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What were they thinking when they made FE7?


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So I just recently beat FE6 again and it got me wondering, why is FE7 a prequel to FE6? FE7's main plot has like nothing to do with Elibe. The Black Fang? Dragon's Gate? Quintessence? None of it builds off of the foundation from FE6. Yeah there's that whole Bern succession subplot at the end of the game but it feels really tacked on.

It's funny because I was thinking that FE6 might have been a game that could benefit from a prequel. There's a lot of history suggested by the game that I think would be interesting to explore: how far back goes the conflict between Sacae and Bern, how did Etruria come to colonize the Western Isles, how do the Illans maintain dignity as a people when working for other nations. I'm not a writer so maybe it wouldn't have been that great anyway, but still. I don't resent FE7 for not being my personal fanfiction, but it's like, why is this a prequel?

It feels like they had Black Fang plot done first and then rewrote it to try to be a FE6 prequel. Why? Was FE6 that popular that the next game had to be related to it? I don't think it really fits. I'm not even saying FE7's story is bad (although I don't really like it). I just don't know what they were thinking.

Any thoughts? Would you have preferred a real prequel to FE6? What would you have wanted it to be about?

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If FE7 had been about the Scouring, that would have made way more sense.

I still love FE7.

I'd love to play a game about that. However, it would probably be hard for players to keep going to the end of the game, at least for me, since you know you're attempting genocide on another race. I don't think IS will ever touch that, but a playable Scouring is something I'd love to see in a retelling of Elibe's story.

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I figured they wanted Eliwood to ride off Roy's SSBM popularity.

I still find FE7's plot to be the series best though. Lol mode aside. Because Lyn is dumb.

If FE7 had been about the Scouring, that would have made way more sense.

I still love FE7.

I half want and half don't want a Scouring game. On one hand, it's one of the series best backstories imo... on the other, 8 lords, and I'm unsure how to work anyone else in, since after the Ending Winter the 8 of them basically wrecked on their own.

And the return of Idoun the most pathetic final boss ever

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I'd love to play a game about that. However, it would probably be hard for players to keep going to the end of the game, at least for me, since you know you're attempting genocide on another race. I don't think IS will ever touch that, but a playable Scouring is something I'd love to see in a retelling of Elibe's story.

You must be joking. The fact that the game would put you as the 'heroes' who are actually committing genocide is the best aspect. You could have them start out by killing the dragons, thinking they were ridding the world of some awful monsters, and then it begins to dawn on them that the whole time they were basically being Hitler, and at this point you introduce the person who originally started having them kill dragons, the mastermind of evil.

A story that dark? FE5 wouldn't have anything on it if you worked hard enough to make everything feel correct.

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7 was the first to reach the USA and europe and it´s known that the overall tone of the games changed greatly because of it. They didn´t used the "single lord fights evil empire and builds a rebellion army" plot. Instead they tried to focus on the friendship betwen the three lords and had assassins and evil wizards as enemies. The latter was actually always a big theme (Gharnef, Loptuo). Giving more information to the politics, characters and lore of 6 would be useless for the new gamers, as they don´t know and thus can´t appreciate the game. So you can play 7 without knowing anything about 6.

Another reason is that 6 is already about the one final great war in Elibe. You can´t repeat the same situation in the prequel. It is stated in the 6 prologue that there was a time of peace just until Zephiel. This is the reason why they didn´t include an open full out war in 7 and instead settled with assassinations, minor conflicts, mercenaries and a small rebellion. Compare The Lord of the Ring vs The Hobbit. The bigger story was already told.

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They had to take into account that this game was going to be the first one released in the west as a sequel to a game that didn't come to the west and in order to ride on Roy's popularity they had to make Eliwood look like Roy.

I figured they wanted Eliwood to ride off Roy's SSBM popularity.

I still find FE7's plot to be the series best though. Lol mode aside. Because Lyn is dumb.

I half want and half don't want a Scouring game. On one hand, it's one of the series best backstories imo... on the other, 8 lords, and I'm unsure how to work anyone else in, since after the Ending Winter the 8 of them basically wrecked on their own.

And the return of Idoun the most pathetic final boss ever

*Insert obligatory General Banzai essay reference here*

I still love me some FE7 regardless. Plot is derp but how can you not love the game.

Edit: Damn Aircalipoor ninja.

Edited by Ownagepuffs
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The little cutscenes at the ending of the game kinda sets up the following story in FE6 and I think the development of the world as a whole was done pretty well with the countries, the 8 generals and their weapons, parents of Roy and Liliana.

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I actually think a game about the Scouring would be relatively boring. The Scouring represents a high point for humanity where they're all united and working together toward a common goal. The events leading directly up to FE6 are supposed to be a low point for humanity where people are squabbling and harming each other. At least that's what Zephiel's motivation is supposed to be and they kind of try to show it with Etruria. I think there are hints of things like racism and nationalism as justification for cruelty in FE6, but it's not really explored. A prequel could have really dug into that potential, I think.

I don't see how the FE7's planned international release explains why it's a not-quite-really prequel to FE6. It seems like it would have been easier to just not have it be related to FE6 at all.

Also, I don't buy that Elibe was supposed to be peaceful after the Scouring and leading up to FE6. The game says there was peace but the world suggests anything but. Bern's trademark is its strong military which is pointless if there aren't frequent wars. And Illa supposedly supports itself on mercenary contracts. The only countries that suggest having been at peace for a long time are Lycia and Arcadia.

Edited by Box
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why is this a prequel?

It's a prequel to a game that was never released outside of Japan, so you're right; it might as well not be a prequel at all, unless you're Japanese.

Still, FE7 does explore the relationship between Laus and the rest of the Lycian territories (which is a minor plot point in FE6), so I disagree with the idea that FE7 had nothing to do with FE6.

