happen, the game has you kill him with Ike. Not capture. Kill his ass. To recruit him. And with Ike, specifically, who probably isn't even the first character you'd expect to have any unique interactions with the guy - for most people, that'd be Rolf, the kid he took as an apprentice and one of TWO characters shown to have an actually positive relationship with him. And no, the other guy who likes him, Gatrie, can't recruit him, either. Ike smacking him into the ground like a railroad spike is what does it.
Recruiting Karla was really an adventure to me. I was playing Hector Mode for the first time and had looked up where to recruit her, but I only knew that Bartre has to talk to her. Well I was about to start chapter 28, when I decided to check the exact conditions once again. I’m like „Bartre has to be a Warrior Level 5 for this? I haven’t trained him at all since I got him!“ So I took him into my team from then on. In chapter 28 I let him lay waste to the bishop and a couple mages after silencing them. In the following chapter he made use of the lightly used hammer and halberd I still had lying around in my storage. By chapter 30 he was level 20. Unfortunately I have the habit of selling all evolution items I don’t intend to use, so I didn’t have a hero crest for him. So I had to warp him holding the member card to the secret shop in chapter 31 to buy a hero crest and evolve him. Then I rescued him from there and had him stand on a pillar in the lower area of the map defeating enemies left and right and being healed from afar. He was out of weapons 5 EXP before Level 5 three turns before the chapters end, so I let him being attacked until he reached Level 5 via 1 EXP per attack. It was close, but I managed to have him ready to talk to Karla. Edit: Typos
Why didn’t you talk about Shinon from Path of Radiance? His recruitment requirements are insane for an FE game since they require you to talk to him with Rolf (no problem there) and then KILL him with Ike! His recruitment violates the standard rules of how FE games work, that people who go to zero hit points are dead!
18:30 the only thing about missing stefan that really, REALLY sucks is that recruiting him is the ONLY way to get one of the 4 Occult scrolls, needed to teach your units their ultimate skill.
I'm shocked to see Sylvain isn't on this list as in Golden Deer and Black Eagle if you play Fem Byleth, you can recruit him without doing anything as early as chapter 3. Sylvain will betray his homeland and fight for the Empire just because the new teacher is hot.
While technically not a fire emblem (but still a Shouzou Kaga game). None of these recruitment reqs are nearly as bad as recruiting Leteena from Tear Ring Saga. She's a pretty bog standard cleric with no offensive abilities and requires you to do multiple hidden events that sometimes require items or other hidden characters to trigger. Trying to get her can radically change how you have to play. The payoff is the only silence staff in the game which isn't terrible but not worth such effort. Personally I've never bothered because you give up way too much for so little, but you give your christmas cavs a nice ending out of it so there's that.
I think Sylvain's recruitment is kind of funny, if you aren't playing Blue Lions, and you choose Female Byleth just talking to him he'll join you without upgrading his stats and interest.
One fun thing about Volke is Path Of Radiance he charges I believe it was like 50 gold for each lock he picks in a battle. And this is mentioned in his recruitment but in Radiant Dawn he doesn't mention this. In fact he joined so late that there are actually very very few locks He can pick, But if you do have him pick a lock you'll see that it is charged against you In the end screen.
In Blazing Blade, you had the only dark mage character locked in side-chapter and the condition was to have a green unit survive in the previous chapter. Since the recruitable unit(interestingly, a light mage) can survive without player intervention, but the other green units might not, it makes it so that if you had the character talk to him and recruit him, it's harder to recruit the dark mage.
Surprised you didn't mention Shinnon's re-recruitment in Path of Radiance. He's a red enemy that you have to talk to with one character then kill with another to recruit, I'd say that's pretty unusual. I'd never have gotten him back without a guide.
You missed one for the being paid segment...sorta, it is a talk like usual, but Gaius still does want to be paid, and will happily take the bag of sweets Chrom had prepared for Lissa in Awakening
Ok you didn’t talk about spin off games but I really wish you did because byleth and jeralt from fire emblem warriors three hopes is so annoying on all three routes it’s very complex
Personally I think the Shadow Dragon gaiden units would have been more tolerable if there were alternative ways to recruit them. That way you could recruit units that you like like Ymir and Athena without having to butcher half your cast.
![NOSFERATU - Official Trailer [HD] - Only In Theaters December 25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nulvWqYUM8k/mqdefault.jpg)
My favorite is still Oliver in Fire Emblem 9/10, where the characters like Ike don't want him to join them lol.
It was funny, but I was annoyed. He died in Path of Radiance.
Oliver is a joke character, and the joke is at the expense of the rest of the cast. These days, I just kill him. I think that's unironically a better ending for the rest of Tellius than recruiting him.
Ike literally going "uh can you actually go back to being an enemy?" Is so based
In my first playthrough I legit had no idea you could recruit him, and when I saw him rushing towards the heron I thought "Well thats a reset" and then he just recruited himself and I was laughing like crazy
It's funny but I honestly wish they didn't bring him back it just feels wrong in this case
Fun fact on the Nagi recruitment. If you give Tiki the Falchion and then allow her to die then it counts as both not having Tiki and the Falchion, so you can reliably recruit Nagi and keep Tiki if yo keep your one charge of the Aum staff
@@Raharu95 I did that in every playthrough once I learned about it! I'm not an ironman runner (I always restart when someone dies), so I didn't have anyone else to use the Aum staff on.
@@gyppygirl2021 The first time I played I lost Cord early on and used Aum to resurrect him because I didn't have any other options. Obviously, he was useless at that point.
But Gotoh is underrated, he comes with a siege tome!
@Raharu95 same. It was fun to have both dragons against Medeus. I waited until the last chapter before the chance to recruit Nagi so Tiki could level up and I wouldn't have to worry about not having the Falchion
Stefan feels like he was On-Disc DLC
He was definitely a game guide seller
Yeah it’s pre-dlc dlc designed to sell game guides. Huge trend in the early 2000’s rpgs of all kinds.
You know you brought me into another Fire Emblem phase!
(Pls make more fe vids)
@@BoneyGaf Sure that's a trend and probably why it was so specific but all the set dressing is a natural extension of a specific convention introduced in 1994 and general ones from gaming history. Not only is it in the desert chapter that already has hidden treasure, (and this game tells you that is a thing) he still appears and gives you his sword if you don't use the right character, is in a suspicious dead end, the solution is related to the chapter and the easter egg that gives more information about who recruits him is a prominent mage in said desert.
Stefan feels like one of those "mew under the truck," moments Like "there's no way that's- oh wow that is true."
