Jump to content

Awakening/Fates hate?


DisobeyedCargo
 Share

Recommended Posts

I'm not as down on Fates as I am Awakening, but Awakening has a lot of problems. And it took a while for these problems to set in for me. Opinions ahead, so if it seems like I'm stating a fact when it's clearly opinion, keep that in mind. It's just the way I post sometimes. Just imagine everything subjective is preceeded by "To me, ":

- The gameplay's not balanced in the slightest. Now, finding a properly balanced FE is impossible in general, but Awakening just has horrid overall balance. Enemies are way to weak, yet there are still really random difficulty spikes, Pair Up is a borderline unsalvageably broken mechanic(Fates salvaged is a bit, but I still don't think it really has a place), the class and weapon balance is just awful, the way it distributed skills was a complete step back from how they've been handled in the past and the complete lopsided-ness of the skills just added way too many ways to break the game(Hello Armsthrift+Galeforce on Sorcerers with Aversa's Night with no repurcussions), and it was far too easy to grind out EXP. 

- The map design was some of the worst since Gaiden. Most maps were flat, symmetrical maps with very little in way of obstacles. To make matters worse, the only objectives in the game are rout and boss kills. The series hasn't been this way since FE4.

- The story's not super great, and it gets away with a lot for being a "send up to games of the past". Pretty much everything after Gangrel's story is a dumpster fire.

The Valm arc is underwriten and rushed, ultimately goes nowhere, and Walhart, no matter how much anybody tries to convince me otherwise, is just as one-dimensional and boring as Garron. The idea behind his character isn't unique, but it could have been good if it was executed well. It was not, all because the writers neglected to give him any character beyond being a generic conquerer archetype. And to top it all off, Walhart's knowledge of Grima was a giant question mark until Shadows of Valentia retconned in a backstory of questionable canonicity for Alm finding Grima. 

Everything involving the Grimleal is just bad and lazy. They're a rehash of the evil cults of FE past, but even less believable, and they're NEVER given a reason for being why they are. They're just evil for the sake of being evil, and EVERYBODY hates them. Then you have Validar, the leader of the whole bunch, who openly threatens and taunts people he's supposed to be making a deal with, because he literally can't stop being evil. Compare to the Duma Faithful, the Lopto Sect, the Zoa Empire, or any other dark cults that worship evil dragons in FEs past, who we see actually manipulating people with a bit of reason and subtlety, and backstories that slightly explain why they are the way they are. 

- The characters are just... I don't think I hate any characters in the franchise more than I hate Gaius and Vaike. Even Peri. They're shallow characters. And it's not just Gaius and Vaike, it's most of Awakening's cast. And a lot of it comes down to how romance and supports are handled in the game. Whereas FE6-9 went with the route that would give you chunks of semi-major development and world building for every character through a smaller support pool, Awakening went the "As wide as an ocean, as shallow as a puddle" approach. There were tons of supports but nearly every single one was just the two characters bouncing their on or two character traits off of each other for 3 conversations until one of them professed their love out of nowhere(Or they just stop abruptly at A). Then you get the non-Shepherd characters who don't even get that. Basically everyone who joins after Valm just gets one support chain from the Avatar. Sorry, Emmeryn. I'm sure your little brother and sister would be super stoked to see you alive, even if you're disabled, but nope. Just gonna let a fully functional man potentially have his way with you, and that's your only closure. 

... And that's most of the major issues I have with Awakening. I could mention more subjective and minor things like the artstyle and art direction, but it'd be more nitpicky than what I wrote above. As for Fates, Fates addressed most of what I just wrote. There's a a lot more balance to the game play, the map and objective design is a major step up(Though not that this is always a good thing... *coughcoughRevelationcoughcough*), the supports are a little less one-dimensional(Though there are still quite a few stinkers, and the "We're suddenly in love!" problem still exists). The story's still a huge problem, and likely even worse than Awakening, since Awakening had at least that first chunk with Gangrel that kind of worked. 

Again, these are my opinions, though they are shared by others who aren't big on Awakening and Fates. I'm not trying to say people are wrong to like Awakening. It'd be dumb to say that when it introduced so many people to the franchise. And I do still like Awakening despite my many issues, I'm just disappointed by it. AND I'm grateful that it kept the franchise from going the way of Advance Wars(Though I'm not a fan that it's seemingly the only game Nintendo thinks is part of the franchise). 

Edited by Slumber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 90
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

If that 7th complaint is true then wow. Just wow. God forbid this series becomes mainstream amirite? 

 

Lol ya. As far as I'm concerned mainstream saved the series.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, JimmyBeans said:

Lol ya. As far as I'm concerned mainstream saved the series.

It literally did. Awakening was planned to be the last game in the series.

10 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I'm not as down on Fates as I am Awakening, but Awakening has a lot of problems. And it took a while for these problems to set in for me. Opinions ahead, so if it seems like I'm stating a fact when it's clearly opinion, keep that in mind. It's just the way I post sometimes. Just imagine everything subjective is preceeded by "To me, ":

- The gameplay's not balanced in the slightest. Now, finding a properly balanced FE is impossible in general, but Awakening just has horrid overall balance. Enemies are way to weak, yet there are still really random difficulty spikes, Pair Up is a borderline unsalvageably broken mechanic(Fates salvaged is a bit, but I still don't think it really has a place), the class and weapon balance is just awful, the way it distributed skills was a complete step back from how they've been handled in the past and the complete lopsided-ness of the skills just added way too many ways to break the game(Hello Armsthrift+Galeforce on Sorcerers with Aversa's Night with no repurcussions), and it was far too easy to grind out EXP. 

