Fire Emblem series

[Flaming Insignias]

One of my favourite weird one-off mechanics is the free reclassing in Shadow Dragon and its sequel. Chapter with lots of mountains and rivers? Turn your paladins into dracoknights and fly over them! Archers and ballistae everywhere? Turn them back into paladins. One of your units has bad defense? Turn them into a general for a few levels to boost their growth rates.

Multiclassing in Awakening was mostly just a grind to get the same few OP skills (Renewal, Galeforce, Sol etc) on every unit, but Shadow Dragon made it a fun tactical consideration before every battle, and weapon skill levels keep you from switching too much, unless you wanna wind up C rank in every weapon.

I'm a mixed bag on the free reclass feature, since it could easily trivialize unit viability by allowing the player to min-max, but the opposite has a similar problem. I liked the class feature of Three Houses, but making classing a question of skill ranks instead of having a set list of reclass options lead to a lot of tryhards turning the meta into “wyvern lords or bust,” and I did not like that. I just think that class changing may have been a mistake considering how inconsistent and finnicky each version is and how it prevented characters from standing on merits other than their individual growths and bases instead of things like how many members of a class and weapon type there are.

 

[Berrakh]

Someone pointed out here, I think, that the gays and bisexuals are concentrated on the Empire.

That amused me so I looked into it and yeah it’s true, given that Mercedes was born in Imperial lands.

Even funnier though is how the loyal daughters of the Empire (Edelgard, Bernadetta, and Dorothea) are the most racist girls with the fewest if any romantic supports with dark-hued guys. Petra being the closest thing to an exception (but really Irish people just look like that).

Adrestria really is the Libtard Reich and the other two are like a cuckservative and cucktarian allied front.

 

[Laughing Jackass]

I'm a mixed bag on the free reclass feature, since it could easily trivialize unit viability by allowing the player to min-max, but the opposite has a similar problem. I liked the class feature of Three Houses, but making classing a question of skill ranks instead of having a set list of reclass options lead to a lot of tryhards turning the meta into “wyvern lords or bust,” and I did not like that. I just think that class changing may have been a mistake considering how inconsistent and finnicky each version is and how it prevented characters from standing on merits other than their individual growths and bases instead of things like how many members of a class and weapon type there are.

Please don't start talking about unit feel, it's not real and just a sign of autistic OCD need to not have options and justify a lack of choice in a fucking strategy game.

Besides, I would present an idea to you that min-maxing off the theoretical strength of characters in a strategy game where unit improvement is completely random is stupid. Actually just playing responsively to how well things are going will always be consistently better.

The only thing that will make you not have min maxed spam mounts in a game is mounted units actually having some downsides. But how good mounts are is pretty exaggerated, because high move is only important of your concerned with turn count. Move and speed get exaggerated hard by a sect of the community that isn't particularly smart enough to understand the concept of depreciating returns. Speed is most valuable to classes on the lower or middling end. 90% of the time having 20 speed isn't any better than having the minimum speed needed to double, same as games that have con vs weight mechanics, con loses value if you lack heavy weapons that make it relevant, or move at all being needed if nothing sets you to any timer as turns are typically a free resource most of the time and it requires enemies being weak enough to not slow your path.

 

[NerdShamer]

Besides, I would present an idea to you that min-maxing off the theoretical strength of characters in a strategy game where unit improvement is completely random is stupid.

One thing that I've noticed about the fandom is that they're constantly arguing about ttheoreticals while hardly making any headway on them.

 

[Laughing Jackass]

One thing that I've noticed about the fandom is that they're constantly arguing about ttheoreticals while hardly making any headway on them.

As much as I wanna agree, I see the irony of it with my long winded statements on all these games lol.

I think a lot of it has to do with most people not even having solid math skills and most players exaggerating their expertise. Kinda throws off predictions and causes talking out the ass to occur a lot.

Like I can call myself an expert on fe 8, being the first game I had that has replayed it off and on for near 2 decades and both iron maned and ltced it plenty of times. I still can only guess how good syrene is because like everyone else I have rarely if ever used her. Or there is the Dunning Kruger like effect of having an assumption that gets pretty quickly proven wrong and overcorrecting far to hard. I mean, fire emblem games are built around the idea that most losses ain't a fail state. People can complain about RNG but it's got a wide enough spread and designed so typically things will rig out in your favor. Even if your oblivious to how good or bad your units are growing or starting the game having perma death be a thing means players will be shifted towards keeping their blessed units and dropping their screwed ones, same logic with resetting a lot really because you'll replay the chapter until either the player uses better strats or their units grow well enough to brute force progress.

