Fire Emblem series

[JamusActimus]

I started with fe8 with the ambassador program then played 6 and 7 on emulator.

Then all of the games since awakening.

I legit never cared about the story because of that. It was never good , the best the games could do is mostly character writing with support but the main story and lords are always bland and mediocre beside very rare exceptions.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Imo. Awakening is the worst good fire emblem game. I don't hate it, and it functions decently as like a eugenics sandbox. The story peaks at the 1/3rd mark and that's kind of a bummer. People say the story is about people's bonds and relationships. However, I think it works better if you consider it from the point of view of being about legacy and obligation, but that's probably cope considering all the yugioh monologues Chrom and Robin subject you to.

I think Awakening is great for what it is; a tribute and intended sendoff to FE as a series. IS put a lot of heart and production value into it, and together with some really good timing on release it wound up being lightning in a bottle they've been trying to recreate/surpass for a decade and have failed every time to.

I don't think that's cope - legacies and obligations are also forms of bonds and relationships. A lot of Chrom's character arc and role in the story is driven by his obligations to Emmeryn and Lucina. It's far from a new opinion but I think Valm would have been better cut. I like Walmart but all the time and effort that was spent on Valm would have been better expanding the first and third acts and the Future Past - Say'ri stealing limelight that should have gone to Virion or Tiki because they just had to include the siblings forced to fight trope (even though they already had it with Aversa and Robin) was really disappointing.

I started with fe8 with the ambassador program then played 6 and 7 on emulator.

Then all of the games since awakening.

I legit never cared about the story because of that. It was never good , the best the games could do is mostly character writing with support but the main story and lords are always bland and mediocre beside very rare exceptions.

I don't see how one leads into the other but if you don't care about the story and think the character writing is bland, what's holding you to the series? FE has always been the weak link of SRPGs when it comes to strategy because permadeath is so restrictive, and if you just want to have a battle sim then there's a lot more options that would be better.

 

[Verdun_Salient]

Can someone explain the game to someone who has never played and which one I should do first?

 

[Vapor Sauce]

Can someone explain the game to someone who has never played and which one I should do first?

The gameplay is basically a strategy RPG, closest similarity I can think of is FF Tactics. Advance Wars is also similar but in FE you build your characters like in Tactics. Each one has a class (knight, mage, thief, archer, etc.) and you build your team based really on who you like.

I started with Path of Radiance so I would suggest that but you pretty much have to play on emulator since it's extremely expensive. FE7 (or just Fire Emblem) is another good one to start with. I'll also suggest Awakening. 3 Houses is the most popular by sales but is different in many aspects to the other games so I'm not sure how great of a starting point that is. But it is a cool game imo.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Can someone explain the game to someone who has never played and which one I should do first?

Fire Emblem is a series of mostly disconnected strategy rpgs where you play as a noble or a noble's tactician and manage the characters of their army in turn-based battles along a largely linear campaign. Most of the games have their own unique gimmick or mechanic but the staples of units having classes that determine the weapons and skills they have at their disposal for battles is almost the same throughout the entries. Don't play it looking for something like Total War where you direct whole regiments or have a map to paint.

What game you start with comes down, fundamentally, how much do you care about permadeath in a game where your units are restricted and you only get new ones at predetermined points, and whether or not you have access to an emulator or old consoles. Awakening is a great entry point into the series if don't want to be forced to play with permadeath; if you have a 3DS it's not hard to find a used copy at an affordable price, and it does a good job of introducing you to most of the mechanics and tropes you'll encounter in one form or another in the older games. If you have an emulator or Gen 6 consoles (with a generous budget) and don't mind permadeath, Path of Radiance and Sacred Stones are both great entry points for the series in terms of difficultly curve and being representative of the larger experience.

To add on to the point about Three Houses, it's a unique experience, but mechanically it might as well be a new SRPG series with the Fire Emblem label slapped over it. If you go into that as your first game you'll probably be confused when playing the others. If you have a high tolerance for atrocious writing and actually want a challenge as your jumping-in point, get Fire Emblem Fates Conquest.

 

[NerdShamer]

Can someone explain the game to someone who has never played and which one I should do first?

Anime chess that doubles as an dating simulator. May or may not cause you to become profoundly retarded if you take it seriously

 

[AWarmToiletSeat]

Can someone explain the game to someone who has never played and which one I should do first?