I think Path of Radiance Shinon deserved a mention. To recruit him the second time, a player needs to first talk to him with Rolf, then defeat him specifically with Ike. I suppose defeating him Ike isn't that tough a requirement since Ike just promoted and can get experience again, and narratively, having Ike beat Shinon up after being such a jerk earlier feels good. But there's no clear signs that Rolf and Shinon interact. Even if a player deduces that Rolf must have learned how to use Bows from the only Archer in the Greil Mercenaries, there's no actual confirmation until they have their conversation. And after said conversation, Shinon stays an enemy with no clear clue that Ike defeating him will make him survive post chapter.
I also wish non-standard recruitments would make a return. There's so much character work that can be done in them, and they also make the side objective more engaging that "move main character in that direction".
I think you're right, Path of Radiance Shinon is a pretty cool recruitment!
Yeah I remember looking it up and not understanding how Rolf tied into recruiting him and then actually doing it and going “awww!” when the anti-social sniper felt bad for the kid and taught him everything he knows.
I would argue that that unorthodox way to RE recruit shinon is a stroke of genius. Not only do you have to do some guessing and learn that Rolf can’t have just taught himself, but you have to fight and beat Shinon with Ike. You have to prove to Shinon through the Daein way he follows that you are stronger than him. And I love it for that.
Rolf implies Shinon made his bow early on, thats really the only hint the game outright hands to you
@@perpetuallyconfused09I thought it was that Shinon taught Rolf how to make bows? Maybe I'm misremembering?
The thing about PoR Stefan is that there _is_ a base conversation that hints at his existence ("occasional reports of strange figures wandering the dunes in the northeast"), and that oddly isolated area of the map is rather suspicious in general, but there's no hint at all that you need to get him with one of your Laguz, and you need to step on a specific singular tile to do it. So it's both a little easier to realize he exists than your summary mentions, and also a bit harder to actually recruit him blind. And then in Radiant Dawn, he's just completely hidden, and you only get the _chance_ to find out you missed him because of a base conversation just before the tower several chapters later -- which is just mean.
If I recall right, if you step on that space with anyone else. He atleast gives you his sword. So its a consolation prize if you don't figure the whole thing out
@@Yarharsuperpirate Yeah, that helps. Though, what doesn't help is that the most valuable prize in my opinion isn't the Vague Katti, or even Stefan himself. It's the Occult scroll you get from a base conversation if you recruited Stefan.
It is a Laguz chapter and there is a hint to that if you get the sword with a certain mage character in a dessert map.
The game also lets you know hidden treasure exists so that's another thing to go off of.
@@jemolk8945 The Occult scroll is an interesting one because the convo that gives it to you is Stefan offer some swordfighting lessons to Ike, subtly encouraging you to use it on him, so the game basically suggests Stefan was the one who taught Ike his signature Aether technique.
i actually completely randomly stepped on the single tile that recruits him in radiant dawn with micaiah, it was so out of left field.
Recruiting Sylvain immediately just for playing female Byleth will always get me.
And I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually lock a character recruitment behind fishing.
(whether through impressing them or literally fishing them up)
Makes me wish male Byleth had an alternative instant recruit. Maybe could have done that for Leonie? So she can get on his good side and learn more about Jeralt?
I can imagine fishing up a sleeping manakete
@@CaTastrophy427it's all fun and games till it's tiki you abruptly wake like that or naga forbid a Grima possessed morgan😅😂
@@wholesome_masochist4113 I was indeed thinking Tiki.
@@CaTastrophy427 Imagine tiki being a joke unit that you could get that would body literally everyone in the game but has a super low chance to spawning in that fishing mini game?
You know what shouldn't have been a missable recruitment but ended up being one for me? Kellam on my first playthrough of awakening. I guess his character gimmick was so strong it affected me in real life, huh.
Also surprised you didn't mention Oliver
I'm now imagining Kellam is always in the background in the story‚ just that no one notices him. Grima reveal‚ he's there. Lucina reveals her identity‚ he's there. On the final map‚ there and gives his line if Robin sacrifices themselves.
Mandatory "Who?" joke.
I don't understand how as he was clearly a non generic green unit so my first thought was to move Chrom to Kallam and see the talk option
I love those weirder recruitments because it really sells your army as this ragtag group of anime people who are only here because they share some common goal. It's not just a story of a bunch of important guys that were already on the same side (ehem... Fates... ehem), sometimes you just have to go out of your way to prove your respect for an enemy general's troops to sway them.
I'll definitely admit that's one thing about fates I was never a fan of
The army didn't have the "ragtag" feel I like from other games
@@OriginalGameteer Same here, i am tired of the "noble with two retainers" routine. It stales pretty fast.
That's why I love Fire emblem 6's army, it has both randoms and important dudes. Makes It seem cooler, like how Roy needs anyone he can get his hands on in order to stop Ezekiel and his mighty army.
@@aureliodeprimus8018 I personally enjoy the retainer with noble thing because you're getting characters that have pre-established backgrounds and to me, that makes it more interesting.
@@euclidismybro1451 And a personality that completely revolves around said noble....
The lack of oliver B lining to rafiel once he’s in his range then forcing himself into your army is saddening.
@@espio329 but how can you deny Beauty
One interesting missable case in Three Houses is that Hilda from the Golden Deer is normally not recruitable through the first half of Red Eagle playthrough unless the player chooses Silver Snow route. Only then, she is recruitable for only ONE chapter (CH 12) and no others, and she also has her prereqs to recruit like normal students.
Which, as a side note, makes her the only "right hand" unit for the leader that turns out to be recruitable in all stories -- Her counterparts in the Eagles (Hilbert) and Lions (Dedue) never cross this line, which also helps show how different the Deer are to the others (being that they're a loose coalition of allied independent territories as opposed to the Empire or Kingdom for the other two)
Hmmm Red Eagle? Did you mean Black Eagle
@@DrakonLamethI think it’s even more apparent in Hopes where the Lions and Eagles have in increased amount of non recruitable characters (Caspar and Ferdinand for the Black Eagles, Felix, Sylvain, Ingrid and Annette for the Blue Lions) meanwhile in the case of the Golden Deer you can still recruit Lorenz’s despite (though it’s also more of a ‘because’) how much more relevant they’re considered.
@@diooverheaven6561 no, their color scheme is clearly red
@@henriquepacheco7473 and their name is black eagle.
It's like saying that Red Army is actually Green Army beacause they color scheme was green
Oliver. He’s an extreme PoS and major boss in PoR that you’re glad died in that game…only to find out in RD that he was secretly kept alive so you’re incredibly eager to “correct this error”…only to find out that despite being the boss of the map, he’s fully recruitable with a unit that wasn’t in PoR and the reason is also kind of infuriating because he clearly hasn’t learned any lesson lmao.
And it gives is the greatest Ike line of all time
@@jouheikisaragi6075 Don't forget Sephiran, he literally says "I confess that your presence has me bewildered. Could this be part of Yune's plan? I simply never would have imagined you here. Your presence proves that Tellius is unravelling at the seams. Judgement cannot come soon enough."
@@jouheikisaragi6075 “Could you please rejoin the enemy?” Ike is such a badass.
