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How Can Fire Emblem Do Better Next Time?


Mukmuk
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1 hour ago, Sonicfan said:

Replace it with a Tellius style base menu instead and whilst I'm on the topic of Tellius bring back bonus exp, ledges, the dawn brigade and siege defence maps.

...What do you mean by this?

1 hour ago, Sonicfan said:

Reduce the load times, I swear I've not seen loading times like that since the Sega Saturn.  Cut back on the graphics if you need to but that load time needs to come down. I found myself using divine pulse or turning the game off instead of retreating as I didn't want to sit through the loading screens.

Three Houses does feel kind of shoddily put together by series standards with Koei Tecmo seemingly doing most of the grunt work.  Such as transitions between animations, character portraits or even weapon models not loading immediately, the load times you just mentioned.

1 hour ago, Sonicfan said:

Ditch the Avatar, we've had 3 Western games with it now and it's clear as day that you can't have a character that everyone can project themselves onto and and be a well-established character in the lore.  Tell the story through the eyes of the lords and have an off-screen advisors like FE7 Mark if you really want to make the player feel integrated into the game.  By having no Avatar the main Lord(s) can keep screen time and drive the plot. It would also remove an OP character from gameplay.

Sadly it seems with each new non-remake game since Awakening becoming increasingly financially successful, I don't think Avatars are ever going to go away.  Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if the FE4 remake shoehorned one in.  Apparently the Avatars are extremely popular in Japan?  I'm just going by what I've heard, so if anybody has a source providing evidence for or against it, that would be nice.

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  • A more focused story. Three Houses have the most elaborate world in Fire Emblem history creating so many details. But at the same time feel that certain notes are underdeveloped or forgotten. One or Two main pathways give more attention to the narrative.
  • Reworking the avatar. For some reason, each Fire Emblem game wants a more and more powerful avatar in each game. I can take that Mark was a mysterious traveler. Kris being one of the best footsoldiers in Marth's army is a bit pushing it. While Robin is designed to be the vessel of Grima, he relies more on his brains. Corrin is nutty being a daughter of a super dragon, having a special sword, being destined to do great things. But Byleth? He makes them all tame in comparison. What pushes it for me is able to time travel and bend space-time. At that point, Byleth is basically invincible. Fire Emblem is not a series for these kinds of characters. Also being the center of the story weakens the lords.
  • Better pre-release. For a year and a half after the first trailer, there was nothing new about the game only speculating. Thankfully the year before it released had information by the new week. Happy that it is nowhere near a drama train as Fates was.
  • Better first impression. I know that Fire Emblem isn't known for being a graphics powerhouses but my first impression was that it was an upscaled ps2 game with unrefined artwork. the highschool setting didn't appeal to me. Sure the time skip dropped most of those ideas, but still affect the game.
  • Commit to ideas. Corrin was a wishy-washy main character trying to both avatar and her own character doing either well. Alm could have been more than a goodie two shoes. Edelgard tried to be a protagonist and villain at the game time not being effective enough judging by the polls. If IS wants to sell on an idea they better go along with it
  • More focused design. What 3 Houses was lacking the strategy need to complete levels. When there are so many options available for players to use  (more so in 3h), how does level prevented from being cheesed?

 

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Invest. In. Map. Design.

Fire Emblem is an amalgam of diverse, interesting offerings, and I may be in the minority but I play it mainly because of its tactical features. I could not care less about the story or support conversations if the maps are not engaging. I may try Fire Emblem for different reasons, but I would only stay because of how it fares as a tactical game.

I understand why the next games may move further away from its tactical elements, and how this may make them more successful; but one can wish.

Edited by starburst
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Diverse Map Conditions

What I meant by this is those map conditions like in Path of Radiance or Conquest Chapter 10. The defense maps were one of the most funnest and challenging, I would love to see them make a return. I have also heard that Thracia's condition was great too with the "Escape all". I would love to see them as well. Having to rout the enemy commander or kill all of them remains but sprinkles in with different map conditions more please and not just the paralogue in 3Houses.

Fixing Choose your path

Honestly I would say that 3Houses was great with this. However, with the first twelve chapters being mostly the same. I would prefer that they would reduce the total amount of paths or have it mostly different. It was a chore on like the third playthrough and so on. However on the other hand it promotes repeated playthrough. What i would suggest is just to reduce the amount of paths available from 4 paths to maybe 2 similar to alm and celica on SoV which both having different route and not having the same paths but sometimes crossing with each other.

