arvilino

I registered for Fire Emblem Sanctuary of Strategy back in the mid 2000's. I mostly just read what other people posted but the tier lists were quite a hot topic, the philosphies between how people valued units then and now were completley topsy turvy. With Ests like Nino considered the best kind of units based on their 20/20 stats and the idea of promoting a unit before level 20 being something unheard of or inadvisable. There were still some focus on challenges as one thing I remember faintly was many people were impressed by someone's Blazing Sword playthrough in which they beat the game without promoting any units.

Regarding the US marketing in the west Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn actually had a significant showing that no Fire Emblem game had(even Awakening didn't have). At E3 2007 while the Wii was burning hot and DS going and there was peak of interest in Nintendo, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn actually had it's reveal as a E3 trailer: But it was to muted response outside of the Fire Emblem fan forums.(The 10 year old comments on the video speak a bit for how it was perceived, very few thought it looked good). On retrospective its no big surprise because there's nothing in the reveal that would get all but a few people interested in it if they didn't already like Fire Emblem. But if the trailer for a niche SRPG can't resonate with gamers at the biggest gaming event, was there any chance for it to get more casual gamers interested? I think something people miss with Fire Emblem's recent success is that it just didn't get more marketing. They made changes in presentation(faster paced, more interesting animations even on weaker hardware, distinct map sprites rater than the ugly topdown 3d models) and features(Casual mode, exciting new mechanics like pair-up,dual attack, etc.) in order to make itself more marketable and gave more compelling reasons for people who didn't already like Fire Emblem to be excited by it. Fire Emblem was unmarketable state by the time of Radiant Dawn and they struggled to gain more new players than they were losing(SD selling 100k more than RD purely due to Japan and notably Marth beng so popular there). I think the Wii could have sold 200 million systems and I'd still bet Radiant Dawn would have been around the 500k range worldwide.

I'd rather it be under one tome rank, the spells can be diversified through their individual effects like in Fates rather than elements. Why dedicate a whole weapon type/rank like Fire or Thunder to a bunch of spells that perform the role a single weapon(Beastslayer and Wyrmslayer) does in another weapon type? Plus considering the situational use of each, using them effectively also means that weapon experience growth would be unfocused and split between the elements. The concept of separate spell ranks is interesting but it doesn't really benefit Magic using units, it hamstrings them. It'd be like if you made the Hammer a separate weapon rank to Axes, it's more complex but it doesn't add anything it just narrows down the options a unit has.

I'd agree Conquest covers new ground in terms of how Fire Emblem's stories are concerned. I think there’s also an interesting difference in the story even as early as simply Corrin's aims after joining each side and not the outcome. By joining Hoshido Corrin helps fight back Nohr defeating them in order to end the war and achieve peace, in Birthright Corrin is chooses a position where he/she can only end the war by force. Which is standard Fire Emblem in any other Fire Emblem game that would be seen as right, Hoshido are in the right because they aren’t the original aggressors…but they want to defeat Nohr to stop the war and Corrin does too in Birthright. However the choice in Conquest introduces a different perspective. When Corrin sides with Nohr in Conquest his/her original intentions have him/her attempt to prevent the war with compassion(minimal casualties on either side) and by trying to change the Nohrian way. What Corrin tries is stopping rebellions (at least the Ice Tribe) without causalities and also trying to show during conflict with Hoshido that Nohr isn’t just filled with monstrous people.Of course in the end it doesn’t work and what Corrin tried was naïve. But if Corrin did successfully change “the Nohrian way” and Hoshido was receptive to his/her attempts to showcase this, assuming the war could have been stopped "Corrins way" then Conquest may have the lower body count than the other two routes and in a way it could be argued Corrin actually sides with Nohr with better intentions than he/she does with Hoshido. Corrin joins Hoshido with the idea of defeating/stopping Nohr, Corrin doesn't join Nohr to defeat Hoshido. What's also interesting is how Corrin goes about this until the invasion of Hoshido makes me think of some of the observations of previous Fire Emblem games like the idea "Every enemy soldier you kill had a family". Corrin frequently sparing the enemy forces in Conquest is interesting, since he isn't just sparing his siblings or the enemy leader in each engagement(e.g. all the Ice Tribe survive and the villagers acknowledge you going to the villages, yet a named character like Crimson gets slaughtered). Things like these are interesting since it's pretty rare that the series treats any unit without a name with significance even during dramatic situation, similarly Corrin and Azura's support in Conquest reflecting Corrin's regret over the impacts of the choice.

