People seems to dislike Avatar...

[pianime94]

Oy folks, remember that TC doesn't have the game yet and while the plot isn't very worthy, it's still good to be mindful of Spoilers.

I haven't played TTYD in a few years, but wasn't there a poisoned cake in Cht.3 that did the same thing?

As far spoiling goes, I have been spoiled some stuffs in Awakening, such as:

- Avatar being Grima (the final boss)...or something like that

- Lucina being Chrom's daughter from the future, trying to change the present

Hmm I guess that's all the major spoiler I know, as such I know nothing much of this game's story or major plot

Paper Mario TTYD did that several times-- and you could get a few pointless game overs off it.

Poisoned Cake, Cursed Book, final boss... all offered quick game overs.

Another game [also Nintendo] that had a hilarious choice Game Over was "Custom Robo" for the Gamecube. There's a point where you'd be asked to go fight to save the world, and you can say "No." Well, if you do, you'd get asked again, and again... and so forth, with your teammates getting more and more desperate, until finally, you get a "Are you sure?"-- if you say "No" at that point, you watch your teammates leave without you. Then you're informed that they didn't ever come back, then the final boss showed up and killed everyone, and then you're told by one of your teammates that you should've went [and that he died]... and are kicked out to title screen. [Reloading will put you right back at that choice]

I don't actually played much of Mario (only Kart and mini-games related)m that kinda reminded me of the Gamble skill in Final Fantasy VI, you can actually get an instant game over out of it too.

Holy, that's a pretty drastic development...

[Czar_Yoshi]

As far spoiling goes, I have been spoiled some stuffs in Awakening, such as:

- Avatar being Grima (the final boss)...or something like that

- Lucina being Chrom's daughter from the future, trying to change the present

Hmm I guess that's all the major spoiler I know, as such I know nothing much of this game's story or major plot

There's not all that much more to the plot, to be honest...

A bad guy is doing bad things and you decide to invade his country. Some of your allies decide to be incompetent, but his do too so you beat him up anyway. Then someone tells you that there's another bad guy somewhere else. He doesn't seem to be doing anything that bad, but his tactician is a jerk so you beat him up. Then you go back home and discover that a guy who was doing bad things is actually a bad guy, beat him up, and go fight the final boss. The end.

Then there's some DLC (Future of Despair) which is actually really well written that I would highly recommend if you're looking for a bit more out of the plot (though its strength is more in character writing than storyline).

And you should play TTYD, you're missing out.

[Aurath8]

-There's a scene late in the game in which the Avatar (who is supposed to be a self-insert character) extensively plans (without the game telling you) and pulls off a stunt with a character who shouldn't be there for extremely obvious reasons that completely destroys the bad guy's plans. Immediately afterward, a character who has appeared only once around 10 chapters earlier appears, proclaims himself to be evil, and the Avatar just stands there and watches as he does some bad stuff. The whole shebang is immediately followed by Avatar doing something else off camera, resulting in another Deus ex Machina.

This. The big issue here is that IS chose to discreetly forget that the character was an Avatar. While there still is Deus ex machina, there's no way they could believably bring back Basilio without spoiling all of Avatar's plan. In fact, the unspoken plan guarantee on the whole does not work with an Avatar character.

I think they should drop the concept for the next game, if only to allow more freedom in the writing.

Besides that one scene it wasn't too bad. I don't self-insert to so vicariously, mainly taking the stance that any game character I control has their own autonomous personality and alignment and I happen to decide how they go about saving the world or whatever. Mario is not me, he's Mario, Link is not me he's Link and likewise even My Avatar is not me. He is My Avatar.

[pianime94]

There's not all that much more to the plot, to be honest...

A bad guy is doing bad things and you decide to invade his country. Some of your allies decide to be incompetent, but his do too so you beat him up anyway. Then someone tells you that there's another bad guy somewhere else. He doesn't seem to be doing anything that bad, but his tactician is a jerk so you beat him up. Then you go back home and discover that a guy who was doing bad things is actually a bad guy, beat him up, and go fight the final boss. The end.

