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What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?


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Just now, Benice said:

Yeah, but the only unit who has it has been killed by...*Ahem* STORY REASONS. Definitely not me defenestrating her for bullying my boy Ignatz.

I guess that LoR is better for the second time you fight the DK crew.

Not really, dark spikes can still probably OHKO. Hubert also learns it, but at A rank so...

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25 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

I wasn't even aware Paralogue's were avaliable yet, I thought they were all after the time skip and you really shouldn't write your game on the assumption someone's done optional side content.

(CoughechoesCough) I agree

 

38 minutes ago, ThatsEnoughBackTalk said:

I enjoy playing 3h, dont get me wrong, but the story just sucks

I don’t even enjoy playing 3H but I do agree that the story is kind of trash. It has interesting ideas but the story’s structure is just a mess

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1 minute ago, Ottservia said:

has interesting ideas but the story’s structure is just a mess

I agree-I feel like almost every event happens as an "And then" rather than "because," leading to events such as [Spoilers up until...Uh...Chapter 10, I think?]

Spoiler

Jeralt's death

and Kostas's chapter 1 thing feeling really weird, since they have little to no correlation to what just happened in-game.

I also feel like the worldbuilding is very lax, and the cast, while pretty good, is a lot worse than what people have hyped it up to being.

ALSO EVERY HECKING BOSS IN THE GAME HAS TO RETREAT 20 TIMESSSSSSSS

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10 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

(CoughechoesCough) I agree

 

I don’t even enjoy playing 3H but I do agree that the story is kind of trash. It has interesting ideas but the story’s structure is just a mess

Is there a bit in Echoes that assumes you've done Side-content? I didn't notice. 

Yeah Three Houses is just...it doesn't feel finished, at all, there's awkward pauses (Why do you need to fade to black when Bernie punches Ferdinand you literally have unarmed punching animations, why does none of the supports/monestary use battle animations when they'd fit more than awkward standing.), I like some of what it does but honestly, it just reminds me of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness/Driv3r when I'm playing, namely in that I can tell that I'm playing something that was clearly rushed out the door and not finished. (Except arguably worse? those games at least have a polished early game and the "we had to get this out by our Publisher's dead-line" aspects only come into play at the Half-way mark at least While Three Houses feels like it's missing scenes when Byleth becomes professor not even 2 hours into the game.) 

Granted, those games did have bad bits that I'm pretty sure 3H won't rival, I highly doubt we're going to find out a villian's name in the final boss because Byleth inexplicably knows them and calls their name because the cutscene where they met got cut. (Actual thing that happened in AOD.)

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2 minutes ago, Samz707 said:
11 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

 

Is there a bit in Echoes that assumes you've done Side-content? I didn't notice.

By the end of the story Alm apologizes for being wrong. The story is assuming he made a mistake of some kind or failed somehow along his path but he never does unless of course you fail to save Mathilda or Delthea. That’s the only time Alm ever screws up but Y’know that’s “optional” so not everyone is going to experience it but the game is written on the assumption that he did fail when he never did so....

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4 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

By the end of the story Alm apologizes for being wrong. The story is assuming he made a mistake of some kind or failed somehow along his path but he never does unless of course you fail to save Mathilda or Delthea. That’s the only time Alm ever screws up but Y’know that’s “optional” so not everyone is going to experience it but the game is written on the assumption that he did fail when he never did so....

Yeah, while I don't think a protagonist needs to always fail, it is kinda...bad that Celica's forced to make dumb mistakes and Alm doesn't yet Alm apologizes at the end. (I guess maybe you could argue if Alm considered finding Mila first instead of invading Rigel, maybe he'd have ended up in some situation where he went straight to Duma without having to kill his Dad first but that feels like a stretch and the game doesn't suggest it.)

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9 minutes ago, Benice said:

I also feel like the worldbuilding is very lax, and the cast, while pretty good, is a lot worse than what people have hyped it up to being.

I don't really get that one. The world building if anything seems better then anything except Tellius and maybe Elibe. 

Sometimes worlds in Fire Emblem are lax. Some continents have the bad habit of defining their countries primarily by the type of units they can field but Fodlan isn't really like that. You got three different nations with different views on all sort of topics, internal politics between the houses, each country having a clear arch enemy outside Fodlan and a timeline giving us a rough timeline of Fodlan and its countries. 

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2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I don't really get that one. The world building if anything seems better then anything except Tellius and maybe Elibe. 

