What do you think is the most underrated Fire Emblem?

[feplus]

FE7's genesis, which is just a horrible map in general

No reason to sully an otherwise sharp post like this with outrageous lies.

[Florete]

(and as you said, if enough people complain about something, then it's probably bad)

That's not what I said at all. I said there's probably a flaw in there. And wouldn't you know, poor difficulty implementation* is indeed a flaw. Even RD got criticized for being too punishing to newcomers.

*I'm not sure if this is the best term, but what I mean isn't that being difficult alone is a problem, but that being difficult for the wrong reasons is a problem. Reasons such as bad difficulty curves, over-reliance on RNG (and obviously all FE games are reliant on RNG, but you mentioned FE6's hit rate issue already so I think you get it), lack of relevant information, etc. Not all of which may apply to FE6, but it's definitely proven itself to not be the most entertaining challenge for most.

* we only "know" what rating a game deserves because a group of (probably elitist) players agreed on this rating. arguably these elitists had a better grasp of the game and a more level-headed approach to evaluating the game's flaws than the complainants.

Fans of a game are obviously going to say it's good. Anyone who knows a game as well as you apparently think people need to in order to judge it "properly" have probably failed in their goal from the start for that fact alone, because no one who dislikes a game is spending so much time with it.

And before you complain that I'm saying the opinions of a self-admitted fan don't matter, that's not it; I'm saying everyone's opinion matters. The idea that we can "know" what rating a game "deserves" in the first place is...questionable at the very least, but if it's there, it's what the average player might think of it, not what the - ahem - "elitists" think of it.

[NekoKnight]

Of the games I've played, all international released games + Binding Blade, I'd say Sacred Stones is the most underated.

It built off of the already solid GBA game engine and added in great things like branching promotions and skills, a great lord and cool monsters.

A lot of people discounted it for its shorter length and debatable cliche story.

Shadow Dragon is just bad. I'm still trying to force myself to beat the thing.

[Topazd]

'Poor difficulty implementation' doesn't necessarily become a valid claim even if it garners widespread support in the community.

As an example: the myriad of misconceptions regarding FE13's L+ mode. At this point in time they can indisputably be disregarded as false accusations, yet 'L+ is fake difficulty' continues to be a very prominent mindset among players.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Topazd

[feplus]

'Poor difficulty implementation' doesn't necessarily become a valid claim even if it garners widespread support in the community.

As an example: the myriad of misconceptions regarding FE13's L+ mode. At this point in time they can indisputably be disregarded as false accusations, yet 'L+ is fake difficulty' continues to be a very prominent mindset among players.

Even with optimal strategies, many Luna+ maps require favorable RNG to complete (assuming no grind or DLC), and some maps, notably Ch.2, have sub-50% odds of completion. If you veer off the optimal path and use a couple mediocre characters / classes, those odds dip even further. And the difficulty of any given map varies with skill distributions.

Many people overestimate the odds against you in Luna+, but the core objection- that it is a mode dependent upon RNG even with optimal strategies- is fair. So that's not a great example.

Better example would be how Leaf is treated as a lackluster lord when he's one of the better units in Thracia 776.

[dondon151]

That's not what I said at all. I said there's probably a flaw in there. And wouldn't you know, poor difficulty implementation* is indeed a flaw.

are we going to split hairs on whether something having a flaw is the same as it being bad...

there are casual players who find FE8 to be too hard on easy mode. FE6 and FE10 both have fairly easy modes; i think the only reason why really bad players find them difficult is because of permadeath.

And before you complain that I'm saying the opinions of a self-admitted fan don't matter, that's not it; I'm saying everyone's opinion matters. The idea that we can "know" what rating a game "deserves" in the first place is...questionable at the very least, but if it's there, it's what the average player might think of it, not what the - ahem - "elitists" think of it.

i actually don't think that everyone's opinion matters equally. the point of what i said is that it's impossible to declare an object to be underrated at all if there is no standard to which the mainstream opinion can be compared. so if you declare that the rating that a game deserves is what the average player thinks about it, then you're also discarding the notions of being under- or overrated.

it's easy to show that something can be under- or overrated because opinions invariably change over time. FE9 was considered to be a near-perfect game in its early years (as far as gameplay is concerned) and now it's commonly criticized for being one of the easiest games in the series. we can say that FE9 was overrated back in '09.

