What is the best and worst Fire Emblem cast of characters to you?

[Roland]

Which Fire Emblem cast of characters do you find to be the best and worst?

Best Fire Emblem Cast for Me: I'd have to say Path of Radiance. The Greil Mercinaries are awesome. I would pick Radiant Dawn's cast too, but the Dawn Brigade kinda cripples RD's character quality a bit for me. 

Worst Fire Emblem Cast for Me: It's a tie between Awakening and Fates. I could not bring myself to care about any of the characters aside from 2-3 characters.

[Thane]

My favorite casts are the ones from both Tellius and Awakening. The former for how involved everyone is in the plot and the overall serious nature of the game, while I like Awakening's pleasant and lighthearted tone, so I like them for completely different reasons. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

My least favorite cast of characters is Fates' due to the complete absence of logic in terms of...well, everything, but especially character interactions and relationships. If you're not immediately connected to Corrin or their family, you're superfluous. While the worst characters are the ones who are actually important to the story, like Azura and Corrin, even many of the redshirts range from merely forgettable to absolutely awful. 

I also find Blazing Blade's cast very weak.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Thane

[Rose482]

FE8 and FE10 have my favorite cast in the series.

 

And I would say my least favorites are the FE1/FE3/FE11/FE12 cast

[Etrurian emperor]

I think the Tellius cast is the best by a pretty significant margin. They are all very nuanced and detailed, have bonds with each other that are explored in base and boss conversation and because they got two games you can see even minor characters grow and evolve over the years. Comparing the conversations of Jill and Lethe or Sothe and Tormod can really show how far the characters have come between the games. Even the underdeveloped Dawn Brigade get enough dialogue to ensure they are well defined and likable characters. 

I find Shadow Dragon to have the worst cast. It got some good characters like Hardin, Minerva and Xane but those are in the minority. The vast majority of the cast is filled with blank slates or archetype starters that are already surpassed in every area by all their successors. Despite their frequent appearance the Shadow Dragon cast lags behind a lot compared to all other casts.  New Mystery helped some characters like Gordin who became really charming for being such a sweet big bro but its not enough. 

I'm not a fan of Binding Blade's cast either. I really like some characters like Niime or the orphans but I find a lot of the cast members to be extremely boring. 

[Thane]

8 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I really like some characters like Niime

Niime is damn cool, honestly. Probably my favorite Binding Blade character. 

[Ottservia]

35 minutes ago, Thane said:

My favorite casts are the ones from both Tellius and Awakening. The former for how involved everyone is in the plot and the overall serious nature of the game, while I like Awakening's plesant and lighthearted tone, so I like them for completely different reasons. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

I second this even though I've only really played like 10 chapters of PoR. Though from what I have played, I did like the characters. 

My least favorite cast has got to be a tie between fates and echoes. Fates because basically it took all the problems people had with awakening characters and cranked them up to near absurd degrees. I mean there are diamonds in the rough but overall the cast feels far too one dimensional and just generally all over the place and inconsistent. I don't like SoV's cast for one simple reason. They're boring!!!!  Like god damn it these characters lack any kind of depth, nuance, or any real defining character trait and just sort of exist. To clarify I don't dislike the characters themselves(except faye) cause that would imply I had some kind of emotional investment in them which I flat out do not. I don't like or dislike any of these characters it's just that I don't care about them because of how underwhelming they are and to me that's worse than a character I actually do dislike.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Otts486

[Etrurian emperor]

10 minutes ago, Thane said:

Niime is damn cool, honestly. Probably my favorite Binding Blade character. 

And it helps there's never been a character like her. I can't think of any other old lady in any playable FE cast unless they are a dragon loli.

[Rose482]

FE14 cast is overheated, that is my truth!!!!!!!

 

But okay really....I feel like almost each FE14 character has more to them, but having to dig through that sea of supports to find the gems might not be worth it.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Rose482

[NinjaMonkey]

Best Cast: Radiant Dawn (despite Micaiah's presence)

Worst Cast: Shadow Dragon

Edited November 24, 2018 by NinjaMonkey

[Ertrick36]

Shadow Dragon/Mystery's is the worst to me.  It's really a case of quantity over quality; it's like if two-thirds of the cast were made into Robin/Corrinsexuals, except there isn't any lost potential whatsoever because most of them are just uninteresting Joe's under "that bigger man's" squad.  Don't get me wrong, there are a number of really appealing and interesting characters (they contain two of my favorite characters - Katarina and Catria), but that's just overshadowed by the lack of development for pretty much every other character.  Fates has some stinkers too, but I always say the worst sin in writing is to be boring, and only one character in Fates has that issue for me.

