What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Perkilator]

I miss 2D sprite animation as much as the next guy (especially the GBA ones), but I don’t think the series DESPERATELY needs it back (if that’s the right way to put it?). Rather, I believe that IS could TRY to emulate these animations if the ever wanted to remake a GBA game.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Perkilator

[Deathcon]

1 hour ago, Perkilator said:

I miss 2D sprite animation as much as the next guy (especially the GBA ones), but I don’t think the series DESPERATELY needs it back (if that’s the right way to out it?). Rather, I believe that IS could TRY to emulate these animations if the ever wanted to remake a GBA game.

They already used the Warrior crit animation in Three Houses, they can do it.

[Heir of Dragons and Beasts]

I think that either VW or SS needs a rewrite(Mainly VW in the cases of Edelgard) 

They should have implemented something similar to Edelgard vs Claude via CF where you can spare or kill her(Spare her she leaves but during the battle against Nemesis returns alongside leftover imperial forces and helps fight. This is something I could see happening with Claude on CF if the route was fully completed.)

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/13/2020 at 11:40 AM, PeonyofLeosa Dreamworld said:

They should have implemented something similar to Edelgard vs Claude via CF where you can spare or kill her(Spare her she leaves but during the battle against Nemesis returns alongside leftover imperial forces and helps fight. This is something I could see happening with Claude on CF if the route was fully completed.)

That could be very cool! I think the Spare/Kill could be a more impactful decision:

Kill Claude on CF, you get the Failnaught. Spare him, and he shows up in the final map as a controllable green unit (possibly with Nader, if Edelgard's Paralogue was never played).

Kill Edelgard on VW, you get the Sword of Seiros (would've been nice to get this on SS, too). Spare her, and she shows up again in the final map (possibly with an unrecruited Dorothea).

[Flere210]

Inactually don't miss the GBA sprites at all. Most of it was stupid as heck, in particular most things involving armors. I don't want realism at all costs, but an european heavy knight whit a kusari-gama is just absurd.

[Icelerate]

A character being relatable =/= well-written. Nor does a character being non-relatable imply they are not well-written. For example, Orochi from One Piece isn't very relatable but an excellent character regardless. Lekain isn't relatable either but he's great. 

[PPPPPPP270]

I think the enemy status staffs in Fire Emblem 5 are some of the most useless enemy types in the series. You get access to plenty of silence users that can just shut them out for the rest of the map and the enemy has 0 answers to silence since only one enemy in the entire game carries a restore staff.  The only real map where status staffs is a problem is Salem but you can either warp capture him with Finn.

[X-Naut]

19 hours ago, PPPPPPP270 said:

I think the enemy status staffs in Fire Emblem 5 are some of the most useless enemy types in the series. You get access to plenty of silence users that can just shut them out for the rest of the map and the enemy has 0 answers to silence since only one enemy in the entire game carries a restore staff.  The only real map where status staffs is a problem is Salem but you can either warp capture him with Finn.

I'll take that over GBA Fire Emblem's status staff game where your main counterplay is "Pure Water and hope they miss" because your own Silence staffs are unreliable or rare.

[vanguard333]

On 3/15/2020 at 10:25 PM, Icelerate said:

A character being relatable =/= well-written. Nor does a character being non-relatable imply they are not well-written. For example, Orochi from One Piece isn't very relatable but an excellent character regardless. Lekain isn't relatable either but he's great. 

I agree (except for the One Piece part; I can't agree or disagree with it as I haven't watched the show). 

Aaron Ehasz: the head writer of Avatar: the Last Airbender, once said this writing tool: great characters should be written to be dimensional, fascinating, compelling, and/or believable. Things like relatable, sympathetic, and likeable aren't inherently bad, but they should not be sought after, as they're easily misused, and that can lead to bad storytelling. 

Here's even a picture:

Spoiler

 

[Jotari]

20 hours ago, PPPPPPP270 said:

I think the enemy status staffs in Fire Emblem 5 are some of the most useless enemy types in the series. You get access to plenty of silence users that can just shut them out for the rest of the map and the enemy has 0 answers to silence since only one enemy in the entire game carries a restore staff.  The only real map where status staffs is a problem is Salem but you can either warp capture him with Finn.

