Being not only the first in a 30 year old series but also the title that defined the entire SRPG genre, FE1 has held up to the test of time and remains an interesting and engaging experience.

To start with the story, FE1 tells a very simple and straightforward story but for it's time it was a noticeable step above many other Famicom RPGs. The thing that really sticks out to me is FE1's attempt to have sympathetic villains, most notably in the form of Camus. Most games at this time didn't really bother giving their antagonists much depth so it's nice to see FE1 try something unique.

One trait that sets it apart from it's contemporaries is it's protagonist, who isn't silent. In fact, Marth has more dialogue than just about any other character in the game. He just won't shut the hell up. Granted, Marth himself isn't that interesting of a character in this game but you can only really do so much on the Famicom.

I think the biggest problem with FE1's story is how it's presented. The lack of a world map makes it extremely difficult to follow along and it will probably take most people multiple playthroughs to fully understand what's even going on. Granted, I'm sure a lot of this was included in manuals that came with the game (which was extremely common at the time) but given that this game never released in english I don't have access to this.

Having a chapter-to-chapter story allows it to have a more complex and detailed plot compared to a lot of other Famicom RPGs, with a wide cast of characters which was practically unheard of at the time. FE1 tells a fairly basic story but does an efficient job at setting the baseline for the series as well as doing the best it could with the limited hardware it was allowed.

I feel that one of FE1's greatest achievements is it's accessibility. Strategy games have always been firmly planted in the niche end of gaming but the way FE works makes it so much easier to get into. Seeing your units engage others in combat and seeing how they perform makes it easy to grasp how everyone functions and what their roles in battle can be. There's also the fact that your units are actual characters rather than faceless pieces. Most characters in this game are severely lacking in any sort of characterization but simply having a name and face makes it easier to get invested in the gameplay.

Because it's up to you who you want to train and bring into battles, it makes every playthrough unique. I replayed FE1 recently and at one point Navarre (a unit who I wanted to use) was put in danger due to a critical hit so I had to place Cain in front of him to protect him, which resulted in Cain's death. That's a scenario that's unique to me and my playthrough and that's just 1 example. No other RPG at the time had variability like this in their experiences. At best you got control over how you built your party but you were still going through the same events as every other player.

Given that permadeath is Fire Emblem's most well-known feature, I should probably talk about it. I think FE1 does a good job of balancing the cast around this mechanic. You frequently get new, strong units and the one unit you can't lose, Marth, is ridiculously strong. This mechanic adds a lot of weight to the gameplay and the fact that you can feel the loss of a unit even from a gameplay perspective helps add tension to every battle. A lot of people hold disdain for permadeath, but FE wouldn't be the same without it. (For the record,I feel this way about permadeath in nearly every future game. I'm not going to bring this up in every review because I don't want to repeat myself. Just assume I feel the same about permadeath's inclusion unless stated otherwise).

The complaint I see most often levied at FE1 is its speed, or lack thereof. Yes, this game is slow. Yes, it can become an immense drag to play. But it's a Famicom RPG. all of them are slow. Especially strategy games given that their AIs are more complex and have more decisions to make. Compare FE1 to Famicom Wars. In FW, every turn would take several minutes because you literally had to sit and watch the enemy commander think. In comparison, FE1 is much faster. You have the option to turn off animations, enemy turns are faster, and the general speed of things like movement and menu navigation is smoother. It's far from ideal by today's standards, but if you're going to compare every game you play to games that came out within the last few years then why are you playing a Famicom strategy RPG.

There is one thing I think is inexcusable though, that being inventory management. It sucks. It's slow and tedious and makes the game feel like even more of a slog to play. Again, most Famicom RPGs had tedious item management systems but even compared to its contemporaries FE1 feels slow.

I think the presentation is a huge mixed bag. The music is excellent and while the battle animations are slow, they still look good. The maps and map sprites all look nice but the portraits are where FE1 struggles the most. Some are nice, but a majority are ugly as sin. That's not to mention how many characters reuse portraits, with the 4 Gordon recolors being my personal favorite example. Overall I would say FE1's presentation is pretty good but those portraits are really a sore spot.

FE1 is a great game. For its time it was an entrepreneur and today it serves as an interesting piece of history that's aged surprisingly well. For the first game in a long running series it does a good job of setting the standard for what a Fire Emblem game should aspire to be.

Gaiden is great. The story, gameplay, music, and visuals were all superb when it released and still holds up remarkably well today as well as having some of the strongest ludonarrative in the series.

The story is perfect for a Famicom game. A little context about the gods and "The infamous general Dozer has initiated a coup detat" is really all the setup you get and it's all you need. Celica's side is pretty similar. Something's clearly wrong with Mila, let's check up on her. It's far from an earth shattering story but I think it's quite a bit more interesting than the average Famicom game. The plot does get more complicated as FE2 progresses but because of the games structure, the pacing feels natural and there's a very satisfying buildup to the final encounter with Duma.

One of the more common criticisms levied at FE storytelling is how plot events have to be accompanied by a battle because that's how the video game is designed. Gaiden avoids this by having several smaller battles without any dialogue as well as breaks in between where you visit villages or shrines. Being even closer to traditional JRPGs also helps in this. Story scenes are no longer tacked onto the beginning or ends of battles, some of FE2's most important moments aren't even accompanied by a battle.

Last plot detail I wanted to touch on was it's connections to Akaneia. Having the Whitewings and Camus back (and playable for the first time in Camus' case) is cool and is a nice hint of what's to come in FE3.

The gameplay is where I believe this game really shines though. The lack of physical barriers in maps results in greater emphasis being placed in how you move your units, how you use terrain, and how you use what few barriers are present in each map. There's also the placement of enemies, which is often used to replace ambush spawns. For example, instead of 2 cavs spawning out of nowhere, they start waaaay far away from everyone else so that you know they're coming and when they'll be there. The enemy composition is also used to strengthen the ludonarrative. My absolute favorite example of this in the series is Grieth's Citadel in Celica chapter 3. You start outside of a heavily reinforced fort and need to break your way through their front lines using the whitewings and ranged attackers and then deal with the monsters summoned by the cantor before dealing with Grieth himself. It all comes together so perfectly and like damn, I really am storming an enemy fortress.

Like FE1, the soundtrack once again kicks ass and I think the visual presentation of this game is a huge step up. Finally, every playable character has a unique face and they all actually look good. They pull this off by only reusing parts of each portrait as well as limiting the amount of portraits for antagonists. It results in a much more memorable cast that's a lot easier to grow attached to because you don't have 3 Gordons (blessed though he may be).