As for the best?  Hmm...  I'd say maybe Awakening's or Genealogy's.  With the former, sure you have to do some digging to find good stuff, but it's shallow digging, imo.  Like for Tharja, all you have to do to find decent supports is just not have her support Robin, then you'll find aspects of her character beyond the stalker obsession - that may require a bit of an open mind, but it'd take, in equal measure, quite a closed-mind to just read one thing and say "no, that's not for me" (unless it was really bad, I suppose).  As for Genealogy, well, I like that a good chunk of the army actually feels important, especially in the second generation where you more than likely have more nobles in your ranks.

 

Bear in mind I've barely progressed in any of the GBA games or the Tellius games.  Also haven't played Thracia 776 much.

[LucarioGamer812]

Best Cast: While I do enjoy many games casts, honestly Tellius in general rules. The exception is the Dawn Brigade and a few related units, but basically everyone else is amazing. I also kinda like how small sacred stones and echoes cast is since it brings the focus more on a few characters.

Worse Cast: As much as I love Awakening, it does have some characters that are meh. Miriel and Ricken being the biggest offenders. But it does also have some highlights, Cordelia and Severa, Lucina, Morgan, and several others. I also want to say Fates while generally bad some characters are good, Oboro, Charlotte, KAgero, Effie, Hana, and a few others. Shadow Dragon is also here due to lack of characterization. Designwise some of them are great Like Midia or Astram or Caeda but most of them don't have much character besides Marth, Caeda, Minerva, Navarre, Ogma, and maybe Merric. New Mystery makes this slightly better but not by much.

[DarthR0xas]

Going to do a bit of a hot take here

Fates cast is by far the best IMO. There are some notable duds, Peri comes to mind, but most of the characters I find enjoyable. It's basically the only cast in FE where you could point to a unit and I would know something about them and have a worthwhile opinion on all of them, barring some of the children. 

The worst is Radiant Dawn, well, most of it's cast. Anyone new is basically undeveloped, and they get very little dialogue period. I legit can't think of anything to describe the Dawn Brigade in the slightest other than "There's the axe dude, sword dude, archer dude, hungry thunder chick, ect". Even some of the returning characters were ruined, like Astrid becoming the idiot who bows down Makolov's whim and cleans up after his messes. Even some of the Greil Mercs didn't really get much, Rhys got kinda shafted from what I remember, as did Mia. Basically, if they didn't appear in story cutscenes, they got at most three info conversations that barely develop their characters.

[Erureido]

Best cast for me is a toss-up between Shadows of Valentia and Sacred Stones. Both of their casts of have a large amount of characters that felt very grounded and enjoyable , combined with some nice characterizations from most of them and some good support conversations overall. With the case of Shadows of Valentia, the voice-acting also helped bring out some more charm to the characters. I like just about everyone there with the only characters that don't do much for me are the two lords, Palla, Kamui, Deen, Faye (the only SoV character aside from some of its villains that I hate), and most of the villains except for Grieth. As for Sacred Stones, I liked most of the game's villains and Eirika compared to what I think of SoV's villains and lords, and I also liked about everyone else there. There's no one that I hate aside from Riev, and the only characters that I feel indifferent to are Ephraim, Colm, Neimi, Marissa, Orson, Vigarde, and Formortis. 

Worst cast to me is Conquest's. There's only a minute number of characters from that game that I liked: those being Support!Xander (the only Nohrian royal I'm fond of), Laslow, Niles, Arthur, Benny, Charlotte, and Ignatius. As for the rest of its characters, I either feel indifferent to them or I just don't like them at all. Heck, two of my least favorite characters in the series come from Conquest: Peri and Camilla.

[Shadow Mir]

Worst Fire Emblem cast: Sacred Stones. The good characters are in the minority, and I find it hard to bring myself to care about most of the cast. Dishonourable mention to the Jugdral games for the same reasons.

Best: Tellius for reasons already stated.

[Thane]

8 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Worst Fire Emblem cast: Sacred Stones.

Huh, not the most common opinion I'm sure. I like how so many of the Sacred Stones' characters know each other either directly or have at least heard of each other. Lyon is also my favorite villain in the series.

I do think Sacred Stones has quite a few...bizarre supports though. Vanessa x Moulder and Rennac x Tethys come to mind. It's also the game with Ephraim and Eirika.