Sometimes worlds in Fire Emblem are lax. Some continents have the bad habit of defining their countries primarily by the type of units they can field but Fodlan isn't really like that. You got three different nations with different views on all sort of topics, internal politics between the houses, each country having a clear arch enemy outside Fodlan and a timeline giving us a rough timeline of Fodlan and its countries. 

Okay that’s cool and all but how much of that world building is actually shown and/or is relevant to 3H’s narrative. Almost none of it, really.

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Just now, Ottservia said:

Okay that’s cool and all but how much of that world building is actually shown and/or is relevant to 3H’s narrative. Almost none of it, really.

Uh not really.

The relative decline of Adrestia is one of the things that drive Edelgard. She's essentially an Imperial revanchionist. The other thing that drives her is her hatred of the crest system which is a problem that's very much established thanks to the world building. 

The obsessive strive for chivalry is a big aspect of the blue Lion campaign with Gilbert, one of its main characters being an especially strict adherent of it. Rodrigue, another main Azure Moon character is similarly devoted to chivalry. Meanwhile the worldbuilding regarding Duscur and its massacre hangs over the entire blue Lion storyline

The world building regarding the alliance and it being so divided explains its impotence during the war phase

And so on.

22 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Yeah Three Houses is just...it doesn't feel finished, at all, there's awkward pauses (Why do you need to fade to black when Bernie punches Ferdinand you literally have unarmed punching animations, why does none of the supports/monestary use battle animations when they'd fit more than awkward standing.)

This problem has partially been with Fire Emblem supports for a long time. Its just more noticeable due switching from Sprites to models. Things like Kiragi fighting off bandits or Subaki defeating some assassins targeting Azura also have the screen fade to black.  I think its also partially thanks to Koei's laziness. It follows a very similar style to their Samurai Warriors supports. 

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10 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

 

This problem has partially been with Fire Emblem supports for a long time. Its just more noticeable due switching from Sprites to models. Things like Kiragi fighting off bandits or Subaki defeating some assassins targeting Azura also have the screen fade to black.  I think its also partially thanks to Koei's laziness. It follows a very similar style to their Samurai Warriors supports. 

Yeah but on a GBA game I can understand most of it being portraits or when the supports are like Echoes where it's just them talking or when supports take place in the battle maps.

On a console though? I expect more than that, There are good console games with unique/well-detailed animations, if someone's swinging their sword in a 3D game, such as Petra/Lindhardt support, why can't they just use the Sword swinging animations Petra has in combat? It feels like it stopped being a tech limitation and more lazyness/being rushed, it feels like the supports have less budget than GMOD animations made by one dude, if you're going to have supports be in their own little menu with their own little cutscenes, put the effort in.

 

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15 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

I think the FE fanbase needs to analyze PoR with a more critical lens. 

Yes.

Honestly the racism metaphor in Path of Radiance is...frickin' sloppy and I hate it.

I don't like fantasy race metaphors in general. I find it kind of dangerous to make broad equivalencies between black people and nonhuman groups, which is what every fantasy race metaphor is. It doesn't help that all the laguz tribes have their own ethnostate and only the beorc get separate nations with "different" cultures and political systems. Also they're furries. In canon, they refuse to adopt technologies for cultural reasons, but the game is never critical of this even though that's an actually destructive mentality that can hold people back in real life.

EDIT: Wait, I've realized the subtle genius in Path of Radiance, the laguz units can't use weapons and that actively makes them worse, thus criticizing the above mentality.

Also the laguz suck and they're unintuitive and hard to use. I can juggle five shield gauges in Conquest better than I can figure out how to use Lethe and her lack of 1-2 range options.

Ike is supposed to be the lowborn commoner lord but his dad was the best knight and he's chosen to wield the magical sword and the Black Knight grooms him to become stronger, so he really had everything going for him.

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17 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yes.

Honestly the racism metaphor in Path of Radiance is...frickin' sloppy and I hate it.

I don't like fantasy race metaphors in general. I find it kind of dangerous to make broad equivalencies between black people and nonhuman groups, which is what every fantasy race metaphor is. It doesn't help that all the laguz tribes have their own ethnostate and only the beorc get separate nations with "different" cultures and political systems. Also they're furries. In canon, they refuse to adopt technologies for cultural reasons, but the game is never critical of this even though that's an actually destructive mentality that can hold people back in real life.

