Seriously. The only reason I've seen people really bash it was because it was too easy. While, yeah, the FE fandom does tend to lean towards harder games, but overall easy RPG's are widely loved. Suikoden, Final Fantasy, etc. The other aspects of FE8 in contrast to the rest of the series are generally pretty damn great.

It's _easily_ my favourite story of all the FE's. Like all FE's it's the group of warriors up against a corrupted empire, usually led by a lord. However, that's where the other FE's stop. FE7 had Pansywood and Hector losing his dad and Uther, respectively. However, wtf, neither of those latter two characters got hardly any development. I really couldn't care less, and Hector didn't seem to make a big deal out of his brothers passing. Hell, the story was just plain bland as hell. Had some cool characters, but that's about it. 9-10 have a pretty deep story, but independently from each other they're both lackluster at best. Evil empire. Kill d00d. Fin. There was almost nothing interesting when it came to the main story, as the entire games were dependent on character development. Though, combined FE9-10 are probably better than FE8, but if you only play one, then bleh. Of course, there's FE4. FE4, while having a good story, didn't have a very impacting story. It was more of a "Cool shit" reaction. This is mainly due to the poor character development. FE8 decided to use the normal evil empire thing, but the whole Ephraim/Eirika-Lyon backstory was just amazing. There was a ton of stuff going on, a ton of history, and the character development that Lyon received was enough to make to think twice about killing him. The characters were also a lot better than the ones in all of the previous FE's.

Being a pixel artist and a lover of anything 2D, I also believe it has the best graphics. FE6/7 obviously don't need to be compared to FE8, nobody is going to argue they're better. Hahah. However, the SNES FE's could be argued better, and I'll concede that. I found the overworlds better, myself, actually. However, the battle sprites and mug shots were worse, in my opinion. Some may like how dark they are, but I just couldn't get away from the weird pixel placement and overshading. Also, FE8 had cooler effects and such. As well as better text. In fact, I could even read it!

The interface and gameplay was definitely my favourite. Fuck the anima triangle. FE8 was simple and easy to use, but still required you to design strategies. FE9/10 have the whole base convo thing, which I found extremely lame. I didn't really enjoy any of the conversations. I just wanted the freakin' items. Anyways, FE8 had branch promotion. Which I found to be AWESOME. All the stat fags (not to be confused with the stat experts) will probably say something along the lines of "Yeah, but the classes were unbalanced". Forget that, I don't care if I'm getting 2% worse of a character in turn for being able to choose a different class sometimes. It's an option anyways. Options are always better than not assuming that the option lets to choose the path of not. (Read it again if you didn't understand it.) FE8 also had maps. I liked FE2 for this reason, but the early FE's failed in interface so it doesn't make it too much better. FE8 implements it well. It gives you the _option_ of screwing around a lot to be able to either balance out your teams if you decided that you do, in fact, want to use Garcia just now at chapter 17, or if you want to just uber the hell out of your characters. I can honestly say it's the only FE where my gameplay time was over 100 hours on a single file, as well. Because you actually have other things to do after beating the game!

I don't think difficulty should bring down the game that much. If you love intense strategies quit playing FE, nub then you'll probably find this one worse than the others. However, if you're just looking for a good handheld game, this is the one. I said handheld because most people prefer high res images and 3D models, so they'd go for FE10.

In conclusion: fuck the haters.

Wow, someone who actually agrees with me on the best FE. And screw FE8 not being hard, it takes me forever to recruit freaking Amelia in ErHM without losing anybody. Also, Ruins HM anybody?

Choices mainly is what I like about. Class choices, as well as the Eir/Eph route choice. Plus, there's a bunch of cool stuff in supports that you never get to figure out unless you actually do them.

The characters make me actually like them in this game. I love the development between L'Arachel and Dozla, as well as Cormag and Duessel. Stuff like that isn't in other games (except maybe Ike and Soren...again in two games).

Plus, Great Knights. Greatest class ever. %::%

This is my 2nd favorite FE game now. I love the multiple class units and Great Knight class. I didn't like the different routes though, made the game shorter. I also didn't find the story that great, PoR's my favorite story for FE because the main character isn't a lord (Sorta) and all these little things in there like Ike's mom knowing Reyson's sister, Ashnard killing his family, etc. etc.

You actually didn't even cover the reason why I don't like it; you actually pointed out the reasons why I actuallly play it even though it's one of my least favorite FEs.

While you could argue that the plot was well developed and everything because of the relations between the characters, you would be missing half the plot, the half that ruined the game for me. I just, plain and simple, hated the monsters. To me, the monsters were bland and, for whatever reason, just not my cup of tea. I am not even joking, and while I may seem picky, I think the game would have been better if they got rid of the whole monster thing and actually put in a real political plot line and had me fighting real units with variety instead of this monster crap.

Then the lack of real chapters is a big turnoff as well. Not only do I have to do with this monster crap maybe one or two times, but I have to deal with it for probably 7 out of 21 chapters with the first few actual unit chapters feeling like boring tutorial chapters anyway. To me, what separates FE from the other RPGs is the balance of story and gameplay. I get some story and then I get some gameplay, but with FE8 I get some story that I like for about 14 or so chapters and then get crap monster story and monster gameplay for the other 7 or so with no story and crap monster gameplay for all other parts of the game. The monsters ruin everything for me. I do not want to spend my time killing freakin redeads or some crap like that for no reason other than killing freaken redeads or some crap. Seriously, the story is all "OMG, there are monsters, we must kill them to save teh worldz", instead of "OMG! That enemy general is launching a full on offensive to kill Duessel, we must save him" or "OMG! That man killed my brother, now I will kill him".

If somebody were to hack the monsters out of the game though and fill in a real, no monster, plot...FE8 would actually be one of my favorite FEs. I find nothing wrong with any other part of the game, or at least nothing majorly wrong.

