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Played the GBA ones? What about the GameCube version?

Fire Emblem-A great strategy game. Nice story, cool classes, had some leveling up gripes though. When Sacred Stones came out, I realized that it was rough around the edges, but it is the prequel to the one about Eliwood's son (can't remember his name)

FE Sacred Stones:Wow. I loved the story, the idea of the tutorial tought me things that I never knew in the original (due to emulation hehheh ) I loved the new classes and the ability to choose what class you upgrade to (for example, in the orignial American version, your archer always became snipers, but in Sacred Stones they can be Snipers or Rangers) The ability to train your people in the Tower and Ruins and by fighting random monsters was nice, as was the ability to return to shops in town's you've been to.

Also, what are good Fire Emblem's for the NES, SNES etc. I'd like to emulate them on my computer to learn more about the series.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

I've played five of the fire emblem games. There are nine total in the series. My love for the FE games ever since I played a translation of FE 4 in 2001 is only matched by my love of FF, Castlevania, and Mega Man.

Geneology of the Holy War (FE 4) - SNES rom - I really like the multiple generations system and a lot of the plot, but by the endgame Celice and Sety almost make the game tooo easy. Holsety = most broken weapon in the series. Also the fact that incest made your characters way stronger was a little weird.

Sword of Seals (FE 6) - GBA rom - This is my favorite Fire Emblem game. It stars Eliwood's son Roy and Hector's daughter Lilina, and it is a great balance of characters (more than 50!), challenge (way harder than FE 7 and 8), and storyline (lots of tie-ins with it's prequel, a huge number of Supports, and a really epic plot with way more chapters than 7 or 8). This is a really really good game, but if you're not a fan of the series you'll probably lose patience with the difficulty and lack of pansy-friendly features like FE8.

Blazing Blade (FE 7) - GBA - This one was released as Fire Emblem in the US and stars Roy's father Hector. It is very similar to FE 6, but with multiple Lords, fewer playable characters and chapters, and a different edge to the story. Fans of FE 6 will really like this game, getting to play as younger versions of Marcus, Bartre, and Karel (Bartre's way better in 7, but Karel's way better in 6) as well as the several ancestors of FE 6 characters. I love FE 7 almost as much as 6, but the lack of characters is extremely disappointing (only one NT and one Druid? No playable Bandits or Mamkutes? Come ON) and the shortage of chapters (not counting Lyn's Story, which gets really boring on Easy or Normal modes) holds it back a bit. I also think it has just the right amount of challenge. Easy if you know what you're doing and somewhat tricky if you don't on Normal, and quite difficult for anyone to play on Hard, esepcially Hector Hard.

Sacred Stones (FE 8) - GBA - I really like some parts of Sacred Stones - the branched promotions are fun, the characters and plot are pretty good (it's really subjective as to whether they're better than 6 and 7 or not; I really liked Lyon and the Twins' character conflict but prefer 6 and 7 overall), and there are a ton of fun extras. However, the inclusion of a world map and training areas really kills the hardcore-ness of the game. That and character growths are pumped WAY up (something like 30% more on average than 6 and ~22% more on average than 7) completely kill the characteristic hardcore difficulty of the FE series. This is probably the best FE game for beginners, but I prefer some of the older games.

Path of Radiance (FE 9) - GC - This game is pretty hard. Maniac mode is supposedly more difficult than FE 5, which is typically considered the toughest game in the series. It also reverts to an FE 4/5 old-school abilities system and Fire/Wind/Lit rather than Anima/Light/Dark magic triangle, old-school weapon-specific Cavaliers, and also sort of surprised me by having reasonably high-growth characters (and possibly the best FE prepromote ever in Soanvalke/Stefan) and still managing to be so difficult in the higher difficulty levels. I've only played this game briefly, but so far the characters seem interesting (a FEMALE Jeigan? WTF?) and the plot okay, if a bit generic. I've only played it a friend's house, but I'll almost definitely get it eventually.

And if you want to check out some really nice forums for FE discussion, try the Sanctuary of Strategy? forums, they're pretty awesome, not as intelligent as CoN, but way better than Gamefaqs.

Edit

Oh, and for the series information, there are nine total FE games. The first two, entitled "Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and Sword of Light" starring Marth and "Fire Emblem Gaiden" starring Alm and Celica are both for NES and no good translation exists for either one. The third, "Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem" is an SNES game in two chapters - the first chapter is a remake of the first Fire Emblem game and the second chapter is an entirely new game still starring Marth, Jeigan, and co. There's no good translation out on this one either, I think, but I think it's being worked on. I'm also pretty sure that sales-wise FE3 was the most popular FE game in Japan, holding the number one spot on Famitsu Magazine's game chart for an entire year.

