As someone who only started getting into Fire Emblem around the launch of Awakening and Fates, mostly thanks to the videos by BigKlingy, I had always been interested in playing the older titles to see how the franchise got to where it is today.
While it may seem odd to start this look back with the fourth game in the series and not like, the first game or its remake, the fact that my friend Simon was playing it as well me recently joining a server filled with Fire Emblem enthusiasts who claimed this was the series peak got me interested.
Then I played it for the first time, didn't know how the hell the love system worked, or about the hidden items and encounters the game has, and wound up having to restart my entire run.
My general vibe with FE4 is that it very much is a Guide Game in regards not so much to the strategy against the enemies, but in how its other various mechanics work.
The Love System for example is very in-depth and intuitive, but only if you know how it even works in the first place. Which, if you don't look it up yourself, you would not know on a first playthrough, or possibly even a second playthrough. Given that unlike the later FE games, anyone (except for Sigurd, Deirdre, Quan, and Ethlyn) can marry anyone else, it can have pretty bad consequences.
That is because this is the game to introduce the Children Units mechanic, being a story that is split into two parts. That means, if you put a unit like, let's say Arden (the game's literal joke unit) with Tailtiu, their children would absolutely fucking suck because they are Magic only classes, and Arden is an armor knight with slow speed.
Of course, there are convos that can speed up the process of getting characters together, however they are extremely limited, and some characters flat out do not even have convos at all, which I'll get back on later because it brings up another issue I have with the game.
That's where the intuitive nature of the system luckily clicks into place and solves at least some of the problems. Firstly, all female characters will gain attraction points for all other male characters for at least 50 turns, which can be boosted by having a specific male character stand next to them and wait, giving an additional 5 points.
It is fully possible to get characters married with this method, but for an even faster and more efficient way, you can utilize the Jealousy System to further boost the points gained. In this situation, you have two female units wait next to each other, the one you want to have gain the points standing next to the first female unit who will be standing next to the male unit. This gives second female unit double the usual bonus points, making the road to marriage that much faster.
Of course, I wish the game had more aptly explained this to me, as while I greatly appreciate the system now having the knowledge of it, when it isn't really spelled out for the player as to how it works, you'd wind up screwing yourself in the second half of this game by either getting really shitty children units, or replacement Gen 2 units who inherit none of the weaponry and equipment of the first gen.
Hidden Items are another thing I'd like to bring up, as not something that's inherently bad, but mostly that they're time wasters in a game that is already massive in scale. Most of these are things I imagine either took a ridiculous amount of time to find... or were in the manual for this game.
Like, how are you supposed to know that taking Lex to this very specific point away from the last bit of remaining action in Chapter 1 is supposed to give him the Brave Axe.
I argue you aren't supposed to know, but this shit is unwarrantedly obtuse.
It's not game ruining, it's just an irritation because usually getting a character to and from these little excursions for hidden items take more time than it feels like it's worth.
It just begs to ask like, why couldn't these items just be drops from enemies? Why do they have to be overly specific. It's more of a, "did this have to be in the game", issue. I personally think that, no, they don't.
Onto the maps, which is easily the most divisive aspect of this game. Yeah, they're fucking massive. Yes, some of them 100% drag the fuck on to the point of being obnoxious, but I also think that the scale is impressive.
You do genuinely feel like you are conquering whole nations with how grandiose everything feels, and I think it allows for the Chapters to have various set pieces.
However, a big detriment is that horse and flying units are the only ones really able to traverse these areas within a reasonable time. Don't get me wrong, I did everything in my power to use foot soldier units (because I wanted to, but also because even with horse units being busted, some of them have god awful stats even compared to the foot soldiers.), and some of them even promoted to mounted units like Lachesis, who easily became my most powerful unit in the first half of the game. I also had a good number of people in that server rag on me for using the foot units and not equipping mounted units that had shit stats with gear even though I wasn't having them married, and that equipment worked better for characters that already had better stats.
My take away is that you should play the game however you want, horse units, foot units, however. Don't let other people tell you how to enjoy your experience.
Now I'm sure you're wondering, with all of these complaints, how is it that I have FE4 rated remotely higher than a 2 or even a 1 and a half star rating, and honestly that all goes to the story for Gen 1.
