Fire Emblem

[Anstane]

So, I've looked around and noticed that, while there is a thread for FE:Fates, there isn't one for the series as a whole. So I figured, why not make one for the rest of the franchise?

So...yeah, I'm making this thread for the sake of discussing all things Fire Emblem. I, for one, only played FE's 6 to 10 (From Sword of Seals to Radiant Dawn) and I must say that I enjoyed all of them (Well, maybe not 6 as much, but still).

While the one that has the most replay value, for me, is Fire Emblem 7, I definitely appreciate the rest of the games in their own ways, like the overall heavier story (In my opinion) of the Tellius duology.

[Tartar]

I've played from Sword of Seals to Radiant Dawn to New Mystery of The Emblem.

Radiant Dawn was by far my favorite in terms of story, though Rekka no Ken was the best gameplay wise. Shadow Dragon was probably the worst in the series... One day I'll get to playing Awakening and Fates, but until then, I've still thoroughly enjoyed my time with the series.

Oh and can we get some hype for how close to release Project Naga is to completion? Hopefully we'll soon be able to have a full and high quality translation of FE4 Genealogy of The Holy War, which is supposedly the best game in the series from what I've heard.

Edited August 16, 2016 by Tartar

[YinYang9705]

I wouldn't call FE4 the best, if only because of the lack of a support system

I've played 7 through 10, and 13 and 14, and honestly, I'd say I enjoyed 7's story the most, and 10's gameplay the most

[Tartar]

I'd say I enjoyed 7's story the most, and 10's gameplay the most

Funny how we have this part exactly reversed. Some levels of FE10 were just badly designed and unnecessarily difficult (I'm looking at you "kill 40'ish Laguz" chapter).

Funny thing is, FE7 was my first game in the series. But I actually didn't know of the existence of the support system on my first playthrough, so I played the game without unlocking any support dialogue

[Anstane]

My main gripe with FE10, aside from the dumbed down support system, is, surprisingly enough, Ike himself.

I hate it how he went from a believable, decent character that occasionally acted rashly but learned from his mistakes in FE9 to basically a Gary Stu (Male Mary Sue) in FE10. In the entire game I can think of a grand total of ONE thing that he does that is somehow bad in any way, shape or form (When he kept calling Yune "The Dark God", something he gets forgiven for just 2 minutes later).

I genuinely think that the story would have been better if Ike himself was excised from the story.

Gameplay-wise I prefer the more simple yet effective nature of FE7, personally, though I do enjoy playing FE10 as well. Just that the former just meshes better for me then the latter.

FE4...haven't played that. I don't know, it just feels like the maps are too long and too involved for me. I can see why people would enjoy it, it's got a very strong story, it's just not quite for me.

[Sheep]

Funny how we have this part exactly reversed. Some levels of FE10 were just badly designed and unnecessarily difficult (I'm looking at you "kill 40'ish Laguz" chapter).

That's the river one right? That's perhaps my favourite level in the entire game. Between the darkness, the endless Laguz assault, and the water slowing your movement speed you're on a knife's edge the whole time. However, if you've trained the right people (Micaiah, Sothe, Nolan, Aran, Jill, and Zihark) then you shouldn't tip over that edge. It's also the moment when if you try to train a decent number of the Dawn Brigade, you're really going to start feeling the pain. The easiest time I had with it was training the aforementioned six minus Aran, but I felt like I had enough experience going to waste towards the end of part 1 that I could have trained another unit, and after taking a look at the Dawn Brigade roster I think Aran's the best one of the remaining characters. Plus it gives you a nice on foot weapon triangle core with Nolan, Aran, and Zihark.

[Tartar]

That's perhaps my favourite level in the entire game. Between the darkness, the endless Laguz assault, and the water slowing your movement speed you're on a knife's edge the whole time. However, if you've trained the right people (Micaiah, Sothe, Nolan, Aran, Jill, and Zihark) then you shouldn't tip over that edge.

