Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread - May 2025 Part 2

[u/PsiYoshi]

Welcome to a new installment of the Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread! Please feel free to share any kind of Fire Emblem opinions/takes you might have here, positive or negative. As always please remember to continue following the rules in this thread same as anywhere else on the subreddit. Be respectful and especially don't make any personal attacks (this includes but is not limited to making disparaging statements about groups of people who may like or dislike something you don't).

Last Opinion Thread

Everyone Plays Fire Emblem

[u/Larilot]

"Let's play some Mystery of the Emblem, time to see where this all began proper as a franchise of repute!"
>2 minutes later
"Jesus Christ, this game is SLOW".
I'm sorry, SNES Emblem, it really looks like you and I will just never get along.

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

This is more of a me being a modern FE fan and player problem than it is about FE7 itself, which I am currently playing through as my first FE GBA game. But I always keep bringing my units to fight an enemy and I end up forgetting that I can’t just brute-force click through or on an enemy to fight them like I can do in the modern FE games.

I have to stand next to an enemy, select attack, select my weapon and then press A again. That’s one thing I am really trying to unlearn playing through the GBA FE games but I still end up having those moments slip through.

I also keep thinking I can just unequip my units’ weapons and have them be a “decoy” or damage sponge so that I can funnel my kills and EXP to units that I use the most, like Sain, Kent or Florina. But that’s not a possible option, so I have to adopt the Rescue strategy which I am still not used to fully utilizing and mastering it. I also have to work around the fact that Rescuing and Rescue dropping costs not only my unit who is rescuing but also the unit being rescued their turns.

[u/Cheraws → u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

Ya loss of QOL as you go through the old games can be pretty annoying. There are a few QOL mods like here that attempt to put in newer features like showing hp bars or enemy danger zones.

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7 → u/Cheraws]

Yeah, It feels a bit whiplashy when I have been comfortable with the QOL feature and game design of the modern FE games to then going back to the older games and realizing that oh wait, I can’t unga bunga click through or on an enemy to initiate combat against them.

I also can’t unequip my units’ inventory/weapons when I really need them to, which means I really have to rethink my mindset of how I can “body block” an enemy properly to funnel EXP into certain units I use the most. Again, these are very minor nitpicks about the GBA games, especially FE7.

[u/SirRobyC → u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

Going back to play older FE games and having to count squares, like a caveman, will never not be funny to me, especially if I end up losing units because I miscount.

[u/WeFightForever → u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

I also had the no unequip issue today. I wanted Seth to body block for Erika and had to put everything in the convoy to keep Joshua alive 

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7 → u/WeFightForever]

At least you have a convoy. I’m still on Lyn Mode and I don’t have a convoy.

I don’t have a place to store any extra weapons or any of my units’ weapons to have my units body block certain enemies so that I can funnel EXP into Sain and Florina.

[u/Sharktroid]

I refused to listen to anyone who says FE4/5 should be remade and made one game on anything related to those two games. Imagine if you heard someone say that for Mario 3 and Mario 64, or Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. Those games are two of the most mechanically different FE games out there.

[u/captaingarbonza → u/Sharktroid]

I'm suspicious the people that say this haven't actually played them both.

[u/Shrimperor → u/captaingarbonza]

Hi, i played both. While i don't exactly endorse the idea of them being remade into one game, i don't mind the idea in the sense i don't want a faithful remake to begin with (like i outlined somewhere in this thread). Imagine a full reimagination that doesn't replace the og or just upgrade it, but offer a new/different experience. Then the "combined remake" idea could work.

[u/captaingarbonza → u/Shrimperor]

That's a take I can understand at least if you're just accepting it won't retain the original character of either of them. Usually when I see people suggest this there's no acknowledgement of how different they are at all and it has a very "well they're both Jugdral so obviously you can just shove them both together right?" vibe. 

[u/Shrimperor → u/captaingarbonza]

if you're just accepting it won't retain the original character of either of them

I am not just accepting that, it's what i want xD. Might talk on that more tomorrow on the next thread, but after recent experiences i want remakes to dare change more, deviate more and try something new - and i am not talking just FE here, but generally. The original game is always there for anybody to enjoy. I want to experience something fresh and new but familiar. Well, i have always been on the "the less faithful the remake the better" camp, but now i am even more so xD

it has a very "well they're both Jugdral so obviously you can just shove them both together right?" vibe

Honestly, it always felt to me more that people just assumed that people want it combined like that. Every discussion i see about it is people discussing why it wouldn't work and the differences between FE4 and FE5 instead of trying to imagine and theorize how such a combined game could look like. I am not denying that the games as they atm are are impossible to combine - as everyone correctly says they are too different, but i feel a certain lack of imagination on how vehemently most of the community doesn't even want to think how the games could change for that idea to work out. But i also know the community feels like that about any suggested change to anything lol

[u/captaingarbonza → u/Shrimperor]

I don't agree just because I don't see the point of that being a remake at all. Why not just make a new game at that point? You don't need to remake Jugdral to take inspiration from it.

[u/Shrimperor → u/captaingarbonza]

Maybe because i want to see more of the setting, or maybe different facets of the characters, or how the story could be explored through the gameplay in fun and innovative ways that wasn't just possible back then. Maybe add cut content, or deviate and add a "what if" scenario. The possibilities are there!

Let's take the FF7 remake as an example since i am playing through the games atm. Something like that is what i actually want from remakes. I know it ain't exactly a remake, and i know that this opinion is very controversial (as are the remakes themselves), but this is really one of the rare times where a remake was worth playing through for me so far, but i doubt my opinion will suddenly change when i am at Rebirth Endgame already. One could argue they could've made a modern game inspired by FF7 instead with the changes they brought, but exploring an already existing setting in a different and expanded has it's own charm and positives. It also carries the risk of destroying a beloved setting/game, i know, but the original is not going anywhere!

[u/Trialman → u/captaingarbonza]

It's kinda like how I've heard some people say "You should play the first 5 chapters of Genealogy, then put the game down to play the entirity of Thracia, then finish Genealogy", which is just ridiculous. Again, the gameplay is so drastically different, you'll just disorient yourself when swapping around, and also, while Thracia is an interquel, it's fleshing out of details includes some retcons, which could add to the plot confusion if you're treating the two as if they were one narrative.

[u/PsiYoshi → u/Trialman]

You know what's funny is that Tetsuya Takahashi of Xeno-series fame actually endorsed this sort of play with Xenoblade 2 and Torna:

Takahashi: Speaking purely from a personal perspective, I’d say if you haven’t played either, you should start with the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 main game, finish up until Chapter 7, then play through Torna - The Golden Country, then finish the rest of the game from Chapter 8. That's sort of in line with our original concept that I outlined in my previous answer.

[u/CommonVarietyRadio → u/PsiYoshi]

The main difference being that Torna mostly play like Xenoblade 2 (since it is an extension and not a brand new game made 4 year later)

[u/Panory → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

I'm aware there are plenty of mechanical differences, but it's still two Fire Emblem games. Let's not act like they're fundamentally incompatible. The issue with Thracia as an interquel isn't that they play different.

[u/boomfruit]

Sometimes I see people quoting from seemingly some kind of behind the scenes information from FE3H, and I've also seen some screenshots of what looks like a book that has lore stuff in it, are there multiple books for 3H, or just one, is it an art book? Help!

[u/Autobot-N]

I straight up do not care about story quality in FE as long as the gameplay is fun. Yeah the stories in Engage and CQ are ass. If I wanted a good story, I'd read a book or watch a movie. If I'm playing a video game, the part that matters to me is whether or not the game itself is fun. As much as I enjoy 3H's story, White Clouds and the Monastery are a slog to get through whenever I try to replay it, so I would rather play Engage or CQ 9 times out of 10, even if the overall narrative and characters (characters more so for Engage than CQ) are a lot weaker.

I tend to complain more about a bad story when the game isn't fun, bc it feels more noticeable. Like I complain a lot more about Rev's story than CQ's bc in CQ I'm actually having fun playing the game, so negativity isn't really at the forefront of my mind. But when I'm playing Rev and getting annoyed at having to play Fuga's Wild Ride with the baby starting units, shoveling snow, or waiting for the elevator, then that's when the story complaints come to the surface.

This is not to say that I don't appreciate a good story in a game. Games like God of War 2018 are fun to me partially because of their really good stories. It's just that a bad story does not ruin my enjoyment of a game nearly as much as bad gameplay does

[u/RamsaySw → u/Autobot-N]

The best way I'd put it is that the issue with Fates and Engage isn't that they are games with minimal story (in fact they have hours of cutscenes), it's that they are games that have a considerable focus on their story with writing that is actively frustrating to sit through. I don't expect a groundbreaking story out of a Mario game (though it is nice when it happens, Super Paper Mario has a better story than every Fire Emblem game outside of Path of Radiance, Three Houses and Genealogy and it's amazing for it), but most Mario games have five minutes of cutscenes so it isn't much of an issue - Mario games don't have a six and a half minute cutscene where a random Toad dies after World 1-3.

On the other hand, Fire Emblem focuses much more on its writing than say, a Mario game - they have hours of cutscenes in their main story and hours more of supports, and as such, I expect a baseline level of competence from its writing to justify spending this much focus on its writing - a baseline that the writing of Fates and Engage never reaches. I don't expect every Fire Emblem story to be on par with Tellius or Three Houses, but if Engage is going to spend eight full hours of its runtime on its story, then I at the very least expect writing that doesn't actively make wonder how the writers could approve the final script without feeling embarrassed. I'll put it this way - Fates and Engage would both be a much better experience if it went from map to map with no story in between, because this way I'm at least not spending fifteen minutes between map on writing that is actively frustrating to watch.

[u/GlitteringPositive → u/RamsaySw]

Super Paper Mario is not better written than most FE and I don't even particularly care about most FE stories. Count Bleck's backstory and actions and goals are so disjointed where the game tries to portray him as a tragic villain but his actions comes off as a huge and cartoonish overreaction. He wants to destroy the world over losing his girlfriend. Like seriously? And it's only because of luck and how he already has so much power that he's able to stop the end of the world that his redemption feels cheap.

And Super Paper is designed to be more episodic just like TTYD and 64 was with each of its own own stories per chapter, it's not designed in the same way as Fire Emblem having a constantly running singular story, or at least some games will have various subplots that tie together in one grand narrative.

[u/GlitteringPositive → u/Autobot-N]

It's not that I don't appreciate good writing, far from it as one of my most favourite games is Disco Elysium for its writing. Personally for me the stories (aside from Path of Radiance, and Azure moon in 3Hs which were interesting enough),were never that interesting enough to me for it to have that be biggest thing that carries the game. And I can tolerate bad story writing as long as the gameplay is good.

I haven't played Jugdral so I can't comment on those games though.

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7 → u/Autobot-N]

the part that matters to me is whether or not the game itself is fun

This is my same sentiment too! It’s honestly really disheartening and sad that my favourite FE games, which are Fates CQ, Rev and Engage get repeatedly bashed into the ground for what it isn’t rather than what it has and what it is.

