What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Interdimensional Observer]

-As if SS actually has that many characters to use. It's one of the smallest FE rosters that there is. It's Artur or Lute for a mage, maybe Ewan, that is it. Class flexibility is rudimentary here too. Why shouldn't I take Mage Knight for Lute and Bishop for Artur?

Although, TearRing Saga's more SoV-ish route split approach -albeit with much greater ability to change the composition of each route's crew- does run into problems for me. Sharon being one of the units I find hindered by route splits. Sharon is recruited late into Runan's first split and she can't contribute a whole lot there; she needs to go to Holmes's easy 2nd split if she wants to get trained up. Except the 3rd split for Holmes is also too easy, and Runan's might present a challenge, but I don't feel it is enough for me to get the fulfilling feeling of having seen Sharon shine.

A bunch of the above rests on TRS's shoddy map design, but some of it stems from the route split structure too. If there were the same number of chapters, but without the split, it'd mean Sharon could have more time to be trained and also awesome. -Except, would the game be as long as it is if there wasn't the route split structure that exists? Probably not, and it could mean Sharon wouldn't have benefitted that much more. We can't know for sure.

[Jotari]

20 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

No, it doesn't. The series has good replay value on the whole. But I will say that the split structure of Gaiden results in less unit variety for each team, and ergo less replay value as a result. Everyone's more or less set on your team, with a few of Alm's that you can send over. Meaning that more units get used/fewer go unused, especially when you factor in the game's incentive to promote asap and not grind out levels. The main replay value of the franchise does lie in using combinations of units you didn't before.

That makes zero sense. Because Sacred Stones has proportionally less unit variety by cloning the units in each route with the exception of two each (one of which, Knoll, you can't even until after the routes reunite). If Sacred Stones did what Gaiden did and actually had separate routes and filled out the cast with more units then it would be quite objectively contain more diversity then it already has. You'd be able to field just as many units with just as many recruits only they would actually be different for each side of the story instead of copied over despite how illogical that is in the story.

[Fabulously Olivier]

35 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That makes zero sense. Because Sacred Stones has proportionally less unit variety by cloning the units in each route with the exception of two each (one of which, Knoll, you can't even until after the routes reunite). If Sacred Stones did what Gaiden did and actually had separate routes and filled out the cast with more units then it would be quite objectively contain more diversity then it already has. You'd be able to field just as many units with just as many recruits only they would actually be different for each side of the story instead of copied over despite how illogical that is in the story.

I umm... what? Okay, let's say the 33 unit cast of Sacred Stones is split as evenly as possible between the two, and you have an average deploy limit of 10 units. 

 

In the SS split route structure with fully shared units, you can form every combination of 10 from the pool of 33. 23 units go unused, and thus serve to encourage future playthroughs.

 

In the Gaiden structure, you have one army of 17 and one of 16, of which you can deploy 10 each. The number of combinations in each army is lower, and 13 units go unused - 7 from one, 6 from the other.

 

This is really simple. It's also an apt comparison, as their casts are roughly the same size. SoV has one more character to compensate for its structure. Yep, just one more.

 

And if we're talking about the story being illogical to facilitate characters doing things, don't get me started on SoV's many glaring "idiot ball" moments. It's basically built on them.

 

Spoiler

Celica's big dumb decision is basically Eirika's but even worse. She may well be the least intelligent main character the franchise has *ever* seen, and she doesn't even have the excuse of friendship and sentimentality that drove Eirika's decision.

 

And Rudolph/Mycen's entire plan for Alm is built to fail. The stars basically had to align for this boy, even with all his training, to join the Deliverance, become its leader despite being a peasant, retake Zofia, and then successfully defeat the vastly more powerful Rigel on their home turf without dying to a random arrow along the way and without the Duma faithful catching wind of any of it. Great plan.

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Fabulously Olivier

[Ottservia]

48 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Celica's big dumb decision is basically Eirika's but even worse. She may well be the least intelligent main character the franchise has *ever* seen, and she doesn't even have the excuse of friendship and sentimentality that drove Eirika's decision.

Ngl I actually kind of like that moment because it’s the result of an already established character flaw Celica in that she’s too nice and can’t put her faith in her friends’ strength in order to find another solution to the problem. It makes sense for her character and the arc they want her to undergo. Now if you wanna know the actual problems with Celica’s route then we turn to a certain green haired “farm boy” oh and Conrad.

52 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

And Rudolph/Mycen's entire plan for Alm is built to fail. The stars basically had to align for this boy, even with all his training, to join the Deliverance, become its leader despite being a peasant, retake Zofia, and then successfully defeat the vastly more powerful Rigel on their home turf without dying to a random arrow along the way and without the Duma faithful catching wind of any of it. Great plan.

I mean we can poke holes in Rudolph’s plan all day but honestly that feels nitpicky to me and I say this as one of SoV’s more vocal detractors. There are just bigger more important issues with SoV’s narrative than Rudolf’s plan not making sense if you ask like the entirety of Berkut’s role as an antagonist for instance.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I umm... what? Okay, let's say the 33 unit cast of Sacred Stones is split as evenly as possible between the two, and you have an average deploy limit of 10 units. 