In order. Path of Radiance is the best game to start with, but it's prohibitively expensive to buy used so learning to use dolphin emulator is essentialy a required skill (you just download the program and the game files). Next is Fire Emblem for the GBA, also hard to find used but GBA emulation can run on a toaster. Then Awakening for the 3DS, it's a decent game with the option to turn perma-death off (but we'll judge you for it). Finally Three Houses, which I list because you can buy it at retail and it isn't terrible.

 

[Flaming Insignias]

So, I don't know what thread would be appropriate, but does anybody know of good clean places to find ROMs now that the Nintendo Ninjas got Vimm? Need to find some fresh roms for hacks.

 

[JamusActimus]

I don't see how one leads into the other but if you don't care about the story and think the character writing is bland, what's holding you to the series? FE has always been the weak link of SRPGs when it comes to strategy because permadeath is so restrictive, and if you just want to have a battle sim then there's a lot more options that would be better.

The gameplay and character customization.

What I like about the gameplay is epitomized by fates.

Birthright is the chill experience where I just relax think a little bit and build my characters. It's a bit brainless but it feels good and familiar.

Conquest is full of suffering and you feel like a true underdog. It's the only fire emblem game that made me accept perma death. The final chapter is so hard on lunatic without cheese that I felt I had to sacrifice some units.

In term of gameplay not many games have surpassed fire emblem imo. Unicorn overlord and triangle strategy managed to top fire emblem gameplay wise in some parts but fail in others.

 

[Computer God Autism]

The gameplay and character customization.

What I like about the gameplay is epitomized by fates.

Birthright is the chill experience where I just relax think a little bit and build my characters. It's a bit brainless but it feels good and familiar.

Conquest is full of suffering and you feel like a true underdog. It's the only fire emblem game that made me accept perma death. The final chapter is so hard on lunatic without cheese that I felt I had to sacrifice some units.

In term of gameplay not many games have surpassed fire emblem imo. Unicorn overlord and triangle strategy managed to top fire emblem gameplay wise in some parts but fail in others.

Fates is an outlier in customization; aside from Awakening, the only game in the series to offer a comparable freedom of customization is 3H, and it's so open ended in that game that classes are largely meaningless beyond their movement.

Conquest has great gameplay because it's the distillation of the series mechanically (the one thing it has over Awakening, really), but I wouldn't really compare it to or against Unicorn Overlord or Triangle Strategy beyond sharing the same genre. UO is more about army management while Triangle Strategy plays closer to Squeenix Tactics than FE. FE's gameplay has always been in its own niche amongst SRPGs - there's no ZoC, no morale, positioning rarely matters beyond flat terrain modifiers, AoE and statuses are used sparingly, and units are indispensable - despite FE being often referred to as anime chess, I've always felt like there's more math than chess involved.

 

[Peru oso donas]

So, I don't know what thread would be appropriate, but does anybody know of good clean places to find ROMs now that the Nintendo Ninjas got Vimm? Need to find some fresh roms for hacks.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/piracy-general.25136/

This thread has everything you would want for navigating the digital seas, but for something more specific i recommend you to check out the pinned post on the r/roms subreddit, don't judge a book by its cover, it's probably one of the better places to check now that Vimm is crippled

 

[mrs thickness]

I don't see how one leads into the other but if you don't care about the story and think the character writing is bland, what's holding you to the series? FE has always been the weak link of SRPGs when it comes to strategy because permadeath is so restrictive, and if you just want to have a battle sim then there's a lot more options that would be better.

The gameplay.

Spoiler: the gameplay

Nothing I've played in decades of experience with the genre scratches the same itch as Fire Emblem, and especially not to the level that Fates does. Most other SRPGs are just FFT where damage is semi-random and the flow of movement and combat is sluggish. Most other SRPGs are only RPGs on a grid, with little to no respect paid to the grid itself. Games with variety in map objectives or design that encourages strategic division of your army, especially to fulfill time-sensitive goals, are not common. Tactical complexity is represented in a lot of SRPGs by giving you a big list of command skills and effects on a 10x10 grid, most of which are decided and acquired in menus outside of combat and maps. Positioning in these games, when it matters, is moving your guy behind the other guy if you want to actually have hit rates. If it's an SRPG where enemies have bulk, it just turns into a repetitive and stupid looking game of kanchō tag. In a lot of these games, you're lucky if you even get to see what an enemy's %s are on their turn, let alone find any explanation of the numbers behind the finer mechanics. I've enjoyed many games like this, but have never had replays of any of them last for very long, no matter how good the story was or wasn't.

