Fire Emblem Catch All

The

Spoiler:

Pillars of Light

was one of the most shocking thing I have seen in a video game in recent memory.

I really should give Three Houses another try. I loved, loved older Fire Emblem games but I just coulnd't get into 3 houses. I am not sure why. It might be that I tried playing in hand held mode it was such tiny fonts that I couldn't just enjoy it.

farley3k wrote:

I really should give Three Houses another try. I loved, loved older Fire Emblem games but I just coulnd't get into 3 houses. I am not sure why. It might be that I tried playing in hand held mode it was such tiny fonts that I couldn't just enjoy it.

I think 99% of my gameplay was in handheld mode. All 3 houses, for a total 165hrs. It’s the reason I traded up from a launch Switch to the refresh, as mobile battery life for 3 houses went from a little over 2 hours to nearly 4.5.

I really want to play it in handheld mode, but that text is just so small. I can only manage it in small bursts.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

The

Spoiler:

Pillars of Light

was one of the most shocking thing I have seen in a video game in recent memory.

Spoiler:

As I'm sure you know, there's reference to the Pillars of Light in Edelgard's path. It felt really strange at the time. Like, these pillars destroyed a whole city - we should be concerned about that! But instead we kill Rhea and the rest is just a footnote in the epilogue.

Just kind of makes me feel like I missed half the story. Which I guess I did considering you have to choose only one house to join.

It reminds me a bit of Witcher 2, where the story only made complete sense once you'd done two play throughs - one helping Roche and one helping Iorveth.

Anyway, I've started my Golden Deer game now. They're a much more likeable bunch of people (well, mostly).

So here's a dose of random. For the 30th year anniversary of the franchise, Nintendo uploaded an hour long video featuring English voice actors for different Fire Emblem charactes.

I haven't watched it much myself, but figured I'd share here in case anyone was interested.

Is Blue Lions worth playing through? I just finished Cindered Shadows, which means I've done Golden Deer, Golden Deer Church, and Black Eagles. The only route I haven't done (I believe) is Blue Lions. I'm kind of tempted to run through it again, however if I did I'd be honestly be inclined to do the Golden Deer Church run as I enjoyed that run more than any of them.

Thoughts on if there's anything unique about Blue Lions?

DSGamer wrote:

Is Blue Lions worth playing through? I just finished Cindered Shadows, which means I've done Golden Deer, Golden Deer Church, and Black Eagles. The only route I haven't done (I believe) is Blue Lions. I'm kind of tempted to run through it again, however if I did I'd be honestly be inclined to do the Golden Deer Church run as I enjoyed that run more than any of them.

Thoughts on if there's anything unique about Blue Lions?

It focuses more on Edelgarde and Dimitri’s relations, and the war itself. I don’t want to go further for fear of spoilers.

halfwaywrong wrote:

Anyway, I've started my Golden Deer game now. They're a much more likeable bunch of people (well, mostly).

And I've just wrapped up my Golden Deer run. I think I might have preferred this one more than the Black Eagles. Generally speaking, I thought the characters were more likeable (exceptions on both side though) and the second half of the story was much more satisfying.

Anyway, thank you all for convincing me to do another run - it really deepened my appreciation for a game I already loved!

So I know Three Houses ihas been out a while at this stage, but I recently rolled credits on it for the third time and was wondering if anyone wanted to gush about how freaking awesome the game is?

For reference, my route order was Silver Snow -> Azure Moon -> Verdant Winds, and this is my first experience with Fire Emblem.

I went into my third playthrough basically not wanting to leave Claude out, but also with pretty low expectations regarding new content. Then I got to the last few chapters and couldn't believe how awesome the ending was! Similarly, I couldn't believe how much new lore I learned on my third playthrough!

What a great game!

It may be time to do the other path with the Black Eagles.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

It may be time to do the other path with the Black Eagles.

I want to, Uptolsomorphism, but I'm afraid...

All joking aside, I came into my first playthrough without anything having beeing spoiled story-wise. So I got quite a surprise when I got to the halfway mark of that playthrough! Surprise is an understatement really; that moment messed with my head in a way that I don't think any other game ever has! It made the second half of that playthrough feel very...personal? So a big part of me doesn't want to go back and make different choices...

Does the fourth route add a lot to the story / lore that I wouldn't have gotten in the three I've already done? Claude's route in particular felt very complete in the story it told.

