(Least) Favorite Fire Emblem Title?

[KMT4ever]

About a week ago I suddenly realized that in all my years on this site I don't think I've ever seen this question be asked. We constantly discuss gameplay gimmicks, unit growths, and all of those other features that go into FE, but never the titles, specifically referring to each game's name as printed on the box. Each version of Fates and all spinoff games are included for thoroughness's sake. The reason why a certain title is your (least) favorite would be interesting to see, whether it be its sense of drama, catchiness, or lack thereof.

To answer my own question:

• Favorite: Genealogy of the Holy War: I've never even played this game, something I need to get around to, but the name absolutely catches my attention. It has a feeling of historical significance due to being about a "Holy War", giving you a sense of how massive and complex the events of the game are.
• Least Favorite: Engage: To be completely honest, I hate this title. It sounds more like the name of a convention or wiki than a game where you slay dragons and save the world.

[Original Alear]

It's Revelation. (also I voted Thracia 776 for my fave and New Mystery as my least fave)

[AnonymousSpeed]

Oooh, now this is an excellent idea for a thread!

As a disclaimer, the poll allows multiple votes, so I picked one least favorite and three favorites. The Binding Blade is undoubtedly my most favorite thanks to its beautifully punchy punctuation. Sharing second place are Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, which has a charming sort of melodrama to it on account of it's length while being a little more restrained than New Mystery, whose title runs on across too many parts kind of like this sentence, and Fates: Birthright. I think all the Fates titles are great, but Birthright is the one I think I like the most, it rolls of the tongue nicely and is a very good summary of the route's core idea in a way the other two really aren't.

My least favorite is easily FE7's title though, and this should hopefully demonstrate why. The poll gives its title as "Blazing Blade," which makes sense, right? Alliterate, calls back to the previous game, etc. Why wouldn't you call it Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade? However, the actual official English term is Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, which sounds awful and so stilted and dead and pathetic. It's not a legendary blade, it's just a sword. I hate that title so much, and even if I stopped using number designations for every other game, I'd keep using them for FE7 just to avoid its awful title. It's like the wilted and rusty lettuce of FE subtitles.

[Dark Holy Elf]

46 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

My least favorite is easily FE7's title though, and this should hopefully demonstrate why. The poll gives its title as "Blazing Blade," which makes sense, right? Alliterate, calls back to the previous game, etc. Why wouldn't you call it Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade? However, the actual official English term is Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, which sounds awful and so stilted and dead and pathetic. It's not a legendary blade, it's just a sword. I hate that title so much, and even if I stopped using number designations for every other game, I'd keep using them for FE7 just to avoid its awful title. It's like the wilted and rusty lettuce of FE subtitles.

Isn't Blazing Sword a fan name? Heroes uses Blazing Blade, and until then the only official name was just "Fire Emblem".

Anyway my favourite is... I voted for Radiant Dawn, I like the re-use of "Radiant" to call back to the previous game and past that, I dunno, it sounds good. Least favourite is Thracia 776. It would be a silly name even if it were describing a real country ("France 1815"?) and it's even sillier with a fantasy country and date, at least to me.

[AnonymousSpeed]

41 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Isn't Blazing Sword a fan name? Heroes uses Blazing Blade, and until then the only official name was just "Fire Emblem".

...huh, looks like it is. Only SF refers to it as Blazing Sword. Alright, statement semi-retracted. I'll leave my vote though, because Durandal actually has no fire.

Might change it to/add Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE though, because that's an obviously stupid name.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I picked three favorites and three least favorites.

For my favorites, it's Genealogy of the Holy War, Blazing Blade, and Shadow Dragon. Genealogy of the Holy War immediately grabs my attention without knowing anything about the game, and then actually knowing about the game just enhances that, it's such a good title. Blazing Blade just sounds kinda epic. Shadow Dragon gives me the feeling of a good old fashion fantasy with an evil dragon to slay, and that's pretty much exactly what you get.

For my least favorites, it's New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, and Engage. New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow is stupidly long and doesn't roll off the tongue very well, it should have been either "New Mystery of the Emblem" OR "Heroes of Light and Shadow," not both put together. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is just a dumb name for a dumb, bad, fake Fire Emblem game. Engage is just...eh? Doesn't feel very Fire Emblem-y to me.

