Do you hate Avatar character(s)? If so, why?

[HTakara82]

I think the reason everyone has been saying that you're just trying to shut down discussion is because you haven't been giving very much in the way of concrete examples to support your position. Most of what you've said has amounted to "Yes but I don't like the thing that you suggested/didn't like the thing that you brought up so it's a bad idea". You're entitled to your own feelings about things, of course, but if you're attempting to sway others to your position or prove your own correctness (basically impossible on the subject of opinions anyway), then you need to be able to provide some concrete backing for your stance.

In this instance, for example, could you provide some sort of evidence to support that past Fire Emblem games' plots and characterizations were, in some way, objectively-worse than Awakening's and Fates'? And remember, "I didn't like them as much" doesn't count; that's subjective.

Other people here have been providing examples of things that past Fire Emblem games have done well with their writing and contrasting it with the newer games' failures to do similar things. Meanwhile, you've just been responding with, "I didn't like the older games", "people would throw a shitfit if you made it more like the older games", and stuff along those lines. Again, you are completely allowed to have your own feelings and opinions about these things, but other people are not immature, shortsighted, or wrong for not sharing those opinions. I get that Awakening and Fates strike a good balance for your personal enjoyment of them, and that's fine, but I'm beginning to suspect from many of your responses that you basically started this topic to pick fights with people who disagree with you, and that sort of behavior is not respectable.

On the actual topic of discussion, I don't really have anything new to add, but I'll give my two cents anyway.

I think the bottom line is that Intelligent Systems has been playing with customizable, player-created protagonists, but they've never really fully committed to having a player-generated, player-driven protagonist, so you get this weird hybrid between that and a preset protagonist who doesn't really do a good job at being either.

I think there are really three options for what to do about this:

1. Basically FE7's Mark, but as a unit. Minimal impact on the story aside from maybe supposedly being the group's Tactician, but is still playable in combat and can be customized aesthetically and as a unit.
3. Actually commit to making a player-created, player-driven protagonist. Allow their actions to drive the story forward to some extent, or to at least influence its course. Give the player at least some control over what they say and do during the plot and during interactions with other characters. Don't be afraid to let other characters have dynamic opinions of the protagonist, either; loving them, hating them, or anything in between based on the player's decisions.

I don't have a problem with the idea of an Avatar or a customizable playable character. I do have a problem with IS's shamelessly-pandering, half-baked implementations of Avatars thus far.

Stop putting words in my mouth, all you're doing is taking what I said in passing and twist them into your argument. Everyone who mentioned anything about other supports only mentioned which ones they really liked, not as to why it was good. GTFO of here if you think that holds any validity. Fire Emblem had always had basic writing, it was never award winning rip at your emotions writing. Whether you like them or not, is personal opinion.

Where is this godforsaken earth will gamers jump in glee with having features ripped out of it? tell me. Having the ability to support whoever you want with whoever you want is an advancement, it allows endless customization, people in the past had always moaned about not being able to support person A with person C, and now that you can do it, you want to take it away?. To regress from that is foolhardy, you should be encouraging to improve upon it, not to regress.

They already given the player control over what they do, I've mentioned it multiple times already. And having dialogue choices is just asking for a massive slew of problems, it'll may one day get there, but it won't happen anytime soon. There's simply far too many characters. It is doable in wRPGs because of how limited it was when it came to characters. The budget needed to have a feature like that into a game like Fire Emblem far exceed what Fire Emblem is generally given. Until, Fire Emblem becomes a series that Nintendo is willing to invest that kind of money and development time, don't expect it to happen anytime soon.

[Topaz Light]

Stop putting words in my mouth, all you're doing is taking what I said in passing and twist them into your argument. Everyone who mentioned anything about other supports only mentioned which ones they really liked, not as to why it was good. GTFO of here if you think that holds any validity. Fire Emblem had always had basic writing, it was never award winning rip at your emotions writing. Whether you like them or not, is personal opinion.

Where is this godforsaken earth will gamers jump in glee with having features ripped out of it? tell me. Having the ability to support whoever you want with whoever you want is an advancement, it allows endless customization, people in the past had always moaned about not being able to support person A with person C, and now that you can do it, you want to take it away?. To regress from that is foolhardy, you should be encouraging to improve upon it, not to regress.

