Has Heroes made older FE units more deep and interesting?

[Corrobin]

Characters from the older games (specifically 1-5, though 1-3 have been let off the hook a little thanks through the DS support conversations and such fleshing characters out) have been known for being flatter due to only having a few lines, one for joining and one for death, as well as their endings.

With Heroes allowing them much more room to talk and breath thanks to quotes and lines, do you feel that Heroes have fleshed out units with minimal screen time or importance?

[Seazas]

Well yes and no

For characters like Norne? Oh yes, she got to interact with characters in Forging Bonds.

Plenty of characters are flanderized to their basic tropes in Heroes however.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

There's people like Reinhardt I guess, who went from almost zero to having something. But for most of them, not particularly, I think?

Actually, the major examples of characters getting fleshed out in Heroes that come to mind are from newer games (FE6 forward).

[Luckenzio]

Its a mixed bag. Some of them got an absolute glow up in heroes and experienced some relevancy that they didnt even have in their own games. On the other hand, there are some that got reduced to more gimmicky and one-note personalities.

Usually its the most popular character the ones that suffer from the latter, since more often than not their portrayal on Heroes doesnt reflect what made them popular in the first place. Alts dont really help the matter either.

Edited October 20, 2019 by Luckenzio

[Emerson]

1 hour ago, Luckenzio said:

Alts dont really help the matter either.

I'm gonna hard disagree on this, it's really refreshing and new to see characters in Seasonal alt situations, and it absolutely can bring some extra depth and interest to them, even to some of those that aren't from games with limited dialogue supports. The Tellius Valentines is a big one in the latter's regard. It can also do quite a bit for the Book 2 OCs who lack dialogue (although I've only really seen this in NY!Laevatein), but that's a bit off topic.
Frankly though, it's just nice to see some of them outside of a war situation.

Generally I do think FEH does a good job with making new characters more interesting. It's hard for them to escape the tropes they're based on given that removing them from that would distance this iteration of the character from the original, but overall within the last year or so, they've consistently done a good job.
Forging Bonds especially has been great for them, and with better writing coming into the event, it's only really going uphill. The first few were a tad bland, and personally I've never been amazed with how they handled a certain favorite of mine, but that's fair enough given it's been almost a whole year now and the writing has improved drastically. Including other non focus characters has been a great choice for them.

Obviously some older characters, mainly Y1 and a chunk of Y2, don't have anywhere near as much to go off of, not to say some of them weren't given good charaterization, but that's kind of why alts exist... given IntSys actually spreads them properly.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I can't speak much for Kaga era but GBA era and Tellius got some good stuff. Like watching Ike say one final farewell to his father in that bizarre Valentines day tempest trial finale. Characters in the Black Fang also got personalities where none existed. The only interaction I recall from Ursula in FE7 is her willing to help you deal with Vaida on her day off from work as an assassin. But why did she not like Vaida? Who knows.

[Etrurian emperor]

14 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

But why did she not like Vaida? Who knows.

Probably because she was thirsty for Sonia and feared Vaida would get in the way .

I'm not too fond of Heroes Ursula. The personality they gave her seems to clash with the Blazing Sword character. Ursula was no doubt a villain but she never struck me as that bad. If anything she seemed a little bit naive as she seems to miss the obvious friction between Sonia and the Reeds. She struck me as someone who was corrupted by Sonia but Heroes Ursula just seems like a miniature version of Sonia who didn't need any convincing to get really evil. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

18 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

There's people like Reinhardt I guess, who went from almost zero to having something. But for most of them, not particularly, I think?

Actually, the major examples of characters getting fleshed out in Heroes that come to mind are from newer games (FE6 forward).

Reinhardt was always one of the best Camus-type characters. It's just that being a Thracia character gave him limited exposure.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

5 hours ago, Etheus said:

Reinhardt was always one of the best Camus-type characters. It's just that being a Thracia character gave him limited exposure.

I can probably agree on that. Still, I guess most of his personality and motivations could only be inferred through the limited dialogue. Heroes still kinda fleshes him out more.

[Sunwoo]

It depends on the situation.

On the one hand, characters with next to nothing to work with got something pretty definitive and it gives them a character to really "feel" for. A lot of the older characters can benefit from this.

On the other hand, for characters who are deeper and have a lot more stuff about them, it's extremely difficult to fit all of their complexities into a handful of lines even if they have more than one version of themselves. So characters who are far more complicated in their original games can end up feeling one-note in Heroes.

But of course, there are characters that they just messed up for whatever reason. Deirdre is amnesiac, from after she was taken from Sigurd but before she met Arvis, so we never get to hear her say anything about Sigurd or Arvis or any of her children. Julius finds time to talk about how much he hates Seliph, Julia, and Reinhardt but not a single line about Ishtar! And anything Reinhardt says about Saias feels less genuine and more like the developers trying to pander to the player by comparing your "genius" to Saias's tactical skills. Plus, even though I understand why TH characters were released early on, it feels almost like a wasted opportunity because to avoid spoilers they can't get into the characters' hidden depths very much. (Granted, I haven't pulled a single TH lord, so.)

