Which Fire Emblem game has the best economy?

[Jotari]

No, I'm not talking about the fiscal earnings of Altea (unless you want to). I mean the gameplay money system. Which game handles money the best? In my view I feel like two games give you way too much money, Shadow Dragon NES and Path of Radiance. The rest sot comfortably at "just too little to be comfortable" which is good, better as a gameplay mechanic than "so much it's virtually pointless" which a lot of RPGs trend towards. But, I think the best games for money are Genealogy and Engage. Genealogy obviously has a very different system and I can get why some people don't like it, but I think a lot of us actually do enjoy it a lot. At the very least its the game where I am thinking and managing money the most.

Engage I think benefits in that it felt like, at least to me, like the game that had enough things to actually buy. A lot of games keep money tight but ultimately don't offer much more than a few killings edges and javelins on the interesting shopping front. Games generally provide enough free weapons that a "no shopping" challenge run wouldn't make a huge difference. But Engage has shopping be your primary source of master seals, offers a variety of really interesting staffs and if you're really flushed with cash you can even donate to charity for more rewards (Fates is pretty similar in this regard but I enjoy Engage more).

Shadow Dragon (and New Mystery) also has a lot to spend on with it's supper powerful forges. But the forges are kind of too expensive compared the how much money you make that you'll probably only be making a handful per playthrough. And while that's important and fun, it also means the active number of decisions is less. It's like a few high stakes high reward choices vs a lot of micromanagement. Which, is a thing, not good or not bad inherently, but I like Genealogy and Engage more as complete systems.

Edited August 11 by Jotari

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I like that Excess Money = Killer weapons in Three Houses, but since the best money making method is optimizing Fishing, I can't in good conscience say it's this game.

And while I do like the Inventory systems in FE4 there's a lot of Choice Anxiety in deciding who gets what, and when. The fateful decision of Do I arena at the start of chapter, or later? FE4 caps your money at an extremely attainable 50K, and I feel like it ought to be double that so that I can spend without fear of coming up short later. My wealthy, Ayra-y units could do their arena at the start like normal people knowing that their bank account is still accepting deposits.

I've seen a lot of folks praise FE6 in this area and I must agree. I like that there's very powerful Killer Weapon shops around the midpoint of the game. And they're not secret shops either, casual players will find them. Aircalibur and Nosferatu as well. You're never wanting for good weapons in this game, but if you spend too much, it cuts into your funds for the stat booster secret shop at the end of the game. My one major gripe with FE6 is the lack of shops selling Specialty weapons. Particularly Horseslayers. Can't buy a single one of them until chapter 21. That's weird! The Hammer is the only weapon like that with normal availability. But only one horseslayer and two armorslayers in the whole game before that shop.

[Jotari]

52 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I like that Excess Money = Killer weapons in Three Houses, but since the best money making method is optimizing Fishing, I can't in good conscience say it's this game.

And while I do like the Inventory systems in FE4 there's a lot of Choice Anxiety in deciding who gets what, and when. The fateful decision of Do I arena at the start of chapter, or later? FE4 caps your money at an extremely attainable 50K, and I feel like it ought to be double that so that I can spend without fear of coming up short later. My wealthy, Ayra-y units could do their arena at the start like normal people knowing that their bank account is still accepting deposits.

I've seen a lot of folks praise FE6 in this area and I must agree. I like that there's very powerful Killer Weapon shops around the midpoint of the game. And they're not secret shops either, casual players will find them. Aircalibur and Nosferatu as well. You're never wanting for good weapons in this game, but if you spend too much, it cuts into your funds for the stat booster secret shop at the end of the game. My one major gripe with FE6 is the lack of shops selling Specialty weapons. Particularly Horseslayers. Can't buy a single one of them until chapter 21. That's weird! The Hammer is the only weapon like that with normal availability. But only one horseslayer and two armorslayers in the whole game before that shop.

