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15 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Sorry but I don't buy someone as trusting as Celica believing Jedah at all, Celica's trusting, not mentally disabled, unless she drowned in the swamp and lost IQ from it, I do not believe she'd be that terminally stupid to trust Jedah, again, you literally hear how he's evil from an entire village, Celica needs to have somehow forgotten the entirety of Sage's Hamlet AND Saber telling her how witches were made for it to be logical for her to even consider what he's suggesting, she's got a ton of evidence that trusting him is not a good idea and literally none that it is.

Game play story segregation isn't really an excuse, if anything that shows how bad the story in the game is, good story based games IMO don't feel like the rules changed when a cutscene started rolling (Hell in TH a guy literally uses a shield spell that doesn't even exist in any game in the entire series in the cutscene where Byleth gets the sword of the creator.), I'm also fairly certain that the Turnwheel is just ment to in-universe be showing the future rather than actual time travel and seemingly always shows a worst-cause scenario. (And I'm sure constantly looking at everyone dying isn't something Alm nor Celica want to keep witnessing so they probably only look at the turnwheel occasionally.) 

 

 

If Jedah didn't look like a blue frog and didn't cackle like an evil person, sure. Could have just made him as a man obsessed with restoring the gods, because he is legitimately terrified over the prospect of Valentia being without gods, which Celica oughta be able to understand given that she has similar beliefs.

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Celica is an earnest protagonist, Jedah is a quirky Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain. It doesn't mesh too well.

I still think Celica is a good character, but she gets shafted pretty badly in the later stages of the game. Jedah could maybe be a fun villain in a different story, but in Echoes, his scenes are an example of those moodswings in FE games where both ends of the swing feel rather out of place at the end.

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9 hours ago, Ottservia said:

That’s just general gameplay and story segregation. It happens all the time in any story driven game. If you wanna an example, if Alm can rewind time in gameplay, then why doesn’t he do so to save his father or Berkut?

Yes, but gameplay & story segregation is generally considered something to be avoided, and gameplay & story integration is generally considered something to be appreciated.

Also, regarding your example, it would be hard for him to save either Rudolf or Berkut since both are very intent on impaling themselves on his sword for different reasons. 

 

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

The reason for that might actually be Gaiden's world map. They can simply write "And then Marth was forced to run away by seizing this castle" in the other games and feature the next chapter in a new location, but not so much for Alm where you have to move to the next location. This was before varied map objectives too (though putting invincible Hardin on the field for a proto escape map worked well for the whole writing "And then Marth was forced to flee where he seized this castle"). Though they did make it somewhat interesting with this system with the endless Dracozombie volcano (course that's so metal it leans towards bamf territory than natural struggle). Even in Genealogy of the Holy War the chapter set up means the character only struggles through plot based betrayals. In terms of military conquest Sigurd and Seliph steamroll the entire continent with no trouble. Thracia was really the first game to actually show the characters struggling in the military side of things and complimented it with new map objectives which allowed them to turn the concept up to eleven.

I suppose, and had SoV gone full retro like Shadow Dragon, I probably wouldn't have noticed too much, similarly to how I didn't care too much about Shadow Dragon's plot still being barebones. The problem comes from the fact that the SoV's schizophrenic on whether it wants to be retro or an update; I personally think that it should've gone for the full update route like Final Fantasy 7 Remake without the weird anti-time-travel reapers, but that's beside the point. 

As it is, there are FE games with world maps that have come along and given a much better since of struggle. As much as I love describing Awakening's plot as mediocre and generic, and as much as I like saying Chrom's a good representation of that, he still clearly struggles. He has an entire chapter where he and his forces are fleeing Plegia after his sister's death, and there's also, well, his sister's death. 

Also, as for the Dracozombie thing, was there a line of dialogue that explained it but got removed? I ask because because, on my first and only playthrough, I noticed the dracozombie thing, realized, "Oh; the game's telling me I have to finish the Celica stuff before I can proceed further", but I couldn't find any dialogue or anything that explained what was going on. I could've sworn that I went over the dialogue wondering, "Where's the explanation for the respawning dracozombies?"

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59 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Yes, but gameplay & story segregation is generally considered something to be avoided, and gameplay & story integration is generally considered something to be appreciated.

Also, regarding your example, it would be hard for him to save either Rudolf or Berkut since both are very intent on impaling themselves on his sword for different reasons. 

But sometimes it can’t be avoided and that’s my main point. Like for example in Fire Emblem where one character is supposedly killed/defeated in a chapter but is shown to be completely fine in the next cutscene. You can’t have the character actually die cause otherwise the story doesn’t progress in the way you want it to but at the same time you need to give the player an enemy to defeat to keep the gameplay pace so your hands are kind of tied. It’s unavoidable gameplay story segregation. If you want another example from SoV/gaiden just take the first battle with Desaix. If you do manage to kill him it’s revealed that wasn’t actually Desaix just a double. This is obviously done as a way to excuse Desaix not being dead so you can fight him later at his fortress. Hell you defeat Slayde multiple times during the game and he’s still alive after every battle except the last one in Rigel. So really sometimes gameplay story segregations like that simply cannot be avoided

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Just now, Ottservia said:

But sometimes it can’t be avoided and that’s my main point. Like for example in Fire Emblem where one character is supposedly killed/defeated in a chapter but is shown to be completely fine in the next cutscene. You can’t have the character actually die cause otherwise the story doesn’t progress in the way you want it to but at the same time you need to give the player an enemy to defeat to keep the gameplay pace so your hands are kind of tied. It’s unavoidable gameplay story segregation. If you want another example from SoV/gaiden just take the first battle with Desaix. If you do manage to kill him it’s revealed that wasn’t actually Desaix just a double. This is obviously done as a way to excuse Desaix not being dead so you can fight him later at his fortress. Hell you defeat Slayde multiple times during the game and he’s still alive after every battle except the last one in Rigel. So really sometimes gameplay story segregations like that simply cannot be avoided

True, though I will just say that Path of Radiance made a huge effort to account for character deaths in its script. 

