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Playing Binding Blade before Blazing Blade?


MuteMousou
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In my opinion, with most things that occur within the same world, it is better to play them in the order they were released since the later ones are usually intended to be played with the context of the earlier ones in mind, even if they might occur chronologically before the earlier ones. In particular, I think it is strange how I always see everyone saying to play fe7 first even though, by most accounts the developers probably intended it to be experienced as a component to fe6. Of course, there is also the fact of fe7 being the first game released worldwide in the series, and it's possible this could have made it more accessible to new players story-wise. However, I have no evidence to show how long fe7 was actually intended to be released in English or how much they designed the game in general around this fact. 

I think if you played fe6 first, you would have the context of who Eliwood and Hector are, as well as the entire world and sort of "get" the point of the entire story in the context of Elibe, whereas this wouldn't be evident if you went into it knowing nothing about Elibe. I don't really remember much on the story of either, but I think it is pretty reasonable to say that the returning characters in fe7 are probably there sort of as "fanservice" to people who played fe6, even if you don't need to have played fe6 to understand who they are. To an extent I think you could also say the same thing for fe10, even though it is a sequel, in that, although the game definitely was intended to be experienced after fe9, you don't really need to have played fe9 to understand the story.

Another thing I could see as an argument against fe6 first is that "it's too hard." Now, I won't say that fe7 is harder, of course, but fe7  is arguably the easiest game in the series, or at least close to it. All the games before fe7 are definitely more difficult than it, and it's not like those game are insanely difficult or anything, so at times I think we set our standard a little too low with what we can expect new players to do. The easiness of fe7 normal mode is a bit too much at times definitely, even the newer games on normal mode are more difficult than it. Being the most baby easy game in the series doesn't automatically make it a better starting point, and I think we should offer people suggestions for their first game that take into account more than just this. Fe6 was intended as a soft reboot to the series anyway, so it's not like it really expected you to have been familiar with any of the previous games at all at the time of its release.

 

I wonder if part of the reason the English community doesn't ever suggest this is possibly because they personally didn't play fe6 first. I don't really know anyone in the English community who played fe6 first, so that's fine, like of course this is going to happen lol. But, I do think we should suggest fe6 more often as an option to newer players. I think the tutorial in fe7 is pretty unnecessary for new players anyway and there are many other fine entry points for the series.

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2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Another thing I could see as an argument against fe6 first is that "it's too hard." Now, I won't say that fe7 is harder, of course, but fe7  is arguably the easiest game in the series, or at least close to it. All the games before fe7 are definitely more difficult than it, and it's not like those game are insanely difficult or anything, so at times I think we set our standard a little too low with what we can expect new players to do. The easiness of fe7 normal mode is a bit too much at times definitely, even the newer games on normal mode are more difficult than it. Being the most baby easy game in the series doesn't automatically make it a better starting point, and I think we should offer people suggestions for their first game that take into account more than just this. Fe6 was intended as a soft reboot to the series anyway, so it's not like it really expected you to have been familiar with any of the previous games at all at the time of its release.

I'd seriously disagree that all the games before Blazing Blade are harder. The only one that I could legitimately argue is harder is Binding Blade itself. And I'd say that if any of them ARE harder, it's definitely for the wrong reasons.

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

But, I do think we should suggest fe6 more often as an option to newer players.

I strongly disagree with that, because it's one of the most beginner-UNfriendly games in the series along with Thracia and Radiant Dawn.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Of course, there is also the fact of fe7 being the first game released worldwide in the series, and it's possible this could have made it more accessible to new players story-wise.

Lyn Mode = tutorial mode, something that FE6 didn't have (a proper tutorial, that is).

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

I don't really remember much on the story of either

Pro tip: If you're going to post a hot take, make sure you know what you're talking about first.

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

but I think it is pretty reasonable to say that the returning characters in fe7 are probably there sort of as "fanservice" to people who played fe6, even if you don't need to have played fe6 to understand who they are.

Because this is flat-out wrong (and no, the "explanation" will be for you to replay FE7).

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Now, I won't say that fe7 is harder, of course, but fe7  is arguably the easiest game in the series

I'm glad you haven't played FE8, now please do so before posting stuff like this.

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

 All the games before fe7 are definitely more difficult than it

Many for the wrong reasons, whether it be FE1's staffbot leveling methodology, FE4's overly clunky inventory system, FE5's randomness all over the place, or FE6's hatred of axes.

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

The easiness of fe7 normal mode is a bit too much at times definitely, even the newer games on normal mode are more difficult than it.

You're also free to try Hard Mode, you know.

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Fe6 was intended as a soft reboot to the series anyway, so it's not like it really expected you to have been familiar with any of the previous games at all at the time of its release.

You'd think a soft reboot would have a tutorial, to explain all the new bells and whistles.