EDIT: Wait, I've realized the subtle genius in Path of Radiance, the laguz units can't use weapons and that actively makes them worse, thus criticizing the above mentality.

Also the laguz suck and they're unintuitive and hard to use. I can juggle five shield gauges in Conquest better than I can figure out how to use Lethe and her lack of 1-2 range options.

Ike is supposed to be the lowborn commoner lord but his dad was the best knight and he's chosen to wield the magical sword and the Black Knight grooms him to become stronger, so he really had everything going for him.

Honestly most games don't do Racism well, the only ones I can think of that somewhat do it well just sorta have racist characters and don't try super hard to say the obvious "RACISM IS BAD M'KAY!" message.

I'd rather have racism metaphors since at least then it feels less peachy. (yes, I think Racism is bad, that doesn't mean I like any hamfisted "RACISM IS BAD" messages or games like Arcanum (which granted use a metaphor for Racism) where the game just features racism and doesn't try to set out to make a point about it. (Down to allowing the player to engage in said Racism if desired, down to telling poorly paid essentially-slave orcs that it's "Better than you deserve!".)

I know TH apparently tries to tackle Racism and frankly I have no hope for it not coming off as hamfisted morals when I get around to Claude's route, the game's already fairly hamfisted so far in certain elements so I seriously doubt Racism will be treated well. (Plus keeping to a 12 plus Rating, since Racism frequently isn't exactly PG12.)

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2 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Ike is supposed to be the lowborn commoner lord but his dad was the best knight and he's chosen to wield the magical sword and the Black Knight grooms him to become stronger, so he really had everything going for him.

This is why I feel like Reese is a much more subversive protagonist than Ike - Reese is technically heir to Sinon, but nobody gives a damn about them at all. Hell, the guards at Navaron attempt to turn him and his forces away after throwing insults at them - he's only let in by luckily meeting Sienna at the gates. He may be of noble birth, but he's just a single, small leader in this massive war who's looked down upon far more than Ike ever is. He's also very tricky, and isn't afraid to, say, frame guards for treason.

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fe9 is also a 2005 game made in japan so it's understandable that some of its allegories fall short nowadays; it's actually incredible that some points of it still hold up

sure it would be more productive if the game didn't tackle the issue with a fantasy race of literal half-animals but a) i can see how the intentions of that were good and b) it's 2020 and some people still get sand in their undies if sometimes a woman or a minority is treated like an actual human in a game, so it's not like they could be upfront about it in 2005

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49 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Uh not really.

The relative decline of Adrestia is one of the things that drive Edelgard. She's essentially an Imperial revanchionist. The other thing that drives her is her hatred of the crest system which is a problem that's very much established thanks to the world building. 

The obsessive strive for chivalry is a big aspect of the blue Lion campaign with Gilbert, one of its main characters being an especially strict adherent of it. Rodrigue, another main Azure Moon character is similarly devoted to chivalry. Meanwhile the worldbuilding regarding Duscur and its massacre hangs over the entire blue Lion storyline

The world building regarding the alliance and it being so divided explains its impotence during the war phase

And so on.

 

Fair enough but that’s not what I necessarily meant. We hear all the time about Brigid, dagda, and Almyra but we never see those places even when they’re supposedly relevant. Also the maps that supposedly take place in these locations as well as ones that supposedly take place in Fargheaus or the empire are incredibly generic and don’t show us much of anything of what these places are like. For as Lackluster as Fates’s world building is at least it had enough sense to give each country you visit a unique sense of visual identity. The world just feels so hollow and empty. We get a detailed history of the world but we’re told that’s all a lie and we’re given to no explanation beyond so fuck if I know anything about Foldlan or it’s surrounding neighbors because the game doesn’t show or tell you much of anything. Like I said the world feels so hollow and empty when it really shouldn’t given all the information we have on it.

45 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Honestly most games don't do Racism well, the only ones I can think of that somewhat do it well just sorta have racist characters and don't try super hard to say the obvious "RACISM IS BAD M'KAY!" message.

I'd rather have racism metaphors since at least then it feels less peachy. (yes, I think Racism is bad, that doesn't mean I like any hamfisted "RACISM IS BAD" messages or games like Arcanum (which granted use a metaphor for Racism) where the game just features racism and doesn't try to set out to make a point about it. (Down to allowing the player to engage in said Racism if desired, down to telling poorly paid essentially-slave orcs that it's "Better than you deserve!".)

