Fire Emblem is having an identity crisis.

[Dark Sage]

The criticism of the GBA era's support mechanics is fair because the method of acquiring supports really was unusable in any sort of strategic context. FE9's method was good though because it only required the characters to partake in a certain number of battles together to unlock the support. This method is the best to me because it not only makes the writing better but it also allows for the developers to take into account support bonuses when balancing the game, though they didn't take advantage of the latter. Supports having limits is a gameplay balancing feature because otherwise, you could get some truly ridiculous bonuses, though I think there's room for better implementation in that regard, such as being able to rank up all supports but having to choose which ones are active and which ones aren't with limits on the total levels active.

I don't get your complaint about how useless and inflexible the support bonuses are either. They're essentially auras, much like a lot of the skills in this game (such as Bewitching Flower, Battle Command, etc.) and even have a larger radius. The support bonuses also vary depending on the pairs and the characters due to affinities. In Awakening and Fates, you either need to be paired up or adjacent to an ally to benefit from the supports. The general support bonuses are all the same and while Fates does give each character extra bonuses per rank, it's only if you pair up. And pair-up bonuses are derived from the class and everybody can benefit from them, not just a support partner. And since people can reclass freely, they're generally less special. I suppose FE7's-FE9's support bonuses often felt superfluous because the games are really easy and the enemies suck too much for the bonuses to mean much, but FE10's bonuses (which are the same as FE9's) are much more significant because the enemies are strong enough to the point where they actually matter. The issue of supporting units with mismatched movement is a problem in Awakening and Fates too, probably moreso in Fates because Attack Stance means there's actually a reason for units to not be paired up all the time, so it's easier for footsoldiers to fall behind the cavalry. I don't think there's much you can do about that though, that's the constant no matter how they've been implemented all the way back in FE3.

The complaint about needing dozens of replays to unlock all of the supports in the old version is a complaint you can leverage here in Awakening and Fates too. Supports with the Avatar differ in gender and, depending on the character, the route. You can't have more than one S support so if you want to fully unlock everything, you'd either have to play the game like a billion times for each couple or cheat the system to add them to the support log, which is still rather tedious. I don't know how you'd get around that though but to be honest, it's not a big deal in any of these games and I'm hesitant to call it a problem at all since you can argue it can add replay value to the game. Support caps can also make the player think about who they want their characters to support and which pairs to go for instead of just automatically ranking up one guy with everyone else.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the old support system is not inherently worse than the new one. The main problem with GBA supports was how they built, which was fixed in FE9, which is why that system is about on at least on par with and (imo) better than the current era's support system. There's not really an identity crisis involved either because the writing is more focused, the lack of things like children mean they don't have to force a bunch of pairs that have nothing to talk about, and the support bonuses themselves are simply auras you build up over time, which I don't recall you having a problem with.

I'm also curious if you think that FE13 and FE14 actually have flaws because I've never seen a single post from you that had any critique or negative thought of some aspect of them. I'd also argue you're not thinking hard enough about the differences in mechanics in various FEs but whatever.

[blinkingbrave]

I know for me personally, the FE13/14 system removes a lot of the need for me to feel like I need to replay the game to get all the support content with the S-support. Although it's a support rank I can't get every time, I feel less compelled to get them all because it's kinda like extra content. The characters' support arcs end at A rank, and the S rank feels to me more like a bonus, a lil unrelated to and not really hinted at in the C-A arc. Usually it tells me nothing new about the character (or if it does, it's often the same info I get in all the s-supports), so I don't feel like I need to get them all to understand a character. And since the parent-child conversations are generic, I don't feel like I'm missing anything not getting them all, either.

The issue I have with the older system is that the support arcs still end at A, and it feels like getting less than that leaves the support arc incomplete so if I want to get all the info myself, that's usually a minimum of 6-ish playthroughs. Which, as someone who prefers playing this series for the story/characters, is kinda tedious, particularly since getting the support ranks in the older games is tedious in and of itself.

I can see how it's more time-consuming now if you're a completionist player looking to fill out the support log, but for me as a casual player, the new system (among many other additions) is easier to operate within and encourages me to actually experiment with supports.

