hey duders

Last year, i picked up 3ds and a copy of fire emblem and really ended up really liking it. My parents were kinda anti video games when i was a kid so i missed out on a lot, (my first console was a ps2 when i was 14) so I was wondering. What is the best way to play the old fire emblem games or are they too dated to really enjoy now? from what i hear they were really good but kinda polarizing.

Any direction would be most appreciated. thanks

From my (limited) experience with Fire Emblem games, the one's I've played prior to awakening can be pretty brutal (they're also difficult to get hold of here in the UK).

I've played (don't think I managed to finish) Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the Gamecube and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for the Wii. They're fairly similar to awakening, as in you'll know what to expect going in. But I feel they can get downright unfair at times, the guys they give you at points in Radiant Dawn are made of paper or something...

If you enjoy a challenge (you can still turn your dudes into demi-gods and stomp the game) then by all means seek them out. I seem to recall Path of Radiance being on par with awakening difficulty wise.

But Fire Emblem Awakening is definitely the most fun I've had with the series, so you might be a little disappointed if you decide to go back? Or I dunno, maybe I'm just a filthy casual (it has been a while since I last played the older titles).

Pretty sure there are some Fire Emblem experts on this board that will set you straight.

There were no Fire Emblem games released for the west until the GBA era, so many of the older ones will require you being willing to utilize roms, emulators, and fan translations.

The first 3 Fire Emblem games were for the NES, and really not worth going back to unless you want to simply experience the series' origins (and understand why Marth keeps showing in Smash Brothers.)

Fire Emblem 4: Geneology of Holy War is one of the best game in the series. It's stage designs are terrific, being very large and all being multi-staged with multiple castles to capture. It is also the originator for a lot of the mechanics for Awakening such as character pairings leading to a second generation as well as character skills. It is also the only FE game where weapons do not become destroyed when they hit 0 durability, and can instead be repaired.

FE5: Thracia 776 and FE6: Sword of Seals are mediocre games, not really worth jumping through the hoops of making them playable in English.

FE7: Blazing Sword and FE8: Sacred Stones are the two GBA games that received western releases, and both are fairly decent. Blazing Sword was pretty much designed for new players, so it might be the one to start with even though it is fairly mechanically bare bones compared to Awakening. I'd personally say Sacred Stones was far too easy of a game, but it does introduce the systems of an overworld with random encounters as well as branching paths for class upgrades. It also has a dumb gimmicky pvp mode.

The one for the Gamecube (FE9: Path of Radiance) and the one for the Wii (FE10: Radiant Dawn) received largely mixed reactions, but are worth checking out if you have either systems. I personally loved both, but some people were put off by the their greater difficulty compared to the GBA games. They also bring back the character skills absent since FE4, and FE10 has one of the biggest cast of playable characters in the series. 10 does follow 9 story wise, but you don't need to play the former to understand the story of the latter game.

The two DS releases (Shadow Dragon and Heroes of Light and Shadow) are remakes of the original NES games, and are both skippable, being fairly poor games with fairly unfun stage designs. That said, they are the games that introduced the ability to switch character classes at the start of any stage, and Heroes of Light and Shadow is the game that starts giving you an avatar character to create.

If I don't post now, someone will inevitably tag me.

Awakening is definitely the most newbie-friendly game in the series, but you can't go wrong with any of the previous games to have been released in the US (with the caveat that Shadow Dragon is sort of dry and you shouldn't play Radiant Dawn without playing Path of Radiance). If I recall correctly, the first one to come out in the west (just called "Fire Emblem" here) was recently released on the Wii U virtual console. If you want the game that's probably closest to Awakening in terms of mechanics, that's probably Sacred Stones?

That's not a bad place to go next, but if you don't own a Wii U (which wouldn't surprise anyone), things get a little pricier. The GBA and DS games probably aren't all that expensive, but copies of Path of Radiance go for a pretty penny nowadays. Of course, once you've tried the regular stuff, there's also the dark world of playing fan-translated copies of the SNES versions, but don't worry about that unless you're a crazy person like me.

Both of the GBA games that were released in the west and Path of Radiance are great. Those two both have more fleshed out support conversations than Radiant Dawn, when anyone could support anyone else. The gameplay stays essentially the same, but skills in the form they take in Awakening are introduced in Path of Radiance. I think I've played all of them too many times to really have a good sense of their difficulty anymore, but Radiant Dawn has some rough patches.

The DS games are awful.

My only enjoyment from the fire emblem series has came from the GBA games. I absolutely loved the two they released on there, and I think they've re-released the first one on the Wii U virtual console. It sounds strange but I found the graphics of all the others games so lifeless, enough for me to not enjoy the combat at all. The 2D sprites and attack animations have so much more life and detail to them than the 3D sprites they used in the other games (my references being the DS and Gamecube games).

I really enjoyed Sacred Stones on my 3ds, but apparently it only came out for the Ambassador program.

Anyone know what ever happened to @video_game_king? Someone get his ass in here and make him evangelize about FE4.

After the stuff that happened this summer, he's not on these forums anymore and doesn't seem to want to come back. I can sort of fill in though!

Man guys, FE4 is flippin' awesome. Do you want an epic story of love, war and betrayal over two generations told through a semi-competent if somewhat amateurish fan translation? Do you like hella big maps? What about characters with broken stat growths? Arya with Lex? Yep! Wanna pair Levin with Sylvia? You can do that! It's a terrible idea, but you can do it! Leaf! Leaf is in that game!

@turambar said:

While the story of FE 10 (Radiant Dawn) is explained well enough for people who didn't play FE 9 (Path of Radiance), FE10 kinda just glosses over explaining what the deal is with a bunch of the characters that were introduced in FE9. The main characters get more attention, but for a lot of the characters who aren't major players, it's more like "Oh hey, it's Tormod, remember him?"

Also I think FE9 is just a better game, so if he's already decided to buy some old games and has one of the original Wiis that can play both Wii games and Gamecube games, FE9 seems like the better place to start.

How many of the GBA Fire Emblem games are on the Wii U eShop at this point?

I recommend FE8: The Sacred Stones on the GBA. It's the next step down in difficulty from Awakening. If you finish it and find you're ready for more of a challenge, try FE7 (just called 'Fire Emblem' in the west) also on the GBA, Path of Radiance on the GCN, or its follow-up Radiant Dawn on the Wii.

If you still can't get enough, you can start looking into fan translation patches for the older games, FE6 and FE4 in particular are standouts.

Leaf, as in Leif? Whose sword in FE: Awakening is OP as shit because it just showers you in gold? Shut up, I'm not going to change that wording.

I almost want to hate Awakening for the canonical English names it introduced. Leif instead of Leaf, Eldigan instead of Eltoshan, Raquesis instead of Lachesis (what in the actual fuck.)

This thread helped me out a lot.

That stuff didn't bother me so much, though as you can see I will resort to the sort of engrishy fan-names as the default when talking about those old games. Really, the only "official" localized name I take issue with is Sety -> Ced. Like, what? He's the canonical wind god of the Fire Emblemiverse in two games and you gave him the name Ced?

It might have nothing to do with the art. It could just be that the combat is bad. When I played Awakening my thoughts were, this is a game that is based on a game from 15 years ago and hasn't been updated at all. It is without a doubt the most boring combat I've seen in a strategy game.

Or, you know, not at all, given what's written in the quote that you just, er, quoted.

I think what @cookiemonster is noting can be summed up by one of Greg Kasavin's tweets from a little bit back. The GBA (and SNES) games had incredibly kinetic sprite animations. They felt both forceful, simple, and fast, where as the polygonal games are "slower" in terms of the combat animations.