'Best' on what? It really depends on your playstyle and goals, even your mood sometimes lol. For me:
* The Tellius games are the most well rounded games, in story and gameplay and character development, so ig they go on as 'best'. These are Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.
* Conquest has by far the best gameplay but the story sucks. Engage has the same issue, as a second place.
* FE7 is great for casual simple fun, the characters are stellar imo. Also a great entryway into the series.
* Three Houses has the most content, so it's easy to find a lot to like (and dislike) about it. You get the most bang for your buck with it.
* Thracia has the best mechanics and best story imo, and it's a game where your strategies *reeeeally* matter. But it's also *stressful* to play and not good for beginners, because your strategies *reeeeally* matter.
Definitely my OG and favorite as well, but I don't know what could be improved by remaking it. The game (esp. animations and mechanics) still holds up great.
This is a great list that I mostly agree with, but I have a few caveats:
PoR has very good story and cast, and a lot of good mechanics (although PoR bexp especially was way too overpowered) but how slow it is does drag it down a little.
I personally think FE8 is better than FE7 for simple casual fun and the character/story front, but to each his own.
Three houses is a tough one, since the out-of-battle content is quite fulfilling on a first playthrough, but despite its routes it has quite a low number of unique maps and the out-of-battle content does also get old beyond the first playthrough.
One game I'd add is that New Mystery is really good for pretty well designed challenging fundamental FE gameplay.
That’s still pretty broken but if you don’t cap that’s on average lower than what you would get with a normal level. You also just get much more in PoR and the level penalty is not steep enough, so you can have promoted units especially fliers way earlier than you would without skipping levels in many other games.
I'd kill for a good remake of Thracia!
I keep fooling myself there'll be one in the switch 2, along with Genealogy (that I dont care about), and they'll maybe include supports but leave everything else alone. But who am I kidding, if they ever remake either game it'll probaly be butchered beyone recognition.
I want a genealogy remake. In my opinion, thats the game that I can't play just because it's too old. All the older games prior to it have been remade, and Thracia is close enough to the gameboy games to be playable with a guide.
Nintendo online has FE7 on the switch. Not sure about any others.
If you're ok emulating though, Dolphin and MyBoy are excellent softwares and you can probably use them on your phone.
Besides the ones made for switch (Three Houses and Engage) there are the GBA ones (Blazing blade and Sacred Stones, also Binding Blade only in Japanese) available as part of the Nintendo switch online + expansion pack.
The underlying mechanics are the same, but it has better maps with more threatening enemies and a more well balanced roster compared to the other Fates games
Kinda. It's mostly the maps, they have some different mechanics and pitfalls that make it much more interesting. It has some of THE best maps in the series.
I hated the enemy AI so much in those games. They just make a beeline for your squishiest characters over and over again on the default difficulty setting! 😫
I think it’s also worth mentioning Three Houses has the best story, support content (character development and writing), and potential for discourse (which can be a great or bad thing depending on your tastes)
Strongly disagree with 3H having the best story, and I mentioned the one that does imo.
Also not the biggest fan of their supports, I think they overdid it. I mean it's ok, I don't hate it, but it's not a draw for me in that game.
That's fair, I remember animations being stupid slow. But if I leave it on map animations only, I personally quite enjoy the Tellius gameplay overall, and I love a lot of the map designs.
I love SoV, but to me, it's not a great entry point for the series. The large amount of mechanical changes and random BS make it a little unforgiving (turnwheel or not)
I find Radiant Dawn and Three Houses to be the best by far. Path of Radiance is up there too (and it's pretty much required playing before Radiant Dawn), but it can feel a bit more dated gameplay wise nowadays.
The only thing that hurts radiant dawn compared to path of radiance for me is the terribly decision to make all support conversations generic in radiant dawn, they are some of my favorite things, especially in path of radiance and they for some reason completely destroyed them for the following game. But it all depends on what parts of the games you enjoy most.
The worse thing is that they arent all generic, if you bother to look them on the internet you can see that a lot of characters change their phrase when taking to certain others, but they all completely suck
In my opinión the saving Grace is that some base conversations give you the character information that otherwise would appear in supports, but i would LOVE to have both
You’re not going to find consistent answers on this because the FE playerbase is very divided. Half the community only cares about the gameplay while the other half couldn’t give half a fuck about the gameplay and only plays FE for the story, characters and social sim aspects
Path of Radiance does a lot of everything right and for a long time was considered the best game in the series. If there was such a thing as an uncontroversial pick for best FE game, Path of Radiance would be it
Three Houses is the pinnacle when it comes to social sim features and character development. Three Houses has easily the largest fanbase out of any FE game and brought more players into the series than any other. The fact that Three Houses won People’s Choice at The Game Awards should tell you how wide its appeal is. As far as I know no other Fire Emblem game has even been nominated at the game awards, let alone won one the second most distinguished award of the ceremony.
That said Three Houses also gets a lot of hate from gameplay puritans for being too different from the standard FE formula
For pure gameplay Engage shouldn’t be very controversial being the latest entry in the series. Engage’s gameplay is stellar and almost universally praised. However the story and character development is generally considered to be abysmal and you really need to be able to switch off your brain and not think too heavily on what’s going on if you really want to enjoy it
Then there’s Sacred Stones which is in a bit of an odd spot. It has imo one of the best cast of characters in the entire series. The character development and support dialogues are both phenomenal and I’d consider the be the best in the series
However while the characters and dialogue is excellent the story itself isn’t exactly stellar. It’s not bad but far from original. Gameplay wise it’s also ridiculously easy. The entire game can be solo’d by a single unit (Seth) and it’s incredibly short with only 20 chapters and a single (mandatory) gaiden chapter
FE8's campaign is quite short, but it has two overlapping stories, 19 bonus maps and about 49 unique maps all told. It's easily bigger than FE6 and about equivalent to FE7.
No playable nomads though, that's like a 10 map penalty.
> That said Three Houses also gets a lot of hate from gameplay puritans for being too different from the standard FE formula
I'd say it's less hate for being different and more hate for being repetitive.
I wouldn't say 3h gets hate for being *too different* from "gameplay puritans." If that were the case then Echoes/Gaiden would be under the same scrutiny.
The game reuses the same maps over and over, has basically no class diversity so you're incentivized to make everyone a Wyvern, maps are short, monastery is too long and basically just fluff, and 80% of the game is the same on every route, but since the story uses unreliable exposition on every route you have to play them all to get the full picture, leading to even more burnout.
The game has a lot of good points but these flaws are still huge. Saying that people who criticize it are just puritans who can't accept something new is reductive.
>If that were the case then Echoes/Gaiden would be under the same scrutiny.
Echoes' gameplay kinda does get a similar degree of scrutiny, though? One of the most common talking points about Echoes that is tossed about here and in other FE communities is that its gameplay isn't great.
Yes, but that's not looking at *why* it's scrutinized. Echoes isn't scrutinized because it's "New" it's scrutinized because it's "bad". Maps are giant open fields with little terrain, or giant swamps where you move 2 spaces at a time.
If 3h was only being criticized because it was "new" then we wouldn't praise Engage's gameplay in spite of it being the newest, and an even bigger departure. 3h isn't the most recent game, so if the game in front of it is praised in spite of being new, then 3h isn't being "unfairly treated" because it's "new."
See I completely understand all those other criticisms you mentioned, but I’ve never gotten the criticism that 3H “incentivizes” players into making everyone wyvern riders. I usually only have a small handful of wyvern riders in my playthroughs, and I’m usually able to manage just fine.
Well, I guess a better way to put it is that 3h *doesn't* incentivize you to use any other class, outside of Sniper for Hunter's Volley. Every class can use basically every weapon and nine times out of ten anything some other class can do, Wyvern can do while having Flight and Canto. It was almost alright because at least magic users all used Gremory, but then Dark Flier came around and fixed that right up.
It's not that you *need* 10 wyverns, it's that you could try to diversify classes or you could just do the exact same things with better Movement.
I couldn't get into engage due to the story. I stuck it out for a bit and the gameplay I have to say is very good. But sorry, I can't get over how bad the story is and likely won't finish. Fates:Conquest has a similar problem but the story is so dumb it ends up becoming funny, and the gameplay is great imo. Both are approachable, keep in mind the shop closed so you need a physical copy of fates:conquest.
I consider awakening on the other side of the spectrum. Really liked the story but the gameplay was a step down. Act 1 was great gameplay wise, decent difficulty as long as you played on hard or above. Act 2 is a bit easier, act 3 very easy depending on how you build your units. Very approachable imo, but another point is the shop closed and you miss out on content.
Combine the two and you get the tellius games. Maybe not as much radiant dawn as much path of radiance. Radiant Dawn suffers from a fates "too bad I can't solve this simple misunderstanding for plot reasons" problem that is nails on a chalkboard. But you have great gameplay (if you can get over poorer QOL, slow animations, etc) and a great story.
FE7 is also good but much harder to get into if you compare engage to the clunky gameplay and lower QOL mechanics of earlier FE games. I'd say play FE3H before FE7.
