The Ideas of Fire Emblem 4 

It's so interesting how genealogy first seems like limiting the ability to double, critical, and trade is a bad thing, But then you realize how much extra depth it adds to the gameplay. Goes to show that sometimes less is more.

Too much customization makes everyone feel the same. There needs to be some limitation on reclassing/customization to make choices more interesting and make units feel more unique. 3H's class system is just a puzzle to get to wyvern lol. As someone who isn't a big fan of FE4 (I think it's interesting, but generally not fun to play), I enjoy hearing perspectives from FE4 fans since I find they tend to have a very different view of what makes FE good. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I think pursuit as a skill is one of the most interesting ideas fire emblem has ever had.since it takes something that every unit should have in other games and only gives it to a select few and buffs it on top of that since now you only need one more point of as to double.It turns units who would normally be outclassed like alec and gives them their own unique niche.Also doubling methods without pursuit are kind of rare with the only options being either accost or adept which are personal skills or brave weapons which you only get 1 of per generation.also another interesting thing is that because axes and lances weigh so much in this game it means that even with pursuit you likely wont double with them unless the enemy is using a heavier weapon so most axe/lance units have alternative methods to double like lex's brave axe.

One of my patrons linked this vid and I like it a lot :)

Great video. I really liked three houses but you nailed it when you said that characters lose their uniqueness despite having crests and personal skills. It’s human nature to lean towards the path of least resistance and what is optimal, so every character ends up with darting blow + death blow and using Lysithea to just annihilate everything. No matter how many times I play 3H, everyone always ends up the same. Compare that to Thracia, PoR or RD. Everyone has their classes, personal and class skills but the skill system requires important, limited resources. You only get 1 copy of each skill in Thracia so the character you put those skills on makes that character feel special and unique because it cost something. Something that can’t be replicated by “grinding more”: every playthrough feels different. And that goes for classes too, games feel better when you have to make choices and can’t ez mode optimize your way to victory every time.

I think the only thing I heavily disagree on is the difficulty discussion. I don't think going for high rankings are a good way to challenge the players, mainly because it forces the player to basically have a checklist next to them on how to get the best rank if they want a challenge with no feedback from the game until after they completed the map. What's strange is that fe4 has another way to challenge the player while still giving them in the moment feedback, the substitute unit's. By using the weeker unit's, you are making the game more difficult on your own terms, but your still getting feedback on how difficult it actually is. And if you feel the game is getting to difficult, you can always bring in a stronger unit the help you out of your predicament. Yes you could argue the same for rankings with aiming for a lower rank, but now you don't haft to keep a checklist or wait until the end of the map to see if you haft to reset or not.

Great analysis. I always thought that we consider FE4 to be super easy because a lot of people get hidden stuff (stuff like Pursuit band and the Knight Band) on their first playthrough and know which pairings they should try to get.

Hm! I gotta say... I agree, a modern fire emblem game with the inheritance mechanics of Fe4? It sounds like something I would give my soul to. While on the topic of inheritance... Something I always would have loved to see the children do in Fe4 is react to their parent's weapons, like hell, How does seliph react to Sigurd's Silver sword, which was gifted to Sigurd by the Alvis who is the reason Seliph's father is dead? A lot of fe4 enthusiasts always mention how the items make a character feel unique and changes their value as an unit. Yet, something I would like to see in a fe4 remake, or a full spiritual successor, would be having the characters react to the weapon and items they wield. How do the children Ayra react to the weapons that, most likely, have ended the lives of many and become able to seek the blood of their foes? What kind of value does fee give to the strength increasing ring that her mother left her? Or in some weird scenario, how does Ced think of his father as he holds a forsetti tome that felled entire armies some odd 20 years ago? Intelligence Systems has always had the knack to making the remakes of old games a tad _too_ faithful, should they decide to keep the item and pawnshop system it would be good, in my opinion, if they were to implement some sort of reaction to the items or an off hand comment. On the topic of the silver sword, it would be cool as all hell if there were some dialogue if Seliph faced Alvis with Sigurd's silver sword. All in all, amazing video, though maybe adding some background noise would promote the experience!

Totally agree with your video. It's also a shame no fe game went for the big maps.

6:03 omg you are spot on. ive thought this exact before and its the reason fe4 ranked is so ingenious.

I'm glad RU-vid randomly recommended your channel. This was a cool video, but the outro raised a question for me. Do you want future games to recreate the mechanics of FE4 exactly? I ask this because of the comparison made with how Awakening handled child units. I'd say it did try the idea, but it didn't recreate it. In other words, it had a different execution.

the fates reclassing system can be pretty overwhelming, but getting ridiculous skill builds in conquest requires careful management of supports, xp, gold, and seals, while in awakening you quickly get unlimited of all. Similarly to fe4, you have some very busted tools, but not enough to go around. Most characters will be fine staying in the base class line, but if you plan correctly you can end up with sol master ninjas or vantage nosferatu sorcerers

Thanks youtube for recommending this channel, finally someone talking about smaller aspects about the series.

