Favorite early game in Fire Emblem

[FailWood]

Which Fire Emblem game has your favorite early game (the first quarter or first third of the journey)?  This factors things like difficulty curve, the units who are part of your starting crew or join just after the beginning, etc.

[ciphertul]

I gotta go with PoR everything before Gallia(and prisonbreak) are all tense and pretty dang good.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Probably gonna hand this one to Conquest. Even if you don't like Conquest, I don't think any of the common complaints (difficulty, enemy skills, etc) are so prevalent early on that it'd stop you from enjoying it. It's at a level where hardcore players can enjoy it as a casual challenge while casual players can enjoy it as a hardcore challenge. You also still have a good bit of flexibility available in terms of reclassing options and such, so you can play around with Paladin Jakob, Strategist Felicia, reclassed Corrin, whatever strikes your fancy really.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Like, even if they're a bit easy:

Blazing Blade: Lyn mode's story is honestly a fair bit better than the main game's, IMO - I liked the interactions between the main characters (Lyn, Sain, Kent, Florina). Its gameplay is too simple once you're a series veteran, although it was engaging enough as an introduction to the series to me.

Sacred Stones: I like that it gives you a convoy right from the start (one of my beefs with many FE earlygames), and jumps into the story right away. You get new characters quickly, very functional.

Great early-midgame, but not great at the very start:

Path of Radiance: I don't like Prologue through Chapter 3 much (cartoonish portrayals of brigands and pirates... aren't really my thing), and I particularly dislike how Chapter 3 sticks you with nothing but high-levelled units so it feels like a waste of time on replays, but from Chapter 4 onwards things definitely take a turn for the much more interesting. Some decent maps in there too (including two defend maps! I like defend maps), though I hate how long it takes you to get a convoy.

Conquest: Not a fan of the pre-split stuff on average (chapter 5 is pretty fun, but a bit gimmicky) but it gets real good as soon as you're past that. Birthright isn't quite as good, but still good.

Dislike:

My least favourite is probably New Mystery. A bunch of weird small-scale maps which seem to just test "haha did you choose the right Kris build". Also dislike Shadow Dragon Chapters 1-3 with their poorly-balanced bosses and lack of vulneraries. And Revelation unfortunately drops a couple terrible gimmicks on you (darkness, snow shovelling) in the early maps, while taking too long to give you new PCs compared to Birthright and Conquest.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Probably Three Houses pre chapter 7. To me chapter 7 is the beginning of the mid game because it's the optimal time to be recruiting units and paralogues are showing up. No playthrough is quite the same and what you do with those kids is most meaningful from the get go, even if they're not going to be used long term. Even if its a route I've played, I'm probably planning out a unique team with a different set of skill exp priorities. Playing the game on Maddening turns normally mundane early game chapters into nail biting puzzles. And the only genuinely bad map that feels like a slog is chapter 5. Not that being a slow chapter is as bad as it would be in any of the pre Turnwheel fire emblem games, because a simple mistake or unlucky crit won't result in a complete restart.

If the entirety of Lyn Mode counts as an "early game", then I'd choose that as well, though it's more of an extended tutorial in practice. The maps are nice and bite sized, and the only "bad units" are bad because they're poor exp investments for Eliwood/Hector mode. But within Lyn mode itself you can use Rath and Dorcas if you want. They have very little enemy phase presence so they're not potential exp hogs like Marcus would be if he were dropped into Lyn Mode. The only map I don't like is the last one, with the rain. If rain were a mechanic on any other map later in the game I'd at least appreciate it for the tutorial aspect of teaching you about environmental effects.

My most recent Fire Emblem replay is Path of Radiance Hard, and I didn't care for it. I find it very annoying that Boyd and Oscar can only nab a couple levels before being thrown into the deep end of chapter 4 which is a boatload of tougher enemies that give you no option but to cower in the bottom right corner. They're also short on weapons and can genuinely run out before you get the shop. Meanwhile Ike is sitting at level 10 by now thanks to chapter 3 so you're pumping the brakes on his exp gains. Marcia will (permanently) die on Chapter 3 if you don't hurry, but you wouldn't know to hurry if you fail to remember about that event. Heck I think she potentially dies regardless of the player's actions if she dodges none of the three attacks coming at her on Hard mode. That's got to be a frustrating reset. Also I remember the potential bonus exp gains were especially pitiful, so the player shouldn't worry about time count. Chapter 8 is the first map I particularly like because you've got three chokepoints with just a handful of units of varying power levels. But Chapter 8 is beginning to stretch the definition of "early game". 