[Mercakete]

Absolutely! One of my favorite examples is actually the Elibe Valentine's event. We got a look into their culture during peacetime. It's so great to be able to see another side to the characters besides what they're like during war!

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

4 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

Deirdre is amnesiac, from after she was taken from Sigurd but before she met Arvis, so we never get to hear her say anything about Sigurd or Arvis or any of her children. 

I wonder if they did that to purposefully avoid potential fan wars about Sigurd x Deirdre and Arvis x Deirdre. There are people who take this all rather seriously.

[Sunwoo]

Just now, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I wonder if they did that to purposefully avoid potential fan wars about Sigurd x Deirdre and Arvis x Deirdre. There are people who take this all rather seriously.

Considering that Arvis/Deirdre consists of a pair of half-siblings, Deirdre was robbed of her complete memories at that time, and even the game itself has some lines that seem to disapprove of holy blood mixing, if that really was the case I'd be disappointed. If people actually like Arvis/Deirdre, that's their prerogative and I don't care but the game itself views that pairing as objectively not good and cowering in the face of shipping wars goes against the original theme the story wanted to tell.

Also, it makes Deirdre super bland in Heroes. I like her and all, but seriously.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

14 hours ago, Etheus said:

Reinhardt was always one of the best Camus-type characters. It's just that being a Thracia character gave him limited exposure.

 

8 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I can probably agree on that. Still, I guess most of his personality and motivations could only be inferred through the limited dialogue. Heroes still kinda fleshes him out more.

Did Heroes really did that for Rein lol. legit never read the script for him

 

But yeah i agree Rein(and Ishtar) is some of the more interesting Camus type, because unlike most Camus characters we are made EXTREMELY CLEAR that we are supposed to actually see them as a clear cut bad guy.

5 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

And anything Reinhardt says about Saias feels less genuine and more like the developers trying to pander to the player by comparing your "genius" to Saias's tactical skills.

Honestly even in Thracia i never get the image that Saias and Reinhardt is meant to be viewed as particularly close, so a "token mention" about Saias tactical skill is pretty much what i expected

But yeah i feel very insulted when they pulled that off with Saias of all things. His tactical skill is so hilariously broken that Thracia treats him as an enemy side Deus ex Machina, and every single time he even so much as appears in the field the game treat it as if you already lost. I can't remember a single character in the series thats even come close to how broken Saias is in FE5's story

[XRay]

10 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

But yeah i feel very insulted when they pulled that off with Saias of all things. His tactical skill is so hilariously broken that Thracia treats him as an enemy side Deus ex Machina, and every single time he even so much as appears in the field the game treat it as if you already lost. I can't remember a single character in the series thats even come close to how broken Saias is in FE5's story

Ha! I imagine that is how the game feels in Normal/Casual Awakening when the player brings maxed out characters to take a shit on Grima.

What does Saias do specifically? Like does he have super high stats or brings a lot of reinforcements with him? In Heroes, he feels kind of just meh.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

12 hours ago, XRay said:

Ha! I imagine that is how the game feels in Normal/Casual Awakening when the player brings maxed out characters to take a shit on Grima.

What does Saias do specifically? Like does he have super high stats or brings a lot of reinforcements with him? In Heroes, he feels kind of just meh.

You know how Fire Emblem main series game have dodging rate and stuff? So Thracia have this mechanic where if the character have some sort of commandering skills in story this will be reflected in game with tactical stars which boosts the dodge rate and hit rate of everyone in the map on their side for 3% each

On a sidenote, this mechanic was introduced to the series because Kaga think Camus is not as powerful as he should have been in relation to his storyline power. So by introducing an extra statistics he hoped to potray powerful characters like Camus more accurately

 

Saias however, take it overboard by having 10 of those tactical stars. Thats 30% dodge and hitrate to everyone in the field. That bonus equals around 15 extra speed and skill(in a game where 20 is the stats cap) and is so absurd its almost as if you give everyone Holy Weapon for free. And he's a healer in FE5. FE5 Healer is basically a god since staff have infinite range. Saias have both sleep and fortify which heals everything in the map in one go your basically praying to enemy healer AI when going against this shit

 

The famous Reinhardt map of FE5 is really only difficult because its the only map in the entire game where Saias is even close to going all out and he still left if you get too close to the end of the map(which the game offers you a way to do with Warp Staff that is offered for free since even Kaga realized he's bullshit). Saias only appeared 2 times in the game with the first of them being optional, and the first time around its 10 turns into the map and 15 turns into it he left and this is route exclusive.

 

When you get him for your team he got nerfed to 5 tactical stars. He's still ridiculously good since thats 15% full team reliability increase and he's a healer and again Thracia Healer is broken. He's mutually exclusive with Ced sadly and Ced is actually god. In Jugdral duology, Ced is probably the most notoriously broken character alongside Sigurd, Seliph, and Leif

Edited October 23, 2019 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[XRay]

4 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Thats 30% dodge and hitrate to everyone in the field.

