Fire Emblem Franchise

[chazthesilencer]

I think we have a fair few players of the Fire Emblem series on the forum, so I figured now might be a suitable time to create a splooging thread for it.
Discuss your favourite titles, characters, dream teams and all that jazz here.

I’m currently in the middle of Awakening on 3DS (at the time of typing this is the most recent title in the franchise); this has certainly been the most enjoyable entry in the series since the first- by which I mean the one with Eliwood, Lyn & Hector:

I can't be arsed to check wikipedia for its translated subtitle.

The support conversations have always been a big selling point for me, but the selection available in Awakening is ridiculous. Seriously, just how many replays will be necessary for 100% completion? I love it.
My only gripe with the game so far is that none of the character models seem to have feet. What’s up with that?

My favourite units have always been the fliers, the Pegasus knights specifically. They often start out as fragile as wet tissues, but that just makes it all the more satisfying to turn them into juggernauts over time. The best Peg Knight I’ve yet encountered has been Path of Radiance’s Marcia:


I swear she even shrugs off arrow attacks by the later chapters. What helps her stand out even more is the fact that she happens to be part of one of the worst trios of Peg knights in the franchise- her sisters-in-arms being Tanith & Elincia, who both suck and suck for her country respectively.

I don’t own a Wii so haven’t played Radiant Dawn; having to buy the console is one thing- but the game itself is fetching some pretty steep prices online…
I haven’t played Shadow Dragon yet either; I hear that there are no support conversations in that one, major bummer.

[hui43210]

I will say Awaking is easily in my top 10 favorite video games of all time. I will see what I can do in terms of playing more in the series.

Also the lack of feet was a design decision made because the developers thought it was cute. However, feedback pointed out it looked stupid, so we can expect feet in the next game thankfully.

[Agentomega]

I can also say that of the games I've played, Awakening is my favorite.

I echo the sentiment about the support conversations - I've made it my goal to have each playthrough with a different pairing each time. In addition, they really give you loads of extra character background.

I really enjoy the reclassing and skill options - I have made some pretty beast units. For instance, I paired Chrom with My Unit on my current playthrough, gave Lucina Ignis, reclassed her Peg. Knight -> Dark Flier (for Galeforce) -> Dark Knight (because her spell and strength were super sexy by now). She is probably my most OP unit right now. We can talk builds some other time XD

Support in battles - love it. Combined with increased effect from increased support convo. level and you can plow through most anything.

One thing I think is very broken though is the DLC. If you buy EXPonential Growth, you can essentially guarantee unlimited supply of risk-free EXP (with the exception of some of the level 30 Risen because of their Miracle combined with Counter). Now, I exploit the shit out of it. Should I? Probably not. But I do. I quite liked it back when the grinding mechanism was the tower with increasing waves of difficulty. That was still challenge that delivered good EXP, unlike just playing the story battles in Awakening which sometimes have high level enemies with low EXP gain (because of the internal level mechanic)

[LeoXiao]

Played about half of the GBA version, found it pretty good. Strikes me as being a more tactics-intensive version of Advance Wars.

[Monk Ed]

Played about half of the GBA version, found it pretty good. Strikes me as being a more tactics-intensive version of Advance Wars.

SOLD.

I'll get on this as soon as I'm done with Advance Wars 2. (AWS was my first, then starting a couple years ago I played through AW1 and am working on AW2 each summer.)

[Alaska Slim]

^ 2 is probably the best, 3, while not bad, made it too much about the powers. Legitimate strategies could come completely undone by you or the other player just getting the tag-team, and getting to move twice (more if you're the Green Earth pilot).

Just bought a new cartridge for 1, gave my first one as a gift to my Bass instructor before I finished, wanted to do so ever since. Also getting DBZ's Supersonic Warriors.

I’m currently in the middle of Awakening on 3DS (at the time of typing this is the most recent title in the franchise); this has certainly been the most enjoyable entry in the series since the first- by which I mean the one with Eliwood, Lyn & Hector:

Played that one before I knew what I was doing, got everything wrong. Stuck with the first paladin I got, promoted Lyn to blade lord well before she maxed out. Loved the arena mechanic, but I never saw it in a game since.

Sadly, the cartridge I have can't save games anymore, I would have to play it all in one go to "do it right" this time. I now have a similar problem with my Devil Survivor DS cartridge, though it can at least save for a time.

