Does Server 72 count as a custom campaign for the purpose of this thread?
Because if it does, I’d like to share a few too many words about my main girl, Almanac.
First off, some context. Server 72 is a game quite unlike traditional FE games; it is a game in which the player has full* agency over a given unit’s stat distribution. As there are no growths or traditional level ups to speak of, what fundamentally distinguishes units are their class skills and weapon types.
*Characters like Almanac, who have a later join time, come with some pre-invested stats you can’t undo. Almanac herself is part of the final group of units the player obtains.
Now, with that said, Almanac is a user of Swords and Dark magic. She comes in fresh with middling speed, decent magic, low str (though more than 0), and low hp and def.
The game provides a fair amount of magic swords for her and her lovely wife to use, but more importantly, she gains access to the ridiculous library of dark magic Server 72 has to offer:
There are too many good dark spells to list and explain thoroughly, but it suffices to say that until this point, dark magic had been limited to just one of your starting units (Philo), who can only hold so many tomes. The addition of another dark mage allows you to give more thought to non-combat options like the ability to petrify foes or grant them flier weakness to bow. Most importantly, it gives the player more incentive to experiment with the spell Shift, which allows the user to swap places with another unit within range, be it ally or foe.
Shift is a powerful tool that allows a savvy player to get around some of the toughest challenges the notoriously difficult game has to offer. And it works exceptionally well in the hands of Almanac because the spell seems essentially tailor-made for her skill kit, which is summarized as follows:
-
Almanac gains the ability to take another turn after casting dark magic for the first time on a given player phase.
-
Almanac gains the ability shadowstep, which allows her to teleport next to an ally essentially for free. She gets to attack when she does so.
-
The above 2 let Almanac accrue bonuses to damage and mana recovery (allowing her to keep spamming her abilities).
I’m forgetting some specifics here, but in essence Almanac can freely warp around the map with easily the best action economy a Fire Emblem type game has ever seen. If that wasn’t enough, there’s plenty of occasions for your to abuse the map design by shifting enemies into the void in maps that allow for it. This is very important to making Almanac the most busted unit in the game (next to another Effortpost worthy character, DD).
You see, the final gauntlet of chapters is brutal. A boss that shows up multiple times in this gauntlet possesses 900+ HP and can only be damaged by throwing enemies into the nether. Almanac is the most efficient unit for chipping away at it from a mana economy standpoint.
Then there’s the legendary Floor 50 boss. Its defeat is the puzzle at the crux of the story, for which Almanac’s shadowstep is yet again a viable solution. Beyond that, it also serves as a decent fail safe in case other solutions the player may have come up with don’t bear fruit, which is extremely important given the map is a grueling 4 hours long, give or take. Nobody wants to restart that.
And last but not least, there’s Floor 51, which features call backs to some of the hardest scenarios in the game, notably the Fury boss. Without explaining the entire set up here, all you need to know is that Almanac trivializes the Fury event to the point this part can serve as a check point to heal and recover your mana fully. This feat alone makes Almanac S+.