What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, NekoKnight said:

Was Celica not dumb as bricks before considering time travel issues?

 

Certainly she was in SoV. She wasn't quite as bad in Gaiden to be fair.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Icelerate]

Space and time manipulation powers are rather OP so they are best used with caution. At least in SoV and 3H case, I can forgive it because it was used to make game play less frustrating as opposed to being there for plot convenience. 

[Alastor15243]

10 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Space and time manipulation powers are rather OP so they are best used with caution. At least in SoV and 3H case, I can forgive it because it was used to make game play less frustrating as opposed to being there for plot convenience. 

I've never been a fan of the "convenience" argument for the turnwheel. It seems to me like an invitation to backslide on quality standards. Instead of games that pave over their bad game design by making you immune to the negative consequences of them, I'd like a game that's actually fun to retry when you lose, like the best FE games, and in fact most games in general.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Life]

1 hour ago, NekoKnight said:

So you strip away the gameplay/story excuses and what do you have? Corrin makes imbecilic, outrageously immoral decisions in the story and Byleth... well in your list, all you'd have left is that he jumps in front of an axe, and the game immediately points out that was stupid.

Maybe but I made the serious argument for why Byleth is a bad character as is and should not fundamentally exist.

[Alastor15243]

3 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

So you strip away the gameplay/story excuses and what do you have? Corrin makes imbecilic, outrageously immoral decisions in the story and Byleth... well in your list, all you'd have left is that he jumps in front of an axe, and the game immediately points out that was stupid.

I forgot to mention this specific point before: what's the difference between Corrin's flaws and Byleth's flaws that causes you to absolve Byleth of his? If you can say Byleth isn't utterly incompetent with his use of time travel, it's just the fault of the plot device, why can't someone say that Corrin isn't stupid, selfish or cowardly, it's just that Conquest had a very skewed idea of what's brave, noble and smart? It's not Corrin's fault, so the logic goes, that Conquest declared the throne plan a good idea.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Alastor15243

[NekoKnight]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

I forgot to mention this specific point before: what's the difference between Corrin's flaws and Byleth's flaws that causes you to absolve Byleth of his? If you can say Byleth isn't utterly incompetent with his use of time travel, it's just the fault of the plot device, why can't someone say that Corrin isn't stupid, selfish or cowardly, it's just that Conquest had a very skewed idea of what's brave, noble and smart? It's not Corrin's fault, so the logic goes, that Conquest declared the throne plan a good idea.

My original point was how a gameplay mechanic was justified by the story and whether or not we should be forgiving of that if they ignore a gameplay element when it would hamper the story. Like time travel for Alm or My Castle for Corrin (and you could extend this conversation to Outrealms shenanigans. Why not recruit aid from other worlds if that's an option??), the over use of these gameplay powers in story would completely destroy any sense of tension.

So why is Corrin's stupidity and immorality different? Well, you could frame the discussion as him being rail roaded into making bad decisions to justify the premise of Conquest, but that's just completely denying agency to our characters. So the writer wants to you to invade Hoshido, that's fine.  If they didn't want Corrin to be stupid, selfish or cowardly, they were still well within their ability to write a scenario that accommodated that. Have Corrin search earnestly for another path and have those options logically explained as being nonviable before Corrin throws his hands up saying "I guess killing countless innocents is the only way! I'm so sad! Poor me!" This isn't even something limited to Conquest. In Revelation, Corrin makes the extremely dimwitted decision to trust someone who was very untrustworthy and it was not necessary for gameplay or even the story. This is a consistent characterization of Corrin.

It's easier to isolate the flaws in books and movies because they don't have that pesky interactive element called gameplay. Gameplay must be balanced with and will often be at odds with the precise details of a story in a game. If they wanted to make it more intertwined with the story, they could have established clear rules with how time travel can be used, but the fact that they didn't makes me think that it was not their intention for it to be as integral to the story. You called Corrin not using My Castle at integral moments "less in your face" but My Castle is very much a canon power he/Lilith have, with no stated limitations. It's pretty much the same thing going on for Byleth, the only difference is Fates is happy to let that tension destroying power fade into the background until you forget about it.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

It's easier to isolate the flaws in books and movies because they don't have that pesky interactive element called gameplay. Gameplay must be balanced with and will often be at odds with the precise details of a story in a game. If they wanted to make it more intertwined with the story, they could have established clear rules with how time travel can be used, but the fact that they didn't makes me think that it was not their intention for it to be as integral to the story.

