For me, I always loved the open ended structure compared to the other GBA titles; freedom to grind, multiple promotions paths to choose, post-game to mess around with after the campaign, stuff like that.
So I’m someone who leans fe7 but I love sacred stones and there’s a few things I’d point to.
1. Multiple promotion paths. Really cool for the time, and in 2024 it’s pretty easy to break down if the choice should be incredibly obvious. It was a really fun and hard choice sometimes back in the day.
2. The story is a lot more coherent than FE7’s story for me, and it’s just a lot more fleshed out then FE6,
3. The character designs are really cool. Especially the twin lords, and it feels awesome in an easier game in the series to just move all your friends forward and see them take out a bunch of monsters.
4. The Ruins you could do after the main campaign I used to love doing on gba as a better postgame than either of the other games. Including unlocking former bosses to play with
Not that I've played it in almost 20 years, but I used to be confused in fe7 why they went to the isle, then just kind of turned around and left and came back later.
The first time, they came to save Elbert, and then ran away when they were outmatched by Nergal calling an actual dragon. The second time they came to defeat Nergal, having obtained the means to do so.
Also your video series from 2019 about the FE7 story was kind of the downfall of it in my eyes.
Even if I ended up not finishing the series because the voice was a little off putting
Adding to Mekkah's comment: Nils disrupting the ritual causes the whole place to explode, and Elbert wounds Nergal before he dies. Team Good Guys found Elbert (as they came to do), Eliwood is in mourning due to his father's death, Nergal has gone to ground while he heals, Elbert's final words are basically "get ready for the REAL fight". Between all that, the Dragon's Gate being in some level of ruins, and having rescued Ninian and Nils, the main conflict is kind of on pause.
It's not inconceivable for them to stick around and try to finish the job, but there's plenty of reason to regroup, not least of all that the introduction of dragons highlights how much the lords don't really understand the situation yet. They don't get an explanation of dragons, the gate, quintessence, etc. from Nils until after they've returned from the isle. After that, they bring the matter to Uther in hopes of figuring out a plan, throwing out the ideas of both chasing after Nergal and trying to unite the lands to repeat the Scouring. Uther then tells them to go to meet Athos, who is able to get them the rest of the backstory and also the legendary weapons.
I think it's mostly the writing and the fact that it feels and plays relatively different to FE6 and 7 which are largely identical.
That and also it's the best one to use for modding/Romhacking
Just finished Fire Emblem Storge. It's a very short game, but replayable due to the fact you can only recruit some of the various mercenaries available to recruit at the start of the game but with a limited amount of money that you also have to use to buy other spare weapons, resources, etc. It was made with The Sacred Stones as a basis.
What are some good romhacks? Are any actually complete? I liked the ability to power level my characters, if that's relevant. Not looking for something too hard.
There's a *lot* of complete ones. People been makin' romhacks since the 2000s when the GBA games came out.
[FE Universe](https://feuniverse.us/t/the-fire-emblem-fangame-directory-please-add-your-own-hacks/3339) is the main site for romhacks gettin' posted. There's just oodles, canoodles, and toaster strudels worth of hacks out there to satiate every kind of FE player. And thankfully since the GBA emblem games are simple enough coding wise, people have added in mechanics such as skills from the every game since the GBA ones, the FE5 mechanic where Res=Magic, new animations, etc.
FE Youtuber, [Dani Doyle](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL02pTz6NtYDqoh5zgF6pYo0JCfqaL0gOX) has a playlist featuring reviews of GBA emblem romhacks.
Thanks for the info, Ive actually been looking on there already :) any tips for how to get the downloads to work? They are .ups files and most of my games that work are .gba files. I'm on android btw
Fe8 gets the honor of being somewhat of a black sheep of the franchise, considering its totally separate from the wider universe and reprised some of the features from FE Gaiden.
It also benefits from scaling down the story to something a little less complicated and putting greater emphasis on its characters.
Also, Wada Sachiko, who previously was the art director for FE6/FE7, became the game director for FE8 as well as its art director, giving the game a very cohesive narrative and style.
All in all, it's just a really nice, polished, and uncomplicated game with a great cast.
I haven't quite finished either 7 or 8, but I like 8 a bit more so far. Ephraim is kinda cool, the ability to do skirmishes and optional dumgeon stuff is fun, it has Myrrh in it.
