Which, if any, FE stories do you consider so bad they're good?

[Alastor15243]

This subject occurred to me recently, and I thought I'd ask around about this. There's a pretty wide range of quality in Fire Emblem when it comes to the story department. A lot of games have pretty bad stories. For me, however, one particular game has a story so terrible that it becomes a delight to experience. That'd be Fates, all three routes but especially Birthright and Conquest. It's a perfect storm of goofiness that causes me to laugh hysterically whenever I experience it, to the point that it gives me more genuine joy to experience than more than half of the stories in the series. They aren't the only stories I consider terrible, just the only ones whose shittiness makes me smile. And I'm wondering if it's different for other people.

 

What games, if any, have stories that you consider to be so bad they're good?

Edited February 5, 2023 by Alastor15243

[lenticular]

None of them, but I don't really do "so bad it's good". Or rather, I can do for maybe a minute or two, and then the novelty wears off and whatever it is just goes back to being so bad it's bad again. There are certainly moments in several FE stories that cross the line beyond which I can only laugh (Fates, Sacred Stones, Awakening, and Engage all have moments that come to mind), but when they sustain the abysmal quality, I'll quickly stop getting any sort of joy from them and just get annoyed instead.

[Etrurian emperor]

None of them really. I am a fan of ''so bad its good'' products but those things often require a degree of acting and camp that the way Fire Emblem writes its stories can't really replicate. And when the writing is bad in Fire Emblem its never spectacularly funny, just consistently bad and often very boring as well.

[Sunwoo]

I can't think of any specific FE story that I thought was so bad it was good, tbh. Most of the things I find "so bad it's good" tend to be fanfiction. Official published things that are THAT bad, whether they be games or movies or books, just seem to make me mad.

[Scaramuccia]

I haven't played many FE (3h, awakening, SoV and Engage) but none of them falls into this category. Engage has some "trope overusage" that some people may consider "so bad it's good", but it was done intentionally. IS wanted to have "Saturday morning cartoon" vibes in this game which is completely different from "we wanted to make a serious film/game, but failed". From what I've hear Fates maybe in this category, but without playing it it is really hard to say.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Unfortunately none of them, though I wouldn't disagree with the answers of others. This goes beyond "subjective" because it's not just your own sense of humor but mostly your mood and what expectations you go in with. For instance, the difference between watching The Room in it's limited theatrical run in 2003 vs watching it in the last fifteen years at the behest of friends and internet memes. If you go into a fire emblem story hearing "it's bad" then your brain will switch modes to making your own fun with the experience.

[Sooks]

Conquest and Revelation are both pretty funny for a plethora of reasons. It’s been so long that I don’t really remember my initial reactions to them, I think I would have remembered if I’d enjoyed their lack of quality. Back then I wasn’t really experienced with “so bad it’s good”. I’m… honestly not sure what’s changed since then, but I feel like if I could experience them for the first time again there would be some fun times. Now that I know what happens, a lot of the novelty has worn off and there’s just a handful of moments that still get to me. Birthright is just… boring.

Anyway, that’s enough from me. @Saint Rubenio is going to be the real star of this thread.

[ARMADS!!!]

None of the mainline FE games I've played really fall into this category, I've heard some things about Fates but since I haven't played it myself I'll refrain from commenting) although I gotta admit that FE7 has its moments... Some strange plot holes, OVERLY stupid villains, forced plot devices, and other ridiculous stuff that'll give you some chuckles (because tthey're bad) once you notice them, for example:

•  How Lyn spends all that time after that group of bandits because they killed her tribe for a lot of Lyn's mode, but in the end they were the wrong group and we never even hear again about the real group that was responsible for the Lorca's massacre just because, if that group of bandits simply was the one responsible for the death of Lyn's family evrything would have been the same except that with a more satisfying ending, so why didn't they do it?
•  Still in Lyn's mode, when Lundren sends assassins after Lyn in Santaruz, his assassins BURN CASTLE SANTARUZ, without considering that Caelin was an ally of Santaruz and that Santaruz was the second largest territory in Lycia.
• how much of an IMBECIL Ephidel is and that if it wasn't for him being so dumb multiple times, the heroes wouldn't even have a chance of hearing about Nergal's plans in first place (among other things: He fails to kill TWO important people because he left after stabbing them without taking two seconds to look back and check if they were really dead, one of his victims gave crucial clues to Eliwood before dying and the other didn't even die; he makes marquess Laus leave the battle in Laus instead of letting him call reinforcements to help his son and even battle Eliwood's army himself there to neutralize them as soon as possible...just to have him become a guard on the Dragon's Gate because why not; despite being said to be one of Nergal's best morphs, Ephidel hires a random mercenary dude to hunt Eliwood's army instead of going there himself just because (and it's not because he doesn't want to go or because he's lazy or because he is afraid to die, since morphs, or at least some of them, which includes Ephidel, don't have emotions and neither can disobey Nergal, so there's no for excuse to do anything that he does); he even dies because he is dumb, he dies on a fire screaming for Nergal to help him despite it being shown EARLIER ON THE SAME CHAPTER that he can teleport,...). Seriously, I can write a whole essay on why Ephidel is dumb, purely a plot device for Eliwood to find stuff out and why if the story was better written he'd be impossible to happen as he is, but like seriously I only didn't to not make the post to long but if someone wants to read it I write it.

