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*in before there's a "final ending" where everyone lives happily ever after*


Kysafen
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Calling it now. Awakening and Fates have proven beyond a doubt Intelligent Systems have no idea how to write a story that takes any kind of risk whatsoever. Writing that takes no risks at all is just white noise. Obviously I'll buy, and play it for the gameplay, but I cannot imagine IS not taking a plot that had potential like Fates and utterly squandering it.

Who are these nations? What do they believe in? What are their natural resources? Do they have different religions, different languages, different philosophies of life, different works of literature that define their philosophies to the point where the masses of each decide that the other is incompatible? What are the "crests" and what effect do they have on the nations? Are we going to explore the reason why the crests are "bad", are we going to have a multifaceted discussion on each nation in general?

Or, are we going to get yet another dumpster fire heap of anime tropetastic characters with zero depth to the appeal of otaku shut-ins who will deem them "waifus" and "husbandos", along with yet another disposable, forgettable villain who's so cartoonishly evil you cannot help wondering why the populace would ever accept them as their head of state.

Feel free to lock/delete this thread if you like, but my point stands. Fire Emblem has the capacity to raise the bar when it comes to its storytellng and character writing. I'm sick to death, hell, and back again of game localizations that are bereft of flavor, subtlety, or style, sick of localization teams in this industry that think their job is only to convey a surface-level understanding of the dialogue without considering all context of the game's plot as well as the manner-of-speaking that characters have (fun fact: different people have different patterns of speech, believe it or not). I will concede that, in the past 10 years of Fire Emblem games, Echoes remains the single exception to most of my complaints here. If we can get characters with designs that actually stand out, are voice-acted and written with nuance as much as Echoes had, then I will eat these words and admit I was wrong in my prediction. But I sure as shit won't bet the bank on it.

Edited by Kysafen
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The leading theory is that this isn't a Fates situation where the whole cast depends on your choice of route, but more of a Sacred Stones situation (While there are major changes of character acquisition order, and plot points, etc., you do get MOSTLY the same people on all routes, barring a few exceptions like the route splits in Thracia, Binding, and Blazing).

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:rolleyes: Oh boy.....

 

9 minutes ago, Kysafen said:

Calling it now. Awakening and Fates have proven beyond a doubt Intelligent Systems have no idea how to write a story that takes any kind of risk whatsoever.

 

9 minutes ago, Kysafen said:

Echoes remains the single exception to most of my complaints here

This right here is something I wish people would stop doing.

Whenever someone brings up how bad FE14's story was, only for someone else to bring up FE15, someone ALWAYS say it's the exception for some reason, which is soooo funny to me becasue that game alone should have proven that IS could write good characters, and yet people still want to act like IS can't write to save their lives.

 

And I know some other people might say "bUT ThIS GaME WILL HavE an aVaTAR" and all I have to say to say is avatar doesn't equal bad story, or at least not in my book.

Really this is all I have to say about this thread, goodnight. 

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16 minutes ago, Rose482 said:

And I know some other people might say "bUT ThIS GaME WILL HavE an aVaTAR" and all I have to say to say is avatar doesn't equal bad story, or at least not in my book.

The role of an avatar is an entire discussion unto itself. When you're playing Fire Emblem, you're playing an abstraction of the role of the commander of an army, with your representation being the "lord" you represent. The whole "character creation" thing is a construct of deception that your agency in Awakening or Fates is your own original experience, when really every bit of Corrin or Robin or Chris' dialogue affects absolutely nothing about the story and how it unfolds, and the player has zero control over their personalities. You cannot change the physical appearance of Flynn in SMT IV except for his clothes, and he has little to no dialogue other than the dialogue options that you choose. The player projects their personality and philosophy onto Flynn, and the character creation lasts through the duration of a playthrough in which you define who Flynn really is right up to the ending you earn, a choice among many others that causes you to become a person totally different from another Flynn that made a different choice. Contrast to Fates, in which Corrin and Robin's character remains static no matter which option you choose, in which Fates becomes a matter of which mapppack and roster you select, and in Awakening, literally nothing changes at all.

