Meh I hate Fire Emblem hit based systems where it seems like if you have less than 80 of hit you might as well not attack while enemies can reliably hit with 50.
I also dislike when a game gimps me because I dont use the characters with the good stats/skills.
So normal for me and hard so long as I have saves during battle or in 3Hs case Divine Pulse.
Like say I like a character but they are considered crap, if I like them I want to use them and dont want the game to heavily punish me for it.
I also apply this to fighting games by playing as the characters I like rather than use the same 4 characters that 90% of players do.
I like difficulty where it doesn’t annoy me with skills. But most importantly I like a fe game where hard mode stats are much more polished and balanced. I can take if they’re brutally strong but at least the game let’s me find a way to defeat them.
I like brutal difficulty that kicks my teeth in. Figuring things out on your own, even if it meant failing tens of times to do so, is extremely rewarding for me. I’ve been playing Conquest on Lunatic recently, and it’s been a blast so far. I also enjoy Dream of Five and Absolution (especially on now Infernal difficulty): what I think these games have in common is that there’re things to discover even after several playthroughs. I don’t necessarily mean big breakthroughs, but moreso small, intricate gameplay details. That’s pretty neat in my opinion.
I hate when games/hacks are tuned to the point that you have to or are supposed to use specific characters or strategies to clear a map/the game.
Let the player use whoever they want and try to design maps that give the player agency in deciding how to go about them. In a world where you cannot predict how the RNs will roll or what units players will want or choose to use, I prefer difficulty in the FE5/FE6NM realm where it’s tougher than FE7/8/9 but still within reason depending on stat gains and who the player is fielding - not everyone will just drop Cavalier A that isn’t turning out great to use a later character with better stats because they may really be invested in Cavalier A’s character, may want to support them with a specific unit, etc.
Hard Mode works best for me. I am interested in Three Houses Maddening which might be an exception. But things like Awakening Lunatic (especially +) are not my taste. I am hesitant to try out Conquest Lunatic because of this simple because Hard already is a pretty neat difficulty for that game in my eyes.
Generally I am for games that give me a challenge. They can be pretty hard to, sometimes even a bit heartless. But as long as they’re fair it’s okay for me.
I choose normal difficulty 99% of the time. I like mostly “fun” easy (it’s probably the reason why I love FE8 and 7 normal mode).
I think the Kaga games fit in the medium umbrella (I haven’t finished any of them yet but that’s how I feel about their early to mid-game at least). FE6 NM feels medium too.
I never tried any of FE7’s hard modes so I can’t say anything about them, FE8 hard mode is basically the same as normal mode and FE6 HM’s early game is absurd to me.
I love difficulty like Radiant Dawn and Vision Quest, where most of your units really have to work together to kill the enemies and get through the early-gamemaps.
And of course, having them become powerful (i.e. → doubling and killing enemies in a single round of combat) either by getting really lucky with their levels or just after a few chapters have gone by, and the units will have had time to grow into themselves.
The former, for example, is how lucky I feel whenever Micaiah and Laura almost max HP, speed and defense randomly on my playthroughs of Radiant Dawn.