[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

What is that spoiler alert for? History?

Spoiler was the bit about GoT, which I cut out of the quoted response. Listen, I don't even like telling people what happened to Captain Ahab.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

But Game of Thrones is apparently allowed to do that because it's based on a widely praised book series.

Spoiler alert. Actually, even Game of Thrones got scooped on this one: Archimedes did it first.

Because by this point there's no way I'm going to get anything meaningful out of this thread except entertainment. Nothing I post here will change anyone else's mind, nothing anyone else posts here will change my mind, so I may as well have my fun while I'm reading. Hopefully that doesn't offend anyone. If it does, consider taking this less seriously.

Oh, well if you are just trolling, never mind. Carry on.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

You know, every single person I've talked to who knows what FE is but hasn't played it knows it by one of three traits: Marth is in SSB, Permadeath, and story. Yep, you can trash the stories of any game in the series as much as you like, but it's not really debatable that FE is pretty high on the scale of stories for Nintendo games. Look at the rest of the cast from SSB, you've got nations with armies and spies fighting villains with motivations and actual plot twists, compared to... Well, not much. Plumbers saving their girlfriends from monsters and children beating up crime syndicates.

But you seem to be lumping FE together with Tetris in terms of your story expectations, and that's just silly.

No, that was just an example of the two extremes, at least when it comes to things that can be considered "games". On one end, Tetris has no expectations of a story. On the other, a VN succeeds mostly on the strengths of its narrative. Fire Emblem (and all SPRGs) tends to fit somewhere in-between those two extremes.

Fire Emblem's stories (as a series) are not "good" by the standards of actual quality literature, but they are good for video games. Barring that, they are at least entertaining to a lot of people, which is the basic purpose of having a story as part of a game in the first place. But even if Awakening's story is "shit", then so is the rest of the series; in spite of bleatings to the contrary, the past titles are also full of tired tropes, bad writing, and cardboard characters.

My only expectation for a Fire Emblem story is that it moves things along and glues the chapters together. I generally enjoy whatever silliness goes on the first time, but don't re-watch the story on subsequent runs except for a particular key moment here or there. I'd be surprised if that was uncommon.

Anyway, I has a conundrum here: I think Awakening is incredibly unbalanced, the story holds no water, has too much fanservice, and basically reeks, but I also love it. Thus, I have no idea which side to root for in this "debate". SoC, may I join your side?

Why do you even have to root for a "side" in the first place? FFS, just have an opinion of your own and leave it at that. It's not like "person who loves Awakening but is disappointed in XYZ" doesn't already describe tens of thousands of people, if you care about being in a herd.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

I just said that the 'bad' was a leftover from a previous draft of my response.

Well, you said "single word", but you didn't specify which one. Could have been anything.

While I'm not concerned with stories being 'different', the good guys in an alternate future losing is a cop out. "Oh your characters didn't really die, that's just an alternate future." No, this time travel thing is a bad case of trying to have your cake and eat it too. It tries to be tragic like FE4 but it doesn't really have the guts to actually kill of playable characters.

I consider the "have some guts" or "man up" argument to be fundamentally silly. What incentive do they have to kill off a playable character, for the sake of fake edginess art? Players generally don't appreciate that sort of thing, and it would be especially the case in a series like Fire Emblem where you're actually building characters as part of the gameplay.

You say that Awakening "tries to be tragic like FE4"; I'd say that they "succeeded in not repeating shitty things from FE4".

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

You've latched on to a single word I accidently left in from a previous draft of the response I was typing and ignoring everything else. Congratulations. I thought I had seen it all when it comes to dodging the arguement.

Well then; it appears that the student has become the master.

Regardless, it is a case of having your cake and eating it to. It gets to recreate the tradegy of FE4 without actually having the guts to create any real consequences. I'm not saying every game should kill off the entire party halfway through the game but at least FE4 had the balls to do that much. An alternate future where the good guys lost is meaningless if it only serves to make the lives of the present selves better. Emmeryn comes back from the dead and has no memory of her life so there is zero character development. Bring her back in not the problem here. Her having lost her memories robs us of the chance to see a real reaction to Chrom's actions.