[Faellin]

SD and new mystery are my favorites. I just find the games to be the most replayable in the series due to the simplicity of the mechanics, while still having plenty of options to freshen up every playthrough. And they are amazing games for iron man runs as well.

Least favorite, Revelations. It starts off okay for like 3 chapters before the game takes an absolute nose dive in map design. Before picking up with a few decent mid game maps before throwing some of the absolute worst maps in the series at you. On top of the unit balance being some of the worst in the series. If the roster was better balanced, it might have been fun as the go-to game in the series for a sort of sandbox experience in terms of unit building.

[Shaky Jones]

Blazing Blade. The one without any blazing blades. Great title. After all, the whole point of the game is clearly to get the mighty durandal, a generic non fire legendary weapon of fe6 to beat a generic final boss slightly faster, with no help at all from Armads. Its not in the title. What the heck is a Hector rout? Get that non canon garbage outta here. No respect. Or call it Fire Emblem, or Blazing Sword. That didn't confuse the crap out of me at all getting into FE. I hate this title!

Shadows of Valentia sounds cool. Also Shadow Dragon. Shadow's a great buzz word. What masks the secrets of Valentia? What can we envision from the echoes heard through the dark shadowy caves of Kaga's dungeon where his old FE's and damsels in distress reside?

 

[lenticular]

Favourites: Radiant Dawn has enough of a tie back to the title of the previous game to feel connected but not so much as to feel tired, has ties into the plot of the story (Priestess of Dawn, etc.), and carries a clear and powerful concept. Echoes: Shadows of Valentia manages to both convey "hey, this is a remake" but also work as a stand-alone, given the multiple ways of interepeting "shadows".

Least favourites: Gaiden. I don't know how this sounds to a Japanese speaker, but to an English speaker it's either "why didn't they translate the name?" or it's "why are they just calling it a side story and not giving it an actual name?". Thracia 776, mainly for the same reason as Dark Holy Elf, but I also dislike fantasy places named directly for real world places which makes it worse. Engage either makes me think that Picard is giving an order or that I can't get through to someone on the phone. Maybe it will grow on me over time, or maybe it won't.

[Saint Rubenio]

I can't say I've ever considered this question haha. It's an interesting one, though.

Favorite title: Sacred Stones, I think. It's catchy, it's relevant and there is no mention to blades, setting it apart from all the ones that have blade in them.

Least favorite: Tokyo Mirage Sessions HashtagFE. This title is gibberish that tells me absolutely nothing other than the game takes place in Tokyo (does it? I'm not familiar with this one). And the hashtag is dumb.

Honorable mention: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. I can never write this one without looking it up. Something about it just feels simultaneously generic and overly busy. New Mystery can at least be shortened to... Well, New Mystery, but Shadow Dragon is taken and Blade of Light applies to like, half the franchise. Heck, the entire title applies to half the franchise.

That being said, while I initially intended to make this my least favorite, I decided to give it a pass because this is all in retrospect. This was the first FE, at the time there was no Shadow Dragon nor ten other FEs called Blade. It has aged poorly, like the rest of the game (even if I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it when I played it, but I digress), but in a vacuum it's fine.

[Punished Dayni]

I wouldn't exactly have a favourite title if I'm being honest. I mean, Radiant Dawn maybe? Thracia 776 can be fun to say, but I just don't think I have an answer that would feel legit because I never thought about it like that. A lot of the games can be overly literal on their titles or vague as to what the hell they're actually about (even if some definitely work with that like MotE), so a bit of a shrug's my best answer as I pick RD here.

Worst, well I can give an answer here, but it's more flexible than I anticipated. If worst title is one I keep dunking on, my current least favourite is Three Hopes because I can't stop myself from calling it Three Copes (they actually kept the same title in Japan by the way). This is on them for trying to make it link to Three Houses when it does shift who's it's protagonist. Worst mainline may be Engage though, but that is a title that's coming out, we'll see and it's probably more fitting than I give credit for even if I want Ngage memes to continue forever. If we say worst from released, honestly I think it's Shadow Dragon. It does nothing to invoke a sense of intrigue, the game it's centered on doesn't do much of anything with dragons for most of it's runtime, the title is as generic as it's wrong (Medeus is still an Earth Dragon for crying out loud and Medeus being in the shadows manipulating anything during the events of this game is a statement as true as me owning four condos in Miami), I think every other title does at least one of these better.