I think a dedicated counter is a nice option to have in the game. It makes for a rather intricately planned out first turn. There'll likely be several staff users and you'll need to either dance or pass around silence to take them out. And maybe even use holy water or barrier on some of the boss stave users. Or try to hit them with sleep using blizzard. It's a good way of giving the enemies something dangerous that you can also neutralize. Even if it's easily dealt with it still is something you have to dedicate time and resources to. Not just the silence stage use but the fact that that unit is giving up a turn to attack to use it.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think a dedicated counter is a nice option to have in the game. It makes for a rather intricately planned out first turn. There'll likely be several staff users and you'll need to either dance or pass around silence to take them out. And maybe even use holy water or barrier on some of the boss stave users. Or try to hit them with sleep using blizzard. It's a good way of giving the enemies something dangerous that you can also neutralize. Even if it's easily dealt with it still is something you have to dedicate time and resources to. Not just the silence stage use but the fact that that unit is giving up a turn to attack to use it.

My issue with it is that every silence of sleep use you use on turn one will get you a net profit of 2 uses by the end of the map once you've captured the helpless bastards, and while that's fun and hilarious, it's also really broken, and ultimately isn't a resource management issue at all.

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

My issue with it is that every silence of sleep use you use on turn one will get you a net profit of 2 uses by the end of the map once you've captured the helpless bastards, and while that's fun and hilarious, it's also really broken, and ultimately isn't a resource management issue at all.

It is a resource management. As I also said because it uses up units turns. And even if it's a profitable resource that's still a resource management. Exp doesn't cease to be a resource in most games because it's infinite. As it still requires something to gain.

And also the fun part you mentioned. That's one of the things that's generally good in a game.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Jotari said:

It is a resource management. As I also said because it uses up units turns. And even if it's a profitable resource that's still a resource management. Exp doesn't cease to be a resource in most games because it's infinite. As it still requires something to gain.

But basically, all these things constitute is an extremely busy first turn, and then they're irrelevant for the rest of the map until they turn into free shit. That... isn't how I'd ideally like status staves to work.

[Jotari]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

But basically, all these things constitute is an extremely busy first turn, and then they're irrelevant for the rest of the map until they turn into free shit. That... isn't how I'd ideally like status staves to work.

And opening turns are important. It also turns those disabled enemies into a goal you need to get to before the map is out. Especially as they're sometimes shoved into a hard to get corner you might even need to expend a warp use to reach (but can also potentially gain profit on).

[Alastor15243]

15 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And opening turns are important. It also turns those disabled enemies into a goal you need to get to before the map is out. Especially as they're sometimes shoved into a hard to get corner you might even need to expend a warp use to reach (but can also potentially gain profit on).

Yeah, but then you could replace the status staff users with enemies carrying goodies who warp away on turn one and thus have to be silenced or slept to reap the rewards, and gameplaywise the experience would be pretty much identical. I'm not sure what the ideal implementation of status staff users is, but I'm pretty sure Thracia's version where they go from "inescapable menaces who massively cripple your army in terrifyingly unpredictable ways" to "walking pinatas you barely need to think about after turn one", with literally no middle ground between them, is one of the worst possible ways to do it. If the enemy has a sleep staff, you either have to plan every move assuming every one of your units is going to have 0 stats on enemy phase, or you cast an infinite-range spell on them once and reap the free shit by the end. It's a ridiculously stark extreme. Most players never actually deal with the actual statuses that these status staves cause.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Perkilator]

I genuinely think Road Taken should’ve come back in Three Houses as an auxiliary battle theme, since Conquest came back in Fates for certain paralogues.

[Ottservia]

I dunno how unpopular it is by this point but honestly I feel like 3H has probably some of the worst art direction in the series. The character designs in particular are just really bland, boring, generic, and just so stale to the point that if you a put a decent chunk of these characters in a crowd of background characters then it be near impossible to distinguish them from the rest of the crowd which is a bad thing.

[Perkilator]

3 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I dunno how unpopular it is by this point but honestly I feel like 3H has probably some of the worst art direction in the series. The character designs in particular are just really bland, boring, generic, and just so stale to the point that if you a put a decent chunk of these characters in a crowd of background characters then it be near impossible to distinguish them from the rest of the crowd which is a bad thing.

