Why You Should Play Every Fire Emblem Game

Okay...

But I don't have money to buy an switch tho, neither an +4k pc to run an emulator...

This video reminds me how much of a FE addict I can be.. My huge regret is trading in my original DS line to focus more on PSP.. I really hope they rerelease the FE 1 remake.. That said you can’t ask for much more than the two bangers available on Switch

For anyone wanting to play sacred stones on an emulator I highly recommend the mod on Mekkahs channel that lets you do both routes in one playthrough

Three Houses was the first Fire Emblem game I played and I still enjoy it the most out of all the games I've played. I love the customization of the game and the way the students are written make me care about every single one of them.

Question: how do you feel about emulating?

I really wanna play fates, but due to Revelation no longer being accessible I’m tempted to emulate it.

A little late but I feel there is a big missed opportunity not mentioning the FE OVA episodes as a big reason to play Shadow Dragon or Mystery of the Emblem.

Is engage worth it? I’m not a fan of how ungrounded it is compared to 3H by just warping in other heroes isekai style

Engage is so mid

Genealogy is my favorite... of the ones I've played. The problem is there's a lot of FE games I haven't played due to all of them being Nintendo system exclusives and me not usually bothering to get Nintendo systems. Really wish they'd start releasing the older ones on Steam or something.

I'm literally watching a video telling me to do something I already have. Even the Kaga Saga games... I don't know what I'm doing.

Play binding blade if you want to feel like a god by warp skipping entire maps with rutger and roy who have 20 movement thanks to buyable boots

Something important that isn't really mentioned, and important to me is the game "ambiance". I personally enjoy Fire emblem games when there is less fantasy and anime characters and tropes (that are heavily pushed since Awakening).
I appreciate more "realistic" settings with western medieval elements and references. I like when the story feels like a real journey, traveling through states, forests, replenishing goods at towns, having a merchant following your armies. I don't like when you have those magical hubs that kills the immersion. I like when the geography makes sense and slowly shifts from plainnto mountains, to deserts etc. I do not like when Japanese nation is glued to fire nation, that is next to water nation.
I like when the characters make sense and have dialogues that make you feel they are real lords thanks to the vocabulary they use.
It isn't just what people call "the story", it's all those world building elements that immerses the player to a medieval world filled with fantasy. I feel games with great ambiance like FE6/7/8, Ike's, SOV or 3H to an extent have this little edge compared to other games.

I don't remember which one was my first Fire Emblem, but I think it was FE4? - admittedly it was way back in college in the mid 2000's on a fantranslated emulator, provided by my roommate.

I admit to completely bouncing off the game and not really enjoying myself.

I came back later with Awakening and definitely enjoyed myself much more. Partially because I came over from Pokemon, and long convoluted chains of passing skills down for unit optimization definitely scratched that itch.

I played Fates as well, but didn't enjoy it nearly as much - it was definitely as complicated for optimization, which was nice, but there was a lot less "okay, my plan of engineering the perfect soldier was a success and I can now solo the entire game with just them", so my long chains of class and skill inheritance just didn't feel like it paid off.

Revelations maps are so good. Fight me.

My favourite game was Echoes, due to the sweet love story and the magical credits song that plays when you beat the game.

Conquest took me the longest amount of time and effort to clear on Maddening difficulty. I played it without any planning ahead, shipping couples just based on personality and it was an absolute monster of a game that took me 2 months and to date has been the only FE to make me concede to losing a unit to permadeath, as I couldn’t clear the last boss without letting one of my front liners drop to set up enemy positions where I could clear them out on my next player phase.

I started with Echoes, which I know isn't exactly the norm. Since then, I've beat FE4, FE6, FE7, Awakening, Three Houses and Engage. Loved all of them, FE4 is my favorite game of all time

Do you recommend the easier "Elite Mode"in Thracia? Why or why not?