I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was talking about. I wanted to know what a "good case" of eating your cake and still having it was, just so that we could compare. I mean, you did imply its existence by talking about a "bad case".

But no, we gotta have our amneisac waifu that's almost completely dependent on a caretake to function as a human being to appeal to some fetish.

It seems more likely that they just couldn't write her in, so the easy way out is to just make it so that she can't talk about the ninja magic that brought her back in the first place.. It was a pretty silly thing to do in the first place.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

Interceptor, as much as I like Awakening as well, you're really grasping at straws to try and prove it's better than the other games in the series.

Please, enough of this horse-race commentary already. I have no interest in hearing anyone's deep thoughts about my motivations, and I suspect that nobody is live-tweeting this thread for the Interceptor Fan Club™, so it's not clear to me that there's an audience for it.

EDIT: and really, how many people's minds have been changed by anything in this thread? Could you "prove" something better, to someone else's satisfaction, even if you tried? This stuff is mostly subjective.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

I gave you the script for a reason. Do you honestly agree that the lines you copy pasted are any form of good character development? I doubt anyone here would agree. It's garbage.

Character development? Did you get lost on your way to finding where the argument started? You claimed that Chrom was "just angry", and I just eviscerated said claim with quotes directly from the script.

Just a sarcastic response. No argument made here.

Again, I guess you got lost. I'll refresh your memory.

You: "Why does it follow that, if a character is an extension of the player, then the extension must be a Mary Sue?"

Me: "Mary Sue-ism for the Avatar is literally the organic role for a write-in; please realize that this is precisely what people do in their own fiction, and it makes perfect sense for Awakening to latch on to that.

FFS, please try to keep up with your own shit; I am not your AA.

I'm not sure how you pointed out that my criteria is arbitrary. It's the things that are common between FE1, 3, 11, 12, 6, 8 (replace dragon with demon) and 13.

There are a lot of things that are common between the games. You grabbed a few, seemingly at random, and made weird exceptions in places. In Tellus, for example, when it came to whether or not Ike was a Lord. Or whether his loss in FE9 counted for FE10. And why is a demon a dragon, but a world-destroying god doesn't qualify?

Your shit is all over the place, and that's not even in the top three reasons why nobody can debate you on this issue.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

Indeed, we have different definitions of great. They're certainly far greater than vomit inducing crap Awakening tries to pass off as 'conversations'.

As I said, I'm not engaging in new ground with you until we resolve the cake thing. Sorry.

Why, yes. Let's take a look at the script and let's see all his reactions to most things Emmeryn related:

By which you mean, cherry-pick only the things that support your argument. Fun stuff you glossed over:

"...She did it for me, Robin. So that I wouldn't have to live with the guilt of either choice, she chose for me. She sacrificed herself rather than give up what could one day save her people..."

"And what if I can't? What if I'm not worthy of her ideals? Robin, what if I drag you down with me?"

"Emmeryn... Why did it take me so long to understand? She believed all people desire peace. She knew, deep down, the Plegians wanted it, too. It just took her to bring it to the surface."

"I hope she can see this, wherever she is... Today we put an end to Mad King Gangrel and bring peace back to the land."

"Maybe you're right... I will never be my sister. I cannot forgive men like you—men who sow nothing but evil. All I have left are her words, and her memory. Were I alone, I might be driven to madness. ...Or worse. But I'm not alone. My friends and brothers-in-arms stand behind me."

"I've tried to do my best. My sister left a weighty legacy. I do all I can just to live up to it."

You're a riot, you know that?

Why does it follow that, if a character is an extension of the player, then the extension must be a Mary Sue? The character could've been based on a personality quiz of the player, for example. It's a shitty response, lol.

My favorite thing ever about people who suggest fixes to Awakening, is that the majority of the solutions involve work/time that dwarfs the scale of the "problem". A quiz? Are you kidding me? Even when they had one of these in Dragon Warrior, it was for stat/gameplay purposes, not for the damned dialogue.