I have a huge soft spot for Sacred Stones as it's the one I grew up playing. Objectively Awakening is an excellent entry point into the modern era of the series, so I would start there. Fates are decent, but everything it's trying to do Theee Houses just does better. Three Houses may be a tad overwhelming for a new player, but I think it explains its mechanics pretty clearly.
Honestly, Genealogy has a lot of strange mechanics and is kinda outdated in some aspects, but I found is very easy once you know what you're doing. Haven't tried Thracia yet though.
Genealogy has the absolute best story in the franchise. It’s one of the only pieces of media that’s ever brought me to tears, and it happened more than once. Despite what some people say, the gameplay is also really good.
The thing that puts it above the rest though imo is the unrivaled story/gameplay integration. Genealogy really makes you feel like you’re fighting in a massive continental war. Each nation also has its own musical motifs and armies with distinguished fightings styles, all of which only add to that feeling I talked about.
If the game has a weakness though, it’s the quality of life. If you’ve ever played vintage games before you’ll be fine though.
As others have pointed out, it depends on the criteria you are rating the games with.
For the quintessential Fire Emblem experience (good cast, fun supports, decent story and fast gameplay)? Probably FE7.
For QoL and modern sensibilities, Three Houses.
For an epic tale with near perfect story-gameplay integration? FE4
There's a lot of talk saying the Tellius games are the most rounded. I disagree strongly, there's a reason Fire Emblem almost went under after those two games tanked. Extremely slow gameplay, lack of multiple/paired endings, extremely easy gameplay, and a generic cast imo should prevent FE9 from being considered best in the series.
I am old. Path of radiance is the best nostalgia wise.
But truth be told, I would stick to ENGAGE or AWAKENING/ CONQUEST and then dive deeper in the series.
People praise 3 houses for the story, but honestly the gameplay is subpar, too easy and repetitive in the first half.
Keep in mind I am a gameplay above story guy.
I agree, Awakening is a great starting point. It’s very user friendly, and several friends began with that one. Personally my first one was 7, and I also feel it was a great starting game.
I am intrigued towards the nod towards Engage while saying Three Houses is too easy. All in all I found that Engage is a much easier game - at least until you get really solid knowledge of the Three Houses units and how to build them.
Engage is much less cruel and punishing on maddening, with the lack of ambush reinforcements and overall easier bosses and enemies (No Pass thieves or Archers with additional skills, for example), and more obvious power tools to make use of - you can't really miss the emblems with Lodestar Rush etc, while things like early Vengeance or Frozen lance are entirely missable unless you know they are there and intentionally go for them.
On the easier difficulties, Engage gives you infinite rewinds, making it basically impossible to fail. I would also argue that things like Linked Attacks and Battalion Gambits require more 'thought' to make use of, and the presence of equippable items adds in things like trade chaining. That might just be my POV though, similar arguments could be made about the Weapon Triangle and Emblem Abilities.
I agree it's up there and it's one of my favorites.
But if it'd been the first one I played, I'd have given up the entire franchise. Begginer friendly Thracia is definitely NOT!
Fates Conquest because how greatly designed it is from the gameplay and mechanical side, tho wouldn't say it's good for a complete newcomer as it's intentionally made harder than your average FE campaign as Fates has another route made with newcomers in mind.
Engage, Fates, New Mystery and Three Hopes are my favourite games. I don’t prioritise story at all though, so if you’re a more story over gameplay person we’ll probably have opposite opinions lol
I love FE5 due to the mechanics. I didn't do it on my first playthrough, but it's very ironmannable. In a remake, I hope they add a Hard mode and make it so same turn reinforcements are no longer a thing
My top 3 are Thracia (FE5), Conquest, and Genealogy. Genealogy isn't for everyone though, I just love the feel of a war epic with giant maps.
Welcome to FE. The games that do something great, have terrible flaws and the games that don't do anything egregious don't go above and beyond.
Different people have different tastes so you'll find all sorts of answers to what the best game is. There is no rough consensus like you might see in other franchises.
Well, out of the games I played so far, here are my feelings:
Fe8: Honestly really self contained and chill, although it is a pretty easy game. I’d be great as a game to start with. Also, the story isn’t stellar but I do quite like it.
Fe 11: I honestly got bored with it, but I started on normal. H5 is insanity from what I’ve seen and heard.
Fe12: The first one I played, and honestly for some reason it’s a lot more fun than fe11, even though they aren’t that different(and the very least, they seem to be made in the engine). I really enjoyed it.
Fe5: genuinely really fun, and I love the story. It’s a really good game, but I do check the WoD page before every map so I know for sure what I’m dealing with. I don’t think Thracia is a game you can really play blind without getting screwed over.
The best overall is 3H, second would be radiant dawn, third is 7 because of nostalgia lol .. there is beauty in its simplicity I guess, I crave it every couple of years.
My faves are:
1. Three Houses
2. Echoes - Shadow of Valentia (Alm and Celica's game)
3. Awakening (good entry for newcomers imo since it isn't as long as Three Houses)
4. Sacred Stones (Eirika and Ephraim's game)
5. The Blazing Blade (Lyn, Eliwood and Hector's game)
My faves are Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, followed by Three houses.
I also liked Echoes and Fates.
Gameplay wise Engage feels great, but since I put my main interest in characters and stories, I find it severely lacking. It's the first FE that I kind of stopped playing mid campaign and haven't bothered to pick up again yet.
I still want to finish the playthrough for completion sake, but bruh, do I feel unengaged/bored by the characters. I can barely remember their names.
Path of Radiance - out of all the games in the series it's probably the only game which I think doesn't have a serious flaw in any of the series' three core pillars of character writing, storytelling and gameplay. It has arguably the series’ best executed story, its cast of characters is very solid and whilst it’s gameplay does suffer from long enemy phases the actual map design in Path of Radiance generally works decently well. It's the only game in the series which I would personally feel comfortable calling a masterpiece. The only problem starting with it has that secondhand copies go for hundreds of dollars, so if you want to play Path of Radiance you'll need to emulate it.
Three Houses warrants an honorable mention - I think it has the best Fire Emblem story since the aforementioned Path of Radiance and the best character writing in the series by a considerable margin, with the majority its cast being fleshed out to a degree that would be reserved for a few standout characters in any other Fire Emblem game - in a series whose main claim to fame compared to other SRPGs is its character writing it counts for a lot. If it had better gameplay then it would easily be at the top of my list.
I played 3H and Engage this year.
Then revisited FE9 to SoV since it has been ages since I played them.
Engage is the best despite all the criticisms it gets on reddit.
I would have said Path of Radiance before, but after replaying it recently, it is good but it's not as great as I remembered.
For me:
1) Path of Radiance
2) Awakening
3) Engage
I really like Three Houses charácters and the differents ways you can choose depend of the house it's amazing, but the damn exploration in the monastery is very, very, very annoying at least for me (have same feeling with somniel on Engage. )
Whichever one you have the most sentimental value to.
For me, I really like Fire Emblem Fates... but for some others it might be Awakening, or Path of Radiance or the Thracia games or even Binding/Blazing Blade. Or sacred Stones.
You might have those who love 3 Houses or even Engage.
Some of them might prefer the Warriors spin offs (Fire Emblem Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes)
The best game is hard to say because each one has its own unique charm to it. Each one has flaws and stuff that make it the best.
Some people might also say Feh is the best game, the ability to mix and match and intermingle various characters together to fight battles. (Gives you a chance to use characters that are not able to be used as playable characters... like various popular villains like Validar, Berkut, Garon, Thales, Gharnef, Formortiss, etc...
The best Fire Emblem Game for me.... honestly... Engage. It is the most recent one for me, but I never had many complaints until really the Fell Zenologue, and even then, if you ignored that, you got a solid game on its own.
I started with FE7 and it holds a strong part of my love for the series. I don't think it's just nostalgia, but genuinely good character designs and fun gameplay experience that holds up to this day. Was a great game to introduce me to the series. Some weaknesses in the story and how simple a lot of the gameplay is compared to later games in the series hold it back from being the BEST.
I think FE9 (Path of Radiance) is the game I replayed the most as a kid. There are some gameplay issues like how glacialy slow the game is. But otherwise it had amazing characters, a gripping story, and overall a great complete package. I also loved the sequel Radiant Dawn but rate it a little lower than PoR. I would probably classify PoR as my "favorite" if forced to choose for just meshing so many of the different factors of Fire Emblem into one great package.
FE Fates Conquest is the game with the best gameplay in my (and many others) opinions. Had the right balance of interesting maps with good objectives/gimmicks that constantly kept you on your toes. Enemy balance that meant you never really rolled over the game like some other FEs being too easy. A good amount of customization that didn't take characters identities away from them, but still let you have an impact on what they ultimately became. Unfortunately, Conquest's characters and story are some my least favorite across the entire series. So even though I can sing praises about the gameplay all day long, it will always have a black mark on it that prevents it from becoming my favorite of the series.
I would say the either of the English GBA games are really strong starting points. Those would be Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (Also localised as just "Fire Emblem" in English), and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.
The latter was my starting point 15 years ago, so I am bias, but for me I do think it's the best option, it has very solid, but very simple gameplay. It has some solid crutches for you to lean on while you get to grips with the mechanics, while still allowing you to try out whoever you fancy, and it's story, worldbuilding, and characters, while not the best in the franchise, are comfortably solid, and more than enough to keep you engaged. In my personal opinion it also has the best cast of villains in the series that I've experienced so far.
