Fire Emblem

[Jiro]

Fire Emblem has been one of my favourite series every since the seventh one was released over here on GBA. I played the hell out of that game. Deliwood was awesome for a nervous kid, and Lyndis was a babe. Hector was a total dude too. Plenty of the other characters were great, too.

Moving towards 3D has been a bit trout in my mind, though. Part of the charm was the crazy critical moves of the 2D sprites. I know Awakening has been well received and I intend to get it one day, but I still think the 2D roots are where it shines best.

[Skyblade]

The 2D aesthetic was utterly fantastic (and the shift away from that style is one of many reasons why Shadow Dragon was AWFUL). The 3D does lack the same charm, it's true, but the charm is still present in the character portraits and brilliant dialogue.

Also, Lyndis is one of my favorite characters in gaming, and Lucina is another.

[Mercen-X]

The one on one duels have always been a turn-off to me so I have never played it.

[Ayen]

I'm a terrible person. I have never played a single Fire Emblem game.

Wait for it...

[Del Murder]

I've only played Shadow Dragon and Awakening and I loved them both. Why do you hate SD so much Skyblade?

FE is a great series. I love these tactical grid RPGs. I wish there were more of them.

[Skyblade]

I've only played Shadow Dragon and Awakening and I loved them both. Why do you hate SD so much Skyblade?

FE is a great series. I love these tactical grid RPGs. I wish there were more of them.

I could list a ton of reasons and break down a lot of little quibbles and make them seem game breaking. But, really, there's only two reasons.

The biggest reason is that the game just looks horrible. It is one of the worst looking games I can ever remember playing (certainly the worst looking handheld game since at least the GBA). They completely junked the wonderful aesthetic of the GBA games and went for... Heck, I don't even know what art style that is. The character portraits are all right, I suppose (though nothing great), but the actual character sprites (both on the map and in battles) are absolutely wretched. Call it petty to hate a game for its visuals, but I find this game almost painful to look at.

The second problem is that it was based on the original, so it lacks a lot of the charm the series developed later, and it also lacked features I liked such as Support Conversations.

Also, you should find a copy of Shining Force, Del.

[Fynn]

I have never played this series, but I know my dad got me Awakening for my nameday. I'll be seeing him this Easter, so I'll be joining you fanboys soon

[Vyk]

I think my love of Shining Force turned me off to this series as well. Which for a lot of people I know it's the opposite. The similarities made them love it more. But the aesthetic and battle mechanics were about all they had in common. The perma-death. Excessively hard difficulty. Bland and pointless characters. In Shining Force the stories seemed to matter more. But above all else, the characters mattered more. Everyone had personality. And this series seemed to have so much potential in that regard. But the few I played failed so utterly

Though, with that being said; Awakening, is freaking fantastic. The ONLY Shining Force gameplay mechanic I missed in that game, was an overworld and towns that could be traversed. The difficulty was adjustable, perma-death was optional, and all of the characters you get had their own individual personalities. They all mattered. And they even went beyond that, you could interact with everyone, make friends and bonds, and even watch as they made friends and bonds with each other. It was a phenomenal experience, and highly suggested to any Shining Force fan

But sadly, that does seem to be the one exception in the series. I can't say that I've tried them all, though. But I did try one or two on GBA, and then Shadow Dragon. And I tried patched roms from an unreleased SNES one, and an unreleased DS one. Though, the SNES was just too old for me, and I have to say Shadow Dragon probably fails for the same reason, since it's a remake (supposedly?) of the very first Fire Emblem. The unreleased DS one was pretty good, and had some similar mechanics to Awakening. But I never played the GameCube or Wii ones which seemed to be pretty well received over-all

But after Awakening, I have pretty high hopes for this series in the future

[Skyblade]

I think my love of Shining Force turned me off to this series as well. Which for a lot of people I know it's the opposite. The similarities made them love it more. But the aesthetic and battle mechanics were about all they had in common. The perma-death. Excessively hard difficulty. Bland and pointless characters. In Shining Force the stories seemed to matter more. But above all else, the characters mattered more. Everyone had personality. And this series seemed to have so much potential in that regard. But the few I played failed so utterly

The games are not easy. Honestly, if you're having that much trouble, I'd recommend grabbing a GameShark. Personally, I have absolutely no problem cheating in single-player games, especially when you're doing so to bypass parts of a game you hate to get to parts you enjoy. I cheated past all of the combat in Knights of the Old Republic just so I could enjoy the story. I really like the gameplay in Fire Emblem, but if it isn't your cup of tea, don't feel bound to it.

Though, with that being said; Awakening, is freaking fantastic. The ONLY Shining Force gameplay mechanic I missed in that game, was an overworld and towns that could be traversed. The difficulty was adjustable, perma-death was optional, and all of the characters you get had their own individual personalities. They all mattered. And they even went beyond that, you could interact with everyone, make friends and bonds, and even watch as they made friends and bonds with each other. It was a phenomenal experience, and highly suggested to any Shining Force fan

I agree on missing the overworld and towns that you could explore. That was the biggest feature that Shining Force had going for it over the other Tactical RPGs.

I disagree that this game is alone in being the ones that focused on characters. The Support system has been in every Fire Emblem that has been released in the West, and a lot of other characters in the series are a little further over the top. Your opinion is one I've heard before, and part of the reason for it seems to be the new structure to the Support systems.

