The Fire Emblem Thread

[Ent]

I'm personally hoping that Byleth is more like Mark in FE7 but that seems less and less likely as more news is revealed.

 

[Tigranes]

TBH after Awakening and Conquest I kinda want Intelligent Systems to go beyond and write an even worse story.

Well, the question is, is the anime school setting going to make their incomparably retarded writing slightly more appropriate (as opposed to a fucking royalty midget girl going around im so cute teeheehee), or will it encourage them to inflict even more writing

Everything will be OK as long as it's all fully skippable again

 

[Blaine]

TBH after Awakening and Conquest I kinda want Intelligent Systems to go beyond and write an even worse story.

It's not the fault of Intelligent Systems. They're Japanese, and almost certainly don't realize that the flabby SJWs who do the English rewrites (it's not a "translation" if you purposely alter the dialogue's substance) are now producing unreadable garbage.

New fist fighter class and dark mage are apparently gender locked to boys.

I'm sure that'll go over well with the SJWs in their English-speaking branch.

 

[Endemic]

It's not the fault of Intelligent Systems. They're Japanese, and almost certainly don't realize that the flabby SJWs who do the English rewrites (it's not a "translation" if you purposely alter the dialogue's substance) are now producing unreadable garbage.

I've seen alternate translations of the Japanese script of Fates, and it still wasn't that great. The story bias towards Hoshido was even more blatant, for one thing. The stupid unit designs/classes and overpowered avatar are entirely on IS.

The writing in FE hasn't been worthwhile since the first half of Radiant Dawn in 2007 (I don't count the FE1/3 remakes, they're just edits of scripts written in the early 90s by a different team).

 

[Delterius]

It's not the fault of Intelligent Systems. They're Japanese, and almost certainly don't realize that the flabby SJWs who do the English rewrites (it's not a "translation" if you purposely alter the dialogue's substance) are now producing unreadable garbage.

Duuude. Ya ain't seen nothing until you play Conquest. The localization is just the cherry on top.

I was never so nostalgic for killing bandits on rolling hills before.

 

[aweigh]

which is the worst-written FE with the most god-awful anime weeb garbage story? I feel like punishing myself.

 

[Duraframe300]

which is the worst-written FE with the most god-awful anime weeb garbage story? I feel like punishing myself.

As mentioned Fates: Conquest

 

[aweigh]

uwu

 

[Tigranes]

Aweigh will enjoy it

 

[deuxhero]

which is the worst-written FE with the most god-awful anime weeb garbage story? I feel like punishing myself.

As mentioned Fates: Conquest

And ironically that one has decent (not good, but playable) gameplay. The story is terrible even by the standards of Fates and sucks even if you play with the real translation.

 

[Exhuminator]

So far I have only played two Fire Emblem games. I quit one, but beat the other.

Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi (The Binding Blade AKA Sword Of Seals)
I did not beat this game when I played it a few years ago. The Binding Blade was the first Fire Emblem designed after Shouzou Kaga left Intelligent Systems. Without his input the balance certainly faltered. While Binding Blade starts out at a reasonable difficulty, about midway through this game's disdain for its player begins to shine through. Your strategies will matter little when wave after imperceptible wave of baddies constantly materialize out of nowhere to surround and focus on your weakest units. The last quarter of The Binding Blade is a nightmare of offensive enemy sorcerers attacking your troops from three screens away with status ailment spells. They will sleep your party while more and more enemies appear out of the ether to attack their slumbering carcasses. Thanks to shoddy game design such as this, legitimate strategy on behalf of the player is thrown out the window for savestate abuse, or constant mission restarts. Ultimately The Binding Blade is a game more interested in cheating the player and wasting their time, rather than offering a fair tactical challenge to be overcome by clever stratagems. 4/10

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
I did beat this one. "Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance" is a 2005 strategy roleplaying game developed by Intelligent Systems, and published by Nintendo. FEPoR was the ninth entry in the "Fire Emblem" franchise, and the first console entry released in English territories. This release follows the story of a mercenary named Ike, as he seeks revenge against the slayer of his father, as well as vying to return his homeland to its rightful ruler. As of the time of this writing, FEPoR remains a GameCube exclusive, and has become a rare and difficult to acquire title. However, its direct Wii sequel "Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn" was also released in English territories, and is considerably easier to acquire.