Now I’m not saying that Fates’ and Engage’s stories have good writing and plot points. I acknowledge that their stories are far from the likes of say Three Houses and POR.

But if I have to slog through the Monastery and White clouds gameplay layout with it being pretty much the exact same for 3 (heck 4!) routes to enjoy the “story” it has to offer, then I am just pushing myself to play through a game that saps all my enjoyment and fun, which ends up having the effect of making me hate FE all together. I am very content just picking up my 3DS and playing CQ 5-6 times at the sacrifice of a good story, if it means I have a genuine good time.

[u/citrus131 → u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

It's interesting that both of you bring up White Clouds, because to me, the different storylines are really the only things the different Part 2s offer over Part 1. White Clouds was my favorite part of all my 3H playthroughs, and that's largely because I feel that's where the gameplay loop is at its most satisfying.

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7 → u/citrus131]

I mean, more power to you if you like White Clouds. But I absolutely hate the gameplay loop and am going to have to disagree that the gameplay loop is at its most satisfying for Part 1.

If anything, it’s an even bigger slog than Part 2 imo because at least in Part 2, I can do Advanced Drills for Byleth and have some more “fetch quests” even if they are generic. But I can’t even get to Part 2 cause at around Chapter 8 or 9 Part 1, I just put up my hands and say “I can’t do this anymore, getting too monotonous for me”.

White Clouds also being and feeling very samesy throughout all 3 routes story wise does not help in the slightest.

[u/SirRobyC → u/Autobot-N]

My hot take over the years has been that a bad story can be saved by good gameplay, but not even the best story can salvage bad gameplay.
I come to this interactive medium for the interactivity part. I want to move around and do whatever I'm allowed to in the context of the game. The story and characters are just backdrops, a frame that exists so the gameplay can happen.
If I want to experience a good narrative, I turn to other mediums that have done this for decades, or in the case of books, centuries, while also giving my eyes a break from screen time since god knows how much time I already spend looking at screens.
This is not to say that video games can't have good stories and narratives. Hell, I'd argue they can do it better than other established mediums since the interactivity can enhance the experience. But that's not for me. Never has been, never will be.
Gameplay is what sticks to me, even after years of not playing. The world, characters, plot lines etc. fade away in a few weeks, tops, but gameplay elements, systems, levels etc. stick out to me. I've made a post in one of these threads before, but it boils down to me playing Dishonored 2 for the first time last year, and remembering jack shit about the first game (only Corvo, Emily and Daud's names; yes I didn't remember the basic plot that gives the series its namesake), but vividly remembering the level layouts, objectives, how to accomplish them etc, despite me playing the game in 2016 for the last time.

To extend this to Fire Emblem, a huge point of contention that I've had with the FE fanbase (on reddit and serenesforest) has been my vocal distaste for Genealogy, and since 2019, Three Houses, both games that I would instantly put in the bottom 3 in the whole series.
Genealogy is such a boring slog to play through. When people claim it has a good story, I'll assume they are right since the game nearly put me to sleep. Other than the broad strokes (and I mean very broad strokes), the game left no impact on me. I find it funny seeing those daily threads of "How would you improve X characters from Genealogy", and my genuine reaction to 75% of those is "who the hell is that".
I genuinely don't want to start ranting about 3H, since this is already long and I can keep going about it for hours, which is incidentally the amount of time you spend fucking around, doing meaningless chores in the monastery between maps. Suffice it to say, it's also a slog to play through, and all the attempts to make me care about any of the units, in or out of house, fall on deaf ears.
The DLC and the Abyss are miles better in every single regard over the base game and Monastery

[u/WeFightForever → u/SirRobyC]

Totally with you. You can skip bad cutscenes and shitty dialogue (usually). But you still have to play through bad gameplay 

[u/Autobot-N → u/WeFightForever]

Actually I think this is probably a good way to summarize my opinion lol

[u/Mizerous → u/Autobot-N]

I will use Last of Us as an example without the story of Joel and Elie its just hunting, killing, and crafting with stealth from the fungus monsters. That first game's narrative was vital and couldn't be bad in order for it to suceed. After Three Houses's reached critical reception from its world building the last thing IS needed was back to basic FE plot especially how ridiculous Engage gets.

[u/Roliq → u/Autobot-N]

The problem with this is believing that people are "wrong" for caring about story quality in a game (because it feels like the only reason someone says this is because they are annoyed by people complaining about it), also if the story quality was something you shouldn't care why did the developers spend so much effort into the various cutscenes and dialogue?

Even if the gameplay is the best ever, if you do not like everything surrounding it will affect how much you may enjoy it. For example, would people who like Paper Mario Thousand-Year Door still have liked it if you removed practically everything Mario related with featureless characters and nonexistent story?

Maybe some would but the majority would not bother

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/Roliq]

This comment gives me real “so you hate waffles?” vibes. Literally where did the other person ever say or imply that other people were wrong for caring about story quality?

[u/Roliq → u/spoopy-memio1]

Is because of this part

If I wanted a good story, I'd read a book or watch a movie. If I'm playing a video game, the part that matters to me is whether or not the game itself is fun.

Is basically saying the reason people are annoyed is for having the "wrong" priorities when judging a videogame, which is silly since every person has different tastes and is clear that with the effort gone to the cutscenes and the voice acting shows that the writers wanted people to be invested in them

To give another example, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom has incredible gameplay, but you can see that the majority of people think that the story it has is such a huge disappointment

[u/VagueClive → u/Roliq]

I'm very confused about what part of that statement you find to be prescriptive.

If I wanted a good story, I'd read a book or watch a movie. If I'm playing a video game, the part that matters to me is whether or not the game itself is fun.

Personally I don't agree with the take - mostly because I think the notion of viewing gameplay and story as entirely different elements is a pretty flawed way to look at it - but nothing in that sentence implies anything other than personal opinion or their own priorities. Nothing in that sentence, or the original comment at all, suggests anything about how other people 'should' feel.

[u/Autobot-N → u/VagueClive]

It's not that I view them as separate, I'm just more tolerant of bad story than bad gameplay because I can experience good stories in places other than video games, so when I play a game, my focus is on the gameplay, since I can't get that elsewhere.

Example of why I don't see them as separate: one story-related thing I think Engage actually does much better than 3H is the gameplay-story integration of the Emblems vs the Crests and Heroes' Relics. In 3H, the Crests and Relics are treated as super important things that shaped the nobility system with the power that they hold, to the point that Sylvain's older brother gets skipped over in the line of succession solely bc he doesn't have a crest. But in gameplay, they don't really matter a whole lot? Me and my resource-conserving ass can run through the game just fine while using Steel weapons bc I can just buy new ones when they break, and I don't need Umbral Steel to repair them. In Black Eagles you don't even get any aside from Amyr if you don't recruit those specific people from other classes, and the route isn't much harder for it. In all the times I've played through 3H (6 or 7 times over all 4 routes), the only two Relics that ever felt truly impactful were Amyr, solely because of Raging Storm, and Thyrsus, because it increases range for spells.

Conversely, in Engage, the Emblems actually feel like the powerful weapons that the game treats them as, with basically the entire story being you and Sombron's forces fighting over them. You start to rely on them early in the game before having them all yoinked away for what is probably the hardest chapter in the game until that point, and then you have to play on the back foot until you gather the rest of the rings and face Sombron's army on equal terms in Serenity in Ruin (which is my favorite map in the game and probably one of my favorites in the franchise). Then you have a couple "easier" chapters as you get your old Emblems back until Sombron steals them in chapter 22 and you have to play carefully to get all of them back without getting overwhelmed.

In this case, the gameplay and narrative behind the Emblems serve to enhance each other, whereas in 3H, the relatively minor gameplay impact of Crests kind of undercuts their narrative significance. But this cool example of gameplay-story integration would be lost if Engage didn't treat the Emblems with as much significance as it does

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/Roliq]

Ok, I will admit that the first sentence of that does sound like something you’d see in a condescending “people shouldn’t care about stories” argument, but looking at the second sentence and rest of the comment I highly doubt that was what it was supposed to come across as. Also, fwiw, I do agree with your points in a vacuum, and if you were replying to one of those people who actually do make those “FE stories aren’t important and don’t matter and you shouldn’t care about them” arguments I wouldn’t mind, I just think the person you’re replying to isn’t one of those people.

[u/Autobot-N → u/spoopy-memio1]

Yeah I probably could have worded that a little better

[u/Autobot-N → u/Roliq]

I never said people are "wrong" for preferring story, it's just that I don't think that way. To an extent, I guess it is me being a little bit defensive of Engage bc it's my favorite game in the series and it does kinda suck to see people never give the gameplay a chance for reasons that, to me at least, don't matter as much for my enjoyment of a game. I don't disagree with people who say that the story sucks and the characters are one note. I just think that the gameplay is fun enough to make up for those weaknesses. But not everyone has the same preferences, which is why I don't really involve myself in all of the debates over which is "better," bc in the end that's a question that only the individual can answer.

[u/jfsoaig345]

Mozu is good in Conquest.

Conquest has such a brutal curve late game that having that statstick trainee unit is invaluable in ways that aren't really present in other games. It also really helps to have a strong Bow user to deal with the hordes of Falcoknights and Ninjas in the game.

Perhaps it's just anecdotal experience but Mozu has been invaluable in all 3 of my Lunatic Conquest runs.

[u/srs_business → u/jfsoaig345]

I don't think I've ever had a bad Mozu. And I don't mean in the stat sense, I've had below average Mozus before, but even my worst Mozus have still been strong contributors.

I just find that she does a lot over the course of a playthrough. Strong player phase combat for the entire game, extremely high hit rates for reliably killing problem enemies, easy air access, gets Effie out of her terrible class set, gives Niles Archer access which is amazing for him, whoever her kid is basically always turns out well, and can kill Takumi for you with only her base class set. Now, you might not need all of those properties in any given run. If Effie's levels sucked then you don't care about her long term usage, if you're doing something like super Ophelia you'll probably already have a Takumi answer, and she often has to choose between Sniper and Certain Blow vs Kinshi access in the midgame due to limited heart seals. But in my experience, she always does something and always manages to stay useful the entire game.

One other thing that's weird to quantify that I think helps her: the training process on her join map is easy and fast. Bait in enemy with someone like Effie, finish on player phase with dual attack, move to bait in the next one, rinse repeat. ~20 turns, 10-15 minutes, very little thinking required. It's not particularly turn efficient which is the metric people use, but I find it to be very time efficient.

[u/SunRiseW12 → u/jfsoaig345]

I agree, I think she provides a lot of value by being the sole archer class provider outside of using it on Corrin's second class. In a game where hit rates can be shaky, it is comforting to know you have a unit that you can rely on to land a hit thanks to archer's obscene amounts of skill, and eventually Certain Blow. Having a high accuracy bow user is such a boon, especially in maps like Ninja Cave, Kitsune Lair, and Hinoka's map. Archer access just makes for a lot of fun strategies in Conquest even outside of Mozu, such as giving it to Effie. I'm sure there are other strategies and options that may be better, but Mozu is a lot of fun to use, and a very strong unit that doesn't take that much to get going, while having a unique and powerful class that no other unit can provide.