@@EthanKironus8067 gets me every time, just the thought of that happening in a current day situation sends me
He tragically, accidentally, unfortunately died in my playthrough
I think a pretty interesting one is Lysithea for 3H. Specifically because she's the only character who can be recruited post-timeskip without having recruited her previously and she's the only on map recruitment who wasn't a part previously of your army. On Crimson Flower, if Byleth or Balthus defeats her during Chapter 14, they can recruit after the map and she'll join as a level 29 Mage. It's not too unique by the rest of the series' standards, but it's very unusual in Three Houses since no one else is recruited like that.
Honorable mention to Sylvain who you can recruit regardless of your skill level if you’re playing as female Byleth lmao.
And unfortunately due to 3H's teaching system she sucks when recruited this way.
@@BigKlingy I mean, saying she *sucks* is a little strong, because Lysithea, but yeah.
Even when recruits come to you with above average bases, you really feel the lack of skill ranks. It takes a lot of effort to get them up to speed and often times it isn't even worth it.
Tbh with how rushed 3H very clearly is, this feels like a feature they probably wanted to implement more and they just didn't have the time. There's more than enough "grey area" characters that really should be recruitable this way.
@@BigKlingy Yeahhh. She’s still Lysithea, so the growths, subject strength and spell list is still there, but her stats have lagged behind in Mage, she’s extremely behind in skills (B Reason, B Authority, E+ Faith) and she’s at a point your other mage like Dorothea is probably a Gremory already. Combined with the fact that it’s Crimson Flower, so you only have 3 Chapters+ The Final Map left to fix her, recruiting this way is extremely detrimental, if you wanted to use her, you ought to have recruited her pre-timeskip. Still, neat that it exists at all
Delthea in echoes had a very easy solution given to you basically right before this chapter.
Leveling up Alm's royal sword gives him the subdue art, just whack her with that and she'll be at 1 hp for the rest of the battle be unable to do anything for the rest of the map.
Stefan is interesting to me, particularly with Mordecai's recruitment of him. Because the way the dialogue goes implies Mordecai found the sword and Stefan revealed himself.
Which in general seems weird because that's the same sword he starts with meaning he just drops his sword and lets anyone pick it up. But he reveals himself if the one who finds said sword is a laguz.
My favourite "unconventional recruitment" is Jaffar in FE7. On paper he's simple, talk with Nino and he joins after the battle. But in context, you've just gone through a several chapter mini-arc of him and Nino questioning their loyalty to the Black Fang. Battle Before Dawn makes protecting and recruiting both major side objectives, with Jaffar throwing himself into a horde of enemies to save Nino. It's the perfect climax to the Bern arc and as a kid I replayed BBD over and over. I missed him on my first playthrough due to a few tripups: he stays green after Nino talks to him and the recruitment theme doesn't play. But I managed it on my second run, which was its own reward. He was my Xavier.
I feel modern FE can't do these methods anymore because how people engage with the characters and get attached to them has fundamentally changed. Now, it's all about supports, design and marriage with the Avatar, and I think the developers are afraid of having players miss these. In an interview, the Three Houses developers said players often didn't get attached to late-game recruits and they wanted to fix that by introducing everyone at the Monastery from the start. I feel this takes the "mystery" out of recruitment though. I like having some rando pre-promote with a portrait show up late game and figuring out how to get them to join. (They did that with Lindon, but he was the ONLY enemy recruit so many people didn't know what to do with him)
4:26 My favourite thing about this is in the remake, Sheema and Samson will return to being enemies if you kill any of the Gra soldiers AFTER recruiting them. (You can make the game unwinnable this way if you give either the Lightsphere first, but if you did that you 100% deserve it)
Fully agree with "losing a character just hits different, especially if you had to kill them."
There's a character in Unicorn Overlord who seems to join you via beating an Arena, and they're very popular for... reasons.
I think Rennac's method could be a good antidote to the modern FE games being afraid of players missing things. Let anyone recruit the character for a fee, but someone specific can do it for free.
18:18 Or when you look at the portrait gallery unlocked after beating the game and see there's still one ??? there. That got me so damn intrigued when I first played. What's also cool is I then looked up a guide that explained how to recruit him, but it was text-only, so his appearance really surprised me. (Wasn't expecting an adult green spikey haired guy with purple robes and a rainbow sash).
I like the Severa recruitment too.
I'm still upset that you don't get any unique dialogue for visiting the house containing Nino and Jaffar in Four-Fanged Offense, not even with Legault.
First time I played BBD I had the Uber Spear from Vaida (thank you mine glitch!) so the chapter never posed any problem.
Awakening has some great ones. Donnel is literally a training arc where he has to earn his spot in the army and if you pre plan with glass lances and rally boosts or backpack a good unit donnel can solo the map while everyone else is cheering him on.
Severa one is very fun. Kinda reminds me of gordin in shadow dragon where you actually have to read the dialogue so any skippers or auto battle modes give you an auto off. Course my severa is always op so she can take care of herself when going through map.
Fates is alright. Mozu is a less interesting donnel map. Kaze is reverse recruitment as you need to get support up or lose him.
3 houses boring. Just solo byleth to get everyone early and beat up any traitors before getting them back. Simple.
Wow how could I leave out Donnel, yes, that is a good one!
@@actuallizard i think it's because it's so well known it sorta brushes aside.
Could be an easy part two to this as Fe has so many unique ways to recruit units
Kaze is basically a recruit able unit because he is meant to die in the story. I was so upset when that happened to me because I liked his character. I was going to promote him!!
Say'ri is a another really cool one too. In the midst of needing to save her, you also get to see how badass she is. Unless your RNG is pretty bad, Say'ri can dodge those Knights for basically the whole map. It makes you want to give her a sword ASAP.
Pairing Donnel up with Kellam is always the easiest way I found to get him that level he needs. Since the extra defense makes him able to survive basically everything on the map. Then its just planning what kills you can safely give him
Everyone knows the best recruitment is capture in fates. Niles and orochi making friends by kidnapping them and breaking their souls or feeding them until they switch sides
Jokes aside. I love the fates capture system it's amazing and basically gives you a third army. I wish they were your main party in the third route where corrin and azura need to recruit bandits and sell swords to help them keep norh and hoshido off their backs and get these characters side stories. Niles and orochi wouldn't be needed and we'd get a true third route. Honestly sounds good for a fated remake.
Also personal skills and give them to the amiboo too.
bonus points for 2 specific units.
1. Haitaka: a hoshidan spear fighter boss in CQ Chapter 9 with Rally Def
2. a Master of Arms unit in CQ Chapter 23 with 4 different Rally skills
@@lilsunny7399 yeah haitaka is probably the best known capture. He has it all. A class you don't get in norh. Rally to help your army prepare for attacks. Good growths. Great class as a lance unit
Rally man indeed. But some of the others have good uses or classes to them that can balance the team.
