Your FE (First Experience)

[Pukachi]

see wut i did thar
Periodically, the question must be asked: What was your first FE and what did you think of it at the time?

Well, as most of the oldbies know I practically identify with FE5. 'Twas my first FE, I didn't know any Japanese or nothing. I was also unfamiliar with tactical games; needless to say, I was reeeally confused. I remember panicking because one of my units suddenly disappeared(Leaf got rescued). Good times, good times...

However, I managed to pull through with enough trial-and-error. Eventually, I beat the game. Now, I can't exactly remember my first playthrough well, but I know it was quite difficult. There were a few times that I would refer to Eaichu's FAQ which is older than Athos. I did make many mistakes a first-timer makes, of course. However, given FE5's low stat cap at least using mostly already-promoted units wasn't too great a sin.

It was because of this game that I finally got an interest in tactics and strategy; and ultimately, finding one of the rare FE-related message boards of the time(FESS for the slow folk). What a friendly bunch. I was even spared a newbie flogging out of respect(or surprise) for having beaten it two or three times by the time I joined.

I think the next game I played was FE4, of course. I heard everyone spooging about it all the time and comparing this with that so I went to that next. But that's a story for another time. I did play FE6 before FE7, though.

~What's your story?~

[arashisama without the decorative symbols. RANDOM ENOUGH?!]

phail

My first FE experience was about 15 minutes of random struggling on FE5, since I never really played tactical games prior. I had no idea what I was doing. At all. I rather forgot about it afterward...

My second was with FE6, which felt like a totally different experience than with FE5. It was easier, your characters were better, and handhelds were portable. That was what made the magic connection... though I didn't actually join FESS until FE9 was already out.

[WyvernSageLord]

Well, as most in the US, probably, my first experience was with FE7.

And how things went... well... they didn't go well, I'll admit. I was a bit screwy with the weapon triangle and all that, I used Marcus a bit too much, and I mainly promoted units at 10.

But things got fairly good in the end, yet the first play through I lost quite a few units.

So there ya have it, my sucky FIRST experience with FE. ^^;;

[Lord Fuckboy]

FE7

Typically, my first playthroughs of games end up in disaster for one reason or another; this one being the typical "character dies and they're gone forever" thing.  So I let most of the cast die (stupid mistakes and doing everything headfirst), basically, on my first runthrough and as a result, I couldn't get through lyn's story.  Yep.

Now, second runthrough; everything actually goes smoothly.  I did a lot better, and frankly it's boring from here.  I abused the shit out of Marcus who let me down in the last chapter, and I didn't recruit about a quarter of the cast (that I shouldn't have missed).  Eliwood promoted at Level 6, Lyn/Hector at Level 15, and most other chars at 20.

The final chapter did end up well for me, but Hawkeye, Nils, and Athos died; I sent Hawkeye into the dragon and he died in two hits.  But I couldn't be fucked to restart.  I also had some 10 uses on a Mend staff (Pent) and Athos kept using Aureola on the dragon and somehow it ended up breaking the Mend staff and Athos died because somehow, he did 8 damage per turn.  Nils died right as I was about to kill Nergal, but I didn't want to restart then either.  Hector basically finished the dragon off.

That's my first (full) playthrough.  Nothing interesting or funny, but I definitely have heard of some interesting first playthroughs (namely from ZephyrShakuraus, who promoted almost no one and used an unbuilt Karel in the final chapter because he looked cool ).

[Celice]

I had heard about Fire Emblem a couple years before trying it, about how it was a great game to import.  Whiles later, I had randomly looked up some ROMs of the game-I got a site with a mini review of Seisen (looked at the pretty pics) and a prepatched ROM using j2e's patch, and Fuuin.  So I got two random games--and then decided randomly which one to try first.  Fuuin got the choice, and so played around a little for the first chapter.  Liked the gameplay.  Killed a few of the enemies and then decided to switch.  Got Seisen running:  better music, better graphics, better battles, better everything.  I ran the hell away from the GBA games, already knowing they were going to be shallow >.>

Can't remember what I played after that.  Once I finished it, I pro'lly just got the whole lot of 'em and played them.  I know the least one I've played is Monshou though

[CrazyDitto]

Started with The Sacred Stones, whose easiness didn't punish my newbiness...much.

