Vindicated by History

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 minute ago, vanguard333 said:

I said that they should avoid overambition; they should avoid biting off more than they can chew, and since Three Houses was very ambitious, I hope the next game (not all games going forward; just the next game) scales things back and focuses more on creativity than ambition.

"Biting off more than they can chew" basically just means that they tried to do more than they could reasonably handle (i.e. overreached in their ambition). With Fates for instance, the plot and characters I feel show clear signs that the dev team couldn't handle writing three games worth of content all at once. I don't really know how I can clarify it further.

 

Some of this goes into subjectivity territory, but I'll try to take the games one at a time.

Fates's plot is generally considered bad, but would it have been any better if it were one route instead of three? There are other, less ambitious FE games that also have bad plots, after all (including Awakening, whose own bad plot was the reason Fates was advertised as having a good one, which of course led to disappointment we're familiar with). Characters, we'll just have to agree to disagree on, but... I'll note that Fates tends to be top two for total votes for its cast in Choose Your Legends, so lots of people like its characters. And people who dislike its cast usually dislike it because of conscious choices the Fates devs made with their character writing (e.g. the decision to learn on certain anime tropes) which is unrelated to the ambition of the game (as Awakening made similar decisions).

Three Houses was very ambitious, sure, but did it truly "overreach"? I have a hard time seeing how being less ambitious would have made it more successful, better-liked, or better-received, though. In fact I can very easily conceive of less ambitious versions of Three Houses which would have been significantly worse games than what we got (can you imagine a Silver Snow-only version of 3H? Yikes! Substitute in your own least favourite route if you prefer).

With RD, I agree with you point that a less ambitious version of the game may have found more time to flesh out the new characters more. For what it's worth, I think the important new characters (i.e. Micaiah, Skrimir, Pelleas, etc.) as well as some returning-but-more-prominent characters (Sothe, Tibarn, Elincia, Sanaki, Sephiran, etc.) get plenty of depth via the main plot and info conversations but yeah the side characters do suffer. Of course, a less ambitious version of RD may not have had many of these characters to begin with, since part of the game's ambition lies in its decision to have many perspectives and a giant cast as a result.

[Benice]

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I think you may have misunderstood what I said, even though I made clear what my point was by saying the exact words of my point; I literally said "bite off more than it can chew".

I was mostly refuting your assertion that

Quote

ambition is the enemy of the franchise

but if I misinterpreted your point, then I apologize.

8 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I immediately followed my statement by saying that I don't think that the series should play it safe; I just think the series shouldn't overreach in its ambition, and that I hope the next game is able to be creative and unique without overreaching ambition.

True, but I would rather see a game fail because it tried and not because it didn't try.

8 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

wouldn't call, "This could be the last FE game if it doesn't sell well; let's make a semi-generic 'Fire Emblem Greatest Hits Version' game" ambitious; almost the opposite. Awakening was a lot of things; ambitious was not one of them. In fact, IS was originally planning a much more ambitious FE game before they were told that FE would end if the next game didn't sell well.

I would say that Awakening's very ambitious and made tons of changes to the formula. Pair-up was completely new, the take on the support system was completely new, the class system was radically different, not to mention a greater emphasis and variety of skills than ever before. Plus, there was also the return to the child units that can't be overlooked. Awakening tried so many things, and even if most of these new inclusions can be traced back to earlier entries, it doesn't change the fact that it brought them all together in new ways for a final farewell to the series.

8 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Creativity/uniqueness and ambition are not the same thing; they have a fair bit of overlap, but they are not the same thing. The kind of ambition I was talking about was stuff like Radiant Dawn, Fates and Three Houses.

I find that, in terms of developer time, creativity and innovation can take up as much time as going big. Thracia's not that long but is very ambitious, whereas something like FE7 is much less ambitious but has more maps. Adding new things takes a lot of time, both from a programming and creating perspective; figuring out how to implement things, the consequences of those implementations, and the deliberation around them all would become major time-sinks, especially if there were unforseen side-effects or glitches. Traversal of uncharted territory leads to slowdown. Ambition can take the form of both going for something big, something complex or something new. From my perspective, creativity is quite synonymous with ambition for game development.

Very few games with great ambitions actually fully succeed in what they want to do, but I think that for a series that releases as inconsitently as FE*, I would like to see more big, ambitious projects so long as the series' sales don't take a massive downturn for it.

*I do wish that they would simply delay games if they needed to, though.

...Though none of this has to do with Fates, so I'll drop it.

[vanguard333]

10 hours ago, Benice said:

1. I was mostly refuting your assertion that

but if I misinterpreted your point, then I apologize.

