Most vanilla FE games are around 25-30 chapters, though there are exceptions both on the shorter side and the longer side, with the average roster of playable characters usually being between 40 and 50 (vague estimate, I didn’t go out of my way to count). Do you like the average length and roster size of FE games? Do you prefer the games that are longer, with bigger rosters? Or the shorter games with smaller rosters? Would you want a really long game with a small roster?
Personally, I embody the sin of gluttony; the longer the game and the larger the cast, they more I tend to enjoy it. The length and roster size is pretty much the only reason I prefer FE7 over FE8, and in fact wanting a longer game is the main reason I play Lyn Mode every time I replay FE7.
Obviously I wouldn’t advocate for games to be longer just for the sake of it, I wouldn’t want a game’s chapter count to bloat the story beyond what feels reasonable, but wherever a long campaign with a large cast can be justified, I will absolutely take it.
Depends on the linearity and amount of non battle map time the game has per playthrough. Whenever a game like 3H or Engage asks you to spend alot of time doing non battle map stuff, I like the game to be shorter. Also, games with branching paths, multiple endings, or any other massive replay value objective are better short as well. I like these games within the 15-25 chapter length range including gaidens maps.
But linear games will less reason to replay them and no side content feel better as long and focused campaigns to me. Maybe around 30-40 chapters including gaiden maps. Anything over 40 can still be enjoyed if the game is broken up into clear and entertaining story arcs.
It’s difficult to determine a preferred game length in a vacuum. If I had to give a generalized answer, it’d be “short enough that I don’t get bored, long enough that I don’t feel like it has untapped potential”.
I tend to like longer and more complex chapters, which does make me gravitate towards a shorter number of chapters, but may lead to a higher play time, so that’s another relatively difficult thing to gauge.
Looking at the vanilla games I played and rating them based on feel alone would result in the following state-of-the-art-graph (credits to ChatGPT):
Honestly didn’t even consider that this might be a factor. I generally don’t like when an SRPG makes me take a ton of time away from the SRPG gameplay, but in cases like that I would definitely like less chapters so the game doesn’t take 200 hours to beat
Totally fair. Though I do think longer games correlate with larger casts, which in turn do add more replay value, they’re absolutely nothing compared to true branching paths and alternate endings. That said I personally find myself replaying the longer games more than I do the shorter ones, funnily enough
yea I lowkey expect most of the FE fanbase to prefer games on the shorter side
were it up to me most games would have like 40 chapters (including optional maps) and three-tier promotions but that’d probably turn a lot of people away from the series
i’m more a fan of how long most games are (around 25-ish chapters) but i don’t mind shorter campaigns at all
if every fe game was paced like radiant dawn everyone would get tired quick
i played vision quest a few months back and i couldn’t stand the pacing it dragged on and onand wouldn’t ever stop
fe maps are quite involved and can get overwhelming, especially when large maps are bolted onto one another back to back with no simpler maps to break up the monotony
i will praise gaiden/sov for map pacing because it doesn’t have any hour-long maps that drag on for ages because there are like 50 enemies for some reason and there are no save points at all
haven’t played Radiant Dawn but from what I’ve heard about how it’s structured… yeah I wouldn’t want every game to be like that. When I think about a 40 chapter game in my head I usually think more along the lines of FE7 with Lyn + Hector Mode + all side chapters.
Oh absolutely. I think maps should vary in complexity, difficulty, and length across a campaign for sure, having multiple maps in a row that effectively play the same does not make for the most engaging experience
Lowkey… You have a point. I mean the maps are still very very bad but because they’re so short they never really felt bad to play. Hell, I somehow had fun playing Gaiden despite the NES jank that made me hate FE1, and I’m willing to bet the map pacing contributed heavily to my enjoyment
I do think mid-map save tiles are a cool idea that the series should do something with again honestly, at least for bigger maps
I’m definitely in the minority on this, but I realized recently that while I enjoy both the story and gameplay aspects of Fire Emblem (in general), I think trying to focus on both of them at the same time has frequently decreased my enjoyment of both of them. This is purely a me-problem, and I don’t wish for anyone to change how they approach making their hacks (hell, I probably won’t either), but there were so many times in which I was having a great time with the tactical gameplay but was forced to spend 15+ minutes reading when I really wanted to get back to it, or was really into the plot and then had to spend over an hour playing a map I didn’t care about before I could get back to it. I’m considering playing future games twice going forward, once on easy mode to get the plot, and then once on a harder difficulty to skip the story and focus on the gameplay, because I think that is how I’ll end up getting the most enjoyment out of this series.
Anyway, for the actual question posted…dude, Sacred Stones is longer than I want a Fire Emblem game to be. Slightly. 12-15 hours is what I’m looking for in a game like this. I don’t mind games being longer, but I vastly prefer replayability over length. I modded XCOM 2 to make the game roughly half as long and since then I think I’ve tripled the amount of time I put into the game. There’s other factors involved in that too, but I think the general point is there. A game being long isn’t something that will avert me from playing it, but I often feel the need to take breaks from any game that passes the 20 hour mark, personally.
