GoldPaladin

Mathilda is one of the best units in the game and you can never go wrong with her as your leading Gold Knight.

Great post to OP and topic all around. You really made me go back and think about Celica as a character.

Not weird at all. This is the only way to learn every unit and be able to decide if you like them or not. I usually do this with multiple playthroughs where picking and deciding which units I want to invest time into.

Hi and welcome, hope you enjoy your time on here. FE7 and FE9 are popular fan favorites, so you should feel right at home.

I picked Sigurd cause I know he would kill everything in his path with or without a holy weapon.

Corrin - just completely write this character out of Fates and make Ryoma and Xander the lords. If Corrin must except, at least not as the main character.

100% agree with all of this. I would hate to see the maps broken up and made smaller. I understand and respect the criticisms towards Holy War's maps cause they're not for everybody, but it's one thing that makes the game so unique. This game made you feel like you had really explored an entire country in a single chapter. If Gaiden's maps weren't altered at all, hopefully Holy War's are kept the same. I don't have a problem with the horse mechanics in this game. This game did a good job trying to replicate medieval warfare. Cavalry was extremely important in medieval warfare, so I've never had a problem with the horse stuff. There's still some great units that don't get a horse that most of the critics of this game completely ignore - Ayra, Lewyn, Bridget, Larcei, Shannan, Ced and Faval all come to mind. People also forget that there are some mediocre and straight up forgettable units with horses like Noish, Alec, Midir and Beowolf. Totally agree on no avatar. They not only hurt the story with the self-inserted Mary Sue, but they're also bad for gameplay purposes. Robin/Chrom and Corrin/Ryoma can pretty much solo most of their respective games. If anyone is soloing Holy War, it's going to be Sigurd for his half and Seliph for the other. As for postgame content, I'd like to see a DLC campaign for Agustria. The endgame talks about Ares going home to settle the civil war of his homeland. It would be interesting to play that out as a level with the black knight whom we all love. It could be like a redux of chapter 2 and 3, as well as adding in story material to explain house of Nordion and Agustria's politics.

This is a great topic with a lot of cool ideas. It's my dream to see this game get a remake as it's my favorite FE game. I would love to see Thracia get a remake as well, but that would probably be an even trickier deal since so many people dislike it for the difficulty and some of the mechanics. I wouldn't want to change the maps at all. While it is true that Holy War's map design isn't all that great, it still gives off a sense of adventure with the giant maps. It's the only game that ever made me truly feel like I had explored an entire continent. The large maps also work in context that you are going around and seizing castles. Maybe offer a save point for every seized castle (this game did have a good save system where you could save anywhere in a level). There's some glitches that would need to be fixed. The one annoying glitch I hate in Holy War is the one in the arena where it runs out of points to give on a level up. This is something I usually have a problem with in the first generation where the RNG will not give off points upon leveling up in the arena. It's a weird glitch that seems to happen from time to time. Fully orchestrated soundtrack would be a plus. Hell, they could even still use the arranged soundtrack from back in the day. These songs still sound amazing, but I want to hear Arvis' theme orchestrated, as well as the Agustria music. At the very least, this is the main song I get nostalgic over. More support conversations could be added. I imagine some of the holy weapons would be nerfed and the mechanics could be altered (double attacking would be the big change I'd love to see). I'm OK with each unit having their own income. After years of playing Holy War, I've managed to work around that. The only issue I ever have is in the second generation buying up the Paragon ring for everyone to level up. If the remake follows Echoes, I hope to see a similar art style and presentation. Full voice acting would be incredible. I just hope nothing really changes with the story. FE4 has a great story that don't really need to be changed whatsoever, but could have new little subplots added to it and side stories. I would also love to see something like Mila's Turnwheel added to the game, and maybe from that, unlockable support conversations between characters we never get to play as (or even stuff with Lewyn during the 17 year gap between chapter 5 and 6).