The only problem I have with the game is its treatment of the female characters on Alm's route. Every single one of them has to be rescued before they join you which is unfortunate because Celica's side is free of this problem and is fairly progressive for a 1992 game. Est is the only female character who must be rescued, and she's being rescued by other women. Monkey's paw or whatever. I've seen people speculate that this might have been intentional, with Duma representing the extremes of masculinity and Mila of femininity, but the true machinations of Kaga cannot be understood by us mere mortals.

In regards to that last sentence, another possible reason for the stark difference between Alm's and Celica's campaigns could be for meta narrative purposes. Alm's route is traditional to an extreme. You play as a man who rises up to fight an empire, saving damsels in distress along the way. The gameplay reflects this, with the majority of battles (especially early on) consisting of you fighting generic knights in grassy fields. This leads to encounters feeling samey and the maps blending in with one another. Compare that to Celica's route which does much more to distinguish itself from the typical fantasy story. It features a woman as its protagonist and the only damsel in distress is rescued by other women. This experimentality is also seen in the gameplay. You start of with several mages and the map design feels like it was made to take advantage of the archers increased range (boat maps being the notable example) which results in a more engaging experience that really forces you to appreciate Gaiden's unique elements. The environments are also more varied and memorable. You go from a cemetery to a sea to a desert and then a forest which makes for a more interesting adventure. Whenever I replay Gaiden I find Celica's side to be much more enjoyable than Alm's which may be the result of Kaga crafting them as such to convey to the player the merits of taking risks and not sticking to tradition when designing games. Perhaps that's the case, or perhaps I'm just deranged.

So, yeah. Gaiden's really really good. It's a shame that so many view it as the worst in the series without really giving it a fair chance, but thankfully there are people equally as unwell as I who I can confide in about my love for this game.

Edit: I will be getting "most liked Gaiden review on backloggd" engraved on my tombstone.

While not my favorite in the series, FE3 is most definitely the closest a Fire Emblem game has gotten to being flawless while still encapsulating everything that makes Fire Emblem what it is.

I'm gonna start with Book 1. I've seen many an internet user make a big deal out of the cut content from FE1, but I'm here to tell you that it really doesn't matter at all. The cut chapters really were filler that did very little to warrant inclusion from either a gameplay or narrative standpoint, and whenever I play FE3 I find myself not even noticing their omission. Same goes for the cut characters, with the sole exception of Gotoh. He really should've been playable.

I actually believe that the cutting of content improved Book 1. The overall pacing feels much faster and some story retcons I feel were for the best (such as Wendell now being imprisoned instead of fighting you). The gameplay is also a massive step up from it's NES predecessors, but I'll talk more about that when I get to Book 2.

Speaking of, Book 2! Vey very good game. Book 1's inclusion means they're free to ramp up the difficulty and integrate more complex objectives, and a ton of quality of life improvements made since the NES titles makes for a much smoother experience. I love the solid stat caps of 20, it makes it much easier to evaluate your units when you know their max potential.

The story is, shocker, also very good. Book 1 is titled "The War of Darkness" and Book 2 is titled "The War of Heroes". In Book 1, there was a lot of mystery (eh? eh?) surrounding the antagonists. Why is Medeus resurrecting? What the hell are Grust and Macedon doing? Who's this Gharnef guy? But that's not the case in Book 2. You know all too well who the enemy is, as several of them were former allies in Book 1. This makes for a much more gripping narrative that I found does a really good job of investing you into the characters and world.

There is one thing I don't like though, the possibility to get a bad ending. Many RPGs have bad endings, but for the most part you only have to replay an hour or 2 to fix your mistake, but not in FE3. If you get to the end and realize you missed a star shard, you must replay the whole game. Personally I would have had the shards always equipped on bosses or recruitable characters so they were unmissable, but who am I to question Kaga.

I know I'm incredibly biased, but I also wish they had included some Gaiden characters. In particular I feel that Cliff and Luthier could've easily fit into FE3. Cliff's ending says he left Valentia to explore the world, so he could've just joined Marth as a pre-promoted bow knight at really any point. As for Luthier, they could have canonized his friendship with Merric that was in the Gaiden manga and have him come to Archanea when he heard what Ellerean was up to. It's not a huge deal, but it would've been nice.

So, yeah. FE3's good. There are still some minor kinks to be worked out in terms of quality of life, but this game was still a huge step forward not only for this series, but the SRPG genre as a whole (and also video game storytelling but shhhhhh I don't want people to argue with me on whether FE3 has a better story than something like Chrono Trigger).

FE4 is the best SRPG ever made and I'd hazard to guess that it won't be losing that title any time soon. It had far and beyond the best story in a game for it's time and even 25 years later it still stands as one of the best in the medium.

FE4's predecessors felt like a mix of political drama and a typical fantasy adventure, but FE4 leans harder into the political drama than any game thus far. The excellent writing alongside the immense amount of world building makes for an immersive story that results in certain plot twists (you know) hitting a lot harder than a video game story has any right to. This is all complemented by...

The gameplay! First thing that anyone will know about FE4 is that these maps are huuuuuuge. In my many years inhabiting the FE fandom I've seen many a scrub get filtered by these larger maps, but to say they add more than they hinder would be an understatement. In prior games there was story at the start and end of battles, but rarely in the middle. These larger maps allow for story to be told during the battle as well as have the maps change in accordance to events in the narrative. There's also a greater emphasis placed on side objectives, mostly in the form of villages that you must save or secret events that are character exclusive. There are times where these side objectives can feel more like sidequests, most notable being getting Arden the pursuit ring in chapter 2 and then accumulating the gold to give it to someone else. This results in the most memorable maps the series has seen yet with a wide variety of ways to approach each challenge.

Now that I've written a suitably long paragraph discussing the maps, I should probably mention the other aspects of FE4's gameplay. The inheritance system allows for an obscene amount of replayability alongside secret events that encourage you to replay and scour the game for cutscenes you may have missed, and that's not even considering the entire cast of unique characters you can get by simply avoiding the marriage system. There's also the rework to the weapon level system, which makes certain elements of your character feel less random because you'll know that at least your weapon rank will slowly increase. It's that good old unit building that the prior 3 games got right, dialed up to 11.

There's also the ludonarrative. This game conveys a large scale war better than any Fire Emblem before (or since) thanks to the large maps and unit density. There's also the inheritance system. A big part of gen 2's story is how Seliph was basically set up to win by the cast of gen 1. While this will be lost on most players their first playthrough, on repeat playthroughs it works as a way of acknowledging the effort that you put into making the child units as strong as possible.

