How Relevant is Fire Emblem Actually?

Click my link bit.ly/4fnvScS to check Sword of Convallaria, available on PC and mobile now! Use my code SOCCREATOR to get rewards in game! Valid until Sep. 14th.

Id say that it's less that Fire Emblem is mainstream, and more that Fire Emblem 3 Houses on its own is mainstream

Saying the series is mainstream, yet the genre isn't is such a perfect way to sum it up

Fun fact: 3H thumbnails get clicks

Don't murder me, but my first ever fire emblem game was three houses. I had watched shadypenguinn play shadows of Valencia and loved it. Once I got my hands on three houses, I fell in love with the series and I look forward to seeing what comes next for fire emblem and plan on going back and playing the older games. In fact, fire emblem introduced me to games like triangle strategy and octopath traveler

Sorry if this video is a little rambly! But I just wanted to talk about something that I cared more about than I thought. Did you play Fire Emblem when it was still considered niche or not? Let me know down below. Also, because I've just moved, I might be a little spotty on uploads, so you might see some segments of some livestreams for content up until I settle down and get back into the swing of uploads. Thank you so much for your support as always and please check out the patreon if you're interested! :_HappyMarth: Patreon: www.patreon.com/GhastPatreon

First Fire Emblem game I played was Sacred Stones. Still in the midst of GBA being the big handheld. It was honestly the perfect introduction for me to strategy games, specifically SRPGs. The accessibility of Sacred was enough to really have me hooked on the overall narrative/mechanics of Fire Emblem to try 7, then 6, then the Gamecube titles after. No regrets, cause I genuinely love the series.

I started with FE7 and that was 20 years ago and now I feel old

As long as Three Houses is still being brought up, FE will forever be relevant (still waiting for that particular "Remake" For Switch 2 title tho 🤫)

Yeah I think this is a good summary. At worst we’re just kinda in a brief period of lacking content. I imagine IS is working on something that will likely be in the first half of the lifespan for whatever the switch’s successor is. I myself am kinda taking this time to replay both Houses and Hopes to get a good glimpse at the majority of the switch Era of Fire Emblem before whatever comes next.

Trying to piece out "niche" is a tough call, especially when you are within that niche. It is REALLY tough to get into the mindspace of someone else, and as such it's incredibly difficult for a FE player to get an accurate idea of how "niche" the game or the genre is. With strategy games becoming a smaller and smaller piece of the overall gaming pie over time [mostly because new gamers aren't jumping into strategy games like older gamers were], franchises like Fire Emblem represent the last bastions of public visibility for the genre. Fire Emblem is broadly known. But how many other strategy rpgs can the average person name? Maybe triangle strategy or Final Fantasy Tactics, both of which are carried by connection to existing brands? Unicorn Overlord had its moment in the sun, but that is the only other major release in the genre in the last few years. Even as a fan I'm struggling to name more than a handful of SRPGs in my head in general, let alone recent releases. Engage was over a year ago. Three Houses was 5 years ago. Yet it's still THE biggest name in the genre, the only one people still talk about generally outside of "oh yeah that game exists" types of mentions. Maybe it's just that these games are buried by more popular releases, or aren't advertised well, but I can't think of any SRPG that wasn't a Gacha or mobile game to come out in the last five years outside of Engage, UO, Triangle or Mario x Rabbids [if that even counts]. If that isn't a niche genre, I don't know what is.

I started with tree houses 2 years ago, I never played a S-RPG before but I wanted to try it because it sounded like it would be a lot of fun. I remember playing around 10 hours a day in the first week I had the game, it really felt like it was made just for me.

I definitely don't feel like Fire Emblem is losing its relevance, I just think that maybe it's currently not as relevant as it's been at its peak at different points in the past. Engage was certainly a weird case, as it did feel like the general conversation about it fell off in the gaming space rather quickly. Maybe quicker than normal, but that's subjective. And I do think that its lack of compelling narrative and character writing was a big part of that. But you can also look at games like Tears of the Kingdom. I feel like for the amount of praise that game received, no one is really talking about it in the gaming space right now and that came out just four months after Engage. Maybe the lack of conversation is simply cuz I'm not deep in the Zelda community, but I just think gaming conversations move on so quickly these days. Fire Emblem will be much more relevant again, but I do think the next game in the series needs to be stronger than Engage, and not just in its gameplay.

Is Fire Emblem Mainstream? Vs Is Fire Emblem Niche? Illusion of Choice Another 5 years of Three Houses discourse for some reason

3Houses got me into the series, then went back to the 3DS games and the Warriors titles, then came Engage and now busy with the GBA games. But I'm still basically the only person in my friend group who plays FE

Cuando era niño, mi vecino tenía Fire Emblem Sacred Stones pero yo no entendía ese juego para nada, sólo lo veía jugarlo. Empecé a jugar Fire Emblem alrededor de 2013-2014, estaba en mi último año de bachillerato y uno de mis compañeros estaba juganzo Blazing Blade y simplemente me enamoré de las animaciones y decidí darle un intento. No entendía nada de combate, triángulo de armas ni ninguna otra mecánica, mi amigo tenía que ayudarme a jugar. 10 años después, Fire Emblem es mi franquicia favorita, ahora mismo estoy rejugando Engage por 5ta vez lol

Fire emblem is relevant enough to warrant advertisers of SRPGs to target the fan base via YouTubers (looking at you, Unicorn Overlord).

It's really great to hear that someone else had the same experience playing the first game released in the west. Idk how I managed to beat the game as a kid when it first came out. Actually reading and learning the mechanics of that game has made the series a favorite of mine. Great video @Faerghast.

I fear if they announce a Jugdral remake it might suffer Echoes' fate, where even though it's a solid game it felt as if it could have sold more units, mainly because it was on a slowly dying platform that was the 3DS after the Switch was released. Even then I have hopes for the future of the franchise with its next release. If anything I learned from 3H's release was that building hype over many months will gain more attention than dropping a bomb 2 total times before a short release.

I’m not even gonna lie and say “I’ve played since the beginning” I didn’t play one until 2021 when 3 Houses was already out. And even then my first game was fates birthright, and since then this series has been one of my favorites. I gotta remember to thank that friend that talked me into playing it.