New player:what's the fire emblem? Veterans: we don't know. It keeps changing

Sacred Stones is my favorite for new players. GBA FE are also some of the easiest games to emulate, which is nice

Three Houses is an amazing standalone game to give someone who has never played Fire Emblem before, but it's a very awkward gateway to the series as a whole. I've gifted it to three different friends on this basis, and all three of them adore it, but only one of them went on to play and enjoy the other games afterwards.

God if I was introduced to fire emblem through fe6 I would never have touched another fire emblem ever

tbh SS is definitely easier for first timers due to more coherent UI, shops between levels, and the overworld for optional grinding

Path of Radiance was the first Fire Emblem game that I played. Highly recommend it as a starting point... if you can find it. I think it's the easiest Fire Emblem game that doesn't let you grind for EXP, so it won't make a new player develop bad habits as easily as some others could.

I was introduced with Fire emblem engage. Pretty much new here lmao. Personally for me I found the introduction to other emblem characters to be really cool even though I’m missing that joy of seeing old fe characters together. It makes me look forward to meeting each one of them in their games and seeing their story. It feels like a good beginning that way since engage can be the roots to a tree you can branch off to another fe game from a emblem ring character you got interested to

Before watching, I'd name Blazing Blade as the best introduction to the series just because of the extensive tutorial.

Whoever captured the footage deserves an award or something for those weapon names "Vaike Katti" is absolute genius

Tear ring saga is obviously the best first fire emblem because there is a page in the stat screen with movement costs.

Awakening was my first game, and I'd definitely recommend it as a starting point in the series, but I definitely agree that it teaches bad habits: to this day I bunch up all my guys in a little mass and make my faves fight side by side. awakening pair up is just too broken lmao

thank you for showing the game you're talking about as you're talking about them, its something i rarely, if ever, see in these tier list videos, a small touch but its very appreciated as i no longer have to skip the ones i dont know or go back and forth between the video and looking up each one on my own, also its always fun to just have something to look at other than a still screen

As much as I hate Roy for being as weak as paper, he’ll always have a special place in my heart for introducing me to the series. I loved playing as Roy in smash bros and was curious what his game was like so I bought a fan translation cartridge off of eBay. Now almost 3 years later fire emblem is my favorite game series

My vote goes to Sacred Stones. It's easy but not (generally) braindead, the plot is completely self-contained, the short campaign and the route split encourage at least one replay (possibly on a higher difficulty), and (IMO) it's just overall a very "vanilla" experience which sets reasonable expectations for the rest of the series, both in story and in gameplay Also it's a GBA FE, which means it both looks good and is easy to emulate

If I had to hand a newcomer a FE game to play, I'd give them FE7. Easy to pick up, has a detailed tutorial, and an overall classic experience. It represents what to expect from a Fire Emblem game at its core.

Path of radiance is arguably the best starter game. It has most of the mechanics seen in most fe games. The maps are simple and straightforward but typically work pretty well. The bexp system is a great way to encourage new players to pick up the pace. The skill system is pretty interesting but simple. The main character is actually a good character. The animations and sound effects are very good in my opinion. It has arguably the best overall story in the franchise with an extremely well written cast. The base is arguably the best unit management system ever. The game is pretty flexible to the point you can get away with using any character you want. The only real knock i can think of is that combat takes too long to load.

Awakening was my first game in the series and I can confirm that I spent a disgusting amount of time grinding my units to the point where I got bored of the lack of difficulty and never ended up actually finishing my first playthrough.

My first game was Shadow Dragon and tbh, I'm really happy it was my first. It had a protagonist I was familiar with after playing brawl, was a remake of the first game in the series, and had a lot of the qol that helps make the modern games approachable. But if I started with a game that had casual mode or time wheel it might have made it too difficult to go back to the older games. Shadow Dragon throws a ton of units at you so losing them never really stings that much, and idk if I'd be willing to give something that didn't have casual mode in it a try if my first game was Awakening. It's a really big mental barrier to overcome.

