I love the story of Path of Radiance, which would be one of my favorites! One thing that stands out to me is that Ike (unlike the other protagonists, from my knowledge) doesn’t come from royalty or has any “the chosen” vibe behind him, just a ordinary guy that fights for his friends and country
Interesting that in the early development stages of the game (which was actually before Sacred Stones - POR was actually “Fire Emblem 8” in terms of working title), Ike and Mist would’ve been nobility of some kind; Greil being secretly one of the Four Riders seems a remnant of this old idea… Oh, and Ike (originally named Priam?) would’ve taken an injury partway through forcing his sister to literally take up his sword and become the playable protagonist at least for a while; these old notes that people have researched are wild and make you wonder just how we got the story in the final shape from where it once was.
Radiant Dawn on S and Conquest and Revelation on B? Based. Thank you for not parroting what other FE creators says on this site. (Looking at you, Mekkah and company.)
I still think Three Houses' story is massively overrated. It has good lore and excellent character supports, but it's take on branching narratives doesn't do any of that justice. No matter which route you choose morality goes straight out the window. You are always right, you are always just, the opposing army is always poisoning the river and eating babies even if on other routes they would never dream of doing such a thing. Having that wild discrepancy of their actions rely entire on whether or not Byleth was by their side is awful. Byleth is such a nothing character, canonically lacking emotions and charisma, and yet the game's characters and story treats them like a perfect godlike being. It's the most shallow version of the avatar character and the story hinges on it way too hard. Having seen what Tactics Ogre has to offer with its branching story paths really shows what Three Houses could have been. That game has all the morally grey decisions and consequences fans act like Three Houses has. I would put Engage right up there with Awakening for being a great celebration of the series so far. I don't think it deserves all the hate it gets, it's not perfect, but it's not close to being terrible. Most of the moments are extremely similar to other games in the series, but people don't like them because they're seeing just how cheesy Fire Emblem actually is with the addition of animation and voice acting. Having Engage crank that melodrama up to 11 is exactly how it should be, that tone of cringey anime fun is such a refreshing thing that the genre sorely lacks right now. I love that they yell ENGAGE BEAMU and strike poses while an electric guitar wails the background. It's so unique compared to yet another gritty story about "war is bad and makes people suffer on both sides" Not that that type of story is bad by default, but my point is I love Engage for what it is rather than most fans hating it for what it's not. Agreed with the rest of the list except maybe FE7. The moment where Eliwood "accidentally" kills Spoiler felt so contrived that it broke a lot of my suspension of disbelief. It went a step beyond trying to make sense and into the territory of "we need a sad thing to happen here"
Brother you are NOT here in my comments saying 3H is overrated while putting Engage at the same level as Awakening, you're gonna kill me. 😭 3H treats its character with respect, regardless of if you like Byleth or not, and I DARE you to find ONE moment in Engage that matches the emotional intensity of Emmeryn's death and the following chapter in Engage. ONE. I don't need you to agree that Engage's story was trash but next to AWAKENING?
@@TitaniumLegman Easy, Chapter 11. Both are retreat chapters with no rest time following the characters at their lowest points. Both of them are after the characters falling for an obvious trap and losing something close to them because of it. In Awakening it's a bit more serious because it's a person, but I think Engage definitely follows through emotionally by crippling your party and taking away your rings in the subsequent chapter. Telling the story through gameplay like that doesn't get enough credit, they really put together an awesome moment there. Awakening's music does a lot for its chapter, which other than the enemy dialogue would have been a bit dull. While I do like Emmeryn and was hit emotionally by her death scene... I also have to admit there's not much else going on with her. She's not around long enough to form a real connection to. The only reason why her death works the way it does is because we see Chrom's reaction and Lissa's and everyone else that we've actually come to know and love. Outside that she's kind of a plot device to move the story along. There's a comparison to be made with Lumera, who nearly has an equal amount of screen time, but by the point of her death the player doesn't have a strong connection to her or Alear yet. Neither game has perfect writing, but they're both very enjoyable stories, and again excellent celebrations of the series, so that's why I'd rank them both in A. If you put a gun to my head I'd say Awakening still edges it out, but not by enough to be in S.
I would personally not put Engage that high either, but I can’t put Awakening as high as Tom does frankly; the biggest problem for me is that after Chapter 13 there’s not enough time to breathe. I mean, Valm was too short an arc (and the other kids ought have been more integrated into it IMO), feeling like it doesn’t add much and is more a revisit of Valencia, and while I love moments of the final arc? The villains of that Act are the WEAKEST of the game; the Grimleal are a nothingburger of a faction with no minor bosses after that one Chapter 8 guy, Grima himself should be scarier but the plot tangles itself to justify him resurrecting (WHY is there anything about needing the Fire Emblem for the task, why can’t it just be that they wanted to weaken Ylisse?), and I hate SpotPass for cheaply sparing people from death instead of that being written into the main plot. Oh; and the fact they didn’t put one more chapter between Mustafa and Gangrel means Olivia isn’t allowed to play out her entire Support to marriage with Chrom, And That Is Terrible.
After TO did so well with a story that despite branches, will have the same final act? After that, 3H feeling like a slog to get through with a plot that barely changes the first half, and then in the second follows little variations in most ways except the final bosses of each path? I mean… I am oversimplifying it, but that game wasn’t made to be replayed; the devs even admitted to being surprised that so many fans were doing every route and “felt bad” because they knew how much of a time sink it is… even if you love it, it demands a lot of dedication and WC in particular suffers for not even changing up its chapters (let alone only diverging properly in Chapter 11). I have to ask, why couldn’t Jeralt have died differently each route (still died, but exactly the same?) Why was rescuing Flayn not one week after Chapter 5 (and both the end of the same month) to highlight the tension? Why could we not have Claude’s apart 1 be where Sothis doesn’t merge with Byleth due to butterflies of circumstance (so we could do something differently there?) Why do Claude and Seteth have the same strategy in beating Randolph…? And so on; it’s mostly nitpicking I admit, but it adds up and bothers me and to say it does not would be dishonest of me. Take care, both of you.