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Just now, vanguard333 said:

True, though I will just say that Path of Radiance made a huge effort to account for character deaths in its script. 

Well, only in the beginning. After that, they seemed to abandon it altogether. Points for effort, though.

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1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Yes, but gameplay & story segregation is generally considered something to be avoided, and gameplay & story integration is generally considered something to be appreciated.

Also, regarding your example, it would be hard for him to save either Rudolf or Berkut since both are very intent on impaling themselves on his sword for different reasons. 

 

I suppose, and had SoV gone full retro like Shadow Dragon, I probably wouldn't have noticed too much, similarly to how I didn't care too much about Shadow Dragon's plot still being barebones. The problem comes from the fact that the SoV's schizophrenic on whether it wants to be retro or an update; I personally think that it should've gone for the full update route like Ocarina of Time 3D or Final Fantasy 7 Remake without the weird anti-time-travel reapers, but that's beside the point. 

As it is, there are FE games with world maps that have come along and given a much better since of struggle. As much as I love describing Awakening's plot as mediocre and generic, and as much as I like saying Chrom's a good representation of that, he still clearly struggles. He has an entire chapter where he and his forces are fleeing Plegia after his sister's death, and there's also, well, his sister's death. 

Also, as for the Dracozombie thing, was there a line of dialogue that explained it but got removed? I ask because because, on my first and only playthrough, I noticed the dracozombie thing, realized, "Oh; the game's telling me I have to finish the Celica stuff before I can proceed further", but I couldn't find any dialogue or anything that explained what was going on. I could've sworn that I went over the dialogue wondering, "Where's the explanation for the respawning dracozombies?"

Ocarina of Time 3D? What's full update about that? They barely changed anything with that game. Shadows of Valentia is far more of a remake than Ocarina of Time 3D.

Awakening's map is quite different to Gaiden's. In Awakening its basically just a chapter select screen while in Gaiden it's actually a part of the gameplay with how enemy reinforcements spawn at the next major location and move towards you. Is once you finish an Awakening chapter the next map could spawn absolutely anywhere in the world while in Gaiden due to this feature the next map has to be an adjacent one. It wouldn't be impossible to make this more diverse and interesting (in fact I was just complaining about this in a different thread) but that they did as much as they did on a NES game was enough. I'm not sure how the remake could have made it more dynamic while using the same template though. Valentia itself was designed around this progressing gimmick.

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36 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ocarina of Time 3D? What's full update about that? They barely changed anything with that game. Shadows of Valentia is far more of a remake than Ocarina of Time 3D.

Ocarina of Time didn't need that much updated compared to something like SoV though and they still updated it in most of the areas where it did need updating; mainly in graphics, but also in things like marking where the water level rooms are in the water temple, making the iron boots equipable without needing to go into the menu, making the Dark Link fight more intuitive, etc., but if that isn't enough, then fine; ignore that example then. I still had another example. 

42 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Awakening's map is quite different to Gaiden's. In Awakening its basically just a chapter select screen while in Gaiden it's actually a part of the gameplay with how enemy reinforcements spawn at the next major location and move towards you. Is once you finish an Awakening chapter the next map could spawn absolutely anywhere in the world while in Gaiden due to this feature the next map has to be an adjacent one. It wouldn't be impossible to make this more diverse and interesting (in fact I was just complaining about this in a different thread) but that they did as much as they did on a NES game was enough. I'm not sure how the remake could have made it more dynamic while using the same template though. Valentia itself was designed around this progressing gimmick.

I suppose. Still, the story could've at least made some effort to compensate for the limitations inherent in the map, and they could've updated the map in a couple places (such as maybe having some stuff between taking control of the Deliverance and retaking the castle, such as a mission that's designed to explain how the heroes actually manage to get into the capital and actually lets us see Alm actually think it through). 

 

52 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Well, only in the beginning. After that, they seemed to abandon it altogether. Points for effort, though.

True; it was mainly in the beginning. Still, it was a huge effort that I'm glad they did (even though I never lost a single unit in any of my playthroughs, so I didn't find out about it until I saw the game script for the early chapters). 

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5 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Ocarina of Time didn't need that much updated compared to something like SoV though and they still updated it in most of the areas where it did need updating; mainly in graphics, but also in things like marking where the water level rooms are in the water temple, making the iron boots equipable without needing to go into the menu, making the Dark Link fight more intuitive, etc., but if that isn't enough, then fine; ignore that example then. I still had another example. 

Yeah, if I was heading Ocarina of Time I would have done a lot more than that (and in my view, Shadows of Valentia did do a lot more than that). Haven't played Final Fantasy VII, but from what I've seen I'm not sure remake is even an adequate label for it despite that being the name. It's more like Star Fox 64, covering the same story as a previous game but otherwise a completely different game.

5 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I suppose. Still, the story could've at least made some effort to compensate for the limitations inherent in the map, and they could've updated the map in a couple places (such as maybe having some stuff between taking control of the Deliverance and retaking the castle, such as a mission that's designed to explain how the heroes actually manage to get into the capital and actually lets us see Alm actually think it through). 

