When did you become a fan of Fire Emblem?

[CyberZord]

For me it was around the Summer of 2020 (Yes, really). I did know about the series' existence back in the days of Super Smash Bros. Brawl when Marth and Ike were the only representatives of FE, but I was interested in other Nintendo franchises + games at the time, so years had passed without any contact with the series. Not even Awakening or Smash 4 on Wii U/3DS was enough to interest me into buying one of the 3DS Fire Emblems. It wasn't until far later, specifically in 2020, when I would play my first Fire Emblem game and fall in love with the series.

It wasn't until Byleth's release as DLC for Smash Ultimate that I had finally gotten curious enough about Fire Emblem to go out and buy one of the games in the series. I decided to buy Three Houses first since it was on Nintendo's newest system (at this current time), the Nintendo Switch. I fell in love with the game relatively quickly and played the hell out of it (I've got around 200+ hours in Three Houses at the time of posting this with 2/4 routes completed and most of route 3 finished. DLC has been purchased + I played through the DLC route to completion), making it one of the games on my Nintendo Switch with the most amount of hours invested. Now I did go back and play a good amount of the older Fire Emblem games such as Awakening, Fates, and Path of Radiance among others, so I can say with absolute certainty that I am most definitely a Fire Emblem Fan.

But that's enough about me. Now it's time that I ask you, fellow Serenes Foresters, this question today: When did you become a fan of Fire Emblem and which game in the series made you a fan?

Edited August 7 by CyberZord

[Acacia Sgt]

I'm part of the crowd who got introduced to FE through Smash Bros. Melee. Marth became my main, after it had been Link back in Smash 64. I gained the interest to try the series out, and since for almost forever I've been a fan of strategy games, so more reason for me to want to try it. Got the chance to play through Blazing Blade by 2003 and... well, been a fan since then.

Edited August 6 by Acacia Sgt

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I was a fan of Marth and Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and a fan of Marth and Ike in Brawl, and then finally got to actually play Fire Emblem in 2011 with Shadow Dragon on the DS.

[Fabulously Olivier]

I picked up Path of Radiance after looking at its awesome cover art on a store shelf. Little did I know, it would be one of the greatest games of all time.

[vanguard333]

I was introduced to it via Smash Bros. Melee. Since then, my siblings and I wanted to try the series. We eventually found Path of Radiance at a store, and I quickly became a big fan of it, to the point where, to this day, I consider it to be my favourite video game.

[lenticular]

Path of Radiance for me as well. I'd played SSBM, but largely dismissed Marth and Roy as being some Japanese exclusive that there was no reason for me to care about. But when Path of Radiance came out, I read a review in a magazine, thought it sounded good, and bought it. And lo, it was good.

[EricaofRenais]

I found Sacred Stones in a discount bin in 2007 and fell in love with the box art.  I then picked up Shadow Dragon, Radiant Dawn and was lucky enough to find Path of Radiance at Gamestop used.  I will always have fond memories of playing SS on my GBA and loving every minute of it,  even if it doesn't rank as my favorite FE game it was my first.

[Eltosian Kadath]

I guess it started with Super Smash Bros Melee with me being a Marth fan, and my brother being a Roy fan, plus I was the kind of kid that those goofy Fire Emblem ads actually appealed to (those Golden Sun ads got to me as well), so I got the first game to come to west when it was new, and liked it enough that I got all the games that came out after that. I forget when I started emulating the old Japanese ones, but it was back when the Binding Blade was called Sword of Seals, and Genealogy didn't even have the translation that reached (but broke) at the ending (and I still fell in love with that game, even when there were like 3-4ish of its 12 chapters broke the translation). I was even known as enough of a Fire Emblem fan that my college roommate got me a copy of New Mystery of the Emblem when he was visiting family in Japan.

[GuardianSing]

It's a tale as old as time, I learned of the series through Smash Brothers and eventually picked up a game for myself.

It's quite interesting as before I even knew what a Fire Emblem was I always preferred playing as the Fire Emblem characters. Ike was my main in Brawl and I enjoyed playing all of the FE cast in Smash 4. It was only until Corrin was added that I began to main them and decided that I wanted to play whatever game they were from.

I purchased Fates Conquest as well as Awakening and the rest in history.

[joevar]

2005. GBA FE gang here.

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

I had played the demo of Awakening when it came out, and heard about the series, but it was Robin and Lucina's reveal trailer for Smash 4 that really piqued my interest in it. I bought a used copy of Awakening the following April with some birthday money and have been a dedicated fan ever since.

Edited August 6 by Morgan--Grandmaster

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I experienced a lot of nintendo games thanks to the helpful trophy descriptions of Melee. A Buyer's Guide in a (at least for me) pre-internet era. But they made it clear that Fire Emblem was a Japan thing. And other than Melee's remix of Together We Ride, there was nothing I could see about Fire Emblem in that game that really drew me in. Did anyone else get a bunch of players together and do this? So good. So I was surprised to see loose cartridges of Sacred Stones and FE7 at my local gamestop's GBA shelf years later. This was 2006-ish. I bought Sacred Stones with some birthday money, then returned a week later to get the other game because I was worried I might not find it still there if I wait. I liked them!

[Dark Holy Elf]

It was 2004, and I was spending the weekend with a friend who had gone out of town to grad school. She threw her GBA and FE7 at me, and told me to play it because I would like it (we were both big fans of Final Fantasy Tactics). She was right, I played through Lyn Mode while I was there and was so charmed that I went and bought a GBA and FE7 myself when I got home. I've basically played every other FE at or near release since.

[Faellin]

Got a copy of sacred stones and path of radiance as a christmas gift back in 2005 I believe.

Absolutely loved the games and picked up the rest of the ones that were still possible to find at the time. Found a copy of FE7 for a pretty good price, and got radiant dawn at launch

Got every new game thats come out day 1 since then. Sadly my favorite never got a proper localization, new mystery was by far my favorite in the series

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

My first exposure to the franchise was via Super Smash Bros Melee, where Marth became one of my mains. No offense intended to Roy, but I preferred the agility of the pretty-boy Prince of Altea. That said, I didn't play any of the series until Shadow Dragon on Nintendo DS. It quickly became one of my favorite games ever, and as a newcomer to the franchise, the "missing" aspects (like supports, or subtypes of magic) went unnoticed by me. From there, I worked my way backwards, and I managed to acquire all the previous international releases by the time Awakening came out.