Stevintendo wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

It may be time to do the other path with the Black Eagles.

I want to, Uptolsomorphism, but I'm afraid...

All joking aside, I came into my first playthrough without anything having beeing spoiled story-wise. So I got quite a surprise when I got to the halfway mark of that playthrough! Surprise is an understatement really; that moment messed with my head in a way that I don't think any other game ever has! It made the second half of that playthrough feel very...personal? So a big part of me doesn't want to go back and make different choices...

Does the fourth route add a lot to the story / lore that I wouldn't have gotten in the three I've already done? Claude's route in particular felt very complete in the story it told.

Without spoiling too much, you really should do that other Black Eagles playthrough. The only playthrough that's kinda meh is Silver Snow, as it had a lot in common with Claude's route.

Then again, I totally played them out of order: Golden Deer, Blue Lions, Crimson Flower, Silver Snow. I hadn't been spoiled story-wise, so I went with the archer-heavy team first.

sometimesdee wrote:
Stevintendo wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

It may be time to do the other path with the Black Eagles.

I want to, Uptolsomorphism, but I'm afraid...

All joking aside, I came into my first playthrough without anything having beeing spoiled story-wise. So I got quite a surprise when I got to the halfway mark of that playthrough! Surprise is an understatement really; that moment messed with my head in a way that I don't think any other game ever has! It made the second half of that playthrough feel very...personal? So a big part of me doesn't want to go back and make different choices...

Does the fourth route add a lot to the story / lore that I wouldn't have gotten in the three I've already done? Claude's route in particular felt very complete in the story it told.

Without spoiling too much, you really should do that other Black Eagles playthrough. The only playthrough that's kinda meh is Silver Snow, as it had a lot in common with Claude's route.

Then again, I totally played them out of order: Golden Deer, Blue Lions, Crimson Flower, Silver Snow. I hadn't been spoiled story-wise, so I went with the archer-heavy team first.

Personally, I feel Golden Deer -> Blue Lions -> Silver Snow with Crimson Flower is the best play through lore wise. Not gonna say anything more, just my opinion given the amount of time I’ve spent in game (530+ hours).

So I have to confess to being a massive part of the forced-scarcity problem, and being one of the fools who bought Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light for Switch on like 31st March... I decided that after ~250 hours in FE3H I should check out how the series began.

I gotta say, I was really impressed with the game. Considering how old the game is I thought the gameplay was really good, and I had a lot of fun playing through the whole story. It was interesting seeing how much of Three Houses can trace it's roots all the way back to the original game in the franchise. Obviously Three Houses is much more user-friendly, but there was a hell of a lot of great content in that first game too. I wish I'd had the chance to play it when it was first released cause I think it would have really captured my imagination as a child. Plus, I've finally found out what a "Fire Emblem" is!

Back to Three Houses, you've convinced me to put a fourth playthrough on my 'to do' list. I might hold off for a while, but I think I've made my mind up to go relive some trauma from my first playthrough.

Also, very happy to nerd-out about different playthrough orders:

Spoiler:
sometimesdee wrote:

Then again, I totally played them out of order: Golden Deer, Blue Lions, Crimson Flower, Silver Snow. I hadn't been spoiled story-wise, so I went with the archer-heavy team first.

Dr.Incurable wrote:

Personally, I feel Golden Deer -> Blue Lions -> Silver Snow with Crimson Flower is the best play through lore wise. Not gonna say anything more, just my opinion given the amount of time I’ve spent in game (530+ hours).

I think the question of best order to play the routes is so interesting. I think I'm repeating myself, but I feel Claude's route is almost mean to be the 'beginner' route. Without having done Edelgard's route, Claude's feels like the most complete story. For example, I don't think I fully understood what's going on in the opening cutscene, or knew what the heroes relics were, until the second or third last chapter of Claude's route.

Based on this, I feel like there's an argument for Claude -> Dimitri -> Edelgard / Church being the best order.

But at the same time... Choosing Edelgard's House first (based on her class making the least-bad first impression) without knowing anything about what choosing that house meant led to me having one of the most mind-blowing moments I've ever had in the game. I can so clearly remember my brain just not being able to compute what I was seeing when I saw Edelgard standing with 'the baddies' in the Holy Tomb. When I finally figured out what was going on I actually had to take a break to process what that meant for my playthrough. The fact is, apart from Byleth, Edelgard and Hubert were by far my two strongest units. I'd put so much time and effort into training them into complete bad-asses, and then - from my perspective - they not only turned on me, but also completely messed up the team I'd be using in all my missions! I'm sure other games have done similar things, but I've never played a game that did something to the player as impactful as this.