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

I wonder if part of the reason the English community doesn't ever suggest this is possibly because they personally didn't play fe6 first. I don't really know anyone in the English community who played fe6 first, so that's fine, like of course this is going to happen lol. But, I do think we should suggest fe6 more often as an option to newer players. I think the tutorial in fe7 is pretty unnecessary for new players anyway and there are many other fine entry points for the series.

In-game tutorials are good.  I'm not sure what you have against them.

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29 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

I strongly disagree with that, because it's one of the most beginner-UNfriendly games in the series along with Thracia and Radiant Dawn.

I played radiant dawn as the first game I finished (on easy) and it was fine. I'm only suggesting the idea that we give more potential options to people if they are new, not saying you have to say a certain one or that the current ones are wrong, or something, only that I think that sticking to only the most vanilla ones everyone suggests and only those is a bit constricting because every person is going to want different things out of a video game.

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15 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

I played radiant dawn as the first game I finished (on easy) and it was fine. I'm only suggesting the idea that we give more potential options to people if they are new, not saying you have to say a certain one or that the current ones are wrong, or something, only that I think that sticking to only the most vanilla ones everyone suggests and only those is a bit constricting because every person is going to want different things out of a video game.

Even so, some of them are just not meant for beginners. Like Radiant Dawn, for example. The first few chapters are ones where ANY ally dying gets you a game over. And most of your units in those early chapters are NOT the type that can take hits well. Also, I would consider accessibility when recommending a title to someone who wants to enter into the series. Which is why Awakening, Sacred Stones and Blazing Blade are popular recommendations for such.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Having a chance for them to fail is part of playing a video game, or learning anything new really. There are plenty of games in other series that have much steeper curves in the only entry or in all of them, and people still play them. You don't have to assume that your only option is to provide someone with the easiest possible options in the entire series.

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2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

I wonder if part of the reason the English community doesn't ever suggest this is possibly because they personally didn't play fe6 first. I don't really know anyone in the English community who played fe6 first, so that's fine, like of course this is going to happen lol.

I think that this is a big part of the reason why the English speaking community mostly suggests playing FE7 before FE6, and I think that's pretty natural. It's fairly normal for people to suggest others to do what they had an experience with, and likewise, it's also normal for most of the community to have come across FE7 before FE6. Back in the day FE7 was the only translated FE game, so people would only start searching for FE6 fan translations after playing FE7 and developing an interest in the franchise. Even then, I would assume that back then finding a good, completed translation of the game might not have been as easy as it is today where literally anyone can do a google search and have the game fully translated, downloaded and ready to play 1 minute later.

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

But, I do think we should suggest fe6 more often as an option to newer players. I think the tutorial in fe7 is pretty unnecessary for new players anyway and there are many other fine entry points for the series.

That, I'm not sure if I agree with. For someone who has experience with the series but just hasn't played the GBA games I think it's perfectly fine. FE6 is harder than FE7, but FE6 NM isn't so hard that someone who has played FE games before can't manage it. But for someone who is completely new to the series FE7 is definitely a better entry point and it was even designed as such (probably because it was the franchise's worldwide debut). The tutorial isn't unnecessary in my opinion; for a totally new player it offers a lot of useful information. I know that for someone who knows how to play FE already it can be tedious, but you at least have the option to skip it if you want to. It doesn't take that much time to mash text and play the tutorial chapters as fast as possible, and if you really want to avoid it altogether, you can play on an emulator (not like a lot of people play on original hardware anymore these days xd), download a clear save file from somewhere and start from whatever mode you want.

Tutorial aside, the game itself is way more noob friendly than FE6. That's not to say that you can't start with FE6 if you're new to FE, but Binding Blade is a lot less forgiving than Blazing Blade even if we were to strictly compare NM vs LNM+ENM. To mention a few things, there's much less of a gap between the strength of your own units and the enemy units, ambush spawns can leave you feeling that you died for reasons that were beyond your control (also true for experienced FE players who are going into FE6 blind, but it's more frustrating if you're still learning the ropes) and going to Sacae by accident because you didn't know any better sucks (speaking from experience here xd). Also, depending on how much you care about the story, you have to consider that someone playing FE for the first time going into FE6 blind and no help of guides is almost certainly not going to get the true ending; there's too many things that could go wrong (meeting the requirements for all of the gaiden chapters isn't so bad if you know what you're doing, but not quite so if you don't. You also wouldn't know that breaking or losing a legendary weapon locks you out of the true ending). 

18 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

I played radiant dawn as the first game I finished (on easy) and it was fine.

I would actually agree with this for the most part. For how infamous RD seems to be for its difficulty, easy mode feels like a cakewalk to me. Maybe I've played RD too many times already to really be able to empathize with what the new player experience is like, but the one time I played it on EM just to test what it was like it felt pretty easy. Although do take that with a grain of salt; I knew exactly what I was doing, so abusing the crap out of the most busted units and BEXP'ing them to infinity with the seemingly endless amount of BEXP EM gives you just completely trivialized the game.