[FailWood]

5 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Probably gonna hand this one to Conquest. Even if you don't like Conquest, I don't think any of the common complaints (difficulty, enemy skills, etc) are so prevalent early on that it'd stop you from enjoying it. It's at a level where hardcore players can enjoy it as a casual challenge while casual players can enjoy it as a hardcore challenge. You also still have a good bit of flexibility available in terms of reclassing options and such, so you can play around with Paladin Jakob, Strategist Felicia, reclassed Corrin, whatever strikes your fancy really.

Conquest is my pick as well.  I like how chapters 7 thru 10 give you a good chance to get a feel for all the units who join in that time frame to see who you stick with long term, and chapters 8 and 10 I find fun to play in general.

Honorable mention goes to Path of Radiance, because of how well it handles the fact that you're part of a mercenary company, though I do agree that it sucks not having a convoy for most of that time.

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

And Revelation unfortunately drops a couple terrible gimmicks on you (darkness, snow shovelling) in the early maps, while taking too long to give you new PCs compared to Birthright and Conquest.

Revelation gets my dishonorable mention due to the gimmicks, however I do like how you don't get many units early on.  Never liked it when you get swamped with new units like in Birthright's early game or Revelation Chapters 11 thru 17.

Edited January 17, 2022 by FailWood

[Fabulously Olivier]

Path of Radiance has 2 delightful Defence missions early on, so it gets my vote.

[Use the Falchion]

Blazing Blade Lyn Mode and Three Houses, for different reasons. 

 

Lyn Mode presents a nice, old school "hidden nobility" story that I find very engaging while also teaching the player nearly every mechanic they need to know. It introduces multiple characters and plotlines that will pay off later and has a solid soundtrack. It's relaxing and fun and I enjoy it. 

Three Houses because I love recruiting everyone, and the ability to recruit nearly everyone so early in the game just fills me with joy. It lets me work on head-canons in terms of which supports took place when without having to worry about the units themself. I also find it the hardest section of the game when I play. At this point in the game, I'm usually focused on keeping most of my cast around the same level, which means splitting the EXP a LOT of different ways. This means that for a fair time, the enemies are higher-leveled than me. Add to that the limited supplies and weapon ranks for most characters as well as the multitude of enemies on some of those early levels (particularly the training ones), and I actually have to think tactically about things at times and worry for my units. By the time the late-game rolls around, my units are pretty OP or at least on-pace with where they need to be. 

 

Other games...Awakening is fun, if only because I have the first few levels down to a science for most playthroughs. Echoes has a nice "villagers go on an adventure into the larger world" beginning, but I don't care for the gameplay or story that much. PoR would probably be good - I remember it being pretty good for the most part. I need to replay it sometime. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

13 minutes ago, FailWood said:

Revelation gets my dishonorable mention due to the gimmicks, however I do like how you don't get many units early on.  Never liked it when you get swamped with new units like in Birthright's early game or Revelation Chapters 11 thru 17.

You can definitely make the case that Birthright goes too far in the other direction... and Revelation 11-17, I suppose, although I'd say Revelation 11-17 is a direct consequence of Revelation's earlier maps being much too slow to give you PCs! The game devs had already committed to Revelation being a route where you'd get a much larger roster than BR/CQ so taking longer to give them to you is especially baffling.

To me it's basically unbelievable that as late as Chapter 8 in Revelation I only have:

• a lord
• a dancer
• a staff user (who admittedly has some combat)
• a temp character who can't gain supports and has memetically bad stat growths, and thus has almost no long-term value

So I really only have one unit I want to give most of the combat duty to. That's not much fun. Fire Emblem, in my opinion at least, is at its best when I have a variety of different combat units and I have to decide how best to use them to face off against different types/formations of enemies.

