As someone who only played Awakening, which FE game should I try now?

[Playsta]

As the title says, I have only played Awakening, and would like to try on one of the other games.

I could do what I did with Final fantasy, and play all from the bottom up, but I don't know if that would be too time consuming. So which ones do you guys recommend trying out?

[The DanMan]

I'd recommend Sacred Stones; it's on the easy side of things, and in the same vein as Awakening.

[TheEnd]

I'd suggest playing FE11 and 12 first, because of the setting will be more familiar to you (i.e. Marth's story).

Whatever you do, though: don't play FE5 before FE4, or FE10 before FE9.

[Zerosabers]

Sacred Stones is the closest to Awakening and isn't difficult at all. Of course that's also its biggest problem, if you're looking for difficulty there isn't much here. I recommend not using Seth since he totally stomps the game.

Other than that Sacred Stones also has grinding at the tower, a world map with monster battles, and shops spread around the map.

FE7 is another good one to chose, it's harder than Sacred Stones but still not too hard. Definitely find a file with hard Lyn mode unlocked or use the tutorial slayer patch. The tutorial in that game explains everything. There's no grinding (besides arena) or world map so it's closer to the more 'classic' games.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Zerosabers

[Playsta]

I'd recommend Sacred Stones; it's on the easy side of things, and in the same vein as Awakening.

Sacred Stones is the closest to Awakening and isn't difficult at all. Of course that's also its biggest problem, if you're looking for difficulty there isn't much here. I recommend not using Seth since he totally stomps the game.

Other than that Sacred Stones also has grinding at the tower, a world map with monster battles, and shops spread around the map.

FE7 is another good one to chose, it's harder than Sacred Stones but still not too hard. Definitely find a file with hard Lyn mode unlocked or use the tutorial slayer patch. The tutorial in that game explains everything. There's no grinding (besides arena) or world map so it's closer to the more 'classic' games.

Ah, the difficulty is not an issue, I am close at beating lunatic plus with no grind no renown rule. Would just like to get a bit more into the universe, so I could get ekstra excited for Fates release. :D Does Sacred stones have a nice story?

[Shadow Mir]

Does Sacred stones have a nice story?

That depends on who you ask, but if you ask me, that's a definite no.

Back to the thread title, I'd second FE7.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Levant Colthearts

[Zerosabers]

Ah, the difficulty is not an issue, I am close at beating lunatic plus with no grind no renown rule. Would just like to get a bit more into the universe, so I could get ekstra excited for Fates release. :D Does Sacred stones have a nice story?

Sacred Stones has a pretty decent story as far as Fire Emblem goes. I think it's biggest strength is probably the villains.

[Lethakitty]

sacred stones or por

[Water Mage]

Sacred Stones, like others have said, it's similar to Awakening.

And personally it's story is pretty good, especially the main villain.

Two important things however:

Supports work very differently in this game, and each character can only have 5 support conversations per save file, so don't have two characters support with each other unless you really want them to, and the bonus the supports gives in this game are based on elemental affinity not class.

Also, in the game there's a part where the road splits between two characters, if it's your first time playing it, I suggest going with Eirika, as her route is easier.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Water Mage

[EricaofRenais]

If you have a Wii U I would recommend FE 7 and FE 8 because they are both on the Eshop. I would say FE 9 and 10 but if you don't want to emulate them they are very expensive to get. FE 11 is pretty easy to find used and I liked it but it is a little bland, but you should play it because it is a remake of the first game and Marth is the star.

[Radiant Dragon]

If story is a concern to you:

Blazing Sword (also known as just 'Fire Emblem') is a prequel to Binding Blade, but since they're 20 years apart you don't have to play one before the other to understand what's going on. You'll miss some minor references to Binding Blade if you play Blazing Sword first, but it's not a big deal.

Radiant Dawn is a direct sequel to Path of Radiance, taking place three years later. I would highly recommend playing Path of Radiance before Radiant Dawn, as it may become difficult to follow near the end of the game, when everything that happened across the two games starts coming together.

Thracia 776 is an 'interquel' to Geneology of the Holy War, taking place sometime between chapters 6 and 7 of that game. I would recommend playing Geneology first, but do note you'll have to emulate both of them (along with Binding Blade) to play them in English.

New Mystery of the Emblem is a direct sequel to Shadow Dragon (both of which are remakes of Marth's original games), so it'll probably be best to play Shadow Dragon first, although again you'll have to emulate New Mystery to play it in English.

Gaiden is relatively self-contained, taking place in the same world as Marth's games but on a different continent. Sacred Stones is completely self-contained, it has no story connections to any other game at all.

Personally, I would recommend playing any of the GBA or DS games first, since they boil the game mechanics down to their most basic form, making it easier to move to the other games which pile more on top of that. I found the DS games to be extremely dull myself, but mechanically they are pretty solid. You can't go too wrong with just starting with whatever you have available to you, though.