I really like to revisit radiant dawn a lot. It is arguably the most sound game mechanically speaking. Dispite being one of the longest games every map feels kind of like a trial map as you are given vastly different units to work with all the time. Echoes is probably the most fun game if you just want to sit down an chill. The whole game is voice acted so you don't even need to read. The characters are all well designed and you actually get to use everyone. Character progression is simple and straightforward so you don't have to do extensive planning and class bases do a decent job at keeping you on track.

I'm curious what your thoughts on Tear Ring Saga since that's more fire emblem than Mirage Sessions is

Awakening always felt like a soulless last effort cash grab to me while playing it and i was never able to pinpoint why i felt like this. Then after grinding the last few friendships to max rank in my first playthrough (which has been going on for 10 years now) on all characters which kind of ruined the game because every single unit has been max level for ages :D before the last endboss it finally hit me at hour 150 or so. The damn character portraits in conversations arent animated. This cut feature encapsulates for me how low budget this game was and why it overall just feels cheap with cut corners and costs everywhere. If youve never noticed that before, youre welcome to be pissed because of that from now on as well. Btw, i still havent finished the last boss fight, i did kinda quit the game for the fifth time or so over the last 10 years when i noticed the animations not being there and havent gone back yet since the beginning of last year. I also havent played any of the newer ones even though i own all of them because of the insufferable online communities of thirsty shippers that have been build around these waifu/husbando collection simulators.

Gaiden W H I P S!! Did you know that Triangle Attack can proc on enemy phase!?!?!? I lost my mind when it happened in my first playthrough

I have 2 favorite games in the series:
Genealogy for the story and how I really got emotionally invested, even if some of the cast don't have much development and I also really love the cast of Sacred Stones so darn much that I couldn't decide which of the two is my favorite. So both are a tie but I am wanting to play the og Fire Emblem game at some point as for whatever reason, the sprites caught my interest.

I'm on record as a Fates defender; the story works a lot better if you're willing to look at it more through an emotional lens than a detailed one or if you're a fan of like, Saturday morning cartoon fun (which I definitely am). The same can be said for Engage's story, they're both built more on Pathos than Logos. Plus, the presentation of Fates is lovely, with a great style and animation in the cinematic cutscenes and clear distinctions in both looks and music for the different factions, making them feel more like different countries than in some other games.
I may also have a soft spot for it because it helped me get through a rough spot emotionally in my life.

I haven't played every fire emblem game, but for all of the ones i have your review was spot on. Very nice video :)

"On the weaker side"

Boy, is that an underatatement regaring Fates' story.

FE8 has a desert motif??

im pretty sure sharp fe is supposed to be a smt/persona x fire emblem type thing

Roy’s our Boy!

Thanks, I genuinely enjoyed this one! Thraccia 776 is the only one in the series I have yet to play (and the original Gaiden but I won't play that one). Got FE1 on switch and have played it a bit (up to the chapter where you meet Minerva) and I am slowly but surely hacking my way through Engage. So many good games, such a great series!

Great video. I played a LOT of Three Houses through the pandemic, which helped me a lot with being isolated. At some point a friend recommended I play the older games - just after I finished Awakening, Engage was announced which was perfect timing. I managed to get through Birthright and SoV before Engage released, and have since completed Engage twice. Currently about to finish Conquest and Blazing Blade - not sure what is next, but I have been having a blast playing through them all.

Cheers!

I haven’t put any money in FE Heros. I’ve played since it came it. I don’t have any crazy OP units but I have all the Chrom variants, which means I am winning that game.

😏 'Promo SM'

TMS is a real mixed bag, it has some of the most engaging gameplay and it is satisfying to get your whole party ganging up on demons and beating the hell out of them. The combat is just a major improvement on Persona/SMT and the music and aesthetic is peak. The black enemies are so obnoxious though; there had to be a better way than making them immune to all field attacks and having them be the same tedious enemies everytime, and they spawn constantly.