That is freaking crazy. That is like having Spectrum Opening for the entire team in Heroes.

Edited October 23, 2019 by XRay

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 hours ago, XRay said:

That is freaking crazy. That is like having Spectrum Opening for the entire team in Heroes.

It's actually worse than this, Reinhardt is also on the field, and he has another 5 Authority/Leadership Stars. And, Conen, Saias's grandfather who is the boss sitting on the seize point, has another 4 Stars. So, in total, the enemy is getting 57 Hit and Avoid.

The player has access to Authority Stars too, but nowhere near as many, a mere 5 at this late point, so you're still be seeing +42 Hit/Evade.

 

I tried to fight this battle mostly the old-fashioned way. Mostly, because I had Reinhardt Berserked- causing him to attack either my or his soldiers, whichever is closer/weaker. In an oddity peculiar to FE5, Berserking Reinhardt caused his own squad Thoron-packing Mage Knights to see him as a threat and attack him. Vantage + Dire Thunder dealing consecutive hits on both phases in Thracia 776 meant that none of them actually could hit Reinhardt and instead got electrocuted by him. I wish Reinhardt had killed everything on the enemy side, but instead, Conen can reliably hit him with Blizzard, putting Reinhardt into a magical coma for the rest of the fight, off his horse and with all non-HP combat stats dropped to zero. And yet even asleep, Reinhardt offers that map-wide +15 Hit/Evade of his.

Though Reinhardt had been taken out, the near-endless enemy reinforcements when I approached the bridge in the map's middle were strong enough to force me onto the defensive and ultimately give up on the fight (I then did the warpskip cheese). Had I crossed the bridge far enough, Saias on his next turn would destroy it, splitting my army in two with no ability to reunite barring fliers/warp/rescue. And Reinhardt, if he was alive and awake and had his personal soldiers with him, would have simultaneously begun to charge at me.

 

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It's actually worse than this, Reinhardt is also on the field, and he has another 5 Authority/Leadership Stars. And, Conen, Saias's grandfather who is the boss sitting on the seize point, has another 4 Stars. So, in total, the enemy is getting 57 Hit and Avoid.

 The player has access to Authority Stars too, but nowhere near as many, a mere 5 at this late point, so you're still be seeing +42 Hit/Evade.

So they are stackable too. I want stackable Spectrum Openings for the whole team in Heroes.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I tried to fight this battle mostly the old-fashioned way. Mostly, because I had Reinhardt Berserked- causing him to attack either my or his soldiers, whichever is closer/weaker. In an oddity peculiar to FE5, Berserking Reinhardt caused his own squad Thoron-packing Mage Knights to see him as a threat and attack him. Vantage + Dire Thunder dealing consecutive hits on both phases in Thracia 776 meant that none of them actually could hit Reinhardt and instead got electrocuted by him. I wish Reinhardt had killed everything on the enemy side, but instead, Conen can reliably hit him with Blizzard, putting Reinhardt into a magical coma for the rest of the fight, off his horse and with all non-HP combat stats dropped to zero. And yet even asleep, Reinhardt offers that map-wide +15 Hit/Evade of his.

 Though Reinhardt had been taken out, the near-endless enemy reinforcements when I approached the bridge in the map's middle were strong enough to force me onto the defensive and ultimately give up on the fight (I then did the warpskip cheese). Had I crossed the bridge far enough, Saias on his next turn would destroy it, splitting my army in two with no ability to reunite barring fliers/warp/rescue. And Reinhardt, if he was alive and awake and had his personal soldiers with him, would have simultaneously begun to charge at me.

Can you Berserk Saias too? Seems like the best way to go about it is to spam Berserk on the commanders.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Just now, XRay said:

So they are stackable too. I want stackable Spectrum Openings for the whole team in Heroes.

Can you Berserk Saias too? Seems like the best way to go about it is to spam Berserk on the commanders.

He is a special case where you can't hit him with ailments no matter what your Magic stat is. You can't capture or kill him either, any fatal attack will be rigged into a dodge. 

Simply getting within two spaces of Saias with one of your units will make him retreat, but good luck with that. You'll basically have to Warp in to make that happen, and then survive Conen, Reinhardt's forces, and two Iron Ballistae if that unit doesn't Rescued out. Although waiting a turn and Berserking Reinhardt beforehand means only Conen and the Ballistae would left to bother you. 

Not that Warp should be a problem at this point, the game gives you one Warp staff on this map. And if you had just come from Chapter 21x, you could have captured 6 more Warp staffs, for another 18 uses. You'd probably have to expend some Warp or Sleep/Silence to get them all, but I'd say it's worth it. After Chapter 22, you'll only need another ~six uses of Silence/Sleep, more if you intend to incapacitate some of the Chapter 25 Deadlords. And of those six uses of Silence/Sleep, two will be spent on staffers with yet more Sleep and Silence, and Chapter 23 has yet another two Sleeps you can take I'm skipping over.