Aekenon

The continuing premise that you have to be prudish to be against fan-service is monumentally baffling to me. At least, it's weird that "fan-service" seems to be thrown around like it's synonymous with "sexual themes," when I almost can't disagree more. Bikini girls and face-rubbing isn't sex, nor is it coming anywhere close to being a proper take on the subject. If you look at the content itself, we're in Little Mermaid territory here. But, I guess words like "prude" and "virgin" are only being thrown around as a net for dismissing people outright, so I shouldn't expect there to be much thought behind them. Come on, folks. You can disagree with one another without resorting to high school tactics.

There is such a thing as tonal consistency. If a story's in the throes of a particularly dark event, it absolutely messes with the pacing if Kamui takes a break from contemplating deadly ramifications to go giggling off to his room, eager to spend time poking his fawning little sister's face for awhile. Really that's a weird thing to do at any juncture, but I digress... Fanservice definitely has the potential to take away from the seriousness of the plot. It's happened all over the place in anime land -- great story concepts getting completely overpowered by otaku genre tropes where they weren't meant to be. But they're there, because it sells better that way. The fact that people keep saying this is one of the darkest and saddest stories yet makes it even more difficult to reconcile the inclusion of all these straight-outta-echi elements. That's not to say a story can't be good in spite of its discordant recipe full of boob-zooms and oniichan-induced blushes, because good stories have certainly survived such things before, but the key phrase there is... "in spite of." I'd rather Fire Emblem's story not be playing around with subjects that it essentially has to ignore to tell the serious story it wants to tell. The more cohesive and consistent a game is, the better it is in my opinion.

You don't need to be a prude to not enjoy fanservice. Let it be known that boobs are A-OK in my book. Sexual themes in video games? Hell yeah, go for it. I would greatly appreciate the medium tackling and incorporating more mature concepts, especially with nuance. But that's not what this is, by a long shot. (In fact, I'd probably go so far as to say its depictions of these themes are largely immature) The problem with fanservice -- at least for me -- isn't the content, but the context. For example, you're not being shown characters wearing revealing clothing because they're empowered free-spirits who are comfortable with their bods and want the world to know it; nah, you're being shown characters wearing revealing clothing (often contradictory to their personalities) because it's low-hanging fruit for cheap titillation. AKA, basically the definition of fanservice. I dislike it in the same way I dislike any shoehorned-in element that exists discordantly to the core experience. I always find it ugly when marketing intersects and invades game design, and this case's no different. I like tight experiences: a cohesive vision followed through from one end to the other. These things sort of get in the way of that. That's how it looks to me, anyway. Now, I'm going to buy this game and I know I'm going to love it, but that doesn't mean I can't be disappointed about certain aspects of it. A lot of people get super defensive when something they loved gets criticized -- and that's super rad, because that kind of passion is great -- but they should remember that it's totally possible to love something and also want it to be better. I don't really want to see anyone on any side of this argument get shut down with sweeping statements. Because hey, we're all Fire Emblem fans here and want the best for our series, even if we can't necessarily agree what that means. That's cool. You're cool. We're all cool.

Just gonna say, if we've reached a point where you're being made to feel like a prude for criticizing incest, then we made a wrong turn somewhere.

There's definitely a certain dissonance between her supposed personality and how she's designed. I think it's a moot argument whether it's realistic or not though, since that's a big damn slippery slope when you're in anime land. You can't take two steps without tripping over a crazy outfit no human would realistically wear. And that's fine. The advantage of animation is that you can be fantastic and abstract, doing things that could never actually happen. Gotta embrace the stylistic insanity. What bothers me is when outfits appear to be designed solely for a kind of adolescent titillation, and serves the character no purpose (or indeed, appears to exist contrary to their actual natures). Nothing wrong with boobs. See, I'd like Camilla's design if she was presented as a sex-positive female who's super comfortable with her figure and wants everyone to know it, or is just similarly empowered. Or a slut, if that's what you want to say. But the information on her suggests none of these things, so instead it strikes as a crass contradiction to how she supposedly behaves -- breaking the fourth wall in a weird way, as I'm unable to believe she would dress that way herself. Sex appeal just for the sake of sex appeal, because apparently that's more important than creating a cohesive character design. Call it a pet peeve.

Well, yeah.