HM is brutal though xd Part 1 is very unforgiving, and the Part 3 DB chapters had me sweating bullets the whole time when I completed my HM ironman some weeks ago.

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13 hours ago, eclipse said:

Lyn Mode = tutorial mode, something that FE6 didn't have (a proper tutorial, that is).

I don't see an issue with the fe6 tutorial? You don't need to explain literally every mechanic in a game. I think later entries in the series seem to convey that they realized the lengths of the lyn mode tutorial were not necessary to properly get new players on track. Also it is very boring and annoying for someone to play as a not new player, and probably even some new players.

13 hours ago, eclipse said:

I'm glad you haven't played FE8, now please do so before posting stuff like this.

I have played literally every game in the series except revelation. I don't really see what the issue is with what I said anyway, because I said "arguably the easiest, or at least close to it" the fact that I added that many qualifiers yet you are still this inflammatory is confusing to me. 

13 hours ago, eclipse said:

Many for the wrong reasons, whether it be FE1's staffbot leveling methodology, FE4's overly clunky inventory system, FE5's randomness all over the place, or FE6's hatred of axes.


Well, that's subjective of course, but my point wasn't really about whether or not something was difficult or not for a good reason, more that if the fanbase managed this "difficulty" for that amount of games I can't imagine it was that insane of an undertaking, I don't believe the series was ever seen as exceedingly difficult by the Japanese playerbase before fe7 existed, either.

13 hours ago, eclipse said:

You're also free to try Hard Mode, you know.

The entire point was talking about normal modes across games and comparing them, since this pertains to new players. I don't see how hard mode is relevant to that

13 hours ago, eclipse said:

You'd think a soft reboot would have a tutorial, to explain all the new bells and whistles.

It did though?

13 hours ago, eclipse said:

In-game tutorials are good.  I'm not sure what you have against them.

I mean that wasn't even really my main point but yeah the fe7 tutorial is bad, there are better tutorials though.
 

Edited by MuteMousou
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33 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

I don't see an issue with the fe6 tutorial? You don't need to explain literally every mechanic in a game.
 

And there's your problem.  Not being able to see things from another point of view besides your own.  Normally I put YouTube videos in spoiler tags, but I need to make a point.  I'm sure you're familiar with the ins and outs of Dance Dance Revolution - the game's been out for over 20 years.  Thus, this should be the perfect warm-up song for you:

(for those wondering, no I can't do this either, I don't have the stamina for it)

While FE6 is nowhere near as bad as what I posted, the idea is the same.  Namely that the tutorials are helpful for people who aren't you, which is why people steer newcomers in the direction of FE7.  Even if Lyn Mode is a bit drawn-out, it does an excellent job of explaining the vast majority of the mechanics.  Mastering those mechanics is what the rest of the game is for.

40 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

I have played literally every game in the series except revelation. I don't really see what the issue is with what I said anyway, because I said "arguably the easiest, or at least close to it" the fact that I added that many qualifiers yet you are still this inflammatory is confusing to me.

So here's a short list of games that are easier than FE7:

FE8 - If you can't understand how this game is easier than FE7 is almost every conceivable way, then I'm at a loss.
FE9 Nerfed Mode - I played Normal and found it a touch easy.  The Easy Mode that was specially made for US audiences had some pretty wonky stat drops IIRC.
FE11 - The strongest tools in the game are given out early (Warp on Chapter 3, Wing Spear on Chapter 1, etc.) or work in crazier manners than expected (Physic/Fortify hit the entire map).  Due to the way stats are distributed, enemies aren't horribly dodgy, Javelins are forgeable, and enemy Res is mostly nonexistent.  While this one doesn't do as much hand-holding as FE7, you have so many ridiculous things at your disposal early-on that it's a matter of deciding how you want to break the game.  Things don't equalize out until H3 at earliest, but if you're complaining about FE7 being one of the easiest, I'm assuming that you're not looking past Normal Mode.

While Awakening shares many of the same issues that make FE8 easy, stuff like enemy stats aren't so facepalm-worthy.

54 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

The entire point was talking about normal modes across games and comparing them, since this pertains to new players. I don't see how hard mode is relevant to that

It's what happens when you whine about how easy normal mode is.  Hard Mode exists for a reason, and aside from FE8, it really is a step up.  But once again, you'd have to see this from the point of view of someone who's never touched a SRPG in their life.

In other words, your inability to see things from a point of view not your own means that you should keep such takes to yourself until you understand why people recommend "easy" things.  Unless you want to give Valkyrie Dimension a shot.