[The Geek]

Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones are probably the two you'll have the easiest time getting your hands on as they're on Wii U eShop and even physical copies are pretty easy to come across in my experience.

If you're trying to find Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, you're gonna have a bad time since those ones are hard to find and tend to be expensive when you do.

Shadow Dragon is harder to find than the GBA games but not by too much.

If you want to play FE1-6 or 12 you need to use an emulator (NES for 1-2, SNES for 3-5, GBA for 6, or DS for 12)

[angienessyo]

I went from Awakening to Sacred Stones to the rest of the GBA titles and then the GB/Wii stuff.

[Pixelman]

Ah, the difficulty is not an issue, I am close at beating lunatic plus with no grind no renown rule. Would just like to get a bit more into the universe, so I could get ekstra excited for Fates release. :D Does Sacred stones have a nice story?

If you can get past lunatic plus, then FE5 is probably the best for you

it's certainly a challenge!

[CrimeanRoyalKnight]

Go with the GBA games!

In this order:

8->7->6

Play 7 if you liked 8, then play 6 after 7 because it's a sequel and it's the hardest of the three.

[Shadow Mir]

Supports work very differently in this game, and each character can only have 5 support conversations per save file, so don't have two characters support with each other unless you really want them to, and the bonus the supports gives in this game are based on elemental affinity not class.

I'd have also mentioned the part where supports build rather slowly in the GBA games, for the most part.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Levant Colthearts

[Playsta]

Sacred Stones, like others have said, it's similar to Awakening.

And personally it's story is pretty good, especially the main villain.

Two important things however:

Supports work very differently in this game, and each character can only have 5 support conversations per save file, so don't have two characters support with each other unless you really want them to, and the bonus the supports gives in this game are based on elemental affinity not class.

Also, in the game there's a part where the road splits between two characters, if it's your first time playing it, I suggest going with Eirika, as her route is easier.

I'd have also mentioned the part where supports build rather slowly in the GBA games, for the most part.

Does the support system work with all characters, or only between avatar and (insert character here) ? I basicly have to restart the game every time I want to form a new pair?

[Shadow Mir]

Does the support system work with all characters, or only between avatar and (insert character here) ? I basicly have to restart the game every time I want to form a new pair?

Each character can only support certain others. And like stated, you can only have characters get 5 supports per file; a B support counts as 2 levels, and an A, 3.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Levant Colthearts

[Darrman]

There is no avatar before FE12. People can only support certain people (usually 5 in GBAFE), so you can't just have random guys support if you're gonna ditch one half of the pair. Pair Up wasn't around back then, so supports activated when the units are within a three-tile radius of each other. Rescue is kinda like Pair Up, except rather then making the game way easier, it can be used to remedy positioning errors and catch up lagging units. If you're a support-log kind of person, prepare for seven playthroughs, as some people have seven A-supports. S-ranks, marraige, and kids didn't exist yet.*

*(Unless it's FE4. People can get married and have kids there. No time travelling here, but that's all I'll say.)

[Kirokan]

It's always nice to see people willing to play the older games. I would recommend, if you have a Wii U, that 7 and 8 are the easiest to get your hands on and definitely worth the purchase. Try 8 first then go to 7. After those you can come back and depending on how they went for you, we can make further recommendations in whatever direction you want to go in (things you liked about them, didn't like, etc). : )

[Jotari]

Be brave. Thracia 776.

[Water Mage]

Does the support system work with all characters, or only between avatar and (insert character here) ? I basicly have to restart the game every time I want to form a new pair?

Each character can only support with around 5 characters, but some can support with 7 while other can only support with 3.

Also, each character can only have 5 support conversations per save file.

For example, Character 1 has reached A support with Character 2 and C support with Character 3, but wants to support Character 4 as well, Character 1 and 4 will only able to reach C support, because Character 1 already had 4 support conversations in that save file.

And if you want for a character to support with 5 different units, they all will have to be C rank.

Support conversations in this game happens during battle, and you can only gain support points by having units stand next to each other for a number of turns, and depending on the pair, it may take a lot of turns.

[NekoKnight]

The support gaining method is pretty ass in the GBA titles but don't let that discourage you. They're fun games and I'd recommend 8-7-6 as some others have said. The mechanics and graphics will regress but the difficulty (and story for the Elibe games) will progress more smoothly

[ruadath]

I think FE7 is probably the best intro to the "classic" era of fire emblem games. Not a terrible difficulty (at least unranked and on normal modes), good storyline, likeable characters, etc. You'll also get a nice introduction to the "weight" system, get to see a variety of different map objectives, and get to see what are probably some of the best developed supports in the series (with the exception of perhaps FE9).

[Jotari]

Best reason to play FE7 early is so you can go through Lyn mode when all the mechanics are still somewhat new. I find having unskippable dialogue telling you how to attack when you've played most of the games in the series quite infuriating (especially when the cartridge randomly decides to erase your data and you have to go through it three+ times).