Yeah he is only there to revive Grima, he's in the same boat as Robin where he would have been born for the sake of reviving Grima. A big point of the game and his role is that he's been manipulating events and planting Grimleal(Excellus) across the continent specifically ensure Grima's resurrection and not for any personal gain. 1. The Grimleal worship Grima for it's strength(the cultists, including Validar's family line). The in-game dialogue and some supports mention a lot of of them were driven to it by Validar's designs as a sacrifice and events like Chrom's Father's War(revenge) with Plegia, Gangrel's harsh rule and the Ylisse and Plegia's war during the main game drove the civillians to it for an escape from hardship. Then they were brainwashed and used as a sacrifice at the Dragon's Table. 2 & 3) Validar is the direct descendant of the Grimleal member who Grima shared his blood with. Their offspring are born either to become Grima's vessel provided they have the heart of Grima or have a child who will be the vessel. Validar's and Aversa's lines in the game have him believe all events that occur are pre-ordained and that it's his role to revive Grima and that it was decided 1000 years before the events of the game. The way I see it Validar as written as that he's deep in hs faith as a servant of his God and there to carry out Grima's will and not his own. Chapter 23 shows he's more about reviving Grima and isn't bothered about the world being destroyed afterwards. Though could you explain how you saw it? When you played the game did you think Validar had just decided to resurrect Grima himself?

Validar is in a line of a religious sect dedicated to reviving Grima for 1000 years, Robin and by extension him were born to be raised and brainwashed into to revive the dragon. A guy being brainwashed into cult that his entire family line were a part of is more believable than "Dark Magic made me crazy". While Fire Emblem always deals with the supernatural I think the role Validar has is pretty grounded. Is it really hard to believe that a cult leader is 100% indoctrinated into their own religion?

It's a fictional mental illness she has and an extreme madness(her bloodlust and not really maturing mentally past when her mother died). But I think the way the game handles it seems to be decent for an incurable madness since a lot of the characters(with some exceptions like Charlotte) do try to discourage her bad behaviour(needless killing) or try to redirect her attention to her other talent(cooking), Leon tries to reason with her about the concept of killing.But none of the supports even the S-ranks actually truly resolve her issue. Odin's suggests she has anger management techniques but still acknowledges her personality shifts after battles being something she has to "snap out of". In a way I think the way the supports work for her atleast can be perceived as consistent a depending on her state of mind at the time any of the development in the other supports wouldn't need to be taken because she can always snap back to wanting to kill.

Interesting results. I think since it's Favourite/Least Favourite a lot of the characters with a "reason" to dislike them get a lot of votes that way. Takumi, Azama, Charlotte have pretty divisive personalities/actions and a near equal favourite & least favourite votes.

I wasn't saying a good story negatively effects the gameplay. I said a good story could be a worse fit for a particular game than something that could be considered a bad story depending on what the game is like. My viewpoint is that different games are better off with telling their stories in different ways regardless of how the story would be perceived when divorced from the gameplay. I was drawing attention to the main overarcing plot of Dragon Age Origins being simpler is likely to avoid leaving players unengaged, therefore for a game that is almost entirely linear it coud be a mistake to force same depth into it because unlike Dragon Age: Origins it isn't optional. Perhaps I shouldn't have just said complexity but in order to have the additional depth Dragon Age: Origins had more text, the optional parts of DA:O required the game to have more text and more dialogue than if it was just the main story. Put that additonal text into a linear RPG and the script will unquestionably longer and as a result of the differing game structures unlike DA:O all that extra text would also become mandatory and that will impact the time between gameplay. (Not to mention while being my goty 2009 the pay off for the extra stuff in DA:O was a letdown the text at the end of the game "showing" the impact of my choices didn't particularly resonate with me). There have been books that I wished were longer but the same book may have been considered "just right" or "too long" by other readers, however there have been books I've given up incredibly early on(Game of Thrones) because to me it was a complete bore of a book that went into great detail describing things I seriously didn't care about as much as the author probably through all readers would.I think for games the it's better for the story to be short and the player wanting more than for it being too long because in the latter it's dull and you have far longer between periods of the actual fun part of the game(Gameplay) especially if you personally don't like the story. You only need to play Eternal Sonata to see why a game trying to make itself have deep story can catastrophically fail worse than if it had a short one.

You seem to think that if a game's story became more and more deep it would only ever be better but that simply isn't true, however I do believe that a story that would be pretty bad standalone could be the best way of telling the a story in a videogame and a story that standalone would be good could be inappropriate for a videogame. There's time when the story can harm both the gameplay and itself. The deeper or more complex the story gets the more text you have to read through if you just want to know the context of each scenario and also the more time it takes between two sections of gameplay. A long enough story can leave people unengaged, bored or simply get in the way of gameplay that's why for example Dragon Age: Origins places most of it's depth outside of the mandatory dialogue. However Fire Emblem differs to this because the story telling is all mandatory because the main story is mostly chapter to chapter, rarely some of the Gaiden/paralogues expand on a couple aspects but overall story is told in a way that every player has to read it. I think the best story for a particular videogame is one that's more suited to it's design and actually complements the gameplay, all some games really need is to just give context to what's happening in the gameplay. If every player is going to need to read a story in a linear game I think it's a bad idea to make it much longer than it needs to be and it certainly shouldn't be focused on the same depth games that have most their depth outside of what you're directly told in the main story.