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2 hours ago, GonzoMD1993 said:

Tutorial aside, the game itself is way more noob friendly than FE6. That's not to say that you can't start with FE6 if you're new to FE, but Binding Blade is a lot less forgiving than Blazing Blade even if we were to strictly compare NM vs LNM+ENM. To mention a few things, there's much less of a gap between the strength of your own units and the enemy units, ambush spawns can leave you feeling that you died for reasons that were beyond your control (also true for experienced FE players who are going into FE6 blind, but it's more frustrating if you're still learning the ropes) and going to Sacae by accident because you didn't know any better sucks (speaking from experience here xd). Also, depending on how much you care about the story, you have to consider that someone playing FE for the first time going into FE6 blind and no help of guides is almost certainly not going to get the true ending; there's too many things that could go wrong (meeting the requirements for all of the gaiden chapters isn't so bad if you know what you're doing, but not quite so if you don't. You also wouldn't know that breaking or losing a legendary weapon locks you out of the true ending). 

Yeah, I get that there can be issues. It's a player's choice whether they want to go in knowing these sorts of things or not, they have the choice how much they want to be informed of what they're doing can have permanent consequences like that. You can also miss the true ending of fe3, but that's just a part of the game. Like I can get wanting to make it easier, but that's kind of a given with a most games is that you can have bad things happen if you don't know what you're doing, not every player wants the most consequence-free thing the first time around, in fact many players could be turned off from the series if they are lead to believe it is too easy. I kind of get the feeling that sometimes we're just trying to take away any possible chance of a negative experience from happening to any new player, which imo shouldn't really be the aim of recommending a video game to someone, it should just be whether they would like the game or not. 

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10 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

I kind of get the feeling that sometimes we're just trying to take away any possible chance of a negative experience from happening to any new player, which imo shouldn't really be the aim of recommending a video game to someone, it should just be whether they would like the game or not. 

I don't know. I completely agree that if a game is devoid of challenge then it just stops being fun to play, so just making things easier and easier won't necessarily make for a better new player experience. In fact, even though I'd personally recommend playing FE7 before FE6 to a total beginner it's definitely not because because I think FE7 has nothing that could lead to a negative experience. A lot of the mid to late game maps could prove to be a point of frustration for many new players even in ENM, the most egregious one being BBD but there's more of them too. This game doesn't have ambush spawns but it has a good amount of Fog maps (including BBD), and it's fairly easy to lose units to random enemies hidden in the fog if you have no prior knowledge of the game. New players might also find maps such as CoD and VoD to be kind of overwhelming, and bosses in Light usually destroy people who don't know what to do (and you could also be forced to restart if you didn't think to bring a Restore staff and you get surprised Berserk'd after finally killing all of the bosses).

I don't think that the desired goal or ideal is to completely remove anything that could lead to a negative experience. If a game is so easy that it's impossible to ever fail at anything (and thus you can never have a negative experience) then it just becomes boring and not worth playing. However, I cannot think of a single FE that could really fall into this category unless you go out of your way to trivialize the difficulty (with stuff like boss or arena abusing) and FE7 is not an exception.

The reason why I recommend playing FE7 first before FE6 is because from a gameplay perspective it makes more sense to me personally. Playing the easier of the 2 games first makes the difficulty progression feel more natural. While there is some value in playing the harder of the 2 games first and then just taking the other one as a breather or an opportunity to relax, I think it just feels better to start with a moderately easy difficulty and then slowly dial it up.

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5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd seriously disagree that all the games before Blazing Blade are harder. The only one that I could legitimately argue is harder is Binding Blade itself. And I'd say that if any of them ARE harder, it's definitely for the wrong reasons.

If something is difficult, the reasons for its difficulty doesn't matter, it's difficult. 

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Even so, some of them are just not meant for beginners. Like Radiant Dawn, for example. The first few chapters are ones where ANY ally dying gets you a game over. And most of your units in those early chapters are NOT the type that can take hits well. Also, I would consider accessibility when recommending a title to someone who wants to enter into the series. Which is why Awakening, Sacred Stones and Blazing Blade are popular recommendations for such.

Radiant Dawn's opening is fine for newer players. Just literally don't put people in range of enemies who will kill them. That's all it takes. I think the accessibility is a good point, and it's part of the reason I recommend 3houses as a first game so often since most of my friends own a switch. Relating this back to fe6, I think the most inaccessible thing about fe6 is the fact that it was never released in english. Certainly getting an english rom is easier today than it was back in the 2000's but a fan translation is still a romhack and that might be a barrier to accessibility. This is, of course, assuming that by "accessibility" you mean "how easy is it to get the game in your hands and running" and not "how easy is it to beat".

Regarding difficulty, I don't think new players are turned off by a challenge, but returning players who expect the challenge to resemble a game they've already played can fail to adapt. If you've played Path of Radiance first, you might expect your lord to be able to take a hit from an axe and not die, and so when you go to play Radiant Dawn you might get upset when Micaiah dies to an attack. If, however, you started with RD first, you'll just see Micaiah and go "oh, I guess I need to keep her out of range" and then just keep her out of range. Most players are not turned off by a game that gives them a game over screen if they make a bad decision, much less a strategy game.

