YOUR Unpopular Opinions

[@overcooked2808]

From the enemy’s perspective, everytime you get new units during a chapter they’re ambush bombs since they move in the same turn they join. Red units are oppressed too

[@NontpNonjo]

Imagine if there were characters enemies could recruit from your army though. That would be gross. Or if you could get like 5 ambush player units in one turn. Either way it's balanced in one way but not the other.

[@shirounshiroun7555]

@@NontpNonjo I think there's a chapter where Jill can join the enemy army in Path of Radiance ?(can't remember how/what happens exactly) Before the chapter begins Ike&co even have a conversation about how she's about to fight a close relative and that it might be better to not deploy her

[@CosmicToad5000]

TheNintendoNinja there are a couple cases in RD where this can happen, but if you’re playing rationally it shouldn’t happen. Zihark & (Maybe) Jill can be recruited by Lethe/Mordecai & Haar respectively, though if this happens killing them doesn’t result in them dying, and they just go to the greil Mercs as if you initiated the talk convos yourself. I know that Zihark can be recruited in the fog of war swamp laguz map, but Lethe & Mordecai are so far away and don’t move unless you enter their range so you’ll either kill too many enemies and end the map or (more likely) die trying to get to them. Not too sure about Jill because I’m pretty sure Haar never appears as an enemy unit when you’re playing as the DB, and bond support transfers such as Jill x Mist or Zihark x Brom only work for player initiated recruiting. You can also betray Sheena & Samson in FE12 after recruiting them if you kill one of their soldiers, in which case they’ll become red units again. There’s a video on KZbin showcasing it. Not exactly enemies recruiting player units, but still the player losing control of units. And Slimane Shiroun, I believe that you have to either initiate a talk convo with Shiahram or place Jill in front of him for her to turncoat & if Jill has an A support with Mist (and I think Lethe works too but I’ve never confirmed it) it doesn’t work.

[@shirounshiroun7555]

@@CosmicToad5000 Thank you for the clarification. I loved PoR as a kid but I never got to play more than a few chapters of RD because my game disc got scratched back then, so I didn't know about these other interactions at all. As you said they likely won't trigger in a normal playthrough but I love that they took the time to put these small details in the game

[@CosmicToad5000]

Slimane Shiroun no worries, any chance I get to talk about the Tellius games I’ll take. Unfortunate about your situation with RD, hope you have/will play it to completion at some point, it’s probably the most unbalanced game in the series but it’s structure is super unique and it’s a great send off to the world of Tellius, and my personal favourite game in the series, mostly due to the excellent cast.

[@Ragnell123]

Regarding the anime thing, I think what’s missing is that anime itself has changed a lot since the 90’s. Thracia and such are very 90’s anime-esque, while the newer games are more influenced by modern anime. So what people don’t like is actually that anime has changed and they don’t like those things in modern anime. But they might not realize this if they don’t watch modern anime and/or haven’t followed anime over time. Basically FE has evolved in tone with anime. It’s pretty clear to see if you watch an anime from the 90’s or 2000’s and compare it to anime airing this year.

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

big agree on that, down to the fact that characters are more talkative (seriously the chatter ruined DBS ToP arc for me)

[@vanitas9843]

Anime itself hasn't necessarily evolved in tone in the way those people may think it has. A very recent anime for comparison is Shingeki no Kyojin which plenty of people who scoff at anime are reasonably likely to find alright or at worst damn it for being edgy. During the 90s there were also shitty things being produced meant for lowbrow pandering, like Saber Marionette J. What has changed is the degree of which the industry believes pandering to lowbrow interests is necessary. Awakening "saving the franchise" with how it did the same sends IS the same sort of message, this stuff can sell well, while the former games might not be so hot these days. Even then the number of anime being produced every season isn't even mostly isekaiharem stuff like people would like to have them be for ease of slander.

[@-lord1754]

For better or for worse? I enjoy modern FE (even Fates to an extent) but i dont enjoy watching a lot of modeen anime.

[@symphomaniac]

@@QuantemDeconstructor You must not remember classic Naruto if you think characters were less talkative during fights

[@anenemystand5582]

I disagree. Certainly things fall in and out of popularity over time but anime hasnt really inherently changed. I've found plenty of things that remind me of 90's anime in tone and subject matter.

[@rggrill3588]

6:20 Mekkah the thing about Final Fantasy, Megaman, etc being named by Number is that those numbers are part of their actual title (Zelda 2 is officially called Zelda 2, all the Final Fantasies have "Final Fantasy [Number]" as their official title and the same goes for a majority of the Megaman Titles)

[@Aldotiti]

Was about to go into the comments to say this myself lol

[@HollowGolem]

@@Aldotiti I did with a bit more detail about the issue.

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

problem with Final Fantasy's naming, 10-2 and 13-2 as controversial as they are, are consistent, but Crisis Core FF7 and FFXIII Lightning Returns aren't

[@adamhurd1560]

@@QuantemDeconstructor and we call them Crisis Core or Lightning Returns instead of VII-2 or XIII-3

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

@@adamhurd1560 I'm saying the subtitle placement in the name is inconsistent

[@Shikidiky]

broke: calling it thracia or fe5 woke: calling it fe 776

[@antia2363]

so Binding Blade is fe 777???

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

Bespoke: FE jugdral 2

[@dragonarrow5525]

@@ChillstoneBlakeBlast Jugdral 1.5

[@rggrill3588]

@@dragonarrow5525 Jugdral BSFE

[@verethragnarok]

The year is 21XX, a new fire emblem is released and everyone is confused because when they search online for FE776 they get two results

[@geenobe9941]

Unpopular opinion: Mangs isn’t all that bad at fire emblem, he just does so bad because he focuses on entertaining so much in streams and makes careless mistakes,

[@mrbilter83]

that's called a fact not an opinion

[@unnamedgoon6196]

Aka he's on Focus Mode all of the time

[@GobaGNon]

I agree to an extent, but when you do worse than Etika at awakening then I can’t really cover for you there.

[@Wutz_]

@@unnamedgoon6196 focus mode like he did on the last awakening stream lmao

[@younggreg6155]

Mang's biggest downfall, is the memes he injects to his Iron Man runs.

[@Mishimachine]

I actually don't don't how popular or not this is, but I do not like unit reclassing. It takes away from the uniqueness of a character, and it allows things like all paladins in FE11 and 12 or all wyvern lords in 3H. Too much freedom in general actually takes away from the experience, as overcoming challenges despite restrictions are more rewarding. Also with the 'too anime' thing, yes it's not that people entirely hate anime or the tropes behind it, but to me it's that there is a lack of grit. Whenever it tries to get serious it becomes overly melodramatic, and the writing style always tries to hit you over the head with things to make sure you get it rather than a more natural subtle flow to certain things.

[@boldknock7436]

Reclassing is probably done best when its like in Cindered Shadows or in some extent in DS Fire Emblem, where you have a limit on how many of a class you can have. Although I like reclassing, I can understand the criticism on how it can make individual units stand out less as their classes don't matter and at some point can all fulfill a similar role.

[@aperson6505]

One thing I've always liked and wished they do more with reclassing in Fire Emblem is with the Robin and Corrinsexuals, who had a good variety of classes they can get into naturally but cannot access any other classes (unless through marriage seal with Corrin). I like that idea of a set list of reclasses a lot more because it maintains that character variety but can also act as a form of gameplay-story integration by showing the aspects of different characters (e.g. how Odin can reclass into Swordmaster as a reference to Awakening); it's a lot more interesting than just letting you make a fleet of wyverns and paladins.

[@jektrooper1750]

I'm not going to comment about your "too anime" part mostly because I don't care enough about it, but I do share similar sentiments about re-classing. I'm fine with the flow-chart class promotions found in Sacred Stones (and Awakening to a certain extent), but I agree that characters are not only made more unique with their character-traits but also attributes to the difficulty and balance of the games. Using Radiant Dawn as my example, its hard to imagine if 10% of the cast could reclass to the Dracolord line, making Haar and Jill, who's characters are partly rooted into their usage of Wryverns, less meaningful and could also trivialize the game, and this is not even counting if every character in RD could do that. However (not saying you are disagreeing with this, just want to state it), I do feel like some reclassing is nice to increase replayability or to savage a unit who starts in a bad starter class.

[@LoudWaffle]

The best way to impletement unit reclassing is to give each character 1 or 2 reclass options at most.

[@Zakuzelo]

Holy god damn you have no idea how much I agree with that first statement. Reclassing sucks.

[@TheMadRedHatter]

Unpopular opinion: I want to see Mekkah’s Unpopular Opinions as Part 3

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

I believe that's literally just Pitfalls, though.

[@dmas7749]

that's an unpopular opinion?

[@776Mine]

HUUU HOW UNPOPULAR

[@dontquestionit3604]

Unpopular opinion: keeping characters in their cannon classes makes it easier to get into the world of fire emblem

[@ninjacell2999]

Is there any units that use cannons? ;)

[@CosmicToad5000]

Well I mean, that’s all you can do in like the majority of the series. Though I too enjoy keeping canon classes, especially in 3H since you (formerly) only got to keep the unique timeskip outfits if you had your students in their canon classes. And I mean - Beck, Jake & Xane can use a type of canon?

[@samloyd9287]

Like Archer Faye. Wait...

[@pn2294]

Reclassing is best for subsequent playthroughs anyways

[@Kryptnyt]

Wood shooter is the best class come at me

[@tylerprince6371]

I completely agree with what you said about the fanbase being like a hivemind. For example, I like Est. I just think she's a cute character, but anytime someone says something positive about something where the meme is to hate, they get jumped about their opinion. Also, I always fall into almost every Pitfall, but it's partly that I can't will myself to do things differently and with some Pitfalls, I'd just rather play that way even though I know it's not optimal

[@Thegodofskytidus]

Tyler Prince don’t worry there are others that support Est like us. *salutes*

[@JlBUNROCK]

Est cute. She's pure.

[@Edgeperor]

If you understand that you’re falling into pitfalls, then you actually aren’t, you’re just playing the way you want to

[@aaronr.265]

Unpopular Opinion: It’s more fun to play Three Houses by limiting Relics to the specific characters, it helps them stay unique in a game where everyone is so samey

[@gratedshtick]

Aye

[@Nevervindme]

Lysithea Thyrsus tho, it's too addicting

[@Brazen992]

Scrat It works for either, since they both have the right crest for it.

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

Unpopular opinion: 3 Houses has unrewardable experiece for making a bad unit become good because no units are bad in that game. This makes every unit become more worthless because you can simply replace them with another unit.

[@CosmicToad5000]

Grated Shtick never even crossed my mind to use relics on characters that don’t get the, canonically. Never have used the ang+ crest items either. Only thing I do that bends the rules is letting units use their crest weapon even if it isn’t their class weapon (like using freikugel on Falcon Knight Hilda)

[@edgelord8337]

Fans: Amelia is gOod Mekkah: so you have chosen death?

[@square0108]

Forde good

[@edgelord8337]

@@square0108 bartre is good.

[@fauxparadox]

Sophia good . . . In heroes

[@N0T4K0P]

Sophia good

[@shanner]

Mekkah fans are the only ones who care about whatever the fuck casual fe fans do.

[@NJbldragon]

I think when people talk about Fire Emblem being too anime, sometimes they're associating it with the cringe, bad tropes, and bad writing that happen in quite a few anime nowadays. I would like to take a look at more anime around the time of the earlier FE games and play the earlier games to see what the difference is, but I think part of it is the shift of anime from more serious and action/drama focused shows to more comedy/idol/slice of life/non action shows in recent years. That is coupled with the fact that there is a saturation of different stories of different genres in anime (both good and bad), and a lot of bad shows that come out right now lean too heavily on the tired tropes that anime has known over the years without giving enough time or effort to develop the characters into something that is memorable.

[@cancerstinks1]

Also they associate it with mainstream Shonen anime like Naruto. FE4 is very anime, it’s just that it’s seinen anime, like say Berserk

[@Realag666]

@@cancerstinks1 agreed 100%, if you ever watched Legend of the Galactic Heroes(old anime classic) you will notice the similarities to FE4 aswell.

[@korinoriz]

Just wanted to say, while there's certainly more "bad" animes now, it's not like bad anime didn't exist back the. We just remember all the good ones. You weren't necessarily saying something along those lines, but I felt the urge to say this cause I feel it needs to be stressed.

[@cancerstinks1]

Rogue Slushy I agree with you. But I really do think that most people only think of Shonen anime when they refer to the FE games though.

