Hey! I think it's long overdue we have a general discussion thread for the Fire Emblem series - with its sixteenth instalment on the way next year and its increasing popularity thanks to Heroes (which has a very active thread here!) now seems as good a time as any to open the conversation.

To start the thread, which are your favourite games of the series? Who are your favourite characters? Do you have any active playthroughs running at the moment?

At the risk of upsetting some people, I have to admit that I adored the Fire Emblem series straight up until Awakening. I played through Awakening several years ago and enjoyed some of its characters and game mechanics, but overall to me it just didn't... feel... like previous Fire Emblem games. It felt too much like an anime, if that makes any sense. ;; I'm too much of an old fogey for this newfangled mobile game stuff, too.

However, I LOVE Fire Emblems 7 through 10, with 7 and 10 actually being some of my favorite games of all time! They both have amazing casts of characters, amazing music (well, I will admit ALL Fire Emblem games have amazing music, including the new games!), amazing stories... I loved the politics of 9 and 10, while I loved the heart-wrenching implications of 7's story.

As for my favorite units? Lyn, Hector, Florina, Lucius, Heath from 7... Nephenee, Edward, Leonardo, Ike, and Jill from 9+10... oh, and I did really love Lucina in Awakening!

I hear you. I started with Awakening but now I've played most of the other games in the series it stands out as very different. I've recently finished replaying the game and didn't mind the story so much - the first half is stronger than the latter, which defies logic a little too freely - but the combat is really janky.

And poor Soren! Not even getting a shout out, poor thing. He was definitely one of my faves from the Tellius games.

I've played 6 through 15 and my favourites are 7, 10 and 14 (for the gameplay, don't judge me haha). I think you'd really like 15 if you're curious, though. Shadows of Valentia really brought it back from some of the... excess of the 3DS titles. And the art and music are some of the best of the series, no question. I'd highly recommend checking it out if you're even slightly curious. As a pretty direct remake, there are some gameplay quirks but it is similarly handled with that in mind, and in turn lenient with you adjusting to its differences. If that makes sense! It lacks some of the freedom of Awakening and Fates in exchange for more defined characters and personalities.

I have been considering playing FE7 as my first Fire Emblem game for awhile. Fire Emblem Heroes got me interested in the FE7 cast as soon as I pulled Karel and later on, Karla and hopefully Legault. Karel is rather edgy and overly devoted to the sword, I s'pose, but I do hear he gets better from there on out, and Legault strikes me as a rather playful thief. Maybe I'll learn a lot about the world of Elibe once I finally get the ability to play.

Well... I got into the series because of Awakening. I had no idea about the history, just kinda heard it was a good series and the game itself was pretty good. I loved it, and had a lot of fun with it. Next picked up Conquest, then Birthright, and then Revelations (because I needed a happy ending for Fates). After those were finished I went looking for back titles and was a little sad they were so hard and expensive to find. I've currently got FE7/FE8 going on my Wii U via the E-shop, and I've got a emulator version of FE4 going on. I'd really like to play the Tellius series... but they're so hard to get and I don't really understand why they've not been released on the E-shop at least.

Currently running with FE4 - I'm enjoying it, but my biggest problem is that I forget to save after every turn. I'm on Chapter 2 - just lost Deirdre but I forgot to save after I seized Hierheim so... :X Back to an earlier turn I guess!

Honestly? Just emulate Tellius too. It's not like Nintendo or IntSy is going to see any of the money you'll spend to get those.

But yeah, I've played FE7, a bit of FE8, FE9, and FE10 (which I'm replaying for a second time to get the happier ending), and I'm playing FE13 right now too. I also have FE15 but my brother is currently playing that one. FE9 is my favourite - it's the only one I've played multiple times to do try new things with (like "killing" Soren to get experience the script changes).

Will have to look for a Tellius Sim once I've finished FE4. I've scribbled some of my thoughts as I play through the chapters starting with chapter 2, thought I would share them here but they're kind of long, so under the spoilers:

If ya need a hand with any Tellius stuff just hit me up. :) I emulated them at the beginning of the year and they are both really worthwhile experiences, I really recommend both (in my honest opinion, I'd say Path of Radiance hasn't aged so well because it almost feels like a proto-3DS title, which was obviously a huge advancement on the GBA era but doesn't feel quite so fresh nowadays. But with a good story haha).

I went through Birthright recently and hopped on to Conquest. I beat chapter 10 on my first try and only lost Niles, wow! But then I got to chapter 12 (with the pots ugh) and it's kinda made me put it on the back-burner hahah. I just... can't see a clear path through once you smash all the pots and have definitely gave up at this point before whoops.

(forgot about this thread!)

- Not an unpopular opinion. I too adore 7-10 (and 4,5,6 too), and Awakening was just... not as good, and Fates was just... don't even get me started on Fates. 3H looks like it's gonna have more of a persona feel than FE too, I hope I've wrong. I do like that Awakening did 'revive' the series though. I doubt that we would have a new console FE or the Heroes app without Awakening. (we also might not have Fates, but no loss there) Shadows of Valentia was good, definitely an improvement over the original (which I never finished!) Had a more classic FE feel to it, plus the exploring element was fun, it reminded me of those old point and click puzzle games I used to play as a kid.

