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What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?


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Just to not more fuel to the fire. Can the games make the choice I chose relevant? I really hate that my choice are really unimportant unless a few. Example:Like in awakening  why bother customize Robin is He/She have their defined choice or path decided. I think FE should not force a choice early on like 3Houses and Fates where there a lot of recycling. I have nothing against choosing a choose or side but I hate having to choose something only for it to almost never matter.  PS: it not a avatar rant it more of a game design rant just to clarify in case 

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10 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Blazing Blade's story problems were never with characters, only the plot. How Blazing Blade handled its characters is down right impressive, and some of the better storytelling in the franchise, and that holds for even minor villains like this.

Good point. Nergal is the exception to the rule, since I find that he's an interesting concept presented very badly, but otherwise you're completely right.

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On 11/4/2021 at 12:17 PM, NaotoUzumaki said:

Just to not more fuel to the fire. Can the games make the choice I chose relevant? I really hate that my choice are really unimportant unless a few. Example:Like in awakening  why bother customize Robin is He/She have their defined choice or path decided. I think FE should not force a choice early on like 3Houses and Fates where there a lot of recycling. I have nothing against choosing a choose or side but I hate having to choose something only for it to almost never matter.  PS: it not a avatar rant it more of a game design rant just to clarify in case 

i get you, 3H is almost as bad as mass effect 3, despite the whole game (ME3, not 3H) is about choice. except in 3H you already choose the pre-defined ending the moment you choose what class to teach. an FE3H that doesnt need you choose class at all might have better/interesting branching outcome based on your decision, but i dont know either how to make it work 😕

i guess SRPG are just harder structurally to make meaningful branching path or make choices relevancy bigger, without making the workload for the developer exponentially bigger

 

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That the problem with MC Avatar. They have to be Mary Sues. This is they forgot that to make a living breathing world character have to die or leaves via any means like Keyblade without making the world be like : yo Byleth the world cannot unpause without you. If removing any character causes this effect than it not an MC that you have it a plot device. A good thing good writers will do is create a fanfic level character and see if removing this random is inconsequential. If not we’ll you know something is wrong in your writing. Best way to vote is with your wallet then. Eventually they WILL HAVE NO CHOICE TO GET IT. Sigh I need a break….

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10 hours ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

A good thing good writers will do is create a fanfic level character and see if removing this random is inconsequential. If not we’ll you know something is wrong in your writing.

Avatars suck and are Mary Sues, but this idea is completely wrong. If removing a character is inconsequential (on gameplay, story, etc.) then they are a useless character and should be cut. A character who is not consequential in some way has no reason to be there. The problem with avatars is being too important, not that they're important at all.

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I don't know if this is entirely unpopular or not, but I think EVERYONE being able to have support conversations with almost EVERYONE else has been more of a detriment than an improvement. Don't get me wrong, having lots of options is usually a good thing, and it can definitely help really flesh out a character. But I feel that since Awakening started that trend, too many characters have seemed kind of...I dunno what single word to us. A lot of characters seem like they "reset" with every support, so a lot of them feel like slightly altered repeats, and whatever character development happened in one support is reset and lost in another. I know this probably isn't limited to newer games in the series, but it definitely seems far more prominent now, since there's so many dang supports.

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48 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

I don't know if this is entirely unpopular or not, but I think EVERYONE being able to have support conversations with almost EVERYONE else has been more of a detriment than an improvement. Don't get me wrong, having lots of options is usually a good thing, and it can definitely help really flesh out a character. But I feel that since Awakening started that trend, too many characters have seemed kind of...I dunno what single word to us. A lot of characters seem like they "reset" with every support, so a lot of them feel like slightly altered repeats, and whatever character development happened in one support is reset and lost in another. I know this probably isn't limited to newer games in the series, but it definitely seems far more prominent now, since there's so many dang supports.

I don’t find it a problem at all. Supports are one of my favorite things about Fire Emblem as well as the paired ending system, which is a strong selling point compared to other RPGs. I love how Three Houses had fully voiced and animated supports, and how certain dialogue would change depending on the setting or who was in your army. I can’t imagine how much time it took to record. 

