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Which Fe, in your opinion, has the best plot/Writing and why?


Ginger567
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Awakening and Fates get a lot of slack in terms of its story telling and writing which I agree the writing has lost quality over the years. I want to know what most of the community see as the golden standard for a good Fe story?

Edited by Ginger567
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In my opinion, different FEs are good and bad at different things.  

FE8 for instance, has very good villain writing.  But it's world building could use work.

FE7 makes the conflict very personal and not world scale, but it's all over the place and can be inconsistent.

The Tellius games write the world well, but the plot itself kinda falls apart in some ways in the latter half of FE10, FE10 Ike isn't a good protagonist imo, and I can't say I'm fond of most of the villains.  

etc. 

 

My favorite is FE8 overall, because I really value villain writing.  Least favorite is FE14, probably.

Edited by Glaceon Mage
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13 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

In my opinion, different FEs are good and bad at different things.  

FE8 for instance, has very good villain writing.  But it's world building could use work.

FE7 makes the conflict very personal and not world scale, but it's all over the place and can be inconsistent.

The Tellius games write the world well, but the plot itself kinda falls apart in some ways in the latter half of FE10, FE10 Ike isn't a good protagonist imo, and I can't say I'm fond of most of the villains.  

etc. 

 

My favorite is FE8 overall, because I really value villain writing.  Least favorite is FE14, probably.

 I don't have a favorite FE game writing wise.

 I do agree that the strengths of the writing varies from game to game.

Unpopular opinion, FE4's writing is only good on the surface level. But delve deeper,  the crack start forming. How many time goes the game tell something, but does not show? Or how many villain were evil for the sake of being evil.

Fe9 was decent, but FE10 starts to fall apart logic wise in the middle.

 Some of Echoes' problem was being a remake of the game that was rooted in 90s RPG cliches.

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Path of radiance combines the best of both world. Throughout the series you have Fire emblem games that are either to simple or to ambitious. Path of radiance takes the benefits from both options while avoiding the pitfalls.

On its own Path of Radiance has a very simple and formulaic story but unlike other stories like Shadow dragon or Birthright things are constantly happening in the story. New countries are introduced, characters far outside Ike's reach are shown conversing with each other independently of what Ike does and the villains get a lot of characterization. It keep things simple while still ensuring the story stays interesting.

Despite the simplicity Path of Radiance adds a lot of detail too. This happens primarily through the world building but the characters themselves are also more prominent than they had ever been before. This is because the base conversations ensuring you will see something of every character at least once and because minor characters are better incorporated in the cutscenes. Think about the earlier prominence of the whole Greil mercenaries, how you get to know crybaby Rolf a good bit before he mans up and becomes a unit or how Elincia's retainers keep showing up in cutscenes after they have been recruited. The game isn't overly ambitious but the foundation for the things Radiant Dawn would do is already established here. 

Radiant Dawn and to some extend Genealogy and Conquest were to big for their bridges and suffered for it, others like Shadow dragon, birthright and to some extend binding blade were to basic. Path of Radiance constantly manages to find the middle ground between these two. I'd say Blazing sword manages to do this as well. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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I think every FE is  a good game , my favourite is FE4, the story was very interesting. FE14 had some good characters,in my opinion (e.g. Caeldori, Leo...), but I have to admit that the plot and story telling were very poor.

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Played New Mystery of the Emblem, Awakening, Conquest, Revelation, Echoes and currently playing Heroes, Sacred Stones, Birthright and Awakening (again)

Out of all the FE games I've played, Heroes Echoes has a much more solid story compared to the other games, we get a bit of this and that without being left confused.