I know TH apparently tries to tackle Racism and frankly I have no hope for it not coming off as hamfisted morals when I get around to Claude's route, the game's already fairly hamfisted so far in certain elements so I seriously doubt Racism will be treated well. (Plus keeping to a 12 plus Rating, since Racism frequently isn't exactly PG12.)

 

50 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yes.

Honestly the racism metaphor in Path of Radiance is...frickin' sloppy and I hate it.

I don't like fantasy race metaphors in general. I find it kind of dangerous to make broad equivalencies between black people and nonhuman groups, which is what every fantasy race metaphor is. It doesn't help that all the laguz tribes have their own ethnostate and only the beorc get separate nations with "different" cultures and political systems. Also they're furries. In canon, they refuse to adopt technologies for cultural reasons, but the game is never critical of this even though that's an actually destructive mentality that can hold people back in real life.

EDIT: Wait, I've realized the subtle genius in Path of Radiance, the laguz units can't use weapons and that actively makes them worse, thus criticizing the above mentality.

Also the laguz suck and they're unintuitive and hard to use. I can juggle five shield gauges in Conquest better than I can figure out how to use Lethe and her lack of 1-2 range options.

Ike is supposed to be the lowborn commoner lord but his dad was the best knight and he's chosen to wield the magical sword and the Black Knight grooms him to become stronger, so he really had everything going for him.

The only time I’ve seen a racism metaphor with “animal people” done well in any kind of fantasy setting is one piece and how Oda portrays discrimination against the fishman. I don’t think PoR handles it horribly mind you but it definitely could use some more nuance. 

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2 hours ago, Axie said:

hey is liking the fe12 avatar still unpopular

i like the fe12 avatar! like even in the storyline and all! loved the side story with katarina and just less stealing lines from jagen and things would have made them entirely good for me

Nice to see that I'm not the only one here who thinks this.

57 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yes.

Honestly the racism metaphor in Path of Radiance is...frickin' sloppy and I hate it.

I don't like fantasy race metaphors in general. I find it kind of dangerous to make broad equivalencies between black people and nonhuman groups, which is what every fantasy race metaphor is. It doesn't help that all the laguz tribes have their own ethnostate and only the beorc get separate nations with "different" cultures and political systems. Also they're furries. In canon, they refuse to adopt technologies for cultural reasons, but the game is never critical of this even though that's an actually destructive mentality that can hold people back in real life.

I agree. There is no group of people in real life that can turn into beasts and tear you apart, so it's an unfair comparison.

55 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Ike is supposed to be the lowborn commoner lord but his dad was the best knight and he's chosen to wield the magical sword and the Black Knight grooms him to become stronger, so he really had everything going for him.

And now my unpopular opinion: Ike is overrated. He is only popular because he's in Smash.

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32 minutes ago, Axie said:

fe9 is also a 2005 game made in japan so it's understandable that some of its allegories fall short nowadays; it's actually incredible that some points of it still hold up

sure it would be more productive if the game didn't tackle the issue with a fantasy race of literal half-animals but a) i can see how the intentions of that were good and b) it's 2020 and some people still get sand in their undies if sometimes a woman or a minority is treated like an actual human in a game, so it's not like they could be upfront about it in 2005

Intentions aside (which don't really matter in judging whether FE9 is well done), what good points does it really make? Is it really well intentioned or wise for Japanese SRPG developers to take it upon themselves to comment on delicate, harsh, and distinctly American racial tensions? It seems like a conceptually bad idea to me, much like the laguz.

I think that's an wrong point. If anything people are more cautious and reactionary about race and gender now than they were in 2005, and I don't think that's helped any. Not that the standard was ever particularly good but I'm not convinced anything has really improved. If anything we've seen degradation. It's not like 15 years ago was the dark ages or anything either.

12 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

I agree. There is no group of people in real life that can turn into beasts and tear you apart, so it's an unfair comparison.

Yeah, I have the same problem with the X Men, conceptually. I have a dream of a world where black people and white people can slaughter monsters together. That's the sort of message we should send to children.

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59 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Sometimes worlds in Fire Emblem are lax.

Other FEs not being very good at worldbuilding  doesn't make Three Houses' better, especially if one of the biggest selling points of this particular one is the story.