Mary Sue-ism for the Avatar is literally the organic role for a write-in; please realize that this is precisely what people do in their own fiction, and it makes perfect sense for Awakening to latch on to that. Especially with all of the waifu/husbando baloney.

It's pretty intuitive. The problem with that the story is that all the major plot points (the things that go into the general formula) are very predictable. It's the reason why people dislike FE6 so much. It's not rocket science.

Oh, it's absolutely intuitive, that's why I said it was "simple". There's no misunderstanding going on here. I'm just pointing out that your criteria is so specific (and arbitrary), that you toss nuance out the window, and thus are adding nothing to the conversation.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

Is that the best example you can come up with? Come on now.

It was just one that I stumbled on. Since most of the Supports in FE7 are nearly impossible to see in the course of an actual game, it's not like I have a huge bank of them available to draw upon.

There are plenty of great supports in FE7, such as Matthew/Jaffar, all of Renault's, Pent/Fiora, Hector/Serra, Oswin/Priscilla, and Dorcas/Vaida. Yeah, some supports aren't really good, like Eliwood/Lowen, but there's more great than lackluster in this case.

You and I have very different definitions of "great". What's so great about Matthew/Jaffar? Is it the repeated "....."? The cringeworthy line about Matt being stopped by Leila, or her final words? The weird inappropriateness of any of this stuff taking place on a battlefield? And what about Renault? Are his conversations interesting because two of the partners are dumbasses, another one is involved in the orphaning coincidence of the century, and two rounds of Deep Thoughts™ with Isadora and Canas?

These read like "bad" and "less bad" to me, unless you mean relative to other things in the series, in which case I'll concede that they are "great" compared to the completely generic Mad Libs style of Radiant Dawn.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

Lol. There was a plenty of character development for Hector. He matures into a proper leader after starting off as a reckless, arrogant noble. The same goes for Eliwood (we actually see him going through the pain of the death of a family member and the "death" of Ninian unlike Chrom, who's just angry and barely even cares that Emmeryn is "dead"). [...] We hardly see Chrom getting over Emmeryn's "death." None of the main characters are interesting in the slightest: Chrom and Lucina are robotic and emotionless [...]

Chrom is "just angry"? Are you quite sure that you paid attention to Awakening's story? Like, anything that happened in Ch 9-11?

We can't say the same for FE13. There were plenty of chances for some form of development: for example, when the Avatar comes up and goes through with a particularly horrific strategy (I believe it involved lighting enemy ships on fire and killing a lot of people). We could've seen the moral consequences for the Avatar, and how much he/she feels bad for killing enemy soldiers, but we see nothing.

Sounds insufferably preachy. Do you realize that the Avatar is supposed to be an extension of the player?

[...] while the Avatar is by far the greatest Mary Sue in all of Fire Emblem.

Ahh. I guess you didn't.

I'm giving them credit for trying something different other than the general formula.

"General formula" in this case, is a simplistic and very specific framework of your own creation. I don't see how you've added anything interesting to the conversation by throwing out any portion of the story that doesn't fit into your designated buckets. Particularly considering that you've dubbed this the "main problem" with the story in Awakening.

EDIT:

Because story important NPCs die all the fucking time in Fire Emblem. And Awakening still doesn't have the guts to actually do it since Emmeryn is somehow alive anyway.

Emmeryn matyring herself is nothing special compared to the many, many examples across Fire Emblem especially since Emmeryn's complete stupidity is the only reason any of it happens.

I can't really respond to any of this without clarification on the cake issue.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

While I'm not concerned with stories being 'different', the good guys in an alternate future losing is a cop out. "Oh your characters didn't really die, that's just an alternate future." No, this time travel thing is a bad case of trying to have your cake and eat it too.

What would be a good case of eating your cake and still having it? Just for comparison's sake.

It tries to be tragic like FE4 but it doesn't really have the guts to actually kill of playable characters.

