Fire Emblem Megathread

[Lago PARANOIA]

Because I'm me, I'll start off this general thread with a hot take.

Did anyone else think that the writing in FE6 and FE7 was godawful?

FE6's bad writing is pretty easy to explain. It's a remake of the first Fire Emblem, down to the same character designs and archetypes. The plot is poorly paced with two antagonists who don't really do anything or have any connections to your party. Unlike FE5, however, the metaplot and progression of the battles aren't interesting in of themselves.

It's just a bland, insipid game in terms of writing. It's a GBA Fire Emblem Game, so it's still fun to play, but at the end of the day it's a wasted opportunity coming off of FE4 and FE5.

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FE7's bad writing is slightly more complicated to explain. But it's still very bad. It has subplots that go nowhere (Kizuna, the Black Fang, everything involving Lyn) and probably the highest ratio of unsympathetic characters in the series. Villains undermine themselves and their threat levels for ridiculous reasons. Setting concepts are introduced with no connection to the previous game. Quintessence is the new midichlorians. And most of the characters you pick up don't really seem to have any connection to what's going on with the plot. It's a Fire Emblem tradition of course to pick up characters whose reasons for joining you are only tangentially related to the larger plot at large, but it's nowhere near as bad in other games as it is in FE7. And I'm including FE1/9 in that mix, where there are two palette swaps literally named Bord and Cord.

FE8 on the other hand, while suffering in gameplay compared to the first two in a lot of ways, was a much more enjoyable experience both the writing and characterization. Yes, the plot is really basic and unsurprising, but considering how underdeveloped FE6's plot was and how convoluted and arbitrary FE7's plot was I'll take it any damn day of the week.

[Shrapnel]

... Which ones are these, now? I'm unfamiliar with the numbers.

[John Magnum]

7 is the first Fire Emblem released in the United States, on Game Boy Advance, just called Fire Emblem. 8 is the next GBA one, Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones.

[Leress]

Did anyone else think that the writing in FE6 and FE7 was godawful?

I thought all the ones that officially came to the US have been pretty trash in terms of writing. I stop caring about the story of Fire Emblem since sacred stone and really just go with gameplay.

[maglag]

Yay Fire Emblem!

Because I'm me, I'll start off this general thread with a hot take.

Did anyone else think that the writing in FE6 and FE7 was godawful?

FE6's bad writing is pretty easy to explain. It's a remake of the first Fire Emblem, down to the same character designs and archetypes. The plot is poorly paced with two antagonists who don't really do anything or have any connections to your party. Unlike FE5, however, the metaplot and progression of the battles aren't interesting in of themselves.

It's just a bland, insipid game in terms of writing. It's a GBA Fire Emblem Game, so it's still fun to play, but at the end of the day it's a wasted opportunity coming off of FE4 and FE5.

Although Roy's FE plot is pretty bad overall, calling it a clone from the first game just doesn't make much sense:
1-Roy's father actually survives the game and provides some plot whereas Marth's is mentioned to die and is never seen.
2-Roy starts the game marching to war against the evil empire while Marth starts running away for his life and ends in exile in another kingdom.
3-Roy doesn't need to deal with any Gharnef or Sage of Light equivalent.
4-The biggest similarity is there being a lot of dragons in the enemy side, however wereas in the first Fire Emblem the enemy dragons are actively evil and running their own plans, in Roy's story the dragons are all puppets from the human Zephiel that's basically an eco-terrorrist going "humans are bad for the enviroment and almost drove the poor dragons to extinction". Case in point the big dragon boss in Roy's story is actually a secret boss that needs to be unlocked since she had been completely brainwashed by Zephiel and is not even sure what she is or what she's supposed to be doing. And to reach her you need to fight not dragons but the remants of Zephiel's army that shared his delusions but had some sanity left to send away their soldiers that still had families to worry about or were too wounded to fight because they know they're all going to die to Roy's army if they make a last stand. There's even mechanics support where the enemy doesn't get any reinforcements despite being that late game-they were indeed the last remants. Marth's story didn't have anything like that.