[arvilino]

The criticism of the GBA era's support mechanics is fair because the method of acquiring supports really was unusable in any sort of strategic context. FE9's method was good though because it only required the characters to partake in a certain number of battles together to unlock the support. This method is the best to me because it not only makes the writing better but it also allows for the developers to take into account support bonuses when balancing the game, though they didn't take advantage of the latter. Supports having limits is a gameplay balancing feature because otherwise, you could get some truly ridiculous bonuses, though I think there's room for better implementation in that regard, such as being able to rank up all supports but having to choose which ones are active and which ones aren't with limits on the total levels active.

I don't get your complaint about how useless and inflexible the support bonuses are either. They're essentially auras, much like a lot of the skills in this game (such as Bewitching Flower, Battle Command, etc.) and even have a larger radius. The support bonuses also vary depending on the pairs and the characters due to affinities. In Awakening and Fates, you either need to be paired up or adjacent to an ally to benefit from the supports. The general support bonuses are all the same and while Fates does give each character extra bonuses per rank, it's only if you pair up. And pair-up bonuses are derived from the class and everybody can benefit from them, not just a support partner. And since people can reclass freely, they're generally less special. I suppose FE7's-FE9's support bonuses often felt superfluous because the games are really easy and the enemies suck too much for the bonuses to mean much, but FE10's bonuses (which are the same as FE9's) are much more significant because the enemies are strong enough to the point where they actually matter. The issue of supporting units with mismatched movement is a problem in Awakening and Fates too, probably moreso in Fates because Attack Stance means there's actually a reason for units to not be paired up all the time, so it's easier for footsoldiers to fall behind the cavalry. I don't think there's much you can do about that though, that's the constant no matter how they've been implemented all the way back in FE3.

The complaint about needing dozens of replays to unlock all of the supports in the old version is a complaint you can leverage here in Awakening and Fates too. Supports with the Avatar differ in gender and, depending on the character, the route. You can't have more than one S support so if you want to fully unlock everything, you'd either have to play the game like a billion times for each couple or cheat the system to add them to the support log, which is still rather tedious. I don't know how you'd get around that though but to be honest, it's not a big deal in any of these games and I'm hesitant to call it a problem at all since you can argue it can add replay value to the game. Support caps can also make the player think about who they want their characters to support and which pairs to go for instead of just automatically ranking up one guy with everyone else.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the old support system is not inherently worse than the new one. The main problem with GBA supports was how they built, which was fixed in FE9, which is why that system is about on at least on par with and (imo) better than the current era's support system. There's not really an identity crisis involved either because the writing is more focused, the lack of things like children mean they don't have to force a bunch of pairs that have nothing to talk about, and the support bonuses themselves are simply auras you build up over time, which I don't recall you having a problem with.

I'm also curious if you think that FE13 and FE14 actually have flaws because I've never seen a single post from you that had any critique or negative thought of some aspect of them. I'd also argue you're not thinking hard enough about the differences in mechanics in various FEs but whatever.

I have thought about it quite a bit which is how I came to my conclusion. My complaint about the inflexible nature of the support bonuses is that in many of those previous games the supports themselves are the only "Aura" available(with a few exceptions in RD). Outside of concidence or forcing it a character who supports another character won't really be adjacent to each other that often to build that support in the first place? Whereas the more recent ones have plenty of reasons for units to be adjacent, paired up or within a couple squares of each other which complement having supports and building supports when you have none.

The limitless number of supports per character doesn't matter in Awakening or Fates the way it would in previous games. This is because the only way to receive raw stat(or damage boosts/reductions) from supports is pair up something that a unit can only have one of at a time, the other support bonus of hit/evade/crit/avoid is tiered and caps out. There is still mismatched movements in fates but the pair up command allows you to pair up two characters, move and drop a character adjacent after movement or just syaing paired up which makes different movement types less of an issue and almost every male being able to support with almost every female and the more equal female/male split along with the larger support pool means its very likely characters of similar movement types can support together.