 

In the SS split route structure with fully shared units, you can form every combination of 10 from the pool of 33. 23 units go unused, and thus serve to encourage future playthroughs.

 

In the Gaiden structure, you have one army of 17 and one of 16, of which you can deploy 10 each. The number of combinations in each army is lower, and 13 units go unused - 7 from one, 6 from the other.

 

This is really simple. It's also an apt comparison, as their casts are roughly the same size. SoV has one more character to compensate for its structure. Yep, just one more.

 

And if we're talking about the story being illogical to facilitate characters doing things, don't get me started on SoV's many glaring "idiot ball" moments. It's basically built on them.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Celica's big dumb decision is basically Eirika's but even worse. She may well be the least intelligent main character the franchise has *ever* seen, and she doesn't even have the excuse of friendship and sentimentality that drove Eirika's decision.

 

And Rudolph/Mycen's entire plan for Alm is built to fail. The stars basically had to align for this boy, even with all his training, to join the Deliverance, become its leader despite being a peasant, retake Zofia, and then successfully defeat the vastly more powerful Rigel on their home turf without dying to a random arrow along the way and without the Duma faithful catching wind of any of it. Great plan.

 

I didn't say split the 33 unit cast of Sacred Stones down both routes. I said give it different characters on each route by replacing the current existing recruits with new recruits. In Eirika's route you recruit 12 units, and in Ephraim's route you recruit 11 units (+Knoll when the routes rejoin), the problem is that 10 of those units are the same no matter which route you play, because apparently everyone on the continent has some kind of magnetic attraction to whichever twin the player decides to follow. If both routes were playable simultaneously then the cast would be bigger because it wouldn't be duplicating itself with a third of the characters in the game inexplicably changing every action they take.

[Fabulously Olivier]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

I didn't say split the 33 unit cast of Sacred Stones down both routes. I said give it different characters on each route by replacing the current existing recruits with new recruits. In Eirika's route you recruit 12 units, and in Ephraim's route you recruit 11 units (+Knoll when the routes rejoin), the problem is that 10 of those units are the same no matter which route you play, because apparently everyone on the continent has some kind of magnetic attraction to whichever twin the player decides to follow. If both routes were playable simultaneously then the cast would be bigger because it wouldn't be duplicating itself with a third of the characters in the game inexplicably changing every action they take.

If you have to add new recruitable characters to Structure B to increase its value over Structure A, that isn't an argument for Structure B being better than Structure A. I could just as easily say that the same number of characters could be added to Structure A for even more team permutations and even more value than the same amount added to Structure B. If this was an arm wrestling match between the two games, your terms basically have one on steroids and the other wrestling with a broken arm.

 

Hell, even on a micro-scale, exclusive units can be bothersome. One of my small issues with Binding Blade is that Elphin comes as a package deal with Bartre and Echidna comes as a package deal with Lalum. There is no playthrough that gives me both of the units I want and neither of the units I don't want. Magnifying that over the course of an entire cast is untenable, which is why I like the recruitment system of Three Houses over, say, the steadfast division approach of Fates.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Fabulously Olivier

[Jotari]

48 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

If you have to add new recruitable characters to Structure B to increase its value over Structure A, that isn't an argument for Structure B being better than Structure A. I could just as easily say that the same number of characters could be added to Structure A for even more team permutations and even more value than the same amount added to Structure B. If this was an arm wrestling match between the two games, your terms basically have one on steroids and the other wrestling with a broken arm.

 

Hell, even on a micro-scale, exclusive units can be bothersome. One of my small issues with Binding Blade is that Elphin comes as a package deal with Bartre and Echidna comes as a package deal with Lalum. There is no playthrough that gives me both of the units I want and neither of the units I don't want. Magnifying that over the course of an entire cast is untenable, which is why I like the recruitment system of Three Houses over, say, the steadfast division approach of Fates.

Except adding more characters to the structure Sacred Stones did go with bloat the recruitment pacing ratain which units are gained (because even as is 12 units in six chapters is rather high, Sacred Stones does have a bit of an issue with new recruits then following off almost immediately after the routes rejoin), but adding more units to a split route would maintain the same pacing the game already has, and would instead actually give you more of the game to playthrough.

[Fabulously Olivier]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Except adding more characters to the structure Sacred Stones did go with bloat the recruitment pacing ratain which units are gained (because even as is 12 units in six chapters is rather high, Sacred Stones does have a bit of an issue with new recruits then following off almost immediately after the routes rejoin), but adding more units to a split route would maintain the same pacing the game already has, and would instead actually give you more of the game to playthrough.

Poor unit balance on recruitment is a separate issue entirely, and was the result of them not compensating said units with higher levels or even promotion appropriate to that point of the story. SS is not the only offender or even the worst offender in that regard; just look at Fates Revelation or RD.

 

Moreover, what exactly is wrong with lump recruitments? I don't see them as any less valid than trickling in one unit at a time, and one could reasonably argue that they represent a major reward milestone for the game's progression.

[Jotari]

20 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Poor unit balance on recruitment is a separate issue entirely, and was the result of them not compensating said units with higher levels or even promotion appropriate to that point of the story. SS is not the only offender or even the worst offender in that regard; just look at Fates Revelation or RD.