I'm surprised you ranked the Fates games better than Engage. To me, they're about the same - contrived, cliche, and bombastic. In my opinion they'd both be fine if the games leaned into their campiness but they take themselves too seriously? I mean I feel like the developers want me to feel moved by the plot points and heartbroken by character deaths but it's all just so goofy that it comes across as funny. I didn't know the plot of conquest before playing it so I laughed out loud when I got to the ending and Ryoma suddenly impaled himself... and then his ghost gave Corrin a pep talk about how they should kill his brother too. And after Corrin's dad farts on the throne, the Nohrian army just dips and everyone lives happily ever after LMAO. If the whole game were that chaotic it'd be S tier for sure.
Radiant Dawn feels like it sacrificed a lot of that in depth character goodness, for a broader stroke political focus. Lack of dedicated support conversations really makes the massive roster of units feel like exactly like that, a roster. Some still get time to shine, Ike, Lucia, Soren, Elincia, the major players. But new characters, like Aran or Vika, just feel like "mandatory Soldier" or "mandatory bird unit"
Very true, I can't deny that the loss of traditional supports in RD hurts characterization big time. However, I love the ways it develops on the plots and themes of POR SO Much.
We have the same S tiers and I agree with your points. Thracia is a tricky one, I feel like most of the storytelling is done through gameplay. The atmosphere and setting was executed so well. I'd put Thracia in S tier but it depends on what you score it as.
Agree with Radiant Dawn being S tier. A lot of people like to nitpick some of the plot holes and certain characters not having a lot to do but the game is great in every aspect as you described. And honestly the problems it does have really are so small and don’t really matter compared to everything the game does right. Also love the video don’t listen to any of the salty 15 year olds in the comments section just because they are little sensitive snowflakes that get salty over someone having a different opinion and expressing themselves for it. Sad how a lot of people don’t have the simple thing called common sense. You’re allowed to have your own opinions and disagree with others but don’t get your panties in a twist over it.
@TitaniumLegman Nope. Fates conceptually ruins itself at the starting bell and never gets better. Point 1: It's entire premise is an outright lie. Birth family or the family that raised you, that was the dilemma proposed in all the advertisements leading up to release. Except Nohr is so comically evil that no sane person would ever pick them, and guess what? Hoshido lied to you, they aren't related to you either, meaning Ryoma outright lies to Corrins face to get her to turn against her actual family. And for what? So you can fuck the Hoshidan royals. Point 2: Conquest is a cluster fuck of a narrative of Corrin wiping out Hoshido because they're unwilling to actually stand up to Garon, and Birthright is 80% filler maps. But neither actually matter because by the mere existence of Revelations, both routes are meaningless and objectively wrong decisions, further punctuated by the game killing off Azura in both routes in the least subtle, please buy our DLC, advertisement I've ever seen. And you can't buy Revelations by itself, meaning you had to pay 40 bucks for a glorified bad ending, and then another 30 on top if you wanted the actual ending. Point 3: Revelations doesn't even deliver on its promise. Nothing is explained. Why are the Awakening trio here, who is Anankos, where did Corrin even come from, none of these are answered in Revelations. Hell, in a game about siblings, the only actual sibling Corrin has isn't even playable! Oh yeah, Corrin has a sister, Lilith, but you only would know this if you paid for EVEN MORE DLC! There's layers to this that even EA would call stupid. And don't get me started on how the supposed Golden route unceremoniously kills off Scarlet for literally no reason. Fates fails as a story at every single opportunity. Conceptually it fails so hard that we don't even know what continent we're on!
Brother half of your points are just "I don't like this story decision so it's bad" just like all the other Fates haters I've seen over the years. Your words do not move me. @@thegamewoods8473
@TitaniumLegman A story that completely betrays its core premise for fanservice while also locking behind core plot revelevant details behind multiple layers of DLC is a bad story. Plain and simple. It's marketed itself as a choice. A choice between two sides. Only for one side to be an outright lie, another to be so laughably evil that no sane person would choose it, and for both routes to be objectively incorrect because of a secret third choice locked behind 30 dollars. A choice that was marketed as the all questions answered route, which proceeded to not answer any questions but to lock those behind even more DLC. And that's not even talking about how nonsensical the various routes are in of themselves. Fates as a concept simply does not work and tries to market itself as much more only to pull the rug from underneath you and outright lie to your face about it
Our tastes are very different as you seem to be more interested in the grandness of the narrative and the novelty of certain stories, whereas I am more interested in the themes and how well addressed they are. That being said, I appreciate this tier list and it gave me a lot to think about.
I'm a very character driven person. I enjoy getting a grasp on what drives various characters, and seeing how their stories intertwine. That's part of why I enjoy Conquest so much; seeing how the Nohrian siblings each deal with the tyranny of their father and the kingdom at large is very interesting to me, and drives home the desperate state of things for them and the world at large. I appreciate you taking the time to comment! Thanks for watching!
haven't watched this yet but I DID look at the final ranking and I feel like... 3H's story is not actually THAT great. it's maybe B-level to me. it TRIES to be serious but falls apart when you look at it more closely. there are a lot of flaws and the amount of deep thought that was put into some things is cancelled out by others. the Slithers are awful villains who seem slapped on so you as the player don't have to feel bad about any of your choices. like ultimately this is a story with four routes and I only really think one of them is what I'd call great, and it very much has flaws too. what I think is really special about 3H and what makes it one of my favorite games ever made is the CHARACTERS. I'm pretty blown away by their complex characterization and depth. they carry the game even when the plot does falter. this deep and super fascinating characterization isn't limited to the lords either. in a series with permadeath, that is really, really impressive. I think the worldbuilding is A-, the game seems massively outweighed to favor learning about Faerghus, but compared with a lot of other games I played yes the Alliance and Empire get great development too. also yeah Engage story real bad lmao I'd probably put it at C because it made me laugh my ass off really frequently but it's super bad and very dumb. when it tries to be emotional and have "big moments" it's actually laughably bad.
Three guesses which route is said best one, and no Silver Snow doesn’t count… like yeah, I have issues with how Verdant Wind was mostly the same as SS without difference enough, Crimson Flower is problematic AF (and needed a longer campaign to start with), and Azure Moon has some misses, but all that aside. Yeah.
I completely agree with this list. I love the story of Holy War, Thracia, PoR, RD, Sacred Stones, Blazing Blade, 3 Houses, Shadows of Valentia and Awakening.