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FE7's bad writing is slightly more complicated to explain. But it's still very bad. It has subplots that go nowhere (Kizuna, the Black Fang, everything involving Lyn) and probably the highest ratio of unsympathetic characters in the series. Villains undermine themselves and their threat levels for ridiculous reasons. Setting concepts are introduced with no connection to the previous game. Quintessence is the new midichlorians. And most of the characters you pick up don't really seem to have any connection to what's going on with the plot. It's a Fire Emblem tradition of course to pick up characters whose reasons for joining you are only tangentially related to the larger plot at large, but it's nowhere near as bad in other games as it is in FE7. And I'm including FE1/9 in that mix, where there are two palette swaps literally named Bord and Cord.

What do you mean Lyn's plot goes nowhere? It ends in the introduction chapters. She finds out she's the daughter of an important noble and gets a title and lands then it's time for Eliwood's story where she becomes a secondary protagonist swept in the war. Similarly the Black Fang's plot is ended in that they're mostly wiped out with a few turning to your side.

Anyway if FE7's plot was that bad then the series would've been shelved right there. But lots of people loved Lyn and Hector and Nino and Eliwood right there and most still do.

FE8 on the other hand, while suffering in gameplay compared to the first two in a lot of ways, was a much more enjoyable experience both the writing and characterization. Yes, the plot is really basic and unsurprising, but considering how underdeveloped FE6's plot was and how convoluted and arbitrary FE7's plot was I'll take it any damn day of the week.

That's a valid personal opinion, but again I seriously doubt Sacred Stones would've seen a western release if Blazing Blade hadn't been pretty well received itself.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Also, Zephiel is the worst main villain in FE6 canon. On paper, the idea works, but FE6's writing is so heavy-handed and disjointed that the point of the character became completely undermined.

Although Roy's FE plot is pretty bad overall, calling it a clone from the first game just doesn't make much sense:

I know Fire Emblem excuses its plot rehashes with 'thematic consistency', but FE6 uses so many plot points from FE1 that I'm willing to call it a straight-up clone.

1) The Roy 'romance' arc, such as it was, down to the rescue.
2) Quest for the overpowered legendary sword.
3) Cecilia / Minerva's 'but the enemy has a hostage boo hoo' plot.
4) Backstabbing Erik / Jiol.

What do you mean Lyn's plot goes nowhere? It ends in the introduction chapters. She finds out she's the daughter of an important noble and gets a title and lands then it's time for Eliwood's story where she becomes a secondary protagonist swept in the war. Similarly the Black Fang's plot is ended in that they're mostly wiped out with a few turning to your side.

By go nowhere, I mean that her plot was a complete waste of time to the larger plot. I don't mean that it's bad, because it was much better written than the rest of the game, but it and the characters introduced in it had almost no relation to the rest of the plot. Lyn finds out she's a noble and has made all of these great friends... and then what?

Same for the Black Fang. They don't do anything. They're just filler villains whose existence don't affect plot progression despite having so much screentime.

To me, it's not enough for a plot point in a story of predetermined length to be internally consistent and make sense. It also has to affect the stories that come afterwards. Otherwise it was just a waste of time.

[Shrapnel]

Although Roy's FE plot is pretty bad overall, calling it a clone from the first game just doesn't make much sense:

I know Fire Emblem excuses its plot rehashes with 'thematic consistency', but FE6 uses so many plot points from FE1 that I'm willing to call it a straight-up clone.

1) The Roy 'romance' arc, such as it was, down to the rescue.
2) Quest for the overpowered legendary sword.
3) Cecilia / Minerva's 'but the enemy has a hostage boo hoo' plot.
4) Backstabbing Erik / Jiol.

Well, Marth Roy is literally Roy's Marth's clone in Melee.

Whups, got 'em mixed up there.

[maglag]

Although Roy's FE plot is pretty bad overall, calling it a clone from the first game just doesn't make much sense:

I know Fire Emblem excuses its plot rehashes with 'thematic consistency', but FE6 uses so many plot points from FE1 that I'm willing to call it a straight-up clone.

1) The Roy 'romance' arc, such as it was, down to the rescue.
2) Quest for the overpowered legendary sword.
3) Cecilia / Minerva's 'but the enemy has a hostage boo hoo' plot.
4) Backstabbing Erik / Jiol.

