Jump to content

Is Fire Emblem really screwed up?


Harvey
 Share

Is Fire Emblem screwed up?  

187 members have voted

  1. 1. Is Fire Emblem really screwed?

    • Yeah, I lost faith in the series. Its not what I want and I don't like the way they are doing things.
    • No way!


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 164
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Actually, fat is not that much of a hindrance, as long you keep an active lifestyle. Indeed, it can actually makes you stronger since higher mass means more force. Of course, not the same result with fat as actual muscles. But it's still something.

So it's not that much unbeilevable of a design.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I voted no, simply because I found Fates to be very good with respect to gameplay.

Mechanically, I have to commend IS for being brave enough to change a weapon system that's remained largely the same for the past 20 or so years, even

if the new system has some major balance issues

No. The new games are fantastic. I want the next game to have more marriage, more self inserts, more zany wacky characters, more fanservice, more sexualization, and more comically evil villains

Those are what makes a good game. I'd actually enjoy seeing a FE that takes after Tokyo Mirage Sessions and it's based around a High School. That would be bae.

Ah, it's nice to see a fellow practitioner in the art of shitposting.

Edited by Chad Thundercock
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel that the major shift in FE is that the games used to take war and leadership more seriously, and that now it's all about you and the people with names closest to you -- fuck those people without names! So … I take issue with this shift.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the direction its going in,

its just certain things just piss me off a bit and wish that were changed.

I haven't lost faith since FE is one of my favorite game series.

I'm gonna take Fates for an example.

I like how Fates has the different paths which you could choose from (despite Revelations sort of ruining the point of going with your blood or not).

I like children units.

What I don't like is constant "Rout" chapters that annoy the hell out of you with constant reinforcements. More unique defend chapters, or something of the like.

Having no durability, which while a very nice convenience, dislike due to the lack of strategy. With durability you had to learn how to use your weapons, because the destruction of something like a silver lance might cost far too much or could be used somewhere else due to you being able to kill or not because death is inevitable.

While I like children units, making them broken as hell is something unwanted. Offspring seals can give you almost maxed units near the end, while also a nice convenience (especially in Conquest), loses the point in making your units grow stronger from level 1 with a master seal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I voted no because I had a lot of fun with Fates and I liked the cast of both Hoshido and Nohr, save for a few people.

Yes, the story is bad, but to someone like me, who doesn't pay much attention, is not that much of a problem.

If IS continue on this road and makes better story and cast, then we would probably have one of the best - if not the best - FE to date.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel that the major shift in FE is that the games used to take war and leadership more seriously, and that now it's all about you and the people with names closest to you -- fuck those people without names! So … I take issue with this shift.

This more than anything else. You would never see someone like Marth, for example, charge headlong into a trap like Chrom did just because Gangrel had his sister. Hell, Garnef did have Marth's sister, and a major part of his character arc was learning that he had to put the needs of the many above the needs of the few. That is completely absent in Awakening and a Fates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is FE screwed?

In terms of game play, no, but in terms of creating well written stories and characters, pretty much.

I love Fates as it's my second favourite FE game thanks to it's revolutionary battle system and the options to make your units overpowered being a bit limited compared to past titles, but the writing has stooped very low. Shadow Dragon barely had any character but at least it was being (with a tad overkill) faithful to the original and had a lord where I wasn't cringing at the stupid mistakes and quotes he says. As for the personalities with the characters in Fates, they can be very polarizing. You have units with well written backstories and motives and then you have units, who's character is established by one specific trait (Oh, he's the unlucky one, she's the psychopath, he's the one with a massive ego etc). Heck, the support writers did a better job at writing conversations than the writers of the story.

If they can keep the gameplay like Fates and improve on the writing department, the series will be at an even greater peak. If you can do that in your previous games, then there is no excuse not to in this day and age.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is FE screwed?

In terms of game play, no, but in terms of creating well written stories and characters, pretty much.

I love Fates as it's my second favourite FE game thanks to it's revolutionary battle system and the options to make your units overpowered being a bit limited compared to past titles, but the writing has stooped very low. Shadow Dragon barely had any character but at least it was being (with a tad overkill) faithful to the original and had a lord where I wasn't cringing at the stupid mistakes and quotes he says. As for the personalities with the characters in Fates, they can be very polarizing. You have units with well written backstories and motives and then you have units, who's character is established by one specific trait (Oh, he's the unlucky one, she's the psychopath, he's the one with a massive ego etc). Heck, the support writers did a better job at writing conversations than the writers of the story.