While it's heresy to claim FE4 is anything less than perfect, there are some parts I believe could have been done better. Firstly, some characters feel a little flat. Characters like Noish, Rodolbahn, and Mana are just a few examples of characters without much going on but I still wouldn't call them bad characters per se, I just think they would benefit from some further fleshing out. Another thing I don't particularly like is how most of the substitute kids are just less interesting versions of their main unit. This frustrates me because we see through Radney that they can write substitutes who feel notably different whithout requiring too much effort on their part.

I've decided to make it a point to stop ending these reviews with a closing paragraph that opens with "so, yeah" so you're getting this instead. FE4 is not only my favorite Fire Emblem, but just my favorite game in general. Everything about it resonates with me and it truly is, in my opinion, Shouzou Kaga's magnum opus.

Didn't expect this to be on backloggd lol.

Not exactly much to talk about here. The story is really good and I love the portraits and general presentation, but it's only 4 maps so there isn't much to say. I like them expanding on the backstories of side characters with Lena calling Camus a tool being a highlight for me.

Gameplay wise, I think it's interesting just how unique each map is. All of them require you to play in a way that, at the time, was unheard of in a Fire Emblem game. This makes BSFE especially interesting as a mechanical prequel to FE5, as that game would go on to introduce several new objectives that really made their first appearance here. For example, the first part of the Nyna episode is played like a defense mission, which is an objective that would go on to be introduced in FE5.

Not much else to say. Not much of a game on it's own being moreso a 90's version of an expansion pack, but I still thought it was worth reviewing.

FE5 offers a unique experience with a well written story and the best ludonarrative in a Fire Emblem game.

FE4 focused hard on the large scale political drama at the expense of some of the more intimate character moments and Thracia 776 is the polar opposite. The scale is much smaller this time around, being limited exclusively to one country which seems like it may be a bane but Thracia is far from an uninteresting setting. The conflict between northern and southern Thracia is intriguing to say the least, and Leif's backstory and development made me all the more interested in seeing the story of FE5 play out, even if I already knew the ending thanks to FE4.

I've seen many people bring up the characters with 2 lines of dialogue when criticizing FE5, but I feel like that's missing the forest for the trees. Yes, Kain and Alba are not exactly the most interesting characters but that completely ignores how FE5 is able to make incredibly interesting and fleshed out characters out of very little dialogue. My favorite example of this is Perne. Practically everything pertaining to his character is limited to chapter 12x, but he still manages to be a compelling and morally grey character nonetheless. There are many more examples such as Amalda, Miranda, Diarmuid, and Linoan but I would be here all day if I went into every character. Suffice to say I believe FE5 has the best character writing that FE has seen thus far.

I think what this game really excels in is it's ludonarrative. This is at it's strongest during the Manster escape arc, where your army consists of a tiny group compared to how many enemies you face and you have barely any resources at your disposal. The entire game conveys the feeling of a desperate, hopeless struggle which is the perfect tone for Lief's journey. You can't just kill enemies like you used to, you need to capture them and strip them of their equipment to supply your army. There's an ever-present randomness with nothing in battle being %0 or %100 which relates to just how unfair this entire situation is for Leif. Being able to tell a story in this way is something unique to video games which is why I appreciate whenever a game takes advantage of it.

The gameplay is like a radical evolution of FE3's formula. Similarly sized and structured maps, but FE5 both brings in elements from FE4 and adds in it's own deluge of unique mechanics on top. In particular, the way you play maps in FE5 sets it apart from prior games. In FE3 it was mainly a point A to point B affair with the occasional side objective but the new chaoter goals and unorthodox map design forces you to play in more creative ways. It makes for a strategy game unlike anything that came before which, when combined with the uptick in difficulty, makes for a unique and memorable game.

As for complaints, I truly don't have much of a problem with anything in this game. There is a couple of chapters with elements that I would describe as completely unpredictable but I feel that a lot of people have difficulty discerning between unfairness and challenge. There is the aforementioned characters with 2 lines of dialogue, but those are so few and far between that I have a hard time caring too much.

While I don't believe it quite reaches the same highs as FE4, FE5 still delivers a worthwhile experience with its own unique take on storytelling. It's a shame this game tends to become a victim of strawmen built up by people who haven't even played it, because it deserves more people to give it a fair chance.

Play Thracia 776 Lucina, it's the best one.

The first thing I wanted to mention is that this is a game I finished for the first time fairly recently, only a few months ago as of writing this review. I played nearly every other Fire Emblem game while I was in middle school (or even elementary school with some games) so I haven't had the several years to reflect on and replay TRS like I have the others. Because of this, my TRS review may seem less considered or thoughtful than the others I've written.

TRS' story is a less than graceful combination of FE4's scale with FE5's more intimate storytelling. The world of TRS is given an excruciating amount of fleshing out, and I do mean excruciating. One of my biggest problem with TRS is the lore dumps. There are 2 instances in particular that stood out to me, those being Sylphis' exposition dump of doom where she covers multiple different topics and that part after the Welt arc where you spend like half an hour in cutscenes discussing the political affairs of a country you've heard named once with characters you've never met. I know this sounds like a bad thing, but at the very least you can't say TRS is sparse of world building. This story is nothing if not dense with information for you to parse through and if I'mbeing honest, I wouldn't have it any other way.

As mentioned prior, it's all too common for dialogue to feel never-ending but that isn't always a bad thing given how good the writing is. This is where TRS' FE5 dna shows through, with well written and complex characters that attaches you to the characters and further immerses you in the world. I appreciate how nearly every single character has a decent amount of development, meaning that the FE5 days of 2 lines of dialogue are a thing of the past. I also like how it deconstructs elements of past FE games. What if manaketes were degraded into living weapons? What if the ugly generic bandit actually had a good heart? What if the soulless military general just so happened to fight on your side? All of this is without mentioning Holmes and his story, which makes him easily my favorite protagonist thus far. While TRS does have its rough spots, it overall is able to combine the strongest parts of every prior game to make for a story that gives the Jugdral games a run for their money.

Gameplay wise, TRS is my favorite FE so far. It's an amalgamation of everything that came before it with a slew of new additions that make for one of the most in depth battle systems I've seen in an srpg. The map design is also great, with nearly every map having something about it to make it stand out. The character growth in this game is also my favorite so far. The enhanced skill system makes each unit feel more distinct and gives more of an incentive to train them to their max.

I don't talk about presentation too much in these reviews, but I would be amiss not to mention how beautiful this game looks. The portraits in particular are my favorite in any Fire Emblem with how detailed and expressive they are. The PS1's upgraded hardware allows for Mayumi Hirota's art to shine even better than on the snes.

