The worst one, apparently! Gaiden is undoubtedly a weird game and a black sheep, but I'd be very hard pressed to call it bad, or without merits. In fact, Gaiden is actually really cool, and many of its issues are grossly overblown. Just like with FE7, I feel that just because a bunch of fetubers have said it's bad, or pointed out its issues, it's become the general consensus, and in Gaiden's case I personally doubt many of its detractors have even played it because of its infamy. I don't blame them - a clunky, slow, Famicom SRPG with poor balancing and bad map design doesn't exactly sound fun, and it certainly seems like perfect punching bag material, but believe me when I say this; these are not egregious enough to make Gaiden unenjoyable, at least to me. If you want a tldr, I typed up my thoughts in a previous review, which was admittedly very passive aggressive and rude, which I apologise for. I just get heated trying to defend games I like, I suppose. But yeah, Gaiden is actually cool and you're all wrong. (Not really. All opinions are valid but I do heavily disagree with the negative sentiment this game has garnered.)

Gaiden is actually really impressive for a Famicom game of the time. Having a multi-faceted narrative with two ongoing, playable routes is probably the biggest part of Gaiden's identity, and I can't think of any other games from the time that dared to try this, at least within the realm of SRPGs and JRPGs. The world map is also surprisingly detailed, always fully visible, and fully traversible from top to bottom, albeit on a fixed path. I never saw any sprites flicker, and the battle animations are nothing short of eye-candy. I really like some of the attention to detail too, like having Alm and Celica's portraits change slightly on promotion, or the final boss' battle sprite completely changing when weakened. Not to mention the unique animation Alm gets for landing the finishing blow. That shield toss gives me chills and I don't think any other NES game has ever made me feel that.

Although I already knew the gist of Gaiden's narrative, having already played Echoes, I still think it's worth pointing out how good it is, especially by NES standards. What starts off as spearheading an uprising against a corrupt general spirals into the conquest of an entire nation, and wrestling control of the world from Gods back into the hands of humans. If you know me, that last bit is one of my favourite tropes in any form of media, and I think this might be one of the first ever examples of it - so good on Gaiden for starting the trend.

Here comes the hard part, though. Addressing Gaiden's biggest issues is difficult. The common complaints aren't totally unfounded, but they're definitely exaggerated. I guess I can try by getting the most notorious out of the way; the map design.

Gaiden map design is....weird. I don't think it's necessarily bad though. There're lots of open areas, and terrain bonuses are a bit excessive. Map layouts are reused, and some are questionably designed, but it never felt unfair, or unfun, which are probably two biggest contributors to what makes a map "badly designed", at least for me. Obviously this is entirely down to personal opinion. I won't deny some maps could've definitely pissed me off in another timeline, though, like some of Celica's lategame bog maps, or Nuibaba's mansion on Alm's side, but they just didn't annoy me too much, and maps like these are the exception, not the rule. And guys, please stop acting like Celica's route is all boat maps when it only makes up three of like, godknows how many total possible individual encounters there are on her route. Seriously though, Gaiden map design is fine.

"But Gaiden is grindy! The XP payouts suck and you're better off playing on easy mode."

In all of my time playing Gaiden, I only stopped once to grind, and it was right before the point of no return on Celica's route to give a few units that nudge they needed to get their promotions...which I didn't even end up using on the final map. So ultimately, no. Gaiden is very beatable without grinding. Consider that most actions reward your whole party experience, and that's a lot more exp that your units are getting than you realise, even if it initially seems like very little. And before you say grinding is slow in Gaiden, that couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, it's faster than just about any contemporary RPG of the time. The game gives you very easy access to infinite mummy encounters on both routes (maybe to Celica's route's detriment because those graveyard tiles always initiate an encounter) that are guaranteed to give your characters boatloads of experience and in many cases a flat 100 xp.

Moving on to level ups and growth rates; growth rates being low is also a very deliberate design choice. They're there to add variety to playthroughs, and make some units end up potentially better or worse than others, as per traditional Fire Emblem's design philosophy, but only marginally in Gaiden, since promotions automatically bump stats up to class bases if they're lower, as opposed to providing a fixed increase to stats like other games in the series. This means that, actually unlike most FE games, Gaiden has a surprisingly balanced cast. I actually like this approach. It's definitely in line with Gaiden's whole idea of being an SRPG with traditional RPG elements baked in, given this incentivises just levelling your characters instead of relying on random variables, and, again, it makes for a mostly balanced cast. There's no doubt that dread fighters and falcoknights are by far the best promotions, but it does mean that everyone is viable if you invest in them. Regarding characters who don't promote until very late though, like Mae and Delthea, they don't even need the promotion. Being able to use Aura is more than enough. Seriously, everyone in Gaiden gets a chance to shine. Maybe some less than others, though, because of bases or stats that are unchanged by promotions. cough Clive.

"Witches being able to warp to your units is unfair!"

Ok, so, don't count me on this, but I heard that the witch enemy ai was intentionally made to be really stupid and to not be able gang up on your units. Not something I can actually verify, but I think anyone who has played gaiden can safely say that witches are stupid and very rarely actually do anything that could be anything considered remotely strategically beneficial. It didn't happen to me, but I dunno, if it does, Gaiden is one of the few FE games that gives you the luxury of reviving dead characters. Not once, mind you. Up to six times. Three per route, though characters who die on either route can be revived and brought over to the other. Silk seems to be the most common use of this, given warp utility is invaluable and I can't blame people for wanting to skip more than just the maps on Alm's side. Going back on map design though, I think the game gives you two extremely good, high move, terrain ignoring fliers on Celica's route for a reason. Three if you're willing to feed kills to Est for a bit. Her bases are actually pretty respectable.

(Protip, by the way, for people who've decided to read this far - you deserve it: Once you get to chapter 4, do all of Celica's route's stuff until you unlock Alm's promotion, transfer the angel ring over to Alm. Level up Alm a bunch in the ensuing maps thanks to his inflated exp gain and once you get to Nuibaba's mansion, just warp him in on a heal tile and pray he kills Nuibaba with a bow before they can land Medusa. Once they're gone you've practically beaten the chapter, and trivialised one of the most infamous FE maps in the franchise's history. You can reuse this same strategy for the final map, if you keep the angel ring on him long enough. Those boosted stat gains will likely remove any need for the regal sword. Just substitute using a bow for the Falchion, obviously, since it's required to beat the game not counting using nosferatu.)

"But Gaiden is too slow!"

I have genuinely nothing to say other than; "what did you expect when booting up a famicom SRPG"? Of course it's going to be slow, and clunkier than what you're accustomed to. The key factor, I feel, that will decide whether or not you like Gaiden, is your mindset. If you go in thinking it's going to suck, because of its slowness, or stiff controls, or anything else, your brain's just going to keep honing in on those thoughts, and you'll never be able to adapt. Gaiden's controls and speed are something I was able to get used to, and I'm not immune to losing my patience over old SRPGs, or JRPGs, or anything, either.
If it helps, turn off animations. I got through the whole game with animations turned off and only used fastforward maybe a handful of times.

So, is Gaiden better than Echoes? Of course not. The big question though, is "Is Gaiden worth playing?"

Yes. The answer is yes. Form your own opinions, please, I'm begging you. Stop believing word of mouth and try things for yourself before speaking of them as if they're gospel.