In terms of support completion, in a single playthrough of Fates a character can get up to A-rank with every single character he/she can support with, the nature of Awakenings and likely Fates supports is that they really resolve themself by A-rank and S-Rank is more of a summary followed by a proposal/marriage, however you could build all the ranks up and by reading supports and saving over an alternative save file and then soft resetting and loading the old one you can actually unlock every single S-Rank in a single playthrough too. The problem with the old system is that to even read half of the supports you have to play through the game several times and supports are a feature that players more interested in the characters than the gameplay would like to read. I think something is serously messed up with the mechanic when someone is having to play through the whole game every time just to read up to 5 conversations(One A rank from 3 conversations and 2 conversations you'd have to repeat in a later playthrough to get the A-rank with the other character(s)) each specifc characters can have with other characters(and that's if they don't conflict with another pairing). You can't handwave that as replay value because it is a serious mismatch between player's preferences a player who wants to read all the conversations their favourite character shouldn't have to play the game a number of times equal to the number of supports that character has. This is where the crisis I mentioned comes in, the old system is results in players interested in the characters being treat as hardcore players and need(as opposed to want) to play the whole game(especially in PoR's case) several times when really you'd expect them to want to play less times but focus more on the dialogue.

I do have some issues in regards to the way supports were done in FE13 notably I think the support bonuses for pair up were too high for all the non-Luck/Skill stats. The way Dual Strike worked with support ranks made it too unreliable at the start of the game and too good at the end(same with dual guard except I didn't like the idea of a random chance to take 0 damage from even a 100% hit rate attack in general). However a common criticism is that being able to have more than 5 is what made them broken this is not true as I mentoned earlier you could only get stat boosts from one character at a time due to how pair up works, the statboosts would have been too high whether you had no limit or only 5 supports and there is a cap to the bonuses from the support boost for adjacent characters.

Edited October 16, 2015 by arvilino

[Dark Sage]

It's really not that difficult for characters to be within the radius or adjacent to each other and there are a variety of reasons for units to stick together, such as choking points, rescue chaining, rescue dropping, or simply because it's more efficient for the units to stick close together in that particular area. You don't even need for units to be adjacent to build supports, they just need to be deployed together enough times.

So really, what I'm getting here is that your two biggest issues with how supports worked was how they were built and the fact there was a limit on the conversations each could get. The first was fixed in FE9 since it allows you to actually utilize the mechanic. For the second, I already proposed a solution in the first paragraph of my previous post, but I'll repeat it: you put a limit on the total levels of bonuses active (I'm assuming affinities here because it's more interesting) but, with the exception of one S/A (depending on which is the highest rank), not put a limit on how many conversations each unit can view. So the player can choose which supports are active and which are not for each map, which gives it a lot of the flexibility you enjoy. This doesn't have to be exclusive with aura skills either. Actually, I've thought up aura skills that can do things like treat units of a certain type (such as beasts or undead) as if they had a support one level higher. Or something like that.

The issue with replay value is more conflicting. FE by its nature is extremely replayable due to the sheer number of units and RNG, so the locked supports could be argued to give additional replay value. And people who are mainly interested in the characters probably would be interested in replaying a lot of times. I do understand that not everybody has the timd for that though; one of my biggest pet peeves of today's industry, in addition to bullshit DLC practices, is the lack of respect to the player's time by the developers. I still think there's definite room for improvement from the current model and there's enough that's good about the old model that could be incorporated and built upon.

Also I was referring to critque or issues with Awakening and Fates in general, not just regarding supports. I'm genuinely interested. Not sure if it'll clog up the thread so if you prefer, we could take that topic to PM instead. You're pretty smart from what I've seen from your posts, even if I don't often agree with you, so I think that conversation could be really interesting.

[NekoKnight]

FE9's method was good though because it only required the characters to partake in a certain number of battles together to unlock the support.

It was better than the GBA system of getting support points but still flawed. There were plenty of maps where you'd want to deploy some units more than others (such as maps that make it preferable not to use cavalry) but if you didn't use BOTH units for the required number of chapters, it was impossible to max out their support level. The current system (some pairings are still difficult to manage because of contrasting roles (healers vs frontline fighters)) allows you to pair of characters and grind out as much support bonuses as you need.