As far as I can remember of my first playthrough, I got Garcia killed, made bizarre promotions, never used a single freaking stat-increaser (because something in my little, twisted mind thought that those stat increases were temporary), overused pre-promotes to death (thankfully not literally), and it was only through sheer luck that I finished the game with only that one casualty.

Eh, yeah. Just your average playthrough.

[Charliecane]

I started out with Blazing Sword. I overused Marcus in the beginning, tried to level everyone evenly, promoted characters too early, and neglected the three stooges. Basically I made the sort of mistakes you would expect from a newcomer. I think the only genuine mistake that I made was using stat boosters on the first person who got them.

Despite all that, it was still a fairly easy game.

[theshim is the shimiest shim of all the shims that ever shim]

Started with FE7.  Came across it completely randomly (through emulation, no less) and got to chapter 16.  Was absolutely in love with the game.  This was in a library.  I then began playing at home; got to Cog of Destiny before I restarted, and this time I knew what I was doing.  Hector was level 6 that time...

[darkchaz]

I started with Seisen no Keifu, and played like 5 turns or something. it was in japanese, so i didn't understand anything. after a while, I found the patch and enjoyed the game

[Areth]

I started with FE8, and since I wasn't familiar with arena or tower abuse, I actually found easy mode quite a challenge.

...Then I learned, and breezed through it...

[Shaman_Artemis]

I started with Melee.

Nah, in all seriousness I started with Blazing Sword, and quickly got the hang of it once I figured out all of the mechanics. On my first playthrough of Lyn's chapter, I managed to get Erk killed (He got killed on Chp. 10, too, which annoyed me later) and Florina ALMOST killed. I don't remember getting anyone killed after that in Eliwood's story. I didn't know much about promotions, so I would promote 1st chance I got (and then got lucky with the RNG for some of those) until my friend told me to wait till Lv. 20.

Oh, and in my first run of Sacred Stones I got Innes killed on the last floor of the Ruins

[Lord Glenn]

The very first time I played an FE game was when a friend of mine was over at my house and had brought the game(FE7) with him. Prior to its release in NA, there had been an article or ad or something for the game, to which I apparently said that it didn't look that great and passed it off(or so said friend says) as just another game that I wasn't going to play. After doing god knows what for awhile, my friend busted out his GBA and started to play FE7. I wandered over to watch and saw that it actually looked kind of cool(unknowing that this was the game that I apparently said the above about). After he finished the chapter he was on(somewhere in Lyn's Mode, IIRC), I started a new game on a separate file and got to Ch. 3 or 4 before stopping(using Sain and Kent, mainly >_>).

I later borrowed the game from him after he got stuck around Pirate Ship or so and somehow managed to get to Battle Before Dawn(seeing as Marcus was like the only unit I used XD) before not being able to progress any further. I later bought the game myself and actually used some units and strategy in my first actual run through the game. Though, while I ultimately did finish that playthrough, my highest leveled unit was something like 18/10 at the end of the game... I spent too much time evenly distributing experience to all of my units and then ultimately had to drop most of them.

Finishing that playthrough ultimately led me here, of all places, looking to see if I had missed anything in the game that would require me to play through it again. >_>

[Neofox]

My first game was Dragon of Darkness and Sword of Light back when it first came out.

In all seriousness, I started with Sacred Stones. However, because Nintendo Power warned me not to overuse Seth too much in the beginning and stated several times that death was permanent, I think the only newbie mistake I made was promoting people before level 20 (and even then, I usually procrastinated on it to the point where most units promoted around level 13-16). For the most part I just used my favorites, which meant I used characters that seemed interesting to me (like Franz) or were classes I had not seen or played as before (like Vanessa and Knoll). I didn't even abuse prepromotes too much since my previous RPG experiences told me that units who start out weaker always turn out better in the end than ones who start out strong (in fact, if anything I neglected them completely thinking they were all inferior...). I did let Gillam die, but that was because one chapter took me a large number of tries to beat, so by the time he died I was running out of patience, and the fact he wasn't too interesting of a character to me didn't really help his situation... Though I later regretted it and pretty much vowed never to let anyone stay dead again.