If they didn't want the Divine Pulse to be integral to the story, there was literally no reason to give it to Byleth at all. Invisible, Inc. lets you rewind time as a customizable, optional gameplay feature, but they never had to say it's actually canonically happening. Nobody in the invisible inc lore can actually rewind time, it's just a thing like extra lives, a clearly non-canon gameplay element. The only thing that you'd have to change to remove the divine pulse from the plot is make Byleth competent enough to not get killed by a bandit in the prologue. That's it. Everything else in the whole story would happen identically if he never had the divine pulse at all.

[NekoKnight]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

If they didn't want the Divine Pulse to be integral to the story, there was literally no reason to give it to Byleth at all. Invisible, Inc. lets you rewind time as a customizable, optional gameplay feature, but they never had to say it's actually canonically happening. Nobody in the invisible inc lore can actually rewind time, it's just a thing like extra lives, a clearly non-canon gameplay element. The only thing that you'd have to change to remove the divine pulse from the plot is make Byleth competent enough to not get killed by a bandit in the prologue. That's it. Everything else in the whole story would happen identically if he never had the divine pulse at all.

Invisible Inc? Is this a different game series because I don't have anything to say about non-FE games.

I agree that divine pulse didn't need to be in the story at all, but that just strengthens my point that it was gameplay first, narrative second for importance. I assume they just gave it to Byleth because it's nifty when gameplay ties into the narrative, even if it's superficial.

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

I agree that divine pulse didn't need to be in the story at all, but that just strengthens my point that it was gameplay first, narrative second for importance. I assume they just gave it to Byleth because it's nifty when gameplay ties into the narrative, even if it's superficial.

And that's forgivable writing in your opinion?

[NekoKnight]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

And that's forgivable writing in your opinion?

Forgivable is a good way to put it, yes. I recognize it as a problem but when I see how disconnected it is to the narrative, I can handwave it as being a non-issue. Now, if they were to establish clear rules about how time travel could be used in the story and they broke those rules (let's say Sothis explains that she can only reset time once a month and after a month of inaction Byleth claims he can't use it at a crucial moment), I'd call that a serious plot hole. 

[Alastor15243]

8 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

Forgivable is a good way to put it, yes. I recognize it as a problem but when I see how disconnected it is to the narrative, I can handwave it as being a non-issue. Now, if they were to establish clear rules about how time travel could be used in the story and they broke those rules (let's say Sothis explains that she can only reset time once a month and after a month of inaction Byleth claims he can't use it at a crucial moment), I'd call that a serious plot hole. 

Here's my take on it:

My Castle is better plot-integrated than Divine Pulse. Way better.

My Castle basically had to be made canon because it's a physical place in the world, the dragon girl who gives it to the player introduces it after saving Corrin's life from something it's totally understandable for him to have gotten himself into, and it's never shown in gameplay to be able to get you out of the jams you get into in cutscenes (you can't use it to retreat mid-battle, and Lilith explicitly says when you leave My Castle you have to return to the spot you entered it from).

Divine Pulse didn't remotely have to be made canon but was made canon anyway, the dragon girl who gives it to the player introduces it after saving Byleth's life from something no remotely competent warrior should have ever gotten themselves into (meaning they made him an idiot temporarily for the sake of needing it), and then it's repeatedly shown in gameplay to be able to get you out of the kinds of jams Byleth winds up getting into in cutscenes anyway.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Life]

On 9/15/2019 at 2:40 PM, Life said:

Actually, let's expand out on Byleth because I am relatively certain that Byleth is the only objectively bad thing about this game. I don't care about spoilers anymore, this game has been out for over a month and this community has picked it clean within the first two weeks of its existance.

 

So let's start with the "Rewind Time" feature which is the least egregious sin of Byleth. And I'll be the first to praise this game for using it in the plot to attempt to reverse Jeralt's dealth.

This reminded me of FFV when Galuf dies and the party tries to use items and spells on him to no avail. This is actually good plot development because it does actually give off the "death is actually death and not just plot armour for the miraculous reveal later"  vibe and since this series is built on the fundamental concept of perma-death, not being able to save Jeralt is a good thing.

But holy shit, does it create plot holes that are just stupid when you try to think about them... and they all stem from Byleth's existance.

First off, because Thales appears to save Kronya from dying here, that is stupid to the nth degree because Solon simply just sacrifices her soul a month later. Was that the plan all along? Why not use some other mook? Or did Solon go rogue? This shit is not explained well because even the game understands that Byleth is entirely uninteresting and just wants to get to the meat and potatoes of the story already (the Holy War that was aped from FE4).