I definitely would have changed up the maps that were repeated later in the game. I find Gaiden's maps more appealing than most people, but repeating the chapter of a map on an entirely different part of the continent from the first map is just indefensible on a modern console.

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16 hours ago, Jotari said:

So why'd Duma fight Alm then if he just wanted to turn himself into a tree? Mila and Duma were both killed and are dead in as close an approximation to that concept that applies to Earth and Divine Dragons. Just like Marth and Anri  killed Medeus by stabbing him in the face with Falchion yet his essence persisted to be resurrected in the future. If you want to argue semantics you can just replace dead with defeated. It really doesn't make any difference. Rudolf "defeated" Mila just as Alm "defeated" Duma and Marth "defeated" Medeus. All of which were fighting back and clearly did not want to be "defeated".

maybe because Duma actually need someone to smack him in the head to return his common sense :v After all both Duma and Mila have gone insane aka senile, like you know some people when get past certain age loses reason despite them having wisdom before it, but occasionally retain it. 

 

as things stand, both Alm and Celica seems at odd with how narrative portray them and how they act later in game. As for me, "Alm need celica" is only in effect after the story ends. Since Awakening have point out if Alm dont have Celica he will turn out like Walhart later on, which is good ruler at first then becomes a tyranny later.

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12 hours ago, ping said:

Celica is an earnest protagonist, Jedah is a quirky Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain. It doesn't mesh too well.

couldnt have said it better. Jedah is kids cartoon villain, while Alm & celica is combination of teen & young adult hero. not a good match

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1 hour ago, joevar said:

maybe because Duma actually need someone to smack him in the head to return his common sense :v After all both Duma and Mila have gone insane aka senile, like you know some people when get past certain age loses reason despite them having wisdom before it, but occasionally retain it. 

Well yeah, they both gain their senses after being killed, but there's really no difference between Mila and Duma there. She committed suicide against Rudolf no more than Duma did against Alm.

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10 hours ago, Ottservia said:

But sometimes it can’t be avoided and that’s my main point. Like for example in Fire Emblem where one character is supposedly killed/defeated in a chapter but is shown to be completely fine in the next cutscene. You can’t have the character actually die cause otherwise the story doesn’t progress in the way you want it to but at the same time you need to give the player an enemy to defeat to keep the gameplay pace so your hands are kind of tied. It’s unavoidable gameplay story segregation. If you want another example from SoV/gaiden just take the first battle with Desaix. If you do manage to kill him it’s revealed that wasn’t actually Desaix just a double. This is obviously done as a way to excuse Desaix not being dead so you can fight him later at his fortress. Hell you defeat Slayde multiple times during the game and he’s still alive after every battle except the last one in Rigel. So really sometimes gameplay story segregations like that simply cannot be avoided

Slayde doesn't fall off his horse if I remember, and he's on a horse so it's somewhat plausible he just fled. (Granted, Duma does do the death animation in the swamps and yes that's a bad moment if you beat him there.), it only really gets silly with Berkut/Fernand due to how many times you fight them, infact their dialogue literally tells you that they're just feeling and not dead.

It's much less egregious than Three Houses where the boss enemies ALWAYS fall down as if they're dead, then CGI cutscene time and I guess that random mage in the Tomb didn't just get his skull caved in and it's pretty bad. (Seriously just have you fight a dude who ISN'T that mage as the boss with the mage behind him unreachable? is it that hard to just have us kill his bodyguard and not the mage itself?)

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5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, if I was heading Ocarina of Time I would have done a lot more than that (and in my view, Shadows of Valentia did do a lot more than that). Haven't played Final Fantasy VII, but from what I've seen I'm not sure remake is even an adequate label for it despite that being the name. It's more like Star Fox 64, covering the same story as a previous game but otherwise a completely different game.

Okay; I've already admitted that Ocarina of Time 3D was probably a bad example and I removed it from the original reply. As for FF7 Remake, I haven't played the original and I'm only on Chapter 9 of the Remake. But, from what I've seen of the original, from what I've played of the Remake, and from what I've seen from interviews with the developers, it seems that the main mindset behind 7 Remake was basically, "Let's do with this version what we would've done with the original if we had today's tech back in 1997", so they gave the game a complete overhaul from the ground up, to the point where yeah; it could be considered a brand new game despite still recognizably being FF7.

(If someone here has played all the way through FF7 Remake and I'm completely wrong on this, please let me know, but please no spoilers). 

In any case, my original point was that SoV seemed torn on whether it wanted to be retro or a complete update, and I say it should've either gone full retro like Shadow Dragon or full update. Yes, it did to quite a bit in places to update the game, but the places where it updated and the places where it was kept unchanged seem at odds with each other. 

I saw people bring up Jedah earlier in the thread (mainly in the form of "Why would Celica trust a moustache-twirling villain like him"). One thing I noticed on my playthrough of SoV was that the game seemed to almost have two versions of Jedah depending on the dialogue and the particular scene: one version being a moustache-twirling villain, and the other being a fanatic well-intentioned extremist who would give and take anything to keep Duma alive because he genuinely believes Valentia can't survive without Duma. I suspected that this was another result of "What do we update? What do we keep?" You sound like you've played the original Gaiden; what was Jedah like in the original?

 

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

I definitely would have changed up the maps that were repeated later in the game. I find Gaiden's maps more appealing than most people, but repeating the chapter of a map on an entirely different part of the continent from the first map is just indefensible on a modern console.