7 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

I wonder if part of the reason the English community doesn't ever suggest this is possibly because they personally didn't play fe6 first. I don't really know anyone in the English community who played fe6 first, so that's fine, like of course this is going to happen lol. But, I do think we should suggest fe6 more often as an option to newer players.

I know a few people whose first FE game was fe6, and a few more whose first FE game was fe6 on hard mode. I have confidence in most players that when presented with a challenge, they'll come up with a solution.

At the end of the day, I actually agree with Mute. FE6 is a pretty classic and straightforward experience that isn't really deceptive with anything except for possibly the fact that halberds don't have bonus damage against nomads and troubadours. If a new player starts the game and pays attention to the mechanics they'll learn it, and fe6 has shockingly few mechanics. I do, however, want to question whether or not it's appropriate to introduce new players to the "true ending" first or to leave them in the dark. I personally advocate that a newer player shouldn't be concerned about getting the 100% ending in any game - I've seen it cause a lot of frustration in people who want to unlock everything but don't want to plan ahead (in a strategy game -_-). The game is very replayable, and I think it's actually incorrect to encourage players to get all the gaidens. I'm really turned off every time I get in a first time FE6 stream and all the people in chat are asking whether or not Zealot is still alive or whether they're going Ilia or Sacae because these things shouldn't matter, just play the damn game and focus on giving yourself an environment to learn.

In conclusion, a brand-new player to the series probably isn't going to be offended by a lot of the things you keep bringing up, ShadowMir and Eclipse. FE6 is a great game for newer players. If a new player sees that Roy is on 10 health and a brigand deals 10 damage, and then they move Roy next to the Brigand and he dies, they probably won't throw their hands in the air and say that Chrom never would have had this problem. They'll just recognize what is going on and fix their play to correct it, because that's how you play strategy games.

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5 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Having a chance for them to fail is part of playing a video game, or learning anything new really. There are plenty of games in other series that have much steeper curves in the only entry or in all of them, and people still play them. You don't have to assume that your only option is to provide someone with the easiest possible options in the entire series.

 

1 hour ago, MuteMousou said:

Yeah, I get that there can be issues. It's a player's choice whether they want to go in knowing these sorts of things or not, they have the choice how much they want to be informed of what they're doing can have permanent consequences like that. You can also miss the true ending of fe3, but that's just a part of the game. Like I can get wanting to make it easier, but that's kind of a given with a most games is that you can have bad things happen if you don't know what you're doing, not every player wants the most consequence-free thing the first time around, in fact many players could be turned off from the series if they are lead to believe it is too easy. I kind of get the feeling that sometimes we're just trying to take away any possible chance of a negative experience from happening to any new player, which imo shouldn't really be the aim of recommending a video game to someone, it should just be whether they would like the game or not. 

I don't know about that... I'm not so sadistic as to kick a kid who doesn't know the first thing about swimming in the deep end of the pool (which what you're suggesting is no different from). Also, it's not about completely removing the possibility of a negative experience. Going back to Radiant Dawn, I would state once again that the first few maps in part 1 have any ally dying as a game over condition. That means you have practically no room for error. That is, without a doubt, a very high-pressure situation for someone who has never played an SRPG before to get thrown in. Especially when most of the units you get during this early portion of the game are terrible at taking hits.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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11 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't know about that... I'm not so sadistic as to kick a kid who doesn't know the first thing about swimming in the deep end of the pool (which what you're suggesting is no different from). Also, it's not about completely removing the possibility of a negative experience. Going back to Radiant Dawn, I would state once again that the first few maps in part 1 have any ally dying as a game over condition. That means you have practically no room for error. That is, without a doubt, a very high-pressure situation for someone who has never played an SRPG before to get thrown in. Especially when most of the units you get during this early portion of the game are terrible at taking hits

I don't think it's the fault of the game to give the player a game over for making a mistake. Literally all it takes is reading a combat forecast, and that's an important skill for any fire emblem game. I've seen literal children get through the early game of Radiant Dawn. It's not that hard. If your unit dies in one map, that fact is probably not going to change in the next chapter.

I mean if I'm going to recommend ANY fire emblem game I'm going to tell them they'll have to do math and check stats.

Edited by OriginalRaisins
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24 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Going back to Radiant Dawn, I would state once again that the first few maps in part 1 have any ally dying as a game over condition. That means you have practically no room for error. That is, without a doubt, a very high-pressure situation for someone who has never played an SRPG before to get thrown in. Especially when most of their units are terrible at taking hits.

I don't know about that one either. Some of the Part 1 maps are extremely unforgiving (although I'm mostly thinking of HM here), but it's not a trend (the difficulty of Part 1 maps isn't consistent from map to map), and it's definitely not the first few maps that make Part 1 hard. 1-P is extremely easy even in HM, 1-1 puts the pressure on you with the turn limit but for the most part Nolan can hold chokepoints and advance without much risk and without the need to ever expose Micaiah which is the only one of your units that gets OHKO'd by everything (and even that might not be true on EM or NM), and then 1-2 gives you Sothe which basically puts you into full easy mode until 1-5 which is where the difficulty really picks up (at which point the only game over conditions are Sothe, Volug and Micaiah). I guess that 1-2, 1-3 and 1-4 could be challenging if you absolutely refuse to let Sothe carry you, but why would you?

