Question about the FE fanbase

Awakening and Fates had questionable plots, especially Fates but I have a soft spot for games with good soundtrack. This is my personal opinion but the story plot of Conquest was the biggest clown fiesta I ever heard of and most of the time the story is centered around a really retarded MC. Not to mention that in terms of holiday banners and stuff, most of the time Awakening or Fates characters tend to get included into them, which kind of upsets people because they want older characters to receive some attention too.

I've find the system of dungeon in echoes quite nice.

You can find any of the olders FE in ROM, with en trad (because before the 7e, they are japanese only) so... find emulator and let's go! Somes of the olders emulators (snes/gameboy, etc...) are useables with a bad PC (i can run them with a i3 4Go of ram bought at 200$ 2years ago....)

But yes, fates was good with his gameplay and some characters are really good, but the mc is such a dumbass... plain without personnality, and a lot of chara is .... meh. Awakening is a bit better, but thoses two plot are.... averages.
I've also find the soundtrack of fates so reptitives, in older FE, when there is some stress or other, a new music is played, not in fate... The only moment when there is the theme of FE in fates is in the end cinematic of revelation....

Noneless, i've enjoyed playing at thoses games, but they are less deep than older FE for me.

My main problem with both Awakening and Fates is the fact that the plots were very stale. Playing Awakening was like reading multiple shitty stories crammed in between bad maps. Fates, especially Conquest, was a shitstorm of bad characters, terrible plot devices, and forgettable locations.

Another problem I had with Awakening was with one or two gameplay aspects. At the start of the game, I had very little problems, but as the game progressed, it slowly became "pair up or die," detracting from my experience a lot as the game became staler and more and more one note. Another enormous problem I had with Awakening was the art style. Most of the new characters looked fine (with the exception of the armor knights), but the older characters looked awful in the new style. Some of the worst offenders are Ike, Lyn, and Roy.

Fates actually had fantastic map design, but the fact that they crammed gimmicks into every single map made all of them feel subpar and less special. Fates also completely ignored things like Fog of War and thieves and brigands going for chests and villages, respectively. The horrendous story also made me not care very much about how my units fared, and this is not something I have experienced in any other Fire Emblem game. I am the kind of player who will restart a map if a single unit dies, no matter how bad they are or if I plan on using them in the later game. In Fates, there were a select group of characters who I actually liked and would restart for, but for most of the cast, I shamelessly threw them at enemies without really caring how they would fare.

While Echoes had some major issues, particularly in map design, the gameplay was far more enjoyable, and the story was actually enjoyable. The "waifu culture" aspects were toned down, and most of the supports were charming and pleasant. I liked nearly every character, as they were multi-faceted, unlike most of the Awakening and Fates characters, who had one defining aspect that was capitalized on and outweighed everything else about their characters. For these reasons, Echoes is by far the best 3DS game.

One final thing: the sprites and battle models on the 3DS games suck. So so critical animations. Animations definitely reached their peak with Radiant Dawn, which makes sense, considering that it was a console game as opposed to a handheld.

In short, FE 13 and 14 are not games you should stay away from no matter what, but given the chance to purchase them again, I would rather save that money and watch a LP instead.

the games are worth doing a single playthrough and then never picking up ever again. they arent bad, but they arent what they shouldve been.

I enjoyed Awakening and Fates, personally. Loved the characters in both. The writing was questionable at times, but they had their moments. I don't think they're bad games, just that some of the changes they brought angered people. It's really all a matter of perspective, I syppose. And I hope you enjoy SS and SD. Interesting titles. Careful with SD, though. It's a very.... different game. More gameplay than story, if anything. But that's just how I see it.

I never felt Awakening was bad per se, I found it more to be very bland. As stated by others above the story never hooked me like others games, like RD, PoR, Genealogy. And then the gameplay held a similar samey feel to me, I like to refer to Awakening a lot of the time as Routening because a very high percentage of the maps ended up just being "Rout the Enemy" maps. Now again compare it to simply part 3 of RD and you had map objectives of have an ally character reach arrive at a point, a turn limit rout, 2 defeat boss, set all objects on fire with turn limit, arrive, 2 defend for a certain number of turns, 2 defeat a certain number of enemies, survive a certain number of turns, 3 rout, and seize. And one of those rout ends up being defeat a certain number of enemies because of story. There is just so much more diversity there and I like it. And even Binding Blade where basically all the maps were seize maps I still prefer because unlike rout you are not forced to defeat every enemy if you don't want to. Plus the Gaiden chapters added some nice extra challenge as some of them required beating a map within a certain number of turns.

Now Fates to me is a much different beast. As I feel the story is legitimately poorly handled. And while Birthright and Conquest gameplay wasn't terrible, I have so many problems with Revelation that it really negatively impacts my opinion on Fates as a whole. I won't go into story but Revelation I think had the worst of the 3. And then there was gameplay where I feel Revelation has some of the most poorly designed maps in the entire series. For those who've played Rev, does anyone like Chapter 10 and it's stupid "snow shoveling"? And then there were multiple maps where it was waiting around for platforms to move which I can't stand cause it simply prolongs maps for an arbitrary reason, like there's no challenge involved from waiting around. At least Genealogy has a plot that makes me want to put up with its huge maps.

And my last point as it pertains to both is I'm not a fan of the kid mechanic, especially from a story perspective. Time-travel and hyperbolic time chambers (deeprealms) I think are just asking for mucking up the plot. And then I just find it bothersome that this like 18 year old character is fighting alongside their 14-16 year old kid. Now I don't mind most of the characters themselves but I feel they could just be characters you recruit and not kids of other characters and I would be fine. Again if they want to keep doing kid character then I really want them to go back to how Genealogy handled it. Where the game was split into two halves where the first half follows the parent generation and the second half follows the kid generation and their story picking up about 18 or so years after where the first half's story left off.

