Top 10 Most Difficult Fire Emblem Characters to Recruit (# 10 - 6)

Welcome to the “Top 10 Toughest Fire Emblem Characters To Recruit” list. Before I begin I wanted to talk about the criteria I used for this list: How hard are they to recruit even when you know what the requirements are? I figured that a character that’s still hard to recruit even when you’re aware of how to do it is more challenging than being vague. For that reason alone, you won’t see Stefan on this list. Stefan’s recruitment is actually easy once you know how to do it. There were also some other characters I thought about putting on here, but chose not to because there’s an easy strategy to recruiting them (Ayra & Douglas). So with that out of the way let’s begin…


# 10 - Shinon’s Re-Recruitment (Path of Radiance)



Recruitment Requirement: “Talk with Rolf during Ch 18 and defeat with Ike”.

The first problem here is that in order to re-recruit Shinon you have to use Rolf. This can mean one of two things: Either you baby Rolf so that this part isn’t all that challenging OR you find a way to keep Rolf out of harm’s way so that he doesn’t get slaughtered before you have him meet up with Shinon. Both of these options come with their own set of challenges that can make your life difficult. Then you have to “kill” him with Ike. It’s pretty cryptic since dropping a character’s HP to 0 normally means killing them for real. I was fortunate enough to recruit Shinon on accident during my first playthrough of the game, but that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a total curve ball that would catch someone off-guard.

# 9 - Hannibal (Genealogy of the Holy War)



Recruit Requirement: Talk with Sharlow / Corpul

So in order to recruit Hannibal you basically have to wipe out his army without killing him, maneuver out of your way to the next castle, kill everyone there, recruit Sharlow / Corple and get them to talk to him. It’s extremely tedious and it should go without saying that he’s not worth all that effort.


# 8 - Michalis (Fire Emblem 12)



Recruit Requirement: “From battle preparations (in Chapter 21, make Minerva wait on the village before the end of Turn 15, and then visit the village with Marth)”

So here’s a map of Chapter 21:



The village mentioned in the recruitment requirement has a “1” over it. It is on the opposite side of the map. There are thieves with a significant head start over you who will try to destroy it. 12 move dragons are also in the way. They hit like trucks. And there are mages with ballistic siege tomes that will ruin your life. Oh, and you have to get Minerva there by Chapter 15. She has to “wait” on that village and then Marth has to show up. It’s a tricky feat to pull off.




# 7 - Matthis (Fire Emblem 3 Book 2 / Fire Emblem 12)




Recruit Requirement: Talk to him with Julian

I think this post on reddit says it all: “In Book 2, Matthis is one of the main reasons why chapter 3 goes down in Fire Emblem history as one of the worst chapters. If you wish to be a completionist and get all the recruitable characters, you're required to take the long and uneventful road around the chapter's terrain to get to a village to recruit Julian, the guy who recruits Matthis. If you try to take the shortcut, Matthis will charge and most likely end up being killed.

Among the community, Matthis is infamous for being the namer of the 'Matthis Syndrome', an unfortunate consequence of enemy AI being all too eager to attack. The Matthis Syndrome describes characters that start as enemies but charge towards you and have zero hesitations about attacking their own family members, in this case, Lena. What makes this even funnier is that Matthis will call out her name when attacking anyone and is searching for her, even if he's attacking Lena herself.

So yeah, Matthis. Mediocrity personified?”


(P.S. Shout-out to Matthew Villegas and Alexjon Cutter Martinelli for being the only two people to call this one. I’m really surprised that nobody else mentioned Matthis)


# 6 - Misha (Thracia 776)



Recruit Requirement: Talk with Karin and then capture her (send her to sleep to dismount her). Karin must also be alive during the chapter’s end

Fun fact: A mounted unit cannot be captured in Thracia 776. They have to be dismounted in order for you to capture them. How do you make a mounted unit unmounted in an outdoor map in Thracia 776? You put them to sleep. So Misha is literally unrecruitable unless you either have a Sleep Staff or a weapon that inflicts the Sleep status.