I think it's also worth noting that most people reset over any death at all even if their death doesn't cause a game over. Unless you're playing an ironman, for most people it doesn't make a difference that in maps 1-P through 1-3 you get a game over for losing any member of the DB.

Edited by GonzoMD1993
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7 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

At the end of the day, I actually agree with Mute. FE6 is a pretty classic and straightforward experience that isn't really deceptive with anything except for possibly the fact that halberds don't have bonus damage against nomads and troubadours. If a new player starts the game and pays attention to the mechanics they'll learn it, and fe6 has shockingly few mechanics. I do, however, want to question whether or not it's appropriate to introduce new players to the "true ending" first or to leave them in the dark. I personally advocate that a newer player shouldn't be concerned about getting the 100% ending in any game - I've seen it cause a lot of frustration in people who want to unlock everything but don't want to plan ahead (in a strategy game -_-). 

With that I think it's best to just ask people if they want to be spoiled on these kinds of things or not. It's just kind of a thing in video games that isn't relevant anymore, even with newer games, because in those cases, such as dark souls, the game kind of banks on the fact that the internet will prevent any special "secret" thing from actually being a secret, so in a way it kind of removes itself from any criticism of "how could you expect the players to know" if you do that in a modern game.

But yeah, I do think some of the earlier games like that are kind of oof to get people to play sometimes because it's hard to be sure what level of backseatyness you should be doing, especially with fe4, I have a friend who played it recently who was not new to the series, and I was not sure if I should have told him how to recruit certain characters, or, for example, how to get to the first castle in Chapter 4. Dew raising the bridge really is kind of stupid because it would make more sense for there to be an actual command for it rather than it just requiring you to wait there next to where the bridge was, in range of a bunch of enemies who can attack him over the river. However I think the weird quirkiness is still fun even if it's kind of iffy sometimes with new players.

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8 hours ago, GonzoMD1993 said:

I don't think that the desired goal or ideal is to completely remove anything that could lead to a negative experience. If a game is so easy that it's impossible to ever fail at anything (and thus you can never have a negative experience) then it just becomes boring and not worth playing. However, I cannot think of a single FE that could really fall into this category unless you go out of your way to trivialize the difficulty (with stuff like boss or arena abusing) and FE7 is not an exception.

I do think if you just used Marcus/Oswin/Hector or something on every enemy in fe7 normal you would run into very few issues over the game. Obviously the difficulty is subjective again, but there's definitely newer games I wouldn't recommend to certain people not because they're difficult, but moreso how easy they are or the immaturity of the settings sometimes (I wouldn't necessary call 3h an immature game but there's plenty of people who are tired of the school setting, and justifiably so, I think.)

 

8 hours ago, GonzoMD1993 said:

The reason why I recommend playing FE7 first before FE6 is because from a gameplay perspective it makes more sense to me personally. Playing the easier of the 2 games first makes the difficulty progression feel more natural. While there is some value in playing the harder of the 2 games first and then just taking the other one as a breather or an opportunity to relax, I think it just feels better to start with a moderately easy difficulty and then slowly dial it up.

Of course, this would require some effort, but if they wanted to they could play fe6 then play fe7 with a save transfer so they can skip lyn mode and do eliwood or hector hard mode (i'm not sure if a save transfer can unlock hard modes in the JP version but you could still just download a save from the internet for the ENG version). Idk if anyone has made an english patch for the japanese version of fe7 but that's the thing is I wish you had the option to skip lyn mode in English if you wanted like in the JP version. The Japanese version is still more challenging on normal mode also due to increased weapon effectiveness and fe6 thrones existing in the game, in particular I recall the Cog of Destiny boss is a lot more difficult in JP compared to English. So I think the game definitely considered the idea of returning players playing it looking for a challenge in Japanese, the thing is this is removed from the English version, so I think if people really wanted they can start from fe6 and still get a challenge from fe7.

Edited by MuteMousou
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12 hours ago, eclipse said:

And there's your problem.  Not being able to see things from another point of view besides your own. 

I don't know how I'm supposed to know what this has to do with anything I said or how this is the case if you don't give any reason for why.

The fact of posting a DDR song on its own actually goes against your own point for multiple reasons.
1. It's a rhythm game, rhythm games can be understood easily, probably more than any other type of game, by literally just watching someone play the game, it's not that hard to understand in most cases.
2. Showing a difficult song does not pertain at all to whether or not a tutorial is good or how a particular part of the game is good at showing you what certain things do. A hard rhythm game song is often as conceptually easy to understand as an easy rhythm game song, it's the exact same mechanics (unless there are some mechanics introduced in harder songs, which usually are few and don't always exist) except it's just literally more of the same mechanic. There's usually not much being thrown in there that challenges your basic understanding of the game, it's just the same thing as before but more mechanically difficult to perform, because that's really all rhythm games are, a test of how mechanically good you are at something.