Lastly, I normally I try to avoid talking about individual characters in my reviews for the sake of not going on never-ending tangents, but there's a special someone in this game whose reputation precedes her. I'm sure you already know Juni's story, but a Spark notes version would be "girl disguises self to escape genocide, part of disguise includes darkening her skin". I feel that the problems with this are self evident. It's a shame that this is here at all, it's such a minor part of Juni's character that was completely unnecessary and the whole ordeal lasts maybe 10 seconds but it still manages to be a noticeable blemish in a 40 hour game. I don't think this was done out of malice, it's so brief and out of nowhere that I don't think they realized the impact this moment would have on the player but that doesn't change how bad this is.

That being said, I still think TRS is great. In Kaga's first game away from Fire Emblem, he's proven that the quality of his previous games were down to his own talent rather than any help from Nintendo. Also, it's a spiritual successor to Gaiden. Of course I love it.

FE6 is a reboot. By that I mean it strips away everything that makes the series unique and worthwhile for the sake of appealing to the lowest common denominator and the result is by far the worst FE game to be released.

What purpose is there in talking about the story. It's even less interesting than FE1 on the famicom. Elibe is a painfully uninteresting setting and the characters are as wooden as can be. The plot is babies first political drama and the antagonists are just genero evil dudes with no depth. FE6 completely fails to deliver any form of satisfying payoff to anything that it even tries to set up. There are so many ideas in this game that feel like they could be interesting if expanded upon but FE6 does nothing with them. I'll use Ilia for an example. A country whose ecological conditions forces its people into mercenary work. Ilians rely on there being some form of warfare or conflict to survive. This seems like an interesting concept to explore, but FE6 never delves into it in either the main story or supports. This story is boring. There is nothing else to it.

What I belive to be most egregious though is the scarcity of unique ideas in FE6. Nearly every single character in this game is in some way a slightly different (and less interesting) version of someone from a prior game. Narcian? Diet Kempf. Roy? FE1 Marth but without the added development of book 2. Zephiel? Hardin but without the context of book 1. I know every Fire Emblem game pulls from the same group of archetypes, but none do so with the same level of unoriginality as FE6.

Keeping in line with the trend of copying elements of past games, FE6 has a missable true ending. I thought it was bad in FE3 and I still think it sucks here. I don't want to immediately replay an entire srpg just because I missed something crucial early on. Thankfully this is the last time something like this would appear.

The gameplay is also in a dire state. I don't think I've ever seen a sequel remove so much from the game it's built off while simultaneously adding nothing of its own. Similarly to the story, we're back to the FE1 days with rescue being the only thing adding the slightest amount of complexity to the gameplay.

Roy is a pathetically weak lord. He struggles to contribute even at the beginning of the game and later on he becomes a liability, especially considering that there are siege tomes and ambush spawns that can one round him. The hit rates in this game are incredibly shaky. Axe units are completely unviable while even classes that normally excel in their accuracy struggle to consistently hit enemies. The balancing is abysmal. So many units are flat out unusable and many have an objectively better alternative, thanks in part to this games removal of skills. If you already think this makes the game seem frustrating to play, wait until you here about...

The map design. I love mind-numbing maps that make heavy use of narrow corridors where you just slowly move your units while getting pelted by ranged attackers. I love status staves that I have no way to deal with other than to tank them out. Even the rare occasion where a map itself is fine, the gameplay quirks mentioned in the previous paragraph do everything in their power to ruin what good the game has to offer.

There is precisely one thing that FE6 attempts to add, that being supports. These take so long to get and are so tedious to build up that most won't even know they exist and even those who are aware may not want to waste their time on them. Even then, the bonuses are completely negligible unless at A rank and there's no way to even know what they do without looking it up.

That's not even mentioning the main reason that supports exist, to give development to the whole cast. To say it fails at this would be an understatement. These characters could not be more boring if they tried with so much of the dialogue feeling completely lifeless and devoid of any substance. It occasionally tries to cover deeper topics through the supports, but they're so disconnected from the main narrative that it's hard to care. In the support systems debut appearance, it has shown that it's absolutely not an adequate replacement for meaningful character development in the main story.

As for presentation, FE6's colors are garish and make the game look even more like it's meant for children. Many laud the animations and while I agree they look nice, I still prefer the older games' animations because at least those didn't look like toys smacking against each other. The music is shoddy but that's to be expected of a GBA game. While FE6's presentation is the thing I have the least amount of issues with, I still feel it's a massive downgrade from prior games.

I suppose I should talk about something positive in this review. I like Niime. Her supports are cool and I just generally like mean characters. Idunn is a neat final boss. I like the idea of a manakete being given back control over her life after being used as a weapon. I wonder if a prior game covered this same topic in far more detail with far more nuance. Gonzalez is also alright. He's a typical ugly bandit dude but he has a good heart so he fights on your side. He's not even half as cool as Maerchen but it's still something. Hard mode is the only addition FE6 makes that I have no problem with. Higher difficulty is cool. Wish you didn't have to unlock it though.

In Fire Emblem's first game without Kaga, they're off to what can be generously described as a rough start. A regression in every single department, FE6 is easily the worst game to come out in the Fire Emblem series as of its release.

While I greatly appreciate FE7 for at least trying to be unique from the past games, I still feel that the game is mediocre at best on nearly every front.

Starting with the story, I know there are more than plenty of people who believe it to be the worst thing since their son but I honestly struggle to conjure up much of any emotions towards it. I completely agree with the more passionate among us who vehemently hate this game but I just can't bring myself to really care. In broad strokes, the plot is really quite bad. But I think what FE7 does better than just about any prior entry is being entertaining. The characters are colorful and it's fun to watch them interact. There's not much depth and I understand why so many dislike it so but I find it to be a nice story to just turn my brain off to when I don't want to think about complicated political dramas. While not even close to the stories of the snes entries, FE7's story still has much more on offer than it's immediate predecessor.

The supports are a huge step up. The characters feel more memorable and have more vivid dialogue. Keeping with the trend of the main story, these supports tend to be more entertaining than deep or complex but it makes for a nice distraction in the middle of battle. That's not to say there's no good supports. Characters like Renault and Erk feel almost like Thracia characters in terms of their writing. At the very least it's a major improvement over FE6, but I suppose that's not saying much.

Gameplay wise I have almost nothing to say. It's still very boring but they fixed the hit rate issues from FE6 so there's that. The cast is better balanced but characters still struggle to stand out. The map design is alright. Nothing particularly offensive nor anything earth shattering. My only real complaint is that I wish they would bring back skills.

