[Return of Casual]

The first thing I'll state is that SF and the general hardcore FE community isn't as encouraging as you'd like to believe.

When I spoke of a wish to encourage people, I was speaking for myself. I realize how it is, since I feel intimidated by it as well, believe it or not. But on the other hand, I enjoy the amount of knowledge and passion I can feel when I come here. I'd be sad were it to go away.

People seem to forget that while it might have been easy for you (or hell it might have been frustrating for you) at the beginning, you have to take into account that using yourself as an example for others to "graduate" to the same level isn't your goal.

Oh I have not forgotten my very first playthrough, FE4, in japanese, which I couldn't read(at least now I know katakana, that would have been helpful). And admittedly, I have never played casual. But if it didn't teach them the basics in an entire playthrough there is a problem somewhere.

I also happen to have taught a friend of mine how to play FE a few months ago, which helps a lot with perspective. And yet I still said what I said.

But sometimes people want to just play a game without the looming feeling of death.

Then they can. I don't see where the problem is. If they cannot enjoy games without casual mode, then it's just not for them and that's perfectly okay. My issue was about them not trying because they don't think they're good enough, and I think I made that fairly clear.

It's been added as an option.

People have enjoyed it.

Seeking to take that away with some of the motivations I've seen in this thread is cruel.

Admittedly you may have missed my input on this matter since we're, like, 170 posts after that(edit: 20 posts per page uh? Make that 340), but otherwise you'd know that I agree.

The general view of Awakening, if you look through the section is pretty well received in the gameplay department.

I don't think this is relevant, considering people who hated the game probably won't go on its forum.

I am not blaming anyone specifically, unless you count the "joke" of "Green Mark of Cowardness", simply it embodies that ill will towards the people I consider my friends.

That's good, but blaming an entire group of people(veterans, core FE community) is not acceptable when most of them have no faults in the matter, either.

Both groups need to make an effort to understand each other.

They are both at fault.

I can agree with that. My issue was that your previous posts sounded way too biased.

Just more often than not, I see veterans (outside or inside this forum) being the instigators to hate on Awakening and what it brought to the table.

Whether it be the art style, the game's design, or Casual Mode.

That is another consequence of Awakening being very different. Obviously it will displease people who liked the series as it was, and that's one of the shapes that frustration may end up taking; although I admit that they could keep it to themselves in some situations.

"Cool, you finished Awakening. Go play the other games, they're better."

It's funny because, I once stumbled upon someone saying that Awakening was "by far the best game of the series". I took some time to write down an admittedly lengthy, but not hostile post explaining why I didn't agree, but it received no response, and got deleted instead.

... uh, so, yes, people throw out bold statements like that sometimes. It sucks, but it's not specific to the veterans and as such shouldn't be used to criticize them precisely.

I cannot really find a point to make because I didn't feel like most of what you said applied to me at all, and should probably refrain from speaking too much for others, so... we're pretty much still at the same point of the debate as far as I'm concerned.

[One thing that I don't understand about choosing sides...]

Some vague memories from a distant past, from a distant country, doesn't justify betraying the people you knew all of your life, like big-boob-onee-chan or cool-blond-big-bro.

Then again, I don't see how it would be possible to make Hoshido appealing in only 6 chapters, as in at all.

Agreed, this will be difficult. At least making it likely that Kamui would betray Nohr, since the player himself normally isn't biased at the beginning. That's a problem actually. If they pull it off, there will be a new issue: Kamui now has to make a real choice, but as a result the player's opinion should be heavily in favor of Hoshido. So that won't work either way...

At least the Hoshido seem incredibly trusting of Kamui for someone that, for all intents and purposes, is their enemy. He doesn't seem restrained in any way when he meets their probably-leader lady. I mean, writing true, believable good guys is very difficult as well honestly, so if they manage to do that, it could work out as well. Maybe.

[Return of Casual]

Did you know that a lot of people got turned off the forums because of this attitude?

People who got Radiant Dawn (obviously that wasn't the best choice) got responses like "Blah blah blah chapter isn't hard... you just have to do X".

Which doesn't help them at all.

From the perspective of a veteran that's all they need to say and handholding is done.