They already given the player control over what they do, I've mentioned it multiple times already. And having dialogue choices is just asking for a massive slew of problems, it'll may one day get there, but it won't happen anytime soon. There's simply far too many characters. It is doable in wRPGs because of how limited it was when it came to characters. The budget needed to have a feature like that into a game like Fire Emblem far exceed what Fire Emblem is generally given. Until, Fire Emblem becomes a series that Nintendo is willing to invest that kind of money and development time, don't expect it to happen anytime soon.

"Everyone who mentioned anything about other supports only mentioned which ones they really liked, not as to why it was good. GTFO of here if you think that holds any validity."

You say this as though you've made better arguments than this. If you did, I must have missed them. Please, feel free to direct me to any of them or paste them here.

Actually, there were things there about why it was good. Previous Lords have been more three dimensional, have had flaws that actually have meaningful consequences beyond killing off random playable characters who could very well have died by that point to a screw-up by the player anyway. (And many of those are even preventable in Fates). As a result of these flaws and screw ups, the characters grew and developed as people, which cannot be said of Kris, or Robin, or, from what I'm hearing, Kamui. The point isn't just that they screw up, it's that their mistakes and imperfections have lasting effects on them and sometimes even on the plot.

And actually, you're the one who's selectively-ignoring here. They did mention why the supports were good. Rebecca and Dart's gives a lot of insight into Dart's backstory, as well as providing the answer to a question that had been plaguing Rebecca for some time at that point. Raven and Lucius' delves into Raven's convictions and the relationship between the two characters, and ends up giving Raven a noticeable amount of character development. Hell, Renault's entire backstory is revealed in his supports! Granted, Awakening does have some supports that are like this, but the vast majority of them basically read like little comedy skits between the two characters, which isn't necessarily a problem in itself, but it leads to characters almost never getting any real development from their support conversations, which therefore makes them not as interesting to many people.

I never said that that had to go. That's something other people said. However, it is worth considering that the huge number of supports has resulted in a very "quantity over quality" approach being taken to writing them. I would rather have fewer, better-fleshed-out options than a greater number of shallow, less-developed ones. And, to use a bit of your own reasoning, every feature included in the game takes time, money, and manpower to implement, all of which are finite when developing a game. Many long-time fans feel that much of the time, money, and manpower spent on features such as skinshipping and writing supports for every conceivable different-gender pair of characters would've been better spent elsewhere. Yes, you can spend your gold on twenty Iron Bows, and you can try to make the argument that "I should focus on getting more weapons instead of exchanging what I already have!" but the fact is that your gold would've been better spent elsewhere, on other things. People complain because they feel like Intelligent Systems is spending too much of their time, funding, and manpower on features that don't really add anything meaningful to the game, and they would rather IS use those resources to make components of the game that are meaningful really shine.

You actually don't have control over what you do. At least, not hardly any more control than you have over any other recruitable character. You can maybe choose what you say in a few instances, but, to use Awakening as an example, the game gives you choices throughout the game. All but the last one of these choices do literally nothing to affect the story. They change the next few lines of dialogue, but aside from that, the game progresses exactly the same way no matter what you do. Fates admittedly does a little better at this, but not much. As for choosing who they marry, what they reclass into, where they move in battle, etc., that's not anything that you can't also do for any character, so it doesn't count as a mark in the favor of the Avatar specifically.

Also, I haven't heard one argument from you about why what people are suggesting is actually a bad idea. You're saying why IS isn't likely to do it, but that's not the same thing. I'll give you that it may be a bad idea as far as profits are concerned, but that's not the same thing as actually making the game itself a lower quality.

[Tangerine]

Chill out guys. You're talking about a game series, there's no need to get out of hand.

Edited October 10, 2015 by Tangerine

[NekoKnight]

A personal idea I've had in the past, is that what if the "My Unit" characters were just "Mercenary" characters? Pay some gold to recruit them, and you can customize them and name them and give them whatever class you like. They don't get any supports; only get minor dialogue based on a "trait" you pick for them. Stuff like event tiles and that. This way people could still make themselves, or their characters, or even their friends, but it wouldn't bog down the story. They'd just be extra units for you to use.

Sort of like guest avatars in Awakening, but with more customization. After all, when everybody's portrait has them wearing the plegian tactician robes, despite their class, it's kind of immersion breaking...

This would be great but I'd add on the ability to choose a personality, to define who the MU can support with, as suggested by this poster.

However, one solid way to make it work would be to say 'Here are four personality types. Choose one for your MU.' Then, based on your choice, he'd have different people he could Support with. MU can still technically 'Support' everyone, but only a select few based on his chosen personality.