Nice qualifier; otherwise you'd have to acknowledge that a story-important character martyred herself on the base of a cliff. That would have been awkward.

No really, killing playables would be silly. Didn't we learn this lesson in Final Fantasy 7?

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

In terms of the story, it's pretty clear Awakening is a lot worse than many other games. Just look at FE9 and FE7. There's a lot of character development in both games.

IKR? Lowen talking about missing breakfast... got me right in the feels.

The main problem with the story in Awakening is that it's really similar to many other Fire Emblem games: someone important to the main character dies, the lord and his team take on an evil empire and kill an evil dragon brought back to life. Nothing about that is special. At least FE9, FE7, FE5, FE10 and FE4 (at least the first part) all tried to do something different.

This is a pretty simplistic way of looking at the story. I feel as though if you're going to give credit to other FE titles for trying "something different", you really need to make mention of the fact that Awakening has time-traveling children from a ruined future where the good guys lost.

The worst part is that the Avatar is a complete Mary Sue who has no flaws whatsoever. I doubt anyone can name a single flaw or a mistake of the Avatar's.

I usually go with -SKL.

The gameplay is probably the most broken out of any FE game. You know there's something wrong with the game when there's a lot of people effortlessly duoing Lunatic mode with the Avatar and Chrom.

This is probably true, although I'd argue it's tempered by the fact that 1) most of the modern titles get easy with low-man/over-leveling tactics, and 2) Lunatic+ unravels most of the "effortlessness" of that strategy. In other words, it's been busted for a while, but this game actually has a difficulty where it's not particularly easy to execute.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

About as ambiguous as assuming I'm an idiot that can't understand your posts, rather than understanding that I flat out said it's nonsensical (definition: makes no sense).

Don't be so hard on yourself; this is an opportunity for a learning experience. The next time that you see something that's off ("what? Interceptor has never read the story, even though he's been arguing about it for pages?"), rather than trust your initial assumption, maybe either ask for clarification or look for context clues.

"based on your posts, it seems as though you don't give a shit about the stories in fe games, even if one was objectively amazing. Why are you bothering to argue about story elements in the first place?"

You would have gotten a different answer if you had asked this instead. That answer would be: "your assumption about my level caring is wrong". I like the stories even though they are bad -- perhaps because they are bad -- and I would miss them if they were gone. Although rarely do I feel inclined to repeat them.

Except for the BKxIke convo in 3-7, which is always kind of badass.

Ah yes, your post may seem to make sense to you, but it came off as idiotic to me.

Yes, which is why I re-worded it for clarity. Getting the gist across is important, if at all possible. I'm convinced it's not a lost cause.

My point remains: there's no such thing as a bottom standard for bad stories and story elements.

Or rather, your point changed. If you've given up on the magnitude thing, it's fine to move on. I'll graciously interpret "flip comment" as "concession of point", since I know real ones can be uncomfortable.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

So, where's the part where everyone starts calling me a terrible person for loving the crap out of Awakening despite its flaws?

Always and forever, but never explicitly.

Not what you said.

Look at the paragraph before it; I said that I consider the supports to be like flashbacks unconnected to the present. That's because I've read them before, even though I skip them now. Every pie, every bout of gynophobia. Now, normally I'd expect someone to assume that they mis-read an ambiguous statement, but I get the feeling that's not gonna be the case here.

Way to dodge my point in order to needlessly and meritlessly bash on the other titles.

You said I wouldn't care (slick powers of prediction!), I said there's no way to know, because there's never been a Fire Emblem that qualified. What was your "point"? Take this opportunity to re-state it.

I challenge you to point out to me where I said "I don't understand what this means", rather than "your post is literally nonsensical and stupid"

Usually when someone says that "X doesn't make sense", when X does actually make sense, I presume that I need to convey the point a little better. So I did!

Enough that it can't be quantified with a meaningless number rating system.

The number system was just something I came up with to explain the point; it's not relevant by itself. I can keep throwing out examples until you get it, I don't mind. Maybe a chart?

