Should there be an Avatar?

[Mackc2]

16 hours ago, Dragonage2ftw said:

However, Corrin makes a load of mistakes and his actions lead to GENOCIDE at times. He certainly isn't a Stu.

 

Also, Hoshido trusts Corn-man because they believe that he's their brother.

The reason Corrin is still just a Gary/Mary sue is because despite his actions causing shit he is never actually faulted for it, a great example is the whole anthony betrayal in revelations despite him leading his entire army into a obvious trap, the royal siblings go out of their way to tell him/her its not his/her fault and nobody could have seen it coming despite the fact that they where warning him the entire time not to trust anthony. And that is why (s)he is a Sue because you have characters breaking character and bending over backward for him/her for no real reason.

Though I honestly don't care whether they have an avatar or not as long as they don't pull another corn cob and keep the avatar the hell away from the plot.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Mackc2

[Hero of the Fire Emblems]

On 2/22/2017 at 1:11 PM, Ranger Jack Walker said:

You're not going to seriously tell me that Kris is irrelevant when the game literally starts with a narration of how Kris is the second most important person during the events of FE12 who selflessly lets Marth take all the credit in end, are you? Because that would be extremely silly

I specifically said irrelevant to the main chapters

 

and Kris is irrelevant to the main chapters

Kris gets the prologue and a portion of the Gaiden chapters (mainly the last two ones) all to himself. I'm not even going to try and contest that, even if it gives the 7th Platoon some much needed characterization (I don't even think they SPOKE in Book 2) but Kris is still the lord in the prologue. He gets some focus in a few gaidens, but Katarina has a pretty standalone story that isn't completely "avatar worship" and only intertwines with the avatar's story in the prologue and last two gaidens. Most of her story is a parallel of Nino's story and Katarina gets plenty of standalone moments (and an entire DLC chapter that is literal torture in how difficult it is ) wholly disjointed from Kris that she is a decent enough character on her own; her ending is even more Marth centric than it is MU centric, as she becomes essentially Jagen's replacement once he inevitably croaks (Cain's ending) as shown by her ending title and reinforced by her status in Awakening. It's also worth noting Katarina and Cecil have a specific character synergy as well, so Katarina is by no means entirely anchored down to MU.

And the issue here is Kris doesn't really do anything significant in FE12 outside of the prologue and Gaiden chapters. Hardin is still most likely killed by Marth, Marth still is responsible for sparing Gra's recruits, Marth is still the one who has to assemble the Fire Emblem, still the one who gets starlight from Michalis, etc. Kris/MU12's contributions to the main story are either irrelevant or minor unless you go out of your way to actually use MU12 and do things like have MU12 kill Gharnef as a Mage or have MU12 kill Hardin himself. You can bench MU12 if you hate him that fucking much; MU13 is integral to the final battle and MU14 is the main lord, MU12 can be benched pretty much the whole way through outside of recruiting Katarina (and maybe one or two other characters I'm forgetting in Gaiden chapters) and his imprint is almost laughably small in the main chapters and FE12 is still firmly Marth's story, unlike FE13 where we don't even know Chrom's father's name and Chrom's storyline gets pretty much completely ground to a halt once we start going to Valm in order for MU13 to take the story role of main lord.

There's not one actually important thing MU12 is forced to do in the grand scale of the War of Heroes aside from maybe the Adrah Pass thing. The boat thing for example is irrelevant to the grand scale of the war and Jagen was already on it. The Lang thing is irrelevant because again, Jagen was already doing that and it's still ultimately Marth's fucking decision in the first place, plus Marth already heard Lorenz out in chapter 1.

