What is your Fire Emblem story?

[Roland]

Hello everyone, I thought it would be cool to ask what your beginning story with Fire Emblem was.

Well, I imagine you would expect t every one's story with Fire Emblem to be a postive one right?

Well...That wasn't the case with me. When I first started playing Fire Emblem, I first played Awakening and Fates in the same year. I was unbelievably stoked to play them after I heard so many good things from various people about the two games. I went in expecting to love Awakening and Fates, and ended up with a first impression that was less than pleasant to say the least.

Awakening and Fates burned me. Bad. I won't go into detail, but the story and characters I was told would end up pulling at my emotions instead had my face-palming at how terrible I found them to be, and the gameplay ranged from passable (Conquest) to repetitive (Awakening and Birthright) and just downright awful (Revelations). A year later, I played Echoes when it released, and more or less had the same experience with the only difference  is that Echoes had a cast that slightly interested me more.

So, needless to say, I had a really bad first impression of the 3DS Fire Emblem games. So, why I am here on a Fire Emblem forum after a bad experience like that you ask? Well, the anwser to that would be "Thank Tellius."

I don't mean to sound like a Tellius fanboy, but almost 10 months after I rapped up the 3DS titles, I managed to get my hands on Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn even though it cost me $94 and $70 respectively. I went into these two games expecting the same run I had with the other FE games, and well, needless to say I was suprised by how much I liked them. I liked the stories, characters, and gameplay infinitely more than previous titles. After I finished the Tellius titles, I recently began to thing that perhaps I misjudged the Fire Emblem series. 

So, I'm giving Fire Emblem another chance. I recently just bough Blazing Sword, ordered copies of Sacred Stones and Blazing Sword, and well, made an account here!  I hope FE will have even more suprises in store for me, and hope I have a good experance here on Serenes!

So, that's me FE story. What is yours?

[Sand55]

When I was in the fifth grade or so, I got really into old NES games. I found out about this game for the NES called Fire Emblem. I looked up some gameplay on youtube and I'd never seen a game like it. I'd never really seen a game where you control the characters on a grid, with no central, player character. The bright colors and music also wrapped me in. My naive fifth grader self called GameStop to ask if they had the game. The nice employee told me the game had never been released in America. He did tell me that he had one for GameBoy Advance. I had a DS Lite, which could play Advance games, so I went and picked it up. It was Sacred Stones. I loved it. I played it multiple times over the next several years. After that, though, I kind of forgot about it for a while. Then Awakening released and pretty much swept the video game world for a while. It was all I heard about. All my friends were bringing 3ds consoles to school, and they were all playing Awakening. The rest is history. I got the game, got Binding Blade, Blazing Blade, and Echoes after I finished Awakening. I've loved this darn series ever since.

[Faellin]

First game I played was radiant dawn, one year my brother got me a copy for christmas since he knew I always wanted to try the games out. This was at a time where it was extremely difficult to track down a copy of any of the games unless you were extremely lucky. The gba games and path of radiance were not stocked at gamestop anymore, it was rather late into RD's life cycle, so the only realistic way of finding a copy was pre owned if you were extremely lucky. And shadow dragon was also pretty hard to track down. My brother was lucky to find me a pre-owned copy at gamestop for pretty cheap that year. (Not complaining)

This was probably the worst entry point to the series that was available at the time, due to it being one of the harder games in the series overall. But I kept at it, and pushed through. This basically taught me some more advanced moves during my first dive into the series. And I guess these carried over when I tracked down copies of other games.

Starting with one of the harder entries basically made me confident enough to jump right into the harder difficulties of later games without any trouble. Where alot of people typically go on easy mode for their first run of a new game in this series to get a feel for the game. But me having such a rough entry point actually helped me out in the long run which was great for me.

And because of this, RD is my favorite game in the franchise.

Edited October 27, 2018 by Faellin

[Geenoble]

Favourite world would be Tellius for sure. The more political aspect with Crimea is something rarely seen, the Laguz-Beorc interactions, the countries, everything about Tellius is amazing. Elibe is a close second though.