I also just find for Thracia there is less need for buying anything because you can just steal quality weapons from enemies. Only weapons I really want to buy are wind and light tomes, which, incidentally, barely any shops actually sell.

[samthedigital]

In defence of Path of Radiance the original Japanese version has a better economy than the NA release. If it wasn't for the fact that FE7 funds are balanced around its ranked mode (which is still more lenient than it should be given the 0 requirement chapters on hector's mode) I would probably pick that as the worst of the bunch, but as is I'd go with FE8 probably.

As for the best... I quite like the early game considerations in Lunatic+, but it stops being interesting around the halfway point. I found that Engage had a good economy on my first playthrough, but I find that it's pretty lax if you know what not to invest money into. My pick naturally would be FE6 just because everything has to be weighed compared to buying a stat booster for the last few chapters, but maybe I'm a little biased. Conquest is pretty tight too from memory.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Only weapons I really want to buy are wind and light tomes, which, incidentally, barely any shops actually sell.

I would add stamina drinks to that list if we're including all shop items in general. I find that Thracia's system is more interesting because of story implications than for actual gameplay reasons specifically though.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

In defence of Path of Radiance the original Japanese version has a better economy than the NA release. If it wasn't for the fact that FE7 funds are balanced around its ranked mode (which is still more lenient than it should be given the 0 requirement chapters on hector's mode) I would probably pick that as the worst of the bunch, but as is I'd go with FE8 probably.

As for the best... I quite like the early game considerations in Lunatic+, but it stops being interesting around the halfway point. I found that Engage had a good economy on my first playthrough, but I find that it's pretty lax if you know what not to invest money into. My pick naturally would be FE6 just because everything has to be weighed compared to buying a stat booster for the last few chapters, but maybe I'm a little biased. Conquest is pretty tight too from memory.

I would add stamina drinks to that list if we're including all shop items in general. I find that Thracia's system is more interesting because of story implications than for actual gameplay reasons specifically though.

Honestly I've never bought an S Drink in Thracia. To each their own play style, but I find that the game gives you plenty of them for free and I naturally do swap my units out every few chapters die to deployment limits and need. I think there also similarly sold in only one shop.

Edited August 10 by Jotari

[samthedigital]

21 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Honestly I've never bought an S Drink in Thracia. To each their own play style, but I find that the game gives you plenty of them for free and I naturally do swap my units out every few chapters die to deployment limits and need. I think there also similarly sold in only one shop.

They're sold in chapter 14 only I think, yeah. I like to buy enough of them to cheese the mechanic entirely, and I would probably not have enough because I tend to abuse staffers.

[Eltosian Kadath]

This take might be worthy of the unpopular opinion thread, as I want to suggest Thracia 776, the game that never gives you money and can only start acquiring it by selling stuff is the best of them. While there are powerful things you can do with money, you really don't need it, and this lack of handouts add to that underdog feel of Leif's fight.

I do also have a real soft spot for Genealogy of the Holy War's money system as each unit having a personal money supply, and treating their weapons like their personal property is a far more interesting and realistic take on money, although I do agree that the 50k cap does feel far too small, and really arbitrary.

Another game that does something rather interesting with its economy is New Mystery, with the ability to spend money on experience using the training grounds, which is an interesting choice together with some quality shops (and a particularly interesting secret shops in the Dragon Stone shop), and forging as well.

 

3 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

 

I've seen a lot of folks praise FE6 in this area and I must agree

That seems really strange to me, as I feel that game's economy centers so much around the boots secret shop, to the point that number of boots you can buy is a legitimate measure of wealth in FE6.

[SnowFire]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

No, I'm not talking about the fiscal earnings of Altea (unless you want to).