And besides, only the Avatar characters can support with  strictly everyone.

Thinking about it more, the lack of supports and paired endings are a big reason why I struggle to enjoy the older title. While it is true that Echoes had the first fully voiced supports, I was sorely disappointed how uneven the supports were overall. Silque only had one support, while Clair had three. And then there are no paired endings for characters. I still believe Alm deserved Clair over Celica.

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I was talking about the avatar that intys is so fond of to clarify. My point is for these still stands as it reeks of plot armor and devalues the MC regardless of avatar making mistakes and being hold accountable. Pain breeds growth and if the character don’t fuck up they can’t learn from it. Hence if the world stop with Byleth gone it plot armor and Mary Sue lvl of fanfic. As much as my user name reeks of fanfic level tip I genuinely hate Naruto over protectiveness of Sasuke to point where a war almost started because he beg the raikage and he got a slap on the wrist in the form of a panic attack. Point is if the world wait for Byleth every time it’s not realistic as people are fighting they won’t care about this random merc their leader is fond of just because. 

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Not sure how unpopular this is, but I find that, despite often getting the shorter end of the stick in terms of relevance, the female lords are more interesting than the male ones. 

Celica, despite her really dumb moment in Act 4, has a devoutness I rarely see in protagonists. 

Lyn coming from both nomadic and noble heritage gives her an interesting viewpoint in the world of pollitics.

Micaiah`s love to her country and the lengths she goes to protect it is facinating to me.

Lucina, while lacking in focus, has her moments, like getting to enjoy simple joys she never had in her future, or being willing to kill her father`s closest friend for the sake of peace.

Edelgard speaks for herself at this point.

The only case I would argue it is the other way around, for me at least, is Eirika, as I find her rather meh when compared to Ephriam.

Not to say any of these ladies are perfectly written by any stretch, Lyn in particular has some wasted potential in my opinion, I just find them more interesting than their male counterparts in their respective games. Not to say I hate any of those male lords though.

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35 minutes ago, Metal Flash said:

Not sure how unpopular this is, but I find that, despite often getting the shorter end of the stick in terms of relevance, the female lords are more interesting than the male ones. 

It's probably not a scorching hot Only-zero-point-five-percent-will-agree take. :lol: I, for one, would agree with this word by word, pretty much, with the obligatory dissent over what female lords I like the most. Fire Emblem has been very thoroughly shoving aside its female leads, with Eirika being the only real pre-3H exception (no comment on 3H, still mostly ignorant about it). I guess Micaiah at least gets taken over by another female character, so that's progress...?

--

I'll give this one a try: Ambush spawns are, in principle, always better than end-of-EP reinforcements.

Yes, it's frustrating to lose a squishy healer to a sudden wyvern, but...

  • Reinforcements can be telegraphed - by forts and stairs to mark where they'll appear; by a short dialogue to warn the player when they appear. The latter can be the cliché boss gloat, or the lord hearing voices from whatever direction you'll be attacked from.
  • Map saves or, more lately, rewind mechanics have become a series staples. The problem with nasty surprises before the DS games was that if they pop up on, say, turn 11, getting bitten in the bum will force you to reproduce your solution to the first 10 turns. That's both dull and frustrating, but not really an issue when you can go back to a point that allows you to preempt the nasty surprise in time. (Related unpopular opinion: While save state spamming makes the GBA games much worse, they actually become better if you have the self-discipline to limit youself to one single save state per map)
  • End-of-EP reinforcements are fucking lame. Spawn-camping the enemy is dumb and should not be so easily done.
  • I have all the respect for players who decide to do a blind ironman run. But it's still kinda their own fault.

 

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3 hours ago, Metal Flash said:

Not sure how unpopular this is, but I find that, despite often getting the shorter end of the stick in terms of relevance, the female lords are more interesting than the male ones. 

I think most female lord stands out more due to Fire Emblem being so devoted to their archetypes. Just like many other classes lords very strongly resemble each other. Either they're a variant of Marth or they're a variant of Hector. Female lords have some more room to be their own characters. Michy, Celica, Lyn and Edelgard don't really share much resemblance to each other in the way that Eliwood or Marth do.