The GBA titles usually don’t go past 20 by much for the main campaigns, and that’s probably where I’d draw the line. Once you get past that length, the game starts to overstay its welcome, especially with larger maps (probably why FE4 only has 12 maps, since the square tile count per map is incredibly large).
Personally the nes/snes cartridges feel too long and clunky to me. I always ended up scratching CDs, and the ds/switch cartridge sizes feel a bit too short and light. Too easy to lose, so I prefer the gameboy/gbc cartridges, but since there’s no fe for that, I’ll go with the gba cartridges. They’re pretty short, but not quite as short as the modern ones.
Personally, while I don’t have this issue with Fire Emblem, I do understand it, because this is how I feel about Arknights, my other favorite game. Usually for me, as long as the story sections aren’t super long between chapters, they just feel like a nice little break, but if the story sections get super long then it does break the pacing. I think it also depends how long the map before was, if it’s a short map I expect not that much story, but if it’s a huge map then I can be patient with a longer story segment
Oh yeah for sure. I don’t tend to do an entire playthrough of a game without playing something else in between, I’ve been playing Dream of Five on and off for a few weeks now. It’s definitely very easy to get sick of a game if you play it every time you have a free moment with nothing to break up the monotony, especially a game like FE where like… Most of the game is fundamentally the same thing over and over
Meanwhile there’s me playing Lyn Mode and every single gaiden map on every playthrough just to inflate FE7 to like 40 chapters
Y’know, as funny as this is, I unironically agree completely. Now that I have a physical GBA and carts to play on, I’m realizing how absurdly convenient it is; way easier to keep track of the cartridges compared to Switch or DS games
OHHHH you meant lyn mode fe7 not radiant dawn i assumed radiant dawn because you mentioned third tier classes
fe7 lyn mode is done in an hour anyway and besides that it’s the usual length for an fe game
yeah thats the point gaiden maps aren’t meant to play like most fe maps thats why the map design is so “bad” because gaiden maps are focused on combat and not securing objectives long-term
plenty of other tactics games take the approach of simple maps + combat and it works well for them
Oh yeah no I just like tier 3 classes conceptually and wish more games in the series tried them out, I have no idea if they do or don’t work well in RD I just like the promotion system in Gaiden/SoV
you meant a game as long as fe7 with valentian class system not radiant dawn
yeah rd’s classes are really underwhelming the promoted classes are basically just the T1 classes but stronger there’s little difference other than stats
it def could have been made with only two tiers and the game would hardly be any different
but rd wanted a natural progression in power with the returning cast + the ability to transfer stats from por without units becoming too powerful
third tiers are imo great for longer games or if you want power boosts to occur more frequently since that’s the big benefit of having promotion
i also DO NOT think third tiers should coexist with branching promotions since that is a surefire way to have WAY MORE classes than is necessary (seriously do we need 60 different classes for playable units?)
three houses is a good game to reference if you want third tiers with branching imo (it has issues but compared to fan-made T3 class trees it’s way better)
thats fair. personally i love having an absurd amount of classes, in theory it’d make everyone’s playthroughs even more unique and add a lot of replayability, but for romhacks and small indie games its definitely not realistic to ask for considering how much work/money it takes to animate all that
yeah, pretty much. i enjoy long games, but the downside is that the jumps in power dont happen as frequently, and a third tier of classes is a nice fix for that. it wouldnt really work in a shorter game like FE8
i like having unique classes but not a fan of them coexisting alongside the generic fe8 class list resulting in way more classes than necessary
like do we need three magic fighters or three axe fighters or two identical swordies? do we need two fliers that do the same thing with some stat differences? why does assassin exist? are both mage knight and valkyrie really needed?
also playable soldiers are pointless just use armor knights they have an actual reason to exist outside of “filling out the weapon triangle” like why is this something that we need to do? (gaiden soldiers are fine but not the generic romhack soldier with no niche and no purpose)
anyway ill stop rambling about classes since its off topic
party swaps are a must for long campaigns. you’re always getting stronger as each party levels up independently of each other and you won’t be worn out using the same units for the whole game.
i can’t imagine an fe game where you’re following the same party for 40 chapters even with third tiers
Medium (25ish chapters) is probably the sweet spot for most games, but I do personally enjoy longer games with the caveat that they need to actually have enough mechanical depth to scale well into the late game and a plot/characters that really hooks you and doesn’t just feel like padding or going on for the sake of it.
I don’t necessarily think an outright swapping of parties is necessary, though there do need to be some moments that shake up your cast in some way or another for sure. Back again to the example of FE7, if you play it as one long campaign like I do then the end of Lyn Mode sees everyone in your army leaving and then slowly joining back one by one in Eliwood/Hector Mode, and in the hack I’m currently playing, Dream of Five, the army gets split up for a few chapters when the Lord lets herself be captured by the enemy , leading to a few chapters that really shake up the dynamic
if the game doesnt have a skill system then i completely agree, no point adding three different infantry lance classes if they all do the exact same thing just with slightly different stats. though i do think with creative enough skill design you can make every class feel worthy of existing
Mind you I’m a lunatic who designed over 120 classes for my FE-inspired TTRPG so take everything I say with a pound or two of salt