I wish more franchises had people like you that make thoughtfully put-together lists that aren’t about which game is “better”, but rather which game is “easier for a beginner to appreciate”. Really enjoyed this, I’m going to check out some of these games now!

I had awakening at the top of my list for a while because it was readily available on popular original hardware, but thats not the case anymore :/

Cool video Mekkah, definitely a question that comes up all the time and now this video can be linked as an answer.

Started playing FE7 recently since it’s on the GBA expansion for Nintendo Switch Online and it’s my first Fire Emblem game. Really enjoying it so far and I started with Lyn’s prologue story which was super helpful to learn the mechanics and get used to it being so text heavy. Now I’m really invested in the story. Also in terms of accessibility, (this may be controversial but…) the ability to create suspend points and rewind time with NSO’s emulation software is pretty helpful if you make a bad call and lose a valuable unit from a stupid mistake.

Just got to the end of the list and I really like it. I agree with basically all the things you said about each one.

Three Houses is what convinced me to play older FE games actually. Most veterans probably won't like it, but I play Fire Emblem almost entirely for the story and world building. Fates and Awakening were my actual first games and I nearly gave up on the series cause I disliked their stories that much. I have warmed up to Fates Conquest due to fun gameplay but I just cannot get behind Awakening. If not for Three Houses, I wouldn't have discovered gems like Genealogy, Thracia, the Tellius games and the GBA games. For that, Three Houses has an eternal special place in my heart.

This channel is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. I love forgetting it exists so when it pops back up randomly i get all excited to go watch the backlog of things I’ve missed. Idk anyone else irl who loves FE lol

This was a neat video to watch as a veteran to the series, and I agree with a lot of the points! One of the things I've found with getting people into FE that you skipped over a little (which is funny because it's a huge element in your other tier lists) is "availability"! Even though the Nintendo PC is always an option, telling someone to download a program then download the game itself isn't always the easiest thing to sell, especially since it's just a little bit sketch. It's why I'm super glad Nintendo added FE7 to the Switch virtual console, but there's still a huge "availability" issue with FE in general, which is why FE3H and Engage might deserve a little bump just from being more "available", even if they aren't the most "representative".

32:05 I can't wait for the 20 part series on the best order to play every fire emblem game as a new player

I would say Shadow Dragon is the one I would recommend the most to a new player. It’s the one I started with, it stars a character that almost everyone will know, and it’s also one of the hardest to go back to if you play some of the other games first due to the lack of features. The GBA games are also solid choices. Sacred Stones is still probably my favorite FE game.

Radiant Dawn was my first entry and I was so confused. I loved it though. Especially because it had a mage lord.

Fates: Birthright is for new players, Conquest is for veteran players My horny ass picking Conquest because of Camilla:

Haven't seen this yet, but I was introduced to radiant dawn... I was in for a trip 😂

Cool video, very helpful for starting discussions and for providing some guidelines to new players who want to start the series. However, I have two main issues with the criteria of this list as a whole: 1. what do you define as "normal fire emblem"? As we get later into the series, there are more and more games that diverge from the GBA/fe3 standard gameplay, to a degree that I don't think is very different from what fe2/4/5 do. So, aside from fe6-10, I think the series as a whole diverges too much to be able to consistently rate things as being "normal fire emblem" or "not normal fire emblem" without any bias towards any particular game. 2. I don't agree with how things were rated based on being sequels or midquels. Personally I think fe12/5/10 are pretty similar to fe7 in terms of how much you actually need to understand of the previous game to understand what's happening. These games were all still made with new players in mind and provide details new players may need for important context. Unironically I would think that skipping fe4 entirely and only playing fe5 is a completely fine thing to do, as fe5 is interesting enough as a standalone story and also isn't the same story we've seen in FE 4000 times. Anyway, I agree with a lot of the basic sentiment of this video, but I just disagree on some things.

FE 9 is utterly fantastic. It's true, it is one the easier games in the series but it is also one of the strongest games in the series. Sacred stones is fantastic as well.