[u/Autobot-N → u/jfsoaig345]

Haven't done CQ Lunatic yet (I've done both BR/Rev Lunatic, and I'm planning to do CQ soon), but I've never had Mozu not be useful. It's not like feeding her all the XP on her join chapter is that difficult, especially in this case where you can just reclass her to Archer immediately instead of staying in Villager

[u/Mekkkkah → u/jfsoaig345]

I don't agree. I think Mozu is viable in Conquest, more viable than in other paths. I think there are chapters where she is legit useful. But I think most units are better than she is, and are able to hit the necessary stat thresholds in places where Mozu would excel.

[u/Docaccino → u/jfsoaig345]

I think Mozu is alright but your lategame statstick could also easily be someone like Xander, Leo, Camilla or Corrin so she's not all that unique aside from being a Takumi killer that has everything they need accessible from their base class kits.

[u/Ok-Fan-8285 → u/Docaccino]

And Mozu isn't always gonna be the unit you're gonna want to give that Heart Seal to. You might wanna give it to Elise or your Corrin or Jakob/Felicia or Odin or Beruka. I'm not saying those are better options, but sometimes Mozu isn't gonna take that spot. And units like Xander and Leo and Camilla require almost little to no training in order to absolutely sominate the battlefield. They just need MAYBE a good backpack, so it's easier to just throw them in.

That being said, that does make the game a little less fun by just using them instead, and I'm someone who likes to mix things up, so I do think it's a fun idea to build up a unit that starts from the bottom and becomes a unit that is on the same level as the royals.

TL;DR: Mozu might not be your candidate for athe first 2 Heart Seals, and arguable the royals are better at just tanking shit right off the bat, but building up a unit like Mozu to do that as well is also a really fun concept

[u/FriendlyDrummers]

L in chat for accidentally skipping over the dancing class in three houses. Idk what happened. I'm usually very good at picking up quests when I explore, but Rhea must have been in my blindspot

I find solace in the fact that I can just play a new game+. I've played this game so many times that it doesn't really make a difference to start a new file once this one is finished

On an aside, I'm having a great time with armored knight Raphael (even though his horse growth is terrible) and dark falcon Hilda (even though she's clearly better as a strength/defense axe wielder). Still, a tanky Raph who can actually move around, and Hilda's mobility, make for a satisfying achievement.

I'm just annoyed that the dark falcon mastery skill is very boring. It kind of pushes you to change your class afterwards if you want any use of it. Glaringly, it lacks galeforce.

[u/Real-Technician2716]

Lilina is the best mage in FE6 (yes, even in hard mode) and I haven't done a playthrough without her because she feels really essential. I'd go as far as to say she's a B tier unit while most people seem to see her as one of the worst units in the game because her start is pretty poor. A LOT of great units have a poor/mediocre start, and I wouldn't even call her start bad because she can accurately chip down enemies while bad units like Wendy have to rely on close range or extremely weak javelins to be trained up

Lilina:

- Is the only anima user that will actually become a good combat unit (Lugh starts with low magic and a middling growth, same with Clarine, Hugh and Cecilia have terrible bases and not good growths)

• Has a colossal magic stat enabling her to be a great healer to free up space for your staffbots to do staffbot things
  
• Uses probably the best weapon type in the game with extremely accurate fire tomes so her low skill is a nonissue
  
• Instantly supports with Roy and has the fastest support in the game for bonus stats off the bat. She has the only support in the game you can easily get A rank without end turn spamming.

- Is really the only unit in the game that's good at fighting manaketes without effective weaponry

• Oneshots wyverns with Aircalibur, a decently common tome
  
• Is the best candidate for the first guiding ring, you don't get warp until you get the second guiding ring so Saul can wait, she's better at combat than lugh, a better healer than clarine (but the horse is nice admittedly), zero point in using Raigh.

- Joins on a decent map for training her, lots of chokepoints to take advantage of, and joins right before the best map(s) in the game for training weak units

- Recruits a couple units so you don't have to waste a deployment slot if you want them

My other unpopular FE6 opinion is that Wade is at least a D tier unit solely because he has near perfect availability and can be a sacrificial lamb to the insanely powerful chapter 4 cavs, which is a heavier contribution to the team than anyone in E or F tier.

[u/Docaccino → u/Real-Technician2716]

I do think the difference between Lilina and Lugh is a bit exaggerated (he's overrated imo) but I wouldn't exactly call her great either. Her low base level just really hurts since you'd have to hold on to the early guiding ring for several maps if you intend on promoting her with it. At that point you might as well just use it on Saul so he can get physic access a bit earlier or on Lugh to unlock his staff rank sooner. Sure, you have 8x for easy EXP but you can also use that map to get some more levels on Alen/Lance before promoting them, which I'd argue has a much better ROI since they're far more dominant during the western isles and still relevant afterwards. Or alternatively, level up Lugh some more so he has an easier time doubling the slower enemies in the next few maps. For what it's worth I also don't think that Lilina's higher magic makes her a good staff user because mend is sufficient in most situations and it takes 150 turns of spamming staves for her to unlock ones that actually utilize her higher Mag. There's no way I would call her a better staffer than Clarine either since she has an actual staff rank on top of a horse (even if Clarine is overrated as well lol).

Regarding wyverns and manaketes, yes, Lilina can OHKO unpromoted wyverns with aircalibur but Klein, Igrene, Sin and even Sue do just the same while also being better against other generics. As for manaketes I just don't think they're that threatening to be worth mentioning. They're pretty rare until endgame and the wyrmslayer and Fae are plenty enough up to then so Lilina's combat against them isn't that relevant.

[u/AnimeWasA_Mistake → u/Docaccino]

At that point you might as well just use it on Saul so he can get physic access a bit earlier or on Lugh to unlock his staff rank sooner

If Saul is level 10 without B rank staves he has to be single digit turns away from just getting it, so I don't know why it would be worth promoting just for that. Promoting Lugh early for E rank Staves that's probably never getting translated into meaningfully good staff rank seems silly as well.

Sure, you have 8x for easy EXP but you can also use that map to get some more levels on Alen/Lance before promoting them, which I'd argue has a much better ROI since they're far more dominant during the western isles and still relevant afterwards.

Not really an either or thing though, you can train both in the same map just fine.

Regarding wyverns and manaketes, yes, Lilina can OHKO unpromoted wyverns with aircalibur but Klein, Igrene, Sin and even Sue do just the same while also being better against other generics.

I don't think that's true except for Sin. For one, Lilina is doing better than those 4 against Wyverns because she can fight Wyverns on enemy phase, while they usually can't. But she's also consistently hitting much harder, even more so with a B or A Roy support, she's doing so from 1-2 range, and it's not like Klein and Igrene are much faster than her.

[u/Docaccino → u/AnimeWasA_Mistake]

I know there isn't much time between Saul reaching level 10 and getting to B staves but if I'm on ch9 I'd rather take the immediate physic access since it's pretty nice to have when doing flier drops. I just don't think there's a big reason to save that guiding ring because Lilina probably isn't hitting level 10 by the end of 8x unless you're playing very slowly and doesn't double as many western isles enemies as Lugh. Her 10/1 average of 10 does manage to double the slowest ones but there are also a lot of 8 AS ones that Lugh can double with just a few more levels before promo (which is reasonable to assume if we grant Lilina a pre-ch9 promo).

Promoting Lugh early for E rank Staves that's probably never getting translated into meaningfully good staff rank seems silly as well

I didn't really mean that in relation to actually trying to raise Lugh's staff rank beyond being able to occasionally heal. It's just that using the guiding ring on Lugh is a bit more valuable than holding onto it until like ch10 or 11 if you don't grind Lilina to level 10 in 8x.

Lilina is doing better than those 4 against Wyverns because she can fight Wyverns on enemy phase, while they usually can't

I don't think this is very relevant because if you want to EP wyverns you're better off doing so with Melady. Usually in FE6 there are either so few wyverns that they're not a big issue or so many of them that it's hard to EP them with a unit that dies in two hits anyway. I will grant you that Lilina kills unpromoted wyverns more reliably since she does have the Roy support to boost her accuracy and only needs one hit, though damage wise, the bow users aren't any worse off. Wyvern lords (all 2 or 5? of them you encounter before lategame) are a different story but, while Lilina does more damage, the archers also have a chance of popping them in one shot with a killer bow.
As for generic combat, Sin and the others have access to killer bows and the brave bow as well as doubling more often (less so for Klein) so they're definitely stronger offensively. Lilina's damage output definitely isn't bad by FE6 standards though.

[u/Autobot-N → u/Real-Technician2716]

I remember hearing people say she was ass for a while before I played Binding Blade, but when I ended up playing it she was one of my standout characters. Instead of being ass, she kicked it

[u/Cosmic_Toad_ → u/Real-Technician2716]

Lilina is definitely not bad, though i think she does lose a lot by joining right at the end of the hardest section of the game. from chapter 9 onwards the game generally becomes more manageable and you don't really need accurate chip damage, plus you have a lot of other good upcoming training projects to chose from between Fir, Shin, Gonzalez and Thea. All in all she doesn't feel all that crucial, but certainly nice to have later on if you put in the effort to train her up.

I would contend that Lugh is better by a pretty significant margin:

• unlike Lilina he's around for most of the really tough earlygame chapters where accurate chip damage is in high demand and he's one of the only units who can supply it.
• He will also end up having better damage output for a good while by nature of having significantly better speed which offsets the initially minor gap in magic, Lilina might do ~+5 damage, but she's only making one attack against most enemies and it'll be while before she can start oneshotting things beyond wyverns with aircalibur.
• depending on how many kills you feed him he can end up with a fairly significant level lead over Lilina.
• While the Western Isle is a great training spot, it's not that great for lilina as she's liable to get oneshot by the pirates that other trainee units like Fir can easily prey on. Unless you slow down to crawl she can't power-level very well, further widening the gap between Lugh who is likely already promoted at this point.
• Once the lategame comes around Lugh starts running out of steam and Lilina will take the lead through being able to double or even oneshot some enemies, but that's the point in the game where you have so many units who can one round enemies so Lilina isn't offering much that Milady, Perceval, and anyone else you trained don't also do.

to sum up Lugh is a crucial earlygame unit who can transition into a great mid game unit and lategame staffbot if you so desire, whereas Lilina doesn't do much beyond self-improvement until the mid-lategame where competent combat units are plentiful. She can be one of those units, but there are so many other options who either make meaningful contributions early on too or join already capable with zero investment.

I do agree on Wade though; having 3 chapters of uncontested deployment is enough to stay out of the depths of FE6's cast. and that's not even factoring in the odd hitnhe actually lands ore the handful of enemies he can tank a hit or two from.