[@nicolaspendragon3582]

I honestly don't see what you mean. Anime has always had the tropes we see a lot nowadays. The idol trope for example started out in one the 80s mecha anime which i can't remember right now but everyone seems to forget about that. Hell Sunrise, the creators of Gundam, are now making most of their money off of an idol show: Love Live. The most popular Shoujo anime Sailor Moon, which just so happens to be a Mahou Shoujo anime aswell, came out in 1994, just one year before evangelion introduced the world to the most popular tsundere character of all time Asuka. Both are rather tropey let's be real. The Isekai trope has been used in shows and manga like Yu Yu Hakusho, Magical Knights Rayearth and most notebly Studio Ghibli's academy award winning Spirited Away. Slice of life and comedy shows were also rather common. Doreamon and dr. Slump are two good examples of that. And bad writing is mostly not the case. I mean, just look at the winter of 2011. Back then arguably Sailor moon's biggest compatetor (along with cardcaptor Sakura) for its title as best Mahou Shoujo anime came out. Of course i'm Talking Puella Magi Madoka Magica. If you think that was bad writing then i want to know what good writing is in your book. That show is seen as one of Gen Urobuchi's and Shafts greatest works for a reason. And more recently we had anime like the ancient Magus bride, Violet Evergarden, a place further then the universe, shinsekai yori, Your Name, Wheatering with you, A silent Voice, Angel Beats, the Fruits Basket remake, Beastars and more great examples of both good character and story writing. Yes a lot of tropes have since been used to death but that doesn't mean they're boring or bad or cringe or whatever. Yes nowadays we have more SoL anime but those are some of the best we've ever had. K-On, Nichijou, Daily lives of high school boys, Kaguya-sama: Love is War and so many more great SoL anime came out this decade. Some i already mentioned like a place further then the universe. Yes there are a lot more Tsundere characters now but there are a lot of great ones, arguably even better ones then Asuka. Misaka Mikoto from the To aru series, Shana from Shakugan no Shana and of course the palmtop Tiger herself Taiga from Toradora are good examples of good Tsundere characters in my opinion. Yes there a lot of Isekai, mostly bad ones like SAO, Grimgar and Arifureta, but also some incredible ones like Shied hero, that time i got reincarnated as a slime, BOFURI and ascendance of a bookworm. There are also plenty of action shows. I already mentiond a ton but here are some more: Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, the Seven Deadly Sins, Gate, My Hero Academia, One punch man. I also think you're very wrong about anime being less serious . Angel Beats for example. That show is about accepting your live for what it was and no longer living with the regret you felt about it. That is pretty serious if you ask me. Hell SAO has the Mother's Rosario arc which is one of the most touching stories i've seen in a light novel adaptation. Love or hate SAO, Mother's Rosario was briliant. I and many others would say that last decade, espacially the last two years, was an incredible decade for anime. Yes we had garbage like Eromanga sensei but we also had great shows like the majority of what i just mentioned. Also every anime leans on tropes. Some more then others sure but Most certainly not just the bad shows. As for the shows not giving characters enough time to Flesh them out. That is again an issue a lot of older anime also had. I also think it has more to do with the studio then the show. Again Madoka Magica is a great example. Many people loved Mami despite her only being in 3 episodes. Many people loved Sayaka and Kyoko despite Neither of them making it passed episode 9. Of course Homura was the most fleshed out character but that is because it ultimately was her story. Good writers and studio's don't need a lot of time to make use like a character. Yes there are anime and studio's that need more time but the best ones are those who have a limited amount of time and still create a memorable story with memorable characters. Of course this isn't always the case but in a lot of cases this remains true. It is true that anime has changed but not in quality or how serious it has become but rather in what the general audiance wants. The general audiance watch anime to relax and what better way to do that than by watching a slice of life. People like their Tsundere's and Yandere's so more of those kind of characters are created. People like their moe stuff so there are more anime with cute girls doing cute things. But again a lot of this already was part of older anime. They are just now becomeing popular tropes because people ask for it. I don't mean to sound like an elitist but i feel like The main reason you and many others give these complaints is because you either don't watch a lot of anime or don't watch anime at all and just listen to the older generation of anime fans complain about new anime. Sure these weren't the golden days of anime where every season had pretty much only bangers. But there are more good shows then bad shows. I guess most people think new anime is bad Because most of the time we talk about the bad but new anime is actually in many ways better then ever before. More accesable, studio's try out more concepts and get better at adapting stuff, they keep somehow finding ways to keep old tropes fresh ect. Sure there weren't shows like FMA:B but there were plenty of briliant shows that people seem to ignore for some reason. Sorry for the novel, i just had a lot to say on this topic.

[@SSBBPOKEFAN]

This is less "unpopular" and more "you are clinically insane for even thinking of this", but I'd like to see a Pikmin 1-esque "chapter redo" feature. In the Wii version of Pikmin 1, you could rewind your day progress to any previous day and redo said day, but of course that would be your new playthrough from then on, for better and for worse. I wouldn't be against that in Fire Emblem. We all have those chapters where we complete it, but end up having that ONE thing we miss, like not visiting a village or forgetting a chest. Another thing I'd like to see in Fire Emblem is a "map replay" feature, where you could choose a specific map from the story and replay it as a one-off.

[@AkameGaKillfan777]

Or you accidentally crit-kill an enemy when you just wanted to beat them with a weaker unit for the EXP.

[@actone4822]

Honestly, I would kill for a "map replay" feature especially since having FE on switch allows for a more portable experience. On top of this, I wouldn't mind FE introducing pre-made challenges based on maps you played through once you beat the main story (e.g. replay one escape chapter, but your army is almost all armor knights; try a defense map with extra siege weapons attacking you; maybe even just have an army with preset classes like cindered shadows).

[@solol8871]

While I understand what your trying to get across, that’s technically been a thing since fe4. It’s called multiple save slots. As long as you have multiple slots you have your “chapter redo” feature. The only difference is that you’re limited by the number of save slots that you have. But I agree that it would be pretty cool to be able to go back to any chapter without having to use up a save slot

[@MobiusLeader007]

When I let my cousin borrow my copy of Path of Radiance, he made an extra save file so he could always replay that defend chapter in Gallia (the one where you get Ilyana). It was his favorite map of the game.

[@Absol776]

Isn't that literally divine pulse?

[@LuigiMasterix]

Are we going through the "Persona 5 phase" where everyone's gonna start saying that 3H sucks when it had such a good reception months ago or what. Super intrigued by this

[@Myumoe]

We're definitely out of the honeymoon period. People with legitimate critisms are more comfortable voicing them and the people who love 3H aren't gushing about it quite as hard for various reasons (Moved on to other games, said all they wanted to say, etc). The contrarians who haven't actually played 3H and spout garbage about it being the worst game in existence have always been there, they just aren't drowned out by the positivity anymore. At least that's what I see

[@LuigiMasterix]

@@Myumoe That's very fair. What feels wrong to me are the discussions regarding 3H being rushed. I love 3H but even then I feel that at times it feels incomplete/rushed which has been slightly remedied by the DLC. What feels wrong to me is that developers were actually taking their time with the game but the FE community wouldn't shut up in social medias about how the game was never going to come out . Although I believe that more communication would've been nice (take Metroid Prime 4 situation for example where developers were crystal clear about why the game is taking so long), people are so impatient nowadays that I can't shake the feeling that that restless led to 3H coming out earlier than it should've.

[@appelofdoom8211]

There’s a natural cycle to these things. 1. game comes out 2. game starts gaining hype 3. Fanbase encounters a massive growth spurt 4. Some people get annoyed by the overexposure or hate it for other reasons but get slapped down if they criticize it 5.hype slowly starts dying down as people run out of things to say about it for the moment 6. People that hate the game start voicing their opinions more vocally 7. Hate starts dying down 8. everyone calms down to some extent The only thing that matters is how long these steps take.

[@arachnofiend2859]

​@@LuigiMasterix IMO it's less that 3H was rushed and more that it bit off way more than it could chew; the scope of the game is obviously way larger than was ever reasonable and there were clearly half-baked cuts to dial back the initial concept (like Silver Snow just being the same story as Verdant Wind rather than a proper church route that follows Rhea's vision for Fodlan's future). The game has non-linearity all over it in ways that previous Fire Emblems simply did not, and some compromises had to be made to get a game developed rather than be stuck in development hell forever.

[@eevee1583]

That happened with Pokemon Sun and Moon as well, I guess that's just a thing that happens in fandoms. Kinda sad really

[@crimsoncutz8430]

Apparently an unpopular opinion I guess? - Your dislike of something is not an objective flaw that others are obligated to acknowledge I see this a lot from people, including Mekkah in this video. Mekkah refers to people "pretending" Fates is not a step down from the older games in some ways. But what makes you think they're pretending anything? I'm not trying to you single you out here Mekkah since you're far from the only person that phrases things this way, just using you as an example since it's your video and all. That person might not find Fates to be a step down in any way, regardless of how much you think it is. Or how much I think it is - I think Corrin in Conquest is absolutely awful and maybe my least favourite protagonist ever, but I don't think the people who like him are pretending or anything. I don't think it makes sense to say "You can like Corrin if you want but you're dishonest if you don't admit they're awful for the reasons I have laid out". The things that make a character utterly detestable to me don't necessarily bother others (I hate Thracia's portrayal of Leif, which is probably a hot take in this community), in the same way that things that piss other people off don't necessarily affect me (Kris, for example, is dull but inoffensive to me because I don't care about the plot of Mystery of the Emblem to begin with so I can't really feel any sort of anger at it being changed for a new character). There's no intellectual dishonesty involved. People don't all just secretly agree with you but pretend not to because ?????. Like really when you think about that, what reason would someone even have to think that, say, the writing in Fates is worse than that of previous games, but then decide to pretend it's good, and they manage to pretend so hard that they actually really like it despite disliking it...? It makes a lot more sense if they just think it's actually good and that's why they like it in the first place.

[@emiliel4539]

I'm happy to see I'm not the only one feeling that way tbh. People in this fandom (probably true for others as well but I noticed it the most when it comes to FE) are obsessed with having the Objectively Good opinion, and anything that goes against the flow is doomed to get shittons of "but you are WRONG" messages in response. But they forget that an opinion remains an opinion and that it's applicable to them as well. Appreciation is subjective. It doesn't matter if "Corrin OBJECTIVELY sucks"; at the end of the day if someone is receptive to their character and like them for whatever reasons, you are not "more valid" or "cooler" for saying the opposite. I also hate how the words of "famous" people of the community are considered like they are holy scriptures or something. No, I won't change my opinion about something because a KZbin video is saying the opposite. We all appreciate media according to our own criteria and sensibility after all. And at least people with unpopular opinions aren't trying to enforce them on the others like they have the moral high grounds or the "certified better taste". I, however, saw a lot of "certified good taste" people pull that card. And why are they offended with people having different opinion to begin with?

[@arzfan29]

I agree, fates was my first fire emblem and one of my favorite games, I dislike a lot of older fire emblem games for various reasons (lack of casual so i have to reset constantly, no support system, no voice acting), but i'm not going to say that people are pretending to like them, people can have whatever opinion they want,.

[@jacobproffitt335]

100% this. I swear people do not know what the word "objectively" means. Objective means fact, as there would be a number or a historical event tied to it. If I am saying something subjective, I'd say "Xander from Fates has high strength." However, if I was being objective, I'd say "Xander joins you in chapter 16/17(Conquest/Revelations) with a base strength of 23. Furthermore, there is no such thing as objectively bad. Some units are objectively worse than others, however, "bad" is an opinion. You might say someone is bad, I might think that unit is mediocre

[@nicocchi]

@@jacobproffitt335 running on a tangent, I hate when people pretend that because something in a game is bad, is literally unusable or bad to the point of being dysfunctional. I see this a lot among Fate/Grand Order and Azur Lane players and it's even more silly there because they're gachas, so you aren't even guaranteed to have the same resources as someone else; the games have to be designed to be easy enough to be beaten with pretty much any unit. The bar is very low to be usable in FGO, but some people like to push the narrative that if you aren't literally within the top 10 characters of the game you flat out don't exist, or that a new character being released automatically invalidates everything an older similar alternative did.

[@emberhermin52]

Fates is one of the most fun games I've ever played. Step down my ass! Just because it's a bit silly doesn't make it worse of a game!

[@ninjacell2999]

I think referring to Fe by numbers often happens because of FE7 doesn't have a name in English, and blazing blade sounds too much like binding blade.

[@fangiscool1]

I think most Americans who call them by their names say "blazing sword" and "binding blade", which don't sound too similar. They do sound similar enough that you could infer they are prequels/sequences to one another though.

[@ninjacell2999]

@@fangiscool1 maybe, but then again I'm not American ;)

[@laggalot1012]

Blazing Blade, only in recent years was given "Blazing Blade" as its official English subtitle (I believe we have FEH to thank for that), and most people who speak English don't want to need to remember what the heck a "Rekka no Ken" or whatever is. Some titles are also just longer or less convenient to abbreviate (Genealogy of the Holy War). I think that's a big reason why people started referring to the numbers and then it just stuck after a while because it is easier for many people, or just force of habit.

[@Icekin23]

I think the best answer is to use a mix of them, whichever people are more comforable with. Binding Blade and Blazing Blade can be confusing, but no one's going to confuse Sacred Stones with Awakening. Likewise, if you say FE1 through 7, most people know what game you're referencing. But it can get confusing later on. If someone says FE11, I honestly don't know which one that is. I think it's either Shadow Dragon or New Mystery. What about 14, is that Fates or Shadows of Valentia? I don't even recall which one came first. But if someone says "Awakening", there's zero confusion. Everyone understands Awakening. Everyone understands FE5, everyone understands FE: Three Houses, etc.

[@moony2249]

The only Fire Emblem I refer to as a number is FE7, only because it sounds really nice. It flows so smoothly Also because I always confuse Blazing Blade and Binding Blade. I'm sorry

[@WildMatsu]

Re: 7:00 - Final Fantasy and Mega Man games are explicitly numbered. They HAVE no subtitles. There is nothing you can call Final Fantasy 7 except Final Fantasy 7, and nothing you can call Mega Man 2 except Mega Man 2. Of course they use numbers for those games--there is no alternative. For Mario and Zelda, the first few NES games are numbered and then the rest aren't. People basically never try to label Wind Waker as "Zelda 9", or Super Mario Sunshine as "Mario 6." That terminology simply doesn't exist and nobody would understand you. You say WW and SMS (or just "Sunshine.") Fire Emblem is unusual because there is no explicit numbering, and yet fans have assigned them numbers anyway. (Incidentally, I strongly felt that remakes should not have been numbered, so Shadow Dragon should have been called FE1DS instead of FE11, but I clearly lost that war, and I've given it up. I guess you could call that my unpopular opinion.) I think the reason FE fans number the games has a lot to do with the fact that FE7 was confusingly released in the West with no subtitle. We got tired of being like "Fire Emblem, but the one on GBA, not the first Fire Emblem game on the NES" and the game had no official subtitle yet (Blazing Sword? Blazing Blade? Sword of Flame? Rekka no Ken?) so we just settled on FE7 as the easiest thing to call it, and the convention took hold from there.

[@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502]

Why would you call it fe1ds? It may be a remake but its still a different game (very different in some areas) and was developed as it's own distinct entry. Calling it that would imply it's basically just a port. More importantly what's the problem with fe11? Your method of numbering just seems like a needless complication.

[@anenemystand5582]

What about the versus games or sequels like lightning returns or the tactics games

[@CyclonSilver]

I think the numbering happened partially because the western community as a whole started genuinely forming as 6 to 7 entries already existed. Thus it was both simpler because that was many titles to digest at once, and it also helped establish a chronology, as well as indeed, signify to people that no, Fire Emblem GBA wasn't the first one. Among other things most likely. Anyway, as you said, it stuck. But as Mekkah said, for newer entries it's basically all but disappeared at this point, so do rejoice I guess.

[@GermanicusCaesar117]

@@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502 They may be different games but they tell the same story (for the most part anyways). I mean, we don't call the Final Fantasy VII Remake as Final Fantasy XVI. The FE fandom is peculiar in that they numbered the a remake like Shadow Dragon or Echoes as if it was a completely separate title. You don't see that happening in any other franchises (like my aforementioned Final Fantasy).

