What would make for a good Fire Emblem story?

[RJWalker]

I just realized a dragon dies at or around the end of every FE game except 5 and 2.

The Demon King is not a dragon.

[Refa]

Morva is a dragon.

[RJWalker]

Morva is a dragon.

But he doesn't die at the end.

[X-Naut]

I just realized a dragon dies at or around the end of every FE game except 5 and 2.

The point still stands.

I'd also like to point out Duma's dragon-esque form, so really only FE5 lacks a dragon or something similar.

Edited April 8, 2014 by X-Naut

[RJWalker]

The point still stands.

I'd also like to point out Duma's dragon-esque form, so really only FE5 lacks a dragon or something similar.

But when dragons figure prominently in the story, it's only natural. That's like saying a human dies around the end of every FE game. Well, duh.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Ranger Jack Walker

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

But when dragons figure prominently in the story, it's only natural. That's like saying a human dies around the end of every FE game. Well, duh.

Or "a kingdom falls and some royals die at the beginning of almost every FE game," really.

Starting point: a kingdom falls and some royals die. End point: a dragon dies. And along the way your hero makes new friends and gets a really cool weapon.

[General Banzai]

"always suffered"

rofl

[Jotari]

Because they would probably prefer to kill them themselves, I presume.

While PETA does a good job of getting attention for themselves, I can't help to get the impression that people always miss the fact that their idea of protecting animals involves euthanasia.

Jill is probably the best example of how much more then just supports the game can do to develop characters.

Let's see,

-In her first appearance, she not only has special boss dialog when she is fighting Lethe and Mordecai... but also special death quotes if they kill her.

-She has several info conversations centered around her. I recall at least four. Her initial joining conversation that just about everyone in PoR gets, her confession to Ike in Begnion, her meeting Haar again and her -speaking with Ike after having calmed down.

-Several events during the main story depend on her survival or recruitment. Most notable a dialog between Ike and her immediately after Talrega (not the info conversation that I just mentioned). Also the dialog between Haar and Shihiram changes slightly depending on Jill's survival.

-In Talrega, there is a special conversation at the start of the map if Jill is deployed. It changes depending on her last info conversation being viewed or not.

-She has several pieces of boss dialog when fighting generic NPCs in Talrega.

-Depending on her support levels, her dialog with her father changes. She might actually switch sites as a result. Naturally, she also has a boss conversation with him

-She has a special death quote when she dies in Talrega.

-And last but not least, she has a boss conversation with Ashnard.

-Also, for completions sake, she also has special boss conversations with General Boltaxe and Haar.

Jill has so much context dependent stuff attached to her, it makes her supports look rather meager by comparison. They are a nice addition to her arc and it helps that they actually take main story events into account. But such variations only reach so far. Supports are not the beginning and the end of everything related to characters. Well, at least they shouldn't be.

This. This was what I planned to point out coming into this topic. We need more Jills to make Fire Emblem stories seem more fleshed out. Characters who don't have plot armor but if they do survive and you use them they actually have a decent side story that ties into the game.

[Anacybele]

Yeah, what Jotari said. Jill is a great character because of how she was written. We need more Jills for sure!

[Dark Sage]

maybe implementing something like the Durai/Warren/Hugo Report would be a good idea. ideally you'd want to implement as much worldbuilding and character development as you can in the actual plot, supports, and base convos but a feature like this can help fill in the cracks. it could also help serve as a way to implement gaidens better.

[Beelzebub]

I like political stories (such as gen 1 FE4 and RD), but I realize those might not be everyone's cup of tea. What I'd like to see more of, however, is the story driving the gameplay instead of visa versa (such as characters leaving and dying in FE4, the Manster section of FE5, and the coming and goings of the RD cast). This not only serves to get the player involved in the story by actually affecting their experience within the game, but also spices up the gameplay. Basically, less gameplay/story segregation.

[ViewtifulBo]

Well it needs a compelling main character(s), supporting characters who are actually relevent and are somewhat important to the naritive not just 2 lines of dialouge and a few support convos, a good villian you love to hate, maybe an over arching story spaned a few years or decades maybe over a couple games or 3, Flesh out the Lore of the actual world you create and put these characters in, I could write a whole novel about this but bottom line, I feel like most of the Fire Emblems are pretty short in length. I feel like they need to make it longer. Just this guys opinion anyway. With the Wii U I think they might be able to make this happen due to the better technology we have now than we did only just a few years ago. Fire Emblem for the Wii U good god I'm drooling already...

[Jotari]

Well it needs a compelling main character(s), supporting characters who are actually relevent and are somewhat important to the naritive not just 2 lines of dialouge and a few support convos, a good villian you love to hate, maybe an over arching story spaned a few years or decades maybe over a couple games or 3, Flesh out the Lore of the actual world you create and put these characters in, I could write a whole novel about this but bottom line, I feel like most of the Fire Emblems are pretty short in length. I feel like they need to make it longer. Just this guys opinion anyway. With the Wii U I think they might be able to make this happen due to the better technology we have now than we did only just a few years ago. Fire Emblem for the Wii U good god I'm drooling already...

A story might benefit from a longer game but I get the impression they like keeping Fire Emblem games 25-30 chapters long because of the game play. Fire Emblem gives you loads and loads of units and provides a lot of choice of who to train and sometimes how. Many games also give bonus chapters and alternate story routes. The idea of Fire Emblem is to be a relatively short game over all but a game you can easily replay many times.

[DomesticHausCat]

A story might benefit from a longer game but I get the impression they like keeping Fire Emblem games 25-30 chapters long because of the game play. Fire Emblem gives you loads and loads of units and provides a lot of choice of who to train and sometimes how. Many games also give bonus chapters and alternate story routes. The idea of Fire Emblem is to be a relatively short game over all but a game you can easily replay many times.

Wtf people think these games are short?! It takes me 25-70 hours to beat one of these games. And the save files don't show you the game time for your failed reseted attempts. Which would make the times look more like 40-100 hours for me just beating one of them.

Now if these are short games, what is a long game? And what does that make Zelda? Metroid? Tiny games? Afternoon games?

[Jotari]

Wtf people think these games are short?! It takes me 25-70 hours to beat one of these games. And the save files don't show you the game time for your failed reseted attempts. Which would make the times look more like 40-100 hours for me just beating one of them.

Now if these are short games, what is a long game? And what does that make Zelda? Metroid? Tiny games? Afternoon games?

I'd generally put Metroid down in the same time frame as Fire Emblem. Zelda is different since a lot of it is side quests and challenges unrelated to the main story. Metroid and Fire Emblem are pretty much the main story and that's it, with some exceptions of course. Obviously how long it takes one to beat any of these games is down to the individual's skills but the games still come across as if they are designed to be an experience one should have multiple times. Fire Emblem games could be made a lot long if they wanted to (just look at the Valm arc of Awakening. That easily could have had at least four more chapters) but they tend to never give us more than thirty chapters. Even Radiant Dawn the, (to my knowledge) longest game by chapter count has distinct parts its split up into with a different army for the first three as if it is being presented as three separate gameplay experiences.

All that being said I wouldn't object to longer Fire Emblem games but it shouldn't feel like filler in either story or gameplay.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Jotari