Awakening had plot holes in the Paralogues, apparently Cynthia can't even recognize her own father when she goes back to the past (If you ship Chrom with Sumia)

Fates is saved by its customizability and Camilla's nice tits fanservice, the story is just plain average

New Mystery had too many characters that don't play any significant role in the story, most of the time you just read Marth and Jagen's lectures

 

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It's hard to say. You have the Archanea games (i'm including Gaiden/SoV) here which fall into your standard 90's RPG tropes (though SoV has the best cast of characters imo and great worldbuilding). Then you have FE4 which is great, except only the first half. The second half is once again your typical FE story. FE5 is interesting because it was a more focused story, something FE7 would also do. FE6 is basically a repeat of FE3 but better imo. FE8 has arguably the best villain in the series (Lyon) but other than that, it was your standard FE story with not a lot of worldbuilding. Tellius had great worldbuilding and FE9's story is solid but FE10's could use some work. FE13 wasn't too strong in it's story as there was a filler arc but it had a lot of likable characters. FE14 is similar with it's characters but it's story is abysmal.

For me, personally, i value characters over story, which is why i would consider SoV to be the best. In terms of actual story, i'm gonna have to give it to FE9 for giving us an interesting perspective of war from an outsider's point of view (the Griel Mercenaries) as well as great worldbuilding.

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45 minutes ago, Armagon said:

It's hard to say. You have the Archanea games (i'm including Gaiden/SoV) here which fall into your standard 90's RPG tropes (though SoV has the best cast of characters imo and great worldbuilding). Then you have FE4 which is great, except only the first half. The second half is once again your typical FE story. FE5 is interesting because it was a more focused story, something FE7 would also do. FE6 is basically a repeat of FE3 but better imo. FE8 has arguably the best villain in the series (Lyon) but other than that, it was your standard FE story with not a lot of worldbuilding. Tellius had great worldbuilding and FE9's story is solid but FE10's could use some work. FE13 wasn't too strong in it's story as there was a filler arc but it had a lot of likable characters. FE14 is similar with it's characters but it's story is abysmal.

For me, personally, i value characters over story, which is why i would consider SoV to be the best. In terms of actual story, i'm gonna have to give it to FE9 for giving us an interesting perspective of war from an outsider's point of view (the Griel Mercenaries) as well as great worldbuilding.

I thought you haven't played the Tellius games. 

OT: I've only played Fe7-FE10. While I'm familiar with the plots of some other FE games, I don't have enough knowledge to comment on them so I'll rank these four plots. IMO it goes FE10>FE9>FE7>FE8. 

FE8 might be better-written than FE7 but I like the cast of FE7 a lot more so I find the plot of FE7 to be more interesting. FE9 might also be better-written than FE10 but FE9 is too vanilla and plain with far less exciting moments than FE10. 

Edited by Icelerate
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1 hour ago, Icelerate said:

I thought you haven't played the Tellius games. 

I'm in the middle of playing Path of Radiance.

But even if i haven't played the Tellius games, i can still judge their stories.

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5 hours ago, Jingle Jangle said:

 IUnpopular opinion, FE4's writing is only good on the surface level. But delve deeper,  the crack start forming. How many time goes the game tell something, but does not show? Or how many villain were evil for the sake of being evil.

This is partly true, but this also applies to damn near every other FE.

The first point, this applies to virtually every other FE. The only FE I can even think of that bucks this trend(For the most part) is Radiant Dawn, since you play both sides of the conflict at the same time, up until a certain point, where a common enemy brings the two sides together. Virtually every other game, you have to piece together what the other side is doing through short snippits of dialogue in cutscenes, or through dialogue with the villain of the chapter. This is not something unique to FE4, not by a long shot. Even Fates, which is set-up around the gimmick of "Play for either side!", doesn't fit, since the details of the events change drastically based on what version you play, and you rarely see what's going on with the other side of the conflict. Hell, you will never be able to make sense of what the hell is going on with Garron if you don't play Revelation, and Garron's the goddamn central villain of both Birthright and Conquest.

