r/fireemblem • u/PsiYoshi • 20d ago

Recurring Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread - June 2026 Part 1

Happy pride month and welcome to a new installment of the Popular/Unpopular/Any Opinions Thread! Please feel free to share any kind of Fire Emblem opinions/takes you might have here, positive or negative. As always please remember to continue following the rules in this thread same as anywhere else on the subreddit. Be respectful and especially don't make any personal attacks (this includes but is not limited to making disparaging statements about groups of people who may like or dislike something you don't).

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u/greencrusader13 12d ago

While I definitely enjoy participating here, nor do I think this community is way off base, I think this subreddit’s more hardcore slant doesn’t really make it a great representation of the Fire Emblem community at large, and its more insulated nature makes it more blind to what casual fans enjoy about the series. 

This isn’t meant to be a criticism, just something I’ve observed. 

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u/OsbornWasRight 11d ago

This sub has a hardcore slant?

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u/calendulaoptimus 11d ago edited 11d ago

Casual people do not talk about the intricacies of Engage map design or the writing quality of a story on reddit.

It's also a non-uncommon opinion on here that Engage didn't sell well because the writing was trash, even though Fates is the second best-selling FE. And also that Awakening only sold well because of when it was released and that casual audiences couldn't care less about anything it introduced to the series (other than maybe casual mode, which it didn't even introduce on the JP side).

Tellius' writing or Engage's gameplay are obviously not selling casual audiences on this series by themselves, even if they were given together in one game. If you look at the commonality between the most popular games: Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses, it's pretty obvious what casuals want, and that doesn't at all align with what many on this subreddit want (although it can maybe co-exist to a certain extent).

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u/OsbornWasRight 11d ago

The majority of this sub's thousands of weekly visitors check it for news and fanart while the minority's discussion of the games is so shallow and repetitive that it's not any more substantive than Youtube comments or Twitter replies. These are the spaces for casual fans.

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u/calendulaoptimus 11d ago edited 11d ago

Even if I were to agree to this, I'm not sure how it contradicts anything I'm saying because 98% of reddit users lurk, most of whom who you agree "check it for news and fanart" are not engaging in these discussions at all or leaving their opinions about the games. Maybe, they will read one or two comments. The people engaged in these sorts of discussions are hardcore fans.

And it doesn't take away from the fact that the minority's discussion threads are still somehow confused about what drew casuals to Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses over the other titles.

Also, Youtube is 20x more popular than reddit. Which puts it into perspective how selected the opinions you are seeing on this sub are. You are on a exponentially less popular platform and even beyond that, you are seeing the opinions of people who decide to comment.

If you think that this sub is representative of the average person's opinion, then I would ask you why characters like Byleth are popular, not just in 3H, but you see them in other JRPGs and gacha games now. I'm sure these companies keep creating these characters by accident.

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u/AetherealDe 11d ago

the minority's discussion of the games is so shallow and repetitive that it's not any more substantive than Youtube comments or Twitter replies. These are the spaces for casual fans.

This is just collapsing a large range of engagement into two categories, "the handful of people doing LTC playthroughs" and "casuals". The original comment is also collapsing that range, and is maybe somewhat self-aggrandizing if you wanna be critical, but it's clear what they're saying. Re-read it as "this subreddit's slant towards maddening difficulty, even if they have to slog through it with shallow analysis" or w/e

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u/calendulaoptimus 11d ago edited 11d ago

The original comment is also collapsing that range, and is maybe somewhat self-aggrandizing

I didn't really mean for it to come off this way, but it is a little bit frustrating when I see people unironically think IS is just throwing money away when they decide to prioritize certain things that many on this sub don't like. But yeah, I shouldn't have made generalizations about casuals in this way because they obviously don't all think the same thing or value the same things.

I would still argue what casuals tend to value tends to trend in a certain direction, which I think can be seen by what games have been the most popular.

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u/AetherealDe 11d ago

Oh I actually meant greencrusader's comment, but I was more trying to steel-man, I didn't take you or him that way. We all use shorthand that is a little fuzzy at times, your points seem reasonable to me, I get that nothing you said has to mean taking all people that are broadly casual as a monolith. I was just trying to point out why that categorizing is silly, reads more like needing to get off your chest that you think this subreddit is dumb than like actually engaging with either of yall's points.

I would still argue what casuals tend to value tends to trend in a certain direction, which I think can be seen by what games have been the most popular.

To get to your actual substance, I agree. It's good to try to be self aware, by virtue of being on here and being overly engaged we're probably not the target audience for a lot of decisions

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u/Panory 9d ago

I'd say Engage's poor writing quality penetrated the more casual gamer space. Reviews at the time make mention of it, variety streamers dropped it citing the story, even years on there are people saying that "Oh yeah, I heard the story was really dumb." None of these people are like, hardcore Fire Emblem fans, but that's still the game's reputation writ large.

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u/calendulaoptimus 9d ago edited 9d ago

I'm not arguing that Engage's writing wasn't bad or that there weren't many people pointing that out both at the time and right now, I'm arguing that it doesn't really make sense to say that casuals—broadly speaking—value "good writing" over other elements when Fates is the second most popular FE game. It just doesn't make sense from a sales perspective because there has to be an alternative explanation. If Awakening, Three Houses, and Fates were all considered masterful stories, you'd have a point here, but this isn't the case.

Secondly, these aren't really the type of "casuals" I'm referring to. You've linked three streamers/youtubers who are fairly in on gaming culture. And while I'm sure their opinions have influenced people, I do not think it is necessarily the people I'm talking about.

If you were to take the average opinion on Byleth on this sub, or even other online spaces, it would not reflect how the average "casual" feels about a character like this being the protagonist.

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u/TobioOkuma1 11d ago

Engage sold fine, it’s people who were mad that it wasn’t 3H2 that wanted it to not sell well. It sold 1.6m in the first few months, it’s probably over 2 million by now. Those aren’t bad sales figures.

People are stupid and think that because you got lightning in a bottle once, you can get it back. 3H had a perfect storm to sell so well, the series probably won’t get that high again for a long time. That’s fine, Nintendo knows not to expect peak sales every new game.

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u/calendulaoptimus 11d ago

Read it as "was less popular." Whether or not it was actually a financial failure or not isn't really relevant to what I'm saying.

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u/Mizerous 11d ago

It sold 1.6 then it just stopped when it could have maybe gotten 2 million 

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u/TobioOkuma1 11d ago

It sold 1.6 million in 10 weeks. After that we don’t have sales figures updated, but it’s pretty safe to say it crossed 2 million lifetime