What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[NaotoUzumaki]

Exactly they market the game story before having good gameplay. I mean I love Fire emblem but 1: make good gameplay and map design that are challenging but fun then you can make character and story. I mean no disrespect but if the game is a chore to play instead of fun. You should reconsider before character and story if you’re gameplay is fun enough for people to continue through that why game tester are important. 

[Samz707]

19 minutes ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

Exactly they market the game story before having good gameplay. I mean I love Fire emblem but 1: make good gameplay and map design that are challenging but fun then you can make character and story. I mean no disrespect but if the game is a chore to play instead of fun. You should reconsider before character and story if you’re gameplay is fun enough for people to continue through that why game tester are important. 

Yeah Good Gameplay should always come first, especially since well, Awakening and Three house's attempts at giving people more character stuff kinda fall completely flat for me to the point where it'd have been better if they didn't try the Monestary/Barracks system at all.

I feel alot of games that try to have story over gameplay ironically end up having worse stories in my experience.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Samz707

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, starburst said:

The five, ten or sixty minutes that the replay may take are the price that I paid for the bet that I lost. Or I let the unit die (less common.)

Pulsing and re-running the turn takes time as well. This is a difference not of type, but of degree.

4 hours ago, starburst said:

Using the magical Wheel and restarting a chapter are not equal, and you know it. The former implies that every single move and roll up to that point would always be exactly the same, which is not true. Every run is unique, precisely because chance is factored; you adapt on every change. And it is naïve to think that every single move of your previous run was the best that it can be.

Every move up until a point is the same, though. When you reset the chapter, that point is the start of the chapter. Nothing before that point changes. When you use Divine Pulse, that point is the start, or perhaps middle, of a turn. Difference of degree, not type.

4 hours ago, starburst said:

I laugh when an improbable hit or miss happens to me and a unit dies. I may not replay the map immediately, but there is nothing to complain about, I simply lost a bet. And I enjoy replaying maps; the resets certainly help me improve my game play. I try different approaches, get to know the units thresholds.

I do not celebrate when I miss and die, but it is part of the game. One can dodge precisely because one can miss, they are two sides of the same principle. I do my best to prevent it and succeed, but missing is always an option.

If that's the way you enjoy playing, more power to you. I personally prefer using Pulse, when available, to full chapter resets.

4 hours ago, starburst said:

If chance is part of the game, Rewinding after a bad roll is contradictory to the game itself. There is no thrill when there are no consequences.

What you see as a game of chance, I see as a game of numbers. The challenge, and enjoyment to me, comes from preparing a team in such a way that my own numbers can beat those set forth by the computer. Divine Pulse lets me adjust to numbers that are unknown to me (the RN). Maybe it sounds cynical, but that's how I enjoy experiencing a game like Three Houses.

58 minutes ago, Whisky said:

don't disagree with you, but the counter argument would be that older games without Divine Pulse already had bad game design. I say just design the games fairly to begin with and then we won't need Divine Pulse, so remove it. Any death at that point would be your own fault.

Yeah, FE6's Wyvern Hell existed long before any kind of Divine Pulsing. Ideally, they'd just get rid of Same-Turn-Reinforcements entirely. Personally, though, I'd prefer they keep rewind as an option (it's never been "needed", even on 3H Maddening) . But include a ranking system that nicks the player for using it. And a menu option to turn it off, I think, would be reasonable. 

[Jotari]

Just make Divine Pulse go back a single turn and limit it to like three rewinds per map and your golden. I don't think redoing something without starting the whole map again in theory is a bad idea. It's just way too OP the way it's been implemented now. Compare battle saves to Shadow Dragons two map based save points, which were pretty good if you ignore the fact that they cam at the cost of a unit's turn.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Jotari

[null]

1 hour ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

Exactly they market the game story before having good gameplay. I mean I love Fire emblem but 1: make good gameplay and map design that are challenging but fun then you can make character and story. I mean no disrespect but if the game is a chore to play instead of fun. You should reconsider before character and story if you’re gameplay is fun enough for people to continue through that why game tester are important. 

I would disagree with that. Gameplay may be good, but if the story is crap then the overall experience suffers. Look at Fates. The gameplay was solid, but the story and characters were poor, making the game significantly less enjoyable to play through.