To the second point, yeah, you get jerkass conquerors like Langobalt and his sons, but they're a brutish country that seemingly thrives on war. Compare the Lopto Sect to any other villain cult in the franchise. We find out WHY they're the way they are, IE, they were prosecuted and hunted for hundreds of years following the fall of Galle's Empire. The Lopto Empire was a group of bad dudes, but they were forced into seclusion until Manfroy went "Wait a minute. Maybe we should use our dark powers to control the kingdoms of the land and resurrect our Dark God!" It's basically like what Germany did to Nazis, only instead of Nazism being a political ideology, it was an ethnicity/religion so people couldn't just "Stop being Nazis" when Hitler's regime fell. Comparatively, we get NO justification for the Duma Faithful in the original FE2(Echoes gives a bit more, but they're still largely evil for the sake of it), and the Grimleal are so laughably evil for no reason that they can't even win over any favor even when the king of their country sides with them. And we get NOTHING on them. They presumably just found Thabes one day and thought "Hey, this giant evil immortal dragon is pretty cool. Let's model ourselves after Disney villains and worship it."

You get Travant, who is evil purely because his country is a dying wasteland, and the only way he can support them is more or less by playing politics and making sure they can get resources(Usually by force). He's beloved by his people because he's doing everything he can to support them in the current climate of Jugdral, even though Thracians are also treated like a group of second class citizens in the continent of Jugdral.

Then you get to Arvis, who is arguably the most multi-faceted villain in the franchise. Simply ever calling him "Evil for the sake of being evil" is about as far from the point of his character as you could get.

Julius is arguable. He's 95% gone for what we see of him, and he's 100% gone by the end of the game. He's being possessed by an evil dragon, and while you could go "Pfft, well, Loptyr is evil for the sake of being evil", you could also lob this same complaint in Lyon's direction . "Pfft, well, Fomortiis is evil for the sake of being evil." Sure, Fomortiis is literally Satan, but dragons in the Archanea-verse are very equatable to Gods. Fomortiis being a demon king and Loptyr being an evil Earth Dragon are generally pretty comparable.

You do get a bunch of one-note dukes and generals, but no Fire Emblem aside from maybe Thracia 776 seconds time developing more than 10% of those one-off bosses.

Edited by Slumber
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2 hours ago, Slumber said:

This is partly true, but this also applies to damn near every other FE.

The first point, this applies to virtually every other FE. The only FE I can even think of that bucks this trend(For the most part) is Radiant Dawn, since you play both sides of the conflict at the same time, up until a certain point, where a common enemy brings the two sides together. Virtually every other game, you have to piece together what the other side is doing through short snippits of dialogue in cutscenes, or through dialogue with the villain of the chapter. This is not something unique to FE4, not by a long shot. Even Fates, which is set-up around the gimmick of "Play for either side!", doesn't fit, since the details of the events change drastically based on what version you play, and you rarely see what's going on with the other side of the conflict. Hell, you will never be able to make sense of what the hell is going on with Garron if you don't play Revelation, and Garron's the goddamn central villain of both Birthright and Conquest.

To the second point, yeah, you get jerkass conquerors like Langobalt and his sons, but they're a brutish country that seemingly thrives on war. Compare the Lopto Sect to any other villain cult in the franchise. We find out WHY they're the way they are, IE, they were prosecuted and hunted for hundreds of years following the fall of Galle's Empire. The Lopto Empire was a group of bad dudes, but they were forced into seclusion until Manfroy went "Wait a minute. Maybe we should use our dark powers to control the kingdoms of the land and resurrect our Dark God!" It's basically like what Germany did to Nazis, only instead of Nazism being a political ideology, it was an ethnicity/religion so people couldn't just "Stop being Nazis" when Hitler's regime fell. Comparatively, we get NO justification for the Duma Faithful in the original FE2(Echoes gives a bit more, but they're still largely evil for the sake of it), and the Grimleal are so laughably evil for no reason that they can't even win over any favor even when the king of their country sides with them. And we get NOTHING on them. They presumably just found Thabes one day and thought "Hey, this giant evil immortal dragon is pretty cool. Let's model ourselves after Disney villains and worship it."

You get Travant, who is evil purely because his country is a dying wasteland, and the only way he can support them is more or less by playing politics and making sure they can get resources(Usually by force). He's beloved by his people because he's doing everything he can to support them in the current climate of Jugdral, even though Thracians are also treated like a group of second class citizens in the continent of Jugdral.