 

Moreover, what exactly is wrong with lump recruitments? I don't see them as any less valid than trickling in one unit at a time, and one could reasonably argue that they represent a major reward milestone for the game's progression.

It means less opportunity to actually use units. And often also means more limited deployment slots on a chapter as the new units are auto deployed. Unless they just show up with barely any explanation on mass between chapters like in New Mystery of the Emblem.

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Hell, even on a micro-scale, exclusive units can be bothersome. One of my small issues with Binding Blade is that Elphin comes as a package deal with Bartre and Echidna comes as a package deal with Lalum. There is no playthrough that gives me both of the units I want and neither of the units I don't want. Magnifying that over the course of an entire cast is untenable, which is why I like the recruitment system of Three Houses over, say, the steadfast division approach of Fates.

That's the way Sacred Stones is already though. L'Archel is packaged with Dozla on both routes.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Jotari

[Fabulously Olivier]

33 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It means less opportunity to actually use units. And often also means more limited deployment slots on a chapter as the new units are auto deployed. Unless they just show up with barely any explanation on mass between chapters like in New Mystery of the Emblem.

That's the way Sacred Stones is already though. L'Archel is packaged with Dozla on both routes.

Umm, but L'Arachel/Dozla aren't mutually exclusive with another recruitment set.

 

Anyway, you are bringing up an "issue" with the entire franchise, if you can call it an issue. Availability isn't always fair and a lot of units are held back by it. SoV also isn't immune, as units like Mycen and Zeke don't show up until really late in the game.

 

If I dinged games for having units with poor availability and poor performance for their join time, I'd have to ding every game in the franchise, including Tellius for making my boys Bastian and Nasir underwhelming at best late game units in both games.

[Samz707]

13 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

No, it doesn't. The series has good replay value on the whole. But I will say that the split structure of Gaiden results in less unit variety for each team, and ergo less replay value as a result. Everyone's more or less set on your team, with a few of Alm's that you can send over. Meaning that more units get used/fewer go unused, especially when you factor in the game's incentive to promote asap and not grind out levels. The main replay value of the franchise does lie in using combinations of units you didn't before.

I guess?

Then again I want to do a run with the actual DLC characters (Since I intentionally didn't do their DLC on my first run-through) for a second playthrough (With them joining Alm's team and Kliff and Faye joining Celica's route.)

I think it sorta depends, Awakening has a ton of units but I personally feel like it's such a hassle to use most of them (and then an even bigger hassle for the child units, since  join late and have low stats in my experience that they're practically reduced to stat-backpacks on join-up with my experience with Morgan and Noire.) that if I were to replay the game, I'd probably just go Robin Emblem sooner since its' just going to end up that way anyway so why fight it? ( and any potential "actually see the child units" playthrough I did would be on Easy and Casual simply to make grinding less of a pain.)

 

[Fabulously Olivier]

1 minute ago, Samz707 said:

I guess?

Then again I want to do a run with the actual DLC characters (Since I intentionally didn't do their DLC on my first run-through) for a second playthrough (With them joining Alm's team and Kliff and Faye joining Celica's route.)

I think it sorta depends, Awakening has a ton of units but I personally feel like it's such a hassle to use most of them (and then an even bigger hassle for the child units, since  join late and have low stats in my experience that they're practically reduced to stat-backpacks on join-up with my experience with Morgan and Noire.) that if I were to replay the game, I'd probably just go Robin Emblem sooner since its' just going to end up that way anyway so why fight it? ( and any potential "actually see the child units" playthrough I did would be on Easy and Casual simply to make grinding less of a pain.)

 

Eugenics simulation certainly has its downsides. In theory, games like Awakening, Fates, and 3H should have the highest replay value in the series. On paper, they absolutely do, and some might even feel that in practice. But they come with a lot of baggage that could drag them out in a real playthrough.

 

I definitely think the eugenics simulation of Awakening/Fates is strictly worse than the implementation in Geneology, because it lacks purpose. The Fateswakening kids either replace their parents if you're willing to grind, or become unnecessary work if you aren't. Whereas in Geneology, one cast is required to abruptly replace the other; it's two organic sides of the same game.

[Samz707]

1 minute ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Eugenics simulation certainly has its downsides. In theory, games like Awakening, Fates, and 3H should have the highest replay value in the series. On paper, they absolutely do, and some might even feel that in practice. But they come with a lot of baggage that could drag them out in a real playthrough.

 

I definitely think the eugenics simulation of Awakening/Fates is strictly worse than the implementation in Geneology, because it lacks purpose. The Fateswakening kids either replace their parents if you're willing to grind, or become unnecessary work if you aren't. Whereas in Geneology, one cast is required to abruptly replace the other; it's two organic sides of the same game.

Also to my knowledge, Echoes has meaningful alternative classes, Faye gets a unique spell and early physic, Tobin is (if I recall hearing right) a good mage and Archer. 

