How do you rank the FE stories from best to worst?

[Icelerate]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

From what I remember Micaiah  and the blood pact received a lot of criticism back in the day. How they handled the revelation of the Black Knight also caught a lot of flak. 

I think that Corrin and Fates played a hand in the better evaluation of RD. The situation of the lords do have some similarities but unlike Corrin Michaiah gets criticized plenty in the story and she fights more because of patriotism and blackmail rather then being a wuss like Corrin. 
The world building in Awakening and Fates being so bare bones might also have ushered in some Tellius nostalgia since that was exactly the area Tellius excelled in. 

The funny thing is, now Radiant Dawn is criticized, not because of Micaiah, but rather Ike. 

[Erureido]

From what I played so far, from worst to best:

1) Sacred Stones/Echoes

2) Awakening

3) Birthright

4) Revelation

5) Conquest

Just a few comments on this list:

Though I still need to beat Sacred Stones (I'm about halfway for the game and keep forgetting to go back and play it; hopefully, that all changes this Winter Break), I did find myself enjoying its story as much as I did with Echoes. When comparing the two, I liked Echoes' world building much more, while Sacred Stones had the far better villain writing.

Nowadays, Birthright and Awakening are usually interchanged between the two. For a while, I actually liked Birthright's story more than Awakening, finding it more engaging than Awakening in my first run through it. Overtime, Awakening has been climbing back up once I began to develop to see more of the flaws in Fates' stories and what Awakening has over it, so at the moment, Awakening wins out against Birthright.

As for how I arranged the Fates story, while Birthright is a very typical Fire Emblem story, I think that it's generic story-telling is why it has a far better story than Revelation and Conquest: by playing it safe, it ultimately doesn't take those giant risks that end up being disastrous in the long run. I also found much less problems with Birthright's story compared to the plots of the other two games (not to say Birthright is perfectly, as its plot too has big flaws like Flora's suicide and the way Xander's behaves in Birthright Chapter 26).

As for Revelation and Conquest, the less said about those two games' plots, the better.

4 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Also, is it ever explained how the Royal brothers got their legendary weapons? Did they have to go through hard trials to get them? There is no evidence to that, so why is only Corrin given flak for just getting the Yato out of nowhere? *shrugs* Honestly, I don't even care at this point.

Funny you bring up the question about how the royal brothers got their respective weapons, because around halfway through the Birthright Drama CD...

Spoiler

Mikoto gives a slight background detail regarding how Takumi got the Fujin Yumi:

Quote

Mikoto (speaking to Takumi): The Fujin Yumi belongs to you. Even if Corrin had never been kidnapped, it would still be yours. You remember, right? It chose you. Please do not take that fact lightly.

It's not much, but the bolded part of Mikoto's quote implies the Fujin Yumi chose Takumi to be its wielder, so it's a weapon not just anyone can pick up.

Why it chose Takumi? We don't know (and I admit they could've expanded on this more). I personally like to think that, because of his tendency to overtrain himself, Takumi had to train his butt off for the Fujin Yumi to pick him as its wielder.

As for the other royal brothers, the Drama CDs don't say anything about how they got their weapons.

 

Edited December 10, 2017 by Erureido

[DragonFlames]

13 hours ago, Erureido said:

From what I played so far, from worst to best:

1) Sacred Stones/Echoes

2) Awakening

3) Birthright

4) Revelation

5) Conquest

Just a few comments on this list:

Though I still need to beat Sacred Stones (I'm about halfway for the game and keep forgetting to go back and play it; hopefully, that all changes this Winter Break), I did find myself enjoying its story as much as I did with Echoes. When comparing the two, I liked Echoes' world building much more, while Sacred Stones had the far better villain writing.

Nowadays, Birthright and Awakening are usually interchanged between the two. For a while, I actually liked Birthright's story more than Awakening, finding it more engaging than Awakening in my first run through it. Overtime, Awakening has been climbing back up once I began to develop to see more of the flaws in Fates' stories and what Awakening has over it, so at the moment, Awakening wins out against Birthright.