Then you get to Arvis, who is arguably the most multi-faceted villain in the franchise. Simply ever calling him "Evil for the sake of being evil" is about as far from the point of his character as you could get.

Julius is arguable. He's 95% gone for what we see of him, and he's 100% gone by the end of the game. He's being possessed by an evil dragon, and while you could go "Pfft, well, Loptyr is evil for the sake of being evil", you could also lob this same complaint in Lyon's direction . "Pfft, well, Fomortiis is evil for the sake of being evil." Sure, Fomortiis is literally Satan, but dragons in the Archanea-verse are very equatable to Gods. Fomortiis being a demon king and Loptyr being an evil Earth Dragon are generally pretty comparable.

You do get a bunch of one-note dukes and generals, but no Fire Emblem aside from maybe Thracia 776 seconds time developing more than 10% of those one-off bosses.

I first point that is disagree with the popular conception around here that FE4 has the best story.

As for the second point, the way it see it the Lopto Sect is still a bunch of evil mages with few redeeming qualities/ members in FE4. In FE5 for what I have heard, gets better with people like Salem that give a slightly been deception of the cult. But Again we're told that the cult suffered for in the desert, but shown nothing. Case in point, the kid writing on the in chapter 7. Only time in the game I remember where the Loptyr cult is portrayed as anything else than evil. While yes, the organization does have a reason to exist compared to  other FE cults, but as you mentioned the whole " control the kingdoms of the land" opens a other can of worms of how much plot armor does Manfroy has. Again to my original point, FE4 greatly suffers from tells stuff rather than showing.

I'm omitting into mention Travant, Arvis, and Julius in my response because I have not completed the game yet, I'm in the middle of chapter 8.

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8 hours ago, Glaceon Mage said:

The Tellius games write the world well, but the plot itself kinda falls apart in some ways in the latter half of FE10, FE10 Ike isn't a good protagonist imo, and I can't say I'm fond of most of the villains.  

But FE10 Ike is the most badass FE protagonist ever. You're not supposed to be fond of the villains. 

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

I'm in the middle of playing Path of Radiance.

But even if i haven't played the Tellius games, i can still judge their stories.

How is the PoR so far? Do you intend to play its sequel afterwards? I 

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Just now, Icelerate said:

But FE10 Ike is the most badass FE protagonist ever. You're not supposed to be fond of the villains. 

How is the PoR so far? Do you intend to play its sequel afterwards? I 

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic on the villains statement, though I know you are sarcastic on the Ike statement since I know your opinion of FE10 Ike.

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4 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

How is the PoR so far? Do you intend to play its sequel afterwards?

It's great. My main complete is that the battle animations are too slow (it could totally be because of my laptop though) so i just turned off animations. I do intend to play FE10 afterwards, but only if my laptop can run it.

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4 minutes ago, Armagon said:

It's great. My main complete is that the battle animations are too slow (it could totally be because of my laptop though) so i just turned off animations. I do intend to play FE10 afterwards, but only if my laptop can run it.

It also doesn't really help the animations that the visuals are kinda ugly and have aged poorly. Still one of my favorite Fe's though. 

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51 minutes ago, Jingle Jangle said:

I first point that is disagree with the popular conception around here that FE4 has the best story.

As for the second point, the way it see it the Lopto Sect is still a bunch of evil mages with few redeeming qualities/ members in FE4. In FE5 for what I have heard, gets better with people like Salem that give a slightly been deception of the cult. But Again we're told that the cult suffered for in the desert, but shown nothing. Case in point, the kid writing on the in chapter 7. Only time in the game I remember where the Loptyr cult is portrayed as anything else than evil. While yes, the organization does have a reason to exist compared to  other FE cults, but as you mentioned the whole " control the kingdoms of the land" opens a other can of worms of how much plot armor does Manfroy has. Again to my original point, FE4 greatly suffers from tells stuff rather than showing.

I'm omitting into mention Travant, Arvis, and Julius in my response because I have not completed the game yet, I'm in the middle of chapter 8.