So, your entire point is moot there unless you were under the impression that I was implying that something such as the fe5 final chapter should be a place to tutorialize a player to understand the basic mechanics of the game, and even then, it doesn't even apply in your example if what we're talking about is a game's ability to convey the basic mechanics to you in some way, because it's not like there's much meaningful difference in being able to conceptually understand what is happening in a difficult DDR track versus an easy one. Now, if you're talking about if it would be completable by a new player, of course not, but would it make much meaningful difference in conveying how the game works to a spectator? Probably not. If you did believe that I thought any random point in any game should be used to inform the player of the basic mechanics, my only reasonable response is to think that you were perhaps purposely bad faith misinterpreting what I was saying.

12 hours ago, eclipse said:

FE8 - If you can't understand how this game is easier than FE7 is almost every conceivable way, then I'm at a loss.

While Awakening shares many of the same issues that make FE8 easy, stuff like enemy stats aren't so facepalm-worthy.

I mean maybe I am biased on the difficulty of fe7 for various reasons which I could be convinced of, but I don't really care at least in this context because it's not really integral to my main point, it's still relatively easy compared to a lot of the games in the series anyway, and tons of people have wildly different takes on what game is the easiest/hardest for various reasons, all of which can be equally valid sometimes, but that's a different topic anyway.

12 hours ago, eclipse said:

It's what happens when you whine about how easy normal mode is.  Hard Mode exists for a reason, and aside from FE8, it really is a step up.  But once again, you'd have to see this from the point of view of someone who's never touched a SRPG in their life.

In other words, your inability to see things from a point of view not your own means that you should keep such takes to yourself until you understand why people recommend "easy" things.  Unless you want to give Valkyrie Dimension a shot.

So I asked "why is it relevant" and then your reason is "because you whine about something being easy," as if that answers the question at all. The entire point has nothing to do with hard mode

I mean, you can say I don't understand things and tell me that I should keep something to myself, but when you explain this by not actually giving any reason to support this claim and instead support all of this with a bunch of irrelevant things that either wildly misinterpret what I was saying or don't even directly matter in the context of what we were talking about, then I'm going to have to say that you shouldn't bother coming into this being as performatively arrogant and preemptively dismissive as you are if you weren't going to attempt to actually present anything worth listening to

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Damn son where'd you find this thread it's very long.

23 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

I wonder if part of the reason the English community doesn't ever suggest this is possibly because they personally didn't play fe6 first.

Probably, yeah. It's a darn shame, since FE6 is a much better game.

Even narratively I think it holds up a lot better- I don't want to be the guy who gets hung up on story in Fire Emblem games, but FE7 is a pretty confusing mess. When you go from FE7 to FE6, there's a sense of abject confusion about what's happening in FE6 despite the story being much clearer, because FE7 is such a terrible introduction to Elibe in part due to its poor writing. Your brain can wrap around it better if you start with FE6 and move to FE7, I think.

Lyn mode is a pretty crappy tutorial because it holds your hand and makes you crawl through explanations of its mechanics, even the most basic and intuitive ones. Even as a small, stupid 12 year old playing the game for the first time, I didn't need Lyn to tell me how to move units. It's patronizing, probably because it was made for the kinds of people Japanese developers perceive Americans to be (which is to say "borderline vegetables").

I'd like to agree with @OriginalRaisins on difficulty. FE6 isn't so tricky or complicated that it needs a primer, and even if were reasonable to look at some kind of combined difficulty curve across games, it's not like difficulty curves need to be strictly monotonic. I'd also argue FE7 is easier than FE8 and FE9. FE8 at least has Phantom Ship, while in FE9 I think it's extremely difficult just to stay awake.

7 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Obviously the difficulty is subjective again

Well, reality itself is subjective in some sense, so that's not such a big deal.

15 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

I personally advocate that a newer player shouldn't be concerned about getting the 100% ending in any game - I've seen it cause a lot of frustration in people who want to unlock everything but don't want to plan ahead (in a strategy game -_-). The game is very replayable, and I think it's actually incorrect to encourage players to get all the gaidens. I'm really turned off every time I get in a first time FE6 stream and all the people in chat are asking whether or not Zealot is still alive or whether they're going Ilia or Sacae because these things shouldn't matter, just play the damn game and focus on giving yourself an environment to learn.

This is a very interesting question.  I wouldn't consider "the true ending" to be going for 100%, at least not in the typical sense, and I think it'd be nice for a new player to go through all the chapters. Then again, I don't think it's actually all that hard to get all the gaidens in the game just playing normally. Don't take too long, reset on most deaths, let your hoarder instincts keep you from breaking the legendary weapons- fairly simple and natural, really.