While in Fates/Awakening, well to be kinda blunt, with the exception of Dark mage (For Nosferatu for obvious reasons) I don't actually recall ever hearing an good reason to reclass other than "so you can increase stats" everyone suits their default class for the most part and changing them to another class mostly seems to just exist to handi-cap yourself for the sake of levelling up a few times. (And then having to grind some more, seriously they should have at least let us fight in the Arena Ferox if the game seemingly mostly revolves around fighting random battles if you want most of the child units and then to actually see their supports.)

Why would I ever make Virion a Cavalier? why would I make Donnel a mage? it seems really thrown-in for the sake of it while in Echoes, while still thrown-in a bit, it doesn't feel like it's actively handicapping you unless you do something stupid like make everyone a mage or something like that.

[Fabulously Olivier]

1 minute ago, Samz707 said:

Also to my knowledge, Echoes has meaningful alternative classes, Faye gets a unique spell and early physic, Tobin is (if I recall hearing right) a good mage and Archer. 

While in Fates/Awakening, well to be kinda blunt, with the exception of Dark mage (For Nosferatu for obvious reasons) I don't actually recall ever hearing an good reason to reclass other than "so you can increase stats" everyone suits their default class for the most part and changing them to another class mostly seems to just exist to handi-cap yourself for the sake of levelling up a few times. (And then having to grind some more, seriously they should have at least let us fight in the Arena Ferox if the game seemingly mostly revolves around fighting random battles if you want most of the child units and then to actually see their supports.)

Why would I ever make Virion a Cavalier? why would I make Donnel a mage? it seems really thrown-in for the sake of it while in Echoes, while still thrown-in a bit, it doesn't feel like it's actively handicapping you unless you do something stupid like make everyone a mage or something like that.

Echoes has meaningful secondary classes for some characters who start as villagers. The Villager Fork is not a practical solution for reclassing most other characters because it involves more work and grind than is practical.

 

 

You'll also never see me defending the reclass system of Fateswakening, because the implementation adds busy work to minmaxing your units. Reclassing for the purposes of combining skills from disparate classes isn't fun. Atleast 3H took this into account and came up with a somewhat more elegant and restricted system for this.

[KMT4ever]

@Jotari, as I see it the problem with splitting the party in Sacred Stones is that it happens after Chapter 8 rather than near the beginning of the game. Aside from the twins you have 15 units (i.e. 8 to one route, 7 to the other) by this point, while deployment limits haven't gone above 10 yet. That's barely enough trained units to fill one route, so you end up with a situation where either half of each party is up to par and the other half is underleveled or one party is fine while the other is grossly underpowered. The game would have to give you a bunch of pre-leveled units (that you'd end up being forced to use) around the time of the route split in order to make sure each party would have enough capable units to not get rolled over. Alternatively they could make the initial post-split levels easier, but SS is already hilariously easy as is.

The route split happening partway through the game also means that the game can't assume which units you sent which way and whether or not you trained them. Echoes gets around this by making the characters you can send on different routes Villagers so it's your own fault if they don't balance out each party. This doesn't work in SS. For example, pre-split you only get one swordfighter in Joshua. Since you can send him with either twin the game is essentially compelled to give each of them at least one more swordfighter. Likewise they each need an archer and thief since Neimi and Colm are the only ones of those you get before the split. Otherwise you could easily end up screwing yourself over if you sent the wrong units to the wrong route. The roster ends up expanding dramatically for relatively little actual payoff. Supports also end up being complicated massively. Say you want to support Kyle and Forde but Franz died or didn't get trained. Obviously you can't deprive one route of any cavaliers, but then they can't support each other for almost a third of the game.

As far as I'm aware the only other game that enforces a split of the entire roster is Radiant Dawn in Part 4, and that takes several steps to make it less likely you'll accidentally trap yourself in an unwinnable situation.

1. Each army gets a laguz royal so you have at least one powerhouse to rely on.
2. The pre-existing routes (Dawn Brigade, Royal Knights, Greil Mercenaries) give the opportunity to level enough units that they can be evenly distributed without being stretched too thinly.
3. Each army only has to play two chapters, for a total of 6 out of 43 throughout the game.

[Jotari]

19 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Umm, but L'Arachel/Dozla aren't mutually exclusive with another recruitment set.

 

Anyway, you are bringing up an "issue" with the entire franchise, if you can call it an issue. Availability isn't always fair and a lot of units are held back by it. SoV also isn't immune, as units like Mycen and Zeke don't show up until really late in the game.

 

If I dinged games for having units with poor availability and poor performance for their join time, I'd have to ding every game in the franchise, including Tellius for making my boys Bastian and Nasir underwhelming at best late game units in both games.

I'm not criticizing the game for it's availability issues, Myzen and Zeke showing up late is a good thing for what I'm arguing. I'm talking about recruitment pacing. Which aside from the end game having like no units beside the very underwhelming Syrene, is not that bad in Sacred Stones. But if you doubled the number of characters recruited in the mid game then yeah, I think that would be an over load of characters where in characters would be a lot harder to distinguish themselves (I think the game in the series with the biggest issue with this is New Mystery as it just throw hoards of characters at you constantly). But if the mid game was twice as long because you play both routes on a given playthrough, then you have more or less the exact same pacing only with more game content in any given playthrough. And just in general Sacred Stones is a very short game compared to the rest of the series, those extra 6 chapters I think would really help it's pacing in terms of gameplay too.

