Let's Talk Fire Emblem

[nocturnal YL]

I usually start with Hard/Classic, since I consider this difficulty easy and casual (in the usual sense of the words). The higher difficulties are all over the place; PoR Maniac is a trap (everything is easy until Chapter 23), RD is an exception where even JP Hard (Normal elsewhere) is a challenge, but by the time Fates came out I found DLC-less Nohr Lunatic just right, despite some calling it Thracia 776-level of unfair. Which is to say, by the time Casual mode was a thing, I'm so used to the series' difficulty that I didn't consider plying Casual at all.

I don't put much thought behind permadeath. I just see any death as a lose condition and reset. Actually, I want another mode that just automatically declare game over upon any player character death. To me, the large setback of game progress by 1-2 hours (with potentially good level ups in it) is itself the punishment for letting anyone die.

Actually, some players (including myself) would reset on a bad level up. Pressing on when someone dies simply isn't considered at all. See these videos (Japanese) for more FE player quirks (like carrying a truck full of iron swords instead of using legendary weapons "as intended"):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx4godBChIg
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QvOvd8qZDc

Even in the old days, most players reacted by just resetting the system when someone dies. There were also players who only reset if it's someone they care about, and those who insist on pressing on, but I think even back then reset-on-death was the norm. It makes sense in both story and gameplay terms, since a character that dies is often someone on the frontline who's there because they're useful.

I can see the argument that the newer games encourage Casual or reset-on-death, although I don't think it goes so far to make late game difficult if you have too few units. Unlike the older games, main characters in the newer games are usually reasonably powerful that they can finish the game without help, especially in the newest games where the difficulty can be lowered mid-game.

And of course, I'll likely start Engage with the highest difficulty available at first.

[Nester the Lark]

Just wanted to post this fan art that I thought YL would appreciate.

[Nester the Lark]

My Fire Emblem Rankings

This is something I've been working on for a while. I hoped to get it done earlier, but then Tears of the Kingdom came out.

Anyway, until recently, it's been tricky for me to pick a "favorite" Fire Emblem game, as there wasn't a particular one that stood out above the rest. But after playing Engage, I decided to challenge myself and try to rank all eight Fire Emblem games I've played so far. I think I've come up with a list that I feel mostly comfortable with.

8 - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

Admittedly, I have never cleared this one. But I have put about 30 hours into it across various restarts. I appreciate it for what it is: a look back at where the series began. I'm not sure if I would've enjoyed this had it been localized back in the day, but it still gives me a sense of nostalgia for that era. That's all I really expected from it.

7 - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I feel a little bad placing this one so low. I respect its ambition and experimentation, but ultimately, I find it too much of a slog to play through. It downplays the traditional strategic FE gameplay in favor of other gameplay elements that I don't find engaging. I did manage to play through two of the four routes, but that did more to affirm my misgivings. An attempt at a third playthrough went nowhere.

6 - Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore

This is a difficult one to place due to it being an entirely different type of game, so it's hard to compare with "proper" FE games. Just based on pure entertainment value, though, I enjoyed it quite a bit for its story, humor, and gameplay. However, I wish its ties to Fire Emblem were a little stronger.

5 - Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

I feel a bit sentimental about this one because it was the first Fire Emblem game I played. After having known about the series from coverage in Nintendo Power magazine in the '90s, it was a cool feeling to finally be able to play it. I enjoyed it, but it took me about 16 years to finally beat it because it turned out I was not good at Fire Emblem.

4 - Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

For me, this is a much better way to experience the first Fire Emblem. It maintains the simplicity of the original, but feels much more polished and playable. It has its flaws (and in my case, playing it via the Wii U Virtual Console meant holding the Gamepad in an uncomfortable way), but I appreciated the "purity" of the old school gameplay.

3 - Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Every other Fire Emblem game on this list I had played through at some point within the past five years, but it had been over a decade since I first finished Path of Radiance in 2011. I recently went back and played through about a third of it to refresh my memory, and I was surprised how well it held up. Given a full playthrough, I might even bump it up a notch.

2 - Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

While this one is usually compared with Gaiden, it's also a step towards modern FE with its world map, branching paths, class options, skirmishes, and side content. In my case, I played it on Wii U Virtual Console, and the save state option was like a type of rewind. Maybe because of these things, it's what I would default to if I tried to pick a favorite FE.

At least until...

1 - Fire Emblem Engage

I've been trying to put my finger on why this game clicked with me more than the others. It's not ambitious and experimental like Three Houses, but it is a finely polished traditional experience. In that sense, this is like a "comfort food" FE game. The classical fantasy story and lighter tone are also things that appeal to my personal tastes. It just felt really good to play, and ended up being the best FE experience I've had yet. I'm looking forward to doing another playthrough of it.

[Nester the Lark]

I’ve been thinking more about why I enjoyed Engage as much as I did, and another major factor is that it was the least-stressful Fire Emblem game I’ve played. I think it was due to a combination of playing on Casual mode, having infinite rewind, non-degradable weapons (Take that, Tears of the Kingdom!), and the more lighthearted tone. I felt like I was free to experiment without having to worry about severe penalties.

Three Houses did have some of these things, but it still felt a bit stressful. I played it in Classic mode, but frankly, I can’t imagine my experience would’ve been any different had I played it in Casual mode. Maybe I still had a hangover in my mentality from going straight into Three Houses after playing the old school Fire Emblem games, bypassing the 3DS era entirely.

