screenshot Ike's FE Megathread {15.5}

[TheMoniker]

Well, congratulations on finishing FE4! I've never played it, and now I don't think I ever will barring the incredibly unlikely event of a virtual console release on the 3DS. Which one are you going to do next? FE5, or something more recent?

[Integrity]

Which one are you going to do next? FE5, or something more recent?

I'll do each Fire Emblem after that in sequence until I run out of steam or Fire Emblems.

i'm getting this one a lot it's in the op ;(

[Psych]

9/eLevin

that's the topic title

also yeah admittedly they aren't good but I like the thematics of 4 of a generational world wide scheming and plotting with a tiny band of revolutionaries and the sort of the same with 10

I'm waiting for you to rip Cyas' artifical difficulty a new one though

[sirmola]

also yeah admittedly they aren't good but I like the thematics of 4 of a generational world wide scheming and plotting with a tiny band of revolutionaries and the sort of the same with 10

I have to agree with this. FE4's exicution has a ton of holes, but i personaly think that there aren't enough holes to completely drag down an excellent core idea. (unlike, say, conquest, which takes an excellent core idea but whose execution consists ENTIRELY of holes). The fact that to of the villains are done pretty well in a way that aligns with the core idea also helps. That being said, the degree to which execution can damage or redeem a core idea is a topic of much debate across all kinds of media, so your mileage may vary heavily.

Edited July 25, 2016 by sirmola

[The Draco Knight]

you're correct but, in fact, we are both correct! the best situation! here's the line:King Man (Azmur, Apparently): "Call it a family’s intuition, but somehow I knew. And sure enough under her circlet were the markings of Narga."he just knew looking at deirdre that she had to be one of his, and the mark of naga that he found on her forehead was proof that he was right. he felt the intuition buzz and then saw the mark, confirming his suspicions....but finn can still recognize altenna's vibes from a mile away

Uh, I forgot about that line.

Oh well.

9/eLevin

that's the topic title

also yeah admittedly they aren't good but I like the thematics of 4 of a generational world wide scheming and plotting with a tiny band of revolutionaries and the sort of the same with 10

I'm waiting for you to rip Cyas' artifical difficulty a new one though

Pretty much.

Also, I like the fact that every chapter gives an amazing atmosphere, be it because of the story or because of other facts, at least for me.

Anyway, I can't wait to see your analysis about FE5 and, especially, FE8, since It has my favorite character in the series.

[Sylphid]

EDIT:

no swearing in topic titles bae

Fair enough.

Obvious in hindsight as well

[Paperblade]

I'm hyped for FE5

[Integrity]

good news, the plan is to get fe5's first post by the end of the week, pending too many things to talk about on sf

[Sunwoo]

Awakening falls completely flat and over itself after the actually decent Gangrel stuff, from then on its a total mess that doesn't know what it wants to be aside from Robin's Glory Fest.

I'd say its honestly the weakest in the entire franchise when it comes to a plot because it doesn't know what it wants to be ever.

I'd argue that Fates is worse than Awakening, because Fates has even less focus throughout its three paths.

[eclipse]

The real question is, which has the most entertainingly bad story?

I get the sense we might be book-ended by these. I don't see anything being worse than 4 that I've played... but man, I've heard things about Fates.

I think Revelations is worse than Conquest. I'm positive I'm the minority in this. And I'd love to see Integrity do a blind playthrough of Revelations, just to see how much beer it will take before he finishes the game.

[SB.]

Props for finishing FE4 because that final chapter looked like a pain to write.

Tbh I'm most curious about what you think about Lifis as far as Thracia goes but I've never actually finished the game so I'm probably missing something.

[Cysx]

What a fun read, much better way to experience genealogy than actually playing it (at least for me).

Granted, that means Integrity took the shot instead of me, so thanks.

Well, congratulations on finishing FE4! I've never played it, and now I don't think I ever will barring the incredibly unlikely event of a virtual console release on the 3DS.

Although the criticism progressively became a bit harsh for my tastes, and my overall opinion didn't really change all that much, this was still pretty enjoyable, and you made a lot of good points; looking forward to FE5.