It would be so cool to see Corrin pull up with all the capture bosses and amiboo against anakos
I honestly did not care about the bosses you can Capture as once i got them to join i did not bother to bring them into battle
I understand it would have been too much to make all the capturable portrait enemies full-fledged characters, but it is a shame they didn't do anything special with them, especially since some of them have unique character models too.
One of my favourites is Saber in SoV who you recruit by giving him Celica's Golden Dagger. Immediately on the next map you can trade it off him. Saber you got played brother.
I mean, can you miss Saber's recruitment?, I think the game pretty much tells you to recruit him
I thought you couldn't trade it off of him and missed the Celica exclusive weapon skill it gives her
@@trashman3319 Sorry but you thought wrong then as the Golden Dagger can be unequip and Forged into Celica's personal sword, Beloved Zofia. Before forging it into Beloved Zofia, the Golden Dagger can be wielded by any sword wielding unit
Man, not changing your outro to "subscribe so you don't miss recruiting an upload" was criminal :P
im honestly glad xavier is as weird as he is because it gives a definite answer to the most annoying recruitment. i dont think anyone else comes close. like karla and stefan are easier to miss completely but xavier is hard even if you know what to do.
I would argue PoR Shinon is a pretty solid 2nd place, as you have to somehow get Rolf (an archer that by this point is likely either grossly underleveled because you haven't been using him or slightly overleveled because you have) over to him without accidentally killing either Rolf or Shinon and then make sure specifically Ike kills him. That being said, it is a very distant second place.
@@webbowser8834 I mean if you aren't used to unequipping units to avoid killing weaker enemies in a counterattack or keeping weaker units from being killed by those they recruit, a lot of units have unusual recruitments.
@@goodpeople25 I guess that's fair enough.
Honestly Karla was not easy for me to miss since i did not benched Bartre so he was a Warrior for me and he needs to be at least a level 5 Warrior for Karla
@@webbowser8834 Was not that hard for me as i kept every one out of Shinon's Range while having Ike close enough to attack him as soon as i talk with him with Rolf and yes i'm not the type bench a charatcer just because they are "weak" as me in any Fire Emblem game my so called "weak and should be always be bench for someone else of the same class" tends to do just fine
Not a weird recruiting in Path of Radiance but Jill is actually capable of leaving your army if she sees her dad in one of the chapters while Ike is marching through Daein. She will turn red and become an enemy if her and her father see combat or if he talks to her on enemy phase and Jill is left next to him. So sort of a weird recruitment for the enemy?? She can avoid this only if she A rank supports Mist prior to seeing her father. Then, when they talk. She will say she cannot join him, something I think about making friends and discovering who she is. Very cool moment.
And her father actually _approves_ of that and is happy for her when she tells him that too. He point blank says it.
@wholesome_masochist4113 yeah exactly! It's been a minute since I've seen the exchange because I either just don't field Jill that chapter, just in case, or I make sure just keep her way away from her father. There's even a base convo warning you about it right before where Mist begs Ike to think about who he's fielding and who they might be tied to. I think Haar comes and visits Jill right before it? It's such a cool little thing that can happen and I've never seen it happen anywhere else.
Stefan can be recruited in radiant dawn in the same method as in path of radiance.
You have to have Micaiah wait on the specific spot though. But I think Mordecai or Lethe can do it if you have transfer data?
@@GreatAether58 yes
I honestly did not know they could get Stefan again in Radiant Dawn
Three Hopes has a funny one. To get Leonie in Scarlet Blaze, you need to be on the Byleth recruitment path, because if you killed Jeralt, Leonie will refuse your aid and die of poison.
If Three Hopes counts, recruiting Byleth themselves is already a pretty unsusual one and hard to figure out how to pull off. The game clearly tells you that you can recruit him but the specifics are left for you to figure out (or look up). The only one that's fairly intuitive is Golden Deer route where it boils down to "keep Byleth the hell away from Claude".
@@ManuCarrotman312 Well it was easy for to get Byleth in Azure Gleam in Three Hopes as they don't skip the side battle that gives them the Locate Ambushers strategy as using it highlight which bases to avoid and you can order all of your Blue Units to avoid the flashing bases by having guarding a base and don't let them just move around freely and it was also not hard for me to get Byleth in Scarlet Balze as well
Sylvain's Alternate recruitment is one of my favorite conditions. " Hey, that new teachers pretty hot.I should Abandon my country"
Also obligatory Jill anti-recruitment mention bc that shiz is always funny
I love the fact that Jill can defect from your army if you aren't careful with her around Shiharam. The game makes it obvious that something will happen if father and daughter encounter each other on the battlefield... so it's not like there's no warning. :p
Reminds me of Scarlet from Fates in a way. Not because she's difficult to recruit or because she can be anti-recruited, but because of her fate in the three routes. One route, she is recruitable and stays with the group all game (but weirdly can only get a support with the main character), one route she's executed after the chapter she's introduced in as an enemy, and in the final, she's obtained for all of 2-3 story chapters before she's killed in a cutscene and removed from the army.
The only engage recruitment I remember is Anna being in a box, just funny and somewhat fitting for the money hungry mascot.
Yeah, kinda sucks that most of the recruitments in Engage are just "noble and retainers swear loyalty to your cause because you're The Divine Dragon [TM]". Even something as simple as needing to have Ivy talk to Hortensia to recruit her would be better
Stefan was a real one tbh. He saw a hot tiger man appear from a sandstorm and offered to buy him dinner, as anyone would do in that situation
Yeah no i used Lethe to get Stefan as it was not just Mordecai that can get him and i also was using Lethe more then Mordecai
there is one funny recruit in 3h, where sylvain will immediately join you without needing to boost your stats or supports at all if you are girl byleth.
Indeed as my first playthrough in Three Houses was with Black Eagles as Female Byleth so i got him as soon the game lets them recruit people from the other houses without the need to have the stats a certain way and supports was just to lower the needed amount of stats and certain weapon rank
Fates also has a few memorable Child paralogues. Midori’s map is a kill boss map but the boss is trying to escape which is sort of a rarity in fire emblem. And also Nina’s map is the same but she is the boss of her map.
If I were to guess, I think the fact that Sheena's soldiers don't attack you (thus making it easier to not kill them) while the mercs in Blood Runs Red will attack you makes a big difference.
One weird thing about the Stefan recruitment is that only Mordecai and Lethe can recruit him. I really don't get why a specific character I won't name because p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ c̶a̶r̶e̶ t̶o̶o̶ m̶u̶c̶h̶ a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ s̶u̶r̶p̶r̶i̶s̶e̶d̶ spoilers doesn't get to recruit Stefan and just gets a slightly altered version of the Vague Katti dialogue.