If they can keep the gameplay like Fates and improve on the writing department, the series will be at an even greater peak. If you can do that in your previous games, then there is no excuse not to in this day and age.

I have to say that Fates' one defining trait approach worked quite well for the minor characters. Is Arthur a complex character? No. Is he well written? Yes. Why? Because he's hilarious. On the other hand some are done poorly, especially Peri, but the ones that work show this approach to be really the only viable one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm pretty fossilized by the fandom's standards and I'm not overly encouraged by the general trajectory of the series. Conquest has been fun so far (70% of the way through) but the presentation of the story is almost irredeemably shallow. The writing is bad even if you want to qualify that by holding it only to series standards. On the other hand, I like some of the mechanical ideas they've been playing with and there's plenty of potential with that stuff.

I'm sticking this thing out to the end, bitter or otherwise, but I can't help but reflect on the fact that I've never found the story or the characters of a Fire Emblem game to be less compelling than the ones in Fates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, I can totally understand where the people who want the fanservice toned down are coming from. I totally do. But saying that this is something that originated in Awakening and Fates is nothing but revisionist history. FE has always been rather leaned towards the fanservice side, but fanservice was also done differently back in the day. Look at some of the original artwork from the early games like Linde or Tiki or Tiltyu or Larcei and you'll see it's pretty much on par with what was done in anime back then. Then Tellius came along and brought in furries (which actually caused tons of Internet debates back in the day that are quite similar to this very thread).

FE didn't change as much as it had to adapt to the "anime" crowd it has always been aimed at. I can understand wanting the series to go on a different route, but Awakening and Fates aren't any more or less guilty than what previous games in the series did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For the "back to RD" argument... More mechanics doesn't necessarily mean more fun gameplay.

People like the broken 3rd tiers, but all it was was stat inflation and insta kill lethality with a different name.

The elevation would encourage empty choke point spamming gimmicks.

Conquest has been very creative in its map design and it was all properly scaled on each difficulty... more than I could say for Radiant Dawn's inflated system. Especially with the Laguz stats and transformation.

If you ignore the waifu and self insert stuff that is largely exaggerated save for a few (Etika and a newcomer in this forum come to mind) FE has been the same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, I can totally understand where the people who want the fanservice toned down are coming from. I totally do. But saying that this is something that originated in Awakening and Fates is nothing but revisionist history. FE has always been rather leaned towards the fanservice side, but fanservice was also done differently back in the day. Look at some of the original artwork from the early games like Linde or Tiki or Tiltyu or Larcei and you'll see it's pretty much on par with what was done in anime back then. Then Tellius came along and brought in furries (which actually caused tons of Internet debates back in the day that are quite similar to this very thread).

FE didn't change as much as it had to adapt to the "anime" crowd it has always been aimed at. I can understand wanting the series to go on a different route, but Awakening and Fates aren't any more or less guilty than what previous games in the series did.

Exactly!

I haven't played a lot of FE games but looking at the characters from other games, there is still fanservice in them like a ton.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Screwed up? I don't believe so, no. Does it have gone in a wrong path? Well that depends on what one considers "a wrong path" and a "a right path".

They are a lot thing I believe Fire Emblem is, any such thing may or may not be the same to others. If you ask me, I will say that Fire Emblem has always been, well Fire Emblem. There's not a single game in the entire franchise that I can say "This is not Fire Emblem at all", if one take Awakening, if one take Fates and compare them to any other tactical turn based game, one will see that those two will are 100% Fire Emblem games, they feel like nothing else but that. The essence of the games, what makes Fire Emblem, Fire emblem, is still there, it has always being there, and while the core essence of the games has been intact, the other, dare I say, less important things does have change.

But I don't think there is a problem with that, things have to change, to stay relevant, to evolve, to offer new experiences.

Every single game in the franchise has been done during different circumstances, in different times and it shows. One may not always welcome the new ideas and changes, perhaps they do not appeal,perhaps they are not what one believe Fire Emblem is, but I prefer that, than the series becoming stale and never evolving.

So, in resume: The series is far from being in decline, it's a franchise that have always conserved his essence, that never have done a game that I would call unplayable or outright band, just look at Star Fox and how it was never, ever able to get out of the shadow of Starfox 64, or how Final Fantasy became so different to his initial games that it wasn't even reconocible anymore. Fire Emblem has never had this problems, it's always been quite solid in terms of knowing what it is.

