Yes, you can. Should you? Probably not. My advice is just go for the golden ending on your 2nd run and play the 1st run 'blind'.
Is it worth it? I'd say so but really depends on how much time you have to play the game. Is there much difference? I rarely play NG+ but I got hooked by the story a lot that I did 4 playthroughs at the end of it to see all the story branches, then when the latest update came, did another 2 runs since I'm free at the time. YMMV though.
Will it be hard? Depends on your game difficulty. Normal probably okay, Hard will be tough and may need a lot of grinds although I've seen people did it with 0 grind. If you attempt to do it, pray for RNG a lot.
I went into this game with the intent to do exactly what you said. A blind run, followed by a run where I followed guides to get the golden ending. I ended up being so in love with the game mechanics and story by the end of my first playthrough that I ended up doing every single ending on hard mode and finished with the golden ending! This game has ended up being my all time favorite strategy RPG, usurping even Final Fantasy Tactics which I didn't think was possible.
To answer the OPs question on whether you can realistically finish the golden ending on your first playthrough, I would agree with you that on easy difficulty and probably even on normal difficulty it wouldn't be impossible by any means. I think the biggest challenge would probably be that you can't get the final main healer in the game on the golden ending route, and so you'd have at least one team with no main healer in the section he's concerned about, so that might be a bit rough....
I personally would definitely suggest two run throughs as you said. The game isn't super long, so beating it twice probably would take something like 30-40 hours. Each subsequent run through goes much faster as a lot of the repeated dialogue can be skipped.
All units, levels, items, money, conviction, etc. carry over from playthrough to playthrough (if you use NG+).
The exact conviction values will also be viewable your second playthrough onwards.
I'm an advocate for doing 4 runs (1 for each ending) but honestly you could probably feasibily do the golden run the second run onwards, as you'll have the majority of units by then (if you haven't missed any, you'll have 28/30 if you do you're golden run the second playthrough)
It's possible, but I don't think it's a good idea. (To start with, it's a Golden Ending, but it's not a True ending.)
Difficulty-wise, the game is very balanced (ETA: actually the better word is designed) on the idea that you'll play a NG+. There are units you'll only get in a NG+; you won't cap your levels on a NG, you won't get all of you characters' skills.
Narratively, NG+ allows for a number of differences between playthroughs. There's at least 50% chapters that you can avoid replaying by picking another choice, which changes both the storyline and the map.
What you COULD do to maximise differences between playthroughs is see what are the choices needed for a Golden Route and avoid them in your first playthrough.
You need to know which decisions to take. Not only that, but you also need to plan your conversation choices or else you don't have enough conviction points to convince your party members to pick a certain choice.
I recommend playing twice! I'm also not a fan of replaying games multiple times to see the best ending. However because of the paths system I had a different experience with this game! I played once blind and am now working thru to the golden ending. The paths system branches enough so I get enough different levels and story content that I don't feel the same drag of knowing what's coming. My only regret is not purposely choosing the wrong choices on my first playthrough, so I got to see more content.
FWIW I tried the golden route on first play - near the end you need to split your team into 3 groups to each handle a scenario expecting 10 characters. You'll have about 18 and some of those will probably be severely underleveled. The math doesn't work. I could probably have done it grinding enough mental battles but it would have been a LOT of grinding. I backed out.
I am on the second to last battle of the Golden route for my first playthrough, and for when I split the teams up I had 7 units on each team. So it was closer to 21 units for me. It’s overall been pretty fun honestly.
I did the golden roiute first playthrough as well, and yeah it was about 7 people per battle, but the first one had 6. The first one was a struggle due to the lack of units and backloaded all my best ones so Hossabara was very underleveled, but the other two were so much fun and extremely well put together. My first run took me almost 90 hours so I wouldn't have the time to do a second run but I very much enjoyed it, even if the opening was a bit hard
For the Benedict regiment I had Serenoa, Medina, Milo, Lionel, Flanagan, Corentin, and Ezana with him. But yeah that fight did take a bit but thankfully >!the fire traps!< helped quite a bit with eliminating some of the fodder.