I do think one thing that makes Engage a good starting point that wasn't mentioned is the paralogues, which are maps from older games and almost function as a sampler of what else is in the series. And I have seen a lot of people play Engage without knowing the older games and the emblems being unknown characters doesn't seem to bother them and actually seems like a good introduction to those characters and make them want to see more of them. And with both Switch games, I think them simply being the most modern games is a good selling point on its own because they will potentially be an easier transition from other modern games, like BotW being a good first Zelda game even though it's very different from the rest. I don't think differences matter too much because if you fall in love with the series, you're much more willing to invest in learning other systems in other games. That was the case for me and others I know. The differences in older games from Three Houses was interesting to me, not a barrier. That is anecdotal, of course, and I understand mileage will vary.

My first fire emblem was the re-release of the first fire emblem on switch. Which was definitely a learning curve and then I jumped to three houses, then FE 7, then Engage. Absolutely determined to continue playing this series as out of order as possible.

"If you prefer the gameplay of 3H to the rest of the series, go play Persona instead" Me, read for filth:

I started with Fate Birthright, then Fate Conquest, then Echoes which I really loved. And now I'm on maddening Three Houses. The most awkward thing about getting into the games for me was getting screwed over with growth RNG and being unsure if that's how things are supposed to be... Especially if you start on higher difficulty.

Personally I always recommend games in pair in case like me you completely fuck up in the first game So awakening with birthright as the replacement And Fe8(which is just more polished than fe7, on top of being shorter) with fe7 as the replacement Also agree with Mekkah about TH it’s a very conditional game because of the monastery and it’s tutorials aren’t good and there is far too many systems I personally wouldn’t put PoR in S tier but A tier, you’d want to recommend a well rounded game and PoR is just not good looking with far too long animations, you shouldn’t have to tell someone to just skip a part of the game

I think I generally as a veteran agree with your list. But from personal experience irl three houses actually goes into S if I were to use my friends opinions. I never talked much about fire emblem in my cliques. But three houses is the first entry where people approached me about "this new game" of a series they never played. or "the first smash anime sword dude they know the game of". And it was very shocking for me seeing all this new attention to a series that for the most part stayed very small. Later online too in the art world even if people didn't finish all the routes and stuff it's one of the games i see a lot of mutuals pick up, play and write/draw characters of to this day. And I think that is pretty impressive. Also my boyfriend can't stand blazing swords, but he routinely sits along to hear and watch the supports and story cutscenes of three houses, he's definitely more interested in that to play than the ocean of GBA i typically indulge in. Of course your goal is to keep people in the series. So I wouldn't change anything then in those terms.

My girlfriend's first game was Thracia... many years ago, by accident, before there was an english translation of any quality or accuracy. It's a wonder she ever touched the rest of the series. My first game was Three Houses, and the second game I got interested in was Genealogy. At the very least that was a decent introduction to the series in that I learned very quickly that the games could be wildly different and I should not have expectations lol.

great list but I think FE3 should be a little higher

It's funny because I learned about FE from Marth and Roy through Smash Bros, but my real hands on actual experience with a FE game started with Path of Radiance which is my favorite in the series. It wasn't until I got older that I started learning how to emulate and eventually got to play some of the other titles in the series. I still haven't played all of them yet like Thracia and Geneology, but I am very tempted to start after watching your incredible gameplays on them lol. For starters, I absolutely agree with you about Sacred Stones as it's probably the easiest game on any difficulty IMO. It also has a good storyline, nice likeable characters and designs, easy simple maps, and on top of that a very cool class promotion mechanic which gives you two options instead of one!

Been on a bit of a walk down memory lane going back to old games I played on rental from Blockbuster as a kid. Just beat FE7 as it was my first Fire Emblem I played and I always wanted to come back to it. Did it on my old GBA with an EZ Flash emulator cart. It was so so good. Among my all time favourite experiences on the system and in portable gaming generally. Organically finding out about the support system while playing blind really stands out as a memorable recent gaming moment for me. Very excited to start FE6 to wrap the story.