Another side to this is that only viewing half the game at any given playthrough is bad for the plot too. Selena just outright vanishes on Eirika route, and, I think, Glen is never even mentioned in Ephraim route, when that's a massive part of the motivation for Cormag on Eirika's route. And as someone who played Eirika route first all those years ago, it felt very out of left field for Ephraim to show up and say the entire empire we've been fighting was destroyed off screen. If these things were teased as mysteries where replaying the game from multiple perspectives was part of the idea then I'd be down with it, but the plot points are never treated that way. It feels more like we're just getting half the story at any given time with the other half ignored.

Though to be fair to the route split, having to choose between Ephraim and Eirika did lead to a narratively interesting device of two different characterizations for Lyon which wouldn't really have been possible if the route split was a simultaneous campaign instead of an actual split. The enemy formations also change in the post route split levels too giving some more variety to the game.

19 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Also to my knowledge, Echoes has meaningful alternative classes, Faye gets a unique spell and early physic, Tobin is (if I recall hearing right) a good mage and Archer. 

While in Fates/Awakening, well to be kinda blunt, with the exception of Dark mage (For Nosferatu for obvious reasons) I don't actually recall ever hearing an good reason to reclass other than "so you can increase stats" everyone suits their default class for the most part and changing them to another class mostly seems to just exist to handi-cap yourself for the sake of levelling up a few times. (And then having to grind some more, seriously they should have at least let us fight in the Arena Ferox if the game seemingly mostly revolves around fighting random battles if you want most of the child units and then to actually see their supports.)

Why would I ever make Virion a Cavalier? why would I make Donnel a mage? it seems really thrown-in for the sake of it while in Echoes, while still thrown-in a bit, it doesn't feel like it's actively handicapping you unless you do something stupid like make everyone a mage or something like that.

Skills are the reason to reclass. Also Donnel can't be a mage and of all the characters in the game he's the one you'd want to reclass the most as villager is a bad class with a lower level cap than his class changes (though it sucks none of his class change options have lances, the one weapon he's able to use as a villager).

13 hours ago, KMT4ever said:

@Jotari, as I see it the problem with splitting the party in Sacred Stones is that it happens after Chapter 8 rather than near the beginning of the game. Aside from the twins you have 15 units (i.e. 8 to one route, 7 to the other) by this point, while deployment limits haven't gone above 10 yet. That's barely enough trained units to fill one route, so you end up with a situation where either half of each party is up to par and the other half is underleveled or one party is fine while the other is grossly underpowered. The game would have to give you a bunch of pre-leveled units (that you'd end up being forced to use) around the time of the route split in order to make sure each party would have enough capable units to not get rolled over. Alternatively they could make the initial post-split levels easier, but SS is already hilariously easy as is.

The route split happening partway through the game also means that the game can't assume which units you sent which way and whether or not you trained them. Echoes gets around this by making the characters you can send on different routes Villagers so it's your own fault if they don't balance out each party. This doesn't work in SS. For example, pre-split you only get one swordfighter in Joshua. Since you can send him with either twin the game is essentially compelled to give each of them at least one more swordfighter. Likewise they each need an archer and thief since Neimi and Colm are the only ones of those you get before the split. Otherwise you could easily end up screwing yourself over if you sent the wrong units to the wrong route. The roster ends up expanding dramatically for relatively little actual payoff. Supports also end up being complicated massively. Say you want to support Kyle and Forde but Franz died or didn't get trained. Obviously you can't deprive one route of any cavaliers, but then they can't support each other for almost a third of the game.

As far as I'm aware the only other game that enforces a split of the entire roster is Radiant Dawn in Part 4, and that takes several steps to make it less likely you'll accidentally trap yourself in an unwinnable situation.

1. Each army gets a laguz royal so you have at least one powerhouse to rely on.
2. The pre-existing routes (Dawn Brigade, Royal Knights, Greil Mercenaries) give the opportunity to level enough units that they can be evenly distributed without being stretched too thinly.
3. Each army only has to play two chapters, for a total of 6 out of 43 throughout the game.

There are of course going to be issues if you just take Sacred Stones as it and implement a simultaneously played campaign, but it's not like there's no way around those issues (one of which would be to not let the player decide who goes where and automatically split up the existing cast in predesigned way, that's what I ended up doing in my hack to make simultaneous route play, though that was more from lacking the experience to implement a system where the player can be given a choice more than trying to solve the issue of only having one thief). The best way would probably be to give Ephraim his own act 1 chapters (and a cast to go with it) beyond a single Gaiden and actually show his exploits in the empire. Narratively how they handle Ephraim and Eirika is a bit weird. Eirika gets more focus in the plot being the one we are with in the prologue and having the more emotional connection to Lyon in the climax, yet Ephraim is the chad who actually does the heavy lifting of the mid game while Eirika sort of fails to achieve the goal she sets out to do and gets wrapped up the Carcino subplot that feels almost like filler compared to what Ephraim accomplishes in the mid game.