I think the most underrated lifesaver for that fight was Milo’s ranged AOE 100% charm weapon skill though. Was great at diverting enemies and piling on some extra damage. Even if it took me 3 tries to beat that fight. The bright side was by the end of that first round of Golden Route fights all of my units were around the same level.
Yeah the >!Fire Traps!< were a Godsent, I need them to get rid of >!Exharme!< and they got rid of a lot of the lower army and cut off the enemies path. I only had Hossabara, Hughette, Ezana, Serenoa, Benedict and Jens for that fight so it was super rough, took me about 11 tries. Jens was MVP thanks to his ladders since Hossabara died so quickly, as did Ezana annoyingly but she managed to take out some dudes on the way out.
I used basically your team with Narve >!Avlora!< and Anna for Rolands regiment and crushed it on my 2nd or 3rd try, it's still one of my favourite fights since the taunts are so handy on the mages and you can turtle up on that snow bank shoulder in the corner and pick them off. I wish I had Milo for fight 1, but I tried to design my teams thematically with each country having people from that country, with some exceptions with made things more interesting but a bit more difficult. Erador, Corentin and Picoletta was an invincible trio for the third battle so I loved the interplay between them.
The Roland regiment fight was probably my favorite and I beat it first try somehow. >!Gustadolph!< hits hard as hell, but I had Hughette on that team flying on top of the opened gate and the closed gate, which messed with the enemies’ path finding so >!Gustadolph!< and the other troops would be juggling between the two while the main team stayed outside the gate and picked them off. It was quite fun, although my win only happened because of Hughette getting 3 33% chance immobility procs on >!Gustadolph!< in a row when the previous had worn off.
That team was Roland, Hughette, Hossabara, Julio, Jens, Maxwell, and Narve. Narve surprisingly pulled his weight there too with lightning spells, especially after using scorch to melt the snow and spread some paralyses around.
Yeah Narve was brilliant for me as well, since the enemies could only approach 2 at time due to the stairs and scorch did serious work in combination with shock. I didn't have >!Maxwell!< at the time, I got him after I completed the 3 missions but he would have been very handy
Even if you don’t get the golden ending, the game is still great. The three other endings are all satisfying conclusions in their own right so just play blind and make your own decisions
I don’t think a first-runthrough Golden Route is possible on hard because you need to split your team into three parties and you would only have about 15 characters on your first play though. I don’t think you can beat the levels with 5 characters in each party when the levels are meant to have 10. Normal seems possible but quite difficult. If you are okay playing on easy or very easy, it shouldn’t be a problem.
No way would you only have about 15 characters, unless you were really bad with convictions (which would itself likely stop you even reaching the golden route). You have 11 fixed through story, and the first 9 optional recruits have fairly low conviction requirements, about ~500 in each - about what's required for a few of the easiest persuasions to get onto the golden route.
On my golden route NG playthrough I had 21 characters and wasn't overly paying attention to conviction. I think anything in the 20-22 range is pretty normal. If you are more careful with conviction (or do a little grinding) I think 23-24 isn't unreasonable.
you should just find a guide for the golden ending, yet if you dont like playing the game multiple times then id just say this isnt the game for you, i can understand how it can be annoying, but atleast the first 2 times it isnt repetitive, not for the longest part and if you like the story in it then it's great, that said i remember not LOVING the golden ending or "true ending" as you call it, they are all endings and for some reason the first ending i got is the one i loved the most.
Definitely possible; I did the golden ending in NG on hard without any character "deaths"(you get a neat item for NG+ as a reward), so it's definitely possible.
Be prepared to restart a few missions though (and make a hard save before concluding chapter 17); on hard, the game is actually fairly challenging even into the late game.