I started with Sacred Stones over 15 years ago and I'll say that I've played and beaten every single game on this list except for Engage and (at time of writing) Thracia

I didn't know anything about FE until Fates came out and everyone was recommending it to me; I ended up buying the special edition that had all three routes and played through Birthright, Conquest and then Rev. After that I played Awakening which was pretty similar and liked it as well... but boy, was I surpsised when I found out that older FE games were quite different from these two. Ultimately I prefer older FE games (I have a soft spot for FE4 and FE5 despite not having played them myself unfortunately) so I definitely agree with most placements on this list! I think FE3H might be my favorite modern FE, but not necessarily for any FE-related reasons (it's so hard sometimes to play anything prior to 3H once you get used to gambits... this has led to several unit deaths in other games because my brain kept forgetting gambits don't exist in those lol).

Shadow Dragon (2010) was my intro, and it's definitely one of the best remakes and good for new players. I went from it to Sacred Stones and found the latter much easier, but also much more fun.

as a new player who has played awakening and fates, i am SOOOO happy to hear pair up isnt a part of the rest of the series

My first Fire Emblem was conquest. I was like 13 y.o and had no idea it was supposed to be harder than birthright, and I still enjoyed it a lot even though I had to start over multiple times because my units were just too bad for the endgame 😅 I can definitely see what you mean with the unbreakable weapons though : I played echoes next and got so used to this mechanic that when I tried awakening I hated it because I felt like the game wouldn't allow me to use my best weapons 😂 Honestly to this day I still struggle to enjoy FE games with weapon durability and no forge to fix them. And by the way, I 100% agree that Echoes is a perfect second game. It was mine personally and it's the one that really got me in love with the franchise. It's still one of my favourite now that I've played most of them 🥰

I remember playing awakening on my 3ds while in the backseat of a car in a looong ass road trip, I finished like half of the game that day and i was hooked after that. I remember spending hours watching streams of people trying to beat the game in the hardest difficulty

My first game in the series was Echoes and I entirely agree with it's placement. I love everything about it to death but I would've liked a better introduction to a series I now love so much.

I think you're underrating New Mystery, honestly. The tutorial is great, and the My Unit and Casual mode allow for that gentle onboarding the newer games do while still sticking closely to the classic formula. I also think the plot works perfectly fine if you haven't played the original, with Kris as the viewpoint character who knows about as much as you do as a blind player. Then again I'm also biased because New Mystery is in my top 5 FEs and I'm a huge defender of its story

before watching the video my picks would be: sacred stones or awakening with shadow dragon as honorable mention

Radiant Dawn was the first I've even heard/played of Fire Emblem; love the game to bits, but yeah, it's not the best start for new players. Still my favorite game of all time though.

FE7 was the first FE game I played, and I was so bored to tears by Lyn mode that I didn't finish it until years later. FE9 was the first FE game I finished because the entire experience is just so much better. FE7 is definitely a good choice for a first timer, but I still don't think the tutorial is very good. It's just unfortunate that FE9 is not as available and GameCube emulation is not as good, because otherwise I would recommend FE9 to absolutely everyone looking to get into the series.

I think I got a decent start. My technical first game was Shadow Dragon (11) for the Nintendo PC, but unfortunately it had comparable performance to Pokemon Scarlet at the time so I dropped it. I then got Birthright on release, and played it alongside a physical copy of Shadow Dragon. Humorously, NEITHER actually prepares you for how Rescue works. But bc both make such a big deal about reclassing, I did end up looking at character growths. Let me tell you, Warping a General Sedgar into the heart of Michalis' forces is a core memory.

I'm looking forward to hear the break down. For me personally I'd recommend 9, 11, or 13 to people depending on what they want out of a game

For what it's worth, my first game was the binding blade, but awakening is really what got me into the series, because there was no fog.

FE10 was my first one. Honestly, probably helps that I played it when it came out and it was easily one of the best rpgs on the Wii at that point

I was introduced to fire emblem through birthright and after that I was OBSESSEDDD. The story and the occasional animation scenes but I think the game play was what got me hooked. I blazed through birthright and tried conquest but I couldn't complete the last map so I just started revelation ;-; After I emulated some of the older ones cause I don't actually own anything that can play the fire emblem games [I had borrowed my friends 3ds and that how I discovered FE]. Now I have a switch and I'm very happy to be playing engage!