Radiant Dawn was my first FE game and (un)fortunately, that meant i was always chasing the incredible story telling of that game. Based take to put it in S tier. Realizing when i had to fight Ike/Micaiah were some of the best "gameplay meets story" elements in FE ever.
Sacred Stones and Blazing Blade were the first games I played in the series. Can’t remember which ones I started with though since I played both simultaneously. Glad to see them ranked highly, they were great games!
I have at one point in your comments, said that FE9 is my favourite campaign in the series; I say so having only watched Let’s Play of it as I never had a console for it, but I truly think so. By which I mean, it has easily the best-paced plotline, character progression, and execution of the TRADITIONAL formula in FE; there’s a large cast but all have something to do, each arc and country has lots of room to feel fleshed out, the politics are well-constructed as is the world, and the conflict between heroes and villains is excellent. I would say that FE10 is more ambitious (and does a lot more with its cast), it just kind of doesn’t stick the landing on everything; it also leans on its predecessor to have the impact it does - while RD needs the setup there, POR despite its hanging threads works on its own nonetheless. Funny fact, you and I share something in that I believe we both got into FF and FE with similarly numbered titles; I did play FE7 before FE8 but other than that we got into that part first. And somehow in both, despite not being my first I liked the ninth entry best personally; my firsts were FFVIII and FE7, and I still adore them despite the complaints they seem to get (too harshly IMO; partly nostalgia but I honestly still love them), then I On 3H, there’s a lot I wish they did there - except AM, every route has at least one character I feel should have been playable (CF needs Fleche, SS needs Rhea, and VW needs Judith and/or Nader); I also wish WC had more variety based on the house and each route was more distinct, plus they *all* needed more chapters (more more than others). But I don’t want to bring it down… all that said, you really should play “Three Hopes” someday; want to see how you take to the stuff it does, in ways it enhances the world for me.
There are some novels in the comments section, holy smokes. I am a very casual FE fan and will just chill over here with my popcorn 😅 Edit (now that I've seen the whole video): I think Awakening is still my favorite, although I've only played that and Fates so take it with a grain of salt. I really fell in love with a lot of the characters.
my issue with Awakening is how after Act 1 the story is dumbed down hard and filled with so much missed opportunity and useless chapters that it really sours the experience up until the End. and the spotpass stuff ruins what little worked in an awful way. emmeryn showing up like she was on vacation as if she didn't fking die ruined it so hard
I’ve never agreed with a FE story tier list/discussion more. The S tier is perfect. So irritating when people nitpick Radiant Dawn and Three Houses to death on tiny points as if those totally ruin what are truly exceptionally told stories and well developed worlds. The only minor changes I’d make would be bumping Awakening, Shadow Dragon, and New Mystery all down a tier.
Hey Tom, it's crazy you made this video as your fire emblem content is by far my favorite stuff on UA-cam. I think world building like Three houses NEEDS to become a series staple and I hope the next entry returns to this. I would also love to see you do a playthrough of Conquest, I've been recently hooked on it because the gameplay is the best in the series IMO
If Tom doesn’t keel over prematurely, he’ll definitely put a playthrough of each and every (mainline) title… Barring the originals that were remade perhaps, but do we need both versions there anyway?
Great video! Really like that 3Houses went to S tier but I was surprised at FE Fates Conquest’s placement. I played Fates Conquest at least once but some months ago I reviewed a silent let’s play series on YT (forgot the channel) and as I reviewed all dialogue and cutscenes.. I personally found the story not so great, But I still respect your opinion! And on a note for Engage, over a week ago I found a translation version of its manga series that’s only available at Japan and.. I’d say it’s BETTER than the game’s story, but plot-concept still isn’t great, if you understand what I’m saying, but there are improving changes like the mom not dying super soon, but the manga has yet to finish so here’s hopes that it outstands its game’s story as it is so far! :)
Awakening was my first and I still hold it in my top 3, although admittedly I haven’t gotten to playing all the games yet. Admittedly, there is some weak elements to it, I think the whole time travel could’ve been explained a bit better, I think we deserved more time focusing on Grima as a character and final villain, I wish so much I knew more about this first exalt person and what exactly Grima did back then, especially with what we got out of echoes’ dlc where we saw his origin. Other than that, it’s such a solid game and the characters are probably some of the most iconic and well rounded in the series
Also I do gotta agree with you for the most part on engage, but I make an exception for Yunaka and it’s entirely based on the sheer talent of her voice actress, she did and incredible job demonstrating her ability to impersonate people and take on completely new fake identities and personas and that “Yunaka” herself is one of them is just conceptually pretty cool, plus I’m just a sucker for bubbly types
Worse that Tom actually really liked the Chapters 10/11 twist and it built expectations for the narrative potential, only for (in particular egregiousness) the Narm of the Four Hounds’ deaths to send whatever hopes he had plummeting right into the mantle.
Great list here, although I gotta say it's a bit of a shame you didn't enjoy Mystery of the Emblems story. While its a bit of a retelling of the first, I thought it did a lot of things better than Shadow Dragon. I especially love the midgame for Anri's Way, learning more about the dragons and their downfall made it feel like an almost biblical journey.
I think because it feels like retracing the same steps, only with a few variations and additional elements that technically make it a better narrative overall… but you also have some characters who literally do the same thing like the pirate (whose name I forget) that was recruited by Caeda only to do the same thing again; or Matthis, who AGAIN chickens out and must be recruited similarly. It’s kind of a weird game and has a lot of the trappings of many film sequels that redid a lot of stuff. Ironically, having said this I also like Kris more than most folks do (and no I haven’t played it, doesn’t mean my feelings aren’t valid there).
To me, a good story also involves being told through the vehicle of an enjoyable game. If I'm bored through all the gameplay segments just playing to get to the next story segment, I usually don't finish that game (or the story). From that perspective, I found FE7s story much more engaging, because I could actually enjoy and finish the game. In comparison, I didn't really get into FE 3 Houses like most other people, because I found the tactical elements and maps to be bland in comparison to other franchise entries. I couldn't finish it because I was bored by the time I got to the time skip.
