Is there a history of the Meta of FE?

[The Man Called M]

I enjoy watching stuff about history in video games. From stuff like Summoning Salt’s videos, to Preach’s “Legacy Of” series. And I wondered, “What exactly let to the meta of  FE going from ‘Jeigans bad, Ests good, give the boots to the Knight’ to the meta today where availability is king (except in Engage)?” 
 

Now, perhaps such a video describing this shift of a meta does not exist yet, so perhaps it could be discussed here.

When has attitudes about the overall FE meta changed? What is your history with the FE meta? How has going with or against the meta worked for you?

If this topic has been discussed before, then by all means, send me the link!

Thank you, and may the RNG be in your favor.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I don't think I've encountered a retrospective essay on the subject, video or written. If someone were to do something like that, it would probably only make sense if you focused on one game's meta. Or perhaps one trope at a time, like Don't Use Jagen.

A lot of the oldest meta junkies still exist and are still studying these games. Mekkah is probably the most well known with his Fire Emblem Pitfalls series that encourages players not to misconstrue or misappropriate good-sounding FE advice. So in a sense I always thought FE Meta discussion was very fluid and self-reflective. I love his video doing a sort of dramatic reading of the 2006 Ike v Kieran debate in FE9. That's a good snapshot into primordial FE9 discussions, fixations on Level 20/20 stat comparisons (no one early promoted back then). But even twenty years later you can imagine someone casually playing Path of Radiance and thinking Ike is the best unit - because of his performance in those final chapters and the plot importance afforded to him as the Lord character liked and respected by the rest of the cast. A Casual player doesn't know what a tier list is comprised of or what sort of player it's for. The notion that you should penalize Ike for the first 90% of his available chapters would sound weird and unusual. 

[Jotari]

Now, I am by no means a studied expert on the meta perceptions of the series, especially beyond Serenes, but I feel like availability being king is not a current meta mood. I feel like it might have been about ten years ago, but now I think people tend more to judge characters based on what they can do when they are available. The prime example talked about in relation to this is Athos, who is really good free deploy in that final chapter and it'd be obviously silly to to make him low tier on the basis that he doesn't exist for 90+% of the game (the contrary to that would be Ilyana, whom nobody is giving points to for being the most widely available unit in Radiant Dawn). Athos still probably won't be at the top of any tier lists for virtue of the same reason, but I don't think availability is king so to speak. More a weighted factor. Units are judged in how much they contribute towards finishing the game on a section by section basis.

[samthedigital]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Athos still probably won't be at the top of any tier lists for virtue of the same reason, but I don't think availability is king so to speak.

I think that it's important to make the distinction between gameplay and tiering meta. Regardless of where he has been placed in tier lists over the years how he's used hasn't changed outside of a few optimizations in LTCs and the like; he gets Luna and perhaps a Body Ring and goes ham on the final chapter.

16 hours ago, The Man Called M said:

What exactly let to the meta of  FE going from ‘Jeigans bad, Ests good, give the boots to the Knight’ to the meta today where availability is king (except in Engage)?

Something to note is that the meta is slightly different depending on the community, so you won't find a general consensus on it. One interesting recent development is that people have started taking a second look at grinding in some circles though. From what I remember there was a huge swing against it back in the day because the amount of grinding that was promoted early was both unnecessary and incredibly inefficient. Turns out that just a little bit of grinding can speed things up and/or make strategies more reliable.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

14 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Something to note is that the meta is slightly different depending on the community, so you won't find a general consensus on it.

Building off of this - the "meta" is, and has always been, decentralized. Different communities will have different standards of what constitutes "good play". Even within a given community, there's variance - it's not like Serenes Forest is any sort of "hive mind". So, the best we can really do is collect data points, and see whether they "trend" in one direction or another over time.

On 9/10/2024 at 4:38 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

A lot of the oldest meta junkies still exist and are still studying these games. Mekkah is probably the most well known with his Fire Emblem Pitfalls series that encourages players not to misconstrue or misappropriate good-sounding FE advice.

I would second @Mekkah as one of the longest-running, and most prolific, gameplay discussers. I've been a fan of his content for... jeez, close to a decade at this point. One thing to be wary of, though - videos like his "Pitfalls" series aren't merely descriptive, but prescriptive as well. That's not a bad thing by any means - I think most of his arguments are quite salient, and agree with most of his points. But don't expect a totally objective and impartial look at where the "meta" is at a given point in time.