See, in previous games, your Supports were limited. You got (usually) five, and those were all you could get all game. So you could only get the max rank of A Support (and get pairings/endings where applicable) with one character due to the hard limit. So a lot of people only saw a handful of the Supports. While in Awakening, you can get all Supports with every character, but only one S Rank Support and marriage (a change I absolutely adore). Because of this, more people see more of the Supports, and therefore the character quirks stand out more. But believe me, the characters in the previous games were just as strong as they are in Awakening, and a lot of them have even stronger foibles. Apart from Kellam and Tharja, I don't think there's anyone who matches the absolutely over the top absurdity of some of the cast of the older games. You don't see as much of them, so they don't seem as strong. But they are. Especially when you get to see the entire legion of subplots that only play out through Supports.

You also might simply not have gotten far enough to really experience that due to the difficulty and permadeath, though.

But sadly, that does seem to be the one exception in the series. I can't say that I've tried them all, though. But I did try one or two on GBA, and then Shadow Dragon. And I tried patched roms from an unreleased SNES one, and an unreleased DS one. Though, the SNES was just too old for me, and I have to say Shadow Dragon probably fails for the same reason, since it's a remake (supposedly?) of the very first Fire Emblem. The unreleased DS one was pretty good, and had some similar mechanics to Awakening. But I never played the GameCube or Wii ones which seemed to be pretty well received over-all

But after Awakening, I have pretty high hopes for this series in the future

My rating for the games that have actually been released in English goes Awakening, Fire Emblem (FE6, Rekka no Ken in Japan, the first US one), Path of Radiance for the GameCube, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn, Shadow Dragon.

As I said, Lyndis is one of my all time favorite characters, and her story, Supports, and character interactions were so much fun to go through. There's an entire part of her main plot that isn't even directly mentioned in the game, so a lot of people miss it, but it has a ton of heavy hints explaining it. I am so happy she came back for Awakening, I just wish it was as more than an Einherjar (though I do love that the other Einherjar from Elibe treats her like the absolute beast of a fighter that she is). I can't wait to see her again in Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem.

[maybee]

I'm a terrible person. I have never played a single Fire Emblem game.

Wait for it...

The most recent one on the 3DS is a good place to start

[Vyk]

You also might simply not have gotten far enough to really experience that due to the difficulty and permadeath, though.

Yeah, Awakening is the first one I've actually owned. And I did a LOT of research to justify that beforehand. The others I've only played through emulation or from borrowing from a friend. So without having any real financial investment or obligation, I didn't feel compelled to play them very deeply to taste test them. And nothing really against the ones that I tried, but nothing really grabbed me strong enough to play for more than a few battles for whatever reason

But thank you for the very informative post. It's nice to know the series has always had a lot of depth and Awakening wasn't just a fluke. Also nice to know they haven't just been churning out copy/paste sequels with no heart or soul like you tend to see in a lot of mobile environments and whatnot. So there's a bit of pedigree going on. I may have to re-look at one or two of them. But even barring that, it just solidifies my support for future Fire Emblem endeavors

Though I will say permadeath did bother me, and I'm not entirely sure why, because I loved it in XCOM. Made the stakes feel higher and made me want to honor the dead and try harder and whatnot. In Fire Emblem, I would just feel like a failure and feel compelled to restart a battle because of it. Which is weird, because I got the feeling that a lot of characters were just not that important. A lot of them seemed too similar. And now that I think about it, they're probably that way so that it wouldn't hurt as bad to lose one and you can choose to move on without them. So it's a catch 22 and I get bothered that either they don't have personality or that they die forever. And I'm really not sure why. But I will say difficulty alone is definitely not a problem. I'm not a sadist, but I do enjoy a good challenge. Something I never got out of either earlier Shining Force games. Though the third one could throw a few good curve balls here and there

And I'm just now getting into the Persona games for the first time, and enjoying them so much I plan on going back and enjoying other SMT games I've missed. So eventually SMT X FE will probably be on my list as well

[TrollHunter]

I havent played many FE games but the ones I have played I've played to an utterly ridiculous degree.
I've played FE rekka no ken, sacred stones, and awakening for roughly 100-300 hours each.
They're definitely not perfect games by any means but I have a soft spot in my heart for the franchise. As soon as I get some more spare time I'll play through 1-6 on emulator. Looking forward to getting my butt whooped by my poor budgeting abilities again.

I love the characters and their little conversations amongst eachother
I love the cheesy plots and writing
I love the music, oh god do I love the music.
I love all the blue hair.
and I love the permadeath.
But I don't like Lunatic+ at all.

But yeah, fire emblem is amazing.

[Skyblade]

I think the permadeath is a problem here versus XCOM because you do have a limited number of units. Each death not only saps from your current strength, but it also hurts your future potential, as you simply won't have as many options. It's especially bad since, being an RPG, characters have stats and levels, and in most of the games, you can't grind indefinitely. So losing a high level character can not only overthrow your strategies, it can leave you trying to level weaker characters you haven't used a lot before against harder and harder foes.

[Jiro]

And as tropey as most of the characters are, you don't want your favourites to kick the bucket.