Which Fire Emblem(s) do you think had the best and worst world building?

[IceBrand]

Best: I would say FE10 because it does a good job of telling the mythos of the world of Tellius. Not only that, the game gives details on the many races of the world and their conflicts/perspective on certain subjects.

Worst: I would say FE13. We're given so little information about things. The game focuses more on the characters than the continents itself so we're forced to come up with our own ideas. Besides maybe two tor three sentences, that's all you get on an country.

[RJWalker]

Best: FE1/3/11/12. A lot of detail is given on the history of each country, the Dragon tribes, the Emblem itself, the Anri saga, etc.

Worst: FE13. Do we really know anything about any country/region aside from the name? Like where the fuck are Chon'sin and Rosanne?

The most hilarious aspect is that all of these games are set on the same continent.

[PKL]

Best: Tellius and Archanea.

Worst: Ylisse

[Sunshine]

Best: Tellius. PoR Really helped to teach you more about the people and the conflict, and the character development helped cover what RD didn't as it focused more on the story. Though I admit, we learned a lot in not so great a way. Some reveals were better than others. Such as

When we found out about Kilvas' Blood Pact in comparison to Micaiah's Heritage.

Worst: Awakening and, more specifically, Ylisse. I have no idea why Ylisse is Ylisse. Valencia -> Valm has a better explanation. Who is Grima, when did Grima even appear in comparison to Medeus, who was there before? I don't remember being told; and if it was, it was not memorable.

The future wasn't well explained in the regular game, only in the DLC; even so, none of the DLC gives the time period between the birth of the children and the deaths of their parents. I'd like a little more on the struggle of humanity. Also didn't like fighting the risen time after time. Fighting a cult is one thing, but zombies? IS, we're okay with death in your games. Felt like Sacred Stones again, though not as fun the fifth time around.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Maerk

[Genuine Uncertainty]

Yeah honestly Tellius is probably the best when it comes to world building. It helps that FE9 left plenty of plot hooks and unanswered questions that a sequel could easily be made.

This might be bias but Jugdral seems pretty well built. Thracia 776 was strange but interesting in that regard.

I can't speak on Akaenia (or however it is spelled)

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i have to say Akaenia and Tellius for best.

worst is Awakening

[Anacybele]

Tellius is the best, no contest. We learn so much about it and its history! We also see a lot of different points of view there thanks to RD.

Worst is Ylisse. Like others already said, we just don't know enough. :/

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

Yeah honestly Tellius is probably the best when it comes to world building. It helps that FE9 left plenty of plot hooks and unanswered questions that a sequel could easily be made.

This might be bias but Jugdral seems pretty well built. Thracia 776 was strange but interesting in that regard.

I can't speak on Akaenia (or however it is spelled)

Archanea and Jugdral kind of cheat in that a lot of the really cool world-building comes from auxiliary sources-- interviews, art books, designers' notes-- and not the game. Tellius gets across a great deal in the games themselves. As much as I personally love Archanea and Jugdral, I'm inclined to say Tellius did the best job of world-building in the actual games.

Thracia 776 did a great job painting its own corner of Jugdral, though, so props there. Magvel was pretty sloppy and with Ylisse/Valm it doesn't even seem like they were trying.

[-Cynthia-]

Best I would say Tellius- one of the better examples of including nonhuman races that aren't just there to be there.

Worst I would say Magvel. There's the business of heroes founding the nations and then not being relevant for the rest of the story, the previous conflict with the demon king being poorly explained, and Manaketes seem very thrown in there for nostalgia purposes. Nations do not feel distinct- I can't really name a significant cultural difference between Renais, Frelia, and Grado. Magvel probably has the disadvantage of being only one short game, but the setting is still generic and uninspired given these constraints.

[BrightBow]

I think that Tellius is without an equal in that regard. Of course, it has a smaller world then let's say Jugdral with it's dozens of duchies in Grandbell alone. But having focus isn't a bad thing. I think Tellius understood this more then anyone else, hence why the game's world opens up slowly instead of throwing a massive info dump at unsuspecting players, like previous games did.

FE9 explores the Beorc nations very thoroughly to the point were the generic citizen of each nation is effectively their own character while giving glances of the world's history that makes the world feel a lot more substantial.

That history then got explored in FE10. And while I don't really like the way FE10 executed it's story, it still excellently builds upon the hints and glues about the world's history that were given in the previous game.

But Jugdral is neat too. I think that the games already managed to give express a lot of personality to the individual families simply by the way their armies were put together.