[Slumber]

Best: Yeah. It's Tellius. No real surprise here. It was the formula from FE6-8 perfected(Or at least as close as they got to perfect) before changing their character formula completely. Supports feel meaningful and characters have a ton of personality. FE10 takes a hit, due to how they crippled the support system, but this mostly just affects the Dawn Brigade. New comers who get focus and the returning characters all still get plenty of moments to have their personalities shine.

Worst: It's a three-way tie between Archanea, Awakening and Fates. All for different reasons.

• Archanea gets the short-end of the stick due to being in the era before they started focusing on characters. There's really not a lot to say about characters that aren't Marth.
• Awakening I just find has... really, insanely boring characters. I really struggle to say a single one is good. I feel like all of them are half-written, and their gimmicks straight up mute their actual characters. There are a handful of entertaining characters. Henry's fun to watch, and Gregor pulls off the "funny foreigner" trope well enough, but I can't say they're well developed or explored characters at all. Same goes for the boring characters like Miriel. I don't want to touch characters like Vaike, Gaius and Tharja, who are some of my most hated characters in the franchise for how goddamn unlikable and obnoxious they are.
• Fates does a bit better of a job evolving the "gimmick-centric" formula started in Awakening. There are a few more character I'd feel comfortable with saying are actually good and fleshed out... HOWEVER, a few writers on the team clearly were hit in the head too many times, and we still end up with characters like Camilla and Peri, and there's just no excuse for characters that bad and unlikable. Tharja is basically the only irredeemable character that the game asks you to like in Awakening, while Fates tosses at least three(Just off the top of my head because of another thread) complete awful wastes of characters at you and asks you to like them. Higher highs than Awakening, and lower lows, which brings it to the same embarrassing baseline for characters.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Slumber

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Thane said:

Huh, not the most common opinion I'm sure. I like how so many of the Sacred Stones' characters know each other either directly or have at least heard of each other. Lyon is also my favorite villain in the series.

I do think Sacred Stones has quite a few...bizarre supports though. Vanessa x Moulder and Rennac x Tethys come to mind. It's also the game with Ephraim and Eirika.

The thing is, most of SS's cast is either forgettable (Moulder, Garcia, Artur, etc.) or memorable for all the wrong reasons (I'm looking at YOU, Renais twins and Lyon!). Either way, that doesn't do it for me, and the few gems in its cast are not enough to make up for this.

[Megaspacewaffles]

PoR and RD easily. Almost all of them are memorable and even the bad ones are memorable. 

Fates in my opinion had the weakest roster, while I enjoyed many of the characters, Kaze and Silas mainly most of them only really had one personality, like Arthur was strong, and Benny liked animals, they never really expanded them 

[Jingle Jangle]

Best Awakening: I still feel that the cast is still strong that bounce off each other personality wise.

Worst: RD there are so many forgettable characters in the game, or heavily rely on knowing them in PoR. Where in this game, they are in the background.

[YoungLionofAlistel]

Favorite cast: SoV. I always found a few aspects that I could identify with in some of the characters. Kliff keeps to himself, Python is laid-back, and Luthier's support with Delthea reminds me of how I occasionally converse with my sister.

 

Least favorite: Fates. I liked them at first, but after a second playthrough, they sort of fell flat for me. Maybe it was because I enjoyed the game less the second time around?

[Nobody]

Favorite: Blazing Blade. Sacred Stones and Binding Blade also have great casts, the GBA games were just great at this.

Least Favorite: Awakening. Terrible bland characters, which can each be described with a single sentence.

3 hours ago, Slumber said:

Tharja is basically the only irredeemable character that the game asks you to like in Awakening

Cordelia tho

Edited November 24, 2018 by Nobody

[Dark Holy Elf]

Favourite: Conquest. Did a good job of marrying the strengths of Awakening's cast (humour) with some actual character depth and interesting backstories.

Honourable mentions to Awakening and Tellius, for reasons already said.

Least favourite: Shadow Dragon/Mystery. I actually killed off most of SD's cast so I could unlock the gaiden chapters. I can't even imagine doing that with most Fire Emblem casts, which says how much this one failed to engage me.

[Roland]

On 11/24/2018 at 10:37 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

I think the Tellius cast is the best by a pretty significant margin. They are all very nuanced and detailed, have bonds with each other that are explored in base and boss conversation and because they got two games you can see even minor characters grow and evolve over the years. Comparing the conversations of Jill and Lethe or Sothe and Tormod can really show how far the characters have come between the games. Even the underdeveloped Dawn Brigade get enough dialogue to ensure they are well defined and likable characters. 