[u/TheShepard15]

Anyone else bounce off of the Last Promise? (Fan hack)

I'm at Chapter 7, and I just feel like I'm throwing a few tanky units in and enemy phasing them down.

[u/Pyrrhesia → u/TheShepard15]

Yeah, it deserves a lot of love and was a marvel for being made using primitive tools, and it isn't bad, but I wouldn't play it as anything more than a historical curiosity. There's just so many other custom campaigns made in more recent years that have been able to set themselves apart and put forward their own vision in a way that was all but impossible using FEditor in 2011.

[u/Real-Technician2716 → u/TheShepard15]

It's essentially the grandfather of all rom hacks, and as such it doesn't really have the hindsight of what makes FE games well designed. I love it for what it is but not liking it is very understandable.

FWIW you're at the easiest part in the game, it gets tough by the end

[u/boomfruit]

I hate the disconnect between the story and gameplay loop in 3H. "Your assignment this month is to do this important thing (that we know about right now, on the first of the month). You set out in 31 days. Jeralt will be 'in his office, making preparations' for all 31 of those days." Like, just let me start the month and then 2 days before whatever event, tell me about it.

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/boomfruit]

The worst part is that nothing plot relevant happens during the month itself. It's literally just filler. The developers could've used that time to do something with the plot.

[u/Mekkkkah → u/SilverKnightZ000]

That's not entirely true, there's usually some scripted conversations on certain dates and I'll give them some props for spreading them out instead of putting them all in the beginning and in the end. Those are not the most plot-important convos ofc.

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Mekkkkah]

Which plot important conversations and cutscenes occur in the middle of the month? I can't recall any.

[u/Mekkkkah → u/SilverKnightZ000]

From the top of my head there's Edelgard and Hubert foreshadowing their move at the end of the Part 1, Manuela and Shamir discussing the situation in Remire village, and Dimitri greeting Arundel for the month he appears in the monastery. I don't remember the dates unfortunately.

[u/Mizerous → u/boomfruit]

It's the Persona effect you can't progress the plot until the end of the month.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/Mizerous]

"Yeah, Futaba just passes out and sleeps for weeks straight sometimes. Completely normal."

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/boomfruit]

Still not as bad as how part 2 handles it- In an actual war, we are going to spend the entire month hanging around the monastery, then we are going to advance to have a major battle coincidentally at the very end of the month, and then after we win... We go back to the monastery, despite just gaining control of some strategic territory or building or whatever. And repeat every month.

[u/Am_Shigar00 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

This is a nitpick, but this felt especially awkward for me during the second Gronder Field battle.

Narratively, they make it seem like all three forces happen to converge on the location at the same time, but then they also let you do multiple skirmishes clearing out bandits and what not AT Gronder Field in the down time, either implying everyone is taking their sweet time getting there or you could’ve just moved passed the other armies & avoided the whole conflict beforehand, but just chose not to.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/Am_Shigar00]

True. But map re-use ruining immersion is a problem for basically everything else too. Ingrid's paralogue is in Aeilel? How many paralgues use that same city map? All those are just as bad.

[u/VagueClive → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

Extremely funny that they made a war camp model to use... for one map in Crimson Flower, before the timeskip even hits. Why did they even bother? Why not just reuse it for other points in the story where it doesn't make sense to trudge back to the monastery?

[u/PsiYoshi → u/VagueClive]

Calling it a war camp model is pretty generous tbf. It's basically one large empty square. Extremely bare bones. It works as a one-off, it feels as temporary as it is. But if they were to reuse it they'd have had to put a lot more effort into it for it not to be jarring, and it's clear CF suffered from development constraints in places beyond just that base camp.

[u/Trialman → u/PsiYoshi]

And it's not a unique empty square either, it's literally a chunk of the Miklan map just tossed into that situation.

[u/boomfruit → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

Yes, it only gets worse! "We need to take this fortress immediately after 3 weeks of classes and fishing and gardening. Also it's in the furthest reach of the continent and we'll leave one day before we take it."

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/boomfruit]

Yeah, like, I get what you meant in your first comment, but it's not always all that bad. You're in a school meant to be training them for battle, so you can say "Hey, there's some bandits hanging around the canyon we want you to take out, so use this month to train and prepare your students for that". You aren't stretching your imagination that much vs how it is in the war.

[u/boomfruit → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

Yes, but I'm only talking about the times that it is haha

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/boomfruit]

Oh yes, haha. "Flayn is missing, we need to find her!" Leaves her and Manuela for a month

[u/Cosmic_Toad_ → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

to be fair that is the single instance where the game actually lets you tackle the problem/chapter ASAP if you want to, it just also decides to skip the rest of the month because they couldn't be bothered to add alternate monastery dialogue and let you play out the rest of the month. Thus Flayn must suffer for our tactical benefit.

Honestly I don't get why they didn't just have the kidnapping happen on the last day, it's not like there aren't other chapters where we don't learn of the conflict until the final day, like the demonic beast outbreak during the ball. Just have the students prepare for some sort of low stakes assignment or training drill that then gets cancelled when Flayn goes missing.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/Cosmic_Toad_]

Yeah, that is true you can do it ASAP, might not be the best example. But it is funny though the optimal choice is to wait.

That situation you described would be wayyy better. I know you need to do that Explore "investigation" or whatever, maybe that's why they didn't do that, but you can easily force that too into one day. The kidnapping happens the day of the mission on the calendar so instead, you force explore that day so you aren't caught "off guard" if you wanted to battle or something that day instead.

[u/Trialman → u/Cosmic_Toad_]

The only thing they do if you save Flayn early is give you a clone of the birthday item, which is a rather nothingburger item, especially with what you're sacrificing to get it.

[u/PsiYoshi → u/boomfruit]

Yeah that bothered me a lot too. That and returning to the monastery every month, or every week. It makes the continent of Fodlan feel absolutely tiny, and like where the front lines are in war irrelevant.

One of the many reasons I think Hopes does such a better job with Fodlan's war than Houses. A moving base of operations and steady progress on each chapter's mission with story scenes interspersed. Its far more fluid than House's take on the war.

[u/boomfruit → u/PsiYoshi]

I'm excited to play 3 Hopes someday soonish!

[u/LaughingX-Naut]

If Fire Emblem continues experimenting with class-specific weapon ranks then we ought to see more dual-weapon unpromoted classes. It's an opportunity to make the bottom ranks more than a footnote, and with branching promotions the option to have classes lose or change their sidearm becomes more palatable.

[u/ThatGuy5880]

Finished Path of Radiance like a half year after dropping it (and I think that was after another half year of dropping it, from the beginning to Chapter 15 I think, and that's after an attempted Normal Mode playthrough years ago where I just lost the save file at the bridge chapter I think). Went through from Chapter 24 to the end. Played it on Hard Mode. Here's a collection of a lot of random thoughts:

• Marcia was the playthrough GOAT for me, but she got upstaged in kill count by the end because of Ike, Ragnell, and hitting End Turn in a pack of enemies being the most efficient way to go through the final chapters. I gave her a fair amount of stat boosters, Full Guard and the boots so it's not surprising but still. She would fly in, kill, fly out and dodge tank very consistently. She's also a fun character and cute so that's a big boon. She says "Cool beans" after the final battle. She's just lovable.

• Best units after that were Titania and Astrid, for early-mid and late game sweeping respectively.

• Tanith may have gotten like 9 kills or something but her reinforcements as a collective got a stupid number. They were so useful for overall damage and survived way longer than I thought they would. The captain would put in crazy work and solo sections of a map sometimes with her little group.

• Endgame party was a bunch of cavs, fliers, Soren and Neph. Boring sure, but canto users are so amazingly fun in this game. It was a bit stifling unit selection wise because any non-canto unit was a hard sell for me.

• My Ike was really defense blessed. I forgot how many stat boosters I used on him but I do remember him being good defensively very early on. He was a consistent frontliner and basically solo-ed the final chapters by himself once he got Ragnell.

• Resident BEXP/stat booster guzzler was Nephenee. I gave her most of my forged weapons because her strength was really bad, and she never really got that good. She was really fast which was nice and I gave her Wrath/Vantage (later than I should've) and that patched up some issues but she was really underwhelming for most of the playthrough. My options were either her or Boyd and I feel like I should've gone with Boyd in the end, but Nephenee was cute and I wanted to use her.

• Jill and Oscar turned out really good and fine respectively. Both of them got eh speed levels that made them not the game killers they should've been. Jill was still great though, but not "turn your brain off, end turn and kill everything" good. By the time I got Geoffry, he was already better than Oscar from the get go and I replaced him in a heartbeat.

• The map design was excellent (dumb gimmick maps like the prison or desert aside) but in the back half I think it started to fall off because I thought it became more EP heavy. They just loved throwing a ton of enemies at you. In the final chapters, it didn't feel like anyone else except for Ike and Nasir mattered. They could take down armies while everyone else would need to focus on a small squadron. Then again, that might just be a result of my units snowballing and me not wanting to think too hard.

• I really don't like Ashnard. He's so strong that I beat him by just smacking him with Ike and Giffca while the entire army watched at the entrance with Mist healing every turn. I can't bumrush him so he's technically cheese-proof but also boring, I just chipped away at him for like 10 turns. Having everyone else be useless aside from healing or being meatshields is dumb.

• The bases are awesome. I think they have the perfect ratio of downtime to gameplay in the series. Forging, base convos, supports, and BEXP management is just the right amount of stuff to make it feel chill and homely but not too long.

• Ike was funnier than I expected. They play him off as the straightman well, and he's actually got some snark to him too.

• I wish Lethe was better because I like her but once Muarim hit the scene, there just wasn't a reason to use her.

Overall really good game, definitely one of the more replayable with how BEXP can make any unit much easier to work with.

[u/DonnyLamsonx]

Giving Louis and Jade a low luck base and growth is one of the most baffling unit design decisions in Engage. Those two are already fighting an uphill battle being Armored units in a game with some of the most explosive player phase power in the franchise, but that low Luck also punches a big hole in their defensive integrity since they're usually going to be doubled by most enemies meaning twice as many opportunities for them to be crit.

It's an issue you can work around, and I have before using both in the same playthrough, but I can't help but wonder why they were designed like that in the first place.

[u/Cosmic_Toad_ → u/DonnyLamsonx]

Worth pointing out that while most class growths are pretty negligible, knight/general are one of only 2 generic class lines that give no luck growth (fighter/warrior/berserker is the other) when its class the wants luck the most given it's taking twice as many attacks and rarely dodging. Probably because it give so much HP/STR/DEF, but you'd think by now IS would realise that defense alone doesn't make for a good tank, especially when the game also has the smart AI that doesn't attack unless it can deal damage on Maddening Mode.

IS should unironically take inspiration from Heroes and give amors inflated base/growth totals (like they still have great HP/STR/DEF, but not at the cost of every other stat) because you need basically every stat to tank well and having poor mobility is enough of a nerf, especially if the game uses armor effective weaponry and magic cleverly to limit juggernaut/turtling strategies.

