Why Fire Emblem 4's Inventory System Rules 

As someone who hasn't played FE4, I really appreciate this. I could definitely see an indie game using this system to stand out from other SRPGs.

The only change to the inventory system I'd like in a remake is having village items be given to a character of your choice or dropped on the ground, so blind players can actually choose who should get the Speed Ring or whatever. Being dropped would require the recipient to come pick it up personally, so it'd probably be the less gameplay-affecting choice. I am somewhat confident that a hypothetical remake will preserve the inventory system, since Echoes kept Gaiden's one slot inventories and magic cast from HP.

The main issue is that anyone who plays the game blind might not know about the second generation. “Why give this powerful item to a healer who can’t use it?”

Sigurd’s silver sword is so OP when it gets that kill threshold

I LOVE the inventory system! Its really just a big game of "pass the paragon ring." I hope it remains in tact in the remake because the entire balance of the game revolves around the pawn shop and paragon ring. I would go as far as i hope everything in the game remains as is in the original. (except Dew, buff Dew...)

Great video and I love the system! There's an idea in modern Fire Emblem that more choices/resources = better, but ironically more freedom pushes all units and strategies closer together to an "optimal" level. Lex for example would be an absurdly good user of the Pursuit ring and Brave sword if he could use swords... Instead, you have to work out having him use axes and how much you want to give him to make the best use out of them, like the skill ring + extra kills, he doesn't need the exp but both those things would give him a solid crit rate. My first run I did this and I found both Lex and Johan benefitted from that choice, with it's fair bit of drawbacks towards getting crit on other weapons. As you get better, more opportunities make way for you. For example, usually I have a strategy to give Ethlyn the bargain ring for Leif to buy/sell Paragon freely without hindering himself or other units (Ex: he can buy Paragon for Chapter 6 arena, sell it before the end of Chapter 6, then let other units buy it for arena and sell back again for him to use it for chapter 7 if he needs it). I just found that gen 1 I didn't make much use of it and wanted to see if I could change that. I also like to try and give Lachesis Paragon immediately, which is high effort but makes promoting her in Crisis in Agustria very quick. I also wanted to get Alec or Noish promoted for Chapter 3, but that's hard to do because Noish I make him spend money on the pursuit ring and Alec just sucks at arena stuff and needs more map exp. Dew would also like the pursuit ring and he had a ton of extra gold, but while HE can use it freely, Noish cannot, meaning Noish loses 20k gold in value each time I let Dew use it. My solution? Give Noish the bargain ring! with 40k gold (easy by flooding him with gold in Prologue and Chapter 1), he can easily afford the Pursuit ring and have enough for Paragon when need be, while also giving him AND Dew the luxury to freely sell the pursuit ring and pass it around back and forth. With Dew having extra gold though, I could get Lachesis to buy Paragon and return staff whenever, so I got Alec to get the Paragon ring! Ethlyn wasn't missing it since most of her exp comes from staff spamming and as long as she buys it back before she leaves at the end of Chapter 3, Leif will be fine (Quan also holds onto his gold for a lot longer). The result? At the end of Chapter 2 I had Alec, Lachesis, and Lex promoted, Noish and Dew both got Paragon for the arena in Chapter 2 and 3, because I didn't put Lachesis in harm's way I got the Knight Ward for later use, and Dew could use the light brand and pursuit ring against the bridge of Pirates in chapter 3, snowballing more gold for my army! This isn't exactly a fast strat, but it was very cool and fun to pull off! A couple of other tricks I'd like to note... -Make sure to plan not only who you want to get the Paragon ring during beginning of map arena stuff, but also who will have it at the end of the map. This effectively lets them use it twice in the arena for the price of once. Especially good with Quan from Chapter 2 to Chapter 3, Tailtiu from Chapter 4 to Chapter 5, and one of the slow to develop units in gen 2 (Dermott, Lester, Tine, non-forseti Arthur, Leif from chapter 7-8 specifically) -Theif sword!!! You basically summon 5k gold out of thin air from spending one extra turn to deal with a bandit (lose 500, still a net gain of 4500 gold) -Don't go halfway with everyone! You have more than enough resources for everyone to promote before the end of both generations, but not if you try and spread out resources evenly. Between resource availability (map kills, Paragon ring, good weapons) and the Pair-Up system (Sharing gold, skill/item inheritance, etc.) and how thieves work (pass as much gold and ONLY as much gold as they hold), you should be picking units to get beefed up early so other units can get their resources at a time where they're less contested. May comment with other thoughts later, but generally me gusta

I understand why some people dislike FE4's pawn shop system, but I think that the game is for the most part designed around it. I much prefer a system I dislike that is at least designed around as opposed to something like tacking on a trading system to FE4 thus making things like thieves, marriage, arena, etc moot. However, I don't think the pawn shop system makes much sense in universe. In addition to making everyone greedy, it also mutually benefits Arden and Noish/Lewyn/Ethlyn to just sell the Pursuit Ring for 30K as opposed to getting a third party involved.

FE4 really has an interesting system honestly lol

I think the Weapon Growth system is really good in this game. A lot of people end up with Sigurd's silver sword at 50+ KOs near the end of Gen1, but you can focus any weapon in this way; getting started on a magic sword's points earlier on can be very rewarding. You might ask why Azel would use his Fire Tome after others become available - the stats the weapon has are worse across the board than nearly every other tome, especially weight - and the answer is that it might already have racked up 14 or so KOs, meaning it is closer to granting crit to the wielder. Also, a neat thing that the way items are traded in this game does, is make it so that automatically repairing your weapon isn't always correct. That Brave Sword is a lot less costly to move across units when it's got 19/50 durability, for instance. Clever use of the Thief Sword is really where money problems become trivial. Sword usage is almost ubiquitous amongst fighters in your army and the bandits that roam around attacking villages carry big purses.

