There’s no doubt that Fire Emblem: Three Houses is one of the best games in the series. It is incredibly polished, features a fun cast of characters and a great story, and is an all-around blast. However, one area in which it suffers is its difficulty, as the game can be a little bit easy at times, and maddening is, as the name describes, utterly maddening. Today, we’re going to be going over a few ways to up the difficulty of your playthrough while not going overboard. Let’s get into it.
10 First Of All, Hard & Classic
Of course, the difficulty setting that you’re going to want to play on is Hard, and have the Classic game mode set as well. This means that the gameplay is spicy and that your children that you’ve worked so hard to teach can be permanently murdered, so keep that in mind when playing through levels. Every single move counts.
9 No New Game+ Or DLC Usage
Both New Game+ and the DLC give you options to make the game a bit easier here and there through the use of Renown. You’re also given exclusive items through both of these avenues that first-time players/non-DLC players don’t have access to that can make things much easier. Just don’t touch them to bump up the challenge a touch.
8 No Battalions
Battalions are essentially a feature that give your units another attack (or healing play) that cannot be counter-attacked. They’re very strong in pretty much every sense.
Not using these can really toughen up the game in many different areas, with Death Knight fights becoming very difficult without them. A lack of Battalions will force you to come up with more creative ways to take your enemies, which isn’t an easy ask at all.
7 Lower Your Unit Count
One way to really toughen your game up is to set your own unit cap on how many children you’ll be sending into war. This one scales as far as you’d like it to. You can take one unit out of the battle, two, three, or you can be an absolute madman and leave it to just you and your house leader. This one gives you some options while making your game very, very difficult.
6 No Adjutants
Adjutant units allow you to send extra units into battle to allow them to gain experience and deal additional damage, heal their attached unit, or block an attack. Not in your playthrough, they don’t. Adjutants aren’t a make-or-break aspect of the game in any way when it comes to difficulty, but getting rid of them might make some of your more tense situations be even tenser. Your units also won’t be gaining the exp that they could be as adjutant.
5 No Renown Usage
Most renown is going to be used in New Game+ and through DLC, but you can also use it to upgrade your Saint statues in the monastery. Upgrading these statues give you huge advantages when it comes to training, getting extra Divine Pulse charges, and more. Staying away from these will simply stop you from lowering the difficulty in some pretty significant ways.
4 Literally Just Play The DLC
If you’re looking for more challenge, literally just play the DLC. It is quite the little doozy, that one.
It is much harder than the base game in just about every way for a variety of reasons. Who you can send into battle is restricted, maps are larger with stricter requirements, enemies are more powerful, the whole nine yards. It is much harder than the base game, and will give you the challenge you’re looking for.
3 Restrict Weapon Usage
Throughout the story you’ll gain access to strong weapons and the Heroes’ Relics. These are great options to give your characters more utility and make them more powerful than they would have been otherwise. Restricting your units to more basic weaponry will help keep their possible damage output a bit lower, making every attack count.
2 Only Use Certain Characters
Caspar, Ferdinand, Leonie, Ingrid, everyone has units on their save file that are just too weak. While who these units are can definitely vary from game to game, find your weak units. Work with them. Make them your A-team. They’re definitely not going to make the game any easier, giving you some extra challenge.
Let’s put it this way. No Lyisthea. Extra Ignatz. Got it? Get recruiting!
1 Maybe Try Maddeing
If you’ve done everything on this list and you still aren’t satisfied, it is time for you to graduate to maddening. There are a few ways here and there to make it even harder on yourself, but just go for maddening at this point. You clearly know what you’re doing when it comes to this game. Give it your all, and best of luck to you. If you manage to make it through the mock battle, you have what it takes to keep going.
NEXT: Fire Emblem Three Houses: The 5 Worst Things About Edelgard (& 5 Good Things Fans Ignore)