[Leif]

General note to all: calm down and have faith. From the English footage that was released at the Treehouse E3 presentation, Corrin seemed to have pretty decent dialogue. Nothing seemed glaringly wrong, so I bet that he/she will, perhaps, be a better written character in the English release.

Who knows, we haven't seen or heard anything about a release date for Fates by Nintendo, and it already has been four months of silence. They already had English footage at E3 before it was released in Japan; maybe they are planning on taking a longer time with the localization to fix some of these supposed characterization issues with some of the cast.

We can always hope for the best.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Leif

[Baldrick]

it was never award winning rip at your emotions writing.

I've felt plenty of emotions playing Fire Emblem games. You've got me all wrong. (That's a direct quote too, so don't accuse me of putting words in your mouth).

If you've never been affected by those moments, fine. If you play FE solely for the gameplay, or to be an army tactician, that's fine too! But don't try to dispute that the plot tries to make you feel emotions.

[Alazen]

Fire Emblem narratives having problematic elements=/=No Fire Emblem game has done anything better than another narratively and therefore whatever happens in one is beyond criticism.

And Kibayashi's role in Fates' development wouldn't have been advertised if there wasn't at least lip-service to the idea of pushing Fates' narrative.

[-Cynthia-]

While I wouldn't say that I 'hated' Mark, their inclusion didn't seem to affect the story or the gameplay experience whatsoever. They made no story decisions, had no discernable personality, and the NPCs talked to them so infrequently that it was a bit jarring when they did so. I understand the complaints people have about the more recent avatars, but I'm not sure Mark's complete lack of presence is the way to go.

[Radiant head]

General note to all: calm down and have faith. From the English footage that was released at the Treehouse E3 presentation, Corrin seemed to have pretty decent dialogue. Nothing seemed glaringly wrong, so I bet that he/she will, perhaps, be a better written character in the English release.

The idea that localizations can do more than just subtle changes sounds naive.

[Leif]

The idea that localizations can do more than just subtle changes sounds naive.

I wasn't suggesting that they rewrite the entire script. They may write the character in, perhaps, a more favorable light. Maybe they could have certain characters, like Camilla, not be absolutely obsessed over Corrin. Maybe they will tone down some of the aspects of the characters that members have been complaining about these past few months.

Look at Henry; his personality was completely rewritten in Awakening. I'd argue for the better, since he was so unorthodox.

I don't think it's unrealistic or naive to think that the localization team could change some things for the better.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Leif

[Radiant head]

I don't think it's unrealistic or naive to think that the localization team could change some things for the better.

It's not unrealistic per say, but it does sound like wishful thinking based on very little.

[Dark Sage]

Henry was also a minor character with pretty much no story role, so they could get away with changing him.

They don't have that freedom with Kamui or the royals.

[Loki Laufeyson]

While I wouldn't say that I 'hated' Mark, their inclusion didn't seem to affect the story or the gameplay experience whatsoever. They made no story decisions, had no discernable personality, and the NPCs talked to them so infrequently that it was a bit jarring when they did so. I understand the complaints people have about the more recent avatars, but I'm not sure Mark's complete lack of presence is the way to go.

People want more of a Mark style in how Avatar doesnt really dominate in the narrative, but stays close enough in it to feel like immersion. There can be a happy medium between the Mark and the Kamui. Hopefully, IS will try to find it.

The idea that localizations can do more than just subtle changes sounds naive.

Im not sure that completely changing a character's personality counts as subtle. Henry and Sully both were very different in the Japanese version of Awakening. While the BK in Radiant Dawn's reasoning for losing the fight in Nados Castle in FE9 was a "subtle change", its impact was felt a great deal more. Sometimes, subtle changes can actually do a lot more good for the overall narrative than you think. Like, if they subtly toned down some of Camilla's Kamui-centric behaviors, it could benefit the overall impression of the character AND Kamui. If localization changed Joker's "duel" with his son to a chess match, that could be exceedingly beneficial to the player's perception of the relationship between the two. Shit like that can change a lot. And usually thats what people mean when they say "I have faith localization may smooth things over a bit."

[HTakara82]

I've felt plenty of emotions playing Fire Emblem games. You've got me all wrong. (That's a direct quote too, so don't accuse me of putting words in your mouth).

If you've never been affected by those moments, fine. If you play FE solely for the gameplay, or to be an army tactician, that's fine too! But don't try to dispute that the plot tries to make you feel emotions.

Never said it didn't "Try", just said it was mediocre. Completely different.

Fire Emblem narratives having problematic elements=/=No Fire Emblem game has done anything better than another narratively and therefore whatever happens in one is beyond criticism.