Slightly? It's more than half different text in english? And the game shows exactly why that character didn't/couldn't recruit him. (maybe if they put that chapter later on but this is about the worst time on that front)
also Zihark is recruitable in Blood Runs Red too, making those vigilantes even harder to keep alive.
Shoutouts to Ilios in fe5, a character who on the surface is a very straightforward recruitment. He’s just an enemy you talk to, but is notable for the fact that completely arbitrarily, Olwen has to be dead or skipped entirely for him to be recruited(it doesn’t work if she’s been captured), and you have to talk to him with Karin, which the game gives you absolutely zero hint of this, because it’s not even like they know each other or something. Karin just kinda annoys him into joining. So not a difficult recruitment, but one that practically no one would get on a blind playthrough.
Also not a recruitment exactly, but shoutouts to Zihark in Radiant Dawn who can defect to the Laguz Alliance in 3-6 by having him talk to Lethe or Mordecai. Jill can also defect, but you have to talk to her as an enemy like a normal recruitment, but Zihark can talk to an enemy to turn into an enemy, who you then get to use next chapter.
I love the "reverse recruitments" in RD.
Ilios always baffled and annoyed me. LOL
If they ever remake that game, they'd better give us a good reason why Olwen has to be dead! Or... just make it so you can recruit both of them...
The only reason he joined you was because Leif's army promised him a position in nobility...that got opened up when Olwen died/was executed. Both Ilios and Olwen are from/work for house Freege.If she was alive, that position would have been filled already and there would be nothing to bargain with on Leif's end. Honestly I never liked Ilios as he's greatly inferior to Olwen once she gets the ambush skillbook+Dime Thunder and Fred is a fantastic support for her as well. If you really don't want to bother with the small bit of effort to make Olwen good though, Ilios can be handy. EDIT: Ilios is also one of the very few characters with ZERO PCC vs Olwen's 4 which means he NEVER crits on a counterattack, actual dumpster tier.
@@ThatWanderingDude Great theory, but this doesn’t really add up because Ilios is offered a noble position in Leonstar, not Friege, which are completely different countries. Olwen’s ending has her return to Friege, Ilios’s has him become a noble in the new kingdom of Thracia, so they don’t really correlate in any way.
@@jonahj9519 Only other explanation I can think of is Olwen probably gave Ilios a mean look before battle which made him think "fuck those guys".
I really like Delthea's recruitment specifically because if you can position yourself well enough you can warp skip the map. The requirement is defeat Tatarrah iirc and defeat boss maps are extremely rare in Echoes/Gaiden
Can't warp skip. Delthea will RETREAT if you defeat the boss, but you must still rout the enemy. My strategy was to use Clair to rush in for a crit kill on Tatarrah, but she does need several dodges + the crit itself.
@@Averi0 Thank you for correcting me. Most of the time I use Clair to bait out delthea because she's one of the few decent res tanks available in the game. I then rush Alm and Silque up to take care of Tatarrah. I suppose the rest of my army devours the rest of the arcanists before alm can finish off the boss so I didn't remember.
@@Averi0
I think warp skipping works in Gaiden
I had a few ideas for potential unusual recruitments:
-Spend a certain amount of gold at a certain shop and the unit joins you. The idea is the unit was needed at the shop because business wasn't going well, but you just paid off their short term debt and you're clearly getting plenty of gold.
-Have one temporary unit that is force deployed for a few chapters and has immediate access to a strong weapon, but who clearly doesn't want to fight (perhaps because the enemies are the temp unit's countrymen, or the temp unit is a pacifist). Then, if that unit's level is still low enough at a certain point, another more powerful unit is grateful that you spared the temporary unit from too much fighting and joins your side.
-A monster unit (or maybe even some kind of dragon or wyvern) that you get by finding an egg item and holding on to it for a while. The unit might even immediately have a one sided A Support with the unit carrying the egg when it hatches.
Something to note about Severa in Awakening is that while she can be recruited that's only if Holland lives. if Holland dies she will turn hostile and become an unrecruitable red unit. She even has unique dialogue that plays if he does die.
Which is hilarious, when you consider that she originally came back to the past to save the world but then just decides to try and kill you.
Absolutely nothing beats Oliver recruiting himself. It's comedic genius using the game mechanics.
Three Houses does actually have a pretty funny unique recruitment. As you said in the video, to recruit students you need to have a stat and a skill be at a particular level before they'll agree to join you (i.e. Dorothea wants Charm and Authority) with the required being lessened the higher your support with the character (possibly even getting waived as a requirement).
Sylvain is no different, wanting the player to have 25 Charm and C rank Reason magic before he'll join you if you have no supports with him.
...But that only applies for Male Byleth. Female Byleth can recruit him simply by asking him to join as soon as possible. It's a funny nod to his skirt-chasing mannerisms.
Also you forgot two unusual recruitments from FE6:
1. Clarine
She appears out of the enemy castle as a green unit and walks towards your units.
The unique part is that the enemies won't attack her while she is a green unit and she will immediately beeline for Roy, talk to him and become a blue unit right after.
2. Douglas
He appears at the beginning of the chapter and will attack your units once he reaches them(with the exception for Larum/Elffin for some reason).
Not defeating him is one of the requirements to unlock chapter 16x and he will join you at the beginning of 16x.
Edit: you did mention him, my bad😅
I feel like these two are unique enough.
EXP is a generic resource, while Characters are a unique resource.
It's a bit like the difference between an Iron Sword and the Falchion.
So I like that Xavier has a schizophrenic recruitment. But I have no idea how in the heck someone would ever do it first try
That's the neat part. You don't.
When I first played Geneaology I didn't know you could recruit Ayra so i just killed her. Gotta say; the scene with Shanan hits way different!
Another part of the vigilantes is that they are in the way of recruiting zihark. Bit, they aren't worth much xp so it is better to try and spare as many as you can.
I've never bothered with the vigilantes. It's more dangerous to try and recruit Zihark later because of the Black Knight timer, so I just send Mordecai or Lethe up there, get Zihark, and leave the vigilantes to their fate. If one or two of them survive, it's a nice bonus, but going out of my way to save all of them isn't worth it in my eyes.
The most unusual recruitments are DLC characters (Echoes Cipher DLC, Ashen Wolves, Engage Dlc)
It's such a strange recruitment, I miss it every time!
Sounds almost as strange as FEH recruitments.
I never missed the DLC characters as the whole point of me getting the DLC characters is to recruit them by doing the Cindered Shadows DLC for the Ashen Wolves and did the Fell Xenologue DLC story to the get the DLC characters in Engage
I think you would enjoy Berwick Saga, their recruitment system is the most interesting one in the series.
I think you are probably correct! I'm playing Tear Ring Saga right now and enjoying it a lot, will probably go to Berwick next
@@actuallizard Berwick is very much a culmination of everything Kaga has learned over the course of making games. It showed me just how much potential an FE game/FE like has.