I think for whatever reason, it's clear that right from the start they designed the game to work as it does in the final product. I can't see any evidence that it was ever intended to be played like Gaiden. But wanting to take the game and giving it progression like Gaiden wouldn't be altogether difficult.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

52 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Though to be fair to the route split, having to choose between Ephraim and Eirika did lead to a narratively interesting device of two different characterizations for Lyon which wouldn't really have been possible if the route split was a simultaneous campaign instead of an actual split. The enemy formations also change in the post route split levels too giving some more variety to the game.

Those scenes would create a problem, at River of Regrets and Two Faces of Evil specifically. I do think that it could be worked around with some modifications, I think you'd have to let the player decide whose interpretation of Lyon to believe, probably before the TFoE stone-smash, but I don't think it needs to be any sooner. Except, a monumental choice there would require the player know Lyon better and have a greater bond with him to have any weight to it, which means we'd need more Lyon scenes than what we've gotten.

 

57 minutes ago, Jotari said:

(though it sucks none of his class change options have lances, the one weapon he's able to use as a villager).

Some factoids that sound true said by a man claiming to be an aged military historian on another video game website that relate to the history of infantry spears.:

Spoiler

And by the way, while Spearmen in a compact block with big shields and anti-cavalry properties date back to the beginning of the Bronze Age, the Greek Hoplite is in fact an Iron Age Unit, dating only from the 7th century BCE several hundred years after the first iron weapons appear in Anatolia, and as I pointed out in my previous post, the original Roman Army was probably a 10 rank deep formation of iron-armored Hoplite-like spearmen that Evolved over several hundred years into a looser formation of well-trained Swordsmen.

The real problem (for me) is that the Roman Legion of swordsmen with Pilum is such an iconic image of Classical Warfare that it skews everybody's view of Classical Warfare. In fact, Swordsmen were not the majority in any other army anywhere in the world: they are too d****d expensive to maintain. As long as a spearman knows enough to keep the pointy end pointed at the enemy and his buddies close by on both sides, he's pretty effective. A swordsman has to train with his weapon, and keep practicing on a regular basis. That means the spearmen can be working, earning a living, paying taxes, until war comes and they have to grab spear and shield and show up to fight. The swordsman has to practice with his sword, so someone else has to support him, and he is a constant drain on the State until war starts. How expensive was it? The Roman Empire, with a population estimated (Beloch) at 54,000,000, managed to support a professional full-time army of about 500,000 men at its peak (1st - 3rd centuries CE) or about 1% of its population could be supported as full-time soldiers.

Nobody else could afford that many swordsmen, or even that percentage of their population as full-time warrior/soldiers. So, wherever else you find swordsmen, they are the elite, the aristocracy, the Thegns and Jarls and nobles who can afford to have someone else (vassals, slaves, serfs, peasants, etc) support them while they practice at murder. The majority of all the Ancient. Classical and Medieval armies were amateurs - part-timers called up for the duration, with no training in moving as a group or unit, usually standing behind a Front Line of the professionals.

Games in general and Civ in particular are very good at specifying and representing all the variations in weapons and equipment in historical military, but they are very bad at showing the difference in training and motivation among the parts of armies. This is particularly problematic when those differences were practically built-in to the weapons: an amateur farmer-turned-swordsman is quite simply an Oxymoron, whereas the classical Spearman phalanx, whether they were Greeks, Gauls, Etruscans or early Romans, was so commonly composed of amateurs that the few full-time professionals are famous: Spartans, Theban Sacred Band, etc.

 

Weapons are not 'better' in a vacuum. The pike made a return to the battlefield because the major combat force was mounted: Knights. And there is nothing better to stop a heavily-armored charging horseman than to use his own momentum to drive a half-meter-long iron point through his chest.

Pikes disappeared in the Middle East - Mediterranean around 200 BCE because they were extremely vulnerable to flank attacks by anything, and swordsmen who got past the pike points could massacre them, as the Legions did to the Macedonian pike phalanx in the last Macedonian War. They returned, in Switzerland (and other places - see below), both because they had Knights as opponents but also because the Swiss Cantons were dirt poor and couldn't afford anything more elaborate.

The 'Magic Date" for pikes is actually the very beginning of the 14th century, a good century or more before the Renaissance starts by any measure:
1302 CE: Battle of Courtrai - Flemish militia, which was pretty well-trained and equipped since they were the City Militia of the prosperous Flanders towns, used pike blocks to break the charge of French knights, hung up 500 pairs of spurs as a Victory Offering in the cathedral afterwards, from knights that no longer had any use for spurs in this life.
1314 CE: Battle of Bannockburn. English knights learned the hard way that trying to charge through a marsh to get at Scottish Schiltrons - more pike blocks - leaves you stuck in the marsh on exhausted horses when the Scots come up and slaughter you like mounted sheep.
1339 CE: Battle of Laupen. Knights found they couldn't make a dent in a Swiss pike 'Hedgehog" (Igel - a circular defensive formation) and then ran for it when the Swiss charged and smashed their infantry (militia) to bits.

Note that the Swiss Pikes were the last in a string of pike units that appeared starting in the beginning of the 14th century, but Mercenary Swiss Pikemen became the Infantry To Have for the rest of the 14th and 15th centuries, until Maximilian started forming Landsknecht pikemen mercenaries at the end of the 1400s.