My point was, though, that you're using flaws that virtually every FE has to point to how FE4 doesn't have the best FE story. I agree FE4 is far from the best writing out there, but when you compare it to other FEs(Generally gen 1), it has a lot more going for it than against it. And the things going against it also drag down other FEs.

Again, every FE aside from arguably Radiant Dawn, rely HEAVILY on telling and not showing.

Every FE aside from arguably FE5 has one-dimensional villains(Even then, FE5 has two of the most shallow main villains in the series), or villains who are evil just because. FE4 arguably puts more effort into humanizing the villains than FE1-3(Hardin being the major exception, as well as Berkut/Fernand/Rudolf in SoV), FE6(Idoun aside), FE7(The Reeves aside, and Nergal if you jump through the hoops you have to go through to learn anything about him), FE8(Lyon aside, who fills a similar role to Julius, just not as personal to the protagonists), FE9(Shiharam aside), FE13(Tries to make Gangrel and Walhart sympathetic, falls on its face), and Fates(Fates actually goes out of its way to dehumanize characters like Takumi and Xander when they're antagonists).

Oddly enough, the only FE that really is at all similar to FE4 in how it handles villains is probably FE10... again... which, despite all of the subversions of typical FE writing, really doesn't have outstanding writing.

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43 minutes ago, Armagon said:

It's great. My main complete is that the battle animations are too slow (it could totally be because of my laptop though) so i just turned off animations. I do intend to play FE10 afterwards, but only if my laptop can run it.

I didn't have a problem with it as a kid, but the animations are a little slow in PoR now that I don't have quite the patience to watch them all the time; this is a common complaint even when it's just the map animations.

RD fixes this problem... on the second playthrough and beyond. On the first run you get the option of full animations and map animations, after completing the game once, you unlock an option for no animations. Meaning when two units fight, neither actually moves at all, it's a much quicker exchange of damage numbers/miss/no damage with the results to the HP bars shown, and a moment taken whenever a skill activates. Why they don't offer this choice on a first run, I don't know, but I do like the trio of animation options (now combine them with Fates's animation activation options and we'd have all the bells and whistles for this matter).

34 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

It also doesn't really help the animations that the visuals are kinda ugly and have aged poorly. Still one of my favorite Fe's though. 

Didn't notice how bad the 3D models were at the time, but they are rather lacking in PoR, the criticism N64 quality isn't without some basis in fact. Fortunately RD really tuned up the models (yet somehow it still runs on the same game engine as PoR) and not just thanks to the Wii's extra power. They really went out of their way to make the most elegant, sometimes realistic, other times over the top unit models FE has had so far. Here is hoping FE Switch exceeds RD!

 

4 hours ago, Slumber said:

Julius is arguable. He's 95% gone for what we see of him, and he's 100% gone by the end of the game. He's being possessed by an evil dragon, and while you could go "Pfft, well, Loptyr is evil for the sake of being evil", you could also lob this same complaint in Lyon's direction . "Pfft, well, Fomortiis is evil for the sake of being evil." Sure, Fomortiis is literally Satan, but dragons in the Archanea-verse are very equatable to Gods. Fomortiis being a demon king and Loptyr being an evil Earth Dragon are generally pretty comparable.

In the case of Lyon, he isn't quite the same as Julius in portrayal (from what little I've read of FE4's script).

Eirika!Lyon is either himself or Formortiis is controlling him, with the goal I think being making Lyon into a pity magnet for the player.

Ephraim!Lyon has no Lyon-Formortiis internal conflict, outside of briefly during the end of Two Faces of Evil (the Gorgon nest chapter where the SS Renais meets Lyon's palm). Said moment of dichotomy ends with Lyon saying it was a farce and that the DK never controlled him, although as DK speaks after his resurrection that he manipulated Lyon the whole time. Lyon nonetheless all the time like there is a chance he isn't being manipulated. He is cool, calm, sociopathic in his detachment, but never "muahaha!", he seems reasonably close to his flashback self and it makes the facade of him actually doing what he is doing of his own free will to a degree believable.