 

[That Guy You Know]

I think I've definitely already said my piece on how I enjoy FE, but here goes again. I just enjoy this series when it feels like this open sandbox that distinguishes a playthrough from other ones. Most of the story and the ending are all the same in any playthrough, but it is the little things that distinguish how people played a game. People will end up liking different stuff, autists with Karel in FE7, people insisting Wendy is absolutely great, and character deaths can be a big shakeup in a run. It feels like a reward to continually use a character as they get stronger and you make the concentrated effort to earn supports versus nearly effortlessly getting support conversations.

Permadeath being softened and reclassing in general definitely pushed away from this dynamic, but it seems the culture of how people discussed FE has moved on, the experience I describe could still be enjoyed with newer games if you go out of your way. People right now want to play the single player game the "correct" way and do what is optimal, and aren't really forced into situations where they have to use some underdog characters which just leads to situations like Fates and Engage where people naturally use the characters that are actually relevant to cutscenes. Despite the increased player expression, how people experience the games is getting increasingly narrow in my eyes.

 

[RurkerHivemind]

Yeah. I am not the most knowledgeable Fire Emblem player especially when it comes to putting it into practical use but I kinda feel like the introduction of the Weapon Triangle in FE4 was made to further differentiate the weapon types back then. Axes were powerful but REALLY heavy and the only good Axe User was Lex due to coming with a Brave Axe due to an event.

It helped allievate the speed penalties that was crippling in the game. The swords were light and just imbalanced till you found out most the 1-2 range ones were magic-based and your physical units were better off using Javelins for ranged options. Sure your Javelins has less hit but it at least used your physical attack stats and said users were not quite as squishy as Dew or your female paladins.

Now Magic I see issues as they had a harder time justifying their weapon differences as Wind Magic for FE4 and 5 were BUSTED due to low weight. It didn't matter if Might was not as great as others as even in FE5,Constitution did not affect in mitigating speed penalties for Tomes then. The extra might and crit chance was not worth it. At least Berwick Saga tried to do better with some Magic hitting like 4 times of chip damage for one hit with mostly no fear of counterattacks.

I think the only time any Magic Type did something different was FE7 Dark Magic as each Tome had a gimmick that affected how you use your Dark Mages. Granted it was maybe heal with Nosferatu or just spam Luna. At least FE5 had Dire Thunder Users who had a Brave Thunder Tome.

I also miss various terrain affected by height as seen in Radiant Dawn. The Ledges you see where you spend more Movement to move up a ledge I loved as well as attacking from the high ground required a weapon that can 2 range or a Lance. I would love maps that had height differences that affect gameplay like that as well as movement penalizing terrain such as swamps that especially fucks over mounted units. It gave foot units a niche in some maps.

Bows have always been strange as no Fire Emblem game has came up with a perfect solution to make them viable. Sure you have bow wielding warriors especially with a x3 effectiveness against fliers in which their already high might makes it easy to one-shot even Wyvern Lord's. Gaiden added extra range for promoted bow users such as Alm and Snipers. Add that with Hunter's Volley in Shadows of Valentia that added to their offensive utility.

We had some games where there were 1-2 Range Bows but that kinda takes away from their niche of indirect damage dealers who mainly killed fliers or did chip damage. I would love some snipers or hit and run tactics be used more with bow units that is basically them playing keep away since they are squishy. Adding one extra range for snipers and some Bows other than Longbows adding range I do like as an idea but like with Project Ember it is easy to go overboard.

The Kaga Saga games found a niche as the bow lords had skills to pre-empt a foe that moves within range and shoots them down before they go beyond the effective range of the bow unit in question. Plus Berwick Saga did something interesting where due to how 0-1 range works,0 range units cannot counter against 1 range units when being attacked by them so a counterattack is not something to worry about in Player Phase.

I would also love extra side stuff and varied objectives between maps other than route and seize. Some missions had you talk with the Boss like in Fire Emblem 7 and others went a roundabout way that combined both Route and Seize and made it a lite version of an FE4 Map where you had to seize multiple castles.

