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HillCountry
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One thing I will say is definitely don't play 1 for anything short of morbid intellectual curiosity. 11 is far superior as an actual gaming experience. 3 vs 12 or 2 vs 15 is a far less clear cut comparison, but in general there are some astonishingly basic features that didn't show up in the series before 4 and 5.

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If you're going to play the older games for context, I don't think it will be worth it. I feel like the game will give enough context for each character, especially considering Sigurd, Leif and Roy are from JP only games, to make up for the fact people wouldn't have played them.

Aside from that, if you just want to play them:

Just play the remakes of the NES FE games, especially for FE1. They're both slow and archaic imo. FE2 and FE15 have some differences that might warrant a FE2 playthrough, but not enough for me tbh.

SNES FE has aged well imo however, mainly in FE4's and FE5's cases, have some aspects that depending on you as a player you may like or dislike. I personally am not a fan of FE4 and I always needs a guide to play FE5, but they are both very playable. FE3 is amazing imo, I prefer it to FE12 personally, and has aged very well. It does lack some of the modern conventions of modern FE like the weapon triangle but otherwise a great game.

GBA FE and on plays very well and has aged greatly. Has some things that are annoying (mainly the support growth system) but they play greatly.

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Personally I'm just not a fan of Kris and the story additions of 12, mainly because I played FE3 before FE12. Also 3 has some mechanics that I enjoy, namely in how Manaketes work (think Laguz using Laguz Stones to transform, allowing you to transform for five turns) and also I think dismounting is cool (even if it means your only lance users indoors are armour knights lol).

If you've played and enjoyed FE12 you may not hold the same sentiments of FE3 being better, however I personally think it has aged well and is an overall enjoyable experience and probably the most vanilla FE experience since it lacks the bells and whistles of modern FE (if that's something you may interested in like myself).

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This is definitely the reaction I hope most people aren't having with Fire Emblem Engage. The I Need to Play Every Fire Emblem to Understand What's Going On. These are cameos, not characters. And their individual stories won't have any bearing on the plot as they get isekaid to the continent of Elios, in the form of ring-shaped pokeballs. I'd be surprised if they even retain their memories. And if they do, you'll pick up whatever the writers deem relevant from their dialogue.

If a past Fire Emblem game looks fun, go ahead and play it. But don't do so out of obligation. This shouldn't be homework. 

Edited by Zapp Branniglenn
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2 hours ago, Ziegenpeter said:

What makes 3 better than 12? I only played the latter, but would gladly play the former if it's worth it.

apart from manakete mechanic and dismounting :

3 have book 1 and 2, which are a retell of fe1...and book 2 is similar to 12.

No triangle weapon.

Stats max are 20 and 56? HP for everyone.

Weapon Rank is weapon level, a stat which you can gain by level up.

Marth animation is different when he wear the falchion, rapier or another sword!

In book 2, you have the costellation orb (which transform to Star), it affects growth rates.

Also IIRC, when someone have a orb, they can't lose durability.

4/4 inventory for weapon and item, like Fire emblem Path of Radiance.

No tutorial, no Kris.

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FE3 is my favorite game in the series so obviously I'd recommend trying it. However if you're mainly interested in just getting the story/background on characters, FE12 is probably the way to go. FE12 retconned a lot of things (which no everyone likes!), but it seems to be the canon version of the story as far as IS is concerned. Not to mention the translation is much more polished. than FE3's.

But if you're interesting in trying different gameplay, then I would recommend both games as they have many mechanical differences which make them booth worth experiencing IMO. But then again, I'm kooky and think the same thing about FE1/2 vs FE11/15, so take my opinion as you will. 😛

57 minutes ago, link16hit said:

Also IIRC, when someone have a orb, they can't lose durability.

Only the Starsphere does that. The other orbs and star shards do not.

Edited by Robert Stewart
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FE11 is a better play experience than FE1, but if you do want to play that than use speed up, enemy phase will be much better then. 

FE15 over FE2 any day, I honestly don't see any point to playing FE2 but again, speed up if you do.

I'd say FE12 over FE3, I think the new gaiden chapters as well as the increased cast size make it the better game but FE3 is still very fun today.

FE4 and FE5 have both aged very well imo, FE4 may be a little slow so speed up may be something you want to do, but it's in no way required to enjoy the game.

Anything from FE6 onward is still extremely solid. Just make sure to play FE9 before 10, as 10 is a direct sequel.

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I'd say work your way backwards. It's far easier to deal with the older mechanics that way. Going from Awakening to Path of Radiance isn't so bad. Going from Awakening to Mystery of the Emblem is going to he a bit of generation shock. It's going to be far easier to cut your teeth on the GBA titles before you go into the SNES ones. 

 

Biggest issues with the oldest games are UI and not being able to skip turns. The UI isn't that big of a deal once you know how mechanics work but it's hard to jump into and have fun when you're expecting a battle forecast and the game expects you to make your own from the raw stats. 

