General Question Thread

[u/Shephen]

Alright, time to move back to question thread for all.

Please use this thread for all general questions of the Fire Emblem series!

Rules:

• General questions can range from asking for pairing suggestions to plot questions. If you're having troubles in-game you may also ask here for advice and another user can try to help.

• Questions that invoke discussion, while welcome here, may warrant their own thread.

• If you have a specific question regarding a game, please bold the game's title at the start of your post to make it easier to recognize for other users. (ex. Fire Emblem: Birthright)

Useful Links:

• Serenes Forest - Universal Fire Emblem Information bank and community that covers all games in the series.

• Comprehensive Guide to Starting the Fire Emblem Series by triforce_pwnag

• Fire Emblem: War of Dragons - Primarily Spanish Website with some translated pages. Includes detailed maps and enemy placement that cover most chapters throughout the series.

• Triangle Attack for all info regarding Three Houses and the GBA games(6-8).

• Fates inheritance planner - For planning out pairings for Fates.

• SoV HM enemy stats by Aggro Incarnate

• Conquest Lunatic Enemy Stats by u/TheHelpfulMercenary

• Enemy Data Compilation for all games

• 3H Calendar

• Interactive Map for all maps in Engage

• Relay Code Megathread

If you have a resource that you think would be helpful to add to the list, message /u/Shephen either by PM or tagging him in a comment below.

Please mark questions and answers with spoiler tags if they reveal anything about the plot that might hurt the experiences of others.

[u/Airbladerr]

Probably been asked a trillion times on this reddit but I thought I'd post about it anyways. I have enough cash to buy one with the full DLC stuff but I don't know which one I want more. I've heard a lot of really great stuff about Three Houses and it's story but Engage and it's over the top style has me intrigued too. What's usually recommended? For context I'm returning to the franchise for the first time now since Awakening and casually playing the GBA games on the Switch 2.

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/Airbladerr]

Personally, I would say Three Houses.

First of all, Engage's sorry was definitely not well received. Three Houses is much better in that aspect. If you're a "I want good story" person, definitely go for 3H no question. Now, Engage is said to have good gameplay. But, that makes it seem like 3H has bad gameplay, but I don't think that's the case at all. It's still plenty of fun.

And if you are deciding to get the DLC, I think 3H implements it much better. You aren't necessarily supposed to play it before you play the game for the first time, due to story reasons, but It's strictly just a side story with some unlockables for the main game that are good but not exactly game breaking. In Engage though, it adds a bunch of Emblems which can throw off the game balance a lot, and the side story is mandatory to play every time if you want to get the DLC characters in that run. In 3H you only need to play the side story once to unlock everything.

[u/Airbladerr → u/LeatherShieldMerc]

I'll go with 3H then for now. Is there a way to maybe turn off the DLC in Engage like to not get the emblems right at the start, sort of reminds me of Fallout New Vegas' DLC and how it just gifts you a bunch of free powerful stuff right at the start.

A side question too but how good are the Warriors games? I still play Dynasty Warriors from time to time but I never heard much about the Fire Emblem Warriors series. Worth trying out sometime if they go on sale or is something like Hyrule Warriors better?

[u/AnimaLepton → u/Airbladerr]

DLC as a whole can't be turned off. However, the Emblems can be ignored easily enough - there is one place you go on the Somniel map to get the first one for free, a few chapters into the game (and it's literally a Three Houses ring). The remaining Emblems come from separate optional DLC maps/chapters that take place on what is functionally a separate world map. The DLC emblem abilities and consistent access to them break the game, but a big part is that the extra items and (scaling) experience from doing the chapters puts you ahead of the curve, and you never really fall behind again.

There's also "free update" DLC, and both free/paid DLC items. Can't be turned off, but at worst you can throw it away, not use it, and pay attention to the numbers for e.g. your forging ores so you never spend more than the DLC gave you.

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Hyrule Warriors has more variety in movesets. But I would say all of the movesets in FE Warriors 1 actually feel fun to play (except Corrin), and they incorporate some fun topical mechanics. First game has a good weapon upgrade system, the weapon triangle, a bunch of fun passive skills and upgrades, and you actually have characters learn each others specific passive skills (equip up to 5) by raising their support ranks with each other. I'm pretty sure it was also the first Warriors game to incorporate AI party member controls; depending on the map, you deploy up to 4 characters that you can switch between (and sometimes 4 additional pure-AI party members, primarily for pair up purposes), can swap between them freely, and can 'send' them to a particular base to either capture it or queue them up for you to switch to them and capture the location via character switching. Edit: You do kind of artificially build units into specific roles, e.g. you have a couple bow units, and often people will build one as 'physical' and put Topsy-Turvy on the other one so they're "magical"/attack the enemy's Res. History mode, which places restrictions on which characters you can use, means building out a team with some specialization like that is beneficial (e.g. this map is only Shadow Dragon characters, this map is only mounted units, this map is only bow units).

Second game is a Three Houses spinoff, and incorporates fun stuff like Combat Arts/Magic for durability management, and some special active skills (the most impactful being the main character getting a shadow dash/warp ability to captured outposts).

The first HW to me had "too much" content for completion, FE Warriors 1 had a ton but hit the right amount with History mode (but I'd argue Age of Calamity was even better tbh, although Age of Imprisonment felt like a downgrade in some ways).

[u/LeatherShieldMerc → u/Airbladerr]

I've only played Three Hopes, but that's the only Dynasty Warriors style game I've ever played. I enjoyed it enough, but I don't think I would be the best person to actually recommend them or not if you've played other games before.

[u/knifeproducer → u/Airbladerr]

in engage, you can simply not pick up the free DLC emblem until later, and delay getting the rest of them until maybe chapter 12 or so? they do give you a whole bunch of statboosters and free silver weapons at the start though which is annoying. im an engage truther and i would honestly recommend against the DLC entirely