Marth giving more credit than MU probably deserves in the end of it all speaks volumes more for Marth being a benevolent and self sacrificing character who tries to put on a brave face than it says anything about fucking MU in hindsight of FE12. And that's what Marth is, a benevolent and self sacrificing character, not contrary to FE12 but especially because of FE12, where they establish he isn't just depriving himself of physical and interpersonal comforts but also suppressing his own personal emotions in order to put on the most professional face that his country deserves in FE11/12 rather than being the loudly whiny wanker he is in FE3. He's still insecure on the inside and he's still ultimately the same person, but he doesn't selfishly whine about it and instead he tries to wear the face of confidence.

that is an immensely respectable trait that didn't exist prior to FE12 (FE11 doesn't elaborate on it being a facade and just acts like they completely changed his inner character) and I think 12's contributions to all characters including Marth far outweigh anything MU does. Marth is so self sacrificing he doesn't even think he deserves credit after all the hell he's done. Marth is probably the most humble lord in the series because of FE12, and thusly my most respected lord next to Sileph and Roy.

 

The intro is most likely assuming you're going to be using Kris to kill someone important like Lang, Hardin, Gharnef, or maybe even Medeus, talking about the general contribution of MU if you field him a lot, referring to him being a backstage bodyguard of Marth which, frankly, isn't worth writing about in the history books even if it's a technically important contribution (which several other characters like Jagen do), or it's referring to Katarina's subplot. Kris literally doesn't make any meaningful contributions to the major elements of the war of heroes outside of parroting Jagen and pointing to Adrah Pass.

in other words you can literally make the intro exaggerative or an outright liar if you want to based purely on how you field MU which is mildly humorous to me. Unless you field him constantly or have him kill a major character MU doesn't do anything too significant.

the game specifically lets you bench Kris after the prologue; I think the developers explicitly intended the MU not to meddle with the plot too much or almost at all if players wanted to, which is the opposite approach of Robin and Corrin which were made the main protagonists. And trying to argue Chrom is the main protagonist of Awakening past the Gangrel arc is laughable with how seldom we learn about him and his backstory before we even go there.

Edited February 24, 2017 by Hero of the Fire Emblems

[Sage of Ylisse]

No, I seriously don't think an avatar would be able to mesh well with Echoes. But, In the off chance that there may be a hint of one. Personally I would prefer something in between like Robin and Mark. Hopefully this in between would be a character or possibly characters(Considering Celica and Alm's stories are separate.)That is simply treated as another member of the army, Maybe a special paralogue for the avatar, but has little impact in the main story

[Seanp12]

If it weren't for Robin, I wouldn't have gone past the demo for Awakening, and never would have gotten interested in Fire Emblem. If they do add an avatar, however, it ought to be fairly unimportant, so that they don't have to tamper too much with actual main characters' roles. Just a perspective character, really.

[The_antithesis]

On 19/01/2017 at 3:12 AM, Crystalized Silver said:

If they aren't forced into the story in a plot-altering way then I won't mind if there is one.

I agree with that. In FE7, a non-invasive tactician was used.

That being said, as we're looking at a notably faithful remake, I think we won't see an avatar of any sort.

[Ser Arthur Dayne]

I'm one of those types who spends a lot of time on creating an avatar, LOL, as long as it does not affect the plot I'm cool with it :D

[Dragonage2ftw]

Damn.

 

I didn't think I'd start an Avatar war.

[Erren]

Well, We wouldn't need one. Didn't have one for Shadow Dragon, or games before it. We should let Alm be the commander and tactician. I just hope for weapon crafting to become a thing.

[Punished Dayni]

Irregardless of anyone's thoughts on the avatar as a concept, how does it work for gameplay for a title which involves 2 armies that are separated and only join together at the very end?

So I don't think there will or should on that alone. My question is how this got asked in the first place.

[Tolvir]

On 3/1/2017 at 7:27 PM, Dayni said:

Irregardless of anyone's thoughts on the avatar as a concept, how does it work for gameplay for a title which involves 2 armies that are separated and only join together at the very end?

So I don't think there will or should on that alone. My question is how this got asked in the first place.

Because it hasnt been revealed yet, and the question is still up in the air. It isnt impossible at all. A minor customizable character that has no plot relevance wouldnt matter what group they went with, so that isnt holding it back. And dont forget that in Awakening Chrom was still the "leader" of the group and was the character that moved around on the map, not Robin. So even though Alm/Celica are the ones moving around on the main map and in dungeons doesnt mean the avatar is excluded.