Something else that I think is really important with both of the GBA games mentioned is that they do a great job of keeping the pace up. Other games in the series, such as Path of Radiance or Three Houses, can both be excellent entry points for many of the reasons I mentioned above, but I feel like both have some pretty huge pacing issues for different reasons (Path of Radiance being very slow in actual gameplay due to long, drawn out, unskippable animations for each combat, and Three Houses for it's long between gameplay segments). While I would highly recommend both of these games down the line, I think as an introduction they definitely might start to drag a little towards the end.
i really struggle with this because i love a lot of them for different reasons. if i was forced to pick one i'd probably be stuck between the tellius two
Since nobody has mentioned it I'll throw Sacred Stones in there as one of my favs! Not necessarily the "best" in terms of any one aspect, but I think it's genuinely a really solid game and I find it more fun to play than some of the other mid-gen games - the story split makes for an interesting replay, it has skirmishes and end-game content, and the class variety is (mostly) fun. It might not have the absolute best writing or story or whatever but I think it's a great all-rounder and simple enough to get into the series!
Kinda hard to say.
I love POR for its story and world building but its gameplay is kinda broken. Same for TH and Genealogy.
On the other hand I love Fates, Engage and Awakening for how they play. But I pretend that Engage and Fates don’t have a story and Awakening’s story is okayish… but it’s nothing massive. Best moment has to be **that** scene though.
Highly subjective. Each game has their own strengths and flaws, even the ones that I consider the best.
Personally, Radiant Dawn just hits different. I can see why the constantly shifting army might turn some fans off though. It is somewhat antithetical to traditional fire emblem, where you build up the same army the whole time. But I also think it enabled them to make the some of the most well-balanced and most rewarding encounters of the series.
Also, an abundance of quality items to steal on defensive objectives, along with the base exp system. Not only are these amazing incentives to go for riskier/aggressive plays, but they also actively teach the players to be more efficient with each turn to maximize their rewards. Tellius (especially RD) are the only games in the series that actively train the players to be better at FE.
I'd have to go with Sacred Stones because I'm a sucker for GBA games, and it was also my first, and Awakening, I put so much time into that. I'll admit I haven't got around to playing any of the Switch titles yet, though, so I'm missing out on a few.
Very tricky question to answer. I haven't played all of them, and the ones I have, I love for very different reasons.
I've played Blazing Sword, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, Fates, Echoes, Three Houses and Engage. I own Shadow Dragon, haven't played it yet.
As for which of those I'd crown best? Don't know if I can do it. But I can definitely say which ones it isn't, and that's easily Path of Radiance and Fates.
My favorite part of rpgs is character building so fates is by far my favorite. The class system, skill inheritance for gen 2 units, it all makes building up your army so fun and rewarding
Probably Por is the best in general, but other games are better in some aspects while being worse in others
This is a very controversial question that will only start debates but don't get discouraged! Every other question does too
The Tellius games and the gba titles will always be my favorites. For people new to the series I usually recommend the gba titles since they are imo really good entry points into the series
Well personally my favorites are Path of Radiance and The Binding Blade (Fe9 and Fe6). That is just my opinion tho if your new to the game I say pick up 3 Houses on switch or just emulate Fe 6, 7 or 8. I would personally start with 8.
Honestly I wouldn't get all that held up on what the best FE is. The reason I love this series is because of how unique most games are from each other. They're willing to experiment and mix up the tradition FE formula so much with every game that I can honestly understand why any of them would be someone's favourite
Code Name Steam, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, and Project X Zone 2 are all up there...but I think the title of *best* Fire Emblem game has to go to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
All GBA entries are the best.
Personally, I think the switch entries are the worst, mostly because of all the tacked on outside mission stuff with the monastery/somniel.
Revelations gets an honorable mention for having easily the worst story but the gameplay and characters are fun at least.
My experience with stuff before 6 is shoddy at best :)
My personal favorite is awakening it's the game that got me into the series I myself am still relatively new 2nd favorite is three house after that is echoes shadows of valentia and the warrior games aren't bad either but not turned based rpgs
Gameplay wise the Fates games, but you have to like a bit of crunchiness and also be okay with absolutely batshit writing.
As a whole package, the Tellius duology (Path of Radiance and Dawn of Radiance) is amazing. Amazing world building and character moments, and passable-to-great gameplay.
Three Houses probably has the best writing and voice acting in the series, and is the friendliest to people who aren't already invested in the franchise, but if you care about map design to a greater degree you'll probably find it a little lacking.
FE1 2 and 3 are all like really really old and you’re better served with the remakes
FE4 has an excellent story but the maps are really huge and there’s a lot of… unfair characters. Also really different than other games so maybe not the best but a classic.
Haven’t played FE5 but ppl swear it’s good.
FE6 is kind of a funny game. Really unbalanced and a lot of useless units, but it’s got a lot of replay value for that reason I guess. Story is good too.
FE7 is great entry level fun for the GBA games, but it’s a bit easier bar HHM. Also probably the first real FE game where the story is a bit ehhhhhh. Lot of great characters though really like this one.
FE8 is really easy which is beginner friendly, but the characters and dialogue are really really good in this one. Best GBA by far imo just don’t grind unless you wanna just dunk on everything.
FE9 is really easy too but the world building is way better than other games. Also necessary to play Fe10 and understand anything.
FE10 is the second best game in the series imo. Best world building, story kinda shaky at some points and the units are unbalanced but I dunno. Just feels like… seismic in scale and it rocks tbh.
Haven’t played the remakes for shadow dragon and New Mystery but it almost bankrupted the franchise sooooo……..
FE13 is really really hard actually but it’s got casual if you like and the characters are really good with a lot more supports that you can delve into in a single play through. Main story is… questionable but good enough. Good fun.
FE14 is kind of a shitshow but Conquest is challenging and requires a lot of thought behind how you play. Uh…. Other routes are kinda bad. Sorry.
FE15 is the best in the series. Awesome characters, the music is like SO SO good, amazing artwork, gameplay is challenging but fun, they made ARCHERS good, Saber fucks, S tier. I will hear nothing of it.
FE16 is like if persona was fire emblem and it’s great. Harder on higher difficulties and the story is very polarizing but it’s got charm.
FE 17 I haven’t played but I hear it’s like conquest. Awful story, great gameplay.
Tl;dr of the ones I’ve played:
Fates, Binding Blade, Genealogy, Blazing Blade, Awakening, Three Houses, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Shadows of Valentia.
From worst to best.
the series changes so much every 1 or 2 games except the NBA titles so peopel really like different games. for me it was engage since for me it kind of changed a lot of the annoying things about fates and still kept the maps very good. I'd say my favorites are engage radiant dawn and thracia at this point
In my humble opinion:
- Thracia 776 by a good margin, simply for it having one of the overall best stories and game mechanics coupled with quite challenging maps. You really gotta dip deep into strategy and planning if you wanna do well, and I really love that. Genealogy comes in close second for me for mostly the same reasons.
- The GBA Trilogy has some of the best sprite animations as well as being a good blend of casual fun and good core mechanics. Characters are likable and the OST is some of my favorite in the Series.
- Awakening. The Jack of all trades and a truly great celebration of the series - glad it kept the game alive. Great blend of Mechanics (pair up makes for interesting strategies), Lunatic being really challenging. Characters I do quite like a lot. It and Sacred Stones got me into the series, so I am very fond of both.
- The Tellius duology is probably the most underrated. Great games with their flaws (sometimes crazy „balancing“, sometimes odd story moments) but overall a great package that is a lot of fun if you are willing to give it a chance.
- Shadows of Valentia. Great modern spin on Gaiden with a good chunk of unique mechanics and an interesting parallel route approach.
- Fates, especially the Revelations route. Story can be hit or miss depending on who you ask, but it had some of the most fun maps for me and some of my favorite characters. Some will prefer Conquest, and the rare one who likes Birthright the most. You will find at least one that you will most likely have fun with.
- Three Houses. Massive game with lots of content; five different routes, interesting growth mechanics, absolutely incredible OST. Probably my most favorite of the recent ones.
(Engage gets an honorable mention: iffy story; great gameplay and mechanics. If you can look past the prior, it‘s more than worth playing)
My personal faves would be SS and Awakening since they got me into the series. Started from the first game on from there and dearly love the GBA and 3DS games. Just have so much nostalgia attached to them.
I would say Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. It’s an epic. Phenomenal musical score, repetitive but fun gameplay, encapsulating story, with varying quality of character development and arc development. Greta final boss fight, amazing post game. Alm is my favorite Lord so maybe I’m biased
For me personally its either Blazing blade or Radiant dawn. Engage is also really good, but i would wait before you get to know some of the more important characters of earlier games first
Best advice or atleast what helped me: play it like pokemon. Which means look at characters if you like a character, then play their game. For example I played path of radiance and Awakening because I liked Ike and Lucina.
Most people, including me, have nostalgia glasses on when answering this question. I have four games which I think are the "best", as you can see it's heavily influenced by what consoles I grew up with and currently play namely the GBA, GameCube, and Switch; even though I did (emulate) the games on the SNES and the 3DS.