Radiant dawn was my first FE game. I bought it (or my mom bought it for me) when I was 14 and I had used Ike in smash bros brawl. The game was a genre that I had never done before, and I lost nearly all the characters you had in chapter 4 except for leonardo, illyana, and aaron. I had no clue you could reset to try again, so I would occasionally reset my game by killing micaiah and forcing a game over. 😂 Rage quit because it was too hard for me and I didn't know what to do. I played and beat Shadow dragon on the DS, thinking that it wouldn't be a grid based strategy game. But in the end, I enjoyed it, even though I was locked into permadeath by my absolute buffonery. I went back to RD and beat it. Then I got into the series more with awakening because, "they're still making fire emblem games!? No wayyy!" Now I have been an FE fan for 13 years.

I've actually introduced someone to fire emblem very recently. I discovered the series with 8 and 9, but for a first player 8 would be my go to. Yeah sure it has grinding but it helps a more casual player deal with parts of the game they struggle with. Fire Emblem is a very large series, the person wanted a chill game, FE 8 is a chill game. After that engage came arround (and became my favourite FE ever, granted I have far from completed all of them). And I gushed so much about the game they tried it out so as a second game. Of course they did mourn a bit the fact they didn't get all the referential stuff, but the various mecanics weren't too much and they had a lot of fun with it! In any case pretty good ranking.

Shadow Dragon was my first FE and I honestly think it deserves to be higher on this list. It's actually a lot more tolerable before you're used to the quality of other FEs. I never thought Shadow Dragon was a bad/mid game until I later played more and cross-compared. It also has the cool prologue which you only get when you play on Normal, which you'll probably do if you're new but not if you've played a lot of other FEs. Plus everyone is already familiar with Marth and it's nice to experience his story first.

My first game was technically fire emblem sacred stones. At the time I was in elementary school and was borrowing my dad’s copy. I played a decent amount until I accidentally lost a character and became so distraught when I found out they were gone forever. I didn’t touch the series till I was in highschool and my friend let me borrow his copy of awakening. I liked it so much that once I was done with it I booted up sacred stones again and beat it. Felt really good to finally beat something I was afraid of

I think another strong reason to rate Fate Revelations so low is due to the default cartridges for Birthright and Conquest can't access it. Without the eShop now you can only play it with the limited edition carts with both games.

I do like the grinding option of games especially for the options to catch up benched units, if I want to change my set up. If I decide I want to switch my team, I do have the option. In my run I trained every unit to 20 and then promotion which was cool to try out all classes a little bit.

I started with Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon. I got way more into Radiant Dawn kinda because it just looked really nice. The animations were cool and there were a lot of cool mechanics that felt good, like shop bargins and ledge height bonuses. There were also super cool strong units that just destroyed everything on the battlefield especially in part 1. Unfortunately this caused me to not train my Dawn Brigade units, so when the super strong units left, I got so few good units to fight with in part 3 that I gave up. That pushed me into the growth unit mindset for a while until I watched the pitfalls videos and learned to not care too much about mistakes. Shadow Dragon is game I think is way more fun now than when I first played it. Back then it felt really bleak. Characters didn't get much personality, the music had this emotion to it of a grueling march sometimes, the graphics felt muted and blurry. Shadow Dragon could have been an easier game, but the atmosphere was draining. Now I appreciate that feeling and kinda want to play through Thracia 776 with some of that same bleakness.

Sacred stones better be ranked high

You basically covered everything about Three Houses, and even this, but it was a double edged sword with how it brought in a lot of people. Sure some got into the series through it and checked out the other games, but it also gave people the expectation the series plays like a JRPG which is partly why Engage is so hated, despite it being pretty standard FE. It even gave older fans the idea that was the direction the series was heading. But that's a whole othet thing.

I think Shadow Dragon giving the player replacement units if too many characters die is a really good mercy mechanic that’s good to ease players into the permadeath system.