So... In spite of what I said about Claude's route, I also recognise that the only way to have that mind-blowing moment that I had is by starting with Edelgard... So maybe that is the right first choice?

I'd love to hear what other people's opinions, I think this is such an interesting aspect of Three Houses!

Love this game.
Great game.
Hate Edelgard and will never forgive her for what she did to me.
(Unless following her full route changes my mind...)

Stevintendo wrote:

So I have to confess to being a massive part of the forced-scarcity problem, and being one of the fools who bought Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light for Switch on like 31st March... I decided that after ~250 hours in FE3H I should check out how the series began.

I gotta say, I was really impressed with the game. Considering how old the game is I thought the gameplay was really good, and I had a lot of fun playing through the whole story. It was interesting seeing how much of Three Houses can trace it's roots all the way back to the original game in the franchise. Obviously Three Houses is much more user-friendly, but there was a hell of a lot of great content in that first game too. I wish I'd had the chance to play it when it was first released cause I think it would have really captured my imagination as a child. Plus, I've finally found out what a "Fire Emblem" is!

Back to Three Houses, you've convinced me to put a fourth playthrough on my 'to do' list. I might hold off for a while, but I think I've made my mind up to go relive some trauma from my first playthrough.

Also, very happy to nerd-out about different playthrough orders:

Spoiler:
sometimesdee wrote:

Then again, I totally played them out of order: Golden Deer, Blue Lions, Crimson Flower, Silver Snow. I hadn't been spoiled story-wise, so I went with the archer-heavy team first.

Dr.Incurable wrote:

Personally, I feel Golden Deer -> Blue Lions -> Silver Snow with Crimson Flower is the best play through lore wise. Not gonna say anything more, just my opinion given the amount of time I’ve spent in game (530+ hours).

I think the question of best order to play the routes is so interesting. I think I'm repeating myself, but I feel Claude's route is almost mean to be the 'beginner' route. Without having done Edelgard's route, Claude's feels like the most complete story. For example, I don't think I fully understood what's going on in the opening cutscene, or knew what the heroes relics were, until the second or third last chapter of Claude's route.

Based on this, I feel like there's an argument for Claude -> Dimitri -> Edelgard / Church being the best order.

But at the same time... Choosing Edelgard's House first (based on her class making the least-bad first impression) without knowing anything about what choosing that house meant led to me having one of the most mind-blowing moments I've ever had in the game. I can so clearly remember my brain just not being able to compute what I was seeing when I saw Edelgard standing with 'the baddies' in the Holy Tomb. When I finally figured out what was going on I actually had to take a break to process what that meant for my playthrough. The fact is, apart from Byleth, Edelgard and Hubert were by far my two strongest units. I'd put so much time and effort into training them into complete bad-asses, and then - from my perspective - they not only turned on me, but also completely messed up the team I'd be using in all my missions! I'm sure other games have done similar things, but I've never played a game that did something to the player as impactful as this.

So... In spite of what I said about Claude's route, I also recognise that the only way to have that mind-blowing moment that I had is by starting with Edelgard... So maybe that is the right first choice?

I'd love to hear what other people's opinions, I think this is such an interesting aspect of Three Houses!

Love this game.
Great game.
Hate Edelgard and will never forgive her for what she did to me.
(Unless following her full route changes my mind...)

I tried to make it vague but it’s probably best just to spoil it to stay safe.

Spoiler:

So when I say silver Snow before Edelgarde for lore reasons, it’s mainly because of the last chapter. The information from that chapter fills in some information that isn’t fully explained in any other route, and is essential to fully understand Edelgarde’s motivations. Edelgarde, after having multiple play throughs of each route, is to me a tragic hero, one who accepts the role of the villain for the good of humanity. I do not agree with her methods, but if you take the all three routes other than crimson flower into account, you see various aspects of her character. She is deeply complex and you must, in my opinion understand what she is truly fighting against to understand why she did what she did. So Silver Snow is absolutely necessary to do before Crimson Flower for lore reasons, otherwise she comes across as a power seeking/crazed villain. The three main chapters in my mind are meant to provide context in various forms for Crimson Flowers to actually make sense. TL;DR the three play throughs aside from Crimson Flower are meant to provide context for Edelgarde’s motivations, actions and beliefs.