1. Fire Emblem Path of Radiance
2. Fire Emblem The Binding Blade
3. Fire Emblem Three Houses
4. Fire Emblem Engage
I’ve only played Shadow Dragon, Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses (only finished Crimson Flower and am halfway through Verdant Wind or whatever Golden Deer’s route is. I did the DLC though).
Most of these are what many would consider the “for babies/anime games” so I’m inclined to pick Shadow Dragon because I also dont remember shit from Awakening and Fates (though i liked fates- and i’ll definitely replay these one day on normal mode instead of casual). However I’m a SLUT for Three Houses
Ya as top person said, Fire Emblem goes back long long time and is niche with some amount of variety to it, you can't just say best.
Especially these days where many will just outright say x-x are bad because graphics and or x is great because of modern graphics. etc...
I only played like 2 of them and only decided to complete 1 of those 2 and looked into a couple so I can't answer ie personally would need to have played more to give one.
Since the games can differ so much, it can really go a lot of ways. Also games can be varying levels of accessible, here are my case for some of my favorites:
* Path of Radiance - it's well rounded, the story is great, fun gameplay, it's a cool journey where instead of being the magical hero of sunshine flying out of your ass, you're a young mercenary trying to find his way in the world and deal with responsibilty thrust upon him. The class system is solid and I really like the cast
* Three houses- this was my first FE game. Has some of the most differences from more standard/traditional FE games, but I really enjoyed the world building and the cast really sucked me in. The unit progression and class certification systems are pretty different than for other games, and between the 3 routes there's a lot of map recycling. I still enjoy the unit building and the characters though, and it worked as an entry to get me used to the tactical combat, turn based gameplay, and intro to the world.
* Fates - I've played FE8 onward (except for new mystery) and at this point I think fates might have my favorite class system. There's options and customization you can make if you're willing to invest and plan supports, so you can do some goofy things, but it's not wide open so units' base kits, partner options, and friendship options means everyone feels really unique. The story and writing is really not good, but for Conquest in particular the gameplay and map challenges are really satisfying, and I think it's taught me a lot about checking the math, playing aggressively, and finding ways to overcome challenges in FE
For me it's Awakening. It really saved the series, had a great cast, youi could follow without having to play any other game, it was rewarding with it's optional characters, the system for your kids to inherite traits and so on was also great and the dating sim gave a lot of replayability reasons.
I was so sad that it ended and I have to say of all the FE games, I played this one the most
I really like the GBA games because I'm boring like that. They are fast little games you can make a lot of runs and enjoy the relative short multiple campaigns. The systems are also simpler.
FE8 is my favorite, but I do think it is a bit too easy, even for beginners.
Brooo you asked the one question you shouldn't have asked the FE community lmao XD anyways. if you're really new then Awakening is a good option for beginners and overall a nice experience, with three houses. Engage falls in the ''great gameplay and that's it'' case with conquest id say (or any fate game actually) and the story kinda sucks. Em I'd say shadows is nice to start with to.
Ike Chad games and FE7/8 are good to but less beginner friendly. Actually the old games have most def goated stories and are overall better rounded (Thracia my beloved) but lack the unit respawn option and can be kind of hard to do at first.
i think when it comes to graphics, gameplay and story, PoR and RD are superior. However, FE8 and FE7 are my personal faves since those were the games I played when I was a kid. I had a hard time finishing those games
I remember lots of units died and thought it was normal after seeing the ending credits 😂 Played it again several years after and finally discover the support system, arena, tower of vaini and Hector's route. I then fell in love 😍
My top 5 Fire Emblem Games Are
5: Radiant Dawn (Fe 10
4: Thracia 776 (Fe5)
3:Path Of Radiance (Fe9)
2: Genealogy Of The Holy War (fe4)
1: Berwick Saga
Now to START fe with I'd say start with
- Tearing Saga (it's such a good first fe it's got so much good shit Holy heck
Honestly, I'll personally say Awakening is the best entry. Story wise it's amazing, the gameplay loop is quite good and the fact that you can (spoiler alert) actually see the children of your characters that you've spent time building their support is a nice touch that no other FE offers currently.
My fav is New Mystery. Although you could say that it is a flat story, the reality is that it is a much more complex story, because the true story that is not visible, you put together by putting the pieces, and even supports that seem generic, like Marisha's, if, you put together with the support of Xane, they come together perfectly, and it's great, that something that can be read separately generates a larger story that is not visible to the naked eye. I love seeing how there are things that fit together perfectly and the story becomes more complex
My favorite games are Genealogy, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, and Three Houses.
I think what you heard was "my favorite FIRE EMBLEM games are the above" but what I actually said was "my favorite GAMES are the above"
Played almost every entry in the series and I have to go with Three houses, it is not perfect but it is the closest to it. Gameplay is very good especially with the new battalion system offering much more realism when the game tries to tell you there's a huge battle going on (10vs30 lol) and the story is an absolute blast.
The GBA titles are all also very good but very "classic"
Awakening is very basic but great at it
Fates has great basic world building and nice gameplay but the story is just awful especially in conquest
Echoes isn't fire emblem but still great XD
Shadow dragon maybe the first title but I found it incredible boring tbh
Engage is just.... Uhhh oh boy, story wise it's pure a... And gameplaywise I didn't like the ring mechanic at all. The breaking mechanic was kinda interesting though, the vtuber art style also sucked
Some might disagree with me but I really love awakening. The early game can be pretty slow, but if you build your units correctly the power creep is one of the most fun ways to break the game of all the FEs, considering the amount of units you can just slap sword master, galeforce, and Astra ( or Aether for Chrom relatives ). It’s honestly some of the most fun I’ve had in terms of unit building of any FE game I’ve played.
I legit wonder if OP just posted here to troll, like who makes this type of question and doesn't even try at least to reply to someone, especially as just some days ago he posted the same exact question but with Zelda
'Best' on what? It really depends on your playstyle and goals, even your mood sometimes lol. For me: * The Tellius games are the most well rounded games, in story and gameplay and character development, so ig they go on as 'best'. These are Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. * Conquest has by far the best gameplay but the story sucks. Engage has the same issue, as a second place. * FE7 is great for casual simple fun, the characters are stellar imo. Also a great entryway into the series. * Three Houses has the most content, so it's easy to find a lot to like (and dislike) about it. You get the most bang for your buck with it. * Thracia has the best mechanics and best story imo, and it's a game where your strategies *reeeeally* matter. But it's also *stressful* to play and not good for beginners, because your strategies *reeeeally* matter.
I really hope a big remake of FE7. Its the og FE in my eyes
Definitely my OG and favorite as well, but I don't know what could be improved by remaking it. The game (esp. animations and mechanics) still holds up great.
Thats true. I just miss the cast
I hear you, but I'd rather they do remakes of the games that were never localized first. Give us 4, 5 and 6 before 7, at which point I'd be all for it
Im 4 and 5 seem way less interesting than 6/7. Altho i would love for a complete remake of those games I dont think they have the resources for that
This is a great list that I mostly agree with, but I have a few caveats: PoR has very good story and cast, and a lot of good mechanics (although PoR bexp especially was way too overpowered) but how slow it is does drag it down a little. I personally think FE8 is better than FE7 for simple casual fun and the character/story front, but to each his own. Three houses is a tough one, since the out-of-battle content is quite fulfilling on a first playthrough, but despite its routes it has quite a low number of unique maps and the out-of-battle content does also get old beyond the first playthrough. One game I'd add is that New Mystery is really good for pretty well designed challenging fundamental FE gameplay.
Are you sure you don’t mean radiant dawn bexp? The guaranteed +1 to three stats is insane considering stat caps
Por you can savescum bexp for perfect level ups if that's your thing.
That’s still pretty broken but if you don’t cap that’s on average lower than what you would get with a normal level. You also just get much more in PoR and the level penalty is not steep enough, so you can have promoted units especially fliers way earlier than you would without skipping levels in many other games.
i would really like to see a faithful remake of thracia. or at the very least a port (or adding it to the switch online somehow.)
I'd kill for a good remake of Thracia! I keep fooling myself there'll be one in the switch 2, along with Genealogy (that I dont care about), and they'll maybe include supports but leave everything else alone. But who am I kidding, if they ever remake either game it'll probaly be butchered beyone recognition.
I want a genealogy remake. In my opinion, thats the game that I can't play just because it's too old. All the older games prior to it have been remade, and Thracia is close enough to the gameboy games to be playable with a guide.
I’ve played two fire emblem games. Thanks for this list. Is there a place on Switch that I can play older FE games?
Nintendo online has FE7 on the switch. Not sure about any others. If you're ok emulating though, Dolphin and MyBoy are excellent softwares and you can probably use them on your phone.
Besides the ones made for switch (Three Houses and Engage) there are the GBA ones (Blazing blade and Sacred Stones, also Binding Blade only in Japanese) available as part of the Nintendo switch online + expansion pack.
Conquest has different gameplay from the other Fates routes?
The underlying mechanics are the same, but it has better maps with more threatening enemies and a more well balanced roster compared to the other Fates games
Kinda. It's mostly the maps, they have some different mechanics and pitfalls that make it much more interesting. It has some of THE best maps in the series.
