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What do you think of FE6 as a whole?


Sand55
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So, I have to be honest here, I played Sacred Stones, loved it, played FE7, loved it, played FE6–did not love it. I found myself pretty frustrated while playing it, and a huge part of that came in the form of those darn ambush spawns. I got frequently annihilated by unannounced reinforcements. I just saw the thread in general Fire Emblem asking when people think a level has gone from hard to unfair, and the reinforcements in FE6 were my first thought. That prompted me to come on here and ask what you all think of FE6. Is it a good game? Does its difficulty make it better or worse? Or do you see it as difficult at all?

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There were for sure some issues with how the reinforcements arrived (if your playing the game for the first time) and some of the chapters take a long time. i like the characters a lot and i like elibe as continent. I also like the route system where who you train determines where you go. Gives for more replay ability content. if the reinfiorcements were different and some of the chapters werebt so time consuming then it would have been just as good as FE7/FE8 but they clearly learned from that mistake cause it has not happened again after that.  

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36 minutes ago, Zihark11 said:

who you train determines where you go.

Whhaaaaaaaaat!!?? I didn’t even know that. That’s flippin’ cool. I got two different routes over two playthroughs but didn’t know what was happening differently to choose one over the other.

On that subject, I neglected to mention that I still think there are some cool things about FE6. I think the snowy map with all the rivers that freeze over partway through is cool, and I like how there’s a ton of plot events that often happen right in the middle of certain levels; it makes it feel like there are more things happening than just your army fighting the enemy army.

Edited by Sand55
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16 minutes ago, Sand55 said:

Whhaaaaaaaaat!!?? I didn’t even know that. That’s flippin’ cool. I got two different routes over two playthroughs but didn’t know what was happening differently to choose one over the other.

There's two sets of routes in FE6, one is based on who you train and one is based on which village you go to in one chapter. Going ton one of two different villages on the western isles gives Roy two different pieces of info to work off of which causes him to investigate different things. The second route comes after liberating Etruria. If you've trained the pegasus knights more than the nomads, you go to Ilia, and if vice versa, you go to Sacae (presumably because one group over the other are more valued members of the army and can advise an invasion of their homeland better). So depending on what you do, you can see all four routes in two play throughs. But if you did the same thing twice for one of them then maybe you need to play through it a third time to get that fourth route.

Edited by Jotari
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35 minutes ago, Sand55 said:

Whhaaaaaaaaat!!?? I didn’t even know that. That’s flippin’ cool. I got two different routes over two playthroughs but didn’t know what was happening differently to choose one over the other.

On that subject, I neglected to mention that I still think there are some cool things about FE6. I think the snowy map with all the rivers that freeze over partway through is cool, and I like how there’s a ton of plot events that often happen right in the middle of certain levels; it makes it feel like there are more things happening than just your army fighting the enemy army.

yeah its a cool idea. 

19 minutes ago, Jotari said:

There's two sets of routes in FE6, one is based on who you train and one is based on which village you go to in one chapter. Going ton one of two different villages on the western isles gives Roy two different pieces of info to work off of which causes him to investigate different things. The second route comes after liberating Etruria. If you've trained the pegasus knights more than the nomads, you go to Ilia, and if vice versa, you go to Sacae (presumably because one group over the other are more valued members of the army and can advise an invasion of their homeland better). So depending on what you do, you can see all four routes in two play throughs. But if you did the same thing twice for one of them then maybe you need to play through it a third time to get that fourth route.

Theres pros and cons. in one of the villages you choose Gonzales is a lot lower level while with the other route he has the same stats but is level 11 making him significantly worse so if you wanna use him better to choose the village that gives you more growths. also if you like echidna and lalum or elphin and bartre. both offer cool unqiue scenes. i persoanlly like having elphin as a non playable character and lalum actually being a more important character then you would think.

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In many ways, a step back from FE5, but it simplified and stripped away some of that game's controversial mechanics. A very flawed, but still enjoyable game. 

