Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

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n0tgin
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Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#1 Post by n0tgin »

Hi!
OK, since Fire Emblem 14 was released in Japan a few days ago and had stirred up a lot of discussion (and controversy, although I don't really want to talk about it because it makes me tense) within the fandom, I thought it'd be the time to go ahead and start a Fire Emblem thread. I'm sure that there has been one before, but I'm not quite sure!
Anyway, this isn't just for the very popular Awakening title from the series, it's for all the games! I figured it wouldn't be nice to create a Fire Emblem thread just based on Awakening, because I know a lot of people (especially older members) got their start/have only played the GBA console games and I don't really think it's the best idea to not let the players' experiences mix.
So anyway, I thought I'd start off with introducing myself/my relationship with FE!

- I started with FE8: The Sacred Stones! This was a bit before I started Awakening and I really enjoyed it!
- I've also played, but not completed Binding Blade, FE7
- I've played and completed (more than once): Mystery of the Emblem, Shadow Dragon, Sacred Stones and Awakening.
- I can't pick a favourite, but I like the FE7, Awakening and the Sacred Stones a lot. I've only dabbled in Binding Blade so...
- Favourite class is the pegasus knight tree. Dark flier, specifically.
- I enjoyed supports, although I wished they were written better, I often wish they're closer to, say, Persona 3's level of writing, but I do realise there are reasons as to why that hasn't been.
- I like the lore and characters. It excites me. The art is also enjoyable and bright in some installments and with Awakening,the customisable avatar, because I still have a penchant for dressing up...

OK so some questions to get the thread off the ground:
1. What games from the series have you played?
2. What game did you start with?
3. What's your favourite from the series?
4. Have you played Awakening? If so, what did you think of it? If not, why?
5. Favourite class?
6. What do you think of supports?
7. What do you like most about the games?

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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#2 Post by potouto »

Hi :DDDD I see you have brought this over to LSF c: All right let's see what we have.


1. What games from the series have you played?
As of date, I've played most of Fire Emblem main titles, including: Blinding Blade, Blazing Sword, The Sacred Stones, Shadow Dragon, New Mystery of The Emblem, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn and of course, Awakening.

2. What game did you start with?
I started with The Sacred Stones actually, I didn't know much about the series back then and just picked up a random game in the series.

3. What's your favourite from the series?
Definitely The Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance. And Chrom Awakening.

4. Have you played Awakening? If so, what did you think of it? If not, why?
Chrom Overall, the story isn't as outstanding as the previous games, but the improvements in game mechanic are oblivious. I personally enjoyed the support mechanic because not only we can pair up the units, it provides them more stats and strength in the battle.

5. Favourite class?
Blue-haired Lord Dark Knight, Swordmaster and Trickster are my favourite classes.

6. What do you think of supports?
Since there is a large amount of supports for the game, it's understandable that there won't be a lot of support with in-depth romance/friendship. It's fine I suppose, at least it gives us a vision of how the relationship formed rather than none at all.

7. What do you like most about the games?
Customizeable avatar is one of my favourite new mechanic. Aside from that, the thing I love most about the game is how big and vast the world of Fire Emblem is. Like there are endless possibilities, and the multiple universes can make the series go on and on. The characters are enjoyable and rememerable (most of them :9)
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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#3 Post by n0tgin »

Josie wrote:Hi :DDDD I see you have brought this over to LSF c: All right let's see what we have.
Yeah I can't keep my mouth shut about FE because of all this FE14 hype... And hey, you started with Sacred Stones too huh? Did you prefer Eirika's or Ephraim's route more? Personally, I did Eirika's first so I liked hers...