When you play non-avatar Fire Emblem games, there is no illusion of which character the player becomes: you enter the mentality of Marth or Leif, youths that had their kingdoms destroyed and brutalized. Sacred Stones, you're either an heiress with conflicted feelings about the catalyst behind the unfolding conflict, or you're a badass heir to a demolished kingdom looking to find out why the conflict has unfolded, and you won't let anyone get in your way. The player BECOMES the lords they play as, because if they die, the player-agency is lost and the game ends.

Edited by Kysafen
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Nice blog post. The title isn't even correlating to most of the OP's arguments.

I'm fed up with the "nobody dies in Fire Emblem" trope myself, but I can't attribute it exclusively to modern games. When I first encountered Awakening's "Yay, everybody's back to life!" Endgame paralogues, I was first reminded of the Creature Campaign of Sacred Stones. I've heard some suggest that doesn't count, since there's no dialogue explaining it, but I think the lack of explanation is a weakness, not a strength. Furthermore does everybody need reminding of the Ninian situation at the end of FE7? Or the "don't worry, Tiki is just sleeping line" if you kill her rather than recruit her in Shadow Dragon? It's certainly obnoxious that only about half the cast of Fates can actually die rather than "retreat" on Classic difficulties, but there was plenty of that nonsense in previous games as well. The only Fire Emblem game that I think follows through on major character deaths is Shadow Dragon where entire scenes get rewritten to accommodate for losing Caeda, Jagen, etc. Even in that game's Tiki situation they came up with a whole new chapter and character for those that failed to recruit the dragon girl.

I'll be rolling my eyes when we finish a chapter in Three Houses and a House leader says to Byleth "Phew, good thing we dispatched those innocent people without injuring them". But who knows, some lessons might have been learned. Save the rants for after release. It's not like you're objecting to the idea of buying and playing the game anyway.

Edited by Glennstavos
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Either you are an elaborate troll looking to ruffle some feathers, in which case youve already gotten what you wanted, or you are an asshole making a post that belongs more on a blog than this forum.

Either way, this topic really does nothing but stir the pot and makes an inflammatory statement about a game we have less than 10 minutes of footage of in total. If you dont like what you see, then dont buy the game and take your opinions to a blog post or a post on twitter or whatever soapbox you want to go stand on.

As for what your claims are, there is hardly enough information to make that assumption anyway, we have less than 10 minutes of footage as I have said, and we have no idea what level of development is behind this game, and especially the story.

And considering we have a continent, more world building than Fates and Awakening combined, and an avatar that seems to be a static character much like Persona, its looking to be on a much better footing than it is looking to be worst.

In regards to anime, hate to break it to you but the series has always been full of "anime tropes", and bland villains. I dont know why you are looking for a top tier story in a Strategy Role Playing series built off the most generic story possible for its first title, but you arent going to get it. I suggest not expecting the next LoTR from a series that had a loli dragon in the first game.

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News flash: SoV's writing was kinda crap as well and the series was always really tropey and never had that great writing to begin with.

Save the complaints until after the game is it, where some in-depth critical analysis will actually be appreciated-- instead of long winded bitching and saying you're fine with the thread getting locked.

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I wanted to see a longer post but i don't feel like triggering a flame war. 

I see the issues you pointed out in fateswakening in any single game of the series except for Genealogy first generation and Path of Radiance. 

The only villains worth anything are Arvis and Travant. The only continents that get the characterization you descrived are those that appear in multiple games. And i'd take an anime trope over the absolute blandness of certain pre-awakening characters. Being a JRPG trope is not better than being an anime trope.

And the majority of lord are either Mary sues, idiots or both.

The elitism concerning fire emblem stories always puzzled me, because an actual elitist would consider each and every game trash. I agree that fates is the worst of the bunch, but for me is 2/10 in a series that rarely went above 5/10. It's not like, say, Mass Effect Andromeda, where the saga was excellent up to that point.

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3 hours ago, Kysafen said:

I will concede that, in the past 10 years of Fire Emblem games, Echoes remains the single exception to most of my complaints here.

@Thane

3 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Nice blog post.

@eclipse

 

 

How about making fewer topics like this in general?  Because it sure as hell isn't invoking a "genuine, thoughtful discussion" vibe the way the topic title is worded and the way you start off the post.  People gonna come into this thread immediately salty, and that's not because they're naturally hostile or angry people, but because you can't find a way to initiate a conversation like this in a mature, non-inciting way, and because you evidently are so consumed by your overwhelming negativity that it rubs off on every word you utter.  In fact, this isn't the first time I've seen you spouting negativity; I saw you justifying people shitting on one of the Thracia 776 translation projects and generally being frustratingly pessimistic there as well.

