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What changes would you make to Binding Blade in a potential remake?


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Given how FE6 has never received an official localization, the odds of it eventually receiving a remake for Western audiences is quite high (probably after FE4 though). While there are some who enjoy FE6 quite a bit (as it is still a solid game even now), I think it's fair to say that most have at least some issues with the game and its mechanics. Bad hit rates, overall weak units, ambush spawns, the weakest lord character in the series, etc. are my gripes with the game and tend to be common complaints for others as well. Regardless of the issues that you may have with FE6, I thought I'd ask (since a similar thread about FE4 was made not long ago): What changes would you make to FE6 in a potential remake?

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  1. Begone, ambush spawns!
  2. More leniency in terms of promotion items recieved-I like it when it's tight, but FE6 takes this a bit too far IMO- A few more hero crests, knights crests and guiding rings would be nice.
  3. Ocean seals to promote thieves to Rogues and Pirates/Brigands to Berserkers
  4. Buff overall hitrates
  5. Make Roy's promotion earlier and buff him in general. Not to the point that he's FE10 Ike or anything, but much better than what he is.
  6. Keep hard mode bonuses on most units, but take 'em off the already godlike units.
  7. Make Merlinus more like FE7-style Merlinus

I personally hope that they keep the remake fairly close to the original rather than making it more like FE7. I get that they won't do that, but a man can dream!

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I'd say give some characters the echoes treatment. Merlinus and Elphin are the main advisers of the game and I don't see that changing, but that doesn't mean they should continue being the only people that get screentime. Right now Binding blade's plot is very focused on the basics and getting Roy from point A to point B.

Having characters like Wolt or Lilina fill a role similar to Gray/Tobin or Boey/Mae could give the story a bit more charm. Roy's character might also benefit from not being chained to Merlinus all the time.

Gameplay-wise everything is more or less fine. Maybe add some modern stuff to it. I'd keep most of it the same other then maybe tweaking some of the more extreme bad cases like Gwendolyn.
 

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Roy's growths and base stats arent actually all that bad, not exemplary certainly but 40% for str and spd is about average for units in his game. What hurts roy the most really is that late promotion which if roy hits his theoretical averages will keep him locked to 13str and 15spd for far to long. letting him promote early either through an early heaven seal or, as i would personally recommend grouping all the seals under a single master seal and letting him use that, would let him make better use of his overall build. 

other then that, quality of life changes mostly [ie do we really need merlinus on the map or can we just bung the convey onto the lord and have merlinus as an advisor type figure?] If i was being radical maybe bring in some mechanical aspects from other fes like reclassing, split promotions and maybe a skill system? fe6 is basic enough that some expenditure from other fes might help liven things up.

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  1. Get rid of ambush spawns.
  2. Use Master Seals instead of class specific promotion items
  3. Buff a lot of the characters, especially Roy (and make his promotion earlier)
  4. Improve weapon hit rates
  5. Give some other characters screen time

There might be other changes I want, but these are what I want most.

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I think for the Potential Binding Blade remake should have:

  1. Add some The Blazing Blade characters that aren't killed off in The Blazing Blade should return as playable characters and some as NPCs (I think some of the ones that we already know that can't be alive in The Binding Blade are Ninian, Karla, Canas, Roy's mother, Lilina's mother, and Athos) I think some conversations in Fire Emblem Heroes implied Hawkeye was disappeared and Igrene hasn't seen him since she was little during at the Tempest Trials event and I did saw some info from Wolt in Fire Emblem Heroes implied he's adopted brother of Roy, I'm starting to think what on earth happened to Rebecca before The Binding Blade?
  2. Add maybe two or few new playable characters so that we have enough for The Blazing Blade characters (We need a female Cavalier and a female Mercenary in the Potential The Binding Blade remake) 
  3. Add Arts Combat Skills and Mechanism like in Echoes: Shadows of Valentia and Three Houses
  4. Post Game Content that takes place after Idunn's defeat
  5. Add a Prologue chapter
  6. Add Full voice acting
  7. Add more classes and including bring Assassin class and Monk class into potential The Binding Blade remake
Edited by King Marth 64
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I'm feeling some déjà vu here. I'll keep it simple. ...Mostly.