That's right. Lewyn also explains to Seliph in either chapter 6 or 7 that for the first few years under the empire, things really weren't that bad under the empire's control at first. Something changed once the cult became more powerful and Julius had become FE antichrist. Arvis had good intentions and in all his dialogue with Manfrony in chapter 5, he makes all that clear. It would make sense for someone who had to fear being burned at the stake for having Loptyr blood in them, that he would want to end prejudices even to this evil cult. Arvis tells Manfroy that he has no intentions of reviving the dark god. They both used each other to gain power. Arvis personally felt the pain that the Loptyr people experienced through persecution since he had to hide his Loptyr blood from the public. I don't think he was blackmailed cause either way, had it been revealed, he would've been burned at the stake and he knew this. I've always felt that Manfroy used him like a puppet without blackmail and both of them were using each other for their own gain. It's easy to sympathize for Arvis cause he's such a well written villain, but he still wanted to be emperor above all else. Between him, Reptor and Langobalt, Arvis simply was the smartest of the three and knew what he was doing with his plans. Having Manfroy in his pocket was a key advantage. Chapter 5 is truly a beauty of the writing in this game. Arvis played the key figures of Grannvale against each other so perfectly, allowing them to kill each other. He even manages to fool Sigurd into thinking everything will be OK when Velthomer turns their forces against Reptor. I think a good question is weather or not Arvis was aware of Dierdre being his half sister or not. I suspect he wasn't aware at all and truly was in love with her. Marrying her was key to getting the throne since she was a descendant to Kurth. If there is ever a remake of this game, I am curious if they'll add something in there with a big reveal of Arvis finding out the truth.

Noted after a bit of browsing. Seems to have a fetish for bashing Holy War despite admitting he's never played it. That's like if I came on here just to tell everyone how bad Revelations is, even though I've never played it but have been told by a number of people how much they despised it. I'd rather actually play something before deciding if I hate it or not. People used to tell me how 'bad' Thracia 776 was, and I completely forgot that after playing it and finding the game to be enjoyable.

What does my favorite FE game have to do with this discussion? I said Awakening has poor map design because it does. It has nothing to do with Holy War's map design. Even the biggest fans of Holy War often admit that the maps are flawed. The giant maps are something you either love or hate but that's not the point of this discussion. This topic is about Awakening and Conquest, not Holy War. I'm sure you'd be angry if I quoted you in a random topic and told you that your opinion is irrelevant because of how disappointing Fates was to a lot of us.

Birthright for me. It has the most tolerable story between the two (Didn't enjoy either enough to warrant paying money to play Revelations, so I haven't touched it). Conquest had better gameplay and some of the best map design in the series but the story was so awful. Birthright had a generic and boring story, but it was at least tolerable to a degree. I had more fun with Birthright despite the bland map design and how easy it could be.

Reina is the biggest missed opportunity for me. I would've liked to see her have supports with all the royal siblings since she served the queen. For me personally, this was a character that had huge potential get wasted.

Most of Birthright can be soloed with just Ryoma and Corrin. If you're playing for fun and don't want to stretch it chapter to chapter, always remember that these two can solo most of the game, even at the end. Ryoma is ridiculously powerful (should've easily been the Lord unit of this game). You can throw Ryoma into hordes of enemies where he'll kill everything without dropping less than 50% in HP. To answer some of your questions: I haven't used Mozu that much to give a good opinion on here. She is similar to Donnell from Awakening. Felica isn't a bad unit, but you probably won't use her a whole lot except as a healer. She is more of an Oifey as a Jagen. I didn't find her growths to be terrible in my Birthright playthroughs. Ninja's are incredibly useful units who replace Thieves in the older games. One of the best gameplay things that Fates does is make Thieves useful and a legitimate threat on the battlefield. Make sure you get an A rank support with Kaze early in the game, you'll be thankful for this later on. Skills work pretty much the same as Awakening, except for second seals. This game cuts out a bit of the grinding. When you change class, you can do it at any level and get the skills, I think (I am not a fan of class changing, so I don't know a whole lot about it since I avoided this). Oboro is one of the best units in the game and is probably the best female when it comes to marriage if you're going for the second generation. She can pair up with anyone and produce an overpowered unit. Scarlett is OK for a pre-promote. I liked Reina and wished that her character wasn't locked to just the Avatar alone for supports. Silas is going to be your lone horseback unit in Birthright and it comes down to your opinion if you like Paladins or not. I always found him to be a good unit, so I used him. Sakara is a good healer IMO, never really had problems with her. I didn't touch forging, so I don't think I could help you there, sorry.