FE games often only vaguely gesture to the economy, perhaps because it's not the focus, it'd be a distraction from anime chess, it's underwhelming compared to a mega-apocalypse going on, etc.  But in the realm of Actually Fitting, yeah that makes sense economic things...  Three Houses does it the best?  Claude has a chat with Lorenz about how each of the noble houses is contributing their own things toward the defense of Leicester.  Ignatz (& Raphael sort of)'s family is involved in trade but it has only barely moved him into the elite, while Leonie is a reminder that there are lots of desperately poor towns pockmarking the map that don't matter to the city elite but the occasional weird exception will make it out anyway.  Marianne's plotline is one that has absolutely happened - merchants who did very well were often still looked down upon by medieval and early modern nobility.  The usual way in our world was simply to marry in to "Old Money" and presto, instant respectability.  But there's a tradition of doing this by adoption, too, especially in the Classical world where the adopted son of a King or Emperor might well outrank the biological son.

Flip side...  Radiant Dawn has an interesting bit of "we've hand-waved this away".  So in Act 4, most of the world is turned into statues by Ashera, sparing people near Yune, people Sufficiently Awesome and high level, and Branded.  And uh probably some picked goons of Sephiran I guess?  That or they were quickly unfrozen.  Anyway there's a three-way march to the Benignon Tower.  This is clearly not intended to be some sort of Triangle Strategy-esque "actually everywhere is only a few hours walk from everywhere else", we're going through deserts, swamps, manors, etc.  But...  uh... how is everyone not starving?   Aimee / Daniel / Jorge / Muston exist, sure, but THEIR suppliers are presumably petrified, too.  This isn't the 20th century of convenience stores with canned food to chow down in case of apocalypse.  Foraging is SLOW if that's the only source of your food, and not even guaranteed if you don't know the area.  Do...  do mages have some refrigeration spell to preserve some stuff?  Are there off-screen moments of finding every now-unguarded grain silo around and breaking out the portable "cook some crappy bread fast" ovens?  Otherwise the party that arrives at the Goddess Tower might be malnourished and ill before any combat even occurs!  (Okay yes Our Heroes also have a literal goddess accompanying them, maybe she can whip something up.  Who knows.  Obviously not where the emphasis of C4 wanted to be, of course. 😉 )

--

Quote

I mean the gameplay money system.

Oh.  Well, I'll slightly go against the grain and say FE6 has issues.  Yes, it's nice and cool that there's a money sink toward the end of the game that rewards you for spending money efficiently earlier, but isn't so required that being loose with money is surprisingly punished.  But it comes at the cost of breaking lategame balance in an uninteresting manner.  Having super units who are also gremlins with 11 Move is an interesting change of pace, sure, but it's kinda too busted.

Engage mostly has a good money curve, with the very large asterisk that the "region donations" are mostly a huge newbie trap beyond Level 2 and don't even have the decency to provide a preview for what you're getting by going down the extremely expensive track.  If someone throws their money into these (the plot seems to try to guilt you into it, too), they're going to make the game much more difficult on themselves.

Seeing some praise for Conquest, but IMO, CQ's money curve is too tight.  Granted, this is intersecting with Fates' forging system where you can pour a ton of money into making one super-weapon, so maybe that's really what's at fault, but I feel like CQ slightly punishes you for messing around and wanting to try "interesting" weapons as a niche or change-of-pace option.  With money as tight as it is, having a plan in advance and sticking to it is rewarded, and save that 4K gold on a swag Nosferatu for just another layer of forges on your Iron Axe or whatever.  (Or you do the DLC money grind map a bit and relieve the tension some.  Don't @ me.)

[The Roger The Paladin]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

This take might be worthy of the unpopular opinion thread, as I want to suggest Thracia 776, the game that never gives you money and can only start acquiring it by selling stuff is the best of them. While there are powerful things you can do with money, you really don't need it, and this lack of handouts add to that underdog feel of Leif's fight.

Ironically, I keep entering the thread with the thought of posting that I kind of like Thracia's system myself. Which is weird to say, because it's just that bit unintuitive, and I can imagine new players soft-locking by poor use of the capture system because of the lack of hand-outs. But I really like the feeling of "you do whatever it takes to come out on top" it gives.