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean that the story is literally unenjoyable in that nobody has enjoyed it [...]

Perhaps we let him speak for himself.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by what you're doing though; I guess the only people who should be allowed to use hyperbole in such discussions is you, not the filthy plebs who don't like Awakening very much.

You guess wrong; nobody is withholding permission. Knock yourself out; people going overboard makes my work easier.

The hell are you even on about?

Wasn't a complicated point: keep your eye on the fundamental argument, not the speaker. Or don't; makes no difference to this poster.

So many comments have been posted in such a short frame of time. What exactly is the subject of debate right now? Has it gone back to just Awakening in general or are we still on some sort of topic?

Near as I can tell, current topic is a discussion of the best way to substitute personal opinion for mass truism without getting called out on it.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

Plenty of people have enjoyed Twilight and the Michael Bay Transformers movies too, that doesn't absolve them from being banal insipid pieces of shit.

Try to keep up, here. This isn't about quality; he said it was "unenjoyable", which is just objectively false. It's not even a matter of opinion, as plenty of people enjoyed the story.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

It really isn't. THe story is unenjoyable. I expect competent storytelling from a modern game. Unfortunately, 10-15 year old games still trump it despite the limitations of the systems some of them were on..

Enjoyable? That's an even easier bar to clear than "good", because it's not even subjective. Awakening's story is absolutely enjoyable, and we know it because people have enjoyed it. Hell, I usually don't care about this shit and I got a kick out of it on the first playthrough. Who cares if it's nonsense? It's silly fun.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

Interceptor, your hyperbole is really not helping your position. You had me until you started getting really pretentious about it. :/

So what you're saying, you think FE7 is a four?

Think on this: if you base your feelings towards a given position on the attitude of the speaker, rather than the fundamentals of the argument, of what worth is your allegiance?

What balance? You just bloody said you skip all the optional story content in Awakening [...]

Now that I've already read most of it, I do. Having played through a bunch, the immersion has no value anymore. I only had feels for poor Cordelia the first time.

If Awakening had top notch story and character quality, it seems to me like you still wouldn't really care.

No way to know, since it doesn't seem to have been in any of the other titles, either. Show me a Fire Emblem that isn't some trope-filled romp towards a Big Bad™, and maybe we can find out.

I know what your point was.

Why did you say otherwise, then? Just do the "make a flippant comment and then ignore the issue" thing; I'll get the message.

There can (emphasis on this word) always be something worse.

But "far" worse? How wide do the gaps get once you're down to "minor character development in an SRPG"? I object to the concept.

Anyway, you're the one rating it and compairing it with books. Games don't focus on stories as much as books (duh) and when people say a video game has a good story, they're generally comparing to to the medium. They're especially not comparing with books where story is the only goddamn focus.

It's important to have a proper sense of perspective. I had assumed that people were saying that a given FE's story was good for what you expected of it (i.e.: very little), but then things took a turn for the bizarre, as if the classic support conversations weren't little more than fodder for a Bazooka Joe comic. Arguing about the relative quality of characterization and story in a Fire Emblem game seems incredibly silly.

FE has generally enjoyable stories that integrate well enough with the gameplay and are well written considering the many limitations of not only the medium but the genre.

I agree, and Awakening is perfectly fine in this respect.

And then, there's all this emphasis on "fun"...whatever happened to challenge being an important part of the game?

Eh? Lunatic+ is plenty challenging. Awakening sucks for LTC, but is LTC really that important?

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

Because it's not like the series has had a reputation for having good stories to go along with its gameplay.

If it has such a reputation, I'd say it's 1) undeserved, and 2) possibly held by people that don't know any better.

Would you prefer the game if it forgone all sense of optional story content in favor of pure gameplay?

No, I like the story/gameplay balance as-is. There is probably no such option on the table anyway; how much more could they add in the way of gameplay features by firing whatever high school students wrote the support conversations? I expect that it would be minimal.

This doesn't even make sense.

OK, I'll explain my point in your language. Let's take a random sample:

Lowen: Lord Eliwood! Please, forgive me!