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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#4 Post by SundownKid »

n0tgin wrote: OK so some questions to get the thread off the ground:
1. What games from the series have you played?
2. What game did you start with?
3. What's your favourite from the series?
4. Have you played Awakening? If so, what did you think of it? If not, why?
5. Favourite class?
6. What do you think of supports?
7. What do you like most about the games?
1) Fire Emblem 6 (Binding Blade), 7 (Blazing Sword), 8 (Sacred Stones), 9 (Path of Radiance), 10 (Radiant Dawn), 13 (Awakening)
2) Started with Fire Emblem 7 a.k.a. Fire Emblem in the U.S.
3) My favorite is Fire Emblem 7 as well.
4) Yes, I played Awakening. I greatly enjoyed the game. The music and graphics are fantastic. The plot is only so-so, it had some nice moments but the overall plot arc is extremely generic "save the world from ultimate evil". My main nitpick is that the game becomes way too easy later on and a single unit can steamroll the maps, in fact it's often safer to just use a couple of paired up uber units instead of your army.
5) Favorite class is the Hero, it's always been one of my strongest units. Runner up goes to Swordmaster (criticals for days), and Bishop (I just think light magic looks cool). It's really too bad that they removed them in favor of War Monks.
6) I enjoy supports, they were probably the best part of Awakening and I like how they made them easier to get compared to the previous games.
7) The gameplay, I am a big fan of Tactical RPGs. I also just think they are quite well made games in general.

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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#5 Post by potouto »

n0tgin wrote:Yeah I can't keep my mouth shut about FE because of all this FE14 hype... And hey, you started with Sacred Stones too huh? Did you prefer Eirika's or Ephraim's route more? Personally, I did Eirika's first so I liked hers...
cries you have no idea, the hype is strong in each of us. I prefer Eirika's because her route has more storyline, Ephraim's just made me want to fight and get over with it.
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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#6 Post by wayward »

Ive actually never played a fire emblem game but i love strategy games. and of course ther eare tons of fire emblems.. is there one i should start with?
Last edited by wayward on Wed Jul 29, 2015 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#7 Post by SundownKid »

wayward wrote:Ive actually never played a fire emblem game but i love strategy games. and of course ther eare tons of fire emblems.. is there one i should start with?
Awakening on 3DS is a fine one to start with, TBH - it's probably the easiest Fire Emblem game to date, and it has a casual mode where your characters don't die permanently. It's also its own universe (well, sort of.. it takes place an insanely long time after the original Fire Emblem in the same world, but it explains everything you need to know)

Fire Emblem 7 (a.k.a. "Fire Emblem") on GBA is also a good one to start with. It's the first one that ever came out in English and it's also a fantastic game with great animation. It gets a bit tougher later on but it has an entire first act that's easy to ease you into things.

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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#8 Post by esha »

Did someone say fire emblem

1. What games from the series have you played?

Awakening, and some of fe7, the one on the wii u.

2. What game did you start with?

Awakening

3. What's your favourite from the series?

ahaha

4. Have you played Awakening? If so, what did you think of it? If not, why?

It got me into the series! Love it to absolute pieces~

5. Favourite class?
Oof, that's a toughie. Dark flier is nice for galeforce. I like the dlc ones like dread fighter and bride. Maybe Hero?

6. What do you think of supports?

They are my life.

7. What do you like most about the games?

The characters and supports, hands down.

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#9 Post by Fox Lee »

This is one of my all-time favourite game series! It makes me sad to think that I may not pick up the new one (I don't know if I like where it's going - but like you said, don't wanna talk about that cus it's depressing :\). So on to the good stuff! TOO MUCH DAMN TEXT INCOMING.

OK so some questions to get the thread off the ground:
1. What games from the series have you played?

2. What game did you start with?
3. What's your favourite from the series?
4. Have you played Awakening? If so, what did you think of it? If not, why?
I was introduced to it by a friend who lent me Shadow Dragon, cus he knew from Smash Brothers that I fancied Marth ;p I really liked that (though playing the gaiden mode damn near broke me - I am a "perfect completion" player, so having characters you can only unlock by getting other characters killed is like the worst thing ever >3>; I'm glad none of the others I've played did such a thing!