Just to name a few, SDatBoL is a long ass acronym with the overly literal items and the same Shadow Dragon that isn't, but it's still more accurate with the Blade of Light. Blazing Sword is what it is but it's at least in the game and Sword got replaced with Blade by now, which helps it fit with BinB (guess I should use BlaB and BinB from now on). Gaiden makes better sense in context, with it being a side story to Archanea back when Kaga wanted the Marth Combative Universe, but it still translates to Side Story so I can get being thrown by that. Path of Radiance is nice sounding at least, Archanea Saga probably should have been called Archanea Gaidenshu or something that makes it clear it's a bunch of side stories, I don't know Japanese enough to accurately pluralise it, but it's fine I guess.

[Jotari]

What's Engage doing there? It's not like anyone's played it yet.

EDIT: Oh wait, we're going literal. Eh, should have read the OP before voting!

Edited October 17, 2022 by Jotari

[ciphertul]

I went with Radiant Dawn for favorite because it just sounds great. TMS#FE for worse because I’m my eyes any game with a hashtag in the name is gonna fail.

Edited October 17, 2022 by ciphertul

[Florete]

13 hours ago, Original Johan Liebert said:

It's Revelation. (also I voted Thracia 776 for my fave and New Mystery as my least fave)

I'm just gonna bounce off this to think aloud for a bit.

The misspelling of Revelation as Revelations is one of the most baffling common misspellings in the fandom to me (the other being Sharena as Shareena). We didn't get Birthrights or Conquests, so why are people pluralizing Revelation? I always wondered if it had something to do with the Resident Evil: Revelations series, which was releasing around the same time and actually was titled Revelations.

11 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

...huh, looks like it is. Only SF refers to it as Blazing Sword. Alright, statement semi-retracted. I'll leave my vote though, because Durandal actually has no fire.

Might change it to/add Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE though, because that's an obviously stupid name.

SF and a decent chunk of the fanbase stubbornly continue to use the fan name despite Blazing Blade having been used officially for years now.

Anyway, my votes:

Best: Path of Radiance. Sounds just cool enough without trying too hard. An example of trying too hard, to me, is Genealogy of the Holy War.

Worst: I always thought Fates sounded dumb already, and Revelation just adds pretentiousness, so Fates: Revelation it is.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Favorite: Radiant Dawn says a lot in a little, and it's so good it even makes for an Owain special attack.

 

Least Favorite: TMS#FE. There's so much wrong with this. It's title is a reference to SMT in reverse. Which, I guess if they were emphasizing that this is the literal opposite of SMT would almost make sense. And then it uses a freaking hashtag, which is just tacky.

 

Least Favorite Mainline: Engage says nothing about the story, and it is unique in doing so. Naming the game after a mechanic implies that the game will emphasize gameplay over story, and thus far, I believe it.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Florete said:

The misspelling of Revelation as Revelations is one of the most baffling common misspellings in the fandom to me

I'm honestly not surprised. People have been wrongly pluralizing the Biblical Book of Revelation forever.

5 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

If worst title is one I keep dunking on, my current least favourite is Three Hopes because I can't stop myself from calling it Three Copes

My favorite FE title joke is and will probably remain "Bernie Sanders: Three Houses", which is just shy of your four condos in Miami. Honestly, as much I want to gag when I hear "Three Houses", that's just because the game is so bad, I think the title is fairly appropriate and inoffensive for what it is.

43 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Least Favorite Mainline: Engage says nothing about the story, and it is unique in doing so. Naming the game after a mechanic implies that the game will emphasize gameplay over story, and thus far, I believe it.

At last, all will be right in the world.

Anyway. I have no love for Tokyo Mirage Sessions, but I thought the "hashtag" was supposed to be a sharp symbol. Am I wrong about that?

It would actually make it worse if it is, since nobody reads it that way and it's obvious they would.

[Fabulously Olivier]

1 minute ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'm honestly not surprised. People have been wrongly pluralizing the Biblical Book of Revelation forever.