[@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502]

@@GermanicusCaesar117 I don't think it being uncommon makes it less valid. And unlike most other series, where the numbering of particular entries is important to make sure you experience the story in the right order, most fire emblem games are self contained and only connect directly to at most one, or in some cases two, other games in the series, so there is no need for the numbering that final fantasy has to make sure you know when each one takes place chronically. Therefore just giving them the numbers of when they came out is much easier.

[@littleduck3686]

To elaborate on the anime fire emblem situation. It has always been linked to the trends of the anime of its time. The pre GBA era just reeks of classy 90s trends like the hair and music(Neon genesis evangelion). The GBA and tellius period was probably my absolute favourite as the anime and games struck a near perfect balance of characterisations and world building. (Code Geass). But the most recent additions to the fire emblem series feel like they take after the isekai genre(other world). Where the MC finds themselves in another world where everybody sucks up to them. TH seems to take after the more seasonal gems than those generic anime by there are still clear signs of their presence in the the character writing.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Get in the robot, Finn

[@starman2842]

I'd say it's unfair to call Three Houses an unfinished product. There are plenty of games out there that are actually half-baked compared to it. Even Crimson Flower, the most commonly criticized route because it's short, has a couple unique maps. It's more appropriate to say it's unrefined, and some of it's issues are a consequence of having multiple routes.

[@Oddigan]

I don't see how there being plenty of other unfinished games makes an unfinished game less unfinished. Unfinished.

[@starman2842]

@@Oddigan I just thought it was a hyperbolic statement, for a long game with multiple routes.

[@multipentagon2387]

Yeah I think the game is more unrefined than anything. Honestly i really don't like the precedent Nintendo is setting for how they're developing games because this is the third time out of four that a game comes out and while it's a good game it clearly needed more development time. I know this is a really tired example and I'm beating a dead horse, but for comparison, Yandere Simulator has been in development for years now and still has no story progression or even a save/load function, while Three Houses has four complete routes and extremely detailed battlefields but really only needed more time in the oven, at least in the story department. YanSim is unfinished. Three Houses just needs polish. Edit: before yall come for me about whatever your definition of "unfinished" is, reminder that the Disney Star Wars sequels and YIIK are technically finished products but are millions of times worse than Three Houses is at its worst points

[@MetagrossOverlordX]

Fun fact, Intelligent Systems ALSO refers to Fire Emblem games by their chronological numbers to some extent internally; you can find files in Shadow Dragon and New Mystery that refer to the games as FE11 and FE12 respectively, similar things can be found in other games

[@kevinxd4459]

fire emblem writing has always been influenced by anime. when people say it's too "anime" it really has nothing to do with anime, it's just that the interactions are more casual and not relevant to the bigger scale. they only exist to show off the character's personality. when looking at older titles, the interactions are more focused on the main plot and for the most part focuses on exploring more of the world. anime used to be like that too but as times change, so has fire emblem and what people dont realize is that fire emblem really has always been influenced by anime, it's just that modern shounen anime (typically) cares more about character interactions than the actual world itself. you could also say that the biggest reason it's more obvious in newer titles is because they actually have room to put in more writing and interactions compared to older titles where all they could really do is write some generic conversation about the events that immediately happen. basically what i mean is you cant have bad writing in older titles if you have barely any writing to begin with

[@fernandouehara2665]

Yes, Fire Emblem aways has been influenced by anime, it's not new. In fact, you could say the newest Fire Emblem, Three Houses, shoves way less anime tropes in our faces than previous titles such as Fates, Awakening, and dare I say even Sacred Stones or Blazing Blade. And like I said, I have no problem with Fire Emblem being "50% anime", looking like anime, pegasus knights wearing miniskirts, colorful hairs and armors, legendary weapons and so on. My problem with it is when characters are defined by the anime trope in which they are based on. Take Raphael, for example, he is the big and strong guy who cares about eating and training, and that's it. And yes, Arden was basically doing the same thing 25 years ago, and I'm not okay with that either. I consider this an anime trope because it is common in anime, but to a lesser degree in books, movies and other forms of entertainment, even those coming from Japan that doesn't try so hard to appeal to the average fan of anime.

[@monodoro]

I really enjoy the ratio of anime-ness in Three Houses, I still roll my eyes at a few interactions here and there but it’s leagues better than the writing in Fates. (No hate, the map design was great but DAMN did I struggle to find a single character I enjoyed) I’m a certified weeb so my distaste doesn’t come from a place of unfamiliarity, they’re just kinda goofy tropes, especially when they aren’t used properly. When it comes to anime and manga, a well written character uses the weird anime quirks as a jumping off point to quickly familiarize you with some of the base elements of their personality. Like how you can listen to Grunkle Stans gravly con man voice and immediately understand that he’s a tricky scam artist. Those tropes (like all tropes) aren’t supposed to be the only thing propping up a character. (*CHOUGH* “Hi I’m the thicc overly affectionate sister” *CHOUGH*) With Three Houses, even the more heavy handed characters always do SOMETHING to expand and develop their personality beyond the tropes they fall into, which I enjoyed. I also really REALLY loved the politics. I know it’s ultimately just fictional frosting fleshing out the stage a bit, but my experience was so enriched by the stronger emphasis on world building. I couldn’t tell you ANYTHING about the world of Awakening and I’ve played through it 10 times now (it’s my fav 3DS game by far) but I’ll be dammed before I’m unable to provide you with all the kingdoms of Fodlan, their borders, and who’s sided with who and why because the conflict was that interesting to me.

[@korinoriz]

"you cant have bad writing in older titles if you have barely any writing to begin with " I half agree with this, because less dialogue also means the bad ones "take up space", so to speak. But it definitely goes both ways where in fairness to Fates, for example, they had to make up dialogue to force a reason two characters can S rank. So, there's a lot of bad and "filler" conversations, especially for characters that don't really make sense talking to each other.

[@CyclonSilver]

I know it was a jab, but you've put your finger on something pretty important. There are explanations for potential anime resemblances that don't really involve anime at all; the support system has seen a pretty logical evolution purely from a game design perspective, for example. I think it's also worth mentioning that anime is wide enough that a lot of things from Japan can be linked to it to some extent, let alone something that has an anime inspired artstyle like FE.

[@omegabob_]

I was going to say this, you beat me to the punch. Since I started with Awakening, I`ve been going back to older games and it seems to me that the ''one-note'' aspect of characters is quite prevelent in older games, as well as the serious but fun-adventure mood. I recruited Lewyn recently and he was talking in the middle of the battle so casually, it reminded me of the 3ds era. Basically, I think that characters were generally more serious beforre was because they could only talk right before or after a battle, meanwhile when they add between chapter modes in newer games they can afford to relax the writing and the characters are perceived as silly (don't know if I expressed myself well).

[@TechnoFall42]

This is just a comment I made on Reddit a while ago, but since we're sharing kinda sorta unpopular opinions, I'll leave it here as well: Hot take: the support system itself is a bad, archaic remnant of the early 2000's and actively hurts the storytelling of the games. Many supports have too many repeating beats, which makes many C supports really repetitive and a slog to read through. And it basically has to be this way, unfortunately, because all the characters have to go through some kind of development one-on-one with basically no impact from other characters or the story itself. There are some cases where supports are well integrated into the time frame they take place in, but there just as many, if not more, where it's the exact opposite, which makes the supports feel rather jarring, despite the fact that I like how many of them are written. Additionally, some supports hide rather important story and lore information behind them. Most players are inevitably going to miss most of it, because they either didn't grind supports for the two characters or didn't use those characters at all. Considering modern FE (and most FEs, honestly) really hates the player actually using teams of different characters from map to map, it's no surprise that most of the support log will be empty, even if the player beats all the routes (in games with multiple routes). Very few people, I think, are willing to go out of their way to grind out all supports. I honestly wish IS just scrapped support grinding and just made them into events that are integrated into the flow of the story, add side quests or even unique missions to unlock some of them, and involve more than 2 characters in them, please, ffs.

[@Dragonboy55564]

I feel like it's extremely unlikely that they'll completely replace supports with side missions, by virtue of not requiring additional game design or development. Supports as they are only require a writer and an animator, but asking for additional gameplay means that the extent to which each character is explored would be drastically reduced, even if you get rid of all of the redundant ones. It would basically be just 2-3 paralogues per character including existing ones, at MOST. Characters would be even less likely to have more than a single character trait. For example, Lysithea hates being treated like a child (or a genius), loves sweets, is hardworking, is impatient, amazing at magic, and has major issues with her crests. It's extremely unlikely she would have a mission for each of these traits because they're not equally important. Would Alois have a ghost story mission with Mercedes instead of a Jeralt focused mission? I highly doubt it. I think that supports are intended to encourage multiple playthroughs where you use different characters, even of the same path (for example, Gilbert has missable supports), and you are not intended to get them all on the same playthrough. This was true of the first games with supports (which had hard caps) and is still mostly true in 3 houses.

[@HollowGolem]

Time-locking them to pre- or post-timeskip helped a little in Three Houses, but I'd much prefer something like Geneology, where it's between two characters in a particular battle with the context of that battle. That's much better than supports as implemented.

[@mrfox5117]

Preach! I agree wholeheartedly lol

[@shaneakari9241]

Agreed. Thier lack of ractions to being of the battlefeild, ignoring events that have transpired in the past, and the introducing C supports being repetitive makes supports feel fairly odd unless experienced out of context back to back. While 3 houses .... puts a band-aid on it the blood still leaks.

[@Bloodiasfire]

I don't think this is much of an unpopular opinion.

[@MinniMaster]

I honestly don’t know if it’s unpopular or not, but this opinion is one I’ve held for a while now: Edelgard is one of the best antagonists in the series. I know a lot of people like her, but I imagine that’s more because she’s a cute waifu rather than her character. When it comes down to the latter part, there are countless threads arguing back and forth over whether she’s an evil monster or completely justified. Personally, I found her character to be very well-written, with her actions making sense when taking into account everything she’s gone through. That doesn’t mean I agree with her, because I don’t, but I really like her role as an antagonist and her character as a whole. Again, I don’t know if this is “unpopular”, so I’d like to hear your thoughts.

[@Marvelrivalsfan]

That's a popular opinion. She's clit rided hard

[@Lh0000]

Yeah she’s ambiguously evil, but she’s still the main antagonist in every route except one.

[@RurouniZakruo]

Unpopular opinion: Crests should have been super broken like Holy blood was to better reflect it's role in the world. I don't know how many times I've seen posts wondering why it was so important for Slyvain's family to have a crest when gameplay wise it isn't that big of a boost.

[@patrickripleyiii134]

Celechon rah they were way too underwhelming, so we're relic weapons they should have been broken

[@cowabungasheeit]

The crests not mattering much in gameplay could reflect that they aren't actually as important as people act like they are. There's certainly a lot of characters who question the importance of crests, whereas in Genealogy no one did the same for holy blood because there was really no question.

[@jfp4life]

Thats what the Miklan chapter is for, if you have no crests you can't wield your families relic for prolonged time without killing yourself

[@RurouniZakruo]

@@cowabungasheeit characters like Dimitri prove that crests have a direct influence on your strength. I also feel like the argument isn't diluted if crests do have a major effect on ones abilities, it doesn't change the conversation in any major way.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

Wouldn't that make half the characters in the game bad since you would only use the broken characters with crests, it would also go against a lot of the messages where Leonie will never be as strong as Lorenz because he has a crest and she doesn't, this is without mentioning how the 10 elites unlike the heroes in FE4 or 6, weren't good people.

[@ninjacell2999]

I really like these analysis videos. I get annoyed at a lot of this stuff too, and I think you have very reasonable explanations with out just insulting people.

[@Thegodofskytidus]

Unpopular opinion: Corrin’s character didn’t start off bad just a lack of character development made it look bad.

[@MemesToa]

I think a lot of the problems with Fates can stem from the fact that they essentially tried to make 2 completely different games with the exact same cast of characters, at the exact same time, thus splitting the work that could've been done for one actually good game into 2 games of lesser quality. And that's before getting into the glorified expansion pack known as Revelations. The less said about that, the better. Signed, A Fates fan that feels the game deserved better

[@everythingtube172]

True true true...

[@e.sanghvi5657]

Depends entirely on which path you're on. I'd say Revelations Corrin is a decent protagonist with defined traits who makes choices that shape the progression of the story.

[@emberhermin52]

It's called a flat/static character arc

[@gameboyn64]

About the awakening anime jump, people have to remember that last original title was radiant dawn a sequel to path of radiance which was made in 2005, 7 years before awakening in 2012. during this time, there was a shift in anime. Popular anime from 1998-2005 include: elfen lied, one piece, full metal alchemist, cowboy bebop, samurai champloo, flcl, hellsing, trigun. Popular anime from 2005-2012 include: sword art online, angel beats, code geass, mirai nikki, ao no exorcist, tengen toppa gurren lagann, soul eater, Highschool of the dead.

[@CyclonSilver]

I hate that I lack the knowledge to even discuss this(although I do at least know that SAO shouldn't be on this list), but there are two main things I find bothersome; one: a big part of the argument is that FE was anime before as well. How do the FE in the 1998-2005 time period resemble the anime you've brought up? And two, it's also fairly well accepted that the shift were as a result of a change of direction; specifically, Kouhei Maeda got involved, and we've seen many extreme aspects of Fates toned down since he moved on to Heroes; that one shift is not explained by anime evolution in the slightest to my knowledge, so I need to ask, isn't there a pretty big strawman aspect to this whole argument?

[@gameboyn64]

The two lists serve as a sample size of the types of anime that were most popular in their respective era and more specifically, the types of characters that appear in these shows. Sao is in the list as it is one of the most popular anime of all time and it falls in the second time frame. The types of characters that people generaly attribute to "amine trope" appear infrequently in the earlier era. The second era is quite literally dominated with characters most people recognize as "anime trope" characters. The second era also shifts to more high school age characters as well as younger looking characters in general. The older era does seem to have a focus on its characters being "cool" but for the most part the 90s and early 00s popular characters lack the overt and recognizable cliches of the later anime.

