Fire Emblem


#1

Couldn’t find a topic on Fire Emblem. This saddened me.

Anybody else play these games at all? Saw the footage of FE Warriors from E3… I mean I’ll be frank about it, not a fan of the Dynasty/Samurai Warriors games in general because, let’s face it, they’re not games, they’re genocide simulators for jimmie-rustled, Green Day/Naruto-loving children.

So the thought of Koei reskinning those games with the most generic characters from the latest entries in the FE franchise doesn’t exactly have me reaching for my wallet.

Eager to get my hands on Echoes: Shadows of Valentia though, that shit looks great. I’m a bit sad that the pair-up mechanic didn’t make it into the game. Okay, OP-unbalanced-as-fuck in Awakening, but the Fates system was well-balanced (really the only thing that let Fates down was the ridiculously bad writing, but these things have all been said many times) so I think Echoes is a step backwards, but maybe it makes sense because it is a remake of Gaiden.

One thing that can definitely be said for Echoes is that the artwork is sublime. I love the redesign of pretty much everyone. The pegs especially, hory sheet. The Zelda run-around-and-smash-barrels looks pointless because there’s not really any puzzle-solving to do in these platformer-intermissions between battles, but hey-ho.

Now, finally, we come to FE Heroes. Well, honestly, considering I work a lot, I find it very satisfying to have a Fire Emblem in my pocket. The system is simplified but I actually think they’ve done a really great job making a tactical RPG for mobile. It still presents challenges, just in more of a “achieve checkmate in 5 moves” sort of way rather than “invest hours cultivating relationships and reclassing/minmaxing” sort of way.

The artwork is, on the whole, gorgeous. Some characters have been unlucky, but nothing stands out as atrocious. Some of them look a bit… odd, and there’s one particular artist whose style really jars with the everyone elses (but it’s not bad in and of itself).

Only problem with Heroes is the fact that, while it’s F2P, you need stamina to battle, and stamina runs out pretty quickly if you’re playing Lunatic mode as most will as soon as they get a couple of good characters. You can find yourself wishing you had more stamina very quickly then. With other games of a similar nature, like Duel Links or Granblue, your stamina resets as your avatar character levels up or as you go up a stage, which tends to happen when you complete quests for that stage.

Heroes doesn’t reset your stamina, and you rely on handouts of stamina replenishment items or quest rewards to play beyond the 99 stamina limit. It kinda sucks but only if you sit there playing it for hours at a time as I do at the weekend.

Anyyyyyyway, on the whole, good game. Not something I’d pay to play, because there’s no guarantee that you get something good when you pay for the in-game currency. I gladly pay for a Fire Emblem game and DLC because that’s it, the game belongs to you, the DLC belongs to you, there’s no roll of the die to see whether you get what you want.

But I don’t care because Heroes will attract a lot of paying players and that means more real Fire Emblem games, which is never a bad thing.

D-does anybody else play Fire Emblem games?


#2

I bought a 3DSXL long time ago and became addicted to Fire Emblem Awakening.


#3

I played Awakening a lot but not enough to finish it.


#4

Awakening was too easy. Just invest heavily in a couple of godly units and Tharja, solo half the game.

Should play Echoes, shit’s cash


#5

Oh hi @wanda! Nice to see you again.

I played the SNES Fire Emblem game, but I haven’t gotten into the later installments. I want to play the DS games someday, as I enjoy Japanese SRPGs.


#6

I somehow missed this thread. Fire Emblem games are must-buys for me. I really enjoyed Echoes and I look forward to the Switch game next year.


#7

Thanks Leo. My favourite FE was Thracia 776, last of the SNES games. Genealogy of the Holy War was good too but I haven’t played it all the way through for some reason that I’ve long forgotten. I confess I’ve not played the first three games, only watched 'em.

FE6-8 on GBA are all worth playing. Also it’s pretty easy to get Path of Radiance / Radiant Dawn going on an emulator on PCs and they’re well worth it. Path of Radiance is pretty easy but the story is great. Radiant Dawn can actually be pretty tough if you play on the hardest difficulty.

I can confirm that the DS/3DS games are definitely worth playing too. New Mystery of the Emblem looks quite interesting, I’ve only watched an LP of it though. Shadow Dragon isn’t rated as one of the best by the fanbase, so YMMV with that one.

Awakening and Fates both have questionable plots, especially the Conquest route of Fates, but both are well worth playing and have some great characters.

Echoes looks like such a great update to Gaiden in every way, everybody seems to rate it very highly and the gameplay looks solid from what I’ve watched.

I’m without a games console at the moment because I know if I replace my 3DS I’ll just stop working, but Heroes is proving to be a fun diversion. Infuriating as well, because I CAN’T GET OLWEN but mostly entertaining, I think they’ve done a good job of bringing FE to mobile.

Shame there’s, like, no story, and I think support conversations would make it much better considering the potential of having all the games’ heroes together in a room, but as a Pokémon gotta-catch-em-all game it’s fine. Not worth paying to play of course, but good.


#8

I kind of wish I had a decent PC or a 3DS, because I would love to stream/LP these games. Primarily because most of the regular LPers I’ve seen kinda suck at Fire Emblem.


#9

Have you played any other turn-based strategy game series? There are plenty of good games, e.g. the original X-Com, that run on any PC.


#10

I have extensive experience with turn-based strategy games.

I have a Chromebook that I crouton’d and use solely as an SSH terminal for work. That’s it.


#11

Can you run Linux games from Steam and GOG on Chrome OS or are there missing requirements?


#12

I am running Linux on it, so Steam is possible at least. Not sure about GOG, never tried that. Honestly not sure what games would run on this thing.


#13

I’m assuming that 10+ years old games would run fine on a weaker machine. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like X-Com: UFO Defense (1994) and Gorky 17 (1999) are compatible with Linux.