Board 8 > Fire Emblem Ranking Topic Part 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

For the past two months (holy shit time flies) I have been ranking Fire Emblem stuff. Currently in the midst of ranking the games themselves, which I am actually just about to hit the number one entry for, when oops, topic is pretty much full. So I'll be carrying on here. This current ranking was what I planned to be the last, but I'm not entirely sure now. Maybe I'll keep it up if there's a desire for it, maybe in a different format (hint hint suggest stuff hint hint).

For the sake of summarizing, I'll list all the rankings that have already been done just to have it all in one location.

WORST CHAPTERS

1. Thracia 776 Chapter 24x
2. Revelation Chapter 10 (and Revelation gimmicks in general)
3. Binding Blade Chapter 14
4. Thracia 776 Chapter 16B
5. Path of Radiance Chapter 27
6. Binding Blade 24/Final
7. Gaiden/Echoes Desert/Swamps in general
8. Blazing Sword Chapter 28H
9. (New) Mystery of the Emblem Chapter 3
10. Genealogy Chapter 1

BEST CHAPTERS

1. Genealogy Final
2. Gaiden/Echoes Final
3. Binding Blade 7
4. Conquest 10
5. Radiant Dawn 2-E
6. Binding Blade/Blazing Sword 4/14
7. Genealogy Prologue
8. Gaiden/Echoes vs Rudolf
9. Awakening 6
10. Three Houses Various Enbarr chapters
11. Blazing Sword 18H
12. Genealogy 3
13. Binding Blade Boots Shop (21)
14. New Mystery Prologue 8
15. Sacred Stones 14Eph
16. Awakening 21
17. Shadow Dragon Final
18. Blazing Sword 22H
19. Three Houses Chapter 12 (various routes)
20. Sacred Stones 19

BEST UNITS

1. Sigurd
2. Seth
3. Robin
4. Titania
5. Haar
6. Marcus (FE7)
7. Caeda
8. Safiya
9. Kris
10. Rutger

UNDERRATED UNITS

1. Alec/Noish
2. Sumia
3. Niime
4. Caeda (New Mystery)
5. Shanna
6. Makalov (FE9)
7. Saias
8. Cecilia
9. Erk/Lucius
10. Vanessa

INTERESTING NON-FINAL BOSSES (I did this ranking I'm still not 100% sure on the criteria <_<)

1. Camus
2. Lloyd (Four Fanged Offense)
3. Legion (10x)
4. Sephiran (major Radiant Dawn spoilers)
5. Manfroy
6. Paulus
7. Aias
8. Narcian
9. Arion
10. Conquest chapter 13 bosses

THE GAMES THEMSELVES

1. ??? (must be so hard to guess...)
2. Three Houses
3. Echoes
4. New Mystery
5. Conquest
6. Binding Blade
7. Sacred Stones
8. Radiant Dawn
9. Shadow Dragon
10. Blazing Sword
11. Awakening
12. Path of Radiance
13. Mystery of the Emblem (Book 2)
14. Birthright
15. Gaiden
16. Revelation
17. Thracia 776

Still to come is the final entry on the series ranking, sometime tonight or tomorrow I hope

---

Tag. I should catch up to the previous topic.

---

Dimitri is pretty great. Was surprised I liked him so much given he seemed like your typical FE lord. Blue Lions was also my first route. About to finish Black Eagles. Might move on to another game and do Golden Deer later but I dunno. I know the Church route is the same as GD mostly so we'll see.

Maybe a best death quote or boss conversation ranking? Dunno how in depth that would actually be but whatever!

I rarely even see death quotes <_< Not because I'm so perfect or anything, but because even when I get peopled killed, I tend to reset right away without even paying attention to the quote

---

Speaking of Dimitri, how about well-written characters? PCs and/or NPCs.

You could also do top 3 or top 5 of each game in case the list is particularly geared towards certain games (hello jugdral, tellius, and 3 houses)

---

Alright, here we go. The biggest individual moment(s) are going to be spoiler tagged, but the general flow of the story, including some big details, won't be. So read at your own risk if you fear having the overall plot spoiled for you.

1. Genealogy

At this point, you could argue Genealogy is the single most distinct game in the series. Three Houses and Radiant Dawn share some overlap in how they handle multiple factions, though the resolutions are very different. Gaiden had a lot of its ideas brought back in Sacred Stones, and since it's been remade you could say it has another game just like it. Genealogy though remains its own special thing, utterly unlike any other entry.