[Emperor Hardin]

The lack of female axe-users and male Pegasus Knights always just seemed conspicuous to me I guess - the latter being explicitly stated to be exclusively female. For me, gender-locking is objectionable less because of the effects on mechanics (which indeed, it didn't affect back then) and moreso because of the stereotypical implications it has.

The reason I specifically say the GBA games is because that's where I actually started playing FE (but not Binding Blade obviously, or else I'd have noticed Echidna)

Not exactly, actually Karin's dialogue left open the possibility of male Pegasus Knights.

[ckc22]

For me it's more a lines thing. FE:Awakening didn't bother me.

Underwear units and face rubbing is taking things too far.

[Lann La Mirah]

On paper, I loved most moves that Awakening did, including the dating sim aspect. It's cheesy and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but I always liked the games that had dating sim aspects. However, I was disappointed by Awakening's marriage/kids aspect, and Fates' sounds worse. Many moons ago, there was this game called Phantasy Star III, and it featured a branching storyline where it branched off when you picked which girl the main character married, and it branched even further when the second generation kids got married. In the end it was an awful game, but I loved the idea and really wanted to see it in Awakening: The kids would be different people depending on who their parents were, rather than just have different hair colors.

....That being said, I understand that it would be insanely hard for the game designers to do that, especially for Morgan since anyone can be his/her mom/dad. However, I would have rather the developers cut down the options of the kids' parents and had more personalized dialogue for the fewer that were there. It's weird to me that Frederick and Henry have almost the exact same dialogue when talking to daughter Cynthia.

The genderlocked classes never bothered me. Stuck in one class never really bothered me in FE. I tend not to change classes, other than promotions.

[Myke]

On paper, I loved most moves that Awakening did, including the dating sim aspect. It's cheesy and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but I always liked the games that had dating sim aspects. However, I was disappointed by Awakening's marriage/kids aspect, and Fates' sounds worse. Many moons ago, there was this game called Phantasy Star III, and it featured a branching storyline where it branched off when you picked which girl the main character married, and it branched even further when the second generation kids got married. In the end it was an awful game, but I loved the idea and really wanted to see it in Awakening: The kids would be different people depending on who their parents were, rather than just have different hair colors.

....That being said, I understand that it would be insanely hard for the game designers to do that, especially for Morgan since anyone can be his/her mom/dad. However, I would have rather the developers cut down the options of the kids' parents and had more personalized dialogue for the fewer that were there. It's weird to me that Frederick and Henry have almost the exact same dialogue when talking to daughter Cynthia.

The genderlocked classes never bothered me. Stuck in one class never really bothered me in FE. I tend not to change classes, other than promotions.

A- this sounds like a challenge

[Gomez_Addams]

On paper, I loved most moves that Awakening did, including the dating sim aspect. It's cheesy and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but I always liked the games that had dating sim aspects. However, I was disappointed by Awakening's marriage/kids aspect, and Fates' sounds worse. Many moons ago, there was this game called Phantasy Star III, and it featured a branching storyline where it branched off when you picked which girl the main character married, and it branched even further when the second generation kids got married. In the end it was an awful game, but I loved the idea and really wanted to see it in Awakening: The kids would be different people depending on who their parents were, rather than just have different hair colors.

....That being said, I understand that it would be insanely hard for the game designers to do that, especially for Morgan since anyone can be his/her mom/dad. However, I would have rather the developers cut down the options of the kids' parents and had more personalized dialogue for the fewer that were there. It's weird to me that Frederick and Henry have almost the exact same dialogue when talking to daughter Cynthia.

The genderlocked classes never bothered me. Stuck in one class never really bothered me in FE. I tend not to change classes, other than promotions.

Hey, I didn't think Phantasy Star III was that bad. It was just way too ambitious for the console it was on.

It's sequel was much better, though.