Marth doesn't get a romance arc. It's entirely possible to get Caeda killed early on and keep going, and if she lives then Caeda will procceed to flirt with and seduce enemy men every other stage.

The others are just pretty standard fantasy tropes and show up not only in most Fire Emblems than not but other fantasy games too. Link from Legend of Zelda always quests for the overpowered legendary sword, has to worry about hostages and is betrayed now and then too.

Plus hey in Roy's story you do have the alternate ending where you can not find all the legendary weapons (or use them up too soon) then the story gets an alternate ending where Zephiel being shanked is enough and brainwashed big dragon girl gets to live in peace in some secret cavern.

What do you mean Lyn's plot goes nowhere? It ends in the introduction chapters. She finds out she's the daughter of an important noble and gets a title and lands then it's time for Eliwood's story where she becomes a secondary protagonist swept in the war. Similarly the Black Fang's plot is ended in that they're mostly wiped out with a few turning to your side.

By go nowhere, I mean that her plot was a complete waste of time to the larger plot. I don't mean that it's bad, because it was much better written than the rest of the game, but it and the characters introduced in it had almost no relation to the rest of the plot. Lyn finds out she's a noble and has made all of these great friends... and then what?

Same for the Black Fang. They don't do anything. They're just filler villains whose existence don't affect plot progression despite having so much screentime.

To me, it's not enough for a plot point in a story of predetermined length to be internally consistent and make sense. It also has to affect the stories that come afterwards. Otherwise it was just a waste of time.

But they do affect the main plot. Noble Lyn and her loyal companions go on to help Eliwood save the day. Meanwhile the mighty Black Fang turn out to have been puppets from the real big bad and are sacrificed. The Black Fang leaders did think they were top dogs, but then they notice they've been fully infiltrated and corrupted and are now nothing but expendable pawns to advance the master evil plan. That shows just how dangerous the big bad was, that even the Black Fang was taken over.

Not everything needs to be super connected. Sometimes an introduction just provides motivation for the characters to go do something else, sometimes some characters are just stepping stones for others. Sometimes people and organizatios just die.

[Blade]

I've recently started FE (FE7 according to what I've read here).
I'm not too far in (I just got the knight guy) and so far it feels like a very long tutorial. There's potential for a fine tactics game but so far the "big blob of death" approach has been working fine for me.

[maglag]

I've recently started FE (FE7 according to what I've read here).
I'm not too far in (I just got the knight guy) and so far it feels like a very long tutorial. There's potential for a fine tactics game but so far the "big blob of death" approach has been working fine for me.

If you just got the knight guy, then you're still in the tutorial yes.

Things start getting more complicated once the game has finished covering the base mechanics and classes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtFhorR1VIE <-- while I don't care much for the Mr. Plinkett imitation, this series does do a pretty good rundown on why Fire Emblem 7 is probably the worst game, story-telling wise, in the franchise except for Fates.

But going back to Fire Emblem 6 again... the game is worse than I remembered and how I trashed it. It's a GBA Fire Emblem Game and I definitely had fun, but the story is weak. Not terrible like Fire Emblem 7, just weak. To summarize my complaints:

1) Roy comes off as more of a Mary Sue than I remember. Which is weird, but I think I know why. While Roy doesn't get the plot-fapping that Sigurd and Ephraim and Ike do, the game goes out of its way to paint Roy as this progressive, strategic military badass when his feats don't really match up. See his conversations with Cecilia and Elphin and ESPECIALLY MERLINUS. So even if he gets his dick sucked less by the plot than other Fire Emblem protagonists, the image the game tries to paint of him fits Roy poorly. Like, yeah, Ephraim's badassery is implausible, but at least within the context of the game it works. Roy makes some rather bland judgment calls and the characters are all 'ah, your army is blessed with a wise leader'.

2) You could see the writing of the game steadily improve as the plot went on. Just look at the supports. The characters you get in the second half of the game like Cath and Nimue and Garret and Karel are much better written than in the first half. So my question is... why didn't they go back and rewrite the earlier parts of the fucking plot? Did we really need to hear 'watch out for arrows, lol' yet again about Thany or another 'we armor knights are STRONG AND BRAVE' from Barth?