I also would love modern games to go easy on the stat caps as 40 is too high and even then I think 30+ stats are a bit much at times. I would love more enemy units to have strategic uses of skills along with stats to add some variety and not Overload them with effective weapons.

I would also love the various classes to have more niches effective to them instead of just being Mounted Emblem. I love the use of Canto but I do feel that too many games tend to leave out foot units a lot. I would love for differing weapon types to also have more variety as to not just rely on Weapon Triangle to have them stand out. Axes should do a lot of damage but are a bit clumsy and heavy. So said Axe Units should come with abilities to better tank hits or counterattack to match. Maybe add as Brave Skill for a very risky Axe Unit for risk/reward. I would like Cavaliers and Mounted Units to have average stats but have decent access to just enough weapons with then focusing on Lances with their Might being affected by their movement to make use of them. But they don't really gain access to more specialized swords and the like and are limited in shields. I also forgot to mention how shields in Berwick also can help tank hits for a chance but also weighs you down. With Armor Knights having Tower Shield that are heavy but guarantees the block chance for mainly physical attacks. With the weapons and shields weighing them down,I can see Cavaliers being mostly slower than foot Units in attacks due to their load out to also make up for the huge Boon in Canto as well as the block chance of shields.

I would also love for Magic Types to have Debuff Skills for each Type would Dark Magic being able to more or less use the Megaten Debilitate Skill to utter cripple opponents when they hit thus making them very dangerous even with innaccurate and weighed down Tomes.

There is like a lot I want to add for gameplay for a Fire Emblem type game that I kinda take from Kaga's Emblems due to how very unique they are and less overplayed their formulas are. I have yet to see Thracia Fatigue or the Pursuit Critical Coefficient be used again for future games. For Fatigue they tried to bring it back but it is not punishing enough to where you need to use Jobber Insurance Units akin to an Ironman Run. I also love the Stat Insurance seen via either Bonus EXP in Radiant Dawn or Stat Bracketing in Berwick Saga. So that your units won't be left totally behind even if you get a string of shit levels. The Luck Mechanic in Berwick also changed to where your Blank Level Ups just add to a Luck Stack where 1 is used for evading cripple status and 5 to evade death.

Food Bonuses are also nice with some adding skills with the right food types used on the right units.

There is a LOT to go through and this is just the tip of the iceberg for me.

 

[Hijo de Dang Woodchucks!]

Radiant Dawn is the one game I don't get how someone can enjoy it.

I'll be 100% honest, the only reason I didn't quit on it was because I was such a PoR fanboy, I needed to finish it through to the end. And honestly? I fucking hated it. Every single nonsensical twist to railroad you into taking the dumbest shit option left me feeling like I was living an AVGN skit. Viva la resistance! ... of five chucklefucks trying to single-handedly take on the WEF Begnion Army. But wait! Hey kids it's the Black Knight! (Yay!)

But wait again, turns out everything has been a massive false flag! George Soros Senator Lekain is totally behind everything... because he just is, okay? And the only reason Ashnard rose to power was a shitty land development deal that involved... what was that again?

Blood Pacts are such a writing cop out

YES! The fucking Blood pacts! Naesala isn't really an unrepentant scumbag, he's a gud boi dat dindu noffin!! Pelleas isn't really a glue swilling retard, despite thinking Isuka, the guy that made his name experimenting on Laguz is a good person.

Ashnard was the only guy smarter than Lekain on virtue of actually wanting his entire family dead, so he just massacred anyone the blood magic didn't take out!

God fucking dammit, I hate everything involved in that fucking bullshit!

Radiant Dawn did jump around a good bit, but it's storytelling isn't horrible to follow or feel half assed in any way if you ask me, doing a good job at keeping a solid flow of story.

It's not half-assed, it's the whole ass. There are quite a lot of good elements in the story, but they are horribly executed.

 

[Laughing Jackass]

It's not half-assed, it's the whole ass. There are quite a lot of good elements in the story, but they are horribly executed.

Idk man, I've heard lots over the years about people talking about the story "flaws" but alot of that comes down to hating what was done really than standing up on any level of quality.

Stuff like people being mad they have chaos and evil/ order and good kinda of morality. It's a lot of times perspect arguing over pretty overall vague terms or being critical of the greater elements at play over personal philosophy beliefs (which is fine reason not to like it, but calling it flawed is just exaggerating things).