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

The only map I don't like is the last one, with the rain. If rain were a mechanic on any other map later in the game I'd at least appreciate it for the tutorial aspect of teaching you about environmental effects.

I also dislike that map because I dislike rain, but for what it's worth, the mechanic does unfortunattely return on later maps... Erik's map has rain again, and Pale Flower of Darkness (Kenneth/Jerme) has snow which is extremely similar (identical? I forget the specifics).

[Use the Falchion]

1 minute ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

To me it's basically unbelievable that as late as Chapter 8 in Revelation I only have:

• a lord
• a dancer
• a staff user (who admittedly has some combat)
• a temp character who can't gain supports and has memetically bad stat growths, and thus has almost no long-term value

So I really only have one unit I want to give most of the combat duty to. That's not much fun. Fire Emblem, in my opinion at least, is at its best when I have a variety of different combat units and I have to decide how best to use them to face off against different types/formations of enemies.

Not to mention that because of this set up, it's annoyingly easy to have Corrin max out their sword and Dragonstone levels before needing to promote. (Although personally, I'm pretty intentional about giving Azura as much EXP as I can, by both dancing and kill assists whenever possible.) Revelation has probably my least favorite early-game, despite how much I've played that version.

[ShoutyMCNUBBS]

I think my favorite early game in memory would have to be awakening. The plot was captivating up until the Emmeryn decision that doesn't matter, and the gameplay from map to map helps it hold together quite well in keeping the player on their toes if they want to get all the early game units, punishing the player for missing chests in the prologue with Donnel by giving the player a reason to use the rescue stave given to them in the next chapter. Overall the first of the games three acts is one of my favorites to go through without playing through the rest of the game.

[vanguard333]

8 hours ago, ciphertul said:

I gotta go with PoR everything before Gallia(and prisonbreak) are all tense and pretty dang good.

2 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Path of Radiance has 2 delightful Defence missions early on, so it gets my vote.

Same. Path of Radiance would have to be my favourite as well.

Having the first three chapters focus on Ike getting used to being a mercenary and seeing Crimea at peace does a really good job setting everything up, so when chapter 4 starts and Soren immediately tells everyone, "Crimea and Daein have gone to war", it has all the more weight without it taking too long to get to the war part of what is essentially a war game.

In terms of gameplay, the presence of a variety of different missions: not just seize and route, but escape and defend as well, make for a really good introduction, and the Greil Mercenaries make for a fantastic starting set of units.

[FailWood]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

To me it's basically unbelievable that as late as Chapter 8 in Revelation I only have:

• a lord
• a dancer
• a staff user (who admittedly has some combat)
• a temp character who can't gain supports and has memetically bad stat growths, and thus has almost no long-term value

So I really only have one unit I want to give most of the combat duty to. That's not much fun. Fire Emblem, in my opinion at least, is at its best when I have a variety of different combat units and I have to decide how best to use them to face off against different types/formations of enemies.

Fair enough in terms of lacking variety,  though you did forget Mozu whose available after beating Chapter 7.  Rev is the only route where she doesn't have major competition for EXP as soon as she's available, so if Corrin is overleveled, Mozu is an option.  Usually switch out Gunter for her.

[FailWood]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Revelation 11-17, I suppose, although I'd say Revelation 11-17 is a direct consequence of Revelation's earlier maps being much too slow to give you PCs! The game devs had already committed to Revelation being a route where you'd get a much larger roster than BR/CQ so taking longer to give them to you is especially baffling.

Honestly, I wish they instead kept it to only the neutral characters who joined you no matter your path while throwing in a few exceptions like Keaton, Kaden, Rinkah, Hiyato, and Flora.  Rev's roster is too bloated.

Edited January 17, 2022 by FailWood

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

You can definitely make the case that Birthright goes too far in the other direction... and Revelation 11-17, I suppose, although I'd say Revelation 11-17 is a direct consequence of Revelation's earlier maps being much too slow to give you PCs! The game devs had already committed to Revelation being a route where you'd get a much larger roster than BR/CQ so taking longer to give them to you is especially baffling.