As for how I arranged the Fates story, while Birthright is a very typical Fire Emblem story, I think that it's generic story-telling is why it has a far better story than Revelation and Conquest: by playing it safe, it ultimately doesn't take those giant risks that end up being disastrous in the long run. I also found much less problems with Birthright's story compared to the plots of the other two games (not to say Birthright is perfectly, as its plot too has big flaws like Flora's suicide and the way Xander's behaves in Birthright Chapter 26).

As for Revelation and Conquest, the less said about those two games' plots, the better.

Funny you bring up the question about how the royal brothers got their respective weapons, because around halfway through the Birthright Drama CD...

  Hide contents

Mikoto gives a slight background detail regarding how Takumi got the Fujin Yumi:

It's not much, but the bolded part of Mikoto's quote implies the Fujin Yumi chose Takumi to be its wielder, so it's a weapon not just anyone can pick up.

Why it chose Takumi? We don't know (and I admit they could've expanded on this more). I personally like to think that, because of his tendency to overtrain himself, Takumi had to train his butt off for the Fujin Yumi to pick him as its wielder.

As for the other royal brothers, the Drama CDs don't say anything about how they got their weapons.

 

Yukimura did say that the other legendary weapons also chose their wielders, too, IIRC.

But I shouldn't need a Drama CD to get background on semi-important information, really. That's just bad story-telling, in my opinion.
Sadly, what either of us thinks about the circumstances of the Royal bros getting their weapons is ultimately pointless, since we'll more than likely never know the truth. The point of me bringing up the acquisition of the weapons was because most of the fanbase only gives Corrin flak (i.e. calling them Mary Sue / Gary Stu) for just getting the Yato (which doesn't make sense, I agree with that) when the Royal bros just have these OP weapons and we don't know how or where they got them. For all we know, they could have flown into their hands out of nowhere, too.

[Shrimpica]

From Best to Worst:

1. Tellius: The only Saga in FE i consider to have a good Story. Even tough there are some negative Points, The majority of it was done well, the Clash of ideolgies and character Developments were amazing, and the World Building is Second to none when it comes to Fire Emblem and even alot of RPGs out there, and the only Saga to implement the ''Fire Emblem'' into the story in a good way

2. Jugdral (FE4 only, didn't play FE5 yet): While i really really love first Gen, 2nd Gen is typical FE medicore (''we good, you bad, go kill Dragon''-Story). If only 2nd Gen was as good as Gen 1 story wise, i would consider the Story of FE4 to be really good, amazing even. Alas, Gen2 puts the story down, alooooooooooooooooot, making FE4 story just ''good-ish''. (I consider Loptyr to be bad as Anankos really when it comes to destroying Stories really.)

3. Sacred Stones: Has some potential to be amazing if it's built upon and we see more of Lyon's/Grado's side of things. However, the Whole Demon King's body being revived and stuff is . Still, better then the Majority of other FE stories out there

4. Almost every other Fe: ''we good, you bad, go kill Dragon''-Story. I don't see it when some people say ''Muh Classic games had amazing Story'' because the majority of them definetly do not. It's just the typical safe good guys kill bad guys story. pretty medicore.

5. Fates: I don't think i need to say anything here.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Shrimperor

[omegaxis1]

15 hours ago, Erureido said:

As for how I arranged the Fates story, while Birthright is a very typical Fire Emblem story, I think that it's generic story-telling is why it has a far better story than Revelation and Conquest: by playing it safe, it ultimately doesn't take those giant risks that end up being disastrous in the long run. I also found much less problems with Birthright's story compared to the plots of the other two games (not to say Birthright is perfectly, as its plot too has big flaws like Flora's suicide and the way Xander's behaves in Birthright Chapter 26).

If you look at Birthright as a standalone game, it would be the better. But because of the fact that Birthright is supposed to still be part of Fates as a whole, that means it needs Conquest and Revelations. And when you add those two in the mix, Birthright is actually the worst, because it never steps anywhere near the bigger picture, and the entire story is narrowminded.

[Punished Dayni]

I think I give the plots of this series too much credit. Spoilers for most of the series. Also in order from best to worst, though this is probably not as well sorted as it should be and is not final at all.

