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What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?


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1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

Okay first of all I don’t think fates is great. It stumbles a lot but honestly a lot of the complaints people have regarding this story just don’t seem to hold water if you ask me but that’s besides the point. Yes, we may not be able to derive exactly what the author intended but we can certainly try. And yes, people can use the exact same logical deduction is up for scrutiny. It is entirely possible to disprove someone else’s claim on a story. One interpretation can be wrong like for example saying Corrin is a Mary sue and that saying “Takumi saying he always trusted Corrin is too much avatar worship” when in fact that was the entire point of his character arc. We see this because a moment like this was brought up in birthright as well but Takumi didn’t succumb because Corrin was at his side. Sure, you can say that it’s still too much avatar worship and I’ll agree to an extent but it makes sense why the events of the story happened the way they did. My point being that saying “too much avatar worship” is simply a bad criticism because it is easily debunked by the definition of the term at least in this case. Again, my overall point here is that yes others can use the same logical deduction to reach different conclusions, those conclusions(mine or theirs) are not free of scrutiny. They can be debated and disproven. Though it is objective by the dictionary definition of the term because trying to judge a story by its own rules means you aren’t judging based on rules you feel are correct. Like what Other rules are there to judge a story by though? Cause every other “rule” has been broken and has worked in some way. You can say contrivance and I agree to an extent but then what does contrived really mean in this context? If we go by the dictionary definition of the term then stories are inherently contrived.

 

To this, I say I do consider movies like ghost busters(2016) poorly written. Yeah it has themes but those ideas are just poorly handled. I’m not ignoring the technical elements of writing by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just saying we should look at how those elements come together to express the idea/feeling the story is going for. Obviously a story needs to be structured well and flow neatly from one plot point to the next. A story’s conflict needs to be clear and understandable. The character motivations need to be clear and understandable and integrate themselves within the plot in an organic and nuanced way. What I am saying though is that you shouldn’t criticize a Villain for being “pure evil without any redeeming qualities” cause that may be the point. A villain doesn’t have to be sympathetic villain in order to work. A pure evil villain can work just fine. It’s all a matter of execution at that point. Once again I bring up the horror movie point. You wouldn’t criticize a horror movie for being “too scary”, would you? No, of course not that’s ridiculous. That’s the logic I’m operating under. You can then ask, how do we know it’s a horror movie then? Well the answer to that are the technical elements. The way in which the story is told like the dark lighting, the ominous music, the slow first person-esque shots, etc. are all there to convey that idea of uneasiness and fear. Creators use the technical elements of their medium to convey the ideas and emotions they want to in their audience and we should judge based on how well those technical elements do just that. That’s my argument.

When two people can use the exact same metric to to reach two completely opposite verdicts on the exact same work, then I don't consider it accurate to say that's an objective metric. If it were objective, people would have to reach the same conclusion.

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

My point here is that all stories should be judged on a case by case basis. What set of rules used to judge one story will not necessarily work when trying to criticize another. That’s just how it is.

I don't disagree with that at all. Which is why I don't support the idea of trying to use a single standard by which to grade everything.

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3 hours ago, Jotari said:

When two people can use the exact same metric to to reach two completely opposite verdicts on the exact same work, then I don't consider it accurate to say that's an objective metric. If it were objective, people would have to reach the same conclusion.

That is a fair point, and I don’t claim to say my metric is perfect and 100% objective. Like I said before, there is a subjective component that is impossible to erase no matter what metric you use. Again, critique on its own is inherently subjective because it relies on personal standards. Different people will be effected differently by the art they consume, that much is inevitable. Personal interpretation while somewhat subjective in its own way also has an objective component to it that other metrics do not. What’s important is that we try our best to separate those two things. You don’t have to like a “good” story. That is entirely possible because we all have different tastes and things we value. Again, Take Alm for example. He is a poorly written protagonist for reasons we’ve already gone over but Y’know he’s a likable protagonist. People do like him and I’m not going to deny them that. You don’t have to care about all the criticism levied against him and that’s where the subjective component comes in. If you like Alm, your opinion of him is going to be rated a little more favorably. You resonated with the character in some and that’s always something to be celebrated. You consider him “good” cause he appeals to your particular set of tastes. However the fact of the matter is that he’s a poorly written protagonist for reasons we’ve gone over before. There’s a difference between liking a character/story and judging whether or not it’s objectively well written. I mean I love fairy tail but it’s a garbage story because a lot of the ideas the story sets out to explore are undermined by numerous plot holes, retcons, and inconsistencies. Some ideas work but overall it’s just bad. But it’s certainly enjoyable and that’s totally fine.

Overall what I’m trying to say here is that no matter how much we try to analyze or breakdown a story for its ideas or whatever, there’s always gonna be someone who either likes it or doesn’t like it simply because they do. It just goes against/appeals to their particular set of tastes and it would be wrong to suggest that those opinions are invalid. Not everyone is going to agree that something “””””good”””” because it’s entirely possible to like or dislike something just because it didn’t vibe with you or whatever.