  • Fix weapon stats--or at least the hit rates--to FE7 standards. I truly feel this will make it more tolerable while also maintaining the intended amount of challenge.
    • Give the Binding Blade infinite uses. Can't be anymore broken than Ragnell. ......OK, give it 50 or 60 uses if it must be limited, ANYTHING's better than that meager 20 uses. Oh, and make the Divine Dragonstone 60 uses, and make Flame Stones obtainable (w/ the original Divine Stone's 30 uses)
  • Either have Merlinus function as in FE7 unit-wise, or have Roy be the Lord conRoy convoy as per the norm.
  • Have a New Game+ that features Al, Gant, and Tina from the Champion's Blade manga that retells the game from the manga's--thusly, Al's--point of view (essentially Hector Mode). This of course entails additional chapters and perhaps additional movie cutscenes (see the final bullet point about cutscenes).
  • Have Lilina fill a Lord role or at least a Lucina-esque secondary Lord role. Maybe even a unique class line. Mage Lord, anyone?
    • Give Roy and Lilina special promotion items (like in FE8) but if Roy doesn't use it before obtaining the Binding Blade, it is forced.
      • With this in mind, have Roy's Master Lord model take cues from his Smash 4/Ultimate model. The movie cutscene where Roy obtains the BB shows him in his Master Lord attire even if he hasn't promoted beforehand. Unless they want to animate it twice for promoted and unpromoted Roy; they can do whichever.
  • I know it goes without saying that this remake would/will have full voice acting and movie/2D/anime/what-have-you cutscenes (done by which studio? Idk. This bullet point could very well be it's own topic), but I wanted to list a few scenes in the game I'd like to see get movie cutscenes (I combed through the script to make sure I got these right):
    • The opening/prelude: Basically animating FE7's epilogue where Roy and Lilina are introduced to each other as kids while Eliwood and Hector ponder about recent happenings in Bern, followed by Jahn making his presence known to Zephiel which makes him (Zephiel) give that slasher smile. Finally the actual prelude plays with voiced narration, and then the lightning strikes down, bringing forth the game's title: Fire Emblem Echoes: The Binding Blade [or whatever they'd end up calling it]. I can see this cutscene giving off similar vibes to SoV's prelude.
    • The end of Chapter 3: Hector says his dying words to Roy. It's sure to be an impactful gut punch for FE7 players who haven't yet played FE6.
    • The end of Chapter 8: Roy and Lilina rejoice at their reunion (sound familiar?) but it turns bittersweet when Roy tells her Hector has passed. Lilina tries to hold back her tears, saying she had been taught and prepared for this inevitability and wishes everyone would've just told her; she can take it. Roy comforts her and she cries into his shoulder. Marcus and Merlinus have their heads down in sorrow. Merlinus wipes away some tears, muttering softly, "Oh Master Roy...Lady Lilina......I'm so sorry."
    • The aforementioned acquisition of the Binding Blade. Easy enough to picture.
    • Mid-chapter 22 once the throne room is revealed: Roy and Zephiel have their argument about humanity. They then begin to fight. They clash swords several times. Zephiel performs an Insineous Dine (I think that's what it's called in the manga) spin attack, and knocks Roy back. The scene ends with Roy staring down Zephiel, sweat visible towards one eye.