Then there's some DLC (Future of Despair) which is actually really well written that I would highly recommend if you're looking for a bit more out of the plot (though its strength is more in character writing than storyline).

And you should play TTYD, you're missing out.

I lol'd at the summary

I think I'll give TTYD a try when I feel like it

[Skynstein]

The Avatar/Basilio twist was really bad. But that's my only big issue with the story. The rest makes sense if you aren't nitpicking.

And seriously, getting game overs because of wrong choices in a strategy game, while better for storytelling, is bad for gameplay. This isn't a visual novel in which you can save anywhere you want and just resume from the choice if you get it wrong, this is a strategy game which, at least in Classic mode, doesn't allow you to save mid-battle and forces you to redo the map if something goes wrong and you don't want to lose any characters. People are already pissed they have to restart when losing characters, imagine if they go blindly into the game and have to restart because of story reasons. Most people wouldn't like it at all.

I believe a few of the choices have a save point before them, but really, when you can save before a game over point, the whole point of the game over is lost. It's just too easy to go back and choose the other choice.

This is why games with choices that lead to a game over usually have some sort of "reward" for getting to that choice instead of a plain game over. In the first Streets of Rage for Genesis, if you are playing 2-player mode and both characters reach the last boss, the game allows one of them to choose whether they want to join the boss. If you say yes, both players fight to the death. If the player who joined the boss wins, this leads to a bad end, not a plain game over.

Not to mention the countless visual novels which give you small bonus stuff for reaching bad ends.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Malebolganone

[Light-Heart]

I just wish Intelligent System would give you the option to pick a personality, rather than a static forced Avatar with no similarity to the gamer.

This so much, the avatar is supposed to be a self insert, unless you have a bland personality that's only reading tactical books, you're not going to feel like it's you.

Appearance wise the choices are lacking too, you have a choice between a kid, somebody who almost looks like a kid, or a 30 + man or a 20 + woman

It's either be the pedo, or make one of the characters in the game a pedo.

gheez, thanks.

[Magical Glace]

There should have been a bald option if only tho make Oliver look like himself. Also, I wouldn't mind having Micaiah's hairdo... Or the extra accessories like in FE12. I personally don't mind the build options though, since there's a kid option and I prefer younger heroes.

Either way, most people who have seen some of the disclaimers in my fanfics or some of my posts know I'm not fond of Self Inserts. I might have actually liked them if they were not a self insert. There's also the fact they trivialize lower difficulties to a rather huge extreme.

[Excalibro]

Hm maybe they self inserted the Avatar to make the game feels more expansive, and appeals more audience, just imo.

Exactly. The series was never really popular so to make it more popular they had to add a bunch of new things like the avatar, pair up, and marriage. Some of the stuff they added was pretty good, some of it was bad or just completely unbalanced.

Also don't be too paranoid about buying the game even though everyone is saying the plot is bad. Everyone has just had a lot of time to look at every part of the game, but the first time you play the game it really is fun.

[LuxSpes]

Exactly. The series was never really popular so to make it more popular they had to add a bunch of new things like the avatar, pair up, and marriage. Some of the stuff they added was pretty good, some of it was bad or just completely unbalanced.

Also don't be too paranoid about buying the game even though everyone is saying the plot is bad. Everyone has just had a lot of time to look at every part of the game, but the first time you play the game it really is fun.

Heck, I still find it fun to play even though I have already done multiple playthrough of it.

[BrightBow]

My fun lasted for the first few chapter before I noticed that the game was just repeating the pattern of having entirely random enemies put on random spots all over the map, forcing nothing but defense play because you can't charge forward without being immediately in the range from three other units from all directions, so technically nothing changes.

Even until then, the stupidity of the script and the forcefulness of the personality substitutes of the so called characters was agonizing.

.

I got recently convinced to check if the DLC maps have some actual design and structure to them (future past definitely does). So currently I bore myself to death to grind so that I can take down the Vengence generals fast enough to fulfill the objective.