Spoiler

T776 > GotHW  > BS > SS > G/SoV > A > SD > BB > NMotE >>> Birthright > Conquest > Revelations (i.e. pretty much everything above Fates, with the middle in flux)

Thracia 776:
The game with the smallest conflict has my favourite story. I know, right? Good things and all that. Leaf has the best arc of all the lords, actually developing over the course of the game and having to deal with defeat and loss with no clear resolution to it in front of him. The actual journey gives us some great arcs in it like the rush to Tahra and all the minor characters involved, taking Lenster and having to retreat after actually taking it and of course escaping Manster, a tense sequence that is only helped by the difficulty of the gameplay at this point in particular. Even the gaiden chapters have some great moments too. I think Thracia is very well realised for the terrible place it is in this game. The minor villains are some of the series's best, some of the minor characters actually get mini-arcs and on a SNES-era game this is pretty impressive imo. It's not perfect and the main villains are among the weakest, but this game is still strong in it's story overall.

Genealogy of the Holy War:
Considering how sweeping this story is, I'm one who tends to let a lot of its issues slide. The first generation tells a grand tale of a lord who follows his orders and is eventually cast out and tries to clear his name with tragic results and one of the moments that still stands out in this series. Oh, he also has a whirlwind romance that is abruptly cut apart and ends with that moment. The next generation is about avenging those who fell that day and saving the continent from the evil empire that is being moulded from within. Despite people's good points about finding elements of this story abhorrent, I still like it overall. I know, I'm awful. The second generation is also weaker than the first, but there's something here I do like. Getting a remake for the Judgral titles would be the best chance for these stories to get better known and fix the faults to make what I think would be a legit grand epic (Well for gaming at least).

Blazing Sword: 
I'm surprised this is so high: but then again, it still stands out from most of the series. It's as much about the three lords helping each other out in an attempt to find a missing father. There's the tutorial story about someone having to return to her birthright despite her doubts about it and how that works as an introduction. Despite the last arc being pretty basic in terms of motivation, you still get the better minor villains showing up more here and some pretty good moments besides the main villain. The main villain's a bit of a shame, especially on the surface, but the minor villains are actually pretty good overall. The lords have a great dynamic and hopefully the next FE with more than one lord treats it more like this. The use of dragons in this is somehow more interesting that BB. The main lords all have good arcs in this game too.
The side characters also have some greats, including the almighty Canas.

The Sacred Stones: 
The Gaiden homage ends up being better received than the Archanean homage by me. Hypocritical? Maybe. Simply put, the villains are great. The actual story might be pretty generic, but the side cast is pretty good actually, the main lords are pretty dumb, but I don't think they're all that bad and the generic enemies put a great oppressive environment on it. I know I'm not putting much of a justification on it, but it is pretty simple. I just don't want to say too much on the villains because I've spoiled enough for many of the games as is, but the low point is like Gharnef but with a better motivation and not resurrecting the big bad. It gets much better I swear. 

Gaiden/SoV:
Another old story. Two kids go on the warpath after some asshole betrays his king and after falling out, killing hordes of zombies and forcing a reformation of crowns and faiths unite their continent. But the guy says he'll crush "those bastards" for the girl, so that stands out. Oh and the guy kills his father.
The remake does a lot more however and is if nothing else the best presented in recent years if not the entire series. The new additions are kind of all over the place in terms of improving it, from adding new villains and new facets to extant villains to make them more interesting to adding some character who don't really matter to the plot. Full voiceover was a massive benefit, improving delivery of what some might consider eh story or writing, which they actually didn't alter too much from the original. SoV also made Thabes interesting to me, so credit where credit is due.

