Last Post: 11:12:12pm, 09/02/2025
Blazing Blade
Awakening
Three Houses
all locks
The last spot has a bunch of candidates. I think the best ones are...
-Mystery of the Emblem: best-selling game in the series until Awakening (actually I think Blazing barely beats it? I forget), really established the series in Japan, still gets lots of random Japanese nostalgia.
-Fates: There's an argument that Awakening/Fates/3H are a bit of a big three for the series; they certainly are based on both sales and volume of fan work (go look at the AO3 numbers for the series for a metric that's easy to quantify), and to this day Conquest will on-average win a "best gameplay" poll.
-Heroes: Hugely successful for what it is. It's hard to over-state, actually. The best argument against it is that it's not a "real" Fire Emblem; if it is it definitely belongs. I am definitely at least somewhat sympathetic to that argument, though.
Things I definitely don't think it is, despite them getting some votes:
-FE1: Really eclipsed by FE3 for the Japanese fanbase, irrelevant everywhere else.
-Path of Radiance: This one just confuses me. It didn't sell well or bring in a significant number of new fans, it didn't significantly innovate or influence the rest of the series. The only substantive argument I've seen is that Ike is the series' most popular character but (a) I don't think that's even true any more, and (b) even if it is true I don't really think it should carry that much weight, Ike's popularity is at least partly due to RD and Smash Bros. as well.
Anyway of the games I thought of as plausible fourths I'm not attached to any of them, but reading through the thread I'll vote for the one it doesn't look like anyone has voted for...
Fates
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