Edited January 11, 2014 by BrightBow

[Czar_Yoshi]

And seriously, getting game overs because of wrong choices in a strategy game, while better for storytelling, is bad for gameplay.

How so? It's pretty obvious that something bad will happen if you choose "submit to final boss". You wouldn't do it on a serious playthrough, only if you want to see what happens. And both of TTYD's gameover questions have a savepoint right before them, the final boss even asks you to submit before making you sit through that ten minute cutscene (or even the first half of the fight). Even in Awakening, there's a savepoint immediately before the Lucina cutscene and final boss submission request.

My fun lasted for the first few chapter before I noticed that the game was just repeating the pattern of having entirely random enemies put on random spots all over the map, forcing nothing but defense play because you can't charge forward without being immediately in the range from three other units from all directions, so technically nothing changes.

Even until then, the stupidity of the script and the forcefulness of the personality substitutes of the so called characters was agonizing.

.

I got recently convinced to check if the DLC maps have some actual design and structure to them (future past definitely does). So currently I bore myself to death to grind so that I can take down the Vengence generals fast enough to fulfill the objective.

Their placement isn't random, though. On Lunatic, they form combat formations with the complexity directly related to the boss's strategical ability (except for Yen'fay). Enemies under Risen Chiefs are more scattered, but enemies under Walhart and Gangrel form clear battle formations that almost look like Genealogy's. The problem occurs on Normal/Hard mode, instead of adding enemies to them to make Lunatic, they made them by (seemingly randomly) subtracting enemies from Lunatic, which wrecks the formations and makes them look like a random scatter.

However, they definitely are much too close to eachother and the game never gives you any room to work with, except Cht.15.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[pianime94]

Exactly. The series was never really popular so to make it more popular they had to add a bunch of new things like the avatar, pair up, and marriage. Some of the stuff they added was pretty good, some of it was bad or just completely unbalanced.

Also don't be too paranoid about buying the game even though everyone is saying the plot is bad. Everyone has just had a lot of time to look at every part of the game, but the first time you play the game it really is fun.

Don't worry, I still plan to buy the game (along with a 3DS) sooner or later , it's never too late to play a game, though sadly I can't buy any DLC content, and spotpass stuff (maybe, not really sure how this spotpass thing work), the internet literally sucks here

Oh btw I heard 3DS is region locked, so no Japanese game if buy an USA 3DS?

[tuvarkz]

Exactly. The series was never really popular so to make it more popular they had to add a bunch of new things like the avatar, pair up, and marriage. Some of the stuff they added was pretty good, some of it was bad or just completely unbalanced.

Also don't be too paranoid about buying the game even though everyone is saying the plot is bad. Everyone has just had a lot of time to look at every part of the game, but the first time you play the game it really is fun.

Avatar was already there in FE12. Marriage system first started in FE4, via supports started in FE6

[Excalibro]

Don't worry, I still plan to buy the game (along with a 3DS) sooner or later , it's never too late to play a game, though sadly I can't buy any DLC content, and spotpass stuff (maybe, not really sure how this spotpass thing work), the internet literally sucks here

Oh btw I heard 3DS is region locked, so no Japanese game if buy an USA 3DS?

That is correct.

Avatar was already there in FE12. Marriage system first started in FE4, via supports started in FE6

Those are all Japan exclusive games, so not too many people outside of Japan played them. Also you can only partially count supports getting to A then having a special ending. In FE13 it's much more important. 13 also combines Avatar and marriage for ULTIMATE SHIPPING

[Rapier]

-The game begins with Avatar, who is dressed like a member of the Bad Dragon Cult, being discovered by Chrom, who decides to completely trust him even though he's heavily armed.

-There's a scene in a chapter about halfway through the game in which Avatar burns hundreds of thousands of enemy troops alive and wrecks a ton of his ally's stuff, and rather than use the point to illustrate the brutalities of war, the game has everyone laud Avatar as a hero (even though it wasn't even his/her plan).