Within the context of the genre at large, Fire Emblem is snappy, has strong aesthetics, and is, critically, very dynamic both on a micro and macro level, and it accomplishes all of this while still being approachable for any retard to pick up. Not only is it dynamic, but it's immediately dynamic in a genre where, typically, player expression and unique builds aren't really going to take shape for a dozen hours or two. In Fire Emblem, small moments early on in a playthrough can have massive ripple effects on the progression of a playthrough. Important dice are constantly rolling even beyond things like 1% crits or lethal dodges. If my Roy gets three good level ups in a row, that completely changes who I want to support him with, if he gets stat boosters, and how I will use him for the next several maps. If I'm playing Awakening and one of the shiny spots on the floor drops an Eirika's Blade, that completely changes my approach to the next few maps (look that item up and remember that people still say the """"gacha"""" elements in Engage are overpowered.) Thracia is a game where you can just level up movement, or randomly sing a happy little tune and move again for free. Going back to Roy, Roy's function and his ability to perform it is different from playthrough to playthrough, and that in and of itself is my own 'story' in Fire Emblem, and what makes it's moments and characters immersive, memorable, and compelling - the presentation of a challenge and the creation of a solution, some more elegant than others, to that challenge based on the benchmarks my unique characters can reach, and this is done with zero writing or exposition. The lategame of Conquest and Engage, as dumb and corny as they are, do far more to immerse me because the game is pushing me and making me feel the distinct strengths and struggles of my characters, as well as the cracked out niggas they have to kill. Not so much when the Sigurd, Seth (critically wounded btw), and Titania blenders make a total joke out of these armies that are apparently bringing entire continents to heel offscreen. I'd say in those kinds of games the narrative and gameplay actively work against each other. I don't care what the game says, it's not what's happening when I'm pressing buttons.

Speaking of not caring what the game says, 90's-00's Fire Emblem is very unique and ahead of it's time in actually letting you skip dialogue and cutscenes, going straight from map to map if that's what you want. Which I do, because despite many sincere attempts, I have always found Fire Emblem characters to be extremely static and simple, and the stories and world to be rudimentary. The payoffs are usually underwhelming and the climaxes usually feel rushed. Some of the supports have decent writing, but the vast majority of FE characters are completely irrelevant to the story and serve no symbolic, thematic, or narrative purpose. Up until the 3DS, portraits barely even emoted. When Hector says "I'm as angry as I've ever been," or Sigurd or whoever else dies and they're sad about it, it doesn't look or feel like it because their portraits are still just like as they go "NOOOOOOOOO"

I would like to reverse the gameplayfag question to the hypothetical Fire Emblem storyfag, to whom gameplay is something that is just fluff in between story segments. What holds you to this series? What is unique about Fire Emblem stories and characters that cannot be easily found, and done better, elsewhere? What puts Fire Emblem above other medieval fantasy stories about Guy with Magic Blood and/or Magic Sword saving the day from The Militaristic Empire being manipulated by Shadow Cult and/or Dragon, with his plucky friends made on the journey? Is it the Game of Thrones-esque tragedy porn that's in, like, three games? I don't typically read or watch fantasy, but I would be truly shocked if good FE stories occupy a niche that is *anywhere* near as specific and rare as FE's niche as a game.

 

[NerdShamer]

What is unique about Fire Emblem stories and characters that cannot be easily found, and done better, elsewhere?

Outside of how many characters falls between being comic relief and nutjobs who are equally entrusted with the lives of their new co-workers, there's hardly anything unique about the series from an narrative standpoint. Mostly because everyone uses it as the gold standard against whatever else that pops up for it's 3 months of fame and subsequently dies off.