Look maybe this guy could do a better job of convincing you of my argument than I ever could

 

Edited by Ottservia
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more ones because why not :

> SMs aren't broken in FE6 just because they have higher crt chance, it's still unreliable whether it's +15% or +30%

 

> Promotiong at lvl 20 vs lvl 10 argument is stupid, there are many reasons why it's best to promote a unit at lvl 15~20, the most common reason is to reach certain stat benchmarks, also in many cases you can't promote early because of the lack of the promotion items and /or competition for them

 

> LTCs and 0% growths runs aren't and shouldn't be a metric as to how to judge a unit, they're extremely unreliable and heavily rigged

 

> I don't agree with people putting Lena and safy and silque on the top tier just because they can warp, don't get me wrong warpskipping isn't bad, but it shouldn't be a judge or a " point " for them for several reasons, one of which that there are many units who can also use warp

 

> Tier list are useless

 

> Ellen = Saul, Natasha = moulder, they all function the same way

 

> BBD of fe7 and ch7 of fe6 aren't RNG relient

 

> The fatigue and dismounting mechanica in FE3 and FE5 is useless and doesn't do anything, they're not a bad mechanics but are implemented very poorly, especially dismounting

 

> Fe3 isn't better than 12 because kris wasn't in it, it was a terrible game with bland plot and trash gameplay from the beginning, 12 has improved almost everything about FE3, also Kris didn't ruin fe12 in any way

 

> Alva, kein, Robert, carrion, olwen aren't bad units in FE5, they have enough bases to 1-2RKO enemies at base because how terrible fe5 enemies are and they don't join late

 

> FE4 had the best style for arena..... it's actually the only good thing about FE4's gameplay > It annoys me when people oversimplify certain topics, like calling some stuff and characters " OP " and " broken " while in actuality they're only amazing, but aren't perfect and they still struggle, many people call cadea broken despite the fact that she still won't OHKO every boss in the game, many people call Lena in fe11 broken despite the fact that you still have to move most of your units every turn till u reach the boss.....etc, in other words people just act lazy as a result of oversimplifing stuff and sometimes just spread fallacies and /or hype up stuff waaaaay much

 

> the " bases vs growths " argument is useless and doesn't really prove anything, it even has become a Dead horse at this point

 

 

 

Edited by Jandex
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In my most unpopular opinion, I think Intelligent systems tends to screw things when handling Fire Emblem as a whole. One thing fixed and then caused a different issue. Next game fixed the issue but then brought another issue and so forth.

So where I'm getting at

FE4: Great Story, had a mess in gameplay( I don't mind it but others do)

FE5: Fixed the gameplay issue by adding variety and good map design but didn't have as deep of plot as FE4. But then was released on an outdated system and bombed. And the main lord promoted very late.

FE6: Made some changes to be accepted for handheld play but gave a crapton of useless units and still not improved with the late lord promotion.

FE7: Made it accessible to the western market and brought back the variety that FE5 had. Still the lords promoted a bit late and the difficulty was dumbed down.

FE8: Made it easy.

FE9: Didn't fully complete production and the game didn't utilize the gamecube's graphical capabilities and made it easy. Arguably the best story written FE game of the bunch(can't say for myself though).

FE10: Like the previous one except now the difficulty is massive for no reason. Wondered if this and the previous one had any marketing campaigns?

FE11: Took what was fine on the first game and made everything a mess. Ugly graphics, dumbed down difficulty and requiring to kill units to get other units. 

FE12: Fixed the issues of FE11 and made it better than FE3 but then decided to not localise the game to the west.

FE13: Mixed all the elements of the previous games and added casual mode at the cost of no objective variety and the starting point of the waifu syndrome.

FE14: Made a complete mess of a plot by segregating it in three games resulting in only one game to be the best of the trio, made weapons unbreakable at the cost of having altered stats and made the waifu scene worse than before.

FE15: Improved on FE2 and added voices. But still had bland map design.

FE16: Changed the formula, improved on Fates path choice and brought many game elements from FE4 at the cost of bland map design. Graphics are somewhat great but still not amazing.

Really...IS...why can't we have an FE game that has good plot, good gameplay, great graphics and good map design?

 

 

Edited by Harvey
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15 hours ago, Harvey said:

Really...IS...why can't we have an FE game that has good plot, good gameplay, great graphics and good map design?

To be fair, "perfect" games are hard to create, in the worst case they would ended up releasing too late, with the next console already released.

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9 hours ago, Troykv said:

To be fair, "perfect" games are hard to create, in the worst case they would ended up releasing too late, with the next console already released.