I can't speak for him but I think deeper stories can ruin the pacing of a story itself and even extend past the story and lead to large gaps between the actual gameplay. The first three Advance Wars and Batallion Wars I & II have very simple stories and characterisations that can fit on a cue card but in my opinion are pretty entertaining and Days of Ruins is told is a similar way to Awakening and Fates before and after chapters. I think there can be a lot of elegance in telling a good story without much dialogue(especially since videogames are a visual medium), some RPGs that have little dialogue due to hardware specs of older systems are still held up as telling good tales or experiences. On the same note with enough time any one could coming up with motivations to justify and create a deeper character or story when they have essentially no limit on how much text they can write. Yet a shallow character done well can be far more entertaining or memorable or just a better fit for certain type of story. Fire Emblem could be suitable with a simple story because that may best complement the gameplay. The memorable moments woven into the gameplay and the player's feeling while playing the game and what happens during their playthroughs. due to the sheer number of characters, simpler trope based, but distinctive characters so they stand out amongst the rest of the cast so even if you don't read their supports so even if they don't play a role in the story you have an understanding of them without digging through a mountain of text. I think a deeper story would be better for a game with a smaller cast and much better served in a novel than a videogame.

Protagonist: The youngest prince of a kingdom that was once the centre of a greater and ambitious empire. But due to hard hard times and shrank due to lack of resources and inability to control it's other nations that eventually separated and became independent kingdoms. It is still known for it's military power but depends heavily on surounding nations to maintain itself. Deuteragonist: Two: A Crown prince of the kingdom eventually becomes the king during the story and another character who's a brilliant strategist who prove's himself between chapter 1-11 but eventually defects to a different side later on(not the villan's one however). Villain: A merchant ruler of a wealthy and fertile kingdom, he "supports" the protagonist's kingdom with resources/food at high prices and materials but is also secretly sabotaging trade routes with hired bandits to pressure the protagonist's kingdom into famine and eventually take it over. He knows he's unlikely to win in a direct confrontation he wants to weaken the kingdom indirectly while appearing as an ally and then later conquer it when they're too weak to defend themselves. He's doing this part out of greed but also to keep the protagonist's kingdom in check as he fears they'll try to conquer his own kingdom if they were well supplied. This would probably only be a chapter 1- 11 kind of conflict as Fire Emblem games usually have a greater conflict with a supernatural element. I think a conflict that's just two kingdoms fighting with nothing else is kind of lame and a waste of the fantasy genre.

In my opinion Fates is the best incarnation of the child system gameplay-wise, the level scaling, flexibility of when you can recruit them and method of building supports and the way skills and classes are inhereted make in excellent improvement on Awakenings. Awakening's was ...iffy the difficulty of the chapters flucuated wildly and the children starting at level 10 and based on parents stats made them vary from incredibly powerful for their level to near unusable(at the point you recruit them). Genealogy's has a decent justification of story-wise but the implementation an enigma if you don't know the plot-point is coming it ruins the mechanic and you wouldn't get a good shot at using it unless you replay it, if you don't know what class the children will be you can screw yourself over and if you do know it's coming you spoil a big part of the story for yourself and I think the method of building the marriages wasn't that good at all. Personally I like the fact that they could actually refine the mechanic immediately after Awakening for Fates without having to wait for a story specifically about the children. In comparison the 16 years between Genealogy and Awakening the core gameplay and support system changed so much that Awakening couldn't even really build on what Genealogy did so pretty much had to start from scratch with the new support system, waiting so long for another story to justify the mechanic only stymied potential improvements.

Dark Holy Elf didn't say "perfect" though. They said interesting instead of a "big hero". A lot of proposed changes that have been discussed for Corrin involves him or her acting towards the most heroic course of option regardless of scenario e.g. " X is corrupt so I'll join a rebellion" which is standard "big hero" fare and something that has happened before in Fire Emblem(Marth in New Mystery) and a lot of the main characters tend towards. Changes like this remove the aspects that set the character apart from the other Fire Emblem main characters and would homogonises Corrin amongst the other Fire Emblem protagonists if she or he is just going to act and drive the plot in the same direction another character would. It's understandable someone would find it less interesting if despite differences in character, environment and context Corrin just did the same things another Fire Emblem main hero would do in a roughly similar scenario.

Garon probably doesn't care about them. Iago and Hans aren't causes of Garon's Nohr, they're symptoms. Killing Iago, Hans, Zoura, or Daniella is only killing people who follow Garon's orders which in the grand scheme with a constant theme being that Garon's orders supercede the rest of the royal family the deaths of characters like those four across either route would mean little(well other than Zoura's who's was necessary to silence him) as there'd always be people to replace them. I think however even though Garon probably doesn't care about them, Iago and/or Hans dying might highlight Corrin is willing to defy or impede Garon directly which ofcourse could make Garon(or Anankos) change their plan to keep Corrin alive to torture him/her if he/she becomes a liability to their other plans.