Engage's Somniel did slow things down a bit, but for some reason, I didn't mind it as much as Garreg Mach in Three Houses. Maybe it's because it wasn't as big, and had a more pleasant atmosphere. Also, there was no classroom simulator.

Either way, I think a lot of things with Engage just fell into place for me.  More of what I liked, less of what I didn't.

[nocturnal YL]

I guess my ranking would be something like this. Not entirely sure though, especially since it's been a long while since I've played most of these.

Making a ranking is basically just a process of repeatedly asking myself whether I like one game over another.

This is supposed to be reflective of my actual experience. Specifically, for the older games, I used save states, save data editing and even ROM editing. The Sacred Stoned wouldn't be this high if I played it normally, and I can tell because I tried it as a 3DS Ambassador game.

#15 - Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

I don't like how Leif appears cold and uncaring, although this is more of an artefact of the game lacking support conversations or a focused small cast. Radiant Dawn is also like that, but that game has base conversations. For things I like, I appreciate that it introduced modern FE concepts like the modern form of weapon ranks and rescue. It looks great graphically too.

#14 - Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

This game has excellent music. It's one of the best Super Famicom games in that aspect. It felt both fresh and weird at the same time. There's the character-specific, non-transferable funds, the unusually dark story, and more. It's interesting, but not what I want to see in Fire Emblem.

#13 - Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade

What, the universally loved FE7? Yeah. I love mages. This game hates magical units. Also not a fan of having ultimate weapons only available as final chapter enemy drops. I do like the music, and the story is excellent, even though I learned about it mostly from reading the script online.

#12 - Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Could be a great game, but a botched Maniac run that got me stuck 25 chapters into it killed whatever mood I have for the game. If this is a modern entry it wouldn't have been a problem (difficulty can be lowered, out-of-chapter grinding can be done). I do like it for being the first FE to do away with death counters.

#11 - Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadow of Valentia

I do like the mix of exploration and Fire Emblem gameplay, but it's too weird for this formula to be formalised as series standard. I do resent it a bit for making Three Houses a similarly unusual game, but approaching it as a side game that is not representative of the overall series, it's quite fun. Having Hidari as illustrator was a surprise.

#10 - Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

I'm not going to play this 6 times. The story is interesting but incomplete. The gameplay isn't that satisfying either compared to the first FE Warriors. I do like it for narrating alternate history where Adrestrians who always die in base Three Houses can be saved, though.

#9 - Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem

I actually care about the added stuff (the assassin plot and Kris's interaction with the army) more than the original story. I also like the music and the silly joke weapons (things like laundry poles, logs and meat cleavers). Not a fan of the FE11-style graphics though.

#8 - Fire Emblem Fates

With enough restrictions, it feels like a traditional-ish Fire Emblem. I renounced reclassing and stuck to the old 20+20 path, played without grinding until necessary, and it proved to be a good challenge. Also like the removal of weapon durability in exchange for making weapons more situational. The story, on the other hand, was a complete mess.

#7 - Fire Emblem Awakening

It felt like a breath of fresh air at the time. Later updates completely broke the game's balance though. It made StreetPass battles and even the hardest DLCs not very fun at all. Also, not a fan of Yusuke Kozaki's art.

#6 - Fire Emblem: Binding Blade

Good ol' traditional Fire Emblem. Too traditional, though. Thieves can't promote. I do like how simple it is, and I love being able to make a team with half of my regulars being magic units. Not having a support conversation viewer also means I don't have to worry about collecting them, although I used hacks for FE7 and FE8 for this part anyway.

#5 - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

The bad: it's mechanically weird, and there's no wholly satisfying ending. The good: the worldbuilding is very interesting, the music is some of the best in the series, and my usual magical cannon tactics not only work, but they're more broken than ever.

#4 - Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE

At first, this game left me such a big impression that I claimed it would be my favourite game. Upon exposure to more RPGs, however, I found quite a lot of problems with it. If I am newly introduced to this game now, it'd have ranked a bit further lower.

My main issue is that the story feels incredibly incomplete. It was never mentioned how serious is the problem with the mirages, like whether the people who disappeared were killed and why didn't something this ridiculous lead to realistic reactions like an entertainment ban.

But it's an important game that has introduced me to a new kind of game, so like The Sacred Stones, I'll wilfully ignore some of its shortcomings.

#3 - Fire Emblem Warriors

The action feels satisfying (unlike FEW Three Hopes), the story is at least better than Awakening and Fates, and History Mode kept me interested even though this game reuses maps so often it's not funny. The music is good too, which combined with the well-made action contributed to my play time of 440+ hours.

#2 - Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

This was my first time seeing the series on a then-modern console (didn't have Path of Radiance yet), and I was impressed. I also liked the expanded cast, even though they don't really have that much interaction. The balance was poor, the story had issues, and yet I kept coming back to this game.

#1 - Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

The Sacred Stones used low, up-to-30 stat values, had a small cast of 33 playable units (not counting post-game), was short at just 20 chapters, and wasn't connected to other games. I think it's because of this small scope that everything felt manageable, which is one reason why I like it so much (alongside the first impression it left me).

While first impression was a big factor, I think I'll still end up liking this the best even if I tried it later than other FE games.

[nocturnal YL]

Continuing the theme of businesses using gaming imagery in their branding, we have Black Knight Security.


They have since changed their logo.