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HTakara82

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Posts posted by HTakara82

    Gamestop Preorders are sold out again...

    in Fire Emblem Fates

    Posted

    I was sarcastic. I like having backup plans. Nothing to do with my channel. Though I'd kill for a 3DS capture card to LP it

    I got a SE preorder from Amazon after the Direct, and another SE preorder today from online GameStop.

    If one of those orders cancels for whatever reason, I'll have another one up and running.

    And if I end up getting both SEs, well... I'll have a backup copy. Or an extra sealed SE. Whatever works out in the end.

    I actually emailed Amazon to make sure I have peace of mind on it, and they said that if you get a arrival date, the order is secure and they won't cancel it no matter what.

    Amazon, Best Buy and Gamestop Sold Out!

    in Fire Emblem Fates

    Posted

    Maybe some cities have a smaller gaming community and so things don't sell out as quickly. During the height of the amiibo craze, I do recall that we had a few amiibos that sold out within hours, but I didn't have trouble preordering things like Shulk amiibo or the Fates special edition.

    this is true, if you are in places like the Seattle area, NYC or LA area, you'll never find a pre-order if you wait too long. But if you're like in middle america.. well, you only have old people and live stock to compete with.

    Special Edition or Download

    in Fire Emblem Fates

    Posted

    I already have a 32 GB micro sd. The special edition is really sweet. Don't wanna waste much space downloading. Either way it's to late I already pre ordered the special. So I won't have money to download digital. Gonna keep the game chip in my 3ds.

    you should be okay then, as long as you don't have a ton of downloads.

    It's 25k blocks for Nohr+Hoshido, and another 12k for Revelations.

    Do you hate Avatar character(s)? If so, why?

    in Fire Emblem Fates

    Posted

    Ooh boy, here we go. I'll start with supports since that'll lead into the other stuff better.

    First I want to get something across that I think a lot of people have as a common misconception, more dialogue doesn't equate to more character development. As an actual FE related example, I'll use Heath in FE7. Heath doesn't get a big role, but his personality is portrayed well in the few cutscenes he has, he's an exiled soldier from Bern who's lost his dignity, but not so much of it that he's willing to kill women and children, he has a sense of morality that he has made himself obey. His supports don't really develop his character from here (except his Vaida support sorta), he's not really a character in need of development, what they do instead is flesh out his backstory and provide interesting interactions with his personality to others, but we know enough about his character already. There are supports that do develop characters more, but never is 100 lines of dialogue needed to complete a character's development, that's ridiculous.

    I'd argue that it isn't development we really want from Fire Emblem characters, it is, for lack of a better term, connection, connection to other characters that can have interesting or meaningful interactions with said character, or to the plot and the current events in the story, but to say we know nothing of characters like Heath or Jill or Joshua without reading their supports is false. There are characters that do get the short end of the stick with their introductions, mostly in early games, FE6 and FE10, but again, you only need to read a couple of support conversations to get them. I'd argue that Awakening's method of supports ruins the novelty of having two characters talk in the first place, at least with opposite-sex members. With each character in Awakening, you know that it was mandatory for the dev team to make each conversation, so they had to come up with something before release date, instead of the method in previous FE games, where the dev team likely made supports because it was intended for the character or they thought that those characters could have an interesting conversation. This makes me think...

    ...that actually the opposite is true for the older games. Many of the supports in FE: A and If were likely made to accommodate for the baby-making mechanic and the writers had to suffer through writing them. There is no other intent behind many of these conversations. At least when a bizarre support pairing like Canas and Bartre occurred in past games, it's because some developer had an idea for them to talk about, not to fit into a game mechanic. The amount of supports that develop, provide backstory, or give meaningful interactions to much of Awakening's cast is likely the same if not a little less than in previous games, but then we have a ton of supports that are just filler and are boring as hell, often having to resort to each and everyone's cliche anime gimmick to bump up against each other in the hopes that conversation can ensue. In any case, I don't think supports are the only way, or even the best way (I could get into the merits of Base convos and have another 3 paragraphs to talk, but I did that in another thread) to describe, develop a character, and the ones Awakening provides is hardly an improvement. I'll finish this segment by proposing this question: Are Basillio and Flavia any less developed than the rest of the cast of Awakening? Since they have the least supports, they must be. What about Say'ri?