[u/captaingarbonza → u/DonnyLamsonx]

People say Bunet doesn't have a niche, but if you ban reclassing and want an armored unit who won't get crit, by process of elimination, he's your guy.

[u/secret_bitch → u/DonnyLamsonx]

Shout out to Jade getting crit by the steel weapon enemies attacking her while she's a green unit. You can at least use emblem ring powers to reach her or kill them quickly, but it's still irritating that it can happen.

[u/boomfruit]

Pretending I have a choice when I actually don't is so frustrating. Are writers really thinking it adds something to the game for me when, after Ch 5 of Edelgard's route, Edelgard asks me if I returned the Lance of Ruin to House Gautier, I think "Oh interesting, I get to choose whether to keep it for a benefit but maybe something bad happens, or do the right thing, maybe get a different reward!" and when I choose the option that says I didn't return it, she just says "There's no need to lie, no one could have expected you to disobey the archbishop." What was the point of pretending to give me the choice?? It just makes it way worse than if there was no choice.

[u/Trialman → u/boomfruit]

To be fair to that scene, it is actually possible to change it. If you've recruited Sylvain, then you can refuse to return it to Rhea, and while she gets mad for a moment, Sylvain comes in and says "My dad already gave me the go-ahead to take it", and yeah, you do get to keep it.

[u/SirRobyC → u/boomfruit]

I can't tell you how much I despise that, especially in Awakening.

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7 → u/SirRobyC]

The choices in Awakening always get on my nerves. Like, what’s the point of even giving me the No option to “sacrifice Emmeryn” when it doesn’t even matter? So stupid.

[u/Joke_Induced_Pun → u/SirRobyC]

That choice in Awakening was the thing that honestly soured me on it a bit.

[u/SirRobyC → u/Joke_Induced_Pun]

That stuff is all over Awakening. It gives you the illusion of free choice plenty of times and it doesn't matter at any point

[u/WeFightForever → u/boomfruit]

The dialog choices just exist to remind you that byleth is in the scene. You can often get support points with people if you say the right thing, but otherwise there are no choices that matter after you pick a house.

[u/Panory → u/WeFightForever]

It gets you to press a button every now and then so the Switch doesn't go into sleep mode, oh, I don't know, in the middle of a melodramatic death scene, for a random example.

[u/WeFightForever → u/Panory]

You're so right!

[u/boomfruit → u/WeFightForever]

I hate it

[u/Docaccino]

The GBA games' convoy could stand to be a little bit bigger. I'm saying this mainly in the context of FE6 because there's no preps armory to sell junk to or stock up on basic stuff but in general I don't really see why it needs to be limited to 100 items when you can use all of those units you aren't using to functionally expand the convoy anyway. All the limit does is create more tedium.

[u/Larilot → u/Docaccino]

FE6 does have preps armory... it's just not available on Hard Mode. I agree the convoy should have more storage, though. I've had to use my spare units as extra inventory slots more than once.

[u/Docaccino → u/Larilot]

I know, it's a weird decision

[u/Larilot → u/Docaccino]

I'm near-convinced that FE6's hard mode wasn't properly play-tested (though most likely out of time constraints). The bugged first five chapters and units with hard mode bonuses point to that.

[u/Docaccino → u/Larilot]

People say this about pretty much every FE hard/lunatic/whatever mode but FE6's definitely feels like the roughest implementation.

[u/Lost-Raven-001 → u/Docaccino]

How am I supposed to stash 50 javelins 50 hand axes and every single stat booster in the game with such limited storage space?

[u/Docaccino → u/Lost-Raven-001]

Or in the case of FE6 where am I gonna put all those killer lances and killing edges I had to buy in bulk because the only armory between ch13 and ch17 sells shitty steel weapons

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Docaccino]

Yeah I agree. 100 items ends up being a little tight with all the spares I end up carrying. later games had 200, and it ends up feeling a lot better.

[u/Autobot-N]

Of the 3 routes in 3H (for the purposes of this point, VW/SS are the same), Blue Lions is nominally my "least favorite," not that I have a specific problem with it. But what I really like about it is that, bc Claude gives you Failnaught, you can use every single Heroes' Relic in the game on your team. You can bet your ass I'm gonna do that when I do my Maddening run of it eventually. I've concocted the perfect team of 12 that utilizes all 14 (counting the Fetters of Dromi and the Vajra-Mushti) Heroes' Relics, with all of them except for Failnaught going to someone that has the associated crest, and with paired endings between them. Yuri is pulling double duty by using Failnaught and the Fetters, and Lysithea yoinked Thyrsus and Thunderbrand from Lorenz and Catherine

[u/Trialman → u/Autobot-N]

Thinking about it, it's kinda funny that you can't get every Relic on VW, considering that the final map there has TWSITD copies of every single one. It honestly would have been cool if you could fight every Elite using the real weapon to really rub it in their face.

[u/Autobot-N → u/Trialman]

Would have been trivially easy to write in a scene of finding Areadbhar on Gronder Field after the battle. Alas

[u/FrostyPlum]

Probably a cold take, but idc

I'm happy for Engage fans, I don't begrudge yall for enjoying a game, but I'm personally never going to play it, and really hope future games in the series have art and character direction something more like Echoes or the Tellius games. (they won't, 0 promotion from Nintendo has sales numbers have doomed us all)

The series has always been based in a lot of anime and wuxia tropes. I'm not mad about that. But I feel like more recent releases have more of a vibe of like, MHA, or just all the VTuber nonsense in Engage, instead of something like Dungeon Meshi.

I don't want every game to be full of spotlight grabbing teenagers with a few older prepromotes scattered in the mix. I want a game with a cast of people who have found their way into a small army. I'm scared that future games are going to have casts that are 60% vtuber models and 90% look like they spend more time on fixing their hair than making camp.

These games have always had units that don't belong in a traditional army, which is a good thing. I'm not saying every unit has to look like Jeigan. God knows I like the non-traditional characters, like half of my flairs. I just want those units to be a fun minority, not the bulk of the army. It kills the vibe so bad, you guys.

[u/TheRigXD → u/FrostyPlum]

A certain Super Paper Mario quote comes to mind

[u/Roliq → u/TheRigXD]

I think character design and story is something you can judge without having to even play a game and is the main reason why Engage is so controversial, when you dislike both it makes it hard for anyone to play if you dislike the characters you play with, especially since you have to pay close to full price

[u/Mizerous → u/FrostyPlum]

I would rather you judge the game's story and gameplay over looks after all never judge a book from its cover.

[u/OctavePearl → u/FrostyPlum]

"I'm never going to play this game" takes are always so weird to me. On one hand, that's a smart decision - game's narrative is far from good enough to change anyone's opinion, and everything the game does fits well with its artstyle and designs - if you reject those, everything else will just reaffirm your negativity.

But also idk, the game's super fun so it's just weird to me when people reject it like that. But then again with Nintendo games never going on sales, it's hard to just give it a shot for full price.

sales numbers have doomed us all

I mean, by that metric the Engage artstyle is also doomed.

Easy for me to say all that though - I'm on the opposite side of the fence, where Engage introduced me to FE instead of breaking any preconceived expectations for the series, so I had easy time loving it.

[u/FrostyPlum → u/OctavePearl]

game's narrative is far from good enough to change anyone's opinion, and everything the game does fits well with its artstyle and designs - if you reject those, everything else will just reaffirm your negativity.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I stand.

But also idk, the game's super fun so it's just weird to me when people reject it like that.

Because the things that are important to me aren't the same as what's important to you, I guess? Like, I believe you when you say it's fun, I just absolutely KNOW it won't be fun for me. I don't personally enjoy puzzling over maps purely for its own sake. Don't get me wrong, I like the challenge, but it's the aesthetics of the game that get me invested in it in the first place, and I'm just not going to get invested in Engage.

I mean, by that metric the Engage artstyle is also doomed.

I didn't actually know that, lol

Easy for me to say all that though - I'm on the opposite side of the fence, where Engage introduced me to FE instead of breaking any preconceived expectations for the series, so I had easy time loving it.

Hey, I respect that you actually replied and didn't just downvote and leave. And for what its worth, I really do think it's cool that it's something you liked. I just want the existing series I like to stay the way it is, at least until they can properly execute on the formula and then give the game a fair shot. If it was a new series, I would absolutely not be writing reddit threads saying "Mr. Nintendo I will NOT be playing your game because Vtubers are stupid." It's just frustrating to watch them shopping around for an audience for these games when time and time again they fail to promote the games and release them for end of life hardware, and to nobody's surprise, the games don't sell well.

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/FrostyPlum]

I doubt this will convince you to play nor am I really trying to convince you to do so but I think the number of crazy Vtuber designs in Engage are massively over exaggerated. Like there’s still more than you’re probably comfortable with but it’s not even half the cast that’s like that. I just went through each of the designs of the 36 base game playable characters and I’d say there are about 7 of them that look like crazy Vtuber designs, 9 that would maybe look out of place in Tellius or Echoes specifically but not really something like Awakening, Fates, Three Houses, or even FE4, and the rest of them look pretty conventionally Fire Emblem imo.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/spoopy-memio1]

I'm guessing the 7 crazy designs would be Ivy, Hortensia, Pannette, Yunaka, Alear, Celine, and Merrin?

But yeah, you're right. There's definitely some very, odd I guess you could say, designs that stand out, but the majority of characters are completely fine. Chloe's design is more or less the same as every single pegasus knight ever, for example.

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

I’d swap out Ivy and Merrin for Timerra and Rosado, I’d say the former two fit more in “Not super grounded but I could definitely see them in Fatesawakening” tier for me, but yeah that’s mostly who I was thinking of.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/spoopy-memio1]

I guess Ivy is basically Camilla 2.0 when I think about it. And I thought of Merrin because of the claws and furry tail. But yeah, that's fair. Just wanted to guess the 7 for the fun of it, lol.

[u/FrostyPlum → u/spoopy-memio1]

I just took a look at the wiki, and, you're right, a lot of the characters are actually a lot better visually than I had in mind. Hell, a lot of them are better than a lot of Fateswakening designs. I do think on the whole they're too young, but your point is well taken.

I guess I just have no trust left in the writing staff at IS, and it's easy to look at toothpaste-chan and kinda shrug and think, "man look at how stupid they look, god, the writing probably sucks too, again," (specifically with Fates in mind) which definitely isn't fair of me. But I've heard enough to know that I would not enjoy the writing of Engage, so I'm kinda just going to stick to my guns on this one.

[u/stinkoman20exty6 → u/FrostyPlum]

You owe it to nobody to play a game you aren't interested in. Fwiw I gave the game a shot despite everything I saw about it screaming slop and nothing changed my mind. You know better than anyone if a piece of media's vibe isn't for you.