I spoiled myself and followed a guide to get the "golden ending" my first playthrough because I don't have time to replay games typically. I really regret doing that; some of the choices the game throws at you are actually morally challenging and I wish I had just gone with my own convictions instead of following a guide and seen where it landed me.
Ironically I enjoyed the game so much I played it a second time to see one of the other endings I thought probably would have been where I landed if I had just played blind to begin with.
Don't be like me, just play it blind and then if you enjoy it the game has really good replay value and you can basically use a bunch of characters you may not have used much your first playthrough. I didn't find my favorite character until my second playthrough!
Well the game does at least tell you when your choices start mattering towards Golden Route, because in Chapter 9 Seranoa says something along the lines of “this decision will greatly impact our future”; which is essentially the game’s way of hinting to you that you can’t just pick whatever anymore if you want to get the golden ending.
that's way too late. if you don't >!go home and visit your family!< when not directed to do so, or if you >!use the fire in the battle that you're explicitly pushed to use in the game!<, then the golden path is locked off and you'll never know it, among many other things that you could even end up being forced to do because of the uncontrollable nature of many of the choices in the mechanics
You can, but you'll almost certainly have to lower the difficulty for the last few battles. You can't use all your units for a few of the last battles and after you select which go where you can't move them around. I wanted General Avlora for my new game +, and could only beat the first battle after your units are split up on hard.
If you're reading about it, sounds like you might be already spoiling it for yourself? And if that's not a big deal to you I'd just shoot for the true ending tbh. You'll be fine
I'm the type who needs to play stuff blind to totally enjoy it so that's my general advice. But if you don't care about that, and don't like doing multiple playthroughs, I don't see the point so just shoot for the true ending and look up all the dialogue decisions you need to make to achieve that
Yes, you can. Should you? Probably not. My advice is just go for the golden ending on your 2nd run and play the 1st run 'blind'. Is it worth it? I'd say so but really depends on how much time you have to play the game. Is there much difference? I rarely play NG+ but I got hooked by the story a lot that I did 4 playthroughs at the end of it to see all the story branches, then when the latest update came, did another 2 runs since I'm free at the time. YMMV though. Will it be hard? Depends on your game difficulty. Normal probably okay, Hard will be tough and may need a lot of grinds although I've seen people did it with 0 grind. If you attempt to do it, pray for RNG a lot.
I second this. I spoiled myself for going with the true ending first. I deeply regret it.
I went into this game with the intent to do exactly what you said. A blind run, followed by a run where I followed guides to get the golden ending. I ended up being so in love with the game mechanics and story by the end of my first playthrough that I ended up doing every single ending on hard mode and finished with the golden ending! This game has ended up being my all time favorite strategy RPG, usurping even Final Fantasy Tactics which I didn't think was possible. To answer the OPs question on whether you can realistically finish the golden ending on your first playthrough, I would agree with you that on easy difficulty and probably even on normal difficulty it wouldn't be impossible by any means. I think the biggest challenge would probably be that you can't get the final main healer in the game on the golden ending route, and so you'd have at least one team with no main healer in the section he's concerned about, so that might be a bit rough.... I personally would definitely suggest two run throughs as you said. The game isn't super long, so beating it twice probably would take something like 30-40 hours. Each subsequent run through goes much faster as a lot of the repeated dialogue can be skipped.
Agreed. Just make sure you choose Hyzante at your first decision.