[Shadow Mir]

All the support for Shadow Dragon is surprising.

[Tryhard]

Roy being a balanced lord is a good thing

My dislike for FE6 aside, I find it strange that you would call Roy a balanced lord, since I think he's pretty much unanimously described as below average.

[Kysafen]

This is too vague a question. It begs the question "what is underrated"? Are we talking in terms of what games in GENERAL are underrated? Are we judging their underrated-ness upon the individual aspects of their design? And what parts of the game are underrated? And are we judging the execution of the concepts introduced in the games therein, or the merits of the concepts themselves (FE1/2)? And are we judging it underrated by its perception of the mass gaming populace (FE8, and to a degree, the whole series in general pre-Awakening), or are we judging it by the Fire Emblem community's perceptions of the most underrated (FE7, if you're going for the "it's not as bad as people think" angle). Can you even COUNT the Japanese-only games as underrated from the point-of-view of the mass gaming market, if there's no western market for those games at all?

Here's the thing: you could make arguments for all the games.

Do you go for FE1 and use its obvious merits as a series starter as well as "It's great if you adjust your standards accordingly to the sensibilities of retro game design," but the only REAL thing it has going for it is series starter. Wanna know what's the best Resident Evil game and retro JRPG? Sweet Home. Wanna know why? It's the best-aged JRPG. Fire Emblem 1 isn't "great" if you're going by gameplay. It's PLAYABLE, if you adjust your standards accordingly, as much as Final Fantasy 1/2 Famicom is playable.

And Gaiden is also PLAYABLE. If you can forgive its godawful slow engine that carries no respect for the player's time, you STILL have a grindfest of a game. The concept of HP-based magic systems, branching classes? All for nothing if the game plays like molasses. If it sucks, it sucks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0q15cWSXP0

FE4: From the point of view of the FE fanbase, there's no questioning this game has the lowest chance of being the most underrated. Generation system and the story is the best in the series. Doesn't matter to me, since it's the same as Gaiden in terms of respecting the player's time. Moving infantry across huge-ass maps doesn't count as "strategy" or most importantly, FUN, unless you count as part of the absolute minority of the hardest of the hardcore fanbase who thinks achieving a record low-turncount is an endeavor worthy of your time (it's not to me).

FE5: From the FE fanbase, it's the most overrated-underrated game, if you've even played it through at all. The difficulty is "hardest," but in an "overrated" kind of way; the level design is "the best," but still "overrated" in that they're spammable (whatever that means); the fatigue system is an amazing way to balance your units, except whenever it isn't, in which case it's horribadidon'teverwanttoseethatagain. On whether it's underrated or not, FE5 is like the United Nations in terms of the fanbase, as far as I can tell. As far as the "non-hardcore" (for lack of a better word) fanbase goes, hardly anyone's played it, because there's no definitive translation patch for it yet.

Oh, and I'm still part of the school that thinks adjusting stats and calling it a "hard mode" is a crap way to design a hard mode. Shadow Dragon isn't "underrated" so much as it's underdeveloped. We want to implement the weapon triangle!...except have it not count like it did in every Fire Emblem before it. You don't need to characterize your weapon types by their hitrates, you characterize your weapon types by your classes. If you normalize the weapon tiers' hitrates, you're still going to have myrmidons hit more and Fighters hit less, because of their skill growths. But Nintendo overshot the hitrates anyway, and as a result the possibility of missing is not a tactically sound variable. Reclassing breaks an already broken game (Wolf/Sedgar). Battle animations are fluid, still look like crap in comparison to EVERY FIRE EMBLEM that came before it until you reach FE3 and below. Maps look dull. Portraits lack flavor. Music's passable, but nothing exceptional EXCEPT for Clash of Two Virtues. Why bother writing actual characters for support conversations? Why bother having skills in the game and give them to units that no sane person would otherwise want to use? After all, it's supposed to be FAITHFUL to the NES game, except when it's not, like gaiden chapters that have the worst requirements in the entire series. It's the Tales of the Tempest of the series; it's half-baked. Piece of shit. *walks away*