[ultimateluigi987]

Mine was FE9.

I had the guide, so I didn't promote early, but I did abuse Titania so that she was Lv. 20 around Ch. 12. I even killed Naesala in Ch. 19! But I made it though, thanks to a blessed Ike. Giffca helped a lot at the final stage.

[Derpicane]

My first game was FE7. It took me just over a year to beat it, and I'd been on FESS for a looong time by that point. Strangely, the first time I beat it was a wind runthrough- I had too many bad habits (Arena abuse, leaving people in range of enemies that can kill them, etc) to actually beat it before that. \(o_O)/

[Wander]

I played Sealed Sword after hearing about the new character, Roy, in Melee. Since it was all in Japanese, I had to read translation off here, which is a funny coincidence since I stumbled upon this site later in my life. Later, I went on a holiday in America, and saw FE7 n the shelves, believing Eliwood to be somehow related to Roy (I wasn't stupid enough to think that it WAS Roy, though).

I can still remember the days where I would keep Roy out of combat because he was incapable of fighting (level 1 Roy at chapter 7, anybody?) and when I thought the Killing Edge was a knife.

[I Fell In Love With Judas, then I got Herpes]

Well, my brother got a Gamecube in 2003 and one of the first games he bought for it was Melee. Roy was my typical character, so I grew a bit interested in this vague series of games called Fire Emblem. Around this time FE7 was coming out, and, under the impression it was similar to Advance Wars, I got it.

Of course, I sucked at it. Miserably. God knows how I pulled through, but I managed to. Despite my suckiness, I was OCD in a way; I could never go without recruiting a character and I would never let any of them die. Which made things a great deal harder, really.

Despite the fact that I managed to amble through to the final level, my team sucked so much at the time that I could never beat it. So I simply gave up, considering it 'beaten' even though I couldn't finish the final level.

I was interested in FE8 but I never actually got around to buying it, so that kind of was that at the time. Of course, years later I joined a FE forum and sucked up to the right members and got mawdship, so hurrah.

[RPGuy96]

I started with Blazing Sword, unsurprisingly, after becoming interested in the series through Melee and Marth.  I was warned about Marcus and promoting at 20 and all that, so my first playthrough went pretty smoothly.  I definitely made my team too big, though, and I know I missed a few characters.

After learning it was the seventh game in the series, I figured I'd start at the beginning, but then I learned that the first game had been remade in Mystery of the Emblem so I skipped it and went straight to Gaiden.  Big mistake.  I almost gave up on the series, but got through the game eventually.  By that time Sacred Stones had come out, so I started playing that and Mystery at the same time.

Sacred Stones went tolerably well, but I was really getting annoyed with Mystery being in Japanese so I figured I'd hack it.  Couldn't be that hard, right?  <_<

[Triahna]

Of course, I started out with FE7. I class mate played it at school, so I asked him what it was about, and he told me "rescuing some princess" (he meant Lyn by that). Since I really liked the face mugs (being the anime-freak I was at that time), I borrowed the game, and started my first run. I only used characters which looked pretty in my eyes, or which had nice conversations (meaning massive Hector-abuse). However, as with each game I play for the first time, I didn't level thoroughly enough, which caused a lot of cursing and restarting (though I didn't bother about dying units as much as I do nowadays). Somehow, I made it through, then started Hector mode. A few months later I bought the game myself, and from then on I loved it more and more.

[Ayanami]

FE7 definitely. I was looking through the isles for another game and I saw a game named "Fire Emblem" a gaming series that I have heard about from SSBM. I started to give this game a go, since I have never heard about another series of Nintendo's until SSBM came out, and when I've played a few chapters I was amazed by the battle system and conversations. The conversations were very heartwarming, rarely seen in most videogames. The support conversations itself made the game worthwhile in trying out. After finishing a playthrough of that game, next I've tried Sacred Stones, only played it once. Then I've played FE3 then 1 then 4 then 5 then 2 then 6 then 9 and 10. I was just posting in the FE boards at GameFAQS until LuAza gave out a link to this site and as I've checked it out, I've decided to join it as FESS3 looked like a nice community with the skin and that unlike GameFAQS, you could have Avy and Sigs. I've started joining the FE forums after the 7th volume.