The Problem With Bosses in Fire Emblem

Bosses are a near ubiquitous part of Fire Emblem maps, but they aren't always the most interesting. I talk about why I don't love a lot FE bosses, how the series has done bosses well in some instances, and why I think it's ok that Fire Emblem bosses aren't always the most exciting.

Music:
Sally Forth - roanch
Apex of Chill - beber & forblaze
March to the Cemetery - Treatstar

Footage used
-Chapter 13 from @akirasou Oops All Archers LTC

[supermonkeyqwerty]

the Zephia one is especially good, because the mechanic is something you're intimately familiar with long before the map, because it was stolen from YOU

[supervak]

I'm shocked by the lack of sacred stones in this video. One of the reasons it's my favorite FE is that a lot of bosses in it have much more characterization than the usual for the series. I don't see myself forgetting Valter or Orson anytime soon...

[ivanbluecool]

Honestly best way to have bosses is to implement them into story.

A necromancer on field getting defeated should erase his summons if he's boss or not.

Defeating the commander early should drop the moral of the army. 3 houses almost got this right with the class battles. But it should be taking out edegard demitri or reverse bow man gives your army up to aol stats and their army a drop

A mercenary army attacking you from behind should flee when the enemy leader that paid for their swords is slain meaning they won't get paid as mercs won't waste time on a fight for nothing

Things like this would go a long way to make fire emblem more engaging

[Metal_Maoist]

I think the Death Knight works for me purely through raw presence. The first time he shows up you see that there's a guy called capital D capital K Death Knight and he looks like THAT. & then he fully just ignores his orders to go attack you and just stands there extremely menacingly in the middle of the map. And then he wrecks your entire shit from any given range if you actually try to fight him

[miamideighton]

Often times the biggest challenge of a boss is ‘how do I give a full level of EXP to a unit who’s falling behind and wants a boost, but has no business beating this dude by themself?’

[jierdareisa]

One of Engage's greatest successes is certainly how it made bosses engaging to fight
Having a high-stat, Emblem wielding, aggressive boss with multiple health bars is a lot more interesting than yet another paladin / general on a throne

[deadlypandaghost]

Miklan from 3 houses is one of my favorites. He introduces monster mechanics which are fun(before they get spammed to death) and new. If you have homeboy Sylvain in the party its pretty impactful on an emotional level since you are literally here to kill a student's brother. His transformation itself is a major story moment both for what it means about the church and for setting up later transformations.

Also shoutout for the death knight. He was challenging enough statwise to be a fun optional boss. The extra seals are a good reward for winning but not to good to pass up on.

[lizaim]

Im glad you bring up the point that every boss doesnt need to be special or heavily impactful. I personally think the smaller, more generic bosses help ground the story in FE games. Not every battle is a grand, climactic experience. I think that serves a nice spot in building up to those climactic battles.

[LuizGustavo-yhqd]

Very weird to not see the fates siblings+dragon veins in this video, ch 10 Takumi in conquest and Camilla in birthright are perfect examples of a lot of the points you make here

[ndimensional]

Really wish we got more staff-centered bosses in FE. Iago from Conquest’s 26 was really memorable, trying to time my movements to his staff cycles

[SurfingKyogreNL]

Having two bosses, one who moves and one who guards the throne on a larger map, is also a great way to get around the 'seize' problem. I think FE5 chapter 22, the Reinhardt map, is a great example of this. Leadership stars are also a great mechanic. The enemy's morale drops once you defeat the boss in that case.

[TwilightWolf]

22:08 Honestly, the only complaint I have about the Black knight fight is that you can't save or change your skills before fighting him.
If chapter 27 was divided in two parts, like Daybreak, or at least they allowed you to apply the Resolve you just got on that map, this fight would not have received nearly as much criticism as it does.
But I remember one Youtuber that put the calculations into a spreadsheet and basically proved the fight is 100% winnable with Mist and you only lose without her if you really screw up (like ending your turn without healing Ike, as you did in the video above).

[ghostofdurruti]

Genealogy frequently employed the multiple-bosses approach, with one moving and the other staying back to guard the objective, and those are some of the most memorable encounters in the game. Eldigan in Chapter 3, Travant in chapter 9, Ishtar and the pegasus trio in the finale...

[JoeSmith-dbrq]

Chapter concept: player’s army is marching on the enemy. Enemy boss (let’s say the lord of a city) requests reinforcements, but they’re only given new, untrained recruits. While the boss’ main army is still on guard, we see dialogue for the boss telling the young recruits to guard certain areas that are out of the path of the player’s main objective of seizing the throne (such as defending villages off the main path). If you get to the boss without killing those low level enemies, he thanks you and may even surrender without fighting. If you do attack them though (like almost any blind player would), then he goes into a frenzy and becomes very difficult to take down. This can be balanced as well by putting the new enemy recruits by villages with important items - are you willing to kill them to get those rewards if it means fighting a much more difficult boss?

[Eternalwarpuppy]

I really liked Takumi in Fire Emblem Conquest. As an archer he does all sorts of grand attacks that force you to really think about how you position yourself to survive them while also dealing with the monsters closing in on your army. It makes it very satisfying when you can finally close in on him with melee units.

[ghostbyun]

Just want to thank you for your videos lately. Been swamped with work and it's always so nice to put one of your videos on in the background whilst working

[BigKlingy]

I agree with all your points here. For some additional points, I like how Thracia handles bosses not just for Leadership Stars (which gives incentive to taking out commanders even in forced timer maps, and adds to the lore), but also the capture system. Many FE games have sympathetic bosses but Thracia is the only one where they can be taken alive instead of killed, combining gameplay challenge with story satisfaction. Capturing Gomez makes an already horrifying fight even worse (he has 19 Con, you need to get a lot of Con levels to do it) but it rewards you with a less bittersweet resolution to the chapter's plot. I'd imagine nearly everyone would try to capture Mustafa in Awakening if that was an option.

Boss conversations are fun, but it sucks when characters you expect to have dialogue don't. I will never stop being mad at the Nohrian Royals not having boss dialogue with Garon in Fates Conquest.

[xamadfp]

13:11 Funnily enough, FE3 already does this with its endgame; the throne is always present, but you're not allowed to seize it until you've killed Medeus first. I can't recall any other time FE has done this, though.

[Oersted_LAL]

I still think Abyme is a cool boss from a lore stand point, and looking at info from the manga. Girl survives a literal fatal encounter, ditches her armor, goes full offense, and attempts to fight again on Engage's boat map. She survived a Loadstar Rush in the manga, and it barely did anything to her. Purely from that alone, I think she's cool lol

[Lando-My-Love]

It's been a recent discovery, but Lunatic Nealucci in Engage has been a big part of why I've enjoyed replaying that game.
Nearly INSTANTLY you're asked to deal with a nontraditional threat that really shapes the ending of that map.
As someone who played a lot of 3H maddening when it was new, it's night and day how much I enjoy these two early games.

!FE:TMGC is a fan game I've sunk my teeth into and I think its approach to introducing sub/main bosses after certain conditions (ex: a boss that appears after crossing the map for a talk convo) has been delightfully creative.