- The map design was some of the worst since Gaiden. Most maps were flat, symmetrical maps with very little in way of obstacles. To make matters worse, the only objectives in the game are rout and boss kills. The series hasn't been this way since FE4.

- The story's not super great, and it gets away with a lot for being a "send up to games of the past". Pretty much everything after Gangrel's story is a dumpster fire.

The Valm arc is underwriten and rushed, ultimately goes nowhere, and Walhart, no matter how much anybody tries to convince me otherwise, is just as one-dimensional and boring as Garron. The idea behind his character isn't unique, but it could have been good if it was executed well. It was not, all because the writers neglected to give him any character beyond being a generic conquerer archetype. And to top it all off, Walhart's knowledge of Grima was a giant question mark until Shadows of Valentia retconned in a backstory of questionable canonicity for Alm finding Grima. 

Everything involving the Grimleal is just bad and lazy. They're a rehash of the evil cults of FE past, but even less believable, and they're NEVER given a reason for being why they are. They're just evil for the sake of being evil, and EVERYBODY hates them. Then you have Validar, the leader of the whole bunch, who openly threatens and taunts people he's supposed to be making a deal with, because he literally can't stop being evil. Compare to the Duma Faithful, the Lopto Sect, the Zoa Empire, or any other dark cults that worship evil dragons in FEs past, who we see actually manipulating people with a bit of reason and subtlety, and backstories that slightly explain why they are the way they are. 

- The characters are just... I don't think I hate any characters in the franchise more than I hate Gaius and Vaike. Even Peri. They're shallow characters. And it's not just Gaius and Vaike, it's most of Awakening's cast. And a lot of it comes down to how romance and supports are handled in the game. Whereas FE6-9 went with the route that would give you chunks of semi-major development and world building for every character through a smaller support pool, Awakening went the "As wide as an ocean, as shallow as a puddle" approach. There were tons of supports but nearly every single one was just the two characters bouncing their on or two character traits off of each other for 3 conversations until one of them professed their love out of nowhere(Or they just stop abruptly at A). Then you get the non-Shepherd characters who don't even get that. Everyone who joins after Valm just gets one support chain from the Avatar. Sorry Basilio. I'm sure you could have had some fun things to say to Flavia, but the game won't let you because Flavia can't have kids with anyone but a male Avatar. You too, Emmeryn. I'm sure your little brother and sister would be super stoked to see you alive, even if you're disabled, but nope. Just gonna let a fully functional man potentially have his way with you, and that's your only closure. 

... And that's most of the major issues I have with Awakening. I could mention more subjective and minor things like the artstyle and art direction, but it'd be more nitpicky than what I wrote above. As for Fates, Fates addressed most of what I just wrote. There's a a lot more balance to the game play, the map and objective design is a major step up(Though not that this is always a good thing... *coughcoughRevelationcoughcough*), the supports are a little less one-dimensional(Though there are still quite a few stinkers, and the "We're suddenly in love!" problem still exists). The story's still a huge problem, and likely even worse than Awakening, since Awakening had at least that first chunk with Gangrel that kind of worked. 

Again, these are my opinions, though they are shared by others who aren't big on Awakening and Fates. I'm not trying to say people are wrong to like Awakening. It'd be dumb to say that when it introduced so many people to the franchise. And I do still like Awakening despite my many issues, I'm just disappointed by it. AND I'm grateful that it kept the franchise from going the way of Advance Wars(Though I'm not a fan that it's seemingly the only game Nintendo thinks is part of the franchise). 

All of those are valid reasons. While a lot of supports are not great, I do still think some characters had good ones (Gregor ). 

I do also think that managing the supports the way they did in awakening is better. Why would you have a conversation about how your feeling now IN THE MIDDLE OF A WARZONE instead of in the barracks, but that's minor.

 

Again, after playing sacred stones and echoes, awakening's map design and story are pretty weak now that I look at them again. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me, it's less hatred and more...irritation?, at how much attention they get.

I give Awakening the benefit that it did what it had to in order to either salvage the sales of the series or send it off with bang. It also helps that I enjoyed playing the game - heck, it's probably my most-played game on the 3DS. I was also initially excited to play the Fates games, but that quickly fell off for me. That being said, I'm not really sure if it was the games themselves or just being burnt out at the time, but regardless, I haven't sat down and played them since, instead going back to an older title and playing that through from start to finish.

My issue, then, is how much these two titles garner so much focus and attention in any media involving Fire Emblem. It's not because I hate them or think they're overrated, but rather that this amount of focus feels like there's an ignoring or eclipsing of the older titles, as if they don't exist or don't need to be acknowledged. Fortunately, there's been some effort in recent months to celebrate the entire series instead of a fraction of it.