My favorite FE title joke is and will probably remain "Bernie Sanders: Three Houses", which is just shy of your four condos in Miami. Honestly, as much I want to gag when I hear "Three Houses", that's just because the game is so bad, I think the title is fairly appropriate and inoffensive for what it is.

At last, all will be right in the world.

Anyway. I have no love for Tokyo Mirage Sessions, but I thought the "hashtag" was supposed to be a sharp symbol. Am I wrong about that?

It would actually make it worse if it is, since nobody reads it that way and it's obvious they would.

It is a sharp. When you're in the opening menu, the characters will literally pronounce it as Tokyo Mirage Sessions Sharp Eff Eee.

[AnonymousSpeed]

4 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

It is a sharp. When you're in the opening menu, the characters will literally pronounce it as Tokyo Mirage Sessions Sharp Eff Eee.

Thanks, I hate it.

Should've made it FE-flat, it would better describe the quality of the game.

[Fabulously Olivier]

11 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Thanks, I hate it.

Should've made it FE-flat, it would better describe the quality of the game.

I will defend the quality of gameplay. Atlus, even the B team that made this and Soul Hackers 2, are the masters of traditional JRPG combat and this is no exception.

 

Everything (and I mean everything) else about the game? Yeah, laughably bad.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Hot take: No subtitle is worse than Fire Emblem. Wtf is even the fire emblem? Just another example of mashing together two Engrish words that sound cool. 

Hotter take: Everyone who said Engage is the worst title is gonna look reaaaaal dumb when they finally showcase the mech warrior combat. 

[indigoasis]

I don't think there are any legitimately bad titles, honestly; rather, I think most of them are perfectly fine, although I'm not really one to criticize to begin with.

However, out of every single one, Path of Radiance always sticks out to me the most. Whenever I think of the game's full title, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, it feels so definitive. There's something unique about it to me that other titles can't quite compare to, but I think it was because it was the first title I had heard of and registered beyond just the series name. I had a friend many years back that was planning on introducing me to Path of Radiance, but we never got around to it, and we've lost contact with each other since then.

[Original Alear]

How do people feel about Fire Emblem if and Fire Emblem: The Descent of Jihad?

Ugh, I'm so bad at quoting in this forum. In response to the below: I'll be honest, I never read the Biblical book of Revelation, so I actually thought the reason people were making the mistake with Fates was because they were associating it with the book of Revelations.

Quote

I'm honestly not surprised. People have been wrongly pluralizing the Biblical Book of Revelation forever.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Original Johan Liebert

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 10/17/2022 at 7:37 PM, Original Johan Liebert said:

How do people feel about Fire Emblem if and Fire Emblem: The Descent of Jihad?

"Holy Blood? I need no such thing. There is only one who is holy, the Great God Allah."

On 10/17/2022 at 7:37 PM, Original Johan Liebert said:

Ugh, I'm so bad at quoting in this forum. In response to the below: I'll be honest, I never read the Biblical book of Revelation, so I actually thought the reason people were making the mistake with Fates was because they were associating it with the book of Revelations.

It's fine, quotes on Serenes Forest are a little, uh, quirky.

I think most Christians, even ones who've read Revelation it front too from front to back, make the mistake of calling it Revelations. What I find helpful to keep it straight is remembering the contents of the book- it is the Revelation given to John at Patmos.

Edited October 19, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[Dark Holy Elf]

10 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Anyway. I have no love for Tokyo Mirage Sessions, but I thought the "hashtag" was supposed to be a sharp symbol. Am I wrong about that?

 

It's both, a bit of a play on words... or perhaps play on symbols? Sharp because it's a game about music, hashtag because it's a game with a lot of in-world social media.

I can't decide if that's clever or incredibly cringy.

 

Anyway I feel like the world "revelations" is often plural. You're probably not just learning one cool thing, but a bunch of connected, cool things. And while we can debate if the revelations of Fire Emblem Fates's third route qualify as "cool", they are certainly plural, so Revelations would have been a more sensible title and I can't blame players for assuming that's what it's supposed to be.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

What was even the titular Revelation of Fates: Revelation? Because if there's more than one valid answer, than it should probably have been called Revelations. The only plot detail I recall is that Corrin and Azura are cousins because I was making fun of it at the time. I don't think that's very funny anymore, it's just plain gross.