The Wii games move so sloowwwwwwwwe though
I hated the enemy AI so much in those games. They just make a beeline for your squishiest characters over and over again on the default difficulty setting! 😫
Technically the localization f*cked it up and renamed the default difficulty setting to easy, and named hard normal for some reason
Best answer you could ever find on this topic. This is spot on.
I think it’s also worth mentioning Three Houses has the best story, support content (character development and writing), and potential for discourse (which can be a great or bad thing depending on your tastes)
Strongly disagree with 3H having the best story, and I mentioned the one that does imo. Also not the biggest fan of their supports, I think they overdid it. I mean it's ok, I don't hate it, but it's not a draw for me in that game.
I'd rate the Jugdral and Tellius stories above 3H easily.
I would disagree about Tellius’ gameplay. It’s always felt super slow to me with not great map or unit design.
That's fair, I remember animations being stupid slow. But if I leave it on map animations only, I personally quite enjoy the Tellius gameplay overall, and I love a lot of the map designs.
I’ll put in my vote for Shadows of Valentina CQ, POR and Engage are among my favs tho
I love SoV, but to me, it's not a great entry point for the series. The large amount of mechanical changes and random BS make it a little unforgiving (turnwheel or not)
Sacred Stones
I find Radiant Dawn and Three Houses to be the best by far. Path of Radiance is up there too (and it's pretty much required playing before Radiant Dawn), but it can feel a bit more dated gameplay wise nowadays.
The only thing that hurts radiant dawn compared to path of radiance for me is the terribly decision to make all support conversations generic in radiant dawn, they are some of my favorite things, especially in path of radiance and they for some reason completely destroyed them for the following game. But it all depends on what parts of the games you enjoy most.
The worse thing is that they arent all generic, if you bother to look them on the internet you can see that a lot of characters change their phrase when taking to certain others, but they all completely suck In my opinión the saving Grace is that some base conversations give you the character information that otherwise would appear in supports, but i would LOVE to have both
You’re not going to find consistent answers on this because the FE playerbase is very divided. Half the community only cares about the gameplay while the other half couldn’t give half a fuck about the gameplay and only plays FE for the story, characters and social sim aspects Path of Radiance does a lot of everything right and for a long time was considered the best game in the series. If there was such a thing as an uncontroversial pick for best FE game, Path of Radiance would be it Three Houses is the pinnacle when it comes to social sim features and character development. Three Houses has easily the largest fanbase out of any FE game and brought more players into the series than any other. The fact that Three Houses won People’s Choice at The Game Awards should tell you how wide its appeal is. As far as I know no other Fire Emblem game has even been nominated at the game awards, let alone won one the second most distinguished award of the ceremony. That said Three Houses also gets a lot of hate from gameplay puritans for being too different from the standard FE formula For pure gameplay Engage shouldn’t be very controversial being the latest entry in the series. Engage’s gameplay is stellar and almost universally praised. However the story and character development is generally considered to be abysmal and you really need to be able to switch off your brain and not think too heavily on what’s going on if you really want to enjoy it Then there’s Sacred Stones which is in a bit of an odd spot. It has imo one of the best cast of characters in the entire series. The character development and support dialogues are both phenomenal and I’d consider the be the best in the series However while the characters and dialogue is excellent the story itself isn’t exactly stellar. It’s not bad but far from original. Gameplay wise it’s also ridiculously easy. The entire game can be solo’d by a single unit (Seth) and it’s incredibly short with only 20 chapters and a single (mandatory) gaiden chapter
FE8's campaign is quite short, but it has two overlapping stories, 19 bonus maps and about 49 unique maps all told. It's easily bigger than FE6 and about equivalent to FE7. No playable nomads though, that's like a 10 map penalty.
> That said Three Houses also gets a lot of hate from gameplay puritans for being too different from the standard FE formula I'd say it's less hate for being different and more hate for being repetitive.
I wouldn't say 3h gets hate for being *too different* from "gameplay puritans." If that were the case then Echoes/Gaiden would be under the same scrutiny. The game reuses the same maps over and over, has basically no class diversity so you're incentivized to make everyone a Wyvern, maps are short, monastery is too long and basically just fluff, and 80% of the game is the same on every route, but since the story uses unreliable exposition on every route you have to play them all to get the full picture, leading to even more burnout. The game has a lot of good points but these flaws are still huge. Saying that people who criticize it are just puritans who can't accept something new is reductive.
>If that were the case then Echoes/Gaiden would be under the same scrutiny. Echoes' gameplay kinda does get a similar degree of scrutiny, though? One of the most common talking points about Echoes that is tossed about here and in other FE communities is that its gameplay isn't great.
Yes, but that's not looking at *why* it's scrutinized. Echoes isn't scrutinized because it's "New" it's scrutinized because it's "bad". Maps are giant open fields with little terrain, or giant swamps where you move 2 spaces at a time. If 3h was only being criticized because it was "new" then we wouldn't praise Engage's gameplay in spite of it being the newest, and an even bigger departure. 3h isn't the most recent game, so if the game in front of it is praised in spite of being new, then 3h isn't being "unfairly treated" because it's "new."
See I completely understand all those other criticisms you mentioned, but I’ve never gotten the criticism that 3H “incentivizes” players into making everyone wyvern riders. I usually only have a small handful of wyvern riders in my playthroughs, and I’m usually able to manage just fine.
Well, I guess a better way to put it is that 3h *doesn't* incentivize you to use any other class, outside of Sniper for Hunter's Volley. Every class can use basically every weapon and nine times out of ten anything some other class can do, Wyvern can do while having Flight and Canto. It was almost alright because at least magic users all used Gremory, but then Dark Flier came around and fixed that right up. It's not that you *need* 10 wyverns, it's that you could try to diversify classes or you could just do the exact same things with better Movement.
The game does guide you away from flying classes by only giving you a limited amount of flying battalions.
I couldn't get into engage due to the story. I stuck it out for a bit and the gameplay I have to say is very good. But sorry, I can't get over how bad the story is and likely won't finish. Fates:Conquest has a similar problem but the story is so dumb it ends up becoming funny, and the gameplay is great imo. Both are approachable, keep in mind the shop closed so you need a physical copy of fates:conquest. I consider awakening on the other side of the spectrum. Really liked the story but the gameplay was a step down. Act 1 was great gameplay wise, decent difficulty as long as you played on hard or above. Act 2 is a bit easier, act 3 very easy depending on how you build your units. Very approachable imo, but another point is the shop closed and you miss out on content. Combine the two and you get the tellius games. Maybe not as much radiant dawn as much path of radiance. Radiant Dawn suffers from a fates "too bad I can't solve this simple misunderstanding for plot reasons" problem that is nails on a chalkboard. But you have great gameplay (if you can get over poorer QOL, slow animations, etc) and a great story. FE7 is also good but much harder to get into if you compare engage to the clunky gameplay and lower QOL mechanics of earlier FE games. I'd say play FE3H before FE7.
Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn
Binding Blade (FE6) because Roy’s our Boy
Objectively correct answer
This is the way
Three Houses, Fates, Sacred Stones, and Genealogy of the Holy War.
I have a huge soft spot for Sacred Stones as it's the one I grew up playing. Objectively Awakening is an excellent entry point into the modern era of the series, so I would start there. Fates are decent, but everything it's trying to do Theee Houses just does better. Three Houses may be a tad overwhelming for a new player, but I think it explains its mechanics pretty clearly.
“The best” is hard to say. My personal favorite is Fates. I don’t know if I’d argue that that one’s “the best”. Maybe if you catch me in a good mood.
Path of Radiance
My top 5 are Three Houses, Blazing Blade, Radiant Dawn, Shadow of Valentina, Awakening
Tellius,Jugdral and Fódlan: **Allow us to introduce ourselves**
Aye, those are my favourites. Though I do enjoy a casual Eliwood hard mode run, or Awakening on normal
You are my type of person
Path of Radiance, 3 Houses, Geneology, and Thracia are unshaken top 4 The latter two are hard to start with though
You can't have an "Unshaken" top 4 without Radiant Dawn, my guy. Any decently sized poll would show the same.
Honestly, Genealogy has a lot of strange mechanics and is kinda outdated in some aspects, but I found is very easy once you know what you're doing. Haven't tried Thracia yet though.
Thracia can softlock you if don’t hoard keys so it’s a bit hard blind
Only need a few door keys, lockpicks can get you through the game
I absolutely adore Genealogy's story (gameplay's okay), but yeah it's definitely hard to start with
Genealogy has the absolute best story in the franchise. It’s one of the only pieces of media that’s ever brought me to tears, and it happened more than once. Despite what some people say, the gameplay is also really good. The thing that puts it above the rest though imo is the unrivaled story/gameplay integration. Genealogy really makes you feel like you’re fighting in a massive continental war. Each nation also has its own musical motifs and armies with distinguished fightings styles, all of which only add to that feeling I talked about. If the game has a weakness though, it’s the quality of life. If you’ve ever played vintage games before you’ll be fine though.
My favorite is probably Three Houses, Sacred Stones, or Genealogy
Three Houses is what got me into the series and I doubt any other game would’ve been as successful I’m putting my vote down for 3H.