That's the thing I hate. It's a skill check, the whole level is set up to see whether you're ready for the rest of the game and have been lucky enough with your Micaiah Speed level ups. Otherwise the level is simply a nightmare and a slog to get through on Hard Difficulty.

Sure it can be fun mowing down enemies in the dozens by a team of crack fighters, but imagine someone inexperienced playing the game and not knowing which characters are good and just plays with whomever he likes and cruises through the game enjoying it only to have to quit his save file because he didn't train his team well enough to complete this level? That is why I hate this level and think it's badly designed, it's too much of a difficulty spike compared to the whole rest of the game.

[Guest]

OH BOY FIYA EMREMBU

Been playing FE since 2005 having started out with Blazing Sword and although I've taken a years-long break prior to this year, it's been fun revisiting it. It along with a certain other mecha SRPG is responsible for my fondness of SRPGs, really.

I've played and beaten them all except FE9, 10, 13, and 14. Emulating the Tellius series has not been a particularly easy thing for me over the years and modern FE isn't my thing although I've recently come to appreciate a few characters and gameplay aspects from it. The gameplay's gotten better over the years and I'm glad the franchise is still alive and has shone a light on the strategy RPG genre.

I probably enjoy the Judgral series (Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776) the most. Genealogy was the fourth game I played after I finished with the GBA trilogy and probably the one that had the largest impact on me as a young teenager. The plot seemed way more complex over most other Fire Emblems, and the pairing mechanic allowed for an insane amount of customization in the second generation, so replaying the game never really got old to me. It does lack some newer features from other Fire Emblem series, and it's not for everyone (big maps, "trading" items by selling them, etc.) but it's still one of Shouzou Kaga's finest.

Oh and can we get some hype for how close to release Project Naga is to completion?

Based on what I've seen going through the game as early as the v5 beta patch, it's 100% playable from start to end right now with very minor errors, so people could play it now if they want!

Thracia 776 on the other hand... I don't have as much praise for it gameplay wise as others would. I don't care for the fatigue mechanic and a lot of the difficulty in the game more or less feels fake. The 20 stat cap was a step back and highly unneeded on top of that. There were a number of new mechanics that I liked though, such as the capture mechanic. The graphics and story are pretty good, although it badly needs a new translation patch not filled with memes.

After Judgral probably comes Archanea. Marth's original games are derided for having a "shallow" story, but I don't think they're shallow at all. They're probably the most straightforward stories in the franchise, simple yet expansive and it doesn't trip over itself.

• Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light for the NES is a unique play just for how ancient and outdated it is compared to other games in the series. In many retrospects I recommend it over Shadow Dragon for the purest experience. It recently got an updated translation patch too.
• I'd love to see Gaiden get a remake. Like FE1 it's pretty damn outdated and there's even less story, but it has a lot of unique gameplay elements. Some returned to Sacred Stones years later, but not all.
• I don't think Shadow Dragon is that bad either. It has a bit of Fire Red/Leaf Green syndrome going on here in that it stays very true to the original game, and that's not exactly a bad thing. Sacrificing characters for gaiden chapters is more or less a reward for being reckless, although a large majority of the fanbase doesn't like losing characters, so I understand people hate this. There's a patch to remove it too. I also feel that Shadow Dragon's translation and various re-writes or additions to the story here and there really gave some characters new depth - Marth for example.
• New Mystery of the Emblem is definitely one of my favorite games in the series, they improved on Shadow Dragon in almost every way and although it won't make you work for supports, Base Conversations is a pretty good substitute. It also had the introduction of My Unit/the Avatar, and I think Kris is the most well written out of them, Robin and Corrin, although they didn't really belong in a pre-existing story, I felt. My biggest detractor from these two games are the graphics really.

Above all of that, I really do appreciate that they went back and revisited Archanea for Awakening.