Your criticism is misplaced, so let me clarify myself. The point is to encourage players who'd be doubting themselves, not trivialize the difficulties they'd be going against. Letting them believe they're bad when they didn't even try and are likely wrong, that is the problematic attitude to have in my opinion. Also, the context of someone asking for help is completely different so I won't adress that.

Now if I'm the one wrong and completing Awakening didn't teach them enough to deal with the other entries, maybe there is more of a problem with casual mode than most of you guys want to admit. I stand by what I said, most Fire Emblem games aren't difficult as long as you know what you are doing.

Just as a side-note, what is the perspective of a veteran when there are so many diverging opinions around here? What is this forum's general view of Awakening when a lot of people have it on display as their favorite? I won't deny that we have a community issue on our hands, but I completely disagree that this is anybody here's fault. Awakening was a very different game that brought a lot of very different people to the community of a niche series, read small and recluse. None of the veterans are responsible for any of that, or entitled to making efforts to adapt to the new crowd, just like none of the new people have to make any effort to try and understand the veteran's stance in this. There is no bad guys here, except perhaps IS, but what they did is perfectly understandable to me, so I can't even blame them.

Case in point, I think you should stop the finger pointing.

[Return of Casual]

B) Refuse to play the older games simply because it's too stressful. They know they lack the skill and gaining it isn't a worthy endeavor to go through the stress for them.

That's interesting, because they're very likely to be wrong about the skill part, but easier modes, especially when their name implies that they're easy, tend to do that to you. They make higher difficulties look overwhelming if you have yet to experience them. The reality is that almost every Fire Emblem is fairly easy to beat in normal mode as long as you have a basic understanding of the game, which they'd obviously have at this point. Would they enjoy them? No idea. But I'm pretty sure they could beat them without much trouble.

[Known Information (2nd April)]

This was already discussed actually(page 3 of the "Let's talk about the status screen" thread, which is on page 2 of the forum at the moment).

We concluded that these expressions were likely due to damage dealt being lower than damage taken, since it fit in all three examples that we could find(the Hinoka image not being one of them since no distraught faces can be found in it). The weapon triangle could have some importance in this as well, though.

Edit: Saisou'd

[Class Inherent Skills and Class Parallels]

Ninjas to cavaliers look like a massive stretch to me. Outside of the possible Cain/Abel archetype, there really isn't much to defend here, since they are very unlikely to use the same weapons and have the same stats repartition. Besides, we see that cavalier guy being playable in what's likely a Hoshido chapter.

Also, I agree that having some parrallels is a neat thing, but too many would just make the two sides too samey.

[Known Information (2nd April)]

Orochi's "Fan" is not really a fan. It looks like a collection of spell tablets. It's the eastern equivalent of a tome. If you watch the first trailer, you see the fan disassemble and rotate in the air in a circle then reassemble back into the fan shape. I don't think she actually hits foes with it.

Well it is the only time we see her weapon at all isn't it? This was mostly a supposition based on her attack looking so different from the magic we're used to see, and apparently being ice-based of all things. The unique way she attacks seems like it could be how this type of weapons discharges its element or something. That being said, that doesn't really sound any different from magic being cast from a tome, in the end.

Really my point is, a focus on elemental weapons seems like it may be one of this game's specificity, and Orochi's attack looks like something fairly different from what we're used to see; so maybe they're the same thing. But that's a complete guess.

Takumi?(has his name been confirmed yet?)

No, I don't think it has. I forgot the "maybe" this time around.

(Guess I'll just edit this):

Here's something about the lifebars that are very likely Ryouma and Marx's at the top of the screen here(thanks to Sunwoo for making me notice that)

... going off of Awakening's code of colors for health -which completely matches up with If's as far as I'm aware- their coloring puts them in the 30 to 39 range of HP. In comparison, Basilio and Flavia start off with 56(61 with skills) and 48 respectively, in normal mode. In the trailers, Ryouma noticeably shares that health bar coloring with Nohr's designated Jeigan and Camilla(also some blond axefighter we know nothing about). Most other units have at least 20 HP.

Just food for thought.

Once again, sorry if this is old information.

[Known Information (2nd April)]

While anima and light magic clearly haven't been in the spotlight, we sure have seen a lot of physical weapons seemingly imbued with an element. Marx's sword, Ryouma's, Rinka's mace, maybeTakumi's bow, possibly Orochi's fan thingie... might just be for the pretties, but still, that seems unusual.

