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Should classic mode still be a thing for FE?


Harvey
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So I've been thinking about this for a while now and I'm just wondering should classic mode still be relevant for FE from now on?

First of let me just say that I understand the idea of permadeath. Its suppose to make players think hard inorder to avoid getting their units they love get killed and even if one unit dies, its either moving on or resetting the game, something which is more or less a punishment to the player regardless of what FE game the player plays. This is without a doubt the main strategy in FE, keeping your units alive while at the same time making them stronger.

If the player decides to let units die, he/she has to put up with the unit numbers and stats being underwhelming untill the player can get a pre-promote or someone else who can replace the dead unit. But then this means that the recruited unit has to be good or better than the dead unit and that's what FE7 does by offering players strong prepromotes.

Then there's the resetting option where you have to start the map all over again if the player lost a unit and cannot afford to lose it due to the effort put into said unit or because of a likable character. This will result in trying various strategies for the player inorder to complete the said chapter. Only problem is that this can also frustrate many players doing this depending on the map and other conditions.

Nintendo/IS as of now are trying to make FE games forgiving enough by adding casual mode and doing other things such as rewinding turns in SoV. But by doing that, this makes classic mode all the more irrelevant and more of just a challenge only suited to niche FE fans out there.

So as a whole, should classic still stay revelant to FE series or should it finally be canned out?

 

 

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Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Classic mode should stay, permadeath defines the series.

If you don’t like permadeath, don’t play on Classic, simple as that.

Edited by Vaximillian
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How many topics/per mile do you make, goodness gracious.

Here's a better question, why shouldn't it stay? Just because you're hyper casual? And people who play classic can say the same thing you just did. 

"I play Classic, so casual, variants of it, and rewinds are irrelevant" ...Not like rewinds make anything irrelevant at all lol

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Isn't it a bit selfish to ask for the removal of Classic mode even now that you got Casual, Phoenix and whatever that Rewinding in Echoes is?

Also, it would be bad for business. Many people do play on Classic primarily and would boycott a game that axes it.

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Ugh... why do you question a game mode which made FE what it is now: Popular and beloved among the round based strategical games for more than a quarter-century.
If classic mode was really removed, lots of people including me would say goodbye to FE.

Casual mode was only added to give newcomers an easier entrance to the series.
 

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Here's a better question, why shouldn't it stay?

definitely the more appropirate question

Edited by アリサ ラインフォルト
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As someone who likes casual mode, this question being asked honestly confuses me. Classic mode is the traditional mode that FE veterans love to be challenged by, and Heroes proves this (for one thing) with their upcoming new mode which is supposed to invoke mode-contained permadeath. Classic mode isn't going anywhere.

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Keep Classic.  Never, ever get rid of it.

I would be immensely mad if they got rid of it outside Heroes, which I make an exception for due to its nature as a gacha game.

Also obligatory:

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Roy: I might sound naive, but I don’t consider a victory with casualties to be a true victory.

From the B support with Allen.

Edited by Glaceon Mage
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Keep classic. Not everyone resets a chapter on character death and it tends to spice up a repeat playthrough.

Besides, not all character deaths involve a unit you truly need to survive. Lilina died and she was promoted? I can easily do without.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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The closest equivalent to Fire Emblem's permadeath mechanic is XCOM. Both games' implementation of permadeath has an inherent flaw, that is, to allow the player to indiscriminately restart levels/resume save files until they get a deathless mission.

XCOM players went around this by implementing the Ironman condition at meta level, that is, you cannot save during a mission at all. This was embraced by the reboot, which has an Ironman mode.