Yeah, sure you can play H5. You can also go for a Knife-only challenge in Resident Evil, or a no-weapons/armor run in Final Fantasy 1 NES, and they're just as fun (read: tedious). Everything has the capacity to become harder when put into the metagame.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Kysafen

[Topazd]

Yeah, should refrain from posting when I'm tired.

Yeah, sure you can play H5. You can also go for a Knife-only challenge in Resident Evil, or a no-weapons/armor run in Final Fantasy 1 NES, and they're just as fun (read: tedious). Everything has the capacity to become harder when put into the metagame.

I had a few other select words to be said about the whole post, but I can't properly convert my thoughts to coherent text as of now. Anyhow, if you're genuinely going to claim that the game is easily broken and then proceed to say this about H5 - it isn't really a valid point against the game (it obviously isn't going to be very hard to 'break' on easier difficulties). Besides, that is the specific method by which nearly all of the more difficult FE modes are designed; declaring that it's metagame is honestly all but asinine.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Topazd

[NoNameAtAll]

If you want to be technical, then all of the Japan-only games are by virtue of the fact most of the world hasn't played them, barring Shadow Dragon in an indirect sense covering for FE1 and FE3 book 1.

If you mean strictly Serenes Forest, I'd argue Gaiden. I'm not going to say it's zomg amazing, but it was a fun game marred by antiquity.

Give it the remake treatment and I'm sure it can shine.

[Magical Glace]

My dislike for FE6 aside, I find it strange that you would call Roy a balanced lord, since I think he's pretty much unanimously described as below average.

I think he means Roy's Marthlike stats.

Roy's growths in and of themselves DON'T suck. It's his promotion time that holds him back several tiers. Give him an extra 7-10 chapters of being promoted and he's actually very good. No way the best, because Sigurd, but he can contribute, at least.

[algae]

If you mean strictly Serenes Forest, I'd argue Gaiden. I'm not going to say it's zomg amazing, but it was a fun game marred by antiquity.

Give it the remake treatment and I'm sure it can shine.

Just based on the little I've played of it, it seems like it's a solid game that really just needs a little bit of modernization (something on the level of Shadow Dragon?), so long as its unique mechanics are preserved. Certainly underrated in the sense that it tends to go under the radar compared to 4 and 6.

Edited March 12, 2015 by algae

[feplus]

My dislike for FE6 aside, I find it strange that you would call Roy a balanced lord, since I think he's pretty much unanimously described as below average.

Roy is unquestionably the worst lord in the series, but that's not a problem. Main lords are the beneficiaries of free deployment slots throughout the game, so to balance this out Roy's combat prowess is mixed (he can carve into cavaliers early, which is nice) and he's defensively squishy. Because he's a free, forced deploy you're going to use him and you're going to level him up, so giving him meaningful weaknesses is smart design.

[Florete]

are we going to split hairs on whether something having a flaw is the same as it being bad...

Yes, because that is completely incorrect. Something having a flaw does not at all mean it is bad. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is my favorite video game and I think it's amazing, but I recognize that it has its flaws. Everything does.

i actually don't think that everyone's opinion matters equally. the point of what i said is that it's impossible to declare an object to be underrated at all if there is no standard to which the mainstream opinion can be compared. so if you declare that the rating that a game deserves is what the average player thinks about it, then you're also discarding the notions of being under- or overrated.