The political melodrama of Gen 1 is so damn interesting, and results in especially emotional moments like Chapter 3 (all of Chapter 3), the end of Chapter 5, and leads into interesting payoffs in the second half of the game.
The Gen 2 story is also not bad, but is much more simplified, becoming the standard "Light vs. Dark" story. It has great moments though, but I would like to talk about Chapters 7 through 9 for a moment.
These feel like they're from a completely different story, unrelated to the main plot, and while I do not dislike them on their own, in the grand scheme of the game they are a massive pace breaker that happens in the middle of the start of the second half of the game, and then ends right before the continuation of Chapter 6's narrative.
Spoiler Warning
We spend way too much time in Thracia honestly, and while it is an interesting location, it really does not feel like it should have been the focus for an entire three chapters of the game (especially when chapters are massive in FE4 to begin with). Many of the other locations you visit have you there at most for only 2 Chapters.
I can imagine this is because of the midquel to this game, and the final Fire Emblem work by series creator Shozou Kaga, Thracia 776, that would come out 4 years after FE4, but I don't honestly know.
Another complaint I have though that links to the story is characterization of the units... which to say there isn't much of. Some units get multiple conversations, others get... absolutely zero.
The biggest one for me is Noishe or Naoise, who the Fire Emblem Wiki states that "Apart from his dialogue in the prologue and the conversations he shares with his lovers, Naoise has no other unique lines in the game."
Including both his shoddy stats (which were arguably worse than even Arden's, even after promoting.) which meant he would be a really bad father, and general uselessness as a horse unit, all of these things combined to make my least favorite Fire Emblem character ever. A character who has zero characterization, zero development, zero usefulness, just an absolutely worthless character, and the only one whom I genuinely let stay dead when he died in my playthrough, useful only for letting another unit of mine survive in his worthless place.
This lack of characterization does extend to many of the other units, who do not get many convos, and are only relevant to the plot for a short time. It kind of keeps me from fully getting invested because like... I don't know these characters well enough to care.
Overall though, Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War was an ambitious title, especially given the hardware it was made on. It has a phenomenal story, an intriguing world and interesting level design, and the only reason it doesn't hit that five star ranking is because it does unfortunately have a few snags that kept me from seeing it as any higher.
A definite must try for the franchise, to see where a good chunk of Modern FE got its base tropes and elements from.
While it may seem odd to start this look back with the fourth game in the series and not like, the first game or its remake, the fact that my friend Simon was playing it as well me recently joining a server filled with Fire Emblem enthusiasts who claimed this was the series peak got me interested.
Then I played it for the first time, didn't know how the hell the love system worked, or about the hidden items and encounters the game has, and wound up having to restart my entire run.
My general vibe with FE4 is that it very much is a Guide Game in regards not so much to the strategy against the enemies, but in how its other various mechanics work.
The Love System for example is very in-depth and intuitive, but only if you know how it even works in the first place. Which, if you don't look it up yourself, you would not know on a first playthrough, or possibly even a second playthrough. Given that unlike the later FE games, anyone (except for Sigurd, Deirdre, Quan, and Ethlyn) can marry anyone else, it can have pretty bad consequences.
That is because this is the game to introduce the Children Units mechanic, being a story that is split into two parts. That means, if you put a unit like, let's say Arden (the game's literal joke unit) with Tailtiu, their children would absolutely fucking suck because they are Magic only classes, and Arden is an armor knight with slow speed.
Of course, there are convos that can speed up the process of getting characters together, however they are extremely limited, and some characters flat out do not even have convos at all, which I'll get back on later because it brings up another issue I have with the game.
That's where the intuitive nature of the system luckily clicks into place and solves at least some of the problems. Firstly, all female characters will gain attraction points for all other male characters for at least 50 turns, which can be boosted by having a specific male character stand next to them and wait, giving an additional 5 points.
It is fully possible to get characters married with this method, but for an even faster and more efficient way, you can utilize the Jealousy System to further boost the points gained. In this situation, you have two female units wait next to each other, the one you want to have gain the points standing next to the first female unit who will be standing next to the male unit. This gives second female unit double the usual bonus points, making the road to marriage that much faster.
Of course, I wish the game had more aptly explained this to me, as while I greatly appreciate the system now having the knowledge of it, when it isn't really spelled out for the player as to how it works, you'd wind up screwing yourself in the second half of this game by either getting really shitty children units, or replacement Gen 2 units who inherit none of the weaponry and equipment of the first gen.
