Dark Holy Elf
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Posts posted by Dark Holy Elf
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I will say that while I enjoyed Kellam, Anna, Vaike, Cherche, Henry, et al., they wouldn't fit in a more intense, serious game (or at least, not that many of them. The relatively serious Tellius games survived the ridiculous Kieran just fine, for instance). It kind of looks like FE14 is going to be that more serious game, in which case I do hope the characters are written accordingly.
It's hard to write a large cast of serious characters well, though, so I wish them luck!
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idk i think barth was pretty remembered for how aware of he was of his situation on a meta level. "noone has need for an armored knight" indeed.
Does he actually say that? (I've literally never used Barth before.) Because that is pretty amazing if so.
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Character depth is good, but please work it into the character writing. Some of the older FEs had incredibly bland characters who had some complex, often melodramatic backstory you could only get from supports, but this didn't seem to impact how they interacted in the main story, and turned every character's story into something which felt... compartmentalised, rather than adding to the narrative.
Not everyone needs to be deep, though, especially supporting characters. Unlike some people I actually quite like Kellam, for instance. His gimmick was just that, a gimmick, but it was quite funny and made him a memorable character, and for someone who basically existed to fill out the roster, I'll take that. I found him much more memorable than, say, any of the GBA armour knights, despite some of them being ostensibly more important characters.
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Names add to a setting. In Hoshido, the designers are clearly trying to invoke an Asian (specifically Japanese) setting, and the localisers have already indicated they are going to continue that feel linguistlcally by naming the country "Hoshido". So yeah, I very much hope the Hoshido characters maintain their Japanese-sounding names, and I'm usually not one to clamour for that on average. If Ryouma is localised as Ryan, I will twitch a bit.
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Right now we mostly just have designs and one or two lines so it's almost impossible to tell! I mean I guess I think the single most promising character is Marx since he feels most strongly positioned to have questions about his own motivation and morality and that could certainly be cool (plus I love the design). But it's not like I'll be surprised if I don't end up liking him and instead like someone who so far I couldn't care less about.
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Like many others, I love the critical cut-ins. A great aesthetic touch, and I loved the personality that all the different one-liners added. And yeah, "pick a god and pray" is simply one of the most badass lines in video games.
Given the stylistic similarities between Awakening and If we've already seen, and the popularity of the cut-ins, I'll be stunned if they don't return.
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I think it may be that Hoshido and Nohr actually have similar difficulties, but Hoshido's story has a world map (and therefore skirmishes are probable). Grinding and shops won't be as freely available in Nohr, which makes it harder.
Besides, Lunatic mode is already pretty brutal even in 'easier' FEs like FE13 and FE8 and difficulty levels show no sign of leaving.
This was certainly my assumption too. I have to think you'll choose a difficulty as per usual, and likely Casual vs. Classic as well. This decision will probably be made at the game's start, like in every other FE. Now, within any given difficulty, it's likely that Nohr will be more difficult, but primarily due to the fact that there is no opportunity to stop and grind. In fact, I would not be surprised that, if you play Hoshido like you do FE7/9/10/etc. and not fight any optional skirmishes, that it will be in the same area challenge-wise as Nohr. But we'll see.
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That looks bigger to me than FE dragons, and it likely weighed up to 250kg/550lbs. Now, we still probably have to suspend disbelief a little bit on the weight/physics end of things, but it's not so farfetched that you could ride a flying animal. Animations at least seem to support that wing flaps do something, though IIRC Tellius pegasi move up and down, too, so it looks like we aren't finding any perfect consistency on this topic.
Hmm, that's much more massive than what I was able to dig up on the subject, I found estimates ranging from 100 to 320 pounds for the largest pterosaurs, although obviously we can't possibly be sure. (The size is huge, yes, but that alone doesn't imply weight. Albatrosses look almost as big as humans but they weigh something like 30-40 pounds, see for instance here) Still, even if right it would be hard-pressed for such a creature to carry a human-sized weight, and it would only be pracitcal for the rider to be as light as possible. That any extra weight makes flight notably more difficult is an inescapable physical fact.
