What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Axie]

6 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Ehh, I think dismounting should have penalties (basically turn the unit into a Soldier from Echoes) considering how you're A: already powerful and B: in the case of fliers, literally removing your counter, considering that Cavaliers aren't exactly known for being weak units even outside of movement speed.

I think re-adding Rescue then either A: Making it use Strength, B: Making CON a stat that can be levelled up or Strength counting as additional CON past a certain point or B: Making Body Rings give more than just 2 (Which isn't much for a stat that you can ONLY increase with a rare item) CON or more common so you could potentially level a flier into a Knight Rescuer could work, so you could get a Pegasus Knight/Cavalier/Wyvern flier that can fly around and drop a knight where he needs to be.

more often than not, not flying and not being weak to bows is still worse than flying and being weak to bows. and for horse mounts, if you lose your mount and also stats there is literally no benefit to dismounting and you'd only do it if the game forced you ala T776.

(i am trying to wean myself off numbering games since nobody does it anymore now. thank god T776 has that name)

rescue was iconic - i am replaying BinBla [yes i said that] right now and shanna delivers from her veey first turn in chapter 2 - but that only makes mounts even more useful to the detriment of footies. their work rescuing is irreplaceable, the unit being rescued can be anyone and it basically never is a knight.

[X-Naut]

11 minutes ago, Axie said:

more often than not, not flying and not being weak to bows is still worse than flying and being weak to bows. and for horse mounts, if you lose your mount and also stats there is literally no benefit to dismounting and you'd only do it if the game forced you ala T776.

(i am trying to wean myself off numbering games since nobody does it anymore now. thank god T776 has that name)

rescue was iconic - i am replaying BinBla [yes i said that] right now and shanna delivers from her veey first turn in chapter 2 - but that only makes mounts even more useful to the detriment of footies. their work rescuing is irreplaceable, the unit being rescued can be anyone and it basically never is a knight.

Rescue is definitely a buff to infantry as much as it is to mounts, it lets them get around faster to do their jobs. One thing that could stand to change however is to let infantry initiate the rescue-drop a la Pair Up, improving unit action logistics if the footie has nothing better to do that turn. Just make it so that mounted units can't carry each other as in the GBA, which is where I'd say the mechanic goes a bit too far favoring them.

And wrt dismounting, I agree with some stat buffs for dismounting - Dexterity and Speed can go up while Strength, Defense and Mag/Res for pegasus riders go down. That said, if you want meaningful trade-offs the mechanic itself needs to be nerfed: remove the option to get back on and have the dismount take place before moving. Just the first would be enough, the latter is more a realism touch but it also limits the exploitation (i.e. fliers can't cross a gap and then ditch their arrow weakness on the same turn).

[joevar]

8 hours ago, Axie said:

(i am trying to wean myself off numbering games since nobody does it anymore now. thank god T776 has that name)

rescue was iconic - i am replaying BinBla [yes i said that] right now and shanna delivers from her veey first turn in chapter 2 - but that only makes mounts even more useful to the detriment of footies. their work rescuing is irreplaceable, the unit being rescued can be anyone and it basically never is a knight.

T776 ? if i didnt know better, i would mistake it as designation for a power armor in Fallout series.

 

8 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Pegasus Knight/Cavalier/Wyvern flier that can fly around and drop a knight where he needs to be.

why do i find it funny when imagining a flier unit that drop a knight is like looking at a plane dropping a big boulder. lol
while FE is not realistic, in the case of flier or mounted, i guess CON should be attached to the actual mount to make more sense (lose some of it when dismounting). if not, poor that pegasus for animal abuse carrying those heavy knight

 

[null]

I actually like the Part 4 rout maps of Radiant Dawn. I know they’re long and kind of tedious, but I still enjoy them in a mindless “kill every last one of them” sort of way. And it’s also a great way to catch up any units that are lagging behind in levels. I know they’re not the best maps the game has to offer, but I still enjoy them regardless.