-And the worst one, the ending is a really horrendous example of "the needs of the many vs. The needs of the few". Of course, the game gives you a choice, and of course, it doesn't change anything.

I agree with most things on this post, but...

- The Avatar was not heavily armed. He had a bronze sword and a thunder tome. While this implies he knows how to fight and we wonder where he learned it, there are many answers to that question and it isn't suspicious at all. The whole Grimleal robe is suspicious, though.

- No one thinks about the brutalities of war. We think about our side and how we can defeat/defend ourselves from our foes. Burned hundreds of thousands of another nation's ships? Well, they were going to kill us if we didn't, so... their problem. In that regard, the Avatar WAS a hero because he stopped the aggressors, and that's what matters to most people anyway.

- I don't see how the ending sucks if fem!avatar is Chrom's wife, and I personally think that stopping Grima from returning is MUCH easier than it seems, but I agree if the Avatar is male/not his waifu.

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

I agree with most things on this post, but...

- The Avatar was not heavily armed. He had a bronze sword and a thunder tome. While this implies he knows how to fight and we wonder where he learned it, there are many answers to that question and it isn't suspicious at all. The whole Grimleal robe is suspicious, though.

- No one thinks about the brutalities of war. We think about our side and how we can defeat/defend ourselves from our foes. Burned hundreds of thousands of another nation's ships? Well, they were going to kill us if we didn't, so... their problem. In that regard, the Avatar WAS a hero because he stopped the aggressors, and that's what matters to most people anyway.

Except plenty of other games in the FE franchise do stop a moment to think about the brutalities of war and comment on it. What Avatar does and how people react to it is jarringly out of sync with what a longterm fan of the series would expect coming into this particular game. Given how much this particular entry in the franchise trades on reference and nostalgia (the entire Marth angle, the FE4 call-backs...), I think that's a fair expectation.

And yeah, the whole Grimleal robe is suspicious.

[Slyfox]

And yeah, the whole Grimleal robe is suspicious.

Since no one in the game commented on it, I'll just assume that Ylisse was into cosplay. Even if it was dressing as the enemy...

[pianime94]

Since no one in the game commented on it, I'll just assume that Ylisse was into cosplay. Even if it was dressing as the enemy...

As long as their face is not villainous lol :p..oh wait you can actually customize your face to look villainous.

Also, I read that Morgan is actually even broken than the Avatar, or possibly the most broken character in the series?

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Depends on what angle you look at it

The way that Awakening works means that not just Avatar, EVERYONE in the cast completely eclipse every other character in the series so far. One that doesn't count on this are those who have no special features, sucks, or some other factor(notable examples: Frederick thanks to EXP mechanic, Lissa and Maribele for being a healer and healer class has terrible growth, Say'ri for being Frederick who joins late, Gregor who is more on a "can be op but borderline terrible", and Ricken who has terrible base)

Awakening has massive stats growth and a gameplay that VERY supporting to one manning/skeleton armying from Pair Up, Re-Classing system that breaks down the hard caps, and high stats caps not to mention pathetic enemies, so, by investing to a character or a pair of character for some chapters, you can basically curbstomp the entire game from start to finish even on Lunatic(+ is a different matter tho).

Its just Morgan and MU is the biggest example of what these kind of mechanic can do, so they stick out as an extremely op character

Edited January 13, 2014 by JSND

[Czar_Yoshi]

Oy, Gregor is actually very useable in Lunatic+ Nogrind. He's not the best, but he can make a contribution to the team that lasts more than one chapter.

I support the "Ylisse likes their cosplays" theory because

Marth
You may call me Marth.

Chrom
Marth? After the heroic king of old? You certainly fight like a hero. Where did you learn your way with a sword?

Chrom doesn't notice Marth's clothes at all. People apparently know what Marth looked like and who he was, and yet Chrom still feels compelled to ask the name of a dude in a Marth suit, which indicates that this type of meeting is nothing out of the ordinary.

On the other hand, there's a paralogue in which a dude who looks nothing like Chrom claims to be Chrom and everyone takes him seriously. What do they feed those Ylisseans, gullible soup?