I've literally only played 3 FE games and only finished two. My first game was the Sacred Stones, and even though i knew there were more, i replayed that like 3 times. I find that it did teach me a lot on how to play FE, and i had the basics ready, but it also allows you to make mistakes. In the grinding department, i honestly found it great. I came from playing Pokemon (i was like 16 when i first played it), so grinding was second nature to me, and it didn't make me feel like i was bulldozing my opponents. Basically because i focused only on training my weaker units, and promoting them to have like an average power level between Units. I had my favorites but i loved them all as my children. In Awakening however (i played it on an Emulator and one day it crashed and deleted my file, so i never touched it again), grinding DID make my characters incredibly Overpowered very fast, which dissuaded me a bit on depending on them. Like, there was a child character (I don't remember his name), he was an absolute piece of trash in the battlefield, but i decided i would train it to be useful, i found his story compelling. Well, after two promotions, he was tied for second strongest Unit of my Army. Robin was also incredibly overpowered, to the point i refused to Promote them, because they WOULD break the whole game if they got anymore powerful.

Awakening was my first game, and while the Pair-Up mechanic definitely made it hard to move out of, I think it was a very fun spot to start. Sadly the next steps was Conquest then Birthright, and while I enjoyed Conquest on Normal Casual I absolutely got exhausted on how easy Lunatic Classic Birthright was and just didn’t even care to finish it. Eventually came around to try out Engage and I’m pretty happy, I’ll definitely turn around to 3H and then the classic games.

I'm a little late to the party, but I think a criterion that would've been good to include is whether or not it was released outside Japan. For example, despite Geneology having a great story and some really cool mechanics and design, the lack of an official Western release means the only way to play it and understand it is to emulate it and patch it with a fan translation. This can be done, but a lot of people are going to be turned off by the extra hoops you have to jump through to play it. Granted, most of the games without an International release aren't good introductions for other reasons as well, but I really do think accessibility is another important factor.

My friend made me interested in FE when he learned that Three Houses was coming out, he told me about it but I just sent that to the back of my mind at the time. Later, I find him playing FE7 on his phone and peered over him when we had breaks in high school. I saw him play two chapters and I thought it looked pretty fun. I asked him to hook me up with the emulator on my phone and ever since then, I would stay up late at night playing FE7. I later got Three Houses by biking across a frozen, snow tundra... Idk why I did that but ever since then, the rest was history, now I'm in love with the franchise. I'm currently playing Radiant Dawn after beating Path of Radiance recently.

As one of probably 3 people who started with Radiant Dawn... Yeah, I agree, definitely not a great starting point. The middle of that game is a meat grinder if you're not familiar with the series, and the story is incomprehensible. And yet, it got me absolutely hooked and is still my favorite to this day. It has so much great that is unique to it, and while I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone as a first game, I think that to people who are already predisposed to liking this kind of game it can be a great hook. I actually think that Sacred Stones and Awakening are by far the best entry points in the series because of the ability to grind. They really allow someone to play in whatever way they want, and allow you to fix bad situations by training up units you might like but who aren't very good, are hard to train, or have been neglected. I know the idea of your units being dead forever is not the selling point that it once was in the series, but I think these games allow new players attracted by that idea to play in a way that is relatively "safe."

Got bored recently and started playing all the game in chronological order and not going to lie, FE 2 is my favorite so far. (I have played 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, and 3Hs) I feel bad for anyone who actually tried to play FE1 that was one of the most painful games I have ever played, but atleast I can say I completed it.

pour one out for those who started with rev, great vid mekkah!

Started playing with radiant dawn. Fell in love 👌

Funny thing is the first FE game I've ever played was FE Heroes, after that I bought Fates/Conquest and I loved it. It was my entry to full FE games and Nintendo consoles too. Since then I've played Awakening, Fates/Birthright and Rev, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Three Houses and Engage.