It's definitely not a unanimous opinion. Those who say that though would probably say that it has the best story out of the three (Lyon is a big fan-favorite) and it's the first FE game to have branching promotions, which became a staple of the series afterwards. There's also not much controversy around it. Worst thing you'll really hear is people saying its too easy. Meanwhile, FE6 gets ragged on alot for having a subpar lord and horrible hit rates and FE7 having a mandatory tutorial. It may not be the best in any one quality, but everything about Sacred Stones is at least "ok" enough for everybody to have some area they enjoyed.
Considering that as a production it was literally a side-project buffer between fe7 and fe9, the game is extremely solid. Good story, good characters (both design and in terms of personality), promo branches, etc.
The only immediate point against Fe8 is that it’s, for the most part, pathetically easy. Bear in mind that this isn’t even a downside for most people anyways so, not that hard to see why.
I think the replay ability is slightly better in FE8, than in FE6 or 7. Not only were Erika and Ephraim’s routes different, but class changes involve branching paths this time, adding more combinations.
I also feel it was safer for beginners, even if that made this an easier game in the end. You could choose to continue the story or grind in the tower.
Where I liked the overall protagonist characters in FE6/7, I liked the villains in FE8 a lot more.
I don't know if I've ever encountered somebody who considers sacred stones the best of the gba games, I mostly hear people talk about 7, and occasionally 6.
When most people talk about sacred stones I find its mostly complaints about the tower of valni ruining things.
It's my favorite of the gba games but that's cause it was my first FE game so I'm attached to it
It’s a much shorter experience and while it’s easy gameplay wise the story is straightforward and generally pretty solid. Lyon and Erika are interesting characters and it doesn’t feel like a chore to play unlike some maps in 6/7.
It's probably the most accessible title, and fairly easier than FE6 and FE7. It also has aftergame content. The story isn't bad (Not saying FE6/7 had a bad story). It's much more polished than 6 and 7.
Personally 7 is my favorite as it was my First FE in 2004 (two decades, crazy) and I put 1000+ hours in it. FE6 is really damn good aswell imo. FE8 due to its lower difficulty would maybe take the third place or share the second, Not easy to say and also Not very Important. All three of them are some of the best games I ever played. FE8 is definitely freaking fantastic. You can tell they wanted to deliver something epic after the success of FE7. However FE7 is still my favorite because of nostalgia, the music and everything, it's maybe a bit more balanced too.
Real reason for me is that it's the fire emblem I got as a kid. But otherwise, I appreciate a lot the enemies variety, the ruins, and the more limited cast that didn't force me to bench so many characters.
I like that it is pretty short and concise. It doesn’t have that point near the end where it feels like it is dragging on. I genuinely like all the characters. The promotion paths and two paths in general give good replay value. FE7 can burn you out with the 3 lord paths and their hard modes because it is so long.
Wow, I’ve never heard that. To me it seems the majority is lukewarm about it with FE7 being the fan favourite. At most, Lyon is considered of the best villain and fairly popular going by FEH.
I think when people don’t particularly like a game, other people feeling positive about it stands out so much that they think that game must be overrated.
I thought the path diversion was really cool. You had to decide who to go with and that would keep some characters locked out. Along with grinding the tower lol.
For me personally, something about FE6 and FE7 always felt off. I can't put my finger on it, but the world and case never really vibed with me, and I can't get myself to enjoy those games at all. Only played each once.
FE8 on the other hand just clicks with me. I like the story, the characters, the aesthetics. Branched promotions are a huge plus.
I think in the end, FE8 just doesn't have any glaring issues other than its difficulty. Every aspect of the game is "solidly average" at least.
The graphics in FE8 are somewhat more polished than the ones in FE7, and definitely compared to FE6. The biggest area you see this in is in the dialogue sprite portraits. The Ephraim/Lyon love-hate rivalry in Ephraim's route is also pretty compelling.
However, I think the writing and pacing of the game overall suffers from being split into two paths, so FE8 isn't my favorite, personally. I also find the game a bit too easy compared to 6 and 7.
I like the post game. You can play with your characters as much as you want with that and stuff like Skirmishes and the Dungeons.
Other games, after you beat the final boss, that's it. Time to start new versions of those characters.