I would love to see the Avatar/My Unit mechanic completely ditched and go back to simply having a protagonist who serves as a Lord unit. From a story perspective, the My Units in their respective games have caused far more damage to the stories than any of the benefits. Dialogue is changed in FE3 and given to Kris instead. In Awakening, Robin steals away much of the spotlight from Chrom and we don't get a lot of character development with a number of characters who just revolve around the Avatar exclusively. This is ramped up on steroids in Fates. Fates could've easily had two Lords for their respective routes - Xander and Ryoma, but it's all shot down by having a My Unit in there. I like to think that both of them missed out on better character building since the storyline had to revolve all around the Avatar as the protagonist. Just when you thought Robin was the biggest Mary Sue in the series, Corrin proves to be 100X worse. Fates had a lot of interesting characters who could've had time to shine and build on characterization, if they didn't exclusively revolve around Corrin (which is only done just for the waifu system). As far as gameplay goes, the Avatar/My Unit tends to be overpowered and is a wrecking ball of a unit. Just look at how powerful Robin is in Awakening and how powerful you can make Lucina if Robin is her mom. Taking them out of the game could make things more strategic. In Fates: Birthright, most of the game can be soloed with just Corrin and Ryoma together. If there's going to be an Avatar, at least do it like FE7 did with Mark and just the tactician who we never see. Mark didn't steal the spotlight from Eliwood, Lyn or Hector by any means. S Support Ranks can be ditched too. I would like to see Support ranks limited again like they were done in Echoes. Some of the S ranks are so badly written and almost embarrassing to listen to. I wish the entire Waifu system could be ditched. In Awakening, it was used to produce overpowered kid units who usually totally outshine their parents once you get them and can turn the rest of the game into a breeze. I didn't even use the second generation in Fates since the whole 'deep realms' thing was so poorly and laughably written. The only game where the second generation has worked is FE4, and in that one it matters a lot who you pair up since it decides unit growths.

I'm hoping this game does not have an Avatar/My Unit, cause in the 3 games we've had one, all it's done is drag down the story by having a self-inserted Mary/Gary Sue thrown in there. I can completely do without Kris, Robin and Corrin all together. I'd rather see an actual protagonist who is a Lord and don't have the spotlight stolen from them by an Avatar/My Unit. There's a number of reasons I wish the My Unit mechanic would be destroyed from gameplay perspective, but it hurts the stories even more. Please no second generation mechanic. It worked best in Holy War and unless this is a remake of FE4, it can be done without. This is a mechanic I hope eventually dies along with My Unit and the waifu marriage thing that tends to all go together. Hopefully an actual villain who isn't generically evil like Garon was in Fates or the forgettable story we had in Awakening. I would like to see heavy politics come back into Fire Emblem. Politics between warring nations with lots of grey shades instead of the easy black and white route that Fates went with Hoshido and Nohr. Through politics, there can be good world building too.

I have to say Pent in FE7. The chapter where you're introduced to him is one of the funniest experiences. It's a "rescue" but you soon realize that you're not rescuing Pent or Louise. You're rescuing the enemy from them. I liked him as a character as it was cool to have a noble in your group who isn't corrupt like all the ones that are encountered through Eliwood's adventure. As far as a unit goes, Pent comes pre-promoted and he don't suck Pent pretty much saves you a lot of work from leveling up Erk and using him. I usually bring Pent through out the rest of the game to use as a healer since he can use fortify without having to rely on another healer.

These are the main two things I can think of. *Limit Lynn mode for experienced players. Lynn could be completely written out of this game and nothing of any value would be lost since her arc is nothing but a tutorial. It would be nice to skip this, or at least limit the tutorial aspect. *Fix Eliwood's promotion time. Eliwood has a lot of problems as a unit, but the main one tends to be his ridiculously late promotion time. It's easy to get him to level 20 and he spends a good period of the game maxed out waiting for that promotion. Promoting early would probably be a big help. I think this game still holds up pretty well today and I'd rather see Binding Blade get a remake.

Had information about Arvis' Loptyr blood came out in public, he would've been burned at the stake. This is implied in chapter 2 when you visit villages and they talk about the hunts for people suspected of Loptyr blood and how they are burned at the stake. I never thought Arvis was blackmailed, but he was in a risky position on his own due to having Loptyr blood. Arvis says so in his conversation with Manfroy in chapter 5, that he wants to create a world free of prejudice, including towards people of Loptyrian blood. This would make complete sense given that he would've burned at the stake himself. They both used each other to their own advantage. It's easy to sympathize for Arvis, but do not forget that he wanted power and it's what makes him such a well written villain. In the end, he wanted the throne and to become emperor just as badly as Reptor and Langobalt wanted control.

As far as story goes, Awakening's story is light years ahead of Conquest. That's not to say Awakening's story is one of the better in the series, as it clearly is not, but much better than Conquest. In terms of gameplay, Conquest easily wins out. Awakening has some of the worst map design in the whole series, contrary to where Conquest is the opposite in this department with brilliant map design. Awakening is a flawed, yet still very fun game. What a lot of people don't like is the endless grinding and poorly designed maps. For a beginner, you're probably better off starting with Awakening or Birthright. Awakening itself despite it's flaws, is quite beginner friendly and is where a lot of us began with the series.

