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What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?


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52 minutes ago, Seazas said:

Dude.

Your brain is massive. Roberto, Belf and Leiden being enemies would've been perfect. Either way, if they did an actual fleshed out remake of BS FE. That could've also been a good sendoff to the three sable knights. Especially when unlike Camus, they're just grunts and can easily work being put to the sword. 

Echoes only had 4 new characters. And only 2 are playable. Shadow Dragon didn't need the amount of OCs they forced in, honestly. Especially when they fail to flesh out anyone else. Only Norne came close and she got stuck as a Kris bot than someone sharing a close bond to Draug and Gordin. 

For a list of all the gaidens I personally would have put int he game over adding new characters.

 

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55 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

The lower the consequences for unit death, the more easily it has to happen for the game to stay hard. As it stands, FE is a game of huge consequences for deaths, but you can easily see them coming if you do the math. Contrast this with other strategy games like, say, FF Tactics, which has damage math it's almost physically impossible to do in your head, but you're not expected to because individual unit deaths are almost no consequence at all. Fire Emblem would have to become more like other strategy games the more permadeath is phased out in order to stay interesting, and as I said before, that would involve making the game borderline unrecognizable.

I think that part of the problem I have with this is that when viewed purely in terms of raw game mechanics, losing a unit in Fire Emblem also isn't terribly consequential. At least, that's how it's seemed to me when I've tried doing ironman runs. If you lose one unit, you replace them with another. Lose Oscar? Use Kieran instead. Lose Merric? Use Linde. Your replacements will often be a bit worse, statistically, but it only really changes a few breakpoints, not the fundamental way you approach a map. Even if you lose all units of a given class, let's say all paladins, that still isn't changing things that much. There isn't all that much that you can do with a paladin that can't be replaced by some other class.

There are only really two ways I see that losing units actually substantially matters . The first is losing so many units that you can no longer field a full team of decently leveled units. This should pretty much never happen unless you're playing a game like Three Houses that is fundamentally unfriendly to ironmanning, or you're trying to play at a difficulty level that exceeds your skill level. The second is losing units with unique and important abilities like thieves and healers, and that seems like it would be frustrating more than it would be fun.

Admitedly, I don't have that much experience with ironman, since it isn't my prefered way to play, but that's how it's seemed to me when I have played that way. If you think there are deeper considerations in terms of game mechanics, then I will happily listen, since I know you have far more experience with them than I do.

Where there certainly is a huge consequence for death is in terms of characters and story. And I can definitely see the argument that it's good to have the deeper integration of gameplay and story that permadeath can bring. Making gameplay actions have story consequences can definitely be a good thing. But the problem I have with that is that this is never really leaned into at all. We never (in the FE games I've played, which is admitedly not all of them) see any of the consequences of death, we never see a dead character's friends mourning them, we never have a scene where someone wishes that the dead character was still around because their knowledge or expertise would be perfect for the situation. They're just gone, completely erased from existence, never to be mentioned again. I could see myself liking permadeath more if they really leaned into it and had character death actually make the story richer, but as things stands, I feel that losing a character only impoverishes the storytelling.

(That I am aware of, the closest that Fire Emblem comes to doing something like this is with the gaiden chapters of Shadow Dragon. I don't really count them, partly because Shadow Dragon has so little story to begin with, and partly because you pretty much have to be trying to get your army killed if you want to see any of them.)

I've never played Final Fantasy Tactics, so I can't meaningfully comment on any comparisons with that series.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

At any rate, @lenticular, if the only complaint is the story impact, and you're already willing to sacrifice the heaviness of characters actually dying and just replace it with injuries, wouldn't just making everyone retreat for being too injured like the game already does for major characters be a solution to your problems? I still wouldn't agree with that, but there doesn't seem to be any need to touch gameplay in order to get rid of the "limitations" permadeath has on the story.

I would be content with that as a compromise solution. It wouldn't be the absolute ideal solution for a game that was being designed to meet my personal needs and sensibilities, but I'm not so self-centered as to think that should ever be a thing. It would still have some limitations, like limiting the possibilities for cutscenes or for forced deployments, but it would definitely go a long way towards addressing some of the issues I have with permadeath.