[Ottservia]

I actually think giving Garon a “off” switch would actually go against the point of his character. I feel like Garon showing a more softer and kinder side would actually be detrimental to the Fates’s overall story. Personally, I feel like a better way to handle it would be to double down on the unabashedly evil persona and make him overly psychologically manipulative even borderline abusive. Cause really the point of Garon as a villain is that everyone is completely aware that he’s cartoonishly evil. They simply don’t do anything about it out of fear or they’re in denial. Sometimes both as is the case with Xander. So making him “softer” kinda goes against that point if you ask me.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I actually think giving Garon a “off” switch would actually go against the point of his character. I feel like Garon showing a more softer and kinder side would actually be detrimental to the Fates’s overall story. Personally, I feel like a better way to handle it would be to double down on the unabashedly evil persona and make him overly psychologically manipulative even borderline abusive. Cause really the point of Garon as a villain is that everyone is completely aware that he’s cartoonishly evil. They simply don’t do anything about it out of fear or they’re in denial. Sometimes both as is the case with Xander. So making him “softer” kinda goes against that point if you ask me.

Is this in response to someone in particular?

[Etrurian emperor]

6 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I actually think giving Garon a “off” switch would actually go against the point of his character. I feel like Garon showing a more softer and kinder side would actually be detrimental to the Fates’s overall story. Personally, I feel like a better way to handle it would be to double down on the unabashedly evil persona and make him overly psychologically manipulative even borderline abusive. Cause really the point of Garon as a villain is that everyone is completely aware that he’s cartoonishly evil. They simply don’t do anything about it out of fear or they’re in denial. Sometimes both as is the case with Xander. So making him “softer” kinda goes against that point if you ask me.

Personally I think Garon's current form is detrimental to the narrative. One of the biggest factors in Fates is the choice between your family and Garon's existence completely undermines that choice. The conflict between the two families and between the two kingdoms is undermined because Garon sucks any nuance out of it. Choosing the Nohrians will always be the objectively bad option because you'd be helping Garon. There is no grey, only black and white which becomes a problem when both sides are supposed to be valid options. 

Garon also hinders what little world building there could have been. Nohr was supposed to be driven by its extreme poverty but with Garon in charge that's no longer the case. They aren't driven by their poverty but instead are driven solely by Garon and his army being complete psychopaths. If you compare Nohr to Tracia or Kilvas like the original idea seemed to be then thanks to Garon they fall short. Switching a ruthless and desperate nation with the Fire Emblem equivalent of Mordor is not a good trade because its inherently less interesting.

In fact the only scene with Garon I like is when he's more or less reasonable. When he refuses to make a big deal about Corrin not completing his missions according to his exact instructions, because Corrin completing the mission was the important factor. We needed more of that Garon instead of the Garon who threatens to kill people just for being in the same room as him. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Etrurian emperor

[Sooks]

6 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I actually think giving Garon a “off” switch would actually go against the point of his character.

I actually think the other way since if they wanted to go the route of him being/being possessed by an evil dragon/monster/something something Valla did it, showing him still being in control sometimes (like a certain good villain I could name *cough* Lyon *cough*), maybe way more often than otherwise in the early game, would make you not only compelled to side with him but to notice that something is wrong from normal Garon and hope that this can be fixed, so Corrin and company can be with their loving father and so you actually have a reason to side with Nohr story wise.

6 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I feel like Garon showing a more softer and kinder side would actually be detrimental to the Fates’s overall story. Personally, I feel like a better way to handle it would be to double down on the unabashedly evil persona and make him overly psychologically manipulative even borderline abusive.

As others have said, Garon takes all of the nuance out of the choice between sides (I mean so does Revelations but that’s a story for another day) and I am lowkey convinced that everyone except Xander could be realistically persuaded to come to Hoshido if he were borderline abusive.

6 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Cause really the point of Garon as a villain is that everyone is completely aware that he’s cartoonishly evil.

Just because it’s the point of him doesn’t mean that it would be better if he stayed that way or that he should stay that way.

[Jotari]

55 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Personally I think Garon's current form is detrimental to the narrative. One of the biggest factors in Fates is the choice between your family and Garon's existence completely undermines that choice. The conflict between the two families and between the two kingdoms is undermined because Garon sucks any nuance out of it. Choosing the Nohrians will always be the objectively bad option because you'd be helping Garon. There is no grey, only black and white which becomes a problem when both sides are supposed to be valid options. 