Again, that is completely IS fault for doing so. Had they released FE5 on N64 or on GBA instead, they could have done it right.

No game is perfect. But that doesn't mean they can't put the effort to satisfy everyone. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

GBA Priest and Troubadours belong on the bench because you can use 100% vulneary healing up to the point of getting your first guiding ring and then just have your mage be your first staff user in chapter 11.

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9 minutes ago, Reality said:

GBA Priest and Troubadours belong on the bench because you can use 100% vulneary healing up to the point of getting your first guiding ring and then just have your mage be your first staff user in chapter 11.

You can also kill off everyone except the lords and sell all of your weapons.  Just because you can doesn't mean it's a good idea.

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21 hours ago, Reality said:

GBA Priest and Troubadours belong on the bench because you can use 100% vulneary healing up to the point of getting your first guiding ring and then just have your mage be your first staff user in chapter 11.

Using a Vulnerary takes an inventory slot, and the use of player phase on a combat unit, when they could be attacking. Vulneraries are also costlier, on a per-use basis, than Heal staves. Also, by using a healer instead of an additional fighter, you funnel EXP into fewer combat units, making them stronger than if you try to spread combat EXP among everyone deployable (not to mention, in ranked runs, healing is free EXP). Finally, staff users can't just heal, but can also use powerful tools like Warp and Silence. Those typically come lategame, sure, but dedicated staffbots will reach A in staves much sooner than mages whom you promoted to use staves on the side.

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21 hours ago, Reality said:

GBA Priest and Troubadours belong on the bench because you can use 100% vulneary healing up to the point of getting your first guiding ring and then just have your mage be your first staff user in chapter 11.

Once promoted priests and troubadours are great units so they are worth the effort. Of course, there's a lot of ways of playing the game though 

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On 1/12/2020 at 5:39 PM, eclipse said:

You can also kill off everyone except the lords and sell all of your weapons.  Just because you can doesn't mean it's a good idea.

What kind of idiot would do this? Just thinking about this makes me laugh.

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3 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

What kind of idiot would do this? Just thinking about this makes me laugh.

Someone who drafts Shadow Dragon!  😛

It's an illustration of something that's both possible and not necessarily a good idea.  Just like using vulneraries instead of a healer (because there's times where I want to heal more than 10 damage, thankyouverymuch).

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My unpopular FE opinion is that Kris was a genuinely good character. Maybe it's because I played Awakening and Fates first, but they never seemed spotlight stealing to me. Their characterization was, like a lot of Archanea characters, held back by them not having much development, I'll admit that, but I still just genuinely fell for this bodyguard and their ridiculous fashion sense. I loved their personality, I loved their design, I loved them as a unit. I'm so happy they exist in the series.

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2 hours ago, Lightningdawn said:

My unpopular FE opinion is that Kris was a genuinely good character. Maybe it's because I played Awakening and Fates first, but they never seemed spotlight stealing to me. Their characterization was, like a lot of Archanea characters, held back by them not having much development, I'll admit that, but I still just genuinely fell for this bodyguard and their ridiculous fashion sense. I loved their personality, I loved their design, I loved them as a unit. I'm so happy they exist in the series.

It was like many of archanea characters because they literallg stole other people lines, mostly Marth or Jeigan. This is the main reason they were stealing the spotlight. Every time Chris speak in the story, it's using a line that was used by someone else in fe3.

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9 hours ago, eclipse said:

Someone who drafts Shadow Dragon!  😛

It's an illustration of something that's both possible and not necessarily a good idea.  Just like using vulneraries instead of a healer (because there's times where I want to heal more than 10 damage, thankyouverymuch).

Oh, I meant in a non-challenge playthrough, just to complain that the game has poorly designed gameplay. Sorry, I worded that really poorly! :facepalm:

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Three Houses has good Map design.

Sure, they are no Conquest (then again, nothing in the series is as good as conquest in that aspect), but they are pretty damn good, better than like 80% of the series even, almost every map has multipe objectives, the enemies are high quality, which forces you to play player phase focused and split your army, and not just camp until you get overwhelmed by the reinforcements you didn't stop because you didn't do the side objectives.

And even though almost all maps are defeat commanders or rout, they are so while having another main objective that will fail you the map if you fail them. Like Defend an area, defend a green unit, stop enemies from escaping, defeat before allies, defeat more than enemies, etc.. Objective variety is there.

Sure, there are bad eggs (Petra/Bernie Paralogue, as an example), but every FE has those.

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2 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

Three Houses has good Map design.

Sure, they are no Conquest (then again, nothing in the series is as good as conquest in that aspect), but they are pretty damn good, better than like 80% of the series even, almost every map has multipe objectives, the enemies are high quality, which forces you to play player phase focused and split your army, and not just camp until you get overwhelmed by the reinforcements you didn't stop because you didn't do the side objectives.