That being said, the above quotes bummed me out. I really wouldn't say reading this topic is a good way to experience FE4 as a game, and it's a shame if it ends up making people less motivated to try it out.

But, eh.

[Parrhesia]

Honestly while FE4's story is pretty terrible the gameplay will potentially make up for it. Besides, everyone here now knows the plot, such as it is, so experiencing the gameplay is all that's left anyway! \o/

[Integrity]

Tbh I'm most curious about what you think about Lifis as far as Thracia goes but I've never actually finished the game so I'm probably missing something.

(from my previous lp of it, idefk what he was like personality-wise or if he even had one)

[Katie]

(from my previous lp of it, idefk what he was like personality-wise or if he even had one)

Personality wise, he was an irredeemable douchebag who only joined your army because he wanted to fuck Sapphie.

[Integrity]

Personality wise, he was an irredeemable douchebag who only joined your army because he wanted to fuck Sapphie.

same tho on both counts....

Edited July 26, 2016 by Integrity

[Sylphid]

That being said, the above quotes bummed me out. I really wouldn't say reading this topic is a good way to experience FE4 as a game, and it's a shame if it ends up making people less motivated to try it out.

But, eh.

Honestly while FE4's story is pretty terrible the gameplay will potentially make up for it. Besides, everyone here now knows the plot, such as it is, so experiencing the gameplay is all that's left anyway! \o/

I just want to clarify that I did try playing Genealogy previously (some years ago), but ended up dropping it due to parts of gameplay I simply didn't enjoy. That's why I said this worked better for me than playing it.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Sylphid

[Carrion]

I think there are some connections and similarities to the FE4 and FE8 stories that will be interesting to explore if when you get there

[Integrity]

As custom, between games it’s time to write a bunch of words on a subject related to what we’re doing here. Today’s topic is going to be characters, characterization, character development, whatever you want to think up that helps put a little pathos behind these pixel mans we’re trying to care about. After all, what’s the point of all this character writing? Way I see it, there’s a distinct split between the main cast and supporting cast, both in form and in function, particularly in Fire Emblem’s case. I’m not going to limit the scope of this to just Fire Emblem, though, so strap in for …well, fewer words than my usual posts, but hopefully because they’re more nutritionally dense.

Before we start, I want to go on a little trip to talk about the semantics I’m going to stick to in this here post. First up, dynamic and static characters – you may have thought about them before, you may not have, but the concept is going to be pretty familiar. Dynamic characters undergo character development throughout the story, which can range from very subtle changes in behavior to sweeping things like somebody’s motivations changing entirely. Static characters are defined and unchanging; this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but for what we’re talking about their personality as you meet them is pretty much their personality when you finish the work. Secondly, character definition versus development – the distinction is pretty plain, but I’m going to use the terms a lot, so I want to make sure it’s totally clear what I mean by both. Character definition is anything that’s already in place by the time the character is introduced to the story; it forms a baseline for the dynamic character to begin their development, and it comprises the entirety of the static character. Character development is the change in a character as their story progresses, by definition accessible only to the cast of dynamic characters.

The funny thing about character development is that two very important elements of it are time and continuity. Time is pretty obvious; you can’t just cram character development into one scene and pray for the best, just like you can’t flash-fry an egg on your stovetop. You need to give it a bit of time for the magic to work. This brings me to a particular gray area of development – imagine a character with incredible depth, but whose development has all occurred by the start of the work. Typically, this is a posthumous character about who we’re learning, or a mentor figure who is essentially static as far as the story goes but who has a huge backstory that we explore by degrees as the work goes on. Does this character undergo true development? Existing aspects of the character are revealed to us bit by bit, sure, but if their behavior isn’t changing, only our understanding of the same behavior they’ve engaged in all this time, they’re not really developing; we’re merely exploring the depths of the character that already exist.