[Known Information (2nd April)]

Oh, you're right, I forgot about these guys. All right then.

[Known Information (2nd April)]

Has anyone said anything about the cover art showing the dark knight guy has a purple tome so its possible that dark knights can now use dark magic

Actually a few things make me think that Nohr doesn't have access to anima magic at all, and dark magic is the standart there. Like the fact that indeed, the possibly Nohr exclusive Dark knight is seen using dark magic and nothing else(cutscene, cover art, card artwork), the only other magic unit we see from there has a very similar design to Tharja so she's most likely a dark mage, and it generally makes sense considering what their capital city looks like. Marx even uses a dark imbued sword.

I also have to say, the closest thing I've spotted to an early game classic mage is Orochi, which is a little surprising.

[*Possible* evidence for enemy pair-up, along with other observations]

By "middle" I mean horizontally. Since a fort is a tile, then the myrmidon's map sprite or at least his HP bar should be in the middle of said tile. But there's a clear gap between the left wall and him. So supposedly there is a right wall, he's actually leaning towards or even penetrating it, which doesn't make sense design-wise.

I just checked, and something similar can happen in Awakening when two units are in that exact same situation and position in that corner of the screen. The difference is that the myrmidon seems to stand a bit lower on this fort(assuming that is a fort, but that seems likely to me) than he would have in FE13.

All of what was uncovered about this chapter really makes it look like the objective will be to escape, by the way...

[Return of Casual]

One of my worries about the franchise "growing" would be the Wii symptom. In other words, what if Awakening brought in a very volatile new fanbase, and most are gone by the time If releases, putting the series in a Wii U type of bad spot(so specifically trying to cater to people that are gone already, losing some of their previous consumers in the process)? A lot of people didn't seem happy to see that If wouldn't star Chrom, Lucina or Robin...

I don't honestly believe that will happen, but I feel like we may be getting ahead of ourselves about the benefits of casual mode.

Edit: I'd like to point out that this is purely hypothetical and in no way meant to insult anyone.

[Return of Casual]

can i just say this is the same argument for Dark Souls getting an easy mode

Ah, is that a thing? That's bound to create some drama.

Devs adding easier modes in a game that's renowned for its difficulty can mean that their view on their creation has changed quite a bit, which ultimately would be very likely to affect a lot what they make of it in the future. I think as a fan this warrants some worrying. Though, Fire Emblem is past that point already, the only thing left is to see where the series ends up.

Gaiden and Sacred Stones also have monsters on their maps, as does Tearing Saga. Does this encourage grinding? Possibly, but at the same time, no point of any of these games in question require it. Not even Awakening's L+.

I agree, but saying Awakening doesn't encourage grinding at all is wrong to me. The main chapters' structure, yes, the game as a whole, definitely not.

[Return of Casual]

At no point does Awakening encourage grinding. At all.

Well Awakening has risen spawns, reclassing and skills that you'll get from reclassing, getting specific skills to children, dlc that helps with grinding and dlc that requires grinding, renown...

It's rarely in your face, but a lot of the content of this game is built around grinding, way more so than in any previous FE.

[Anyone here own EU/PAL 3DS systems?]

if anything, they'd import japanese 3ds's instead, and get the game in a few months.

Pretty much...

[Analysis and speculation of character personalities]

I don't think Path of Radiance really needed to foreshadow her. Micaiah didn't know about her true identity before Radiant Dawn nor did she have a reason to be involved with the plot until Begnion occupied Daein. It's a new game and new games get new characters. Although not named specifically, Sothe does tell Ike that he's been searching for Micaiah so there IS some foreshadowing going on, however minor.

The way I see it, Path of Radiance established too much on its universe and what was happening in it to let Micaiah completely out, considering her importance. Now making her less important would have worked just as well, and I'd probably have liked it more that way honestly. But as it stands, putting a completely new character at the center of everything in the sequel of a game that left very few stones unturned is bound to be problematic. As for Sothe's line about it, I'm glad it's there but it's just not enough. He could have been referring to a complete nobody, and I don't think he even mentions her gender.

As for the story being centered around her, I mean she warps everything to her benefit, like running into Kurthnaga of all people in a random jail somewhere.

That kind of huge coincidence is nothing out of the ordinary as far as Fire Emblem plots go, honestly, or even storytelling in general.