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@lenticular That thing about units being easily replaceable is true to a point, but the more games allow you to customize your units, like training them in skills and the like, or the more generally unique every unit's role in the army is (like my experience with Genealogy), the more you feel their loss. That actually just made me realize and appreciate another reason why I think Fates is so amazing for ironmanning, so thank you.

But the real big thing I love about ironmanning is just how much it makes you think about your actions and predict how horribly things could go wrong. With proper difficulty, that puts you in some REALLY exciting situations.

Edited by Alastor15243
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5 hours ago, Seazas said:

-Kris didn't need to exist. With the cast bloat Archanea has, many would've filled his/her role more effectively while offering more characterization than their attempts with Kris hogging the support pool. It's annoying how many supports center around Kris themselves than the actual cast.

That's probably the most popular Archenean opinion out there. Kris is pretty widely regarded as a damaging influence and something of a parasite. 

5 hours ago, Seazas said:

Cain and Draug are STILL shafted despite them being fairly iconic faces of Archeane

That is true. Marth's starting band in general has it kinda rough. Gordin comes off pretty nice thanks to Ryan and da memes but the others are just a bunch of bland faces. At this point I'd say that if four games and Heroes didn't manage to make the likes of Draug an actual character then nothing ever will. So I don't really mind Cain and Draug being shafted since I've written them off long ago. 

The large cast of Archenea makes it pretty hard to flesh everyone out but its hardly the only other Fire Emblem game with that problem. With the Archeneans its more the case that the devs don't even try. 

Quote

we never see a dead character's friends mourning them, we never have a scene where someone wishes that the dead character was still around because their knowledge or expertise would be perfect for the situation. 

Echoes made a little effort to try and address that. If a character dies then the one closest to them typically comments on it. Three Houses also have house leaders commenting on the death of their classmates but only as the enemy. 

 

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39 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But the real big thing I love about ironmanning is just how much it makes you think about your actions and predict how horribly things could go wrong. With proper difficulty, that puts you in some REALLY exciting situations.

I agree with this. I find playing Ironmans to be much more exciting than a normal playthrough. Everything has so much more weight to it. You can’t afford to get complacent. Everything really is permanent. It makes it easier for me to get immersed in the story as well when you can’t reset and when characters die they really are dead. Sometimes I’ve been forced to apologize to my units for letting them down.

But more than that, it also encourages using different characters. Normally, if you don’t use Zeiss, you won’t even notice his loss and won’t think twice about him, but when I got Miledy (and several other characters) killed, Zeiss became one of my best units and ended up getting the kill against Zephiel. Cath became very valuable for me because I had gotten both of the other Thieves killed (you may consider losing Thieves to be annoying, but it was entirely my fault that they died and I’ve played multiple playthroughs with Thieves so playing with less Thieves for once made things interesting). That’s just a few examples from my personal experience.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

But the problem I have with that is that this is never really leaned into at all. We never (in the FE games I've played, which is admitedly not all of them) see any of the consequences of death, we never see a dead character's friends mourning them, we never have a scene where someone wishes that the dead character was still around because their knowledge or expertise would be perfect for the situation. They're just gone, completely erased from existence, never to be mentioned again. I could see myself liking permadeath more if they really leaned into it and had character death actually make the story richer, but as things stands, I feel that losing a character only impoverishes the storytelling.

I actually agree with this, minus the last part. I really do wish FE games made a bigger deal about characters dying. The worst case of this was in played as the GD house in 3H, Lorenz and Ignatz were brutally murdered by bandits in Ch 13. After the battle, everyone was happy to be reunited and to see the professor again, and no one ever even mentioned Lorenz or Ignatz. It was very distracting and immersion breaking.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

That thing about units being easily replaceable is true to a point, but the more games allow you to customize your units, like training them in skills and the like, or the more generally unique every unit's role in the army is (like my experience with Genealogy), the more you feel their loss. That actually just made me realize and appreciate another reason why I think Fates is so amazing for ironmanning, so thank you.

So, it ends up being something of a balance between too replaceable and too irreplaceable? Asking genuinely because I want to better understand your perspective. Like, I know in your ranking the entire series thread, you abandon an Ironman if you lose your last thief or healer, presumably because they serve a role that really can't be replaced or replicated (depending on the game, obviously)? But at the same time, you want there to be some degree of uniqueness and specialisation so that losing units does actually matter? Is that a fair description of your position?