The first and foremost thing to come to mind when discussing this game will always be, of course, the sheer size of its maps. While other Fire Emblem games generally have somewhere in the realm of 20-30 individual chapters, Genealogy has a mere 12, but they're all huge. The prologue is a whopping 62 tiles wide and 30 tall, while every other map is 62 by 62! Of course the amount of the map you actually cover varies by chapters with a lot of spaces existing just for show, but there's no denying that these chapters are gigantic. Your objective is always to seize enemy castles, which kind of serve as the chapter breaks for this game. And you can save every turn if you want, which is pretty much necessary when you're dealing with maps that go on this long.

The map size is a pretty divisive topic, with many saying it results in the game dragging itself on too long and citing the places where you spend a lot of time just moving people around with nothing happening. And it is true that there are some boring parts here, like the long unguarded stretches of road in chapter 9, though I would argue that the amount of "dead" turns is not nearly as bad as people say once you know what you're doing and are making sure to send your units to the places they'll be needed instead of trying to get people to places they'll never reach in time. It's a game that plays better when you learn to play it quickly. Still, nothing
can make moments like the spirit forest not be tedious.

On the other hand, these huge maps really serve to drive home the sense of scale that Genealogy operates on. Fire Emblem games can sometimes have worlds that feel pretty disjointed, with things like Marth just kind of getting warped across the continent or Bern in Binding Blade apparently having its entire army wiped out in one battle so you can walk into the royal palace unopposed. This is definitely not the case with Jugdral, where you get a great sense of how the world is laid out because you ultimately play your way across the entire thing. With the exception of an awkward transition between chapter 9 and 10 (and a well justified skip between 3 and 4), every map ends with you seizing the castle you'll start the next chapter in, and you can clearly see places where elements from one map appear on the next one. This is most notable with the final chapter, whose starting and final areas mirror the beginning of the prologue and the end of chapter 5, respectively. This continuity across the world makes the whole story feel so much more real than it otherwise would, and its always a highlight of chapter 10 to finally return to Chalphy where it all began because you know exactly how long a journey it's been.

This brings us to the story. Even people who haven't played it yet probably all know Genealogy's basic plot structure, especially after things like second generation characters and timeskips have come up in recent Fire Emblem games and drawn comparisons to it, though they might not know the exact context. The first half of Genealogy is a bit of a departure from typical Fire Emblem stories, as instead of taking control of a young lord you play as the somewhat older (by which I mean like, maybe mid 20s. It's a Japanese game, "old" means weird things here) and already established Sigurd as he gets drawn into a series of conflicts that lead to him going to war with opposing nations before eventually having to fight his own homeland to defeat the corrupt nobles who have declared him a traitor. The second half of the story picks up 17 years later and is more typical ground for the series, with Sigurd's son Seliph raising an army to overthrow the evil empire and defeat an evil cult and dragon etc.

Genealogy is not the deepest story ever written by any means, but what it does is be very efficient with its writing and present itself well. Major characters are (mostly) well characterized even with only brief dialogue, we're given enough information about the history of the world and its nations to make everything feel that same sense of continuity I praised Three Houses for having, and there's a lot of little nuances that make it all come to life as more than the sum of its parts. Things as basic as the pre-chapter narration showing the map and where all the major players are located and the plethora of mini-bosses with dialogue and portraits (that often get recycled, to the point of creating a meme around a certain guy and the six others who look just like him) all help enforce the idea that this story is taking place in a fleshed out world where every group of enemies you encounter has some sort of rudimentary character to them, a feeling added to by the way many enemy groups have some oddities unique to them, such as mini-boss Riddel in chapter 10 having a squad of diverse units who all carry speed rings, or Brian's great knights who have luck stats, higher speed than their level/class would suggest and a personal skill (Pursuit, no less!), all things no other generic in the game possess.

One of the game's strong suits is its strong collection of antagonists. While the central villains of the Loptyr church are sadly just generic evil guys, the rest of the villainous cast covers a ton of ground. The thoroughly unlikable petty tyrant Chagall serves as a good short term villain before the real first generation heavy hitters Langbalt and the amusingly named Reptor show up in person for the first time after being merely referenced up until then. And even they have a bit more depth than your typical evil noble, with Langbalt seeming genuinely disgusted by Andrei killing his own father to take power and wishing peace on the dead Lord Ring despite him having apparently been a good dude, and Reptor being a manipulative schemer who ironically gets himself played like a fiddle. In the second generation your enemies run the gamut from serving the empire mainly because they were born into it to utter scumbags and everywhere in between, with particular mention going to Hilda, arguably the most detestable person in Jugdral, no small feat in a story that features a literal cult dedicated to an evil god that believes in having children put throug