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23 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

 A lot of characters seem like they "reset" with every support, so a lot of them feel like slightly altered repeats, and whatever character development happened in one support is reset and lost in another. I know this probably isn't limited to newer games in the series, but it definitely seems far more prominent now, since there's so many dang supports.

support in FE (afaik) supposed to be character growth/development, but it happen in a vacuum.. hence the problem you mentioned. post awakening FE especially, every support never consider other event happening in another support, so we see similar to exact behavior repeating with different subject for same level of support. but the fact that some support are locked until certain point game like in 3H actually mitigate that problem a bit. assuming you advance every support evenly, so their character development kinda even for every support

6 hours ago, pong said:

I'll give this one a try: Ambush spawns are, in principle, always better than end-of-EP reinforcements.

very daring subject. i commend you

7 hours ago, Metal Flash said:

Not sure how unpopular this is, but I find that, despite often getting the shorter end of the stick in terms of relevance, the female lords are more interesting than the male ones.

i would rather have flawed female protag than a character that know no fault because the plot will correct itself if said character make mistake

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Yup I prefer flawed character also. I’ll take a relatable protagonist everyday of the week over a Mary Sue. The only Mary I’ll even consider worth having a vague interest is those who earned it by working their butts off and deserve it. Especially if they are called out on their mistakes making the other character useful. This shows that power doesn’t fix everything. 

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6 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think most female lord stands out more due to Fire Emblem being so devoted to their archetypes. Just like many other classes lords very strongly resemble each other. Either they're a variant of Marth or they're a variant of Hector. Female lords have some more room to be their own characters. Michy, Celica, Lyn and Edelgard don't really share much resemblance to each other in the way that Eliwood or Marth do.

What are you talking about? Elmwood and Marry are completely different characters. Marty has blue hair and Eliwood has red hair, thus they are completely different.

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2 hours ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

Yup I prefer flawed character also. I’ll take a relatable protagonist everyday of the week over a Mary Sue. The only Mary I’ll even consider worth having a vague interest is those who earned it by working their butts off and deserve it. Especially if they are called out on their mistakes making the other character useful. This shows that power doesn’t fix everything. 

Says the Naruto fan who stars a privileged youth that didn’t have to work for anything.

if you couldn’t already tell I’m being sarcastic 

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11 hours ago, pong said:

I'll give this one a try: Ambush spawns are, in principle, always better than end-of-EP reinforcements.

Yes, it's frustrating to lose a squishy healer to a sudden wyvern, but...

  • Reinforcements can be telegraphed - by forts and stairs to mark where they'll appear; by a short dialogue to warn the player when they appear. The latter can be the cliché boss gloat, or the lord hearing voices from whatever direction you'll be attacked from.
  • Map saves or, more lately, rewind mechanics have become a series staples. The problem with nasty surprises before the DS games was that if they pop up on, say, turn 11, getting bitten in the bum will force you to reproduce your solution to the first 10 turns. That's both dull and frustrating, but not really an issue when you can go back to a point that allows you to preempt the nasty surprise in time. (Related unpopular opinion: While save state spamming makes the GBA games much worse, they actually become better if you have the self-discipline to limit youself to one single save state per map)
  • End-of-EP reinforcements are fucking lame. Spawn-camping the enemy is dumb and should not be so easily done.
  • I have all the respect for players who decide to do a blind ironman run. But it's still kinda their own fault.

The problem I have with this is that nothing here actually explains why they're better. Your first point talks about how to implement them in the best way, second is just excusing their existence due to current-gen mechanics, third I'll touch on below, and the last isn't really anything.

Now for that third point...While I agree that spawn-camping is kinda dumb, it's easy to just say that reinforcements shouldn't appear in a way that they're easily spawn-camped, which is the same "in principle" logic you're applying to ambush spawns. There are too many examples in the series for me to start listing, arguably more than those that are just easily spawn-campable.