 

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  • Fix the hit rates beyond just boosting hit rates, the hit/avoid formula and terrain bonuses are part of the problem
  • Mounted units cannot be rescued, foot units get a command to become a passenger for mounted units for one-turn rescue-drop fun
  • Use a mix of player and enemy phase reinforcements as appropriate
  • Fix some of the maps, particularly the indoor and gaiden chapters
  • Add some manner of accelerating WEXP progression
  • Give Roy a passive leadership bonus or skill of some sort so that he has actual utility
  • Make supports more reasonable to obtain but curb support bonus stacking
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  • 1 month later...
  • Keep ambush spawns, but give a warning the turn before they appear.
  • Have Roy promote after he liberates Etruria (16) or after he clears the Tower of the Saint (16x). Have a nice cutscene where he's promoted by the local Pope.
  • Give the poor boy a horse.
  • Speaking of horses, have all mounted units dismount when indoor. Cavalier would lose their ability to use lances. It would also force a bit more rotation in your fighting roster.
  • Give more screentime to other characters (Lilina, Cecilia, Elphin). I'd like to see scenes of a war council and see it gradually expands as more and more characters join. That would be the occasion for new characters to impart their wisdom and see Roy grow into a warleader.
  • By the time you go to Ilia/Sacae, you're forced to leave a couple of units behind for rear guard action in Etruria/Lycia.
  • This force would fight a couple of time (1-2-3?) between the Ilia/Sacae chapter. All those unused units would get their moment of fame.
  • Have those extra fights be anything but "Seize the throne".
  • Holding would mean less reinforcements in Bern chapters.
  • Switch the RNG to a 4d5 model (sum of 4 rolls between 0 and 5), it creates a bell curve with the majority of results around 50% but outliers are not uncommon.

If you're overhauling the weapon triangle, then...

  • Split the lance family between lances (horsemen) and spears (footmen). Lances should get a crit bonus on charge. Spears should get one when receiving a charge, maybe even an initiative bonus. Lances and spears should never double in those circumstances.
  • Have the game recognize when a unit is charging/charged (moving the unit before initiating combat). With a bigger bonus the more you've charged in a straight line?
  • Lances should only be used on the charge
  • Thus have lance users switch to a secondary weapon on any subsequent round.
  • Axes should become can openers
  • Swords should sit in between.
  • Canto after a non melee attack, even for archers.
  • Change Bolting and such spells to a new class of attack; bombardment with a cross AoE but with one turn delay. (Forget about it, the AI would never cope with it)

And if I'm allowed to dream, a new class if unit that incrementally buffs surrounding allies as long as it doesn't move.

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Time for a probably bad opinion by someone who's only half-way through the game!

I'd like a mini-DLC campaign like with Echoes but depicting several of the FE6 cast (Such as Lyn, Florina, Kent and Mark) trying to fight off when Bern invades Sacae, long story short, the final map would be a "Survive" map in the same style as the final Halo Reach Level (AKA, you're actually ment to die and cannot survive.), I kinda weirdly like how FE6 is retroactively more tragic with the fact that most of the FE7 cast who don't show up in FE6 have a decent chance of being dead (if not all-but-outright confirmed like with Lucius) in FE6 so play it with drama by having a DLC campaign where we get to see how they went down fighting against Bern, Vaida could even show up as a boss-fight. (Maybe similar to the unique weapons in Echoes DLC, you unlock some item for the main game if you manage to take her down with you in the last stand.)

I've not fully checked out how exactly this would work logically within FE6 but I would like some sort of "This is how they died" DLC for the FE7 cast, where it's a bunch of losing battle maps ended off with a last-stand map you can't win against the forces of Bern.

So essentially Halo:Reach: FE edition.