Anyway, because I loved that I also grabbed Radiant Dawn, which is my favourite of the series. I think it's against the law for hardcore fans to like RD best, but I do... even without real supports, I love so many of the characters, and the dynamics between them. Notable examples include Tormod and his henchmen, Tibarn and the herons, Sothe and his lovely bare midriff, Lucia and Elincia, EVERYTHING about Nailah and Rafiel, Soren and Ike, and TITANIA OMG. Though I gotta say, I do not like footballer!Ike, he looks all wrong.

I was really into the story too - I'm an antitheist, so I especially enjoyed the treatment of the corrupt church, the misuse of religious tradition, and the futility of striving for "order" when you're, you know, human. Oh, and the fact that there was finally an outrightly gay character in the mix!

So I finished Radiant Dawn and decided that I had to have the secret Soren ending, and anyway I wanted more FE, so I set about tracking down Path of Radiance. This is not an easy feat in Australia! I had an international loader disc for my Gamecube, but if I wanted the save to be compatible with my Wii I needed a PAL version, which were going for ~$120 on eBay. In the end I got one out of the UK for only about $80, but, totally worth it. I missed some of the characters from RD, but I had a lot of fun pumping up my favourite carry-over characters to get buffs for my second RD playthrough (buffing Jill and Zihark made a HUGE difference to how effective Micaiah's weenie squad could be in the early chapters of RD). Plus, playing through Ike's very straightforward "Hero's Journey" in PoR made me like the middle chapters of RD - the ones dealing with Elincia's rule after the success of that campaign - even more than I already did. It's so rare that a game deals with that phase of a conflict.

I also REALLY appreciate that there are no lolicon dragons in the Tellius games. I hate when a setting has a magical long-lived species, but just COINCIDENTALLY all the childlike ones we see are adorable under-dressed girls, while all the men we meet are crusty old relics >3<;

After that, I got my hands on a fan translation of Light and Shadow, which I still enjoyed, but not as much as any of the others I'd played so far. It did result in me creating something of a personal tradition, though - "Seike", a meta-character who exists to be my avatar in games where female character creation options are too girly to represent my kind of woman. Seike is a "bifauxnen" archetype - that is, a lady who looks like a dude - so I get to use the male visuals and classes for her, but still perceive her as a woman (AND giggle at her awkward romantic interactions with all the other girls).

After that I finally got to play Sacred Stones because I bought a 3DS during the Ambassador promotion (damn fine bunch of games!). It's probably my least favourite of the ones I've played - I just didn't find the characters and their relationships as compelling as I did in Tellius - and how characters' genders and classes were mapped was more traditional than in RD or PoR, so without a reclassing mechanic I couldn't really make an army that pleased me personally. It's still a great game, it just didn't capture me that same way the others did.

So finally, Awakening. I wasn't actually planning to buy this at first, because I REALLY don't like the shift in character design between FEA and the Tellius games; especially Lissa's awful pseudo-steampunk dress skeleton thing, and the fact that almost every bloody female costume has pointlessly exposed thighs, even the ones that are constantly mounted on horses or dragons or whatever. Geez, their thighs would get absolutely shredded! >_O;;; Such a shame, when the designs for Tellius were such gorgeous, sensible badasses :\

In the end though, FEA won me over - its characters are still pretty great, even if I often disliked how they looked or dressed - but I have mixed feelings about it overall. The gameplay is as strong as ever, and I appreciated the huge number of supports (and that I could support everybody up to A-Rank without abandoning any of the characters/couples mid-development. I HATED having to choose between support partners!) Also, I love the team-up function. OTOH, I wasn't fond of being able to grind endlessly, since I then felt like I HAD to grind endlessly, because the game wouldn't be COMPLETE otherwise. And, the big one of course, I hate that the "heredity" angle forces (almost) everybody into heteronormative, child-bearing relationships (especially with the blatant queerbaiting that goes on elsewhere *coughDLCcough*). I did my best with it - using Seike of course - and Cordelia's path works astonishingly well as a queer love story (and I loved the idea of Severa's tsundere nature coming from the knowledge that she was adopted), but still, it was really frustrating.