[Jotari]

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

Building off of this - the "meta" is, and has always been, decentralized. Different communities will have different standards of what constitutes "good play". Even within a given community, there's variance - it's not like Serenes Forest is any sort of "hive mind". So, the best we can really do is collect data points, and see whether they "trend" in one direction or another over time.

I for one would like to recentralize the meta onto fun focused design analysis. Characters should be judged on how enjoyable they are or aren't to use. Which isn't typically how video game metas are discussed and is borderline impossible to quantify, but it's more wholesome and honest gosh darn it. As was pointed out above, how characters are used hasn't actually changed much, as opposed to, say, a fighting game meta where play and counter play are constantly developed. We actually have pretty solid information for what is the most objectively efficient way to complete the game. But only a small number of people actually play LTC because most people find warping Shiida to the boss with a forged Wingspear twenty times a boring way to play.

Edited Thursday at 05:17 AM by Jotari

[samthedigital]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

We actually have pretty solid information for what is the most objectively efficient way to complete the game. But only a small number of people actually play LTC because most people find warping Shiida to the boss with a forged Wingspear twenty times a boring way to play.

LTCs are fairly well developed as are for example good low ETC count strategies for some games, but I find that some other interesting categories are not nearly as well developed. Note that I'm not targeting this towards you specifically, but whenever words like best, efficient, good, or whatever typical buzz words come up some people have a very narrow view of what that means. My problem with this is that an LTC for example is only one way to play the game, and the best strategy for that is probably going to be different from the best strategy for something like an ironman, and which kind of playthrough is better is obviously a matter of opinion. To bring this back to the meta discussion I do suspect that this is in part because the focus has historically been almost exclusively based on what the best possible strategy is in an efficient* context.

*Don't get me started on the word efficiency; I have problems with this one too.

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

Building off of this - the "meta" is, and has always been, decentralized. Different communities will have different standards of what constitutes "good play". Even within a given community, there's variance - it's not like Serenes Forest is any sort of "hive mind". So, the best we can really do is collect data points, and see whether they "trend" in one direction or another over time.

It's funny that you mentioned Mekkah later on in your post. What originally sparked the thought was a video that mentioned a Japanese community that has a very different approach to comparing units.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

LTCs are fairly well developed as are for example good low ETC count strategies for some games, but I find that some other interesting categories are not nearly as well developed. Note that I'm not targeting this towards you specifically, but whenever words like best, efficient, good, or whatever typical buzz words come up some people have a very narrow view of what that means. My problem with this is that an LTC for example is only one way to play the game, and the best strategy for that is probably going to be different from the best strategy for something like an ironman, and which kind of playthrough is better is obviously a matter of opinion. To bring this back to the meta discussion I do suspect that this is in part because the focus has historically been almost exclusively based on what the best possible strategy is in an efficient* context.

Well that's sort of my point. That we even make these categories to begin with. For most games where you can discuss a meta it's pretty simple. "What is the most optimal strategy for beating the game/opponent." For Fire Emblem, LTC is the best strategy for turning the game on and beating it. It's the strategies that take the least amount of effort and the lowest amount of time. But, because that's not the way people actually want to play the game it throws the whole idea of a meta out the window to begin with and when we discuss the meta we get this weird hybridization of assumptions where fast play is expected, recruiting every unit is expected, stuff like DLC and New Game+ is probably not expect, the hardest difficulty is expected (unless it's Awakening's Lunatic+ because that one's just silly) and iron mode is in a weird schrodinger's situation where it's kind of expected even though most people actually don't play like that either. And all of these expectations may or may not actually apply to everyone in the conversation. So the meta isn't about clearing the game in the easiest most effective manner, it's about what elements of it cause the least hassle in some kind of Platonic ideal of what the most "correct" play is, even if any given member of the conversation may not even play like that.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

For Fire Emblem, LTC is the best strategy for turning the game on and beating it. It's the strategies that take the least amount of effort and the lowest amount of time.

Gonna hard disagree here:

Speedruns aren't LTCs. A strategy that requires more turns, can actually take less time, due to demanding less player input.