I also don't like the increased focus on fanservice and self-inserts and the baggage read: waifus that comes with it, but for a different reason than most: it's starting to eclipse the core gameplay of the series. Like, if someone didn't know better, then back when many people were griping about the localization of Fates, said individual could be forgiven for thinking the game was a visual novel.

I also noticed some people throwing "elitism" around as a reason, which I don't doubt is some people's reason, but it runs both ways; I've seen a number of people, both here and elsewhere, that won't give the other games in the series the time of day or even outright trash them because they aren't Awakening/Fates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

All of those are valid reasons. While a lot of supports are not great, I do still think some characters had good ones (Gregor ). 

I do also think that managing the supports the way they did in awakening is better. Why would you have a conversation about how your feeling now IN THE MIDDLE OF A WARZONE instead of in the barracks, but that's minor.

 

Again, after playing sacred stones and echoes, awakening's map design and story are pretty weak now that I look at them again. 

 

 

Gregor's one of the handful that I like out of Awakening's cast. Henry and Cherche are pretty solid, too. 

As weird as it is to profess your love on the battlefield, it did give for some more active supports that actually involved people being on the battlefield. It also gave an excuse for two characters who didn't seem like they'd ever talk to start conversing with one another. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Sorry Basilio. I'm sure you could have had some fun things to say to Flavia, but the game won't let you because Flavia can't have kids with anyone but a male Avatar.

Actually, they do get a ABC support chain. Not that this excuses the other glaring support absences on post-Cherche characters.

28 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Pair Up is a borderline unsalvageably broken mechanic(Fates salvaged is a bit, but I still don't think it really has a place)

Fates massively improved Pair Up, but the problem I found in that game concerning the feature was the enemy phase. Ironically, everyone complained the enemy couldn't use Pair Up in Awakening, but in Fates it is used too much. It's not the Defensive Stance baddies that I'm complaining about- they're a little cheap, but fair. My problem is that since enemies can use Offensive Stance and do, the only way most units can have any enemy phase is via Defensive Stance, because otherwise those plentiful half damage OS shots will rack up quickly and kill them.

46 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Enemies are way to weak, yet there are still really random difficulty spikes,

The difficulty spikes aren't exactly random in retrospect. You have a steady difficulty through the Gangrel Arc that only lets up as you level your team. The first "spike" doesn't happen until Gangrel is "dead" with the opening chapter of the Valm Arc. The next spike I think is Fort Steiger- thats when all enemies become promoted. The third spike is the start of the Grima/Grimaleal Arc, and the fourth and last spike is the Spotpass Paralogues, with Priam's map possibly being its own fifth spike. So in total, all the spikes barring Steiger happen only when one arc ends and another begins, with the Spotpass Paralogues being free Postgame material and Priam's map the free equivalent of Apotheosis.

47 minutes ago, Slumber said:

the way it distributed skills was a complete step back from how they've been handled in the past and the complete lopsided-ness of the skills just added way too many ways to break the game(Hello Armsthrift+Galeforce on Sorcerers with Aversa's Night with no repurcussions)

As for the skills system. My problem is that in order to get skills Galeforce broken or Skill +2 crap alike, one has to go through many leveling cycles, and that in itself breaks the game. You just can't have many skills without getting good stats no matter what.

Fates kinda fixed this, for if you ignore online, you can get nice skills in the main game without broken stats due to how the skills learning system was changed. The cost of class swapping though for skills is that Seals are limited for most the game, and that the classes you might want skills from don't share weapon types with your current one or aren't ideal in general.

 

I do think that 13/14 having so many supports makes its harder to tell the clunkers from the gold nuggets for those who are interested in finding the good stuff. I had no issues reading over PoR's support log, which is admittedly a bit smaller than it should have been, but 13/14 is too intimidating for me to look. And yes, PoR does have some bad supports mixed in with the good stuff- anything Ilyana and other stuff like Boyd (and Mordecai)/Ulki and Makalov/Haar to name some duds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I joined in awakening and it is still my favourite game as I found the cast to be one of the most endearing in any of the games and the plot was never exactly anything to write home about but I love time travel being mixed in and the bad future and how the alternate timeline went intrigued me because its clear events ran at different times in that timeline. That said I can see game play complaints the game is generally poorly balanced. The higher difficulties are unfair and not fun because of the ambush reinforcements and random super cheat skills. The maps are also bland and the game as a few mechanics that are far too powerful. 

I have played through the gba games +New mystery and I could never quite get invested in the characters because the support system is really bad so I rarely unlocked a single support when playing and thus knew nothing about them and thus didnt care about them and I never thought any of them had stand out plots either.

Fates is the inverse of awakening, I hate almost everything about the writing it feels lazy like nobody thought it through, the plot is nonsensical and most of the character writing is extremely poor ala. Xander, Camilla, Corrin, Peri. However game play wise I believe it to be the best I have played the game feels extremely balanced even in the higher difficulties. I believe the weapon system was well done as I never enjoyed micromanaging my units equipment and the new pair up mechanic just adds an extra strategy layer and I think it should be in every game going forward even if supports are not. That said I don't care for Birthright because it felt like awakening with better mechanics but none of the charm. 