Yes; getting rid of repeated maps would definitely have also been a good idea. What did you think of my idea of a "preparing for the siege" map between Alm becoming leader of the Deliverance and the actual siege map?

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1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Okay; I've already admitted that Ocarina of Time 3D was probably a bad example and I removed it from the original reply. As for FF7 Remake, I haven't played the original and I'm only on Chapter 9 of the Remake. But, from what I've seen of the original, from what I've played of the Remake, and from what I've seen from interviews with the developers, it seems that the main mindset behind 7 Remake was basically, "Let's do with this version what we would've done with the original if we had today's tech back in 1997", so they gave the game a complete overhaul from the ground up, to the point where yeah; it could be considered a brand new game despite still recognizably being FF7.

(If someone here has played all the way through FF7 Remake and I'm completely wrong on this, please let me know, but please no spoilers). 

In any case, my original point was that SoV seemed torn on whether it wanted to be retro or a complete update, and I say it should've either gone full retro like Shadow Dragon or full update. Yes, it did to quite a bit in places to update the game, but the places where it updated and the places where it was kept unchanged seem at odds with each other. 

I saw people bring up Jedah earlier in the thread (mainly in the form of "Why would Celica trust a moustache-twirling villain like him"). One thing I noticed on my playthrough of SoV was that the game seemed to almost have two versions of Jedah depending on the dialogue and the particular scene: one version being a moustache-twirling villain, and the other being a fanatic well-intentioned extremist who would give and take anything to keep Duma alive because he genuinely believes Valentia can't survive without Duma. I suspected that this was another result of "What do we update? What do we keep?" You sound like you've played the original Gaiden; what was Jedah like in the original?

 

Yes; getting rid of repeated maps would definitely have also been a good idea. What did you think of my idea of a "preparing for the siege" map between Alm becoming leader of the Deliverance and the actual siege map?

Jedah in Gaiden

Judah:
Hehehe, cute critter, eh… However, I didn’t expect you to kill it so soon.
That brat named Alm, was it? If you do not wish to lose him, girl… then come ascend the Tower of Doma.

~ Judah teleports out ~

* (If you somehow defeat Judah)
Judah:
You fools who know not Lord Doma’s power… You will regret this…

~ All Bigles vanish ~

Inside the Tower of Doma

* (On the topmost level)
Judah:
Hehe. The princess of Sofia, is it? I’ve been waiting for you to come.

Cellica:
Who are you!?

Judah:
Who, me? Why, I am Lord Doma’s number one servant.
The one known as Judah, head priest of our Lord.

Cellica:
If that is so, then please, I beg of you.
Release Lady Mila! Return the Earth Goddess Mila to her proper place!!

Judah:
Hehehe… well, well. What a panic you’re in.
Take a look into this crystal in my possession. How do you like it?
A face you’ve dearly missed seeing, isn’t it?
That’s right. It’s Alm.
How about I let you gaze at that guy’s bitterly struggling figure for a while?

Judah:
Hehehe… Cellica.
Alm’s trapped in Dragon Mountain. You must want to save him.
If that’s so, then follow after me.
If you offer yourselves as sacrifices to Lord Doma, Alm’s path shall also open up once more!

~ After following him, you get warped to Doma’s altar ~

Doma’s Altar

* (After speaking to him, the screen flashes and a battle starts up)
Judah:
Hehehe, so you’ve shown up at last.
This is the altar of Doma.
Now that you’ve come here, you can’t return alive.
We and our Lord value human suffering above all.
Therefore, I shall not kill you quickly.
You shall go to your deaths slowly, little by little, painfully.
After all, your suffering figures shall certainly present Lord Doma with a feast of the highest order…

* (Upon Judah’s defeat in Endgame)
Judah:
You fools who know not Lord Doma’s power… You will regret this…

So yeah, not much to work with. There's no pretense so the mustache twirling villain angle is more what he leans towards. Though it does seem that he genuinely does stick to his word and let Alm out of the volcano when Celica agrees to sacrifice herself. On the other hand there's basically no hint that he has any positive intentions with all this. He's just after sadism. Not that there's much opportunity to give him any good intentions due to the plot point of Duma going mad being introduced in the remake. In the original Duma's just an evil god, though one that is gracious in defeat since he gives the same speech entrusting the future of Valentia to Alm.

So to sum up, Jedah is a mustache twirling villain in the original and little else, though there's no added context to require him to be anything else and it seems he is surprisingly true to his word, unlike remake Jedah who basically goes "Gotcha" at the last moment to Celica.

 Though one last thing to note, I do like his portrait in Gaiden.

FE2 Judah Portrait

It looks like he's being lit from below utilizing that creepy effect people telling ghost stories do with torches (which is a comparison that makes it sound more silly than it actually is). Combined with the religious looking hat it just gives off this unholy vibe to me. Unfortunately it's not a unique portrait though with several minor bosses sharing it, which brings NES Jedah's notoriety a lot. His Echoes portrait just looks silly in the large part. Though it does carry some narm charm.

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2 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Slayde doesn't fall off his horse if I remember, and he's on a horse so it's somewhat plausible he just fled. (Granted, Duma does do the death animation in the swamps and yes that's a bad moment if you beat him there.), it only really gets silly with Berkut/Fernand due to how many times you fight them, infact their dialogue literally tells you that they're just feeling and not dead.