Secondly, why kill Jeralt in the first place? I find it hilarious that when we first meet Jeralt, anyone familiar with the series was thinking "well, here's a Greil clone" except that Greil's death actually means something because now Ike and Mist are stuck in a foreign land without their father and a dwindling band of mercs. Jeralt's death literally feels like going through the motions... except there is no logical reason for him to die. Maybe it's because I haven't done the Church route yet but it really feels cheap if you've played FE4 or FE9 (and maybe even FE13).

My only question was "why is it Chapter 9 already and Jeralt is still alive?". Then the cutscene starts and I'm relieved because I'm not wrong about this obvious death.

The whole thing is stupid.

 

Now, let's dissect the more serious issue about Byleth; the lack of personality that apparently doubles as a personality.

I had someone on YouTube try to honestly convince me that Byleth's lack of a heartbeat is a character flaw.

Byleth has no character flaws (aside from being thick as shit). Byleth also has no character traits. Byleth exists only for the obligatory avatar wank that has plagued this series since FE12.

A character flaw is a deficiency in a person's moral or ethical compasses that create conflict (big or small) with someone else. Byleth is never in conflict with anyone because Byleth doesn't have ANY deficiencies. Byleth follows Edelgard into the abyss and passively encourages her to keep up with her genocide for "peace's sake" despite clearly understanding how goddamn hypocritical it is AND not actually having a personal stake in the matter since plot armour keeps Byleth alive after the death of the Immaculate One regardless of his role or not. Byleth is pointless in Claude's journey due to simply replacing the mirror that Claude would obviously be talking to instead. It's really only with Dimitri does Byleth actually have some reason to exist... and could have been entirely replaced by another character like Felix who could snap Dimitri out of his funk after Rodrigue's death.

And let's be honest, we're here for the three way war which is actually done really nicely. Sure, Edelgard gets a bit shafted by the writing but she still has a complex and deep character that invokes serious contemplation about ethics.

 

This game could have been better than Geneology in every aspect... if only Byleth didn't exist.

/rant over

 

Oh and the designs are also garbage. God, I hate Byleth.

As I stated above, Divine Pulse is the least egregious sin of Byleth. The lack of personality which actually given a story explanation (the Ashen Demon) is much more damning.

[Alastor15243]

3 hours ago, Life said:

As I stated above, Divine Pulse is the least egregious sin of Byleth. The lack of personality which actually given a story explanation (the Ashen Demon) is much more damning.

Oh that's hot garbage too. But I might, might have been able to ignore it if they had least been a competent robot rather than a goofy stupid robot. Maybe.

And it's not just the turnwheel that makes them look dumb. It's the general way they present themselves. Female Byleth especially often stares vacantly into space in cutscenes in a way that looks super surreal. And, I'm not sure if I interpreted this wrong, but several lines at the beginning of the story make it sound like it takes several days for the fact that there's a girl talking in their head to actually sink in, like they keep forgetting about it or being surprised by it.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Alastor15243

[NekoKnight]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Here's my take on it:

My Castle is better plot-integrated than Divine Pulse. Way better.

I feel this is a moot point to argue as I don't blame Corrin for not using My Castle in the story, but I disagree with everything you wrote here.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

My Castle basically had to be made canon because it's a physical place in the world,

There was no "had to be made canon" because the astral plane is utterly irrelevant to the plot. At most, it's suggested to be a place where dragons were able to hang out in the past but that gets a throwaway line and the astral plane is never visited again by any characters in the plot. It exists to justify a gameplay mechanic. 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

the dragon girl who gives it to the player introduces it after saving Corrin's life from something it's totally understandable for him to have gotten himself into

I'll grant you that Corrin doesn't need to do any out-of-character stuff for My Castle to be introduced, but it was also completely unnecessary for it to be included in the plot. She demonstrates that power, apparently, in order to avoid a storm but a flash of lightning is a pretty weak excuse to hop dimensions.

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

it's never shown in gameplay to be able to get you out of the jams you get into in cutscenes (you can't use it to retreat mid-battle, and Lilith explicitly says when you leave My Castle you have to return to the spot you entered it from).