Revelations is my biggest problem with Fates in general it feels lazy and that really bothers me. A perfect example of this is the character join times there are a few that are rendered unusable because they came 5+ chapters later than they did in their own route and nobody bothered to change their bases like ugghh. But the maps are like this aswell they are not really designed to be fun it just feels like they wanted to test out gimmicks and the story (Not that I cared about it to begin with) felt like some bad fiction and of course there had to be an evil dragon behind everything. Okay that's enough ranting about how terrible Rev is 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think we were all ready to hate Fates when it was coming out, but I can't say the game didn't deserve it. The game's marketing was about making this big choice, but the other choices are DLC, are you kidding? The game dares ask you which path you want even though you already chose with your wallet, and the other options sit grayed out, taunting you. What if, after playing the prologue, we decide our version isn't our preferred choice? The developers also devoted huge portions of the game's resources to private quarters 3D models and voice acting that could have been spent elsewhere. The face petting mechanic was so reviled by the developers that they put their foot down on having it not appear in the localized version. Conquest is the only one of three versions where the harder difficulties give enemies skills instead of just raising their stats. Birthright's maps were all rout the enemy, Revelation's maps were near constant misses in quality. And the story telling and character arcs were ill-conceived. And that's how I'll always feel about the game. But now that we're moving on from 3DS, there's no need to remind people what went wrong with Fates. We're all anxious to see where the next game takes the series.

Edited by Glennstavos
Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Fates massively improved Pair Up, but the problem I found in that game concerning the feature was the enemy phase. Ironically, everyone complained the enemy couldn't use Pair Up in Awakening, but in Fates it is used too much. It's not the Defensive Stance baddies that I'm complaining about- they're a little cheap, but fair. My problem is that since enemies can use Offensive Stance and do, the only way most units can have any enemy phase is via Defensive Stance, because otherwise those plentiful half damage OS shots will rack up quickly and kill them.

I do agree that it's still far from perfect in Fates, which is why I think the system is out of place as a whole. BUT, I vastly prefer how Fates does it vs. Awakening. Whereas it's completely lopsided in Awakening, it's only kind of lopsided in Fates. You can get away with using OS on your phase, but it is generally better for DS. And the game using DS to make bosses harder gets a bit tiresome, but it's mostly just so you don't use OS and just ORKO every boss(Though that still happens plenty).

I'd prefer if it was just gone in future games, though.

53 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The difficulty spikes aren't exactly random in retrospect. You have a steady difficulty through the Gangrel Arc that only lets up as you level your team. The first "spike" doesn't happen until Gangrel is "dead" with the opening chapter of the Valm Arc. The next spike I think is Fort Steiger- thats when all enemies become promoted. The third spike is the start of the Grima/Grimaleal Arc, and the fourth and last spike is the Spotpass Paralogues, with Priam's map possibly being its own fifth spike. So in total, all the spikes barring Steiger happen only when one arc ends and another begins, with the Spotpass Paralogues being free Postgame material and Priam's map the free equivalent of Apotheosis.

There are spikes that aren't just the first chapter of each "arc", though. The Mila Tree with Cervantes, I recall, being the bigger jump than the first chapter in Valm. And after the Mila Tree, it more or less stays constant.

53 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

As for the skills system. My problem is that in order to get skills Galeforce broken or Skill +2 crap alike, one has to go through many leveling cycles, and that in itself breaks the game. You just can't have many skills without getting good stats no matter what.

Fates kinda fixed this, for if you ignore online, you can get nice skills in the main game without broken stats due to how the skills learning system was changed. The cost of class swapping though for skills is that Seals are limited for most the game, and that the classes you might want skills from don't share weapon types with your current one or aren't ideal in general.

It's true that it requires a lot of leveling, but I was more going for the extreme with Galeforce+Armsthrift on a Sorcerer, though that can be done fairly easily on a good chunk of the children, which is the only place you'll see that combo outside of the Avatar.

Really the main problem that I probably should have clarified a bit more is that EVERY skill is treated equally, even when they're clearly not. The PoR/RD way of handling it made it so you couldn't just stack 4/5 overpowered skills on a character. There was usually a compromise. You could get maybe 2 or 3 more general purpose proc abilities on a character, or you could get one powerful proc or passive on a character.

53 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I do think that 13/14 having so many supports makes its harder to tell the clunkers from the gold nuggets for those who are interested in finding the good stuff. I had no issues reading over PoR's support log, which is admittedly a bit smaller than it should have been, but 13/14 is too intimidating for me to look. And yes, PoR does have some bad supports mixed in with the good stuff- anything Ilyana and other stuff like Boyd (and Mordecai)/Ulki and Makalov/Haar to name some duds.

Right, not saying every pre-Awakening support was a winner. But I'd say Ilyana's supports are a lot more along the lines of the Awakening/Fates style of supports than the other support convos of the era. They don't really reveal anything significant about either character in the support that we didn't already know, and we learn nothing about Tellius from her supports.

Edited by Slumber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Slumber said:

There are spikes that aren't just the first chapter of each "arc", though. The Mila Tree with Cervantes, I recall, being the bigger jump than the first chapter in Valm. And after the Mila Tree, it more or less stays constant.