EDIT: I forgot to note that the reason I said that wyverns look bigger than pterosaurs was a reference to its overall weight; pterosaurs had extremely slender bodies, I believe, while wyverns (the draconic ones, not the FE8 wyrm-like ones) often look quite bulky. Just my impression though; it's possible that wyverns are a lot lighter/more slender than I assume.
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Choice gets throw out a lot in video game design these days, and I have to say I'm not that big a fan of that focus. I'd far rather have a strong cohesive narrative than lots of choices for the sake of having lots of choices. Every branch you add to the story makes for more variables the writers need to account for, and more story they have to write (which invariably not all players will see). There's a limit to how many of these you can add without the writing seriously suffering.
A small number of major choices, all of which are written well, would be great though.
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Yeah, it's rather ridiculous how good ugliness is a predictor of evil in FE. Even amongst villains you can usually expect the attractive ones to be relatively symapthetic (Lloyd, Glen, Brenya, etc.) while the uglies are scum (Riev, Ashnard, damn near every bandit), although obviously there are exceptions.
Garon has an extremely villainous design. I hope there's some nuance to him for sure, but I don't hold out that much hope. I definitely don't want Nohr to be a full country full of evil people since I find that completely unbelievable (even Daein was pushing it, although FE10 did help somewhat in humanising them). Shades of grey are definitely what I'm hoping for (but I won't hold my breath).
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Whatever else we think of Kozaki and/or the art designer, I doubt they're chasing that many fans away. The armour is goofy, but overall I find the sexualisation to be relatively subtle compared to many other video games. I think the decision to feature Camilla's swaying bust in the trailer cutscene does far more to make this an issue than costume design. (Exactly what effect even that has on fans of various genders and sexualities buying or not buying the game is an interesting question and not one I can answer easily.)
I would imagine that dragons would be even worse, actually, since basically every flap would move them up and they would fall in between. Pegasi canonically fly with magic and not wings, though, so I suppose it could be the smoothest thing in the world.
Well, dragon flight itself is pretty much magical in and of itself. The wverns/dragons we see characters riding in Fire Emblem are already almost certainly more massive than the largest flying creatures that have ever existed in real life. (As are pegasi, for the record, assuming their weight is similar to that of a pony.) It's unlikely that such a creature could possibly exist in a world with earth-like gravity and atmosphere, and if it did there isn't the slightest chance in hell they'd be able to carry an extra 150+ pounds of human and their gear. Magic is pretty much a required explanation.
Honestly, if mounted flight was going to have even a dollop of realism in its armour design, the folks flying them should be wearing the lighest equipment possible (though yes, probably including pants). They should also probably all be very light people: short, skinny, often young.
I'm fairly sympathetic to the argument that it makes sense for mages, myrmidons, etc., to show more skin than cavaliers and armour knights, but flyers should not be grouped in with the latter category.
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I can't remember the last time I successfully avoided spoiling myself on the list of PCs (which generally isn't too bad but can have unfortunate consequences like knowing that a certain Awakening PC is not in fact dead as the game suggests), so I suspect that'll happen again. I'll certainly try to avoid any major story spoilers though. May or may not succeed, as it's tricky when I have a craving for information about these games...
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My single greatest hope is that they get rid of reinforcements that act first on the enemy turn. Getting shanked by an enemy you couldn't possibly know was going to spawn there is not fun. Preparing for an event which you could not forsee without a guide is not strategy. This goes double if they have weakness-hitting weapons or something, especially with how ridiculous those got in lategame of Awakening. Yes, I know I can play Normal Mode and avoid this, but I just find Normal Mode way too easy.
My hope of this changing is not too high because it's been three games in a row now that they've done this.