Seems like a good place to talk about Volo from Berwick Saga. His normal recruitment is just hire him a bunch and then he joins but you don't get any of his story/dialogue. So most people go this route and now Volo has a reputation as this brooding edgelord who never talks. To get his backstory, you have to...
1a.) Defeat the endgame boss when he shows up in chapter 3. Technically possible, but requires savescumming.
1b.) Get Faye killed before she talks to the endgame boss. This can only be done in chapter 3, since if you kill her anywhere else before then she just respawns next chapter.
2.) Hire him a few times (5+ happiness)
3.) Deploy him in Ch. 7, then have him visit a random church on the map.
As an aside, Volo's unit design as a replacement for Faye/Faramir is fantastic, since he has his own exploit to fight the final boss if you can't use her endgame weapon. The Miracle Charm item prevents death once and then breaks. The deathmatch skill initiates 5 rounds of combat. But the miracle charm doesn't break until after all 5 rounds have passed. So you get 5 whacks at the final boss and then live. The game even hints at this because there's an inaccessable unit on the final map, and if you check his stats you'll see he carries a miracle charm and the deathmatch skill.
The FE12 prologue has quite an odd way of "recruiting" units. The unit you get is entirely dependent on the dialogue options you choose at the end of each prologue chapter. Of course, this doesn't carry over to the main game, but it's definitely a unique way to build your army.
large cast of one dimensional characters (because 2 dimensional is an understatement)
Shout outs to gatekeeper in three hopes wich is only avaible in the 3rd playtrhough and beyond
Delthea’s recruitment is a tricky puzzle
Rapier and Royal blade:
“Laughs in subdue”
My first time playing Hector mode and I couldn’t afford to recruit Farina as I could never get much money in the GBA games, but also because my overpowered Florina was murking everybody in sight so there was no point using her even if I could have.😂😂
Path of Radiance Shinon. You have to first talk to him with Rolf, then kill him with Ike. At the end of the map it's revealed that he survives and rejoins your army. That, and it's genuinely a good question if you want him back or not. Not only did he abandon you in your darkest hour, he went and joined the enemy army that conquered your country. Being a constant jerk to Ike and unapologetically racist really don't help his case.
It actually kind of bothers me that he canonically survives and rejoins the Greil Mercenaries in Radiant Dawn. That feels like something that should have been a transfer data bonus - if you re-recruited him in Path of Radiance, you can get him back in Radiant Dawn. A strong reward for going out of your way (since he's the best sniper in the game bar none).
How did you not mention Shions rerecruitment in the FE 9 section? You have to talk to him with Rolf and then defeat him with Ike.
I miss the cast being a ragtag group of misfits and really don't like how recent FE games hand you over the vast majority of the cast. I think Thracia does it best where most of them require at least some effort to join you - only third of the cast joins automatically and even among those, Nanna, Selphina, Alba, Kain, Robert and Glade start far away from your army and are about to get overwhelmed so you still have to put an effort to keep them alive - it's like FE9 Geoffrey's recruitment but without stupid green units.
I do agree about the new game+ making more characters playable. After RD, Awakening kind of does this with spot pass paralogues, but then Fates didn't do that with Lilith, Echoes didn't do that with Berkut and Fernand despite them being almost fully functional playable characters and neither did Three Houses despite having actual ng+.
Shoutouts to TearRing Saga for having two crazy recruitments with Sierra (who normally joins in Chapter 31, but can be recruited much earlier if you kill Shigen before the end of Chapter 24, and he comes back alongside her anyway lol) and Leteena (whose recruitment is basically Lehran's recruitment on steroids)
Also in Rev, Fuga joins instead of Izana if you build a hot spring, cuz stupid story death moment
Stefan's recruitment in PoR is definitely weird. I'm surprised you didn't mention the similar odd requirement to get him in RD. It also involves one specific tile, but this time Micaiah has to be the one who stops there. I think Mordecai or Lethe can still do it if you have transfer data though.
Overall I agree, I would like to see these odd types of recruitments make a return. Not Xavier level though. I only played Thracia 776 once and didn't bother with recruiting Xavier. I knew about the requirements and decided it wasn't worth it.
It's hilarious that killing Shura and taking his boots is an option. I completely forgot that one exists. Maybe because I didn't do it. Still funny though!
In FE12 Katarina also takes 3 conversations; and in FE7 I do remember Karel requiring Lyn to step into an specific portion of the map.
Yeah, Katarina is interesting as you have to talk to her with Kris tnrice, while she is busy blasting you with Nosferatu. I like her because she is one of the few lategame recruits who is actually worth using, and because her story is good, and makes Kris more than just "that weird self-insert".
And you remember wrong with Karel, IIRC he always shows up when you progress the map, the unusual thing is that depending on how you handle the map (how many doors you open for one version, or how many promoted enemies you kill for another), either him or Harken will appear.
You should have mentioned the best thing about 3 houses recruitments. Sylvain. He will just join you if you're a female Byleth because he is a playboy
One idea I once had was having recruitable monsters that the player can unlock via fulfilling specific requirements such as say, finding a tome that allows promoted dark mages to summon them or full on recruitable monster characters who have extremely obscure methods of recruitment specifically because they're non humans(like say, bribing them with money like if they were an SMT demon or the Stefan method of walking onto a specific tile as a specific unit). One in particular I imagined was a Necrodragon you could recruit by casting restore on it as an enemy and they regain their sanity or will and join the player to get back at the villain who denied them their peaceful rest
I mean Stefan is important in that it's strongly implied that he taught Ike Aether. In a base conversation right after Stefan is recruited. He sees Ike training and notices that his swordplay seems "incomplete" as though he had lost his master unexpectedly. He then helps Ike train and the player is rewarded an Occult Scroll (one of which is necessary to teach Ike the Aether skill).
Also he's a branded, which is a very cool bit of character and world-building in the background of Path of Radiance, and a central plot point in Radiant Dawn
Yeah there's been no shortage of stupid recruitments. I once tried to make a Top 10 list, it ended up as a Top 20.
7:05 Oh, you mean like Vaida in FE7--boss of a Survive map, becomes a recruitable enemy 3 chapters later if spared.
18:55 ...Wait we're just moving on to Radiant Dawn? Because while I understand your reasoning for Karla being the recruitment you were referring to in Chullain's recruitment, the first thing that came to my mind was rerecruiting Shinon. Having red units that you have to keep alive to recruit at the end of the chapter is one thing, but here's a unit that you have to talk to with one unit, then _bring to 0 HP_ with a different unit. It's a really unique recruitment method. ...And you're also going straight to the units that are only available on a second playthrough, skipping the absolute insanity that is Oliver's recruitment. For starters, Oliver is nominally the boss of the level. He is, you would expect, not going to move off of the throne tile. But if you put your *heron* of all units, your unit that can't even counterattack and can only attack using the stupid spell cards, within his movement range, he will, on enemy phase, go up to your unit and recruit himself into your army.
