Self-imposed Challenges

[TrollHunter]

I'm not really the sort of person to do self-imposed challenges per se. Sometimes I'll give myself tasks to do like sequence breaking in Metroid games though. The one challenge of sorts I do insist on is allowing no character deaths when I play a Fire Emblem game, irrespective of how useless a particular character may be!

Now, by this, do you restart whenever a character dies? Because if so... that's not really a challenge run, that's basically playing the game on easy mode.
Try playing it to where your characters actually CAN die, now that's exciting.

It's something I do more for the sake of completeness than to make the game easier. I mentioned it as a bit of a challenge because it annoys me even if a character I never use dies (the exception being Lyndis' story in FE7 when I don't really mind) and will go to some lengths to keep characters alive. I tend to be a bit more liberal with their deaths on subsequent playthroughs though.

Having said that, I think you're probably right about it being easy mode. I was more thinking of it in terms of 'I keep the weakling characters I never bother with alive,' but the opposite ('I don't want to face a future without my best characters') probably also applies!

I say it's easier because I used to play the exact same way in fire emblem. Even if a character I hated and was RNG screwed to the abyss died I'd still restart.
To be honest I've only allowed deaths on sacred stones, by far the EASIEST FE ever made, but it was so fun I'll probably do blazing sword next that way.
Comparing the two kindof ways I played the game I think letting characters die not only makes it more fun, it puts far more at stake (I think twice before moving characters now... and with the braindead AI of FE I used to never do that), and makes every battle memorable.
And, because you're letting guys die, you don't get frustrated with a level due to having to restart it over and over and over again if you keep screwing up.

Now, this is just my preference mind you. Though I am basically a walking encyclopedia of infinite wisdom, You may not enjoy playing FE this way. Especially if you like the characters, it can be easy to get attached to some of your favorite units and watch them die due to an unlucky crit or miss (true story, I was leveling up an underleveled Artur on some weaker enemies to see if he'd turn out decent, and a pegasus knight landed a critical with a 1% chance. I would've been mad, but it was so improbable I found it hilarious). For me, that chance makes it all the more exciting.