And the succession issue in Bern cannot be ignored either.

Nonetheless, a good deal of the action in FE7 takes place on (or is otherwise related to) an island that was never explored in FE6, and most of the rest was about a group of assassins who had been pretty much wiped out before FE6, so there's only so much they could do to tie FE7 back to FE6.

Edited by Paper Jam
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Yeah I always think of FE6 as a sequel to FE7 as opposed to FE7 being a prequel.

Although I do wonder why they didn't just do a western release of FE6 if they wanted to ride on Roy's appeal in Super Smash.

Edited by Radiant head
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Yeah I always think of FE6 as a sequel to FE7 as opposed to FE7 being a prequel.

Although I do wonder why they didn't just do a western release of FE6 if they wanted to ride on Roy's appeal in Super Smash.

Because FE6 is one of the hardest games in the series and could chase off would be players with difficulty and potentially hurt review scores from that? Yeah it's great and I love it, but I don't think it works as the west's would be first FE.
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So I just recently beat FE6 again and it got me wondering, why is FE7 a prequel to FE6? FE7's main plot has like nothing to do with Elibe.

Yeah, I agree 100%. Most of the connections between FE6 and FE7 are actually pretty random and completely unrelated to either game's plot or the setting of Elibe - stuff like Canas being Hugh's father and Niime's son is completely inconsequential as are nearly all of the character relations between FE6 and FE7. It's like they made two completely different games that have almost nothing to do with each other and just decided to place it in the same setting and add a few 'connections' to make it look like a prequel and a sequel when it actually wouldn't have been any less credible had they just decided to not include these connections and make it two completely independent stories taking place in Elibe

The plot-interconnections between FE4 / FE5 and FE9 / FE 10 are definitely more intruiging and plausible.

Edited by Yojinbo
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They were making FE7 with western audiences in mind, considering they knew it was to be the first worldwide release, so they didn't want many connections to other FE games. Howevewr, I think they should've just added more connections, release FE6 after FE7 worldwide and pretended it was a sequel.

Edited by Star and Moon
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Howevewr, I think they should've just added more connections, release FE6 after FE7 worldwide and pretended it was a sequel.

I'm not so sure that would have worked seeing as Binding Blade was already kind of dated after Blazing Sword was released.
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Yeah, every chapter except the last one in Binding Blade is a Seize chapter, and the last one is a (very easy) Boss-kill chapter. I think a lot of people would find that pretty boring if they had already played through Blazing Blade, with its Holdout and Rout chapters.

Which leads me to wonder why there weren't Holdout, Rout, or more Boss chapters in Binding Blade, but I digress.

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I feel like it works as a prequel. FE7 was less about telling the story of Elibe pre-FE6 than it was about explaining where some of the characters came from, namely Roy and Lilina. It was telling the story of why Eliwood and Hector were important, since (from what I recall; it's been a while since I last picked up FE6) we're informed of their importance early on but don't get to see any of it, because the main characters need some source of angst. And killing off parents is the fastest way to start a coming-of-age story.

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It's a prequel because Elibe was a world ripe for exploring further after FE6. We get to meet the parents of many FE6 protagonists, get to witness Eliwood and Hector in their primes, learn about the genesis of the Desmond / Zephiel conflict, learn more about Arcadia and the nature of dragons, and even play as one of the legendary heroes.

FE7 could have been set during the Scouring, but for whatever reason the game writers decided to frame things around a smaller conflict with a smaller army, a la FE5. Considering FE7 gave us one of the more polished and engaging stories in the series, this was probably a wise decision.

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It's a prequel because Elibe was a world ripe for exploring further after FE6. We get to meet the parents of many FE6 protagonists, get to witness Eliwood and Hector in their primes, learn about the genesis of the Desmond / Zephiel conflict, learn more about Arcadia and the nature of dragons, and even play as one of the legendary heroes.

FE7 could have been set during the Scouring, but for whatever reason the game writers decided to frame things around a smaller conflict with a smaller army, a la FE5. Considering FE7 gave us one of the more polished and engaging stories in the series, this was probably a wise decision.

Yeah well that's the thing though. FE7 doesn't actually explore the world of FE6. Hector and Eliwood weren't really important characters in FE6, and their adventures across Elibe in FE7 aren't don't have anything to do with their roles in FE6. The Bern succession subplot is there, but it's thrown in at the end and it feels kind of tacked on.

But really, how do you get from FE6 prequel to the Black Fang? I can't imagine someone thought Elibe was ripe for exploring and decided the way to do that was to expand upon the league of assassins after quintessence, except neither of those existed in FE6. And that's like the whole plot of FE7.

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Laus' rebellion was what kicked off the main plot of FE7, and that was relevant to FE6. And shortly after Laus was accounted for, Eliwood and Hector and their allies had to deal with Bern.

The Black Fang and Nergal may have played a central role in the plot of FE7, but they weren't the whole plot of FE7.

Edited by Paper Jam
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The Black Fang is what kicks off the Laus subplot though. Playing FE7, you'd think that after dealing with the Black Fang that Lycia would be more united. FE6 suggests Lycia's downfall was long in the making and that they only needed Bern to show up before they all started betraying each other. From that perspective, I wouldn't say that FE7's Laus subplot has much to do with FE6's Lycia.

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Why would dealing with the Black Fang make Lycia more united? It wasn't as if the entire Lycian league banded together to stop the Black Fang threat, it was just Eliwood, Hector, Lyn, and their ragtag band. Most of the league wasn't even involved and may not have even been fully aware of what was happening. And it was pretty well-established that Erik hated Hector and Eliwood, so it makes perfect sense than he would jump ship after Bern invaded 20 years later.

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