If you shouldn't discuss something in a game before playing it for yourself, then most of us should probably vacate this board until next year. I mean, I'm totally with you when it comes to reserving judgement, but I also don't believe everyone should have to qualify their statements with "...but, you know, I could be wrong. We'll see." It should go without saying. I totally partake in pointless qualifying all the time anyway, but I'm also just disgustingly neutral in most things. So, hey. Maybe that's why I can respect people with more pronounced opinions on any side of the spectrum. I certainly have beef with people who bang their drums too loudly, but I also take issue when people take the "fall in line or shut up" approach, as it's equally antagonizing, and especially out of place when most discussion has been relatively civil (at least on these boards). People are allowed their grievances, and it's good to have an avenue with which to discuss them. This is a topic for that, after all.

Maybe this isn't how you intended it, but I'm always put off by this pithy "if you don't like it, go away" kind of remark, since it's usually as if to say "you're not allowed to criticize something you like." It's important to remember that it's always fans on either side of these conversations, who just want the best for the thing they love. Even if they can't agree on what this means, it's hard to be mad when you keep in mind that everyone's heart is in the right place. As to the actual talk-with-your-money argument there... hey, it's not a bad sentiment to have. All the power to anyone who does so, I guess. But even if opponents of "THE PANDERALYPSE" took the super extreme length of boycotting this game -- and it somehow had an effect -- the message that the business folks'd interpret from low sales would be "welp, I guess Fire Emblem just isn't popular," and then we'd just see the series slip back into limbo for awhile. Which, if you're a fan, isn't exactly desirable either. And let's be real here, most of the people here who have a problem with this stuff are still excited enough about other features to want to get the game anyway. They're fan enough to be on a message board, after all. But it's still perfectly reasonable to discuss and criticize the elements they're not so fond of. Potentially productive, even.

Really, the best case for the FE Amie feature is that it's crammed somewhere out of the way like the Hubba Tester -- where it has no actual context in the game, and it's treated like some goofy side show. A tongue-in-cheek omake, if you will. Granted, evidence seems to point to the contrary, seeing as how it apparently provides actual in-game bonuses... To be fair, it's hard to say from here just how much these features will effect the game. They leave a bad impression, and I don't like the direction... but the writing could well be good in spite of these transgressions, so I'll keep an open mind. I'll react to what I see, but I don't want to make sweeping judgements just yet.

For the western ear, Nohr sounds way more ominous and imposing, whereas Anya doesn't really invoke that. It's a smart translation. Similarly, Hoshido will sound either naturally righteous or noble coming from your typical english-speaker's lips, where Byakuya would sound kinda aggressive. Even though they changed it, I'm glad they still kept it with a Japanese name here, because obviously... that's the whole motif.

I'm all for trying new things -- I always welcome drastic new additions to classic formulas -- but I can't help but cringe when things are so transparently being shoehorned in to accommodate market trends. This kind of stuff is "hot" in Japan right now (at least with the people who spend hella money), and it's unfortunate to see Fire Emblem compromising to target those "money whale" demographics, because I think this series is better than that. ADD MORE HOT SPRINGS, and ADD MORE FACE-RUBBING feels like a desperate lack of faith in their own product, and the kicker is that it's probably totally unnecessary, because I think this game is going to be rad. Corporate needs their numbers though, and I guess if this is what it takes to get another Fire Emblem made... so be it, I suppose. Call me a hater if you will, but I think I have the right to be slightly disappointed by the direction. To be clear, I'm actually pretty excited about the My Castle system, because it looks super fun to play with. I'm not worried about how this game will play, but I am concerned for its characters, the quality of their development, and consequently, the believability of the world at large. Time will tell whether FE Amie's inclusion actually ends up detracting from the support conversations (it's not a given, for sure), but it certainly leaves a negative impression that there's a system in place to treat its characters as objects rather than... well, living breathing people. I agree with Icy Toast's take on things, and he provided a better-written explanation of his view than I could hope to.

I feel like their new systems have potential to add more strategy than what they're taking away. How it'll actually land obviously remains to be seen, but it's hardly a given that this game will be more shallow. I feel like durability may as well be gone anyway with how little it even factors into the most recent games. Awakening, for instance, has very few instances were you need to be concerned about it at all -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but rather that the focus of the game's strategy has simply shifted. Removing it in favor of a new kind of system seems like the next logical step.

Does it even have anything to to with Nohr? Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention, but it seemed like everything they showed was suggesting Hoshido. I was starting to wonder if the My Castle feature may even be specific to that path.

I would hope the third path is a bit more than the "here's the middle road that makes everyone happy somehow!" option, especially since that could imply the other two paths have unsatisfactory one-sided endings (ala EO3 or SMT4). I'd want all of them to feel like complete stories ideally. If the third path went as far as bringing you a bunch of new characters and units, that'd be extra cool.

100% chance Chiki is trolling. At least that's what I'm going to tell myself, because I don't want to believe those comments can be said with sincerity.