Edited by Purikaman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, I can totally understand where the people who want the fanservice toned down are coming from. I totally do. But saying that this is something that originated in Awakening and Fates is nothing but revisionist history. FE has always been rather leaned towards the fanservice side, but fanservice was also done differently back in the day. Look at some of the original artwork from the early games like Linde or Tiki or Tiltyu or Larcei and you'll see it's pretty much on par with what was done in anime back then. Then Tellius came along and brought in furries (which actually caused tons of Internet debates back in the day that are quite similar to this very thread).

FE didn't change as much as it had to adapt to the "anime" crowd it has always been aimed at. I can understand wanting the series to go on a different route, but Awakening and Fates aren't any more or less guilty than what previous games in the series did.

Are you sure? I mean, I'm not this huge anime geek or anything but I do know at least that there was no shortage of boobs and butts in the 80s and early 90s both in animation and video games.

Like, I've got trouble seeing this:

nono.jpg

...as the 2014 equivalent of this:

Chiki.jpg

...when there was stuff like this in mainstream anime back then:

Kidchichi.png

And I am not a huge expert of retro games either (I started with the n64) but from the top of my head I recall Mai Shiranui from Fatal Fury/King of Fighters, Cammy from Street Fighter 2, Athena from SNK's Athena, Tyris from Golden Axe, Lucia from Final Fight 3, Blaze in her Streets of Rage 2 redesign... honestly, there have to be zillions of examples of characters wearing little more then a bra and panties and/or the camera goes out of it's way to show a gracious amounts of boobs and butts.

Edited by BrightBow
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you sure? I mean, I'm not this huge anime geek or anything but I do know at least that there was no shortage of boobs and butts in the 80s and early 90s both in animation and video games.

Like, I've got trouble seeing this:

nono.jpg

...as the 2014 equivalent of this:

Chiki.jpg

...when there was stuff like this in mainstream anime back then:

Kidchichi.png

And I am not a huge expert of retro games either (I started with the n64) but from the top of my head I recall Mai Shiranui from Fatal Fury/King of Fighters, Cammy from Street Fighter 2, Athena from SNK's Athena, Tyris from Golden Axe, Lucia from Final Fight 3, Blaze in her Streets of Rage 2 redesign... honestly, there have to be zillions of examples of characters wearing little more then a bra and panties and/or the camera goes out of it's way to show a gracious amounts of boobs and butts.

Ok i think that first image isn't that disturbing at all.....I can't seem to picture any distractions here.

And yet....dead of alive still has fanservice despite the lack of naked clothing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wouldn't say it's screwed up or anything. Story wise it's still doing pretty good except I have an eh for Revelation. But game wise with Fates it's not as good as Radiant Dawn and Awakening but it's still better than a lot of the other games, not that I dislike them I love all of the Fire Emblem games.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, I can totally understand where the people who want the fanservice toned down are coming from. I totally do. But saying that this is something that originated in Awakening and Fates is nothing but revisionist history. FE has always been rather leaned towards the fanservice side, but fanservice was also done differently back in the day. Look at some of the original artwork from the early games like Linde or Tiki or Tiltyu or Larcei and you'll see it's pretty much on par with what was done in anime back then. Then Tellius came along and brought in furries (which actually caused tons of Internet debates back in the day that are quite similar to this very thread).

FE didn't change as much as it had to adapt to the "anime" crowd it has always been aimed at. I can understand wanting the series to go on a different route, but Awakening and Fates aren't any more or less guilty than what previous games in the series did.

HOOOONK! This is the truth. Anime now is really different than it was 20 years ago. A lot of video games and Japanese media reflects that. Its present even in VN games and the like, the newer anime style. Things are hella tropey in that land. Plus, it seems be kind of trendy in Japan to have self-insert characters. JRPGs used to have silent protags we could slip into. Some would speak and have their own personalities that were bland enough for us to project into. Nowadays, we can customize their appearances. (Something western rpgs always did and got hella popular) FE is basically just trying to cash in on the same trends, with varying levels of success.

I wonder if anime with darker/more serious tones got popular again, if FE would go that route.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now that I think about it, the core gameplay of the series has shown remarkable consistency - you control an army of units on a grid whom you move around to engage in combat, using a chosen weapon, with an enemy, in order to defeat the opposing army. From the original Dark Dragon to Fates, this formula has held up with only minor shake-ups (laguz and pair-up come to mind), so I honestly think the series hasn't gone off the rails enough to call it "screwed up". Are there questionable elements in the latest games? Sure - impractical and fanservicey designs, near-absence of backstory, a forced-seeming marriage system, and unit imbalance are, in my mind, flaws to the latest two games. But I find good things, too - interesting characters in Awakening, interesting map design and solid difficulty in Conquest, a pleasing aesthetic in Fates in general, and broad support options.