I think the only issue I have with FE7 (besides the bad story) is how random the gaiden chapter requirements are. In FE5/6 they typically required something simple like beating the map quickly or completing a side objective but FE7's requirements tend to be more obtuse to the point I can't imagine you finding them without looking it up first. This is especially bad considering how important some of the content in these chapters are, but at least you can still get the true ending if you miss them.

This is the FE game I have the least to say about. It's not particularly good in most areas nor is it particularly bad. I'd imagine it's good for beginners who are intimidated by the snes games, but I feel that FE3 would work better as a transition game of sorts.

Similarly to FE7, FE8 is a game that I struggle to say much about. Story? Gameplay? Presentation? It's all just average with no noticeably bad nor good qualities.

The story is okay. Both the world and plot are pretty interesting but it's held back by the absolute barren wasteland that is its cast. So many feel completely lifeless and I struggle to become attached to any of them. Unfortunately, this problem is at its worst with the main characters. While not quite as lifeless as Roy or FE1 Marth, Eirika and Ephraim are both easy contender for the most boring lords the series has seen yet. Eirika's entire personality can be summed up as "naive" and Ephraim is constantly doing things that should be impossible (cough routing an entire fort and escaping with 3 dudes cough) because the writers are too lazy to find more interesting ways to make him seem cool. There are some interesting characters. God bless Innes I love that boy and even some side characters like Syrene and Duessel are pretty cool but most of this game's best writing is hidden in supports which is a shame because I can't imahine someone being compelled to go out of their way and read the supports after playing FE8. You're really not going to get much out of the main story.

Speaking of, the supports in this game are probably my favorite so far. They're a lot longer than the prior games and on the whole have more substance to them which I enjoy but it really starts to test my suspension of disbelief that these characters are just talking like this in the middle of a battle. If course they're not all great. Joshua's and L'arachel's in particular stand out as extremely vapid and it makes me groan when I see that a character who I otherwise like got stuck with a support with them.

The villains are also really bad, second only to FE6 for the worst in the series. Every single villain (and I do mean all of them) are just a less layered version of a villain who came before them. Lyon is Arvis but without the motivation or family history. Selena is Ishtar but less tragic. Caellach is Travant with a fraction of the plot relevance. I won't go on because I'm sure you get the point but there is one villain I think had the potential to be original, that being Orson. His relationship with Monica could make him an interesting foil to Eirika. The problem is that the idea of him being a foil is never really explored and his role in the story is cut woefully short. Then there's Fomortiis, who easily takes the spot as the most anticlimactic final boss in a Fire Emblem game so far. Literally just an evil god with not a shred of interesting lore or character accompanying him.

Gameplay is a slight step up from FE7. Given how much I've been begging for the return of skills for my last 2 reviews, you'd think I'd be overjoyed to see them back but FE8's skills are so inconsequential that I don't really care. You can only have one skill and most of them barely make a difference in battle. There's also the split promotions which is doubtless my favorite thing to come from FE8. Kaga did it first, of course, but FE8 making it customary across all classes really adds to replayability. Many of the decisions aren't well balanced (mage promotion I'm looking at you) but it's still a good step forward. The game is very easy. Even on Ephraim hard mode it's still a cakewalk. The map design is fine, that's about all I have to say on the gameplay.

This is the first FE to have a post-game aaaaaaand it sucks. This map design does not at all feel like it fits the bare bone mechanics of the gba titles and getting through it feels like a slog. There's not even any new story content. I really don't know why this is here, I wish they would have just devoted more time and resources to improving the main game.

There's also the world map which allows for grinding. I do not like the idea of grinding in FE but it's not too bad here as, similarly to Gaiden, I feel there's still an adequate amount of risk involved given that you never know what you're getting into until you're there. While I don't like it, it's not enough to ruin the game by any means.

That's all I have to say about FE8. Very uninteresting all around but I still think it's the best gba FE by a pretty wide margin. I'm so happy we get to move on to better games and FE is done with this vapid transition period where they're clearly struggling to learn how to make games without Kaga's direction.

Similarly to my TRS review, I feel I should mention that I first completed this game just a few months ago. As such, I have not had nearly enough time to reevaluate this game and finalize my thoughts on it. There's also the matter of when I played it. By the time I first played FE9 the only FE game I hadn't played was FE10. FE9 seems to be a popular pick for someone's entry to the series, so the fact it was one of the last games I played will naturally color my preception. Anyway, back to the actual review.

For the first time since 1999, Fire Emblem feels worthwhile again. The GBA titles felt like they were created because Nintendo owned the IP and figured it wouldn't be too hard to push out a few low effort games while FE9 feels like the main intent lied in delivering a high quality narrative over all else while bringing the gameplay back up to snuff with the SNES titles.

Very much unlike the gba titles, there's actually a lot to talk about in regards to the story. There was clearly a much greater effort put into the storytelling and it definitely pays off. The character writing is easily on the same level as FE5 and in terms of the main story while I wouldn't say it's quite on the level of the Jugdral games, FE9 stands as one of the better stories that FE has told thus far. One aspect that I liked a lot was how the first part of the game was limited strictly to Crimea, and you don't even see a map of the continent until a few chapters in. This helps prevent information overload by introducing you to the world at a gradual pace rather than all at once.

I've mentioned in prior reviews that FE stories tend to be a mix of political drama and fantasy adventure with different games leaning more towards one end or the other. FE9 leans harder into the fantasy adventure aspect than any game so far. This is a metamorphosis that FE has been slowly undergoing since Kaga left the series but I'm only just bringing it up now because I feel that FE9's story tries its hardest to to shed the more niche elements of past games and become palatable. I also think this is why FE9's story is so well received compared to the rest of the series. It simply seems like a better story if you try to analyze them like they're a typical jrpg rather than a political drama. Am I saying the only reason FE9's story is so popular is because people are unable to appreciate the complex political world of Kaga's games? Yes. I know that sounds insulting, but I think it's understandable as political drama isn't exactly the most popular genre and it makes sense that a series with dwindling sales numbers would want to try its hand at appealing to a wider audience. It also doesn't hurt that this story is legitimately very well written. I'm not a huge fan of this change in focus, but it's hard to be mad when it still excels in the new direction it's aiming for. Of course, that's not to say there's no politics at all. Tellius is an incredibly well fleshed out world with a lot going on, it's just that politics don't take as much of a central role primarily because...