 

[Peru oso donas]

Outside of how many characters falls between being comic relief and nutjobs who are equally entrusted with the lives of their new co-workers

This is probably what i hate the most about Nu FE, how almost every character has to be an exaggerated trope and can't just be a regular person; I thought they would have learned from that when Engage came out as most of the cast save some exceptions like Bernadetta felt pretty down to earth, but Engage doubled down and almost everyone in that game seems mentally retarded. Someone mentioned earlier how Kaga's games had bland casts, but since TRS i think he managed to strike a balance of making the characters interesting while not conflicting with how their death may impact the story (Berwick's cast specifically is really good, as almost every character has their own side quest that gives them a bit of depth)

 

[JamusActimus]

Honestly you ask me to give you my top 5 favorite characters in a fire emblem game and I will take so time to even think of who I like. You ask me for my top 5 favorite units and I will tell you who I am rocking with.

I can barely remember anything interesting about most lords but I know exactly how each of them work gameplay wise.


Also If you want to see the fire emblem formula fail just look at dark deity.


The game is just not up to par gameplay wise.

Nothing works

 

[NerdShamer]

Also If you want to see the fire emblem formula fail just look at dark deity.

All I saw was that slideshow of all of the maps and the last few felt like they were trying too hard with copying the FE formula, tbh

 

[Computer God Autism]

The gameplay.

I get why some people enjoy squeezing as much as they can out of the gameplay loop's challenge and how quickly its action-consequence reactiveness can matter to their dopamine receptors, but I think you'd have to be a certain type of person to do so and not suck all the fun out of the game/genre in the process. To powerlevel slightly, a lot of Paradox games suffered from this in the mid 2010s when letsplayers would post on their forums about how x or y was overpowered because they exploited it in a fringe way to paint the entire map in so-and-so years and that made a game where maybe 2% of the playerbase got world conquest achievements too easy in their eyes.

I would like to reverse the gameplayfag question to the hypothetical Fire Emblem storyfag, to whom gameplay is something that is just fluff in between story segments. What holds you to this series? What is unique about Fire Emblem stories and characters that cannot be easily found, and done better, elsewhere? What puts Fire Emblem above other medieval fantasy stories about Guy with Magic Blood and/or Magic Sword saving the day from The Militaristic Empire being manipulated by Shadow Cult and/or Dragon, with his plucky friends made on the journey? Is it the Game of Thrones-esque tragedy porn that's in, like, three games? I don't typically read or watch fantasy, but I would be truly shocked if good FE stories occupy a niche that is *anywhere* near as specific and rare as FE's niche as a game.

I don't think there's any one thing because different people will react to and resonate with stories differently, but if I had to guess the broad whys of how people can get drawn into the writing it would come down to three things:

Spoiler

1): Interactivity. In the same way you can make a story that can hold your attention out of procedurally generated items and what numbers Roy increases on his first level up, it's pretty easy for people to make their own headcanon off of the social dynamics of the units they support or who they have kill the boss of particular levels. And the game encourages it; just like how FE's game design keeps replays mechanically interesting, there's typically more to appreciate narratively on a third or fourth playthrough when most conventional JRPGs would have contented themselves with a secret path or Easter eggs on the second playthrough, if at all. Avatar characters, even Mark, also encourage parasocialism.

2): The medium. You are absolutely correct that compared to the likes of Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time, Fire Emblem's writing does little to stand out. But Lord of the Rings was written by an Oxford philologist with the goal of making a new Anglo-Saxon national mythos, and you could read one book in the Wheel of Time every month and still not finish the series in a year. Video games have a much lower barrier to entry than serious fantasy, and due to their interactive nature are (sadly) easier to get immersed in - I'd wager that when most people are talking about comparing the writing in FE games, they're not comparing it to a possible addition to the Western Canon, they're comparing it to other RPGs, whatever was on TV at the time, or a YA fantasy novel.

3): Reductionism is not meaningful criticism. Fire Emblem is tropey, but tropes exist because humans have pattern recognition and can easily attribute meaning to them, not because stories are supposed to be reduced to their tropes in the same way combat can be reduced to numbers. I could easily reduce a classic like Don Quixote to 'senile old man has whacky misadventures and winds up back where he started' but that would be a massive disservice to the minutia and execution of that narrative. The journey tends to be more gripping for people than the premise; you might have seen a story beat in FE played out elsewhere a dozen of times, but enough people felt that IS did it well enough that they think it's still worth talking about how much of a bastard Arvis was/whether Lyon was actually possessed/how fun the Greil Mercenaries were/Dimitri-Edelgard skub x amount of years later. And a story doesn't have to be perfectly original or absurdly complex to elicit that sort of reaction; being well executed and having some soul is sufficient to get that from pretty straightforward stories.