To me it's basically unbelievable that as late as Chapter 8 in Revelation I only have:

• a lord
• a dancer
• a staff user (who admittedly has some combat)
• a temp character who can't gain supports and has memetically bad stat growths, and thus has almost no long-term value

So I really only have one unit I want to give most of the combat duty to. That's not much fun. Fire Emblem, in my opinion at least, is at its best when I have a variety of different combat units and I have to decide how best to use them to face off against different types/formations of enemies.

Granted, this design tracks with Revelation as a Corrin power fantasy. Corrin is surrounded by people who make them stronger. I think there's some charm to these early "limited pieces" maps, although getting much of the Hoshido squad back is welcome when it happens.

For my pick I'm going to say Echoes. The "Villager" system enables significant team variability from the earlygame, in a manner that's rarely seen. I could have Mercenary Gray, Cavalier Tobin, Archer Kliff, and Cleric Faye. Or Archer Gray, Mage Tobin, Mercenary Kliff, and Pegasus Knight Faye. You can play hundreds of times with different combinations in each one. And while you don't yet have many equippables, there's a motive to make use of them, in order to learn their associated combat arts with all speed. Narratively speaking, the focal characters are at least enjoyable, the dialogue is strong, and it's all undergirded by full voice talent. It's just a fun time from the 1st of Flostym onward.

[lenticular]

I'm not sure I necessarily have a favourite, but if I had to pick one to replay right now, I think I'd go with Radiant Dawn.

Part 1, with the Dawn Brigade, is almost as much of a self-contained story as Lyn Mode is, which I think is a neat way to start a game. I also like that the Dawn Brigade chapters are far less tutorialy than Lyn Mode is. Having a robust tutorial might be better game design overall, but for someone who has played a lot of Fire Emblem, I think it's better to just leap straight into the action. Even the prologue is a proper map, rather than just a tutorial on moving and attacking, which is all that a lot of FE games get.

 I also like the story of early Radiant Dawn. Getting to see what happens after the "happily ever after" of Path of Radiance is a nice deconstruction of some standard Fire Emblem tropes, and having it be from the perspective of the defeated nation makes it even better.

For the most part, I like the Dawn Brigade too, both as characters and units. They have some major problems later on when they're competing with the Greil Mercs and coming up short, but just for Part 1, I think they're fine. Having a Light Mage as the Lord and a Rogue as the early pre-promote is a pretty big departure from the standard FE fare of a sword Lord and a paladin pre-promote. This not only makes them feel very different to play as, but also reinforces the story; these are a bunch of street fighters in a guerilla insurrection, not a bunch of nobles in a formal war.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Fates Prologue 2-6 and CQ chapter 7-10.

For the Fates prologue, it´s the fact that even this early on there are plenty of ways to approach a map, even with the few units and limited items that you have. And as for the CQ portion: Very nice overall map design, giving the player multiple ways to tackle the map, some reclassing shenanigans being possible. Also, how different the maps feel depending on your chosen boons/banes and the neato differences on the maps between Hard/Lunatic.

 

I think H3 SD is also quite nice - it strikes the balance between difficult, but not quite as ridiculous as H5 and once the prep screen has been acquired and the great reclassing can begin, the game feels a lot more open I suppose.

 

I wouldn´t know how to define TH early game as - how should I call it, grinding feels too harsh a word - non-story-necessitated-maps are built into the game kind of naturally, obscuring any sense of progress if used, whereas ignoring these additional battles leads to a prolonged stay in... less than exciting classes dragging down what quality the maps have. 

[Shadow Mir]

Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones have pretty good earlygames from a gameplay perspective, while Path of Radiance is good from a story perspective, while still being good gameplay wise. On the other hand, Shadow Dragon has my least favorite earlygame because the bosses are stupidly overpowered for that stage in the game, with two of them practically requiring breaking their weapon to kill them because most units can't take more than one hit from them without dying (what's worse, one of them is also fast enough to double most of your units), and the lack of healing resources only makes things even worse. You only get one vulnerary and one heal staff that have to last three chapters. Let's just say I pity whoever has the misfortune to lose Jagen to a critical hit in an SD ironman if they're playing on harder difficulties...