My favourite units have always been the fliers, the Pegasus knights specifically.

Sentinels for me, watching Nephie go Wrath is always a highlite, she's like a more mobile General.

I liked the laguz units starting out, but they always suck towards the end, even some of the royals.

They often start out as fragile as wet tissues, but that just makes it all the more satisfying to turn them into juggernauts over time. The best Peg Knight I’ve yet encountered has been Path of Radiance’s Marcia:

She sucks in Dawn, hate to tell you, Haar and Jill are just too boss to take her in their place. Elincia got better I felt, in part because she got a sword that can hit 4x, and she can heal. Still, she was the only character of mine to die in the final fight (and you have to take her).

I haven’t played Shadow Dragon yet either;

I found it tedious as hell, was annoyed by how mounted riders couldn't save someone and continue moving.

If I was using them to get another character out of the way of an attack, they'd instead take their place, with their speed modifier now hunkered down by the extra person.


... Anyone know why this remake didn't make it to the states? I thought it'd be worth checking out.

[LeoXiao]

SOLD.

I'll get on this as soon as I'm done with Advance Wars 2. (AWS was my first, then starting a couple years ago I played through AW1 and am working on AW2 each summer.)

Careful. There is no such thing as unit-building in FE, and neither is there a hotseat multiplayer option like in AW. When I say "tactics-intensive", what I mean is that things like positioning, unit modification, veterancy, etc. play a far greater role. The gameplay actually ends up being rather different.

Also, AW is kickass. have you heard of Advance Wars By Web? It solves the problem of gameboys not having internet connections.

^ 2 is probably the best, 3, while not bad, made it too much about the powers. Legitimate strategies could come completely undone by you or the other player just getting the tag-team, and getting to move twice (more if you're the Green Earth pilot).

QFT.

[Alaska Slim]

Huh, didn't know this, apparently we have Advanced Wars to thank for Fire Emblem being released state-side.

[Agentomega]

Huh, didn't know this, apparently we have Advanced Wars to thank for Fire Emblem being released state-side.

Huh, I didn't know that either. Makes sense though, new game with a similar feel tests well with Americans, why not bring them games from an old series that has clearly been successful? Heh, kind of makes me want to spawn off a thread for Advance Wars, even if it does have fewer games.

In other news, I've got all my pairings for my current playthrough of Awakening set up. Think the only one remaining (that I haven't yet gotten S-ranked) is Inigo and Kjelle. Once I've got my characters final classes set, I'll proceed through the rest of the story/DLC.

[chazthesilencer]

My first Awakening campaign is over.

Difficulty setting= Classic Hard

Campaign time= 79+ hours

Most Valuable Unit= Severa, Hero class
High HP, stength and skill attributes; a powerful sword and axe; Galeforce and Sol skills; she was a goddamn tank.

Most neglected Unit= Kellam lol

Chrom partner= Sumia. Pies pies pies pies pies pies pies

Robin (M) partner= Cordelia

Favourite support conversation= Nah x Cynthia (C)
"The word "equals" rarely applies when one person's butt is on the other's head!"

Favourite chapter= Side Story 16 "Daughter to Dragons"
Tackled this one before I had a full squad of level 20ers, and with all those Warrior units rushing towards you with that obnoxious counter skill- it was a tense and terrifying experience to say the least. Clearing this without any lost units was a proud moment.
The Nowi x Nah introduction was also adorable.

The overall experience was pretty damn satisfying. I think this beats the first game quite comfortably.

Other good things:

This is the fastest I’ve ever seen healer units level up, I hope this becomes a regular thing for the franchise.
The Easter-eggy-weapons like "Roy's Blade" and "Ephraim's Pike" were a nice touch.

Other not so good things:

The Falcon Knight class was really taken down a peg in this entry, I mean- trading swords for staves? Lame. Why would anybody NOT choose to upgrade to the Dark flier class?
That said- the Dark flier skill "Galeforce" is a bit of a game breaker. Funny that a flying unit class would essentially adopt Eagle's CO power... you know what- we might as well turn this into an Advance Wars thread too.
No "Light" magic in this entry. I liked the magic triangle of anima/dark/light, I'm waiting for it to return to the franchise.
I started a second campaign, planned out all my new support pairings, cleared chapter 11 and then… goddamnit Sumia! Restart.
That tree branch on the floor of the barracks... why won't anybody throw it out!?