[Captain Karnage]

Here are my thoughts

Child Characters worked way better in FE 4&13

They do add some replay value though

I have no issue with joke weapons or gender locked classes, weapons on the otherhand, I don't care

I think there needs to be way more same sex support conversations

I've been involved in the series since around 04/05 (yes little Karnage was somehow intrested in srps I just wanted to know where these Marth and Roy jokers came from) and came back with Awakening ( I couldn't find Radiant Dawn back then and the stigma of liking Nintendo at that age didn't help all that much.)

I think having the player avatar adds more immersion to the world.

I like the addition of skinship. How do I start this, umm there are a lot of lonely people, including myself, and well having someone there adds some comfort to their life.

and to end this, atrtists aren't allowed to change at all,

if they keep doing the same thing for years they get bored and people complain that

if they decide to change fans will complain that they hate the change to what they are used to

Edited October 21, 2015 by Captain Karnage

[Bullwine85]

Its a huge poofy dress that covers everything just what is hentai about that?? The dark mage/sorcerer outfits sure but not huge western style wedding gown.

Exactly. Give the art credit. As stupid and ridiculous as the Bride class was and the fact that they used Eirika for it, at least she still LOOKED like Eirika, and at least in her recruitment conversation she's aware of the fact that it's stupid and ridiculous. There was other art where it was much worse (I didn't even recognize Elincia or Celica at first, for example).

Anywho,

I don't mind the whole waifu mechanic mainly because I don't take it too seriously, I'll even tolerate the skinship as weird and ridiculously creepy as it is. Why?

Because Fire Emblem as a series is always changing (sometimes those changes are good, sometimes those changes are......controversial, to say the least), while the core of what makes Fire Emblem....well, Fire Emblem is still very much there, and based on what I've seen of Fates, that core is still very much there and very much alive. Is there a lot of stuff I don't like? Sure. But even despite all the fanservice, I still see a lot more good than I do bad.

As far as genderlocks are concerned, I'm surprised we hadn't had a male pegasus rider or a female fighter until Fates, so I'm more surprised that it took this long to not have genderlocks

Edited October 21, 2015 by Bullwine85

[DualMix]

C-can I have the microphone now?.... Thank you.

A-hem.

I do have some things that irk me about the whole "identity crisis", and some things that don't.

Alright, so let's start with the waifu aspect. I personally love it. I say this as a veteran. I enjoy pairing my characters and having them be all lovey-dovey. It's fun. I enjoy being with Hinoka in one game and Rinkah in the other. Maybe a little Mozume or Setsuna in between. I enjoy that aspect.

But what I don't like so much is the children. Now in Awakening there was... sort of a reason for them all to be there. You screwed up so your children have come back to help(with an infinite amount of galeforces) but in Fates... I mean... why? If the game had a sort of second generation thing going on like in previous games, then I'd be fine with it but... I digress. There are some things I do enjoy with the child system. I like some of their designs, I enjoy their personalities, they are ,for the most part, enjoyable characters. But did they have to be the children? I could see them easily being their own characters instead of your children.

But for the most part, I don't really mind these new aspects but it does seem like an identity crisis doesn't it? And if it is, I'm sure IS can fix it up sooner or later. I think this stage in Fire Emblem is more of a.. refining stage if you will. Or maybe an update. I dunno.

Oh.. and one more thing.

I wanna ride a flying pony IS. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

[Avi448]

If there's something i've always liked about FE, is the amount of dignity your characters had. You could see them, respect them, or even hate them ( which is not bad, characters are suposed to be that, characters, not some perfect, flawless guy ), or whatever. Sacred Stones did this best, as did, to some extent, PoR/RD. Thracia and Genealogy are out of this because, to be fair, there wasn't enough characterization.

However, how am i supposed to have respect to a character when i can fucking see them half-naked at will, no, i just can't. It's wrong in so many ways.

The children thing is forced and stupid here, FE4 did it best, and i suppose it was fairly nice in FE13. But this is not. As some have said before me, why do they have to be children?. They could be perfectly, standalone characters on their own and noone would be complaying. Leaving marriage was fine, but damn. STOP FORCING THIS CHILDREN BULLSH*T.