It's much less egregious than Three Houses where the boss enemies ALWAYS fall down as if they're dead, then CGI cutscene time and I guess that random mage in the Tomb didn't just get his skull caved in and it's pretty bad. (Seriously just have you fight a dude who ISN'T that mage as the boss with the mage behind him unreachable? is it that hard to just have us kill his bodyguard and not the mage itself?)

I mean that still doesn’t excuse the Desaix being two kids in an overcoat nonsense. Regardless, Maybe the engine couldn’t handle it. Or maybe they just didn’t program it properly. No story is perfect. There are always going to be small little mistakes like that. I dislike this notion that a story beeds to be completely plot hole free or whatever when that is literally impossible. No story is completely plot hole free. If you look at any story long enough I’ll bet you find some minor inconsistency. My point is that stuff like this is simply unavoidable. Storytelling is artificial by nature and to that notion it is inherently contrived. Speaking personally, I cannot lose myself in a story anymore because I go in with the understanding that the story is written in a specific way for a specific reason. It’s helped me appreciate stories better though again that’s just me. Again, there is no such thing as a story that isn’t contrived in someway. What really matters is how much that contrivance or inconsistency matters in the overall grand scheme of the narrative. And minor stuff like that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

So yeah, not much to work with. There's no pretense so the mustache twirling villain angle is more what he leans towards. Though it does seem that he genuinely does stick to his word and let Alm out of the volcano when Celica agrees to sacrifice herself. On the other hand there's basically no hint that he has any positive intentions with all this. He's just after sadism. Not that there's much opportunity to give him any good intentions due to the plot point of Duma going mad being introduced in the remake. In the original Duma's just an evil god, though one that is gracious in defeat since he gives the same speech entrusting the future of Valentia to Alm.

So to sum up, Jedah is a mustache twirling villain in the original and little else, though there's no added context to require him to be anything else and it seems he is surprisingly true to his word, unlike remake Jedah who basically goes "Gotcha" at the last moment to Celica.

Yeah; that seems to be the case, given the dialogue that you quoted. Jedah being moustache-twirling fits a game where Duma is evil, but the remake expanding on Mila & Duma and especially making Duma a tragic maddened dragon clashes hard with that. There are a couple lines of dialogue in the remake that suggest that they wanted to go for a more "fanatical well-intentioned extremist" angle with Jedah:

Quote

Jedah: Silence, girl! You know nothing of what you speak. And if suffering is the gods’ will, what of it? Without their strength at its foundation, Valentia cannot sustain life.

Alm: No. You’re wrong. It’s time for us all to stand on our own feet. To live as free men and women.

Jedah: Foolish boy. You truly believe such heresy to be possible?

Celica: It IS possible! We’ve come all this way to prove it.

Jedah: Presumptuous human child… Go on, then! Prove me wrong! Show me this strength to “stand alone.” Show me the true limits of man!

Quote

Jedah: Have you never thought it strange, Princess Anthiese? Rigel and Zofia are twin nations founded on the backs of divine dragons. And yet, dire changes currently befall them both. Duma seeks power vast enough to destroy all balance in the world. Meanwhile, Mila’s intemperate bounty drives the Zofians to depravity.

Celica: Mila provides for her children!

Jedah: Her soul, as Duma’s, is host to the madness shared by all dragonkind. Duma will grow stronger till that power brings his ruin—and Rigel’s alongside it. It is no different from how Zofia now rots in Mila’s absence.

Celica: Her absence by your hand! And what is this madness you speak of? Do you truly claim that Mila and Duma are fated to destroy themselves?

Jedah: I do. Which is exactly why your soul is required. It is rare and precious—born of Zofian royal blood and marked by the Brand. Such a soul could set Duma’s path to rights and ensure his survival. 

But, alas; keeping him as a moustache-twirling villain clashes hard with this. I say this to any and all aspiring writers who might be reading this: you can have a villain that's pure evil, you can have a well-intentioned extremist, but you cannot have the same villain be both! It doesn't work. 

And the sad thing is that this clash of two different ideas for the same character, one from Gaiden and one trying to reflect the changes made in the remake, is probably far from unique to Jedah. I suspect that yet another problem with Alm is that he has this too. 

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Anyone who says Alm was "changed" in Echoes fell for the mistranslation trap. Alm was never an aggressive "headstrong" dude. Everything that involves Alm in the original Gaiden was replicated in Echoes. Awakening took the wrong interpretation of Alm, and it's hard to entirely blame them since Alm is pretty much a blank state outside of being forced to fight. There's a reason the most iconic line from Gaiden is "crush these bastards" something that was never present in the Japan script.

And @Ottservia... All of Alm's achievements are amounted to might. Lukas is literally Alm's teacher and he's the one making the strategic moves, such as the entire Nuibaba situation. Clive and his lieutenants handle the actual day to day affairs too. So yes, the game supports that Alm fights what's in front of him. Delthea is a common attempt at a point but... He didn't use his words or some wisdom strategy. He stabbed the guy controlling her. 

Not true, Lukas is the one that provided the group important intel. So without the trap, it still would've been thanks to Lukas's guidance, a consistent thing since Act 1 that they still approach Nuibaba's manor. Lukas gave in depth reasoning why it would be good to storm Nuibaba's manor. Alm falling for a trap simply shows his character flaw and how it brought the army in a worse position. 

Alm does struggle and slip up, he simply doesn't die in the war and works his way out of any holes. Such as Berkut canonically giving Alm trouble in the battles. Alm doesn't say that he "struggles without her" either, just that he fights what's in front of him and that she has a wisdom that he sees value in. The game directly shows in a vision and makes it clear that Alm wouldn't have won if Celica never took her journey. You have to rewrite Echoes massively to make it work.

