Do you think FE's playable characters should lean more 'high concept' or 'low concept'?

[Corrobin]

To explain what I mean-Those two phrases, high and low concept, are used in the TV business to describe if a show's core idea is fantastical ("A family adopts a dog who can talk and owns a blog"), or more low-key and down to earth ("The adventures of a family who just added a new member, as shown by the older sister's video diary for the newest member").

What I mean by this is that often, in some FE games, it feels like some characters can run a bit samey in terms of the basic idea (to use FE6 as an example, the starting party is "A young lord", "The lord's older knight, who served his father", "A knight in training", "Another knight in training", "A knight in service to lord's friend", and "An archer and old friend of lord".). There's nothing wrong with simplicity and down-to-earth-ness, but sometimes, I like more interesting ideas (All original character concepts-"A wandering swordswoman, who's husband's soul is trapped into a cursed sword she wields", or "A young mage who was kidnapped into a cult for his bloodline, but who escaped").

I'm not saying it has to be all or nothing, a game full of edgelords, all PCs. Every FE game has a certain mix. But would you rather it stay balanced, or lean towards one side or the other?

[Seazas]

High concept, FE with all these characters has reached a point where if you try to directly copy from the archetypes again like FE6 did... Your characters will struggle to be memorable. There's a reason FE6 has the most forgotten characters outside of dated SNES games. Archanea can rival them since the characters are so basic, simple and irrelevant ((despite my love for them)).

Sylvain becoming more of a cynical take on the token flirty character made him one of the most memorable versions of that type. 

Three Houses notable took a step regarding the cast, everything about the 3 lords differentiate significantly between the last few lords. They would fail to stand out as much otherwise. 

Three Houses is something the Fire Emblem fanbase needed, it's a significant step toward unification of the fanbase. It's something new that's decently well handled in writing. 

[Reality]

Low concept.           I feel like I see deconstructionism go too far a lot these days in a lot of fantasy material - I don't like slipping into the point of tackiness. I also think that a honest to goodness use of the most vanilla fantasy can be Refreshing - It's uplifting to see chivalry treated straight every now and then - and what's more it can be FUN. I also don't think it is as "creatively stifling" as people make it out to be, and I think even in cases of freely borrowing and widespread use of stock charathers (Fabilau come to mind) that there is a lot of room for voice.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Fire Emblem is very much a fantasy series, but I could envision an argument for keeping things low concept when in doubt. Remember that 100% of our playable units in the average fire emblem game are humans, and then one or two shapeshifter weirdos. Their settings are made up, but mirror our own real world and history. And the soldiers do battle with swords, pikes, and the occasional fireball. Fireballs are high concept and the writers are correct in explaining as little as they can get away with when it comes to how people generate them in their hands, but everything else is steeped in an easy to follow logic. Even Three Houses, with it's introduction of Relics and Crests, explains them through the concept of nobility and genetic inheritance which is not at all foreign to us 21st century types. In Fodlan, people are products of where they come from, and that is absolutely true of the real world. To me, a story that is described as "high concept" is either extremely science fiction where the audience can't reasonably doubt the details, or just a world the writers have no interest in explaining to the audience.

[Scoot]

I don't think a character necessarily has to be high-concept and fantastical to be interesting. A simple, down-to-earth character can still be good if they have a compelling backstory. FE1 didn't go too terribly deep into character development, which is why most of the units had single-sentence biographies. But 3H did well with it's "normie" characters, (Leonie, Ashe and Raphael come to mind. They're not nobility or magical in any way, but they have charm all the same.) and throwing too much mystical mumbo-jumbo at a character sometimes is just a flashy cover for a whole lot of nothing. (quick, describe Azura's personality without using the word "mysterious")

[AnonymousSpeed]

19 minutes ago, Reality said:

 I also don't think it is as "creatively stifling" as people make it out to be, and I think even in cases of freely borrowing and widespread use of stock charathers (Fabilau come to mind) that there is a lot of room for voice.

Stock characters are the most developed of all, since people have writing them them for hundreds of years.

I personally favor "low concept," as defined in this thread. I think characters can be a little more exaggerated, but should overall stick to the sorts of people that exist either in Medieval reality or modern reality. Fire Emblem's strength is when the characters are very much regular humans thrust into absurd circumstances, and I think that ought to be embraced.

In address to @Corrobin's OP, these low concept characters may have been boring in some cases (though I am an apologist for the cast of FE6), but that is more a result of execution than anything. I mean, real people tend to be pretty interesting, right?

There's obviously room for the high concept stuff though. It makes an excellent catalyst, for example.

[SoulWeaver]

2 hours ago, Scoot said:

(quick, describe Azura's personality without using the word "mysterious")

Someone who's actually read the script for the game, but can't spoil how bad it is for the rest of the Fates crew and so has to pretend she only knows what the script says she knows.

[Scoot]

16 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

Someone who's actually read the script for the game, but can't spoil how bad it is for the rest of the Fates crew and so has to pretend she only knows what the script says she knows.

Sounds about right.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Scoot said:

(quick, describe Azura's personality without using the word "mysterious")

Lazy. Cause let's face it, that's basically the only reason Revelations didn't happen in the other two routes. Though to be serious, I'd describe her as a very reserved character. Not willing to share or open up even to people she's obviously close to. Though I guess that's just a round about way of saying mysterious. There's at least a reason for it giving the way she was raised.