The Mila Tree is right before Steiger- I was debating whether to say in which chapter the mid-Valm spike came. And perhaps you're right that the early Valm spike isn't so spikey after all. I included it because barring a few enemies on Gangrel's final battle, everyone is unpromoted in his arc. Early Valm starts adding promoted units to the enemy armies in significant numbers, with Steiger completing the transition- which is pretty fast by FE standards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Mackc2 said:

I have played through the gba games +New mystery and I could never quite get invested in the characters because the support system is really bad

Wait, hold on. I understand the GBA games because the Support system did kinda suck there (especially in FE6 where any Support that wasn't Roy x Lilina took ages to get) but New Mystery? New Mystery actually had Base Conversations which could be viewed at the start of each chapter. There was at least one new conversation every chapter so i don't know where you are getting that the New Mystery Supports were bad.

1 hour ago, MarioKirby said:

My issue, then, is how much these two titles garner so much focus and attention in any media involving Fire Emblem. It's not because I hate them or think they're overrated, but rather that this amount of focus feels like there's an ignoring or eclipsing of the older titles, as if they don't exist or don't need to be acknowledged. Fortunately, there's been some effort in recent months to celebrate the entire series instead of a fraction of it.

To be fair, it's only natural that the media would focus on the most recent and popular games.

1 hour ago, MarioKirby said:

I also don't like the increased focus on fanservice and self-inserts and the baggage read: waifus that comes with it, but for a different reason than most: it's starting to eclipse the core gameplay of the series. Like, if someone didn't know better, then back when many people were griping about the localization of Fates, said individual could be forgiven for thinking the game was a visual novel.

Once again, i disagree that fan-service, Avatars, and "waifus" are eclipsing the core gameplay of the series. Because it's not. Awakening and Fates still play like a Fire Emblem game. At the end of the day, the marriage mechanic is just that: a gameplay mechanic. It's just that we, as the players, have associated it with "waifus". As for fanservice, honestly, i disagree with it eclipsing the gameplay of the series as well. Sure Awakening and Fates had fanservicy characters, but Echoes didn't. I think here it just depends on the artist. If Kozaki returns for FE Switch, we might see more fanservice. If Hidari returns for FE Switch, then we'll barely see any fanservice or, at the very least, we'll see fanservice at the level that it was in pre-Awakening games.

I'll also add that the fanservice in any Fire Emblem game, even in Awakening and Fates, is rather tame and really not as big of a deal that everyone makes it out to be. Though that's just my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Wait, hold on. I understand the GBA games because the Support system did kinda suck there (especially in FE6 where any Support that wasn't Roy x Lilina took ages to get) but New Mystery? New Mystery actually had Base Conversations which could be viewed at the start of each chapter. There was at least one new conversation every chapter so i don't know where you are getting that the New Mystery Supports were bad.

Oh I wasn't really referring to New Mystery, I just mentioned it because its the only old game I have played besides the gba games. My bad.
That said New Mystery had alot of characters and I can't remember alot of them 

Edited by Mackc2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly? It just feels like bandwagonning nowadays, the latest trend if you must.

Personally, I love Awakening. It was my first FE game, and it has provided me with hiurs of fun. Is the gameplay broken? Oh god yes. You can solo the game with Robin if you grind a lot. Is the Valm arc mostly filler? Pretty much, but I do like how it shows a bit more of Robin's tactical prowess. I just want to make it clear that I don't consider the avatars avatars, but their own characters. 

The whole waifu and husbando things irks me greatly. And the whole fanservice thing? You're not telling me that the older games didn't have fanservice. Look at Lyn. Warriors improved it by giving her shorts, but in Heroes? On the start screen, it's obvious that she isn't wearing underwear. The only change with the newer games is that it's more focused on boobs, but I honestly see no difference.

As for Fates, I don't like it. Yes, the story is weak and there are some plot convenient features, but other games have them coughRD'sbloodpactcough But it's not that that bothers me. It's Corrin. Take Corrin out and Fates would be so much better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

Well, there certainly is hate for Echoes (just ping Thane if you wanna hear about that; heck, I'm sure he'll have some insights on this topic in general), but I get what you mean.

There is no need for pings; I've got a sixth sense for these kinds of topics. They summon me through the great virtual beyond.

More seriously, I don't hate Echoes, but merely think it's heavily flawed and misguided in its conservatism. Couple that with some head scratching that comes from people praising the writing which I consider very shoddy in some important areas and you get my general opinion of its negatives. I still believe the game has a lot of good things going for it.

As for the topic at hand, I don't believe anyone can offer a definitive answer. I will merely point out that there was a schism among the Japanese fans when Binding Blade was released, then there was another one both there and in the West when the Tellius games come out, then everyone started hating on Shadow Dragon, and now people gang up on Awakening and Fates. It just seems to be the nature of the fanbase.

People have brought up waifus, and I think that's an interesting topic. As a whole, a lot of Fire Emblem fans seem obsessed with waifus, and I don't mean the people who're actually into that stuff, but rather the guys raving against it. For example, Lucina has a genuine hatedom after her, and one of the reasons is because she's a "waifu" character that an avatar can marry. She's clothed from head to toe, has an active role in the story, and never really does anything fan service-y, but because "you" can S-support her, she's automatically a bad character in their eyes. This is just one example and a pretty extreme one at that, of course, but it goes to show how far some people go with this. It makes me wonder if they'd completely dismiss every other Bioware character, or pretty much every female character in Persona 3, 4 and 5.