Edited by Seazas
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3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I mean that still doesn’t excuse the Desaix being two kids in an overcoat nonsense. Regardless, Maybe the engine couldn’t handle it. Or maybe they just didn’t program it properly. No story is perfect. There are always going to be small little mistakes like that. I dislike this notion that a story beeds to be completely plot hole free or whatever when that is literally impossible. No story is completely plot hole free. If you look at any story long enough I’ll bet you find some minor inconsistency. My point is that stuff like this is simply unavoidable. Storytelling is artificial by nature and to that notion it is inherently contrived. Speaking personally, I cannot lose myself in a story anymore because I go in with the understanding that the story is written in a specific way for a specific reason. It’s helped me appreciate stories better though again that’s just me. Again, there is no such thing as a story that isn’t contrived in someway. What really matters is how much that contrivance or inconsistency matters in the overall grand scheme of the narrative. And minor stuff like that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

For me, a dude literally using a spell that doesn't exist in any FE game, including the on he's in, is a pretty big "Wait what?" thing, it's literally breaking the the rules of your own universe for the sake of "Looking cool" and that's not really a good thing.

I don't mind stories with plot holes if they're not massively obvious, I like FE7 but these aren't "Little" holes, they're big gaping wide holes big enough to have an Armor Knight walk through that took me out of the game the instant they happened and frankly? most of these are so easily fixed the devs are absolute morons for not doing so, Don't have us murder the mage actually opening the tomb for instance, have us murder his body guard THEN Byleth fights the mage in a cutscene rather than me caving his skull then oh no, he's suddenly fine, me killing dudes and them suddenly be fine because cutscene, which TH does somewhat consistently in my experience, is a pretty big no no, heck most other games at least cut directly to the cutscene when you "Kill" a boss so you don't see them die then magically be fine later.

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20 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

For me, a dude literally using a spell that doesn't exist in any FE game, including the on he's in, is a pretty big "Wait what?" thing, it's literally breaking the the rules of your own universe for the sake of "Looking cool" and that's not really a good thing.

I don't mind stories with plot holes if they're not massively obvious, I like FE7 but these aren't "Little" holes, they're big gaping wide holes big enough to have an Armor Knight walk through that took me out of the game the instant they happened and frankly? most of these are so easily fixed the devs are absolute morons for not doing so, Don't have us murder the mage actually opening the tomb for instance, have us murder his body guard THEN Byleth fights the mage in a cutscene rather than me caving his skull then oh no, he's suddenly fine, me killing dudes and them suddenly be fine because cutscene, which TH does somewhat consistently in my experience, is a pretty big no no, heck most other games at least cut directly to the cutscene when you "Kill" a boss so you don't see them die then magically be fine later.

I mean that’s fine but that’s not really the story’s fault for breaking your immersion. As that’s an entirely subjective point. I mean it personally it doesn’t bother me because like whatever man I’m willing to overlook stuff like that. My personal suspension of disbelief is a lot a harder to break. I’m not saying it’s wrong if your suspension of disbelief is broken because again that’s a matter of personal preference. I’m just saying that Y’know that’s not really a criticism against the story because that is entirely subjective and personal. It’s a moot argument really if you ask me.

and even beyond that, does a plot hole like that really matter? It’s just some random mook mage. Who cares. Whether he lives or dies before or during the cutscene doesn’t really matter. It’s not like he’s an integral character or anything. It’s just a faceless bad guy used for the purposes of unearthing the sword of the creator. Like I’m just wondering why that matters to you so much? Cause I personally find something like that a complete non-issue. Cause it’s not like it breaks the lore or how the setting works or anything. It’s just a minor inconsistency. The fact that it’s so easily fixed just shows how minor it really is. Again, it’s not like this mage living or dying is an integral plot point. You could even make the argument that it’s a different mage that opened the coffin and the one you killed was just his buddy or something. I dunno. It’s just such a minor thing to me. It’s like the Desaix double thing. It’s very clear that you killed Desaix but the game is just like Nope you killed a double. Like by the usual definition of plot contrivance that is in fact a plot contrivance but I don’t see you complaining about that.

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2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I mean that’s fine but that’s not really the story’s fault for breaking your immersion. As that’s an entirely subjective point. I mean it personally it doesn’t bother me because like whatever man I’m willing to overlook stuff like that. My personal suspension of disbelief is a lot a harder to break. I’m not saying it’s wrong if your suspension of disbelief is broken because again that’s a matter of personal preference. I’m just saying that Y’know that’s not really a criticism against the story because that is entirely subjective and personal. It’s a moot argument really if you ask me.

and even beyond that, does a plot hole like that really matter? It’s just some random mook mage. Who cares. Whether he lives or dies before or during the cutscene doesn’t really matter. It’s not like he’s an integral character or anything. It’s just a faceless bad guy used for the purposes of unearthing the sword of the creator. Like I’m just wondering why that matters to you so much? Cause I personally find something like that a complete non-issue. Cause it’s not like it breaks the lore or how the setting works or anything. It’s just a minor inconsistency. The fact that it’s so easily fixed just shows how minor it really is. Again, it’s not like this mage living or dying is an integral plot point. You could even make the argument that it’s a different mage that opened the coffin and the one you killed was just his buddy or something. I dunno. It’s just such a minor thing to me. It’s like the Desaix double thing. It’s very clear that you killed Desaix but the game is just like Nope you killed a double. Like by the usual definition of plot contrivance that is in fact a plot contrivance but I don’t see you complaining about that.

