Fire Emblem has had several variations of the music that plays during chapters and combat, and I was interested in what was the style that the community likes most.
Some examples being the classic style with unique player and enemy phase themes as well as unique combat music for each, the modern style with adaptive player phase and enemy phase tracks that change in battle, or Three Houses with a single adaptive track.
Additionally, boss music has also changed with Three Houses and Engage having boss music persist outside of direct combat.
I love the dynamic music in the newest games. I honestly believe it’s one of the best things that happened to FE. This, combined with the modern battle transitions, makes the experience more immersive for me. But I disliked how Engage added back the enemy phase theme; I think Fates and Three Houses did it best.
Since those features are hard to replicate well on GBA, I’m fine with hacks going with the classic approach for most maps.
Im just a huge fan of dinamic music in videogames, it adds so much depth and coolness in general, and I think Fire emblem has done it perfectly, having a map theme, that plays, and when a battle happens, the theme transitions into a more heavy version of itself, that is awesome.
Of course some FE do this better than others, but I think the best ones are Fates and Engage.
One of my favorite themes transitions would be funeral of flowers, from Threehouses, this is quite an emotional and melodic theme, but I love the fact that, the map version, as the tipical orquesta playing, but when the battle theme starts, you can only ear a piano solo, which idk, is so freaking cool, making the battle itself even more dramatic.
Anyways this is the only theme I renember doing something interesting like this.
But yeah, dinamic music is great, and I think FE has done it quite good.
I prefer Radiant Dawn’s approach - unique map themes for both armies, unique battle music for each faction, and said battle music remembers where it left off as battles end and start. It adds a ton of flavor in my opinion - the more modern interpretations just feel… lacking with the battle music just being an “allegro” version of the map theme.
I do think it would be neat to see a combination of both systems though - an allegro version of the normal battle theme when initiating combat, the normal theme when the enemy initiates combat, a more weighty, heavier version when unit is at low HP, etc. Think of how Pokemon Black/White had variances on the Gym Leader theme based on low HP / Leader’s last Pokemon.