=================

I've got the FE bug all over again, so I'll be watching the usual places for a cheap Wii and copy of Radiant Dawn to appear.
How sad is it that you can purchase a second-hand Wii cheaper than a PS2 slim? Blimey Nintendo...

Loved the arena mechanic, but I never saw it in a game since.

You’re the first person I’ve heard say (type) that. You must be a born gambler. RNG fun.

Marcia sucks in Dawn, hate to tell you, Haar and Jill are just too boss to take her in their place.

Do you like the feel of my still-beating heart in your hands?
Oh well, Wyvern Riders are fine too.

---

EDIT: Added 11/9/13

Played Shadow Dragon.

Good stuff:

The game is typical Fire Emblem (well-designed, challenging, addictive etc.)

^The Pegasus riders. Caeda / Shiida just might replace Marcia as the best Pegasus rider in the franchise, she’s a very tough cookie and available from chapter one.
The “Whitewings” (Catria, Palla and Est) come later, but are immediately invaluable thanks to their triangle attack. Also- pink and green hair.

Reclassing; a character’s unit-type can be changed before battle without the need of special seals or other items, allowing for easy customisation and balancing of your squad.


D’aww, Tiki when she was little. Also- green hair.

Not so good stuff:

The game is played on the bottom screen of the 3/2/DS, and it only displays 11 x 8 squares during battle. Consider the fact that Marth alone has a movement radius of 7 spaces- this isn’t nearly enough scope. A zoom-out option was desperately needed here.

Marth sure knows how to build an army, but as early as the 5th chapter- I had more units than I ever cared to use.

The character portraits and battle sprites are really lame. See above.

It takes way too long for the Fire Emblem theme to start playing at the title screen.

Fliers discard their Pegasus for Wyverns upon promotion. The lack of Pony pride here is disgraceful.

No –Katti sword to be found.

Bad stuff:

No support conversations. This really is a massive bummer. Besides an introductory and recruitment dialogue the unit may share with Marth, all units (with only a few exceptions) remain pretty much silent for the rest of the game.
That means we get no exploration of the characters’ backgrounds, their hopes, dreams, quirks, romances… nothing.
You’ll have your favourites, but there’s no attachment. You’ll feel about as sad to see them die as an Adv. Wars medium tank explode.
The character epilogues during the game’s credits are also laughably short. You can’t help but feel a little cheated.

There are “X” chapters in the game- which is a good thing- but you can only access them if you have 15 units or less in your barracks.
So basically- Shadow Dragon rewards you for being a sucky tactician who lets most of their units die.

---

Naturally- Awakening was a very hard act to follow, but for what was essentially a 20-hour history lesson on the Fire Emblem poster boy- it was enjoyable. Worth one play-through, but low in replay value.

This will slot happily on the shelf along with the rest of the collection. Now to find Radiant Dawn…

[Monk Ed]

I've been playing Awakening a whole lot, and I've started noticing things.

* One of my assumptions about the game proved wrong. I just naturally figured that once a character joins your party and becomes "killable" (yeah, I did eventually notice that they don't actually die, just retire from combat) that they would disappear from the main story and all further story scenes, but I was treated to a hliarious scene in Chapter 7 or 8 involving Sumia. And I guess I should have realized already that my assumption was not the case, because Lissa (to name just one example) keeps on appearing in scenes even though she's already a member of the playable party from the start.

* There are a fuckton of potential pairings in this game. I assume that S-rank means committed relationship? Jeez, no matter your ship, this game goes out of its way to make it possible.

* Not all characters have support conversations with each other. This actually makes the previous bullet point all the crazier, because it means the crazy number of possible pairings were all put there by choice rather than to fulfill some stipulation of the design. Chrom seems to have the fewest support conversations of all -- and I wonder if that's a bad omen for just how soon in the game he (I assume) gets killed (not a spoiler, the premonition of it is the very first scene of the game).

* It just kind of hit me that my husbando Chrom is going to die at some point in my playthrough, almost inevitably. Maybe I can prevent that premonition from the game's beginning from coming true but I have this sense of inevitability, and here I've grown so attached to him. He has featured quite frequently in my, erm, erotic thoughts over the past year since I started playing this game, and only just now has it really begun to dawn on me that I'm likely coming to the end of my time with his story still as an open book, which is sad to think about because he's the first truly masculine fully adult male character I've ever been this attracted to and fond of.