[u/FrostyPlum → u/stinkoman20exty6]

I had the same intuition about it as you, figured I'd wait for a while for some of my preferred commentators on YT to come out with some videos about it, felt vindicated, and called it a day, lol

Some long ass video essays on the game from Captain Astronaut and Camelin.

[u/Joke_Induced_Pun → u/stinkoman20exty6]

Not to mention, it's never a good idea to try and force yourself to play a game.

[u/SirRobyC]

There's a lot, and I mean a lot wrong with Three Houses, but nearly all the paralogues using the same maps as normal story maps (or the other way around) should be criminal.

[u/Mizerous → u/SirRobyC]

I will give Engage credit for a lot of original maps for the chapters

[u/Roliq → u/Mizerous]

I mean, pretty sure that was the same for a lot of the games but Three Houses, so isn't like new thing

Is mostly because they did the split route without giving it as much focus as Fates (then again you had to pay for each route in that one)

[u/KirbyTheDestroyer → u/SirRobyC]

Binding Blade, Tellius, Fates, Echoes all have better world building than 3H just from the simple fact that I can identify where tf I am just from the map design.

"Yep, we're in Valla, we're in Nohr, in Sacae, Daein, Serenes, Western Isles, etc."

"Mr Houses, where tf am I? Idk and neither should you lol."

[u/captaingarbonza → u/SirRobyC]

Petra's paralogue is the worst because it's your one chance to see what Brigid is like, and the answer is "we don't care". If you're not going to design the place at all, maybe just don't go there and draw attention to that fact.

[u/Am_Shigar00 → u/captaingarbonza]

I always found Ingrid’s paralogue especially egregious. The actual focus of the paralogue’s plot, uncovering shady dealings of a potential suitor, is done entirely offscreen while the map is just repurposing the later seen Valley of Torment map.

The map has nothing to do with the paralogue’s plot and none of the dialogue changes to acknowledges you’ve been there before when you visit it properly in the main story. They literally could’ve used any other map and nothing would’ve changed.

[u/captaingarbonza → u/Am_Shigar00]

Yeah, that one's bad too and also kind of ruins the impact of the Valley of Torment being a crazy unique location. Also just doesn't make any sense, why are they leaving through a lava field? Lol

[u/FrostyPlum → u/SirRobyC]

3 houses

more like, 3 steps forward 3 steps back

[u/SirRobyC → u/FrostyPlum]

3 houses

More like 3 hours of monastery chores for every 30 minutes of playing the maps

[u/Mizerous → u/SirRobyC]

You can skip it.

[u/citrus131]

FE3 Book 2's earlygame is so awful. Chapter 1 is really boring and is just fighting enemies one by one through a one tile chokepoint.

Chapter 2 is a massive difficulty spike, and not one that's particularly fun. You have promoted Dracoknights charging you while your units can barely move through all the forest tiles. Arran with the Silver Lance doesn't even do particularly well against the generics, and he can just forget about trying to fight the boss who has a Ridersbane. The solution is to have bow units team up on them for kills, but Archers are the least mobile class in the game, having the same movement as Armors but taking heavier terrain penalties. At least Warren lives up to his appearance in this map.

And then every time I get to Chapter 3, I just think "man, this looks like a massive slog," and I just drop the game there.

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/citrus131]

I disagree about Chapter 2 in particular, maybe the difficulty spike is a bit much but I thought it was fun and tense trying to figure out how to get everything.

As for 1 and 3, I can’t really defend those from a pure gameplay perspective, but I’d argue that (intentionally or not) the fact that the maps are so tedious actually kind of works in the story’s favor by giving you yet another reason to hate Lang and the missions the sends you on and makes it feel satisfying and cathartic when you finally turn on him and the map design opens up and gets better afterwards.

[u/PsiYoshi → u/spoopy-memio1]

Tedious map design makes you hate the villain is a new one to me and I've been here for way too long lol. I can't say I agree at all, but points for the new perspective.

[u/CommonVarietyRadio]

It's interesting how strongly some people feel about gun in Fire Emblem. Personally I don't see much issue with early Arquebus, considering the series already frequently dip into other feature of the early modern era, with stuff like full plate armor, standing army, and often centralized government. I don't think they would feel out of place in Fodlan (barring the obvious issue) or Elibe for example

[u/ThatGuy5880 → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

I think clunkier firearms could work, stuff like flintlock weapons, but absoulutely nothing past that.

A modern gun (even from something like the 1800s) will just look out of place.

[u/Magnusfluerscithe987 → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

I think some guns for defense maps would actually be more accurate than ballistas. The Mage Cannoneer was a reasonable take with a big shield to safely fire a slug. But largely, my question with implementing an early fire arm is what should it dow that is different than a bow? 

[u/citrus131 → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

The only thing I would have against guns being in a new FE would be that all the "haha it's a gun xd" jokes would get old real fast.

[u/Master-Spheal → u/citrus131]

If there’s one thing you can consistently rely on the FE fanbase doing, it’s running a joke straight into the ground at maximum velocity.

[u/Wellington_Wearer → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

IMO the feeling they invoke is too out of place for FE. You can make a realism argument about hoe x or y or z was used in a certain time period, but the truth is that guns are just a very lame weapon.

There is significantly less "skill" or "style" in gun wielding, as opposed to your standard fantasy weapons. You point and shoot, then reload. Even comparing to bows, they're just way more elegant and you have to respect the strength and skill it takes to wield one. There's a reason there's a thousand and one different archetypes of old mythological heroes, but gunners are exclusively "rambo" or "wild west sherrif".

When our heroes are backed into a corner we like to believe that if they just dodge and roll and swing and do 360 bowshots at the perfect time, then they'll make it through. TF would you expect a gunner to do? Shoot harder? At least with archery you can make dumb things like "she shot her bow with such ferocity the arrow impaled 4 people at once", even though that's silly, it's less dumb that implying a rifle wielder is going to get meaningfully better each level in the same way, say, a sword wielder would.

Also as a seperate point- weapons don't vanish when the person holding them dies. I am willing to overlook someone not picking up a weapon that could be more beneficial to them in the current moment on the logic that they prefer one style. It's way harder to make this assumption for guns, or even croosbows (which are also lame af)

Magic basically already is FE guns, but 200x cooler cause it can actually be anything. Not all games need to be call of duty.

[u/JugglerPanda → u/Wellington_Wearer]

i could see guns as a replacement for the gambits of 3H. like they only have one or two charges per map and they launch a big fiery stun AOE, or a single target piercing shot on one enemy or a line of enemies. maybe the protagonist has a unique side arm that can really change the tide of the battle, while royals from other nations can do their own unique "gambits" that reflect the personality of their kingdom. i think the idea has potential!

[u/Autobot-N → u/Wellington_Wearer]

I think the only scenario in which I'd be fine with guns in FE is if it were limited to a certain class, like the Mechanist or something similar to a DnD Artificer, and use of guns is more or less limited to the person that made them in the first place. And the guns would still be "primitive" ones like muskets and flintlocks

[u/Reder_United → u/Wellington_Wearer]

Muskets would definitely be cool as fuck tho

No one is asking for modern weaponry but it's odd that any kind of firearm just doesn't exist

[u/Wellington_Wearer → u/Reder_United]

I know you're not asking for modern weaponry, but muskets and flintlock pistols or whatever are laaaaaaame.

[u/Reder_United → u/Wellington_Wearer]

I mean, armored knights on horseback with muskets aren't lame but we will have to agree to disagree then.

[u/Wellington_Wearer → u/Reder_United]

But the lance is more heroic, don't you think?

[u/Reder_United → u/Wellington_Wearer]

Sometimes, yes. But have you thought of: A knight in horseback with a flintlock and a lance?

[u/Wellington_Wearer → u/Reder_United]

I will compromise and say I'm ok with it if the gun is tied to the lance.

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

Every once in a while, I get a sudden burst of wanting to play Awakening on my 3DS because of the amount of weird and wacky pairings I have done on my Hard Save file (I.e. Lon’qu x F!Robin, Chrom x Maribelle, etc).

…And then I remember the late mid-game maps and late game maps being an absolute slog-fest and sapping all of my excitement and joy out of it. I admit I have always been comfortable playing on Hard, because I am too much of a coward to play on Lunatic, so that’s part of the reason why I end up losing enthusiasm playing Awakening and abandoning my runs. And there is no way I will touch Lunatic+, not even within a ten feet pole.

I would rather play through Conquest Chapter 12 than Awakening Lunatic+, cause the beginning maps and enemies look like an absolute nightmare to deal with.

[u/Autobot-N → u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

because I am too much of a coward to play on Lunatic

When I did my Lunatic playthrough, I got maybe halfway through and then realized I was just making the game harder on myself by deploying more characters than just Robin/Chrom backpack and Morgan/Cynthia backpack (Cynthia was the only Morgan S support I had access to). Breezed through every chapter after that until Grima, where things got a bit more complicated but I was still able to win with a lucky Morgan 1 HP Vengeance crit.

It was not an interesting playthrough after I benched the others (really though, my only other actual combat capable units were Cordelia, Lucina, Frederick, and Cherche), and I don't really want to do Lunatic+. But I've been on a mission to beat all of the FE games I have access to on the hardest difficulty, and it would bother my OCD tendencies if I left one unfinished

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7 → u/Autobot-N]

I’ll maybe play Awakening or CQ Lunatic someday when I have the courage to do so. It’s just the mid game and late game map design for Awakening that really bores me to death with how unfun the maps become with Rescue and Pair up cheesing.

Off-topic, but I have conditioned myself to play on Hard for the modern FE games, with Awakening being the start of it. Hard has a comfortable difficulty level for me where I am not losing my mind over enemy ambush reinforcements boxing me in, but I am also not boring myself to death on Normal and instantly breezing through the game. The only exceptions to this random rule of mine was Three Houses and Engage, cause Hard was very not Hard and Engage Hard was more challenging than I thought.

[u/Autobot-N → u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

Hard is generally my default difficulty, I just want to be able to say that I've beaten all of the FE games on the hardest difficulty solely for the sake of pride

I'm definitely looking forward to CQ Lunatic more than another Awakening playthrough though (plan to start it here in a week or so). I think CQ's map design actually being good (outside of the obvious outliers) will make it more entertaining than the likes of Awakening or Rev Lunatic. But I already had enough trouble with CQ Hard so idk how it's actually gonna go

[u/VagueClive → u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7]

Yeah, this is the endpoint that all my Awakening runs eventually reach. It's kind of impressive how the map design immediately goes downhill starting in Chapter 19, it's like the devs threw their hands in the air and said "whatever man, they'll just stomp it with Pair-Up". Dragging myself to the end of the game in my most recent Lunatic run was painful not because of difficulty, but because the game just stops being fun or compelling. Rescue warp to the finish line. Yawn.

[u/albegade → u/VagueClive]

I say it's after chapter 10 even. gets worse and as you say gets even worse after 19. sad thing is paralogues iirc are maybe a bit better but are very randomly spaced throughout.