You missed mentioning that Vadia has a flashing (literally) "don't fight me" sign (though it's the opposite if a challenge is what you are into) on her.
Killing Shura for the boots is such an absurd moment in the context of Conquest. During after battle dialogues, Corrin keeps talking about how they managed to avoid killing a single enemy soldier because they're unwilling to take a single life even on a battlefield, and now you can just kill a guy to steal his shoes. I get what they were going for, deciding whether Corrin has become more cynical and pragmatic or if they're still optimistic and trusting to a fault is on paper interesting, but it just doesn't come across that way at all and it feels like a joke. And it is funny, it's a great joke, but it definitely wasn't supposed to be one.
I like unusual recruitments, but there are definitely times where the process feels overly obtuse. I love FE9 and FE10 to death, but Stefan just never has any sort of hints or clear methods. You just have to stumble upon his singular tiles. It's fitting for his character, and he doesn't need to be found because he isn't super relevant. The sword is pretty damn good, though, and I do feel like I'm missing out if I don't at least grab that from him. Either way, I don't know what you mean by giving a "better hint" I think any hint is a "better hint" than no hint at all, lmao.
I feel the Xavier recruitment could have worked better if its getting one npc to one knight or maybe 2. not 8
But, Oliver jumpscare!
I wish 3H did more with war arc re-recruitments. Isn't there only, like, 1 per route?
Stefan I knew because I think it was in Nintendo Power or something X3 so I'm glad to see it on this list because I still think that was so bull that you needed to know a specific, non special tile for it
I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve killed Shura for his boots. I’d do it again
I built a system in Lex Talionis which revolves around your augury being a necromancer. In laymans it uses the dnd concept of reviving units with gems and depending on the value of the gem the unit is revived with differing stats
Red gives all conventional stats -1
Blue revives with no penalty
And White revives with a +1 to all conventional stats
Gold and black did other things, but I also made it to where bosses can be recruited this way and some bosses have supports if you wanted to to try out some of the weirder enemies like fe8 monster units or an army of starter brigand bosses
My memory is a little hazy on that chapter but I seem to recall that after Xavier's men talked to their respective child, they don't need to make it out alive.
I definitely remember a few of those knights turning green then getting immediately capped by Xavier and his bow... then he goes "spare them your justice"(in the translation).
Personally id argue that completely staffless misha is a more obtuse recruitment or Non 24x eyvel but xavier is definitely the most obtuse intended one
Slight correction, Hugh offers 4 different rates, not 3
I love Camilla! I saw you had Hubert in 3H, did you recruit him as you joined BE, or was it in another way?
Hubert is Black Eagles exclusive, but he and Edelgard will leave you if you choose not to side with her at the end of chapter 11.
@@Gracereza Ok, thanks! :D
Have you not played BSFE yet? The Satellaview game. I recommend checking it out! It has a very unique recruitment due to its live-broadcast nature.
Basically, Satellaview let you play the game while it transmitted audio and some data in real-time over the satellite transmission. This makde it possible for characters to be recruited in a sort of "real-time" manner. In the case of Malice and and Dice, they have a conversation with your characters over the audio and then get recruited through that. It's extremely unique and relies on Satellaview's unique aspects, which I find super interesting!
This reminds me of a rom hack that I've been working on and off on that has some really wacky recruitments, since I challenged myself to have at least 3-5 recruitable characters in each chapter, bar the final one. Some are normal like joining automatically, or talk convos, but others are weird.
For example: there's one character with an Xavier like recruitment, but different. Essentially, you need to talk to him with a weak unit you get earlier in the chapter, and then him and his officers all turn from red to green. Then, while they're green, you need to help all of his officers return to their families (this battle takes place in a city, so it's not as hard as you think). then, after that, you speak with him again with the same weak unit.
Btw, did I mention that this unit is required to get two other recruitments the next chapter, in which he needs to kill a specific mini boss, and then talk to that boss's children to recruit them.
And idk if this is even the hardest one, because there's some real tricky ones, like the ambush spawning boss that you have to kill none of their soldiers to get, or the unit in which you need to fail a Donnel type mission in order to recruit at a late-game chapter. Overall, there's some fun ones I have planned, but most players will definitely miss some.
It's not a recruitment per se, but Volke's PROMOTION in Path of Radiance is interesting. He demands an enormous sum of money to reveal his true identity, which Ike acquires in the story at a certain point and can give to him. If you pay Volke -- as you would probably expect you would, especially on a first run -- then your in-game funds don't change, because Ike is giving Volke the money he looted after a battle, so you'd be forgiven for assuming this is non-diegetic cash.
This is not so. If you REFUSE Volke's offer, he remains in the army but doesn't promote or reveal his information, AND you get 50,000 gold, because Ike didn't pay the money and thus gets to keep it. 50k can get you some pretty decent forges, and Volke still functions as a Thief, so this is a pretty tempting deal. Or... non-deal, as the case may be.
When I finally after years recruited Karla I was so excited. Used her for that last kashuna chapter.
Funny that you bring up vanilla Shadow Dragon. There is a full content patch of Shadow Dragon you can play that allows you to explore every chapter. Including the prologue even if you play on hard 5 aka merciless. And you get all the gaiden chapters without needing to kill off anyone
One notable thing a friend of mine and I discovered while I was playing through Thracia about Xavier's recruitment that's potentially useful, is that once the Named Armor knights turn Green, they can die and it won't count against the recruitment. I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but it saved my single recruitment of him since I made my friend a promise I'd do it once.
I love fe7 to death, but I still haven't recruited karla lol
@@evanedwards4598 if you have a switch online and have access for gba games, FE7 is on there and you can try recruiting her now! The game will also be easier because of the rewind feature
Norne is especially interesting in fe11. the only people who are recruiting her most of the time are noobs at fire emblem trying out fe11 or people specifically trying to get her. its never optimal to get her and especially since she is a normal difficulty only character (i know frey is too, but he is usually optimal to keep if you are running normal mode). She is always a character that optimally you would never get. her cost of recruitment always outweighs her benefit.
If you needed footage of Pelleas and Lehran for RD there are moments during my series that could have assisted you. I woulda been alright with it.
Fun Fact: In Fire Emblem 3 houses in the first part Sylvain (from the Blue Lions) required a High Charm Stat and a decent Reason Stat to recruit.... HOWEVER if you select the Female Avatar for your playthrough Sylvain will join your class with NO requirements what so ever.
So you can bypass his requirements by just being a woman lmao
Funny thing about Stefan: he has the exact same recruitment method in Radiant Dawn but with Micaiah
I think FE10 oilvers recuirt was really weird to me. Ike agrees
I think the reason it feels worse to miss a character you never use vs missing bonus xp you will use is tjat the character represents several unique possibilities while the xp is a resource you will get more of.