A great story can usually make up for lackluster gameplay, imo. Look at Path of Radiance. Not the greatest FE gameplay experience, but the world and characters more than make up for it if you ask me.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

I would disagree with that. Gameplay may be good, but if the story is crap then the overall experience suffers. Look at Fates. The gameplay was solid, but the story and characters were poor, making the game significantly less enjoyable to play through.

A great story can usually make up for lackluster gameplay, imo. Look at Path of Radiance. Not the greatest FE gameplay experience, but the world and characters more than make up for it if you ask me.

The thing is, you can skip a bad story, and eventually you'll probably even want to skip a good story. By contrast, you can't skip bad gameplay, and if you want to skip good gameplay... well let's just say I can't think of such a circumstance off the top of my head.

[Shrimpica]

Myself i am in the ''Gameplay first, Story last'' faction. There's a reason, that despite having one of the worst stories and characters i ever met in fiction, i still rank Conquest among my top 10 games of all time, and my 3rd fav. FE.

I'd rather both be good, of course, but if i have to decide, i would choose gameplay anyday.

Not to mention i think Characters are more important than the Story itself

Edited September 1, 2020 by Shrimperor

[Ottservia]

Just now, twilitfalchion said:

I would disagree with that. Gameplay may be good, but if the story is crap then the overall experience suffers. Look at Fates. The gameplay was solid, but the story and characters were poor, making the game significantly less enjoyable to play through.

A great story can usually make up for lackluster gameplay, imo. Look at Path of Radiance. Not the greatest FE gameplay experience, but the world and characters more than make up for it if you ask me.

I disagree with this immensely. If a game is not fun to play I’m not gonna play it. I don’t give a damn how good the writing is if the game is a boring slog to play through. When it comes to video games gameplay should always take priority. With fates I can skip the story if I don’t care about it. I don’t have to sit through the story at all if I don’t want to and just get to the fun and engaging gameplay. However, in a game like say 3H, I have to slog boring repetitive map after boring repetitive map in order to get more of the story. I can’t skip the gameplay. I can skip the story all I want with just one click of a button but you cannot skip the gameplay because that’s the core of the experience. It doesn’t matter how good the writing is if the core of the experience(the gameplay) sucks then there’s no reason for me to continue playing so that I can experience the story. Your logic here is just kinda backwards if you ask me

[NaotoUzumaki]

That true about fate but look at it this way. They perfect the example above that I’ve written. Now first thing they should do is ask themselves questions like . Ex: is Byleth really needed to be Sothis vessal? My take is no. Edelgard could’ve have been that since the wiki says she has the major crest of flame. If they wanted cats and dog and an a Avatar. This should have been free updates. Again if Byleth is not needed as day 1 release why bother the real problem is how they manage their priorities/money/ressources during development 

[null]

Those are definitely fair points to make. I'd say it's all a matter of what one's priorities are in gaming. For me personally, I'd rather have characters to connect to and a story to be immersed in than the most optimal gameplay experience if I had to choose between the two.

[Jotari]

30 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

The thing is, you can skip a bad story, and eventually you'll probably even want to skip a good story. By contrast, you can't skip bad gameplay, and if you want to skip good gameplay... well let's just say I can't think of such a circumstance off the top of my head.

Well you could look up the cutscenes on youtube. That'd be skipping the gameplay. And a few games do have some kind of theater mode which presents the story as a series of cutscenes (funnily enough Other M is a game that did this particularly well but then went and got a reputation as the most derided story in video games).

Not that this comment is really adding anything to the conversation...

[Lightcosmo]

41 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

I would disagree with that. Gameplay may be good, but if the story is crap then the overall experience suffers. Look at Fates. The gameplay was solid, but the story and characters were poor, making the game significantly less enjoyable to play through.

A great story can usually make up for lackluster gameplay, imo. Look at Path of Radiance. Not the greatest FE gameplay experience, but the world and characters more than make up for it if you ask me.

I agree with this in a lot of ways, but I also agree on the other end. Both are very important I think, but gameplay is a bit more so, if only a small bit.

I still think story is very important, though.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

22 minutes ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

That true about fate but look at it this way. They perfect the example above that I’ve written. Now first thing they should do is ask themselves questions like . Ex: is Byleth really needed to be Sothis vessal? My take is no. Edelgard could’ve have been that since the wiki says she has the major crest of flame. If they wanted cats and dog and an a Avatar. This should have been free updates. Again if Byleth is not needed as day 1 release why bother the real problem is how they manage their priorities/money/ressources during development 

If Byleth isn't the Sothis vessel, then we lose her "inner voice" while playing as Byleth. Which means that the super-bland character that Byleth is after the fusion, now they are for the whole game.