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But the real big thing I love about ironmanning is just how much it makes you think about your actions and predict how horribly things could go wrong. With proper difficulty, that puts you in some REALLY exciting situations.

This is very much a "different strokes for differnt folks" sort of situation, because that's not what my experience of ironmanning has been like at all. For me, one of two things has happened. If I try to pay close attention to every move of every turn of every map and it ends up turning the game into a slog. Fire Emblem games are too long and I am too old for that amount of sustained concentration to be fun for me. If I don't do that then I end up just not caring about anyone. Some part of my brain stops me from forming any sort of attachment to or investment in characters if I know there's a reasonable chance that they're going to die (from my own stupid mistakes). And if I don't care about anyone or anything in the game, then what's the point? So I end up either exhausted or detached, which are pretty much the opposite of excitement.

Now, please don't interpret anything I've said here as trying to put down your experiences or the way that you play. Honestly, the ironman experience that you describe genuinely sounds like a ton of fun, and I wish I could share it. But I can't. That just isn't the way that I experience things at all.

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10 minutes ago, lenticular said:

So, it ends up being something of a balance between too replaceable and too irreplaceable? Asking genuinely because I want to better understand your perspective. Like, I know in your ranking the entire series thread, you abandon an Ironman if you lose your last thief or healer, presumably because they serve a role that really can't be replaced or replicated (depending on the game, obviously)? But at the same time, you want there to be some degree of uniqueness and specialisation so that losing units does actually matter? Is that a fair description of your position?

That isn't how I normally do ironmans, it's more a rule for the marathon to make sure that I don't keep the ironman going on a game that isn't good for it for so long that I have to start a new file in order to realistically finish. If I tried to do an ironman and kept going with it even when I'm getting my ass kicked, eventually the playthrough would be nearly ruined and that would waste a ton of time.

I do feel though that no individual death should have too severe of an impact on your army's performance unless you've put a disproportionate amount of investment in them, so yes, it is about striking the right balance between making their deaths felt and making it still possible to adapt to a death or two.

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Petra always seems far better with a lance. Like, it should be canon! Seriously, with a sword + petra, something just feels... off.

Also, this isn't quite as unpopular, but i HATE classic mode. I would never play a FE game without Casual mode.

Edited by Emmy
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35 minutes ago, Emmy said:

Also, this isn't quite as unpopular, but i HATE classic mode. I would never play a FE game without Casual mode.

HERESY of the highest degree! Denying Classic Mode is denying Fire Emblem!

Although... if you really don't like it, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I can't stop you.

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2 minutes ago, GlitchWarrior said:

HERESY of the highest degree! Denying Classic Mode is denying Fire Emblem!

Although... if you really don't like it, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I can't stop you.

I actually do agree that it is denying fire emblem, i think it's one of the most defining parts about it...

...but I can't stand to have my allies die. It may be fine if i were really good, but i suuuck at FE games, so my units die frequently. Plus, my whole strategy revolves around "if i put Hilda here, than lysithea can get behind her and attack and when hilda 'dies' i'll use felix and when felix 'dies'..."

 

 

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23 minutes ago, GlitchWarrior said:

HERESY of the highest degree! Denying Classic Mode is denying Fire Emblem!

Oh goodness, not another one...

1 hour ago, Emmy said:

Petra always seems far better with a lance.

Can confirm, Petra is a beast with a lance, especially when you put her on a pegasus.

---

Haven't done one of these in a while, so...
I would agree that Classic mode is a thing unique to Fire Emblem, but... in modern games, I don't really see the purpose for it anymore, because you don't get too many units to replace lost ones (losing someone in Three Houses is much worse than it is in, say, Shadow Dragon, for instance), and on top of that most players reset when a unit dies, anyway (unless it's an Iron Man run).
But, I will also say that I am happy that the option is still there, and I play most games in Classic mode, anyway, despite previous statements.

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28 minutes ago, Emmy said:

I actually do agree that it is denying fire emblem, i think it's one of the most defining parts about it...

...but I can't stand to have my allies die. It may be fine if i were really good, but i suuuck at FE games, so my units die frequently. Plus, my whole strategy revolves around "if i put Hilda here, than lysithea can get behind her and attack and when hilda 'dies' i'll use felix and when felix 'dies'..."

Just curious, how bad are we talking? Do you ever suffer total party wipes even with casual on?