• The GBA trilogy is where I started, and honestly over the years I've come to prefer Sacred Stones over Blazing Sword and Binding Blade. Very well written characters, an effective story, lots of neat little game play advances, among other things. Yeah, it's a little on the easy side, but easiness has never been a deciding factor for me that determines the quality of a video game unless it's stupidly easy.
• Binding Blade has grown on me a lot after giving it a second playthrough, especially during the mid-game portion. I feel it manages to achieve FE4's sense of scale in just 25 chapters or so, but it really does have some balance problems game play wise that drags it down below the other two games, such as stupidly low growths and the Binding Blade slicing through everything like butter in the last 2 chapters.
• It's hard to say anything about Blazing Sword that isn't already said. It's just solid in every aspect, and is one of the most beginner friendly Fire Emblem titles on the planet.

[Chase]

Games I've played thus far: Fates

Games I am most interested in playing: Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, Gaiden

[Tartar]

Why Fire Emblem Gaiden of all things?

[Shadow Tack]

i've played from 6 to awakening, i didn't have the patience to translate 4 and 5, otherwise they'd be under my belt too. also i really didn't like awakeningj

[Chase]

Why Fire Emblem Gaiden of all things?

In my opinion, you can better understand how a series got to where it is by looking at it's second installment.

Gaiden is just plain different to the point where judging it against Shadow Dragon was incredibly difficult for critics back in '92. - and yet, many of the things that I liked in Fates were present in Gaiden.

• Returning playable characters from earlier installments.
• an overworld element (MyCastle in Fates)
• the class evolution system

Is it the first game most Emblemiers think of when Fire Emblem strikes the brain? No, probably not, but it's a game that's older than me and yet offers the direction Fire Emblem would eventually take to reach the point where it finally met me.

To me, that's endearing.

[Isa-Chu]

I always liked Blazing Sword better, even if my first game was Fates (Yes, I'm a fairly recent FE player but I already love it all), with Path Of Radiance being a close second.

I don't know, the Blazing Sword characters appeal to me more, and the supports are quite nice (And the extra chapters were fun too).

[Sheep]

That's the thing I hate. It's a skill check, the whole level is set up to see whether you're ready for the rest of the game and have been lucky enough with your Micaiah Speed level ups. Otherwise the level is simply a nightmare and a slog to get through on Hard Difficulty.

Sure it can be fun mowing down enemies in the dozens by a team of crack fighters, but imagine someone inexperienced playing the game and not knowing which characters are good and just plays with whomever he likes and cruises through the game enjoying it only to have to quit his save file because he didn't train his team well enough to complete this level? That is why I hate this level and think it's badly designed, it's too much of a difficulty spike compared to the whole rest of the game.

Mmm I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. The first time I played through RD I tried to train half the damn brigade, people like Edward, Leonardo, and Illyana, and I ended up severely underleveled. That was one of the hardest missions of the entire playthrough without a doubt, I remember it being a wake up call like "this isn't going to be as easy as Path of Radiance" and I really struggled with it. I guess I like it now because I know not to do that, and to instead only train the ones that are worth training. That just leaves the atmosphere of the level itself, which on its own is absolutely fantastic.

[krim]

On the topic of Gaiden, if you can get past how slow it feels due to age, it's actually a really fun game. It has a lot of things that the series has looked at and taken from into the future as was already mentioned, and it even added some new fun stuff that never returned. (Bows with 5 range....Hype!)

Third tier classes were also introduced in Gaiden, something that was only re-introduced in Radiant Dawn and then never again. You could even loop one certain third tier back into a villager so you could go to third tier in a different class if you really wanted to.

Also I'd like to point out that Gaiden has undoubtedly my favorite soundtrack on the NES. It's a huge one for that time period, and nearly every song sounds like something better than what the NES should've been able to handle.