It's the only of the GBA FEs to have solid enemy balance, but it's undercut by a ton of factors. 

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Personally, I think Binding Blade is a game that shows both promise and error. For instance, the hit rates on weapons are a little low, and there's a nasty tendency to put bosses on thrones and gates that adds to it. Between this and the longer maps and ambush spawns, it can be a bit inhospitable for the first time player. I know I had a nasty incident with an ambush spawn in the chapter that you get Sue the first time I played that made me rage quit.

It should be noted, this was the first game without Kaga, and it simplified many things (a bad thing if you ask fans of SNES FE), added the version of supports which was the basis of the latter day support system, and gave a rich cast of characters with more personality than the ones introduced in the first 3 to 5 games thanks to the support system. (Not enough of an expert on Jugdral to give a valid interpretation). The support system and large cast, as well as multiple routes gave a replayability factor greater than what had been in FE1-4 (not sure about 5).

To me it's a diamond, valuable despite it's flaws. Definitely deserving of a re-release, even if they need to give it some polish.

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I'm not all that crazy on it. FE6 is probably quite good for what it is but I mainly see the game as what it isn't. I think Blazing really negatively affected my enjoyment of this game. It bugs me that Hector goes down like a chump despite his future(or past) main lord status, I think Cecillia is a big downgrade as a mage general when compared to Pent and when I finally got to see the countries you didn't visit in Blazing they weren't as interesting as I'd imagined. 

And while a bit better at it the game has a lot of the same problems as Shadow Dragon. The cutscenes where Roy only talks to his jerk adviser and the boring princess are archaic and a step back when compared to Lyn, Eliwood and Hector bounching off each other.  The cast has a few characters I really like but its dominated by characters that don't interest me in the slightest and you can really tell it was their first time working with supports. Some supports are kinda bare bones while others waste their potential by being playful tutorials. 

But a lot of that is just personal baggage on my part. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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I'm not a fan of it. Storyline wise, it's literally a retread of a previous game (that being Mystery), which doesn't sit well with me. Gameplay wise, it doesn't measure up with its prequel, thanks to poor design choices and obnoxious mechanics, ambush spawns being the most prominent by far. It doesn't help that some of the gimmicks manage to be even more obnoxious than freaking Revelation, which tends to get bashed for its gimmicky maps (Case in point: 20x Sacae, 16x). This REALLY does not sit well with me. And the less I have to say about the hit rates, the better. Not to mention the overall balance is almost as bad as Genealogy's. Coincidentally, this game happens to oft be referred to by a moniker used to apply to that game - that being "Horse Emblem" -  and it fits since mounts are the only units who can get anywhere in a timely fashion.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Probably my favourite GBA game.

First all the things I dislike. The story is blander then tofu, ambush spawns, while not as bad as in fe12 and fe13 can still catch you off guard and the combination of low weapon accuracy and high throne bonuses can be the sourse of a lot of tedium.

But beyond that I really like the game. It's the game in which enemies are consistently threatening (unlike fe7 where there are parts that enemies hardly pose a threat and parts that they can easily overwhelm you) and because of that you are always on your guard. It also has warp a lot earlier then the other GBA games which can cut down the tedium one could experience in later chapters. I also like the way the game is balanced. Some may find this weird but I like the fact that some units are so obviously bad that one could consider it a challenge to use them. Best unit is also handled really well in the game. There is not a single unit that dominates the game from beginning to end. And while low weapon accuracy might seem like a bad thing, it also makes sword users a lot more viable then they usually are.

The cast is also enjoyable. I know that the cast isn't as deep or interesting as in other games, but they certainly are enjoyable and there are more then enough characters that have interesting supports. I think the reason why I enjoy the cast so much is just how varied they are. Unlike newer games in which the cast feels very one note, in this game, no character is alike because the variation in their age, home, class, design and supports.