Eliwood: What? What is it, Lowen?

Lowen: You must forgive me! I... I had no intention... I am sorry! Ohh... Were General Marcus to find out... Im finished! Through!

Eliwood: Lowen? Perhaps you could tell me what happened?

Lowen: Yes... Yes, my lord. ... ... It is that...uh... This morning, you see... Did... Did you eat breakfast, my lord?

Eliwood: Breakfast?

Lowen: As I thought! You haven/t had breakfast, have you!?

Eliwood: Ah...um, yes, now that you mention it. I was busy. I must have forgotten.

Lowen: I knew it! It is my fault-- I overslept! And now Lord Eliwood has gone without breakfast!

Eliwood: L-Lowen, please. Missing one meal is not such a big affair...

Lowen: Oh, but it is! This is a most unforgivable oversight! If the stomach is empty, empty, too, lies the heart. You know the proverb!

Eliwood: Actually, thats the first time I ever heard that one.

Lowen: Then you must remember it from henceforth! If the stomach is empty, empty, too, lies the heart. Remember?

Eliwood: Um, yes.

Lowen: Good! Then, I shall bring something for you to eat forthwith! ... ...

Eliwood: Lowen? Whats wrong, Lowen! Lowen...! Lowen!

Mother of god, chewing back vomit here. Somewhere, an actor in a soap opera is slightly uncomfortable without quite knowing why.

Suppose we have a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the greatest literary masterpiece known to man, and 1 is an erotic Star Trek fanfic with furries and a self-insert. Let's say that The Great Gatsby is an 8, or something. Where does this above passage rate? Or the whole set of conversations? Is it even a three? Seems pretty difficult to have Awakening be "far" worse, without either 1) using non-English gibberish, or 2) a whole lot of Hitler.

I hope that helps you understand what I meant by suggesting a lower limit on how bad something can be. Although I suppose there's always "so bad it's good", like Plan 9. I've never seen a Fire Emblem game reach that lofty perch, though.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

That's purely a matter of opinion.

You bet it is, and I wouldn't want to be caught dead holding the opinion that FE7 supports are anything to write home about. I'm flipping through a few of them right now, and they read like bad fanfiction, FFS; thankfully without the self-inserts. Except they are canon, which is weird.

I find Awakening's supports to be far more cringeworthy.

Is there enough headroom for them to be "far" more cringeworthy? I think that they can only be a little worse, because at that point you start going into some weird negative number shit.

Also, not expecting a good story from a video game is a really poor excuse. Especially since I think the other games do have enjoyable stories.

Not "a video game". Fire Emblem: Awakening. The desired quality of something's story is dependent on what you'te talking about. Tetris? Irrelevant. Visual novel? Better be amazing. Fire Emblem? Mostly about the gameplay, so just enough to tie stuff together and move things along.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

Boy, those FE7 supports really are cringeworthy; I have no idea why people are in love with them.

Seems to me that it's easy to dislike Awakening's support system if you are predisposed to do so. Personally, I appreciate the fact that nobody wasted resources on bulletproofing a system that would still get criticized anyway. This is a game with multiverse time-travel, so I just assume that the support conversations are more like flashbacks, and not necessarily connected to the present.

In other words, I mash START. I have this thing I do when I want to read a good story: I pick up a book.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

This is not a good point and I think you know it.

All I said was that it wasn't entirely accurate to state that Lyn mode was one-and-done. Which is true.

If you can use extremes, why can't I respond to your extremes with extremes?

Not all extremes are created equally; I was raising a point about "common" not meaning "OK", you misinterpreted it as being about criminality. You can do whatever you want, I was just clarifying my position.

No particular reason? The reason is in what you want to do. If you want to scan through every item you own, you use the master list. If you only want to take items for a character that no one else is holding, you use the main convoy list. If you want to transfer specific items from one unit to another, you use trade. All of these options become particularly useful later on in the games when your convoy gets rather extensive, which can be problematic in Awakening since you often need to scroll through dozens of items to find what you're looking for.