 

On topic. These casts have likfe 40+ characters most of the time. Why not give us both?

Edited September 22, 2019 by Jotari

[Flere210]

7 hours ago, Scoot said:

 (quick, describe Azura's personality without using the word "mysterious")

The only person that know about a conspiracy she can't tell everyone else, and so she tries to prevent the worst outcome whitout telling people what she was really trying to do. On top of it she is very untrustworthy because she never felt at home anywhere and will only open up to Corrin, but even then only to a certain extent.

Honestly, i think i could do better, but i don't remember Fates very well.

[henrymidfields]

I would prefer a low-key characterization that is done well - after all, the initial concept under Kaga was about strategy and politics in the medieval world like what inspired Kaga. There's a reason why I liked the majority of Persona 3 and 4's cast, and that is because of how elabourate yet nuanced their backstories were, as if they were real people in a documentary of Japan's teenagers.

In the case of Binding Blade, we can definitely elabourate the characters a bit more, and explore the archetypes further to stand differently from others.

For example, Roy is the noble lord who is very knowledgeable about tactics and diplomacy. This can be because in the prologue, he learnt about such importance from his father, and also he put in the effort. There can be an extra scene in which he wrote a letter to his father, recalling how Roy witnessed Hector's failure in battle, which in turn leads to Elliwood's caution to Roy about how Hector didn't take such things seriously when he was younger, leading to Hector's downfall. Roy is determined not to make the same mistake, yet he has his fears and doubts about his own leadership when he is tasked with leading the remnant forces for Lycia - after all, Lycia vs Bern at the end of Chapter 3 is, in terms of military strength and status, respectively like Japan vs USA in mid-to-late 1945. (Politically? It was of course more the other way around.) He only comes to terms with this at the end of Chapter 16 - his arc after that is to understand how a formerly popular and gallant prince like Zephiel ended up on the deep end. In the end of the story, he admits that there are many things he does not understand, and hence why he needs his supporters to guide him.

Marcus, on the other hand, could reflect on how he guided Eliwood in his younger days, and how he should approach in guiding Roy. In the start he would certainly doubt Roy's ability - partly because of lack of experience, and also because of how formidable Bern is, and how deep the proverbial shit Lycia is in. He needs to support Roy, of course, in order for Roy's army to have a chance in surviving the invasion, but he is also pragmatic enough to consider surrendering and defecting to Bern as an option, should things get desparate. Marcus also elabourates to Roy about Zephiel, and how Roy should not label thing black and white - based on what Marcus and Eliwood witnessed in Bern two decades ago.

Even some key enemies can be elabourated more. Leygance was the traitor who defected to Bern in Chapter 8. Turns out, he did so after hearing stories from the few survivors from Hector's battle. And Leygance, being Hector's trusted lieutenant, knew how Hector was brick-dumb about politics and strategy, and decided that the risk of pillage on Ostia was not worth resisting the Bernese invaders. Lilina, however, would have none of it, and Leygance had to lock her up, and use her to compel Roy to surrender with Leygance.

In relation to Marcus, we can bring him up in Leygance's story, and show how Marcus was hesitant in letting Roy/Lilina slay Leygance in Chapter 8 - because Leygance had a good point; both he and Marcus knew that asking for Etruria's help was a big gamble, and both were aware of how ruthless Bern could be. Both were cynical about Lycia - Marcus only survived because he happened to be under Eliwood and Roy. This leads to Roy distrusting Marcus for a number of chapters until he appreciated Marcus's pragmatism in Chapter 16, while Marcus saw how Roy started to grow as a commander, and saw newfound hope in him. AT the same time, Marcus's health starts to falter from the campaign's toll, and he either dies or retires, brought back to Lycia, and entrusts Lilina, Wolt, and others to continue supporting Roy. (Special conversation involving anyone Marcus supported comes up after Chapter 16. After that, support bonus with Marcus will be activated with the pair whoever Marcus supported. If Roy and Lilina both had support conversations with Marcus, then Roy and Lilina's support bonuses with Marcus will be added on top of their own support bonuses with each other.)

Edited September 26, 2019 by henrymidfields

[Fabulously Olivier]

I like a bit of a mix. High concept characters only stand out when most of the other characters are low concept, and FE generally hits a pretty good balance of that these days (even if they have confused quirks for personalities). 

 

Also, tropes aren't bad. Things become codified because they were at some point considered useful. I'm sure we all have character archetypes that we find endearing. I'm personally partial to wandering bards (Lewyn, Elphin), pompous witty characters (Bastian, Rennac, Virion), and tacticians (Innes, Claude, Robin). 

[Mylady]

As mentioned, the low key characterizations and simple stories was overdone in Fire Emblem and was getting stale so I think they should try to subvert some tropes. Should every game be like this though? I don't think so, repeating formulas get stale at some point and it goes in both ways 

[Arachnofiend]

Not everybody needs a gimmick, especially in Fire Emblem where you have so much opportunity to take somebody out of their archetype with the support system. Marcus is pretty standard "old knightly adviser" fare but his support with Merlinus gives him some minor but amusing depth; a more standard RPG you may never have the opportunity to make Marcus of all people an expert on pastries. Basically what I'm saying here is that the key for "boring" characters to be more memorable is to investigate how they'd interact with characters their archetype isn't necessarily tied to.