The worst it probably Ylisse. Yes, I said "probably". The thing is, that world isn't really that much thinner then Magvel. Like, Renais, Freila and Grado are effectively interchangeable. They are all generic kingdom/empires. And it's history doesn't even explain where the Sacred Stones came from. And what are those Ruins of Logdau anyway?

But FE8 knew how to add all kinds of details to make the world at least feel more real.

Like, chapter 5 doesn't take place in a generic town but in Serafew. Serafew is a Border Town where people of Grado and Renais lived together in harmony. Once a symbol of friendship between nations, Grado's attack has instead turned it into a reminder of what is lost to the war. Rigwald is a random fortification but a sheer legendary fortress that hasn't fallen in generations. The first flashback that includes Lyon mentions a flame that burns since the Time of Darkness ended. It's mere mention makes the world feel larger then what we see on the screen and makes it feel like it has history... even though it's most certainly just a tool for the writers to show that Eprahim doesn't know anything about said history.

And while what we know about it is vague, we learn in Caer Pelyn that what the rest of the world knows about it is inaccurate and maybe downright twisted. We never learn more about it other then that dragons were involved but is is enough of a hint to turn something that doesn't make any sense into something that was merely lost to time. So it still feels big even though I bet the writers don't know anything more about it then we do.

Awakening does not only have very little of that but what it adds is often contradicting or downright stupid from the get-go. Like, I don't even know who the Shepherds are. Are we talking about an army or a small group? They talk to each other like they all go drinking together, so I would guess they are a small group. But then we get scenes like this:

Emmeryn
Chrom! Lissa! Welcome home. Oh, and good day, Frederick. How fared you all?

Chrom
Well—we shouldn't have any bandit problems for a while.

Emmeryn
Wonderful. And our people?

Chrom
Safe as they can be, Emm.

It really sounds like he was on an actual mission to fight bandits. Which apparently only involved him, his sister and two people to protect them. And "our people"? As in "everyone in the country"? Needless to say a whole country is way too big in order to be protected a small group... let alone just four people apparently.

Something as simple as adding a few generic NPCs into a few scenes would have helped a lot. These kind of details are important.

And don't even get me started on the whole mess with the Tanguel. Were did they live? Who killed them? How could Emmeryn not have known that there was a genocide? A depth? To the last Exalt who was described as a horrible person? Does anything about them make one feel like the answers to these fundamental questions exist at least in the developers notes or does it feel more like they were just lovelessly thrown in with zero consideration on how it fits with the rest of the world?

At the end of the day, thin as it might be, Magvel simply feels more like an actual world. Ylisse just feels like a total mess while somehow being equally as thin. And if nothing else, Magvel is at least kind enough to map out it's world.

Btw: Apparently living in Ylisse is really shitty when you are still "safe as you can be" in the wake of a freaking Zombie Apocalypse.

Edited May 14, 2014 by BrightBow

[Gryz]

I like Tellius, but the addition of Hatari and wolves in FE10 was just weird.

Why bother adding a new country if it's going to have such little significance in the story?

[Arrout]

Tellius is the best by far, the details it gives about every country and the different perspectives are very good.

Jugdral is also very good with world biulding, it helps that we visit just about every part of it.

Ylisse is awfully biult. It didn't give almost any in-depth info about the world.

As I usually say. Tellius is a story about countries, war, and gods.

Awakening is a story about characters (and shipping)

[Dijon Mustard]

Yeah, Tellius is the best. Two full games of political intrigue and beorc-laguz tension (especially FE10, all the jumping around really helped add perspective).

I think Awakening suffered in this department because they went with an all-dialogue approach between battles, rather than the "lots of exposition with a map in the background" one. I like this approach, generally. BUT, dialogue doesn't lend itself to history lessons unless one of the characters is uninformed for good reason (like if they're an amnesiac or something). Maybe throw in some flashbacks? Like, to Chrom's dad doing corrupt things? Or just bite the bullet and give us a "Star Wars" crawl between chapters, we can handle it/skip it.

[ZemZem]

Best: Tellius and Archanea.

Worst: Ylisse

Also I want more exploration of Magvel.

Edited May 25, 2014 by UFO

[Knight]

Best: Tellius, the info conversations and cutscenes really flesh out the world. Honourable mentions to Elibe and Archanea.

Worst: Ylisse, especially for a game in 2012/13. I always thought world-building was a big part of Fire Emblem and was disappointed when there was little.