You realized for threehouse we have only blue lions pretimeskip done, and for post timeskip only black eagle refusal and blue lions finished? Ofc we have the common chapters pretimeskip and black eagle with edelgard is at 66% done, but yellow deer is nonexistent, claude could be removed from the game and not much would change. Lonato is Ashe's foster father, Miklan is Sylvain's brother, the moment we agree to join the Flame emperor early got cut and replaced by the famous "You are lying. I can see that you cannot contain your fury toward me. Pity.", and Jetritza was added with a hackjob since the pretimeskip was missing for eagles. The ideas and the core were fantastic and I literally spent 300 hours playing and reading everything in the game, but I still regret we didnt get a deluxe finished game version later like the persona or mass-effect series with every cut content and fleshing out eagle and deer campaigns instead of this musou game i dont wanna even touch with a stick or that grey wolf dlc which adds unrelated new plots instead of digging further current mysteries. As of today, the story is great for someone who picks only one class and make only one playthrough, which explains why the majority of the playerbase has near to nothing negative to say.
My awareness of it is that a lot of the rumours were sadly untrue - there were only four routes ever planned, White Clouds was never going to diverge further than joining Edelgard in Ch11 (and would be HARDER to unlock), and Silver Snow was the first route completed followed by Azure Moon and Verdant Wind. Stuff like Crimson Flower being shorter has no indication of being confirmed in any solid evidence (beyond it and AM having versions of the Shambhalla chapter that were never made), and while VW had Claude intended earlier to be a darker character this change was early enough to not affect the plot… Again, all this is unfortunate but seems true. One of the developers even admitted that he was surprised at how many people set out to replay every route, as he thought they’d just share the experience with their friends. He didn’t realise that people would think there were bigger differences than just the character’s ideologies and (besides CF) a few late game differences like the final bosses, even stating he “felt bad” about it afterwards…
I appreciate the positivity on this one (Engage aside haha). Regardless of whether we agree or not your love of the series really shows and is appreciated. I just wish I could love Radiant Dawn as much as everyone else does. XD Stay well and thanks as always for the content dude!
As other people have already mentioned, 3H's story is nothing special and falls apart once you examine it closely. It tried to create a gigantic narrative but ended up full of plot holes and contrivances. The narrative is completely carried by the characters, who are the best Fire Emblem has had to date.
I'd argue characters are often overhyped as well but besides that I agree - The inconsistencies and odd choices made me tear my hair out on subsequent playthroughs
Based on Story (and I do mean only story, not gameplay or anything else related like supports), here's my Tier List, in this order: S Tier: -Genealogy of The Holy War -Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn (putting these two together because unlike FE6-7, these two actually are connected by the events of the first game). A tier: -FE6 -Thracia -Echoes B-Tier: -Azure Moon (I'm breaking each of the 3H routes into segments similar to Fates). -Crimson Flower -Engage -FE7 -FE11 -FE12 C-tier: -Silver Snow -Verdant Wind -Awakening -Revelations -Birthright -Conquest D-Tier: -Sacred Stones
Hot take: The only ones that are good are Echoes, Path of Radiance and Three Houses. (Fire Emblem is my favorite franchise and I still love all the games for the gameplay)
I sort of agree - aside from those games I always felt the series never really cared all that much about its stories in general. They're serviceable, but really primarily there to facilitate the (more often than not) amazing gameplay. The Nintendo approach. I will add that the version of Genealogy that exists solely in my memory of that game would also deserve to be on that short list.
Other hot take: no game released since POR/RD has even reached S-tier as a whole. While 3H is a high B-tier and Awakening is a low A-tier, sadly the problems bring it down for me.
@@TitaniumLegman Tiers can be empty and it also makes zero sense for S tier to even have that many entries. You could have just done a simple ranking to convey the same idea while also not pretending that any FE game has a S tier worthy plot when every single game commits a massive writing sin But I guess the tier list template takes a lot less effort to do and are also prime view bait.
@@namelessbagyeah i agree some of these aren't worthy of an S tier let alone an A. The stories in Fire Emblem games in general are filled with plotholes and weird writings all over the place, even the best like Geanology and Path of Radiance suffers from one issue to the other. Radiant Dawn in particular suffers from choosing who is the protagonist and what the story even is, is it Ike's story or Micaiah's, the game just doesn't know which is which. 3H is just messy and all over the place no more to be said. Echoes the very definition of "if it looks good, you don't have to worry about the story" the only thing saving the story is the way the game presents it but inherently it has so many problems and plotholes littering it at every corner, so many unfinished stories and unresolved character conflicts it's insane how much they can get away with by just making it feel epic and cool. At the end of the day Fire Emblem is just not worthy of an S tier in terms of story, this list just seems like a lazy attempt at actually analyzing the franchise as a whole.
No. I'm not ranking fire emblem stories to the rest of written fiction here lol. It's a self contained list, and that means there's gknna be at least one S tier whether you think there should be or not. 🤣
I love the story of Path of Radiance, which would be one of my favorites! One thing that stands out to me is that Ike (unlike the other protagonists, from my knowledge) doesn’t come from royalty or has any “the chosen” vibe behind him, just a ordinary guy that fights for his friends and country
Interesting that in the early development stages of the game (which was actually before Sacred Stones - POR was actually “Fire Emblem 8” in terms of working title), Ike and Mist would’ve been nobility of some kind; Greil being secretly one of the Four Riders seems a remnant of this old idea… Oh, and Ike (originally named Priam?) would’ve taken an injury partway through forcing his sister to literally take up his sword and become the playable protagonist at least for a while; these old notes that people have researched are wild and make you wonder just how we got the story in the final shape from where it once was.
Radiant Dawn on S and Conquest and Revelation on B?
Based.
Thank you for not parroting what other FE creators says on this site. (Looking at you, Mekkah and company.)
Placing Radiant Dawn _above_ Path of Radiance? Hell, placing _anything_ above Path of Radiance? Wild. To each their own though, you do you, good sir.
You have to admit that he has guts to say so, right?
I still think Three Houses' story is massively overrated. It has good lore and excellent character supports, but it's take on branching narratives doesn't do any of that justice. No matter which route you choose morality goes straight out the window. You are always right, you are always just, the opposing army is always poisoning the river and eating babies even if on other routes they would never dream of doing such a thing. Having that wild discrepancy of their actions rely entire on whether or not Byleth was by their side is awful. Byleth is such a nothing character, canonically lacking emotions and charisma, and yet the game's characters and story treats them like a perfect godlike being. It's the most shallow version of the avatar character and the story hinges on it way too hard. Having seen what Tactics Ogre has to offer with its branching story paths really shows what Three Houses could have been. That game has all the morally grey decisions and consequences fans act like Three Houses has.