A character, no matter how little you actually use them, are still a unit you can use. They have stories you can experience. They might unlock more things for you down the line. A character is, relatively, unique and irreplaceable. While there might be characters that can fill the role they offer, for better or worse, you only get one Steve Buscemi the Red Cavelier.
Meanwhile, gold, items, and xp is everywhere. And while their scarsity is the crux of Fire Emblem's difficulty and fun, none of it represents a unique object with an irreplaceable function in your head. While there might truely be only one Throngler with 99 attack, you can still win with your 3000 iron swords if you think really hard.
Basically FOMO sucks
In 3 houses the most anoying character to recruit by far is Ferdinand von Aiger.
What if a student requieres a stat outside of your path?
Well you reach B support with him and increse the chance it will join on his own at the end of the week.
Not Ferdinand, you can't get B support with him untill time skip and by then the recruitment time has long past.
You need to have a C in heavy Armor at MINIMUM
Hevy armor its the most situational stat in the game!
Its onlly requierd for 3 classes
Why woud you want to waste time raising heavy armor in a regular playtrough is beond me.
Unless im in New game+ and have time sloths to spare Ferdinand dies at the bridge...
working for her rival, his unrequited love and the woman who took everything from him and vowed to destroy everything he represents.
Thats right Ferdinand die Like a Simp.
Personally I did _not_ like the building ones in Fates. The hot spring one does kind of say something about Izana as a character, but there are problems with them as a whole:
-NOTHING hints at it. The desert guy at least has the precedent of weird stuff being hidden on desert maps in past FE games, and once you talk to him, it's clear that there was a guy hiding in the sand and you unlocked him by discovering him. But when Flora et al. join you, there is no indication, in dialogue or otherwise, that it was because you upgraded your facilities.
-They don't even _try_ to give a decent reason for them to be able to join. The child units at least have the weird "shadow realms" thing, but for these 3, they just...somehow sneak in there. Into a _pocket dimension_ which they should not even be able to find.
-Some have little to do with the character. Yukimura and the puppet being associated makes sense, at least if you picked up on his puppetmaster thing from his 5 lines of dialogue. Izana and hot springs have the tenuous connection of party guy = likes relaxing = hot springs? Not good enough for me. And as for Flora, why would a member of the ICE Tribe want your FIRE Orb upgraded? Huh?
Slightly surprised not to hear you mention Shinon in FE9, where, with no reason to think the obvious result won't happen, the game has you kill him with Ike. Not capture. Kill his ass. To recruit him.
And with Ike, specifically, who probably isn't even the first character you'd expect to have any unique interactions with the guy - for most people, that'd be Rolf, the kid he took as an apprentice and one of TWO characters shown to have an actually positive relationship with him.
And no, the other guy who likes him, Gatrie, can't recruit him, either. Ike smacking him into the ground like a railroad spike is what does it.
Recruiting Karla was really an adventure to me.
I was playing Hector Mode for the first time and had looked up where to recruit her, but I only knew that Bartre has to talk to her.
Well I was about to start chapter 28, when I decided to check the exact conditions once again.
I’m like „Bartre has to be a Warrior Level 5 for this? I haven’t trained him at all since I got him!“
So I took him into my team from then on.
In chapter 28 I let him lay waste to the bishop and a couple mages after silencing them.
In the following chapter he made use of the lightly used hammer and halberd I still had lying around in my storage.
By chapter 30 he was level 20. Unfortunately I have the habit of selling all evolution items I don’t intend to use, so I didn’t have a hero crest for him.
So I had to warp him holding the member card to the secret shop in chapter 31 to buy a hero crest and evolve him.
Then I rescued him from there and had him stand on a pillar in the lower area of the map defeating enemies left and right and being healed from afar.
He was out of weapons 5 EXP before Level 5 three turns before the chapters end, so I let him being attacked until he reached Level 5 via 1 EXP per attack.
It was close, but I managed to have him ready to talk to Karla.
Edit: Typos
Why didn’t you talk about Shinon from Path of Radiance? His recruitment requirements are insane for an FE game since they require you to talk to him with Rolf (no problem there) and then KILL him with Ike! His recruitment violates the standard rules of how FE games work, that people who go to zero hit points are dead!
18:30 the only thing about missing stefan that really, REALLY sucks is that recruiting him is the ONLY way to get one of the 4 Occult scrolls, needed to teach your units their ultimate skill.
I'm shocked to see Sylvain isn't on this list as in Golden Deer and Black Eagle if you play Fem Byleth, you can recruit him without doing anything as early as chapter 3. Sylvain will betray his homeland and fight for the Empire just because the new teacher is hot.
Stefan is desert recruitable again in Radiant Dawn
While technically not a fire emblem (but still a Shouzou Kaga game). None of these recruitment reqs are nearly as bad as recruiting Leteena from Tear Ring Saga. She's a pretty bog standard cleric with no offensive abilities and requires you to do multiple hidden events that sometimes require items or other hidden characters to trigger. Trying to get her can radically change how you have to play. The payoff is the only silence staff in the game which isn't terrible but not worth such effort. Personally I've never bothered because you give up way too much for so little, but you give your christmas cavs a nice ending out of it so there's that.
I think Sylvain's recruitment is kind of funny, if you aren't playing Blue Lions, and you choose Female Byleth just talking to him he'll join you without upgrading his stats and interest.
One fun thing about Volke is Path Of Radiance he charges I believe it was like 50 gold for each lock he picks in a battle. And this is mentioned in his recruitment but in Radiant Dawn he doesn't mention this. In fact he joined so late that there are actually very very few locks He can pick, But if you do have him pick a lock you'll see that it is charged against you In the end screen.
In Blazing Blade, you had the only dark mage character locked in side-chapter and the condition was to have a green unit survive in the previous chapter. Since the recruitable unit(interestingly, a light mage) can survive without player intervention, but the other green units might not, it makes it so that if you had the character talk to him and recruit him, it's harder to recruit the dark mage.
Surprised you didn't mention Shinnon's re-recruitment in Path of Radiance. He's a red enemy that you have to talk to with one character then kill with another to recruit, I'd say that's pretty unusual. I'd never have gotten him back without a guide.
Awakening was my first FE game, and I literally missed Laurent. I was pretty annoyed when I found out
You missed one for the being paid segment...sorta, it is a talk like usual, but Gaius still does want to be paid, and will happily take the bag of sweets Chrom had prepared for Lissa in Awakening
I thought the question is the thumbnail was directed towards me. I know I’ve asked myself that question many times.
Ok you didn’t talk about spin off games but I really wish you did because byleth and jeralt from fire emblem warriors three hopes is so annoying on all three routes it’s very complex
Personally I think the Shadow Dragon gaiden units would have been more tolerable if there were alternative ways to recruit them. That way you could recruit units that you like like Ymir and Athena without having to butcher half your cast.