38 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Just make Divine Pulse go back a single turn and limit it to like three rewinds per map and your golden. I don't think redoing something without starting the whole map again in theory is a bad idea. It's just way too OP the way it's been implemented now. Compare battle saves to Shadow Dragons two map based save points, which were pretty good if you ignore the fact that they cam at the cost of a unit's turn.

For my part, I'd be cool with either of these. I think having limited pulses (3? 5? I forget exactly) worked well on the "Cindered Shadows" campaign - it allows for a few mistakes, or bad RNs, while still applying the pressure in rather short order. Maybe scale the number on the size or challenge level of the map (i.e. 2 for Aux battles, 4 for certain story maps/paralogues, 5 for the endgame? just spitballing here).

And while I like the Pulse, it's a shame that DS map saves never came back. Heck, Fates could have included certain Dragon's Veins that allowed for a mid-map save. In the unlikely event that they scrap rewinding, I would call DS-style saves the next best thing.

34 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I disagree with this immensely. If a game is not fun to play I’m not gonna play it. I don’t give a damn how good the writing is if the game is a boring slog to play through. When it comes to video games gameplay should always take priority. With fates I can skip the story if I don’t care about it. I don’t have to sit through the story at all if I don’t want to and just get to the fun and engaging gameplay. However, in a game like say 3H, I have to slog boring repetitive map after boring repetitive map in order to get more of the story. I can’t skip the gameplay. I can skip the story all I want with just one click of a button but you cannot skip the gameplay because that’s the core of the experience. It doesn’t matter how good the writing is if the core of the experience(the gameplay) sucks then there’s no reason for me to continue playing so that I can experience the story. Your logic here is just kinda backwards if you ask me

Technically, don't the last few games have an auto-battle option? I find it bewildering, and have never really used it. But I guess if you want to skip gameplay (and maybe get half your atmy killed, not sure how clever it is), it's there.

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

If Byleth isn't the Sothis vessel, then we lose her "inner voice" while playing as Byleth. Which means that the super-bland character that Byleth is after the fusion, now they are for the whole game.

For my part, I'd be cool with either of these. I think having limited pulses (3? 5? I forget exactly) worked well on the "Cindered Shadows" campaign - it allows for a few mistakes, or bad RNs, while still applying the pressure in rather short order. Maybe scale the number on the size or challenge level of the map (i.e. 2 for Aux battles, 4 for certain story maps/paralogues, 5 for the endgame? just spitballing here).

And while I like the Pulse, it's a shame that DS map saves never came back. Heck, Fates could have included certain Dragon's Veins that allowed for a mid-map save. In the unlikely event that they scrap rewinding, I would call DS-style saves the next best thing.

Technically, don't the last few games have an auto-battle option? I find it bewildering, and have never really used it. But I guess if you want to skip gameplay (and maybe get half your atmy killed, not sure how clever it is), it's there.

For fun once I decided if I could use a combination of casual mode, retreat and auto battle to see if I could clear Shadows of Valentia without making any decisions of my own beyond what when to stop and retreat. I think I got as far as Duma tower before I actually hit a wall and grinding (or actually playing the game) would be necessary to get by. It didn't even take that long with the whole skipping all the cutscenes and gameplay being avilable.

Once again, this comment adds practically nothing to the conversation. But dammnit I'm still going to make it!

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

For fun once I decided if I could use a combination of casual mode, retreat and auto battle to see if I could clear Shadows of Valentia without making any decisions of my own beyond what when to stop and retreat. I think I got as far as Duma tower before I actually hit a wall and grinding (or actually playing the game) would be necessary to get by. It didn't even take that long with the whole skipping all the cutscenes and gameplay being avilable.

Once again, this comment adds practically nothing to the conversation. But dammnit I'm still going to make it!

Hey, I was curious, so this is appreciated feedback. Kinda depressing to think that I could make it through these games much quicker by letting the computer decide for me, haha.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Hey, I was curious, so this is appreciated feedback. Kinda depressing to think that I could make it through these games much quicker by letting the computer decide for me, haha.