There are two highlights of the villainous cast who stand out above all others. Arvis spends the first generation as a somewhat enigmatic figure, speaking derisively of Sigurd at first but then acting cordial, with repeated references to people not being entirely sure where he stands on the brewing conflict, willing to let the Loptyrian order exist openly but also steadfastly opposed to helping them resurrect Loptyr. He plays off both sides of the Sigurd vs Langbalt/Reptor conflict against each other to set himself up as Emperor, but his desire to put an end to unjust persecution over the actions of people's ancestors, a desire likely informed by his own Loptyr blood, blinds him to the fact that Manfroy is a guy that was in dire need of some persecution. And as a result, Loptyr is resurrected and his empire, originally fairly peaceful and just, is corrupted into a nightmare with him as little more than a meaningless figurehead. He's willing to do some very shady things to take power in the name of surprisingly good intentions, but in the end it all falls apart for him and he's reduced to a miserable wreck.

The other is Travant. The vicious and brutal king of Thracia, he's introduced with seemingly no moral code whatsoever, hiring out his army as mercenaries, selling out his former employer Chagall and showing little concern for his defeated troops. His crowning moment comes when he ambushes the Leonster forces on their way to aid Sigurd, killing Quan and Ethlyn and kidnapping their three year old daughter, one of the most shocking and gut wrenching things in the series. His initial conquest of the northern half of the Thracian peninsula is thrown off when the Empire comes in to take over and he's forced into an uneasy alliance, waiting years for his opportunity to finally strike once again. Though undeniably a harsh and unpleasant man, Travant has a bit more motivating him than simple ambition, as his kingdom is a land as harsh as he is that struggles to feed itself, while the fertile lands to the north hold the key to its salvation (a point that is expanded upon a bit in Thracia 776, which also shows his slightly softer side that we mostly only hear about here).

Make no mistake, Travant is a nasty piece of work, but he's not just doing it without reason. His situation makes it easy to see why he might become the man he is, and he seems to have a surprisingly complex relationship with his adopted daughter Altenna. While it seems like he's only using her for the power of the Gae Bolg she can wield, she does admit to Leif that he always treated her like his real daughter, and he is noticeably troubled when he thinks she's dead, becoming oddly calm and handing over the Gungnir to his son Arion before flying off into battle. That final scene is ripe for speculation and can easily be read as him effectively choosing to commit suicide by combat and coming as close to encouraging Arion to seek peace as he's capable of. Travant is a hell of a villain, an incredibly easy man to hate even when you can understand the qualities that make the Thracian people view him as their best hope. I've seen some people go as far as to call him an anti-hero of sorts, which I would not agree with. He's a villain through and through, but a realistic one and one who would probably be surprisingly okay with how things end up for his kingdom in the end.

After all this gushing I should probably change things up a bit. The "love story" between Sigurd and Deirdre is hilariously bad, coming up out of nowhere and taking place ludicrously quickly, like one of those super abrupt Awaking/Fates S supports except without the C-A part beforehand. As mentioned before, the Loptyr cult are pretty dull. I don't necessarily mind Manfroy, at least I know what he's up to and why, but he's too generic for me to say anything better about him than that he doesn't really hurt the story much. The scene in chapter 7 that sheds some light on their past persecution is great in theory (and I'm still glad it's there) for explaining why people would ever bother to worship an obviously evil god, something that usually gets glossed over in these types of tales, but it's a bit too little and needed to be expanded on with members of the Loptyrians actually showing some character beyond "I AM BAD GUY" at some point. There's also the clusterfuck that is Lewyn in the second generation, who seemingly exists solely to be right about things and hog the spotlight from the actual protagonist and has a plot twist at the end so out of left field that you could be forgiven for not knowing what the fuck it is even if you just watched the scene where it gets revealed.

Overall though, Genealogy's story is pretty damn good, especially by Fire Emblem standards. It creates a world that does just enough to get you invested, gives you some interesting characters, mainly on the villainous side but there's also a few on team good guy (Arthur and Fee have some fun conversations, Tinni is hard not to sympathize with and Johalvier, unlike his brother, has a surprising degree of thought behind his defection beyond just thinking Larcei is hot). And it has some hugely emotional moments. The aforementioned thing in Travant's write up is one, and of course I can't discuss the story of Genealogy without at some point bringing up the Battle of Belhalla, in which the heroes you've been following all game are devastated, suffer huge losses and the main character himself is killed off, closing out the first generation with one of the most shocking plot twists in any game and really getting you in the mood to pick up the pieces as their children in the second generation.