The main character is a mercenary. This is something I often see lauded about FE9, with many wishing that future games would also make use of merc protagonists. I think this type of protagonist works well. They'll likely be viewing the world through the same lens as the player which makes it easier to introduce things organically rather than through awkward info dumps where one character tells another something that they already know. Despite this, and I know this sounds contrarian, I truly don't get the hype. Ike has a small yet strong support system and he fights his way to the top with the occasional assistance of a noble, which is the same story as Leif who is a prince. I'm not saying that Ike is a copy of Leif but I'm trying to point out that both have incredibly similar stories despite their difference in status. If that's the case, then what does it matter whether the main character is a noble or a commoner? Why don't more people praise Leif for the same reasons they praise Ike? The simple answer is that comparatively few people have played FE5 and even many of those who have played both wouldn't think to make this comparison. The smart (otherwise known as "pretentious") answer is that when people say they want more mercenary protagonists, what they really mean is that they prefer the aesthetic of a mercenary to that of a noble.

The primary theme of FE9 is "racism is bad". I obviously agree with this message but I feel that people give this game too much credit in regards to how it handles and portrays racism. The racists in this game wear their bigotry on their sleeves and are almost comically evil about how much they hate laguz. Of course, there are people like this in the world but the reality is that racism (and bigotry in general) tends to be a lot more insidious. You typically can't mark someone as xenophobic at a glance and some prejudiced behaviors may not come across as such to someone who doesn't know to look out for them. Acknowledging this would bring up a lot of complicated questions that FE9 is not prepared to answer. The simple platitudes that FE9 offers can't lead us to any conclusion that couldn't also be reached by someone with a surface level understanding of prejudice.

The opening paragraph if this review was the same as my TRS review. Keeping with that trend, welcome to the racial insensitivity corner. Today we're talking about Devdan. A birth of a nation style stereotype, every scene involving Devdan is wildly uncomfortable. When talking about Juni I tried to emphasize that if you removed the lines of dialogue involving her appearance from her story, there would be no problem (granted, having the first black character be a thief is far from ideal but that's somewhat less inexcusable). I cannot say the same for Devdan. Even if you removed his most egregious moments, he would still be a racist caricature. With Juni I could at least say that I liked her story before the last few lines but there is no such silver lining in Devdan's character. It's a shame that the first black character in the series was written like this.

On a lighter note, one new mechanic that serves as a massive boon for FE9's storytelling is the base. This allows every player to experience the supplementary material that would have been locked behind supports in the previous 3 games and because they can only be viewed during certain chapters, they're allowed to actually acknowledge the events of the plot. There was clearly a lot of effort put into the writing of these events and it results in FE9 having one of the most interesting casts in the series.

The support system and the supports themselves have also seen massive improvements. Gaining supports is much less tedious now and you can actually see what they do. I don't like that they don't tell you that you're limited to 5 supports per character, but that's a relatively small hang-up. The writing quality is also top-notch. They're not all perfect, but for the first time I really feel that the support system does a good job of fleshing out the cast in a way that wouldn't have been possible in a game without them. Special shutout to Stefan's supports. The amount of world building present in 2 short conversations is insane.

Now that I've said everything I want about the writing and story, I suppose I should talk about the gameplay. FE9 feels like a return to form, having basically the same mechanics as FE5 with a little extra on top. The proper skill system has finally made its return and shoving introduces a new way for you to interact with your units. There's also the bonus exp, which is my favorite addition in this game. In previous entries, the only reward for playing well was a low turn count but by actually rewarding the player it makes proficient play a lot more worthwhile to more casual fans. The map design is generally pretty good, but I think difficulty is FE9's weakest point. It's way too easy on hard mode and the Japanese exclusive maniac mode is not exactly an enjoyable experience. I wish there was a difficulty between those 2 that would ramp up the challenge without becoming insufferable.

While not my favorite, I'm just happy to like Fire Emblem again. The GBA games were vapid as can be while FE9 feels like it has an actual reason for existing and it makes me optimistic for the future of the series. At least, that's what I imagine I would think had I played this game when it released in 2005.

In my reviews for TRS, FE9, and Berwick Saga I mentioned that I only played the game recently. The same goes for FE10, I only finished it for the first time a few months ago. As such my opinions aren't as set in stone as the rest of the series. For the record, this is the last time I'll have to make a disclaimer like this. Also, I know there's some interesting decisions that were made when localizing this game but I'm not going to go into them because I really don't think they're all that relevant for the purposes of this review. All I have to say is that not going with the extended script was definitely a choice.

FE10 is the game I feel the most conflicted about. For every high point there's at least 5 low points to match and I feel the best way to succinctly describe FE10 is "tumultuous". So much of FE10 feels like a roller coaster where 1 moment I'll be thinking it's the peak of the series and the next will have me wishing FE had just died after Kaga left.

The story is definitely an interesting experience. I've never seen an FE game with a story that contains so much good and so much god awful. To keep this from becoming a jumbled mess, I'll cover each part individually.

Part 1 contains easily the best story content that FE10 has to offer. The way it conveys the struggle of the dawn brigade through challenging gameplay is really cool and I liked the story for the most part. Granted, Pelleas is an absolute knob and I wish anyone in this story would just grow a spine and kill him and Izuka. There's also the blood contract, which is probably the worst writing decision I've seen in Fire Emblem. I would still say part 1 has a generally good story though and I liked the way it tied into FE9 by bringing back characters who were originally from Daein.

Part 2 is the first sign of things to come. We shift our focus to Elincia. I like the idea of this part a lot. You get to see how Crimea is reacting to Daein's reconstruction and they're understandably worried. Elincia is a coward so she won't do anything and Ludveck takes it into his own hands to stage a coup so they can go and take out Pelleas and keep Daein in its place. This all seems well and good but right at the end there's a conversation between Elincia and Ludveck where he reveals that he was just testing her? He already had a perfectly reasonable motivation to rebel, why change it to something so nonsensical? They had something potentially cool going on here but they screwed it over at the last second for no discernable reason. Personally I would've preferred if Ludveck had won and then marched on Daein, but whatever. After that, we get the greil mercenaries' return. I liked the set up of their reveal but...

Then we get to part 3, which is when I feel the game completely falls apart. Part 3 is the longest in the game at 15 chapters. Despite that, I find this part to be easily the most forgettable and that's not mentioning how it hyper focuses on Ike even though he has no reason to even be in this story. Remember in FE5 when Seliph appeared for 1 scene and then never again? That was cool. In FE10, though, there's this emphasis on Ike that I can only assume was done to pander to people who like FE9. He has no reason to be the main character of any part, much less the longest in the game. So much of this part feels like padding, with only the last few chapters having substantial story progress. Blood pacts play a bigger role here which I still think are the worst plot device Intelligent Systems has come up with yet. The first 2 parts had their fair share of ill-advised writing decisions but I feel it all comes to a head in part 3 which makes it without a doubt the worst part of FE10.