Julius, insofar I have read, seems to be closer to Ephraim!Lyon, but not ambiguous as to who is in charge. Loptyr is clearly in control when looking at how Julius behaves and speaks, either masquerading as Julius, or Julius and Loptyr have become one mind. He doesn't call himself Loptyr outside of his death quotes (and even then not explicitly). To the very last chapter, he calls Arvis "father", even though Arvis did not sire an Earth Dragon that we know of. If Eph!Lyon were closer to Julius, we'd see more blatant evilness, or were Julius closer to Ephyon, we'd see more pseudo-real Julius.

 

1 hour ago, Jingle Jangle said:

As for the second point, the way it see it the Lopto Sect is still a bunch of evil mages with few redeeming qualities/ members in FE4. In FE5 for what I have heard, gets better with people like Salem that give a slightly been deception of the cult. But Again we're told that the cult suffered for in the desert, but shown nothing. Case in point, the kid writing on the in chapter 7. Only time in the game I remember where the Loptyr cult is portrayed as anything else than evil. While yes, the organization does have a reason to exist compared to  other FE cults, but as you mentioned the whole " control the kingdoms of the land" opens a other can of worms of how much plot armor does Manfroy has. Again to my original point, FE4 greatly suffers from tells stuff rather than showing.

 

Sounds like Medeus, and Gharnef, and Nergal. Medeus was the lone Earth Dragon to side with Naga, only to lose faith in her entrusting of the world to humans when they attacked the Manaketes. Gharnef- clearly had potential as a pupil of Gotoh, but jealousy corrupted him. Nergal- grief from loss of beloved (somehow what was probably centuries later) led him to explore Dark Magic for resurrection purposes, only to trip up and become consumed by it.

What do these share in common? Tragic background told to us, but they're so clearly evil in person that it kinda undermines some of the sympathy we are supposed to feel for them. Yet Eriyon and my personal fav might come off to some as selfishly begging for sympathy, to which some respond with antipathy.

One of the strong traits of my fav though, and Lyon too, is that you do get "show" with them via flashbacks. Lyon is bit better handled on this front since he has the flashbacks scattered throughout the game as opposed to dumped all at once. Though at least they kinda justify how my fav's dump happens despite the oddity of the way it is done, and the flashbacks couldn't be done sooner really. Plus my fav's happens accompanied by nice CGs and some not horrible voice acting (certainly suitable for the personality of my fav). Shame some the important info is not available on the first run, since RD is long, first impressions matter, and not everyone will be playing the game a second time.

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18 minutes ago, Slumber said:

My point was, though, that you're using flaws that virtually every FE has to point to how FE4 doesn't have the best FE story. I agree FE4 is far from the best writing out there, but when you compare it to other FEs(Generally gen 1), it has a lot more going for it than against it. And the things going against it also drag down other FEs.

Again, every FE aside from arguably Radiant Dawn, rely HEAVILY on telling and not showing.

Every FE aside from arguably FE5 has one-dimensional villains(Even then, FE5 has two of the most shallow main villains in the series), or villains who are evil just because. FE4 arguably puts more effort into humanizing the villains than FE1-3(Hardin being the major exception, as well as Berkut/Fernand/Rudolf in SoV), FE6(Idoun aside), FE7(The Reeves aside, and Nergal if you jump through the hoops you have to go through to learn anything about him), FE8(Lyon aside, who fills a similar role to Julius, just not as personal to the protagonists), FE9(Shiharam aside), FE13(Tries to make Gangrel and Walhart sympathetic, falls on its face), and Fates(Fates actually goes out of its way to dehumanize characters like Takumi and Xander when they're antagonists).

Oddly enough, the only FE that really is at all similar to FE4 in how it handles villains is probably FE10... again... which, despite all of the subversions of typical FE writing, really doesn't have outstanding writing.

I do admit I am being too hard on the game here. It' just that my thoughts on the game are stronger due to still currently playing it from the first time. Compared to others game that I has been years since I have last played them. I'm enjoying the game for what it is. 