This isn't an argument. Just because they never use it in battle or cutscenes doesn't mean they are unable to. We are never told any limitations for the power beyond the enter/exit to the astral plane being the same location. The fact that Lilith is able to use the ability for something as trivial as avoiding a thunderstorm would imply that she could use it for any dangerous situation. And you go to My Castle after every mission so she can use the power frequently as well.  There are plenty of situations where My Castle would have been helpful in the plot. Take the Faceless ambush in Conquest. Lilith actually DIES there but why should she when she could have whisked everyone off to her pocket dimension? She could let everyone lie low until the danger had passed and then they could leave again. Or how about when Corrin is ambushed by Anthony in Revelation? That sure would be an easy way to get out of that.

My Castle is 'better plot integrated' insofar that it's introduced and then forgotten about. It's unobtrusive to the point where you don't realize it's a power they could use to undermine the dramatic scenes.

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

There was no "had to be made canon" because the astral plane is utterly irrelevant to the plot. At most, it's suggested to be a place where dragons were able to hang out in the past but that gets a throwaway line and the astral plane is never visited again by any characters in the plot. It exists to justify a gameplay mechanic. 

I'll grant you that Corrin doesn't need to do any out-of-character stuff for My Castle to be introduced, but it was also completely unnecessary for it to be included in the plot. She demonstrates that power, apparently, in order to avoid a storm but a flash of lightning is a pretty weak excuse to hop dimensions.

I think you missed what I meant by this. I mean that something very much like My Castle had to be established in-story if they wanted that sort of feature in the game, because unlike Divine Pulse, a feature this vast, multifaceted and integrated into character interaction has to be contextualized as something that's actually happening. It didn't have to be made canon for the story, it had to be made canon for the sake of gameplay.

Meanwhile Divine Pulse was under no such obligation but they did it anyway, and even worse.

[NekoKnight]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

I think you missed what I meant by this. I mean that something very much like My Castle had to be established in-story if they wanted that sort of feature in the game, because unlike Divine Pulse, a feature this vast, multifaceted and integrated into character interaction has to be contextualized as something that's actually happening. It didn't have to be made canon for the story, it had to be made canon for the sake of gameplay.

I think you have it backwards. They could have just given you My Castle without any in-story introduction and just given you a text message explaining its functions. If they did it that way, players could cleanly separate it from the story and conclude "this is a gameplay mechanic, it has no bearing on the story". But now that it's canon, we HAVE to consider this power in scenes where it could have made a difference but it wasn't used.

I understand where you're coming from. Divine Pulse is easier to point out as being inconsistent because it's more visible in the story, but I'd call it a pretty huge double standard to pin that narrative failing on Byleth if we're giving the 3DS lords a pass on their gameplay powers.

[Alastor15243]

10 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

I think you have it backwards. They could have just given you My Castle without any in-story introduction and just given you a text message explaining its functions. If they did it that way, players could cleanly separate it from the story and conclude "this is a gameplay mechanic, it has no bearing on the story". But now that it's canon, we HAVE to consider this power in scenes where it could have made a difference but it wasn't used.

I understand where you're coming from. Divine Pulse is easier to point out as being inconsistent because it's more visible in the story, but I'd call it a pretty huge double standard to pin that narrative failing on Byleth if we're giving the 3DS lords a pass on their gameplay powers.

Oh really? Then how would they explain the child characters being actual people you and others can support with? You'd have to change the story of Fates way more to get rid of My Castle than you'd have to change the story of Three Houses to get rid of Divine Pulse.

And I'm not giving Corrin a free pass, I'm just saying that Divine Pulse is worse than My Castle, not that only Divine Pulse is bad. I think the fact that there isn't a single point in the story where you can go "this wouldn't have happened if he just used My Castle like I do in battles", but you can say that repeatedly about Divine Pulse, means that Divine Pulse is significantly worse. Obviously My Castle could have been better explained and been given more clear limitations, but the game doesn't encourage you to get used to using it to solve problems and then force the protagonist to have a brain fart about it in order for anything bad to happen. These aren't the same thing here.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Alastor15243

[NekoKnight]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Oh really? Then how would they explain the child characters being actual people you and others can support with?

Hoo boy, the second gen is a HUGE can of worms. The first time you unlock a child paralogue, the game gives you a little screen that says that as soon as the child was born, they were in danger by SPOOKY specters so the children were put in deeprealms. What this suggests is that a couple in your play through got married, the woman got pregnant and carried that baby to term for 9 months, all without showing any signs of being pregnant, all while a war is going on. Don't even get me started on what the deeprealms says about how awful the Fates characters are as parents.