Speaking of which - LTCs often require a high degree of player input. There's a lot of thinking that goes in, plus stuff like micro-optimizations (i.e. hitting stat benchmarks, getting the right skillsor combat arts). That's not the "least amount of effort". The "least amount of effort" is generally "deck out my Jagen with Javelins, set him on a fort, and let waves of enemies crash upon him, while my Fliers ferry my Lord and my Bosskiller to the Seize point".

Obviously, the specifics vary from game-to-game. But the notion that LTC is the least amount of effort or time is just wrong on its face.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

"What is the most optimal strategy for beating the game/opponent."

"Optimal" is almost always gonna be at least somewhat subjective though. Is the "optimal" strategy the one that gets me to the endpoint in the least amount of time? Or the one that gets me there with the highest rate of reliability? Or the one that requires the least high-effort or highly-skilled inputs?

2 hours ago, samthedigital said:

It's funny that you mentioned Mekkah later on in your post. What originally sparked the thought was a video that mentioned a Japanese community that has a very different approach to comparing units.

Oh yeah, I think I remember that one. Albeit not the specifics. But yeah, that's demonstrative of the "decentralized" aspect of the "meta". Even the "Japanese meta", I'm sure, is far from unified into any single paradigm.

[Jotari]

42 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Gonna hard disagree here:

Speedruns aren't LTCs. A strategy that requires more turns, can actually take less time, due to demanding less player input.

Speaking of which - LTCs often require a high degree of player input. There's a lot of thinking that goes in, plus stuff like micro-optimizations (i.e. hitting stat benchmarks, getting the right skillsor combat arts). That's not the "least amount of effort". The "least amount of effort" is generally "deck out my Jagen with Javelins, set him on a fort, and let waves of enemies crash upon him, while my Fliers ferry my Lord and my Bosskiller to the Seize point".

Obviously, the specifics vary from game-to-game. But the notion that LTC is the least amount of effort or time is just wrong on its face.

I get that in the specifics, but I was talking more broadly. Both don't seem hugely different to me in terms of outcome. The construction of these strategies obviously takes a lot of time, effort and dedication. But, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, once a specific LTC or Speed Run Strategy has been discovered or determined, it can be replicated with relative ease, maybe not to the letter of a turn by turn guide (outside of Genealogy and its fixed RNG string) but by prioritizing select units, weapons and use of limited resources. In other words, there's a specific set of instructions you can follow in order to clear the game rather easily (which I expect rather often is deckking out the Jagen and sending ferrying the lord/boss killer over), plus or minus some critical misses where you have to have some redundancy built in.

42 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

"Optimal" is almost always gonna be at least somewhat subjective though. Is the "optimal" strategy the one that gets me to the endpoint in the least amount of time? Or the one that gets me there with the highest rate of reliability? Or the one that requires the least high-effort or highly-skilled inputs?

And that's why in game rankings are kind of great (even if some of the categories are questionable). Why did the series ever stop doing that anyway?

Edited Thursday at 03:23 PM by Jotari

[samthedigital]

14 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Gonna hard disagree here:

Speedruns aren't LTCs. A strategy that requires more turns, can actually take less time, due to demanding less player input.

Speaking of which - LTCs often require a high degree of player input. There's a lot of thinking that goes in, plus stuff like micro-optimizations (i.e. hitting stat benchmarks, getting the right skillsor combat arts). That's not the "least amount of effort". The "least amount of effort" is generally "deck out my Jagen with Javelins, set him on a fort, and let waves of enemies crash upon him, while my Fliers ferry my Lord and my Bosskiller to the Seize point".

Obviously, the specifics vary from game-to-game. But the notion that LTC is the least amount of effort or time is just wrong on its face.

14 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

"Optimal" is almost always gonna be at least somewhat subjective though. Is the "optimal" strategy the one that gets me to the endpoint in the least amount of time? Or the one that gets me there with the highest rate of reliability? Or the one that requires the least high-effort or highly-skilled inputs?

Dang, I didn't even need to say anything.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

But, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, once a specific LTC or Speed Run Strategy has been discovered or determined, it can be replicated with relative ease, maybe not to the letter of a turn by turn guide (outside of Genealogy and its fixed RNG string) but by prioritizing select units, weapons and use of limited resources.

I mean, sure it can be replicated. But so can a speedrun, with the only limiting factor being personal ability to button mash. So can any specified playthrough, like a "Sigurd/Seliph Solo" or a "redheads only run" or even a "win without using the Attack command".