Because frankly, why should I care about a game's narrative when it feels like the devs don't?

Why should I be invested in boss fights when there's a decent chance the game will just pretend it literally never happened afterwards?

At that point It feels less like I'm playing a Video game that was made on it's own and more a really bad adaptation of some CG Anime that uses the CG anime for cutscenes because the cutscene world and the gameplay world are having two very different things going on, you'd honestly half-expect Three Houses to have first been a CG movie because frankly thats how disjointed they feel.

It's the same mage, same VA and exact same appearance, plus he literally uses a non-existant spell because again, why have a consistent world that the player could actually care about?  Why should I care about these characters when the devs don't, why should I get invested in fights when they'll literally be entirely different 5 seconds later for no good reason? Why care about a world when it's clear the devs will instantly change anything  when it suits the plot?

You know at least the dumb Body double twist ACKNOWLEDGES you killed someone you weren't ment to and rewards you for it, it's the devs working around the player's freedom, if that was in TH he'd fall down dead but be the real deal and just magically walk off afterwards. (I'm fairly certain that Berkut, Slyade and Fernand actually stay on their horses when you defeat them so they just ride off.)

To run down the things wrong with this cutscene:
A: The boss we just killed isn't even injured.

B: Byleth an in-universe feared mercenary, is almost killed if not for plot-sword and only because they did something really dumb that a trained mercenary probably wouldn't do. (Which contradicts gameplay since Byleth is competent in it.)

C : The shield spell doesn't even exist in the game, at all, or any previous game for that matter.

D : The entire point of the map is to kill the mage BEFORE he unseals  the tomb, in the cutscene, he's literally about to open it having already undone the magic seals.

E : Once we're back to in-game graphics Byleth isn't even moved onto the tile with the Tomb, which means in my case she was standing away from it, next to the others, wielding a Lance because apparently even the simple act of scripting the game so that Byleth is actually standing on the Tomb tile and equipped with the Sword of the Creator is too much.

The entire cutscene and gameplay are pretty much polar opposites and feels like the devs simply couldn't care about the plot, therefore why should I get invested when it feels like the devs didn't even remotely care? 

Edited by Samz707
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5 hours ago, Samz707 said:

To run down the things wrong with this cutscene:
A: The boss we just killed isn't even injured.

B: Byleth an in-universe feared mercenary, is almost killed if not for plot-sword and only because they did something really dumb that a trained mercenary probably wouldn't do. (Which contradicts gameplay since Byleth is competent in it.)

C : The shield spell doesn't even exist in the game, at all, or any previous game for that matter.

D : The entire point of the map is to kill the mage BEFORE he unseals  the tomb, in the cutscene, he's literally about to open it having already undone the magic seals.

E : Once we're back to in-game graphics Byleth isn't even moved onto the tile with the Tomb, which means in my case she was standing away from it, next to the others, wielding a Lance because apparently even the simple act of scripting the game so that Byleth is actually standing on the Tomb tile and equipped with the Sword of the Creator is too much.

The entire cutscene and gameplay are pretty much polar opposites and feels like the devs simply couldn't care about the plot, therefore why should I get invested when it feels like the devs didn't even remotely care? 

A: You mentioned in your post that characters in Echoes that retreat after they're defeated tend to stay on their horse instead of falling off it. 3H does this too, once you defeat the mage he stays standing, and is still standing after that battle when he declares that the tomb is unsealed. He hasn't fallen over dead then suddenly jumped back up, you just defeated him. Compare that to, say Lonato in the previous chapter where he does fall over and die.

B: This honestly never felt too out of place to me. If the sword hadn't blocked the fireball for whatever reason (I'm assuming that's what you're referring to), it would have hurt, but it probably wouldn't have killed. And Byleth actually attempting to block the fireball in the first place read to me as an instinctual "the sword has chosen you" moment- cliched and a little dumb, yes, but not indicative of some massive flaw in the game's writing.

C : That shield spell just looks like Ward to me.

D : Storywise they never gave you a specific time limit, the mage just told his men to "buy him some time while he undoes the seal"- 25 turns is supposed to be a generous time limit for players to succeed by, but its not like ending it in one turn or whatever contradicts some part of the story.

E: This is fair. Can't say I'd ever noticed it until you pointed it out though.

 

 

Anyway, since the topic of choice in this thread atm seems to be Jedah, I agree that it seems the writers were of two minds when writing him- one wanted to keep him basically as he was in Gaiden, the other wanted to portray him as a direct parallel to Celica, a man who can't accept the idea of a world without gods, and dies because of it. I enjoy both sides of Jedah a lot, he's fun to watch when he's evil and actually quite interesting when he's acting as Celica's foil. But in terms of writing he stops making sense when you put both sides together, and that's an issue. 

Edited by Anathaco
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8 hours ago, Seazas said:

Anyone who says Alm was "changed" in Echoes fell for the mistranslation trap. Alm was never an aggressive "headstrong" dude. Everything that involves Alm in the original Gaiden was replicated in Echoes. Awakening took the wrong interpretation of Alm, and it's hard to entirely blame them since Alm is pretty much a blank state outside of being forced to fight. There's a reason the most iconic line from Gaiden is "crush these bastards" something that was never present in the Japan script.