Overall I consider it my 4th favourite game in the serie between fe12 and fe7. While I think that fe7 does a lot more things objectively better, I just have more fun while playing fe6. (it would be my 3rd favourite if you could use statboosters in the preparation menu)

Edited by LJwalhout
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Favorite GBA FE, the scale of the maps feel like actual battles, and FE7 fittingly for itself had lower scale conflicts fit it's lower grade (until the end) personal conflict as well. 

The balance might be wonky, but that's also typical with most FE. Despite it also being seize heavy there are usually side objectives in most maps, with villages, changing the route with training or visiting a certain village in one case, recruiting someone, etc. 

Plot is cookie cutter, because it's literally FE3 again, but with a new coat of paint, but it works for what it is. Some characters are cool, have some nice supports, shame supports were poorly implimented in this particular era (GBA in general had bad support mechanics) so a lot of people don't see them. 

In base shop is nice, as FE7 doesn't do that at all.

Getting Gaidens as rewards for completing maps in a fast enough time and then getting rewarded with Super Weapons and the full ending are also things I like, I miss Gaidens in modern FE, I wish they'd get brought back in some way.

I think it's difficulty is fine, as Normal is pretty easy, and hard can be challenging.

Edited by Jedi
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If any Fire Emblem is to be accused of "playing it safe", it's FE6. It's basically FE3 2.0. Being the first non-Kaga game of the series, you could tell they were afraid of deviating from what FE was known for at the time. They may have also been pressured by Thracia 776's financial failure to do better with the next installment.

The maps are huge, giving it a feel that a large scale war is happening. I like how there's different routes, so you can play the game 4 times and have a different experience. I feel like this is the hardest installment out of the GBA titles and you do have to think outside the box for some maps. Turtling may not always be in your best interest. I also like how involved we are with all of Elibe as well. It gives nearly every character that joins us a motivation for why they fight. Also, this game also has some of my favorite characters in the series.

I do wish the story included more characters though. Most chapters is Roy and Merlinus talking about the upcoming battle, meanwhile Gwen hesitates to tell something to Roy and takes her sweet ass time to finally tell us something important (takes her a chapter or 2 to finally get around to saying something, for instance.) Sometimes Elphin will show up and talk, which was nice. I do feel like they didn't integrate enough of the cast into the story. It would've been nice to see Roy talk to someone other than the usual 2. Characters that could've had more screen time include, but not limited to are Marcus, Lilina, Echidna, Lalum, Douglas, Perceval, Cecilia, Sue, Sophia, Miledy, & Zeiss. I know they wrote the story the way it is because of perma-death, but they could just change it to permanent retreat for these characters until a certain point (i.e. Lalum only needs to be alive for the Etrurian arc.)

I'm also not a huge fan of how absurdly long it took for some characters to support with one another. Some supports were fast, but I do wish there was a more streamlined way of doing this. I wish it was similar to how the 3DS games did it. At least how SOV did it. 

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1 minute ago, Dandy Druid said:

I'm also not a huge fan of how absurdly long it took for some characters to support with one another. Some supports were fast, but I do wish there was a more streamlined way of doing this. I wish it was similar to how the 3DS games did it. At least how SOV did it. 

I think this is the GBA game that'd benefit the most from a SoV style remake, just for finally getting it overseas and fixing the support issue.

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5 minutes ago, Jedi said:

I think this is the GBA game that'd benefit the most from a SoV style remake, just for finally getting it overseas and fixing the support issue.

I totally agree. I hope the director of SOV gets the green light to do FE6 since he said it was his favorite FE or his dream project. I'd rather have a remake be done by a superfan rather than work on an entry they were told to do regardless of how they felt about it.