That being said, exploring existing depth can easily act as a vessel for development; a common archetypal instance of this would be a character being coerced into talking about their dark past, which forces them to come to terms with it and open up to their comrades. That’s character development vis-à-vis character exploration. Of course, one certainly does not imply the other – we can learn about our mentor’s deep, dark past and have them continue treating us and everyone else exactly like they always have, which teaches us about an existing facet of the character while not actually changing the way they perform in any meaningful light. It’s a fine line to define, but a really important one for some points I’ll make later, particularly about Fire Emblem.

Clearly, nonregardless of the above, development of dynamic characters is what keeps people tuning in to a show or buying volumes in a series or what have you, yeah? Even in our subject series, the core cast consists of dynamic characters who evolve as the story goes on to surmount whatever story challenges continue to emerge. What makes good character development, then? To use cagey language, the most important thing is that a character ought to follow a believable pathway from A to B. Believable is, obviously, a problematic thing here, but I reckon it’s generalizable to whatever your situation is. You want to see a character evolve based on reactions you could imagine that character having to situations. You don’t want to see a character watch all their friends die and go “oops, shrug emote, haha shit happens” and move on with their life completely unchanged. You don’t want to watch a happy-go-lucky young draftee murder tons of people (in the narrative, natch, narrative/gameplay split enforced here) and be completely unaffected by it.

As with many things in life, I find this is best explored by examples. We’ve just seen a pretty good, if slightly hamhanded, single-step development in the game we just finished, in Arvis. It’s a very short, but believable, chain of events: “ambitious Arvis” -> “shit falls apart” -> “spiteful Arvis” for an extreme simplification, since I reckon you all remember the particulars. The important things were that Arvis was recognizably Arvis after the change, and that his reaction to the changing event was, while maybe not how you yourself would react, understandable in the context of his character before.

For a really well-handled example off the top of my head, in the pretty recent (and pretty bad) TV show The Hundred, a character cements his position really early on as an archetypal Lord of the Flies – new, lawless society means a perfect excuse for him to get some cronies together and take anything he wants from anyone. This leads, in a few explosive incidents, to him having to rein his thugs in because people won’t give him their shit if they think he’s worse than taking their chances with the outside world. When it comes up that survival is actually going to be a problem, he uses his power to make sure the supplies are being gathered by his thugs, to extend his control over the people, and then he gets to ration things out. When it turns out that these supplies are actually pretty limited and need to be rationed not just because he wants shit from people but because death is on the table if they don’t ration, he starts to enforce rationing rather than selling supplies. Then, people start to start shit amongst themselves because hey, it’s a shitty scenario, and he ends up a de facto mediator because he has all these thugs and can, quite seriously, force people to get along, so he starts making and enforcing laws for people to follow (on pain of punishment via thug). Finally, the camp becomes threatened by outside forces and everyone’s like “oh fuck” and the dude just nuts up and decides he already runs the camp, he might as well lead them formally, and he does a pretty good job of it. The show’s pretty crappy besides this dude’s character arc, but it’s a joy to watch as he goes from “literal felon” to “lord of the flies” to “leader of the remnants of humanity.”

To use him as a further example to illustrate how time is a really important factor in character development, consider the difference between that scenario I just outlined above, and a character who you’re told “well, he was a fugitive, and now he’s our king” – sure, it might be interesting character definition to hear about, but it’s never going to have the same impact as actually watching it happen. This holds particularly true in this situation, since us finding out about the king’s dark backstory likely isn’t going to change how he kings at all, just how we perceive his kingery. It might – one could easily picture a scenario where, for instance, the king murdered his way to the throne and wasn’t caught for it, and when we’re learning about it is the first time anyone in-universe has learned about it, when the king is talking to a priest about his mounting sins, and the priest makes the king come to grips with all the things he’s done and start kinging differently – but one doesn’t necessarily equal the other.