3:23 top 10 photos taken moments before disaster

Isnt it the job of the game developer to create an appropriate difficulty, not on fans of a game to create their own rules as for what is difficult? A game should be balanced around its own mechanics. If you can beat a game without using a majority of its mechanics, should they have even been implemented in the game in the first place?

man. your videos are so good

Hey, what if in a remake of FE4, the class of the offspring unit was decided by the inventory of the parent.

when i was 10, I loved FE4 soo much that i learned almost all game mechanic with a language i never understood.

Awesome video!

Here before 500subs, your content is straight fire hope the community discovers and gives you the spotlight that you deserve... Liked this and you balancing classes in fe:st

Glad I found this, great video

FE4 .... easy? Nah. Forgiving, yes. But I guess it depends on what you considering a "failure" in the map.

Interesting overall. I do think the difficulty thing is kinda a sham. Ppl ask for harder difficulties, but always complain about them. And fan favorite games, even among older titles which your modern casual gamer wont have played, tend to be easy ones, or ones which can be very easy. (fe4, fe8, awakening, 3h)

Really love this video. I think it made me realize why Fe4 and FE14 conquest are my favorites. There is freedom, but the player is limited, giving the player space to play around while still providing each unit with a unique place within their respective games. Thanks!

To solve the difficulty issue they should make a customization AI that customizes the experience throughout gameplay and in subsequent playthroughs. Like in Super Mario 64.

Banger final line

great video

Oh c'mon the Home castle doesn't take THAT long, I'm pretty sure the battles last longer than being in the Home castle but for 3H yea I can see it taking longer

Everytime I look at a pegasus sprite on the map in this game: it looks like Falcor from Neverending Story.

Just finished the arena segment, and felt the need to comment. While I agree with your basic argument, “The castle is optional, the Monastery, skippable.” I have one big issue with the Arena specifically. It is heavily favored towards certain units. Sigurd, Quan, Azelle, and even Ardin tend to do fairly well in the arena. While characters like Alec and Noishe reach a point where the arena becomes an immovable wall. They can’t progress because they aren’t strong enough, but the only way for them to get stronger is to kill enemies, but their combat sucks so you can’t take that many risks in the main game. This creates a snowball/rich get richer effect for FE4 Arena. It also clashes with the way FE4 forces you to play. Some of the best Arena fighters are foot soldiers, who suck in the main game because only horse guys matter. But a lot of horse guys pale in combat comparison. They suck in the Arena, and you’re forced to use them in the main game. So a lot of the arena fighters won’t get anything special from their experience in the Arena, and their only real contributions are gold for Child preparation purposes. At least 3H is more friendly to the weaker units of its game. Even bad progress is still progress, where FE4 you either have some or 0 progress at all. In terms of Arena vs Monastery at the very least.

I disagree with the idea that rankings are a good way to establish difficulty. Not only do the games rarely tell you what are the exact steps you need to get a good ranking, but in the end, it feels like an empty mechanic. A "Good job!" from the game doesn't intrinsically give me anything new or that satisfying. Harder modes, for as unbalanced as they may be, are *extra* content, and wanting to see that content is an incentive for me to try harder difficulties.

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In terms of difficulty, what are your thoughts on casual/classic mode? I used to sort of disregard it, but I'm now starting to feel like it might be the better difficulty system. Rather than creating these difficulty levels that just end up being too hard or too easy, the casual/classic split keeps the same challenges and simply alters the consequences of failure. In theory, a chapter can be sufficiently challenging for a classic player who's trying to keep everyone alive without being TOO challenging for the casual player who doesn't have to worry about units dying. Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of new players having little way to know which mode is right for them.

WOOO

So I just beat FE4 for the first time a few days ago, after being a veteran of the localised Fire Emblem games for many years, and now I'm getting all of your videos recommended (they're very cool, I enjoy them a lot). I have to agree FE4 was very mechanically interesting--planning item trades and children (while trying not to spoil myself too much) was very entertaining. Characters felt unique in combat and skills made them perform very differently in battle, while as much as I love 3H I have to ask myself "why would I not just turn everyone into a wyvern?" My one disagreement with your video is the difficulty. Achieving ranks is a personal goal, yes, but it doesn't change the game in any way. I don't feel like the game is legitimately testing my skills and knowledge, and putting an effort to fight me and counter my strategies. If I fail at being good, the game won't punish me for it, it will just slap my wrist and say "you get a B this time." I want an actual challenge that will force me to think if I even want to consider beating it. I have to say, in these two regards, the FE that did it the best so far (in my opinion) was Fates Conquest. Gameplay-wise (we don't talk about teh story lmao) it is to me the best balanced and mechanically interesting Fire Emblem of them all. All characters have a default class as well as a secondary class they can switch to. In addition, characters can gain access to two more classes via an S support and an A+ support. Since skills are learned through classes, you are incentivised to plan in advanced for certain skill combos. Also the pair-up mechanic is not the random garbage that Awakening had, and you can actually plan your combats around it. There are also limited resources and in general very unique mechanics. And difficulty may be a band-aid solution for FE games, but I loved that Conquest Lunatic put so much effort into giving enemies synergetic skills that prevented mindlessly bute-forcing through. God I wish the story wassn't hot garbage because it 100% prevents me from calling it my favorive Fire Emblem game lmao. But at least in terms of gameplay, it is. Anyway, sorry for the rant. tl;dr I like difficulty beyond ranks and I think Conquest tackled most topics addressed in the video quite well.