For that reason, I will say nothing more in response other than to agree with what @Jedi said.

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1 hour ago, Tolvir said:

Either you are an elaborate troll looking to ruffle some feathers

I mean if he is-

1 hour ago, Tolvir said:

youve already gotten what you wanted

...you hit the nail on the head.

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3 hours ago, Kysafen said:

Fire Emblem games, Echoes remains the single exception to most of my complaints here

echoes? being an exception to your complaints? If ANYTHING echoes proves that IS HAS LEARNED NOTHING when it comes writing good stories and characters from fates. Like shit Alm is by and large the SAFEST F*CKING  GENERIC LIGHT NOVEL protagonist you can get. I'm serious Alm is about a stones throw away from kirito all things considered. *sigh* I'm sorry I got heated there.  It just baffles me how people can rag so much on corrin for being a mary sue when Alm isn't that much better.  *sigh* I'm sorry I'll stop. I just needed to get that off my chest

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15 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

echoes? being an exception to your complaints? If ANYTHING echoes proves that IS HAS LEARNED NOTHING when it comes writing good stories and characters from fates. Like shit Alm is by and large the SAFEST F*CKING  GENERIC LIGHT NOVEL protagonist you can get. I'm serious Alm is about a stones throw away from kirito all things considered. *sigh* I'm sorry I got heated there.  It just baffles me how people can rag so much on corrin for being a mary sue when Alm isn't that much better.  *sigh* I'm sorry I'll stop. I just needed to get that off my chest

Alm already had a framework. Corrin was completely original. Alm had to follow the same basic steps of the original Gaiden, while Corrin was put in a completely original story.

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3 minutes ago, Corrobin said:

Alm already had a framework. Corrin was completely original. Alm had to follow the same basic steps of the original Gaiden, while Corrin was put in a completely original story.

Still doesn't change the fact that Alm is a generic Light Novel protagonist who is kirito levels of bad and OP.  He may have already had a framework but that doesn't really excuse the bad writing. Alm and Corrin aren't really all that different in terms of how they're written when you really look at it

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2 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Still doesn't change the fact that Alm is a generic Light Novel protagonist who is kirito levels of bad and OP.  He may have already had a framework but that doesn't really excuse the bad writing. Alm and Corrin aren't really all that different in terms of how they're written when you really look at it

I don't think most Light Novel protags have Alm's level of sarcasm and snark, at least early on in the game. Most LN protags are boring level-headed types or over-the-top hot-head types, and Alm's a balance between being rational and emotional.

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1 minute ago, Corrobin said:

I don't think most Light Novel protags have Alm's level of sarcasm and snark, at least early on in the game. Most LN protags are boring level-headed types or over-the-top hot-head types, and Alm's a balance between being rational and emotional.

Most of them actually have it, it's just that most of it is in their inner monologues that get cut in the anime adaptation. 

Most LN writers don't know how to do characterization properly and their characters speak trough inner monologues insteads of their words and action, wich usually are generic as hell.

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2 minutes ago, Corrobin said:

I don't think most Light Novel protags have Alm's level of sarcasm and snark, at least early on in the game. Most LN protags are boring level-headed types or over-the-top hot-head types, and Alm's a balance between being rational and emotional.

Since when was alm at all snarky or sarcastic? I mean maybe a tiny bit but overall he's just a generic nice guy who everyone loves and can never be wrong. Like seriously he's never wrong like ever and whoever disagrees with him is presented as stupid and on the wrong side of the argument(like Celica). He also has a light harem going on for no other reason than that he's alm so of course all the girls have to faun over him. Seriously if that doesn't scream light novel protag to you I have no idea what does

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1 minute ago, Ottservia said:

Since when was alm at all snarky or sarcastic? I mean maybe a tiny bit but overall he's just a generic nice guy who everyone loves and can never be wrong. Like seriously he's never wrong like ever and whoever disagrees with him is presented as stupid and on the wrong side of the argument(like Celica). He also has a light harem going on for no other reason than that he's alm so of course all the girls have to faun over him. Seriously if that doesn't scream light novel protag to you I have no idea what does

Well, somebody hasn't done his examination quotes. When Alm examines stuff in first-person modes, he makes a lot of snarky comments, as well as some dumb puns ("I bet if you sold this pot, you could urn a lot of money. Get it? Urn?").