Edited January 13, 2014 by Czar_Yoshi

[Vorena]

I just wish Intelligent System would give you the option to pick a personality, rather than a static forced Avatar with no similarity to the gamer.

Please give me Mass Effect type character development and player choices please :D

[Airship Canon]

Oy, Gregor is actually very useable in Lunatic+ Nogrind. He's not the best, but he can make a contribution to the team that lasts more than one chapter.

I support the "Ylisse likes their cosplays" theory because

Chrom doesn't notice Marth's clothes at all. People apparently know what Marth looked like and who he was, and yet Chrom still feels compelled to ask the name of a dude in a Marth suit, which indicates that this type of meeting is nothing out of the ordinary.

On the other hand, there's a paralogue in which a dude who looks nothing like Chrom claims to be Chrom and everyone takes him seriously. What do they feed those Ylisseans, gullible soup?

Well here's a thought to that-- regarding the Grimleal Robes.

We know that's how the Tactician class looks. And really, tactician is just a standard class. [if you get two kids, both of MU's kids get it, not just Morgan, unlike say Chrom's children who don't get Lord, and Inigo not getting Dancer from Olivia]

AND DLC!Katarina keeps true to this- even in the artwork, which some of the others [like Ephraim] are very far from the case.

[And even then, robes of similar style were on Mark of FE7 [MAP SPRITE, much] even disregarding the likely occurrence of Mark and MU being the same character.]

Then add on the fact that everyone KNOWS MU is a tactician before (s)he says anything about it-- case in point, Lissa on the Prologue [-THE- Moment she's selected] is already asking for orders from MU, when the only thing said about his/her combat ability at that point is that he/she knows their way around a fight [MU saying things about how (s)he knows things doesn't happen until a bit of the way in]-- unless it's somehow canon that Lissa doesn't move from her spot at all until then, which means most likely she's dead, there's no way for her to have known MU is a tactician except by sight.

From that we can gather that robes as such isn't a trademark of the Grimleal as such but of well... tacticians.

As far as Ruger goes, that was probably the shoddiest portrait job ever. Bad Programmers. You should've used the Chrom mugshot.

-- Not only do the townspeople believe Ruger, so does Cynthia [admittedly, she's not the brightest crayon in the box, but with the game pushing Chrom/Sumia the way it does, are you really expecting her to not recognize her father?]... but there's more to it:

The townspeople, with only SIGHT to go on, avoid Chrom.

>scene change

Villager

Welcome to the Grub Sh—ACK! Y-you're... You're...

Chrom

Um...?

Villager

T-terribly sorry, sir, but we're closed!

Chrom

That was...odd. I guess we'll try elsewhere.

That means, by all means Ruger is supposed to look like Chrom.

Why they didn't just give him Chrom's portrait, who knows.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Oy, Gregor is actually very useable in Lunatic+ Nogrind. He's not the best, but he can make a contribution to the team that lasts more than one chapter.

Don't have much experience with Lunatic+ <_<

Why am I giving advice again?

Gregor is kinda hard to use for me, his base is like kinda questionable compared to trained units from several chaps ago, and his speed growth seems to be on a low-ish area. I realized that Int's Lunatic run manage to run him tho

[Czar_Yoshi]

I think the bigger deal with the tactician robes is less in their style and more in the fact that they're covered in Grima's markings (particularly the sleeves).

As for Ruger, didn't he share a portrait with the boss of Inigo's paralogue? I could be wrong, but if he does I wonder if he had a different portrait planned at some point and they couldn't use it for whatever reason...

[Sunwoo]

I think the bigger deal with the tactician robes is less in their style and more in the fact that they're covered in Grima's markings (particularly the sleeves).

Definitely that. So, there's this random stranger passed out in the field who claims to know Chrom's name but at the same time has amnesia wearing robes with Grima's mark all on the sleeves (and on the back of his hand, but he wears gloves or something?) ... and this is NOT something to be concerned about?

Edited January 13, 2014 by Sangyul