I will take a break from the long write ups on individual topics to discuss some other stuff now. The soundtrack is great, with each chapter having its own player phase theme and each enemy army having their own enemy phase theme. Tracks like the Verdane army theme (best enemy phase music in all of Fire Emblem), the final chapter theme, the chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 themes, the recruitment theme, the track that as far as I know has no name beyond "Conversation 1"...there's tons of great music here, and plenty more I haven't listed. On the other hand the portraits are wack. People have the most insane hair you'll ever see in this game, and there's a ton of recycled portraits, notably when Chagall of all people gets his face brought back for a mini-boss in chapter 8. At least we get to make jokes about Zane and Harold and Musar and all the others...

In terms of gameplay, Genealogy does its own thing in a lot of ways. Units have individual amounts of money and can't trade items freely, instead needing to buy and sell things at the pawn shop (I'll come to this point in more depth later). The skill system exists for the first time, but there's some crazy balance issues, as th

Genealogy's unique mechanics are a mixed bag, but aside from the balance issues and Pursuit...I really like them. The inventory system really promotes planning things out and being careful with your money management, and if you do it, you get rewarded with some crazy stuff to play with. The stat boosting rings and super powerful weapons like the brave sword (or killer bow, whose only flaw is that it's a bow) are way too good to allow free trading, but also way too fun to not have at all. It does tend to be a system that's more interesting when you've already played the game before though, but it's not truly unfair to a blind player, just less rewarding. Critical hits not existing outside of specific units is actually a great change though. The pairing mechanics are neat for customizing the kids, though making actual pairings can be pretty annoying (why GBA FE decided to reuse this for supports I'll never know).

In terms of map design, Genealogy is all over the place but I'd actually say it's much more good than bad. There are too many empty spaces, sure, but even the large enemy groups in open space are more interesting than in other games due to the combination of canto, a four-way dancer and no deployment limit allowing you to have a full army to just charge in on player phase if you're smart. There's a lot of interesting parts to the game, like much of the prologue, the first group of enemies in chapter 1, the latter half of chapter 2, all of chapter 3, defending Leonster in chapter 7 if you don't just Return your way out of there, and almost all of the final chapter. There's a lot of room for clever strategies here, like having someone near where Lewyn and Sylvia start getting put to sleep in chapter 2 because it provokes the foot units to start rushing you so you can clear them out without having your main army in sleep range, all the canto shenanigans, seizing castles to despawn enemies and the ungodly joy that is the Rescue staff on a Master Knight.

Ultimately Genealogy really clicks for me in gameplay. I'm actually in the midst of another playthrough of it right now, about to start the final chapter. This write up probably would have happened yesterday if it weren't for the fact that I just couldn't resist the urge to keep playing. There's just something about this game that I find incredibly fun. I can explain a lot of what appeals to me about it, but somehow it all comes together in a way that seems to go beyond what I can put into words.

I think the biggest thing about this game for me overall is something I talked about already during the Echoes write up, which is that it nails so many of its biggest moments. The prologue is a tremendous introduction. Chapter 3 is a big turning point in the story and also one of the most fun chapters to play, and its seemingly kind of underwhelming conclusion (story-wise) makes perfect sense as a breather before what comes next. Chapter 5 is just a masterpiece of building up the tension for its dramatic story moments. Chapter 9 has some pretty questionably aspects, but it is also a unique experience that feels very distinct, fitting for your final battle against Thracia. And the final chapter is spectacular. The game can drag at times, but it knows how to kick itself off on a high note and every time it's building up to something it delivers.

A great game in almost every way. I don't have a clear cut favourite game of all time, but Genealogy just might be it. I fell in love with it the first time I played, but somehow I seem to like it more every time I play it. A year ago I wasn't even convinced it was my favourite game in the series anymore, but then I played it in late summer/early fall and remembered why I loved it so much. And my current playthrough is just reinforcing that feeling. I know it will never appeal to everyone, but for those of us who are interested in the particular experience it's offering, it's a true masterpiece.

And that...is the end of this list! Thanks to everyone who has been reading along and commenting in the two months this has been going on. Not sure if I'll be continuing with another ranking yet, and if I do it might take a week or so because I think I need a bit of a break regardless. Whatever the future may hold though, it's been a lot fun doing this so far.

