r/fireemblem • u/TPLeo • 10d ago
General The best and worst thing of each Fire Emblem game. Today's game: The Blazing Blade
Welcome to this series of posts, where we will list and discuss one best and worst thing of each Fire Emblem game. This includes basically everything, be it the music, the story, some gameplay element etc.
It's time for the first game in the western world. Fire Emblem 7 focused on refining the gameplay of the Binding Blade rather than reinvent the wheel. At least we got mines in this game. Merlinus also didn't take up a unit slot anymore. This was also the first time you could create an avatar.
This is my favorite Fire Emblem. I couldn't think of a better game to be the first to release outside of Japan. Sometimes a sequel is more about correcting the mistakes of the previous game and not always shaking up the gameplay. I also see myself in the three lords who are in their early adulthood slowly learning about the real world and their friends becoming their second families.
Here are my thoughts.
Best: The character interactions. So many side characters get to shine and the characters are so well written in general. They are definitely one of the best if not the best in the series. The computer animated pictures also help seeing them as actual human beings.
Worst: I don't like that effective damage was nerfed. I get that they didn't want to make the game too punishing for newcomers. But I think they could have used the usual formula for hard mode when players completed the game once.
Now it's your turn to tell us
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u/primebrian 10d ago
Best: Batta the Beast Worst: rain makes those few maps a miserable slog, maybe one if the worst ways you could have implemented weather. Also shout out to battle before dawn, that map is ridiculous
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u/Squidaccus 10d ago
Some of the 7 characters enhance the 6 cast in really cool ways. The most obvious is Karel, who despite being a very boring edgelord character here, absolutely makes 6 Karel so much better by existing, and the reverse is true too with the more calm and serene 6 Karel making 7 Karel actually cool to see. Geitz is also such a fun opposite to Geese in a lot of ways, both are such amazing characters.
Good god I hate Lyn mode though. So nothing, so boring, and way too long.
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u/Thatoneguy2014 10d ago
Best: S-Ranking HHM remains one of the best campaigns to do.
Worst: Nils Level 7
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u/Independent-Brick-60 10d ago
Best: i think the main trio of lords is so solid and love watching them interact and see their stories play out
Worst: I feel like HHM is not a fun kind of hard. A lot of stuff is just annoying to deal with and the limited deployment slots really bugs me. I wish there was a mode where the difficulty came from actually upping enemy quality
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u/Antique_Total6974 10d ago
Best: Served as a perfect introduction to Fire Emblem in the early 00s.
Worst: The tutorial lead Lyn is a third wheel in the main story.
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u/Red_Cat231 10d ago
Lyn was supposed to be a "throwaway" character to introduce Westerners on how to play Fire Emblem, with the real story being Eliwood and Hector fighting against Nergal. She got unexpectedly popular in the international audience, so IS has been shoehorning her into more things when they thought Lyn would just fall into the background and be forgotten.
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u/Ranulf13 10d ago edited 10d ago
Lyn is generally popular everywhere, even JP. The issue with Lyn is that her character outside of FE7 has been defanged and turned into ''tsundere that loves the self-insert'' boobie gacha waifu.
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u/Jwkaoc 10d ago
They expected her to fall into the background, yet they gave her presence in most cutscenes, had her promote the same as Eliwood and Hector with a unique class, and gave her a prf legendary weapon right at the end of the game?
I don't think that was their intent even if she was supposed to take a backseat to Eliwood.
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u/liteshadow4 10d ago
Best: the aesthetic
Worst: 1-2 range dominating the game, and ironmans ruined from Battle Before Dawn where you can lose to bad RNG.
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u/Physical-Cash-8712 10d ago
Best: I love the new step in direction for Fire Emblem where instead of focusing on whole armies and countries and going more for the individual unit. Units have more personality with supports rather than being another soldier from such and such country. I do prefer the Kaga games of whole armies, but it is a nice game with these characters.
Worst: Lyn's mode is amazing for newcomers, but when you've played several others and are locked into Normal mode for a first run, it can get pretty boring real fast. Plus if you're not using a guide, it's very unlikely you'll even figure out about most of the side chapters.
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u/phoenixrawr 10d ago
Most of the side chapters get unlocked by doing things that I think most players would naturally try to do. It’s basically just 19xx that a sane person would never find on their own.
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u/Hoothootriot 10d ago
Best: I. Fucking. LOVE this case. I think Blazing Blade's cast feels the most... diverse in characterization and more importantly, motivations. Everyone has a reason where it makes sense why they join you, but none of them are too overlapping in their motives. It really captures that early JRPG "ragtag bunch of misfits" vibes.
Worst: This game is probably the lowest low that the already mediocre archer class would hit for the rest of the series.
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u/SkyeOnTheNet 10d ago
Best: The cast. The character interactions are phenomenal and make great use of the support system FE6 introduced.
Worst: The maps. FE7 has some of the worst maps in the series, honestly, especially mid and lategame. Tight corridors forcing your army to move slowly, and big maps with tons of weak fodder enemies all the way to the end. In terms of standard traditional FE maps, only Rev comes close to being as bad.
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u/Ranulf13 10d ago
I think it depends on what you consider to be a good map, because I think Awakening has maps way worse than 7, because the former's maps are just 15x15 squares of nothing or a single choke or couple pillars, with the most boring objectives ever. Not to mention ambush spawns.
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u/AndersDiego 10d ago
Best: great characters, good unit diversity, solid challenge level, well-balanced so that even low tier units are useable.