[Analysis and speculation of character personalities]

I would agree that being the main character, it's logical for Micaiah to be at the center of part 1's plot. Her major fault in my opinion is that overall, she's a huuuge loose end that should have been hinted at more throughout Path or Radiance. Since it wasn't, it made it seem like she came out of nowhere, hence the Mary Sue criticism. Even in Radiant Dawn, the justification for her importance and abilities comes way too late, so for most of the game, she's great because, period. Otherwise, she's okay to me, I even like her quite a bit.

As for Ike, it's the complete opposite. All in all he's a character that's loved and admired by everyone, is extremely strong, and always right. The game also keeps tiping the scale in his favor for stupid reasons. Going against Micaiah, who can see the future? Well she was tired that day, so Ike wins. People from Micaiah's side can defect to his, and every meaningful battle between the two has you taking the side of Ike except for 3-13, where you pretty much lose. He actually wouldn't be able to face the Black knight without Yune's powers, but that's quickly written off by the game and displayed as his own accomplishment, and he's the one who defeats the final boss. But, he's Ike. We liked him in PoR, and maybe Brawl for people who played RD late. That's a huge redeeming factor.

Overall they're both fairly bad I'd say, but as someone who knows the plot, Ike is looking much, much worse than Micaiah to me nowadays.

[Wanna guess the characters ages based on looks?]

Aqua: ?? she has the body of a young woman, but everything else screams ageless being or whatever.

Kamui: 16

Marx: 23

Camilla: 19

Drilly: 10

Clark(whynotanythingbutBlarthseriouslyitsoundsterribleyouguys): 16

Cavalier dude: 17

Purple butler: 62

Garon: 55

Ryouma: 21

Hinoka: 15

Sakura: 12

MaybeTakumi: 18

Kazahana: 16

Tsubaki: 20

Saizou: 23

Orochi: 18

Notpurple butler: 27

Exalt lady: 43

Felicia: 15

Blue Felicia: 16

...will we ever actually know by the way?

[Return of Casual]

The issue with Awakening it was designed from the ground up with Casual in mind.

You know, I never saw it that way, and while it may not be what you meant, Awakening is by far the FE where I had the most resets due to deaths. It may just be a matter of difficulty though, since I went straight to hard mode followed by lunatic. But it makes me wonder if that's the only reason.

I believe it's too late to complain about casual mode now; that's how a considerable part of the fanbase enjoys the game at this point, so it would be selfish to ask for it to be thrown out. I'll say though... its inclusion was a problem. They decided to cater to another type of audience, and this may go farther than the implementation of this seemingly harmless mode. This audience has different needs, different desires, and they bring in the money so they cannot be ignored, so the games have to change. The future will tell us if Awakening was to be remembered as that one FE with the weird priorities, or if that's what the series' about now. Fire Emblem If indeed Applaud

But, I'm pretty happy that they decided to go for two versions that each catter to a part of the fanbase. I think that was the best choice they could have made at this point, and I have very high hopes for this new game.

Tl;dr: Yes, it should come back.

[FE: IF reminds me of...]

Shining Force 3

something dreadfully mediocre and popular!

Hey I take offense to that! It was neither mediocre nor popular!

[FE: IF reminds me of...]

Shining Force 3.

I mean... duh.

[Gender-specific classes]

I do think that getting rid of gender limitations would be an interesting novelty once in a while, but wouldn't go so far as to say it should completely disappear. It helps with variety and the uniqueness of playable characters/classes, especially if reclassing is a thing. To cite Awakening as an example, the fact that the gender you choose for Robin matters is a good thing in my book. It provides replayability and makes theorycrafting more interesting.

[SSB4 Ike Compilation]

Pretty good stuff, great zoning:) I especially liked that gale boomerang'd up air and the entire clip against the golden C. Falcon.

[Possible non-side specific/both sides recruitable characters [with evidence]]

I agree, he looks like he's from Hoshido. Also I didn't realize, but the man seems to have ~18 HP, which is definitely low.

[What's Up With the Giant Lance?]

Plot twist: She's actually just disguising as a dancer in order to get close to Garon, and that scene in the theater happens just before she conjures her lance and assassinates him.

For now I am honestly completely in the dark as to what her role in the story will be. I guess that's the point.