[@CyclonSilver]

@@gameboyn64 Oh no no, I did get what you were doing. But realistically the SAO anime was way too recent to have influenced Awakening in any way(also google listed it as a late 2013 anime, which I took at face value because it wasn't quite that old in my mind, so I didn't frame the argument properly; in the end that was the movie's release date). Similarly, I get the "change in anime" argument, it's just that as I said, I don't think it necessarily has to be the main reason for FE's change of direction as that also coincides with Maeda coming in and "leaving"(the leaving part not having an equivalent in the "anime timeline" to my knowledge); basically, it could be coincidental, at least largely so. Okay so that last part isn't necessarily what I'm looking for, but then again what I'm asking is outside the scope of your original argument, so that's on me. I engaged in this debate with multiple posts at once so I may have unwillingly put words in your mouth there. Sorry about that.

[@valofnidavellir1875]

Unpopular opinion: Ike and Micaiah (RD) are both very well-designed units, and RD in general had the best balanced cast from a gameplay perspective. Ike is strong, bulky, yet agile: shows how much he's grown since PoR and his experience. Micaiah on the other hand is weak and frail; she relies on others to protect her and heals from a distance. A healer lord is a new concept for FE, and an interesting one. Also works well from a story perspective as she requires and relies on Sothe's perspective. Her being slow and frail is the whole point, as she's not a fighter and is not supposed to be one. RD's cast is very mixed in terms of availability, and strength as units, allowing for challenge runs as well as easy options for new players. Yet the BEXP and cap focus of the game means everyone can be made viable for at least some of the game, and there are alternatives if you get RNG screwed with stats unlike other games. Even Lyre can be made viable due to her good caps and the laguz gems. Balance is not desirable within FE, as you covered before, but RD offers a diverse spread of characters of varying ease of use, and plenty of tools for you to use to train any unit you choose.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

Meg and Leonardo can totally be viable units trust me just dump all your stat boosters into them and they might even one round a generic soilder onve in a full moon, also while it makes sense that the GM are stronger than the DB it still feels bad when you have to play as them right after experinecing powerful units like Ike or Haar. Also on the highest difficulty you're really only gonna invest in Zihark, Jill, Nolan, Sothe and maybe some other character that you think would be useful, this is mostly because the EXP penalty in the hardest difficultys makes it harder for growth units like Edward to get going. Overall RD has pretty terrible unit balance, though that's part of what makes it fun

[@Yarharsuperpirate]

In my opinion, Kris comes the closest to how I feel an avatar unit in FE should be. -No major plot bearing, just another soldier fighting for his lord -Doesn't have a brokenly OP unique class. Is entirely locked to the pre-set ones the game gives you -Most of his actual screen time is kept to side chapters which don't take away from the main plot in any way -No crazy god powers or anything. He's that strong because he put in the training effort and hard work himself. Not being gifted divine powers or something stupid like robin or corrin

[@ZirexNorcruin]

He also definetly deserves his position. Sure Katarina becomes the "tactician" at the beginning, but after that Ryan doesn't have much confidence, Luke giving him the position of being leader of the platoon after being defeated, Rody doesn't mind and Cecil joins later. They face three of Marth's trusted allies and face bandits. After that he managed to properly become Marth's bodyguard. On the other hand Robin is smart enough to become the team tacticians AND become pretty much any other class (?), with good growths to booth. Corrin is loved by everyone and has dragon powers. And Byleth was just a seasoned mercenary (who starts at level 1 btw), who happens to be an expert tactician and basically be a god.

[@JlBUNROCK]

I feel the exact same!

[@gavinknight2403]

I think the difference between the new and older games are the older ones being more focused on the main story which includes the lord, and the newer games are focused more on the characters which is why there are 5 billion supports, even if they don't tie into the story very much.

[@gameboyn64]

Ya in the old games a side character was lucky if they got more than 1 convo after their introduction. The old support system was also limited by the fact that gba supports took place on the battle field and were limited to 5 supports total.

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

Unpopular opinions: Maps that have no Anti-turtling(No theives, Strong Rear Reinforcement, incentives does not automatically make them bad. A good way to make such a map engaging is to make the map wear down weapons, staves, supplies(Vulneraries and Pure Waters). Such type of maps are never going to work in the late game as you have amazing and abundant tools at your disposal in the late game. These types of maps are best use as "breather" maps, where after beating a hard map that made you use up good equipment to beat it, can serve as a good map to stock up. If Conquest maps all stressed me out as much as Chapter 10 did, the game would not be fun, it would become a stress test. This is probably the reason why Chapter 11 in Conquest is so easy, Because they want you to relax a bit before they go all out again in chapter 12.

[@overcooked2808]

I don’t think Chapter 11 is an easy chapter, but it’s definitely a much calmer chapter than 10, since you can choose to avoid certain rooms and you chop your way through. Though, I wouldn’t call that a breather, especially in Lunatic with all of those nasty skills

[@yaboykirby7789]

@BitterOrange I really liked that I could play the game as slow as I wanted tho (even though I didn't play very slow myself it was nice that I could slow it down or speed it up to make it easier or harder) and I hated all the time shit in XCom 2, I don't see why turtling is so innately bad not like it doesn't have downsides at least in Fire Emblem

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

@BitterOrange you bring that up but ultimately xcom shows that their solution was worse then the one in the original game. People much preferred being encouraged to rush for an incentive meld then being forced to rush or lose a map. Heck even chapter ten of conquest is a decent example of this as it basically becomes impossible to grab the houses on the lower end after the dragon vein being triggered and a massive wave of reinforcements forces you back hoping to just barely make it by a hair. You have to rush for the extra rewards on the siege map pushing farther then what’s easy to get what’s in the houses and you need to do it within a relatively low amount of time. This is the more enjoyable way in general because people tend to prefer positive reinforcement rather then negative reinforcement. You can make a map easy with turtling but maybe have a brigand heading towards villages. Thieves trying to steal the chest. Just don’t make the best turtle spot a room with all the chest. Heck this can even apply to actual siege maps as chapter ten shows.

[@gogobrasil7185]

Unpopular opinion: Casual mode has turned into a taboo in the community. Everyone's pressured to only play classic, even newcomers sometimes, when seeking advice on reddit or something. It's said to make the game "extremely easy" when really, it's interesting, refreshing, and can even be a challenge. A challenge, you ask? Yes, because one thing casual mode and iron man runs have in common is not resetting a chapter. Having to beat a chapter short of someone, or multiple someones. If you play classic mode resetting every time, you'll never finish a chapter without your full army. Never have to go against a boss missing your boss killer, or have to fend off last-minute reinforcements with less than ideal units. When you reset, all you're really accomplishing is having to re-do everything you just did, all to fix an often minor mistake, maybe even a simple misclick. That's not a fun difficulty. You're not growing much as a player, only thing you're learning is to be more careful next time. Most people probably just put down their controllers right then, come back later. If you were playing casual, though, you wouldn't need to reset. Wouldn't need to redo everything you just did, because that unit will be back next chapter. But you would need to survive the rest of the chapter without that unit. That is the part that can be a fun challenge. Maybe you lost your bulky paladin, now your more fragile infantry units gotta pick up the slack. Or your only mage just died, now dealing with those armored enemies isn't as trivial anymore. Truly, despite the awful name they gave it, casual mode isn't inherently easier. Some games like shadow dragon or awakening have such a huge number of recruitable units, that permadeath becomes not that big of a deal. You can comfortably lose a lot of guys and still fill all your deployment slots with good units. And another fun thing that you can only really do in casual mode is sacrificing someone. Something that is a viable strategy on games like Pokemon, Advance Wars, Civilizations, because they're all "casual mode". You can perfectly leave someone behind to distract the enemy and buy you time. It can't be mindless, because again, you'll need to deal with the enemy sooner or later, but if it's really necessary, you can do it. So let's end the stigma, and embrace casual mode as not an inferior, but alternative way, to play fire emblem.

[@GIR177]

While I do think casual mode does get overly demonized, it definitely _not_ the same thing as resetting in classic mode. Resetting after every unit death can get very tedious, but the player certainly has the option to continue playing if retaining their progress is more valuable or if the unit that was lost wasn't a big loss. Chaz's last video highlighting permadeath and Mekkah + Mangs' vid on why people should play more FE Iron Mans show how it fundamentally changes your way of decision making. Even if a person wimped out and replayed a chapter to keep everyone alive, losing their own time, a far more precious resource than any unit, is certainly a bigger price to pay than slap on the wrist you get from having people die in casual mode. And the "sacrifice" tactic available in casual mode perfectly illustrates the point - casual mode encourages bad habits and removes any tension from engaging enemies. Throwing weak units towards foes as cannon fodder, over-aggression, and poor resource management are the biggest problems that crop up when you start to overly rely on it, and it also makes returning to previous games in the series that don't feature casual that much harder. It's more of a problem that the newer FE games aren't particularly designed around permadeath anymore, so people are prone to reset more to even stand a chance of completing them, to the point where there's basically a glorified save state function in the more recent games.

[@gogobrasil7185]

GIR177 Bad habits? Why are they bad? Sacrificing units is very much a massively adopted strategy viable in thousands of different strategy games, including Intelligent System's very own Advance Wars. Should a FE fan not play any of those, so they don't create those bad habits? Similarly, should they not use things like Rescue on the GBA games, because it's not on the others? Or any other mechanic? I really don't agree with this argument. Anything can be a "bad habit" by this logic, since every game is different and has different mechanics. Instead of worrying about that, people should just learn as they go, like with every other game. Learning curves will happen, it's fine. About your first paragraph, I made the distinction between resetting and playing iron man for a reason. What I'm picturing here is the "casual is trash" crowd who go and reset every time someone dies. Their experience is basically casual but slower, easier, and less fun, since they have to re-do stuff and always finish chapters with a full team. If they don't reset, then obviously it's different. Of course, you can play only resetting for some units, while letting others go. That's not really that much different since you'll obviously always reset for the better units, while only the less significant ones die, but sure, it's a little bit more challenging.

[@bkebradley]

You sound really biased towards old FE characters. I prefer "pre-Awakening" FE myself, but I can't say in confidence that the series has ever had a wealth of well-written, interesting characters.

[@CyclonSilver]

I mean, regardless of that, it's true that Awakening introduced a two-sided writing style when it came to its characters(throughout the story and in combat, they're almost aggressively simplistic and one note, while in supports, they're fully fleshed out individuals), and while I do think that's a super flawed approach... just in general, difference leads to preference. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

[@garbageman9999]

It’s probably because the writing of these characters was more down to earth. They were written like actual people instead of these copy pasted anime tropes. Personally I’ll take a character like Dorcas to a character like Raphael, Tharja, Camilla, Faye or Benadetta any day

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@garbageman9999 100% this. Fire Emblem is not a game where someone lost the key to the loony bin, and hell is breaking out because a bunch of insane people are flooding the country. That's what Disgaea is for. And frankly, Fire Emblem characters have been less serious than Disgaea characters for like, 5, 6 years now. And that's a problem.

[@TheMaster4863]

I always felt Jill was an interesting character but that's mostly because of what she adds to the story if you see all her optional dialogue, especially the info scene after PoR ch20 I also quite like her dialogue with the final boss

[@Edgeperor]

Better to be consistently acceptable than have a quarter of the characters be a net loss to the rest of the cast

[@dawnevergarden3275]

My only unpopular opinion with Fire Emblem recently is I had more fun playing Fire Emblem Echoes Shadows of Valentia more than Three Houses, specifically for the gameplay and music. There are more characters I like in Three Houses but to me the Story of Echoes just felt much better to go through. Though I will say I cant stand the final boss fight of Echoes in the slightest. The music in Three Houses isnt bad but it felt much more repetitive than Echoes did, I also loved the Dungeon crawling of Echoes it allowed me to grind up any units I wanted if I wanted, I could farm for Money to get high quality Forges and on it's so much fun and quite enjoyable imo.

[@dracoshield2344]

In my opinion, Shadows of Velentia is the best game in the series. Music, characters, maps, gameplay, it's all amazing. The story is a little weak but has amazing meanings behind it. A true work of art.

[@dawnevergarden3275]

@@dracoshield2344 couldn't of said it better myself.

[@bgalex776]

Echoes had polish in spades. Three Houses at times can feel a little cheap or unfinished (the constant reuse of assets is a good example) Regardless of objective qualities, this alone can give Echoes a much better impression. Echoes is a better game tho overall imho

[@blunderbus2695]

If Echoes had properly improved on Gaiden's maps instead of just copying them straight over, I think it'd be my favourite in the series

[@AkameGaKillfan777]

@@blunderbus2695 Echoes only gets a pass on infinite grinding, bad map design and low mission variety just because "muh classic FE," even if Awakening, Fates and 3H have some of its issues to a MUCH lower degree.

[@spiderdude2099]

Unpopular opinion: The English versions of "lost in thoughts all alone" and "lady of hresvelg" are superior to the Japanese versions.

[@lambtoken2708]

Also Shigure sings better than Azura

[@Kairos_Akuma]

Yepp! But I honestly am of the Mindsset: The Hoshido-Version sounds better in Japanese and the Nohr better in English xD Srslly they should have just make it this way since Nohr is clearly Western. Also yeah: Why no Shigure Singerclass. They could have Balanced it, so that when one Sings the other cant or something.

[@sonogrande7628]

Agree

[@leaffinite2001]

Hard agree

[@gregster1016]

Unpopular Opinion: I don't actually hate Kris. Specifically, I don't really have much of an opinion on Kris one way or the other. On one hand, I agree that they are completely unnecessary and that we did not need an Avatar in a remake of a game that didn't originally have one. On the other hand, Kris doesn't ruin New Mystery for me in the same way that Corrin ruins Fates for me cuz they're not the driving force of New Mystery's plot, nor are they as anywhere near as dumb as Corrin either. While Kris does take a few lines that originally belonged to other characters in the original game, outside of the side quests involving the Assassins subplot, where's it justified given their personal connection to Katarina, Kris really is only a minor character and takes a back seat to Marth where it counts, rather than being the even worse screen time hoggers that Robin and Corrin were chiefly because of the story being written to accommodate them, not to mention not getting half as much character shilling as either of them. In short, I understand why people hate Kris, I'm just not of the same mindset. You get what I'm saying?

[@AJ-ko5df]

Same I 've played a bunch of jrpg's and Kris 's implementation is not that terrible in the avatar praise department. I can totally see why some people hate Kris especially if they played FE3.

[@Arc_ride]

Same but I also find them kind of charming with the goofy hats, and I love FE3 with all of my heart too

[@Balmora776]

For me my main problem with Kris is that he/she hurts what is an otherwise really well written game. It's even worse when sharing the same game with great characters like Arran, Minerva, or Cain. Corrin on the other hand is just isolated to fates so his/her shitty writing (With the exception of Leo of course he's kino. ) is just one piece of shit among a mountain of shit. Yeah it may have been better had they focused on writing the game without centering it around the self-insert but that's all speculation.