I find Shadow Dragon to have the worst cast. It got some good characters like Hardin, Minerva and Xane but those are in the minority. The vast majority of the cast is filled with blank slates or archetype starters that are already surpassed in every area by all their successors. Despite their frequent appearance the Shadow Dragon cast lags behind a lot compared to all other casts.  New Mystery helped some characters like Gordin who became really charming for being such a sweet big bro but its not enough. 

I'm not a fan of Binding Blade's cast either. I really like some characters like Niime or the orphans but I find a lot of the cast members to be extremely boring. 

See, I do like Radiant Dawn's cast, but only the Greil Mercenaries and Elincia's Army portions. The Dawn Brigade wasn't horrible, but they definitely missed the marks the other two casts hit.

And yeah, Binding Blade's cast isn't that good either.

20 hours ago, Slumber said:

Best: Yeah. It's Tellius. No real surprise here. It was the formula from FE6-8 perfected(Or at least as close as they got to perfect) before changing their character formula completely. Supports feel meaningful and characters have a ton of personality. FE10 takes a hit, due to how they crippled the support system, but this mostly just affects the Dawn Brigade. New comers who get focus and the returning characters all still get plenty of moments to have their personalities shine.

Worst: It's a three-way tie between Archanea, Awakening and Fates. All for different reasons.

• Archanea gets the short-end of the stick due to being in the era before they started focusing on characters. There's really not a lot to say about characters that aren't Marth.
• Awakening I just find has... really, insanely boring characters. I really struggle to say a single one is good. I feel like all of them are half-written, and their gimmicks straight up mute their actual characters. There are a handful of entertaining characters. Henry's fun to watch, and Gregor pulls off the "funny foreigner" trope well enough, but I can't say they're well developed or explored characters at all. Same goes for the boring characters like Miriel. I don't want to touch characters like Vaike, Gaius and Tharja, who are some of my most hated characters in the franchise for how goddamn unlikable and obnoxious they are.
• Fates does a bit better of a job evolving the "gimmick-centric" formula started in Awakening. There are a few more character I'd feel comfortable with saying are actually good and fleshed out... HOWEVER, a few writers on the team clearly were hit in the head too many times, and we still end up with characters like Camilla and Peri, and there's just no excuse for characters that bad and unlikable. Tharja is basically the only irredeemable character that the game asks you to like in Awakening, while Fates tosses at least three(Just off the top of my head because of another thread) complete awful wastes of characters at you and asks you to like them. Higher highs than Awakening, and lower lows, which brings it to the same embarrassing baseline for characters.

Pretty much similar thoughts here. Though I can't speak for Shadow Dragon, Awakening and Fates definitely did not have the cast for me. What stings the most is that they're the most likely to influence future casts of Fire Emblem games. 

[Rapaille]

Best: Fe4. Character interaction is never seperated from the story and are often in some way related to the events in the story. It also has 3,5 of my favourite characters (that 0,5 is because of Leif).

Worst: Fates. I sometimes think that Fates has all the things that I dislike about characterization in Fire Emblem. Bad joining conversations, not adding anything to the world, not adding anything to the story, have there character development be hidden in supports from which only a few are good, forced romance, gimmicks that aren't funny, reasonable, constantly repeated and  have the characters that play a major role be either boring or frustrating. Sure, other games have less characterization but at least characterization wasn't important in those games. 

Edited January 25, 2019 by LJwalhout

[eclipse]

Best: Blazing Sword.  There's a lot of little details in the supports, and you'll have to dig through them to truly get a feel for the characters. . .but IMO it's well worth it.  Runner-up. . .Binding Blade, for having one of the most diverse casts.

Worst: Just about every other game had at least one dud.  Jugdral had Alec (and Eldigan), Magvel had some support chains that looked like they were written by someone else (WTF is up with Lute/Knoll), Tellius had the Begnion senate, Archanea had to include the assassin subplot, Ylisse had Cordelia/Severa, and Fates is more blatant about tropes than anything.  It says a lot when Tharja is one of my favorite Ylisse characters, just because her personality is more interesting than most of the cast.  And Valentia had Faye.  Leon had the unrequited love thing down-pat, why'd they have to give Faye that kind of personality?

Edited November 25, 2018 by eclipse