For what I consider to be the best fire emblem experience, go for either Fire Emblem Advance, or Fire Emblem Sacred Stones for GBA, they were my introduction to the series and were so great, so exemplary of the series I just cannot praise it enough. The problem is that they are hard to find, and you need a GBA to play them. If you can get your hands on it though, to me anyway, it’s peak fire emblem. And yeah the fire emblem is usually a mcguffin, very occasionally being an in game item for effects, I think there’s like one game with that but I can’t remember atm.

Dr.Incurable wrote:

For what I consider to be the best fire emblem experience, go for either Fire Emblem Advance, or Fire Emblem Sacred Stones for GBA, they were my introduction to the series and were so great, so exemplary of the series I just cannot praise it enough.

I was actually planning on asking what are some of the best entries in the franchise. I think between Three Houses and FE1 I can be confident that I'm a fan of the series!

I still have a GBA and an original DS floating around somewhere, so I'll have a look around for those two titles.

Are there any other good entries to check on either DS or 3DS?

Awakening is pretty great on 3DS. Fates, not so much.

Awakening is the first game to have casual mode and let your team members just be knocked out for the rest of the battle instead of dead permanently. It expands unit pairing support into a unit creation system with passing on skills... Without getting too spoiler-y.

Fates had 3 branching stories like Three Houses but they charged DLC for each separate one. Then one of those routes is entirely too easy while the other is ludicrously difficult. And they tried to copy the fun unit creation mechanic of Awakening but without any story justification. It was a mess. Avoid unless you've finished every other Fire Emblem game... And even then play one of the others again.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia was also pretty good, but a remake of the second game in the series. So many of the battles feel "old school" in their design and focus on forcing the player through bottlenecks. However, it was also the introduction of the time-rewind mechanic, which was essential to making the game playable.

The writing/localization and story feel more old-fashioned and less blatantly modern anime than Fates did, and has some other neat adjustments to it. I'd definitely recommend that one over Fates.

For the GBA games, the original Fire Emblem was earth shattering for me at the time because of all the character interaction thorough the supports, and I probably played it 5 or 6 times though with different combinations to farm supports. But I've read a synopsis/critique of the story since then, and it may have been more nonsensical than I realized the first time around. People out on the internet really seem to love Sacred Stones, though, so you might check that one. I only played it once and my memories are vague, so no commentary from me.

For the 3DS, I'll second that Awakening is a good time. I liked Fates: Conquest because of the level design and the difficulty (it's HARD, even on normal), but the story was bad (not even mediocre, but actively bad). You can probably pass on it until you've played several other games. I can vouch for Echoes: Shadows of Valentia being good as well; the maps are a bit simple until the back third of the game (it's a remake of the second game in the series), but the production values (music, art, voice acting) are stellar.

The other one that people really seem to love is Genealogy of the Holy War (FE4), but it was never released outside of Japan, so you'll have to grab an emulator and a fan patch. I'm personally hoping it gets the Echoes treatment at some point, so I haven't tried it yet.

Awakening on 3DS is really, really good, but I'll add a caution. I think only it's one of the only games to use the pair up mechanic, where two units can stack up for a stat boost. I know Fates also uses it, but there's a different offensive vs. defensive pair up, so it's not always implemented the same way. And houses does this a little bit with adjutants, though not as much as Awakening.

When I played, I found that I needed to keep units paired up most of the time. Once I had a support level or two between characters, the paired-up version was much, much stronger, and more able to survive, than any character individually. But keeping my units paired up fundamentally changed the nature of many battles, as I had only half as many units to move than in a normal Fire Emblem game, and tended to play much more conservatively / defensively. Because of this, I've preferred the combat in other Fire Emblem games.

But man, the story is great. The cast is great. And the unit creation that Stele mentioned? **Chef's kiss**

If you have a Gamecube and are able to track down a copy of Path of Radiance (which I understand are super rare and expensive), I'd highly recommend it. My first entry into the FE series and, to this day, one of my favorites. But only play Radiant Dawn, for the Wii, if you liked Path of Radiance and want some more of those characters. Its story is fairly experimental and all over the place.