Mind you this only applies to Shadows of Valentia. In other games even on casual you'd probably hit a wall early on where your team can't beat the map. It's just retreat is really freaking busted in Shadows of Valentia. I'm surprised more people don't critisize it. It's essentially a battle save that also heals all your units at the cost of a few minutes of moving across the map to get back to the position you were previously.

[Benice]

1 hour ago, twilitfalchion said:

Gameplay may be good, but if the story is crap then the overall experience suffers.

I mostly disagree; bad stories can be skipped, and I can always watch an uncommentated playthrough of a game if I want to see that story. I do, however, agree that a good plot augments the game. If I didn't enjoy Berwick's plot, for example, I may have quit because I am horrendous at it. I do enjoy plots, and they can prompt me to continue playing the game, but whether I enjoyed it or not generally comes down to the gameplay. Of course, for me to truly despise a game, I mostly require it to have a plot I dislike and bad gameplay.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Myself i am in the ''Gameplay first, Story last'' faction.

Why do you like Three houses then?

[Shrimpica]

13 minutes ago, Benice said:

Why do you like Three houses then?

I enjoy 3H gameplay...

Mostly.

It's no Conquest, but i find 3H better than 80% of the series.

Other than Conquest, only Thracia and RD i would put above 3H gameplay wise, and T776 has the Kaga surprise bs, and RD has part 4 which made me rate 3H higher than them.

And while i do care about gameplay more, if i enjoy both gameplay and Story i'd rate the game higher above a game where i enjoyed gameplay only

Edited September 2, 2020 by Shrimperor

[Benice]

Just now, Shrimperor said:

I enjoy 3H gameplay...

Mostly.

It's no Conquest, but i find 3H better than 80% of the series.

I jest, I jest. Most people really like it, so I'm probably wrong.

[starburst]

58 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Every move up until a point is the same, though [...] Difference of degree, not type.

Then I did not express myself clearly. Every run is unique because the probability of landing and missing the exact same hits up to the turn when you reset approaches exponentially to zero after every interaction. This is not an opinion but a fact. Do the maths and you will see.

After only a few turns with a couple of encounters, the probability of replicating the exact same rolls is already a millesimal fraction. If you reset, you have to retry every single action. You may fare better or worse, but it will certainly be different. Instead, the holy Wheel defies all odds, assumes that everything that happened will happen, and lets you retry only the one action whose consequence you disliked.
 

59 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

What you see as a game of chance, I see as a game of numbers. The challenge, and enjoyment to me, comes from preparing a team in such a way that my own numbers can beat those set forth by the computer.

Do you grind in other RPG’s, so that the numbers of your party are better than the numbers of your enemies?

 

24 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Just make Divine Pulse go back a single turn and limit it to like three rewinds per map and your golden. I don't think redoing something without starting the whole map again in theory is a bad idea. It's just way too OP the way it's been implemented now.

If misses were kept across Rewinds, I might agree with you. This way one would Rewind upon actual mistakes.

 

22 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Look at Fates. The gameplay was solid, but the story and characters were poor, making the game significantly less enjoyable to play through.

In Conquest, you can press Start to avoid every scene and conversation and still enjoy 18-20 hours of engaging game play.
In Four Houses, you cannot press Start to avoid every map. (And you are left with an animated video.)

[NaotoUzumaki]

As I said make Edelgard that role and Sothis the narrator again their priorities on 3houses should have been gameplay since the way they made it you can’t skip the conversation or story. Again Sothis with Byleth have some merit but I would have added Byleth and avatar as free updates again. The devs in conference should have been “ okay team what the theme/lore for this game. Ok its settled now which of those ideas are not needed at day 1 release

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, starburst said:

If misses were kept across Rewinds, I might agree with you. This way one would Rewind upon actual mistakes.

I don't quite understand. Are you saying that you agree to the idea of making it less powerful or that you would agree with me if misses were kept in such a system? I'm pretty sure right now misses are kept when you rewind, but this isn't a massive detriment as it means you just need to burn some rng by doing other stuff before attempting that attack again. If it's significantly limited thought then you wouldn't be free to try to burn the rng five or so times to get the attack you need.

[lenticular]

A genuine question for the "gameplay reigns supreme" crowd: what is it that draws you to Fire Emblem specifically in preference over the many other strategy and tactics games that exist?