I don't personally see an LTC that requires following a bunch of instructions to be "low-effort". Sure, it's easier than developing the steps yourself. But it involves committing to a bunch of actions that may not be necessary to beat the game - just to beat it under an arbitrary threshold.

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

(which I expect rather often is deckking out the Jagen and sending ferrying the lord/boss killer over), plus or minus some critical misses where you have to have some redundancy built in.

I'm sure it has some of that, yes. But I'm moreso seeing it as "go gardening for Rocky Burdocks, reset if they don't show up"; "instruct Lysithea near-perfectly to reach B Faith, reset if she doesn't hit it"; and of course, "spend thirty minutes setting up your Dancer, Rescuebot, Warpbot, Stridebot, Rallybot, and Bosskill to ensure a turn-one victory". I'd argue that part of the enjoyment of LTC (and relatively-efficient play, in general) is how high-effort they are. All the prep and creative thinking that can go into them.

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

And that's why in game rankings are kind of great (even if some of the categories are questionable). Why did the series ever stop doing that anyway?

Certainly, I'd like to see them make a return. It's actually surprising in reteospect that Tellius didn't do rankings, gicen how Jugdral-like they felt.

At the same time, I wonder - would the fanbase even agree about rankings? I know stuff like "don't promote Dart! Don't use legendary weapons! Stay as Gold-poor as possible for the Funds rank!" rubs FE7 players the wrong way. And we all "love" resetting after a death on an FE4 map's final castle, to preserve the Combat rank.

...IDK, maybe this is just Loptyr's Advocacy. On the whole, I would prefer some kind of (vaguely fair and well-tuned) ranking system make a comeback.

[Jotari]

36 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I mean, sure it can be replicated. But so can a speedrun, with the only limiting factor being personal ability to button mash. So can any specified playthrough, like a "Sigurd/Seliph Solo" or a "redheads only run" or even a "win without using the Attack command".

I don't personally see an LTC that requires following a bunch of instructions to be "low-effort". Sure, it's easier than developing the steps yourself. But it involves committing to a bunch of actions that may not be necessary to beat the game - just to beat it under an arbitrary threshold.

I'm sure it has some of that, yes. But I'm moreso seeing it as "go gardening for Rocky Burdocks, reset if they don't show up"; "instruct Lysithea near-perfectly to reach B Faith, reset if she doesn't hit it"; and of course, "spend thirty minutes setting up your Dancer, Rescuebot, Warpbot, Stridebot, Rallybot, and Bosskill to ensure a turn-one victory". I'd argue that part of the enjoyment of LTC (and relatively-efficient play, in general) is how high-effort they are. All the prep and creative thinking that can go into them.

Certainly, I'd like to see them make a return. It's actually surprising in reteospect that Tellius didn't do rankings, gicen how Jugdral-like they felt.

At the same time, I wonder - would the fanbase even agree about rankings? I know stuff like "don't promote Dart! Don't use legendary weapons! Stay as Gold-poor as possible for the Funds rank!" rubs FE7 players the wrong way. And we all "love" resetting after a death on an FE4 map's final castle, to preserve the Combat rank.

...IDK, maybe this is just Loptyr's Advocacy. On the whole, I would prefer some kind of (vaguely fair and well-tuned) ranking system make a comeback.

Rankings are free to be ignored as well. But they do make for a more objective discussion when it comes to what can be can be considered good play. Although, saying that out loud it does strike me that we don't actually figure rankings into tier ratings. Like, no one is saying Lana is a top tier unit because she can staff spam to make the exp rank easier, even though the ability to do that is pretty necessarily for a ranked run.

Tellius also gives one of your units an MVP award at the end of the game which is cool. The more modern games retain that but by telling you the MVP of each chapter. I prefer the countdown of all your units to see which on statistically contributed the most. Sometimes it can be surprising.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Like, no one is saying Lana is a top tier unit because she can staff spam to make the exp rank easier, even though the ability to do that is pretty necessarily for a ranked run.

Ah, but Lana cannot Arena before promotion, meaning it's actually harder to get her experience! ...One could say.

