Birthright is a bad Fire Emblem game. It's story is bad and most of the characters are shallow boyscouts. Conquest has better characters and a better story but it will beat the hell out of you again and again. Awakening is a good jumping in point if you haven't played one in a while. It's accesible without becoming too easy. Otherwise, if you haven't played one since the GBA and you're able you should check out the game cube and wii entrys. Really under appreciated games.

Unfortunately, my GameCube and Wii are both at my dad's house, so those aren't options.

Is Awakening hard to go back to after Fates? I was leaning towards Birthright because then Conquest would be half price if I liked Birthright enough to want to play another one afterwards.

Awakening was my first Fire Emblem and (this is not hyperbole) is my favorite game ever made. I still play it with some regularity. Fates does make some interesting changes to combat but not enough to recommend it over Awakening's superior cast and maps.

If you do go with Fates, don't bother with Birthright. Get Conquest and Revelations. Conquest has some of the better characters in Fates and provides a good (but fair) challenge, and Revelations includes all the characters from both paths.

Well since you are playing on Casual, I voted Awakening>Birthright>Conquest

Conquest has tight as hell gameplay and more interesting characters, even if they're dumb as hell and act like children (that's not exclusive to Conquest, though). The plot is also dumb as hell.

I'd still recommend jumping in at Awakening though, its an overall more solid and recommendable game. I didn't play Birthright, but I have no interest in it.

Awakening is best for personality, story, and characters. You miss out on the mechanical improvements of the Fates three though. A lot of Awakenings mechanics are easier to break and more RNG focused.

Birthright is best if you want the mechanical improvements of the Fates three, and also want the best story of the three Fates games. Note: the story still isn't great.

Conquest is if you don't care about story, and want the best maps and difficulty of the 3ds games. The story is cartoonishly stupid though.

Revelation should only be played if you want to have every support possible in the game and easily grindable. It reveals more about the Fates story, but the Fates story is pretty lackluster and full of plotholes. Revelation only makes that story worse, so you're only really coming here for the fan service aspect of having every character.

All are fine options for the series. A lot of die hard old school fans will tell you that they're bad in a hyperbolic fashion, but they're fine.

I recommend starting with Awakening. It checks every box you want since you don't mind the game having ways to break it, and you likely won't find all of those ways on your first normal playthrough anyway. You won't know what you're missing out on from Fates, so it won't feel as odd. Then move onto either Birthright or Conquest if you want.

Awakening. No contest.

Awakening is better than all the Fates games. It has a better story, more interesting/funnier characters, and great gameplay (though I will concede that there are iterative improvements in Birthright). If you were only going to play one of the Fates games, it depends on what you're looking for. Conquest has the best gameplay and maps of the three by far, though it can get really difficult. In fact, I remember reading about people whose stats grew in such a way that later missions were actually impossible for them, even on Normal difficulty. Birthright has a (slightly) better story, though I like the individual characters in Conquest (slightly) more.

The stories in the Fates games are terrible and personally disappointing to me. Even though Awakening isn't going to win any Academy Awards anytime soon, I will never forget how let down I was when I thought I had a great theory about what was REALLY going on in Fates centered around multiverse theory and the actual reveal in Revelations (there's actually a hidden third kingdom not really, if ever, discussed in the other games significantly influencing the war between Hoshido and Nohr) was, in my opinion, a huge missed opportunity for a shot at some intricate and well-foreshadowed storytelling.

TL;DR: If you had to pick one out of the three, play Awakening.

I didn't play Fates but Awakening was pretty good. If you want to hold off a bit Shadows of Valentia is also coming out in May. It apparently plays a little bit different from core FE games though.

Awakening is the best of these three by a mile, and it's probably not even that close. Both Birthright and Conquest have absolutely horrid stories with threadbare characterization beyond the pairing/support stuff (and Revelations is not any better). Sure, the maps are fun and Conquest particularly is basically a classic Fire Emblem hard mode from the get-go, but that does not make up the absolute slog that playing through either game presents. Moreover, the child-rearing/eugenics mechanic is thrust into the games in a way that makes absolutely zero narrative sense, and detracts heavily from every other element the games present. By contrast, Awakening has a semi-coherent story with characters who feel far more fleshed out and less beholden to waifu/husbando wish fulfillment, and the children feel like a necessary addition to lend weight to a story about cute and sexy young adults trying to save the future.

That being said, Awakening has nothing on the Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn duo, and is not quite up to the standards set by The Binding Blade and The Blazing Blade. As much as I appreciate how much more prominent and popular Fire Emblem has become, I think the games' quality has been slowly slipping into a glorified dating sim and away from its more serious roots.

The list: Path of Radiance > The Binding Blade > The Blazing Blade > Radiant Dawn > Awakening > Sacred Stones > Conquest > Revelations > Birthright >>>>> Shadow Dragon (a remake of the first game with all of its problems and absolutely ugly art).