And Kibayashi's role in Fates' development wouldn't have been advertised if there wasn't at least lip-service to the idea of pushing Fates' narrative.

It's okay to criticize, but gotta be willing to acknowledge past wrongs too. But so many are blinded by nostalgia that they'll defend to the death over their favorite FE game's story, gameplay, whatever. And it needs to be constructive, to be able to appropriately compare one to another. If one should be more like another, should be able to explain, why, and why it'll be better. Opinions are fine within itself, but a 2 yr old is capable of opinion, but opinions with reasoning behind it, holds more weight. And allows for more constructive debate, otherwise it's just people bitch slapping each other with opinions.

[Knight]

Opinions are fine within itself, but a 2 yr old is capable of opinion, but opinions with reasoning behind it, holds more weight.

So when are your reasons coming, I'm honestly curious.

[HTakara82]

So when are your reasons coming, I'm honestly curious.

Be more specific?

[Knight]

As to why past Fire Emblem stories and their main characters are mediocre, why more support options are better and other such controversial statements.

[Baldrick]

Never said it didn't "Try", just said it was mediocre. Completely different.

What's your reasoning? What do you consider an example of a "good" emotional payoff and how does it go about it?

[Great Geargia Gateway]

Chill out guys. You're talking about a game series, there's no need to get out of hand.

You have just witnessed 'this' fandom.

I've felt plenty of emotions playing Fire Emblem games. You've got me all wrong. (That's a direct quote too, so don't accuse me of putting words in your mouth).

If you've never been affected by those moments, fine. If you play FE solely for the gameplay, or to be an army tactician, that's fine too! But don't try to dispute that the plot tries to make you feel emotions.

Yeah, I copped a massive feel when I didn't pair Eliwood and Ninian in time and then she just suddenly 'Bleh' by the hands of the guy I tried to pair her up with. Savage IntySys.

More or less, the feels are driven by your connection to the characters than any story depth. In general, would you be upset if your favorite unit just died? You'd probably restart the chapter though you may not for any other unit.

[Knight]

Yeah, I copped a massive feel

Lol, quoting because this is an important quote.

Although, to respond to the above post sincerely, I reset when any unit dies if not named Cath.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Knight

[Baldrick]

More or less, the feels are driven by your connection to the characters than any story depth. In general, would you be upset if your favorite unit just died? You'd probably restart the chapter though you may not for any other unit.

Though the characters need to be deep enough that you can create a connection. If your player characters were no more developed than the enemy goons, there'd be no emotional impact in their deaths.

[NekoKnight]

Though the characters need to be deep enough that you can create a connection. If your player characters were no more developed than the enemy goons, there'd be no emotional impact in their deaths.

That's why I didn't care for the characters in Shadow Dragon and didn't mind getting them massacred to unlock the gaidens. Also, some of the deaths in Fates don't have much impact because the characters didn't get any attention until they die.

[Knight]

I actually like Shadow Dragon's story just for what it is, ignoring its characters. It has an epic feel to it, each chapter feels like a war, not daily monster/bandit eradicating #376, and you travel across the whole of Archanea toppling empires and see the villain's response as the same little boy they chased off his homeland comes back and tears them apart. Then in the sequel you see the ripple effects of the player's actions. It reminds me of a tale you'd here from history or myth.

But yeah, the characters are shit for development, and Genealogy does better at having the same epic feel while at least developing (some) of its characters. IMO 1st gen is better than 2nd gen in FE4 for that.

[Ebony]

I actually like Shadow Dragon's story just for what it is, ignoring its characters. It has an epic feel to it, each chapter feels like a war, not daily monster/bandit eradicating #376, and you travel across the whole of Archanea toppling empires and see the villain's response as the same little boy they chased off his homeland comes back and tears them apart. Then in the sequel you see the ripple effects of the player's actions. It reminds me of a tale you'd here from history or myth.

But yeah, the characters are shit for development, and Genealogy does better at having the same epic feel while at least developing (some) of its characters. IMO 1st gen is better than 2nd gen in FE4 for that.

Yep, yep, kind of a useless post but I agree on most of these points. Except I really like a lot of Gen 2, like Ced, Seliph, and Fee.

[HTakara82]

As to why past Fire Emblem stories and their main characters are mediocre, why more support options are better and other such controversial statements.

I'll use comparisons from other games within the same genre, as to why I feel it's mediocre. Using actual traditional RPGs, Movies, Novels, etc, would be completely unfair.