I would put Engage right up there with Awakening for being a great celebration of the series so far. I don't think it deserves all the hate it gets, it's not perfect, but it's not close to being terrible. Most of the moments are extremely similar to other games in the series, but people don't like them because they're seeing just how cheesy Fire Emblem actually is with the addition of animation and voice acting. Having Engage crank that melodrama up to 11 is exactly how it should be, that tone of cringey anime fun is such a refreshing thing that the genre sorely lacks right now. I love that they yell ENGAGE BEAMU and strike poses while an electric guitar wails the background. It's so unique compared to yet another gritty story about "war is bad and makes people suffer on both sides" Not that that type of story is bad by default, but my point is I love Engage for what it is rather than most fans hating it for what it's not.
Agreed with the rest of the list except maybe FE7. The moment where Eliwood "accidentally" kills Spoiler felt so contrived that it broke a lot of my suspension of disbelief. It went a step beyond trying to make sense and into the territory of "we need a sad thing to happen here"
Brother you are NOT here in my comments saying 3H is overrated while putting Engage at the same level as Awakening, you're gonna kill me. 😭 3H treats its character with respect, regardless of if you like Byleth or not, and I DARE you to find ONE moment in Engage that matches the emotional intensity of Emmeryn's death and the following chapter in Engage. ONE. I don't need you to agree that Engage's story was trash but next to AWAKENING?
@@TitaniumLegman Easy, Chapter 11. Both are retreat chapters with no rest time following the characters at their lowest points. Both of them are after the characters falling for an obvious trap and losing something close to them because of it. In Awakening it's a bit more serious because it's a person, but I think Engage definitely follows through emotionally by crippling your party and taking away your rings in the subsequent chapter. Telling the story through gameplay like that doesn't get enough credit, they really put together an awesome moment there. Awakening's music does a lot for its chapter, which other than the enemy dialogue would have been a bit dull.
While I do like Emmeryn and was hit emotionally by her death scene... I also have to admit there's not much else going on with her. She's not around long enough to form a real connection to. The only reason why her death works the way it does is because we see Chrom's reaction and Lissa's and everyone else that we've actually come to know and love. Outside that she's kind of a plot device to move the story along. There's a comparison to be made with Lumera, who nearly has an equal amount of screen time, but by the point of her death the player doesn't have a strong connection to her or Alear yet.
Neither game has perfect writing, but they're both very enjoyable stories, and again excellent celebrations of the series, so that's why I'd rank them both in A. If you put a gun to my head I'd say Awakening still edges it out, but not by enough to be in S.
I would personally not put Engage that high either, but I can’t put Awakening as high as Tom does frankly; the biggest problem for me is that after Chapter 13 there’s not enough time to breathe. I mean, Valm was too short an arc (and the other kids ought have been more integrated into it IMO), feeling like it doesn’t add much and is more a revisit of Valencia, and while I love moments of the final arc? The villains of that Act are the WEAKEST of the game; the Grimleal are a nothingburger of a faction with no minor bosses after that one Chapter 8 guy, Grima himself should be scarier but the plot tangles itself to justify him resurrecting (WHY is there anything about needing the Fire Emblem for the task, why can’t it just be that they wanted to weaken Ylisse?), and I hate SpotPass for cheaply sparing people from death instead of that being written into the main plot.
Oh; and the fact they didn’t put one more chapter between Mustafa and Gangrel means Olivia isn’t allowed to play out her entire Support to marriage with Chrom, And That Is Terrible.
After TO did so well with a story that despite branches, will have the same final act? After that, 3H feeling like a slog to get through with a plot that barely changes the first half, and then in the second follows little variations in most ways except the final bosses of each path? I mean… I am oversimplifying it, but that game wasn’t made to be replayed; the devs even admitted to being surprised that so many fans were doing every route and “felt bad” because they knew how much of a time sink it is… even if you love it, it demands a lot of dedication and WC in particular suffers for not even changing up its chapters (let alone only diverging properly in Chapter 11).
I have to ask, why couldn’t Jeralt have died differently each route (still died, but exactly the same?) Why was rescuing Flayn not one week after Chapter 5 (and both the end of the same month) to highlight the tension? Why could we not have Claude’s apart 1 be where Sothis doesn’t merge with Byleth due to butterflies of circumstance (so we could do something differently there?) Why do Claude and Seteth have the same strategy in beating Randolph…? And so on; it’s mostly nitpicking I admit, but it adds up and bothers me and to say it does not would be dishonest of me.
Take care, both of you.
I'm surprised you ranked the Fates games better than Engage. To me, they're about the same - contrived, cliche, and bombastic. In my opinion they'd both be fine if the games leaned into their campiness but they take themselves too seriously? I mean I feel like the developers want me to feel moved by the plot points and heartbroken by character deaths but it's all just so goofy that it comes across as funny.
I didn't know the plot of conquest before playing it so I laughed out loud when I got to the ending and Ryoma suddenly impaled himself... and then his ghost gave Corrin a pep talk about how they should kill his brother too. And after Corrin's dad farts on the throne, the Nohrian army just dips and everyone lives happily ever after LMAO. If the whole game were that chaotic it'd be S tier for sure.
Radiant Dawn feels like it sacrificed a lot of that in depth character goodness, for a broader stroke political focus. Lack of dedicated support conversations really makes the massive roster of units feel like exactly like that, a roster. Some still get time to shine, Ike, Lucia, Soren, Elincia, the major players. But new characters, like Aran or Vika, just feel like "mandatory Soldier" or "mandatory bird unit"
Very true, I can't deny that the loss of traditional supports in RD hurts characterization big time. However, I love the ways it develops on the plots and themes of POR SO Much.
@@TitaniumLegman I really missed the supports, but I absolutely agree.
We have the same S tiers and I agree with your points. Thracia is a tricky one, I feel like most of the storytelling is done through gameplay. The atmosphere and setting was executed so well. I'd put Thracia in S tier but it depends on what you score it as.