gotta be one of the most complex rpgs I ever played. Fan of series as a whole. Like you can write a whole doctorate on it's narrative brilliance, two act system, controversial map design, skills, etc. A true Super Famicom classic.

FE4 is full of good ideas that are underdeveloped. For example trading is something that should be looked on. The way it's implemented in FE4 becomes silly mid to late game when friends and even lovers are incapable of passing anything to each other. "Oh what's that? Your weapon broke and i have a spare one? Here's the gold, go to the nearest castle and repair it". However it would be a good starting point for your army, when most of them are strangers to each other so they'll be reluctant to trade anything, but as the game progresses more options open up.

It may be true that the point of the video isn't "three houses sucks, genealogy is great." but it's true.

FE4's ranking system is not that good. Turn count is very easy to hit but experience is unforgiving and requires you to micromanage every unit. Experience in general is one of the worst attributes to rank on. It results in less tactical gameplay, not more. I disagree with ranking as a way to make the game harder anyway. Side rewards like visiting a village/recruiting a unit and arbitrary turn limits work better to encourage faster pace of play, with the former being more preferable. All of that said, I think there's nothing wrong with difficulty modes, and the series pretty much needs them considering the wide gap in skill among players. The real issue is that the hard/lunatic modes are poorly designed and play tested. They should design the whole game around the hardest difficulty and then just nerf the enemies for less skilled players, instead of doing it the other way around, as I suspect they do.

When you say the ranking system needs "some tuning," I think that's an understatement. From underutilizing promoted units to encouraging item hoarding, rankings as they stand outright encourage players to play poorly. They need a _lot_ of tuning if they're to ever be an accurate test of player skill.

See I get your point about the fun of striving for high ranks but have you considered Sigurd go brrrr?

Rankings are a hard deterrent in my case. I've never gotten very far in any fire emblem game, and seeing rankings come up kills my interest immediately. Being scored on performance for a map that I can't easily repeat just puts enormous pressure on me to grind and optimize every single map as it comes up, which is about as much fun as a don't-ever-get-hit-once-in-the-entire-game challenge that you never wanted to start anyway. I don't care that I can technically ignore them, for the same reason that I don't care if I can technically ignore the narrator constantly berating and mocking me. Which is more or less how rankings come across.

God I wish they'd tone down the free-form customization. Modern FE suffers so much from the fact that your units can reclass into anything, and learn any skill, while at the same time making it completely obvious that a particular class/skill/etc. is way better than the rest, making everything else feel terrible to use. As for difficulty.; the reliance in the more modern games on various OP gimmicks, like the engages, the battalions in 3H, the more powerfull skills, or the freeform reclassing, completly derails any attempt at creating balance, or dynamic challenges. The gimmicks are so absurdly powerfull that correct use trivializes maps. But at the same time, since things are balanced around players liberally using these mechanics, you regularly end up with maps that are impossible (or at least very tedious) without the correct gimmicks prepared. Modern FE feels like it focusses to much on optimizing the various disconnected gimmicks in the various menus using a spreadsheet, and like it forgot about the actual FE gameplay.

Bring back pursuit you cowards!

U seem to really not like random chance

FE4 is so easy, that even getting triple As is easy.

when you started praising fe4's arena I had to check if this was an april fools video.

"three houses is a very refined game" what the fuck

No the trading is just clunky. If you can't double, the game is just slow. Crits, okay that one is fine.

your wrong about fire emblem 4's difficulty and item management since it is completely broken because pursuit. pursuit was meant to stop you from just sending one unit in to a group of enemies and one rounding, every unit with pursuit was meant to have a downside or weakness and that including Sigurd originally since he was meant to be foot locked until promotion like sleigh but they changed it too late into development/ ran out of space on the cartridge to fix it. gen 2 is also a completely imbalanced mess even without child units since you have Ares, Shannan, alteana and hawk to get you through if you didn't pair anyone up. even a ranked run isn't that hard just luck dependant since you just got to pray you don't get fucked buy the ring and have to restart an fe4 and that could be chapter 2 which is the worst chapter in series in my option since its just a slog to play. the item game is cool do but like you clearly know nothing about three houses if you think fortress knight is that bad because its half decent since you can survive a round of combat on maddening and warp. rescue staff glitch exists as well