Hidden Items are another thing I'd like to bring up, as not something that's inherently bad, but mostly that they're time wasters in a game that is already massive in scale. Most of these are things I imagine either took a ridiculous amount of time to find... or were in the manual for this game.
Like, how are you supposed to know that taking Lex to this very specific point away from the last bit of remaining action in Chapter 1 is supposed to give him the Brave Axe.
I argue you aren't supposed to know, but this shit is unwarrantedly obtuse.
It's not game ruining, it's just an irritation because usually getting a character to and from these little excursions for hidden items take more time than it feels like it's worth.
It just begs to ask like, why couldn't these items just be drops from enemies? Why do they have to be overly specific. It's more of a, "did this have to be in the game", issue. I personally think that, no, they don't.
Onto the maps, which is easily the most divisive aspect of this game. Yeah, they're fucking massive. Yes, some of them 100% drag the fuck on to the point of being obnoxious, but I also think that the scale is impressive.
You do genuinely feel like you are conquering whole nations with how grandiose everything feels, and I think it allows for the Chapters to have various set pieces.
However, a big detriment is that horse and flying units are the only ones really able to traverse these areas within a reasonable time. Don't get me wrong, I did everything in my power to use foot soldier units (because I wanted to, but also because even with horse units being busted, some of them have god awful stats even compared to the foot soldiers.), and some of them even promoted to mounted units like Lachesis, who easily became my most powerful unit in the first half of the game. I also had a good number of people in that server rag on me for using the foot units and not equipping mounted units that had shit stats with gear even though I wasn't having them married, and that equipment worked better for characters that already had better stats.
My take away is that you should play the game however you want, horse units, foot units, however. Don't let other people tell you how to enjoy your experience.
Now I'm sure you're wondering, with all of these complaints, how is it that I have FE4 rated remotely higher than a 2 or even a 1 and a half star rating, and honestly that all goes to the story for Gen 1.
The political melodrama of Gen 1 is so damn interesting, and results in especially emotional moments like Chapter 3 (all of Chapter 3), the end of Chapter 5, and leads into interesting payoffs in the second half of the game.
The Gen 2 story is also not bad, but is much more simplified, becoming the standard "Light vs. Dark" story. It has great moments though, but I would like to talk about Chapters 7 through 9 for a moment.
These feel like they're from a completely different story, unrelated to the main plot, and while I do not dislike them on their own, in the grand scheme of the game they are a massive pace breaker that happens in the middle of the start of the second half of the game, and then ends right before the continuation of Chapter 6's narrative.
Spoiler Warning
We spend way too much time in Thracia honestly, and while it is an interesting location, it really does not feel like it should have been the focus for an entire three chapters of the game (especially when chapters are massive in FE4 to begin with). Many of the other locations you visit have you there at most for only 2 Chapters.
I can imagine this is because of the midquel to this game, and the final Fire Emblem work by series creator Shozou Kaga, Thracia 776, that would come out 4 years after FE4, but I don't honestly know.
Another complaint I have though that links to the story is characterization of the units... which to say there isn't much of. Some units get multiple conversations, others get... absolutely zero.
The biggest one for me is Noishe or Naoise, who the Fire Emblem Wiki states that "Apart from his dialogue in the prologue and the conversations he shares with his lovers, Naoise has no other unique lines in the game."
Including both his shoddy stats (which were arguably worse than even Arden's, even after promoting.) which meant he would be a really bad father, and general uselessness as a horse unit, all of these things combined to make my least favorite Fire Emblem character ever. A character who has zero characterization, zero development, zero usefulness, just an absolutely worthless character, and the only one whom I genuinely let stay dead when he died in my playthrough, useful only for letting another unit of mine survive in his worthless place.
This lack of characterization does extend to many of the other units, who do not get many convos, and are only relevant to the plot for a short time. It kind of keeps me from fully getting invested because like... I don't know these characters well enough to care.
Overall though, Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War was an ambitious title, especially given the hardware it was made on. It has a phenomenal story, an intriguing world and interesting level design, and the only reason it doesn't hit that five star ranking is because it does unfortunately have a few snags that kept me from seeing it as any higher.
A definite must try for the franchise, to see where a good chunk of Modern FE got its base tropes and elements from.