Given that I said the idea of "knowing" a deserved rating is questionable at best and that I usually disagree with the notion of underrated/overrated in the first place, this works for me. There are simply too many factors that go into one's own enjoyment of a game for anyone to decide that "this game is this good."

There certainly are objective qualifications that can be measured, but I'm ultimately of the belief that if the majority shares an opinion, it's usually for a reason. The only way to toss it out is if you can find a flaw in that reason, not the problem itself (e.g. say why the majority opinion is flawed, not why the problem they have isn't a problem).

it's easy to show that something can be under- or overrated because opinions invariably change over time. FE9 was considered to be a near-perfect game in its early years (as far as gameplay is concerned) and now it's commonly criticized for being one of the easiest games in the series. we can say that FE9 was overrated back in '09.

I don't think most people cite PoR's difficulty as a slight against it necessarily, because being easy isn't inherently a bad thing and the game's difficulty is pretty fine for most players on a first run. Even so, how would that mean it was overrated in '09? Times change, people change. It was rated what it was back then, and that changed with the times. It wasn't wrong back then just because it's different now.

[dondon151]

Yes, because that is completely incorrect. Something having a flaw does not at all mean it is bad. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is my favorite video game and I think it's amazing, but I recognize that it has its flaws. Everything does.

this is what i meant: the state of having flaws does not make a product bad in general. having a flaw, however, is bad relative to lacking that flaw.

[Lord Raven]

Roy is unquestionably the worst lord in the series

hi my name is micaiah

[Misses Elise-chan!]

I originaly voted SD for how much undeserved shit it gets but then I thought about it and I voted thracia

original fe1 is trash SD is less trash

FE1 is what started the series and brought the permanent death. It was a pretty good game for it's time too, giving the player more of a connection with the characters as you didn't have extra lives every level. FE1 was actually my third game to play and I enjoyed it. FE1 defined the SRPG genre. Please do not judge it based off of how it holds up today, instead of what it did for it's time.

[Lord Raven]

You can say both things at once. there's nothing wrong with that.

[Jedi]

Roy is unquestionably the worst lord in the series, but that's not a problem. Main lords are the beneficiaries of free deployment slots throughout the game, so to balance this out Roy's combat prowess is mixed (he can carve into cavaliers early, which is nice) and he's defensively squishy. Because he's a free, forced deploy you're going to use him and you're going to level him up, so giving him meaningful weaknesses is smart design.

He at least has a good Promotion, shame its waaaaaaay too late.

[NinjaMonkey]

Just based on the little I've played of it, it seems like it's a solid game that really just needs a little bit of modernization (something on the level of Shadow Dragon?)

In other words, you want the game to be remade lazily as possible, with little or no thought put in to it?

[Misses Elise-chan!]

FE1 is rarely ever talked about and when it is, people start hating on it by comparing it to games that came out 5-25 years later on more powerful consoles or handhelds.

Even Gaiden has been given more attention for its "groundbreaking" new features and basically being the Zelda 2 of fire emblem.

[Irysa]

I seriously wonder how many people who think "Shadow Dragon had no thought put into it" have tried to beat the game on a higher difficulty setting. There are some pretty smart segments of map design (especially early on) and things to be considered on them, unique subobjectives, etc. This is honestly pretty remarkable when realising most of the game's maps are all just based off the original FE1/3.

Take for example, that the reinforcement line trigger for the right fort on Chapter 7 is exactly 10 tiles from the fort, which allows for a Dracoknight to fly onto it to block reinforcements.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Irysa

[Jedi]

I quite liked the Ballistian class too.

[Topazd]

In other words, you want the game to be remade lazily as possible, with little or no thought put in to it?

'Remade as lazily as possible' doesn't really hold much ground when it's very apparent you haven't played much of either game; when you claim that FE11 improved nothing about the original other than the graphics - like you did in a topic prior to this - it goes to show how little context you actually have to compare the game in.

There are legitimate complaints to be made about Shadow Dragon, for sure, but this 'it changed nothing from FE1' is a flagrant accusation without a basis in reality.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Topazd