Its not hard to do but it's pretty easy to play the newer games and never think about how the damage is calculated since the game tells you ahead of time what it will be. 

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17 hours ago, HillCountry said:

It seems FE4/FE5 have issues with emulators. 

Not really? They're pretty easy to emulate.

It might be because the most recent translations all expand the game room, and some older emulators don't support it. (Some that do may require an extra manifest file). Maybe try a different emulator?

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All of them are great imo. I think only the original two NES games have useability issues. Not showing the range of movement for units is annoying (it also doesn't show how much damage you'll deal and receive, but the games are easy enough that that actually won't matter a whole lot). Shame the translation of the first game was something they had around for a limited time. They should have just tossed it on the NES library on the Switch. Oh well, turbo button is your friend us the only thing I'll add on that front.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just finished FE6/7.  Both are good Fire Emblem games.  I played the prequel first.

My biggest gripe is that they are not allowing hard mode before you beat the regular game.  For Blazing Blade, I cannot play Hector Hard Mode even after I beat the regular Eliwood.  This does not make sense as I already went through the game once.

And I am not impressed with their maps.  I consider Awakening and Fates have the best of the maps in the series.  I think a decent map in the two games is FE6 Arcadia.  Clearly mage rules in this map, but the game only give a single Guiding Ring so far.  I used it on Clarine.  It is a good investment, as Clarine has the best avoidance of the crew.  But for this chapter I come with most non-promoted units, except for Thany and Lott.  Still, I should be able to finish the chapter in about 15 turns, getting all the hidden items.  I am using 2 flying units to shuttle Chad around and have picked up 5 in 6 turns.  Hindsight I should have the second thief unit to light up right side.  Unfortunately, Thany went sleep, and no units can do Restore.  I planned Lilina just right and immediate get promoted when she reaches level 20 in this chapter.

Overall, I do miss other nice things common for the later games.  The quality-of-life improvement as showing the enemy attack range.  The BGM.  No more voice acting, and I just quickly scrolled through the text, so I don’t bother with support dialog.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I liked Sacred Stones better than Blazing/Binding Blade.  At least I can choose to play Hard mode the first time.  I played Erika till Chapter 14 then switched over to Ephraim. 

I really liked Last Hope (Ch 19), River of Regrets (Ch 17), and Darkling Woods (Ch 20). 

For Last Hope, I put Ephraim and Vanessa on stairs at the bottom, Cormag and Lute at the top, and Colm to the right.  I am mostly using the 12 units for this map.  I used Rennac to get the contents of three treasures on the left.  Unfortunately, the reinforcement thief came in and his speed was one more than Rennac.  Luckily, Rennac just got Speedwing and he used it and stole the lockpick from the thief.  I think this is a good game design to have untrained unit just a little inferior to the enemy. 

Same thing for River of Regrets. I divided up my groups to put Garcia right at the choke for reinforcement Cavaliers.  Vanessa and Tana with a mage by the boss to handle Druids.  Cormag and Neimi and a mage to handle Wyverns.  I would rate this map higher if some other reinforcements came from bottom, as I still have 4 or 5 idle units.

I finished Darkling Woods in 5 turns.  I moved Neimi with Long Bow sitting in the bush sniping at Morva.  She was not hurt at all when surrounded by all the enemies, including the other Boss Riev.  Natassa will have to use 3 warps to move units around, including sending Ephraim to seize the gate.  I would think I can do 3/4 turns, as I let Ephriam move around the mountain by himself.  I can simply fly him over to the staging area to be warped. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I always thought this website is serene forest.  Now I know it’s actually Serenes Forest after playing Path of Radiance.

Path of Radiance has big change on graphics, above the later 3DS games. I would think people got wowed at the time when they first playing it.  It will take Switch to produce the same graphical effect.

Bonus EXP is an interesting concept.  You can promote any units within 10-20 to the next level.  Reset if you don’t like what you got.  And you can easily promote your lower level units when they are too far behind.  Mist class changed into Valkyrie immediately after Ch 15 of the desert.

Canto is game breaking.  I have all units on mount, except for Ike, Soren, and Ilyana.  Volke got Knight Ring.  Combining with most overpowered songster in the whole series Reyson, you can have four units move again.

Titania helps a lot before Ch 17.  She feels like a mother figure to Ike and really contribute to the team.  I like this unit way better than your traditional starting knight such as Seth who never sees a single battle.  Unfortunately She falls behind all the other Paladins after Ch 17.

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On 9/14/2022 at 5:57 PM, HillCountry said:

I only played the latest 4 installments of the series.  Now I am thinking to play the other 8 before Engage.

I am going with emulators.  Just wondering how playable are the early games, especially between FE4 and FE8?

 

I'm a little bit into FE1 (keep getting distracted by other games) but am enjoying it so far, It does seem to have aged better than people give it credit for. (on Chapter 4 if I remember.)