I would argue that end-of-turn reinforcements are better than ambush spawns because:

  • Ambush spawns slow players down. If you see the enemy, you can plan accordingly. If all you know is that an enemy is coming, you may feel the need to avoid that area completely.
  • It's tough to telegraph ambush spawns in an organic way. You even called it a "cliché boss gloat" yourself. And the more times a game does it, the harder it gets, because repeating the same process gets old.
  • Map saves and rewind mechanics aren't a good excuse imo. That's still resetting - just not as far back - for something that players may feel isn't their fault. Even a 1% crit is a known risk, but if an ambush spawn with a hammer comes and kills your general, that just feels unfair.

I will add, however, that I think ambush spawns as a one or two-map gimmick per game could work, just to keep things interesting. And it should be part of the theme in some way, like the group is being chased by assassins or something. But I wouldn't want it all game.

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11 hours ago, pong said:

Ambush spawns are, in principle, always better than end-of-EP reinforcements.

I've been playing a lot of fe7 hnm draft race lately and let me tell you: I would sacrifice my firstborn to make the cavalier reinforcements on chapter 25 ambush spawns. That chapter is made so so so so much more difficult by the fact that those cavaliers on the forts don't move right away. I'm over here trying to low man and I get literally stonewalled for 6 turns straight :(

I guess this is my way of saying I disagree. I think ambush spawns are fine in the circumstances where they appear, and end-of-turn ambush spawns are fine when they appear.

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1 hour ago, Florete said:

The problem I have with this is that nothing here actually explains why they're better. Your first point talks about how to implement them in the best way, second is just excusing their existence due to current-gen mechanics, third I'll touch on below, and the last isn't really anything.

Now for that third point...While I agree that spawn-camping is kinda dumb, it's easy to just say that reinforcements shouldn't appear in a way that they're easily spawn-camped, which is the same "in principle" logic you're applying to ambush spawns. There are too many examples in the series for me to start listing, arguably more than those that are just easily spawn-campable.

I would argue that end-of-turn reinforcements are better than ambush spawns because:

  • Ambush spawns slow players down. If you see the enemy, you can plan accordingly. If all you know is that an enemy is coming, you may feel the need to avoid that area completely.
  • It's tough to telegraph ambush spawns in an organic way. You even called it a "cliché boss gloat" yourself. And the more times a game does it, the harder it gets, because repeating the same process gets old.
  • Map saves and rewind mechanics aren't a good excuse imo. That's still resetting - just not as far back - for something that players may feel isn't their fault. Even a 1% crit is a known risk, but if an ambush spawn with a hammer comes and kills your general, that just feels unfair.

I will add, however, that I think ambush spawns as a one or two-map gimmick per game could work, just to keep things interesting. And it should be part of the theme in some way, like the group is being chased by assassins or something. But I wouldn't want it all game.

When people say Ambush Spawns the first map that comes to mind to me is the Minerva Map in Shadow Dragon. The first one, with the white wings. And reading what you say about it working as a one or two map gimmick, I think I rather like them there.  They're very telegraphed for one. They come from forts you can block for two and they're centred on the lower half of the map with a lot of room to retreat in the north. There's also terrain that makes it difficult for them to all get to you at once, so if you blind trigger them you'll likely only get hit by one enemy (yet they're Cavaliers, so they'll still get to you pretty quickly meaning you will get swarmed if you can't control things). Overall they're predictable and provides a good challenge for seizing the boss's area.

Edited by Jotari
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16 hours ago, pong said:

Ambush spawns are, in principle, always better than end-of-EP reinforcements.

Alright, this is more like it. Here we have an unpopular opinion

Cannot disagree harder. Ambush spawns are never fun imo. They can easily blindside you and kill one of your units without warning. Sure, spawn camping is lame, but an enemy Wyvern Rider coming out of nowhere and smashing your Knight with their hammer is much worse if you ask me. Even with the best telegraphed ambush spawns, you have no way of knowing their equipment or what class they are, which means you can`t properly prepare. Also, saves and rewind mechanics isn`t a good excuse.