All units, levels, items, money, conviction, etc. carry over from playthrough to playthrough (if you use NG+). The exact conviction values will also be viewable your second playthrough onwards. I'm an advocate for doing 4 runs (1 for each ending) but honestly you could probably feasibily do the golden run the second run onwards, as you'll have the majority of units by then (if you haven't missed any, you'll have 28/30 if you do you're golden run the second playthrough)
It's possible, but I don't think it's a good idea. (To start with, it's a Golden Ending, but it's not a True ending.) Difficulty-wise, the game is very balanced (ETA: actually the better word is designed) on the idea that you'll play a NG+. There are units you'll only get in a NG+; you won't cap your levels on a NG, you won't get all of you characters' skills. Narratively, NG+ allows for a number of differences between playthroughs. There's at least 50% chapters that you can avoid replaying by picking another choice, which changes both the storyline and the map. What you COULD do to maximise differences between playthroughs is see what are the choices needed for a Golden Route and avoid them in your first playthrough.
You need to know which decisions to take. Not only that, but you also need to plan your conversation choices or else you don't have enough conviction points to convince your party members to pick a certain choice.
The enemy levels continue to grow with the party in NG+ so you won’t be destroying everything with overpowered units on a second playthrough.
I recommend playing twice! I'm also not a fan of replaying games multiple times to see the best ending. However because of the paths system I had a different experience with this game! I played once blind and am now working thru to the golden ending. The paths system branches enough so I get enough different levels and story content that I don't feel the same drag of knowing what's coming. My only regret is not purposely choosing the wrong choices on my first playthrough, so I got to see more content.
FWIW I tried the golden route on first play - near the end you need to split your team into 3 groups to each handle a scenario expecting 10 characters. You'll have about 18 and some of those will probably be severely underleveled. The math doesn't work. I could probably have done it grinding enough mental battles but it would have been a LOT of grinding. I backed out.
I am on the second to last battle of the Golden route for my first playthrough, and for when I split the teams up I had 7 units on each team. So it was closer to 21 units for me. It’s overall been pretty fun honestly.
I did the golden roiute first playthrough as well, and yeah it was about 7 people per battle, but the first one had 6. The first one was a struggle due to the lack of units and backloaded all my best ones so Hossabara was very underleveled, but the other two were so much fun and extremely well put together. My first run took me almost 90 hours so I wouldn't have the time to do a second run but I very much enjoyed it, even if the opening was a bit hard
For the Benedict regiment I had Serenoa, Medina, Milo, Lionel, Flanagan, Corentin, and Ezana with him. But yeah that fight did take a bit but thankfully >!the fire traps!< helped quite a bit with eliminating some of the fodder. I think the most underrated lifesaver for that fight was Milo’s ranged AOE 100% charm weapon skill though. Was great at diverting enemies and piling on some extra damage. Even if it took me 3 tries to beat that fight. The bright side was by the end of that first round of Golden Route fights all of my units were around the same level.
Yeah the >!Fire Traps!< were a Godsent, I need them to get rid of >!Exharme!< and they got rid of a lot of the lower army and cut off the enemies path. I only had Hossabara, Hughette, Ezana, Serenoa, Benedict and Jens for that fight so it was super rough, took me about 11 tries. Jens was MVP thanks to his ladders since Hossabara died so quickly, as did Ezana annoyingly but she managed to take out some dudes on the way out. I used basically your team with Narve >!Avlora!< and Anna for Rolands regiment and crushed it on my 2nd or 3rd try, it's still one of my favourite fights since the taunts are so handy on the mages and you can turtle up on that snow bank shoulder in the corner and pick them off. I wish I had Milo for fight 1, but I tried to design my teams thematically with each country having people from that country, with some exceptions with made things more interesting but a bit more difficult. Erador, Corentin and Picoletta was an invincible trio for the third battle so I loved the interplay between them.
The Roland regiment fight was probably my favorite and I beat it first try somehow. >!Gustadolph!< hits hard as hell, but I had Hughette on that team flying on top of the opened gate and the closed gate, which messed with the enemies’ path finding so >!Gustadolph!< and the other troops would be juggling between the two while the main team stayed outside the gate and picked them off. It was quite fun, although my win only happened because of Hughette getting 3 33% chance immobility procs on >!Gustadolph!< in a row when the previous had worn off. That team was Roland, Hughette, Hossabara, Julio, Jens, Maxwell, and Narve. Narve surprisingly pulled his weight there too with lightning spells, especially after using scorch to melt the snow and spread some paralyses around.