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10 hours ago, Glaceon Mage said:

In my opinion, different FEs are good and bad at different things.  

FE8 for instance, has very good villain writing.  But it's world building could use work.

FE7 makes the conflict very personal and not world scale, but it's all over the place and can be inconsistent.

The Tellius games write the world well, but the plot itself kinda falls apart in some ways in the latter half of FE10, FE10 Ike isn't a good protagonist imo, and I can't say I'm fond of most of the villains.  

etc. 

 

My favorite is FE8 overall, because I really value villain writing.  Least favorite is FE14, probably.

The main thing that leads me to think FE8's villain writing is in dire need of work is the clear case of quantity over quality in terms of villains (you have about 10 villains that are at least semi-notable in a game that's only 22 chapters; I don't think that's anything other than a recipe for disaster). Well, that, and the part where there's a hell of a lot of cracks if you look past the surface (FFS, the supposedly tragic villain is someone I can't bring myself to feel sorry for because the writing just isn't there to back it up; ya ask me, that's a big red flag).

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1 minute ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

The main thing that leads me to think FE8's villain writing is in dire need of work is the clear case of quantity over quality in terms of villains (you have about 10 villains that are at least semi-notable in a game that's only 22 chapters; I don't think that's anything other than a recipe for disaster). Well, that, and the part where there's a hell of a lot of cracks if you look past the surface (FFS, the supposedly tragic villain is someone I can't bring myself to feel sorry for because the writing just isn't there to back it up; ya ask me, that's a big red flag).

I mean, I personally really like Lyon.  He's sympathetic, his actions are understandable while still being wrong, and his relationship with the protagonists was pretty well done imo.  His dad is more or less an extension of him and his story, Vigarde's Monica-fied after all.  So maybe you found it unsatisfactory, but Lyon got a lot more emotion out of me than pretty much every other villain in the franchise so.

Orson was a well done traitor villain, again, his actions are understandable but still wrong, and "Darling, Darling, Darling" is among the creepiest stuff in FE.

Everyone else aren't anything too special, but they still play their archetypes above average.

Except Riev.  Screw Riev.

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5 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

Orson was a well done traitor villain, again, his actions are understandable but still wrong, and "Darling, Darling, Darling" is among the creepiest stuff in FE.

The general criticism I see of Orson is that the backstab comes quite early in the game. The shock factor/emotional attachment can be on the weaker side because of this. I don't think his reasoning for betrayal is horrific, but the felt connection to him is limited and therefore so is that of the betrayal. He only appears in one chapter before he turns against you.

I do think Valter was wonderfully psychotic and did well with all his screen time. I kinda question whether the backstory of the Duessel support helps or hurts him, since it makes him. His death quote is weak, but the rest of his dialogue is solid for a serial killer. And he's kinda threatening as an enemy- if only he moved.

10 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

Except Riev.  Screw Riev.

Agreed, a terrible generic evil sorcerer who does almost nothing of significance over the course of the game, so he fails in villainy, And whose excommunication from Rausten lacks any explanation and hence he gets an F in sympathy too. All he has of note is being a Bishop and thus using Light Magic, and in Creature Campaign is so durable at base it kinda brushes aside his low Mag (that and effective damage on every foe). But that has nothing to do with his character.

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7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The general criticism I see of Orson is that the backstab comes quite early in the game. The shock factor/emotional attachment can be on the weaker side because of this. I don't think his reasoning for betrayal is horrific, but the felt connection to him is limited and therefore so is that of the betrayal. He only appears in one chapter before he turns against you.

I do think Valter was wonderfully psychotic and did well with all his screen time. I kinda question whether the backstory of the Duessel support helps or hurts him, since it makes him. His death quote is weak, but the rest of his dialogue is solid for a serial killer. And he's kinda threatening as an enemy- if only he moved.

Agreed, a terrible generic evil sorcerer who does almost nothing of significance over the course of the game, so he fails in villainy, And whose excommunication from Rausten lacks any explanation and hence he gets an F in sympathy too. All he has of note is being a Bishop and thus using Light Magic, and in Creature Campaign is so durable at base it kinda brushes aside his low Mag (that and effective damage on every foe). But that has nothing to do with his character.