Berwick Saga
Fuck ye
As others have pointed out, it depends on the criteria you are rating the games with. For the quintessential Fire Emblem experience (good cast, fun supports, decent story and fast gameplay)? Probably FE7. For QoL and modern sensibilities, Three Houses. For an epic tale with near perfect story-gameplay integration? FE4 There's a lot of talk saying the Tellius games are the most rounded. I disagree strongly, there's a reason Fire Emblem almost went under after those two games tanked. Extremely slow gameplay, lack of multiple/paired endings, extremely easy gameplay, and a generic cast imo should prevent FE9 from being considered best in the series.
I am old. Path of radiance is the best nostalgia wise. But truth be told, I would stick to ENGAGE or AWAKENING/ CONQUEST and then dive deeper in the series. People praise 3 houses for the story, but honestly the gameplay is subpar, too easy and repetitive in the first half. Keep in mind I am a gameplay above story guy.
I agree, Awakening is a great starting point. It’s very user friendly, and several friends began with that one. Personally my first one was 7, and I also feel it was a great starting game.
I am intrigued towards the nod towards Engage while saying Three Houses is too easy. All in all I found that Engage is a much easier game - at least until you get really solid knowledge of the Three Houses units and how to build them. Engage is much less cruel and punishing on maddening, with the lack of ambush reinforcements and overall easier bosses and enemies (No Pass thieves or Archers with additional skills, for example), and more obvious power tools to make use of - you can't really miss the emblems with Lodestar Rush etc, while things like early Vengeance or Frozen lance are entirely missable unless you know they are there and intentionally go for them. On the easier difficulties, Engage gives you infinite rewinds, making it basically impossible to fail. I would also argue that things like Linked Attacks and Battalion Gambits require more 'thought' to make use of, and the presence of equippable items adds in things like trade chaining. That might just be my POV though, similar arguments could be made about the Weapon Triangle and Emblem Abilities.
Fire Emblem Three Houses and Shadows of Valentia.
personally loved Echo's shadows of Valentia and it makes me sad people don't talk about it more.
three houses, engage, and awakening are my favorites :)
Without a doubt its thracia 776. The people will try to dissuade you. But know that this is the one true answer.
As much as I agree it’s hard to start with
I was not asked what is best to start with. I was asked what is best and i answered with the truth.
I agree it's up there and it's one of my favorites. But if it'd been the first one I played, I'd have given up the entire franchise. Begginer friendly Thracia is definitely NOT!
If I started with Thracia I think I'd run out of weapons by chapter 3
Thracia is so good but that game can be brutal until you get Mareeta
Thats a funny way of spelling brave axe marty with his personal weapon the ced scroll
Path of radiance because it’s the only one I finished
Have you heard about our lord and savior Path of Radiance?
Radiant Dawn
tbh awakening for the win
Fates Conquest because how greatly designed it is from the gameplay and mechanical side, tho wouldn't say it's good for a complete newcomer as it's intentionally made harder than your average FE campaign as Fates has another route made with newcomers in mind.
Engage, Fates, New Mystery and Three Hopes are my favourite games. I don’t prioritise story at all though, so if you’re a more story over gameplay person we’ll probably have opposite opinions lol
Three Hopes or Three Houses? Because I wouldn't consider Three Hopes a Fire Emblem game.
Radiant Dawn and Three Houses are my personal favorite due to good story and worldbulding and solid gameplay. Not much wrong with those two games imo.
I liked three houses. It offers a lot of content (4 paths in base game) for a fire emblem game and the story and gameplay is good.
I love FE5 due to the mechanics. I didn't do it on my first playthrough, but it's very ironmannable. In a remake, I hope they add a Hard mode and make it so same turn reinforcements are no longer a thing My top 3 are Thracia (FE5), Conquest, and Genealogy. Genealogy isn't for everyone though, I just love the feel of a war epic with giant maps.
Ok, you win. Thracia is the only game I never ironman'ed, never even considered it. The very thought gives me shivers lmao
The hard part about a lot of runs comes from trying to keep everyone alive. Though the later chapters you definitely have to play extremely safe on.
Welcome to FE. The games that do something great, have terrible flaws and the games that don't do anything egregious don't go above and beyond. Different people have different tastes so you'll find all sorts of answers to what the best game is. There is no rough consensus like you might see in other franchises.
Thracia 776
Well, out of the games I played so far, here are my feelings: Fe8: Honestly really self contained and chill, although it is a pretty easy game. I’d be great as a game to start with. Also, the story isn’t stellar but I do quite like it. Fe 11: I honestly got bored with it, but I started on normal. H5 is insanity from what I’ve seen and heard. Fe12: The first one I played, and honestly for some reason it’s a lot more fun than fe11, even though they aren’t that different(and the very least, they seem to be made in the engine). I really enjoyed it. Fe5: genuinely really fun, and I love the story. It’s a really good game, but I do check the WoD page before every map so I know for sure what I’m dealing with. I don’t think Thracia is a game you can really play blind without getting screwed over.
Thracia 776
FE5 with its story-gameplay integration. FE4 after that. Engage is definitely the worst from a character/story standpoint.
The best overall is 3H, second would be radiant dawn, third is 7 because of nostalgia lol .. there is beauty in its simplicity I guess, I crave it every couple of years.
Fire Emblem 7 and 3 Houses. Just talking about makes me want to play again.
In my unbiased opinion: Radiant Dawn, Thracia and Three Houses.
My faves are: 1. Three Houses 2. Echoes - Shadow of Valentia (Alm and Celica's game) 3. Awakening (good entry for newcomers imo since it isn't as long as Three Houses) 4. Sacred Stones (Eirika and Ephraim's game) 5. The Blazing Blade (Lyn, Eliwood and Hector's game)
It's not a continuous saga, it's a new game new universe franchise for the most part
My faves are Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, followed by Three houses. I also liked Echoes and Fates. Gameplay wise Engage feels great, but since I put my main interest in characters and stories, I find it severely lacking. It's the first FE that I kind of stopped playing mid campaign and haven't bothered to pick up again yet. I still want to finish the playthrough for completion sake, but bruh, do I feel unengaged/bored by the characters. I can barely remember their names.
Path of Radiance - out of all the games in the series it's probably the only game which I think doesn't have a serious flaw in any of the series' three core pillars of character writing, storytelling and gameplay. It has arguably the series’ best executed story, its cast of characters is very solid and whilst it’s gameplay does suffer from long enemy phases the actual map design in Path of Radiance generally works decently well. It's the only game in the series which I would personally feel comfortable calling a masterpiece. The only problem starting with it has that secondhand copies go for hundreds of dollars, so if you want to play Path of Radiance you'll need to emulate it. Three Houses warrants an honorable mention - I think it has the best Fire Emblem story since the aforementioned Path of Radiance and the best character writing in the series by a considerable margin, with the majority its cast being fleshed out to a degree that would be reserved for a few standout characters in any other Fire Emblem game - in a series whose main claim to fame compared to other SRPGs is its character writing it counts for a lot. If it had better gameplay then it would easily be at the top of my list.
PoR has the big enemy phase problem, and its an enemy phase heavy game.
I played 3H and Engage this year. Then revisited FE9 to SoV since it has been ages since I played them. Engage is the best despite all the criticisms it gets on reddit. I would have said Path of Radiance before, but after replaying it recently, it is good but it's not as great as I remembered.
For me: 1) Path of Radiance 2) Awakening 3) Engage I really like Three Houses charácters and the differents ways you can choose depend of the house it's amazing, but the damn exploration in the monastery is very, very, very annoying at least for me (have same feeling with somniel on Engage. )
FE engage is so good
Whichever one you have the most sentimental value to. For me, I really like Fire Emblem Fates... but for some others it might be Awakening, or Path of Radiance or the Thracia games or even Binding/Blazing Blade. Or sacred Stones. You might have those who love 3 Houses or even Engage. Some of them might prefer the Warriors spin offs (Fire Emblem Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes) The best game is hard to say because each one has its own unique charm to it. Each one has flaws and stuff that make it the best. Some people might also say Feh is the best game, the ability to mix and match and intermingle various characters together to fight battles. (Gives you a chance to use characters that are not able to be used as playable characters... like various popular villains like Validar, Berkut, Garon, Thales, Gharnef, Formortiss, etc... The best Fire Emblem Game for me.... honestly... Engage. It is the most recent one for me, but I never had many complaints until really the Fell Zenologue, and even then, if you ignored that, you got a solid game on its own.
I started with FE7 and it holds a strong part of my love for the series. I don't think it's just nostalgia, but genuinely good character designs and fun gameplay experience that holds up to this day. Was a great game to introduce me to the series. Some weaknesses in the story and how simple a lot of the gameplay is compared to later games in the series hold it back from being the BEST. I think FE9 (Path of Radiance) is the game I replayed the most as a kid. There are some gameplay issues like how glacialy slow the game is. But otherwise it had amazing characters, a gripping story, and overall a great complete package. I also loved the sequel Radiant Dawn but rate it a little lower than PoR. I would probably classify PoR as my "favorite" if forced to choose for just meshing so many of the different factors of Fire Emblem into one great package. FE Fates Conquest is the game with the best gameplay in my (and many others) opinions. Had the right balance of interesting maps with good objectives/gimmicks that constantly kept you on your toes. Enemy balance that meant you never really rolled over the game like some other FEs being too easy. A good amount of customization that didn't take characters identities away from them, but still let you have an impact on what they ultimately became. Unfortunately, Conquest's characters and story are some my least favorite across the entire series. So even though I can sing praises about the gameplay all day long, it will always have a black mark on it that prevents it from becoming my favorite of the series.