Character development isn’t necessarily a good thing, though; it’s definitely something that can be handled horribly. An obvious and accessible archetypal example is when a character is forced to learn a Heavyhanded Christian Moral (trademarked) during a story and adapts their behavior out of absolutely nowhere to now follow that Christian Moral because it’s the Right Thing To Do. Actually, that’s one potential hallmark of poor character development – it feels binary, like a switch was thrown and a character was Always One Way and now they’re Always This Other Way, particularly if the switch is massive. To take an example, Moira in Fallout 3 is a shopkeeper chick who is super happy and nice to you all the time, a totally static character. However, you can nuke her town that she lives in and blow it the fuck up and she survives and moves to another town, and if you do the binary switch flips and Moira knows you did it and is a huge dick to you no matter what you do or say; she becomes another, very different static character. Technically, yeah, her character developed, but it’s super overstated and hard to connect the dots between. That’s not the only way it happens, obviously – for instance, two characters can become really passive-aggressively mad at one another over some shit that happened even though their defined characters say they should be talking this out, and that’s “character development,” it’s just garbage and unbelievable.

This all ties back to Fire Emblem in a variety of ways. The largest way, and the focus we’ll have today, is that one of the things touted about Fire Emblem is that the support system allows even the most secondary of characters to get some development and a little bit of time in their own little spotlight. The problem is, though, from Binding Blade (what’s the official title on this one now?) to Fates, the secondary characters who are trying desperately to benefit from this extra development don’t get any development at all, they only have their existing depths plumbed with zero consequence.

You can see this with a quick hypothetical, you don’t even need to have experienced a specific Fire Emblem to see it happen. A character has two B supports that both have romantic tension pretty clearly implied; you get an A support with one of them and then you get a B support with the other. From your narrative standpoint, that character falls into a relationship with one character and then immediately has clear (not just unresolved, but utterly unresolvable) romantic tension with another character. This is bizarre, to say the least, if you’re expecting any continuity in character development – and, largely, the supports agree with that, which is why you really often see the equally poor character development of a B support being clearly platonic and the corresponding A support being suddenly quite romantic.

To illustrate both of these and dive way into the future, let’s check out Silas’ supports from Fates. Silas is a pretty good and cool character, unfortunately, so he’s given the absolute asscrack of Fates’ writing, because that’s how Fates goes about things. I won’t apologize for anything you read in these supports, because I had to read all of them to come up with this Godforsaken essay. To take the first under consideration, grace yourself with Silas’ Camilla support. If you haven’t the heart to read it, Silas spends the C through A supports running errands for Camilla like telling the Avatar (henceforth FIGHT) how much she loves him, or bringing him chocolates, shit like that. At the end of the A support, Silas straight up confesses his love for her and she basically blows him off. In the S support, they get married, only because FIGHT says they can. I’m hardly joking, if you’re an aspiring writer please read the support because it’s everything you shouldn’t do with a character.

Meanwhile, in Silas’ supports with Elise (I’m very sorry I read these, you have to as well) they quite seriously play house for three supports and pretend to be siblings and then in the S support they get married.

Silas: Well, instead of a sister, I was wondering... *GULP* Well, I was hoping that... Maybe you would consent to be my wife instead.

This line was honestly put into a video game. Fuck me. Anyway, I suspect without reading the full support that you, viewer, can see the bizarre jump that comes from “let’s play house” to “let’s get married” between two conversations, without any buildup whatsoever. Now think of this totally believable scenario: you get Silas to an S support with Elise, and see that stuff that you just read, and then you get him an A support with Camilla, which gives you this:

Silas: When Avatar and I were children, I thought I was jealous... Jealous because he/she had a sister like you, and I was an only child. But in hindsight, it's clear to me now that I was in love with you.

Camilla: Oh, Silas...

There’s no closure to this. This doesn’t impact Silas’ existing, child-bearing marriage to Elise. This is never referenced again in-game by any other character. This isn’t even a phenomenon unique to Silas; there’s varying degrees of it going on throughout the series, even starting in the first game to have proper supports. This is just the worst instance I could think of offhand to make a point for this specific essay.