Fair enough on Orson.

I always interpreted Riev's excommunication as being due to worshipping Formortiis, in which case it's like... no dip you got yourself excommunicated.  Worshipping demons does that to you.  Riev definitely sucks.  But he's the exception, not the rule, for FE8's antagonists.

Edited by Glaceon Mage
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13 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

I mean, I personally really like Lyon.  He's sympathetic, his actions are understandable while still being wrong, and his relationship with the protagonists was pretty well done imo.  His dad is more or less an extension of him and his story, Vigarde's Monica-fied after all.  So maybe you found it unsatisfactory, but Lyon got a lot more emotion out of me than pretty much every other villain in the franchise so.

Orson was a well done traitor villain, again, his actions are understandable but still wrong, and "Darling, Darling, Darling" is among the creepiest stuff in FE.

Everyone else aren't anything too special, but they still play their archetypes above average.

Except Riev.  Screw Riev.

Yeah, Riev sucked

 

 

Well, as a FE7-FE10 and FE2(I'll be talking about all of them, except Gaiden)

 

   It is safe to assume that FE9 is the best written storywise. BK, Ashnard, Shiharam(If Jill is brought), Petrine, Bryce and Oliver were memorable reasons, for good reasons or not. Also, I loved how themes like racism and torture chambers were mentioned, making the story even more memorable. Though, Bertram never being mentioned besides the chapter that he is fought was a huge mistake. FE7 was good on its own right, most of its cahpters  were quite... uninteresting, however Nino's arc, Dread Isle arc, Cog of Destiny and the Chapter XX were top-notch. Whereas the rest of the game ranges from  below average to somewhat good. Overall, an OK FE storywise.

  FE8 was really good, despite the earlygame being tiresome, up until chapter 5X, as I've played only Ephraim route I really enjoyed it, depite people saying that Eirika's route is better on that regard. Vigarde was good, Lyon too. Selena was interesting, who the heck is Caellach and I already talked about Riev. But Orson and Valter stole the show, for reasons that were probably already stated. FE10 was a complete mess, it had a good start due to the fact that we don't play a game of cat and rat on FE and especially do not see a villain as cornered as in Part 1. Part 2 was a blast, Part 3 started bad and up until Pelleas arc it was bad, then everything went downhill.

FE2 beats them with "With Mila's Divine Protection" alone

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Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn and Genealogy are probably the best for me, but they're good for different things.

Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are good for having very colorful characters, great conversations, impactful and dramatic moments (a lot of good Sanaki moments are examples). Both stories are really fleshed out with a very realistic and diverse world, and the Laguz aspect of the world makes it magical and very complex. While it's still typical FE/VG story (fight big dragon/god boss at the end) has the best political drama out of most of the other stories.

Genealogy of the Holy War is good in my opinion because of the plot design of the first half, and some elements in the both halves that make the story dark and serious. The the thing that I like about the first half of the story is the way Sigurd is forced to do a bunch of military actions that don't always turn out to be the right thing because Sigurd is not a perfect commander. He may have the FE Main Lord perfect personality, but he's not gripped on to by the plot so that he never messes up. In the end the actions Sigurd took backfired on him more than once, and he was easily betrayed and killed at the end. This is the only FE story with this type of plot, and I think the first half of Genealogy could be a great well developed story for a remake, only if they make the characters more fleshed out and give Sigurd's personality a lot more power. The ending might be sad, but if the story moves around from both antagonist and protagonist sides like it did in the original, the story can be designed to give clues to Sigurd's death, and leave as a great lesson from a tragic and shocking ending ( at least to FE players who know nothing about the original story).  The other great aspect about Genealogy's story is that it's darker and more mature. Just look at Sigurd's death, the Child Hunts, and the way princes and princesses must tragically fall during times of conflict. Nothing like what we have nowadays in FE stories. (Elise jumping in the way of an attack thinking that's the best moment to stop an starting battle, and an entire fucking war. lool)

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