---

One strange janky issue with the FE4 character portraits is that they cut off horizontally as well as vertically. This worked fine in earlier games where the portraits never left their boxes but FE4 gets more ambitious and presents most story scenes by showing portraits against backdrops and it can be a little awkward. Its not too bad for most units since they generally just lose a little bit of shoulder but Arden is blatantly an armless cripple.

---

Honestly, that's not too much different from how Arden fights.
---

Congrats on finishing those, enjoyed all the writeups!

Way too much to respond to everything, so some thoughts:

(Like the writeups I spoil some 3H plot points in this post, so be warned!)

-Dimitri is great (like you, he's now a candidate for my favourite character in the series) and so is Azure Moon. I actually disagree a bit about his route having the least closure about the dark darkdudes; Verdant Wind and Silver Snow seemingly forget that one of them is in charge of a country! AM is actually the only route to deal with all the major slitherer characters on-screen.

-If anything, my main complaint about AM is instead that it provides no closure for Rhea, who is arguably the most important character in the game next to Edelgard. It's forgivable in the sense that AM really is Dimitri's story, but it still feels weird to me.

-I think the four routes the game has are very ambitious but I don't feel they did enough to differentiate the non-Crimson Flower routes, and in particular I do feel like VW and SS are both inferior knockoffs of Azure Moon. Verdant Wind I will forgive because it turns out that Claude is in fact an engaging enough character to carry a route for me. Silver Snow is trash and doesn't know what it wants to be about.

-Your thoughts on the monastery segment mirror mine pretty closely. It's enjoyable enough but I do wish there were a better way to streamline it. I think motivation is the real problem here; maybe if Rest maxed everyone's motivation instead of 50% recovery I'd be happy with it. As is you are forced to explore just to have everyone keep pace in terms of skill growth, and the balloons playtime considerably.

-While a minor point, it's interesting that you get the impression everyone loves Raphael, he's consistently one of the lowest-ranked students in popularity polls! (I don't like him much either. I do like Felix a lot, though; he's a jerk, but his takedowns of his country's culture are on point.)

-I obviously have less to say about Genealogy; it's not a game I care for much but I respect putting it at #1 anyway. The one thing I really disagree with you about is I think its inventory system is terrible. Nothing feels worse than picking up an item with someone who is a bad fit to use it and needing to pay a fortune just to give it to someone else. Personal money also tends to just result in a lot of arena grinding which isn't what I'm playing Fire Emblem for. It does make sense that these problems would be reduced the more times you play the game, of course.

---

NeoElfboy posted...

-Dimitri is great (like you, he's now a candidate for my favourite character in the series) and so is Azure Moon. I actually disagree a bit about his route having the least closure about the dark darkdudes; Verdant Wind and Silver Snow seemingly forget that one of them is in charge of a country! AM is actually the only route to deal with all the major slitherer characters on-screen.

In the context of the other routes it cleans them up surprisingly well without having to waste screen time on their bullshit, but on its own you have no idea whatsoever that they've even been dealt with because you only know about a certain guy being a darkdude if you've played other routes.

---

Panthera posted...

the track that as far as I know has no name beyond "Conversation 1"...

Oh, my favorite piece of FE music (probably).

Panthera posted...

Hilda, arguably the most detestable person in Jugdral

Arguably the most detestable person in the series! Quite a character.

I need to replay Genealogy. I've only played through it once but I think I'd have it as #1 as well. It's in competition with 6, 7, and New Mystery, but I think I take it over all those.

---

Awesome rankings - thanks for taking the time to do all of them and putting so much effort in. Very much enjoyed reading through. Wish I had interesting suggestions for more, but I'm not creative enough. Only thing that occurred to me was just doing some informal discussions on individual units nominated by the readers, but I imagine most of them that have a whole lot to be said about them beyond "they're good" or "they're bad" were covered on one of these lists in some way or another already.

Anyway, figured I'd toss in my own rankings of the entries I've played.

Path of Radiance >= Three Houses (need to do more playthroughs) > Radiant Dawn > Binding Blade > Sacred Stones > Blazing Sword > Awakening > Shadow Dragon

---

NBIceman posted...

Only thing that occurred to me was just doing some informal discussions on individual units nominated by the readers, but I imagine most of them that have a whole lot to be said about them beyond "they're good" or "they're bad" were covered on one of these lists in some way or another already.

This could work. The best/underrated lists did cover some interesting people but there's plenty more that have been unmentioned or just briefly referenced.

---