And maybe he's 'generic'. I, honestly, think he's fun. And he certainly doesn't reach the Gary Stu/Mary Sue-level implosion of Corrin (Hi, I'm the princess of one kingdom raised in another but actually I'm from a third, secret kingdom nobody knows about, I'm half-dragon and I have a super magic sword and everyone loves me (except for those evil guys) and I'm always right).

Compared to that, "I'm a prince raised as a commoner to disguise my identity and I can use a cool magic dragon-slaying sword" is practically nothing.

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2 minutes ago, Corrobin said:

Well, somebody hasn't done his examination quotes. When Alm examines stuff in first-person modes, he makes a lot of snarky comments, as well as some dumb puns ("I bet if you sold this pot, you could urn a lot of money. Get it? Urn?").

And maybe he's 'generic'. I, honestly, think he's fun. And he certainly doesn't reach the Gary Stu/Mary Sue-level implosion of Corrin (Hi, I'm the princess of one kingdom raised in another but actually I'm from a third, secret kingdom nobody knows about, I'm half-dragon and I have a super magic sword and everyone loves me (except for those evil guys) and I'm always right).

Compared to that, "I'm a prince raised as a commoner to disguise my identity and I can use a cool magic dragon-slaying sword" is practically nothing.

I mean he's certainly likable but honestly he's just a bad protagonist. Corrin I find to be just a confused mess of a character that no idea what it wants to be which is why I find them to be worse than Alm. Though Alm really isn't really that much better because uh... how can a genius chosen one hero with special powers gifted to them by their oh so amazing bloodline say that the station of one's birth doesn't effect a man's worth cause uhhh.... yeah.

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Yes, Alm biggest problem is the Naruto Syndrome. 

A chosen one story is about destiny and the clash between what the character want and what they are predeterminated to do. An underdog story is about defying expectations and becoming what nobody expected the character to become. An underdog that is revealed to be a chosen one all along is the worst of both worlds.

 

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2 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Yes, Alm biggest problem is the Naruto Syndrome. 

A chosen one story is about destiny and the clash between what the character want and what they are predeterminated to do. An underdog story is about defying expectations and becoming what nobody expected the character to become. An underdog that is revealed to be a chosen one all along is the worst of both worlds.

 

agreed except for the comparison to naruto. Even Naruto ain't that bad about it but seeing as how this isn't the type of thread to discuss that I'm just gonna leave this video here

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Jeez and I thought I was the one being hard on IntSys for their writing. Seriously, I get your frustration TRUST ME I DO but if a vacuous, fuming pessimistic take on a game we still know little about is what you have to offer I'd recommend stepping away from the computer and reconsidering.

I used to be in the same spot emotionally back when I used to rant endlessly about Fates on G+, all you're doing is making yourself more frustrated and making everyone else have to watch.

Besides I wouldn't exactly call Echoes nuanced, it COULD have called out Mila and Duma for their stubbornness by having the cause of the conflict be them drifting further and further into extremism with their ideologies and becoming a danger to the people they swore to protect as a result but NOPE DRAGON MADNESS LOL. Like, it's a good game but come on man, give this a little thought before ranting.

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Honestly thought this was about Avengers Endgame when I glanced at the title, hahah.

Lets just wait and see, okay? It's wayyy too early to say anything about the story.

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Guest This Guy

Fire Emblem could stand to take a queu or a thousand from Suikoden.

 

Good and bad people on both sides, there are characters who will die no matter what, at the end the borders are gonna be redrawn and governments overthrown, etc.

Really all RPGs should take several lessons from Suikoden.

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52 minutes ago, Guest This Guy said:

Fire Emblem could stand to take a queu or a thousand from Suikoden.

 

Good and bad people on both sides, there are characters who will die no matter what, at the end the borders are gonna be redrawn and governments overthrown, etc.

Really all RPGs should take several lessons from Suikoden.

Now THIS I agree with.

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