I consider the way the critical system works in FE4 combined with the inventory system, and particularly the way units inherit weapons, to be a masterstroke of game design. It has its issues, but it makes weapons feel special in a way no other game I've played really has. Tons of games give you weapons with storied histories, but in FE4, it feels like you're watching that story be told. A regular silver sword that was used by a first gen unit and built up some crit stars ends up feeling more special than a lot of regalia weapons in other games. Being told that a weapon is old and special and has done important things in the past is cool, but it's so much cooler if you actually do that yourself.

I have strong doubts that a remake would keep the inventory exactly the same. Naturally it would be ideal, and I can see.them keeping the no trading thing. But they might implement something like selling between units or a buyback from the pawn shop that keeps prices lower.

Fire Emblem 4's inventory system being so limited is the reason why the mechanics and weapons you get can get so outrageous!

Man there's been so much high quality FE content recently. Awesome video

I loved FE4 and had heard how strategically rewarding and meaningful its inventory system was. I feel like that’s only true in theory. It doesn’t consider the boatload of gold you get in the arena every chapter. The metagame of getting all your items where you want them ends quickly and has nearly endless room for error. The strategic part is finding ways to spend all your money before hitting the cap. That boils down to buying the paragon ring over and over to max arena gains. I honestly don’t think it differs much from other FE games with trading. It mostly adds a lot of unnecessary menuing.

I played FE4 semi-blind, using a spoiler-light guide just so I wouldn't miss secret events and recruitments. I played through almost the entirety of gen 1, up until Ethlyn leaves, before I learned that selling items lets other characters buy them, and I only did that because the guide recommended moving certain items that you wanted later like the pursuit ring onto her and I had to look up elsewhere how to do it. I overall like the inventory system in Genealogy for the game that it is, as we really wouldn't have gotten the way it turned out without it. I wouldn't really like it if it showed up in other FE games unannounced and without the suite of other systems to justify it (rings, inheritance AND crit stars to name 3 off the top of my head), but as a unique mechanic for a unique game, it does its job very well. I just wish the way the pawn shop works was explained to you in-game.

I am in love with how FE4 deals with Inventory and Money. Imagine having one army with 50K gold versus each unit/character having amax 50K gold that they can have. It's much easier for me to manage who has how much money and I don't have to worry about not having enough money to repair something like a Heal staff. When I first heard of the Pursuit Ring during my second playthrough of FE4, my plan was to give it to Lewyn and then give it to someone else, because Lewyn does not have Pursuit and I WANT him to get it. Giving it to Leif is a pretty good idea, I like it a lot!

One thing you didn't really talk about was that weapons do get a critical bonus after you use them more than 50 times, it makes Seliph's silver sword essentially a killer weapon if you used Sigurd's a lot. That being said, it is somewhat annoying that it encourages juggernauting to just make one character really powerful with a single really strong weapon instead of encouraging a more multiplicative strategy. Perhaps a better way to do this would be to cap the amount of weapon stars a character can get on a single map?

Hope to see more FE4 videos

Fe4 isn’t my favorite game in the series per say, but I played it for the first time in 2022 and I have to say the story blew me away and I do have a soft spot for the game. That being said, I believe IF they remake fe4, they WILL fuck it up. I don’t think modern developers understand what made classic games good.

The first time I played FE4 I was so baffled by the lack of trading and some mechanics, but I learned to love them as it works to give not only an unique identity to the game but also fits the game and its world, and it does bring some critical thinking besides "horse goes brr"

I hope they include a trade system, I hate using the Pawn shop, even Thracia has the trade system for gods sake

I gave first gen pursuit gen to lex and paired him with Pattys mother (i fogot her name) then patty sold to yohalver (axe cavalier). He did became almost as good as his uncle Lex.

so true

Kinda makes sense that it didn't make it to the west.

I've only played the gba games and tbh all the inventory planning and management before game play felt cumbersome to me and i just want to get to fighting so I'm not sure if this is for me. I do like the idea of a family heirloom though. For the gba I never bother with supports so never cared for characters to get married but here it makes a difference. I also always avoided using the arena in the gba games because it made the game easier but here it sounds like you need to go to the arena to get money.

I think it's good that the system is best used after the player knows what they're doing. The player shouldn't know everything on their first run, that's what keeps it interesting. This keeps the player thinking about the game and increases replay value. This also makes the game more interesting socially because now two people can have different but similar experiences to converse about.

Personally, I think that's just another grind. If the arena is the best way to get cash and you need cash just to trade stuff around, then you'll just wind up with overleveled units while trading things you've found on the maps. This also punishes you when you have to put an item on a thief or healer, as they are unable to effectively use the arena.

It doesn't make Gen 2 too hard to play blind/put a lot of thought into inheritance items, right?

Honestly, having played mostly through fe4, and being a huge fe fan that really enjoys the story and characters of the game, I strongly dislike the inventory system. It doesn't increase the fun for me, it makes it far more difficult and tedious. But I wouldn't want a remake to remove the system for people who enjoy it. Personally I'd love a remake that had a choice for the classic inventory system or a modern one, just as they have customizable difficulty and permadeath options in modern games. I really think the ability to customize your level of challenge in the more recent games is a great thing.

I would be hyped to buy a remake of FE 4 as long as it is faithful to the original.

i think that is one of the worste feature of FE4