In a sense, the economy question falls in two ways thereby for my thought process. The "what is the best for a player experienced with money management", and "what is the best to teach a player money management". Take Radiant Dawn for example. Having revisited it, I can tell you now that if you buy all the neat "bargains", or even just a fraction of them, you'll find you may have trouble keeping your army well outfitted without selling some stuff off. Also, lo and behold, no arena exists to break the economy.

New Mystery, as stated by Eltosian Kadath also is pretty interesting with the secret shops and the option to turn money into experience. One could easily fall into the trap of over-using the drill grounds, or buying some gear they'll never use and regret it later. Also if we're counting them, the stat boosters in the shop exist... but let's face it. Anyone who got access to them as intended instead of by a downloaded save file won't splurge on them to the point of not having any spare axes for their dracoknight. Unless it's some kind of challenge run.

[Etrurian emperor]

Leicester(and thus Fodlan) has a merchant guild and the other continents don't. Therefore Fodlan likely has the best economy. 

[Acacia Sgt]

5 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Leicester(and thus Fodlan) has a merchant guild and the other continents don't. Therefore Fodlan likely has the best economy. 

Magvel has Carcino.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

My "Certified FE4 Pawn Shop Apologist" T-shirt has a lot of people asking questions already answered by my T-shirt. I love the unit-by-unit money and inventory management system. As well as repairing your weapons, and buying new ones. If there's any flaw, it's that the main source of earning money - the Arena - is never telegraphed to the player. It's also super-tedious, and sometimes luck-based, to clear it. But figuring out "hm, how can I get the Paragon Band on as many units as possible, while also ensuring they have a weapon that lets them clear the Arena" presents a fun little puzzle, at least.

14 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I like that Excess Money = Killer weapons in Three Houses, but since the best money making method is optimizing Fishing, I can't in good conscience say it's this game.

If you permit yourself to do Auxilliary battles on weekends, the game showers you with money. It reallly undermines any "scarcity" they had going in the earlygame.

...Having said that, when I have Castle Visitors offering Mythril, I find that I suddenly have a sink to put my money into. Of course, what these Visitors offer is outside the player's control, so it's hard to treat this as "IS did a good".

Finally, the absurdly cheap cost of replenishing your battalion is really funny, if you think about it. "We lost a lot of good men out there. Pay 80 Gold to bring them all back to life."

5 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Magvel has Carcino.

And Knorda, in Archanea, has a market!

What kind of market, you may ask? Why, it's where they sell [redacted].

7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That seems really strange to me, as I feel that game's economy centers so much around the boots secret shop, to the point that number of boots you can buy is a legitimate measure of wealth in FE6.

Do the Boots actually do that much for players? They're not buyable until chapter 21, at which point there's anywhere between 1 and 5 chapters left in the game. They can help you in those maps, of course - but not necessarily to a greater degree than, say, buying excess Killer Weapons or Physic Staves earlier on. To me, the Timbs shop offers players who've been scrimping and saving for most of the run a way to "stunt on" the final few maps, rendering them a "win more" option.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Do the Boots actually do that much for players? They're not buyable until chapter 21, at which point there's anywhere between 1 and 5 chapters left in the game. They can help you in those maps, of course - but not necessarily to a greater degree than, say, buying excess Killer Weapons or Physic Staves earlier on. To me, the Timbs shop offers players who've been scrimping and saving for most of the run a way to "stunt on" the final few maps, rendering them a "win more" option.

You won't get a significant advantage over someone who is waiting to buy things with the Silver Card. I don't know that Physic is buyable before then, but I don't find myself needing to stock up on a lot of Killer weapons before I can buy them "for free". That being said it's not so much about what we're buying as it is making side objectives more valuable because there is always something to do with the money.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Flip side...  Radiant Dawn has an interesting bit of "we've hand-waved this away"

There is only one possibility. Tibarn ate Izuka's Feral Laguz army.