Edited by Samz707
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9 hours ago, Samz707 said:

I'd like a mini-DLC campaign like with Echoes but depicting several of the FE6 cast (Such as Lyn, Florina, Kent and Mark) trying to fight off when Bern invades Sacae, long story short

The problems that I have with that are:

  1. Canonically, (I think?) Lyn marries Hector and therefore has no business being in Sacae-Obviously, this can be changed when FE7 gets remade, but that still requires some shifting around.
  2. Is more of an opinion thing: I don't think Mark should be anywhere in the remake. To me, all he does is detract from Lyn's character in Lyn mode and is shoehorned in for the rest of the game. Say what you will about Robin, but he is at least relevant to the plot, whereas Mark is just kinda there to receive praise. I think that Lyn mode would be a LOT better if it actually showed Lyn's character and backstory rather than have her tell Mark how smart he is when she's telling him what to do-In LM, Lyn's backstory is mentioned twice, pretty much. Once in chapter 3, and at the end in chapter 10, the rest is in Hector mode, which is second and further playthrough exclusive. I feel like Lyn's character should be at least focused on in Lyn mode.

EDIT:

On 8/22/2020 at 1:24 PM, Poulp said:

Keep ambush spawns, but give a warning the turn before they appear.

Why? For me, the biggest problem with FE6 is the ambush spawns.

Edited by Benice
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Must

- no ambush spawns
- speedup button
- one button all enemy ranges on

Would be great

- promotions for thieves (+exp from opening locks)
- level system like in 3H (no cap at 20 then promote and back to 1 anymore, also solves Roy's late promotion)

I could go on with more ideas, but to me if the musts are met and nothing else changed, it'd still be worth it.

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14 hours ago, Benice said:

Canonically, (I think?) Lyn marries Hector and therefore has no business being in Sacae-Obviously, this can be changed when FE7 gets remade, but that still requires some shifting around.

There is no indication on which of lyns endings is canon. The scenes of her and Hector in his mode could also just be of a very deep friendship.

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2 minutes ago, German FE Nino said:

There is no indication on which of lyns endings is canon. The scenes of her and Hector in his mode could also just be of a very deep friendship.

It's not canon? Huh, I could have sworn it was. I mean, the game does really push Lyn x Hector hard. Like, isn't Eliwood and Ninian canon? It's pushed in the same way Hector and Lyn are.

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15 minutes ago, Benice said:

It's not canon? Huh, I could have sworn it was. I mean, the game does really push Lyn x Hector hard. Like, isn't Eliwood and Ninian canon? It's pushed in the same way Hector and Lyn are.

They do have a unique scene with a unique piece of music in "Battle Preparations" if they're either A or B ranked.  (Can't remember which.)

So it's pushed a bit and sorta hinted to be canon a bit. (not as much as Chrom/Sumia where they're literally shown together in the intro and not quite as much as EliwoodXNinian.)

 

Edited by Samz707
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Unless there's been a huge recent paradigm shift and Heroes has canonized a love interest for every character in the series, post-Kaga Fire Emblem has never, ever made any relationship official if the player had any choice to make in that matter. ("post-Kaga" because Thracia does make some FE4 pairings official)

Even Roy/Lilina is never been "confirmed", despite most other romantic Roy supports basically being easter eggs given how long it takes to unlock them. In Eliwood and Ninian's case, it's "official" that Ninian fell in love with Eliwood (she says so to Nils at some point), but everything beyond that is implied at most.

(I would be very surprised if this stance would ever change, by the way. Didn't the Awakening kids in Fates even get an off-screen dye job before going to Fateslandia just to make sure that their fathers don't have to be made official that way? They know that a large part of the fanbase is very passionate about their shipbuilding.)

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On 8/22/2020 at 1:24 PM, Poulp said:

Keep ambush spawns, but give a warning the turn before they appear.

 

On 8/24/2020 at 10:26 PM, Benice said:

Why? For me, the biggest problem with FE6 is the ambush spawns.

In general, I’m not a fan of ambush spawns, but the problem with ambush spawns is that you don’t know about them ahead of time, and some of the most fair ambush spawns are the ones that you are already given a warning about. Having played the game enough to have most of the ambush spawns memorized, they really aren’t so bad for me anymore, so giving an advanced notice of them would make things pretty fair for everyone (though it still depends on the context). 

Just turning all ambush spawns into regular reinforcements would make it a bit too easy for you to ambush them, making enemy reinforcements pretty much never pose any danger, so I don’t think that’s the right solution either.

