FE15 Overview

FIRE EMBLEM 15 SPEEDRUN COMMENTARY

NORMAL/CLASSIC CATEGORY

This is the fastest category. There are two difficulty modes, normal and hard. Classic is actually faster because up to 9 characters besides Alm/Celica are forced into the dungeon, and you're better off killing them off for a proper Alm/Celica solo than manually escaping them in every dungeon.

ECHOES MECHANICS

Echoes is the remake of FE2: Gaiden, which is considered the black sheep of the series. Many mechanics are completely different. The main thing that really affects the run is hitrates, as terrain bonuses are ridiculously high (up to 60%!!!), so missing is incredibly common. On the player side, there's no direct method of increasing magic hit outside of supports, so inaccurate magic like Nosferatu (60% displayed or 64% actual) and Thunder (70%) must be relied on in some situations. This makes battles incredibly volatile, random, and unreliable. There are many other factors that make this a chaotic speedrun and make it a pain in the butt to speedrun seriously, including:

- Map reinforcements. Anytime one spawns in the way, you're basically fucked and will lose a crapton of time because you can't skip past them, you HAVE to beat them to move past them (retreating makes you progress backwards). In particular, one can lose OVER FIVE MINUTES in Alm Act 3 if the stupid cavalier reinforcement spawns on Desaix's map. If you get an arcanist spawn on normal mode, Alm has no way to handle them so the run is dead. (It's negligible on hard mode because lol Kliff) You basically have to pray that reinforcements don't kill the run in act 3, otherwise it's basically an automatic reset.

- Level-ups. Will go into more detail later, but levels aren't manipulated like in the GBA fire emblems, nor reliable like the tellius games. They also aren't ridiculously inflated/high like awakening/fates/new mystery, so this is another factor that can make runs incompletable.



GENERAL OPTIMIZATION

Due to being able to skip enemy phases, saving turns isn't as important in a speedrun (though you don't want to waste turns needlessly). It's worth wasting a turn to skip a cutscene, battle map animation, dialogue box, and so on by leaving those for enemy phase. Thus, the fastest way to clear chapters is to just one-man as much as possible. Given that most maps are rout (defeat all enemy units), I want as many enemies to die during enemy phase as possible, and avoid player phase combat whenever I can.

When most enemy units are below half health, their AI will always make them run to a healer or healing spot if possible, instead of attacking, which is very annoying and wastes a ton of time. Thus, when possible, I want to either block off healing spots, or prioritize picking them off so they don't run too far away.


IMPORTANT CHARACTERS

Alm - One of two main protagonists in the game. He basically solos his route. He has a more reliable hp and defense growth than Celica, so he's typically tanky physically. His attack and speed are often fine (especially with the act 1 springs to help boost them). He's extremely vulnerable to magic users.

Growths: 60% HP 50% Attack 55% Skill 45% Speed 35% Luck 50% Defense 3% Res

In normal mode, Alm uses the Lightning Sword early on, which is a broken 1-2 range magic weapon for earlygame. He swaps to the royal sword in act 3, which is his main 1-range weapon for the rest of the run thanks to double lion and auto-healing. In Act 4, Alm receives the Longbow and Dracoshield from Celica's party, which are his ranged weapon and tanking item, respectively; the latter is especially important as Act 4/5 has tons of magic users that kill Alm instantly without the Dracoshield.

In hard mode, Alm simply plays the role of a secondary combat unit to help out Kliff by using an iron sword for act 1/3, then the rapier in act 4/5. Again, he's especially vulnerable to magic, so he has to back off in those cases.


Celica - The other of the main protagonists. She's a offensive magic user that can also wield swords. Her growths are more offensively oriented than Alm's, though she struggles with defense, so runs can die easily if she doesn't gain enough defense.

-Fire is her main magic early on, as it is cheap and reasonably accurate at 80% displayed / 90% actual
-Thunder is her least accurate magic (70% displayed / 79% actual), but has extra range. I avoid using this whenever possible.
-Seraphim is effective on monsters and has high accuracy at 90% displayed / 97% actual. But it costs 4 hp, which is more than most of her other spells
-Excalibur is her main bread and butter. It's reasonably powerful, very accurate (95% displayed / 98.91% actual), and has a 20% crit bonus. She learns this at level 15 and is her main offensive spell.
-Ragnarok is her strongest spell, but it slows her down significantly and costs a ton of health. I only use this on Jedah and Duma.

Growths: 50% HP 60% Attack 50% Skill 50% Speed 45% Luck 35% Defense 4% Res

Celica uses the Blessed Sword for her main 1-range weapon, as it's accurate, gives a nice crit bonus, autoheals 5hp per turn, and is effective on monsters (which are numerous on her route). In Act 4, she obtains the Mage Ring which gives her magic +2 range (i.e. 4-range Excalibur!!!!) and also autoheals her 5hp per turn. For the last fight, she equips the Angel Ring which gives +20 luck, purely because this gives her a +10 crit bonus.


Kliff - In hard mode, he's trained up early on to become a dread fighter by the end of act 1 - he's used over the other male villagers because of his 8 base resistance, which is extremely important for handling arcanists. He primarily uses the lightning sword through act 1 and early act 3, then is grinded in sylvan shrine to dread loop into the sniper class so he can counter every bow user for the rest of the run - this sylvan shrine grind costs ~3.5 minutes, but immediately more than pays for itself in the last two maps of act 3. His ridiculous skill/speed/defense stats are really important for taking on the hard mode enemies - he can struggle with attack but the killer bow helps compensate.

Saber - In hard mode, he's trained up early on to become a dread fighter by the end of act 2. Thus, much of act 2 is focused around getting him to reclass to myrmidon by Seabound Shrine, then dread fighter just before ending the act. He uses the brave sword sent from Alm's party for basically the entirety of act 3-4. He's primarily needed to help counter arcanists and enemy dread fighters, especially since Celica can't take on more than 2 mire arcanists safely. In normal mode, he's a convenient steel sword flunky to pick off a zombie or pirate.


OTHER RELEVANT CHARACTERS

Silque/Genny - Warper/Healer

Anyone else - Died shortly after the war due to grevious wounds sustained in battle. The world was darker for the loss.