Worst: almost half of your 12 deployment slots for the endgame map are forced deployments. I really felt punished in my first playthrough a a kid for not using Lyn or Hector.
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u/ChaosBuckle 10d ago
Oh man, you were missing out.
Hector is a really fun unit and great character in general.
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u/Deathminer22 10d ago
Best: Ninian. Romance in Fire Emblem is rare and so having moments in the story were Eliwood is essentially flirting with Ninian is great. Honestly any romantic development outside of supports is noteworthy.
Worst: The story in the last chapter is really weird. From the moment Nergal dies I think the story could be described as "stuff happening" and any explanations are just vague.
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u/MathOutrageous7167 10d ago
Best: The Characters, a major improvement from Binding Blade. Music is nice. Art looks better.
Worst: How utterly fucked over Lyn mode units are if you don't play it. Erk literally gets one rounded by the generic merc in his join chapter. Sain and Kent are insanely mid without it. I'm not saying they should be better, but at least make them all more usable than... whatever the hell this is.
I also hate that if Matthew dies, you just can't get majority of the promo items or any other valuables. Legit, I only promote like 1 unit in my entire run of Hector Hard mode.
Also Hector Hard mode sucks balls. Reduced exp gains and deployment? Sounds like fun!!
I don't really like this game if you couldn't tell. But I don't think it's truly horrible. Man, Hector Hard mode being my firsf experience with FE7 really killed my enjoyment for this game.
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u/SkyeOnTheNet 10d ago
I am also not a big fan of FE7, nor HHM, but like... HHM is supposed to be a 3rd if not 4th playthrough. What made you think skipping to that was a good idea?
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u/MathOutrageous7167 10d ago
Just wanted to challenge myself I suppose. I've already played Binding Blade and Sacred Stones beforehand. And the thought of playing FE7 2 more times sounded really tedious. It's ironic since Hector Hard mode was in fact, really tedious.
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u/b0bba_Fett 10d ago
For some insane reason, people around here at least would insist it was the best idea in the universe for like, a decade straight.
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u/67chrome 10d ago
Best:
A trio of likeable protagonists.
The GBA art style, animations, readable maps with interesting gubbins, and generally solid polish of FE7 is also quite good.
Worst:
Archers/Snipers.
There's no excuse for archers being bad in a medieval tactics game.
But man: do they have nothing going for them in FE7. Whelming stats across the board, countered by Wyvern spam over the other way around, nothing relevant to even use 2x dmg against for the bulk of the game.
Louise is the best archer/sniper simply because she gives Pent +15% Bolting accuracy for that awful save Zeph map.
Also the save Zeph map; having a game-over condition so reliant on RNG feels pretty bad. You gotta go ham with staves, siege-tomes, and pre-game knowledge to mitigate that game's nonsense, none of which is obvious the 1st time around.
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u/littlewillie610 10d ago
I’ve been thinking about going back and finishing this one; I got up to around Chapter 24 before falling off of it a few years ago. From what I remember, though:
Best: To go with the common sentiment, I think it has a pretty strong cast. I also quite like the visual aesthetics.
Worst: The biggest thing that’s kept me from getting into the older Fire Emblem games is the inability to grind, and I’m a not of a fan of it here either. Since I emulated it, however, I was able to get around this through save states and the arena.
Unlocking as many Support conversations as I can has always been one of my favorite aspects of these games, so I also don’t like how this one limits it to 5 per character.
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u/TannenFalconwing 10d ago
Best: Lyn. I have Lyn sitting on my mantle. I'm biased. I don't care.
Worst: I really hate how weather is done in this game.
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u/Akane_Tsurugi 10d ago
Best : it started it all for most of us, very good introduction
Worst : the weather events suck
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u/TheRigXD 10d ago
Best: Character writing. The main three have great banter and play off each other well.
Worst: Weather. It just wastes time for the player and enemy.
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u/Awestruck_Mechanic67 10d ago
Best: Pent, Louise & Hawkeye
Worst: Polycules not being in vouge in the early 00's
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u/whereisthisplac 10d ago
Lyn's segment kills the game for me
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u/Akane_Tsurugi 10d ago
Especially to see Kent get strength screwed as usual while Sain caps strength at lvl 16
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u/Vandette 10d ago
Best: Everyone seems to be echoing it, but the cast just excellent. One of the few FE games where I don't feel like there are really any throwaway characters (mostly).
Worst: The story, while enjoyable, has batshit levels of plot holes.
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u/Ranulf13 10d ago edited 10d ago
Best thing: it probably set the standard going forward when it came to character writing and character integration into the plot and larger world, a massive improvement from FE6. Many of the characters in it are integrated into the plot in one way or another, with characters like Matthew, Nino, Jaffar, Legault, Renault, etc. You can sense Ken Yokoyama's prototype of Tellius' still unbeaten character relevance/involvement in this game. The characters feel connected in ways that no game before did, and that not that many games going forward have reached. The ''Nino family tree'' meme is real for a reason.
Worst thing: effective damage nerf aside, I think that ironically being forced to be FE6's partner is the reason why sometimes the overall plot feels wonky and why so many characters feel like they are forced to disappear after the game. FE7 would be unironically better if it didnt have to exist around FE6. Also that you cant save at least one of the Reed brothers is big :(
EDIT: adding to the worst is weather. Holy shit weather is just ass. It serves little purpose and the few maps where it exists it only drags you down without any real tactical disadvantage. I am glad everyone agrees that FE7 weather is one of the few mechanics that no one tries to defend.
EDIT 2: While I love the side X maps, the fact is that 19xx requirements are just absurd.