 

 But now if you wanna the real answer, then It'll have to be FEH's story, while I like it a lot there are several "so bad it's good" moments, things that happen just because or because they "had" to happen, and lots of moments that are supposed to be serious but you can't watch them without laughing (one thing that they do it that before every "minor" villain dies, they have a "please pitty me" speech with an info dump of all of their sad cackstory or how they feel or why they do what they do, just right before they die, because you were supposed to not like them up until their deaths but then the writters do this so you'll feel sad that they died... Of course you're also supposed to like them so you'll want to pull on their banners). I personally like the story of the game a lot but there's no way to deny that it screws up a lot, of course that the way that the story is released (on a mobile game, only one chapter per month, only 13 chapters per book meaning that each book's story has to follow that specific format, etc...) doesn't make it any easier but still. As much as you like the story there's no way to 100% defend it. Still, I find this one so bad it's good a lot of the time, and in this year's book we'll have time travel so its even more likely that they'l screw up or take stuff out of their asses to seolve everything.

[AnonymousSpeed]

REBELLIONS ARE LIKE SEEDS-

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Honestly, none of them. If they're bad, they're bad, and not in the "so bad it's good" way. If they're good, they're good!

1 hour ago, ARMADS!!! said:

How Lyn spends all that time after that group of bandits because they killed her tribe for a lot of Lyn's mode, but in the end they were the wrong group and we never even hear again about the real group that was responsible for the Lorca's massacre just because, if that group of bandits simply was the one responsible for the death of Lyn's family evrything would have been the same except that with a more satisfying ending, so why didn't they do it?

We do actually hear about the bandits that killed Lyn's tribe, in her supports with Wallace. Whether or not you think it's a good way to handle it, it is handled.

[scigeek101]

New Mystery (and the original to a lesser extent) had me chuckling a bit at some of the plot developments. 

 

Awakening story isn't "so bad it's good" so much as it's just bad but in a fun enough non serious way I can enjoy the game. Even if it's plot is paper thin. 

Engage I was legit laughing at a lot of the story because of how bad it was but I can't say I enjoyed it so much as I was just shocked at how incoherent and rediculous it got. It won't hold up past that initial shock value. Like something like say, the room, or birdemic or any other of those kind of bad movies is enjoyable to watch not mainly because it's so obviously poorly made it just becomes unironicially funny and a bit endearing. It's a hard state to reach though, being bad but not being boring. 

Video games rarely hit that I think. Most video game plots are already pretty bad with few exceptions when taken on their own merits, serving only to prop up the gameplay, but a game with a good story and bad gameplay won't hold up well either. Since it ends up being boring. 

Maybe the closest videogame I've seen get to so bad it's good, is Metroid Other M. With some just laughably horrid design choices and a really bad and bizzare story I will say I actually enjoyed playing it though not because it can be described as good in any way. 

For Fire Emblem idk, come to think of it Fire Emblem 7 the plot definitely gets a bit silly and rediculous and is filled with holes when analyzed properly but, overall the game does a pretty good job of synergizing the story with the gameplay so you don't really notice it. 

Radiant Dawn the plot started going off the rails before the Deus Ex Machina in part 4. Lots of people said that game was terrible but back in the day most of my friend group were already well into Fire Emblem and we basically all loved it. The whole game seemed like it was designed to mess with anyone who was coming in with normal Fire Emblem sensibilities. From the switching of perspectives constantly to giving you a weak ass team to start with, to the late game trickery of having the enemies using warp staves to teleport around the map to confuse you. Was mad. Was it good? Was it bad. Idk. I enjoyed it through. The plot wasn't the best but it never felt like it was holding the game back. 