Fire Emblem on the other hand, at least in Awakening (first game with Casual), does not allow saving midlevel, period, only the bookmarks. Casual mode has a limited amount of saves. This would not be a problem in FE if the missions weren't much shorter than they can be in XCOM. The original DOS XCOM games were also incredibly punishing and tense, because units weren't anywhere near as resilient, and enemies could attack from outside the screen. XCOM also makes much better use of fog of war because missions in XCOM are truly random (save for the scripted ones) and you can get difficult monsters quite early in the campaign, and the lack of visibility greatly increases the threat of creatures such as Chrysalids which can convert your soldiers. Meanwhile in FE the missions are scripted and you eventually beat them by learning the patterns and by sheer repetition, so it doesn't feel as tense.

The saying that FE characters are more "relatable" because they have names and faces is a myth. In XCOM you can name your units however you want, and soldiers with good stats are invaluable.

In short, FE is not a "special snowflake" among strategy games because of permadeath, perhaps it is in TRPG, but not in TBS. Its benefit is keeping you on your toes at all times, but, with a good game plan, it becomes not much of a hindrance except on the highest difficulties.

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Taking permanent deaths out is taking out a part of what makes FE what it is. Not only that, but it makes things a lot more interesting. Even if I don't really care about all of the characters, having one of them die says things about you, as a tactician. It makes you think things through, before jumping in.

Regardless of the unpopular opinion, the animosity towards the OP seems a bit uncalled for.

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As someone who is a casual player, I think taking classic mode out of the game would be horrible.

Classic mode is what FE is and to take it out would take away one of the most important and unique things about the series.

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Definitely keep classic, since permadeath is part of what gave FE its identity. Sure, permadeath definitely doesn't appeal to everyone, and I'm sure that the permadeath has put some people off from playing the series, but using that as a justification to axe it entirely is silly in my opinion. I know that it was hugely controversial when it came out, but I think Casual mode was a good business decision on IS/Nintendo's part, since it made the games more accessible to players unfamiliar with the series and/or strategy RPGs as a whole. But they very smartly made it optional, so that veterans of the series weren't alienated either. Both sides were happy, and could play the game their way.

Speaking from a character standpoint, to me it was the permadeath that made me really be careful with my units. In games where I come to love and care for the characters as people with their own relationships, hopes, and dreams, the fact that, if I make the wrong move, Soren could be dead forever made things tense and more exciting. And yes, resetting when one of your units dies, even if you're at the end of the chapter, is a classic FE thing that we both love and hate.

Speaking personally, I'll always play on Classic mode, because I'm used to it, but I have no qualms about Casual mode for people newbies, people who have trouble with strategy, or people who want a more relaxed experience with the game...as long as it's not too relaxed. Now, Phoenix Mode, in my opinion, sucked a bit too much difficulty out of the game by pretty much completely eliminating the need for strategy and/or making it so that the player pretty much automatically won simply by moving units toward the goal. Creative/free modes with little to no danger or consequences may work in sandbox games, but in a strategy RPG, taking away any danger of failure is hugely detrimental.

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This sorta feels like a reverse "Should Casual Mode return" thing. And honestly it's the same answer. It's not a forced mode onto you so why get rid of something others enjoy?

 

1 hour ago, Cerberus87 said:

Awakening (first game with Casual)

Also FE12 still had Casual Mode before Awakening.

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Why would IS take out the different modes now, when the series is popular with different people in part because of the different modes?  I think having the different modes is great because it lets me a classic player play the way I want and casual mode lets others play the way they want.  Different modes are a win/win and I personally want them to stick around.

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Anyone who enjoys casual mode is cool. Anyone who enjoys classic mode is cool.

Any of those two that thinks the other mode should be removed just because they don't enjoy it is not.

My fiance enjoys Casual mode. So do I on occasion. But she would completely understand how steamed I would be if they removed Classic Mode.

Edited by shadowofchaos
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Of course Classic mode should stay. While players usually reset upon a unit's death, permadeath encourages strategy in keeping everyone alive. Without it, you feel no qualms against using your units as meatshields to complete a chapter.