8 hours ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

Anyone who got access to them as intended instead of by a downloaded save file won't splurge on them to the point of not having any spare axes for their dracoknight. Unless it's some kind of challenge run.

I reckon even if you never buy anything at all, you're not likely to run out of weapons in New Mystery, given that every chapter gives you approximately four new units with an inventory of weapons. Yes, axes are the rarest among playable units but there's still going to plenty unless you're doing some kind of axe exclusive run.

Oh wait. Looking at your comment again I realize you were actually saying exactly this. Never mind.

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

It's also super-tedious, and sometimes luck-based, to clear

Super tedious! No, no, no, not in the slightest...wait, the original SNES device did have a turbo button to fast forward through stuff, right? Right?

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Do the Boots actually do that much for players? They're not buyable until chapter 21, at which point there's anywhere between 1 and 5 chapters left in the game. They can help you in those maps, of course - but not necessarily to a greater degree than, say, buying excess Killer Weapons or Physic Staves earlier on. To me, the Timbs shop offers players who've been scrimping and saving for most of the run a way to "stunt on" the final few maps, rendering them a "win more" option.

The last few chapters of Binding Blade are notoriously easy compared to the rest of the game. The chapter where you get infinite stat booster access is likely the last time your units would even struggle (Zephiel's chapter is more tedious to wal through than hard and if you're not Warp Skipping the Apocalypse chapter then I question your sanity). So they don't really break the balance because there isn't much balance left to break. Still, it is a horrendous idea for the sake of balance since the last few chapters probably should be harder than they are anyway. Horrendous idea for the sake of balance, but an amazing idea for the sake of fun! Because, as ridiculous as it is to just cancel the last few chapters by making Roy a thoroughbred beast from a balance perspective, its hilariously entertaining to scrape and save and then rewarded with absurdly busted units who can just style on anything the game throws at you (except the Apocalypse Gaiden, screw that chapter, freaking fog of war and poison).

 

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Flip side...  Radiant Dawn has an interesting bit of "we've hand-waved this away".  So in Act 4, most of the world is turned into statues by Ashera, sparing people near Yune, people Sufficiently Awesome and high level, and Branded.  And uh probably some picked goons of Sephiran I guess?  That or they were quickly unfrozen.  Anyway there's a three-way march to the Benignon Tower.  This is clearly not intended to be some sort of Triangle Strategy-esque "actually everywhere is only a few hours walk from everywhere else", we're going through deserts, swamps, manors, etc.  But...  uh... how is everyone not starving?   Aimee / Daniel / Jorge / Muston exist, sure, but THEIR suppliers are presumably petrified, too.  This isn't the 20th century of convenience stores with canned food to chow down in case of apocalypse.  Foraging is SLOW if that's the only source of your food, and not even guaranteed if you don't know the area.  Do...  do mages have some refrigeration spell to preserve some stuff?  Are there off-screen moments of finding every now-unguarded grain silo around and breaking out the portable "cook some crappy bread fast" ovens?  Otherwise the party that arrives at the Goddess Tower might be malnourished and ill before any combat even occurs!  (Okay yes Our Heroes also have a literal goddess accompanying them, maybe she can whip something up.  Who knows.  Obviously not where the emphasis of C4 wanted to be, of course. 😉 )

Greil once mentions "salted meat and hard biscuits" in Path of Radiance (Chapter 7, at the end of the flight into Gallia). Hard biscuits can endure for months, even years. Yes hard biscuits might get maggoty, but they're still edible as sailors and soldiers of millennia past (check the US Civil War) would tell you. I would like to think the Laguz/Apostle/Crimean and Daein Armies that were suddenly stoned packed a lot of this basic essential + the salted meat. -Now the three Part 4 armies carrying enough of it with them to get to the Tower of Guidance is a question for realism.😅

Part 4 can't be all that long, it starts and ends in winter or early spring at best, it seems (the entirety of RD comes off as taking place over a single year). The winter probably isn't bad for requisitioning the grain storehouses of Daeinians and Begnionites either, since the autumn harvests should be put well away and plentiful. Plus it's cold outside which is helpful for delaying food spoilage (the Grann Desert which the Dawn Army goes through? -Deserts are dry, good for preservation, just keep the sand out and stay hydrated.).

