Generic enemy units are given a unique portrait and a biography.

[Spatha]

Few Fire Emblem games has explored the moral dilemma of the humanizing the many soldiers the protagonist army spends killing.

So what about giving every generic enemy unit a human face?

1. Unique Portraits.

-This one is a much tougher task but it done well, it gives a whole new level of uniqueness to a story.

2. A full biography.

Every enemy unit has a biography that humanizes them. Much easier since it's just text. Tactics Ogre gives their enemies randomly generated names and some generic enemies are given unique backstories in the in-game encyclopedia.

Ex:

1. Chelsea.
Gender: Female
Class: Diviner
Allegiance: Hoshido
A staff officer in the magic unit. Good at fortune telling, and sometimes foretells tactics. Frank and gives good advice, but is indecisive when it comes to her life.

2. Chad
Gender:Male
Class: Lancer Fighter
Allegiance: Hoshido

“Always fights at the forefront, supposedly to forget familial troubles. Sometimes screams his wife's name while hacking at his enemies.”

3. Fully voiced unit quotes.

Similar to how RTS games function. Why not give them a voice and it changes depending on certain situations? For example:

Female Nohrian Soldier under Camillia

Movement Quotes: Soldiers of Nohr! GO!!

Attack Quotes:  How dare you break Princess Camillia's heart!!

Damage Quote: Damn you, traitor!!

Death Quote: I-i-i'm...sorry.. Princess...

 

 

 

[Vince777]

Aren't those weird names for Hoshido natives though?

I think you should take look at the list of generic names the game does have for capturable units. 

Here's a partial list:

Males:

Jin

Jinpei

Kazuki

Kenosha

Masahiko

Nobu

Ren

Saburo

Takanori

Tamaki

Tomihiko

Yamato

Yohei

Females:

Asuka

Kasumi

Koromo

Mikasa

Momiji

 

Edited February 23, 2019 by Vince777

[NinjaMonkey]

7 hours ago, Spatha said:

Few Fire Emblem games has explored the moral dilemma of the humanizing the many soldiers the protagonist army spends killing.

So what about giving every generic enemy unit a human face?

1. Unique Portraits.

-This one is a much tougher task but it done well, it gives a whole new level of uniqueness to a story.

2. A full biography.

Every enemy unit has a biography that humanizes them. Much easier since it's just text. Tactics Ogre gives their enemies randomly generated names and some generic enemies are given unique backstories in the in-game encyclopedia.

This would be the Nintendo equivalent of when Rockstar modelled shrinking horse testicles in Red Dead Redemption 2: A whole lot of work for something that 99% of players aren't going to notice or care about.

Edited February 23, 2019 by NinjaMonkey

[Hanes]

I feel like we could have a set of say 5 faces and 10 different eyebrows, mouths, and eyes that are given to every unit maybe? But like still although it would be cool, nobody would really care or go "Oh no I'm killing many people!" unless the game objective states so. I don't know about others but I don't like being mentally, emotionally and morally challenged when playing videogames after coming of a Math contest or whatever.

[Emperor Hardin]

Spoiler

1. Bahadur the Warrior Captain of Verdane from Chapter 1.

Gender: Male
Class: Warrior
Allegiance: Verdane

Bio: A longtime commander of Verdane in his 40s and close confidant of Kinbois who has seen his fair sure of victories, Bahadur is proud to be one of the few remaining warriors in the nation(really he is the only Warrior other then the Princes in Verdane's army). He has looked after the Princes of Verdane for 17 years and helped teach Kinbois and Gandolf how to fight(hence them being the only other warriors in Verdane).

Bahadur was proud of his skill as a tactician and had written several books. Eager to improve Verdane was more then just the barbarians, Grannevale dismissed of them, Bahadur approved of the war against Grannevale, he gave Gandolf the idea to marry into royalty by capturing a Grannevalian noblewoman. Though Gandolf ignored Bahadur's advice about acting gentlemanly and pulling a good cop/bad cop routine to get her to fall into stockholm syndrome.

Bahadur was not happy when he learned of Kinbois capturing Prince Shanan of Isaach to blackmail Ayra into fighting for them, as he hoped Verdane and Isaach could join together to take out Grannevale. Nevertheless he followed his liege's orders, while doing all he could to make sure Shannan's captivity was as comfortable as possible. During the defense of his master's castle, Bahadur put up a good fight, but was ultimately slain by Sigurd, the warrior's life ending at age 46.
 

[tapwater]

Not sure I will spend time reading the bios though. I'll just send my units in to rush the enemy. 

[whase]

I'm probably one of the few that would love this idea. And with interchangeable face partials and generated personality traits it wouldn't be a terribly complicated one.

If you'd want to put a focus on the humanity of enemies you'd need a different way of handling experience though. Most experience in FE comes from making kills, and not making kills costs you experience. Path of Radiance had a few chapters giving bonus experience for not making kills, but even this was far less then what you got for just slaughtering the field.

Just imagine the story possibilities though, some new allies not wanting to join because they find you weak, while others may want to join because of your humanity. Maybe enemy AI or even strength might vary depending on whether you're a killer or not.

Expanding on that, imagine being able to set 2 statuses for each character; aggressive/neutral/defensive and lethal/non-lethal. Some characters might be excluded from some of these options, just because of who they are. Aggressive would give a bonus to hit/dmg, and defensive would give a bonus to avoid/dmg reduction. lethal would add to your kill-count each time you defeat an enemy, non-lethal would incur an offence penalty. Now certain enemies might be more inclined on going aggressive against your units that have certain kill-counts. This could then be assigned to their generated personalities, which are visible from their stat screens. In this case it could be helpful to observe your opponents, though it should not be too powerful so those that don't like this feature won't be impacted too greatly.

Sorry, I got carried away, just really like the idea and thought about it before. XD

[henrymidfields]

43 minutes ago, whase said:

Just imagine the story possibilities though, some new allies not wanting to join because they find you weak, while others may want to join because of your humanity. Maybe enemy AI or even strength might vary depending on whether you're a killer or not.

Expanding on that, imagine being able to set 2 statuses for each character; aggressive/neutral/defensive and lethal/non-lethal. Some characters might be excluded from some of these options, just because of who they are. Aggressive would give a bonus to hit/dmg, and defensive would give a bonus to avoid/dmg reduction. lethal would add to your kill-count each time you defeat an enemy, non-lethal would incur an offence penalty. Now certain enemies might be more inclined on going aggressive against your units that have certain kill-counts. This could then be assigned to their generated personalities, which are visible from their stat screens. In this case it could be helpful to observe your opponents, though it should not be too powerful so those that don't like this feature won't be impacted too greatly.

I think Thracia 776 works best with this, as you can capture and release enemy units. I think EXP should be given for making prisoners out of enemy units. And maybe if your army is over a certain kill counts then some enemies (particularly the punch-clock villain variety) becomes more desperate - +5-15% critical activation bonus at the cost of avoid (or critical dodge penalty for the player. If the player army ended up killing, or failing to rescue, neutral/allied units, then the penalties against the player becomes harsher as enemy units acts more desperately to avoid being subject to a possible genocide.

Even the chapters would change slightly, where more enemies, or tougher enemies are deployed against you if the infamy of your barbarism against your enemy rises above a certain threshold.

And the effects of this are augumented in higher difficulties, while it is effectively neutered in the easiest mode.

Edited February 28, 2019 by henrymidfields