Garon also hinders what little world building there could have been. Nohr was supposed to be driven by its extreme poverty but with Garon in charge that's no longer the case. They aren't driven by their poverty but instead are driven solely by Garon and his army being complete psychopaths. If you compare Nohr to Tracia or Kilvas like the original idea seemed to be then thanks to Garon they fall short. Switching a ruthless and desperate nation with the Fire Emblem equivalent of Mordor is not a good trade because its inherently less interesting.

In fact the only scene with Garon I like is when he's more or less reasonable. When he refuses to make a big deal about Corrin not completing his missions according to his exact instructions, because Corrin completing the mission was the important factor. We needed more of that Garon instead of the Garon who threatens to kill people just for being in the same room as him. 

Well the other option would be to make Hoshido eminently less sympathetic and give them some kind of motivation beyond self preservation. Maybe have them intentionally witholding resources due to a long standing policy of isolation or something. Or just straight up make Mikoto as crazy as Garon, just subtler about it (which I guess is what they ended up trying with Rhea).

Edited November 17, 2020 by Jotari

[ping]

29 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well the other option would be to make Hoshido eminently less sympathetic and give them some kind of motivation beyond self preservation.

Third option: Both.

[Ottservia]

2 hours ago, Sooks said:

As others have said, Garon takes all of the nuance out of the choice between sides (I mean so does Revelations but that’s a story for another day) and I am lowkey convinced that everyone except Xander could be realistically persuaded to come to Hoshido if he were borderline abusive.

 

What i mean by make him more psychologically abusive is that have him use memories or such of the old Garon as a way to fuck with his kids. Like he’s using the fact that he’s their father as a psychological crutch to keep them in line. Kinda like a parent going “you should be grateful to me because I was the one who gave birth to you” or some such. Kinda like guilt tripping them in that way. That’s essentially what I mean

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Personally I think Garon's current form is detrimental to the narrative. One of the biggest factors in Fates is the choice between your family and Garon's existence completely undermines that choice. The conflict between the two families and between the two kingdoms is undermined because Garon sucks any nuance out of it. Choosing the Nohrians will always be the objectively bad option because you'd be helping Garon. There is no grey, only black and white which becomes a problem when both sides are supposed to be valid options. 

Well I mean first we have to figure out the thematic point of the choice in the first place. When you look at Fates’s story as a whole, the story is one of trust and loyalty. One thing that’s emphasized a lot in the narrative is the fact that blind trust is a bad thing. Whenever Corrin blindly trusts someone in this story they’re punished for it in some way. They trust Zola and well he rats them out forcing the Hoshidian army to flee. They trust Flora and they’re lured into a trap and Flora kills herself. How this all relates to the choice is that the point is really who Corrin is more able to trust, Nohr or Hoshido? With all this mind, ask yourself, what is Garon’s role in all this? Well when you look at it. His role is to show the flaws in blind faith and loyalty. It’s made pretty clear that the only reason Xander and his siblings still follow him is out of some familial obligation. Like they can’t oppose him because well he is their father. They blindly follow him because they are shackled by their blood ties to him. It’s the reason they don’t openly question him even though they want to. They doubt him but they don’t do anything about it. Corrin is really the only who does and Corrin is the only one able to get everyone else to take action by proving themselves more trustworthy than Garon. So in that sense, I think Garon sort of works and I feel like doubling down on it would actually make it better. Because it would really only better emphasize the point being made that blindly following a man who so obviously doesn’t care about you is a bad thing.

[Axie]

i agree that the storyline of fates falls short almost entirely on attempting to make nohr sympathetic because it mostly doesn't make sense. garon actually works as a villain. fates would have just worked better if conquest was like "what if you just were the villain this time?" and birthright didn't attempt to redeem anyone from nohr ever. (and revelation didn't exist?)