Awakening: 
As I haven't played it in a while, I think I might have to agree with everyone that Awakening isn't the best. It's a shame that the arcs just weren't better connected to each other. It's not impossible to do so, right? Then again, this game had a lot on its plate (and didn't have 3 routes to split and waste that potential. Zing!). It's not surprising that it wasn't written as well as might have been hoped. Gangrel's actions and motivations need some background expansion, but the actual arc is still good imo. If the Valm arc stays, it needs to actually feel like the Valmese army is making a serious invasion attempt and that more's at stake than two gems. The Grimleal need a total rewrite to actually matter. And I still don't know if the future timeline can even be relevant in a new version. I might have had fun, but it needs a lot of fixing for the story to hold sadly. Yet despite it and myself, I still do like quite a bit of what's going on. Some pretty good moments going on in it overall, such as the last few chapters in the first arc, some pretty ridiculous tactics that work out in the second arc and even little bits in the final arc are still good imo.
I might also pretend the spotpass units just aren't canon anyway, which I think holds up by how rushed they seem to have been put in.

Dark Dragon and Sword of Light/Mystery of the Emblem/Shadow Dragon:
Marth has to go round the world to go back to take his home, pick up some McGuffins and the family sword, save his sister, killing the evil dragons, multiple prominent military figures and an evil wizard on the way, paving the way for one of the nations to take over everyone. It's basic, I know I'm being disparaging. Thing is, it came out on the NES in 1990. That's not surprising. Though this world is pretty grim and a lot of things we know about it do make this world more interesting.
The (DS) remake has some changes that benefit this story overall. Mainly that Marth actually stands out from his fellow lords now rather than being their predecessor. We see his struggle similar to Leaf, but unlike Thracia doesn't give as much supporting time for much anyone else sadly. This game really should have taken the chance to.

Binding Blade: 
So Roy's kinda too perfect in story for his own good imo. That's not why this title is so low though. I'm one of the few people who thinks the villains are a disappointment here. From the truly ineffectual but flamboyantly self-loving Narcian to the hypocritical and irrelevant Jahn, I don't really care all that much about a single one. It being a homage to the Archanean titles was also going to be a negative, considering not much interesting comes out of it. The dragons also end up feeling somewhat tacked on, not because they make no sense, but because they don't have much relevance outside a few moments. To be fair to it, I do think that it shows some surprising good thinking from Roy, but he's also a little too perfect imo. Also, Lilina actually gets a good moment (which is more than most get), which makes me wish she was more involved but this is BB.

Mystery of the Emblem/New Mystery of the Emblem: 
One of Marth's old allies suddenly becomes evil because of the evil wizard and being blue-balled, the dragons are threatening to come back and Marth has to walk the world again, but he does learn about the dragons and why they have to allow humans to take more control. Then they confront the emperor, the McGuffin orbs join to the shield he was carrying and he can stop the dragons and save a bunch of people who've been taken hostage, including best cleric, worst cleric, his sister and the empress who his ally handed off to the wizard. The lore's the best part in this to be fair, but I don't really feel this story much at all.
Meanwhile in the remake, Chris get far too much presence and mollycollying for his own good, to the detriment of the main lord, especially in comparison to SD. Chris is still disliked to this day for a reason and their addition isn't really beneficial. But the assassins were a good addition overall.

Birthright: 
So it's generic. It plays up so many of the usual FE cliches you could probably put the points for Birthright in as an answer to a madlibs page. It takes a surprising amount of time just strolling around in enemy territory learning about the place, getting into unconnected fights and not feeling like much of it matters. Chapter 13's cutscene REALLY shouldn't have happened (and I just wish the game accounted for if Corrin was married before it). Leo's teleportation tome is a massive copout in it's own right. Garon the magic dragon is out of Valla nowhere. But I must admit it still feels like the bones hold together better than the other routes. It does still feel like the party is moving forward (even if forward seems like they're climbing off the beaten path). It at least has some guts to let people on your side die and stay that way, making it have more consequence.

Conquest: 
For me, a concept can be really cool. Conquest just had to bungle the execution. It starts off alright I guess (there are solid moments and I think a good story just needed to polish up the writing, probably change how Azura joins and push the Sevenfold sanctuary to later or out), but then we get to Chapter 14, and the story piles on the stupid for two chapters so high that it's pretty much doomed and the filler of the next 6 chapters (And their terrible, gimmick obsessed gameplay and often something bad in the story) does not help. Then we get the confrontations with the siblings, a bright spot for gameplay and story overall. AND THEN THE ENDING HAPPENS. Treason is not awful in the story (but I hate the map so much it might have affected my vision for the whole thing), though it feels like it rushed the removal of these villains. Gooron was always stupid, but it could have been worse. Then Betrayal shows up, kills you only not and you save his soul and Pineapple thanks you like Corrin always gets thanks. Then the Hoshidans just straight up forgive you and your army after all the crap that was pulled while the Nohrians just act like all the suppression was OK. Keep in mind, to save both nations, you go tearing through one country and silencing (sorry "disarming") sedition in the other. I really don't like how Conquest's story is overall.