-And we're not talking a large army, like 70 people at most between the three groups?

Edited August 11 by Interdimensional Observer

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

-And we're not talking a large army, like 70 people at most between the three groups?

This is probably the most salient factor. It's not a large army, but they do have resources of a large army since they had just been militarized and on a full scale war when suddenly they lost 99% of their personal. So they have everyone's rations hanging around and far fewer people to eat them than intended. Aimee and co were probably mostly transporting food that the army already owned (they're still jerks for making me pay for their weapons though). This also explains why the Laguz and Daein soldiers stopped fighting when they were unpetrified. No, it's not because of the magical sparkly lights Disney ending, it's because the commanders immediately realized the entirety of their food stocks had just been looted  and their highest commanders had vanished. They had absolutely no choice but to immediately disband an go home or eat the Laguz.

[The Roger The Paladin]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

or eat the Laguz.

Question is, do hawk Laguz taste like chicken?
And would anyone risk a round of combat with Tibarn to find out?

[Saint Rubenio]

Berwick Saga.

As for FE proper... Thracia's money system is unique but I've found that in my runs I never, ever bought anything other than stamina drinks in the one chapter, so I can't really praise the game's usage of money much when it basically doesn't exist for me.

Ehhh I'm gonna say Conquest. Infinite durability weaponry removes the want to amass a stockpile of irons, and the shops being available all game gives you plenty of time to ponder on your shopping. Add to that the really nice stuff you can find in the shops, and you are encouraged to be strategic and pick your purcashes wisely. The game's a mite more stingy with money than I'd like, but eh, it's fine.

(Berwick Saga's more or less like that except there's a lot more money, but also a ton more options for stuff to do with your money)

[AnonymousSpeed]

I'd have to think about this, since it's not a topic I've given a lot of extensive thought, but I will say that mechanically there's no reason to have Red Gems or Bullion. They're just money with extra steps attached. Maybe this has some value in games where you can't visit the shop between every chapter, but it's primarily an inconvenience which contributes minimally to decision making. That's my big thought on money in FE games.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'd have to think about this, since it's not a topic I've given a lot of extensive thought, but I will say that mechanically there's no reason to have Red Gems or Bullion. They're just money with extra steps attached. Maybe this has some value in games where you can't visit the shop between every chapter, but it's primarily an inconvenience which contributes minimally to decision making. That's my big thought on money in FE games.

At the very least Fates does something with bullion with the pay to win skill. Though that's a build the enemy gets far more milage out of than the player.

It's funny, I think the GBA games were the first to introduce gems, even though functionally you can just get money directly from a chest in GBA. I would say that it was probably to be more natural for getting money from enemies to pick up a singular item rather than a quantity of money, but Binding Blade didn't have enemy drops to begin with. So I don't really know what they were trying to do with red gems and the like. Maybe they thought it just adds flavour.

[X-Naut]

7 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'd have to think about this, since it's not a topic I've given a lot of extensive thought, but I will say that mechanically there's no reason to have Red Gems or Bullion. They're just money with extra steps attached. Maybe this has some value in games where you can't visit the shop between every chapter, but it's primarily an inconvenience which contributes minimally to decision making. That's my big thought on money in FE games.

Most games don't give enemies a gold value, and when thieves open a money chest in those games that gold often gets lost to the aether. So placing gold injections within a physical object is a pragmatic choice. Will slightly agree on bullions though, why we can't just cut the cord and reap the shiny harvest is beyond me.

Anyway, I'm gonna go with Binding Blade too. You get a decent assortment of weapons throughout the game's shops, a decent influx of gold (although Ch6's is a PITA) and at least on Normal there's a base shop for irons as a lifeline. The Chapter 21 secret shop encourages long-term strategical management since the boosters (especially BOOTS) and to a lesser engage siege tomes (mostly Bolting) are investments worth saving for, despite being able to count the remaining chapters on one hand.