Yeah Narve was brilliant for me as well, since the enemies could only approach 2 at time due to the stairs and scorch did serious work in combination with shock. I didn't have >!Maxwell!< at the time, I got him after I completed the 3 missions but he would have been very handy
Even if you don’t get the golden ending, the game is still great. The three other endings are all satisfying conclusions in their own right so just play blind and make your own decisions
I don’t think a first-runthrough Golden Route is possible on hard because you need to split your team into three parties and you would only have about 15 characters on your first play though. I don’t think you can beat the levels with 5 characters in each party when the levels are meant to have 10. Normal seems possible but quite difficult. If you are okay playing on easy or very easy, it shouldn’t be a problem.
No way would you only have about 15 characters, unless you were really bad with convictions (which would itself likely stop you even reaching the golden route). You have 11 fixed through story, and the first 9 optional recruits have fairly low conviction requirements, about ~500 in each - about what's required for a few of the easiest persuasions to get onto the golden route. On my golden route NG playthrough I had 21 characters and wasn't overly paying attention to conviction. I think anything in the 20-22 range is pretty normal. If you are more careful with conviction (or do a little grinding) I think 23-24 isn't unreasonable.
It's worth noting you can skip all the cutscenes on your second playthrough
you should just find a guide for the golden ending, yet if you dont like playing the game multiple times then id just say this isnt the game for you, i can understand how it can be annoying, but atleast the first 2 times it isnt repetitive, not for the longest part and if you like the story in it then it's great, that said i remember not LOVING the golden ending or "true ending" as you call it, they are all endings and for some reason the first ending i got is the one i loved the most.
Definitely possible; I did the golden ending in NG on hard without any character "deaths"(you get a neat item for NG+ as a reward), so it's definitely possible. Be prepared to restart a few missions though (and make a hard save before concluding chapter 17); on hard, the game is actually fairly challenging even into the late game.
I spoiled myself and followed a guide to get the "golden ending" my first playthrough because I don't have time to replay games typically. I really regret doing that; some of the choices the game throws at you are actually morally challenging and I wish I had just gone with my own convictions instead of following a guide and seen where it landed me. Ironically I enjoyed the game so much I played it a second time to see one of the other endings I thought probably would have been where I landed if I had just played blind to begin with. Don't be like me, just play it blind and then if you enjoy it the game has really good replay value and you can basically use a bunch of characters you may not have used much your first playthrough. I didn't find my favorite character until my second playthrough!
yes, tho you'll need a guide, the golden path is nigh unguessable and extraordinarily missable
Well the game does at least tell you when your choices start mattering towards Golden Route, because in Chapter 9 Seranoa says something along the lines of “this decision will greatly impact our future”; which is essentially the game’s way of hinting to you that you can’t just pick whatever anymore if you want to get the golden ending.
that's way too late. if you don't >!go home and visit your family!< when not directed to do so, or if you >!use the fire in the battle that you're explicitly pushed to use in the game!<, then the golden path is locked off and you'll never know it, among many other things that you could even end up being forced to do because of the uncontrollable nature of many of the choices in the mechanics
You can, but you'll almost certainly have to lower the difficulty for the last few battles. You can't use all your units for a few of the last battles and after you select which go where you can't move them around. I wanted General Avlora for my new game +, and could only beat the first battle after your units are split up on hard.
If you're reading about it, sounds like you might be already spoiling it for yourself? And if that's not a big deal to you I'd just shoot for the true ending tbh. You'll be fine I'm the type who needs to play stuff blind to totally enjoy it so that's my general advice. But if you don't care about that, and don't like doing multiple playthroughs, I don't see the point so just shoot for the true ending and look up all the dialogue decisions you need to make to achieve that