What do you think is the most underrated Fire Emblem?

[Gradivus.]

FE11 does have quite some shitty units, but even those can /somehow/ be used. look at lorenz who isn't 4HKOed by that brave lance!dracoknight on C21 and can kill with Silver Lance + Silver Bow combo. Ymir can reclass to Hero and help a bit against some enemy lance users. Arran and Samson can deal some damage to enemy cavalry so that other units can kill and Bord can heavily weaken some earlygame Knights I guess; while there's pretty much no demand for shitty units (there rarely is much need for bad units), FE11 has some of the least bad shitty units. I'm pretty sure those exist in most FE games, in varying amounts and with different availability.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Gradivus.

[General Horace]

god i had a response typed up then SF shit a brick and deleted it so i'm just gonna say this; I agree with your point in the last sentence in your first point, perhaps overhyped was the wrong, word, but calling fe6 underappreciated it frankly ridiculous. It's long past the stage where people harp on it for the obvious reasons of lowhitrates and only one chapter objective.

also Echidna and Lugh aren't good combat units lmao, Lugh is barely passable until he promotes and Echidna is pretty shit after like chapter 16 and has no durability. She's essentially a 10/1 Tate, with slightly more strength and Axes that cause he to lose AS which... isn't good.

Geese is also a totally awful axe user, which leaves Gonzales and Garret, and Garret can really only fight lance users without sucking, Gonzales has the virtue of just having such high offence that it doesn't matter if he misses sometimes. Garret's not doubling, so him missing is a much bigger deal. But he's useable at combat in the same way someone like Barth or Douglas are useable in combat - badly. He does have peakwalk and crit bonus, but the point still remains. FE6 armours are far and away the worst armours in the series, even someone awful like Ardan has a means to contribute if you really want him to. Bors, and Wendy just don't, and Barth is incredibly bad unless you waste a knight crest on him early. And there's no excuse for the amount of irredeemably shitty units like Wendy, Sophia, Fa, Cath and Juno, and dudes like Ward, Geese, Barth and Douglas aren't very far behind.

All this being said, i'm incredibly biased against FE6, so this should be probably taken with a grain of salt. I just don't enjoy the game.

[feplus]

Shit units add variety and can be fun. I like that Binding Blade gives me the option of spicing up a Hard Mode playthrough by, say, using Sophia and Lilina extensively.

[General Horace]

look at it this way, would you rather have a bad unit like say, Marisa or something that can actually score kills with little help, or Sophia, where every attack is a gamble early on. I enjoy using bad units like Ardan and most armourknights really, but training someone like Sophia is more like playing roulette than anything. Obviously she's an extreme example, and training someone like Lilina in comparison really isn't too hard.

Like to put things into perspective, Sophia has 75 hit on an enemy with 0 avoid.

Edited March 11, 2015 by General Horace

[Book Bro]

I agree that over and underrated are weird terms, but to me Shadow Dragon and Binding Blade are the two I've played that seem to get the most unwarranted/exaggerated criticism. I picked 6 on the poll just because I like it better.

[icercube]

Define underrated. I'd say FE12 because the only way people are able to play it in English is through emulation. I wanted to say SS, but I think it's got a sizable fanbase on Tumblr. EphraimsexgodmemeFTW

[Radiant head]

That doesn't make FE12 underrated though, just overlooked.

[Irysa]

also Echidna and Lugh aren't good combat units lmao, Lugh is barely passable until he promotes and Echidna is pretty shit after like chapter 16 and has no durability. She's essentially a 10/1 Tate, with slightly more strength and Axes that cause he to lose AS which... isn't good.

Lugh and Echidna are far from being BAD units though. They're worth deploying for a decent amount of the game, and Lugh can shine in slower playthroughs. Echidna's durability is not as bad as you're making it out to be, she has 35 base hp 8 def and a 75% hp growth and won't get doubled by anything in the game bar some lategame heroes unless you weigh her down a lot. That's more than enough to avoid being 3hko'd for almost the entire game vs physical enemies.

Geese is also a totally awful axe user, which leaves Gonzales and Garret, and Garret can really only fight lance users without sucking, Gonzales has the virtue of just having such high offence that it doesn't matter if he misses sometimes. Garret's not doubling, so him missing is a much bigger deal. But he's useable at combat in the same way someone like Barth or Douglas are useable in combat - badly. He does have peakwalk and crit bonus, but the point still remains. FE6 armours are far and away the worst armours in the series, even someone awful like Ardan has a means to contribute if you really want him to. Bors, and Wendy just don't, and Barth is incredibly bad unless you waste a knight crest on him early. And there's no excuse for the amount of irredeemably shitty units like Wendy, Sophia, Fa, Cath and Juno, and dudes like Ward, Geese, Barth and Douglas aren't very far behind.

