There are many games in the Fire Emblem franchise, such as the epic Engage, and not all of them are even officially available in English. With that in mind, answering how to best play every Fire Emblem entry in the series in order is tricky but doable.
First, it’s important to note that there is rarely any continuity from one entry to another, yet when it does pop up, it can impact your enjoyment of certain entries. Some games are sequels to one another, while others are standalone games. Some games may even be sequels to entries that were never officially localized in the West. Thus, if you were going to start the franchise at the beginning, the definition of “the beginning” of the series is different depending on your perspective.
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How To Play the Fire Emblem Games in Release Order

If you were going to begin your Fire Emblem journey, you could start with the 2003 Game Boy Advance game Fire Emblem, the first game in the series released in the West and introduced Westerners to iconic characters like Marth and Roy. That being said, while Fire Emblem may be the first title released in the West, it’s actually the seventh game in the series. Because of this, one could argue that you should start with the 2009 Nintendo DS game Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, which is a remake of the original game, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, released for Famicom in 1990.
If you want to play the games in chronological order of when they were released in the West, series continuity be damned; the order in which to play the mainline games would work out like this:
- Fire Emblem (GBA 2003)
- Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (GBA 2005)
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GameCube 2005)
- Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii 2007)
- Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (DS 2009)
- Fire Emblem Awakening (3DS 2013)
- Fire Emblem Fates (3DS 2016)
- Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (3DS 2017)
- Fire Emblem Three Houses (Switch 2019)
- Fire Emblem Engage (Switch 2023)
If you wanted to follow the series’ proper release order, then a few games need to move spots. Firstly, Shadow Dragon would need to be the first game played as a remake of the original. Granted, there was also an official English version of the original Fire Emblem released digitally on Nintendo Switch in 2020, but it was only available to download for a very limited time, which makes the DS version the more accessible version of the first game to play.
The second game in the series, Fire Emblem Gaiden (Famicom 1992), was also remade as Shadows of Valentia. This version of the game is the only official release of Gaiden in the West, so you would play that second if you wanted to follow the true release order. After that, you can follow the Western chronology for the series. As of this writing, the third through sixth games in the series – Mystery of the Emblem, Geneology of the Holy War, Thracia 776, and The Binding Blade – have never had an official English release, so those games have not been factored into this list. However, if you wanted to track down a way to play them, you would play those games before the first Western release of the series, which is known in Japan as The Blazing Blade.
How To Play the Fire Emblem Games in Chronological Order

While Fire Emblem games tend to have relatively separate stories, there is a somewhat overarching continuity between certain entries. Settings are shared between a few installments, like the countries of Valentia and Jugdral, and references are made to some past events and characters, so technically speaking, there is a chronology to the games depending on which region the game takes place in.
I want to stress that experiencing the series in chronological order isn’t necessary to fully enjoy each individual game, but if you want to get the most out of your experience with the franchise, here is the series chronology, based on the continent depicted in each game:
- Archanea & Valentia Timeline
- Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (DS 2009)
- Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (3DS 2017)
- Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS 2012)
- Tellius Timeline
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GameCube 2005)
- Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii 2007)
As for the remaining games – Fire Emblem, The Sacred Stones, Fates, Three Houses, and Engage – each of those games takes place on separate continents and doesn’t reference the events of the other installments, at least the ones only released in the West. If you wanted to get very technical, then you can argue that Engage is canon to every timeline since it’s a multiversal fanservice blending of each major entry, but that’s only if we want to get very technical.
Which Fire Emblem Game Should You Play First?

So you know the series order and the chronological order of the series, but which one should be your first entry?
The easiest answer would be to just go with whichever one strikes your fancy, but that’s not quite so simple. Fire Emblem games are notoriously expensive on the second-hand market and even modern releases rarely get discounted and are often sold at full price. Even if you were to get every game in the series on the cheap, some games are absolutely brutal in their difficulty, while others are a bit too brain-dead to pose a challenge to beginners.
If you were going to get into the series, the best place to start would be with one of two games – Three Houses or Awakening. Three Houses is a rich game full of a lot of mechanics, whether it be teaching your students, the multiple relationship trees you can develop with them, or deciding between one of four different story paths to follow. You won’t be lacking content in Three Houses, and it offers a fairly beginner-friendly approach to difficulty. Granted, it steers a bit further away from what a classic Fire Emblem experience may be even if the game is excellent in nearly every regard, so it’s probably not the best distillation of the franchise.
For that, you should probably take a look at Awakening. It was meant to serve as the final game in the series, so it naturally builds on a lot of the mechanics from earlier entries. The grid-based combat is satisfying and the characters are some of the series’ best. It was a touch easier compared to other entries like the Radiance duology, but not too easy, making it a good starting place for newcomers. And if you’re worried about the series continuity interfering with it, given its place in the timeline, don’t be. Even though it’s set in the same setting as several other games in the series, the plot is so far removed that it rarely impacts the main plot.
Whether you decide to delve into the series chronologically, in release order, or just pick up an entry that looks interesting to you, you’re bound to discover that Fire Emblem is a deep JRPG series that’s easily worth a look.
The above article was updated on 2/4/2025 by the original author to include additional information about the Fire Emblem franchise.
Published: Feb 4, 2025 09:36 am