Fates I never managed to finish, I think I just kinda got bored of it. I started playing conquest on hard and I was having a blast but towards the late game it started to get really hard and I just didn't care about the story or game enough so something came up I put it down and never came back. Think the last map I played was the wind level. The plot didn't seem bad to be so much as , the plot just seemed non-existent and pointless. Kinda like awakening but less interesting. I couldn't bring myself to care. Tried again later at birthright and made it about 5 chapters into the route before again I got bored and never finished. Maybe I'll come back to it someday. 

 

Engage is maybe the first time where I really felt like the story was so bad it was actively making the game worse because of it. I've finished it and overall the game is well designed and fun in all aspects except the story, which is merely passably cringe for about 2/3rds of it, and might trend into so bad it's good territory at times, I was laughing at some of the really bad lines, but by the end it just goes completely off the rails and I find myself wanting to just skip it and get on with the chapter. The game keeps telegraphing it's spoilers before and it's boring to watch characters talk about something when you the player have already figured out what the twist is. 

 

 

[Benice]

I personally find FE7's story to be so bad it's good, but that may be mostly because I spent an entire year's worth of a screenshot LP trying to make fun of it. Still, I fill like my opinion's not entirely unsupported by textual evidence.

I can't fully judge either CQ or Rev, but what I have seen of them is glorious.

Lastly, I... Well, I hope I don't get excommunicated for this, but I found myself laughing at a lot of TH's story beats. I only played Verdant Wind, which is apparently the weakest route, but dear lord was it ever funny. At times pointless, at times nonsensical, and at times lacking in budget or time to finish scenes, VW was probably the most I've laughed at for an FE story. Until I realized I spent 100$ on it and the joke was on me.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Benice

[Saint Rubenio]

Garon is the funniest character in Fire Emblem. From his introduction in chapter 2, where he is standing in a random corner of his castle instead of the throne room for no apparent reason; passing through the memeable "you are my child now" scene that also drops the equally memeable, yet vastly underrated, "that wasn't even my best trap"; to the infamous Garons of increasing discomfort, Garon is a riot every time he is onscreen. He is such a appalingly written and utilized character that he loops back and becomes a narrative masterpiece. Every time he repeated his tired "rebellions are like seeds" speech in Conquest - and he repeated it a LOT - it became even funnier. He doesn't even need to say anything! His design alone is fantastic! His beard is made of concrete!

That is one of the reasons why Fates, and specifically Conquest, was one of the most enjoyable FE stories for me. It made me laugh so hard, so often. It had the most Garon. Other FE stories don't have Garon.

Not that Garon was the only funny part of Conquest - it also featured all the non-lethal killing, Zola ending the war and it apparently being a bad thing, war crimes galore that are justified because we really gotta get Garon to sit on a chair, Corrin allowing the final boss to murder them only to come back to life for absolutely no reason, Camilla putting an axe to Hinoka's neck when she was already agreeing to disappear, Hans, Iago, Gunter looking down through his armor... And certainly more I'm forgetting now.

Honorable mention to Revelation, for being a snoozefest 99% of the time, but also having the single funniest scene in the series. Every part of this scene is utterly ridiculous, and the more you look at it, the more stupidity you notice. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

5 hours ago, Sooks said:

Anyway, that’s enough from me. @Saint Rubenio is going to be the real star of this thread.

Hello.

4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

REBELLIONS ARE LIKE SEEDS-

ONE MUST SALT THE EARTH-

[Alastor15243]

I'm surprised Birthright isn't getting more "love" here. I don't think any moment in the entire franchise was more unintentionally hilarious than Flora setting herself on fire. It's even better if you make your avatar female and dress her in assless pants.

[Metal Flash]

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm surprised Birthright isn't getting more "love" here. I don't think any moment in the entire franchise was more unintentionally hilarious than Flora setting herself on fire. It's even better if you make your avatar female and dress her in assless pants.

I wanted to like Brithright, especially with the traitor subplot going on, but sadly found nothing to really attach myself to. The Flora moment, like Lilith taking Hans` axe to the face, just felt utterly empty cause I felt nothing for the characters involved. And the traitor? Is revealed and turns good in the very same chapter.

The only part I felt emotionally invested was when Elise died. Her last moments I actually found quite good, especially how she pleaded Xander stopped fighting. Shame he utterly ignores those last wishes.

[Florete]

I'm not sure I'd say "so bad it's good," but Engage's story was so cheesy and (probably) unintentionally hilarious that I enjoyed it quite a lot.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Maybe it's that Engage's map design is so pristine it triggered my GBA nostalgia, but I actually did find its story so bad its good.

