Which game has your favorite (and least favorite) UI?

[Jesse]

It can be for any reason, be it functionality or aesthetics. What does the UI do specifically that other FEs don't? Are there UI elements you wish were carried over between games?

I'd say my favorite from a functionality perspective is either Fates or Engage, but the Tellius games and 3Houses have really good theming and aesthetics.

[Jotari]

Well least favourite is pretty obvious. Shaow Dragon (NES) and Gaiden. It's completely understandable why, but still eminently frustrating to not be able to do such things as basic as see how far a unit can move.

Best, idk, Engage I guess. Any game that let's me highlight full enemy range and also individual enemy range is an A+ in my book.

[Armchair General]

I liked ones for the 3DS games, except for SoV getting rid of the minimal (not that I actually needed it). 3H was initially an cluttered mess of spreadsheets until I got used to it. With Engage, well it's certainly convenient. Only thing that I have against it is that it doesn't display all of the Sacred Twins' skills.

[Cantabile_style]

For me I do quite like the Fates one, after playing a bunch of that one and then going back and seeing Awakening, I was surprised with how much less I liked the UI in that one. I don't remember disliking it when I first played it, is the weird part.

3 houses is probably my least favourite of the ones I've played which I think seems to be a common opinion. I do somewhat appreciate the character profiles being themed after a student register though.

I quite like the Engage UI, it's nice enough!

I will say, I do miss the little character mugshots you get when you hover over characters in the gba games

Edited February 21, 2023 by Cantabile_style

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 hours ago, Cantabile_style said:

I will say, I do miss the little character mugshots you get when you hover over characters in the gba games

Was only going to comment to say this. Heck, I already miss character portraits in general!

[Cantabile_style]

I say "miss" but I've only played Sacred Stones so I guess I could try out binding/blazing if I wanted more of them, haha

[Original Alear]

I'm not sure what my fave is. But my least favorite is Shadow Dragon on the Wii U. I find it hard to keep track of which buttons pull up which things and how to manage the screens.

[Jotari]

24 minutes ago, Original Alear said:

I'm not sure what my fave is. But my least favorite is Shadow Dragon on the Wii U. I find it hard to keep track of which buttons pull up which things and how to manage the screens.

Shadow Dragon on the Wii U? The only Fire Emblem games on Wii U were TMS and Warriors. Do you mean the Switch port of Shadow Dragon?

[Digi]

My memory of the ones I've played is a bit shoddy, but I think I'd have to say Fates is my favourite. Every bit of information is available at a glance with full details just a touch away, menus are easy to navigate, and aesthetically it's very pleasing - the colours changing depending on the route you're on is also very nice, especially when you can see it change pre- and post-crux of fate. Honestly, functionality-wise I think it'd be hard to match the 3DS games due to the sheer utility of a second screen with touch controls. Engage gets closer than 3H did, but on the 3DS you could get the entirety of any unit's capabilities in seconds.
 

For least favourite, I think I'd actually say Engage - not necessarily for a lack of features or visual appeal, but for how frustrating and clunky it feels to me. The inability to see weapon might and weight without accessing a unit's inventory in the convoy and having it auto-calculated to attack has consistently been an issue for me, and it's exacerbated when shopping since they don't even show you a unit's stats for you to back-calculate mt/wt from, meaning you have to back out of the shopping menu and into the inventory screen to check stats before going back again. It might just be a consequence of me playing on Lunatic for the first time and having to deal with these systems more as a result, but so many things feel so needlessly unhelpful. Also, a more personal matter, but I'm not a terribly big fan of the arrows showing you when a unit's in range of an enemy attack, but I'm not sure if that'd count as UI or just a mechanic - though giving you damage numbers for otherwise-incalculable enemy Engage attacks is nice. 
 

I'd also like to mention Sacred Stones' which has the merit of just looking nice, though it's been too long since I last played so it's hard to go into any more detail on that, especially when nostalgia likely plays a factor.

[Original Alear]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Shadow Dragon on the Wii U? The only Fire Emblem games on Wii U were TMS and Warriors. Do you mean the Switch port of Shadow Dragon?

https://my.nintendo.com/rewards/3e91c37cc4df034b?lang=en-US

I specifically mean the FE that came after Radiant Dawn, not Dark Dragon and Blade of Light.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Original Alear

[Jotari]

36 minutes ago, Original Alear said:

https://my.nintendo.com/rewards/3e91c37cc4df034b?lang=en-US

I specifically mean the FE that came after Radiant Dawn, not Dark Dragon and Blade of Light.