Best story and Characters is Sacred stones, It gets weird at some points like with Eirika deciding to trust Lyon, or the whole Carcino arc. But the characters easily carry the story, and the good parts of the story are the best of any fire emblem game. Eirika is the second best lord in the series in terms of character. Lyon is the best antagonist, Seth is the best Jagen, Joshua is the best Navarre, and Formontis, despite being shit is better then all the generic evil dragons and Ashera.

 

Edited October 28, 2018 by Geenoble

[Ertrick36]

I almost feel as if a topic like this exists, but I can't find it after a quick search so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I actually started with Awakening in December of 2014.  It was a gift from my sister; she figured that because I liked Valkyria Chronicles so much, I might really enjoy Awakening.  And I actually did.  Today, I may have some issues with it, but I have issues with practically every game I've ever played so this is nothing new.  Even if it's only been four years since then, I still feel a bit nostalgic for it.  Particularly when I hear the track "Conquest" from that game.

Then I believe I went on to play New Mystery and Shadow Dragon.  The former is a game I liked a lot.  After that, I got Fates Birthright, which I enjoyed the first time through, then Conquest, which I started off enjoying until the story got stupid (basically the part where Azura shows you the orb), and then Revelation, which... was really grindy, almost too much for my liking.  Eventually, I got into Gaiden and then Echoes, and while the map design left a lot to be desired and the protagonists were... unimpressive to me, I enjoyed that game as well.

Lately, I've played Genealogy of the Holy War.  And I have to say it's probably my personal favorite world in the series that I've played so far.  And it's my favorite story.  Too bad the gameplay is not quite there, though.  But the scope of the story, the tragedy, the ups and downs, the insidious political games...  It's so much of what I like in a story.

[Zkitty8]

I knew a little bit about Fire Emblem when I was younger because I saw a few videos about it, but I was too intimidated to play the games because of the permadeath. Then, about 3 years ago I was downloading a bunch of game demos on my 3ds, played the demo for Fire Emblem Awakening, and fell in love with it. I got Awakening and played it on normal/casual mode and it was a lot of fun. I'd never played a turn based strategy rpg before except for some of Pokemon Conquest so it was all really new to me. I loved the characters too.

Fates came out a little bit later and I started playing Conquest on normal/casual, but I was feeling better about playing a game with permadeath now so I went back and played the older games in the eshop starting with Blazing Sword, then Sacred Stones, and then Shadow Dragon. I really enjoyed those too so I started emulating the other games. I think I went Binding Blade > New Mystery > Genealogy > Thracia 776 > Path of Radiance > Radiant Dawn. I also got Shadows of Valentia when it came out.

So now I've played all the main series games except for the first 3, Birthright, and Revelations, and I liked them all for different reasons. I'm not sure if I can even choose a favorite. I'm leaning towards the GBA games and Awakening but really it depends on my mood.

[Farina's Pegasus]

I began the series with Blazing Sword. I'm fairly certain this was back in 2011, but it could have been a year earlier or later. All I remember was that I was a young teenager at the time and this was before I had a DS, and long before I had a PC of my own. My expectations were pretty low- I knew nothing about the series, I thought I was going to get another low-grade GBA game with a couple hours max of worthwhile gameplay. But I absolutely fell in love with FE7- the deep story, the interesting characters, and the sheer amount of secrets and bonuses and replay value that game has kept me busy with it for years.

Eventually, I got a 3DS, and Awakening was announced. I literally stayed up until midnight on the night of the game's release- the moment it was available on the eShop, I bought it. I think I got less than three hours of sleep that night. What followed was about thirteen hundred hours in the next five years of playing Awakening to death. I've played almost all of the DLC and beaten the game multiple times on all difficulties except Lunatic+, yet I still haven't come close to completing the support log or fully maxing my Renown. I've gotta get to that sometime...