Like really, just listen to this! (This is the final chapter theme, if you're planning on playing it, you can wait to listen but...it's going to take you a while to get there, and while good the music isn't exactly meant to express emotion like FE4's is)

[Garnet.]

that guy with the green hair looks like a fuckin cornball oml

ive played fe7 fully, kinda (my save died so i watched the rest of the game in a playthru) i played all of awakening and i played all 3 routes of fates. i played fe6 for a bit and then i said "fuck it"

im interested in playing 8 once, and i would be interested in 9/10 but alas, dolphin hates my computer and i have no money to get a new one, but that one looks to me like my favortie from what ive seen

everything else looks ok to me. i kinda like 4-5 but im not good enough to play horse emblem

i really did like awakening tho

[Anstane]

Mmm I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. The first time I played through RD I tried to train half the damn brigade, people like Edward, Leonardo, and Illyana, and I ended up severely underleveled. That was one of the hardest missions of the entire playthrough without a doubt, I remember it being a wake up call like "this isn't going to be as easy as Path of Radiance" and I really struggled with it. I guess I like it now because I know not to do that, and to instead only train the ones that are worth training. That just leaves the atmosphere of the level itself, which on its own is absolutely fantastic.

If you don't see it coming and simply try to train everyone up normally, then yeah, that level can be a pain. At least the game is kind enough to give you a few powerful generics and The Black Goddamn Knight if you need a bailout, but if you don't need them, then the chapter is an amazing place to catch the Dawn Brigade up.

[Sheep]

Alright, here's a dilemma. I like Fire Emblem and am looking to play all of the games that I might enjoy. To that end I've played Binding Blade, Rekka no Ken, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, and Fates (though I'm not finished Revelations yet). Something I've noticed in playing other games is that when they don't have well developed characters with good support conversations I get bored, except in Radiant Dawn because I was already invested in the characters and the world at large, plus the plot is great. I've been thinking of playing Genealogy of the Holy War because I think it looks pretty neat, but does it have the same issue as Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem? Because I just couldn't play them, all of my characters felt exactly the same and I had no idea what anyone was supposed to be like.

[Guest]

Alright, here's a dilemma. I like Fire Emblem and am looking to play all of the games that I might enjoy. To that end I've played Binding Blade, Rekka no Ken, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, and Fates (though I'm not finished Revelations yet). Something I've noticed in playing other games is that when they don't have well developed characters with good support conversations I get bored, except in Radiant Dawn because I was already invested in the characters and the world at large, plus the plot is great. I've been thinking of playing Genealogy of the Holy War because I think it looks pretty neat, but does it have the same issue as Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem? Because I just couldn't play them, all of my characters felt exactly the same and I had no idea what anyone was supposed to be like.

Genealogy is like a half way point in the series when it comes to developing minor characters. There are multiple conversations between characters, including between paired characters that you can activate at certain points in the game. I'd say it's more fleshed out than Shadow Dragon, and a tad above Radiant Dawn but it doesn't match up to the games with full fledged support systems. In my personal experience I think a good number of characters stood out, especially in Generation 1 - so it isn't as samey as Shadow Dragon.

[Cobalt996]

Played Blazing Sword, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Haar, Awakening, and Conquest/Birthrights/Revelations. Sacred Stones and Radiant Haar were the weakest ones in my mind due to difficulty issues, although glitching Stones around definitely has its moments.

Naglfar (Lyon's S-Rank, 25-might, infinite-use Dark tome) on a Bishop. Or Nosferatu, if you want to one-round retort Dracoliches.

Blazing Sword's gotten the most playthroughs by far, if only from having it the longest and not really caring for Stones when I was younger. Then HHM became too easy ;-; (HHM Cog of Destiny, though)

Shameless user of Matthew and Balancewood, who both reliably turn out marvelously. Shame promoting either of them in HHM drops your funds rating >.>

Also an advocate of not promoting Hector in EHM. I mean, you want that funds rating, and he still easily OHKOs Light-Linus. Don't see a need to make him better.