Geese is pretty bad NGL, but if you consider Garret to be alright then Geese is salvagable too due to how easy it is to get EXP in the isles. The bigger problem with him is its a total waste of a hero crest and he is completely outclassed by nearly any other unit. Garret's not great either but give him a Killer Axe and he does well in Ilia, and is actually useful on chapter 21 at base for distracting Wyverns whilst being pretty much invincible on a mountain.

Fae is not an ireedeemably shitty unit at all. Her combat parameters are actually insane vs magic users and she hits really hard vs just about anyone (especially Manaketes). She gets doubled by everything (although her ridiculous def can offset this a lot if you give her a robe) but as a unit she is basically meant to be a walking glass cannon which IMO is actually interesting. She's not good, but she can put the hurt on very accurately if you use her carefully, which is way more than you can say about Wendy or Sophia.

Sophia is rubbish, no excuses made here. Her growths aren't even good. Juno has flying utility but is combat inept, her stats should be better. Wendy is lolterrible but there is something of a niche appeal in raising a pink armor knight who is really hard to train but with INSANE investment can actually turn out strong since her growths are actually decent and her promo gains are ridiculous. IMO, Wendy is like the true case of the Est in this game in her growths actually being quite nice (for her class anyway) but her bases just being ireedeemably awful. Cath is irrelevant considering chest keys and two thieves already existing, but her recruitment gimmick is cool and she has a legitimate reason for popping up frequently in treasure areas. I don't think you can really do anything to make Cath better and she's mostly meant to be there as a fun recruitment and potentially an extra thief if you lost Chad and Astol.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Irysa

[General Horace]

Fa can enter battle a grand total of 30 times in the whole game, and like 20 of those times is making her not shit. She's almost ORKO'd by the chapter 16x cavaliers too, which is pretty sad. She's a bad unit. I forget if getting attacked by archers makes her use up a dragonstone use, I think it does (I could be wrong)

[Irysa]

Getting attacked at range doesn't use up her dragonstone, same as getting status staved. I didn't say she was a good unit, I said she was not an "irredeemably shitty unit". She has redeeming factors that I outlined (oneshotting/being invincible to magic users, hitting like a truck against nearly anyone). Even if you want to ignore combat entirely she's a good staff lure.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Irysa

[General Horace]

That must be FE11 Tiki i'm thinking of. Regardless, I guess if you give her a few levels and bench her until endgame she can oneshot dragons there or something, which is better than a lot of the cast do I suppose.

Why can't all manaketes be as good as Myrrh :(

Edited March 12, 2015 by General Horace

[Sniper Knight]

I'm going with FE5, because the Jugdral games are underrated on most other websites. Even on SF, Genealogy gets significantly more love than Thracia does. Second choice would probably be Genealogy, though. Most people tend not to bother with the SNES games, which is a pity, because they are phenomenal.

[Zasplach]

I'm going with FE5, because the Jugdral games are underrated on most other websites. Even on SF, Genealogy gets significantly more love than Thracia does. Second choice would probably be Genealogy, though. Most people tend not to bother with the SNES games, which is a pity, because they are phenomenal.

Eh, maybe Thracia, but Genealogy gets plenty of love on this site.

And I agree with the general assessment that Shadow Dragon receives too much ire and that Thracia doesn't get enough love despite being the first modern entry of the series, with extras like fatigue.

[icercube]

I'm going with FE5, because the Jugdral games are underrated on most other websites. Even on SF, Genealogy gets significantly more love than Thracia does. Second choice would probably be Genealogy, though. Most people tend not to bother with the SNES games, which is a pity, because they are phenomenal.

That, and they were released in Japan ._.

[Zasplach]

That, and they were released in Japan ._.

But they are really easy to play everywhere. I'm not that technologically savvy, but it's not difficult to play the Japanese only titles.

[icercube]

But they are really easy to play everywhere. I'm not that technologically savvy, but it's not difficult to play the Japanese only titles.

I know. But I wonder how much attention it would garner if it was released the same year (or around that time) it came out in Japan.

[Zasplach]

I know. But I wonder how much attention it would garner if it was released the same year (or around that time) it came out in Japan.

About as much as they get now. Fire Emblem was always a niche series, at least until Awakening.

[Florete]

Underplayed is not underrated. If few people have played a game, but all of them love it, it's not underrated.

[dondon151]

yay i got name-dropped in an argument. go me.

first of all, you (meaning a user) can't point to a specific group of people who like a game and claim that is evidence against a game being underrated. i don't think there has been a significant increase in the appreciation of FE6 after my run completed; there has only been an uptick in the number of people who have decided to play the game either casually or with the aim of LTC.

second of all, i think there is a good argument for FE6 being underrated in that no other game in the fire emblem franchise has been the target of nearly as many improvement patches. part of this is because the GBA FEs are easy to hack, so i suppose the only real contenders for this privilege are FE6-8. but even then, few users try to "improve" FE8, fewer still try to "improve" FE7, and 99.9% of the time these users are doing it wrong anyway.