2015 and 2016 came around, and I admit, when I heard about Fates and watched the trailers, I remember saying to myself, "I don't want to play this". It might've been because I was at easily the lowest point in my life back then, I just wasn't hyped about the new games. I ended up buying Super Mystery Dungeon for myself instead and hated that game, so I sent it to my brother, who in exchange bought me a copy of Birthright. I enjoyed it, it got me back into the fandom, but even when it was new I didn't feel entirely satisfied with the three games, particularly with Revelations. It was such a step down in quality from a character and story perspective from FE7 and even Awakening. 

Because of my underwhelming experience with Fates, I didn't choose to play Echoes for a long time, not until just after Christmas if 2017. And even then I didn't really focus on the game much until moving out early this year. Even more recently, I've started playing Path of Radiance, I'm currently on the seventh chapter and I'll be able to play it regularly once I've got a Wii setup going at my home. 

As for Three Houses... I'm not exactly excited, not yet at least. I'll play the game, for sure, I'll probably buy it shortly after its release, but I don't think I'll be up until midnight waiting for it to be available like I was with Awakening. I guess now that I'm an adult, I just don't get super excited for things anymore. 

I guess if I had to rank all the FE games I've played, it would go like this (this is based on how much I've enjoyed them, not the actual quality of the game):

1. Blazing Sword
2. Shadows of Valentia
3. Sacred Stones
4. Birthright
5. Awakening
6. Binding Blade
7. Conquest
8. Revelations
? Path of Radiance (won't know until I've completed it, but rn it would go between Sacred Stones and Birthright)

Edited October 27, 2018 by Farina's Pegasus
small grammar fixes

[Lau]

I was rather late in getting a Wii, I got mine in December 2013 alongside Super Smash Bros Brawl. I was playing through the Subspace Emissary and came across Marth...oh boy.

Marth grabbed my attention immediately- I'm a huge anime fan, so his design ticked all the right boxes. He spoke Japanese, which added to the mystery behind him because, like, who the hell was he? Also, his moveset just clicked with me. So, since I took to him so much, I decided to research him, and found out he came from a series called Fire Emblem. Luckily, I was used to turn based strategy games because I poured countless hours into Pokemon Conquest, so I thought to myself, maybe I could give it a try?

I found out that the most recent game was on the 3DS, and was called Awakening. I was still on the fence about buying it - money was tight back then, so I wanted to be absolutely sure that I'd enjoy it. So I decided to watch a Lets Play. I watched up to about...chapter 12? And I was like...this is it. This is the game for me. I saved up my money, and told my mum about it. She was like, "I need to go into town anyways, I'll pick it up for you."

I was at school that day, and I was so worried that she'd get the wrong game because as far as she was concerned, I only ever played Pokemon. I raced home, and luckily, she managed to get it. They only had Awakening pre-owned at GAME, for £30, and that was without the case. I remember her telling me that she told the cashier that she was going to go to somewhere else to buy it because she refused to spend £30 on a game without a case, hahah. She managed to haggle it down to £25, which wasn't too bad.

I wizzed through it, and immediately started a second playthrough. I loved it that much. The following Christmas, money was a lot better, so I saved up and bought a Wii U, as well as Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones and Shadow Dragon on the Virtual Console. I loved BB and SD, wasn't too keen on Sacred Stones. Shadow Dragon in particular was amazing because it was Marth's game. He was the one to get me into FE, and he was written so beautifully.

Smash 4 came out, and I was able to recognise Lucina and Robin immediately in their reveal trailer, hahah.

After that, Fates came out. I enjoyed it the first time round, but going back...eh. The characters aren't too bad, there's definitely some standouts, but the story...let's just say, splitting it into three routes was an accident waiting to happen. I watched LPs of the Tellius games and NMotE, and then SoV came out, so really, I'm only lacking experience with the Japan only games. Hopefully they get remakes soon.

As for spinoffs...I loved Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Warriors. Heroes is the only mobile game I play.

But yeah, it's a generic story, but it's mine, hahah.

If I had to rank the ones I've played or seen LPs of...not counting spinoffs...