 

The word Alm uses to refer to Mycen in Gaiden - じいちゃん -jīchan

The word Alm uses to refer to Mycen in Echoes - じいさん - Jīsan

Jisan is a more formal word than jisan. Jichan was translated in the Gaiden translation as Gramps, while Jisan was translated in Echoes as Grandfather, so different terms were used that accurately reflect that (though I'm sure one could argue which term is more appropriate for which, but the relative change in formality is still there). In other words, Alm did receive some changes in his manner in the original Japanese. How much? I don't know I'm not an expert on Japanese, especially written Japanese. But the difference between gramps and grandfather is something that stood out to me between the two translations that I wanted to compare to the original.

But while I'm here with the Japanese scripts open, let's look at the crush these bastards lines.

In Gaiden we have

 

[アルム]
※「ああ もうだいじょうぶさ
  こんなやつら ぼくが
  ひねりつぶしてやる

The Gaiden script translates this as 

Alm:
Ah, it’ll be okay now. I’ll crush these bastards for you.

While Google translate gives me

 

[Allm] * "Oh, it ’s okay. These guys I am I'll crush it with a twist

The with a twist bit it no doubt some standard google translate error and uh, Alm seems to be considering himself a Duma faithful; but we do have the word crush being translated.

Now lastly I've just sent the text to my girlfriend who has been living in Japan for the past twenty years and has no knowledge of Fire Emblem at all (and thus no bias) and she translates it as

Ah it’s all good I will break those (guys/men/group)

So she chose the word break over crush. What's clear here though is that really the only thing particularly inaccurate is the sole word of bastards. The translators got a bit flowery there, but the core meaning of the line is the same. Alm intends to steamroll his enemies. And Alm is clearly meant to be heated and angry here, so I wouldn't even think saying bastard is really a mistranslation. Alm isn't robotically saying that he will defeat his enemies. He's reassuring Celica that he's here and that the enemy doesn't stand a chance. In fact, type bastard into google translate and one of the options is やつ like the line in question やつら. So guy and bastards being synonyms isn't a far out thing. In English, unless we're talking literal illegitimacy, bastard is just a derogatory form of referring to a person. So having Alm refer to a group of people he's intent on killing as bastards rather than guys makes sense. Now I'm sure you could translate the English phrase "I'll crust these bastards" into Japanese more accurately than the original text, but that's looking at things backwards. The overall point is that the idea of "I will beat these people" being translated as "I will crush those guys" or "I will crush those bastards" both make sense, and if I personally imagine the line being spoken aloud in context, "I will crush those bastards" sounds better to me (though of course an actor's line delivery would be the most important thing there).

 

Now Shadows of Valentia on the other hand lacks this line entirely. The reason for that is obvious though, as they have Alm saving Celica in the treasury room instead of the location of the final battle. So there's no need for a line where Alm comes on the scene and reassures Celica (though some how Celica manages to get back to her army instantaneously despite entering from the same door as Alm's army). We do have some lines between Jedah when the battle starts however, but that's more about breaking free from the gods and all that schtick rather than generally promising to beat them.

So anyway to sum it all up, I'd heavily dispute that this line did not exist in the original and I think bastards is a pretty appropriate translation of it.

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45 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

But in terms of writing he stops making sense when you put both sides together, and that's an issue. 

That just kinda describes the problem with SoV’s writing as a whole tbh. 

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On 10/10/2020 at 9:04 AM, Jotari said:

Moving the goalposts? But I didn't even have an argument. I've just been responding to your points which have been nigh on incomprehensible. And it's not head canon. It is an outright plot hole in the original Gaiden that Rudolf kills Mila, wants Duma deead and has the means to kill him yet sits on his ass all game waiting for Alm (or someone else strong) to come to the deed for him. That's a pretty unarguable plot hole. You'd need to head canon it to not be a plot hole in Gaiden. Now it's not a plot holw in Three Houses because they've introduced the fact that Rudolf is unable to use Falchion after killing Mila with it. That I believe is why that plot point was introduced.

Becoming a manakete and especially throwing away your dragon stone is a surefire way to stop degeneration. Though granted that's not curing it. 

That's two separate points. 1, If Mila hadn't sealed Falchion and 2, if she hadn't been there to help Alm and Celica. 2 has absolutely no bearing on 1. She could have not sealed the Falchion and still helped them. Nothing suggests that sealing Falchoin gave her access to any extra ghost powers.

I also haven't said anything that amounts to Rudolf's good. Just that he killed Mila.

So why'd Duma fight Alm then if he just wanted to turn himself into a tree? Mila and Duma were both killed and are dead in as close an approximation to that concept that applies to Earth and Divine Dragons. Just like Marth and Anri  killed Medeus by stabbing him in the face with Falchion yet his essence persisted to be resurrected in the future. If you want to argue semantics you can just replace dead with defeated. It really doesn't make any difference. Rudolf "defeated" Mila just as Alm "defeated" Duma and Marth "defeated" Medeus. All of which were fighting back and clearly did not want to be "defeated".

 

If you don’t have an argument then stop talking to me genius. There is no proof Rudolf beat Mila in Sov because we don’t see the fight. Gaiden isn’t Shadows of Valienta. Your trying to head canon a completely separate scenario of how the cast gets from before the game to literally the final dungeon and so your in no way shape or form giving any comprehensionable point. And even so you emitted to my point Mila helped Alm save Celica lmao. I never said Mila got powers from sealing Falchion know your just being a liar. You need to replay SoV then because Duma on being defeated gives Alm his blessing to lead Valtienta and turns into the giant tree with Mila. 

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