 

EDIT: In terms of an avatar, my answer has changed a bit. If an avatar was added that had no plot relevance at all, and was just a customizable unit, i think it could actually be a good addition to the game. It could be used as something familiar for new players to draw them in, while not having the same plot relevance that is complained about (rightfully so) in the recent games. The only choice the avatar should get is what party the go with, Alm or Celica.

If the avatar has plot relevance outside of just knowing alm and maybe 4 lines of dialogue, then I would rather not then. The story itself will work fine without an avatar speaking into Alm/Celica's ear the whole time.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Tolvir

[Extrasolar]

Voting no on this. Gaiden's story and characters are fine just the way that they are. It's a case of "if it's not broken, don't try and fix it."

It isn't like Awakening or Fates, which were written with the idea that the Avatar would be included from the start (though Awakening and Fates have their own problems with writing, but that's a topic for another thread...)

I didn't think an avatar was needed in New Mystery, and Kris' inclusion is indeed awkward, to the point that they upstaged a lot of the original characters and story. I'd rather not see that happen with Gaiden.

Personally I don't think we'll be seeing one at all, since no information has been released about a potential Avatar, and in New Mystery, Fates, and Awakening a lot of the advertisements just focused on the mechanic's inclusion. Don't think they'd be saving it for a "surprise! you're a character in this too!" reveal.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Extrasolar

[iavasechui]

Honestly the only way I would be okay for a fire emblem remake to have an avatar character is if it were Mark in fe7 the character already exists so it would be interesting to actually see them in action for once.

[Kaze]

I don't think that Shadows of Valentia should have an Avatar. Robin was okay to have in Awakening and Corrin was a toss up for Fates. While I understand some people like the character customization aspect of Robin and Corrin, I don't like the idea that both were designed to be a depiction of the player. I've never been a fan of self-insert characters like that. It doesn't do anything for me when it comes to being engrossed in the story. It kind of detracts from that for me.

Though, I'm not knocking anyone who likes self-insert characters like Robin and Corrin, though.

[Azure Sen]

Please no. IntSys is currently 0/4 in terms of making good Avatars, with Mark being completely irrelevant to Blazing Blade, Kris being a completely pointless addition who is similarly irrelevant outside of his own subplot, Robin being a spotlight hog par excellence who the whole plot ultimately revolves around, and Corrin being a sentient lump of bad writing, character and player worship and stupidity. Plus, they're all bad self-insert characters; Mark is again completely irrelevant, but Kris, Corrin and Robin all have personalities (albeit the same generically "kind" with zero depth personalities you'd see in a harem anime protagonist), which precludes most people from being able to insert themselves into their roles.

Not to mention that Echoes should remain Alm and Celica's story, and an Avatar would just take away from that.

[TheAstraWolf]

NO. NONONONO NO!

JUST NO, PLEASE IS SPARE US!

[Wayward Alchemist]

1 hour ago, TheAstraWolf said:

NO. NONONONO NO!

Oh Mama Mia Mama Mia (Mama Mia let him go)

 

[FoxyGrandpa]

I would like a playable avatar character in this game. Disregarding story, the Avatar character is usually my favorite unit use in game since they are guaranteed to be a good unit if optimized correctly for a specific class. In Fates, for example, I wanted to use Dark Mages and Sorcerers really badly, but the ones given to you in game ended up being really lackluster. Luckily, the Avatar's mere presence ensures that I had at least one superb Dark Mage / Sorcerer.

They do negatively affect the games plot, but given that in majority of FE games, the plot is mediocre and takes a sidestep (whether it be intentional or not) to the characters in the conflict, I don't mind it too much. Besides, most mainstream critics love the inclusion of the Avatar and praised their inclusion in the games they were in (particularly in Awakening and Fates); removing the avatar would only worsen reviews and by extension the sales of the game, I would rather intelligent systems keep them.