There will always be room for genuine debate and discussion, and a lot of the criticisms raised against Awakening and Fates are valid and have nothing to do with waifus - I for one consider Fates' story to be the worst written one in any game I've ever played. However, in a lot of cases, there seems to be no small dose of nostalgia involved that allow certain people to overlook either flaws in their own favorite games or even the very things they complain about in Awakening and Fates. For example, two common complaints are that characters are too gimmicky or too anime now, but it's not like that's new when we've had characters like Lowen and Florina since Blazing Blade, the very game many people in the West started with.

So, yeah, there are a lot of different factors at play. While I must reiterate that a lot of criticisms against these two games are 100% valid, the reason why they draw so much attention from the community is also simply because they're easy targets. They've sold by far the most copies in the series, they came out relatively recently, they marked a shift in tone that didn't sit well with many people, and at the forefront is the support and avatar system. Those things along with the games' popularity guaranteed to turn them into punching bags even if many of their flaws had been fixed.

Edited by Thane
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's pretty much precisely what Thane said.  Awakening and Fates get a lot of hate because they're easy targets.  Because for all their flaws they're the most recent, most popular, and best-selling games in the franchise.  And in some cases that upsets people.  These two very flawed games are beloved by the wider gaming community while earlier games, which many would argue are better, are largely unknown outside of the Fire Emblem fanbase.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Part of the problem is elitism and a resistance to change but there are also very big, very noticeable flaws that are more unique to the new style. 

I like the newer games but its hard to deny their stories either don't try hard enough or do try but end up as total train wrecks. The villains in Awakening were a big step down and Garon is arguably one of the worst characters in any Fire emblem game. Gimmicks can also be taken to far which becomes a very big problem for characters like Peri.

The focus the newer games have towards Fanservice isn't a problem per se. Things like swimsuit dlc for the older characters would probably be welcomed. The problem is that fanservice seems to be the prime priority that every part of the game is inferior to. 

This extends to the very premise of Fates. The Hoshidan siblings don't turn out not to be your blood siblings because of a cool plot twist the writers came up with, they stopped being your blood siblings so that you could safely marry them. The children mechanic of Awakening was popular and to take advantage of that it was shoved in a game it didn't belong in, no matter how much it damaged the otherwise pretty well written second gen. 

If the newer games just did the things they do so well while avoiding the irksome excesses and putting more efforts into their stories they would probably be far less controversial.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The following comes from an almost-elitist who hates Awakening with a passion, has CQ up there in his top 5 FE games, finds BR a worse game than CQ but for some unknown reason finds it more fun to play than CQ and thinks that Revelation is like x10 worse than Awakening.

Why I personally hate Awakening: there's almost nothing good to it. I legitimately think that in order to like Awakening either it was your first FE game or you have very low standards. And also please stop saying that Awakening saved the series, it was marketing+marriage system that saved it, Awakening could have done without much of the stupid shit it has and it would have been a better game with the same sales ("Bring an Army! Trust nobody!" rings any bells?).

  • broken pair-up system that makes the lower difficulty a literal cakewalk but suddenly becomes almost required in the harder difficulty and eventually makes them a cakewalk too
  • bad worldbuilding (me Ferox! me good warrior! ahaa! me Plegian! me evil!), bad plot (so Grima doens't need the 5 MacGuffins to resurrect after all? power of friendship brings you back from the dead? am I watching Beyblade?), 80% of the cast is bland and/or one-note (Chrom, Kellam, Sully, Tharja, Cordelia, Kjelle, vaike, Miriel, Ricken etc...)
  • limitless reclass system done the crappy way allowing for neverending grinding that destroy units' uniqueness because everyone wants the same skills which are the only thing that matter
  • cringeworthy avatar pandering
  • stupid-ass map design, even worse than FE4 because FE4 has an excuse to its bad map design in that it was an experimental and ambitious game while Awakening's bad map design has just no excuse
  • probably something else that is not coming to mind right now... like broken kids with no reason whatsoever to optimize them outside of Apo

As far as Fates is concerned, I actually haven't really seen any Fates hate after the first two post-release weeks, no one really bashes it like Awakning is bashed (maybe with the exception of Rev), and for good reason. The positives and negatives of Fates as a whole make for a pretty good base game:

  • rebalanced reclass system where every unit, even the kids, retains their own uniqueness and no one is broken (I really don't buy into this "Ryoma can solo BR" thing and even the monster that is Xander+Charlotte pair up doesn't come even close to soloing those godforsaken MNs in CQ)
  • mildly better cast with a few less bland/one-note characters and a couple more "why do you even exist" characters
  • arguably the best skill system on the series where every unit has access to their fare number of skills and very few skills are useless
  • rebalanced pair-up system where everyone can adapt it to their style and still be able to beat the game (I usually play with everyone in guard stance for additional stats and survivability, but I also have a Rev playthrough on hiatus where I'm using attack stance only and, while difficult, it's plenty doable; using guard stance on EP only and Attack stance on PP only seems like another interesting compromise)
  • probably something else that is not coming to mind right now...