Awakening got the most grinding, trying to beat each DLC in as few turns as possible (still grinding for Apotheosis and a few others). And lastly, Fates got... almost nothing. But the difficulty creep in Conq-L is really something that should be experience by every brave FE player. Conquest for gameplay or difficulty, Birthrights for story(?), Revelations for content.

Bit more perspective on that last bit... Corrin easily solos Birth/Rev-L, but gets brickwalled by Conq-L

[Tartar]

Wait... Awakening forces you to grind?

What happened to my precious Fire Emblem...

[Chase]

From what I think I've heard - Awakening "allows" you to grind up supports and characters between missions through skirmishes - as Fates does in the Birthright and Revelations routes.

Doing so is most likely optional then.

[Commander]

Wait... Awakening forces you to grind?

What happened to my precious Fire Emblem...

The main campaign you don't really need to grind, but in order to get all the paralogues, you probably will need to do some grinding and you will definitely need to grind to get through the second half of the dlc chapters because they are hard and you need max stat characters for many of them (especially apothesis).

[Ikaru]

Doing so is most likely optional then.

Absolutely. The main game isn't especially difficult and the only need for minmaxing really comes in when you're looking at the harder DLCs. I never finished grinding for Apotheosis but I had something like 17 stat capped units (sans str/mag on units that didn't need those) most of which having ideal skill sets and whatnot (never forget grinding out 20 different limit breaker scrolls). But for the main game none of that is required whatsoever.

I've played FE7 to 14, excluding 12 (and I do have the patch for that (and for 6)), and so far I have varying forms of appreciation for most of them except maaaaaaaybe Shadow Dragon. Not to say I didn't like it, but, as mentioned, the characters did feel pretty flat (especially when I'd already played Awakening with its focus on supports by then) and that's one of the things I look for most. I'm a lot more likely to have fun when I've got a bunch of favorite characters (looking at you, Lute and Marisa) and the only one I remember liking very well in Shadow Dragon was Catria. ... maybe Tiki. Nagi was pretty but.... she didn't matter at all?? idk.

I almost played FE4 for reasons thanks to Scarlet, but, I feel like the chapter lengths would kill me, and I can't imagine playing such an older game after everything else. It's the reason I haven't played through pokemon white 2 yet, even though I have a physical copy right here.

That said, I really like the new games for a number of reasons but interestingly enough, the game that snuck up on me and surprised me was Radiant Dawn. Obviously I needed to emulate it and my computer isn't the best, and I stopped playing at Part 4 Chapter 2 a million years ago and wasn't especially invested in it at the time. I picked it back up at that spot recently for reasons and I actually regret not having finished it at the time. This endgame is hype, and I'm still only on 4-E-4. It kind of sucks that I didn't really know how it worked and I didn't take everything from all the units I wasn't taking with me, but so far I've been making it work anyway. People complain about the support conversations in this game (or lack thereof) and they're totally justified, but in the parts I'd not finished I realised that some bosses have conversations with a surprising number of the player's units before fighting. I think Numida had a conversation with everyone I tried to attack him with, and Edward even had something to say when he tried to snipe him with his Purge tome. And [REDACTED] in 4-E-3 has conversations with units not even remotely relevant to him as far as I know (i.e. Sothe). I thought that was neat.

Of the GBA games, all two of them that I played, I definitely prefer Sacred Stones over Blazing Sword although I did like the length of Blazing Sword more than Sacred Stones' route split. I played 8 -> 7 and then started to play 6 but decided I wasn't going to play another 2D FE and jumped to Path of Radiance instead. One day I'll get back to 6.

Currently I've played through Awakening the most but I don't really think I can pick any one favorite. If I actually owned Radiant Dawn and could play it at full speed that might be different. It's probably between Awakening and Fates because I'm anime trash and like being able to associate with cute girls, sue me they're newer and are both visually and uh, the audio equivalent of "visually" - i can't think of the word right now - pleasing. People have their opinions which is fine but I feel like they've been improving in all the areas I really care about.