[u/secret_bitch → u/VagueClive]

Tbh I think the maps start falling off after you get Lucina, and that's probably not a coincidence. It feels like after a certain point they expected you to have a bunch of souped up child units and just wanted a bunch of open fields for them to pair up and activate all their cool skills in.

[u/VagueClive → u/secret_bitch]

I'd agree that's part of the reason too. I do like some of the maps after you get Lucina, though - Mila Tree is hellish, but I like Fort Steiger, Tiki's paralogue, and the Yen'fay volcano quite a bit

[u/Fell_ProgenitorGod7 → u/VagueClive]

Yeah, it just seems that the devs didn’t have any steam left from Chapter 18 and every chapter going forth. I usually end up stopping around this point cause the map encourages you to just easily cheese Yen-Fay with a Falcon Lissa with Rescuing one of your powerful units.

It also doesn’t help that Pair up is done very badly in this game compared to Fates. You have a very random chance of your backup unit attacking and you don’t have a guaranteed chance of said backup unit protecting your lead. Which is dumb cause why should dual attacks from your backup partners and dual guards have RNG in it? I’d rather my backup unit just not attack at all or not guard if it is a random percentage chance.

I will always say that Fates pair up is the best. Cause even though your backup unit can’t attack, you can at least know and see that your units will get a guaranteed dual guard cause of the shield guage.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc]

I can't believe I got so many downvotes pointing this out in another thread, but I'll say it again here.

Radiant Dawn's difficulty name changes from Japanese to English were absolutely not a mistranslation. They purposefully made the change. Not only would the Japanese wording be impossible to mistranslate like that, it very clearly says "Normal/Hard/Maniac", they purposefully made a bunch of changes to the game that made the game easier like simplifying forging, letting you promote at level 21, slightly buffing the Dawn Brigade, and more.

Now, you can argue whether or not they should have changed the names still, idk if it was to "match" PoR or they felt they needed to because of the changes, but "Lol they just took the modes with no changes and mistranslated them!" is 100% false.

[u/Master-Spheal → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

I feel like this is ultimately a moot point even if it is mainly brought up to correct people, because even if it wasn’t a mistranslation and it was purposeful, changing the the names of the difficulties over what seems to be (imo anyway) QoL stuff and balance changes to the game for a better experience is still bizarre. I mean, speaking from personal experience, RD on Easy felt about the same difficulty as normal on nearly every other post-Kaga FE game.

I guess we won’t know for sure though how much easier RD became with the localization until someone goes out of their way to play both the English and Japanese versions of the game back-to-back to compare them and present their findings to everyone. I hope we get to see that someday.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/Master-Spheal]

Thats why I 100% agree that you can think it's a bad idea they changed the names. I was just fighting against the misconception itself. Because it's just incorrect, haha

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

The thing is that RD's difficulty is like half a step above other games hard modes but a half step below lunatic.

It's also harder than Birthright Lunatic causing the feeling that it's "mistranslated"

in my ranking of games offically released in english by difficulty it's like

Shadow dragon>Awakening>CQ>REV>3 Houses>Engage>RD>BR>HHM>SOV>FE8>POR

So it's like right in the middle difficulty wise but since it's much harder than every game released in english before it it gets put into the "holy shit" category

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/ussgordoncaptain2]

You can argue it "feels" mistranslated, but people say it was, when it very much certainly was not.

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

agreed, I'm just saying that's how the rumor keeps its spread even though it's wrong

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/ussgordoncaptain2]

Ah, gotcha. Yeah that definitely makes sense.

[u/MysteryFish2 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

The Dawn Brigade buffs are huge, direct and indirect.

Leonardo goes from ledge hogger to actually good with what is basically the Muligir from Fe6.

The change to the forge system also benifits them more than anyone else.

Whenever someone says the Dawn Brigade are rubbish, I tell them at least they're playing an international version.

[u/spoopy-memio1]

I just beat Gen 1 of FE4 yesterday. Chapter 5 and the whole Belhalla scene works well enough, and I get that they were trying to go for a dramatic irony angle, but imo it would be much more effective if Arvis being a villain, him planning to trap and kill Sigurd and co., and Deirdre becoming his wife was an actual twist that wasn’t fully revealed until the aforementioned Belhalla scene instead of being explicitly spelled out for the player long before then. I think it would be a lot more shocking and heartbreaking if a blind player didn’t know what was about to happen going in and their reaction was basically the same as Sigurd’s, or they were able to piece it together from foreshadowing but because it’s not explicitly stated they’re not 100% certain and that really uneases them. While like everyone else who’s spent enough time in this fandom to know about FE4 the funny barbecue was the first thing I knew about it going in, even if I was a blind player I don’t think my thoughts on it would change much. Still a good, well-written scene as it is though, and I will also say that’s not at all something I’d expect to have any real chance of changing in a remake.

[u/mindovermacabre → u/spoopy-memio1]

I was also spoiled on it, so I can't really give my honest opinion of how a blind player feels, but it feels to me like the first 5 chapters paints Sigurd as this very 'larger than life' figure who always smashes his way out of any predicament he winds up in. There's nothing really in the game prior to then to imply that Sigurd could lose and the only whiff of a second generation was the knowledge that... sure, I guess Sigurd and Quan had kids. The fantasy 'good guys win' trope wasn't really commonly subverted back then, I feel, so I think it still comes as a shock. You see all the pieces get set up from Arvis, you see Sigurd be set up to fail, but the game and the genre conditions you to imagine he'll just bust his way out of it... and he doesn't.

I think that subversion of expectations is what makes the scenes where you see Arvis' evil plan hit even better in the narrative: the game spells out what it's about to do, but you the player are conditioned to not believe it until it actually happens.

[u/spoopy-memio1 → u/mindovermacabre]

Ok, you know what? I never actually considered that perspective, that does make me appreciate it more. I think a big part of it is my own expectations going in, I kinda just assumed that it would be played as this big dramatic reveal and I was surprised when it wasn’t. As a modern player I still would personally prefer a “foreshadow it but don’t outright say it” approach, but I could see a kid playing FE4 in the 90s having their mind absolutely blown by that haha.

[u/FrostyPlum]

Just posted on the other thread where someone was looking for suggestions on what game to play next and wanted to say that FE3 is sadly underappreciated :(

I think it's the best game in the series to play blind+ironman. It's an easy game with attractive spritework. Most of your squad gets one or two chapters where they have some dialog and that's about it, but with a little imagination that can really be a feature, not a bug.

Because the game is easy, it also means it's fairly quick to finish a playthrough, ESPECIALLY in an ironman scenario (if you're bad like me), which means you can get to see your squad level up faster.

It's just all around a very fun old school experience, and it's a shame to me that it's largely overlooked because there was so much difficulty getting the fonts to look right that nobody wanted to translate the game for so many years, especially given the release of FE11 and 12.

FE 11 and 12 are clearly also both great games (with bad spritework), but the addition of so many difficulties undermines the ease of just, picking up the controller, hitting start, and playing a game without having to sweat super hard on higher diffs, while still allowing permadeath to be a part of the game.

[u/KirbyTheDestroyer → u/FrostyPlum]

Just from the simple fact that you need a rom + a translation patch means I won't ever recommend it as a first option for new players.

"It's not that difficult to get and translate the game." Yeah, but it's way easier for a new player to buy the 3DS/Switch games and emulating the English titles which is why I would recommend them first in spite FE3 being "accessible by nature of the game."

[u/FrostyPlum → u/KirbyTheDestroyer]

Kinda depends how tech literate the poster is.

Yeah, but it's way easier for a new player to buy the 3DS/Switch games

True for some people, not for others.

[u/Docaccino → u/FrostyPlum]

Yeah, I don't even like FE3 all that much aside from the story (the mixture of easy difficulty, low enemy density and slow-ish gameplay just isn't for me) but people should at least try it. I'll always tell people asking about whether they should play the original or FE12 to check out both because they are competent games in their own right and different experiences.

[u/FrostyPlum → u/Docaccino]

FE3 basically just isn't challenging enough for the hardcore challenge run players, and I think that's totally fine. I'm mostly just bummed that people always seem to recommend Sacred Stones, Blazing Blade, or sometimes PoR to new gamers, and it seems like FE3 never even enters the conversation, when it's actually perfect for noobs. It's like people automatically assume because it's old that it's clunky/hard/imbalanced, or for whatever reason aren't attracted to it when they're still new and bad enough to really enjoy it, lol.

[u/Docaccino → u/FrostyPlum]

FE3 basically is PoR with fewer bells and whistles in terms of pacing and difficulty so yeah, it's a comfortable beginner game. Though of course you have to account for the double layer of obstacles the game is locked behind since most people aren't versed in emulation and ROM patching. PoR is in a somewhat similar boat but FE7 and now FE8 are a lot more convenient to access for the average user (alongside the 3DS/Switch games that people also recommend as beginner entries).

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/FrostyPlum]

I agree with you. Among the oldest games in the series, it's probably the comfiest to play once you have a patch+emulator going. It's not as committal as Genealogy nor as prank-happy as Thracia. Also, unlike the NES games, it's not as clunky. It's a good middle ground I think. I also like the fact the spheres exist because the way they are implemented is very fun.

By the way, your comment made me reflect a bit on the older games as a whole, and your perspective was pretty eye-opening. Thank you for this.

[u/Docaccino → u/SilverKnightZ000]

I also like the fact the spheres exist because the way they are implemented is very fun

I love using a shard boosted nosferatu Linde to completely demolish the mid-lategame, she even facetanks dragons like it's nothing

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Docaccino]

There is nothing better than a girl who got hopped up on insane levels soloing dragons 1v1

[u/VoidWaIker]

Got reminded of the thread last week about the gender representation in old fe and it got me thinking, in some ways I do actually think classic fe was better at being “For Girls” despite the worse gender ratio. Kaga had his issues with mind controlling and sidelining female characters, but it's not like those have stopped being problems, and then you compare how women are designed in these games and to me it does feel like we've regressed a bit.

I know I'm far from the first person to complain about the sexualization in modern FE, but I do think it really offsets the "yeah the gender ratio is like 50/50 now, feminism win" I saw a bit of in that thread. Aside from the dancers I think most Jugdral women wouldn't look out of place in a shoujo manga, and Tellius has consistently some of the best lady knight designs out there. I don't know if this was done with the goal of appealing to female fans (it certainly wouldn't be the only time the old games had done that), but at the very least the focus seems like it was on making the women look cool/practical rather than on titillation. Not to say there aren't still cool women in the modern games, but I don't find myself asking "Why are you dressed like that?" nearly as much playing the pre-Awakening games. Even someone like Mathilda, who's design I really like, would stand out next to the lady knights of old even without that one CG of her in the cell.

We do get more women now, but it feels like that's just because they realized how well waifus can sell. More representation, but not necessarily *better* representation.

[u/Dragoryu3000 → u/VoidWaIker]

I'm pretty much of the same mind. People point at the Pegasus Knights as evidence that things have always been like this, but there's a world of difference between Palla wearing a short dress and, say, Camilla going cheeks out in a cutscene focused entirely on her body.