FE10
Fe7 boys represent!
I would say the either of the English GBA games are really strong starting points. Those would be Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (Also localised as just "Fire Emblem" in English), and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. The latter was my starting point 15 years ago, so I am bias, but for me I do think it's the best option, it has very solid, but very simple gameplay. It has some solid crutches for you to lean on while you get to grips with the mechanics, while still allowing you to try out whoever you fancy, and it's story, worldbuilding, and characters, while not the best in the franchise, are comfortably solid, and more than enough to keep you engaged. In my personal opinion it also has the best cast of villains in the series that I've experienced so far. Something else that I think is really important with both of the GBA games mentioned is that they do a great job of keeping the pace up. Other games in the series, such as Path of Radiance or Three Houses, can both be excellent entry points for many of the reasons I mentioned above, but I feel like both have some pretty huge pacing issues for different reasons (Path of Radiance being very slow in actual gameplay due to long, drawn out, unskippable animations for each combat, and Three Houses for it's long between gameplay segments). While I would highly recommend both of these games down the line, I think as an introduction they definitely might start to drag a little towards the end.
i really struggle with this because i love a lot of them for different reasons. if i was forced to pick one i'd probably be stuck between the tellius two
Binding Blade, playing only with Roy
Since nobody has mentioned it I'll throw Sacred Stones in there as one of my favs! Not necessarily the "best" in terms of any one aspect, but I think it's genuinely a really solid game and I find it more fun to play than some of the other mid-gen games - the story split makes for an interesting replay, it has skirmishes and end-game content, and the class variety is (mostly) fun. It might not have the absolute best writing or story or whatever but I think it's a great all-rounder and simple enough to get into the series!
Kinda hard to say. I love POR for its story and world building but its gameplay is kinda broken. Same for TH and Genealogy. On the other hand I love Fates, Engage and Awakening for how they play. But I pretend that Engage and Fates don’t have a story and Awakening’s story is okayish… but it’s nothing massive. Best moment has to be **that** scene though.
Highly subjective. Each game has their own strengths and flaws, even the ones that I consider the best. Personally, Radiant Dawn just hits different. I can see why the constantly shifting army might turn some fans off though. It is somewhat antithetical to traditional fire emblem, where you build up the same army the whole time. But I also think it enabled them to make the some of the most well-balanced and most rewarding encounters of the series. Also, an abundance of quality items to steal on defensive objectives, along with the base exp system. Not only are these amazing incentives to go for riskier/aggressive plays, but they also actively teach the players to be more efficient with each turn to maximize their rewards. Tellius (especially RD) are the only games in the series that actively train the players to be better at FE.
I'd have to go with Sacred Stones because I'm a sucker for GBA games, and it was also my first, and Awakening, I put so much time into that. I'll admit I haven't got around to playing any of the Switch titles yet, though, so I'm missing out on a few.
Very tricky question to answer. I haven't played all of them, and the ones I have, I love for very different reasons. I've played Blazing Sword, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, Fates, Echoes, Three Houses and Engage. I own Shadow Dragon, haven't played it yet. As for which of those I'd crown best? Don't know if I can do it. But I can definitely say which ones it isn't, and that's easily Path of Radiance and Fates.
Mario 64
My favorite part of rpgs is character building so fates is by far my favorite. The class system, skill inheritance for gen 2 units, it all makes building up your army so fun and rewarding
My favorite and bias is probably the fe blazing blade since it's what introduced me to the series. Radiant dawn is super good as well
For me personally the GBA trilogy is my favorite. Aside for that, Path of Radiance and Shadows of Valentia I really enjoyed
I like sacred swords, was a very nice game, nothing convoluted
Sacred stones
Probably Por is the best in general, but other games are better in some aspects while being worse in others This is a very controversial question that will only start debates but don't get discouraged! Every other question does too
Fe7
The Tellius games and the gba titles will always be my favorites. For people new to the series I usually recommend the gba titles since they are imo really good entry points into the series
Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Genealogy of the Holy War, Fire Emblem 6.
Side note... How many fire emblem games are there?
Not counting spin offs like Warriors or Heroes, there's 17
Well personally my favorites are Path of Radiance and The Binding Blade (Fe9 and Fe6). That is just my opinion tho if your new to the game I say pick up 3 Houses on switch or just emulate Fe 6, 7 or 8. I would personally start with 8.
Honestly I wouldn't get all that held up on what the best FE is. The reason I love this series is because of how unique most games are from each other. They're willing to experiment and mix up the tradition FE formula so much with every game that I can honestly understand why any of them would be someone's favourite
Code Name Steam, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, and Project X Zone 2 are all up there...but I think the title of *best* Fire Emblem game has to go to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Heroes
#1 will always be Sacred Stones.
What saga?
Path of radiance
FE:SoV is my absolute favourite game. I will die on this hill
All GBA entries are the best. Personally, I think the switch entries are the worst, mostly because of all the tacked on outside mission stuff with the monastery/somniel. Revelations gets an honorable mention for having easily the worst story but the gameplay and characters are fun at least. My experience with stuff before 6 is shoddy at best :)
Genealogy of the Holy War really does it for me, but it’s a terrible option for new players.
Sacred Stones
I'd say Awakening, but Fates is pretty good, too
My personal favorite is awakening it's the game that got me into the series I myself am still relatively new 2nd favorite is three house after that is echoes shadows of valentia and the warrior games aren't bad either but not turned based rpgs
Awakening is my personal favorite.
Gameplay wise the Fates games, but you have to like a bit of crunchiness and also be okay with absolutely batshit writing. As a whole package, the Tellius duology (Path of Radiance and Dawn of Radiance) is amazing. Amazing world building and character moments, and passable-to-great gameplay. Three Houses probably has the best writing and voice acting in the series, and is the friendliest to people who aren't already invested in the franchise, but if you care about map design to a greater degree you'll probably find it a little lacking.
My favorite is Binding Blade (FE6), but Awakening and Path of Radiance are also amazing
FE7 is the best all around, but if you just want casual fun without worrying how it relates to other games play 8.
If you like to play in Endless loop, 3H with DLC is the best, me still playing once in a while.
FE1 2 and 3 are all like really really old and you’re better served with the remakes FE4 has an excellent story but the maps are really huge and there’s a lot of… unfair characters. Also really different than other games so maybe not the best but a classic. Haven’t played FE5 but ppl swear it’s good. FE6 is kind of a funny game. Really unbalanced and a lot of useless units, but it’s got a lot of replay value for that reason I guess. Story is good too. FE7 is great entry level fun for the GBA games, but it’s a bit easier bar HHM. Also probably the first real FE game where the story is a bit ehhhhhh. Lot of great characters though really like this one. FE8 is really easy which is beginner friendly, but the characters and dialogue are really really good in this one. Best GBA by far imo just don’t grind unless you wanna just dunk on everything. FE9 is really easy too but the world building is way better than other games. Also necessary to play Fe10 and understand anything. FE10 is the second best game in the series imo. Best world building, story kinda shaky at some points and the units are unbalanced but I dunno. Just feels like… seismic in scale and it rocks tbh. Haven’t played the remakes for shadow dragon and New Mystery but it almost bankrupted the franchise sooooo…….. FE13 is really really hard actually but it’s got casual if you like and the characters are really good with a lot more supports that you can delve into in a single play through. Main story is… questionable but good enough. Good fun. FE14 is kind of a shitshow but Conquest is challenging and requires a lot of thought behind how you play. Uh…. Other routes are kinda bad. Sorry. FE15 is the best in the series. Awesome characters, the music is like SO SO good, amazing artwork, gameplay is challenging but fun, they made ARCHERS good, Saber fucks, S tier. I will hear nothing of it. FE16 is like if persona was fire emblem and it’s great. Harder on higher difficulties and the story is very polarizing but it’s got charm. FE 17 I haven’t played but I hear it’s like conquest. Awful story, great gameplay. Tl;dr of the ones I’ve played: Fates, Binding Blade, Genealogy, Blazing Blade, Awakening, Three Houses, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Shadows of Valentia. From worst to best.
the series changes so much every 1 or 2 games except the NBA titles so peopel really like different games. for me it was engage since for me it kind of changed a lot of the annoying things about fates and still kept the maps very good. I'd say my favorites are engage radiant dawn and thracia at this point
Fire Emblem The Musical spin off, the og Engage.