Yeah, tier lists rarely account for the actual in-game ranking system. Usually, it's some vaguely-defined "efficiency" metric. Of course, one can tier by any metric they so please. As such, people ought to be more clear, when presenting a tier list, about the precise context in which it was constructed.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Tellius also gives one of your units an MVP award at the end of the game which is cool. The more modern games retain that but by telling you the MVP of each chapter. I prefer the countdown of all your units to see which on statistically contributed the most. Sometimes it can be surprising.

I have... mixed feelings about the MVP system. Like, it's neat that it tracks battles and kills. And it can be fun to try to get a specific unit - especially a "bad" one - to MVP status. But it also kind of bugs me, how it regards battles and kills as the "be all, end all" of a unit's contribution. Why isn't the Dancer, who refreshed the combat unit, given partial credit for the kill they went on to secure? Or the flier, who dropped them onto the necessary mountaintop tile to enjoy huge avoid rates? Or the rallybot, who bumped their stats up to one-rounding?

Obviously, it'd be harder to "divide the credit" in any way that's uniform and consistent. But... it would feel more fair if they could do so.

[samthedigital]

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

Yeah, tier lists rarely account for the actual in-game ranking system. Usually, it's some vaguely-defined "efficiency" metric. Of course, one can tier by any metric they so please. As such, people ought to be more clear, when presenting a tier list, about the precise context in which it was constructed.

S-Rank tier lists used to be more popular 15 years ago or so. Come to think of it back then there was a lot of "theory emblem" going on where people would argue without actually doing ranked runs. Hopefully there was a meta shift there at some point.

Since speedruns are a topic of conversation I want to add that back in the early days of speedrunning people would almost exclusively do segmented runs. Once streaming platforms came around there was a huge shift to single segment runs, and Fire Emblem was no exception. As a result of this Fire Emblem speedrun strategies tend to be at least a little more consistent than LTCs are.

Edited Friday at 03:40 PM by samthedigital

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Look at these Green Stats >>> Jeigan has exact lethal if you just forge >>> Unit is Boots/10

 

I think any discussion not adressing what a unit can do upon their jointime, given the ressources available at that point and throughout the run if given to said unit is worthless, making discussing a unit in recent games particularly "fun" since noone is going to make a roadmap of all possible or reasonable permutations a unit might find themselves in. 

 

Edit: I am intrigued to even think that Fire Emblem has a meta? It´s a single player game, with every person doing their own thing, which council decided what the meta is? A speedrunner micro meta? I get it, there´s thing clearly worse and better than other things, but who the hell decided a loosely tied together communities goal in regard to playing the game? 

Edited Saturday at 06:07 PM by Imuabicus der Fertige

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Edit: I am intrigued to even think that Fire Emblem has a meta? It´s a single player game, with every person doing their own thing, which council decided what the meta is? A speedrunner micro meta? I get it, there´s thing clearly worse and better than other things, but who the hell decided a loosely tied together communities goal in regard to playing the game? 

Speaking from a viewpoint of "Fire Emblem doesn't strictly need game balance to be great, since it is single player after all", I think you're just thrown off by the semantics of calling it the "meta". It's not unusual at all for people to discover things that Work Best in a single player game, and share those experiences online. Some of the earliest things people were writing about games thirty years ago were amateur strategy guides and FAQs about game mechanics. Especially with RPGs that run on predictable systems of numbers, resources, and progression. There isn't much advice to give on jumping over bottomless pits and skillfully dodging attacks in an action game. But intel on enemy weaknesses or knowing that a new equipment upgrade can be gotten for free in an upcoming treasure chest is entirely scientific and flatly useful. "Meta" is the dissemination and application of hard data in a video game to the player's benefit.

For instance, someone asks the age old question: Who is the best Starter Pokemon in Pokemon Red? Knowing lots of details about the game probably leads you to the answer Bulbasaur due to easily handling the early gym leaders (when your available pool of pokemon options are at their lowest) and not being thoroughly outclassed by other, similar pokemon down the line. That's Meta. There's no council involved. Just questions and attempts to answer them. 

[samthedigital]

48 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

For instance, someone asks the age old question: Who is the best Starter Pokemon in Pokemon Red? Knowing lots of details about the game probably leads you to the answer Bulbasaur due to easily handling the early gym leaders (when your available pool of pokemon options are at their lowest) and not being thoroughly outclassed by other, similar pokemon down the line. That's Meta. There's no council involved. Just questions and attempts to answer them. 