 

Not so much story, but some of the "Evul Darios" dialogue in FE Warriors was so delightfully bad it made me laugh out loud. You know the one.

[Etrurian emperor]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm surprised Birthright isn't getting more "love" here. I don't think any moment in the entire franchise was more unintentionally hilarious than Flora setting herself on fire. It's even better if you make your avatar female and dress her in assless pants.

It gets even better when immediately after it happens, you summon her heartbroken twin sister to your room for a good face rubbing. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

9 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

It gets even better when immediately after it happens, you summon her heartbroken twin sister to your room for a good face rubbing. 

It's therapeutic. Corrin is a good and supportive friend.

[Etrurian emperor]

13 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

Ephidel hires a random mercenary dude to hunt Eliwood's army instead of going there himself just because (and it's not because he doesn't want to go or because he's lazy or because he is afraid to die, since morphs, or at least some of them, which includes Ephidel, don't have emotions and neither can disobey Nergal, so there's no for excuse to do anything that he does)

To some extend I'd consider it petty to only apply this to FE7 because just about every Fire Emblem and plenty other stories have the exact same situation where all powerful villains send their cronies to do the job.

Gharnef for example is immortal and he can teleport. He could have crushed Marth at any point yet waits until Marth has aquired star light before facing him. In fact Gharnef even makes it a point to be around when Marth attacks his kingdom and just warp away so Marth can take it. Same with Julius. He's immortal, he can teleport but he just sits on his ass and lets Seliph acquire Naga.

[Fabulously Olivier]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't think any moment in the entire franchise was more unintentionally hilarious than Flora setting herself on fire. 

"I'm fire tribe now, Corrin."

 

Truly the most incendiary dialogue. This script is lit.

[Armchair General]

12 hours ago, scigeek101 said:

The plot didn't seem bad to be so much as , the plot just seemed non-existent and pointless

Yeah, things kind of pick up in two maps from this one, if I'm right. But just be warned that it's still kind of bland.

 

With Engage, it's actually kind of funny for the first set of chapters. But, you know, shit happens and that bit where you're being chased felt like an failed attempt at plot taking itself seriously

 

 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I enjoy "so bad it's good" material, but I don't think any of the Fire Emblem games really qualify for me. That's because the production values are generally high, and there are few glitches of any substantial impact. Even when the story is bad (as in Fates), they aren't doing a bad job of telling that story, or getting their point across.

Compare to an all-time "so bad it's good" film, Troll 2. As bad as the story was in that movie, that's not where the humor comes from. The humor derives from the awful line-reading and unconvincing special effects. It's as though they put in no more effort to make the movie, than I did to watch it. As though me, and my untrained friends, could've done a better job. And that is funny.

[Fabulously Olivier]

3 hours ago, Armchair General said:

Yeah, things kind of pick up in two maps from this one, if I'm right. But just be warned that it's still kind of bland.

 

With Engage, it's actually kind of funny for the first set of chapters. But, you know, shit happens and that bit where you're being chased felt like an failed attempt at plot taking itself seriously

 

 

I'd argue that on a meta-level, it actually works because you suddenly find yourself de-powered and on the receiving end of all of these overpowered things you've been subjecting the enemy to. From a gameplay perspective, it's terrifying, especially to a newcomer of the series, and it was a really bold decision for them to make. In prioritizing that narrative choice, they risked players dropping the game there, and I wonder how many actually did. I respect the attempt.

[Armchair General]

3 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I'd argue that on a meta-level, it actually works because you suddenly find yourself de-powered and on the receiving end of all of these overpowered things you've been subjecting the enemy to. From a gameplay perspective, it's terrifying, especially to a newcomer of the series, and it was a really bold decision for them to make. In prioritizing that narrative choice, they risked players dropping the game there, and I wonder how many actually did. I respect the attempt.

Well that particular chapter is great, it's just that the voice acting was so over the top that it almost had me laughing when Sombrom was corrupting the Emblems one by one and Alear is just screaming in the background.

But it's not an particularly insane level in terms of difficulty. Sure, there's the unique mechanic of random Corrupted being gifted with the rings and the gameplay actually matches the story (again).  But I really don't see how anyone would drop this game solely because they have to improvise without the rings...For the majority of one torture session. But then you get 2 borderline great characters and you get to have some fun running across an desert map, get Ike after saving Timerra from being mauled by fliers, and get an fair battle inside Solm's castle. And things kind of get easier because you have three rings and an dancer that helps you out whenever you decide to camp

Edited February 7, 2023 by Armchair General