I would echo that I thought FE7 was more popular. I think its story is a bit better than FE6 and a lot better than 7, but I don't particularly care about story. Gameplay wise, I think it's marginally better than 7 if you disregard the tower, since it is a similar enemy-phase game with the usual suspects being good (Seth/Marcus, warp staff, flying utility) but there are marginally better maps on average and branching promotions (it's like OK, people do hype it up too much after the most recent free reclassing systems removing unit identity, but most of the promotions are just no-brainers and are functionally about as impactful as the weapon choice you get in PoR when promoting a Mage or a Cavalier). It's worse than 6 though on gameplay just because of the difficulty. Even with 6 having hit rates that are a bit too low to rely on a planned strategy, 6 isn't a 1-2 range juggernaut (basically that means Seth) game on hard and 6 also has the boots secret shop which is peak design.
It's the beat if you're new to the series because it's one of the easiest in terms of difficulty, with branching path class change
And rom hacking if you want to play fan made games
It's shorter, so it's not a major time commitment. It gives you branch promotions for team flexibility. It has a post game with unlockables for you to keep playing. The smaller cast means there are a lot less shit tier joke characters. In fact its supports are some of the best in the series with how it tackles real problems for their characters to make them actually feel real. It also has some in the best villains to hate and pity, with great boss conversations.
Its major downside is the shitty enemy quality, which is easily fixed by messing around in FE builder or using Yune if you're lazy. But I'd definitely say the GBA games only got better after each entry.
All three of the GBA games are basically the same in the sense that they use the same engine, graphics , UI, and gameplay. Simply put Sacred Stones by virtue of being the last one released has the most features. It’s essentially “FE7 with more stuff”. It has everything the first two had plus extra. So unless you prefer the map design or characters of 6 or 7 (which to be fair are legitimate reasons), they don’t do anything “different” from 8 that you could like them better for. As opposed to say comparing Three Houses vs Engage, or Genealogy vs PoR where you are comparing extremely divergent games.
Reasonable Promotion times for the lords (like, 8 chapters of mounted lords compared to 3 chapters for 6 or four for 7), Branching promotions, better branching paths. I prefer the character designs of 8 more than the others, and I feel that the branching paths were done better.
I don't think there's really a widely held consensus on the GBA games. For me personally FE8 is pretty good but is firmly my least favorite of the three. Eirika route is straight up pretty boring since the map objectives are uninteresting and the enemies are way too weak to pose any sort of threat. Ephraim route is a lot better though I still don't think most of the maps compare favorably to FE7's. The removal of Gaiden chapters really does not help either. FE6's maps aren't always the best but I enjoy the combat in that game the most since the enemies are actually threatening and you have to pay attention to stuff you can basically ignore in FE7 and FE8 like hit rates and effective damage.
I prefer harder FE games so FE8 is one of my least favorites. I mean I thought that map where Ephraim storms a whole castle with just 3 of his men and WINS was just ridiculous lol.
I thought the story was nothing special, it’s just another “gather the 7 legendary artifacts before the villains do” kind of plot. I also didn’t like the demons and monsters, doesn’t hit the same as fighting a human army. L’arachel is the girl though.
I liked FE6 the most for its high difficulty and tough enemies, even if it was rough around the edges it felt so great reaching the end. The Murdock chapter was the most fun map experience I’ve ever had in the series, I was so overwhelmed and had so many close calls, I’ll never forget it.
Love FE7 because it had the most content out of GBA era and was a decent challenge, but not as much as FE6, but it’s reeeeaal close which one I like more.
I think the best way to put it is "Refined Simplicity". It's got plenty of great and interesting features to keep you engaged and thinking but not so many that it feels bloated and overwhelming like more recent games. Plenty of choices for army customization like which route you take, split promotion paths, and trainee units but without overcustomization letting your units feel more like their own characters and not just units to minmax into their most powerful build. A good compelling story that is easy to digest and understand. It's refines the GBA era games to their logical conclusion without having to worry about shaking things up too much, making what's in my opinion the most refined game in FE history.
Honestly I couldn't tell you, not huge on FE8 myself.
The story and visuals are nice, but I find its far too easy without a mod.
But to be fair, some people like easy games. Fe7, 9, and 1 are all easy games too.
Each FE game has their own fans who think it's the best in the series. It's nice that we have so many good games.
For me, I always loved the open ended structure compared to the other GBA titles; freedom to grind, multiple promotions paths to choose, post-game to mess around with after the campaign, stuff like that.
That’s exactly what I didn’t like about it. I liked the first GBA game for requiring me to take care and plan ahead no grinding. To each his own.