3) Zephiel is an incredibly weak and mostly irrelevant as a main villain. I don't have a problem with weak main villains, Berdo and Reydrick worked for me just fine, but given how he's treated in later games the game was trying to paint him as a tragic sympathetic villain who nonetheless casts a large shadow over the plot and I'm like... what? He's a snarling cardboard cutout with a daddy complex. Which is fine, but Zephiel doesn't really do anything. He kills and hurts NPC friends of the protagonists but only in a 'you were in my way' thing. No personal connection or anything. He only does one military venture prior to his defeat. And his plan is ridiculous at several points and requires you to justify it with 'he went insaaaaaane from the poison' way too many times.

4) For that matter, most of Bern's army is pretty stupid and unsympathetic. I give Narshan a pass because he's supposed to be like that, but there's no reason for Murdock and Bruunya to be morons as well. Roy's army is about to liberate Etruria's capital, the turning point of the war, and Murdock is all 'durrrr, Narshen is going to get his just deserts, I'm not going to help him'. Bruunya is even more stupid. The game paints her as 'she's not as bad as Roartz and Arcard' yet she's ride-or-die for Zephiel! Either she knows that Zephiel is trying to genocide humanity and she's even worse than the comic relief villains, or she's in the dark and she's killing off a bunch of people for no real military objective. What the fuck?

There's not a single instance of Bern's military outside of Gale being anything but 2D cut-outs. And aside from Narshen and in some supports (like Rutger's) the evil they perpetrate isn't even particularly noteworthy. Yeah, they're the evil army fighting for the extinction of the human race but the Bern military (as opposed to their allies) doesn't do anything particularly evil compared to other Fire Emblem militaries.

5) Speaking of weak villains, what the fuck was up with Roartz and especially Arcard? The Western Isles arc shows that the Etrurian nobility are corrupt, murderous monsters and these two are played for comic relief! You can't have villains that work children to death and then turn around and go 'ha ha, look at how much the REAL villains humiliate them' in a black-and-white fantasy story. What the fuck?

[maglag]

A new Fire Emblem came out and it's turning out pretty good and selling like hotcakes and you're still complaining about the old games? Really, let it go man.

So speaking of 3 Houses, am I the only one amused that the faction that boasts all the time about having no kings still is led by a specific noble lineage that stands above everybody else in the nation, power passing from parent to child? Aka a king by any other name?

[Lago PARANOIA]

A new Fire Emblem came out and it's turning out pretty good and selling like hotcakes and you're still complaining about the old games?

1) Did you fucking forget what board you're posting on?

2) The reason why I am complaining about FE6 and FE7 is because they have an undeserved status for excellence and way too much nostalgia surrounding them. Talking about FE13, FE14', or FE15's failings would be more timely, but they don't have this sheen of untouchable nostalgia that those games do. So when talking about the series' failings in depth, it might not be as timely, but it's definitely more relevant.

3) Seriously, did you forget what board you're posting on? Why are you even here if you're bothered about people complaining about games over 16 years old?

[Whipstitch]

seriously, we just shake canes at eachother here

[maglag]

The videogames subboard here is usually a lot more positive (just look at the SSB thread), plus even in the main tt rpg section when a new iteration of something comes out people will pause bitching about 16+year old games to take their time to complain about the new entry, even if it's not selling well.

In particular when Fire Emblem (7) does have the excuse of being the very first Fire Emblem officially translated to english. Yes it has flaws but dared to do something new for a new audience. Plus your first character is not-mongol girl-warrior starting to build up her own army, that's both pretty badass and not something you see every day. That the execution is not perfect is more than acceptable from such an old title.

And Roy from the previous game turned out popular despite not having any story since westerners first saw him in Super Smash Bros and went "I've got no idea who that boi or what he did is but he sure looks cool, gimme more of him Nintendo!". Pretty much everybody agrees that Fire Emblem 6 is pretty much mediocre otherwise, there's never been a " sheen of untouchable nostalgia" for that one. Roy's popular mostly for being a boi with a big sword that catches fire (and kickking ass in SSB usually).

