How would you compare the writing and story telling of Fire Emblem to say Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Orge?

[IceBrand]

Both are strategy games set in medieval times. How does atmosphere of FE compare to that of these two Square Enix titles?

[maybe]

tactics ogre is not a square enix title

and you'd have to specify a single entry or at least a few in each series since there are multiple entries in each series and the writing quality varies between them

[MCProductions]

Haven't played Tactics Ogre, but FFT doesn't hold my interest narrative wise like the FE series does.

[OakTree]

The plot in Tactics Ogre is great, to be bad that like most SRPGs it suffers the "complexity =/= depth" issue, i always found the plot in FFT to be weak though, it's just something that i feel has been done a million times before.

[IceBrand]

tactics ogre is not a square enix title

and you'd have to specify a single entry or at least a few in each series since there are multiple entries in each series and the writing quality varies between them

Well to be more specific, Fire Emblem Fates compared to FFT Wars of the Lions and Tactics Orge: Let of Cling together. All show different levels of grayness. I wondering how others think Fates holds up to these two titles.

[Radiant head]

FFT had a lot of promise until it resolves the rival factions in the most predictable way possible. Still does it a lot better Radiant Dawn or Fates though - there was a genuine sense that there was nothing special about you and you're just one of several actors in a conflict.

[Walker]

As a veteran of FFT, (refering to Tactics, not Advance titles) i'd say thus: the main playable character are Ramza, Agrias, and Mustadio. Sure there's Alicia and Lavin (and Radd), as well as later game recruits like Rapha, Marach, TG Cid, Meliadoul, Beowulf, Reis. Plus the easter eggs from other games (Balthier, Cloud, Luso). Aside from that, your 24 man (+ monster) is generics!

Fire Emblem, you're recruiting allies non stop over the game, not once per level set. Every character has a name, and a reason, whereas Tactics you just drop into the mercenary guild and hire a generic. Who you don't care if they die.

[Water Mage]

FFT's is has a pretty interesting plot, but it sorta falls apart near the ending.

It tries to hard, and it kinda backfires..? Maybe that's not the right word, but I can't fight the right word for it.

I especially disliked the ending. It made me feel like I achieved nothing.

Twist and Tragic endings are interesting, but I feel they don't belong in video games, unless it's a bad ending.

Was it really necessary for

for Ovelia to die at the end? It felt like she died simply to make things more tragic, which they already were.

There was no reason for her to die, and it made Agrias's actions meaningless in the end.

She worked so hard to protect the Princess, only to end like this?

Edited March 8, 2016 by Water Mage

[Person123]

Well to be more specific, Fire Emblem Fates compared to FFT Wars of the Lions and Tactics Orge: Let of Cling together. All show different levels of grayness. I wondering how others think Fates holds up to these two titles.

As far as writing/plot goes, I don't think the FE games (especially the more recent ones) hold their own at all compared to the games you mentioned. The writing in Tactics Ogre: LUCT makes Fates look like a crappy Sonic fan-fic written by a child with downs.

[Masked And Dangerous]

It's not a clear Good< >Bad line in comparison, but a massive multipronged graph.

Fire Emblem has fairly typical swords-and-sorcery fair for it's stories, but it makes up for it with rich character building. Tactics tend to be political tales like ASoIaF or The Stormlight Archive, where the heroes and villains are lost in the shuffle of history. Unfortunately, this means that it's characters tend to be fairly flat in order to leave the reasons behind their actions more ambiguous.

Or, to put it another way, Fire Emblem is a high fantasy tale from the perspective of a squad of "elites" gathered around the chosen one. Tactics are low fantasy games where the leads are but cogs in the massive machine of war.

[Walker]

@Water Mage: The real question is, why'd Delita turn out like that? For someone who's line was "To save her life, I'd gladly give mine own" ... Way to go! That is the plot though, to an extent. Delita serves to act as a foil to Ramza, who is not only the main character, but the playable character. Agrias takes runner up.

[Noma9]

I think the narratives in TO:LUCT and FFT blows basically all FE narratives out of the water. I enjoy Fire Emblem a lot but not for it's story telling. The general approach to story telling in FFT and FE is very different however, so while I personally think FFT is unequivocally better than any FE story-wise, it really does come down to personal taste. Tactics Ogre is more similar to Fire Emblem in that there's a greater focus on the individuals of your army (much more so than FFT), and it does a damn good job of making you feel that they're actually people and invested in the plot and that war is terrible. It's just wonderful.

[epilepsyduck]

I'm massively unfairly biased towards LUCT when comparing it to anything similar, but even if I wasn't I'd have to say it's got a better story than anything Fire Emblem has to offer, even if it requires knowledge of the two Ogre Battle games to truly get some of the stuff that happens and know who some of these people are. FE casts do tend to give better characterization to the bit players, at least (I mean, who aside from me remembers losers like Sara and Tamuzu?), but the main characters are a lot more well rounded to make up for that.

Pretty much any FE game story is better than Knight of Lodis, though, so they've got that going in their favor.

I admittedly didn't think much of FFT's story, mostly because of its shoddy translation, but I did feel like underneath that there were a lot of interesting ideas that could've worked if what I was reading was actually comprehensible. Maybe one day I'll pick up War of the Lions and see what the fuss is about.

[Masked And Dangerous]

I'm massively unfairly biased towards LUCT when comparing it to anything similar, but even if I wasn't I'd have to say it's got a better story than anything Fire Emblem has to offer, even if it requires knowledge of the two Ogre Battle games to truly get some of the stuff that happens and know who some of these people are. FE casts do tend to give better characterization to the bit players, at least (I mean, who aside from me remembers losers like Sara and Tamuzu?), but the main characters are a lot more well rounded to make up for that.

Pretty much any FE game story is better than Knight of Lodis, though, so they've got that going in their favor.

I admittedly didn't think much of FFT's story, mostly because of its shoddy translation, but I did feel like underneath that there were a lot of interesting ideas that could've worked if what I was reading was actually comprehensible. Maybe one day I'll pick up War of the Lions and see what the fuss is about.

General Consensus with FFT is that the political stuff is the best part of the game, but Square got cold feet and shoved in the Lucavi plot at the tale end, which kinda makes the game feel like Game of Thrones with a Final Fantasy title ending. "And then demons were responsible for everything bad" kinda goes against the thrust of the plot which has perfectly ordinary people perfectly willing to be dicks to one another for petty reasons.

[Magical CC]

Well to be more specific, Fire Emblem Fates compared to FFT Wars of the Lions and Tactics Orge: Let of Cling together. All show different levels of grayness. I wondering how others think Fates holds up to these two titles.

Tactics Orge series generally has deeper, darker (and better) stories than Fire Emblem's stories.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Magical CC