UPDATE: Wow, they changed the title to “sports”. Originally, this was just about video games

Any old school Fire Emblem gamers here?

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (also known as FE 5) is unquestionably the hardest game I’ve ever played. In fact, this game is so fucking hard that I question if it’s even possible to beat the game for the first time without a guide.

Now, I’m a pretty big Fire Emblem fan. I’ve played almost every game in the franchise, with FE 5 being the last game I’ve completed (as of March 2019, at least). I was browsing online one day for the “hardest FE game ever”, and all the old schoolers said that FE 5 was the hardest. I thought to myself: how hard could it possibly? FE games aren’t like Zelda games, where some of the puzzles are legitimately hard to figure out without a guide (at least for me); they are strategy games like chess: once you get good at them, you should be able to defeat most opponents.

When I finally got time to play this game… boy, I realized how screwed up this game was. The game’s difficult is hard, yes… but some of the difficulty was so insane, that it’s no longer a “hard game”, but more a “developers just trolled all the gamers!” sort of difficulty. I just cannot see how it’s possible to beat the game the first time without a guide. Let’s see what made this game so difficult for me:

• Stats are capped. I think the max is 20 or something. In RPG games, the easiest way to make the later chapters easy is to grind all your characters to insane level. This game found a way to beat that by putting a cap on all your stats. So once you’ve hit the cap, there’s no point in grinding anymore.
• Infinite enemy reinforcements. It’s pretty rare for FE games to have infinite reinforcements, but for FE 5, it felt like almost every other chapter has infinite reinforcements.
• The only way to get items is to capture enemy units. This is a novel concept, and I think this is the only FE game that allows you to capture enemy units. However, it’s annoying as hell, because when you capture an enemy unit, your stats are greatly lowered (and see the point above for stat caps; your stats are not good to begin with, but they’re even lower when capturing an enemy), AND (the cherry on top) is that once your turn ends, you can bet all the other enemies will swarm in on that one unit that has captured a unit.
• OK, you technically can buy items like you can in any other FE games, but at no point in the game do you actually gain money. You have to steal enemy items to sell them to make money. But if I already stole enemy items, why would I sell them to get money, just to use that money to buy items that I could have stolen?
• Staves can cast sleep (unit can’t move), poison (lose HP every turn), or berserk (start attacking your own units). Every FE game has this, but what makes FE 5 special is that if your unit’s status is changed, then the only way to remove the status effect is to use a Restore staff (which of course, requires you to capture an enemy unit that has it in order to use it). Otherwise, that status is permanent. What. The. Fuck?!

So the above outlines how Thracia 776 uses the usual FE game mechanics, but gives them a special twist to make the game 10x harder than it should be. But that’s not all! In fact, if only the above were to apply, the game would still be beatable by a newbie. It’s the following that truly makes the game impossibly hard.

• Most of the game are “escape chapters” (which was a new concept). The goal of each chapter was for Leif (the main unit) to reach a point and escape. In all FE games, once the main lord reaches the escape point, the chapter ends. In FE 5, though, there’s a twist: if any units are left behind on the battlefield after Leif escapes, that unit is lost. This already makes everything way more difficult, but the worst part is that the game NEVER explained this anywhere, so first timers all went “WTF happened to my team?!” after the first escape chapter.

That red arrow in the middle signifies that it’s an escape chapter, meaning Leif must be the last to escape, or all units on the map are lost.

• The enemies are so unbelievably smart. One of the game’s favorite thing to do is to have staff users warp strong enemies right in front of your healers or weaker units to finish them off. If you think you can kill all these staff users and enemies first before they become a threat… refer to my point above about infinite reinforcements.
• Fatigue: this was reintroduced in FE Echoes, the latest game for 3DS. But it was only used in FE 5 outside of that. Just like the escape chapters above, the game offered no explanations whatsoever. If you use your unit a lot, that unit will get tired and be forced to sit out the next chapter. On paper, this sounds good: you are forced to use all your units, and won’t just be relying on a couple strong ones. But in practice, it’s a nightmare. Some chapters basically require certain units, and if you don’t have them due to fatigue (and of course, game gives no warning beforehand), then you’re screwed. I remember there was one chapter where the boss could not be beaten by anyone other than a magic user. Unfortunately, at that point in the game, you literally only had one magic user, so if that guy’s fatigue peaks, then you’re SOL (enjoy restarting from Chapter 1!)
• That one irritating chapter… the enemy is a boss who will raise all of his units’ stats to ungodly level of unfairness. Thus, even some random grunt has a good chance to kill your best troops. Your only options are: to wait until turn 60 or 70 (lol, WTF?! How am I supposed to figure that out? And if I do, who has the time to wait that long?); or to warp a user right in front of him, in which case he’ll retreat immediately (of course, that unit is essentially screwed, since he’ll be dropped right in the middle of a shit load of enemies away from any allied units)

Lol, good luck to the unit who gets dropped here (red units are enemy units)

• Probably the same chapter, but if you were to cross a bridge and end your turn, that bridge will collapse. Any unit that’s on the other side of the bridge is lost. Again, no warning from the game whatsoever.
• That one chapter where you’ll be warped if you land on some random tiles. (I think it’s the one in the screenshot I posted above) F&#k that chapter. Good thing that chapter was optional, so I just decided to skip it.

So why did I keep playing the game despite its impossibly hard difficulty? Well, I’m a Fire Emblem fan, and I wanted to complete every FE game. I did manage to beat the game at last (with online help and guides, of course), but it was so hard. It took me well over a month, and literally every chapter had me screaming and cursing at the screen. But at the end… it was well worth it. I felt like I achieved something big as a gamer, as if beating FE 5 was a badge of honor to wear on my chest…

But I’ll be damned if I have to play that game again.

Also, this game has great music, probably the best soundtrack on the SNES.