[Dark Holy Elf]

My first kneejerk is Conquest.

-You get new money at fairly regular intervals, which is always fun, since every time you get a cash infusion you can decide what to spend it on. You also rarely get too much at once.
-There are lots of ways to spend this money which are reasonably interesting: you can buy tonics, or staves, or various weapons, or forges.
-You don't need to budget ahead for weapons which will break, and you know you'll be getting more money in a map or two, so I'm always wondering about what will be the best use of money right now, which I appreciate. Certainly I find it makes me less likely to hoard.
-Finally, most money is obtained in the form of "5000 gold" or similar, so I don't have to waste time selling bullions or gems (agree with @AnonymousSpeed on this one).

Worst is probably PoR. Getting 70k gold at once and having then needing to spread it over a huge number of chapters is bad. The only mercy is that the amount of gold you get is probably way more than you need, unless you forge tomes or something (speaking of which, the gold figures for forging in that game are wacky. A +5 Silver Axe costs less than a +5 light tome.)

I also dislike FE4 but then I think the system of individual money figures is a bad one. Some people say it's suppoed to be a rolelplaying quirk but that rings hollow when any character will happilly sell their possessions, but apparently aren't willing to trade it to their allies for the same amount of gold. And yeah, the arena is terrible. I think the FE4 system could be fixed into something interesting in a later game or remake, but I did not like what we got.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 8/11/2024 at 9:10 PM, Jotari said:

It's funny, I think the GBA games were the first to introduce gems, even though functionally you can just get money directly from a chest in GBA.

If an enemy Thief opens up a chest and finds a Blue Gem, then the player can steal it from them. But if the enemy Thief gets 5000 Gold, that money is gone forever. So I imagine the Gems/Bullion were done out of an inability to represent loose Gold as an inventory item.

...Of course, then Sacred Stones introduced Gold Drops in the Tower of Valni and elsewhere, so who really knows.

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

(speaking of which, the gold figures for forging in that game are wacky. A +5 Silver Axe costs less than a +5 light tome.)

Tellius and "making Mages suffer", name a more iconic duo.

[Nauriam]

On 8/11/2024 at 7:03 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

Berwick Saga

My genuine answer is also a non-mainline game in Vestaria Saga 1. There is a plethora of really interesting weapons for every character type in that game, and most of them are purchasable throughout most of the game. There are also those gems that repair weapons which are worth purchasing in many cases due to the very strong personal weapons in that game. There is also an "FE7 battle preps" style map where you can spend the rest of the money on promotion items to promote your army and buy enough weapons for the rest of the game. I think the amount of money you get throughout the game is extremely fair, and definitely made my funds feel really tight the first time I played. My second playthrough I tried to optimize my money, which gave me barely enough money to promote all of my units and kit them out. More than any of the main-line games it made the money management feel like an integral part of the gameplay and strategy during my playthroughs of it.

In terms of main-line games, I agree about Engage having a really good economy. During my playthrough I also conflated the forging resources with money (as they were both important for forging which is a really strong mechanic), and I thought it created really fun decisions to be made about what weapon types would get forges during the earlygame and midgame.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

On 8/12/2024 at 3:10 AM, Jotari said:

At the very least Fates does something with bullion with the pay to win skill. Though that's a build the enemy gets far more milage out of than the player.

It's funny, I think the GBA games were the first to introduce gems, even though functionally you can just get money directly from a chest in GBA. I would say that it was probably to be more natural for getting money from enemies to pick up a singular item rather than a quantity of money, but Binding Blade didn't have enemy drops to begin with. So I don't really know what they were trying to do with red gems and the like. Maybe they thought it just adds flavour.

5k bullion of gold in your pocket, but you get -10 AS or Mov.

Time to invent money BUT ON PAPER.