Agree with Radiant Dawn being S tier. A lot of people like to nitpick some of the plot holes and certain characters not having a lot to do but the game is great in every aspect as you described. And honestly the problems it does have really are so small and don’t really matter compared to everything the game does right. Also love the video don’t listen to any of the salty 15 year olds in the comments section just because they are little sensitive snowflakes that get salty over someone having a different opinion and expressing themselves for it. Sad how a lot of people don’t have the simple thing called common sense. You’re allowed to have your own opinions and disagree with others but don’t get your panties in a twist over it.
Path of radiance should be S tier
Puts Conquest and Revelations in B
Opinion immediately discarded.
Calling Engage bad when Fates exist is just objectively wrong.
Brother you are actually insane.
@TitaniumLegman Nope. Fates conceptually ruins itself at the starting bell and never gets better.
Point 1: It's entire premise is an outright lie. Birth family or the family that raised you, that was the dilemma proposed in all the advertisements leading up to release. Except Nohr is so comically evil that no sane person would ever pick them, and guess what? Hoshido lied to you, they aren't related to you either, meaning Ryoma outright lies to Corrins face to get her to turn against her actual family. And for what? So you can fuck the Hoshidan royals.
Point 2: Conquest is a cluster fuck of a narrative of Corrin wiping out Hoshido because they're unwilling to actually stand up to Garon, and Birthright is 80% filler maps. But neither actually matter because by the mere existence of Revelations, both routes are meaningless and objectively wrong decisions, further punctuated by the game killing off Azura in both routes in the least subtle, please buy our DLC, advertisement I've ever seen. And you can't buy Revelations by itself, meaning you had to pay 40 bucks for a glorified bad ending, and then another 30 on top if you wanted the actual ending.
Point 3: Revelations doesn't even deliver on its promise. Nothing is explained. Why are the Awakening trio here, who is Anankos, where did Corrin even come from, none of these are answered in Revelations. Hell, in a game about siblings, the only actual sibling Corrin has isn't even playable! Oh yeah, Corrin has a sister, Lilith, but you only would know this if you paid for EVEN MORE DLC! There's layers to this that even EA would call stupid. And don't get me started on how the supposed Golden route unceremoniously kills off Scarlet for literally no reason.
Fates fails as a story at every single opportunity. Conceptually it fails so hard that we don't even know what continent we're on!
Brother half of your points are just "I don't like this story decision so it's bad" just like all the other Fates haters I've seen over the years. Your words do not move me. @@thegamewoods8473
@TitaniumLegman A story that completely betrays its core premise for fanservice while also locking behind core plot revelevant details behind multiple layers of DLC is a bad story. Plain and simple.
It's marketed itself as a choice. A choice between two sides. Only for one side to be an outright lie, another to be so laughably evil that no sane person would choose it, and for both routes to be objectively incorrect because of a secret third choice locked behind 30 dollars.
A choice that was marketed as the all questions answered route, which proceeded to not answer any questions but to lock those behind even more DLC.
And that's not even talking about how nonsensical the various routes are in of themselves. Fates as a concept simply does not work and tries to market itself as much more only to pull the rug from underneath you and outright lie to your face about it
@@thegamewoods8473how do you feel about Engage’s story though?
Our tastes are very different as you seem to be more interested in the grandness of the narrative and the novelty of certain stories, whereas I am more interested in the themes and how well addressed they are. That being said, I appreciate this tier list and it gave me a lot to think about.
I'm a very character driven person. I enjoy getting a grasp on what drives various characters, and seeing how their stories intertwine. That's part of why I enjoy Conquest so much; seeing how the Nohrian siblings each deal with the tyranny of their father and the kingdom at large is very interesting to me, and drives home the desperate state of things for them and the world at large.
I appreciate you taking the time to comment! Thanks for watching!
I haven’t watched the video yet, but
Is now bad time to mention I’m slaving over a full retranslation/relocalization of Fates?
Probably, yeah.
haven't watched this yet but I DID look at the final ranking and I feel like... 3H's story is not actually THAT great. it's maybe B-level to me. it TRIES to be serious but falls apart when you look at it more closely. there are a lot of flaws and the amount of deep thought that was put into some things is cancelled out by others. the Slithers are awful villains who seem slapped on so you as the player don't have to feel bad about any of your choices. like ultimately this is a story with four routes and I only really think one of them is what I'd call great, and it very much has flaws too.
what I think is really special about 3H and what makes it one of my favorite games ever made is the CHARACTERS. I'm pretty blown away by their complex characterization and depth. they carry the game even when the plot does falter. this deep and super fascinating characterization isn't limited to the lords either. in a series with permadeath, that is really, really impressive. I think the worldbuilding is A-, the game seems massively outweighed to favor learning about Faerghus, but compared with a lot of other games I played yes the Alliance and Empire get great development too.
also yeah Engage story real bad lmao I'd probably put it at C because it made me laugh my ass off really frequently but it's super bad and very dumb. when it tries to be emotional and have "big moments" it's actually laughably bad.
Three guesses which route is said best one, and no Silver Snow doesn’t count… like yeah, I have issues with how Verdant Wind was mostly the same as SS without difference enough, Crimson Flower is problematic AF (and needed a longer campaign to start with), and Azure Moon has some misses, but all that aside. Yeah.
I completely agree with this list. I love the story of Holy War, Thracia, PoR, RD, Sacred Stones, Blazing Blade, 3 Houses, Shadows of Valentia and Awakening.
Radiant Dawn was my first FE game and (un)fortunately, that meant i was always chasing the incredible story telling of that game.
Based take to put it in S tier. Realizing when i had to fight Ike/Micaiah were some of the best "gameplay meets story" elements in FE ever.
My first game in the series as well, only Path of Radiance surpassed it for me.
Sacred Stones and Blazing Blade were the first games I played in the series. Can’t remember which ones I started with though since I played both simultaneously. Glad to see them ranked highly, they were great games!
Hey since you did yhe story tier list. You should do a gameplay only tier list. Then an overall tier list
I will absolutely do this thing.
I have at one point in your comments, said that FE9 is my favourite campaign in the series; I say so having only watched Let’s Play of it as I never had a console for it, but I truly think so. By which I mean, it has easily the best-paced plotline, character progression, and execution of the TRADITIONAL formula in FE; there’s a large cast but all have something to do, each arc and country has lots of room to feel fleshed out, the politics are well-constructed as is the world, and the conflict between heroes and villains is excellent. I would say that FE10 is more ambitious (and does a lot more with its cast), it just kind of doesn’t stick the landing on everything; it also leans on its predecessor to have the impact it does - while RD needs the setup there, POR despite its hanging threads works on its own nonetheless.