"playing one doesn't add that much to playing the other, in my opinion."
Mine too. I feel like they would have been better off as unrelated games, since thinking about them too hard makes you go, "huh?"

Your comment on Trainees is an opinion I wish more FEtubers had. Sure they're not the most optimal (except Ross kinda), but I find myself using all 3 Trainees on most of my runs just for how FUN they are to build, and the branching promotion system means they have even more possible end-points for great replayability. I'm Paladin Amelia all the way though, not too fond of General Amelia. (Despite my love of armours as you can tell from my avatar)

Do not play Gaiden, play Shadows of Valentia instead

Awesome video! Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are still my favorite Fire Emblem games. Also really enjoy the GBA era, Three Houses, and Engage. I wish they would do remakes of the two Jugdral games. I played Genealogy years ago but Thracia 776 is the only FE story I haven't directly experienced myself. I didn't play any of FE1 to FE3, but their remakes cover those stories so I consider that sufficient. Awakening and Fates aren't my favorites (particularly Fates) but I have to admit this video did give me a new appreciation for those games. Gotta say that right now is truly a great time to be a Fire Emblem fan. It's so great to see Engage be mostly well received and inspire people to go back to older games in the series. Hopefully Nintendo and Intelligent Systems notice that and make them more accessible either through remakes/remasters or just straight re-releases.

Is there a companion video on HOW people can get to play the older games? Those originally released on physical media unique to particular games consoles, now long out of production. You made a passing reference to emulation speed-up, and one comment mentions playing on a phone. Another mentions switch online (albeit Japanese). What is all this about? What works and what does not?

Unfortunately, I played fire emblem warriors three hopes before fire emblem engage because I was hoping that this game was going to be a follow up to Fire Emblem Warriors three hawks but instead, I had to look up the Internet on some theories and speculations ago make sense to fire emblem engage storyline it’s like saying you should play every Armored Core game before you play a Armored Core, six fires of Rubycon

" the mechanics in awakening aren't well balanced " you can use this argument against the majority of FE mechanics, heck a lot of stuff that's broken about awakening are available for very few units, like how galeforce is only available to very few units for example and it comes so late


Also fates PU isn't balanced more, there's no situation in which not pairing two units together is better because with PU you still have enough stats to cheese enemies, espacially with Rally skills and tonics and meals

Honestly you should play every FE game just to figure out how many different ways there can be a fire emblem.

I'm the newest of Fire Emblem fans. On chapter 20 in Engage at the moment(my first fire emblem game). Doing 3 houses next. Will at least play Awakening and Fates down the line.

As a fan of Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics. I'm surprised these games flew under my radar initially.😳

I played Awakening, Fates, and currently playing 3H and Engage. I heard that Echoes is one of the best, but now that the 3DS eshop is gone....

Im so glad i stumbled upon this video. I love fire emblem but ive only played awakening. This gives me a great insight on the other games in the series and ill probably play through all of them now!

Fire Emblem heroes is Mid ☠️💀 like the game is bad

Literally playing Engage as my first FE (at least more than trying one map on Awakening and Echoes), I'm surprised that I haven't dropped it already even at the base difficulty.
Mostly beacuse I'm not a fan of the main feature of FE which are growth rates. Even when you can manipulate some of them the idea that I have to try RNG even with level ups to me it's......... not exactly great.
The only other one I tried more than a few minutes is TMS mostly because I'm a Atlus fan and I do enjoy the Idol/Toku theme of the game.

I think Three Houses has a lot more going for it tactically than you give it credit for—gambits are a huge mechanic that completely changes things. It’s my favorite of the past 20 years. But like you my all time fave is sacred stones, and it’s my comfort food too.

Haven't even watched the video yet, but i'm just gonna say no. You shouldn't and it's for one simple reason that applies to every fire emblem game prior to new mystery on the DS. FORCED PERMADEATH. That is an automatic deal breaker and that is undebatable. Until we get re-releases/updated versions with casual mode, new players should actively avoid every pre 2010 title.