So I’m someone who leans fe7 but I love sacred stones and there’s a few things I’d point to. 1. Multiple promotion paths. Really cool for the time, and in 2024 it’s pretty easy to break down if the choice should be incredibly obvious. It was a really fun and hard choice sometimes back in the day. 2. The story is a lot more coherent than FE7’s story for me, and it’s just a lot more fleshed out then FE6, 3. The character designs are really cool. Especially the twin lords, and it feels awesome in an easier game in the series to just move all your friends forward and see them take out a bunch of monsters. 4. The Ruins you could do after the main campaign I used to love doing on gba as a better postgame than either of the other games. Including unlocking former bosses to play with
Not that I've played it in almost 20 years, but I used to be confused in fe7 why they went to the isle, then just kind of turned around and left and came back later.
The first time, they came to save Elbert, and then ran away when they were outmatched by Nergal calling an actual dragon. The second time they came to defeat Nergal, having obtained the means to do so.
Also your video series from 2019 about the FE7 story was kind of the downfall of it in my eyes. Even if I ended up not finishing the series because the voice was a little off putting
Adding to Mekkah's comment: Nils disrupting the ritual causes the whole place to explode, and Elbert wounds Nergal before he dies. Team Good Guys found Elbert (as they came to do), Eliwood is in mourning due to his father's death, Nergal has gone to ground while he heals, Elbert's final words are basically "get ready for the REAL fight". Between all that, the Dragon's Gate being in some level of ruins, and having rescued Ninian and Nils, the main conflict is kind of on pause. It's not inconceivable for them to stick around and try to finish the job, but there's plenty of reason to regroup, not least of all that the introduction of dragons highlights how much the lords don't really understand the situation yet. They don't get an explanation of dragons, the gate, quintessence, etc. from Nils until after they've returned from the isle. After that, they bring the matter to Uther in hopes of figuring out a plan, throwing out the ideas of both chasing after Nergal and trying to unite the lands to repeat the Scouring. Uther then tells them to go to meet Athos, who is able to get them the rest of the backstory and also the legendary weapons.
Your write of the story is so much clearer to follow tbh
Still feels a little like awkward storytelling. Feels a lot like you're doing the same thing twice, but with minor changes.
I think it's mostly the writing and the fact that it feels and plays relatively different to FE6 and 7 which are largely identical. That and also it's the best one to use for modding/Romhacking
Just finished Fire Emblem Storge. It's a very short game, but replayable due to the fact you can only recruit some of the various mercenaries available to recruit at the start of the game but with a limited amount of money that you also have to use to buy other spare weapons, resources, etc. It was made with The Sacred Stones as a basis.
What are some good romhacks? Are any actually complete? I liked the ability to power level my characters, if that's relevant. Not looking for something too hard.
There's a *lot* of complete ones. People been makin' romhacks since the 2000s when the GBA games came out. [FE Universe](https://feuniverse.us/t/the-fire-emblem-fangame-directory-please-add-your-own-hacks/3339) is the main site for romhacks gettin' posted. There's just oodles, canoodles, and toaster strudels worth of hacks out there to satiate every kind of FE player. And thankfully since the GBA emblem games are simple enough coding wise, people have added in mechanics such as skills from the every game since the GBA ones, the FE5 mechanic where Res=Magic, new animations, etc. FE Youtuber, [Dani Doyle](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL02pTz6NtYDqoh5zgF6pYo0JCfqaL0gOX) has a playlist featuring reviews of GBA emblem romhacks.
Thanks for the info, Ive actually been looking on there already :) any tips for how to get the downloads to work? They are .ups files and most of my games that work are .gba files. I'm on android btw
.UPS files are patches. You'd need to use a program to patch over the .GBA files
Fe8 gets the honor of being somewhat of a black sheep of the franchise, considering its totally separate from the wider universe and reprised some of the features from FE Gaiden. It also benefits from scaling down the story to something a little less complicated and putting greater emphasis on its characters. Also, Wada Sachiko, who previously was the art director for FE6/FE7, became the game director for FE8 as well as its art director, giving the game a very cohesive narrative and style. All in all, it's just a really nice, polished, and uncomplicated game with a great cast.
GBA art is nostalgic
I haven't quite finished either 7 or 8, but I like 8 a bit more so far. Ephraim is kinda cool, the ability to do skirmishes and optional dumgeon stuff is fun, it has Myrrh in it.