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Great game for an informed player. I really appreciate a game that can create difficulty from fairly simple mechanics (although I'm a bit schizophrenic about this, given how much I enjoy Europa Universalis 4) and FE6 really shines in that regard, in my opinion, which makes it my favourite "difficult" game of the series (with PoR being my favourite "relaxed" game). Characters and gameplay are decent enough - fairly "basic" FE story with a few interesting aspects about it. I find that the supports are better than their reputation - sure, there's a few duds in there, but it's not like Dorcas/Vaida ore Ilyana/anyone are masterpieces of dialogue writing, either. ;): 

That said, it's really not a good game to play blind. The Gaiden requirements aren't too difficult to fulfill (inb4 obligatory "DESERT LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE" answer), but it's very easy to go over the turn limits if you're grinding supports or just taking it slow because you didn't realize that you're actually supposed to traverse the desert somewhat quickly. Some of the character recruitments are annoying because the game doesn't tell you beforehand (or not at all) who to bring to certain chapters. And while I like the map design, some of the gaiden maps are a bit dull.

Basically, I'd recommend every new player to read up the gaiden requirements and the recruitable characters (and maybe the two route splits).

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To me it feels like FE6 is a prototype to 7 and 8, and that's always turned me off on playing it.  Menu interfaces are more primitive, weapon hit rates are lower, swordmasters and berserkers have too much crit, horseslayers don't affect nomads and troubadours, Forblaze's spell animation looks weird, nobody blinks and only have one kind of closed mouth, and the music somehow sounds cheaper (such that I consider Going My Way to be the original song and Cath's theme to be nothing more than its beta version).  A balance patch can fix some of those things, but the rest still remain and they still turn me off enough.  Maybe the only way I'll ever play 6 is if it's remade.

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I think it is a pretty good FE it's like the basic core of FE alongside FE3 because they are just so simple and fun to play, I think it's one of the best FEs to play as a second, not necessarily to 7 but as a second because it's more challenging and might make ;layers better in the process, also I think it's maps are nice because they are long winded and epic, like Chapter 13. Others are annoying like Chapter 8 though.

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Honestly it is unplayable without a balance patch for me nowadays.

It is unbalanced in multiple ways:

- sword and magic outclass axe and lance

- earlygame is rough and almost unfair (chapter 7) while in lategame the enemy's level does not really rise anymore. Final map and boss are just dull as easy.

- staves are really poor since healers have absurd base magic combined with a mediocre growth

The soundtrack is one of the weakest in the series for me. Aside of Zephiel's theme and enemy phase in Bern nothing really stayed in my ears.

 

I enjoy playing FE6's redux hack because it makes everyone usable and has a senseful difficulty curve, but I could never get back to vanilla FE6 because of mentioned issues.

 

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Speaking of, I neglected to mention my take on the difficulty and the maps. FE6's brand of difficulty trends more towards frustration rather than legitimate challenge imo (I would consider it a perfect example of "hard for all the wrong reasons"). Regarding the maps, I just don't like the map designs. The game's too in love with long, winding maps, which gets really old really fast.

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Its a heavily flawed game with severe balance issues, and although I didn't mind the story, it is basically what FE3's story is. Having played SS and FE7 before, I also felt like this whole game was a sort of prototype. Or just really unpolished, but admittedly it was the first FE on the GBA so I can forgive it for that. Out of all the FEs I've played I'd honestly consider this to be the worst one yet.

 

T h a t being said, however, the game was still enjoyable to play through despite all its flaws. Its certainly not good, but its fun to play at least. I also liked some of the features such as route splits and how they were handled. The gaiden requirements were harsh (especially in the case of the desert chapter), but it added more challenge to the game at least. I also liked the whole Western Isles arc. The game also introduced supports, which was really neat considering the previous FEs didn't have it. It gave more personality to the characters.

 

It was also kind of fun to train Wendy

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It's okay. Gameplay is pretty good, but the writing and cast are rather lackluster. Not necessarily terrible, but it kinda is the weakest of the GBA games.

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FE6....is lowkey iconic, I mean it's the first game to have supports, and it also feels like the first game where like....set the FE gameplay on stone, it is my least favorite GBA game, but I find the maps to be fun, the story isn't bad tbh, I like the villains, I'm not crazy about FE6, but I do appreciate the direction it sent FE towards.

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