And even though almost all maps are defeat commanders or rout, they are so while having another main objective that will fail you the map if you fail them. Like Defend an area, defend a green unit, stop enemies from escaping, defeat before allies, defeat more than enemies, etc.. Objective variety is there.

Sure, there are bad eggs (Petra/Bernie Paralogue, as an example), but every FE has those.

Off of this, my unpopular opinion, Conquest actually has pretty terrible map design. Well it has some stellar maps, but the really bad ones outweigh the really good ones.

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I’m very mixed on conquest’s map design personally. I love the early game chapters like chapters 8 and 10 especially because of how much it really tests your ability to think through obstacles with very limited resources. Chapter 10 specifically is probably my favorite map of any game I’ve played(which isn’t saying much I realize but still). The later maps though... Ehhh not as great like especially around chapter 18 and 20 is where things start going from fun and fair difficult to just resorting to bullshit gimmicks that do very little in the grand scheme of things and that’s not even to mention the final map.

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25 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Off of this, my unpopular opinion, Conquest actually has pretty terrible map design. Well it has some stellar maps, but the really bad ones outweigh the really good ones.

I have to agree here. From Chapter 18 onwards (a.k.a. Kotaro's Cave of 'What even is fun? LOL'), the maps became irritating to the point where each of them become an exercise in frustration, because all of them introduce some BS gimmick that you have to fight in addition to already beefy enemies (I'd even argue TOO beefy for what you're given for units).

I didn't have fun playing a single one of them, and I had to force myself to play through these to beat the game on Hard mode, because that was something I really wanted to do at least once. That Conquest has about the dumbest plot, second most irritating cast imagineable and probably the worst FE roster unit-wise didn't exactly do that game any favors.

2 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

Three Houses has good Map design.

Nevertheless, I'll agree with this, too.

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3 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

Three Houses has good Map design.

I wouldn’t say 3H has bad map design just repetitive map design in that you’ll probably seeing the exact same map several times over granted it is somewhat alleviated by having different objectives, starting points, units, etc. but at the end of day it’s still the same exact map which can get pretty tiresome after a while.

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2 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I wouldn’t say 3H has bad map design just repetitive map design in that you’ll probably seeing the exact same map several times over granted it is somewhat alleviated by having different objectives, starting points, units, etc. but at the end of day it’s still the same exact map which can get pretty tiresome after a while.

that i agree with, true.

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I would argue that Conquest's map design is the best in the series and that most of the games gimmicks aren't bullcrap as the player is given the resources to plan around and even exploit them. The vast majority of the time, it is still the players fault for loosing a unit and/or finding themselves in a bad situation, instead of the game doing something outside of the players control (and things like high hit rates missing at an inopportune time or enemies critting can be found in every Fire Emblem game).

That said, from chapter 17 onward is when they start consistently becoming more frustrating than fun to deal with. And it's not like all of them are bad ideas. I could see the wind chapter making for an engaging level in Echoes or Shadow Dragon, for instance, but because it's in Conquest, a game that can and will kill you if you don't pay attention, it just becomes another thing to keep track of, which ends up making the level a slog. I also think the illusion gimmick should have appeared in its own level first, so the player would understand how it works and how to plan around it so that when it reappears on the kitsune map, the player knows how the illusion mechanic works, but beastbane+pass puts a twist on their previous strategies.

***

Some unpopular opinions about Three Houses:

- The battle animations are really lackluster, and battalions in particular look unpolished.

- Visually speaking, the brawler and especially grappler classes have the worst designs in the series.

- While I understand why this was the case, Byleths lack of customizability does hurt how well they work as an avatar.

- This one may change when I start learning more about her character, but I found Petra's direction to be hit or miss. Sometimes she sounds like a foreigner still learning how to speak the language but is confident enough not to stutter, other times she sounds like she knows English just fine and just needs a thesaurus.

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I would argue thaf most of the series as vad map design because if you can beat a map by moving an overlevelled unit in the enemy range and push "end turn" then the map is bad(and every game give you an overlevveled unit the first chapter so it's not like you have to grind one).

Strategic maps imo need "bullshit" that force you to play around them, because whitout them the question became "how i do raise my numbers high enought that i don't need to strategize"? Hell, i even almost like the FFTA card system, and the almost is just because they sometimes are random an not predeterminated. 

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23 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

I would argue thaf most of the series as vad map design because if you can beat a map by moving an overlevelled unit in the enemy range and push "end turn" then the map is bad(and every game give you an overlevveled unit the first chapter so it's not like you have to grind one).

Strategic maps imo need "bullshit" that force you to play around them, because whitout them the question became "how i do raise my numbers high enought that i don't need to strategize"? Hell, i even almost like the FFTA card system, and the almost is just because they sometimes are random an not predeterminated. 

What's your idea of good map design?  Doesn't have to be from FE, either.

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