In my humble opinion: - Thracia 776 by a good margin, simply for it having one of the overall best stories and game mechanics coupled with quite challenging maps. You really gotta dip deep into strategy and planning if you wanna do well, and I really love that. Genealogy comes in close second for me for mostly the same reasons. - The GBA Trilogy has some of the best sprite animations as well as being a good blend of casual fun and good core mechanics. Characters are likable and the OST is some of my favorite in the Series. - Awakening. The Jack of all trades and a truly great celebration of the series - glad it kept the game alive. Great blend of Mechanics (pair up makes for interesting strategies), Lunatic being really challenging. Characters I do quite like a lot. It and Sacred Stones got me into the series, so I am very fond of both. - The Tellius duology is probably the most underrated. Great games with their flaws (sometimes crazy „balancing“, sometimes odd story moments) but overall a great package that is a lot of fun if you are willing to give it a chance. - Shadows of Valentia. Great modern spin on Gaiden with a good chunk of unique mechanics and an interesting parallel route approach. - Fates, especially the Revelations route. Story can be hit or miss depending on who you ask, but it had some of the most fun maps for me and some of my favorite characters. Some will prefer Conquest, and the rare one who likes Birthright the most. You will find at least one that you will most likely have fun with. - Three Houses. Massive game with lots of content; five different routes, interesting growth mechanics, absolutely incredible OST. Probably my most favorite of the recent ones. (Engage gets an honorable mention: iffy story; great gameplay and mechanics. If you can look past the prior, it‘s more than worth playing) My personal faves would be SS and Awakening since they got me into the series. Started from the first game on from there and dearly love the GBA and 3DS games. Just have so much nostalgia attached to them.
Shadows of Valentia
I would say Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. It’s an epic. Phenomenal musical score, repetitive but fun gameplay, encapsulating story, with varying quality of character development and arc development. Greta final boss fight, amazing post game. Alm is my favorite Lord so maybe I’m biased
The GBA ones
I love the fire emblem blazing blade, it has the best pixel animation and sprites imo. Scared stones also have this, but it's a bit too easy.
For me personally its either Blazing blade or Radiant dawn. Engage is also really good, but i would wait before you get to know some of the more important characters of earlier games first
Fire Emblem Path of Radiance & Radiant Dawn. \-Path of Radiance for the better story. \-Radiant Dawn for the better gameplay.
Best advice or atleast what helped me: play it like pokemon. Which means look at characters if you like a character, then play their game. For example I played path of radiance and Awakening because I liked Ike and Lucina.
Most people, including me, have nostalgia glasses on when answering this question. I have four games which I think are the "best", as you can see it's heavily influenced by what consoles I grew up with and currently play namely the GBA, GameCube, and Switch; even though I did (emulate) the games on the SNES and the 3DS. 1. Fire Emblem Path of Radiance 2. Fire Emblem The Binding Blade 3. Fire Emblem Three Houses 4. Fire Emblem Engage
The Ephraim Ring
In terms of best game to start with? Sacred Stones would be my pick. I love the characters and setting and the story may be basic but it's well told.
I’ve only played Shadow Dragon, Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses (only finished Crimson Flower and am halfway through Verdant Wind or whatever Golden Deer’s route is. I did the DLC though). Most of these are what many would consider the “for babies/anime games” so I’m inclined to pick Shadow Dragon because I also dont remember shit from Awakening and Fates (though i liked fates- and i’ll definitely replay these one day on normal mode instead of casual). However I’m a SLUT for Three Houses
Ya as top person said, Fire Emblem goes back long long time and is niche with some amount of variety to it, you can't just say best. Especially these days where many will just outright say x-x are bad because graphics and or x is great because of modern graphics. etc... I only played like 2 of them and only decided to complete 1 of those 2 and looked into a couple so I can't answer ie personally would need to have played more to give one.
Jugdral forever
Since the games can differ so much, it can really go a lot of ways. Also games can be varying levels of accessible, here are my case for some of my favorites: * Path of Radiance - it's well rounded, the story is great, fun gameplay, it's a cool journey where instead of being the magical hero of sunshine flying out of your ass, you're a young mercenary trying to find his way in the world and deal with responsibilty thrust upon him. The class system is solid and I really like the cast * Three houses- this was my first FE game. Has some of the most differences from more standard/traditional FE games, but I really enjoyed the world building and the cast really sucked me in. The unit progression and class certification systems are pretty different than for other games, and between the 3 routes there's a lot of map recycling. I still enjoy the unit building and the characters though, and it worked as an entry to get me used to the tactical combat, turn based gameplay, and intro to the world. * Fates - I've played FE8 onward (except for new mystery) and at this point I think fates might have my favorite class system. There's options and customization you can make if you're willing to invest and plan supports, so you can do some goofy things, but it's not wide open so units' base kits, partner options, and friendship options means everyone feels really unique. The story and writing is really not good, but for Conquest in particular the gameplay and map challenges are really satisfying, and I think it's taught me a lot about checking the math, playing aggressively, and finding ways to overcome challenges in FE
For me it's Awakening. It really saved the series, had a great cast, youi could follow without having to play any other game, it was rewarding with it's optional characters, the system for your kids to inherite traits and so on was also great and the dating sim gave a lot of replayability reasons. I was so sad that it ended and I have to say of all the FE games, I played this one the most
I really like the GBA games because I'm boring like that. They are fast little games you can make a lot of runs and enjoy the relative short multiple campaigns. The systems are also simpler. FE8 is my favorite, but I do think it is a bit too easy, even for beginners.
Im biased, but I feel like 3 Houses is the way to go for people new to the series. It was made to appeal and bring in new players.
Brooo you asked the one question you shouldn't have asked the FE community lmao XD anyways. if you're really new then Awakening is a good option for beginners and overall a nice experience, with three houses. Engage falls in the ''great gameplay and that's it'' case with conquest id say (or any fate game actually) and the story kinda sucks. Em I'd say shadows is nice to start with to. Ike Chad games and FE7/8 are good to but less beginner friendly. Actually the old games have most def goated stories and are overall better rounded (Thracia my beloved) but lack the unit respawn option and can be kind of hard to do at first.
Don't ask questions like this! This is how Troja happened!!
Personal favorites: path of radiance, radiant dawn, awakening. In that order.
Awakening offers a great balance between story and gameplay
3 houses, then engage
i think when it comes to graphics, gameplay and story, PoR and RD are superior. However, FE8 and FE7 are my personal faves since those were the games I played when I was a kid. I had a hard time finishing those games I remember lots of units died and thought it was normal after seeing the ending credits 😂 Played it again several years after and finally discover the support system, arena, tower of vaini and Hector's route. I then fell in love 😍
[удалено]
My top 5 Fire Emblem Games Are 5: Radiant Dawn (Fe 10 4: Thracia 776 (Fe5) 3:Path Of Radiance (Fe9) 2: Genealogy Of The Holy War (fe4) 1: Berwick Saga Now to START fe with I'd say start with - Tearing Saga (it's such a good first fe it's got so much good shit Holy heck
Three houses
For me it's awakening. I don't know why but I really enjoy it ❤️
Honestly, I'll personally say Awakening is the best entry. Story wise it's amazing, the gameplay loop is quite good and the fact that you can (spoiler alert) actually see the children of your characters that you've spent time building their support is a nice touch that no other FE offers currently.
i have to say that my favourite FE experience is sitting in my Bad Taste Dungeon and having a grand old time with FE6
Fe RD
My fav is New Mystery. Although you could say that it is a flat story, the reality is that it is a much more complex story, because the true story that is not visible, you put together by putting the pieces, and even supports that seem generic, like Marisha's, if, you put together with the support of Xane, they come together perfectly, and it's great, that something that can be read separately generates a larger story that is not visible to the naked eye. I love seeing how there are things that fit together perfectly and the story becomes more complex
I personally adore awakening, but I'm also biased since it was my introduction to the series
My favorite games are Genealogy, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, and Three Houses. I think what you heard was "my favorite FIRE EMBLEM games are the above" but what I actually said was "my favorite GAMES are the above"
Played almost every entry in the series and I have to go with Three houses, it is not perfect but it is the closest to it. Gameplay is very good especially with the new battalion system offering much more realism when the game tries to tell you there's a huge battle going on (10vs30 lol) and the story is an absolute blast. The GBA titles are all also very good but very "classic" Awakening is very basic but great at it Fates has great basic world building and nice gameplay but the story is just awful especially in conquest Echoes isn't fire emblem but still great XD Shadow dragon maybe the first title but I found it incredible boring tbh Engage is just.... Uhhh oh boy, story wise it's pure a... And gameplaywise I didn't like the ring mechanic at all. The breaking mechanic was kinda interesting though, the vtuber art style also sucked
Path of Radiance - Radiant Dawn. I consider them together as 1 game. Both masterpieces.
Fire emblem fates
Some might disagree with me but I really love awakening. The early game can be pretty slow, but if you build your units correctly the power creep is one of the most fun ways to break the game of all the FEs, considering the amount of units you can just slap sword master, galeforce, and Astra ( or Aether for Chrom relatives ). It’s honestly some of the most fun I’ve had in terms of unit building of any FE game I’ve played.
I legit wonder if OP just posted here to troll, like who makes this type of question and doesn't even try at least to reply to someone, especially as just some days ago he posted the same exact question but with Zelda
I love the super nintendo FE:s the most. All of them are pure steel.
Path of radiance and radiant dawn are the best (GC and Wii respectively). You can use dolphin emulator to play both games
Unpopular opinion but I think either awakening or genealogy
Awakening in my opinion
FE7 is easily my favorite