Also Nowi stole the support I wanted with Libra >:\

I also super-duper hate what happens if I put Chrom into what I think is the best relationship for him, story-wise - Sully:
...Because then Kjelle gets elbowed into having Lucina's sibling-support, which is absurdly out-of-character for her >_<; Like, I get that they couldn't customise the support for EVERY possibly sibling, but... AUGH. You can see how these two are SUPPOSED to interact, because they have a real support when they aren't siblings, and Kjelle is a profoundly different person.
No kidding, I hated it so much that when I found out, I straight-up deleted that save and married Chrom to Sumia, like always. Ain't nobody gonna wreck my favourite lady's character >:\

5. Favourite class?
Warrior is my favourite class to make my female avatars, so I resent the hell out of it being male-only. Another reason I will always need Seike.

Aside from that, I'm very fond of Cavaliers/Paladins and Mercenaries/Heroes, both of whom I can use as short-terms substitutes for armours (they tend to be my least favourite characters, when they aren't the washboard-abbed awesomeness that is Kjelle at least).

Holy cow though, Gale Force is amazing for my play style - in FEA I went to get it on everybody who could have it.

6. What do you think of supports?
Supports are wonderful.

7. What do you like most about the games?
For me, it's the focus on characters - mechanically and in story terms - that sets FE games apart from other strategy titles. It's juuust the right mix of Visual Novel, TBS and RPG for my tastes. And, up until the 3DS generation, I adored its character designs - especially how the women had mostly sensible battle costumes and there wasn't much of the over-designing that's so popular in JRPGs. This is... less true with the current artist - Kita Senri was inarguably the high point, AFAIC - but I guess they're making other people happy with the current ones :\
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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#10 Post by SundownKid »

Personally, I felt the exact opposite. I thought that the Awakening art was far and above the other games. It was the first game that went away from the generic medieval style and made clothing/creatures that felt unique. Well perhaps a bit too unique.. I wasn't too big a fan of the Seahorse-dragon look for the light dragons =P But, I don't feel like it's overdesigned. The armor is actually pretty simple, just shaped in unusual ways. Compare that to, say, this... his armor is so complicated that it could only have come out of a 3D printer.

The guy who designed the Awakening characters also did designs for No More Heroes, which had fantastically designed characters.

I agree about the thighs though.. it was sorta pointless since even if it was for sex appeal, the sprites didn't extend that far. Maybe it was for cosplay appeal? :roll:

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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#11 Post by Fox Lee »

SundownKid wrote:Personally, I felt the exact opposite. I thought that the Awakening art was far and above the other games. It was the first game that went away from the generic medieval style and made clothing/creatures that felt unique. Well perhaps a bit too unique.. I wasn't too big a fan of the Seahorse-dragon look for the light dragons =P But, I don't feel like it's overdesigned. The armor is actually pretty simple, just shaped in unusual ways. Compare that to, say, this... his armor is so complicated that it could only have come out of a 3D printer.
I wouldn't say they're all overdesigned - Lissa is the main culprit, as well as several of the DLC characters (who were done by guest artists, so I can't blame the main guy for those). Elincia is a pretty good example. But yeah, I'll grant that it's nowhere near as overdone as in most JRPGs. I just worry that it's starting to go more in that direction, something that Fates hasn't reassured me about, from what I've seen so far.

At the same Awakening made some stylistic changes to try look sort of more grim and serious, like the colour palette being all desaturated, that I really don't care for (and I think it emphasises quirks like the fanservice costuming, because it sets a more realistic baseline). Really, it's just a matter of personal preference; I like unapologetically colourful anime hair :p

Please don't think I'm too down on it; there are still some designs I absolutely adore, like Lucina and Brady. It's just less in line with what I enjoy looking at.
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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#12 Post by tmokbel1965 »

I love the Fire Emblem games, but I find myself restarting them repeatedly, so my men won't be dead :p

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Re: Fire Emblem Discussion Thread (?)

#13 Post by NadOtavlas »

Has anyone here played 3 Houses? It's freakin' epic!

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