Alright let's begin, I'll try to be thorough, and not just do a 1 or 2 vague sentence answer.

Main Characters; They're all generic good guys. They're all literal copy paste of one another, Hector was a bit different, who rather than being gentle, he was brash. But he shared that lime light with a copy paste lord. And Ike was basically, what if Marth and Hector had a baby? well, there you go, you get Ike. And Chrom was just a "nicer" Ike. Now, having a good person isn't bad within itself, it's the delivery. And on top of which it's the same with pretty much all FE lords, they all share the same backstory, which ties into plot, which I'll get into later. Most jRPG heroes are "good guys.", but their delivery is completely different. I'll use Ramza Beoluve from the original FFT as an example. Although not a prince, he's a noble, so the standing is similar. From a story telling perspective and how they show the struggles of Ramza, his relationships with the people around him, his personality, etc... is very, very well executed. They make sure that you understand where Ramza is coming from without breaking flow, and everything felt natural with story transition to battle sequence. and they added some neat things too, like you're 1v1ing someone and after a certain point, the rest of your party catches up with you and helps you out if you didn't manage to beat him in time. Anyway, going on a tangent there. The MCs of Fire Emblem, had easy motives, and easy to understand personalities, they're all lords who got chased away by an evil empire, who are secretly undercontrol of some evil god, and they must reclaim their kingdom to return peace. Yeah sure, you learn some little quirks about them in support convos, their backstories are very cut and dry, that's hardly on the same level as Ramza.

Now I'll touch on story telling more in depth, will also help cover the issue with the mains. Story transition for Fire Emblem games had always been rather bland, you get a short scene of the characters talking and jump straight away into the next battle sequence. It was "just enough", for you to understand why the battle is taken place. It doesn't try to do anything more. Again falls under delivery and presentation. Awakening was the first to attempt actual cutscenes in an attempt to change the delivery by improving the presentation of the story, whether it was successful or not is for another topic, but it's a step in the right direction. And Fates tried to improve upon it, the problem lies not with Kobayashi, but rather Nintendo's philosophy of "make the game first, fit the story in later", which is a great set of mind to build a game with great gameplay but narrative suffers for it. Other companies have managed to build rock solid gameplay but doesn't allow the narrative to suffer for it. Fates is taking things in the right direction, I'm only hoping they improve upon it with the next installment.

Using some SRPGs as comparisons on narrative delivery and presentation; I'll start with an obscure one, tears to tiara. Fantastic example, the only SRPG that's ever made me legitimately shed a tear. Not only was it well written, the voice acting delivering it was top notch, with strong emotions that can pierce the viewer. It was a stereotypical Man vs Heaven theme, found commonly in games and anime, but the delivery and main character puts an entertaining and unique twist on things. If anyone here is familiar with games from Leaf, will know what I'm talking about, their stories are simply top notch and sets a really high bar. The Ogre Battle games, wow, I mean wow, if Fire Emblem wants to take some notes on how to make plot progression through protagonist choice, they just need to play the Ogre Battle games. Not onlly does important story choices effect how the narrative plays, sometimes small things can effect it to. And the narrative changes were massive, and they're not easy choices either, they put your sense of morals to the test. In any case, these examples have great, well written stories, that doesn't sacrifice anything for it.

And finally supports, well what can I say about supports? a lot of that tie into secondary characters that joins your army. They were simple and fun, not much else to say about it. But, the main problem with supports to, is that it's the ONLY way to get to know a character that isn't a main in Fire Emblem. Despite not having supports, I'll use FFT as an example of how characters join you. Every NPC that joins you, joins you on good merit, and they all play a role in the narrative to a certain point, without taking focus away from the overall plot. They all fit in somehow and play a major role for the period you recruit them. For example, Rafa and Malak... wow, this one was good. Malak who's the twin brother of Rafa, was sent out to assassinate you, you had to deal with them a few times, and eventually you discover that the Baron who is Malak's owner, is a target objective that needs to be taken care of, and on the way you meet Rafa who helps you fight her own brother. And further down the narrative you learn about the two, how they were war orphans, trained to be tools for the Baron, and how when Rafa gets raped, is when she finally decided to run away. In comparison, you get, send A unit to talk to B unit, and you get a new unit. And if you bother to do the handful of supports, you may learn a thing or two.

In the end, it doesn't matter if something is cliche or overdone, it's all about delivery and presentation, and in my opinion, it's been severely lack in past fire emblems, and only as of recent, IS had been trying to remedy it. And I commend them for it.