Just my thoughts. The latest games aren't my favorites of the series, but they're still solidly enjoyable Fire Emblem games.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

how is FE screwed if its selling so well? lmao at the people that suggest so.

in terms of story and all, i think its more for a teen crowd now, and IS is catering to the group that helped pull it out of depression with awakening. but i have to agree with the sue shit. i named my avatar after me in fates and i couldnt finish it at all since i hated how i was constantly referred to as lord navid. like fuck off im a peasant in real life i wanna be a peasant in a video game too.

i hate that shit fuck fates

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i named my avatar after me in fates and i couldnt finish it at all since i hated how i was constantly referred to as lord navid. like fuck off im a peasant in real life i wanna be a peasant in a video game too.

i thought the point of video games was so you could escape your real-life peasantry
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Screwed? I think that is a exagerattion... But somehow I think the series is a new Era, a new Era filled with its own Pros and Cons...

The gameplay is similar but different and the same time... Conserve many of the original ideas from the older games... But used with a great focus in the new mechanics (you know, the Pair Up)... I'm okay with experiments in the game mechanics if these things work properly and don't are easy win buttons like Robin in Awakening.

Story-wise... I feel like the series went from be Lore/World-Focused (you know how the mainland actually looks. You learn many things from the countries, even things like their life-style, etc.) to be a more "Personal-Focused" adventure...

What I exactly means this? The story is more focused in the things related with the Main Character itself, and the things you know about the Lore you may know it in the support... That unfortunely they are (usually) more character/gimmick focused.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Screwed up? I don't believe so, no. Does it have gone in a wrong path? Well that depends on what one considers "a wrong path" and a "a right path".

Want to figure out if you are playing 'the right path' or 'the bad path'? Well just pay another £19.99 and you can see 'the other side of the story'

Sorry for that. But seriously if they make another 'split path' game like the recent 3-part wonder I might as well give up in the series, or my wallet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, I can totally understand where the people who want the fanservice toned down are coming from. I totally do. But saying that this is something that originated in Awakening and Fates is nothing but revisionist history. FE has always been rather leaned towards the fanservice side, but fanservice was also done differently back in the day. Look at some of the original artwork from the early games like Linde or Tiki or Tiltyu or Larcei and you'll see it's pretty much on par with what was done in anime back then. Then Tellius came along and brought in furries (which actually caused tons of Internet debates back in the day that are quite similar to this very thread).

FE didn't change as much as it had to adapt to the "anime" crowd it has always been aimed at. I can understand wanting the series to go on a different route, but Awakening and Fates aren't any more or less guilty than what previous games in the series did.

Yeah, and the quality of anime is generally considered a lot worse than the anime of the 80s and 90s. There is certainly nothing now that is on par with Legend of the Galactic Heroes for example. Veterans like Miyazaki have expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the state of the industry and a lot of the garbage that gets produced nowadays. Adapting to today's anime trends might make FE sell better to the otaku demographic (which has a disproportionate amount of purchasing power) but it only hurts the series in terms of quality.

Actually, Miyazaki's input is particularly relevant here because a lot of his critiques about anime today are particularly relevant to a lot of japanese-styled video games. The previous generation of anime producers based their stories more on novels, film, or real life events, whether personal or global. As a result, it produced a large amount of diverse and classic works still beloved today and a good chunk of them actually had something worthwhile to say.

In contrast, this generation's anime has been in the hands of otaku. They don't look towards real life for inspiration, only other anime and mainly ones they grew up with. Miyazaki said that these people generally think only of themselves and can't stand other people and I'm inclined to agree.

It's the same with the older JRPGs. Matsuno used the Yugoslavian Wars as inspiration for the Ogre Battle games and medieval politics for FFT. Digital Devil Saga looked to Hindu mythology, Kaga looked towards Legend of the Galactic Heroes and similar war stories (and LoGH was a well known science fiction series before it was adapted into anime). The people at IS mainly seem to be drawing their inspiration from either other Fire Emblem titles, Harem animes or shonen like Naruto, Elfen Lied and Sword Art Online: works that try to be dark and serious but at the same time come off as completely laughable due to the ridiculousness of the characters, designs, and storytelling, with the forced humor being one of the few things that's not funny (because it's so cringeworthy).

It's true that Fire Emblem has always had at least some inspiration from anime. However, it borrowed mainly from tone-appropriate ones like LoGH and also based its storytelling and worlds on more mythological and historical contexts. Like, there's a reason why only FE13 and FE14 have beach episodes and those dumb hot spring gags that are in trashy anime but are nowhere to be seen in any other Fire Emblem game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...