My first fe was birthright then I went straight to conquest. In all honesty it didn’t feel much harder. But conquest was definitely shorter (due to no challenge/xp maps). I played 3 houses on 1 playthrough. And right now I’m partway through another and I’m playing revelations now too. (Yes all on the highest difficulty with permadeath…) Aaaaan I lost kaze and Gunther due to me forgetting how the pair up mechanic worked and I lost ignats in 3h due to me not caring much about him.

First game for me was sacred stones that game has aged like fine wine i still go back to it

I’m so happy you ranked sacred stone S rank. That is my first and fav game.

I remember the first time i played Fire Emblem, it was FE7, Lyn mode. I played 2 chapters said "Well that was boring" and never touched the game again for another 6 months. The tutorial was insufferably boring to me. I, generally hate these kinds of hand holdy tutorials, it was not fun for me. Doesn't help that i didn't like Lyn at all as a character, or her scrubs. Thank God i decided to give it another go sometime later that year. I fell in love immediately with Eliwood mode and never looked back.

I started with FE7 and 3Houses is amazing. In terms of play-ability and uniqueness compared between old games it really shines.

My first FE game was FE3 which... was an experience alright, but I still loved it

Three Houses looks very much more like a life sim than a tactical strategy RPG which is why I never picked it up.

I got into Fire Emblem after the launch of Smash Ultimate, but the very first game I picked up was Awakening. I was still fairly new to it at the time, and never got around to finishing it before Three Houses dropped. I’ve played an excessive amount of Three Houses, with it being my all time favorite game to date, and played all through Engage as well when it came out. Safe to say, I’m sticking around the Fire Emblem fandom for a loooong time :)

My first game was FE8 and the most confusing part about it was how the story led you to believe that chapter 14 where you attack Grado Keep was the last chapter. I lost my entire army to Vigarde and then used Ephraim as my last unit to defeat him which is when I realized Reginleife bypasses Vigarde's defense. Since I had lost everyone at that point I started a new game to restart my playthrough.

Fun Fact my first game in the series was actually Fire Emblem The Binding Blade even though I couldn't read Japanese at the time .. and I loved the gameplay. Actually learned a few first crumbs of Japanese from playing it and trying to understand the dialogue. After that I started playing Radiant Dawn and got kinda confused by all the characters I didn't know. Turned out it was a sequel so I ended up playing Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn back to back and ho boy, what a ride. Still my favorite games in the series and the only ones so far I would consider a must play.

I love how Mekkah didn't take in any of lessons of learning how to play Fire emblem when he started FE7 but after become a master at the game it required him to not take in any of the lessons to break the game.

One point about the older ones as well is that guides were common back then. I don’t know if the games were more intentionally difficult or hard to figure out in order to sell the strategy guide (think secret shop locations, buried item locations etc) but it wasn’t uncommon for friend groups to have at least one person with a strategy guide that we all shared. Idk if that affected game design in any way or not though. I think some modern games are definitely more confusing and hard to figure out bc Google exists and we can always just look up the solution rather than have a spot everyone gets stuck at and quits

Before watching, here are my brief thoughts on each game. Dark Dragon - Missing many QoL features that would make it more fun, a novelty to see where it all started. Japanese only, if you missed the limited Switch release. Gaiden - Same thoughts as the first game. Japanese only. Mystery - Still fairly dated, but more playable than it's predecessors. Japanese only. Genealogy - Not for a newcomer imo. Japanese only. Thracia - Since this is a side story during the events of Genealogy, probably not the best entrance to the series. Japanese only. Binding Blade - I like this game a lot, but it's far less beginner-friendly than the other GBA entries. Blazing Sword - This is good. It's relatively simple and has a (quite slow and annoying) tutorial. Sacred Stones - Probably the best game if you don't mind the graphics. It's relatively easy, has a tutorial, and has grinding if needed. Path of Radiance - I think this represents the series fairly well and is a pretty solid game. Radiant Dawn - Sequel. Shadow Dragon - Less dated than the other Archanea games, but I think it is a weak game for a newcomer. New Mystery - Sequel. Japanese only. Awakening - Solid start. It includes most of the mechanics that have been introduced to the series up to this point. Birthright - It's acceptable for a beginner from a gameplay standpoint, although there is some weird fanservice-y stuff starting to get added from here on out. Plus, I think the story is abysmal and would not recommend it to a newcomer if they care about that. Conquest - A little more traditional than Birthright, but same critiques otherwise. Revelation - Nothing wrong with starting with this route per se, but I wouldn't pick it first. Echoes SoV - This could be a pretty solid entrance to the series. It's modern enough that it's accessible, and it's much simpler in some ways than the other modern FE games. Three Houses - A good start if they really want modern graphics, but the castle exploration phases are a huge deviation from other entries in the series. Depending on the route you pick, you could end up with very few playable characters if you don't research how to recruit other students. Engage - I imagine any game IS makes at this point is going to be perfectly fine for newcomers, although I haven't played this one all that much yet. My initial impression is that it's closer to the core gameplay mechanics than Three Houses in in a few ways.