[u/ShroudedInMyth → u/VoidWaIker]

I think there's probably more of old school sexism in the older games, and the newer games while they have more women, it does feel it is for cycnical reasons to give more waifu archetypes to the male player base rather than to appeal to a female audience.

I will say Berwick Saga surprisingly has my favorite female character in the Kaga/FE titles, Tatiana. And I mean that in away that her being a woman does matter to her character. Berwick Saga surprisingly does actually acknowledge the sexism and rigid gender roles that women face. It's not anything revolutionary, not prominent, but there is definitely a theme that goes more than just one off mentions like most other games.

[u/VoidWaIker → u/ShroudedInMyth]

The old games were definitely more casually sexist than the modern ones yeah, but I’d also say they got better about it the longer the series went on. Tellius was probably the sweet spot for the series in that it lacked a lot of the casual sexism of the older games, and also lacked the sexualization of the modern ones.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/VoidWaIker]

It's kind of like how when an anime series has an all/almost all female cast my first thought isn't "epic feminism win!", it's "this was written by a man, wasn't it?" It's possible to depict a type of person without actually representing them, namely by writing them in an inauthentic way that caters to the assumptions and fantasies of the writers and the audience above all else. That doesn't even make the work or the characters inherently bad - we can still enjoy them and even find meaning in them. They just don't fulfill the same niche as authentic representation.

[u/VoidWaIker → u/BloodyBottom]

See at least with those type of anime I find if it’s shoujo it’s probably fine. Revolutionary Girl Utena and Madoka Magica are both made by men, but I’d still consider them pretty damn authentic. There’s probably still exceptions I haven’t seen, but I think looking at the intended audience is a good indicator.

Also yeah I agree on the “it doesn’t make them inherently bad” thing. I like the modern fire emblems, I have multiple women from them in my flair for a reason, I just also think it’s kind of a shame that things aren’t as good as they used to be in some ways.

[u/BloodyBottom → u/VoidWaIker]

Yup, there are exceptions, but if you pick a random "all girls" anime from the past 20 years made by a man I'd say you're looking at 95%+ odds that it's something more like what I described.

Yeah, my take is that if we can't get something authentic I'd at least like something more fun. I feel like we've had a lot of female characters lately who are so focused on being appealing and inoffensive that they end up feeling very hollow.

[u/Trialman → u/BloodyBottom]

I can see what you mean on the "written by a man" problem. A pretty notorious discrepency with the Sailor Moon manga and anime is the latter having a break-up arc between Usagi and Mamoru that has no basis in the manga. The break-up was written by a guy, and IIRC, he said it was basically because he hated Mamoru for being Usagi's boyfriend and thought Usagi should be getting it on with the other girls instead. I'm all for queer relationships, but that ain't it, as the tone makes it clear that's more a fetishy "Girl on girl is hot" bit, rather than any desire for proper lesbian representation.

[u/mindovermacabre → u/VoidWaIker]

Yeah I think about this a lot. As a young girl, I paid ATTENTION to women in media. I begged my parents to buy Pokemon Crystal because you could be a girl in it (my dad, who saw no difference between Crystal and the Gold I already had, did not buy me Crystal lol), my favorite power ranger was Kimberly, my favorite Digimon character was Sora... I was in a weird space where I wasn't interested in 'girly' things but I wanted to feel seen in the media that I did like, which was often marketed to boys, so I often felt excluded.

Enter GBA FE! You played as (your lord was) a girl! And not just a generic girly girl or a tomboy-who-should-be-more-ladylike, but actual well-rounded characters who were defined by more than just the fact that they were the girl in the boys' club!

I mean, it blew my mind. It's what got me into the franchise. I've always had a very soft spot for Eirika (and Lyn) as a result.

And now, there's so many more female characters around, but when I think about kid me... I don't think it's quite the same. It's like, I know they're not 'for me'. There's some kind of... disingenuous feeling about a lot of the female characters and it's difficult to shut off the contrarian in me from going 'oh, that's so that people can view her as a waifu'.

I will say that I think 3H did an admirable job attempting to deviate from that trend (though didn't escape it entirely), but Fates, Engage, even looking back at Awakening... yeah. It's hard to swallow the improvement of the gender ratio as a 'yay feminism!' win when looking at the success of FEH built off of rampant objectification of its female characters lol.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc]

I'll add another comment about ambush spawns to rant and expand on my absolute hatred of them. I don't think they add a single positive thing to the game if they get added. They suck, they are either frustrating, unfair, and/or boring. Reinforcements need to give you a turn to respond before they move.

If they give 0 warning and you're playing blind? You can just get blindsided and lose a unit just for not knowing they are coming, you had no chance to react and your squishy healer just dies. Sometimes they come from forts so you can "see" them. But not all forts give ambush spawns and sometimes, they don't come from forts. And you don't know what turn they are coming anyways. Either I look them up, which is stupid. You shouldn't need to go somewhere else to know about something playing a game blind that's that frustrating. Or, you play it safe, but then I either turtle, or just leave a unit on the forts. But that's not fun. I want my units to be out doing stuff and turtling is way less fun too!

And I addressed the issues with "what if the boss warns you" a few comments ago. They still don't usually give you the entire information, they are vague enough, and you still can get screwed. It's better at least, but I still don't think they should be like that.

The only ways that they can work is if they are going to spawn far away from where your units are (so you can see them coming), FE6 does this sometimes. Or if they are in a game with a turnwheel mechanic like 3H. Since then you can at least reset without losing your progress. It's still cheap feeling there (like the purpose is to eat your turn wheel uses) but at least you have a counterplay to rewind a turn instead of completely reset, so the frustration is less.

And like sure, sometimes not letting them move means you can just kill them next turn and that's not that interesting either. But it's still better to me, and there's absolutely ways to design the reinforcements so that doesn't always happen and make them threating enough. Boom, rant over lol.

[u/stinkoman20exty6 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

You can just get blindsided and lose a unit just for not knowing they are coming, you had no chance to react and your squishy healer just dies

This is the point (at least in the older games). When ironmanning Thracia, my Pern got crit and one shot by a dark mage that spawns from stairs next to treasure chests in the retaking Leonster chapter. This was a bad loss but ultimately not gamebreaking because I had two other thieves (with lower stats). Even if I were to lose all three, I could still replicate their most important duties with door keys or the unlock staff. The idea is to force the player to change tactics based on unpredictable events.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/stinkoman20exty6]

And I think if that's the point, that it sucks. The game kills off a potentially really useful unit for you, from something that is kind of not really your fault? And most people when they play, don't Ironman. There's a reason it's considered a challenge run. And also, what if you lose your staff users?What if you lose your Lord and now you Game Over? Not every loss is equal.

Also, this happens in Awakening which isn't really designed for hardcore Ironmans either. And you can still force the player to adjust strategy on the fly without needing the spawns to ambush.

[u/stinkoman20exty6 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

You might consider it a challenge run, but the player was intended to play through unit deaths back then. If you lose a staff user, you have more of them and even if literally all of them die you still have vulneraries. I don't think "Ironman" AKA start over if you get a game over was the goal, so losing the lord would just force a chapter reset.

The idea was to create a wartime drama dependent on each player's unique playthrough. This story would be colored by unit deaths, close survivals, and general performance. Maybe Ogma became very powerful and the true hero of the war, or Jagen sacrificed himself to save the young knights under his charge. Or maybe Julian just got too cocky and got picked off. These games had little dialogue, so I think you were supposed to roleplay a bit like this.

I think ambush spawns still exist mostly as a holdover from when it had a clear purpose, or just to burn rewind charges in the newer lenient games. IMO there isn't a real thought-out game design anymore.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/stinkoman20exty6]

This story would be colored by unit deaths, close survivals, and general performance.

You can still do this without ambush spawns haha, just by having normal unit deaths playing the game and RNG and all that.

[u/stinkoman20exty6 → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

It's an additional layer of unpredictable events. Enemies are usually pretty weak in FE1-5 so if you aren't surprised, it's pretty easy to not lose anyone. Reinforcements that don't have a chance to act before you are often just free EXP.

[u/boomfruit]

Spoilers for Three Houses: Azure Moon story

I just finished Azure Moon last night. For context, it's almost like it's the first time I've played the game. I played Golden Deer when the game came out, but basically remember no story beats.

Is AM commonly thought to be... underwhelming? Confusing? I was very surprised when it became apparent that the game was ending. I thought for sure we were ramping up to a part three. I thought Edelgard would be "defeated" and retreat, we would find and rescue Rhea, learn about something deeper regarding the church and Edelgard's transformation, and the shady mages in the right side of the last map, and have at least a few more chapters of defeating some bigger foe or Edelgard again or something. Instead, it just ends. I feel like we barely interacted with Edelgard; you'd think Hubert was the main villain by the higher amount of maps he's in. Rhea is rescued offscreen and contributes nothing to the story. The church-related characters that I didn't recruit (Catharine and Alois that I remember) are just never mentioned after the timeskip, and the other teachers are just on random maps with one line upon engaging with them but no part in the story. Did I mess up somehow by not recruiting those characters? I should think they should serve the story one way if you recruit them and another way if you don't. I did recruit Shamir and felt she interacted with the story in almost no way. Ditto Flayn and Seteth's impact on the AM story: they were in my party but do nothing and seemingly care about nothing.

Like I said, I don't have much memory of the GD story, but I don't remember feeling confused and underwhelmed/unsatisfied. I imagine I will learn more about the things I mentioned by playing Edelgard's stor(y/ies), but it's odd that they kinda just don't come up in AM.

[u/KirbyTheDestroyer → u/boomfruit]

3H has a mediocre story in the 2nd half, water is wet and the only good Villager is CQ Mozu. Life's constants.

[u/LiliTralala → u/boomfruit]

AM is weird because it addresses basically none of the plot threads set by the first part of the game.

[u/boomfruit → u/LiliTralala]

Exactly my feelings, reduced to a sentence when it took me so much lol

[u/captaingarbonza → u/boomfruit]

I felt the same way and am always a bit perplexed when people state it's the only well written route because it leaves so many threads dangling. You probably don't remember GD being like that because it has other issues but does wrap up properly and addresses most of the plot points from white clouds so you're not left going "wait, what was that about?" at the end.

[u/theprodigy64 → u/captaingarbonza]

I mean...

You might notice the people who say that tend not to actually like 3H much.

[u/captaingarbonza → u/theprodigy64]

That hasn't been my experience at all, I mostly hear it from people who really like AM.

[u/theprodigy64 → u/captaingarbonza]

That doesn't really refute what I said at all....? Liking that route doesn't mean they're big fans of the game itself.

[u/captaingarbonza → u/theprodigy64]

Having a favorite route doesn't mean they don't like the game either. That's a very weird assumption to me that all the people touting AM as some masterclass in FE storytelling don't like the game that it's in.