I've started out with the GBA games (FE7 and Sacred Stones), and worked my way to the Tellius series, and afterward onto the games released on the DS/3DS. I can definitely say that in terms of difficulty, Awakening/Fates was scaled down, but I won't rip the game apart because of the story...much. They do have some high points, even though their respective plot devices feel hackneyed.

Just finished playing FE4/5/6 and found the stories a tad more awesome, and a helluva lot more difficult (as the case is with Thracia 776). You don't need a fast machine to play those, as emulators for the consoles that ran those games don't run on a lot of memory (hell, I'm playing them on a smartphone).

I agree with several of the posts here, just wanted to add my own opinion. 1st, Awakening saved the series and is the only reason FEH and subsequently this site even exists so you have to give credit where credit is due, the game was certainly successful. in addition to that, i enjoyed the plot of Awakening as well as the characters, my biggest problem is that all the new games are just not true FE games. the addition of casual mode ruined everything for me, yes i realize that you can just play classic, but to me casual mode was just one example of how the series became too child friendly. playing the GBA games is fun because they're challenging, you can't grind infinite exp against random encounters, and you have to actually put effort in the game. i feel like that just isn't there with the new games even when they tried kinda sorta with conquest, the true FE feeling just isn't there for a lot of people who have been playing the older games. Just my opinion, but i also hate the children system, i realize it adds attachment but it's such bs in the way that you recruit them

I agree with several of the posts here, just wanted to add my own opinion. 1st, Awakening saved the series and is the only reason FEH and subsequently this site even exists so you have to give credit where credit is due, the game was certainly successful. in addition to that, i enjoyed the plot of Awakening as well as the characters, my biggest problem is that all the new games are just not true FE games. the addition of casual mode ruined everything for me, yes i realize that you can just play classic, but to me casual mode was just one example of how the series became too child friendly. playing the GBA games is fun because they're challenging, you can't grind infinite exp against random encounters, and you have to actually put effort in the game. i feel like that just isn't there with the new games even when they tried kinda sorta with conquest, the true FE feeling just isn't there for a lot of people who have been playing the older games. Just my opinion, but i also hate the children system, i realize it adds attachment but it's such bs in the way that you recruit them

Well, for me Awakening is my favorite game of the series. Not that I have played much, mind you. I've played Awakening, Shadow Dragon and Sacred Stones. I liked Awakening because I actually managed to play it, I never could get past the frustration of losing a character and thus stopped playing it once I hit the point where I would have to run a map 3 or 4 times, of 20+ minutes each. I liked the characters and the strategy, and I didn't even mind once my units got to be super strong and basically took no damage.

But mostly because I actually managed to play it. It's also why I like FE:H so much; it's a Fire Emblem game that I can actually play without getting extremely frustrated with it.

I think a lot of people just like stating their opinions as facts. I really enjoyed all of the games that I had the chance to play.

I started at FE7--The Blazing Blade--but several years after its initial release and before the release of Awakening. I didn't really know what I was expecting, but I really enjoyed playing it--though it wasn't the game that really got me hooked on playing Fire Emblem.

It wasn't until Awakening released that I was really hooked. It had everything that I wanted from a game: a great--though, not super amazing--story, amazing soundtrack, excellent writing, memorable characters, and a fun--albeit, a little easy--gameplay. Since then, I've played all of the 3DS FE games, and I love playing each and every single one of them, too! I really wish that I could go back and replay the older games, but I have neither the time, nor the consoles, nor the money to do so. :(
(Yes, I am aware of emulation, but I really want to support the devs by buying these games because they are so fun to play through!)

I understand that none of the games a flawless, and that there are a lot of problems-especially with Awakening and Fates, and Echoes to a lesser degree--that these games suffer them that have been talked to death by everyone else in the community. But, I actually find a lot of charm in how each FE game plays differently from each other--at least, based on what I have played. No game feels exactly the same, and there are a lot of different things to look forward to when playing each game.

For example, Fates might not have the best story in the traditional sense, but I really enjoy the mechanics that the games introduced and look forward to that. On the other hand, Echoes might have weaker gameplay and map design compared to its previous entries, but I really enjoy its presentation. That's not to say that I hate these games' shortcomings--I still enjoy Fates' stories for what they are and I still have a ton of fun with Echoes' more dated mechanics--it's just that their strengths more than make up for their weaknesses, and their flaws don't really detract from my enjoyment of these games.

Isn't it the same with all long-running game series? The "old" players talk down the more recent games, especially if the system/difficulty/graphics/insert another aspect has changed a lot from what they consider the "ideal" and pinnacle of the series - which quite often is either the first game they play of the series or one following that. I remember and recognize this especially from Final Fantasy fandom and am definitely guilty of dissing and ignoring the recent entries in favor of VII, IX and VI.

I've only been playing Fire Emblem since Fates, I knew of the series but wasn't, bluntly put, interested in it. Generic seeming fantasy settings with challenging/hard tactical gameplay and very minor RPG influence just did not seem like my bag. I was more into RoTK and it's, to me, exotic flavour when it comes to tactical gaming with RPG elements. However I somehow stumbled upon Birthright, bought it to give it a go and had to revise my view of the series. FEH has introduced a lot of the older characters to me but I still don't feel inclined to actually play the old games. I feel I'd have to have played them "back in the day" to really appreciate them. Might go for the revamped ones but I'm a little doubtful.

I'm probably going to get some crap for that but I have to be honest.