My first game in the series was FE4 via seeing one of my classmates emulate it at school... man, those were the days...

My first fe game was Shadows of Valentia and I definitely got confused when I played Birthright second, but it was enough to hook me in. I'm not missing that map design though. I shiver to think about those poison swamps.

My first was path of radiance. I knew I’d have to emulate regardless, and decided to look up which game Ike was in, since I was quite fond of his design from seeing him in smash. I have no regrets; I still think it’s the best starter FE game.

7 is made for newcomers, exept maybe the end which was kinda hard for me the first time. With the berserk guy and the puppets with some with decent crit and good speed. One thing about 7 beginning is that i lost units, and they came back, so i thought they always would come back leading to me losing some a lot later and saving with them still dead, and me confused why they did not come back. Marcus did also not help, with him first retreating and then dying later for real. I used Marcus way to much the first times which is why the endgame was hard for me i think since Marcus on normal holds up decently until the last chapter where everything suddenly destroys him

Giving my perspective as a Fire Emblem scrub: Got recommended Awakening, got trough 9 chapters and set it down. I didn't think the game taught me the games mechanics well, pair up felt very wrong as you reduces your army size for minor gains, support handling was a little wack to deal with. Also the people who recommended it, was also people who suggested broken weapon grinding, so i guess that also tainted my vision of the game and Fire Emblem. Also, just as a last jab, i renamed the country "Ineptia" for how bad their border control is, protecting their citizenry and secuirty at the palace. Picked up 3 houses, where i actually liked how they handled support and also giving you focused training in the school. Made me appriciate making tactical decisions in combat, and not "think" about support needing to be leveled. Thou i will agree the faffing about at church toke a little too much time. Recently played trough Path of Radiance and Radiant dawn, where i really REALLY love the bonus exp system, and i hate them for not keeping with that system, as i think it eliviates one of my biggest issue with Fire Emblem, the xp per hit/kill - feed mechanics. Good stuff. Story was cool, but i hated that i had to sit trough whatever the mess Radiant Dawn is in terms of story, pacing, plot and not to mention hot swapping armies. Dawn Brigade felt so bad to play as, with the bright spots being Jill and Nolan, and the rest was just NOT fun to use. Also, Red haired axe mommy carry did give it some huge plusses. Overall, i still think 3 houses has been my best experience in terms of Fire Emblem. Path of Radiance is just behind it, but it also gets some knocks by having to play Radiant dawn to get some answers from question brought up trough PoR and also there is no excuse for whatever those "pass and make ally army do the work"-maps with Dawn brigade. p.s. Tokyo Mirage Session is my favorit Fire Emblem game >:D

I love POR so much and it was my first FE. I completely feel you on 3 Houses about the school part. I just want to get in the action not run around the school for hours. I did like it at first but got burnt out fast because of it.

I started with Conquest. Huge culture shock but I loved it and I'm a massive series fan now

I actually have the opposite take on the world maps. I think those are the games I'd show people first because some people like to grind and like that sandbox kinda gameplay where you can adjust the difficulty of the game based on how much time you put in. So Sacred Stones, Awakening, and Three Houses are the ones I'd point people to first

Good vid. I can definitely agree fe7 is the best place to start.