Anyway, now that I'm getting this deep into the game, I'm developing questions. Questions like:

* Does the story change at all based on relationship statuses? The scene between Sumia and Chrom (with others present) came off significantly as a ship tease scene, even though I had not yet developed even a C-rank relationship between the two (I have since started driving them hard together), but that made me wonder if the scene would have happened if I had already gotten Chrom hooked up with someone else, for example. Not to mention there's this:

I started a second campaign, planned out all my new support pairings, cleared chapter 11 and then… goddamnit Sumia! Restart.

I am nearing this chapter. Should I be wary of something specific? I'm glad for not being spoiled, but I also don't want to risk running into a situation where I want to start over because I couldn't get all the pairings I wanted.

[NemZ]

I'm not there yet, but I'm guessing it's another tragic boot-related incident. ;)

[Stillborn]

I'm not playing it. There is Lyn as DLC but can't be paired with Tactician

[Monk Ed]

It just occurred to me -- I completely forgot, but, you can choose to play as a female in this game, right? And, as a female, I presume you can, um, with Chrom...

...Ugh, but why do I have to play a female to do that? Not that I'm against playing as a female character or even don't prefer it depending on the game (I play Resident Evil way more often as Jill than Chris and greatly prefer the Jill segments of Revelations), but this game is one where I feel most at home playing a more direct self-insert (I even gave him my red hair) rather than a character I'm playing (as I would be doing in a game that's more about role-playing and immersion such as the Fallout or Elder Scrolls series), and they went out of their way to make as many heterosexual pairings possible as possible so why not at least one homosexual one? I don't see any excuse, myself -- not when the setting is already progressive enough to feature women in combat roles in the same fully-covering armor as the men.

Being non-straight is suffering.

[Lorkhan]

It just occurred to me -- I completely forgot, but, you can choose to play as a female in this game, right? And, as a female, I presume you can, um, with Chrom...

...Ugh, but why do I have to play a female to do that?

Being non-straight is suffering.

While I'm not surprised, that shit is pretty weird considering how they handled Ike in RD. Seriously, they shot down every ship in favor of either Soren or Ranulf. Didn't come out and say it or anything, but its really hard not to notice the subtext there. I was legitimately surprised you couldn't have same sex-couples in Awakening, but that isn't conducive to the whole child thing I guess.

[Monk Ed]

Seriously, they shot down every ship in favor of either Soren or Ranulf. Didn't come out and say it or anything, but its really hard not to notice the subtext there.

*looks up these characters*



Oh myyy.

Next Fire Emblem game: Radiant Dawn.

I was legitimately surprised you couldn't have same sex-couples in Awakening, but that isn't conducive to the whole child thing I guess.

Er wait wait what? I remember reading somewhere that your characters "can get married and even have children" but I didn't know they were important enough to the game that it would be worth forbidding homosexual relationships for them. Or maybe don't answer that because I'm afraid of spoilers.

[Final Messenger]

Next Fire Emblem game: Radiant Dawn.

Play path of radiance first for the game cube since radiant Dawn is a direct sequel to path of Radiance

[Stillborn]

I once played Fire Emblem Seisen no Keifu.

So. Much. Incest.

Hell, just for kicks I used Jealousy Mechanism Bug to achieve incest pairing that's mechanically impossible by regular means

[Dataprime]

Awakening was my very first Fire Emblem game. I am now a fan!

[Monk Ed]

I reached chapter 9 today and WAAAH what is happening, this game suddenly got so serious!

I also peeked ahead accidentally in the same guide that I checked to see if what happens in chapter 9 could be altered in any way (it can't) and saw that I should really, really get Chrom paired up with someone before chapter 11... which is next, because I also just completed chapter 10.

A whole lot of challenges and that one new paralogue it is. Man, makes me glad I decided just recently to start leveling up their relationship. (Chrom x Sumia that is.)

Should I be worried about hurrying up and getting my other ships shipped? I've been working hard on making sure Robin and Lissa are always together (even as much as it pains me to let Robin x Sully sink), because I think Robin x Lissa feels right for the story and therefore makes more sense for my first and "most canonical" playthrough of the game. Should I try to get them paired up before chapter 11 as well or some other point?

Please answer as vaguely as possible.