I played this game a second time recently, the first time was on Normal and on Wii. It was pretty surreal as it was my gateway into some of the older FE titles. I really liked it back then. Now I got to play it on Hard Mode, thinking about Maniac Mode for another time.
I think this is a complicated game for me to rank. I really like the story of this game for one, it's nice to see a Fire Emblem story that actually stands out. From an everyday merc to a hero story with Ike, to the story of Elincia and accepting her role as a ruler and being comfortable with these mercs, the Laguz and Daein conflicts commenting on racial subjects, all of that is great and I wish we had more stories like this in Fire Emblem, feels like they play it pretty safe a good amount of the time or if they do something ambitious it kinda falls flat a good amount of the time.
The units I used are pretty fun too. I got to use Brom, Zihark, Ilyana, Nephenee, all of which were fun to use. I even got some really good supports. Zihark-Brom and Brom-Nephenee are very wholesome and cute to read and it made me appreciate them more as characters. Ilyana is kind of a gimmick character, but I thought her support with Zihark was adorable and she has some cute supports with other characters like Mia and such. Ike is awesome and is one of my favorite lords/protagonists in the series.
But... there's the gameplay. I'll get to the good stuff first. I think there are good ideas here; BEXP, the base, base conversations, being able to promote without needing a Master Seal, Laguz units are pretty interestingly designed. All of that is great. That's kind of as far as it goes though.
The unit balance is kinda bad, it sucks that Ike can't promote for such a long time so you just level him up real early so that the other units can soak up all the EXP, some classes are greatly preferred over others such as Paladins and Flying classes, swords are too weak, axes are too strong, Bio-rhythm is a bad mechanic that is only specific to this game and the sequel, the late game fights between Black Knight and Ashnard are genuine RNG fights and it's not fun to play. But I think the greatest sin of this game is that it's so... slow. Everything takes too long to load, enemy phase takes forever even on speedup if you're playing on emulator and you could not skip it at this point in Fire Emblem, the maps are huge a lot of the time which makes it feel especially really long and drawn out, and so on. It got to a point where late game felt like a chore to play.
I complained a lot, but I still don't have it in me to dislike this game or even call it mid. I still like it at the end of the day, but I think this game deserves a remake or remaster that makes it faster, give it a visual glowup. I think it would be so great to play and I'd be happy.
I think this is a complicated game for me to rank. I really like the story of this game for one, it's nice to see a Fire Emblem story that actually stands out. From an everyday merc to a hero story with Ike, to the story of Elincia and accepting her role as a ruler and being comfortable with these mercs, the Laguz and Daein conflicts commenting on racial subjects, all of that is great and I wish we had more stories like this in Fire Emblem, feels like they play it pretty safe a good amount of the time or if they do something ambitious it kinda falls flat a good amount of the time.
The units I used are pretty fun too. I got to use Brom, Zihark, Ilyana, Nephenee, all of which were fun to use. I even got some really good supports. Zihark-Brom and Brom-Nephenee are very wholesome and cute to read and it made me appreciate them more as characters. Ilyana is kind of a gimmick character, but I thought her support with Zihark was adorable and she has some cute supports with other characters like Mia and such. Ike is awesome and is one of my favorite lords/protagonists in the series.
But... there's the gameplay. I'll get to the good stuff first. I think there are good ideas here; BEXP, the base, base conversations, being able to promote without needing a Master Seal, Laguz units are pretty interestingly designed. All of that is great. That's kind of as far as it goes though.
The unit balance is kinda bad, it sucks that Ike can't promote for such a long time so you just level him up real early so that the other units can soak up all the EXP, some classes are greatly preferred over others such as Paladins and Flying classes, swords are too weak, axes are too strong, Bio-rhythm is a bad mechanic that is only specific to this game and the sequel, the late game fights between Black Knight and Ashnard are genuine RNG fights and it's not fun to play. But I think the greatest sin of this game is that it's so... slow. Everything takes too long to load, enemy phase takes forever even on speedup if you're playing on emulator and you could not skip it at this point in Fire Emblem, the maps are huge a lot of the time which makes it feel especially really long and drawn out, and so on. It got to a point where late game felt like a chore to play.
I complained a lot, but I still don't have it in me to dislike this game or even call it mid. I still like it at the end of the day, but I think this game deserves a remake or remaster that makes it faster, give it a visual glowup. I think it would be so great to play and I'd be happy.