1) Shadows of Valentia

2) Shadow Dragon

3) Awakening

4) Blazing Blade

5) Radiant Dawn

6) Path of Radiance

7) New Mystery of the Emblem

8) Conquest

9) Birthright

10) Sacred Stones

11) Revelation

[Soviet Cut]

I played Fire Emblem because of Advance Wars. When I discovered that IS had another strategy game, I felt like I had to play it. I started with Fire Emblem 7, then Fire Emblem 6, then Fire Emblem 8, and I'm currently playing Fire Emblem 4 & 5. About Advance Wars, I've played both Advance Wars 1 & 2. My first Fire Emblem 7 team was a mess, I remember Dorcas dying in thr Final Chapter because he has only 8 speed or something like that. Even on Lyn Mode I got unlucky and lost Sain, Kent, Florina, Wil and Dorcas making my first Lyn Mode playthrough a mess too. I played FE7 a LOT of times in a row, because I wanted to see all paired endings and supports. 

With FE6 I played it two or three times, the first one was a not completed run because I didn't get the stupid Armads. I remember prepromoting Barth and using him to distract enemies in some situations. The most frustrating part was the support cap which I was unaware of.

My FE8 playthroughs were all sort of uninteresting, since I discovered that the supports and endings were all on the internet. I do remember promoting Franz to a Great Knight but resetting and then promoting him into Paladin, and all possible promotions were Horse Promotions. And I always early promoted anyone not named Franz in the latter playthroughs.

I almost beat Thracia 776 once, but I restarted after I lost all my warp staves when Sleuf died and I didn't notice. I was around chapter 22 which I didn't want to play because my character were all sort of trash. I'm currently in Chapter 9, I promoted Dalshien and I'm going to use him to the end. Also, Asvel is broken, very broken.

About FE4, I had to reset the game after losing most of my character in Chapter 2 and not being able to defeat Eldigan in Chapter 3. I'm currently in chapter 7, trying to get time and patience to play through that sandy map. After beating the game, I'm going to make a subs run.

 

[god_ewan]

I started playing Fire Emblem in 2003 when fe7 released. I was 8 years old at the time. I saw it in Walmart and I thought the box art looked cool so I had my grandmother buy it for me. I absolutely loved it and played it everywhere I went, it was perfect for car rides. I’ve played every Fire Emblem game as they were released since then. 

[Anacybele]

I actually first learned FE existed when I saw Sacred Stones advertised in a GBA booklet that came with my original copy of Zelda TMC. I was interested in it, but never got around to getting it. I actually played FE for the first time when I got a copy of PoR from GameStop. I actually decided I wanted that game badly because of Ike in Smash Bros. Brawl and looking up his game. It just sounded freaking amazing. And it didn't disappoint. Ike has been one of my favorite video game characters since. <3

Edited October 28, 2018 by Anacybele

[Fire Emblem Fan]

The first Fire Emblem game I played was Shadow Dragon on the DS. I knew Fire Emblem existed because of Super Smash Bros., but I didn't know anything about it. Marth, Roy, and Ike were basically just the dudes with colored hair and swords to me at that point. But I did enjoy playing as them and I did start reading about Fire Emblem in some Nintendo Power magazines, so I started getting interested in the series. Unfortunately, I could never find any of the games in stores; no one seemed to sell them and at that point I didn't really do any internet shopping. So for a little while I simply played as the characters and Smash Bros., just wondering about their franchise. Then one day, I found Shadow Dragon at Walmart for $10.00 and I very quickly decided to buy it. And almost immediately, I was hooked! The story sucked me in and I grew to like Marth as more than just a Smash Bros. character, and pretty soon it ended up being one of my favorite DS games. A few months later, I tracked down and bought Radiant Dawn, and then I bought Fire Emblem 2003 and Sacred Stones after that, and from there I kept buying and playing Fire Emblem games and researching all the lore and development stories and anything else I could find. It has become one of my favorite video game series.

[Geenoble]

21 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

Lately, I've played Genealogy of the Holy War.  And I have to say it's probably my personal favorite world in the series that I've played so far.  And it's my favorite story.  Too bad the gameplay is not quite there, though.  But the scope of the story, the tragedy, the ups and downs, the insidious political games...  It's so much of what I like in a story.