And I'm gonna stop here, I don't feel like writing all the reasons CQ is an amazing game, BR is an okay game and Rev is a pile of steaming trash.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't hate Awakening/Gates. I do like it. However, there are some weak points to both of these games. Fanservice, writing, and mechanics are the biggest complaints. Not all of it is bad though. 

I do think more of the hate these games get is from elitism. Which I don't like. Just because you played the oldrr games first, doesnt make you better than any other fan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think as far as story goes, Fates deserved the hate it got. Fates really hyped itself up to be an amazing story. The whole split story, the delimma between your blood relatives and the people who raised you. Conquest sounded like it was going to be about leading a revolution from inside the kingdom.

We got none of that. We got maybe fragments of the whole family idea, but eventually even that was absent from the story, especially if you went with Revelation. I think a lot has been said about the story as is, so there is no need to really bash it further, but Fates really dissapointed a lot of people, which is why it got the backlash it got. I think its unfortunate, because Fates had everything there to be a good story, but it just didnt take advantage of that. It just became a convoluted mess, with loose ends all over the place.

Gameplay wise the game is praised though. Birthright was a step above Awakening, Conquest is arguably one of the best games in the series for map design, and while Rev got a lot of flak for bad map design I think it wasnt entirely bad. It was an interesting sandbox, really handing you the entire roster and everything you need to do test every idea under the sun. And past Chapter 18 its map design was a little more interesting. But regardless, gameplay wise Fates was either good to great. None of it was absolutely abysmal gameplay like Gaiden or FE4.

Awakening on the other hand, also deserves a bit of the hate it gets, but I tend to give Awakening a bit of a pass. Awakening's story was at least better than Fates. It made sense for the most part, nothing to ridiculous came out of left field, like invading Hoshido to save Hoshido. Its story was very basic though. Its reveals are able to be seen from miles away, and the story as a whole, for as drastic as it is supposed to be, has no sense of danger. It doesnt feel as drastic as it should considering what is happening. I do think the story wasnt entirely bad though, and is at the very least enjoyable. Compared to Fates Transformers movies style story, where you might as well ignore it completely otherwise your brain will melt, Awakening is a little more like Fast and the Furious. You dont expect much from the plot, but at the very least its a fun movie with fun characters. That is really Awakening in a nutshell. Fun story if you decide to just not read into the story, but once you start looking for any kind of deeper meaning, the plot holes and problems become glaringly obvious.

Gameplay wise Awakening was a mixed bag. Map Design was pretty bad. I dont think its fair to compare it to Gaiden, it didnt have anything as annoying as Celica's Route Chapter 4. It just had a lot of open, boring maps. So I wouldnt call it outright terrible, but it wasnt great either. It also became too easy to really break the game, which kind of contributed to the bad map design. Robin becomes way too ridiculous, way too fast. As soon as you decide to reclass Robin, you are already at an advantage over every other character. Likewise, with some grinding, Awakening becomes the Galeforce show. So the game was easily broken, which isnt a good trait to have. Higher difficulties this gets alleviated a little bit, but Lunatic+ just required grinding on top of grinding, so it had some of the same issues.

I do give a pass to Awakening though. Awakening has the odd position of really being a huge fanservice game, and given the circumstances it was completely ok. The game was supposed to be the final game of the series, so there are a lot of call backs and references to the previous games. Everything from being able to use characters from across the series with streetpass to just the story itself, Awakening was just one big celebration of Fire Emblem. Its why I think Valm was even included to begin with, it was included just to have Valentia in the story for the fans. So I give Awakening a small bit of a pass here, it's focus obviously wasnt on writing a great story, it was on celebrating the series by including everything they possibly could. It doesnt fully excuse the game, but it does explain a lot and make it understandable.

Overall I think Fates and Awakening arent as hated as it seems. What you have is a very vocal minority compared to the majority. That doesnt exactly excuse things, especially Fates story, but any kind of outright hatred for these games as a whole isnt exactly the common opinion of most. Even some of your most vocal criticizers of the story of Fates will at least tell you the gameplay was great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've said some nasty things about both Awakening and Fates over the past five years, but instead of channeling anger I'll say this:

The biggest immersion breaker (outside of the non-choice choices and the ending) for me regarding Awakening was my second play through, where I reached the Valm arc and began to really explore the support system more thoroughly. There was a moment where I began to build a support between Gregor and Cordelia since hey, I like Gregor and he could use a bit more love as one of the last playable characters over 40. Now, Gregor and Cordelia's support revolves around him helping Cordelia attempt to win a man (implied to be Chrom)'s heart with his love advice, which I found rather strange given that Chrom had already married Sumia and Cordelia was also taken. It was if none of the marriage supports or placement in the story were taken into account, which coming off of prior entries (particularly Path of Radiance, where supports can alter context based on character death or story progression) was alarming in how easy it was to stumble across.

