Too many OBJECTIONS! here to even bother with Iris... There are no fewer than 5 counts of faulty logic in that post.
That's because they're underleveled compared to the Laguz Royals.
(#1) Ranulf, Janaff, and Ulki are royals now? No cat/tiger can hope to match them. Not to mention, there ARE people who play without the royals.
To a lesser extent Volug can be argued as well, although I'm not sure how valid that argument would be given that it requires Resolve abuse.
That's because knifes are inferior to swords in every way and plenty of sword-using units outclass them.
Compare Volke to a Whisper (#2). Yeah, knives aren't powerful, but Sothe even at all caps is WORTHLESS in the Endgame for everything except picking off spirits.
That's because they're underleveled and in Sigrun's case less available than Elincia, who gets the healing part done and gets a nice brave sword too, and Haar, who is pretty much the best flying unit in the game.
In what universe is Sigrun less available than Elincia (#3)? Their availability is exactly the same; both appear in 2 chapters before Part 4. If anything Elincia is out of favor by such a comparison; she appears in Part 2 (weaker enemies, less experience), and can't kill worth a damn in her first chapter due to being stuck with a Slim Sword.
Further, you don't need to look anywhere
near the top of the flying chain to cast doubt on Sigrun; Tanith and Marcia outmatch her at every turn. Tanith is equally available and Marcia would have to gain 14 levels in 4 chapters to reach an equal level to Sigrun. Believe me, it doesn't take that long before Sigrun is left in the dust.
Claiming that Mist is under-leveled is hard to read as anything but sheer ignorance (#4). The only way that statement holds any possible validity is if you're playing the Japanese version where you can't experience-promote to 3rd tier. She's as available as any other member of the Greil Mercenaries and very well viable at her introduction; in fact I'd dare say more so than in the late-game. Her level is irrelevant, because at the end of the day her Strength caps at a measly 25 (less than even a Whisper), and her growth is so pitiful she won't even reach that without a lot of Bonus abuse. I know this, I use Mist out of pure favoritism, and even with all stats capped she can *NEVER* measure up to the other units. And unlike PoR, there's no viable magical weapon work-around (the cards are not practical; they're low-use and do not allow counter-attacks).
That's because she's underleveled and off with a worse 3rd tier class when compared to Shinon.
She has Paragon and is almost as experienced/available as Marcia, not to mention she was HORRENDOUSLY more under-leveled in PoR where she still had to compete with Shinon (#5). Seriously, if you've played her in both games, there is no comparison, her stats simply blow in RD when you measure against her past appearance.
Shinon is irrelevant; Astrid isn't worth your time in RD even if you have no other bow-users.
Lethe suffers the same troubles, although in her case, the general Laguz mechanics of RD don't help any. But even tanked on Bonus Exp., she's still nothing special.
Oh, and while we're on the topic of RD characters who suck: Gareth. Seriously, no amount of Bonus Exp. will fix him. And this is coming from somebody who figured out how to make
ENA viable. That guy is a walking husk of spirit-bait; completely and utterly useless.
Exactly my point.
Except that your point is ignoring context. I'm speaking of Micaiah's entire crew (save for Sothe). If you're complaining that
all units are strong but under-leveled, you are effectively complaining that characters are too powerful when raised beyond what should practically be happening over the course of the game. Such can be said of ANY game with an experience system.
The logic of "under-leveled" as the only reason characters are not viable only holds if there are better leveled alternatives; ie: Fiona, Lyre, and Kyza. You can't just say that Micaiah's entire crew is under-leveled as reasoning behind them being too powerful, it makes no sense.
True, but Bonus EXP in its current state is so easily abusable that it isn't an adequate alternative to Arenas at all.
You don't grind for Bonus Exp. Quite the opposite, Bonus Exp discourages grinding, since your rewards are diminished if you drag your feet. That in itself makes it far preferable to Arenas. It's also far more flexible; you can use the guaranteed 3 stat gains to strengthen the weaker points of characters who have already hit a few caps, or you can Bonus up to 99 and let the natural level-ups do the work. You can complain of brokenness all you want, but it's the only semblance of control you have in a world where getting RNG-screwed is always a concern.
Most importantly, though, Bonus Exp. is finite. Arenas are limited only by Heal staves, unless your character is out-matched, rendering the Arena worthless (which is VERY likely in higher difficulties). It's all-or-nothing with the Arenas.
I agree that there should've been more axe users for swords to have an advantage over but FE3 already adressed that problem and swords also get balanced out by getting the most slayer weapons.
You grossly misunderstood me. I didn't mean two weapon types, I meant literally, a character who is the sole representative of his class and has only two equippable weapons in the game. In other words: Bantu. There are only two Firestones in the entire game to space out over the 18 chapters you have him. That's inexcusable.
I really prefer that to the wordswordswords Radiant Dawn has that either make no sense or ruin every plot detail that PoR has established.
PoR-to-RD is wrecking plot details? Wow. The MegaMan Zero series would scar you for life.
A great deal of PoR's plot went unexplained, most significantly the Sephiran/Black Knight connection. And what did RD challenge of PoR's presuppositions, the Serenes Massacre? That was an assumption of circumstantial evidence.
Actually in the case of video games I prefer "too little" a lot more over "too much". I'd rather see everything the game has to offer within minutes than figuring out how everything works for hours and still not being able to that one thing I wanted it to do.
Game length is not a problem; both titles are plenty long enough. The problem is that Shadow Dragon doesn't actually involve the playable characters in what's going on in the storyline. You claim that RD feels like filler and Shadow Dragon doesn't, but I find the inverse to be true. When the storyline completely forgets that all of your characters exist after recruitment, the entire experience is left feeling shallow and meaningless.