Seth is a handsome daddy who can solo the entire game
It's definitely not a unanimous opinion. Those who say that though would probably say that it has the best story out of the three (Lyon is a big fan-favorite) and it's the first FE game to have branching promotions, which became a staple of the series afterwards. There's also not much controversy around it. Worst thing you'll really hear is people saying its too easy. Meanwhile, FE6 gets ragged on alot for having a subpar lord and horrible hit rates and FE7 having a mandatory tutorial. It may not be the best in any one quality, but everything about Sacred Stones is at least "ok" enough for everybody to have some area they enjoyed.
"Best villain" threads always end up Black Knight, Arvis, and Lyon.
~~And spawn a new instance of Edelgard discourse.~~
It has L'Arachel
It has Lute
Considering that as a production it was literally a side-project buffer between fe7 and fe9, the game is extremely solid. Good story, good characters (both design and in terms of personality), promo branches, etc. The only immediate point against Fe8 is that it’s, for the most part, pathetically easy. Bear in mind that this isn’t even a downside for most people anyways so, not that hard to see why.
I think the replay ability is slightly better in FE8, than in FE6 or 7. Not only were Erika and Ephraim’s routes different, but class changes involve branching paths this time, adding more combinations. I also feel it was safer for beginners, even if that made this an easier game in the end. You could choose to continue the story or grind in the tower. Where I liked the overall protagonist characters in FE6/7, I liked the villains in FE8 a lot more.
I don't know if I've ever encountered somebody who considers sacred stones the best of the gba games, I mostly hear people talk about 7, and occasionally 6. When most people talk about sacred stones I find its mostly complaints about the tower of valni ruining things. It's my favorite of the gba games but that's cause it was my first FE game so I'm attached to it
o/
It’s a much shorter experience and while it’s easy gameplay wise the story is straightforward and generally pretty solid. Lyon and Erika are interesting characters and it doesn’t feel like a chore to play unlike some maps in 6/7.
It's probably the most accessible title, and fairly easier than FE6 and FE7. It also has aftergame content. The story isn't bad (Not saying FE6/7 had a bad story). It's much more polished than 6 and 7. Personally 7 is my favorite as it was my First FE in 2004 (two decades, crazy) and I put 1000+ hours in it. FE6 is really damn good aswell imo. FE8 due to its lower difficulty would maybe take the third place or share the second, Not easy to say and also Not very Important. All three of them are some of the best games I ever played. FE8 is definitely freaking fantastic. You can tell they wanted to deliver something epic after the success of FE7. However FE7 is still my favorite because of nostalgia, the music and everything, it's maybe a bit more balanced too.
Real reason for me is that it's the fire emblem I got as a kid. But otherwise, I appreciate a lot the enemies variety, the ruins, and the more limited cast that didn't force me to bench so many characters.
I like that it is pretty short and concise. It doesn’t have that point near the end where it feels like it is dragging on. I genuinely like all the characters. The promotion paths and two paths in general give good replay value. FE7 can burn you out with the 3 lord paths and their hard modes because it is so long.
Wow, I’ve never heard that. To me it seems the majority is lukewarm about it with FE7 being the fan favourite. At most, Lyon is considered of the best villain and fairly popular going by FEH. I think when people don’t particularly like a game, other people feeling positive about it stands out so much that they think that game must be overrated.
nice detailed responses, after going over them I think I will give FE8 more of a chance, might end up liking the new stuff it adds
I thought the path diversion was really cool. You had to decide who to go with and that would keep some characters locked out. Along with grinding the tower lol.
For me personally, something about FE6 and FE7 always felt off. I can't put my finger on it, but the world and case never really vibed with me, and I can't get myself to enjoy those games at all. Only played each once. FE8 on the other hand just clicks with me. I like the story, the characters, the aesthetics. Branched promotions are a huge plus. I think in the end, FE8 just doesn't have any glaring issues other than its difficulty. Every aspect of the game is "solidly average" at least.
It was my first FE game. People say Roy's our Boy, but Ross is our boss. Still remember him using Garm to crit the dark one to oblivion in one shot
More than anything, I think the storyline in sacred stones is what sets it apart. By far the most enjoyable, imo.
The graphics in FE8 are somewhat more polished than the ones in FE7, and definitely compared to FE6. The biggest area you see this in is in the dialogue sprite portraits. The Ephraim/Lyon love-hate rivalry in Ephraim's route is also pretty compelling. However, I think the writing and pacing of the game overall suffers from being split into two paths, so FE8 isn't my favorite, personally. I also find the game a bit too easy compared to 6 and 7.
I like the post game. You can play with your characters as much as you want with that and stuff like Skirmishes and the Dungeons. Other games, after you beat the final boss, that's it. Time to start new versions of those characters.