Revelation: 
Let's be real, it's a dumpster fire. It ended up having to try to tie up two games worth of loose ends and manages not to do that, partly because of DLC, partly because of the story itself faffing about for its second half and backloading the explanation. I've already made an extensive post explaining why the villain sucks, but it also has the issue of most of the cast being a mite quick to trust Corrin with all this despite how mad they were for not being chosen before by them the bachelor(ette). It then has to rush recruit everyone in the first half, making it not matter as much as it should. Also, it purports itself to be bringing the whole army together, but it kills off Scarlet (who would have been very fitting to the conflict between the two kingdoms giving her position) and then makes you use about 10 units a map, wasting the sandbox potential it had. While Lilith (who dies in the other routes) is still around, holding the fort unlike the other two routes doesn't get any chance to matter, despite the idea that she would have fit this route perfectly. Also, Anankos (a supposed GOD) kills you only not (See? Fates mirrors itself after all! There was some grand plan! /s). If I were to rewrite the whole thing, it'd essentially have a 3-party split made up of a Nohrian, Hoshidan and a Noble faction (which would have all the siblings) each doing their own thing, drop Valla and start using the rest of the world that's there and ignored. I could probably mention a dozen other problems easily. It is Revelation after all.

Fates: 
Overall, there's a lot of issues with its writing that don't seem bound to one route. Whether it's how so much of the villains show no depth (a far cry from the series overall), Corrin's continuous undeserved hero worship (from getting a legendary sword that flies into their hand to convincing the nobles of both kingdoms to side together far too easily) to the Valla curse, the actual choices made end up hurting it overall. Fates was fated to flounder with all the intervention that was made (never mind Treehouse making things more convoluted. Give us 8-4 any day)

Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn: 
Unrateable. Not played them yet. 0/10 for 0 seconds worth of experience.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Dayni

[Erureido]

On 12/10/2017 at 11:30 AM, omegaxis1 said:

If you look at Birthright as a standalone game, it would be the better. But because of the fact that Birthright is supposed to still be part of Fates as a whole, that means it needs Conquest and Revelations. And when you add those two in the mix, Birthright is actually the worst, because it never steps anywhere near the bigger picture, and the entire story is narrowminded.

I made that list based on my personal feelings on each route individually, but even if I were to add Conquest and Revelation to the mix, I still think Birthright is the best of the three routes. Even if it doesn't do much to tie into the other two routes aside from the events of the last chapter, I didn't find as many problems its plot as with Conquest or Revelation's story. If I had to pick between a plot that I consider to be more generic and narrow-minded story compared to a story that is not typical and makes bigger strides but ends up being horrendously written, I'll take that the former over the latter any day because a horribly written story will leave me frustrated, whereas the generic story will leave me feeling, "Eh, whatever." Better for me to feel indifferent to a story than be angry with one.

[omegaxis1]

6 minutes ago, Erureido said:

I made that list based on my personal feelings on each route individually, but even if I were to add Conquest and Revelation to the mix, I still think Birthright is the best of the three routes. Even if it doesn't do much to tie into the other two routes aside from the events of the last chapter, I didn't find as many problems its plot as with Conquest or Revelation's story. If I had to pick between a plot that I consider to be more generic and narrow-minded story compared to a story that is not typical and makes bigger strides but ends up being horrendously written, I'll take that the former over the latter any day because a horribly written story will leave me frustrated, whereas the generic story will leave me feeling, "Eh, whatever." Better for me to feel indifferent to a story than be angry with one.

Yeah, in the long run, regardless of which path is better, the entire story is just bad because they really didn't put the effort they should have. Which is sad given that I think everyone had high hopes for it.