Others:
-I hope that supports, romance included do make their return. I hope that the options are more limited than "damn near every character of the opposite gender" as that made many romantic supports feel forced and repetitive. I could do without children, both because I find the eugenics mechanics to be stylistically bizarre and because you very much constrain the types of stories you can write if you insist on having a second generation.
-I'm fine with Pair Up coming back, but let's hope it's more balanced this time. The opportunity cost for pairing up was far too low considering the rewards, while the option to separate came at a turn cost, WTF. I did notice the hit/avo/crit/dodge bonuses seemed lower in the video, so that's a start.
-I'd love to see Shove and Rescue return. They were subtly solid tactical options to consider.
-I'd defenitely prefer more varied map objectives, such as defend/survive chapters.
-Branching promotions are great, keep 'em. I also quite like reclassing, but I won't shed tears if it's gone either.
-I really hope most of Awakening's new classes, particularly ones which gave PCs a use for both Strength and Magic, return. Dark Flier, Falconknight, Trickster, Dark Knight, etc.
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Most of what I've read makes me think I'll prefer Nohr, so I'll probably play as them first.
Mostly I just dig the idea of reforming a corrupt nation from within far more than the "you as good guy country must fight the bad guy country" which Fire Emblem has already trotted out far too many times anyway. That I prefer Nohr's character designs (minus the little sister character), black colour scheme, and the fact that it sounds like a more tightly-bound linear experience is just a bonus.
Obviously I intend to play all available routes, though. I'm much too big a fan of these games to consider not doing so, unless this game drops the ball in a way I can't even begin to anticipate.
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I do think that complaining about bare legs on saddles in a fantasy game is being a bit too picky? Maybe they have a non-chafing materials to make saddles out of, who knows. This goes double for the pegasus/wyvern riders, since I have to imagine the physics of riding a flying creature would be quite different than a ground-based one (it probably lacks the repeated up-and-down motion of being on horseback, at least).
Not that one can't prefer the fully-pantsed designs for other reasons (I tend to myself; I love those FE10 official arts that just got posted!) but honestly I don't think this should be a deal-breaker.
Also if it is indeed the art director who is responsible for all the armour then I must revise my opinion of Kozaki upwards.
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I have mixed feelings. He has a bunch of character designs I quite like (Chrom, Frederick, Basilio, Lucina, Tiki, Cherche... from this game, I quite like Max/Marx, Camilla (despite the questionable armour... see below!), and the blond Nohr mage from what I've seen), but I find many of the supporting characters to have quite generic designs, and I'm not a fan of the palette he tended towards in Awakening (including the relatively bland array of hair colour). And he has serious problems with armour design (if that is him as well?), from the bizarre neck armour on cavaliers to the rotund-looking armour knights to the sculpted breast-armour on many of the female characters.
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But to be serious, I don't mind gender exclusive classes but at the same time stuff like female fighters (or just even T1 axe users) would be pretty neat. To lock an entire gender out of a weapon choice can be a little bothersome.
This pretty much sums up how I feel. The class restrictions pretty much makes it all but impossible for a female axe-using infantry to exist (the best you can do is a prepromo Hero/War Cleric/etc.) and that feels pretty needless. I had a similar objection to a lack of mounted male mages, but Mage Knight (FE8) and Dark Knight (FE13) did address my concerns there at least... although not the staff part. And male pegasus knights is something I honestly never really thought about much (because wyverns fit such a similar niche mechanically) but I'm excited at the prospect of one anyway.
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I'm excited enough that I made an account here for the first time in like half a decade to post about it.
A new FE is always exciting (and this is only the second truly new game since what, 2007?), and I'm really digging the Nohr/Hoshido setup.
How Evil do you want Nohr to be?
in Fire Emblem Fates
Posted
Well... one important thing to reflect in any choice-making is that sometimes your choices can't change things. One way to do that is with characters who can't be saved.
(Not that I'm cheering for or against this particular plot point... it's far too early to have any idea if it would be appropriate to the story or not.)