    I want to take a break right now, I'll get into the main lords in a while, and also try to tackle your baseless story claims.

    Now I never said, that they need billions of lines of dialogue. But rather the quality, don't try to squeeze in meaning where there isn't, just so you can have an argument.

    Also having a few sentences is enough to know about the character, it's a far cry from being enough to have any meaningful connection to a character. Yes, you know about Jill being a rude obnoxious generals daughter without any supports, but you'll never see what becomes of that without support dialogue.

    And how is it "opposite is true for older games" when that's exactly how Nintendo's philosophy had been since they started making games.

    Sayri Basillio and Flavia, are all story related characters, you see their character growth and who they are through the story, support wasn't necessary.

    All you're doing is dancing around what I say, and actually even covering the actual points.

    Do you hate Avatar character(s)? If so, why?

    in Fire Emblem Fates

    Posted

    Main Characters: This point doesn't make previous FE games inferior to Awakening and Fates, because they share the same style of protagonist. The only difference is in Fates where you have Kamui, who is arguably worse for having inconsistent characterization based on the choices you make. Also, comparing non-FE games to FE doesn't reflect on the internal quality of the series.

    Story: The use of cutscenes can make story more interesting but a much more critical component is the story told within them. A well-written story in a black screen with a text box is higher quality writing than a mediocre story with good visuals.

    Supports: This problem can be solved with higher quality supports that go more in depth in each of them, perhaps also with a reduced amount of supports if necessary, instead of a smattering of supports for each character that either tell you exactly the same thing about their shallow personality. Again, comparing FE to FFT does nothing when talking about the internal consistency of the quality of FE.

    You're dodging everything, Using something of the same genre is a perfect way to show how something can be done better. That's how everything is compared, from cars, to brands, to the toilet paper you have in your bathroom (if you use toilet paper)

    Do you hate Avatar character(s)? If so, why?

    in Fire Emblem Fates

    Posted

    As to why past Fire Emblem stories and their main characters are mediocre, why more support options are better and other such controversial statements.

    I'll use comparisons from other games within the same genre, as to why I feel it's mediocre. Using actual traditional RPGs, Movies, Novels, etc, would be completely unfair.

    Alright let's begin, I'll try to be thorough, and not just do a 1 or 2 vague sentence answer.

    Main Characters; They're all generic good guys. They're all literal copy paste of one another, Hector was a bit different, who rather than being gentle, he was brash. But he shared that lime light with a copy paste lord. And Ike was basically, what if Marth and Hector had a baby? well, there you go, you get Ike. And Chrom was just a "nicer" Ike. Now, having a good person isn't bad within itself, it's the delivery. And on top of which it's the same with pretty much all FE lords, they all share the same backstory, which ties into plot, which I'll get into later. Most jRPG heroes are "good guys.", but their delivery is completely different. I'll use Ramza Beoluve from the original FFT as an example. Although not a prince, he's a noble, so the standing is similar. From a story telling perspective and how they show the struggles of Ramza, his relationships with the people around him, his personality, etc... is very, very well executed. They make sure that you understand where Ramza is coming from without breaking flow, and everything felt natural with story transition to battle sequence. and they added some neat things too, like you're 1v1ing someone and after a certain point, the rest of your party catches up with you and helps you out if you didn't manage to beat him in time. Anyway, going on a tangent there. The MCs of Fire Emblem, had easy motives, and easy to understand personalities, they're all lords who got chased away by an evil empire, who are secretly undercontrol of some evil god, and they must reclaim their kingdom to return peace. Yeah sure, you learn some little quirks about them in support convos, their backstories are very cut and dry, that's hardly on the same level as Ramza.