[Lago PARANOIA]

Fire Emblem 7's biggest problem is that it dared to do something new for an audience but also didn't go far enough. The Fire Emblem formula works especially poorly for FE7's plot where you have dueling conspiracies of small groups of people to avoid a 'there was this BIG WAR' plot. How many Black Fang and Morphs do you kill in an average playthrough? About 400? Even beyond the fact that the plot is really stupid and contradictory, the separation in gameplay and the story they wanted to tell was never as bad in any other Fire Emblem game except for maybe FE13.

Also, the Black Fang are also the most idiotic and self-sabotaging villain organization in Fire Emblem, and I'm comparing them against the Bern military and the Grimleal.

As far as people agreeing that Fire Emblem 6 was mediocre, no, I disagree. FE2, FE8, FE10, FE12, FE13, 14, and 15 get ragged on waaaay more than FE6. And when the complaints do come up, they're along the lines of 'FE6 stripped out a lot of innovations and had a basic plot, but it's fine'. That's way too lenient. FE6 has a barely serviceable plot that gets worse on replays and often has NES-levels of sloppy writing. Which is inexcusable for a strategy game that came out in the 6th generation.

[Blade]

I've finished the "three" campaigns of FE7 and I can't say I'm a fan.
The tactical part is quite limited and repetitive and the actually challenging parts (long distance attack that can randomly one-shot weaker/weakened characters) feel a bit tacked on.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Radiant Dawn fucking rules, outside the obnoxious "lol ballista crit" bullshit. But really, what would FE be without randomly getting fucked by a ballista crit?

[maglag]

Radiant Dawn fucking rules, outside the obnoxious "lol ballista crit" bullshit. But really, what would FE be without randomly getting fucked by a ballista crit?

Fixed that for you. The FE RNG loves to kill your units with surprise crits just as much it loves to make your unit crits when you don't need it.

Actually the other day I got randomly fucked by my own crit while attacking an enemy that had one of those "lol deal damage back automatically" bullshit.

[OgreBattle]

I'm not familiar with every Fire Emblem game, haven't beaten one and played it at friend's houses.

So how does the game encourage interesting tactical movement? What I recall is standing at the very edge of their movement to try to double team the enemy standing furthest out.

I don't remember if there's anything like zones of control to halt movement

[maglag]

I'm not familiar with every Fire Emblem game, haven't beaten one and played it at friend's houses.

So how does the game encourage interesting tactical movement? What I recall is standing at the very edge of their movement to try to double team the enemy standing furthest out.

I don't remember if there's anything like zones of control to halt movement

Most FE games have levels with secondary objectives so that if you try to play extra-safe you'll lose rewards or even characters. Plus slow play means more turns taken meaning lower score. Some maps have outright turn limits so you need to rush ahead, often dividing your force in the right way if you want to grab all the goodies.

I consider that an advantage since lower skill players can still win the game with the basic tactic of "standing at the very edge of their movement to try to double team the enemy standing furthest out", but more skilled players can challenge themselves to win in as few turns as possible while collecting all the secondary rewards.

Then there's higher difficulties like Hard and Lunatic where even the common enemies can hit hard enough to 1-round most of your stuff so suddenly baiting becomes extremely dangerous as allowing even one enemy to attack may mean one of your units bites the dust, so you need to take the initiative and figure out how to finish them off in a way any enemy survivors can't rip your team apart in retaliation. It's quite the different experience. In particular when the enemy units that didn't have any special abilities start gaining offensive skills suck as X blow that only triggers when they attack.

Mind you the maps themselves also matter, there's often chokepoints with walls/forests/rivers/mountains and whatnot, holding them is quite important.

The mobile version Fire Emblem Heroes does have an Obstruct skill as "zone of control" although movement is so low there (most stuff can only move 2 squares per turn, 3 at tops) that it doesn't do much.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Anybody here played FE7x? It's a halfway finished fangame, but it's probably my favorite FE game in terms of mechanics - it's got a bunch of shit from a lot of the games and there's not much information on it out there, so I'm discovering new things all the time.