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18 hours ago, pong said:
  • I have all the respect for players who decide to do a blind ironman run. But it's still kinda their own fault.

Having just done a blind ironman of Shadow Dragon, I resent this remark.

That said you're not totally wrong. The cool thing about an ironman is that a unit might actually die and you'd have to use someone else,. Ambush spawns kind of work for that. They make great punishment for players trying to boss abuse.

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19 hours ago, pong said:

Map saves or, more lately, rewind mechanics have become a series staples. The problem with nasty surprises before the DS games was that if they pop up on, say, turn 11, getting bitten in the bum will force you to reproduce your solution to the first 10 turns. That's both dull and frustrating, but not really an issue when you can go back to a point that allows you to preempt the nasty surprise in time.

It is hearing fans say stuff like this that has me scared shitless about the future of the series. Talking about rewinds and save-scumming like it should be the standard way to play Fire Emblem games, and that it makes the implementation of unfair bullshit not only okay, but preferable.

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3 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Ambush Spawns have never bothered me, personally.

I'm going to assume you haven't played chapter 19 of New Mystery on lunatic, or half of Awakening.

To be fair, I dont hate ambush spawns. I get why they're ambush sometimes. But I cant see myself praising them considering how many of us have had to reset chapters over reinforcements we didn't know in advance. For the most part, they're objectively unfair to the player. They rarely tell you about them through dialogue, so 2 or 3 instances of it sadly don't make up for the rest of the game's nonsense, even though I'd like to say New Mystery does ambush spawns right. It really doesn't half of the time. Especially when they change per difficulty, so you can't even memorize from previous runs. The big defense for DSFE are the circle save points, so you dont lose too much progress. Another defense is that many of the ambush spawns are just ones from the older version, so its technically just being faithful to the original game design, where not too many people complain about, aside from that one Macedon chapter. I like a lot of DSFE reinforcements, since many of them won't really catch you by suprise if you're not playing really slow. They're almost always in forts, so they're rather predictable, and not being ambush just makes them easy to canp kills in, removing all threat in map design aside from whatever the base map provides. 

My take is basically that ambush spawns can work and should be used more often, but have to be implemented in a smart way, one that would unlikely hurt the player immediately, unless they were just playing really badly to begin with. More warnings of them through dialogue in the series would help too. Awakening and Three Houses ambush spawns terribly imo.  The only reason 3H has tolerable spawns is that you have 10+ divine pulses, but that's cheap difficulty design. 

33 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

is hearing fans say stuff like this that has me scared shitless about the future of the series. Talking about rewinds and save-scumming like it should be the standard way to play Fire Emblem games, and that it makes the implementation of unfair bullshit not only okay, but preferable.

Once again, I advocate dsfe saves to everyone. I really want IS using them again. They're saves so maps aren't something to do in one go, but you only get 1 or 2 checkpoints, and their placement is strategy in itself, especially when you're wasting a unit's turn to use it. I don't want divine pulse being a staple, but I dont think thats an unpopular opinion so umm

I think Fuga's Wild Ride (Winds of Change) is one of the best designed maps in the series. It's my personal favorite, and I hear like 90% of people hate it, so I'm almost certain this is my most unpopular take.

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3 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

I'm going to assume you haven't played chapter 19 of New Mystery on lunatic, or half of Awakening.

Not New Mystery, no.

I do own Awakening... and my statement stands.

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42 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

I think Fuga's Wild Ride (Winds of Change) is one of the best designed maps in the series

It's a great map tbh. The only thing that could've been better there is if we knew the wind a few turns in advance so players can plan better. Still great nonetheless.

 

To jump on Fates unpopular take: Rev gimmicks aren't that bad tbh. They only become really boring starting Mikoto's map. Before that? It ranges from boring-ish to fun, but nothing "worst FE maps of all time boring", not even close. Even the oh so infamous snow shoveling map is like a fog map where you can control where you wanna enemies appear and not get surprised got em'd. Better than most fog maps in the series tbh.

Of course Berwick excluded from that because it's the only game that does Fog maps right.

Edited by Father Shrimpas
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