Would you mind linking me the translation patch you're using? My Fire emblem 4 is filled with grammer mistakes and its hard to enjoy the story. Gameplay text is still in japanease as well so i don't know what to do.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Geenoble

[Ertrick36]

3 hours ago, Geenoble said:

Would you mind linking me the translation patch you're using? My Fire emblem 4 is filled with grammer mistakes and its hard to enjoy the story. Gameplay text is still in japanease as well so i don't know what to do.

Nowadays, I use the Project Naga patch.

You'll want to use a standard Genealogy ROM; one that isn't patched at all.  It can be headered or unheadered, just as long as it's completely unmodified.

[Leftie]

Flash back to about 2014. I had been going through a phase where I was obsessed with strategy games of all kinds. I had been playing a game called Stellaris for a long time and I got a Nintendo eShop gift card for Christmas. I got on my 3DS and looked at what was available and I saw Fire Emblem Awakening. I had heard of FE before through Smash, though I didn't know much at all about it. But since I'm a chronic impulse buyer, I bought it almost immediately.  I download it and I play it on and off for the next week or so. Sadly, Christmas break had ended and I go to a very demanding school, so I had to drop it almost entirely. 

So the school year ends, and I hear about the GBA Fire Emblem games. I get a ROM of Blazing Sword and I friggin love it. Sadly, I was caught up in many other things and I never beat it. 

Then for the next 3 years I kind of forget about it?

Just recently (about 2 months ago), I found the ROM on my phone while cleaning it out, and I decide to try it again.

Needless to say, I got obsessed with it again. :) And here I am.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

• First exposure to Fire Emblem, like most people, was with Smash. I first played Melee in 2005-ish when I finally picked up a gamecube, and it was the second game I bought. And that game's trophies led me on a circuit of Nintendo recommendation goodness, leading eventually to Fire Emblem 7 and Sacred Stones sitting in a glass cabinet at my local gamestop.
• Next game I would play from this series would be Shadow Dragon, right on release. Hated it. I did have a habit of lending my GBA games out to friends looking for something non-pokemon to play on their gameboys and DSs. But for all I knew, Fire Emblem probably had no future after such a poor game, and I had plenty other games to play. Game hunting had been a regular activity for me since there was a gamestop within walking distance of my home.
• Found SerenesForest at some point while curiously hunting for info on the supposed Shadow Dragon sequel. When it seemed likely it would never get localized, I was sort of glad to hear it, to be honest. Also somewhat exposed to GBA ROM hacking around the time. But I think I only ever watched youtube videos of people playing them. And they were loaded with dumb inside jokes I didn't get rather than trying to be proper games.
• "Fire Emblem 3DS" first alluded to. Got me hyped enough to download ROMs and the community translation patches for FE6 and FE4. FE6 I beat, 4 I stopped somewhere in the first five chapters. Never once played either game again, but I was pretty floored to learn that FE6 had two totally different paths just a year or two ago.
• One of my game hunting runs in my later high school years led me to a 25 dollar copy of Path of Radiance in a gamecube clearance bin. This would be late 2011, early 2012.  I seldom spent that much for a game during those days, but honestly I was floored that I have never played or even researched this game despite Ike's inclusion in Brawl. Probably just assuming it was yet another Japan only title. This was what really brought me back into the fold. Path of Radiance immediately became my favorite, and if I wasn't replaying the game, I was letting some of my friends borrow it. Radiant Dawn I picked up fairly soon after. Convinced my folks to drive me out of my county to pick up a game that I had located using Gamestop's store locator. 
• Bought a 3DS in anticipation of Awakening. I didn't have a habit of pre-ordering games, or even a habit of buying new games ever, so I was shocked to learn there were no copies at my local store. While panicking, it hit me that I could just download it with my debit card straight to my 3DS. Hot damn. Even crazier was that I came into school that week to find several other kids playing it. When they learned I was the "Fire Emblem Guy" I had to give out a ton of advice, which was tricky since most questions were about the support system and marriage aspects which I wasn't going out of my way to test stuff with. One of my teachers, also playing the game and hitting me up for info, was super confused to find her avatar had married Chrom. In general Awakening kept me occupied for months and the only thing that bothered me about so early on was the poor support writing for every romantic pairing. But the game itself had more to do and had more mechanics than any previous FE game I had played
• Fates came out when I was in college, and I hated the version splitting. Particularly having to explain how much money my friends would be down if they decided to partake in the game. Suffice to say very few of them ended up committing to the game, and several who did buy one of the versions did not even finish it. Birthright was too boring, or Conquest was too difficult - it was one or the other. For me, I played all three versions, and got soooo burnt out by the time I got to Revelation. The level design was clearly burnt out too, yeesh. I had some fun with Fates, but my disappointment simply compounded the more I looked under the surface. 
• Fire Emblem Heroes is a game that I am still playing, at least to clean up regular events and quests. My generic goal is to have a 5 star copy of each character. But as a F2P I'm well aware how unattainable that is.
• When Echoes was announced I was apprehensive. Why remake the worst game in the series? Why make another 3DS game with the Switch about to be released? But boy did the game change my mind. It was neither "classic" nor "new" Fire Emblem, but something totally unique and experimental. 