Ah, I see. Well now I'm glad I asked. I thought Shadow Dragon DS's UI was pretty great, but I suppose playing it on something that's not an actual DS is bound to cause problems.

[Jesse]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Ah, I see. Well now I'm glad I asked. I thought Shadow Dragon DS's UI was pretty great, but I suppose playing it on something that's not an actual DS is bound to cause problems.

I think my biggest problem with DSFE's UI is that they had to remove the help feature from the GBA/tellius games to make the touch-based control scheme ultimately work. I don't think the touch controls are worth using (they're much more responsive in Heroes) and I would have much preferred they put unit information on the bottom screen so you could tap on items/terms to see details about them, like in the 3DS games.

Then again it took me til the very end of FE12 to realize you could press select on any unit to see their inventory + view weapon/item info lol

Edited February 22, 2023 by Jesse

[Samz707]

Favorite: Fire Emblem Three Houses,  pretty good visual style and functional.

Least favorite: 3DS FE, Echoes gets to skirt by a bit, but for AwakenFates, having to tap tiny icons (and constantly switch between buttons/stylus) is just annoying, I genuienly would rather just use buttons instead of the Stylus.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Samz707

[Hawkwing]

Favorite: I'd say Shadow Dragon. I love the aesthetic they went with, and all the information is readable at a glance. It's not perfect, as I wish they had the purple outline for enemy ranges that future games went with and having to manually keep track of the stats Dragonstone affects isn't fun, but as a whole it's the UI I have the least issues with.

Runner-up is Fates. I appreciate how it manages to organize so much information onto a single screen, but I was wish there was another option that sacrificed some visual flair for providing text as to what each weapon and skill did. I wouldn't say I ever got annoyed by having to constantly touch the bottom screen, but the option would have been nice. Otherwise, It did a surprisingly good job of keeping things coherent considering how many variables you have to keep track of in the Fates games.

Least Favorite: Three Houses. The style is fine, but I'm not a fan of how many menus you have to swap between if you want the full picture. It's not unbearable, but the time spent hopping between menus in and out of battles does add up and contributes to the games overall slow pace.

[FlamesOfRagnell]

Plenty seem to dislike the 3H UI, but I quite like it. I won't say it's my favorite, but it's compact and gives you access to a lot of information at once (thanks to it being the first HD FE game). Despite the volume of information, I find it to be fairly organized. If the game was playable on PC with mouse controls, it would be heavenly.

[lenticular]

9 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Least favorite: 3DS FE, Echoes gets to skirt by a bit, but for AwakenFates, having to tap tiny icons (and constantly switch between buttons/stylus) is just annoying, I genuienly would rather just use buttons instead of the Stylus.

Agree entirely with this. I'll also add that I always get RSI issues whenever I play any game that makes me regularly switch between buttons and stylus. I have to be really careful to monitor how long I'm playing for, or I kill my hands.

As for my favourite, I'm not sure. There's never really been a Fire Emblem game where I've felt that they've got everything about the UI just right. The trend over time has been towards improving interface, but there are always just a few niggles stopping me from really embracing any of them fully. So, I really like that Engage gives extra prominence to derived stats, but at the same time feels like it needlessly obfuscate base stats (eg weapon might). I'm most comfortable with the UI for Three Houses, but I think that's just because I've played it the most and have grown most used to its quirks.

[Jotari]

10 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Agree entirely with this. I'll also add that I always get RSI issues whenever I play any game that makes me regularly switch between buttons and stylus. I have to be really careful to monitor how long I'm playing for, or I kill my hands.

As for my favourite, I'm not sure. There's never really been a Fire Emblem game where I've felt that they've got everything about the UI just right. The trend over time has been towards improving interface, but there are always just a few niggles stopping me from really embracing any of them fully. So, I really like that Engage gives extra prominence to derived stats, but at the same time feels like it needlessly obfuscate base stats (eg weapon might). I'm most comfortable with the UI for Three Houses, but I think that's just because I've played it the most and have grown most used to its quirks.

I think Old Mystery had attack speed as its own stat, which I'm kind surprised no other game has done. Attack speed is anlot more important than actual speed. Though I guess Engage actually deducts weapon weight from the interface, but there are still times where I've been surprised by an enemy double so I don't think it accounts for everything.