Wow, thanks for the feedback everyone! I think I got it... Awakening good, Fates bad! Always good to know which entry to avoid in a franchise!

So after charging and then updating my 3DS I was pleased to see that Awakening actually has a demo, so I've downloaded that and I'm looking forward to trying it.

Disappointed to see that there don't seem to be any Fire Emblem games on the 3DS virtual console. I can get some of the GBA games on the Wii U, but I don't know if I wanna dig that out... I think that for now I'll keep an eye out for some cheap used copies on ebay or something!

I had a ton of fun with Fates: Conquest. Best tactical puzzles in the series. But yes, the story is indefensible.

I think Sacred Stones was a part of the 3DS ambassador's program (meaning it was given to the people who bought the console near launch before it really had the games to support the price point and people were getting mad iirc), but they never went back and made it available to everyone else years later or anything. I would absolutely have grabbed it at some point if they have.

So the technology to run the emulators or whatever was absolutely there, they just aren't using it.

Sundown wrote:

So the technology to run the emulators or whatever was absolutely there, they just aren't using it.

I think the technology is that there's a DS co-processor that's used for backwards compatibility that can be downclocked into GBA mode, effectively. This stuff is all highly individual and personal, but for me personally since I already own these games on GBA and was playing these games on GBA, I made the choice to hack a second New 2DS XL so I could play GBA games in a clamshell format that had a more ergonomic screen size.

I can vouch for the fact that these games play quite well on 3DS.

Stevintendo wrote:

Wow, thanks for the feedback everyone! I think I got it... Awakening good, Fates bad! Always good to know which entry to avoid in a franchise!

So after charging and then updating my 3DS I was pleased to see that Awakening actually has a demo, so I've downloaded that and I'm looking forward to trying it.

Disappointed to see that there don't seem to be any Fire Emblem games on the 3DS virtual console. I can get some of the GBA games on the Wii U, but I don't know if I wanna dig that out... I think that for now I'll keep an eye out for some cheap used copies on ebay or something!

I think that's a good way, either way. I personally own all these games (Fire Emblem 7 and 8 as well as both Advance Wars games, which have a similar pedigree) on Wii U and while they're fine, I think they're much more enjoyable on handheld. We happen to have a great local game store in my town, so when I decided to try reconstituting my essential GBA collection after buying a backlit GBA last year.

I think Fire Emblem 7 and 8 are the finest in the series.

I really wish Intelligent Systems would remake the Wii and GameCube games for Switch. I understand those are really good as well.

Sacred Stones was my entry to the series and I really loved it. Played through the game at least twice and started a third playthrough back on my GBA/DS.

I would love to see Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn on the Switch since I never got the chance to play them before (never owned a Gamecube and got my Wii like a year before the Wii U came out).

The Awakening demo seems fun! So strange going back to a 3DS game after so long though. The art-style almost seems older to me than sprite-art at this stage!

So Awakening, Advance and Sacred Stones are the ones I'll keep an eye out for for now. Seems like it's hard to find a second hand-copy of Awakening, is it considered rare?

I'm not sure if the shop I'd usually go to for second hand games has survived Covid so I might end up buying the GBA games from a Chinese store on ebay that I found...

Physical 3ds games tend to be rarer in general due to the advent of digital purchases. Plus the physical aftermarket is still in a bubble, which has been going on for 15 years now and just won't stop!

That said, not all games are rare but FE is a more popular franchise now than before, so I imagine the old carts aren't bottoming out in price.

I literally just found out that Fódla is an ancient name for Ireland and now I've decided that that's where Fodlan gets its name from. I never noticed before but the way Fod- is pronounced is how we would pronounce Fód-.

I'd always associated Brigid with Ireland cause of the name, but the climate is all wrong...

I'll report back if I find any evidence to suggest this is anything more than a coincidence!

Still psyching myself up to start my fourth playthrough... Gonna give the Triangle Strategy demo a try in the mean time.

Update: Dagda is an ancient Irish god (I'm sorry to say while I knew this fact as a child I had completely forgotten it since then...) who had a daughter called Brigit. Fódla was also a name of a goddess, and her sister was married to Dagda's grandson...

This can't be coincidence right? Can I claim Three Houses as Irish??

Update Update: So Sreng is also a mythical figure, but an enemy of the above...