…Maybe I have the major characters ingrained into my mind, but I’m pretty sure I could distinguish them from NPC’s if I saw the, out in a crowd. In which case, challenge accepted.

[Ottservia]

6 minutes ago, Perkilator said:

…Maybe I have the major characters ingrained into my mind, but I’m pretty sure I could distinguish them from NPC’s if I saw the, out in a crowd. In which case, challenge accepted.

I mean it’s not just that but it’s also that a lot of these designs don’t exude any real personality or subtle insights into the character’s head or personality. The fact that Linhardt isn’t yawning in his official artwork is a very clear example of what I mean and the less we say about Seteth’s official artwork the better. Also the character portraits in this game just reek of generic laziness.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Ottservia

[DragonFlames]

While we're on the subject of art direction, there is something severely off-putting about the characters' portraits in Fates. Their faces look seriously weird. The most egregious examples of this are male Corrin, Azura (especially Azura), Selena, and Takumi.

In general, I think the overall art direction for both Awakening('s classes) and Fates('s characters) is sort of... bleh (constructive criticism, ho!).
I find it boring and lifeless, and I won't lie: I'm a bit disappointed that they just reused the class designs from Awakening for the Three Houses DLC classes. They had a great opportunity to improve them and they didn't, because... reasons. The best explanation I can come up with is that they wanted to put the least amount of effort (i.e. the bare minimum) in to make the most amount of money.

And while they're not the greatest designs either, I'd say Three Houses > Awakening when it comes to how the classes look.
If you're wondering what game I think has the best-looking classes, I'd answer Radiant Dawn.

[Jingle Jangle]

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I dunno how unpopular it is by this point but honestly I feel like 3H has probably some of the worst art direction in the series. The character designs in particular are just really bland, boring, generic, and just so stale to the point that if you a put a decent chunk of these characters in a crowd of background characters then it be near impossible to distinguish them from the rest of the crowd which is a bad thing.

I would not say that is too unpopular. After all before the e3 trailer featuring the student designs of the characters were mostly lukewarm. Dimitri got flack (and still does) of his greesy noodle hair.  Three Houses fan art I have seen focuses more on the post time skip designs since they are more distinct. 

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I dunno how unpopular it is by this point but honestly I feel like 3H has probably some of the worst art direction in the series. The character designs in particular are just really bland, boring, generic, and just so stale to the point that if you a put a decent chunk of these characters in a crowd of background characters then it be near impossible to distinguish them from the rest of the crowd which is a bad thing.

I don't think the character designs themselves get much flak, but a lot of people certainly seem to think the battle animation itself is very lack luster. I can see where you're coming from though. The fact that most characters are in some variant of uniform takes away a bit. That's why for me, and I assume a lot of others, the post time skip character designs look much better.

[Ottservia]

3 hours ago, Jingle Jangle said:

I would not say that is too unpopular. After all before the e3 trailer featuring the student designs of the characters were mostly lukewarm. Dimitri got flack (and still does) of his greesy noodle hair.  Three Houses fan art I have seen focuses more on the post time skip designs since they are more distinct. 

 

10 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't think the character designs themselves get much flak, but a lot of people certainly seem to think the battle animation itself is very lack luster. I can see where you're coming from though. The fact that most characters are in some variant of uniform takes away a bit. That's why for me, and I assume a lot of others, the post time skip character designs look much better.

Like even with the school uniforms, a good character designer should be able to make each character look distinct and memorable despite that limitation. I mean just look at the persona series or god knows how many anime that are set in high school. Even post time skip, I feel a lot of designs look a bit overly generic. It’s certainly better but not by much. I honestly just don’t think Kurahana is a good character designer. She also has a bad case of same face syndrome especially with her guy characters.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Ottservia

[Acacia Sgt]

Hm, I'd say, I would've thought their designs were distinct enough, despite the uniformity of, well, being in uniform.

Personally, I actually like that. Makes everyone do feel like part of a same group. I know that when it comes to FE, since you end up picking up people from all over it's understandable; but then you have those who are meant to be part of a group yet at first glance it's hard to tell. Like, would you be able to tell that, say, Kain and Abel fight under the same banner, considering how different between each other their armor is?

[Perkilator]

Looking back…I’m kinda bummed FE4 is the only game with specific enemy phase themes for each army and even a neutral army phase theme.