Funny fact, you and I share something in that I believe we both got into FF and FE with similarly numbered titles; I did play FE7 before FE8 but other than that we got into that part first. And somehow in both, despite not being my first I liked the ninth entry best personally; my firsts were FFVIII and FE7, and I still adore them despite the complaints they seem to get (too harshly IMO; partly nostalgia but I honestly still love them), then I
On 3H, there’s a lot I wish they did there - except AM, every route has at least one character I feel should have been playable (CF needs Fleche, SS needs Rhea, and VW needs Judith and/or Nader); I also wish WC had more variety based on the house and each route was more distinct, plus they *all* needed more chapters (more more than others). But I don’t want to bring it down… all that said, you really should play “Three Hopes” someday; want to see how you take to the stuff it does, in ways it enhances the world for me.
There are some novels in the comments section, holy smokes. I am a very casual FE fan and will just chill over here with my popcorn 😅
Edit (now that I've seen the whole video): I think Awakening is still my favorite, although I've only played that and Fates so take it with a grain of salt. I really fell in love with a lot of the characters.
The pain in Tom's voice when talking about Engage is SENDING me lmao. That playthrough was such a delight for all the wrong reasons 😂
my issue with Awakening is how after Act 1 the story is dumbed down hard and filled with so much missed opportunity and useless chapters that it really sours the experience up until the End.
and the spotpass stuff ruins what little worked in an awful way.
emmeryn showing up like she was on vacation as if she didn't fking die ruined it so hard
I’ve never agreed with a FE story tier list/discussion more. The S tier is perfect.
So irritating when people nitpick Radiant Dawn and Three Houses to death on tiny points as if those totally ruin what are truly exceptionally told stories and well developed worlds.
The only minor changes I’d make would be bumping Awakening, Shadow Dragon, and New Mystery all down a tier.
Hey Tom, it's crazy you made this video as your fire emblem content is by far my favorite stuff on UA-cam. I think world building like Three houses NEEDS to become a series staple and I hope the next entry returns to this. I would also love to see you do a playthrough of Conquest, I've been recently hooked on it because the gameplay is the best in the series IMO
If Tom doesn’t keel over prematurely, he’ll definitely put a playthrough of each and every (mainline) title… Barring the originals that were remade perhaps, but do we need both versions there anyway?
Great video! Really like that 3Houses went to S tier but I was surprised at FE Fates Conquest’s placement.
I played Fates Conquest at least once but some months ago I reviewed a silent let’s play series on YT (forgot the channel) and as I reviewed all dialogue and cutscenes.. I personally found the story not so great,
But I still respect your opinion! And on a note for Engage, over a week ago I found a translation version of its manga series that’s only available at Japan and.. I’d say it’s BETTER than the game’s story, but plot-concept still isn’t great, if you understand what I’m saying, but there are improving changes like the mom not dying super soon, but the manga has yet to finish so here’s hopes that it outstands its game’s story as it is so far! :)
Awakening was my first and I still hold it in my top 3, although admittedly I haven’t gotten to playing all the games yet. Admittedly, there is some weak elements to it, I think the whole time travel could’ve been explained a bit better, I think we deserved more time focusing on Grima as a character and final villain, I wish so much I knew more about this first exalt person and what exactly Grima did back then, especially with what we got out of echoes’ dlc where we saw his origin. Other than that, it’s such a solid game and the characters are probably some of the most iconic and well rounded in the series
Also I do gotta agree with you for the most part on engage, but I make an exception for Yunaka and it’s entirely based on the sheer talent of her voice actress, she did and incredible job demonstrating her ability to impersonate people and take on completely new fake identities and personas and that “Yunaka” herself is one of them is just conceptually pretty cool, plus I’m just a sucker for bubbly types
Oh yeah, Yunaka is a high point of Engage, and honestly the series at large.
@@TitaniumLegman I’m glad she crits all the time because mask off “time to finish the job” hits so hard
Having awakening and PoR in the same tier feels wild
good video
Is Engage's story bad enough to sit through for the gameplay and characters? Or play through Three Houses again. I've only done the GD route.
Engage's gameplay is phenomenal, I do enjoy it a lot even despite the story's shortcomings.
Worse that Tom actually really liked the Chapters 10/11 twist and it built expectations for the narrative potential, only for (in particular egregiousness) the Narm of the Four Hounds’ deaths to send whatever hopes he had plummeting right into the mantle.
Great list here, although I gotta say it's a bit of a shame you didn't enjoy Mystery of the Emblems story. While its a bit of a retelling of the first, I thought it did a lot of things better than Shadow Dragon. I especially love the midgame for Anri's Way, learning more about the dragons and their downfall made it feel like an almost biblical journey.
I think because it feels like retracing the same steps, only with a few variations and additional elements that technically make it a better narrative overall… but you also have some characters who literally do the same thing like the pirate (whose name I forget) that was recruited by Caeda only to do the same thing again; or Matthis, who AGAIN chickens out and must be recruited similarly. It’s kind of a weird game and has a lot of the trappings of many film sequels that redid a lot of stuff.
Ironically, having said this I also like Kris more than most folks do (and no I haven’t played it, doesn’t mean my feelings aren’t valid there).
We know engage with zephia sprinkles is ultra sss tier to ya
To me, a good story also involves being told through the vehicle of an enjoyable game. If I'm bored through all the gameplay segments just playing to get to the next story segment, I usually don't finish that game (or the story). From that perspective, I found FE7s story much more engaging, because I could actually enjoy and finish the game. In comparison, I didn't really get into FE 3 Houses like most other people, because I found the tactical elements and maps to be bland in comparison to other franchise entries. I couldn't finish it because I was bored by the time I got to the time skip.
I've played most of the English fire emblems and birthright is the only one I don't remember any of the story.
You realized for threehouse we have only blue lions pretimeskip done, and for post timeskip only black eagle refusal and blue lions finished? Ofc we have the common chapters pretimeskip and black eagle with edelgard is at 66% done, but yellow deer is nonexistent, claude could be removed from the game and not much would change.