16 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I also dislike that map because I dislike rain, but for what it's worth, the mechanic does unfortunattely return on later maps... Erik's map has rain again, and Pale Flower of Darkness (Kenneth/Jerme) has snow which is extremely similar (identical? I forget the specifics).

Impressive that something that appears so infrequently manages to be a big pain in the ass. I'm glad weather hasn't come back since, because the only thing that it does is slow everything down to a crawl. I'd really dread seeing weather in a Holy War remake...

13 hours ago, FailWood said:

Fair enough in terms of lacking variety,  though you did forget Mozu whose available after beating Chapter 7.  Rev is the only route where she doesn't have major competition for EXP as soon as she's available, so if Corrin is overleveled, Mozu is an option.  Usually switch out Gunter for her.

I wouldn't consider that a very good idea imho. I already dislike how Corrin has to shoulder the lion's share of the combat duties in the first few maps because most of your other units at that point can't take hits well. Mozu wouldn't help much on that end, as she can't really take hits.

[FailWood]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I wouldn't consider that a very good idea imho. I already dislike how Corrin has to shoulder the lion's share of the combat duties in the first few maps because most of your other units at that point can't take hits well. Mozu wouldn't help much on that end, as she can't really take hits.

As though right on cue when attempting to vouch for Mozu, you show up.  It's called using Skills and Pair Up, and you have both a healer and a dancer.  If you can't train Mozu with Rev's early units, then that says something about you the player, because those units are perfect to get her up to speed.  This is not an argument I want to have here, cause it's somewhat off topic.

[Shadow Mir]

35 minutes ago, FailWood said:

As though right on cue when attempting to vouch for Mozu, you show up.  It's called using Skills and Pair Up, and you have both a healer and a dancer.  If you can't train Mozu with Rev's early units, then that says something about you the player, because those units are perfect to get her up to speed.  This is not an argument I want to have here, cause it's somewhat off topic.

Well, excuuuuuse me for not thinking that adding another fragile unit to my already limited roster is gonna improve my army by leaps and bounds! Having only four units is already a shitty position to be in, but when all but one of those are fragile, that just makes things even worse for me, and whatever Mozu brings to the table won't come close to making up for it. I mean, I already find the pace of early Revelation glacial as is due to a limited roster, but adding Mozu in Gunter's place won't do anything for me other than make things harder because I'm replacing the only other unit who can take hits to some extent with another frail one who needs protecting. This is why I find it better to wait until after chapter 8, when I actually have options.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[GlitchWarrior]

back on topic, I tend to find the first third of awakening to be more fun than the entire rest of the game. Especially on higher difficulties, the game turns from something that gets your brain turning to "are you overleveled? no? then die." I haven't played Lunatic yet, but my Hard mode draft run eventually turned from "you've got a full team vs the enemy's full team" to "Solo this map with Panne because she's your only unit whose level-ups have been profitable enough to main-team." I'd been funneling exp into my team as a whole, but Panne being reclassed into assassin turned out to be my only unit who could reliably evade enemies OR take hits from them in some circumstances. I ended up playing the last couple few maps only deploying her and Chrom and having him backpack- which is a shame, considering the first half of the game actually felt like fun while I was running it, giving me reasons to use a variety of attacks and units on my team. The late-game ambush flier spam is also stupid.

I also have to agree with everyone else- Lyn Mode is oddly fun despite being a tutorial your first run through.

[Etrurian emperor]

Probably a controversial opinion but Shadows of Valentia. Particularly Celica's route. 

Firstly because Echoes is a bit different you have the fun of experiencing a lot of different mechanics without yet fully realizing the flaws in them. The world building, character interaction and presentation are all excellent and due to Alm's route relying on customizing your villagers you have a lot of different ways to play through the route. Celica's army meanwhile has a more set composition, one that's very mage heavy. I think that leads to some fun, well crafted boat maps.