And, then again, about characters. I can't say about Fates because, you know ... it hasn't been released yet. But in Awakening most characters were some Anime stereotype, abusing of one or two defining traits and not developing more traits out of those. There were exceptions, few though they were. And it'll probably be the same here.

About genderlocked weapons/classes, i don't really mind. They can do as they please, it's not really something i care so much about.

[Giga Man]

My opinion is totally different than any of these!

C-can I have the microphone now?.... Thank you.

A-hem.

I do have some things that irk me about the whole "identity crisis", and some things that don't.

Alright, so let's start with the waifu aspect. I personally love it. I say this as a veteran. I enjoy pairing my characters and having them be all lovey-dovey. It's fun. I enjoy being with Hinoka in one game and Rinkah in the other. Maybe a little Mozume or Setsuna in between. I enjoy that aspect.

But what I don't like so much is the children. Now in Awakening there was... sort of a reason for them all to be there. You screwed up so your children have come back to help(with an infinite amount of galeforces) but in Fates... I mean... why? If the game had a sort of second generation thing going on like in previous games, then I'd be fine with it but... I digress. There are some things I do enjoy with the child system. I like some of their designs, I enjoy their personalities, they are ,for the most part, enjoyable characters. But did they have to be the children? I could see them easily being their own characters instead of your children.

This echos my thoughts exactly. I have a few more thoughts, though.

I'm not a veteran. I started with Awakening, and ever since Fates came out in Japan, not being able to play it, and therefore being unable to contain the hype, I played through Blazing Sword (FE7) and The Sacred Stones (FE8). This gave me a new perspective on the potential of Fire Emblem characters. I love match-making as much as the next guy, but after I played FE7, I was like... why is everyone in Awakening single and open to marriage? In FE7, you got Dorcas who just needs money to buy medicine for his sick wife. You got Raven whose obsessed with revenge and has no interest in marriage (although it's kinda implied he has the hots for his very feminine-looking male companion, Lucius). You have Pent and Louise, a married couple from the start, have story significance, and are cool characters to boot. (They're badass in battle, too. Love 'em.) I'm sure you get the picture by now, but in FE8, you have Garcia, a retired soldier, raising his son, Ross, on his own after his wife's passing, and he AND his son join the fight! I would love to have stuff like this again. (Except the trainee stuff with Ross. That was pretty brutal.)

Another thing is why does every male have to communicate with every female? Even though the limited amount of support options in FE7 and 8 were painfully low for some characters, I liked the premise that the characters would only talk to people that they would realistically want to talk to, even if the desire wasn't mutual (which led to some comedic situations). It made most of the support conversations feel more meaningful, as some would show a side of a character you would only see in that conversation, and they were probably written better than Awakening's and Fates' because the devs had less scenarios to write for. The only thing I hope they never bring back is the limited amount of supports in a playthrough. It should be unlimited like it is now.

That being said, I do believe that the avatar should communicate with everybody, as it's effectively a tactician's job to learn about the army their guiding. However, I don't think the avatar should be able to marry every character. As I stated before, not every character needs to be single and/or open to marriage. Not every character has to be interested in your sexuality either. If your avatar is a guy, and you wanna marry this cute chick, you can't because she's lesbian, but a girl avatar can marry her. Not every male to female relationship needs to end in romance either. They can just be friends.

This is the kind of stuff I wanna see. Give me more dynamics in character relationships and backgrounds. Keep the avatar stuff. I love having an avatar. I love having the sense that I am truly a part of the squad, even if the self-insert doesn't accurately mimic my every reaction. I love marrying and interacting with my waifus, and pairing other husbandos and waifus together. Just drop the forced children stuff in exchange for standalone characters. Make them siblings, parents, children, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, grand-whatever of other characters if need be, as long as they already exist in the present setting and the kids aren't suddenly born and raised through a time-rift that instantly makes them adults when they come out.

Edited October 29, 2015 by Giga Man

[Seo]

Let's get it straight but short.

My problem isn't the waifu thing. It was here since FE4 and it was well made. I don't see the problem of shipping characters as long as the supports aren't having a lack of depth, because when that's the case, you can't take the characters's story seriously.