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1 hour ago, Extrasolar said:

Both sides were happy


You either weren't around during the time awakening was announced or you're choosing to forget it. Both sides were not happy at the time and even during the fates era, I saw a lot of people saying they wanted Casual Mode removed. The arguments were always, "This is dumbing down the series." Which really translates to, "We don't like this optional thing, so we're going to throw a hissy fit and make it seem like it's mandatory." Then phoenix mode came along and Casual mode gained acceptance, but not with the entire fandom. There are still people in the fandom who screamed, "See, this is what casual mode brings. Win the game mode!" I've stated this before and I'll state it again, how the fandom reacted to casual and phoenix mode is like how the megaman fandom, myself included, reacted to easy mode in megaman 10.

 

To answer the question, yes, keep classic mode. It's an option, an option that so many people are used to, but the thing is that Fire Emblem is a Role Playing Game first and foremost and a Tactical game second(The numbers of your units will determine the outcome of a battle in most games far more than the RNG. Getting hit thousands of times means nothing if your unit has so much defense the damage s/he takes is literally zero and the AI is usually rock stupid and easily exploitable ). So both Classic and Casual modes are viable methods to play the game. Classic for if you want the tactical flavor to your Fire emblem experience, Casual if you want the full RPG experience with revival being a thing. They're both very viable methods that should continue to exist.

 

As for Phoenix mode, I would've implemented it differently. As I have proposed before, each time your unit revives during the game, the stress of the battle takes a toll on them and they revive with halved HP each time. And by that, I don't mean, Oh the unit died twice, he still has 50% HP, I mean he died twice, it's now 25% of the max, then 12.5, 6.25. And so on and so forth, this would of course be rounded down. Eventually units would stay down. Basically, it's a lives system like that found in Last Story.

 

Anyhoo, the point I was getting at is that classic fills the desire for a tactical flavor to the RPG core of Fire emblem, while classic gives the full RPG experience. Both of these are valid ways to play and both should remain in the game.

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Again, I understand the point of classic mode as I said earlier.

But the problem with this further comes down as to if FE is getting different play styles, then FE's permadeath is only something in the past that's mandatory.

Then there's the problem where many players have to play chapters with long....long maps without save states on classic mode.

 

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8 minutes ago, Harvey said:

Then there's the problem where many players have to play chapters with long....long maps without save states on classic mode.

The only FE game with really long maps I could think of is FE4... Which had a battle save function.

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13 minutes ago, Harvey said:

But the problem with this further comes down as to if FE is getting different play styles, then FE's permadeath is only something in the past that's mandatory.

Then there's the problem where many players have to play chapters with long....long maps without save states on classic mode.

 

I don't see your point.

If someone wants FE using a mode that has high stakes pressure to emphasize a strategy skill based environment during a long map that has a punishing penalty of restarting, that is their preference.

Why remove something when people clearly like it?

You're literally making the same argument as the people who want casual mode removed, just with your modes switched around.

You're making a problem out of nothing. Who cares about differing playstyles?

Edited by shadowofchaos
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Let the player choose, is what I think is best.

For me, I'd prefer something in-between. No automatic revives or units reviving after chapter, BUT have some limited ways during the game of reviving fallen allies. But also, no saving during chapters. This would be my go-to play mode, if I got to pick-and-choose.

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3 minutes ago, Nightmayre said:

Let the player choose, is what I think is best.

For me, I'd prefer something in-between. No automatic revives or units reviving after chapter, BUT have some limited ways during the game of reviving fallen allies. But also, no saving during chapters. This would be my go-to play mode, if I got to pick-and-choose.

So, what Valkyria Chronicles does.

If an ally gets reduced to 0, you can aid them so they can come back in 3 maps.

If the enemy gets to them before you, permadeath.

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I'm pretty sure most people, like me, play classic exclusively... If it were to be removed, I would be very pissed. I mean, yeah, you can just decide to not use that unit even though it respawns to emulate classic... If you want to play on casual, fine, go ahead, but forcing people to play on casual mode is just ridiculous and, for me at least, takes almost all the fun out of the game

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