I ask because I've never considered the core tactical gameplay of Fire Emblem to be particularly strong. It's not bad, by any means, but I think I would mostly describe it as unremarkable. If we removed all the story and characters and all the other fluff and pared everything down to an abstract game, then I don't think that Fire Emblem would hold my interest very long at all. There are many other strategy and tactics games that I would rather be playing instead. Chess would probably be the big one for me, but also XCOM, Battletech, Bloodbowl, Europa Universalis, Go, etc.

Except that, obviously, I do like Fire Emblem a whole lot, otherwise I wouldn't be here. For me the big unique selling point that Fire Emblem has over any of the other games I just mentioned is its characters, worldbuilding and story (in that order of preference, for me). Those are the things that can make me choose to sit down and play a Fire Emblem game in preference to some other tactics/stratgey game.

Hence my question. Why Fire Emblem? I don't mean this as some sort of trap question. There's clearly something that you find compelling about the series, and your reasons and your tastes are every bit as legitimate as mine. I just don't understand what they are, and I would like to.

[Ottservia]

4 minutes ago, lenticular said:

A genuine question for the "gameplay reigns supreme" crowd: what is it that draws you to Fire Emblem specifically in preference over the many other strategy and tactics games that exist?

I ask because I've never considered the core tactical gameplay of Fire Emblem to be particularly strong. It's not bad, by any means, but I think I would mostly describe it as unremarkable. If we removed all the story and characters and all the other fluff and pared everything down to an abstract game, then I don't think that Fire Emblem would hold my interest very long at all. There are many other strategy and tactics games that I would rather be playing instead. Chess would probably be the big one for me, but also XCOM, Battletech, Bloodbowl, Europa Universalis, Go, etc.

Except that, obviously, I do like Fire Emblem a whole lot, otherwise I wouldn't be here. For me the big unique selling point that Fire Emblem has over any of the other games I just mentioned is its characters, worldbuilding and story (in that order of preference, for me). Those are the things that can make me choose to sit down and play a Fire Emblem game in preference to some other tactics/stratgey game.

Hence my question. Why Fire Emblem? I don't mean this as some sort of trap question. There's clearly something that you find compelling about the series, and your reasons and your tastes are every bit as legitimate as mine. I just don't understand what they are, and I would like to.

Personally I do play Fire Emblem mostly for its story and characters. I find gameplay to be the most important aspect obviously because well if I didn’t find the gameplay fun then I wouldn’t have stuck around as long as I have. Fire Emblem’s gameplay is simple but it’s the fun kind of simple. It can create tense situations that get me to think and I like playing with it’s mechanics also some Fire Emblem games kinda scratch that kinda theory crafting itch that I have to see how easily I can just break the game with an overpowered unit of mass destruction. That’s just how I am with rpgs in general I just like seeing how much I can break this game. It also takes advantage of the part of my brain that likes to tick things off of a checklist. I dunno how to explain it but a good map will have me engaged through constant danger at every turn and having to constantly check every little calculation and I like that.

[Benice]

5 minutes ago, lenticular said:

A genuine question for the "gameplay reigns supreme" crowd: what is it that draws you to Fire Emblem specifically in preference over the many other strategy and tactics games that exist?

I've only played two (Or technically three) franchises for Tactical RPGs- FE and Advance wars, (Also KagaSaga, but that's FE in my opinion.) and the amount of fun I've had with the diverse amounts of units is immeasurable-Taking FE6 for an example, even the bad units have some kind of merit to them once trained that another unit in the same class won't have. Except for Wendy. Taking Lot, for example. He's not your typical fighter as a character or unit-He's built on defense and to some extent speed rather than power, whereas Wade is the fighteriest fighter who ever fought-Stronk with copious HP, but das it, yet his massive strength still has its benefits, even if Bartre can also do that job.

Same with Berwick Saga. There's three myrmidon-ish units,  but they're all so different-Heck, Faye is easily my favorite unit in the franchise because she's just so fun to use, even if she's bad. Really, same with every FE game I've played, even the ones I disliked-FE7, FE9, FE4... They all had good mechanics and a variety of units. I've only played one Advance wars game, (and haven't finished it) and even though I enjoyed it, it didn't scratch the itch that the permadeath and your decisions being indelible FE did. I just like the system that most FE games are based on, and I hope the series does return to that.

I do like the characters and plots and whatnot, though. I just think that a good story does not a game make-FE9 or FE4 being prime examples. they have decent stories (FE4's in particlar), but that doesn't change the fact that they're a real slog to get through.