[joevar]

13 hours ago, Axie said:

i agree that the storyline of fates falls short almost entirely on attempting to make nohr sympathetic because it mostly doesn't make sense. garon actually works as a villain. fates would have just worked better if conquest was like "what if you just were the villain this time?" and birthright didn't attempt to redeem anyone from nohr ever. (and revelation didn't exist?)

yeah, might as well go for "dark" route like you said, in pursuit of whatever it is in Conquest route, corrin and co. became as much as villain like garon is. after all we already have Revelation where almost everyone is the good guy after all.

maybe inserting moral values in games like this will make it needlessly complicated. so instead we got "we invaded you, but nah, the king just gone mad, so all those people we killed in the process of invasion is just he and him alone to blame".

but i guess making Conquest the "bad" ending out of the two initial route would enrage people who actually buys that version first..

 

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, joevar said:

yeah, might as well go for "dark" route like you said, in pursuit of whatever it is in Conquest route, corrin and co. became as much as villain like garon is. after all we already have Revelation where almost everyone is the good guy after all.

maybe inserting moral values in games like this will make it needlessly complicated. so instead we got "we invaded you, but nah, the king just gone mad, so all those people we killed in the process of invasion is just he and him alone to blame".

but i guess making Conquest the "bad" ending out of the two initial route would enrage people who actually buys that version first..

 

I don't think people would be all that upset. The game was advertised as a "Play as the bad guys" route. Like it's literally named Conquest. Although if the Norhn characters were unabashedly the bad guys it would make Revalations more difficult to pull off (though personally I was always of the opinion that Revalation's cast should have been made up of the more neutral third party characters like Fuga and the Ice Tribe chieftain).

[Axie]

if revelations absolutely had to happen (for why?), it could still be possible to redeem the nohrians there while... not trying that in BOTH birthright and conquest.

don't even get me started on the ice tribe chapter in birthright. not that its story is even good in conquest, but good lord. i think that's exactly when things go from "mostly fine, if unimaginative" to "why are you like this???" for good in birthright.

[joevar]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I don't think people would be all that upset. The game was advertised as a "Play as the bad guys" route. Like it's literally named Conquest. Although if the Norhn characters were unabashedly the bad guys it would make Revalations more difficult to pull off (though personally I was always of the opinion that Revalation's cast should have been made up of the more neutral third party characters like Fuga and the Ice Tribe chieftain).

im sure they will, since fates targeted audience with all that fan service (im talking about Japanese version without all that cut) is well, you know.. the experience would become jarring i imagine, being evil while having all that fan service. Or depending how it turned out, makes them more undeserving / hard to pull of for good ending (like you said) since they are trampling other nation and having fun between those battle

[Jotari]

14 minutes ago, joevar said:

im sure they will, since fates targeted audience with all that fan service (im talking about Japanese version without all that cut) is well, you know.. the experience would become jarring i imagine, being evil while having all that fan service. Or depending how it turned out, makes them more undeserving / hard to pull of for good ending (like you said) since they are trampling other nation and having fun between those battle

I don't think being evil makes fan service any less likely. In fact I'd rate it as quite the opposite.

[joevar]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't think being evil makes fan service any less likely. In fact I'd rate it as quite the opposite.

precisely because its unlikely why i said it could become jarring and may cause tonal whiplash if they gone full evil at the end of conquest, of course it still depends on how it played out in terms of plot progression

imagine having fan service after slaughtering a village (example of going full evil) and the next scenes/day they go rampaging again. looks like they are irredeemable because having no remorse at all after doing that

Edited November 18, 2020 by joevar

[Sooks]

2 hours ago, Axie said:

don't even get me started on the ice tribe chapter in birthright. not that its story is even good in conquest, but good lord. i think that's exactly when things go from "mostly fine, if unimaginative" to "why are you like this???" for good in birthright.

How unpopular of an opinion is it that Conquest’s story isn’t that bad until the chapter where they find out who Garon really is? Chapters 7 and 8 were actually good imo. I mean of course (almost) none of the characters are good, but other than that I think the story is fine until it takes a nose dive then. Although one of the worst story moments in the game happens in chapter 11, when Corrin is ordered to kill the rainbow sage and has to make the decision to do it or face punishments (maybe execution, I don’t remember specifically off the top of my head), and they spend quite a bit of time building up his decision like “what do I do?” and we could have had a good character moment if he chose either option and instead the rainbow sage does it for him... what?? How is the rainbow sage’s character more important than Corrin’s?? That scene does bother me, although I am replaying Conquest so maybe there is some other chapter before... 15 I think is where they find out, that the quality drops.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I don't think being evil makes fan service any less likely. In fact I'd rate it as quite the opposite.

