Game Debate #141: Fire Emblem

[Reed Rothchild | 9,563]

[cj_robot | 545]

I've never played this one, but I've have a hard time dealing with the concept that death is permanent for characters in the later games I played. If I can ever get over that mental hurdle, I figure I'd probably enjoy this series, as I usually do with these kinds of games.

[B.A. | 1,139]

36 minutes ago, cj_robot said:

I've never played this one, but I've have a hard time dealing with the concept that death is permanent for characters in the later games I played. If I can ever get over that mental hurdle, I figure I'd probably enjoy this series, as I usually do with these kinds of games.

You can chose permadeath or not in the more recent games. 

This isn't my favorite of the series, but still pretty good. I'd go with a 7.

[fox | 1,669]

More of a shining force fan

[MagusSmurf | 577]

This was a pretty killer thing to own on GBA as a teenager, I have a lot of fondness for it and was an admin at a Fire Emblem-themed forum with hundreds of thousands of posts. So yeah, lots of memories with this one.

It's a solid Strategy RPG with generally good map design and cool sprite animations. The actual gameplay systems in FE7 (this game) are relatively conservative. FE6 was already basically an attempt to take some of FE4 and FE5's new mechanics (the ones that weren't WAY out there anyways) but put them into a more traditional feeling game like FE1 and FE3; and FE7 reuses the FE6 engine without much in the way of new features. You like Fire Emblem or Strategy RPGs in general? Cool, this one's great too, but it's hard to say there's much special sauce here at this point. Executed well enough for the most part but not without stumbling here and there. To wit:

-Hard Modes are not unlocked by default; you have to beat the game first. This being a problem is amplified by the game's structure. Lyn Normal Mode has a mandatory tutorial, Lyn "Hard Mode" is pretty the exact same but without the tutorial, and once you understand "how to Fire Emblem" it's mostly pretty trivial. Hector Mode is a remixed version of Eliwood's campaign only unlocked after you beat the game - but beating Eliwood Mode on Normal only unlocks Hector Normal Mode. And Hector Hard Mode ups the difficulty a good bit more than Eliwood Hard Mode so to unlock the highest difficulty you have to beat the game twice on Normal Mode.

-The generic enemies often really struggle to keep up with what your better units are capable of. Marcus/Oswin/Hector can be pretty hard to get killed for most of the first half without a lot of effort. Then after a point your units double attacking and 2HKOing at 1-2 range or whatever is so common. Even on the hardest mode (HHM) the general difficulty feels kind of tame compared to some of the harder games.

-Support conversations are a good idea but their implementation in the GBA games is a mess. The only way I've bothered to see most of them is by reading transcripts on gamefaqs/serenes forest. And the non-Lord, post-Lyn Mode bulk of the cast don't have much dialogue outside of these.

-Battle Before Dawn is a pretty awful map, especially on harder modes. Sometimes the NPCs get RNGed or make terrible decisions and die before you can get to them and there's just nothing you can do but restart the chapter and hope things go better next time.

[nrslam | 477]

Gave it a 7, as it seems to fit the criteria and I've played thru it a couple times. I'd have preferred they stuck with the Advance Wars series, but this was a nice alternative.

As a series, I thought the earlier FEs worked best. The 3DS and home console entries never felt right to me, and I never bothered finishing them.

[Renmauzo | 1,203]

An easy 8 from me; this game sparked my love for Fire Emblem and I've played every game - released since - to death. 

[rdrunner | 422]

Never played this, but guessing I might like it someday.  For now I would guess that my experience is much like that of the typical American gamer:

(Marth appears for the first time while playing Smash)

Gamer: "Who is THAT?"

(checks internet)

Gamer: "Hmm ok"

(goes back to Smash)

[Webhead123 | 687]

I've never played any of the games in this series and while I have no particular reason against trying them, if I'm being realistic with myself, it's probably one I'll never get around to, with so many other games competing for my time.

So, never played and likely never will.

[Sumez | 2,983]

Is this vote specifically for the GBA remake? 

[Brickman | 4,003]

One of the few FE games I haven’t played but have heard it’s good. Might play it next year.

[MagusSmurf | 577]

3 hours ago, Sumez said:

Is this vote specifically for the GBA remake? 

You're probably thinking of Shadow Dragon on DS.

"Fire Emblem" on GBA is not a remake and nothing is a remake of it. It has a subtitle in Japanese ("Rekka no Ken," was popularly called "Blazing Sword" for years in the fandom and that still pops up sometimes but Nintendo has officially called it "The Blazing Blade" now) but said subtitle was dropped in western releases since it was the first game to come out there.

[AstralSoul | 502]

I think it's good but not amazing, just like every FE game. It's fun, but the story for all of them are borderline cringeworthy bad. Overall this is a solid title though. 7/10

[Sumez | 2,983]

11 hours ago, MagusSmurf said:

You're probably thinking of Shadow Dragon on DS.

"Fire Emblem" on GBA is not a remake and nothing is a remake of it. It has a subtitle in Japanese ("Rekka no Ken," was popularly called "Blazing Sword" for years in the fandom and that still pops up sometimes but Nintendo has officially called it "The Blazing Blade" now) but said subtitle was dropped in western releases since it was the first game to come out there.

Thanks for clarifying! That actually just makes the poll even more misleading 

[Makar | 1,946]

This and shadow dragon are still the only ones I haven’t played. I should probably get around to this one sometime. The first one I ever played was sacred stones and it was solid. 

[DefaultGen | 5,422]

8/10. This is the only Fire Emblem game I think I've ever played. Dunno who tf all those people in Smash are.

[twiztor | 855]

i've only ever played the original Fire Emblem on a NES Repro cart, and that was only for maybe an hour or so. Tactical RPGs aren't really something that i want to spend a lot of time playing. 

As that's mostly irrelevant to this topic, i voted for 'never played it, never will'