[mikethepokemaster]

On 3/17/2017 at 11:10 PM, AzureSen said:

Please no. IntSys is currently 0/4 in terms of making good Avatars, with Mark being completely irrelevant to Blazing Blade, Kris being a completely pointless addition who is similarly irrelevant outside of his own subplot, Robin being a spotlight hog par excellence who the whole plot ultimately revolves around, and Corrin being a sentient lump of bad writing, character and player worship and stupidity. Plus, they're all bad self-insert characters; Mark is again completely irrelevant, but Kris, Corrin and Robin all have personalities (albeit the same generically "kind" with zero depth personalities you'd see in a harem anime protagonist), which precludes most people from being able to insert themselves into their roles.

Not to mention that Echoes should remain Alm and Celica's story, and an Avatar would just take away from that.

I find that you ironic that your against an Avatar since Persona been having an avatar main lead since the first games and 3-5 are self insert or wishfullment character in the end your an badass ladies man and the leader of your group for whatever reason. btw I love the persona series more so 3-5 1-2 aren't bad not to my taste 

[Azure Sen]

22 minutes ago, mikethepokemaster said:

I find that you ironic that your against an Avatar since Persona been having an avatar main lead since the first games and 3-5 are self insert or wishfullment character in the end your an badass ladies man and the leader of your group for whatever reason. 

I'm not sure how that's ironic given what I said. My point was that Kris, Robin and Corrin fail as self-inserts because they have established personalities, and I'm advocating that there be no Avatar not because I dislike the concept of a self-insert protagonist, but because IntSys has proven themselves completely incapable of actually doing such a character right.

Edited March 20, 2017 by AzureSen

[Augestein]

8 minutes ago, AzureSen said:

I'm not sure how that's ironic given what I said. My point was that Kris, Robin and Corrin fail as self-inserts because they have established personalities, and I'm advocating that there be no Avatar not because I dislike the concept of a self-insert protagonist, but because IntSys has proven themselves completely incapable of actually doing such a character right.

Only from a story though. Gameplay wise, I feel like they get better with each entry. Mark was a non consequence unit from gameplay only giving a minor boost to similar affinities, and giving you the afa drops. Kris was basically a unit that you got to define from the get go with some minor variants to stat growths. Robin is very similar to Kris with the only difference being that they started with a unique class. Corrin just flat out is the main character playing second fiddle to none. Meaning your main character was fairly custom. The only thing I really think they could do better gameplay wise is letting your "lord class" be customized. IE selecting your first weapon or skills etc when you hit the prerequisites for them.  I love having a custom character for the main character as it helps alleviate the problem of "well X uses swords so I should probably use Y unit that doesn't use swords." At least in Echoes it's less of an issue because there's no weapon triangle.

For me personally, given how small the Gaiden party is and how you pretty much always use the same units the whole game anyways, there's no reason for an avatar here IMO.

Storywise I'm not particularly fond of any of the lords after Sacred Stones (with my opinion mostly being neutral or bad towards them), so I really can't say I really feel that the avatars are THAT bad storywise... Or at least not any more obnoxious than a standard lord-- seeing as how I found Ike to have the same flaws that people remark about for the avatar units. 

In general though I don't want them gone unless your Fire Emblem party never exceeds deployment slots.  

 

Quote

I find that you ironic that your against an Avatar since Persona been having an avatar main lead since the first games and 3-5 are self insert or wishfullment character in the end your an badass ladies man and the leader of your group for whatever reason. btw I love the persona series more so 3-5 1-2 aren't bad not to my taste 

 

The difference with the main lead of Persona games is that they are silent protagonist through and through. The game often prompts the player to have dialogue options to give them some sort of shaping of personality while avatars in the Fire Emblem outside of Mark tend to be characters that not only have pre-established backgrounds that are important to the story-- Corrin and Robin, but they also have defined personalities and give the player very little options to RP with them which is the whole point of a self-insert-- all of the avatars except Mark are guilty of this. The only one that I'd actually say botches this in Persona is Persona 2, and that's more so because of how Tatsuya and Maya are handled. It's pretty jarring and ridiculous to go from Innocent Sin to Eternal Punishment and suddenly Maya no longer speaks and instead I'm speaking for her. 