Dunno how you can think fewer options is better than more in this case, especially considering Awakening's one option literally is one of the ones the previous games had.

This is actually a somewhat important point, as opposed to the other baloney, so let's put some text here and be a little more serious for a moment. Blazing Sword's inventory management is bad design, full stop. Here's a list of some of its sins:

• It "solves" problems that it created for itself in the first place. Why have a separate convoy list at all? Oh right: because you can't stack things in the UI or combine items, and list perusal is a huge chore.
• You can't re-arrange item order (an important task) without mass-deposits or trading (which is tedious/unintuitive).
• Management functionality is split, but with holes in the overlap, so the end result is nothing does exactly what you want. List can withdraw but not deposit items, trading can't access the convoy, transfer doesn't touch other characters.
• You can't trade an empty space as the start of a transaction. You have to either do the trade in reverse, or figure out -- without help from the UI -- that you can jump across panels.

And now Awakening's advantages:

• Doesn't do any of that bullshit listed above. Item management is unified, items can be equipped/arranged, duplicates are stacked in the UI, items are auto-combined, blank trades are A-OK.
• Optimization button, for both single units and entire army.
• Mass deposit button for the entire army.
• Restock button for both single units and entire army.
• When you select an individual item slot, it asks you whether you want to store it, trade it, refill it, or equip/reorder it. In the same place! What a country!

It's pretty obvious that a UX designer looked at the user stories, noticed that basically everything you ever want to do on the screen involves manipulating a unit's inventory slot, and simply put everything right there. It's excellent design. Awakening's management system is playing the game while Blazing Sword is still looking for its pants.

It is very useful and I rather love it. Thing is, I don't think it's quite as useful for everyone. In particular, new players, the ones who would supposedly be the most turned off by previous titles not having the feature, likely wouldn't make too much use of it unless they play the game a lot because they're more likely to want to be aware of what specifically is going on. Veterans, on the other hand, can go back to the older games with relative ease because they know the games already.

Except you, I guess.

Yes, high on my list of fun things to do is watch while Hector mows down waves and waves of trash enemies that have zero chance of doing anything substantial. Or waste a few minutes of my life on every attempt of Battle before Dawn, a captive audience of one, waiting to find out whether the result of a bunch of shit that I have no control over means that Jaffar dies again.

Blazing Sword disrespects both newbies and veterans in equal measure. For the noobs, it presents them a stupid inventory management and control system. For the veterans, who have implanted workarounds into muscle memory, you are rewarded by having to watch a bunch of unskippable nonsense. But you can turn off long animations! SO COOL.

"...or something to that effect." Yeah, I know you didn't use the word "unplayable." But the language you did use says as much.

"Yeah, I know you didn't actually say what I am accusing you of, but it's inconvenient to my argument if you aren't the bogeyman that I want you to be, so I'll just stick some words in your mouth and call it a good day's work."

See how annoying that is?

Again, if you're going to use such extremes as "gives me PTSD," I'm just going to take your words to the logical conclusion. Someone who literally gets PTSD from a certain stimuli is probably going to consider it out of bounds for them.

Even if you took me at the literal meaning of my words (which you don't, clearly), that still doesn't complete the circuit, since PTSD is merely an individual mental disorder. That's the sort of logical leap you'd only make if you assumed that someone's personal experience was immaculately transferrable to every person who ever played the game.

I don't possess that kind of power, even though I am pretty amazing.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

You compared it to the game giving you anthrax. I'd probably use a stronger word than "dumb".

No, I pointed out that just because something was common, that doesn't make it OK. The extreme serves to highlight the point, because that's something that's very obviously not OK.

Read over some of the hyperbole you used, (I can quote it for you if you really don't recall it) then imagine people are saying that about the things you like.

Ahh, this is a pleasant fiction. It would be nice if people were better at using metaphor; maybe we could get a good argument going around here.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

If that isn't implying that you think they're unplayable [...]