Also, the justification used in Awakening and here are clearly plot holes. Why not making it logic with a time ellipse ? That would be okay !

My problem is clearly the direction. To me, it's like Fire Emblem wants to erase what made it identity since 25 years now. I mean, the dating sim direction and anime exageration style is kind of a problem because you can't take the game with the seriouisness it would deserve.

Clearly, what is the point with some features like FE Amie. Don't tell me useless statements like "It's an option so you can't say anything on it" of course I can and of course I will. What I don't understand is why it is here and the concept. How the heck rubbing your units will make them closer to you. To be honest, if my general would do this to me I'd punch him right in the face, I have an identity and a pride, be considered like puppets is clearly affecting the way you're taking serious or not the units...

I feel like the games I did play before were clearly something different, so I have trouble when considering that Fates is still a Fire Emblem...

Of course I'm not spiting on it, but it's just I have a bit of trouble with it conception of what is a Fire Emblem in some points... But clearly the gameplay has improved, for sure.

[Great Geargia Gateway]

Let's get it straight but short.

My problem isn't the waifu thing. It was here since FE4 and it was well made. I don't see the problem of shipping characters as long as the supports aren't having a lack of depth, because when that's the case, you can't take the characters's story seriously.

Also, the justification used in Awakening and here are clearly plot holes. Why not making it logic with a time ellipse ? That would be okay !

My problem is clearly the direction. To me, it's like Fire Emblem wants to erase what made it identity since 25 years now. I mean, the dating sim direction and anime exaggeration style is kind of a problem because you can't take the game with the seriousness it would deserve.

Clearly, what is the point with some features like FE Amie. Don't tell me useless statements like "It's an option so you can't say anything on it" of course I can and of course I will. What I don't understand is why it is here and the concept. How the heck rubbing your units will make them closer to you. To be honest, if my general would do this to me I'd punch him right in the face, I have an identity and a pride, be considered like puppets is clearly affecting the way you're taking serious or not the units...

I feel like the games I did play before were clearly something different, so I have trouble when considering that Fates is still a Fire Emblem...

Of course I'm not spiting on it, but it's just I have a bit of trouble with it conception of what is a Fire Emblem in some points... But clearly the gameplay has improved, for sure.

A common problem. Maybe I could consider not caring what what IS put in the game, but the people aren't mature enough or brought the wrong crowd. They take it all out of context and not serious about it, thus making the Waifu Emblem meme, something I'm not fond of seeing a childhood game turn into.

And even that 'Optional' argument. Some meme that turned out to be, and it doesn't have depth either. Being a completion-ist is a problem with some optional things, and if Fire Emblem supplied full rape scenes next game, would you buy it weather it was optional or not? The optional argument is silly, like they think that if you ignore all of the bad stuff, the game will be good. And the "Afraid of change" argument, too.

[Thane]

This has been a very interesting read, and while I'd love to come back and write my own thoughts in more detail later when I'm not in a hurry, I do want to say a few words.

Fire Emblem's writing has never been its strong point; I started in Awakening and then went back to play other localized games, but I found that the dialogue in earlier games was incredibly stilted, and the world's were usually very underdeveloped just as in Awakening, with the exception of the Tellius series, but even that's nothing when compared to actually well-written games. I think Fates has proved once and for all that even with more time and focus going to the plot only to fail in pretty much every single regard shows that Intelligent Systems has a hard time understanding how to build a world, portray it and its inhabitants and how to write an intriguing storyline.

As for the games not taking themselves seriously, I don't know about that. Awakening and Fates try to take themselves seriously during the main campaign while being silly on the side, just like earlier entries in the series. Again, the writing is usually so simplistic even in the supposedly more serious, older games that I'm unsure whether or not the game should even try to be serious in the first place, but that's not a point I have considered too much, and I don't have time to reflect over it right now.

I suppose my point here was just that older Fire Emblem games were hardly some kind of high culture compared to Awakening and Fates, and I say that even though Fates is my least favorite game in terms of story of all time.