[@lambtoken2708]

I don't actually understand why people hate Kris

[@Edgeperor]

@@lambtoken2708 I’d guess it’s a lot harder to understand when you haven’t played both fe12 and fe3

[@chrisbasham729]

Unpopular opinion. Echoes has some of the best gameplay but is held back by Gaiden's maps.

[@comerosas]

Chris Basham hard agree. I LOVE echoes and my biggest complaint about it by far is the map design. Makes replaying it a total chore (side eyes the desert maps and last bastion)

[@mcdonaldsspritetingz9208]

I agree 100%

[@karabirb]

This is unpopular? I thought this was the general view of Echoes lmao Though I will contest the point about “best gameplay,” bc unless you mean the mechanics are good, that just kinda doesn’t make sense. The maps are a HUGE part of the gameplay, and if playing a map sucks (which is the case with almost every map in Echoes), then the gameplay is bad. Idk why you’d bother with that distinction

[@Edgeperor]

@@karabirb think of it this way: is fighting generic enemies more fun in Binding Blade or Sacred Stones? Pretend that the place you fight them is just a generic plains grid.

[@123phi123]

For Final Fantasy, the main series entries are numbered. It is a completely different case to refer to those games by their number than for Fire Emblem. Same deal for Mega Man

[@EduardoGarcia-id5pt]

40:22 This is one argument that surprises me every time I see it. In all three Routes Corrin is shown leading a group that isn't larger than a company of soldiers. In the first half of CQ Corrin's being sent on suicide missions by Garon to suppress rebellions and recover forts, with the explicit intent on putting Corrin's life in danger. During this time Xander the rest of the Nohrian siblings are sent on their own missions by Garon and only join Corrin's group over a periodic amount of time. By the point Xander joins the rest of the group Corrin's already participated on multiple military missions where they directly took part in and gained their experience through trial by fire. It's similar case in BR as well, both Ryoma and Takumi leave to fight in the front lines without properly informing their allies, which leaves the Hoshidans scrambling to find them. Corrin joins Hinoka, Sakura, and their retainers to discover the whereabouts of their brothers while Yukimura deals with military defense of the country. And in REV it's obvious why they are leading the group because they are at odds with both nations and where branded a traitor by both. Even before and after all the siblings are gathered together, Corrin is always shown having someone at their side who they are confiding with for help or advice such as Gunter, Silas, Leo, Xander, Camilla, Hinoka, Ryoma, Takumi, and Azura. It's even mentioned in multiple supports that Corrin's always looking for advice and guidance in order to improve their skills and holds war councils so that their group can discuss their next course of actions.

[@rpgrunaway8321]

Ever hear of "show, don't tell"?

[@EduardoGarcia-id5pt]

@@rpgrunaway8321 Yes I've heard of it, and it's what they do in this example. They show Corrin participating in battles, and show them asking for advice and guidance from their allies. My question is, do you know what it means?

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@EduardoGarcia-id5pt Yes, but it's a problem with a lit of FE games where there's really no reason why Xander shouldn't be the one leding the army once joins over Corrin, not to mention Leo's C support with Corrin

[@EduardoGarcia-id5pt]

@@vanjagalovic3621 Like I mentioned in my first comment, Corrin is the one primarily leading his small company of soldiers in the first half of the game, but even then he's still consulting with his allies. Corrin was appointed the leader of the invasion of Hoshido by Garon for the purpose of making Corrin suffer, and by that point Corrin has gained experience in his prior military missions. Once the invasion starts, it's shown in the main story that Corrin has Xander and Leo be his advisors. Also the whole point of Corrin's and Leo's support is to show that Corrin is making a proactive effort to improve his abilities for the sake of his allies survival and to show how much trust he has in Leo's abilities. It's even shown later in the support that after some further effort and studying, Corrin is making improvements.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@EduardoGarcia-id5pt It's not hard to see that Corrin does improve with him/her getting wrecked by Ryoma and Xander at the beginning, but being able to match them by the end of the game (though Corrin still losses to Xander because he would've won if it weren't for Elise) and it is understandable how at the start of the game Corrin is the leader. It's just a little silly that Xander doesn't argue with Garon about Corrin being thevleader since Xander obviously has more experience and he mentions in his supports how he used to argue with Garon even before he became fully corrupt (though the story and support contradict each other a lot), my other problems with Corrin is how other characters are super friendly towards Corrin (besides Leo because he's jelaous and Takumi because he's possesed and mentions how he'd like to be Corrins friend in Cq when we see real Takumi), he/she's very important to the story to where the royals main goal is often how do we get Corrin, his/her naivety don't really affect anything in Rev since things usually end up working out in her favour (though the Anthony part where he was outsmarted was nice), he can appatently win entire battles without killing anyone and just lightly wounding them and in the cannon Rev path everything works out perfectly for Corrin and she/he never lose anything and the continet is better than it was before because of Corrin. Now these aren't flaws exclusive to Corrin it's just that they more noticable in Fates where there's a lot of wasted potential, Corrin included

[@HollowGolem]

Mekkah: At 6:00 you mention the comparison with Mario Games and Final Fantasies, but those are different beasts. Nobody calls Mario Sunshine "Mario 8" or whatever number it technically would be. They just call it Sunshine. And the Final Fantasy games don't have subtitles. They're just numbers. The issue with the Fire Emblem games' number, and I agree with that guy, is that using the numbers when they're not numbered in the official title just makes the franchise more opaque. I caught myself doing it a few months back, when I mentioned to my brother that I was doing another playthrough of FE10, and he looked at me blankly. "Radiant Dawn." "Oh, okay!" A game he'd played multiple times himself, on all difficulties, but he knew it by its actual title rather than the number. Why DID we start calling the games by their numbers? "Geneology" vs "FE4" isn't much longer, nor is "Thracia" or "Awakening" versus FE5 or... FE12? See, you have to know the order of the games you haven't even played. And then we give the remakes their own number? That's asinine! It's not "FE11" It's just a remake of FE1. That's it. That's what Shadow Dragon is. Stop numbering it like a standalone game. And then Fates makes the numbering break down completely. Is Birthright "FE14A?" or "FE14B?" Is Revelation "FE14C" or "FE14R?" It's so damn arbitrary.

[@shroudedinmyth8229]

Nintendo and IntSys themselves number the games including the remakes that way. They even made announcement to try to change the numbering system that didn't catch on. Lots of people are not typing on keyboard and are on a touch screen instead, so FEx is much easier than trying to type the whole thing.

[@petrie911]

I'm too used to FE numbers up to Radiant Dawn, but once they started remaking them I gave up on it and use the subtitles.

[@AkameGaKillfan777]

And now Sakurai has numbered Heroes.

[@rpgrunaway8321]

Your anger makes me laugh, no one's gonna stop numbering them because your whiny ass is telling us to lmao

[@ussgordoncaptain]

Ok how do you name Fire emblem, the one with eliwood as different from Fire emblem the one with marth

[@intercluster]

Unpopular opinion: Children units were fun. Sure, they didn't make sense storywise in Fates (and Awakening to some extent), and were broken too. It made me happy that I was able to control the stats, hair colour, abilities, etc and it felt more open and customizable, sort of like another avatar. They dont have to be optimized, and if you still consider them broken, lunatic+ is always an option. Plus, many of them are optional.

[@louc.6735]

Tbh that was one of the things that drew me to genealogy well before awakening came out. It's my favorite way to customize units.

[@librathebeautifulwarmonk1283]

My issue with them was that in both games, most of them were boring or I hated them. Nah is my least favourite character in Awakening and Soliel was my one if my least favourite in Fates

[@emberhermin52]

@@librathebeautifulwarmonk1283 how the hell could Nah be your least favorite character in a game that had Tharja, Sully and Maribelle?

[@RWBn00b]

"Pre-awakening, one-note tropey characters were less the norm, more an exception" FE7 has more tropey characters than awakening and very few that has anything under the surface. FE4's cast overall is actually flatter than that of Conquest(in fact, a good few of the character foibles with Conquest is them stumbling over their own writing)... to that games benefit. I feel like the whole issue here is that people don't like certain tropes or their modern portrayals, and thus act like the newer games are more tropey and one-note, when they are not. Tropes or flat characters are not even a negative in and of themselves. Marth's original games are actually the most one-note, flat tropey games in the series(thanks to the cast being designed to be disposable they are all either nearly devoid of character or just a trope outright), but you don't see people lambast it because it's simple, straightforward and inoffensive. FE was always filled to the brim with tropey characters with lacking depth, and that's to be expected with the huge casts the games tend to have. You need to downsize the cast severely to not struggle with this. It's a matter of not liking certain tropes or takes on tropes. This is just like how FE has in fact always been very anime, and similar to the stuff of its own time. You can see that Jugdral definitely has many similarities to Legend of Galactic Heroes both in portrayals and to a lesser degree art, for example(though thanks to FEs gameplay system, Jugdral is much, much flatter).

[@vanjagalovic3621]

All FE games have bad cast members it's just that the good ones like Hector, Arvis, Lyon and others got more screen time and since they were the most common characters you remembered them more. Fates and Awakening mostly have a boring main cast and villains that get the most screen time which make the overall cast seem weak There's good characters in Fates of course, but most people remember the lows like Pery or Camillia, rather than someone like Nyx.

[@Timmio.]

Can you elaborate on fe7? I personally think the cast is handled very well in that one.

[@emberhermin52]

Pre-Awakening, one-note, tropey characters were the norm, not the exception. Awakening is notable for actually fleshing out every character by giving them enough support conversations that were easy enough to unlock and not limited per playthrough that there's something actually human and realistic for all of them, and they play with their tropes in really interesting ways No disappointment of the flat Elibe or Tellius or Kaga-era casts here, or Fates' inconsistency, or the 3H cast which largely became less likable as you get to know them Although SoV and Sacred Stones still have my favorite casts, Awakening has one of the best too. The dev team's focus on the characters really showed and really paid off.

[@SnydeX9]

Unpopular opinion: I miss when FE6 was called Sword of Seals. Now Binding Blade and Blazing Blade are so similar it causes unnecessary confusion...

[@Edgeperor]

Sword of Seals is still a way lamer name

[@gorade1901]

Unpopular Opinion (at least I think it is, maybe it isn't): every time anyone says "x is basically y" character in the FE community, it erks me, not when it is said about their utility in gameplay, but strictly when talking about their character. Almost everytime that phrase is used (in terms of character) it either connects two characters together based on very basic details about them (Leon and Yuri as a more recent example) or connects them together due to being in the same archetype without ever acknowledging what makes them different. In terms of the latter, every character that falls into an archetype that has ever existed in FE past FE6 does something to differentiate them and make them unique, that's why the support system is THERE, and to promote the idea that these characters are just the same isn't going to do any good for anyone, and it's just blatantly false. Yes, you can compare two characters, that's fine, but to completely disregard all differences in order to say, for example, "Constance is just blonde L'arachel!" completely disregards what makes Constance unique and interesting, and just perpetuates this "seen it once, seen it all" mentality that, as someone who loves character writing, just rubs me the wrong way. I feel like as a community we should acknowledge what makes them different more than we say that x characters are "basically the same". And to list another example for no particular reason *cough* Mekkah *cough,* Sylvain is NOT just Sain, Sain is way more focused on the romanticism of being a knight while Sylvain is way more focused on women and has a VASTLY different reason for it. (And yes, since I know it will be said in response, I know the majority of the time the people who say those things know of the differences, but then A: the attitude it creates still exist and B: why even say it then if they know it's false? Cause they're to lazy to do otherwise?)

[@absoul112]

I couldn't agree more.

[@emberhermin52]

How could you disrespect any of the nice skirt-chasers in the series by comparing them to Sylvain? 🤢 But also, Camilla is basically Almedha

[@bobrob2706]

@@emberhermin52 How could you disrespect any female character by compairing them to Camila. But also Nino is basically Lisithia.

[@Jaxter0987]

"Why even say it" Because its the easiest way to summarize a unit. We have defined archetypes for a reason. It gives us a frame of reference with which to view the character. Humans do this all the time. We always approach new things by comparing it to what we already know and seeing if we can categorize it. Problems arise only when you don't reevaluate something after experiencing it. Racism and to a lesser extent, negative stereotypes are the result people not reevaluating when something goes against what they've experienced. I don't want to actually discuss further in that direction. It's just the easiest example to bring up. And I disagree that those comments are false. I'm bringing semantics here but the comments you're talking about are comparing, not equating the two characters. And that comparison is definitely not false. Sylvain IS like Sain. But you're right that Sylvain is not JUST Sain. As for your A point, it doesn't create that attitude. The "seen it once, seen it all" mentality isn't created by generalization and categorization comments like "X is basically Y". It brings out that attitude in people that already had it in the first place. People are hopefully taught not to judge a book by its cover and those comments you're unhappy about are literally the covers of the characters. As such, I think its perfectly reasonable to make comments building up a cover for a character and the onus is on the reader to be able to look past the cover.

[@tunsehc]

"In a way, I can go along with people who say Mark is the best way to handle a self insert, but it's basically saying it's best done to not do it at all" Yes, exactly. I hate self-inserts in Fire Emblem, so Mark was the best one.