It's not unplayable, it's unpleasant. Once you've used a superior interface (one that stays the eff out of your way and allows you to play the game), every speedbump in an older title is a fresh affront, a reminder that you are battling more than just trash enemies with generic portraits.

[...] then I'm at a loss for words.

Don't tease me, bro.

[I still don't get the praise of this game...]

What do you mean, not even entirely accurate? It's a known fact that Lyn mode is optional once the game has been fully completed once.

As was pointed out, you need to run it again for a gaiden.

While I'll agree that having all difficulties available is better than needing to unlock, it's hardly some video game crime to do so.

Which is why I just said it was "dumb".

Most players are going to start on a medium difficulty their first time through, often even series veterans for a new entry, and many players also like the satisfaction of unlocking new content (otherwise why the hell would any game have content that needed unlocking).

Still a net negative.

I agree that, barring some map travel decisions, Awakening does have the best interface in the series, but you are severely overstating the effect of it [...]

I don't agree, especially considering the sainted status that people are giving the mediocre stories of the older titles.

and, as has been pointed out, not even getting facts straight as to what is new and what was around ten years ago.

Looking forward to still hearing about this in 2017.

Optimize is an awkward option that only actually gives you precisely what you want half the time (if that)

Optimize is a really good way to set up a good baseline set of gear for all of your deployed units (or one specific one). If you ever have units coming in and out of your lineup, or just reclassed someone, it's a big time-saver. Shame that more people don't use it.

and store all and master list (with pictures!) have been around

Not exactly. Store all only works for individual units (in Awakening you can also use it on the entire army), and the master list does not have any portrait overlays, just names.

By the way, to hell with all of you for making me turn on my DS. Which now apparently has a broken top screen, but it doesn't matter because GBA.

yet for some reason Awakening limited inventory management to just this master list, whereas before you could use that, or just the convoy, or trade between two units alone without entering any bigger list.

It's weird that you consider it an advantage to have duplicative functionality for no particularly good reason. Awakening's system is perfectly simple: you go to a character, pick a slot, put an item there (or trade one out). The location doesn't matter, because everything is available, so you don't have to waste any time searching for a particular item. Trading, putting stuff in the convoy, refilling stocks, it all happens in the same place. FFS, you can even equip weapons and re-arrange items here; yet another thing that Blazing Sword can't elegantly handle.

Awakening's inventory management system is exceptionally good. There is never any question about where you need to go to do something.

The particular benefits to Awakening's interface are cycling through weapons, restocking (which was actually around in the DS games), and the advanced ability to check enemy attack ranges.

Those are AMONG the benefits of Awakening, yes.

The tedium you suggest was in previous titles only exists for people who play the games over and over again (and PoR). Enemy phase skipping is a really good addition, but unless you have the confidence of someone who has played the game enough to know what to expect, you won't be using it most of the time anyway because you want to actually know what happens on the enemy phases. The only places in past FEs I can think of that would have significantly benefited from a phase-skipping option are a few chapters in RD like 3-E and PoR, and that's because of PoR's map animations. Otherwise, no player is really going to notice a significant difference in the speed or "tedium" of the game 98% of the time. Hell, phase skipping aside, RD is actually faster with all animations turned off than Awakening, and the GBA games are about the same speed.

This is a lot of text to downplay what is a really useful addition to the series. Awakening even goes further with an in-between option: you can speed up Enemy Phase, too, or skip certain kinds of actions. You have all sorts of settings and toggles to put the game's pace exactly where you want it to be, as opposed to the "one burlap sack fits all" option.

While matters have (mostly) improved, I don't understand how you can seriously suggest that past titles are unplayable or something to that effect. It all sounds like you're just exaggerating a point into oblivion.

"Unplayable" is a word other people used; not me. What I said was this:

"The old titles are no great shakes; they are thin, limiting, tedious, and have been left behind by modern TBS games. The best that you can say, is that they were good for their time. The rest is mostly nostalgia, if we're being honest."

That's it. You'd think that I slapped everyone across the face with a chainmail gauntlet.