My favorite of those is Conquest, but that's purely because I like Fire Emblem predominantly for the tactical combat. Fates has some subtle, iterative improvements that give it an edge there, but as others mentioned, the story in Fates is pretty trash. Since you're playing on casual/normal, the "hardcore" nature of Conquest sounds like it may not be an appeal. If I'm wrong, then Conquest is a great pick. Otherwise, I think Awakening is the better, more well-rounded Fire Emblem game. It's probably the safest pick for a newcomer as well. So that's my recommendation for you.

@chrispaul92 said:

Path of Radiance for the Gamecube might secretly be the best Fire Emblem ever officially localized, at least in the classic formula of "A to B storyline, finite number of missions and no grinding so do the best with what you've got." It has weak spots relative to the newer games, like how the supports in Path of Radiance are incredibly limited, so I much prefer the more flexible system in the 3DS games of "Do as many support conversations as you want!", but other than that, I don't have any major criticism of Path of Radiance. The story isn't Citizen Kane, but I did connect with the story and characters in Path of Radiance more than I did with any of the FE stories they've localized since, for whatever reason.

@ajamafalous: Well, I can give you a pretty fresh opinion as I've just spent the last week and a half re-playing Awakening! I played it around the time it came out and got 70% of the way through (super enjoyed it though but you know how life has a habit of getting in the way) and with the release of Heroes I decided to go back, start from scratch and play through awakening before going back and playing through Fates (last summer I put about 60 hours into all three Fates games and didn't finish any of the three yeah yeah yeah I know i'm a terrible person).

So here's how I feel. You should absolutely play through Awakening> Birthright > Conquest but don't play them all together as you will probably burn out. I feel Awakening is quality over quantity and the Fates games are quantity over quality. I also feel it's a Persona 3/4 situation where the games all play very similarly and each one is a different spin on the same concept, if that makes sense. Also, there are references in Awakening that carry over to Birthright and Conquest (and I haven't played any of the previous games so I'm probably missing all the references in Awakening as well). It's really hard to decide between them but I'm EXTREMELY glad to have gotten back and played Awakening. It still totally stands up.

I am in the minority here, but I do think the Fates games both play better and have better stories than Awakening. While I love the characters in Awakening I think the story in that game was kinda bad.

@bisonhero: Path of Radiance is an incredible game, and its restrictions on supports and character grinding actually lend to the quality of the experience, rather than detract. I'm definitely more of a purist with FE games, and I find the inherent restrictions in deciding which characters to focus on and which supports to encourage far more rewarding than a game where I'm free to just pair any two units together and everything just works out. I'm with you on the characterizations as well, which are by far the best-realized in the FE series.

I think Awakening will give you what you're looking for. It's excellent for a beginner and its world map and ability to grind and such make it a good overall package for those less versed in turn based strategy rpgs. I'd say if you like it and want more then check out Birthright. Fates does some neat things with gameplay that shake up the FE formula a bit which I appreciated.

@ocelotfox said:

I mean, I do think the stat bonuses from supports in the 3DS games get pretty out of hand when everybody on your team has like 10 possible units that give them an adjacency/pairing bonus. So for balance reasons, Path of Radiance's limited supports is probably better.

But the part that pissed me off about the Path of Radiance support conversations is that each character is limited to 5 conversations. So if Character 1 does the C, B, and A support conversations with Character 2, then Character 1 does the C, B support conversations with Character 3, then that's it. Let's just leave that final conversation between Character 1 and Character 3 dangling in the wind, never to take place. Would it have killed someone at Intelligent Systems to just allow 6 support conversations per character?

For normal humans, I'll always recommend Awakening. The main story is hardly great or anything, but it has a fantastic localization, some fun characters, and a great soundtrack.

Meanwhile, Birthright is essentially a lesser version of Awakening, even with the mechanical tweaks and enhancements that Fates brought to the series. Conquest is probably my favorite campaign in the series since Path of Radiance, but its intentionally grueling difficulty is definitely aimed at long-time fans like me who thought Awakening was a little too easy. It also has a depressingly bad story that manages to squander what could've been a fun premise, especially since it has the better supporting cast of the two campaigns.

Looks like I'll try to pick up Awakening, then, since the response is so overwhelming. Thanks guys!

(WHY ARE ALL OF THESE GAMES STILL $40)

I bought Birthright at launch and found it incredibly boring and lame and didn't make it past 5 hrs. But I love the idea of fire emblem games and I enjoyed the GBA ones, should I give conquest a try?

Blazing Sword. If you can find a GBA copy if it you should really play it.

Start with Awakening. After that, if you think it's too easy, play Conquest. If you liked Awakening's challenge, play Birthright. I haven't played Revelation yet (I will), but Ive heard you need to play both versions to get everything out of it storywise.

If you want a traditional fire emblem, FE7 is the best in terms of teaching the game and good difficulty curve.

I haven't completed any of them (although like you I'm thinking of taking another stab at Fates) but I'll echo the general "Conquest has the best maps but the story sucks" sentiment, and Birthright and Awakening aren't much better. Honestly the GBA games are much better, especially Blazing Sword.