I feel ya on that Manah. I can sound too negative on the new games because I'm tired of the tone that keeps being repeated and the way things pander towards weeb appeal and whatnot, but I should give credit where it's due.
Awakening has issues narratively and overall has serious causal design (I mean this in the sense that it encourages heavy grinding and every unit grows like crazy) but I do feel a need to point out its incredibly content rich as well. It's a great easygoing game to experiment with and genuinely a solid starting point in the series from a gameplay angle, it actually has a lot of love for the whole series and tried to add as many old mechanics into one large game.
Fates definitely took some risks despite it definitely being a very "beat the meat to tig ol biddies" type of "safe" marketing. It had some original ideas and did want some standing out with the very distinctive eastern and western sides. It felt like it tried to do the Pokemon thing for more a reason, adding a version that's more for challenge enthusiasts and a version more casual, but that leads to heavy criticism on both sides and criticism of how it's sold/marketed. As a long time player it was a bit watered down still, but much more old school fire emblem than awakening felt.
Echoes was a remake of as far as I'm aware not particularly popular entry. I was quite excited it was a remake of one of my favorites (which I know is a bit hypocritical because imo it has a strong argument for being one of the more casual old games). I didn't the they modernized interpretation, but I also won't be mad other people like it, and overall a lot was pretty dang faithful to the original game mechanics with some pretty solid imo additions.
3H was not my cup of tea, but I respect the ambition it had. It wanted to be a large and different game, my issue is the follow through felt like it had issues. I see plenty of signs of too many cooks in the kitchen, too much starting from the ground up and being pushed to close out without everything feeling like it was finish and finalized. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be shocked if it was a game that show too wide in scale and outgrew what the actual hands at work had been able to fully accomplish so alot was delivered under quick crunch to hit deadlines.
And engage has been the recent one to flood into the ring with a lot of "eh" response from people. I think many things hurt it, like its attempts to "appeal to old fans" causing outrage, part of which might be because it has some hard competition with good remakes like the DS ones, awakening having pretty strong tribute type stuff and the gba era having 2/3 titles being comparable to the older games. It hit a fatigue point from how the more recent games have delivered and I think people want much newer stuff in the story that has the balls to stand out but deeper refinement of older mechanics. Newer stuff can feel gimmick heavy, and the typical "unbalanced" nature of fe games is getting in a lot of ways too predictable, with the newer gimmicks often breaking the game too heavily in players favor. It tried some unique stuff, but I'd say provoking responses is what alot of that brang which caused a lot of back and forth debate in the community at large vs a overall positive reaction.
I personally want them to pull the most from 1/2/8/9-10 for story. Build a strong one direction narrative like 1, have route splits that work like 2, build it some post game like 8 and commit to progressive story like the path games. Gameplay wise I'd like to see the og ds remakes be the base, story that plays out mission to mission with lower growths than modern stat bloat and free reclassing that isn't fat grinding incentive. From there, weapon arts that echoes had could be linked more to class and weapon ranks vs items. Take a lesson from 4 and only have kids if it's tied to the story (instead of lazy multiverse stuff, just skip forward in time). Bring back capturing from 5, that shit fun af. 7 ranking system was a great feature they should revive. 8 imo had great post game, and potentially having "skirmishes" as a random chance off decisions made in the story would be cool, as well as the maps like it and two had, but it would be nice if you didn't return to a map after EVERY CHAPTER and you had times where 2-5ish chapters would play out back to back forcing more mindful resources management. 9-10 bonus exp and supports get me hard, and I prefer it's skill load system but I would hope alot of bad skills just outright get removed. And avatars are fun "build-a-bitch" units, but they really fucking suck for story. If they get a small side plot that be ok, but let them actually be in the background as a middling rank soldier, or hired hand merc with a small crew (maybe like 4-5 units that you could hire that support with each other and can be customized and hired after a main one pops into the story for gold) because they are pretty neat gameplay wise. And most of all, give me a plot focused on some not dragon stuff?
And I might be entirely alone in this thought, but please actually shift the balance around from the "solved" typical fire emblem *tm* unit balance? I know plenty of people say they "LOVE" the overly samey use of archetypes that is heavily repetitive, but I just don't like knowing what to do immediately to break a game before I touch it. Mix shit up some, make mounted units slow because they charge at enemies and really should be less capable of consecutive hits as they joust from a mount with high luck because it's hard to fatally strike someone riding a fast mount. Make knights fast and versatile because movement speed and combat speed are not the same thing, and make them prone to crits because particularly well aimed strikes do in fact help hurt people in heavy armor. Add some variety to mounts besides just horse and flying horse. I'm just looking for more to chew on or something distinctively different enough that I can't autopilot it the same as the usual fire emblem from being too familiar with what the series has already done over a dozen times.