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17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Just curious, how bad are we talking? Do you ever suffer total party wipes even with casual on?

It's only happened twice.

But, yes.

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3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Mind telling the story behind that? I've always been fascinated about if and how that happens.

it was chapter 6 of fe3h and i had no idea the name "Death Knight" actually meant anything. So I just attacked him and then he wiped out my entire roster.

The second time i think it was in the final map of White Clouds and enemy reinforcements overwhelmed my buddies.

I'm better now! :3 depending on how hard it is, i may survive all maps for the rest of my VW playthough.

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1 hour ago, Emmy said:

Also, this isn't quite as unpopular, but i HATE classic mode. I would never play a FE game without Casual mode.

 

I actually do agree that it is denying fire emblem, i think it's one of the most defining parts about it...

...but I can't stand to have my allies die. It may be fine if i were really good, but i suuuck at FE games, so my units die frequently. Plus, my whole strategy revolves around "if i put Hilda here, than lysithea can get behind her and attack and when hilda 'dies' i'll use felix and when felix 'dies'..."

Hello, I am an elitist, and I am here to tell you that scum like you shouldn't be allowed to play FE. Begone from my sight.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go back to angrily yelling at the screen every time I get hit critically. That's fun, I tell you! Fun!

...Jokes aside, stuff like this is why I don't mind that the option exists. I would never use it, but I'm glad it allows people other than myself to enjoy these games. What annoys me is IntSys's clear lack of care for permadeath these days. I'd be happier if they balanced their games around it, not casual mode or mechanics like divine pulse. But still, I'm happy that the games are getting more accessible than in the old days. I have a friend who tried playing Thracia blind, and... It wasn't pretty. At the end of the day, the important thing is that the games are fun, and if they're fun for more people, that's all the better.

 

For my own unpopular FE opinion that's... not exactly about official FE, but where else am I going to say this: You know The Last Promise? You know the really edgy guy with the funny Devisian knights speech that everyone likes to make fun of? The guy whose name sounds something like "Key Lick"?

...I actually kinda like him. Yeah. He starts as an insufferable edgelord, sure, but throughout the game he gets some legit character development. By the end he even admits that he could never be as strong if he didn't have his friends. His dynamic with Anakin is great, too, I wish they had more chapters to themselves. It's nothing too groundbreaking, but I would never have expected that much. After all I'd heard about him, I didn't want to give him a chance, but when I did, I was pleasantly surprised. I dare say he's even kinda... likeable, at times! He's certainly better than Shon, anyway.

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2 hours ago, Emmy said:

Plus, my whole strategy revolves around "if i put Hilda here, than lysithea can get behind her and attack and when hilda 'dies' i'll use felix and when felix 'dies'..."

This is exactly why you should play classic mode and start learning how to develop strategies around not having anyone die, I played Casual Mode a fair bit before, and let me tell you that's an entire 6 months of playing FE wasted. Not only did I deny myself the fun, but I didn't learn anything. Really try classic mode some time. Maybe not on the newer games because they aren't classic mode friendly whereas older games are, heck FE11 even gives you more units when some of yours die. Just so you can beat the game, it's quite... good to say the least.

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2 hours ago, Emmy said:

Also, this isn't quite as unpopular, but i HATE classic mode. I would never play a FE game without Casual mode.

Really! I've never actually played an FE game that has casual as a game mode. (Well, FE12, but that doesn't count because I was memeing on Reverse Lunatic.) How come you think that, actually? I'm not meaning to call you out, but I don't really understand that perspective; from my point of view,  the thing that makes FE a Tactical RPG and not just an RPG is permadeath- Each unit's values become more important and vital to the team. Of course, Three houses makes Classic mode heavily unviable and has a turnwheel mechanic, so I can see why you'd dislike it if it's one of the only FE games you've played. To me, there is nothing wrong with resetting when a unit dies, (I think my Berwick playthrough's had about 75 resets because I miss tiny side objectives) but I mostly like that you can't, for example, send someone into the frontlines into a group of enemies because they'll just come back after the map.

Personally, I would suggest trying FE9 or FE8, (Even though I really dislike FE9) as they are very easy, have large-ish casts in the places where it matters for the most part, (Fliers and cavs) and are overall forgiving. FE9 has a whole slew of units, good and bad, as does FE8. I think it would be worth giving a soft ironman a spin, because it really does change how you play the game.