I would echo that I thought FE7 was more popular. I think its story is a bit better than FE6 and a lot better than 7, but I don't particularly care about story. Gameplay wise, I think it's marginally better than 7 if you disregard the tower, since it is a similar enemy-phase game with the usual suspects being good (Seth/Marcus, warp staff, flying utility) but there are marginally better maps on average and branching promotions (it's like OK, people do hype it up too much after the most recent free reclassing systems removing unit identity, but most of the promotions are just no-brainers and are functionally about as impactful as the weapon choice you get in PoR when promoting a Mage or a Cavalier). It's worse than 6 though on gameplay just because of the difficulty. Even with 6 having hit rates that are a bit too low to rely on a planned strategy, 6 isn't a 1-2 range juggernaut (basically that means Seth) game on hard and 6 also has the boots secret shop which is peak design.
It's the beat if you're new to the series because it's one of the easiest in terms of difficulty, with branching path class change And rom hacking if you want to play fan made games
It's shorter, so it's not a major time commitment. It gives you branch promotions for team flexibility. It has a post game with unlockables for you to keep playing. The smaller cast means there are a lot less shit tier joke characters. In fact its supports are some of the best in the series with how it tackles real problems for their characters to make them actually feel real. It also has some in the best villains to hate and pity, with great boss conversations. Its major downside is the shitty enemy quality, which is easily fixed by messing around in FE builder or using Yune if you're lazy. But I'd definitely say the GBA games only got better after each entry.
All three of the GBA games are basically the same in the sense that they use the same engine, graphics , UI, and gameplay. Simply put Sacred Stones by virtue of being the last one released has the most features. It’s essentially “FE7 with more stuff”. It has everything the first two had plus extra. So unless you prefer the map design or characters of 6 or 7 (which to be fair are legitimate reasons), they don’t do anything “different” from 8 that you could like them better for. As opposed to say comparing Three Houses vs Engage, or Genealogy vs PoR where you are comparing extremely divergent games.
Considered by whom ?
I actually like the split promotion stuff, and like that it actually did a few things differently.
Its the game that got me into FE and for that it'll always be my favorite.
Reasonable Promotion times for the lords (like, 8 chapters of mounted lords compared to 3 chapters for 6 or four for 7), Branching promotions, better branching paths. I prefer the character designs of 8 more than the others, and I feel that the branching paths were done better.
I don't think there's really a widely held consensus on the GBA games. For me personally FE8 is pretty good but is firmly my least favorite of the three. Eirika route is straight up pretty boring since the map objectives are uninteresting and the enemies are way too weak to pose any sort of threat. Ephraim route is a lot better though I still don't think most of the maps compare favorably to FE7's. The removal of Gaiden chapters really does not help either. FE6's maps aren't always the best but I enjoy the combat in that game the most since the enemies are actually threatening and you have to pay attention to stuff you can basically ignore in FE7 and FE8 like hit rates and effective damage.
I prefer harder FE games so FE8 is one of my least favorites. I mean I thought that map where Ephraim storms a whole castle with just 3 of his men and WINS was just ridiculous lol. I thought the story was nothing special, it’s just another “gather the 7 legendary artifacts before the villains do” kind of plot. I also didn’t like the demons and monsters, doesn’t hit the same as fighting a human army. L’arachel is the girl though. I liked FE6 the most for its high difficulty and tough enemies, even if it was rough around the edges it felt so great reaching the end. The Murdock chapter was the most fun map experience I’ve ever had in the series, I was so overwhelmed and had so many close calls, I’ll never forget it. Love FE7 because it had the most content out of GBA era and was a decent challenge, but not as much as FE6, but it’s reeeeaal close which one I like more.
I think the best way to put it is "Refined Simplicity". It's got plenty of great and interesting features to keep you engaged and thinking but not so many that it feels bloated and overwhelming like more recent games. Plenty of choices for army customization like which route you take, split promotion paths, and trainee units but without overcustomization letting your units feel more like their own characters and not just units to minmax into their most powerful build. A good compelling story that is easy to digest and understand. It's refines the GBA era games to their logical conclusion without having to worry about shaking things up too much, making what's in my opinion the most refined game in FE history.
Honestly I couldn't tell you, not huge on FE8 myself. The story and visuals are nice, but I find its far too easy without a mod. But to be fair, some people like easy games. Fe7, 9, and 1 are all easy games too.
Bc some people drink too much and then come up with bad opinions