Is this a canon story element? Do you want it to be? The game likes to play it fast and lose with this gameplay mechanic.

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

And I'm not giving Corrin a free pass, I'm just saying that Divine Pulse is worse than My Castle, not that only Divine Pulse is bad. I think the fact that there isn't a single point in the story where you can go "this wouldn't have happened if he just used My Castle like I do in battles", but you can say that repeatedly about Divine Pulse, means that Divine Pulse is significantly worse. Obviously My Castle could have been better explained and been given more clear limitations, but the game doesn't encourage you to get used to using it to solve problems and then force the protagonist to have a brain fart about it in order for anything bad to happen.

I disagree. My Castle might be out of thought, out of mind, but it's very much tied to Corrin in canon. We choose to ignore it because we acknowledge it's just a silly gameplay thing.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, NekoKnight said:

I disagree. My Castle might be out of thought, out of mind, but it's very much tied to Corrin in canon. We choose to ignore it because we acknowledge it's just a silly gameplay thing.

Here's the key difference: thanks to it not working that way in battles, we have way less evidence Corrin could use it to escape harm in the few situations he needs to. There's any number of logically consistent headcanons you could come up with that could explain why he couldn't use it to escape from danger, and yes, this shouldn't be up to headcanon, but at least headcanon is capable of being logically consistent. But with Byleth, we know, for a fact, that he can bend time like it's his bitch and just completely forgets to, because he does this repeatedly, both in and out of cutscenes.

Honestly it comes down to this. I consider Byleth worse than Corrin because, regardless of whose list of stupid actions is larger or more egregious, Byleth is both unacceptably stupid and unacceptably devoid of character. Byleth's stupidity is the only character trait he has. Corrin may be dumber (debatable; it took the whole game for him to need literal divine intervention to not die of his own stupidity, whereas Byleth needed it in the prologue), and what personality he has may he laughably terrible, but at least he exists for some other purpose than to force me to do stupid things in cutscenes.

[Troykv]

If we still followed the Kaga approach we wouldn't have these discussions about meta stuff only designed to avoid killing the franchise again.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Troykv

[Icelerate]

3 minutes ago, Troykv said:

If we still followed the Kaga approach we wouldn't have these discussions about meta stuff only designed to avoid killing the franchise again.

Are you saying we should go back to the Kaga approach? 

[Alastor15243]

31 minutes ago, Troykv said:

If we still followed the Kaga approach we wouldn't have these discussions about meta stuff only designed to avoid killing the franchise again.

Could you explain what you mean by that?

[Life]

56 minutes ago, Troykv said:

If we still followed the Kaga approach we wouldn't have these discussions about meta stuff only designed to avoid killing the franchise again.

To be entirely fair, the Kaga approach was pretty solid in terms of "look, here is an evil sect trying to resurrect an evil god, go and kill them while they do so". Better than the later games that did this (I'm specifically thinking of FE7/8/10 on this).

There is a reason why Three Houses aped Geneology in both terms of a massively political holy war and a flawed villain with actual character traits.

[Fire Brand]

37 minutes ago, Life said:

To be entirely fair, the Kaga approach was pretty solid in terms of "look, here is an evil sect trying to resurrect an evil god, go and kill them while they do so". Better than the later games that did this (I'm specifically thinking of FE7/8/10 on this).

There is a reason why Three Houses aped Geneology in both terms of a massively political holy war and a flawed villain with actual character traits.

I support a return to Kaga FE. But I also think that Genealogy's story and villains were far better than FE16's.

A flawed villain does not a good story make. Especially when they're not presented as a villain, and the character who is presented as the villain instead is far too weak willed and inconsistent to be a villain. Manfroy was a better than both of them combined by default, because he was a villain. Imo Three Houses would have benefitted greatly from a generic evil cult as the main villain and focus on a divided front of heroes fighting back, aka the three lords. 

[Life]

1 hour ago, Fire Brand said:

I support a return to Kaga FE. But I also think that Genealogy's story and villains were far better than FE16's.

A flawed villain does not a good story make. Especially when they're not presented as a villain, and the character who is presented as the villain instead is far too weak willed and inconsistent to be a villain. Manfroy was a better than both of them combined by default, because he was a villain. Imo Three Houses would have benefitted greatly from a generic evil cult as the main villain and focus on a divided front of heroes fighting back, aka the three lords. 

I was thinking Arvis as the major antagonist rather than Manfloy and comparing him to Edelgard. But yes, I see your point.