Thanks to part 3, I stopped caring about the story by part 4. The first few chapters are irrelevant. I feel like FE10 is desperate to convey a large scale war, but I just don't think that large scale is a proper replacement for good writing. I was very happy to see Sanaki finally getting the attention she deserves in this story and I liked learning some of the lore behind Tellius. We're also graced with Dheginsea and Sephiran, who are the only villains in Tellius that I found to be all that interesting. There's also this grandstanding about how humanity doesn't need gods, which I felt came kind of out of nowhere. This was never a story about god or the role of religion in society but it's not like it's atrociously written so oh well.

I feel that FE10 focused too much on appeasing people who wanted updates on every single FE9 character instead of focusing on just telling a good sequel story, which I don't believe would even be hard to do given Tellius' world. In FE3 Book 2, you could only recruit some of the playable characters from Book 1. Many who weren't recruitable either didn't appear at all, were antagonists, or were side characters. This made their inclusions feel like they were made with consideration as to what their role in the story was whereas in FE10 characters only appear because they were in the last game.

Even if you ignore the returning characters, the FE10 original characters don't exactly fare well. Pelleas and Micaiah are the only ones given much of any development, with the rest being completely one note. Vika? Lyre? Nolan? I might be able to give you 1 or 2 basic personality traits but that's it. The character writing in this game took a steep decline in quality from FE9 and it makes the cast one of the most forgettable despite its size.

FE10 is interesting because despite everything I've said, I still wouldn't describe the story as horrendous. There are some monstrously bad decisions that go a long way to ruin what good does exist in this game but I'd still say it has a better story than FE6 or even FE7. At the absolute very least I can say I appreciate how FE10 sets itself apart with its unique structure, even if it is occasionally a bane.

I suppose I should talk about the gameplay, too. The fact that this was the very last FE I played probably will show the most here as I found this game to be very easy. In part 1 you can just solo everything with Sothe or whatever super unit they give you (Tauroneo, Black Knight, Nailah). In part 2 the maps aren't that hard to begin with and the amount of strong mounted units you're given makes it even more of a breeze. Nearly every single map in part 3 can be described as "place Haar in group of enemies. Equip hand axe. Win". Part 4 gives you the laguz royals who can already solo the game singlehandedly but the game gives you like 5 of them along with absurdly strong pre promotes which makes it even more of a joke. The only maps that gave me any trouble was the swamp map in part 3 but even that falls victim to FE10's insistence on giving you super units to trivialize the map with.

One side effect of FE10s structure is that training units is a fool's errand. I tried to train Edward, I really did. I heavily prioritized him in part 1 and gave him almost all of my bonus exp. What did I get? A mediocre swordy who only got to achieve that mediocrity in like 2 of the part 4 maps before being benched before the tower. I put a lot of effort into training Ed and got absolutely nothing out of it. He wasn't useless but in retrospect I wouldn't have put in that much effort if I knew it wouldn't pay off at all.

FE10 is a heavily flawed game but I would be lying if I said I disliked it. I have a comparatively bizarre relationship with the Tellius ganes. They're the only ones in the whole series that I didn't play until I was 18 and I was into FE for roughly 8 years before playing them. I spent years hearing about them and how good they are so finally being able to see what they're all about has been both a surreal and satisfying experience.

FE11 is, to me, the gold standard for a remake. It keeps the experience of the original game intact while enhancing the game in ways that were impossible when the original came out

The story of FE11 isn't much different from the original. As I've said before, It's nothing revolutionary, especially by today's standards, but it's still impressive for a 1990 game and holds up perfectly fine. I would have been interested in seeing them try to add to this plot but I very much appreciate their approach of not fixing what isn't broken. This is something of an aside but complexity doesn't make a story good nor does simplicity make a story bad. FE11 tells a very simple and straightforward story but that doesn't make it bad at all.

While the plot has seen little change, the writing was greatly improved from FE1/3. This is easily one of my favorite scripts in any game and the amount of character they're able to give such a simplistic story is impressive. Caeda in particular is a standout. She was a pretty typical female lead character before but this writing adds so much more depth to her. There's also conversations that can be triggered between specific units that not only offers more characterization to the units involved but also fleshes out Archanea's world. The only complaint I have in regards to these is I wish there were more of them.

I wouldn't say that filler is exactly a problem the last 5 games have suffered from. That being said, there were several times when I felt the dialogue in FE6-10 could get a bit unnecessarily long winded and this was most prominent in the supports where it often felt like they were saying a little with a lot. FE11, on the other hand, is incredibly to the point and leaves absolutely no room for filler. This is a huge step up from FE10 where it would feel like several hours could pass without any plot progression. It also makes FE11's scrpit more enjoyable to read on repeat playthroughs because it never wastes your time.

What I believe really makes FE11 such a great game is how it plays. It's by far the fastest paced game yet which lends to its replayability alongside the 6 difficulty options. It's so tempting to play this game again and again, trying new team configurations and reclass options and difficulties. There are so many different ways to play and so many ways to build units that it makes FE11 the most repayable game thus far.

I mentioned reclassing in that last section, which I think is definitely an interesting addition to this game. It allows you to experiment with different classes and try something different with characters who may have been stuck in a bad class. The drawback of this is that unit identity is lost. It's harder for a unit like, for example, Merric to stand out because he's no longer one of the only units capable of being a mage. Overall though I would say that reclassing was a good addition if only for how much it adds to replayability.

One of the most maligned aspects of FE11 is the gaiden chapters. Because they require you to lose units to unlock them, it is impossible to a achieve a "perfect ending". A lot of players tend to get into the habit if resetting for every loss, which isn't how FE is meant to be played. Obviously there's nothing wrong about playing this way, but our lord Shouzou Kaga Himself said that you shouldn't trip over yourself in pursuit of a best ending. By offering these gaiden chapters, FE11 nudges the player into rolling with the punches without forcing them into that playstyle. That's not to mention how it serves as a safety net to struggling players. If you have lost a lot of units, here's an entire chapters worth of experience as well as a new unit.

I started the last paragraph with "one of" because the actual most hated thing about this game is the presentation. In my never-ending quest to be the most contrarian Fire Emblem fan on the internet I have come to the conclusion that this game looks pretty nice. The maps and menus look good and there's these beautiful pieces of art shown before each chapter. I like the portraits too. I think the grittier style along with FE11's writing work together to give this game a really unique atmosphere that makes it standout even from the game it's remaking. I won't defend the battle animations though. They're really ugly and it sucks that units don't get unique pallets.

FE11 is one of the best games FE has seen in quite a while and easily my favorite post-Kaga game so far. I loved the gameplay, but FE11's writing was really on another level. I can't wait to see the rest of the series to see how the writing improved after this. Haha.

