The fire emblem that saved the entire series from disappearing. With great art, animations, and music, it led to a resurgence of interest in the series which I'm grateful for. It is, however, not the best fire emblem by a long shot. The story is all over the place, and a fair number of the cast are paper thin. A good entry, but nowhere near the best.

The start of the HOMM series is, by today's standards, fairly flawed. The art is rough and there are tons of missing QOL improvements that HOMM2 and 3 would introduce. Honestly there's no real reason to play this one if you have access to HOMM2 or HOMM3. Two is essentially a remaster, and three is different but much better.

One of my favorite tactical 4X (?) games ever made. The monster designs and art style is great, spells are varied, and there are tons of campaigns to go through. Hotseat multiplayer was superb back in the day.