1 hour ago, DragonFlames said:

in modern games, I don't really see the purpose for it anymore, because you don't get too many units to replace lost ones (losing someone in Three Houses is much worse than it is in, say, Shadow Dragon, for instance), and on top of that most players reset when a unit dies, anyway (unless it's an Iron Man run).

That is something I'd like the series to deviate from, actually. Part of what makes FE unique was permadeath, but now it's entirely pointless between Turnwheel mechanics and Classic mode and having small casts. In a game like, say, FE6 or FE11, you may lose a good unit when Deke or Cain or whoever dies, but you aren't losing a vital memeber of the team, per se. In three houses, if Ignatz or somebody else dies, then you basically have to reset because of the huge amount of time required to bring a unit up to par, especially on Maddening. I do hope that in future entries, the games are more ironmanable-Lots of units who can do different things to varying degrees of success.

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Same I played fates on Phoenix for a reverse meme run and went on Classic Hard  On day one release on 3Houses Crimson Flower and had Recruited : Annette/Mercedes/Ingrid/Marianna/Lysithea/Shamir/ and no Unit died in the entire play through. You’ll see how different strategies you make because of classic/Casual 

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1 hour ago, Benice said:

That is something I'd like the series to deviate from, actually. Part of what makes FE unique was permadeath, but now it's entirely pointless between Turnwheel mechanics and Classic mode and having small casts. In a game like, say, FE6 or FE11, you may lose a good unit when Deke or Cain or whoever dies, but you aren't losing a vital memeber of the team, per se. In three houses, if Ignatz or somebody else dies, then you basically have to reset because of the huge amount of time required to bring a unit up to par, especially on Maddening. I do hope that in future entries, the games are more ironmanable-Lots of units who can do different things to varying degrees of success.

This is something I'd like to see the series address going forward. Not just in Three Houses, but in practically every game but FE4 being benched makes you a sitting duck, and it got worse from Radiant Dawn on with stronger enemy progression. Let units grow a bit even if you don't deploy them; not to the same extent as who you're fielding but enough that it's more manageable to find a replacement if someone bites it. Ironmans aren't the only beneficiaries here, it makes team rotation and a cut-back on reclassing importance more viable because you don't need to compress roles as much.

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1 minute ago, X-Naut said:

This is something I'd like to see the series address going forward. Not just in Three Houses, but in practically every game but FE4 being benched makes you a sitting duck, and it got worse from Radiant Dawn on with stronger enemy progression. Let units grow a bit even if you don't deploy them; not to the same extent as who you're fielding but enough that it's more manageable to find a replacement if someone bites it. Ironmans aren't the only beneficiaries here, it makes team rotation and a cut-back on reclassing importance more viable because you don't need to compress roles as much.

Alternatively, the game can encourage training more units by having some system like Thracia's stamina system, to make it more natural that the list of units you're using is much larger than the list of unit's you're actually bringing to any one given map.

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1 minute ago, X-Naut said:

Not just in Three Houses, but in practically every game but FE4 being benched makes you a sitting duck, and it got worse from Radiant Dawn on with stronger enemy progression. Let units grow a bit even if you don't deploy them; not to the same extent as who you're fielding but enough that it's more manageable to find a replacement if someone bites it. Ironmans aren't the only beneficiaries here, it makes team rotation and a cut-back on reclassing importance more viable because you don't need to compress roles as much

True; Three houses suffers from this the most, but most games also have this. I suppose Bexp can be used, but I dislike it in most of its iterations as it largely just makes it even easier for a single unit to snap the game in half. Maybe something like Berwick saga, where units you don't deploy passively gain exp I think (I'm not an expert) , although I'm not sure they gain levels this way. I don't think they do, but levels in Berwick Saga are different, so the same system could work with some adjustments for scaling.

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High movement doesn't make a unit that much better than other units if the majority of your team is 6 mov. 

Also, since we talking about Casual mode, if you find Classic to be too intimidating a prospect, you can do a half-Classic run of anything but 3H, where you stay on casual mode, but either reset upon a unit falling, or just permabench them. (This is how I weaned myself off Casual mode.)

I will admit though sometimes I do go back to casual mode, because it can be really satisfying to freely grind and then rompstomp a couple maps. 

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