One of the things I really loved about some of the older titles was the attention to detail, and how thorough they could be at times. Tellius highlights this to an almost absurd level, with side switching possible by data transferred supports and boss conversations sometimes only possible if you actually somehow hacked the game. Despite likely dying in the process, many characters with justifiable reasons to start or elicit conversations could do so with Ashnard at the end of Path of Radiance. Heck, nearly every boss post-Chapter 17 has a special reaction to Reyson since royal herons are so rare in-universe! Even the lighter titles such as Sacred Stones still had special conversations for everyone Orson betrayed, for example.

The idea of these things being accounted for was mind boggling, and to see that sorely missing in the 3DS titles really stung. The idea of characters such as Virion having nothing to say to Walhart after all he's done to them, or Lissa unable to address Gangrel and his contribution to her sister's death became something I could not ignore. And why can't Garon's children address him in Conquest (or Kaze address his brother in late game, for that matter)? It's frustrating and ultimately gives no depth to characters outside of your playable roster.

While Echoes is a remake and is also light on this attention to detail, I will note something that blew me away when I found out about it: selling steel lances to Alessio will allow him to serve as an arms dealer for Slayde, changing the weapon composition of the fight at the Last Bastion. What a pleasant surprise! And Clive reacts to your success or failure to save characters in Act III, something I sorely missed. It called back to the days where my sister let many of the Greil Mercenaries die early on in Path of Radiance, and being shocked by the characters addressing and mourning deaths.

Little details such as these helped define what I saw as "Fire Emblem", and seeing the 3DS titles ignoring them only added to the great list of grievances I had with them. They were what gripped me after the initial first playthrough, and compelled me to return to those worlds and characters. I mostly wanted to bring this up since it's something I don't see brought up too often, even by myself back when the 3DS titles released.

Edited by Party Moth
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Koumal8 said:

And also please stop saying that Awakening saved the series, it was marketing+marriage system that saved it,

Yes, it was Awakening's marketing that saved the series, so people technically aren't wrong when they say Awakening saved the series.

4 hours ago, Koumal8 said:

80% of the cast is bland and/or one-note (Chrom, Kellam, Sully, Tharja, Cordelia, Kjelle, vaike, Miriel, Ricken etc...)

Any character is bland and/or one-note if you don't like them. If you were to ask me, i find Sigurd to be the worst Lord in the series. Nothing about him is interesting. But that's just me. To me, Sigurd is incredibly bland and boring but to you, he's probably one of the most well written Lords out there.

4 hours ago, Koumal8 said:

power of friendship brings you back from the dead?

I would agree with you here except resurrection has been an established thing in this particular continuity since FE1. 

4 hours ago, Koumal8 said:

stupid-ass map design, even worse than FE4 because FE4 has an excuse to its bad map design in that it was an experimental and ambitious game while Awakening's bad map design has just no excuse

No, FE4 does not have an excuse. Just because it was experimental and ambitious doesn't give it a pass. Using Mario Party 9 as an example, it tried something new with the car mechanic. Did it try? Yes. Was it good? No. Does it deserve an excuse? No, because it wasn't good. Same deal applies to FE4's shitty map design.

And if you're gonna argue that FE4 deserves a pass for being "experimental and ambitious", then i guess you need to give Awakening a pass too since stuff like Pair-Ups and Reclassing were also "experimental".

2 hours ago, Party Moth said:

The biggest immersion breaker (outside of the non-choice choices and the ending) for me regarding Awakening was my second play through, where I reached the Valm arc and began to really explore the support system more thoroughly. There was a moment where I began to build a support between Gregor and Cordelia since hey, I like Gregor and he could use a bit more love as one of the last playable characters over 40. Now, Gregor and Cordelia's support revolves around him helping Cordelia attempt to win a man (implied to be Chrom)'s heart with his love advice, which I found rather strange given that Chrom had already married Sumia and Cordelia was also taken. It was if none of the marriage supports or placement in the story were taken into account, which coming off of prior entries (particularly Path of Radiance, where supports can alter context based on character death or story progression) was alarming in how easy it was to stumble across.

Agreed, Awakening did have it's moments of immersion breaking. The one that everyone talks about is how Anna's paralouge opens after Ch.9. Another example of immersion breaking is the Spotpass Paralouges. Like, it's cool that you can recruit Walhart and Priam and all but then you remember that Mr. Apocalypse has resurrected and will rain havoc on the world at any second. I find it hard to believe that the heroes will put Grima on hold to just recruit characters that should've died (except for Priam, since he's never fought outside of his paralouge).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd say that Awakening was the start of a lot things that Fates refined and made better (gameplay mechanics) as well as things it made far far worse (tone and writing quality). One of my biggest issues with these two titles is how much the writing respects itself. Take for example the characters you can recruit despite their supposed death. They just...didn't die? Okay, so much for the dramatic story moments. Imagine marrying the man responsible for murdering your best friend's sister. That's some fucked up shit, man. The less said about Fates the better, but like I said, they made things far far worse. You know how the game is supposed to be about family? You can marry them too, with only the flimsiest of excuses for why no one finds that weird. Also, the more you think about the deeprealms, the more horrifying it is. But hey, who doesn't like shipping?

Fates does get gameplay down pretty well (except in Rev where map design and character balancing is trash), making large improvements in the skill system and pair up. I don't fault people for liking games exclusively for gameplay but personally, I want something with at least decent writing quality.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...