If you like choice, play FE4. Pretty much every second-gen character has 13 different ways they can be pretty much completely different just as a base character. When you throw in all the differences from inheritances... SS is, if anything, a disappointment in that aspect.

Agreed...but so is every other FE game so this really does nothing to add to why people think FE8 is worse than all of the others, but instead just adds to the reasons why it is worse than FE4.

I guess it does challenge his statement that it is arguably the best though...so nevermind. Let's just keep it at I agree.

Did this need a rant when it is, in the end, an opinion?

That's why it said "arguably the best". As in, its his opinion. As in, its up for discussion.

Eh, I never really liked the monsters any much either, but its not like it is any different than every other FE game "OH NOEZ! Random bandit group is attacking us!", only these random units look more menacing.

^I was about to say this.

Every FE has that kind of developmental freeze point in the story. Before you bring up FE4. The chapters were huge -- it did. I don't see why Monsters are all that inferior to faceless enemies (by faceless I don't mean that they don't have a mug shot, I mean that they don't have any serious character development.)

Othin: You're being a stat-fag. D:< Yes, I agree, FE4 probably has more choice, but your argument is completely based around stats. Also, to get your choice in second gen, it dictates how you play in 1st gen. Kinda counter-revolutionary. Before you make your riposte, please remember, I don't particularly care for stats.

Btw, I like FE7 more.

When did I bring up that it would be to make characters better?

I was referring to the fact that you could have, say, a tank Delmudd from pairing Lex and Lachesis, a fast Delmudd by pairing Beowulf and Lachesis, a psudo-mage Delmudd (albeit a bad one) from pairing Azel and Lachesis, etc. Or, to make it more like the class-switching in FE8, you could say that you could in essence make Lex a Bow Knight in the second gen by pairing him with Aideen, a Mage Knight by pairing him with Tiltyu, a Sword Knight by pairing him with Lachesis, hell, make him a Hero by pairing him with Ayra... Not to mention that in addition to the class changes being even larger, the stat differences are several times as large, and there's even a difference in skills. So how's FE8's system better exactly?

Well, you did bring up the first gen. I find it actually more interesting to be changing my playing style in the first gen in possibly negative ways to play the way I like to in the second gen, but that's just me.

You always have the option to play in negative ways. Even in FE8, so the latter argument is completely null. Also, remember, not everything is about stats. Lets say I like pairing A but pairing B gives me what I want in second gen. What do I do? Something that I don't want.

I didn't say FE8's system was better. I even said Fe4's is probably better. Aside from that, everything you posted was about stats ... again. Really, a lot of people don't care about how big numbers are. At all. Also, I'm a bit curious how you'd make Lex a bow knight in the second generation. Or get him in the second generation. [citation needed]

Note: I know what you're trying to say. I'm just condescendingly calling the idea retarded and completely fagging about stats. No matter who you pair Lex with, you will not get Lex in the second generation. You will get another character, who looks different, has a different personality, has a different class, has different stats, etc. Hell, this is no different from using Seth and dropping him for [insert random character here], and saying the new character is Seth. :S

I can safely say, without using stats at all, that is more interesting and more fun (at least I think so) to replay FE4 to try different pairings than it is to play FE8s Creature Campaign or to try and use different promotion branches. There, I think that is what Othin is trying to say but without stats.

Indeed.

But Othin fails. :(

How can an opinion be up for discussion?

Here's my whole "argument" in this:

%::%

Somebody says their opinion, somebody else says theirs. If they contradict each other then they discuss why their opinion is what it is in an attempt to persuade the other. In fact, this only works with opinions; you can't persuade facts.

Opinions backed up by facts, not other opinons.

The same set of facts can be interpreted in many different ways, which is affected by the way people think, and in turn, becomes their opinions. >.>

@DH - About FE7's story. IMO, IS were trying to show off Eliwood's and Hector's characters, by having them coping with their loved ones deaths in two completely different ways; Eliwood being overwhelmed by the deaths of two loved ones, and Hector keeping his composure so as to not show weakness while Eliwood is still trying to cope with him killing Ninian.

Exactly.

Frankly, I like it because I'm a stickler at over leveling my characters. Not that I'm bad at tactics, I just really, really want to secure victory. Sacred Stones allowed me that free-form capacity, and I exploited it to no end. I spent a lot of my game time trying to get my guys up to high levels and promotions, and get them supported correctly as quickly as possible. I played the other FE for GBA, and found myself very frustrated at the lack of control I had over what I did. It was almost a bit of the "pretty line syndrome" where I HAVE to go on to the next thing and cannot prepare properly for the battle.

Just my humble opinion.

FESS is my second favorite FE behind FERD. I mainly liked FESS because the enemies were actually developed. :\ The six generals all had way more appearences and lines than most other FE villains out there. Really, Lloyd and Linus appear like three times combined in the entirity of FE7. Laaaaaaaaame.

I like FERD better due to length, epicness, and awesomer minor bosses, though.

I really only enjoyed FE8 because of 5x, gorgons, Monica, and Pirate Ship. :wub:

I personally believe that they tried too hard at character development. Anytime I looked in the top-left of the screen and saw "2 years ago" I audibly groaned because I would have to sit through Lyon being lame and possibly Eirika (whom I didn't like) speaking. The units, while I guess some were cool looking, were also lame. It was too short. The story was meh at best. I like FE6 better than I liked Sacred Stones. I haven't finished PoR and never bought RD because I hate the idea of the Laguz and again, the story is meh.

You should play FEF.

I agree with you, Delita. One of the things I liked most about The Sacred Stones was that you could keep on training after the game, and in between levels, in the games before it once you beat the game, you're done with it, very boring.
Skirmish ftw. :D