Both the Swiss and the Landsknechts sometimes mixed their pikes with halbards or Great Swordsmen (2-handed extra-long swords) for extra force in the melee, but the infantry was Primarily Pikes until 1493 CE, when the Spanish began forming 'Colunelas', each about 1000 men and combining pikemen, halbardiers, swordsmen and arquebusiers - the first 'pike and shot' units. By the 1530s 3 colunelas were being combined into a Tercio of 3000 men that was about half pikemen and half arquebusiers.

That means, for about 200 years the Pike Phalanx, with or without some swordsmen and halbardiers mixed in, was the primary infantry unit, a period that was largely (1300 - 1450) in the High Middle Ages or Medieval Era, not the Renaissance. By 50 - 80 years after the traditional start of the Renaissance (1453 CE) the pikes had become the first Pike and Shot, and that formation/unit dominated European warfare for the next 170 years, until the flintlock musket made pikes redundant around 1700 CE.

Sounds believable, not something someone would simply make up on the Internet.

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

yet Ephraim is the chad who actually does the heavy lifting of the mid game while Eirika sort of fails to achieve the goal she sets out to do and gets wrapped up the Carcino subplot that feels almost like filler compared to what Ephraim accomplishes in the mid game.

Yet strangely, the vast majority of the recruitable characters that presently exist are better interwoven into Eirika's story. Like 3H later for totally unrelated reasons, IS was odd in its distribution of attention for FE8.

[Jotari]

 

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Yet strangely, the vast majority of the recruitable characters that presently exist are better interwoven into Eirika's story. Like 3H later for totally unrelated reasons, IS was odd in its distribution of attention for FE8.

Yes, absolutely. With the exception of Amelia who is generic enough to be recruitable in pretty much any non monster chapter in the game (and obviously Dussell and Knoll who are exclusives), all the characters in Ephraim's route seem like they were implemented in his story at the last second. It's really weird. Almost like they wrote Eirika's route first, but then when it came to write Ephraim's route they were in a hurry and just decided to duplicate the cast. Because they didn't have to do that. Even the game being designed to go down just one of the two routes, they still could have had a different cast for each of the routes like Binding Blade does and leave some characters as route exclusives (maybe with the unchosen lord having four characters with them in Scorched Sands instead of two, L'Archel at least would need to show up as she's plot relevant to the final part of the game). The reuse of the cast is the most baffling aspect of the decision to play only one route in a given playthrough.

[Use the Falchion]

When the "what do you want/hope for in XYZ game remake" the poster and the posts aren't actually asking everyone - they're asking only those who have played the games. I do understand this, but I don't like this as by its very nature it's exclusive, and shunning outside looks and perspectives at the game in question (which may be beneficial if those who like the game are far too close to it to judge what may or may not need to be removed/modified).

I just think that sometimes, having an outsider perspective on remakes isn't as bad of a thing as fans sometimes treat it to be. 

(My admittedly terrible example of this would be like if a person who only played Gen 6-8 of Pokémon wanted a say in the Sinnoh Remakes. While there are aspects that only those who played Gen 4 can really speak about, I don't think the input from that first person can't be good or valuable.) 

[NaotoUzumaki]

So True you can be attached to a game and give good criticism. But an outsider will always see a problem that some folk will see as the norm since they have no exposure to that era. Criticism SHOULD ALWAYS BE ALLOWED as long as it is constructive and helpful sometimes all a classic need is a modern touch while polishing the classic itself to make it masterpiece.

[Samz707]

Resplendent artwork in Heroes is...bad honestly.

They all look like really overdesigned ceremonial stuff, that honestly I do not want any of them. (Especially with all the feathers on most of them, that I'm sure aren't irritating/make them even more of a fireball hazard from any fire magic.)

Especially Roy's, where it looks like the feathers tuck under shoulder armor, as someone who has had the misfortune of sleeping on a feather pillow, those are uncomfortable as all hell, I really can't imagine having giant feathers poking you in the arm constantly being comfortable at all.

I've always kind of liked the relatively "normal" designs of FE and these just look like really bad anime outfits, I honestly prefer the default outfits for every single one that I've seen.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Samz707

[joevar]

10 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Resplendent artwork in Heroes is...bad honestly.

They all look like really overdesigned ceremonial stuff, that honestly I do not want any of them. (Especially with all the feathers on most of them, that I'm sure aren't irritating/make them even more of a fireball hazard from any fire magic.)

Especially Roy's, where it looks like the feathers tuck under shoulder armor, as someone who has had the misfortune of sleeping on a feather pillow, those are uncomfortable as all hell, I really can't imagine having giant feathers poking you in the arm constantly being comfortable at all.