2. True, but I would rather see a game fail because it tried and not because it didn't try.

3. I would say that Awakening's very ambitious and made tons of changes to the formula. Pair-up was completely new, the take on the support system was completely new, the class system was radically different, not to mention a greater emphasis and variety of skills than ever before. Plus, there was also the return to the child units that can't be overlooked. Awakening tried so many things, and even if most of these new inclusions can be traced back to earlier entries, it doesn't change the fact that it brought them all together in new ways for a final farewell to the series.

4. I find that, in terms of developer time, creativity and innovation can take up as much time as going big. Thracia's not that long but is very ambitious, whereas something like FE7 is much less ambitious but has more maps. Adding new things takes a lot of time, both from a programming and creating perspective; figuring out how to implement things, the consequences of those implementations, and the deliberation around them all would become major time-sinks, especially if there were unforeseen side-effects or glitches. Traversal of uncharted territory leads to slowdown. Ambition can take the form of both going for something big, something complex or something new. From my perspective, creativity is quite synonymous with ambition for game development.

Very few games with great ambitions actually fully succeed in what they want to do, but I think that for a series that releases as inconsistently as FE*, I would like to see more big, ambitious projects so long as the series' sales don't take a massive downturn for it.

*I do wish that they would simply delay games if they needed to, though.

...Though none of this has to do with Fates, so I'll drop it.

1. In hindsight, my opening statement, "ambition has often been the enemy of the FE series" seems to be the source of the confusion. I had intended for the rest of what I said to clarify what I meant by that.

2. No disagreement here.

3. We're probably going to have to agree to disagree about whether or not Awakening should be considered an "ambitious" title. What I do know is that, if Awakening itself tried to argue, it has no feet to stand on.

4. I see.

 

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Some of this goes into subjectivity territory, but I'll try to take the games one at a time.

Fates's plot is generally considered bad, but would it have been any better if it were one route instead of three? There are other, less ambitious FE games that also have bad plots, after all (including Awakening, whose own bad plot was the reason Fates was advertised as having a good one, which of course led to disappointment we're familiar with). Characters, we'll just have to agree to disagree on, but... I'll note that Fates tends to be top two for total votes for its cast in Choose Your Legends, so lots of people like its characters. And people who dislike its cast usually dislike it because of conscious choices the Fates devs made with their character writing (e.g. the decision to learn on certain anime tropes) which is unrelated to the ambition of the game (as Awakening made similar decisions).

Three Houses was very ambitious, sure, but did it truly "overreach"? I have a hard time seeing how being less ambitious would have made it more successful, better-liked, or better-received, though. In fact I can very easily conceive of less ambitious versions of Three Houses which would have been significantly worse games than what we got (can you imagine a Silver Snow-only version of 3H? Yikes! Substitute in your own least favourite route if you prefer).

With RD, I agree with you point that a less ambitious version of the game may have found more time to flesh out the new characters more. For what it's worth, I think the important new characters (i.e. Micaiah, Skrimir, Pelleas, etc.) as well as some returning-but-more-prominent characters (Sothe, Tibarn, Elincia, Sanaki, Sephiran, etc.) get plenty of depth via the main plot and info conversations but yeah the side characters do suffer. Of course, a less ambitious version of RD may not have had many of these characters to begin with, since part of the game's ambition lies in its decision to have many perspectives and a giant cast as a result.

I don't know if Fates' plot would've been good had they made one game rather than three; no human can know that except maybe the developers.

"Overreach" may be a bit far, but I do remember an interview where IS said that the completed game ended up twice as big as what they had envisioned, and what they had envisioned was already supposed to be one of the biggest FE games yet. I don't know what specifically they meant, nor can I say if a less ambitious game would've been better (especially since I like Three Houses); what I do know is that certain parts of the game do seem less developed than others as if they weren't able to give them as much attention.

I agree that it is mainly the side-characters that suffer and the main characters do get some more focus.

[starburst]

I have been reading this thread for the past week and I not sure that Fates has been vindicated over the past years.

For better or worse, I joined the 3DS Party in mid 2017 and discovered Fates weeks later. Therefore, I was not there when the “hate” was at its peak.
Everyone around here and on Reddit at the time agreed on that the story was nonsensical (to put it politely) but that various elements of its gameplay were solid. And, to me, that consensus still holds true.

I only play and only talk about Conquest, and have never felt mocked. Probably because this community is not toxic, but I have not read serious attacks on others during these years either. (Not even on Reddit, mind you.)

If anything, I still cannot understand how Four Houses remains so highly praised. It heavily disappointed me when it was released, and it never became an acquired taste.

Edited March 21, 2022 by starburst