To kinda say my part concise as I can, people get judgy over part 4 morals as if hypocritical actions aren't real. It's like the stupid kinda kinda claims from death note fans that the MC EVADING ARREST AND COMMITING MURDER VIA UNCONVENTIONAL MEANS is somehow lawful evil. You could just as easy call them chaotic good because they are trying to avoid killing "innocent" people in vigilante fashion.

More fair complaints like people pointing out the supports are weaker are true. The game has too much jumping around for supports to work as well as the gba or prequel did narratively. Part of that discussion however is any solution requires less faction jumping. It's not exactly that RD fell on its face with supports, it's the odd structure hindered how well the characters came across. They definitely lose something with too much group hopping. Onsomble stories are difficult to balance like that, and no other games do not even bother to try much at all. RD definitely tried too hard to have things come together from too many ends.

On the blood pact... I just don't see how it's any worse than most games being driven by "lol magic man make bad things happen because crazy shit like bad things happen" or "dragon racism" or "oh no plot convient events". It's just more convenient magic shit that happens in every game, especially the new ones that are typically heavily front loaded with a ton of that shit.

Like waiting til 10 games into a series that corrupting magic is suddenly a big issue is silly, or at the very least a rather rose tinted look at things. I think people exaggerate it recontextualizing things. Sure it provides excuses but it's not like it absolves those characters from all their past actions. I'm sure some people would prefer years worth of lore dumping politics that of course was everyone's favorite shit of the prequel star wars movies, and fans of the idea would call anyone that disagrees something like that would have made the story more boring as "childish and stupid". This already is that same shit that just has some degree of actual insurance that is more of an issue to deal with. I agree it's execution could have been better, but underwritten and fucking terrible are a bit different.

I take much more issue with awakening world building garbaging being the most basic bitch multiversial garbage that fucking stains the entire series with overly convenient nonsense. That actually had long term negative effects on the writing of multiple games.

And as far as stupid choices go, I have to remember that bad magic man in 1 gives Marth the only 2 tools capable of fucking everything they caused because...? And that game doesn't have a prequel that established the major players all making pretty damn utilitarian decisions. Like you have immense amounts of groundwork pointing to how often folks involved jump to brutal tribalistic action just because they see that as the most desirable thing to do. Adding more layers to solving the problem than "just stop" or "kill the bad ones" doesn't exist to say no one is to blame, but shift what the potential solutions to the problem are.

 

[Berrakh]

…I think it’s interesting that you can say Dorothea is a thot for allegedly (very allegedly) being groomed while in the opera to no controversy, but you can’t suggest Hilda continuously acts like a thot when she’s turned on by Caspar getting into fights or tries to coax short term rewards from others.

It’s not like the appeal of Doro is living up to her pedigree despite the unfortunate circumstances she was raised in, and the appeal of Hilda is being hyperfrivolous.

I know the late Billy Kametz would agree with me tbh. That’s very important.

 

[Ben Laden]

…I think it’s interesting that you can say Dorothea is a thot for allegedly (very allegedly) being groomed while in the opera to no controversy, but you can’t suggest Hilda continuously acts like a thot when she’s turned on by Caspar getting into fights or tries to coax short term rewards from others.

It’s not like the appeal of Doro is living up to her pedigree despite the unfortunate circumstances she was raised in, and the appeal of Hilda is being hyperfrivolous.

I know the late Billy Kametz would agree with me tbh. That’s very important.

"I think it's interesting that you can say..." Who is saying this? Where are they saying this? /v/? Reddit? Certainly hasn't come up in this thread recently. In fact, every time it has, it's been because you brought it up.

Dude, come on. We get it, Doro is a queen and Hilda is a thot. That's cool, but no one else in the thread cares. No one but you wants to talk about it. You're the only person who keeps bringing it up. Let it go dude.

 

[RurkerHivemind]

"I think it's interesting that you can say..." Who is saying this? Where are they saying this? /v/? Reddit? Certainly hasn't come up in this thread recently. In fact, every time it has, it's been because you brought it up.

Dude, come on. We get it, Doro is a queen and Hilda is a thot. That's cool, but no one else in the thread cares. No one but you wants to talk about it. You're the only person who keeps bringing it up. Let it go dude.