[@nicolaspendragon3582]

As an anime fan myself I will say what others have already said. FE has always followed the general anime tropes that were incredibly popular at the time. Let's look at the FE's that came out during the 90s first shall we? Most Fire Emblem Games follow the typical coming of age storyline that was incredibly popular at the time and still is today. A lot of Ghibli movies, aswell as anime like Yu Yu Hakusho, every Shounen anime and Gundam had main characters that started off fairly weak and in over their had but through trial and error managed to reach their goal. You could also say that, like the other games in the franchise, they follow a similar formula to the monster-of-the-week formula Mazinger z introduced in the 70s in the form of the bosses. Then of course there was the Jugdrall games that seemed inspired somewhat by Evangelion with it's darker tone and focus on religious symbolism. It was also a bit more of a character study then the previous 3 games. It also seemed inspired by Gundam Wing when it came to it's politics. Then in the 2000s a slight shift. The GBA games had a lot more of these Damsel in distress like moments the late 90s early 2000s anime often used. There are too many anime with this trope to really talk about and honestly most popular tropes were relatively similar to the earlier stuff we talked about. In Path of Radiance we once more saw a shift as it once more seemed to follow in the footsteps of stuff like Gundam Wing with it's focus on race and politics. Radiant Dawn did this aswell though i would argue it seemed more inspired by Code Geass and Gurren Lagan then Gundam Wing. Then as we went into the 2010s the average anime watcher started wanting something else. Stuff like Suzumiya Haruhi was beocoming more popular, the Tsundere and Yandere trope's was gaining momentum and the typical coming of age story was becoming tiresome. With the failures of both Archenea remakes Intsys had one last chance. So they decided to take a page out of SAO's book. They decided to appeal to the masses. Like stated earlier the Tsundere and Yandere trope's were becoming increasingly popular, with the likes of Asuka for Evangelion, Rin from Fate and Mikoto from To Aru becoming more popular then ever before. Which is surprising considering these were already popular characters. There were of course more tropes being used at this point, like the strong guy who liked training, the childhood friend who has a crush on the main character, the fellow with zero precense etc. A lot of anime were starting to use these tropes to full effect, with the aforementioned SAO using atleast 95% of the popular tropes of the time. This caused Intsys to attempt the same. It should also be noted that self insert characters were nothing new. Light novels from as early as 2001 used self insert characters like Robin for example. It isn't something from the last decade like most seem to think. Some of the most popular ones are Kirito and Touma whose stories are from 2001 and 2004 respectively. However what should be said is that anime unlike both FE13 and F14 often managed to make these tropes work because of the fact you don't play as the MC. This works in anime's favor because it simply isn't a game. If a avatar has a personality then it doesn't work in the same way as with a LN protagonist because we're playing as said avatar. Now for the tropes themselves. In most anime i can bear them. But the 3ds games lay them on way too thick and that is the main issue imo. Echoes and 3h did this better but not quite good enough. Now the main point of this comment was to show that yes anime and FE changed but mostly because of the general audiance. Back in the 90s and 2000s there were already several of these tropes being used but most of these would become popular around 2006 when Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu became super popular. FE truly always did what anime did and anime did what the masses wanted at the time. The reason why FE seems so tropey is because most people want these tropes because they enjoy them. However whereass anime somehow finds ways to keep them interesting FE mostly keeps them generic. However in retrospect it didn't chance that much. Every trope i talked about was always there just not as noticeable as now. Yes we see a lot of Tsundere characters nowadays but those have always excisted. Look closely and you'll find one sprinkled across every bit of Fire Emblem. These passed few years show the power of mass appeal. Tl;dr FE and anime have always been tropey but due to mass appeal it is more noticeable these days.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

According to your comment political discussion and a dark tone are attribute to othrr anime series, I get that there's a lit of stuff in FE inspired by anime, but there's also mithology, history and other things. It feels a bit silly to attribute FE changing just to fit in with the current anime at the time, since you also need to take other things into account.

[@nicolaspendragon3582]

@@vanjagalovic3621 Look i get what you're saying but you're not entirely correct. FE has always followed in anime's footsteps in the sense that it closely followed what was popular at the time. During the 90s dark political drama's were the rage so FE followed the trend. Nowadys SoL with tropey characters are the rage so FE follows it. You're also not entirely correct about having to take other things into consideration. History only applies to the setting while mythology applies solely to names of weapons, the creatures and some characters. Most of the politics are not at all like back during the time period. There were no mercenary countries for example. You would've been right in saying you have to take other things into account but aside from History and mythology there is nothing aside from popular anime at the time.

[@mavorenborsteel6765]

Unpopular Opinion?: I Actually like the Avatar Character. Ever since i saw Mark in FE7, i had hoped for a personal character to field and I enjoy Awakening quite a bit because of it.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

It's fine to like avatars, but they're stilk not free from criticism when they hog the spotlight and everyone mentions how awesome they are every 5 second. It's fine to like something as long as you admit it's flaws

[@Edgeperor]

@@yousquiddingme admitting something’s flaws is a lot different than “admitting it’s shit.” Don’t twist people’s words.

[@emberhermin52]

@@vanjagalovic3621 okay but find me a non-avatar lord that doesn't do this. It's just how fire emblem writes protagonists

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@emberhermin52 Leif is an incredebly flawed protagonist who makes a lot of mistakes and his strategists constantly berate him for being a hotheaded child. So no, this wasn't ever the way protagonists were written in FE until Kaga left IS

[@nunu3026]

FE has always been anime-like. The thing is though, it has always followed the trends of the times. Anime today and anime back in the 90s and the 80s are a completely different beast and similarly, FE back then and FE now are completely different (in terms of the story tropes and characters). Games and anime culture in Japan are much more intertwined than you could ever guess. The consumers of both in Japan are, for the most part, the same people so no wonder some anime-like things are gonna find themselves in games. It is only logical. Is this an unpopular opinion? I think I just stated things as I see them since I have one foot in the FE community and the other in the anime community. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. As for the shipping stuff that you mentioned. That is a huge thing in otaku (anime and games) culture ever since the 90s and I would guess that it came from a huge success of the visual novels which are in general a multiple route romance simulators in which the protagonist (you) romance multiple cute girls or boys. Now, is introducing this aspect to FE a bad or a good thing? I kind of like it, but my perception is certainly colored by the fact that I am a fan of visual novels too sooooo... what do I know lol

[@ecbrd8478]

Hm, yes... I suppose I should've said that I liked the way FE7 handled its self-insert *compared to the rest of the series.*

[@OnlineVideoSurfer]

I just assume they did it because they did it in Advance Wars 1, and IS wanted to replicate its success in the US in the exact same way. Lyn mode and Mark is just like Advance War's 1 tutorial with Nell and the strategic planner. And in both cases your self-insert is basically irrelevant once the real game begins, aside from a few passing references seemingly for continuity. It's designed to coax you in then transition you to the real game. Don't know if it's something I personally like, but it feels like a very different thing than every other Avatar. And given their success I can't criticize the effectiveness of this design philosophy.

[@MobiusLeader007]

You mean how Elibe and the people in it didn't revolve around the avatar?

[@Edgeperor]

“Hey Kris, I know we’re in the middle of a huge battle, but look at this really cool hat I found. Do you want to wear it? Only one word responses are acceptable.”

[@3To3dSl0th]

I have three unpopular opinions: 1) I find purely evil villains such as Fomortiis, Lang, and Manfloy to be quite underrated. Don't get me wrong. Morally complex, tragic antagonists like Lyon, Zephiel, etc. are great too. But there's just no greater satisfaction in FE's boss fights IMO, than beating down an enemy who's absolutely disgusting to the core in everything they say and do. 2) I feel the Laguz-Beorc racism subplot in the Tellius games is one of the weaker parts of those games from a story POV. IMHO, it often felt hamfisted in its delivery, onesided, and underdeveloped. When aspects which would deepen the experience are introduced, they get quickly shoved to the side or censored, so they feel less powerful. For example, them not being able to show Izuka's pile of mutilated corpses, which...I guess is due to wanting to avoid an M rating. But perhaps most importantly, the part where Nasir brings up that the Laguz used to enslave the Beorc due to their superior strength, only for Ike to say "that doesn't matter". I felt this in particular undermines what could have been a more balanced grey and gray morality, which Three Houses largely does better IMO. Instead, I would say the Tellius games' greatest narrative strength, mainly PoR, was the coming of age story for Ike and his close allies, such as Elincia, Soren, Mist, Jill, etc., along with the rich worldbuilding, presentation, and characterization. 3) This is more to do with the fanbase than FE itself, but I feel as if "elitist" (often used in a negative sense) has just become a euphemism for "Kaga Emblem fan" especially for fans of FE4 and 5, and I feel this is unfair. If anything, I see more people complaining about old-school FE fans being elitists, than actual elitism and more importantly, direct rudeness to newer FE fans. I feel like I can't enjoy Jugdral or Horse Emblem without being undermined as a tier whore or an elitist, and it sucks. I mean, maybe I just like horses and cavalry designs? Maybe I like to play fast (not LTC-fast, but decently so) instead of grinding? What's wrong with that? Whenever I say things like this, people just go passive aggressive like "Yeah well, maybe I just like to use my favorite characters" as if I'm imposing on them, and it sucks. I also want to thank Mekkah for addressing the fact that even FE8 can be hard for a first-timer. It was my first FE game and I get embarrassed when people say it's easy, when honestly there are few FE games I've been more stuck on at the time due to that fact, along with having some legitimately tough chapters, such as anything where you have to recruit Rennac, or even chapter 6.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

The operating theme of Telius is, to my knowledge, letting go of the past. It doesn't matter so much that beorc enslaved laguz, or laguz enslaved beorc in the past. Telius isn't making the contraversial point of "Slavery Bad", it's giving lists of grievances people have against eachother, and saying the best thing is to just get over it and forget about it.

[@Timmio.]

About 1. I find a completely evil dude not a problem, but such a character shouldn't have a big role in the story imo. Any evil dude starting a war bc evil feels cheap, but having one chapter where the boss is a complete psychopath could be done fine

[@Darkyan97]

Unpopular opinions: 1. I prefer Edelgard in her Armored Lord and Emperor classes. For that matter I prefer to use "canon" classes in all modern Fire Emblem games. 2. I prefer weapon locked infantry classes to most other classes (Swordmasters, Berserkers, Halberdiers etc.)

[@sonogrande7628]

Same

[@josephpanno6816]

Unpopular opinion: Fates bad Genealogy good give me likes now.

[@librathebeautifulwarmonk1283]

Awakening bad Echoes good only my opinon matters

[@TheRedScizor]

preset level ups would make the game way less fun imo

[@dmas7749]

30:13 i still agree with this, 0% growths prove us wrong and it might just be my bad luck speaking but getting screwed in important stats (especially Spd/Agi) feels much worse and sticks out a lot more than getting those stats blessed and as a result it feels like it happens to me more than it actually does

[@oshawott28tyyn24]

opinion: fates gameplay is decent and I like playing it

[@JReds-bw9kg]

Fates gameplay is great. What people hate is the way some of the themes were presented and also most of the writing. You can still enjoy it, tho

[@shanner]

Fates is good

[@comerosas]

the gameplay especially for conquest is fun and you can just skip the shitty writing

[@geenobe9941]

Matty V fates writing is soooo bad but i honestly never skip the story since its just so funny to see garon fresknout.

[@animepsyclone]

opinion: fates story isn't even that bad

[@RedRyuSmash]

13:18 I think anime is not the right word for this over characterization and dating visual novel aspects. I get what people mean by this how games do not play out fully like it's some kind of dating simulator game that awakening and fates played way more into compared to echoes and three houses. Even when I think the whole fire emblem series does have an anime art style just cause it's from japan. I still think even the GBA games played things straight and didn't go a hard with that in their supports and interactions. Still i think the trope like characterization of those 2 games did was what more people wanted out of fire emblem. Yes they can be trope like but even characters that are tropey can still be fully realized people. DIgimon's entire cast is a bunch of tropes even in series like tamers that pulls that back. They still develop the whole cast to being full fledged characters while being those archetypes. Trope might night fit for all of fire emblem but it's more or less what I think people see characterization in newer games compared to older ones that had it more minimally/nonexistent or straight forward. Compared to a remake like shadow dragon which gave none of this. It's one of the bigger reasons I put that game at the bottom of my list of fire emblem games outside of ugly art direction. It didn't add anything former games did and built up on it. You can be faithful to an older game and still update it, something Shadow Dragon did not do in many aspects. Still this is why I think awakening saved the franchise is playing up to these aspects. People want characterization and interactions so they aren't faceless units like many are in a game like Shadow Dragon.

[@NontpNonjo]

I don't know if this is unpopular, but bonus exp is such a good mechanic, and would make playing fast in other Fire Emblem games feel much more rewarding than it does. If I got 200 points of bonus exp, for example for warp-skipping a chapter in FE11 I would use the warp staff way more often. I just need Exp that itch scratched, and PoR makes me feel like I'm playing so optimal when I get max bonus Exp.

[@gameboyn64]

Same. I like to feel that im not stunting my own team just to end the map quickly

[@notused458]

What even is "too anime"?

[@btmm139]

Too much Fan Service, I Think. It always have some, like Loli Dragons and Sisters Brocon, but in some games, like Fates, the Fan Service is more visible

[@notused458]

@@btmm139 Then it's more of a character design issue, "too anime" covers way too much stuff. And I agree, I really disliked Fates and Awakening for allowing you to S Support LITERAL CHILDREN.

[@-lord1754]

@@notused458 In Awakenings defense, I was a kid when i played it lol (i ended up marrying tiki though)

[@shaneakari9241]

Fates Support Conversations and the ability to tear off clothes in battle.

[@fernandouehara2665]

That was my comment, and like I said, it's really personal. For example, I don't really mind the designs, Byleth going super saiyan, and even a little fanservice here and there. Realistic speaking, pegasus knights wearing miniskirts doesn't make sense, but hey, whatever, I can live with that no problem. What really grind my gears are other stuff, like little girls turning into dragons or powerful mages, edgelords, Fates being a compilation of every worst anime trope ever, Awakening relying too much on the power of friendship, Kronya's entire existence, and a lot of really popular characters from 3H I won't list here because I don't want to start a flame war. But anyway, in the end, it's personal. Mekkah made fun of my usage of "too anime" because it is really vague, it could mean anything, and I know that. It's just that there's a lot of stuff I don't like in 3H and Fire Emblem in general that's really popular, and if I were to list them, fans of those characters would take it personal, or say I didn't pay attention to the story or whatever, like if you don't agree their favorite character is the best thing ever, you are obviously wrong. It's easier and safer to say I don't like Fire Emblem when it goes full anime.

[@jordi5479]

Unpopular Opinion: GBA FE animations, while far from bad, are pretty overrated. They are very flashy and nice looking, but since they are restricted to grids, they are very stiff. This isn't obvious in mages and archers, but physical units returning to the spot where they started bothers me quite a bit. Personally, I prefer the SNES and even the 3DS and 3H animations, because they are very fluid and active. They might not be as flashy, but I prefer them over the GBA's rigid animations nonetheless.

[@Luigiofthegods]

GBA will always be my favorite due to the aforementioned flashiness, but I definitely agree that they are not the "uNqUeStIoNeD bEsT" when they don't even transition into a unique double attack.