The fourth game, Fire Emblem: Geneology of the Holy War, features two generations of fighters in the same war, with main characters Sigurd in the first generation and Selis in the second generation, and introduced the Supports feature, but in this game Supports are basically your characters falling in love with one another and having the stats and abilities of the first generation pass on to the second generation. There is a nearly-complete translation of the FE4 rom that you can probably find pretty easily. The fifth game, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, is considered the hardest of the series and takes place within the same timeline and world as Geneology of the Holy War, starring Leif, who's a fairly important character in FE4. I don't think a good translation of FE5 exists.

The sixth game, Sword of Seals, has a near-perfect translation that you can find online, and it stars Roy, the son of Eliwood from FE7. It contends with FE7 to be my favorite game in the series. FE8 and FE9 aren't part of the same timeline as any other FE game, but they're both pretty solid. You seemed to like the "refinements" made to FE8, but I thought it made the game too easy and broke some FE traditions.

Oh, and speaking of which, traditions. Every game stars at least one "Lord" character, and each game usually stars several characters that follow specific builds, with these character builds following the name of the original character of that buld from FE1. For example, Marcus and Seth from FE6, 7, and 8 are considered Jeigan characters - prepromoted Paladins with low starting stats for Paladins that are detrimental to use early on for experience-hogging reasons. Other traditions include the Kain and Abel red and green Cavaliers (called Social Knights in Japan, Kent, Sain, Forde, and Kyle are examples), the Navarre swordfighter (like Guy and Joshua, always equipped with a killing edge and starting out as enemies), and Oguma (like Raven and Gerik, with great stats overall but a somewhat low starting level). So, any Fire Emblem expert will throw around character labels like Lords, Jeigans, Kains, Abels, Ogumas, Navarres, Ests, Pegasus sisters, and Legendary Weapons.

Oh, and for anyone asking about Marth and Roy's positions in Super Smash Brothers: Melee, keep in mind that Marth is basically a gaming icon in Japan and was reportedly a heavily requested character by Japanese wanting to see him in the sequel. Roy, however, was essentially put in Melee as a advertisement for Sword of Seals, which came out in Japan a few months after SSBM did. So yeah, if you haven't heard of them, just know that Marth is super-famous and Roy was an advert.

Wow, that was a mouthful. But I hope I answered any of your questions.

This post has been edited by laszlow on 12th November 2005 13:39

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Note that I've only played Fire Emblems 1, 4, 8 and 9. 1 and 8 I haven't gotten very far in (and I've had my FE1 game going for years, just haven't touched it in... years), so I'll refrain from commenting on them just yet.

My first and favorite Fire Emblem game is Geneology of the Holy War. I believe it has a great story, great characters, a great overall setup, and the "love" system and playing the later generations' period in the timeline were icing on the cake. Plus the replay value is phenomenal! But for the most part, I agree with laszlow on its flaws and shortcomings. I'd highly recommend the game if you're trying to get into the older FEs - it should be one of the first you check out.

Seeing as I haven't played even close to all the games, Path of Radiance would be my other favorite. Haven't finished it yet, but I'm up to chapter 14. So far the plot, or what parts of it have thus far been revealed, seems a bit cliché and even a li'l boring at times, but all 'n all it's shaping up to be an excellent, yet kinda tough game.

I'm really looking forward to playing the rest of the older games, and finishing the ones I've yet to. I'm just really takin' my time on getting around to doing either.

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Words of Wisdom:

If something can go wrong, it will.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. - Murphy’s Law

Boing! Zoom! - Mr. Saturn

Well, I'm playing my first FE on gamecube. I can't say I like it a lot, it's alright. For some reason I feel like I can't explore the world and the general setup bothers me. The battles are indeed challenging though, and I think redeems the game some. I have yet to beat it though, perhaps when I do my opinion will change.

I played an open slot on my friends cartridge on the GBA. I was extremely fond of it, but haven't gotten around to ordering it off teh internet

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Neneko is Neneko because Neneko couldn't be Neneko if Neneko wasn't Neneko!
--as quoted from Neneko, Mahoraba {Heartful Days}

I can stab a man with a thick paperback book thru the ribcage.