Camilla intensifies

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, joevar said:

precisely because its unlikely why i said it could become jarring and may cause tonal whiplash if they gone full evil at the end of conquest, of course it still depends on how it played out in terms of plot progression

imagine having fan service after slaughtering a village (example of going full evil) and the next scenes/day they go rampaging again. looks like they are irredeemable because having no remorse at all after doing that

Well that already happens in Conquest anyway...

[Sooks]

15 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well that already happens in Conquest anyway...

“B-but Corrin cries about it to Azura! Isn’t he so good??”- The Conquest writers every time.

[GlitchWarrior]

2 hours ago, Sooks said:

How unpopular of an opinion is it that Conquest’s story isn’t that bad until the chapter where they find out who Garon really is? Chapters 7 and 8 were actually good imo. I mean of course (almost) none of the characters are good, but other than that I think the story is fine until it takes a nose dive then. Although one of the worst story moments in the game happens in chapter 11, when Corrin is ordered to kill the rainbow sage and has to make the decision to do it or face punishments (maybe execution, I don’t remember specifically off the top of my head), and they spend quite a bit of time building up his decision like “what do I do?” and we could have had a good character moment if he chose either option and instead the rainbow sage does it for him... what?? How is the rainbow sage’s character more important than Corrin’s?? That scene does bother me, although I am replaying Conquest so maybe there is some other chapter before... 15 I think is where they find out, that the quality drops.

Honestly? I agree, Conquest as a whole doesn't truly collapse until C15 or so. Up to that point, it's a moral dilemma, working for a twisted man in order to help his children, because they raised you, etc. Once Garon is revealed, though? There's literally no reason to keep working for him, and in fact, most of the Nohrians seem more loyal to either Corrin or their other sworn royal (at least half of whom are more loyal to Corrin than their own father anyway), so theoretically, Corrin could've just switched sides, along with most of their army, and deciding to stomp out the corruption in Nohr from within, as opposed to "Get Garon onto Hoshido's magic throne so I can show everyone that Garon is a slime, don't worry how many lives we ruin along the way."

The argument could be made, I guess, that no one in Nohr will believe that Garon is a slime. To which I say: Odin exists, he'd definitely believe it. Besides, even if the others don't believe a word of it (because face it, Odin has NO plot relevance) they MUST realize that Garon is a horrible person who needs to be stopped at any cost. Elise would go for it. Camilla would. Leo might, if only because he's realized it by now. Xander... okay, while Xander realizes it, he's also fiercely loyal to his father, to the point of stupidity. Maybe he could be moved from a mid-game recruitment to late-game, maybe even making a boss appearance along the way, because you're trying to defeat Garon.

[Axie]

6 hours ago, Sooks said:

Camilla intensifies

not sure how unpopular it is but camilla suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. fanservice for fanservice, i really liked tharja in awakening and i thought she was more nuanced and engaging than people give it credit for, even if she ended up popular just because of the fanservice, but camilla is just boringly written on top of her painfully silly fanservicey design. even that was done better by tharja tbh. worst character in fates for me and one of the worst in the whole franchise.

[Sooks]

4 minutes ago, Axie said:

not sure how unpopular it is but camilla suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. fanservice for fanservice, i really liked tharja in awakening and i thought she was more nuanced and engaging than people give it credit for, even if she ended up popular just because of the fanservice, but camilla is just boringly written on top of her painfully silly fanservicey design. even that was done better by tharja tbh. worst character in fates for me and one of the worst in the whole franchise.

I was referring to her being one of the most evil playable characters in fe and being fanserviced the heck out of.

...okay maybe not one of them but she’s certainly evil. Either way I agree, I understand what they were going for with Camilla’s character, but frankly it doesn’t work, and she’s also really annoying, so that doesn’t help.

[Shrimpica]

21 minutes ago, Axie said:

not sure how unpopular it is but camilla suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks

This is probably the coldest take in this thread.