Why is that, then? It’s because all of Fire Emblem’s supporting character development happens in a series of vacuums. The supports a character can attain can happen in combinations that it’s unreasonable to plan for – the simplest support-worthy character in Binding Blade has five support partners, each with three levels, and they can attain any combination of five support levels with those five people. Doing really rough math, I count 101 possible combinations that person could have for supports, and that’s neither counting combinations without the full 5 support levels nor counting the order you get them in. For the later games – Awakening and Fates – any given player is going to have Silas’ support levels at an essentially unpredictable combination from zero to full As with a random S. It’s practically impossible, when your lowest number of scenarios is 101, to have a support meaningfully reference whether or not character development occurred in another support, so you end up with Lon’qu getting over his issues with women, culminating in marrying one, and then turning around and being awkward with another woman in his C support with them.

So continuity’s missing from the necessary elements of character development; that’s only one of two things. Unfortunately, time’s missing too – you can hammer supports as fast as the mechanics lets you in all games but Genealogy and Radiance, pretty much, and you can activate them at any point during the story. Eliwood/Lyn B is going to be the same no matter whether you get it in chapter 17 or in the chapter after Eliwood murders his true love Ninian. There’s no difference in Eliwood’s actions. Reading the supports on a page gives you the same effect as actually grinding for and achieving them in game – in essence, they’re predefined depth, and not at all dynamic. Any development they do provide – and some B supports do provide a decent bit of development – only reflect in that very specific character+character’s A support, and not in any other supports the character might take on, which leads to a total lack of continuity. It’s not really a fault of the developers for failing to write it in; it’s rather that proper character development is actually infeasible in the Fire Emblem support system mechanic.

We’re not going to get to it for a whole game yet, but I wanted to get this fermenting in your brains before we start Thracia 776, since it’s much more of a character-driven story than an overall plot-driven story like Genealogy was. I’m going to be talking a lot about Leif’s growth as a character, alongside a few others, as Thracia goes on, since the plot of the game really isn’t that interesting (story of Fire Emblem ha ha), so please bear all these things in mind as we go forward. Excelsior! The second game out of … out of … h-how many more?

Edited July 28, 2016 by Integrity

[Moblin Major General]

I count 8 on my scope, sir, plus 4 probable. You might wanna arm the torpedoes.

[Specta]

and this is why i would love to see fe4's very limited, time-constrained 'supports' be polished up and done better for another game

edit: also thanks for referencing that character (if we're bein dodgy about names) from the hundred

he's so swoon-worthy

Edited July 28, 2016 by Specta

[Integrity]

I count 8 on my scope, sir, plus 4 probable. You might wanna arm the torpedoes.

it was a rhetorical question why do you want to drag my self-confidence down ;~;

[Carrion]

I can't wait to talk about Marty's character development

[sirmola]

I can't wait to talk about Marty's character development

Marty has character development? I most have missed one of his 3 or so lines of dialog. I'm not sure how much integrity is going to point out the "eva has literally no non-death quote dialog" thing. I think it's worth noting that this is the situation that supports were designed to fix, supports as they exist might make it harder to evolve characters, but they sure as heck allow bit characters to have actual personalities. I'd be interested if anyone can think of a system that allows both for fire emblem's typical massive cast, and actual development for most of it. Closest game i can think of is fe10, with its base conversations. Those are not without their flaws, though, as i am sure we will get to. (i'd love to hear you falk about various FE's mechanics for developing a large cast, and what you think works best.)

Edited July 29, 2016 by sirmola

[Carrion]

Marty has character development? I most have missed one of his 3 or so lines of dialog. I'm not sure how much integrity is going to point out the "eva has literally no non-death quote dialog" thing. I think it's worth noting that this is the situation that supports were designed to fix, supports as they exist might make it harder to evolve characters, but they sure as heck allow bit characters to have actual personalities. I'd be interested if anyone can think of a system that allows both for fire emblem's typical massive cast, and actual development for most of it. Closest game i can think of is fe10, with its base conversations. Those are not without their flaws, though, as i am sure we will get to. (i'd love to hear you falk about various FE's mechanics for developing a large cast, and what you think works best.)

I was just being sassy because from what I remember out of all the playable characters in fe5 only like 7 of them actually have character lol