[@CosmicToad5000]

-yeah everyone knows PoR has the best animations, love me some robotic sword generals and fighters- While I do prefer the Judgral animations, especially the spells (and the sword cav crit animation is so goofy, I love it) I usually end up turning them off at some point. GBA and the Modern games (because of the fastforward and skip buttons) are the only FEs that I don’t get tired of the animations. Besides dark mages none of the animations are overly long and the way that the battle is just overplayed over the map is really nice imo.

[@TheFatestPat]

I first got FE7 and FE8, I've always preferred 8 more. At the time people were really critical of there being training areas. Since those areas are completely optional I never saw them as a hindrance or problem.

[@corgipuss7468]

"We don't know what they would have done (in response to Corrin being a side character vs main character)" Yes we do, it's called Nibelung's Crown, the official Fates Manga.

[@vanjagalovic3621]

Leo best main character

[@spiderdude2099]

Unpopular opinion: Cyril is a great character. People really be on him and Catherine and anyone who so much as mentions that they like rhea a lot. On that note too, why is it hard to understand people in 3 houses admiration for rhea? For Cyril and shamir and Catherine, she gave them amazing opportunities and a purpose that they are incredibly grateful for. Also, I know it's not a super popular opinion nowadays but you've gotta realize that the pseudo-medieval fantasy setting of most fire emblem games means that IN GENERAL the church is seen as the ultimate good and benevolent presence. We only have this idea of "organized religion is always bad" because of our modern perspectives and history. It isn't the same in these world's. For many characters devotion to the goddess and the church is the most fulfilling and ultimate good in their world. It only makes sense that they'd regard their equivalent of a Pope with reverence that goes beyond normal appreciation.

[@terrafrm4245]

Opinion time: Roy is one of the most interesting lords that gets far too much hostility due to being shafted by an early english patch that simplified his character significantly, an early support system that limits how much you can learn about a charcter (not to mention how long it takes to get supports at all), and a stupid late promotion. The idea that there is no tragic event in his life (like a close family death) but rather it's the idea that if he fails than he loses everything he loves is super interesting if it could be elaborated more and he'd be nearly single handedly fixed gameplay wise if he get a promo at like the end of the western isle. AKA Echoes of Elibe plz

[@terrafrm4245]

Even then Roy is not as bad in game as stated online and is a serviceable unit (not saying hes perfect either tho)

[@owenmachinecarbine6023]

54:22 I think a better to have explained that is to have one of your thieves or other recognize how concinetly place the chest are and/or how they are or probably are a trap. That way the doesn’t know what the trap is but that there is a trap making the player cautious, but not knowing exactly what will happen.

[@erinyes988]

Unpopular opinion: FE4 is tedious not just through gameplay but also through story. It has massive exposition dumps with names you're barely going to remember especially if you're playing causally and its writing kinda drops the ball in gen 2. Seliph sucks lol. Oifey should have been the lord.

[@elji-w3k]

Jedah is a better villain than Berkut. The reason for this is that the former is a villain whose purpose you can tell is to set up his own boss fight, and he does it right; the first time you see him you also already see what is probably the best portrait in the game, with a hilariously unpractical and overly detailed attire, and wearing it is a CDI Ganon-esque guy with delightful evil monologues about how he is out to trick Celica and steal her soul, all with hammy voice acting obviously done on purpose so that the player feels all the more pumped up when it’s time to mop the floor with him. Simple and effective. Berkut, on the other hand, is a villain who the game wants to portray as emotionally scarred from his past and upbringing, being a complex individual, if you will; but in his case... it just falls apart. Most notably, there’s his creepy relationship with Rinea, which starts out as a romantic ballroom dance scene, and later becomes him yelling at her, accusing her of betraying him and gaslighting her into believing he was right all along, which cost her life (which are side-effects of him overreacting to everything around him like a kid). In reality, his way of treating his fiancé and inability to ever maintain composure which leads to temper tantrums are ignored by the fanbase because when you have a hot villain like him, then “they’re just misunderstood”.

[@laprayprey]

Unpopular opinion: Fire Emblem Heroes is a very well designed Fire Emblem game. It allows unit customization without letting it go out of control by locking units to their weapon and movement types. Despite the game being gacha and pay to win, it doesn’t take away the fun of collecting and customizing your favorite Fire Emblem units. Heroes has also drawn a lot of new players into the Fire Emblem community, and it should be considered as one of the most popular Fire Emblem games of all time.

[@Kairos_Akuma]

If they would make it a payed APP and removed the Cashaspect I could agree.

[@chingading957]

17:05 you should do a big discussion with Mangs, Jake, and Ryn Ex: character designs might be in this category. But a better comparison can be between characters like Lyn and Ike vs Robin and Corrin. Self-inserts harming the storytelling similar to your Byleth video

[@descendantofthesaintking840]

unpopular opinion(maybe): i like the fire emblem echoes post game, i feel that the thabes labyrinth is fun and difficult (especially if you don't dlc) and as you go down farther it gets more difficult especially after floor 5 and if they aren't Alm they can get one shot which means you have to play carefully and once you get to floor 10 and see the door with grima sign on it i flipped out and made the whole journey feel worth it and the fight with grima wasn't too hard, but not too easy and the way it ties into awakening lore gives you a different outlook on grima

[@Femaldonado9698]

6:40 those examples you gave are because those games have those numbers in the title. for example, every mainline final fantasy has a number in the title. same thing applies to early day zelda and mario games.

[@Shazam1998]

27:50 I see people talking about how apparently unfinished Three Houses is,and how many faults it has but I dont really see it. I think the game is great,and does a ton more right than it does wrong. And clearly all the people giving it such high review scores agree. People saying older FE games are better or more complete comes mostly down to nostalgia or not being able to accept change.

[@antia2363]

three houses has a lot of inconsistency when it comes to story and characters, but to be fair, most of these things are because of Byleth. And for example, there are tons of cuts that they made in the routes, AM has unused content such as Felix/Annette being enemies, VW and SS are practically copypasta of the other and CF is rushed. And the older fe games have this problem as well, RD has tons of unused content and bs plot devices (like the blood contract) and fe4 ending chapters (and sigurd&deirdre’s relationship) also look rushed when it comes to story; these things happen when a game is big and ambitious TL;DR: big and ambitious games tend to have rushed parts (fe4, rd suffer from this), 3h has inconsistent writing (not as much as fates) because of Byleth and 2/4 routes are copypastas, the other two are rushed

[@thatonepersonnoonecaresabo3163]

Remember that unfinished doesn't really mean bad. While TH has a lot of play time and routes, it feels unfinished because of how many things are reused, especially the maps. The unfinished aspect also comes into play when discussing CF, mainly due to the relevance of the Slithers and their demise being uncerimoniously shoved into the epilouge texts. TH isn't flawless aside from that either. As mentioned, the maps are mostly pretty bland (I personally believe that that is caused by both too many open fields and too little interesting objectives/side objectives). And there are way too many supports. Just to name a few. And personally, the tradeoff for a slightly better story just... isn't worth it. And no, this isn't my nostalgia talking here. I am an Awakening baby, but I do have similar issues with that game as well. In fact, I believe that change can be a very good thing. I can appreciate that they tried something new, but that doesn't directly mean that all new things are superior.

[@Shazam1998]

@@thatonepersonnoonecaresabo3163 I could try to debate you now but honestly,debates on the Internet are just so tiring and mostly lead nowhere lol.

[@Dragonboy55564]

Three Houses has many elements that don't feel fully thought out or expanded upon when you take a second, critical look. This is true regardless of how good or great the game may be. Being a good game doesn't mean that it doesn't have flaws. It FEELS very clearly unfinished because it tries many things but doesn't commit. It's a scale problem, most of the previous games have a much smaller scale. I actually really like Three Houses a lot, but there are notable flaws. Look at how much time you spend in the monastery, but how repetitive it is compared to a game with similar elements (Persona 5). Look at how mastery classes generally require a third skill ranking in a completely different area that you generally haven't used, and how there's only one single sword and one fist master class without DLC. Or how mastery classes are presented as a higher tier of classes but aren't always strictly better. Why is Silver Snow almost a carbon copy of Verdant Wind (or vice versa)? Why is Crimson Flower shorter than every other route and has its conclusion unplayable unlike other routes? Why are map conditions generally so similar? Why are there graphical issues (in the environment and frame rate during certain animations) and noticeable technical slow down at times? Why do Awakening's pre-rendered animations look better than Three Houses despite being made several years earlier?

[@thatonepersonnoonecaresabo3163]

@@Shazam1998 That's fine. I feel the same sometimes tbh. For now we can agree to disagree. But if you want to discuss this later or a bit further into the future, feel free to do so. I'll try to respond in a respectful manner.

[@thestylemage2092]

17:22 Maybe the difference is that anime changed in the time between FE4 and FE13?

[@segonyosoftendo]

I don't really hate Kris because I feel like he is supposed to partly fill in for the loss of Book 1. He's there as a character that doesn't really know that much about the events of the War of Shadows, so he's used as a means to explain things from Shadow Dragon and ask questions to characters that the other characters already know, in case someone were to play New Mystery before Shadow Dragon. This wouldn't be necessary in the original because the original included a remake of the first game. This is how I interpret Kris at least.

[@jigokunabe]

I want to expand on the point of Fire Emblem having always been anime. To make it more accurate, let's instead say that Fire Emblem has always closely followed trends seen in anime production across the ages. Fire Emblem is a 30+ year old franchise, and as such it has existed concurrent to many different eras of anime, from a time when genres were still being defined to the modern day. Anime of the 80's and 90's was very different than today's anime. It's hard to compartmentalize anime based on decades, since many kinds of shows are always being produced at any given time, but i'll try. There was a larger quantity of shows with a focus on high fantasy and sci-fi worlds with extensive worldbuilding and political drama. I always think of shows like Legend of the Galactic Heroes and the many Gundam franchises, which sit comfortably alongside games like FE3, 4 and 5 in terms of content, themes and character design sense. The late 80's/90's had poofy hair and politically-driven stories, so Fire Emblem followed suit. Ideas and themes that permeated the anime sphere developed bit by bit in the coming decades, but what happened in the 2010's? The isekai genre hit an all-time peak in popularity, and with that came a flood of overpowered self-insert wish-fulfillment protagonists with special abilities who could fuck any of the cute girls they wanted. And so, like it always has, Fire Emblem continued to follow the most popular trends in Japanese storytelling and we got Kris, Robin, Corrin, and now Byleth as a result. Along with stories that focused more on evoking emotional responses from the audience rather than building believable worlds with a backbone of politics and high fantasy concepts. And considering the near-death of the franchise at the time, it would be downright foolish for Awakening to NOT capitalize on the single most lucrative storytelling elements permeating Japan. tl;dr: Yes, Fire Emblem has had a tonal shift. But so has the medium of anime, particularly what constitutes the most profitable storytelling elements, and FE has always followed these trends closely.

[@seththeace6217]

Final fantasy and MegaMan have number in the title, never heard legend of Zelda numbers except 1 and 2, just to clarify them.

[@AkameGaKillfan777]

The official name of the second title is: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

[@seththeace6217]

@@AkameGaKillfan777 true that. Point stands that Fe community is weird with numbering the Fe games.

[@evilmurlock]

47:10 I totaly agree, you are not a main charakter in there, and its kind of fun. I find it cute, and its not at all intrusive in the story

[@altha201]

Unpopular opnion: Maddening is a terrible difficulty mode. It goes up and down like crazy, to beat early game chapters you must use cheapiest tactics ever: luring enemies with one your powerful unit and beat them on PP, that's annoying and stupid. Enemies have way higher stats, then they should have. 44 speed Hero on pre-last chapter? Seriously? My fastest unit even with rally will have around 40. Mode doesn't reward you for playing smarter, like completing chapters in a few turns for example. Enemy placement sucks, resulting a lot of maps being slow. Mode doesn't adapt to the player, so you can expect to turtling some maps, since some of your units can be one-rounded. Divine Pulse doesn't excuse same turn reinforcments, resulting once again into turtling, since reinforcements are that strong. Early game is very cheap. Another unpopular opinion: FE13's Lunatic>FE16's Maddening. In my opinion they both works similar, throwing at player bs early game, pretty chill mid-game and bs again late game. They both similarly frustrating, though with FE13 it's more chill. BUT, Awakening have broken pair up, so it makes game less strategic and more boring, but at the same time it's completely removes all that frustration part of the game. And I would rather play more boring and more chill difficulty than cheap, frustrating and unbalanced difficulty. Really wish both games had difficulties between Lunatic and Hard, and Maddening and Hard respectively

[@melvinlu9663]

Maddening being poorly designed as a difficulty is not an unpopular opinion, it's a popular opinion for sure. Did 3H need a harder mode? Yes. Was it poorly implemented? Definitely yes especially when they designed the difficulty around divine pulse and the enemies are scaled to the point where it's comparable to SD's handling of higher difficulty

[@altha201]

@@yousquiddingme one word: expirience. And because enemies scaled stupidly, you want that exp, so your units won't be killed in like one round, making 1-2 turns strategies nearly imbossible on most of the maps

[@emberhermin52]

Unpopular opinion: I'm fairly certain that's the whole point Though I can understand wanting another in-between difficulty mode, you could always play with self-imposed challenges

[@v.emiltheii-nd.8094]

Unpopular opinion: There needs to be a FE crossover with either Tactics Ogre, Suikoden, FFT, Langrisser or Shining (especially Shining despite the creator hating FE...which is akin to the Sakura Wars creator hating Super Robot Wars). Either one's fine but I would definitely nerd tf out more than with TMS#. Also the Tellius games are the best imo.

[@fakesmile172]

I've been playing the first Shining Force, and while it can be very tedious, I'm having a lot of fun.

[@oncebluemoon]

Hivemind is kind of a general human phenomena or people getting together in large groups and not the fault or causal of any specific community or website. There are things that don't help sure, but they don't cause it.

[@PikminWarrior454]

I don't know whether this is unpopular or not, but I dislike reclassing as a concept, I think it should be either extremely restricted or not exist at all. Shadow Dragon/New Mystery are the worst offenders IMO. The fact that almost any unit can change to almost any class at the click of a button takes a lot of individuality out of the characters, especially when what little personality they have is tied to their class (Draug is a big knight who likes protecting people, but nah let's make him a super frail hunter/dark mage; Navarre is an edgy swordsman but let's make him a slow cavalier). The devs also can't realistically test every possible path in an unrestricted system, leading to broken character/class combos like Wolf/Sedgar as general. Future games were more restrictive (3DS limited your options, 3H doesn't let you reclass immediately), but it still feels weird to see stuff like Panne reclassed to dracoknight and losing the main thing that makes her special, the shapeshifting.