Would it surprise you to learn that Bulbasaur is actually the worst starter that you could pick for the campaign? The Pokemon meta is pretty interesting too (both for single player and competitive), but I'll refrain from talking too much more about it so as to not risk derailing the thread.

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Would it surprise you to learn that Bulbasaur is actually the worst starter that you could pick for the campaign? The Pokemon meta is pretty interesting too (both for single player and competitive), but I'll refrain from talking too much more about it so as to not risk derailing the thread.

That is just plain objectively wrong if taken at face value, and a lot more arguable than you imply if you meant it simply as Bulbasaur not the best. Fire types are so poorly positioned in Red and Blue that Charmander is very clearly the worst starter pick for any campaign, and while Squirtle is the best of the three under the context of speedruns, there are contexts where Bulbasaur is the clear best pick (for minimum battles is the first that comes to mind), and others where it is a bit debatable (more general full party runs I would definitely give the edge to Bulbasaur, and the context of solo runs I would give Squirtle a slight edge, but both of these are rather debatable).

 

And that kind of brings me to part of the issue with answering this question overall, that "meta" tends to be context specific. For a more general context my first instinct would be to look back at some of the old debates in the forum graveyard of this site to get some insight into the thinking as far back as 2008, and skimming over old GameFaq board posts might also get you some insight. for contexts like LTC and ironman runs will certainly have different results, and a more detailed search of older forum posts of those terms would be what to look into. Although this is all probably more effort and research than you want to do, unless you intend to make a video on the history of the meta...

[samthedigital]

19 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That is just plain objectively wrong if taken at face value, and a lot more arguable than you imply if you meant it simply as Bulbasaur not the best. Fire types are so poorly positioned in Red and Blue that Charmander is very clearly the worst starter pick for any campaign, and while Squirtle is the best of the three under the context of speedruns, there are contexts where Bulbasaur is the clear best pick (for minimum battles is the first that comes to mind), and others where it is a bit debatable (more general full party runs I would definitely give the edge to Bulbasaur, and the context of solo runs I would give Squirtle a slight edge, but both of these are rather debatable).

In a speedrunning context Venusaur is the worst of the three. I won't get into the why because it's not really the place for that discussion, but those reasons are also why Bulbasaur is not a good Pokemon in most other context either.

[Whisky]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That is just plain objectively wrong if taken at face value, and a lot more arguable than you imply if you meant it simply as Bulbasaur not the best. Fire types are so poorly positioned in Red and Blue that Charmander is very clearly the worst starter pick for any campaign, and while Squirtle is the best of the three under the context of speedruns, there are contexts where Bulbasaur is the clear best pick (for minimum battles is the first that comes to mind), and others where it is a bit debatable (more general full party runs I would definitely give the edge to Bulbasaur, and the context of solo runs I would give Squirtle a slight edge, but both of these are rather debatable).

 

And that kind of brings me to part of the issue with answering this question overall, that "meta" tends to be context specific. For a more general context my first instinct would be to look back at some of the old debates in the forum graveyard of this site to get some insight into the thinking as far back as 2008, and skimming over old GameFaq board posts might also get you some insight. for contexts like LTC and ironman runs will certainly have different results, and a more detailed search of older forum posts of those terms would be what to look into. Although this is all probably more effort and research than you want to do, unless you intend to make a video on the history of the meta...

I did a solo playthrough with each starter just for curiosity and Squirtle was by far the easiest. Bulbasaur was the hardest since he’d run out of PP. Once he learned Razor Leaf he was fine, and all starters pretty much swept the rest of the game after that. Charmander did fine. He’s not clearly the worst at all. I don’t see what context Squirtle wouldn’t be the best in. He just steam rolled the whole game from start to finish.

Edited Sunday at 03:27 AM by Whisky

[Eltosian Kadath]

55 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

In a speedrunning context Venusaur is the worst of the three. I won't get into the why because it's not really the place for that discussion, but those reasons are also why Bulbasaur is not a good Pokemon in most other context either.