If FE11 was the gold standard for a remake, FE12 is the exact opposite. It does everything it can to impose itself onto the original and ruins all the good that FE3 had to offer.

Similarly to FE11, the plot of this remake doesn't do much to deviate from the original. Unlike FE11, FE12 seems to have absolutely no respect for the original game and constantly tries to inject its own concepts with such gracelessness that it makes what good is left difficult to enjoy. FE12 will be damned if it doesn't try to ruin FE3's story every step of the way. The way it tries to do this most is through the one, the only, Kris.

Kris is a self insert character brand new to FE12. This as actually not FE's first swing at this type of character, but FE7's Mark is so irrelevant that most analyses of FE7's story don't even mention them. Kris on the other hand is painfully relevant. They are constantly inserted into story scenes to the detriment of every single character around them. They make Jeigan seem weak and Marth frequently makes out of character decisions in the service of making the player avatar seem cool. Even if you ignored all that and tried to examine Kris in a void, they're still a horribly written character. They frequently act differently which makes it hard to pin down what their personality even is but the one constant is that they give characters bad advice that somehow just works out in the end. For example, in Arran's support with them he confesses that he once killed a village of people who were rebelling against their corrupt king. Kris' response to this? To tell him he isn't to blame. No, Kris, Arran does share some of the blame. He can't just kill an entire village and claim innocence by virtue of "following orders". But of course Kris isn't challenged because they need to do everything in their power to make Kris seem cool.

FE12 brings in every single Archanea character (including those absent from FE3) and makes previously unrecruitable characters available as well. This removes a lot of weight from the story as you're no longer fighting former allies, now you just need to convince them to join your side and they automatically do so no matter how improbable it is for that character. An example that really irks me in this regard is the case of Midia's group. In FE3, it's said that Midia took part in a rebellion within the kingdom and many of her soldiers died. The game never says it but we're meant to assume that Dolph, Macellan, and Tomas are included among the casualties. While they weren't the most memorable characters on earth, the fact remains that people who you once knew are dead because of this war. Not in FE12 though! They're right here ready to fight alongside you. Can't have the player thinking about how deeply war affects people when they're supposed to be engrossed in a self insert power fantasy where every pre established character loves them unconditionally.

FE12 gives at least one support to every character in the game. This seems like a good thing given how little characterization this cast got in FE3. That is it seems that way until you learn that a majority only have one support and that one support is with Kris. The supports tend to focus more on Kris and I walk away from them feeling that I learned as much about the other character there as I did through their minimal (or even non existent) dialogue in FE3. It doesn't help that the writing is atrocious. This easily takes the cake as the worst writing in FE so far, with characters feeling like walking clichés instead of people. Let's take Cecille for example. Her entire character revolves around the fact that she is a woman who doesn't act stereotypically feminine. There are scant scenes that don't revolve around this quirk. This goes for just about every character in this game with all of them having some character trait that the writing completely latches onto. They had the opportunity to better flesh out this cast and they completely dropped the ball.

FE11 introduced new chapters that were fairly inoffensive in terms of writing. They mainly felt like filler but they weren't too bad and it was clear that they designed those chapters with gameplay in mind rather than the story. The opposite is the case in FE12. Granted, they don't have any impact on the main plot but that doesn't atone for just how horribly they're written. It's comprised entirely original material which means that since it can't just look to FE3 for what to do we're treated to 14 chapters of melodrama between pieces of cardboard. The whole assassin guild whatever the hell makes no sense. I cannot believe I am about to complement a GBA game, but even FE7's Black Fang was handled better than this. At least I halfway cared about dome characters in that group. Further, Kris is the sole main character of these chapters with Marthipan taking a backseat which just makes it all the worse. Gameplay wise it doesn't fare well either. The maps range from frustrating to boring and I'm just left wondering why these are here at all (that's a lie. The reason these are here is to make the player insert seem even cooler and give them a waifu in the form of Katarina).

Being a carbon copy of FE11's mechanics, the gameplay is pretty alright. I feel that FE3's map design isn't quite as timeless as FE1 but it's by no means bad. Though bringing over FE11's mechanics verbatim seems ill considered. FE3 was already flyer dominant but reclassing just makes it even worse. In FE3, you could trivialize maps with your group of 5 uber charged flyers. In FE12, you can do the same but this time with 7 fliers and reclass means you can make any unit you want into one of those fliers.

I think the flier problem stated in the previous paragraph is exacerbated by the fact that unit individuality has been completely forsaken in FE12's pursuit to make every single Archanea character recruitable. There are 77 recruitable characters in this game. It doesn't take long before you just start getting pelted by pre promotes in every chapters and they all blend in with one another as generic blobs of stats with nothing to make them stand out. I know I praised FE11 for consistently giving you new units, but this is absolutely too much.

The difficulties of FE12 are also questionably designed. The lower difficulties are fine, but at higher levels the game starts to crack. The ambush spawns are particularly egregious. They're incredibly strong which results in many maps devolving into trial and error and the enemy strength often results in maps just becoming more tedious.

FE12 added a base which is pretty alright but it makes grinding way too easy. There have historically been 2 ways to grind in FE, either going to optional maps or visiting the arena. Both of these are balanced by their unpredictability. You never really know what you're getting into meaning that there is always a risk of death. The arena present in FE12's base is not unpredictable, it literally gives you a battle forecast beforehand. There's also no time investment given that you can access in battle preps, meaning that all it costs is a couple thousand gold and maybe 5 or so minutes to make a unit into a juggernaut.

There's also FE12's biggest change, casual mode. Permadeath is one of the core tenets of Fire Emblem and removing it does nothing but water down the game for the purpose of appealing to the lowest common denominator. FE should resist players who don't want to engage with the game, not bend to their whim. What if a Zelda game had an optional mode where it would automatically tell you the solution to puzzles? What if Final Fantasy had a mode where you would start the game at max level? What if Resident Evil had a mode that gave you infinite resources? Just because it's an optional mode doesn't make it a good addition and if a series' core mechanic scares you away from playing it then that's on you, not the game.

The one good thing I have to say about FE12 is that it remade the Archanea Saga stories. They're devoid of anything original to FE12 making them actually enjoyable. There are some dlc chapters but I haven't played them and, knowing what the next few games are like, I would honestly prefer not to discuss dlc in these reviews.

After FE11 was a nearly perfect remake, FE12 was thoroughly disappointing. Easilt the worst writing in the series and uninspired gameplay makes this one of the worst games so far. At the very least Intelligent Systems can learn from this and get rid of that "Kouhei Maeda" guy and get on a director who knows how to make a half decent game. Haha.