    Now I'll touch on story telling more in depth, will also help cover the issue with the mains. Story transition for Fire Emblem games had always been rather bland, you get a short scene of the characters talking and jump straight away into the next battle sequence. It was "just enough", for you to understand why the battle is taken place. It doesn't try to do anything more. Again falls under delivery and presentation. Awakening was the first to attempt actual cutscenes in an attempt to change the delivery by improving the presentation of the story, whether it was successful or not is for another topic, but it's a step in the right direction. And Fates tried to improve upon it, the problem lies not with Kobayashi, but rather Nintendo's philosophy of "make the game first, fit the story in later", which is a great set of mind to build a game with great gameplay but narrative suffers for it. Other companies have managed to build rock solid gameplay but doesn't allow the narrative to suffer for it. Fates is taking things in the right direction, I'm only hoping they improve upon it with the next installment.

    Using some SRPGs as comparisons on narrative delivery and presentation; I'll start with an obscure one, tears to tiara. Fantastic example, the only SRPG that's ever made me legitimately shed a tear. Not only was it well written, the voice acting delivering it was top notch, with strong emotions that can pierce the viewer. It was a stereotypical Man vs Heaven theme, found commonly in games and anime, but the delivery and main character puts an entertaining and unique twist on things. If anyone here is familiar with games from Leaf, will know what I'm talking about, their stories are simply top notch and sets a really high bar. The Ogre Battle games, wow, I mean wow, if Fire Emblem wants to take some notes on how to make plot progression through protagonist choice, they just need to play the Ogre Battle games. Not onlly does important story choices effect how the narrative plays, sometimes small things can effect it to. And the narrative changes were massive, and they're not easy choices either, they put your sense of morals to the test. In any case, these examples have great, well written stories, that doesn't sacrifice anything for it.

    And finally supports, well what can I say about supports? a lot of that tie into secondary characters that joins your army. They were simple and fun, not much else to say about it. But, the main problem with supports to, is that it's the ONLY way to get to know a character that isn't a main in Fire Emblem. Despite not having supports, I'll use FFT as an example of how characters join you. Every NPC that joins you, joins you on good merit, and they all play a role in the narrative to a certain point, without taking focus away from the overall plot. They all fit in somehow and play a major role for the period you recruit them. For example, Rafa and Malak... wow, this one was good. Malak who's the twin brother of Rafa, was sent out to assassinate you, you had to deal with them a few times, and eventually you discover that the Baron who is Malak's owner, is a target objective that needs to be taken care of, and on the way you meet Rafa who helps you fight her own brother. And further down the narrative you learn about the two, how they were war orphans, trained to be tools for the Baron, and how when Rafa gets raped, is when she finally decided to run away. In comparison, you get, send A unit to talk to B unit, and you get a new unit. And if you bother to do the handful of supports, you may learn a thing or two.

    In the end, it doesn't matter if something is cliche or overdone, it's all about delivery and presentation, and in my opinion, it's been severely lack in past fire emblems, and only as of recent, IS had been trying to remedy it. And I commend them for it.

    Do you hate Avatar character(s)? If so, why?

    in Fire Emblem Fates

    Posted

    I've felt plenty of emotions playing Fire Emblem games. You've got me all wrong. (That's a direct quote too, so don't accuse me of putting words in your mouth).

    If you've never been affected by those moments, fine. If you play FE solely for the gameplay, or to be an army tactician, that's fine too! But don't try to dispute that the plot tries to make you feel emotions.

    Never said it didn't "Try", just said it was mediocre. Completely different.

    Fire Emblem narratives having problematic elements=/=No Fire Emblem game has done anything better than another narratively and therefore whatever happens in one is beyond criticism.

    And Kibayashi's role in Fates' development wouldn't have been advertised if there wasn't at least lip-service to the idea of pushing Fates' narrative.

    It's okay to criticize, but gotta be willing to acknowledge past wrongs too. But so many are blinded by nostalgia that they'll defend to the death over their favorite FE game's story, gameplay, whatever. And it needs to be constructive, to be able to appropriately compare one to another. If one should be more like another, should be able to explain, why, and why it'll be better. Opinions are fine within itself, but a 2 yr old is capable of opinion, but opinions with reasoning behind it, holds more weight. And allows for more constructive debate, otherwise it's just people bitch slapping each other with opinions.

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