Shrink the Monastery / More functions within camp

Either shrink the base so it doesnt feel that cumbersome, or you add more functions within the camp. Right now we have a huge amount of space but it felt like paddling. However I know that some people enjoy talking to various people within the Monastery so I would suggest that they would add more things to do. I don't have ideas for that unfortunately. 

World Building

Now i really love Fodlan's world building. This isn't a improvement box per say but I really absolutely love this aspect in three houses. Showing off different continents connected to the world. Having potential allies and members from different part of the world in various continents were aspects that I really enjoy reading in three houses. Having tidbits of said continents to read for in the library was an added touch. I would love the care of world building to go a step beyond or remain the love and care in the next series. My one gripe is the world containing fodlan is unnamed. So maybe the next one could name the world too 😛

More Classes

Class variety in three houses was a flaw in my take. For one, I really like that we get to choose on what classes we want but i also prefer the predertemined route that older fire emblem  have (though I feel that this system would be sticking, it leave a good foundation for future games). I would suggest to have more variety so it wont be all samey

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Here are some of my suggestions: 

Classes: Return to the Awakening/Fates Style of it. Its simple and very easy to obtain skill and in  Mastering classes is way too long in 3 Houses, not to mention the frustration when you fail those 70% certification exams. 

Monastery: I enjoyed the monastery and its minigames, but I agree that it did quite boring. Not that I found the minigames and talking to allies boring, but rather I found the Monastery was lack-luster after exploring it for a couple months. I would suggest instead of one location to talk to allies again and again, why not create an overworld map where you can travel to towns , and that would be where the Monastery explorations occur.

Overworld Map: The one thing I liked from Echoes was its overworld map. It felt so nice to navigate the continent a your own pace without being forced onto the next battle like 3 Houses, Awakening, and Fates did.

Dungeons: Since movement was finally solved in Three Houses, why not an exploration of dungeons? Maybe make them a bit more complicated since the ones in Echoes were too simple until late game. 

That's all for now.

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If they're going to keep battalions, then they should be expanded on. I like the battalions in Three Houses, and I feel that they're a great start, but I feel that they can and need to be expanded upon in a subsequent game. Here are a thought I have for how that can be done:

Formations: Essentially, these would be the battalion version of having multiple weapons. As battalions level up, they learn new formations that have different passive effects, and sometimes a different gambit. For a hypothetical example:

Blue Kingdom Soldiers: Basic Soldiers with lances and shields

  • Formation 1: Shield Wall. The soldiers line up and hold their shields in front of them; forming a series of walls (all facing the same direction).
  • Formation 2: Testudo. The soldiers form a Testudo formation; greatly increasing their defence against ranged attacks.
  • Formation 3: Pike Block. The soldiers form a line without their shields and hold their spears out. Cavalry takes damage whenever they attack the unit, but the trade-off is that the soldiers no longer boost the unit's defence. 

Another interesting thing I could see done with battalions would be having one that's a military band whose gambit enables up to four adjacent units to move again. This band would have the usual instruments, drums, bagpipes, and, because it's Nintendo, one guy with an Ocarina. 

 

Another thing that would help Fire Emblem would be if IS figured out if they want their protagonist to be fixed or custom, or at least struck a better balance. In previous games, we had a fully custom protagonist in terms of appearance and attributes, but with completely fixed dialogue. For Three Houses, we had a protagonist who was completely fixed (or as fixed as could be in Three Houses) in terms of appearance and attributes, but with dialogue choices. The latter would've been great if there was a clear personality to go along with the fixed appearance and attributes so it felt more like a character we were guiding; two standout examples of this being Link from The Wind Waker and Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher 3. 

 

I also think it would be great to see some better map design and more diverse objectives. I loved all the different objectives in Path of Radiance, and Radiant Dawn introduced some very cool additions to FE's maps such as ledges giving a serious increase to verticality, and archers only being able to shoot through walls that have windows or gaps.

And, honestly, I would just love to see an FE multi-part chapter that is a proper castle siege, complete with ramparts & crenellations, a gatehouse, siege ladders & siege towers, battering rams, layers of castle defence, etc. 

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