If I were to guess its mostly because Charizard is more popular in general and gets a lot more runs because of it. The Charizard page has over twice the number of runners, and with more recent runs. To compare the notes on two random runs, a Charizard run close to 2:30 talks about being satisfied with the run, and the closest to 2:30 on Venusaur talks about two unlucky deaths. Plus there was a funny moment where Charizard runs became very popular in Fire Red/ Leaf Green, which may have spilled over into Red/Blue

 

19 minutes ago, Whisky said:

I did a solo playthrough with each starter just for curiosity and Squirtle was by far the easiest. Bulbasaur was the hardest since he’d run out of PP. Once he learned Razor Leaf he was fine, and all starters pretty much swept the rest of the game after that. Charmander did fine. He’s not clearly the worst at all. I don’t see what context Squirtle wouldn’t be the best in.

I have a rather different experiences, although that may be due to differing priorities. I don't like to level past my problems in pokemon games, and Venusaurs gets you a lot more of the tools that let you surpass challenges without leveling up, but such thing tend to be slower, and require more creativity and effort than hit the strong STAB move, and Charizard hits a particularly nasty brick wall with Lance unless you are rather lucky, or rather over leveled.

Edited Sunday at 03:53 AM by Eltosian Kadath
Added response to Whisky

[Whisky]

7 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

If I were to guess its mostly because Charizard is more popular in general and gets a lot more runs because of it. The Charizard page has over twice the number of runners, and with more recent runs. To compare the notes on two random runs, a Charizard run close to 2:30 talks about being satisfied with the run, and the closest to 2:30 on Venusaur talks about two unlucky deaths. Plus there was a funny moment where Charizard runs became very popular in Fire Red/ Leaf Green, which may have spilled over into Red/Blue

From my experience, Bulbasaur has a bit of a rough time in Mt. Moon. Vine Whip only has 10 PP which becomes an issue with Bulbasaur potentially running out, and it’s also very ineffective against poison types, especially Zubat. Charmander can get through Mt. Moon much more smoothly. Charmander can have a bit of a harder time against Misty but if you skip her and then come back after gaining some levels he can win with Dig or Mega Punch. Squirtle has no issues anywhere and just steam rolls everything.

[samthedigital]

12 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

If I were to guess its mostly because Charizard is more popular in general and gets a lot more runs because of it. The Charizard page has over twice the number of runners, and with more recent runs. To compare the notes on two random runs, a Charizard run close to 2:30 talks about being satisfied with the run, and the closest to 2:30 on Venusaur talks about two unlucky deaths. Plus there was a funny moment where Charizard runs became very popular in Fire Red/ Leaf Green, which may have spilled over into Red/Blue

 

2 minutes ago, Whisky said:

From my experience, Bulbasaur has a bit of a rough time in Mt. Moon. Vine Whip only has 10 PP which becomes an issue with Bulbasaur potentially running out, and it’s also very ineffective against poison types, especially Zubat. Charmander can get through Mt. Moon much more smoothly. Charmander can have a bit of a harder time against Misty but if you skip her and then come back after gaining some levels he can win with Dig or Mega Punch. Squirtle has no issues anywhere and just steam rolls everything.

We should really just make a new topic for this. I don't know that the OP would appreciate all the Pokemon talk and I don't want to get in trouble with the mods.

[Whisky]

27 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

 

We should really just make a new topic for this. I don't know that the OP would appreciate all the Pokemon talk and I don't want to get in trouble with the mods.

Good point. If you want to make a topic feel free to ping me.

 

For Fire Emblem, I find it very strange that some people argue things like higher Move and Warp only matter for saving turns and LTC’s. That’s just not true at all. Higher Move gives you more options. Makes it easier to reach an enemy or another objective, etc. These increased mobility options can go a long way towards making the game easier regardless of playing LTC, ‘efficiency’ or casual. And that seems to be the case for a lot of things recommend for ‘efficiency’. Marcus isn’t just good for LTCs, he’s a really strong unit in general and makes the game a lot easier. Playing HHM without him would be tough. And often times playing maps quickly makes them easier because you can get extra rewards and avoid getting over whelmed by enemy reinforcements. There are several maps in Binding Blade that are much easier if you play them quickly to get into a more advantageous situation against the enemies. Staying back can get you overwhelmed by the enemies’ higher numbers. To me it seems like there’s a fairly strong correlation between things that are good for ‘efficiency’ and things that are good in general just playing casually. I’ve only ever played Fire Emblem casually and never done any LTCs or speed runs. I do like Ironmans though.