+Fun tactical gameplay without unnecessary complexity.
+A well written story with stellar localization.
+ Meaningful decisions affect the plot and ending.
+Skillfully painted backgrounds for the visual novel scenes.
+Impressively animated CG cutscenes.

-Cakewalk easy on Normal difficulty.
-The shopping system could've been better organized/optimized.
-The OST is a bit "paint by numbers" and needed more variety.
-Permadeath does exist here; love it or hate it.
-The ending is LONG and ignores player text speed settings.

The "Fire Emblem" series is often considered the grandfather of the SRPG genre. And you can tell the roots are old here, because the gameplay in "Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance" is dirt simple. But that doesn't mean it isn't fun. Indeed there are many memorable battles to win in FEPoR, and more than a little pathos to soak up. This has to be the bravest localization I've personally seen Nintendo pen to English, but I won't spoil anything. Just know "Path of Radiance" is a rock solid SRPG. But if you want a challenging SRPG, you'd best go beyond Normal difficulty here. Come for the permadeath, stay for the waifus. We like Ike indeed. 8/10

 

[Tigranes]

Binding Blade really isn't that masochistic. While Thracia was always going to be a hard act to follow up, I would argue that the DS Fire Emblems are a really strong mix that isn't affected by later games sometimes suffering from inferior graphics, laborious animations, inferior UI (e.g. POR/RD), and the hell-retarded story/mating/etc of the latest FEs. It's been a while, but I really don't recall BB being that crazy.

In general I think the whole point of Fire Emblem is solid, snappy, challenging gameplay where you try to get everybody through no-deaths, and that's best served in DS versions, stuff like Thracia if you can set up the fan translations etc, and of the later ones, Fates: Conquest while skipping all the cutscenes.

 

[deuxhero]

Exhuminator
I recommend trying 7/Blazing Blade/Fire Emblem. It has the same mechanics as the game before it, but is way more fair in design. I recommend either getting a completed save file (so you can play on hard mode) or the tutorial slayer patch.

 

[Ventidius]

which is the worst-written FE with the most god-awful anime weeb garbage story? I feel like punishing myself.

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest definitely has both the worst weeb-garbage story and, ironically, also some of the best - if not the best - gameplay in the franchise. Also, make sure to play it on Hard and then move on to a Lunatic run for the full experience.

 

[Kaivokz]

which is the worst-written FE with the most god-awful anime weeb garbage story? I feel like punishing myself.

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest definitely has both the worst weeb-garbage story and, ironically, also some of the best - if not the best - gameplay in the franchise. Also, make sure to play it on Hard and then move on to a Lunatic run for the full experience.

You can start on max lunatic, too. The last two fights are the only challenges that feel potentially unfair, mostly because it’s a two parter and the ideal team composition for the second battle is not the ideal composition for the first battle (plus the very final battle throws a new mechanic at you that can wipe your team if you don’t figure it out). I ended up sacrificing a bunch of people and running my main character through to the boss, which meant I didn’t get their end slides but I wasn’t too bothered.

 

[aweigh]

What about if I want to actually have a good time and play a good FE? Which one would you guys recommend? I see the GameCube and Wii ones are the most recommended, maybe?

What about the SNES ones?

 

[Ventidius]

What about if I want to actually have a good time and play a good FE? Which one would you guys recommend? I see the GameCube and Wii ones are the most recommended, maybe?

What about the SNES ones?

Well, I would say Conquest actually is a good FE, just ignore the story. In fact, I'd rank them like this myself: Conquest(3DS)>FE12(DS)>Radiant Dawn(Wii)>Path of Radiance(GCN)>Thracia 776(SNES)>FE4(SNES)>everything else.

Incidentally, those are all pretty much the hardest FE games, with the exception of 4, which is pretty easy, but fun (though YMMV on the map size). A lot of folks consider the GBA games the best, but I think they are pretty unremarkable in terms of gameplay and challenge. I suppose the fact that they were the first games a lot of people played in the West has something to do with their popularity.