[Dragoncat]

My friend got me into it back in the GBA days. Watched her play Blazing Sword and borrowed her copy, spit all over her GBA laughing at Sain lol. The first one I owned was Sacred Stones. Fangirled over Tellius hard during my highschool years and it is still the best era of FE imo.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Super Smash Brothers -> Legal Backups of GBA games I already owned -> Physical games -> I lost my physical games* -> Shadows is okay I guess

As a real man does.

*- I didn't bother to replace them, since I had already beaten them, they were heckin' pricey, I was a bit burnt out on the series and I wasn't super excited for what was coming out. That's four, count 'em, four reasons.

Kind of a shame, I had a friend who hated Path of Radiance and just gave me his copy for free because I mentioned Fire Emblem off hand, so that's something you can't quite replace. Oh well.

[DisobeyedCargo]

I got an eshop card for Christmas and bought awakening on a whim 

 

and I fell in love with the series 

[Hawkwing]

I think I'll just quote something I said several months ago. My experience with Fire Emblem and Serenes Forest kind of went hand-in-hand, so I think I'll leave the information about the site in:

On 5/30/2018 at 12:36 AM, Hawkwing said:

Like most everyone else, I learned about the existence of Fire Emblem through Super Smash Bros. I didn't actually have an interest in the series until 2015, when You-tuber's Green Scorpion and Comic Foil started a let's play on Blazing Sword. Despite the fact that I stopped watching after they finished Lyn's story, mostly because it updated slowly and the let's play lasted a year, I liked what I saw, and it helped that the both you-tubers were active in the comments, where they answered many of the general questions that people asked about the game and the series as a whole. I had also seen a fellow student play the GBA games via emulator in his free time, and again, I liked what I saw. Eventually, I downloaded the demo for Awakening, enjoyed my time with it, and decided that I wanted to jump into the series. I had actually intended for Blazing Sword or Sacred Stones to be my first Fire Emblem games, as I wanted to get the same experience that many westerners did when they played the series for the first time, but I didn't know how emulators worked, so I settled with Awakening out of convenience in 2016. I don't regret this decision, as casual mode went a long way in helping me learn the overall mechanics of the series, as well as the in's and out's of what to do and what not to do, but I will always be proud that first time I actually beat the game was on classic mode.

I remember visiting the site once or twice in the past to find the odd fact about Awakening's weapons. I thought that the site was well organized and very detailed, but nothing hooked me.

That is, until Echoes was announced. I searched high and low for every scrap of data I could find on both the original game and its remake. Early on, I stumbled upon an article from the site that gave a very well-analyzed observation on the information provided in the Direct. From that moment to the games release, I visited Serenes Forest constantly to see if any new information was released.

I forgot when exactly I decided to enter the forums, but I do remember that the decision came about when I realized that, for as well-researched and interesting the articles of the main site were, I would get even more in-depth discussions and analysis from the people in the forums, so I decided to look there. Despite spending much of my time solely in the Echoes thread, I was content simply reading what others had posted, and I saw no real reason to join.