I'd also like to say I think the Ilia/Sacae route-split is really cool and it's disappointing that it usually ends up being a reason to bench Sue and Shin- you stop playing how you want and start metagaming. It's such a subtle mechanic and it's one of those things I've never seen anyone discover on their own, but it must be mind-blowing to do so. Like playing the original Zelda- obtuse, sure, but the reward is in the realization.

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On 10/7/2021 at 1:03 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'd like to agree with @OriginalRaisins on difficulty. FE6 isn't so tricky or complicated that it needs a primer, and even if were reasonable to look at some kind of combined difficulty curve across games, it's not like difficulty curves need to be strictly monotonic. I'd also argue FE7 is easier than FE8 and FE9. FE8 at least has Phantom Ship, while in FE9 I think it's extremely difficult just to stay awake.

I think FE7 is both easier and harder than FE8. FE7 ENM is easier than FE8 NM, and FE7 HHM is harder than FE8 HM.

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15 minutes ago, Whisky said:

I think FE7 is both easier and harder than FE8. FE7 ENM is easier than FE8 NM, and FE7 HHM is harder than FE8 HM.

Seems reasonable, if a bit funny to say out loud. Though at that point, FE11 H5 crushes all of them.

Also, I've been thinking, and...does Lyn Normal Mode teach you about rescue-dropping?

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11 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Also, I've been thinking, and...does Lyn Normal Mode teach you about rescue-dropping?

I don't think so. Chapter 7 (the one where Lucius and Nils join) would be the one that lends itself the most to it, since the throne is just across a mountain range, but the script doesn't mention that at all.

Ctrl+F "rescue" for the other chapters' scripts also doesn't show anything other than "rescue the marquess" in Rath's joining chapter.

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4 hours ago, ping said:

I don't think so.

I can't believe it. 12 chapters, an entire chapter about ballistas and reavers, doesn't even trust you to know how to move a cursor, and the darn thing doesn't event each you about rescue-dropping. Truly Lyn mode is an abject failure.

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On 10/7/2021 at 2:43 AM, MuteMousou said:

I don't know how I'm supposed to know what this has to do with anything I said or how this is the case if you don't give any reason for why.

The fact of posting a DDR song on its own actually goes against your own point for multiple reasons.
1. It's a rhythm game, rhythm games can be understood easily, probably more than any other type of game, by literally just watching someone play the game, it's not that hard to understand in most cases.
2. Showing a difficult song does not pertain at all to whether or not a tutorial is good or how a particular part of the game is good at showing you what certain things do. A hard rhythm game song is often as conceptually easy to understand as an easy rhythm game song, it's the exact same mechanics (unless there are some mechanics introduced in harder songs, which usually are few and don't always exist) except it's just literally more of the same mechanic. There's usually not much being thrown in there that challenges your basic understanding of the game, it's just the same thing as before but more mechanically difficult to perform, because that's really all rhythm games are, a test of how mechanically good you are at something.

The fact that you completely missed the point proves mine, which is that you're not able to see things from other points of view.  Which means that your criticism will be incomplete by default.

On 10/7/2021 at 2:43 AM, MuteMousou said:

I mean maybe I am biased on the difficulty of fe7 for various reasons which I could be convinced of, but I don't really care at least in this context because it's not really integral to my main point, it's still relatively easy compared to a lot of the games in the series anyway, and tons of people have wildly different takes on what game is the easiest/hardest for various reasons, all of which can be equally valid sometimes, but that's a different topic anyway.

It shows that you have no idea what objectively easier/harder is (as in, this can be proven with math).  The thing that makes FE8/Awakening a lot easier is that enemy stats are low, combined with opportunities to raise your unit's stats and gain resources outside of the story for as long as you can stomach.  Fates/3H has this feature too, but offsets this by implementing a RNG that's a bigger pain in the neck and generally being more complex.  And if you can't understand these principles on an objective level, then I don't think you should be talking about what makes a good entry point, or what a good tutorial looks like.

On 10/7/2021 at 2:43 AM, MuteMousou said:

So I asked "why is it relevant" and then your reason is "because you whine about something being easy," as if that answers the question at all. The entire point has nothing to do with hard mode


I mean, you can say I don't understand things and tell me that I should keep something to myself, but when you explain this by not actually giving any reason to support this claim and instead support all of this with a bunch of irrelevant things that either wildly misinterpret what I was saying or don't even directly matter in the context of what we were talking about, then I'm going to have to say that you shouldn't bother coming into this being as performatively arrogant and preemptively dismissive as you are if you weren't going to attempt to actually present anything worth listening to

I find nothing redeeming in your premise, logic, or ability to see things from outside of your point of view.  Try to improve all of these, because your inability to see things from another point of view, along with your inability to figure out why I'm annoyed is what makes your line of logic (and thus this topic) so bad.  You're free to have an opinion, and I'm free to point out what's wrong with that opinion and the logic behind it.

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