 

Corrin is the worst avatar in the series when it comes to story, he has pre-established relationships, and the game starts out by saying "you love your siblings and they love you so much." No sibling rivalry, no strained relationships, nothing. That already takes me out of the "this is me" element because I can't decide "oh man, I hate Xander and I wish I could tell him to shut up." Instead my character is forced to like him whether I do or not. It's awful. 

 

[Tolvir]

5 hours ago, Wayward Alchemist said:

Oh Mama Mia Mama Mia (Mama Mia let him go)

 

Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me

[Cyan1456]

12 minutes ago, AzureSen said:

I'm not sure how that's ironic given what I said. My point was that Kris, Robin and Corrin fail as self-inserts because they have established personalities, and I'm advocating that there be no Avatar not because I dislike the concept of a self-insert protagonist, but because IntSys has proven themselves completely incapable of actually doing such a character right.

This pretty much. In all fairness, a self-insert character isn't inherently bad, it's all in how they're executed, the Persona series itself has exemplified this several times over. That being said, I feel as if they don't flesh out these characters enough, especially in a setting revolving around violence and war. The Avatars, being down to earth, average joes, aren't as interesting as any of the other characters since they don't get much development.

Albeit, Robin did get a few good moments, if they fleshed out his inferiority complex (as it's hinted in the wellspring of truth), and play up the fact that he puts himself in physical strain just to come up with a strategy to keep everyone alive, I think he'd be a pretty solid character. Corrin, ironically enough, I think is at his best in Conquest. Don't get me wrong, he did make a ton of ridiculous moves and caused a bunch of major plotholes, but unlike the Revelation and Birthright Corrin, he actually questions his decision of joining Nohr, something that he should have done in the other two routes, and adds to his character.

I doubt they'd do this in Echoes, especially due to the reception of Kris. Though I hope they improve the MC on Switch, since Avatar characters seem to be a moneymaker.

[FigurativelyDeadBooty]

I like the idea of a customizable character/avatar because it helps if you want another unit of a certain class. When considering the villager units though the game already gives you flexibility in the types of units you have. Also, there are lion statues that can resurrect units in case that you lost all of a certain type.

Of course, the elephant in the room would be that the avatar character wouldn't reflect the person who created it unless they included a personality side. This could be something basic like if they were a rule follower or more of a lone wolf. But this seems too big of a change for a remake if there are willing to do it justice.

[Altrosa]

20 hours ago, Augestein said:

 

Corrin is the worst avatar in the series when it comes to story, he has pre-established relationships, and the game starts out by saying "you love your siblings and they love you so much." No sibling rivalry, no strained relationships, nothing. That already takes me out of the "this is me" element because I can't decide "oh man, I hate Xander and I wish I could tell him to shut up." Instead my character is forced to like him whether I do or not. It's awful. 

 

This is actually how I felt about Corrin as an avatar..... It felt like Corrin was made as a lead lord, and then it was decided later in production that Corrin needed to have some customization since so many new fans were hooked by the avatar concept with Robin.

I still find it jarring to see how badly Corrin treats Odin, especially since Owain was one of my favs in Awakening. Although, the writers ignoring his backstory, which explained his quirks were a trauma coping mechanism, despite Selena and Laslow being open about theirs, didn't help :/ Corrin's behavior so clashed with my own take on Odin that it DESTROYED any sense of immersion I had prior.

 

The closer we get to release, the less I am okay with an avatar insert. I'd rather a good story in a fantasy setting than trying to insert myself into the setting at the cost of the story.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Altrosa

[bufkus]

Maybe I'm an outlier, but Corrin shouldn't be viewed as an avatar the same way the others were. The other avatars were just bystanders for the player to watch the story unfold with. Corrin is the actual main character/lord of the game they're in. That's a bit different.

I have no problem with future non-remake FE games where your lord is customizable (gender/physical appearance). Obviously that wouldn't fit with remakes of older games because they have pre-existing lords.

Edited March 21, 2017 by bufkus