Which console/system do you think had the best games? Gamecube+Wii? GBA? 3DS?
For my money it's GBA, I love 7 and 8.
I did make a tier list a while back but I think I can generalize each platform's games sufficiently.
NES+SNES
NES games were obviously the start, comparatively bare bones and the series trying to find it's footing with successful ideas in both games.
The SNES games were all 3 very different games,
Mystery was more or less just a remake, Genealogy was very different with many ideas that didnt quite work
Thracia went back to a more classic approach with some interesting ideas, fuck its fog of war though, let me at least see the map.
GBA
The GBA games were all very similar with only FE8 incorporating some Gaiden mechanics with the world map and infinite grinding.
They're just pure gameplay with not much bullshit added in and what FE in my eyes should return to.
GC+WII
PoR is again just a classic FE game following the GBA standards, it fixed the support system and introduced forging.
It also introduced Laguz and while they're interesting on paper they are simply terrible as units.
Laguz are locked to 1 range and
ONE WEAPON units that can only attack half the time they exist on the map, they have no effective damage, special weapons, no cool thing only they can do.
It is absolutely baffling to me what IS was thinking with them, yeah, lets have a unit that can't do anything for half the time they fucking exist.
The only reason the Laguz Royals are any good is because they come with bonkers stats AND get to ignore being a Laguz by never having to shift, ridiculous.
Sadly its bogged down by very slow gameplay, making it a chore to replay.
RD is just all over the fucking place in very weird ways
Sometimes you wildly jump around from army to army
Sometimes you just get some broken character that can solo the map (Nailah, Tauroneo, Tibarn, Black Knight etc)
You can lose characters in the Dawn Brigade (weakest army) by having them defect to the Greil Mercenaries (strongest army)
The support system fucking blows
Some characters are literally unusable because...you only have them for 1.5 chapters before endgame (Tormod, Mordecai, Vika)
Somehow they made non-royal Laguz even worse by slashing both their exp gain AND their growths, Cats in particular have it rough cause they lose their form so quickly, I believe the only non-royal Laguz that are any amount of viable are Janaff and Ulki since they come in at almost level 30 with very beefy stats.
But still the game is good, enjoyed the story to an extent and the difficulty is just right for me, plus the BEXP system is neat.
DS
DS was just remakes of the Archanea games and while I adore Shadow Dragon its hard to deny its flaws.
It has a pretty crappy art-style but at least the gameplay was great, H4 was a great difficulty and H5 gets good after the first four chapters of slog.
New Mystery isn't really worth talking about, or at least I have not much to say about it other than Kris is the worst avatar of the series since he takes scenes away from other characters.
3DS
3DS was kind of the beginning of the end for me with the series, ironic since many say Awakening saved the series.
3DS is what I would say is the Millenial writing stage for Fire Emblem, you get a lot more quirky one note characters, the plot is rarely taken seriously with it's ironic jabs and pointing out how played out it is and of course you can marry every unit you want with your avatar character.
Awakening had shockingly terribly designed maps and even worse unit balancing, you just get a Female Robin, stick Chrom on her and have them clear the whole game while you skip enemy phase.
Fates has been talked to death about, Corrin sucks, plot sucks, units personalities suck but at least Conquest is very, very good gameplay wise.
Shadows of Valentia is a great one-time experience, great stories, great characters, great art and soundtrack, it all works so well together but uh oh...its just 1:1 using maps from Gaiden, an NES title.
Play it once but you don't need to replay it, never managed to get myself to do it anyway.
At the very least the 3DS games kept getting better, Awakening was the worst, Fates (Conquest) was better and Shadows of Valentia was the best out of the three overall.
Switch
I admit, I barely played 3H or Engage, don't have much a desire to play either of them,
3H is barely a Fire Emblem game as it is, you have this shit monastery bullshit, dating mechanics, fishing minigame, huge ass monastery map to slowly jog through to pick up bullshit to play the game...
And not much needs to be said about Engage, just what the hell were they thinking.
Overall I say the GBA games provide the best baseline FE experience, no bullshit, no waifu shit, no padding monastery bullshit- its just you go from chapter to chapter and kill dudes, nothing else.
Less is more as they say.
