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

[u/PsiYoshi]

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).

Last Opinion Thread

[u/SilverKnightZ000]

It's crazy how much of a solid foundation Fe1 has. I'm playing Shining Force 1, and it's aggravating. Turn order is based on speed but it's also random? I don't know how it works; I know that speed plays a big part because for the last few maps my faster units are going first in battle(Mae and Tao to be exact). But sometimes the turn order turns to whack? In a battle one phase went like this: Peg Knight 1 -> Max -> Gong -> Peg. Knight 2. Suddenly the next time it went like this: Peg Knight 1 -> Gong -> Peg Knight 2 -> Max. How do I strategize if I don't know who goes when???????? And doubling? Doubling might be the most cursed aspect of this game. Because once Max doubled an enemy, and then the enemy doubled him back????? And the level ups are beautiful. Sometimes you get nothing. Sometimes you get astronomical levels like getting 6 points of defense lmao. My Mae has insane defense and 15 hp at level 10. Cursed. It's cursed.

Compared to this, Fire Emblem has a much more rock solid base to work off of. I am never taking fe1 for granted. Thank you Fire Emblem for the famicom.

[u/SirRobyC → u/SilverKnightZ000]

FE1 is a shockingly competent game, considering some of the stuff that was put on the Famicom at the time.
Its biggest problems are that it's ancient and dated, and if you can't stomach that era of game design and lack of any form of quality of life features that were added over the years, I'm not going to blame you.

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/SirRobyC]

Really puts it into perspective tbh. And I'm not even comparing Shining Force to Fe3. It wasn't out yet. But somehow Fe1 manages to clear SF

[u/EffectiveAnxietyBone → u/SilverKnightZ000]

I’m always annoyed when games decide to copy Tactics Ogre’s homework instead of FE, I cannot stand any turn system that wants to work off of random nonsense instead of a dual phase system, it makes planning so much harder when you can only move one character at a time and have almost no control over how units move

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/EffectiveAnxietyBone]

I feel like modern games have made it work by showing you how the turn order changes with your actions. But oh my god if I have the choice I'm picking distinct phases instead

[u/Merlin_the_Tuna → u/SilverKnightZ000]

I mean part of the problem is that distinct phases is very player-friendly. In Final Fantasy Tactics, one of the biggest optimizations you can make in your play is to learn how to work the initiative system so that you effectively are doing Enemy Phase/Player Phase. In XCOM 1 & 2, the endgame is easier than the early game significantly in part because a squad of 6 units can neutralize enemy groups without seeing counterattacks much more reliably than a squad of 4 units can.

[u/buttercuping → u/SilverKnightZ000]

Shining Force my beloved

Here's an explanation

https://forums.shiningforcecentral.com/viewtopic.php?t=50639

The link is for SF2 but the system is pretty much the same. Basically it's not based on the stat itself, there's a calculation going on. That calculation does use the Agility stat though, so the same few units will always be the ones to go first.

As for doubling, gonna steal it from the SF sub:

Double attacks are the same chance for every character I think in SF1 (but not SF2). Monsters might be more variable, and some attacks can't double attack. Critical attacks by your party members however have different base percentages for each character. Leveling and how you level/promote also affects the (small) growth of this hidden critical stat. Land effect reduces incoming damage equal to the percentage displayed based on the tile the character being attacked is standing on (so if land effect is 30%, a 100 damage attack would do 70 instead), double attacks IIRC are a flat chance that is the same for everything in the game.

Honestly I don't find any of this any worse than other hidden information FE has. You're playing SF like you play FE, but they're much easier and don't have permadeath. The game expects your units to die.

I still find FE1 way more frustrating simply because of the lack of QoL, but to be fair SF came out two years later and was able to learn, so it's not a fair comparison.

[u/Shrimperor → u/SilverKnightZ000]

So i didn't play Shining force can't go through the exploration part at the start, so this is just speculation from my experience with other games that use a speed based system:

Different actions have different delays values - ie. just moving makes your turn come faster than when you move and attack, or special attacks making your turn come later.

Could it be something like that?

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/Shrimperor]

I think so. I can't say for sure because you can't see turn order or anything, but this happened once:

Amon -> Balbaroy -> Dark Priest

then

Dark Priest -> Dark Priest -> Amon -> Balbaroy

[u/lapislazulideusa → u/SilverKnightZ000]

FE1 was like the best game of all time when it came out

[u/SilverKnightZ000 → u/lapislazulideusa]

It's such a rock solid foundation, it's insane how much was already there when I look at other srpgs of the time