Why I'll never beat Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Normally I love strategy games. I've played Advanced Wars 1 & 2, and logged countless hours on Age of Empires 2 & 3. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that its appeal to myself and others is likely that it allows us to compete against either a computer or another person in a game of wits and tactics. As humans our pride causes us to believe that in some way, shape, or form we are better than another person. We've all fallen into that trap when we look at someone else and think "I'm so much better looking than them." or "I wouldn't be stupid enough to do something like that.". Hell, this is the crux of why multilayer games exist, for competition. Strategy games just make you use your brain a little bit more than a game based on skill or reflexes.

So in comes Fire Emblem, a turn based strategy game that puts the lives of a few unique characters in your hands. As each of the games chapters progresses you can recruit new unique characters both in the actual battle and between chapters. Here's where the game gets to be annoying for me and why I'll never beat it. If one of your unique characters dies in battle then they are -gone- for the rest of the freaking game. All the other strategy games I"m used to playing have units that are not unique and entirely expendable. In Advanced Wars you actively make new units while playing as old get destroyed. Same thing goes with the AoE series. Even in games like Final Fantasy tactics if one of your units takes a dirt nap you at least have a few turns to resurrect them. Not the case at all in Fire Emblem. Your favorite unit just died from a random critical hit? Suck to be you, restart the battle and don't screw up this time. Many times for me it's my stupid healing unit, the priest Rhys. The computer is smart enough to target him whenever I get careless enough to bring him into range. Healing units are necessary in this game unless you want to fill up inventory space and spend gold on healing potions. The fact that mine dies due to my carelessness will end up screwing me in the later, harder parts of the game.

Part of my frustration also comes from one more sources linked to this. The competitive nature of gaming has conditioned people like myself to become completionists. We can't leave a single stone unturned out of fear we'll miss an item needed for 100% completion. In Fire Emblem's case, at the end of the game will be a portion that tells you what happened to all your characters once the main story is over. That doesn't happen if they're dead because well... they don't have much of a future being dead now do they? I want to know what happens to all my characters! Being a strategy game I don't feel like I truly outsmarted my opponent until every last one of their units is face down in the dirt and I get the max amount of experience points to make my characters stronger. This of course can be very time consuming on some maps and after an hour or so of time I'm down to the last few guys only to have them get lucky or for me to space out about my unit placement. At that point I lost my patience and opt not to spend another hour doing it all over again and shut the game off and leave it in its corner for a while. Maybe one of these days I'll say forget getting every character, I"ll just beat the freaking game. Anyone else ever feel this way about a game? If so tell me what game and why.

Sorry about the rant and it's length. I did just die on the game again so I had to vent. I'm way to tired from day 2 of the summer rotation (see last post for more details).