i've owned and adored this game for years, but i had never bothered with the ranking system. in the past, i had always regarded it as a largely irrelevant feature to how i wanted to play and basically ignored it. however, something crawled up my ass last year, and i decided to do a ranked run of HHM. as preparation, i did a ranked run of HNM to get an idea of what it would be like and how to adopt the mindset. and while some things are actually more strict in HNM ranked (for whatever reason, night of farewells has a way tighter turn count), it was an educational experience that steeled me for my real goal: S rank HHM.
i now talk to you as someone who has scaled the mountain that is S ranking HHM. after several months of meticulous planning and arduous resetting, i got my S rank. and while it was extremely shitty to do for a myriad of reasons, this experience has not only deepened my appreciation of the game, but it has reminded me of how constraints make for better design. let's be clear, FE7's ranking system is fucked and its refusal to be transparent with not only its set goals but also how to achieve them is bad. i do not think this game does ranking very well (chapter requirements are literally being broken on hector mode chapters like talons alight and the berserker such that they're considered chapters you should beat in 0 turns to avoid penalization). add all this together, and i understand why casuals are so offput by it.
but, i do mourn it retroactively now, as i think we lost something significant when IS decided to ditch it instead of improve and refine it. ranked runs require a different mindset and encourage you to think of the game as purely tactical as you can. turtle and grind strategies suddenly become inoptimal and the last thing you want to do. meanwhile, the experience rank obligates you to use units that you would otherwise almost certainly have not touched, forcing you to use basically everyone in at least some capacity. the strangest thing is that they already revamped how the game would judge the player via a ranking system in going from 6 to 7, so it adds on to the disappointment that they abandoned it in sacred stones. hell, sacred stones could've been like 20x better if there was anything resembling a challenge in it. the closest thing we've gotten since then was the bonus experience system in the tellius games, and while that is good, something all-encompassing like elibe's rankings is preferable to me. i've realized that i'm a huge sucker for when a game assesses and grades your progress, whether it be on micro scales like in MMBN and FFXIII, or on a playthrough-wide scale like Resident Evil and this game. it was a flawed system and needed polish, but, fuck, i kinda miss it now.
that said, i love this game, but, i confess, this ranked run did inspire great amounts of anger and hate out of me. on top of S ranking HHM being one of the hardest things i've ever had to do in a video game, i think i can confidently say that fire emblem is one of the most infuriating games on earth. with how pivotal RNG is to not only character progression but even just basic offensive interactions, it is the perfect simulator of "i made no mistakes and still lost" in video game format. i get that RNG is invariably going to affect personal experience in both extremely positive and extremely negative ways, i just deeply wish there was some way to curb it a bit. for instance, all three of my lords were complete dogshit this run, and i had to use boosters on all three at some point just to get them to their average stats. granted, you don't have to use lyn and eliwood, but see me after class if you think i'm doing lloyd's FFO. plus, they're mandatory deployments on certain chapters (including but not limited to the final one), so it's frustrating when diceroll level ups turn against your favor and give you completely trash units. it's still a wonder to me that a fixed stats mode was only ever used in path of radiance and it's never been used ever again. it's truly baffling considering how convenient and consistent it would make replays of any of the games. in that sense, the most appealing method of ever playing this game again is on emulator with tony's mod, a player-made fixed stats mode.
either way, this is still one of my favorite games of all time, in spite of the colossal deep fissures of flaws i have with fire emblem as a series and even this individual game (seriously, why doesn't eliwood use lances?). i can rest easy now and say it's going to be a looooooong time before i do another playthrough of this beast. yet, tellingly, when i do get that urge, i've already got a plan of what i want to do next. imagine if i used these autistic impulses to do something of value. what if.
i now talk to you as someone who has scaled the mountain that is S ranking HHM. after several months of meticulous planning and arduous resetting, i got my S rank. and while it was extremely shitty to do for a myriad of reasons, this experience has not only deepened my appreciation of the game, but it has reminded me of how constraints make for better design. let's be clear, FE7's ranking system is fucked and its refusal to be transparent with not only its set goals but also how to achieve them is bad. i do not think this game does ranking very well (chapter requirements are literally being broken on hector mode chapters like talons alight and the berserker such that they're considered chapters you should beat in 0 turns to avoid penalization). add all this together, and i understand why casuals are so offput by it.
but, i do mourn it retroactively now, as i think we lost something significant when IS decided to ditch it instead of improve and refine it. ranked runs require a different mindset and encourage you to think of the game as purely tactical as you can. turtle and grind strategies suddenly become inoptimal and the last thing you want to do. meanwhile, the experience rank obligates you to use units that you would otherwise almost certainly have not touched, forcing you to use basically everyone in at least some capacity. the strangest thing is that they already revamped how the game would judge the player via a ranking system in going from 6 to 7, so it adds on to the disappointment that they abandoned it in sacred stones. hell, sacred stones could've been like 20x better if there was anything resembling a challenge in it. the closest thing we've gotten since then was the bonus experience system in the tellius games, and while that is good, something all-encompassing like elibe's rankings is preferable to me. i've realized that i'm a huge sucker for when a game assesses and grades your progress, whether it be on micro scales like in MMBN and FFXIII, or on a playthrough-wide scale like Resident Evil and this game. it was a flawed system and needed polish, but, fuck, i kinda miss it now.
that said, i love this game, but, i confess, this ranked run did inspire great amounts of anger and hate out of me. on top of S ranking HHM being one of the hardest things i've ever had to do in a video game, i think i can confidently say that fire emblem is one of the most infuriating games on earth. with how pivotal RNG is to not only character progression but even just basic offensive interactions, it is the perfect simulator of "i made no mistakes and still lost" in video game format. i get that RNG is invariably going to affect personal experience in both extremely positive and extremely negative ways, i just deeply wish there was some way to curb it a bit. for instance, all three of my lords were complete dogshit this run, and i had to use boosters on all three at some point just to get them to their average stats. granted, you don't have to use lyn and eliwood, but see me after class if you think i'm doing lloyd's FFO. plus, they're mandatory deployments on certain chapters (including but not limited to the final one), so it's frustrating when diceroll level ups turn against your favor and give you completely trash units. it's still a wonder to me that a fixed stats mode was only ever used in path of radiance and it's never been used ever again. it's truly baffling considering how convenient and consistent it would make replays of any of the games. in that sense, the most appealing method of ever playing this game again is on emulator with tony's mod, a player-made fixed stats mode.
either way, this is still one of my favorite games of all time, in spite of the colossal deep fissures of flaws i have with fire emblem as a series and even this individual game (seriously, why doesn't eliwood use lances?). i can rest easy now and say it's going to be a looooooong time before i do another playthrough of this beast. yet, tellingly, when i do get that urge, i've already got a plan of what i want to do next. imagine if i used these autistic impulses to do something of value. what if.
Yata777
3 months ago