In the game as it is now, there are bs ambush spawns that are designed in blatantly unfair ways, but there are also ambush spawns that are designed pretty fairly and you are given a warning about them from dialogue etc. To an extent I think ambush spawns in Binding Blade are overblown. Shadow Dragon and FE7 both have cases of ambush spawns too (although there might less of them), and I think ambush spawns in 3H Maddening are much worse than most of them in Binding Blade.

But to be clear, in general, I’m not a fan of ambush spawns for the same reason I’m not a fan of FOW. Withholding information from the player in a strategy game isn’t fair, which is why I like the suggestion to allow the player to see where ambush spawns will appear from the turn before.

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14 minutes ago, Whisky said:

But to be clear, in general, I’m not a fan of ambush spawns for the same reason I’m not a fan of FOW. Withholding information from the player in a strategy game isn’t fair, which is why I like the suggestion to allow the player to see where ambush spawns will appear from the turn before.

Hmm, I guess I see your point. If they were to do a 3 turns ahead warning, with an actual symbol counting down on the exact place they are going to spawn, that should work just fine. Same for FoW, I guess it does hold back too much information. What if FoW instead of completely hiding enemy positions, it still shows them as shadows. You can still attack them but won't get a combat forecast, nor will you know what you're attacking. That actually sounds a lot more fun to me at least.

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3 minutes ago, whase said:

What if FoW instead of completely hiding enemy positions, it still shows them as shadows. You can still attack them but won't get a combat forecast, nor will you know what you're attacking. That actually sounds a lot more fun to me at least.

Honestly, I prefer Berwick Saga's way of handling it-Enemies are also blind until you enter their range of vision, which is equal to yours. For example, an enemy cavalier can't charge in from eight spaces away and murder your healer from behind. As a bonus, as far as I can tell, the AI doesn't cheat! They don't immediately find you by default! It actually does make it more interesting.

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1 hour ago, Benice said:

Honestly, I prefer Berwick Saga's way of handling it-Enemies are also blind until you enter their range of vision, which is equal to yours. For example, an enemy cavalier can't charge in from eight spaces away and murder your healer from behind. As a bonus, as far as I can tell, the AI doesn't cheat! They don't immediately find you by default! It actually does make it more interesting.

Yeah, but that would be fair.

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Hmmm...

  • Make Lilina and Guinivere proper Lords.
  • Make ambush spawns exclusive to harder difficulties.
  • Move Roy's auto-promotion from just prior to Chapter 22 to the end chapter cutscene of Chapter 16. The Binding Blade's acquisition circumstances do not need to be altered, however.
  • Give character stats and growth rates, as well as weapon stats, some touch-ups. Not so much as to erase any character or weapon type's identity or anything, but good axe-users should be less of a rarity than they are, for example.
  • Make Fimbulvetr and Fenrir available to the player before postgame, and add the Shine, Aura, and Luna tomes present in Blazing Blade for the sake of consistency (and not having Light magic as a weapon type consist of just four weapons). Luna's weapon stats should probably be closer to those of its nerfed FE8 iteration, though.
  • It would be cool to add a playable Monk so you get a tier 1 Light-user, but it's not necessary and a playable Guinivere could also play that role just fine.
  • I don't know how necessary it is to give her a story role (I'm sure it could be done just fine), but at least add Lyn as a Trial Map bonus character to round out the FE7 Lord trio. As well, I'd change their Trial Map versions to be in their promoted Lord classes from Blazing Blade rather than generic second-tier classes, or at least move Eliwood's S rank from Lances to Swords and give Hector one in Axes to match.
  • Make Merlinus work how he does in FE7. No deployment slot required to field him and he levels up automatically for surviving a chapter.
Edited by Topaz Light
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2 hours ago, Whisky said:

And we can’t have fairness in a Fire Emblem game.

Exactly! Why would Kaga make things fair when they can be fun!

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