[BBM]

If underrated means a game that gets rated below what it deserves, then I don't think your argument works, because a lot of people would probably say that their FE6 patches are to make the game better/balanced, so at least to them they don't think the game is very good.

[dondon151]

If underrated means a game that gets rated below what it deserves, then I don't think your argument works, because a lot of people would probably say that their FE6 patches are to make the game better/balanced, so at least to them they don't think the game is very good.

but the game isn't not very good, and the problems that these players perceive either aren't problems or aren't exclusive to FE6. this is exactly what i mean by FE6 being underrated.

[eclipse]

Shadow Dragon.

The optimal draft turn count isn't particularly difficult to get on Normal/H1. It does require things like sacrificing player characters, knowing when/why to reclass, knowing what shops sold what, and making sure that Marth doesn't suck, since Warp is off-limits. Bonus points if said team doesn't include Caeda.

On H2 and up, it actually becomes a bit of a challenge to beat the game, sans Warp, with units of varying qualities.

In terms of characterization, I felt it had just the right amount - enough to lay out a bare bones outline of a character (via their death quote). There's a few extra convos, that ranged from meh (hi Est) to hilarious (Roger/Marth). Writing stupid fics about the game is almost as fun as drafting for it!

[Florete]

but the game isn't not very good, and the problems that these players perceive either aren't problems or aren't exclusive to FE6. this is exactly what i mean by FE6 being underrated.

What even is this supposed to mean? If people don't like something about a game, that's a problem for them. If enough people find it problematic, there probably is a significant flaw in there somewhere. Maybe it's not a problem for you, but to say it's just "not a problem" sounds like a lot of "holier than thou" business.

[-Cynthia-]

Going to go with FE6. The plot's a little eh, some interesting stuff in there but it's overall somewhat thin like Shadow Dragon was. I find the gameplay more fun that FE7 or 8 though, mainly because you can't just throw a unit you get in Chapter 1 at most of the game and expect to win.

[dondon151]

What even is this supposed to mean? If people don't like something about a game, that's a problem for them. If enough people find it problematic, there probably is a significant flaw in there somewhere. Maybe it's not a problem for you, but to say it's just "not a problem" sounds like a lot of "holier than thou" business.

oh man, an elitism accusation. not like i'm a stranger to those.

obviously there's a standard by which something is underrated. an object can only be underrated if a group of people rate the object unfairly with respect to what it deserves *. people are susceptible to groupthink and confirmation bias, so a group of players finding an element of the game "problematic" and voicing it on a forum doesn't necessarily suggest that that element is truly problematic. many players complain that FE6 has a significant unusable cast, but this statement ignores many factors - this part of the cast is only unusable on the hardest difficulty and under certain playstyles; FE6 has a large cast with a single campaign; other entries still sport a comparable ratio of very bad characters; other entries have problems of characters being too strong whereas FE6 doesn't really have this problem.

player skill definitely has a negative correlation with how often a player issues an unjustified complaint about the game. this is where you're probably on the verge of labeling me an elitist again, so i'll quash this notion. one aspect of FE6 that players tend to complain about is the frequency and unfairness of status staves in enemy hands. the status staff AI is exploitable and it's something that can be figured out with just a little bit of experimentation. i figured it out in one particular chapter with no outside assistance whatsoever, so it's really not a case of me being incredibly astute. i'd argue that FE6 has some of the most lenient scenarios involving enemy status staves in the whole series because enemy staff range is so high and the game tends to give the player more than enough deployment slots to deploy bait in addition to restore users (unlike in FE7's genesis, which is just a horrible map in general).

another aspect of FE6 that players tend to complain about is the "RNG." specifically, they complain about missing too often with high hit rates and getting hit too often by low hit rates. it's likely that they're conflating the former complaint with FE6's problem of low weapon hit (which is an actual issue, but also not universally true) and the latter complaint with them being bad at the game and either taking risks that they shouldn't be taking or not understanding the magnitude of a risk.

all of this is compounded by these players going on a forum and posting "hurrr FE6 sucks because of x" and then a bunch of other players replying with "YEAH i agree." FE6 is not an easy game; if being a difficult game is a proven flaw because players do tend to complain about difficult things (and as you said, if enough people complain about something, then it's probably bad), then the logical conclusion is that games should not be difficult. and we know that isn't true because even mediocre players bash on FE8 and FE9 for being too easy.

* 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.

Edited March 12, 2015 by dondon151