Speaking for myself, I think the story-gameplay dichotomy in FE is a false one; I need both to be acceptable. I love Echoes' presentation and how ambitious Radiant Dawn's storyline was, but that's not going to make me suffer terror spam and absurd difficult spikes after going through them three or four times already - I'll just listen to the OST and watch the cutscenes on YT. Similarly, while Engage might have good gameplay, good Fire Emblem gameplay is not actually unique to Engage; I'm not going to subject myself to it again when I could just go to Sacred Stones, and I can only tolerate Conquest by treating it as a dark comedy.

Honestly you ask me to give you my top 5 favorite characters in a fire emblem game and I will take so time to even think of who I like. You ask me for my top 5 favorite units and I will tell you who I am rocking with.

I can barely remember anything interesting about most lords but I know exactly how each of them work gameplay wise.


Also If you want to see the fire emblem formula fail just look at dark deity.


The game is just not up to par gameplay wise.

Nothing works

I've been on an SRPG bender the past two years, and if I had to make a list of them Dark Deity would be at the bottom.

 

[Metallic Blood]

Can someone explain the game to someone who has never played and which one I should do first?

One small thing I'd like to add to the replies is to imagine Fire Emblem series like the Final Fantasy, each game has their own tropes and themes and you can always expect seeing a common thing in all entries, but all the worlds and stories are different.

And to where to start off, either FE7 (Blazing Sword) or FE8 (Sacred Stones) for GBA are my recommendations, they're are the most "Fire Emblem-esque" if that makes sense, and its also very begineer friendly imo. I never played FE9 (Path of Radiance) but people say it's the best one so you should give that a try someday.

What I like about the gameplay is epitomized by fates.

(...)

Conquest is full of suffering and you feel like a true underdog. It's the only fire emblem game that made me accept perma death. The final chapter is so hard on lunatic without cheese that I felt I had to sacrifice some units.

I will say this with all of my sincerity, while I would love seeing a FE4 remake, or even a FE6 remake, my heart knows that my true desire, while undoable, would to see a Fates remake.

I guess not necessarily a Fates remake, but a Fire Emblem with the Fates system would be just... ohhh! it would be wonderful!

Really, I guess my only nitpick is that I wish Attack Stance would be slighty buffed or Pair Up be slighty nerfed, but everything is perfect:

The character customization is the best with it requiring high investment for a high reward, or planning how to postion X unit so he can attack stance with Y unit (because they also need to build support) while Z unit is behind giving both of them a rally, which on a later turn, maybe Z unit can Pair Up to start buidling shield gauge so they can attack the Main Boss with the help of a Ninja/Maid unit to debuff said Boss, but before the green unit...

I don't think there will ever be a more well-designed map than Chapter 10 of Conquest. You're in such an extreme disavantage, but nothing of the map ever feels unfair. I usually like to go and kill Takumi before he activates his Dragon Vein, but even then, it doesn't make the map a cakewalk (curse those Oni Savages with Lunge).

I like Engage's gameplay too, but there's a clear number one victor for me, and that my friends, it's the one that they don't even give its continent a name.

 

[JamusActimus]

I've been on an SRPG bender the past two years, and if I had to make a list of them Dark Deity would be at the bottom.

I would like to see that list ngl.
The only games that managed to scratch that tactical itch for me were unicorn overlord, triangle strategy, hard west 2, gears tactics and expedition rome.

I don't think there will ever be a more well-designed map than Chapter 10 of Conquest. You're in such an extreme disavantage, but nothing of the map ever feels unfair. I usually like to go and kill Takumi before he activates his Dragon Vein, but even then, it doesn't make the map a cakewalk (curse those Oni Savages with Lunge).

Something I love about conquest is how great lunatic is. It's hard but never fully bullshit like awakening or 3h. The changes in lunatic give you new tools with the capture mechanic and the increased difficulty encourages you to have a wider and deeper army rather than a one man squad.

 

[Fellen]

I did enjoy Awakening, especially the characters. The story I never cared about that much. I haven't played 3H yet, but people enjoy it so I might give it a try at some point. Engage looks so uninteresting and considering how people talk about 3H more than Engage, I'm not going to bother with it.