As my signature states, I did leave for a while. The negativity got to me, and I needed a break. So what made me come back? I kid you not, it was Echoes Meme thread. I went there for my daily dose of laughs, and slowly but surely started venturing out into the main forums again. I realized that, regardless of whether or not I agreed with the sentiments, the people here gave very detailed reasons for why they held such an opinion, and many of the story analysis topics were actually pretty insightful. Being honest, It's still one of the main reasons I stay here.

Over time, I started noticing that I had formed my own opinion on some topics, that there were some ideas I wanted to share and things I wished to discuss, and I had already planned out my username, signature, avatar picture, etc. It eventually got to the point where I decided "You know what? If I put this much thought into it, I may as well join." And so I did.

I still use the main site whenever I play one of the older games, as I like knowing which units support each other, who recruits whom, how the gaiden chapters are unlocked, etc. Even if the forums sucked (which they don't) I would still visit the main site for this reason.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

Started with Melee, then came Nintendo Power, which did a little guide for Lyn Mode Chapters 7-10 and Eliwood 11. I got interested, and then come Easter, I got FE7 in a basket, plus the official NP game guide. And I had the Double Dash Bonus Disk too. It's been love ever since.

 

I discovered GFAQs as a kid via relative, back then I thought of it as being helpful first and foremost. It was from there I discovered SF, from which I learned of FE's past, this was sometime pre-RD release, since I still remember that section being in its proto-phase. Discovery of the forums came significantly later, I can't pinpoint when.

 

4 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I got to Revelation. The level design was clearly burnt out too, yeesh.

So burnt out, that twice the game froze over due to lack of heat.

[umerol]

My start in the Fire emblem games starts with Sacred Stones.

When I was 9, I didn't know how the game played. The only thing I knew was to kill the enemies. So for chapter 1, I killed all the enemies but the map didn't end. I was confused since I didn't know that the objective was seize. So I stopped playing it for a year.

Enter me at 10, having at least played PoR for the gamecube, with my new interest in FE relit, I tried sacred stones again. Played through chapter 1 with the knowledge of seizing. Played to chapter 6, lost interest in the game for whatever reason. Stopped it for 3 years.

14, I got sick after returning from summer camp, asthma attack, couldn't breathe while I was sleeping. Sent to the hospital with my dad. Admitted for three days. During that time, I was allowed to play video games (I was still considered a kid for whatever reason) and a game that my dad played there while he was watching over me caught my interest. Radiant Dawn, I was amazed by the design, by the characters. The music, while not loud since it was in a hospital, was really enjoyable. I had realized that my uncle gave me a copy of it during Christmas. After the recovery, I played through the game. My first completed Fire emblem game of all time. Took me three months.

Ever since the age of 16, I finished Awakening, SS and Fates (Rev). I did two things stupid, however, during a period of time of being edgy, I thought I was too cool for FE. Decided to give RD and some games back to my unlce. Another thing was that I gave away my gamecube.... along side Super Smash bros Melee.

So three months ago, finished Blazing sword and Heroes of Light and Shadow (FE7 and FE12), realized that I did a fucking mess by giving away a game that would normally cost around 150 in my country and a console + game that would cost 200 here.

[Book Bro]

I learned about the series through Melee, got FE7 when it came out thinking Eliwood was Roy, and discovered a new genre I'd come to really enjoy. 

FE7 really grabbed me, I loved the characters, the story, and the whole style of the game. The cliffhanger ending hyped 13 year old me up so much and I was hopeful FE6 would follow in English. When FE8 came out I was disappointed it had no connections to the previous game, and though I liked the game I missed Elibe too much and overall felt underwhelmed by 8. I played 6 and in some ways liked it even more than 7 despite it being more primitive. 

When 9 released, I felt similar at first but quickly grew to love Tellius as well. I was super excited for 10 and it was the main reason I bought a Wii after starting my first job. I loved RD, obviously, and it became my favourite in the series. Shadow Dragon followed and was a huge disappointment, and while I've grown to enjoy it, it's still one of my least favourites. After that came the FE drought and I kind of drifted from video games in general during that time. I replayed a few of them and wondered if a new one would ever come out.

