Game Discussion of The Week: Fire Emblem series

Hmm... I'd love to share a thought on Fire Emblem, but since we're going for the series in general I guess it isn't possible to go further.

I say Fire Emblem is victim of the difficulty in making tactical strategy games. The whole game revolving around players reaching objectives without letting anyone die forces an approach to level design in which enemies have several defense holes, meaning that the real difficulty of a regular FE is usually low (the player may simply choose to send characters to die). Unfortunately the excuse for this is realistic, and thus I doubt we'll ever get a new Fire Emblem that feels as challenging as it could.
It's like Fire Emblem and Xcom are on the extreme sides of balancing, one being too forgiving, the other being kinda broken.

Oh sure! But, hmmm... I think I could use someone bringing up one specific entry for me.

I have played through both of the GBA games, Path of Radiance, and Awakening. I've played a bit of Shadow Dragon and Radiant Dawn but didn't finish them. And eventually I'd like to play Fates and the fan translated games in the series. So I will be back to say more on this discussion, I've had a good amount of experience with the series.

Well that's true. Certainly confirms my red flag with the SRPG genre.

I wouldn't worry about whether or not Fire Emblem is an RPG of some sort. Between western RPGs, JRPGs, tactical/strategy games, etc, the line are certainly blurred.

I first played Fire Embler with the first North American GBA release, though I remember mentions of the series from years earlier in the pages of Nintendo Power. I remember the article talking about being able to permanently have characters die, and that really stuck with me.

Unlike Advance Wars, all the player units in Fire Emblem games have portraits, and at least a few background details. I think this sets it apart from many other tactical games, and is a primary reason that many players will reset entire Fire Emblem levels is someone dies. We know that mercenary is just trying to make money for his family, or that pegasus knight is trying to find her sisters, and if they die, their story ends.

This isn't totally unique of course. I remember desperately trying to finish a level in Final Fantasy Tactics quick enough to prevent Agrias' death, long after she ceased being important to the story. I don't think I ever gleefully sacrificed faceless NPCs in that game, but I did sacrifice them, and that's something I've never been able to get myself to do with Fire Emblem characters.

Interestingly, I think the casual mode introduced in Heroes of Light and Shadow, and brought back in Awakening and Fates has really freed up my game. I can play on casual mode with a higher difficulty level, and feel much more inclined to play in an aggressive way, whereas I was always extremely defensive/cautious earlier in the series. Playing Binding Blade earlier this year really drove that home for me.

Currently working through Fates: Birthright, and hoping to start on Conquest sometime in the next week or so.

I can't give the series a rating because while I do love all the FE games up to Radiant Dawn, there was a HUGE decline in quality of the art direction of the last 3 games (Awakening, Fates & the Shadow Dragon remake), so I've pretty much lost all interest in the series.

It's a real shame because many of the earlier FE games had sensational art direction (the 6th gen ones especially, & Radiant Dawn). Seriously, some of the best anime character designs I've ever seen, out of films, video games, anything. The sprite animations for the GBA games were also above and beyond awesome.

Awakening was so disappointing from an artistic perspective. Talk about a downgrade coming from Radiant Dawn. Awakening's look was so generic and lazy. All the characters looked like they were plucked from any off-the-shelf manga, being flatter and sketchy-looking. They didn't even bother to add any skin color. It has that cheap television-quality anime look to it. God I hate it. And Fates made no attempt to improve the look whatsoever.

The gameplay is still good, but since I'm too slow for these kind of decision-making games anyways, that aspect doesn't really matter to me. Besides, the gameplay of the Fire Emblem series has always been good, so that's not saying much.

So yeah, that's my thought on the series. Everything up to Radiant Dawn = awesome. The rest I don't care about.

Hmmmmm.....I really don't see this massive downgrade myself.