Fire Emblem Three Houses and its consequences has been disastrous to the fandom.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

…I think it’s interesting that you can say Dorothea is a thot for allegedly (very allegedly) being groomed while in the opera to no controversy, but you can’t suggest Hilda continuously acts like a thot when she’s turned on by Caspar getting into fights or tries to coax short term rewards from others.

It’s not like the appeal of Doro is living up to her pedigree despite the unfortunate circumstances she was raised in, and the appeal of Hilda is being hyperfrivolous.

I know the late Billy Kametz would agree with me tbh. That’s very important.

I like Three Houses too but my god, why do you have to keep simping for your waifu 24/7, and I don’t think Billy would give much of a shit about agreeing with a retard defending their waifu.

 

[NerdShamer]

Fire Emblem Three Houses and its consequences has been disastrous to the fandom.

Eh, not really.

 

[Manah]

I think most people who have played Awakening onward can agree it's still very influential for the series, but I hadn't connected the dots on it's weirdest remaining influence on the series:


The dragon with a personal connection to the protagonist that could be taken out of the story and not changed much. The little dragon girl in Fates, Sothis, and Arval. Three times isn't objectively a lot but it's weird how they keep doing that same thing. Grima's connection with Robin is, imo, an underutilized part of the plot* but at least if there was no connection it would change the plot to an appreciable degree. The other three basically just explain one of the MC's powers, giving them the plot weight of the stopwatch or whatever from Echoes. I haven't played enough of Engage to say if the trend holds there, granted.


*(I know saying something that's core to the story is underutilized is kind of weird, but I think it would've been cool if they called back to Geneology a bit by having the Grimleal not be flat bad guys. Yeah the Loptyrians were The Bad Guys, but they also had valid grievences over being you know, slaughtered and banished to live in the forest. I sort of expected Chrom's father being a warmonger to come up a bit more, but it never did, which is a shame. Maybe in the inevitable remake.)

Eh, not really.

For all the complaining about Awakening/Fates/TH turning the game into Anime Waifu Emblem I feel like people don't appreciate how it basically was always that, just with a different generation of default anime style before Sword Art Online defined how that looks to a modern audience.

 

[Gravemind]

"I think it's interesting that you can say..." Who is saying this? Where are they saying this? /v/? Reddit? Certainly hasn't come up in this thread recently. In fact, every time it has, it's been because you brought it up.

Dude, come on. We get it, Doro is a queen and Hilda is a thot. That's cool, but no one else in the thread cares. No one but you wants to talk about it. You're the only person who keeps bringing it up. Let it go dude.

Fire Emblem Three Houses and its consequences has been disastrous to the fandom.

I like Three Houses too but my god, why do you have to keep simping for your waifu 24/7, and I don’t think Billy would give much of a shit about agreeing with a retard defending their waifu.

Wow, get a room for this orgy of yours.

 

[NerdShamer]

I haven't played enough of Engage to say if the trend holds there, granted

It gets taken away from you for exactly one level. But from what I've seen, hardly anyone talks about it (or actually uses it in that one scene)

For all the complaining about Awakening/Fates/TH turning the game into Anime Waifu Emblem I feel like people don't appreciate how it basically was always that, just with a different generation of default anime style before Sword Art Online defined how that looks to a modern audience.

I kind of meant that I find it entertaining to watch people try to apply politics to an work of fiction and subsequently try to defend their positions over the course of an week or two. But for some reason, it barely popped up with Engage, though

 

[Anon88]

For all the complaining about Awakening/Fates/TH turning the game into Anime Waifu Emblem I feel like people don't appreciate how it basically was always that, just with a different generation of default anime style before Sword Art Online defined how that looks to a modern audience.

There was shipping mechanics in the series all the way back to Genealogy of the Holy War. If any game is to blame for the romance stuff it's that one because it started the trend. Also Awakening's dating mechanic was based off of it.

 

[3MMA]

Never see people talking about Walhart & how he was less of a thot than Gangrel. Walhart was a great character though, despite being lumped in with thots like Hilda, when he’s remembered at all, these days.

 

[Ben Laden]

It's really strange how Cain is more of a thot than Abel but you never see people talk about it. I mean, really. Abel is happily married to Est while Cain has been just fucking and sucking everything in Arcanea. Bord, Macellan, Rickard, Ogma--all on-screen fucks Cain has and people have the GALL to act like Abel is the thot.

I just know Gordin's voice-actor in the Fire Emblem OVA, Kurt Stoll, would agree with me.