Lonato is Ashe's foster father, Miklan is Sylvain's brother, the moment we agree to join the Flame emperor early got cut and replaced by the famous "You are lying. I can see that you cannot contain your fury toward me. Pity.", and Jetritza was added with a hackjob since the pretimeskip was missing for eagles.
The ideas and the core were fantastic and I literally spent 300 hours playing and reading everything in the game, but I still regret we didnt get a deluxe finished game version later like the persona or mass-effect series with every cut content and fleshing out eagle and deer campaigns instead of this musou game i dont wanna even touch with a stick or that grey wolf dlc which adds unrelated new plots instead of digging further current mysteries.
As of today, the story is great for someone who picks only one class and make only one playthrough, which explains why the majority of the playerbase has near to nothing negative to say.
My awareness of it is that a lot of the rumours were sadly untrue - there were only four routes ever planned, White Clouds was never going to diverge further than joining Edelgard in Ch11 (and would be HARDER to unlock), and Silver Snow was the first route completed followed by Azure Moon and Verdant Wind. Stuff like Crimson Flower being shorter has no indication of being confirmed in any solid evidence (beyond it and AM having versions of the Shambhalla chapter that were never made), and while VW had Claude intended earlier to be a darker character this change was early enough to not affect the plot… Again, all this is unfortunate but seems true.
One of the developers even admitted that he was surprised at how many people set out to replay every route, as he thought they’d just share the experience with their friends. He didn’t realise that people would think there were bigger differences than just the character’s ideologies and (besides CF) a few late game differences like the final bosses, even stating he “felt bad” about it afterwards…
I appreciate the positivity on this one (Engage aside haha). Regardless of whether we agree or not your love of the series really shows and is appreciated. I just wish I could love Radiant Dawn as much as everyone else does. XD Stay well and thanks as always for the content dude!
Good list. I definitely agree with S tier, since those three are also my top pics..
As other people have already mentioned, 3H's story is nothing special and falls apart once you examine it closely. It tried to create a gigantic narrative but ended up full of plot holes and contrivances. The narrative is completely carried by the characters, who are the best Fire Emblem has had to date.
You're nothing special
I'd argue characters are often overhyped as well but besides that I agree - The inconsistencies and odd choices made me tear my hair out on subsequent playthroughs
Why havent I heard of Fates Revelation ? Was it Japan only ?
Nope, released everywhere.
@@TitaniumLegman After some research it was DLC only, no physical release
@@Lama-Su not technically true, it came bundled with the special edition version, which is what I got. All three games on one cart.
Based on Story (and I do mean only story, not gameplay or anything else related like supports), here's my Tier List, in this order:
S Tier:
-Genealogy of The Holy War
-Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn (putting these two together because unlike FE6-7, these two actually are connected by the events of the first game).
A tier:
-FE6
-Thracia
-Echoes
B-Tier:
-Azure Moon (I'm breaking each of the 3H routes into segments similar to Fates).
-Crimson Flower
-Engage
-FE7
-FE11
-FE12
C-tier:
-Silver Snow
-Verdant Wind
-Awakening
-Revelations
-Birthright
-Conquest
D-Tier:
-Sacred Stones
SACRED STONE BENEATH ENGAGE, MY HEART. 😭 I respect the breakdown chief, well done.
why sacred stones so low? it is basically binding blade but with a more fleshed out world and characters?
I havent played the rest so engage is the bestbby defalt. The story was terrible but the gameplay is amazing
Engage has the best gameplay, Three Houses has the best story. Here's hoping the next game combines the two.
It has the best cast of playable characters, but story? Eh… it’s a mixed bag there.
Nothing to do with it,just stream front mission 1st and 2nd
Imagine after best game in the series makes worst game in the series xD
Most valid tier list I've ever seen
I don't know if this is a compliment or a veiled insult, but thank you! 🤣
Even if Tomtanium isn’t as objective as he kinda-sorta claims, he’s so based that you have to admire him no?
algo comment; :3
& aye! in the follower shoutout; (3
:D
Hot take: The only ones that are good are Echoes, Path of Radiance and Three Houses.
(Fire Emblem is my favorite franchise and I still love all the games for the gameplay)
I sort of agree - aside from those games I always felt the series never really cared all that much about its stories in general. They're serviceable, but really primarily there to facilitate the (more often than not) amazing gameplay. The Nintendo approach.
I will add that the version of Genealogy that exists solely in my memory of that game would also deserve to be on that short list.
It's not an Hot take 3H and Echoes are in my top 3 of FE game and I've seen many peoples who's put those two at the top of their list to
Other hot take: no game released since POR/RD has even reached S-tier as a whole. While 3H is a high B-tier and Awakening is a low A-tier, sadly the problems bring it down for me.
178
Not a single FE game deserves to be in S tier. Also, 3H's unfinished mess barely deserves a C tier
... You know that a tier list ranks the best to the worst, right? There's always a best of the best.
@@TitaniumLegman Tiers can be empty and it also makes zero sense for S tier to even have that many entries. You could have just done a simple ranking to convey the same idea while also not pretending that any FE game has a S tier worthy plot when every single game commits a massive writing sin
But I guess the tier list template takes a lot less effort to do and are also prime view bait.
@@namelessbagyeah i agree some of these aren't worthy of an S tier let alone an A. The stories in Fire Emblem games in general are filled with plotholes and weird writings all over the place, even the best like Geanology and Path of Radiance suffers from one issue to the other. Radiant Dawn in particular suffers from choosing who is the protagonist and what the story even is, is it Ike's story or Micaiah's, the game just doesn't know which is which. 3H is just messy and all over the place no more to be said. Echoes the very definition of "if it looks good, you don't have to worry about the story" the only thing saving the story is the way the game presents it but inherently it has so many problems and plotholes littering it at every corner, so many unfinished stories and unresolved character conflicts it's insane how much they can get away with by just making it feel epic and cool. At the end of the day Fire Emblem is just not worthy of an S tier in terms of story, this list just seems like a lazy attempt at actually analyzing the franchise as a whole.
No. I'm not ranking fire emblem stories to the rest of written fiction here lol. It's a self contained list, and that means there's gknna be at least one S tier whether you think there should be or not. 🤣
You care way too much about this, imagine slinging insults over a tier list video. 🤣