FE7 is a fun time and it's the game that got me into FE after not liking my first FE game, the GBA FE has good mechanics and FE7 has good characters.

FE6 is kinda a pain in the ass, it has ambush spawns and some godawful map design, I like most of it, but past a certain point it feels borderline like a Kaizo Romhack even on Normal, Not too sure I'd recommend it honestly.

I don't know if the 4 games you've played included switch spin-offs, but I'd recommend Echoes if you haven't played it yet as it's got good characters, gameplay and visuals, it's a great time.

Edited by Samz707
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/8/2022 at 1:15 PM, Samz707 said:

I'm a little bit into FE1 (keep getting distracted by other games) but am enjoying it so far, It does seem to have aged better than people give it credit for. (on Chapter 4 if I remember.)

FE7 is a fun time and it's the game that got me into FE after not liking my first FE game, the GBA FE has good mechanics and FE7 has good characters.

FE6 is kinda a pain in the ass, it has ambush spawns and some godawful map design, I like most of it, but past a certain point it feels borderline like a Kaizo Romhack even on Normal, Not too sure I'd recommend it honestly.

I don't know if the 4 games you've played included switch spin-offs, but I'd recommend Echoes if you haven't played it yet as it's got good characters, gameplay and visuals, it's a great time.

 

I played Echoes and liked it better than the blades.

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Typically, I train around 10 units in FE.  Radiant Dawn is different.  It forces you to use way more units and they are just so bland that I cannot remember any after the tedious game.  At least 34 units gained 3 levels or more and I don’t know how many battle wins, but I guess it may double that of the Path of Radiance.

It is a tedious game, as I spent hours before the final chapters preparing all the weapons and stuff to bring.  I still didn’t bring Fortify which may be the most important item in the final battle.  Luckily, I still have access to all the skills.

Thieves rule in this game.  Part 1 is Sothe, who helped build up the team and Part 2 is Heather, who got all the items to be used.  And Generals are decent.  Gatrie and Brom got high speed and resistance and huge defense.  Snipers are OP and I use all three, they shoot at the enemies, and they cannot counter.  I put Counter on Shinon, so maybe he cannot fight back but will get something back. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The biggest gripe is that those Gaiden chapters are not available unless you systematically kill off your units.  At least make those chapters playable, just does give the extra units.  I ended up not playing any, as I don’t have the habit of losing any of my units.

The enemies are the most difficult to kill in the series.  I have about 1600 battles but only 600 wins.  It will take around 3 battles to kill 1 enemy unit.   With this, the map is very loose.  A few enemies at a time, then recover sitting on a fort, then next battle. 

This is my least favorite FE games.  But at least you can choose to play hard 5 for new game.

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10 Chapters later, I still remember Wrys, because he got killed by a bush on the road.

I sent my cavalry trying to get in the range of Knight.  The closest one, moving at the max range, was still one space short, all due to the many bushes on the road.  I think the map developers want him killed.  Think a couple of maps earlier, they make a single safe space for Catria to sit on, and move the thief right in her attack range, so that she can get her Ladyblade.  Here the developers just put one more bush.  Well, who needs an old geezer as nurse?  Luke’s face even went pale looking at Wrys, when he was expecting a beautiful you girl cleric.

I can replay to still save Wrys by using Aran.  But I got a good status boost with my unit when level up on turn 1, and I am already RNG screwed badly wasting effort leveling up Rody.  I kind of feel a little slow on the unit development. 

So, RIP Wrys.  You can only blame the bush on the road.  I do remember you for the effort in the early chapters of Shadow Dragon.  You are the only one I lost playing 11 games (FE6 – FE16).

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Well, Wrys is finally killed by map developer.  Item location on the main site mentions Aum in Chapter 23.  I have Aum for Shadow Dragon but didn’t have chance to use it.  I want to see how it’s working with Wrys.  But the chest is not accessible for the lunatic run.  So Wrys became the first unit got killed.   Not too bad for a bottom tier unit. There are so many much better units that I cannot remember at all.

FE12 is different from others in the series.  From the very beginning, the enemies are armed with silver weapons.  And the game maintains good balance by limiting attack speed throughout the game.  For example, in Chapter 16, the reinforcement warriors come in at 22 speed, and cannot be doubled by the paladins.  I passed around starsphere to kill all of them off, makes me feel like earlier chapters of Awakening, when Fred was passed around to kill off the enemies. 

But forged weapon and speed management is ruined by the atrociously retard enemy.  This is the worst game for enemy AI.  Their attack is based on who is the weakest that can be attacked vs who can be killed.  So I just put my weak units behind the strong ones.  Dragons with 1-2 range and the stupid glowers for 40 damage, cannot kill any of my units without choke points.

Finally, I am done with FE6 through FE16.  I will put into some thought on the games.

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