So finally, when Awakening was announced, I was blown away by the graphics and presentation. It was one of my first 3DS games and while it was great to play a new FE game, I didn't feel the story was as good as the other games. Especially because the trailers had made it seem like a different game than it ended up being. I put in a ton of hours into the game, though. I think replaying the story so much made me notice the flaws even more and my opinion quickly dropped. With Fates, I also hyped myself up based on trailers and prerelease info and ended up with a completely different game than I was expecting, though I enjoyed Conquest and Birthright a lot (Revelations is awful). 

I played FE4 and watched LPs of 5 and 12 to catch up with what I was missing from the series while waiting for SoV. While it's also flawed, the game made me hopeful that FE can take what worked from the old games and what made the new games so popular and do some very interesting things going forward. I'm hoping Three Houses will be exactly that.

If I had to list the games I've played from favourite to least favourite, it's something like: 

10, 9, 6, 7, 4, 14C, 15, 8, 14B, 11, 13, 14R

[Lief]

I got my hands on a GBA emulator in high school, and was looking for a good gba game to play on it. I picked FE7 since I saw the “History of fire emblem” vid on the Nintendo channel and thought the GBAFE graphics were great. Of course, my first death was with Florida on her joining chapter, but I had a ton of fun with the game even though it was pretty intimidating to play. I also got FE8, and beat that before beating FE7. Overall, I fell in love with FE7 thanks to the characters, the story, and the music. FE8 wasn’t a bad game, but was just not as impressive as FE7.

Then I discovered the fan made hacks on this forum and hooooo boy.....I tried quite a few hacks.

I played The Last Promise (beat it, liked it), Dream of Five (played quite a bit until I got stuck, it was balls hard but I’m sad it will never be finished), and a zombie FE hack I forgot the name of (it had the bird lord and the sword master jeigan). I also beat FE6 reverse recruitment (yet I only made it to the western isles in the actual FE6 game). I tried out FE3 and FE4, but didn’t like them.

While playing those I got swept up in the hype for Awakening. I got the Lucina spoiler slapped right in my face when I checked out the FE wiki on the game.

“oh, Lucina? Who’s this?” *clicks on name, gets hit with masked Marth*

I also saw Lucina’s love confession cg and was stunned by the fact she confesses to the Avatar and how beautiful she looked. I thought she was the Avatar’s actual love interest (even if it’s a female avatar) until I noticed that suddenly every awakening character had a love confession cg on their page (even the VILLAINS).

Though when I actually got Awakening, I was mildly disappointed since it felt pretty underwritten compared to FE7. As for my first run, I heard it was an easy game on normal, so I started on hard classic, only to have my butt kicked due to it being the first FE game I played in months, Stahl getting critkilled by a single digit crit, and the fact that not a single character dodged an enemy attack until Lon’qu in his first chapter. Awakening felt pretty difficult to me on hard, and the randomness of pairup made it hard to get reliable outcomes, like weakening an enemy for someone to kill only for it to die to a 15% dual attack.

I got conquest a few years later. My first run felt pretty miserable, but my subsequent runs went much smoother now that I knew what units I needed for future chapters, and getting more familiar with the characters in general. I started a loooot of runs on conquest, trying out units I didn’t use before. It peaked at me beating lunatic conquest endgame without rescue cheese (but a ton of battle save abuse). I also beat birthright on lunatic, and it too was really fun, especially since I used a team with three ninjas and three snipers. The hordes of enemies in late game BR weren’t a problem with my overwhelming offence (and capped strength/speed/def great knight Silas, who was basically Nohrian Ryoma).

I then played Echoes, which I love on the same level as Conquest, though a failed blitzkrieg run made me not feel like doing a fourth run of the game. I also made it to the second to last chapter of H2 Shadow Dragon (I’ll finish it one day). 

So far I like Conquest’s gameplay and Echoes the most, I like FE7 too but it’s been years since I played it. Looking forward to Three Houses.