I've always kind of liked the relatively "normal" designs of FE and these just look like really bad anime outfits, I honestly prefer the default outfits for every single one that I've seen.

its bound to happen sooner or later imo, its a game where theres many artist working on it even in "normal" design FE characters already sporting some unnecessary details here and there, some makes sense, some not.

and every character needs to look different and unique also didnt help. unless their normal design are like original Gaiden, kek.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

unpopular opinions (or maybe suggestion? might moved it somewhere else if appropriate) from me again

1. FE needs to go back to larger pool of characters. Only about 30 chars with limited recruitment sucks. because when i said larger pool of characters, its not where the recruitable char split between this & that route, choose this & lose that. none of that stuff. but All You Can Eat Recruit charatacters. maybe some with requirements, sure.  but since they added garreg march as "base", i keep thinking why theres no stray Vagabond , crestfallen knight, or maybe farmer boi paying tribute/make a donation to the monastery (who aspire to be soldier/knight) that you can recruit appear in your doorstep despite the location literally in middle of the map, a neutral territory even. it could make perma death (more) relevant again with abundant of char as meatshield.

but at what cost? characterization of course. so many people here that care about characterization, nuance, depth, and whatnot already write so many paragraphs of those, (that you can make a journals from it) also sometimes forgot they also said FE not the best place for deep story, gameplay matters more, behaviour not consistent, bla bla bla.. in another threads. So im sure all of it ultimately point to "depend on the game"

 

2. Character Ending slideshow of FE become increasingly boring lately. theres apparently improvement in FE writing, be it the amount of letter written literally or its depth. but still ultimately leads to: A be happy with B or C or D etc... Remind me if im mistaken. but theres barely, if any, bad ending for character. iirc bittersweet is as close we get.

what if a womanizer char ends up with someone but get a bad ending because they cant erase that habit completely and the partner of his choosing cant stand it? (by killing or at least leave that womanizer) if theres already an obsessive character, why not the ending reflect that. Why every one become a pious person in the end of the war? despite them working for enemy before, a sellsword that ask you ridiculous amount of money for joining, or maybe just tagging along for fun IN THE WAR.

"but, why/for what?" do you ask? nothing, or just because they can. unless IS decided for next FE they will do more than simple slideshow of text for char ending, i dont see why not having bad end too. we are winning the war, not winning the life of every character in the roster. its mostly the Lord story after all. they get the most of it from winning the war

gives you completionist a liiitleee bit more incentive to play again to see which pairing will work better, no?

Edited May 26, 2021 by joevar

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, joevar said:

2. Character Ending slideshow of FE become increasingly boring lately. theres apparently improvement in FE writing, be it the amount of letter written literally or its depth. but still ultimately leads to: A be happy with B or C or D etc... Remind me if im mistaken. but theres barely, if any, bad ending for character. iirc bittersweet is as close we get.

what if a womanizer char ends up with someone but get a bad ending because they cant erase that habit completely and the partner of his choosing cant stand it? (by killing or at least leave that womanizer) if theres already an obsessive character, why not the ending reflect that. Why every one become a pious person in the end of the war? despite them working for enemy before, a sellsword that ask you ridiculous amount of money for joining, or maybe just tagging along for fun IN THE WAR.

"but, why/for what?" do you ask? nothing, or just because they can. unless IS decided for next FE they will do more than simple slideshow of text for char ending, i dont see why not having bad end too. we are winning the war, not winning the life of every character in the roster. its mostly the Lord story after all. they get the most of it from winning the war

gives you completionist a liiitleee bit more incentive to play again to see which pairing will work better, no?

It's a bizzare and specific want, but for a long time now I've wanted there to be a recruitable enemy character that is a boss of a late game map, only their recruitment condition is based on how many turns it's taken you to get to that point in the entire game. If you've been playing the game realtively well then they unexpectedly betray their nation as they're impressed by your military ability and want to be on the winning team. Think is though, the character is a super bad person, basically one of your average shit hole single chapter boss enemies in Fire Emblem who's only fighting for you because you take what you can get during war time. Hence his ending has him being executed for war crimes committed while he was still with the enemy nation. So yeah basically that one bad guy from Inglorious Basterds as a Fire Emblem character. XD Like I said a super bizarre and specific character archetype that I never truly expect to see in the series. It would certainly count in you're bittersweet ending desire though.

[joevar]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

It would certainly count in you're bittersweet ending desire though.

a small correction, i want straight up bad ending, not just bittersweet ending. since i believe theres already some of it either literally or just implied. but your example perfectly in line with what i said.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

It's a bizzare and specific want, but for a long time now I've wanted there to be a recruitable enemy character that is a boss of a late game map,

awfully specific yes. the only game i can remember to pull it off is Suikoden since the first installment. the penultimate/second last boss we defeat before entering the final boss area can be recruited if we want.

another little example would be: Guy from FE7, his bad ending could be " after the war, Guy went to challenge a master swordman he met during the war. but he overestimate his capabilities & limit and die a miserable death." the swordman in question will obviously be Karel. and his dumb decision happen because he didnt have A support with certain someone. Or if thats too complicated, just use Hector, and said he meet a bloody end (in FE6) like the armads original user.

Edited May 26, 2021 by joevar

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

59 minutes ago, joevar said:

a small correction, i want straight up bad ending, not just bittersweet ending. since i believe theres already some of it either literally or just implied. but your example perfectly in line with what i said.

I would be cool with playable characters who "retreat" from battle, rather than dying, getting a bad ending. Like in Echoes - Saber's main ending could stay the same, but if he's defeated in battle (and thereby relegated to a story-only existence), then his ending has him die in a drunken barfight. Instead of just saying "oh he retreated from battle that one time", and nothing more.