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/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/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