[@MrCactuar13]

Gonna repost my opinion from the last video, I stand by my words: Gaiden/Echoes maps are fine considering the context they're presented in. The game is designed for you to have many random encounters, whether on the map or inside of dungeons. Having anything other than tight and open maps would exhaust the player since the amount of decision-making expected of the player would be exponentially higher and would actually frustrate people. The few maps that do have actual map design are competent at what they aim to accomplish. Maybe the maps can be a bit too sadistic at times and Echoes definitely missed an opportunity to update the maps and improve them, but the maps are honestly not as bad as people make them out to be.

[@EvilAngel4116]

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion or not but....unpopular opinion FE4's story isn't as good as people think it is. Maybe people are giving it more slack because of how old of a game it is or maybe I'm being too critical but I think people hype the end of chapter 5 and the Yied dessert and make the game into some masterpiece that it really isn't. The story is portrayed as an epic of one man unknowingly causing a sequence of events that his son has to fix years later but not only does the story not really make a good case to have you feel bad for Sigurd (imo because most of it could have been avoided if he just listened to some warnings from villagers, Oifey or Lewyn about Deirdre and Shannan) It would have been more tragic imo if all these events happened because of a lack of information his part instead of him willfully ignoring it. And there's not much about most of the other characters to connect with to feel that bad, at least on a first playthrough. I think the shock of what happens to the units you spend so long building makes players think it's such a well-written tragedy instead of any impressive writing . Especially when you have Manfroy manipulating everything in the background because........evil! There's other parts too but I don't want to spoil anyone reading this who haven't played or watched someone play the game yet. I really think that FE does smaller stories contained in one country or area way better than grand epics, stuff like FE5, act one of Echoes, PoR's Begnion section and like part 1 of 3H is way better than FE4. Maybe in a remake if the find a way to make me feel bad for Sigurd maybe I'll change my mind but until then I gotta say I like most other FE stories more.

[@acjackson127]

To be honest I don't think Fire Emblem has become more anime I just think anime has changed. If you watch current anime there is a very obvious tonal shift from it when compared to older anime. This mainly took place when the industry realized it can cater to lonely introverted guys by giving them imaginary girlfriends to buy figures, posters, etc of. FE has always been pretty anime but it has also changed along with anime for better and for worse if you ask me. This shouldn't be surprising as it's literally just a Japanese game series with a cartoon aesthetic, said aesthetic would obviously be influenced by it's region of origin.

[@funninoriginal6054]

Unpopular opinion: i actually do ENJOY playing Fates: Revelations. But its not because of most reasons that people play other FE games (maps, gameplay, story) but because of My Castle. Its literally just because of that

[@zyvan3179]

I'll try and help with the whole anime thing since I'm a huge fan of both anime and fire emblem. Both sides have a point. Fire emblem has always been very anime but old fire emblem was a lot closer to older anime and had the tropes of a lot of older anime. While newer games are a lot closer to the newer anime. Both Geneology and Fates are very anime. But they are very different at the same time. So has FE become "more" anime no but anime has changed and fire emblem changed along with it. So people that dont like newer anime tropes dont like the direction of newer fire emblems so they say it's becoming too anime and others say its always been anime.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Definitely fair. I don't care for what I've come to describe as "weebcore" (largely defined by Isekai, Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, and ironic harems, by all means, if you have a better name for it, lay it on me), and I can definitely see those trends mirrored in the latest fire emblem games. On the one hand, I agree with not being too hard on a game for doing something it always has, but in the other, I feel like it's perfectly fair to hold a game accountable for choosing to align with something not particularly compatible with good writing, if only in the hope that they try for a better style in the future.

[@zyvan3179]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290 weebcore is definitely a good word for it and I dont care much for it either. It's so cliche and overdone and its generally not good writing. Luckily 3 houses is leaning away from all that especially compared to Awakening and Fates. I think that hating a game for being "anime" isnt a good reason but its definitely something against it but the game can still be good in spite of it

[@dmas7749]

4:57 i hate that the games after radiant dawn are referred to by number, the remakes, FE3 had a remake of 1 but also had its own campaign so its exempt, but 11, 12, and 15 30:13 i prefer fixed levels myself but it can't be denied that random levels are a big part of FE, part of the fun for a lot of people is figuring out how to deal with characters that get more or less in a stat they normally do, or entirely blessed/cursed characters who have nearly all stats better/worse 37:19 i kinda like kris, but that's because you have more control over his/her stats (though i prefer the straightforwardness of the asset/flaw), and can choose a starting class. his story has a couple of moments i like but the rest is trash lol

[@jamestopfaff]

FE3H is good and all but I just can’t find the right mindset to keep playing. I do not like the early maps,. It isn’t hard at all. Even maddening isn’t very difficult from what people told me. It’s fine, but it’s hard for me to picture all the character love since i just don’t invest. Meh, maybe I need to keep replaying it? Idk i have only 80 hours

[@PPPPPPPP270]

The whole RNG level thing someone said. The one thing I'm surprised isn't done more is the Fates lunatic leveling system. In lunatic mode all level ups are rolled when when that unit enters the map for the first time. You can technically RNG rig the first few levels in Fates but it's a great idea when you have someone die because you know a good level up isn't lost forever unless it's a new unit. Imagine FE5 with this kind of level up system. Never worry about losing a movement level ever.

[@MrAuthor3DS]

45:24 Agreed. Corrin could've easily been like what Giorno Giovanna was in JoJo Part 5 - assisting whoever was in charge of the path, learning from him and looking up to him more often, taking in and understanding any criticisms to their perspective (Corrin's idealistic mindset could really work in such a role, actually), and stepping up to lead when the right time comes around the climax.

[@davidnelson3316]

Fire emblem has been consistently anime regardless of a tonal shift as anime is a medium that has had both tones of characterization it just depends on who writes the characters and the characters look anime

[@slowpokefriedrice]

Here’s mine: I like Tharja, Camilla, and Faye. Their obsession with another character is weird but I like Camilla’s motherly side, how Faye develops, and honestly I just have Awakening nostalgia for Tharja. Conrad is cool. I can see why people think he was an unnecessary addition to Valentia but he added some cool story elements. Also he’s cute Awakening’s story isn’t that bad. It’s probably cause I love shit involving time travel/alternate timelines tho Shadow Dragon is my least favorite game. No supports, bad art, and everything is just bland. I’d rather play Revelation. I liked how Fates tried new things even if it didn’t work out too well, like the elevator and snow chapter lmao I don’t find Dimitri hot. His character arc is cool but I don’t get why everyone is so thirsty lmfao

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

I actually kinda like Tharja, but I feel like that aspect of her character drags down and obscures the rest.

[@MrEntinen]

Faye develops?

[@orbital9899]

MrEntinen Arguably she is the only one of the three that can never win the affection of their loved one. She’s obsessive to a weird degree and is treated as such. I wouldn’t say she develops per se, but she is definitely the more tolerable out of the obsessive ladies.

[@iammaxhailme]

another one: it feels too weird to me to NOT use every lord, every time. I'm using lyn, I'm using roy, I'm using eliwood, I'm using micaiah, etc on my main team, every time. Leaving them out is just... strange.

[@BLACKM00NECLIPSE]

I honestly didn't hate Kris. i think he/she is cool, but i do understand why he gets so much hate now.

[@Sir_Phobos]

The feeling of "anime" is a really tough thing to explain especially since the medium itself has changed so much. I can still sit down and watch old 80s and 90s animes like Record of Lodoss War, Slayers, the original Mobile suit Gundam and have a good time. The focus and tone of newer anime has changed so much that when I got a crunchyroll account a few years ago I cancelled it within a few weeks. Calling the older games equally "anime" is still a valid response for the most part because like how movies today don't feel the same as they used to 30 years ago anime itself has changed and feels differently. It's just a time sensitive context. If I had to put my finger on it in my own opinion, it feels like Fire Emblem (like anime) followed a line of more "bland" characters and more focus on plot. As time has gone on it feels like there has been more effort to give more personality to the characters and the easiest way is to accentuate a personality trait and rely on performance. It feels like letting the scenario and plot (no matter how simple or classical) do the work like it used to has taken a back seat to the performance and liveliness of characters or compensation through over the top dynamic action.

[@kentknightofcaelin4537]

Unpopular opinion: Kent is the best character! He's virtuous, loyal, courageous, serious, romantic, and a very good unit!

[@dragonknightleader1]

Unpopular indeed! RNG can totally screw him.

[@kentknightofcaelin4537]

@@dragonknightleader1 It can screw anyone though?

[@dragonknightleader1]

@@kentknightofcaelin4537 Sure, but some characters can have enough weighted growths to be reliable. Take your buddy Sain. Sure, his skill is bad, but it's reasonable to assume he'll hit as hard as a truck most of the time even if RNG screws him everywhere else. Balanced characters need RNG blessings to function well or be regulated to support and rescue bots.

[@kentknightofcaelin4537]

@@dragonknightleader1 that's correct, but Kent really isn't more susceptible to RNG screwage than Lowen, Wil, Erk Canas, etc. It can certainly happen though.

[@dragonknightleader1]

@@kentknightofcaelin4537 Lowen is the Defensive version of Sain. It's reasonable to assume he'll have high HP and defense regardless of RNG. I'll agree that Erk can also get RNG screwed, but since he flings magic, it's less important than low strength since most enemies have lose resistance.

[@kai_824]

Unpopular Opinion: Azure Moon is the worst route of 3Hs. While it has a more complete story then the other 3, it brushes off TWSITD, and leaves WAY to many loose ends. You beat Edelgard and thats it. It feels like a spin on the VW story but working around Dimitri. CF was the most unique story as it focuses on a different side of the story rather then the "EdElGaRd BaD" part of the story which is basically covered in all other routes

[@vanjagalovic3621]

TWSITD are the worst part of 3H so I don't mind them being irrelevant in AM, also while the ending is a bit abrupt it makes sense since Dimitri's arc is complete and the war is over. Now would you really consider AM better if it just gave you an extra chapter where you fight Nemesis? Also CF is way more "Rhea bad", than AM is "Edelgard bad", but no one complains about that. I ultimately found El's reson for turning herself into a monster believable considering how she idolizes Lonato since he fights a losing battle he cannot win.

[@emiliel4539]

The issue with AM is that it's so centered around Dimitri, if you fail to connect with him you're in for a real bad time

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@emiliel4539 While I agree, I feel like the other routes are only engaging if you're interested in the world of 3H since Claude, Seteth and Edelgard don't really change during their routes much

[@emiliel4539]

@@vanjagalovic3621 I think they made it so each route brings something different to the table in terms of tone, so everyone will have one they will prefer or like less depending on their own preferences and what they wanted out of the game. imo even actual plot/lore content asides, all three lords are engaging enough as characters playing each route at least once is good to have their POV because of the way they contrast each other

[@vanjagalovic3621]

@@emiliel4539 I understand that, but it's a bit weird how in AM after you defeat Lonato there's a lot of dramatic tension, with both Dimitri and Ashe feeling sorry for killing him, but in VW Claude's like: "Hey teach, Catherine's sword is pretty cool there." or how CF just feels incomplete. It's like AM is the only route the devs managed to finish in time

[@xelasneko]

Focusing about the "anime" thing, it's probably a broad term for specific stereotypes or tropes. This might be more true as the games evolves, although I would argue it evolves to the target audiences' taste in Japan.

[@galalandria5998]

UO: I like Skill Emblem mostly because it can pose a threat to your stronger units so you can't just throw your Strongest unit at it and hope for the best. Also it adds a little to unit variety, so you can see classes with just that one thing that pushes certain units into actually threatening territory, especially late game. Just remove poison strike please, every single Maddening archer makes me want to eat my shoe

[@v.emiltheii-nd.8094]

Leaving Fates's writing aside, Corrin makes more sense as a protagonist than Robin. And don't get me started on their variants and Byleth's.

[@v.emiltheii-nd.8094]

Actually I'll start anyways. While MByleth makes more sense as the Ashen Demon, as a teacher FByleth seems more fitting even with the waifish features, the stockings and her exposed bellybutton. I mean look at Manuela. MCorrin>FCorrin FRobin is not an underdog.

[@sonogrande7628]

@@v.emiltheii-nd.8094 MByleth >>> FByleth

[@owenkeable4524]

Unpopular Opinion. I prefer the Tellius AS= Spd - (Wt-Str) system to the gba version. The fact you can slowly overcome the weight of a weapon as a you progress compared to constantly being weighed down by heavier weapons also helps Pegasus knights and swordmasters become better combat units as apposed to Pegasi just being rescue bots like in gba.

[@nitez2730]

Isnt that how 3h is

[@rpgrunaway8321]

I love this

[@gameboyn64]

The problem with the tellius formula is that it over centralizes the strength stat. For example fe9 boyd getting a str and spd lv up is like getting str 2spd in any other game. It is also hard to get right because wt becomes irrelevant over time. The issue is apparent in radiant dawn where wt plagues Edward but zihark and mia will never be affected by wt. Also halfway through the game, you never look at the wt stat ever again. A comprehensive formula like as=spd-(wt-con-(str/4)) or something might be better. Gives units uniqueness and a way to "get stronger" to better use heavy weapons.

[@ezzenious9923]

I would like it if I could check the actual AS of the character. It's really annoying how as early as FE5 you can get it to show up in the combat window but you can't find it anywhere else, like it gives you a way to see it but you have to be in range of an enemy to access it, like wtf, just put it in the weapons info on the status screen ffs, why did this take like 12 games for you to get right. Sorry for ranting, I just realized how much this pisses me off.

[@GIR177]

Pegasus Knights and Swordmasters eventually pick up so much speed on their level ups though that getting weighed down by a few points isn't as big of a deal, unless they're facing another super fast class. It gives a bit more depth to their use - they can afford to use heavier weapons and still double quite a few enemies, or they can choose use lighter ones if it would increase their damage output accordingly or prevent them from getting doubled themselves. I don't like the Tellius weight-strength system because it effectively neuters mages even more than Constitution does, while also making weight more and more irrelevant for every point of strength you get for the physical units. Once your unit is strong enough to lift heavy weapons, there's no reason to ever go back to the lighter ones, and having units like Marcia and Jill eventually able to fly around rocking silver lances and steel axes respectively for no penalty was just ridiculous, and can be very easily done with BEXP abuse.