Conquest was a lot of fun despite how weak I found the story. As much as I found Fates disappointing in story, I did enjoy the gameplay of both Birthright and Conquest. I played Birthright first and it was really only my 2nd FE game. It was a good bridging gap as I was still used to Awakening's style. I liked Conquest better and didn't play it until I had gained experience from the GBA and SNES style games. There's lots of good things they did and Conquest had some of the best maps I've played so far in the series. I really wish Xander and Ryoma could've been Lord units. Would've been really cool to have Xander as our first mounted Lord since Sigurd, as I loved him as a unit. Thank you for the friendly welcome, truly happy to be here!

Fates is something of a mixed bag. Having not played Revelation, I can say that I generally enjoyed the gameplay of Birthright and Conquest but not enough to want to buy the third game. I didn't like either route's story, but Birthright was at least bearable and not constantly warranting facepalms. The story was my biggest issue, though it didn't exactly kill the entire experience for me. It greatly disappointed me, but it wasn't enough to erase the good stuff. I really wish they had just released this as one single game instead of making you buy all 3 paths (if you were unlucky and couldn't ever get your hands on the special edition when it first hit preorder). Conquest was the better game IMO, but Birthright was still a lot of fun at times in the same vein as Awakening, and it serves as a good bridge for players who aren't as experienced with the older Fire Emblem games and that style of play. In some ways, I actually enjoyed Birthright more because the story was at least bearable in some ways. Conquest had the better maps and much better gameplay, but the worst story and the absolute worst version of Corrin. At least in Birthright, Corrin is tolerable to a degree. What really hurt Fates for me was the overall story and writing in general. I really wish the Avatar/My Unit mechanic was abandoned for these games, cause all it serves for is a self-insert Mary Sue through Corrin. As bad as Robin was at this in the story, Corrin made me appreciate Robin a bit more in Awakening. I think if you were to take the My Unit completely out of the game, then both games would've had a Lord unit character; Ryoma for Birthright and Xander for Conquest. Both of these units in their respective games are tanks and could've easily been Lord units. Xander could've become the first mounted Lord we've had since Sigurd and Ryoma alone can solo most of the maps in Birthright, making a point that he could've easily been a Lord unit. Xander and Ryoma were both interesting characters, but what hurt them was that they solely revolve around Corrin who becomes the leader in both stories. It would've been interesting to see Xander as a character helping the people of Nohr and being a leader, same with Ryoma. There's a number of characters in Fates that solely revolve around Corrin who have no support conversations except for Corrin (which only serves for marrying options).There are some interesting ideas and some characters could've easily had more to do and become better memorable characters if not for everything having to revolve around the self-inserted Avatar in the game. The biggest writing issues though aren't even the Avatar/My Unit. It's the black and white analogy of how Hoshido can never do anything wrong and Nohr can never do anything right. I wish this game had taken a page from Holy War with the countries politics and wars. Garon is probably the biggest missed opportunity of writing in these games since he's just a generic evil tyrant. Garon could've been so much more. With Fates, I try to divide this into gameplay and story, cause despite how awful I found the story, the gameplay is great and worth the replay. Even in Birthright, I had a lot of fun on harder difficulties. One of my favorite things this game did was turning the Thief class into Ninjas and I found them more useful in Fates than any other game I've played in the series. I liked that they balanced the Pair Up mechanic and taking away durability on weapons (I didn't think this was a good idea at first, but I came to love it). There's very few things I disliked about the gameplay overall, and most of them go back to Awakening.

Hi, thanks for the nice welcome. Yes, it's my dream to see the Jugdral games get a remake like Gaiden received last year. I'm curious what the spirtes would look like, or fully new orchestrated soundtracks.

Just wanted to say thanks for this wonderful translation. I have played through it now a number of times, it works great! Thank you for your hard work!

Over the last few years, I've debated signing up to this place after lurking now for a number of years. I was first introduced to this wonderful series of games through the release of Awakening. I played it repeatedly for almost 2 years before venturing off to play other games in the series. After Awakening, I went straight to the GBA games and then the SNES, finding enjoyment from the games all together. I've not played Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn, simply for the reason I am not sure my computer could handle the emulations. I played Fates when it first came out and was a bit disappointed by it as a whole, but truly loved Echoes. From these experiences with playing a number of titles, I grew to truly love this series as a whole. It's become one of my favorite game series of all time. As for my favorite game in the series, nothing can top Genealogy of the Holy War (and as my name suggests, I love Paladins!). Of all the Fire Emblem games I've played, this tends to be the one I love to come back to and replay time and time again. I love the giant maps and the whole feeling of engaging in a war across countries. The story is by far the best out of any of the games I've played and even with multiple replays, I still find it fascinating. I'm hoping it gets a remake in the future much like Gaiden had with FE Echoes, and a possible Thracia 776 remake as well.