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

You got three different nations with different views on all sort of topics, internal politics between the houses, each country having a clear arch enemy outside Fodlan

And yet how often do we get to see how the different people within each nation deal with it? How often do we see how the war effects the commoners, the regular people? What do we actually know about the culture of the people of the Leicester alliance beyond, "Fearful of Almyra"? What moves them forwards? We get a tiny window via our own units, but they aren't just regular people. We only know of the political situation.

We don't get an intimate portrait of the countries, but a brief caricature.

(Do keep in mind that I have only played part of VW and seen segments of AM, though. I just haven't seen much in the way of worldbuilding in either route yet.)

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2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Okay that’s cool and all but how much of that world building is actually shown and/or is relevant to 3H’s narrative. Almost none of it, really.

See that’s one of if not the biggest problem in Three Houses, in my eyes. It HAS a good story, I think that and I will always think that but it could have been told much better. It will never manage to not entertain me, but usually I find people blur the line between story telling and the story itself. Case and point:

10 minutes ago, Benice said:

And yet how often do we get to see how the different people within each nation deal with it? How often do we see how the war effects the commoners, the regular people? What do we actually know about the culture of the people of the Leicester alliance beyond, "Fearful of Almyra"? What moves them forwards? We get a tiny window via our own units, but they aren't just regular people. We only know of the political situation.

And the answer is never. We get pictures of this built up in our minds in A LOT of supports but unfortunately we don’t SEE any of this, it’s kind of like a history book, if that makes sense. (I’m not picking on you or anything Benice, I’m just trying to prove my point, all of your questions are addressed but only by people talking.)

10 minutes ago, Benice said:

(Do keep in mind that I have only played part of VW and seen segments of AM, though. I just haven't seen much in the way of worldbuilding in either route yet.)

Hmmmm... huh. What do you define as world building then?

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2 hours ago, Icelerate said:

I think the FE fanbase needs to analyze PoR with a more critical lens. 

I think the fact that it hasn't is largely because it's actually among one of the more unplayed games among the modern fan base. What with buying it really expensively second hand being the only way to really play it. Whenever anyone expresses the point that it's too easy and the story is very standard, no one really seems to heatedly contradict though, expect maybe to bring up the Japanese only Maddening mode. So I don't think it's something that's necessarily devoid of common criticism, just devoid of common focus entirely.

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yes.

Honestly the racism metaphor in Path of Radiance is...frickin' sloppy and I hate it.

I don't like fantasy race metaphors in general. I find it kind of dangerous to make broad equivalencies between black people and nonhuman groups, which is what every fantasy race metaphor is. It doesn't help that all the laguz tribes have their own ethnostate and only the beorc get separate nations with "different" cultures and political systems. Also they're furries. In canon, they refuse to adopt technologies for cultural reasons, but the game is never critical of this even though that's an actually destructive mentality that can hold people back in real life.

EDIT: Wait, I've realized the subtle genius in Path of Radiance, the laguz units can't use weapons and that actively makes them worse, thus criticizing the above mentality.

Also the laguz suck and they're unintuitive and hard to use. I can juggle five shield gauges in Conquest better than I can figure out how to use Lethe and her lack of 1-2 range options.

Ike is supposed to be the lowborn commoner lord but his dad was the best knight and he's chosen to wield the magical sword and the Black Knight grooms him to become stronger, so he really had everything going for him.

Why do you assume it's black people and not those crafty Ainu, with their hairy bodies and desires for rights and stuff.

Edited by Jotari
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7 minutes ago, Jotari said:
2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 

Why do you assume it's black people and not those crafty Ainu, with their hairy bodies and desires for rights and stuff.

Y’know that would make a lot of sense if the Laguz were based more on the Emishi and Ainu considering it is a Japanese game and all that. 

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23 minutes ago, Sooks1016 said:

And the answer is never. We get pictures of this built up in our minds in A LOT of supports but unfortunately we don’t SEE any of this, it’s kind of like a history book, if that makes sense. (I’m not picking on you or anything Benice, I’m just trying to prove my point, all of your questions are addressed but only by people talking.)

Yeah; as much as I love Three Houses and feel that did a good job overall showing how war affects the people fighting it, I can't think of any time that it actually shows how the war is effecting the citizenry. That was something that Path of Radiance did far better and far more often in its story, with examples including an entire chapter showing what losing the sudden war with Daein is like for the Crimean citizenry as well as Sothe pointing out that, on the surface, Ashnard didn't seem like a bad king because he was the first to ever offer the peasantry a way out of the slums if they were strong enough to become a knight.

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