Now, as for what I think about fan service and ridiculous things like chugging umbrellas at people. A part of me thinks that it's okay since it's all optional anyway, but I thoroughly dislike the My Castle mechanic and all that it entailed, especially from a story perspective, since they just travel to an alternate dimension to chill out in hot springs instead of, I don't know, supplying, preparing and training for fights ahead. I tend not to like games that take themselves too seriously, but I also can't stand games that try too hard to be funny or break the fourth wall with totally radical jokes and references either.

I think in the end, I would like to see Fire Emblem be more serious and especially get rid of ridiculous fan service and some of its horrible implications. However, the main stories of the (localized games with which I'm familiar) series have never been complex, particularly engaging or well-written, so I don't feel like something has really been lost - more unnecessary crap has just been thrown in.

I'm sorry if I started rambling, I'll try to clear up any confusion my post may have caused when I've got some time. Hopefully it makes some degree of sense!

[Seo]

" like they think that if you ignore all of the bad stuff, the game will be good. "

EXACTLY. And that's really what I can't afford to consider. If the game's having bad options, saying "BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE TO NOT PLAY IT IF YOU WANT !" will not solve the problem.

It's like running away from the truth or the evidence itself ! I mean these features were meant to be considered, and if when you consider it you are rejected with some absurd explanations like "you can not do it if you want" that's clearly stupid...

[arvilino]

" like they think that if you ignore all of the bad stuff, the game will be good. "

EXACTLY. And that's really what I can't afford to consider. If the game's having bad options, saying "BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE TO NOT PLAY IT IF YOU WANT !" will not solve the problem.

It's like running away from the truth or the evidence itself ! I mean these features were meant to be considered, and if when you consider it you are rejected with some absurd explanations like "you can not do it if you want" that's clearly stupid...

Whenever they add or change something in the game its likely aimed at making certain people happy but its inevitable by adding a feature that there will be some people will be indifferent or other people won't like it all. I doubt they added for example the skinship feature expecting every player to like it, hence why along with the bath house it doesn't provide any bonuses that aren't available through other free(e.g. non-DLC) means.

There were already many differing reasons and ways people enjoy Fire Emblem, there were arguments over how people would/should even play the game. Since they're aiming to get more people to play and more reasons to enjoy or be excited for the games its no surprise that some additions are features that existing players might be indifferent to or not like(though there is a huge number of features and mechanics for existing players to enjoy). You can't exactly expect to adore every single aspect of a game beyond the base formula without its base formula either being obscenely popular to begin with(and thus only needing it to sell the game) or incredibly niche(in this case unsustainably so).

In this case it comes off that some think the additions are bad or makes the game not Fire Emblem simply because they don't enjoy that new feature. Just play what you like and understand you aren't expected to like everything, its not like you need to rub the characters faces during battle to make them attack or something that forces you to use it, the only issue I'd understand strong dislike of being a particular bad thing about a feature of the game itself is certain female classes armour design because its unavoidable unless you turn off battle animations.

Edited October 31, 2015 by arvilino

[Avi448]

the worse is, the "it's optional" argument falls short when the DARN GAME SHOVES IT TO YOUR FACE

( see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS5uN_DYyIw )

[Banyanas]

the worse is, the "it's optional" argument falls short when the DARN GAME SHOVES IT TO YOUR FACE

( see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS5uN_DYyIw )

Oh yeah, things like Camilla's or Charlottes's designs, especially in cutscenes, are just about impossible to avoid. At least the Ninja Tiddy Squad has equal-opportunity cleavage windows.

[Seo]

The game gives the opportunity to pet units and nobody bats an eye

Then Camilla is having a suggesting video and everyone is losing his mind.

[Giga Man]

The game gives the opportunity to pet units and nobody bats an eye

Then Camilla is having a suggesting video and everyone is losing his mind.

Huh? I'm pretty darn sure those who complain about Camilla also complain about skinship on a near equal level. Camilla is just easier to target because everybody wants to complain about the clothes women wear in video games.

[Altean Tactician]

I loved awakening, but i much prefer retro fire emblem. Especially sacred stones and mystery of the emblem