Also, note that the older games lack the more extensive RPG character-building of the newer ones, including Conquest. So if this is something you enjoy from the series, that is all the more reason to give Conquest a try. Do keep in mind that Conquest takes the old-school approach that does not allow you to grind, so you have to be strategic about how you distribute exp.

 

[Tigranes]

Conquest is, in fact, a good FE if you just skip the story and mating, yes.

The GBA ones are really tight experiences, easy to emulate, and do everything pretty well.

Thracia 776 is a holy grail and FE4 is great as well, and aweigh should have no problem managing, e.g. Thracia's recently-nearly-complete-ish fan translation.
https://serenesforest.net/forums/in...ype-menu-and-script-translation-through-ch-3/

I wasn't impressed with POR/RD. Way too easy and bored me, with clunky UI to boot.

 

[aweigh]

I played a little bit of Awakening (or was it Fates?) like 2 years ago, when I was "play testing" different games on Citra, the 3DS emulator, and I enjoyed the battles well-enough.

I found the character-stacking thing annoying and dumb; mechanically it was fine, I just dind't like the concept. I can't remember if this was Awakening or Fates or Conquest, as I just played like the first 8 battles or so. I remember I got annoyed in one encounter where they teleported in extra enemy units after I'd already done a lengthy battle, without any warning or reasoning, and I decided to put it down to pick up later... but I never did.

Maybe if I had been invested in the story? That's why I asked.

EDIT: I liked the upgrade mechanic for weapons and spells. You could have a smith upgrade shit and I always like that.

 

[Ventidius]

Yes, the UI in the Tellius games is pretty bad. Odd to see them charged with being easy though, they have their flaws and they are not as hard as Conquest, FE12, and Thracia, but I wouldn't exactly place them in the low-difficulty tier of the franchise either.

 

[Ventidius]

I played a little bit of Awakening (or was it Fates?) like 2 years ago, when I was "play testing" different games on Citra, the 3DS emulator, and I enjoyed the battles well-enough.

I found the character-stacking thing annoying and dumb; mechanically it was fine, I just dind't like the concept. I can't remember if this was Awakening or Fates or Conquest, as I just played like the first 8 battles or so. I remember I got annoyed in one encounter where they teleported in extra enemy units after I'd already done a lengthy battle, without any warning or reasoning, and I decided to put it down to pick up later... but I never did.

Maybe if I had been invested in the story? That's why I asked.

EDIT: I liked the upgrade mechanic for weapons and spells. You could have a smith upgrade shit and I always like that.

Sounds like you were playing Awakening. It was infamous for its use cheesy ambushes as a substitue for proper map design. You don't have to worry about that in Conquest, it is a much harder game than Awakening, but it goes about it in a fair way, aside from a couple of gimmicky maps. The game retains the pair-up system, but de-emphasizes it, and it is no longer as OP as it was in Awakening. And yes, you get smithy upgrades in Conquest, and also the reclassing mechanic and an extensive suite of skills.

If you still think Conquest seems like it might be an excessively off-putting entry point, you can always try FE12 New Mystery of the Emblem: good challenge, especially on higher difficulties, solid story, no pair-up system, plus many of the RPG refinements of new FE (like reclassing). A very well-rounded package all in all and very representative of the franchise. It was only released in Japan, but there is a fan translation available.

 

[aweigh]

sounds gud

 

[Delterius]

Just play Fire Emblem 7 for the fun and Fire Emblem 8 for the incest. Those are pretty good entry points, while presenting the grind/nogrind dichotomy to the newcomer.

Also GBA animations =

 

[Tigranes]

Conquest normal can be played without worrying too much about the pair-up mechanics, which I also found needlessly complicated for no good reason.

And yeah, GBA games look fantastic, whereas POR/RD look like early 3D shit.

 

[Blaine]

I'm not a storyfag, but if one of a game's major features is having tens of thousands of lines of dialogue and it's all terrible, then I'm not going to play it. No story at all is fine; active repugnance isn't.

This means that the Fire Emblem series ended for me a few games ago. RIP