- The support mechanic in 4 was weird, it didn't give you notifications when they got married or gained support, I had Ayra hanging out with Lex too, only to discover later that she was already married to Jamke! lol. You could turn on the auto-save to help not have to reset as much, but be careful cus there's literally NO WAY to restart a chapter (it is possibly to make it impossible to complete the game, my friend discovered). Also, get used to units dying, there are chapters where you literally can't progress unless you sacrifice someone. (sorry :( )

- GBA FE sprites/animations are STILL the best though. Hands down.

FE8 has its special place in my heart, not because it's my first game into the series, but because I love the majority of the characters (especially good soft boi Forde!) and the story has made me cry every time I replay it.

Also in favor of both Tellius games and boi,,, do I love Ike. Have played FE7, FE11/12, Awakening, Fates, and SoV. I initially had a red knight bias for favorite characters (Forde, Sully, Saizo, and Lukas) but I also VERY MUCH love the myrms/swordsmen (Lon'qu, Ayra, Navarre),,,, Lute, Myrrh, and Innes also have special places in my aching heart,,,,,, and then there's Tibarn lmaoooooo

Currently playing FE4 for the first time and in the middle of Chapter 5,,,,, I am in pain.

I'm so excited for Three Houses! Even if I wish they had shown a bit more about gameplay in the Nintendo direct... Also not surprised they pushed back the release date, July 26th is not as bad than what I expected though XD (At least it's a friday so hopefully I can pre-order the game and play it all weekend, yay!)

My favorite game is Sacred Stones, but I also really loved Awakening (not so much Fates). I'm looking forward to 3 houses, but I'm a bit worried that it may not have the marriage mechanic. Which I love.

(forgot about this thread :X)

Three Houses looks interesting, although like I don't like female Byleth's design. The school setting looks interesting but I don't think they are showing us everything, I reckon it might be a first act/tutorial before the story really gets going.

I like the support mechanics in general, but I really hope that they make it so the avatar can't marry the students because that'd be a strange (although after what happened with Corrin being able to marry siblings nothing will surprise me)

Still playing through my various runs, I've reached Chapter 21 in SS, Ephraim's route. I keep having to reset in Rausten Castle though, but I'll get there eventually. I'm not sure I really get Lyon as a sympathetic villain at the moment, he's coming across as a bit of a jerk... but I still have some chapters left to play so hopefully there's a bit more exposition to come.

I don't want to marry my students - HOWEVER I strongly think there will be a time skip that would make that slightly less skeevy. If not... not skeevy. 5 year time skip, you heard it here.

Looks like you were right about the time skip! (it was apparently leaked on reddit a few weeks ago along with a few others details. I didn't read all the thread because I didn't want too much spoilers though!)

Super excited about the trailer, the story seems much darker than what they showed us before. I hope they show us a little gameplay during the treehouse lives though. Just a trailer is not enough! XD Also can't wait to get attached to the students while teaching them then have to kill some of them later probably /s

Same! I wasn’t feeling ‘Fire Emblem High School’ from the first trailers but this new one looks awesome. I’m excited now... sort of stuck between Blue and Red because darn I need to see what the heck happened to Dimitri...

I won’t be able to get a copy until mid-August so I’m going to do my best to avoid spoilers until then.

I'm probably going team Claude for my first play I think, I wonder what happened to poor Dimitri though!

I'll probably pick up the game on release day (I could pre-order it I guess but if it doesn't arrives in time,... XD) but yeah definitely avoiding any Fire Emblem reddits and communities until I beat the game XD

So I have only played three FE games as of now. They are FE Awakening, FE Fates (I purchased Hoshido ver.) and FE Echoes:Shadows of Valentia. My favorites would have to be FE Awakening and FE Echoes. So do bear this in mind that I have only played these three 3DS titles ^^;

My favorite characters would have to be Male Robin, Henry, Inigo, Gaius, Lucina, Libra, Owain and Gerome from FE Awakening.

From FE Fates my faves are Male Corrin, Sakura, Subaki, Hayato (Remembered him as Tsukuyomi), Kaden (I remember him better as Nishiki), Laslow, Keaton, Selkie, Asugi and Shiro.

And lastly from FE Echoes, my favorites are Kliff, Lukas, Zeke, Mathilda, Celica, Alm, Leon, Saber, Sonya, Conrad, Berkut and Jesse.

As for active playthroughs, I do have for FE Echoes and I just can't finish FE Fates. I only purchased the other half so I could play Nohr. So no other DLCs.

Three Houses will be my first Fire Emblem game. I've been wanting to get into the series for a while, so I'm really looking forward to its release! I'll probably be going with Team Claude as well, but all three of the leaders intrigue me and there's other characters I like in each house. Hopefully I'll get a couple of playthroughs out of it.

So what are the first thoughts on Three Houses here? The games look so great and a good distillation of why we love Fire Emblem; I've tried not to look at too much of the pre-release info because I don't have a Switch. Wish I did right now (and stopped holding out for the mythical Pro model), I'm close to cracking!