cool thread, as someone who just got into this franchise very recently, I wanted to share my thoughts on this fantastic series. For reference, I've finished three houses, fates birthright, conquest and awakening. Currently playing revelation and path of radiance but i've also tried SoV up to part 3.
When/how did you get into Fire Emblem?
Favourite Fire Emblem game?
Hot takes?
Any cool Heroes units you've built?
Any interesting stories?
This is an interesting question. Despite my earlier mentioning about just getting into FE recently, I've actually had my fair share of experience with the series in the past few years. Heck, I completed FE 16 crimson flower route last year and thought it was only a 'good nintendo game'. Back then, I wasn't really interested in the mechanics or characters, I was just messing around playing on casual mode, recruiting and pairing up characters, spamming armored knights and completely skipping the monastery part. I was so uninterested in the core gameplay of FE that the random character endings unlike fates and awakening, caught me completely off-guard. In fact, it was enough to make me completely ditch the other routes for a while (curse you linhardt for cheating on lysithea and marrying dorothea).
Fast forward to October and I somehow started playing the blue lions route after getting my hands on the DLC. I thought that as long as I A support only the characters I wanted to pair up, I'll be able to get good character endings. Funnily enough, this was actually my real entry to the fire emblem series. Upon playing the game for the second time, I started to understand random level ups, attack speed, forging, enemy AIs, which classes / characters are good and which are bad. This gradually made me gain interest in the game but what really hooked me was the teambuilding part. Even when playing pokemon games, I've always liked the teambuilding part the best. I like to be picky and carefully consider types, abilities, items, stats and even random stuff like what generation they are in. For example, I will never pick Garchomp and Gastrodon in the same team because they're both ground types. They might have different roles, availability, movepool and weaknesses but it doesn't matter to the perfectionist inside me. So, the fire emblem complexity and building part just appealed to me in all aspects, enough to make me finish all three routes back to back in the span of like two weeks. Even after finishing three houses, I couldn't get enough and this is my story of getting into Fire Emblem.
I don't like a single Fire Emblem story, I just don't feel that the game's structure allows for compelling stories to be told. One of the best examples is with Jeralt's death in FE 3H. Three lines every chapter is just not enough for me to be able to sympathize and relate to the characters' emotions. This is done especially worse when the game randomly inserts a sad theme the next chapter. It felt incredibly forced and stiff to me. Permadeath is another reason why the stories are bland to me; it practically forces the developers to only be able to fully develop the lords.
Though I must admit I absolutely love the atmosphere and character building of three houses. With good personality foundations, voice acting, monastery explorations, support conversations and permadeath, it made me attached to basically all characters bar leonie. This is perhaps also why I found blue lions the best written route in all games, i just grew to love Dimitri so much that his temporary fall in grace made me actually interested in how they will handle his characterization. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed but this is a discussion for another time.
For the gamplay part, I think that in three houses, the wyvern lords are incredibly busted . 8 movement, canto, terrain immunity, synergy with brigand's death blow, alert stance, base stats....Like they're so better than the other classes (bar bow knight and falcon knight ofc) that for about 7 in 10 characters, wyvern lord is the way to go. They don't even have a real weakness because arrows can be neutralized by canto, dismounting, alert stance+ or just raw physical bulk. It made me feel like I have to go out of my way to use other classes and this should definitely be addressed for FE 17. (can't wait for it)
While I love permadeath, I think that in the older games, the lack of time traveling means it's very tedious to restart entire chapters. (Yes, I'm the type who can't let anybody die) This combined with my impulsive nature and my disgust for bad level ups mean I have trouble playing these games on classic mode. So, I actually play older FEs with casual modes, instead making myself a rule to restart any time a unit dies. Since casual mode allows you to save in-battle, you can be bold with your decisions as long as you obey to your iron rule of restartting. I feel like this is something that other people should try if they're afraid of classic's punishing nature.
Now I'd like to conclude my post with thoughts on certain underrated three houses characters that I think are great.
I think that for lunatic runs, constance is easily superior to lysithea as a pure offensive mage. Bolting is just ridiculously stupid, allowing you to snipe enemies from unthinkable distances. You can either run gremory / warlock constance for 4 boltings that can be further replenished by her major crest (30% activation I think?) or dark flier constance who has insane motility and range. Like just combine it with thyrsus and you can hit practically half the map.
Now unlike most people think, you aren't sacrificing any magic potential for using constance. They have almost identical growths and base stats after all, with constance actually having an edge in verdant wind, coming with one magic point higher. On top of that, constance gains access to black tomefaire in her warlock and dark flier classes meaning she will actually be hitting harder than lysithea. The speed growth advantage is also moot because mages can't double in lunatic.
This is not saying constance is better than lys of course; lysithea gets the broken warp at fucking B rank faith. However, if you're looking for a fully offensive mage, then constance is the way to go.
Initially I ran dark knight annette on hard mode and she was mediocre as a unit. However, in my BL lunatic run, I used her as a wyvern lord and boy, was she incredible. Flight allowed her incredible flexibility, allowing you to rally units from far distances and canto back to safety. Lunatic players will know just how amazing rallying is and flight doubles on her supportive capabilities. She isn't a slouch offensively, packing bolt axe+ and crusher to delete most magically non-resistant units. If you haven't tried wyvern Annette yet, give her a chance, she's easily one of the best units in the game.
Another incredible unit, her strength growth makes her vulnerable to being strength screwed and this is definitely a valid fact. In fact, I'd say blue lion ingrid is definitely only above average tier. But in out of house, she gets incredible base stats. If you spend time as a wyvern rider for attack level ups and get death blow, then you're pretty much set for an incredibly potent flying unit for the rest of the game. High charm, resistance, avoid and speed means she's incredible at softening up and dodge tanking shit, as well as a viable mage sniper with retribution. I also found brave lance incredible on her due to high speed, allowing her to easily get x4 attacks and completely neutralize her iffy strength growth. Luin is also vastly undderated. For such a powerful weapon, it's light and has high hit+grants a powerful combat art, making ingrid one of the most reliable units in locking down dangerous enemies.
This is it for me looking forward to seeing you guys' opinions as well. I haven't checked out the discord yet, but I assume it's dead?