Axie

i don't think any fire emblem game is ever boring in its entirety because of reasons not related to usability (so, path of radiance gets a reprieve from taking ages to get through it). the first few chapters of revelation are a rage-inducing chore, though. nightmarish until the mokushu chapter.

*war flashbacks of nergal opening the dragon's gate without ninian or nils in blazing blade endgame*

tomes aren't quite tellius horrible in fates but it's a bit of the same problems of tellius - weak units that use it right off the bat, and enemies having much more res than in other games. they even created ninjas with their huge res stats to make life harder for mages as if it was easy to begin with lol. at least the tomes themselves aren't bad, specially the special effect ones.

obviously all three fates games, with radiant dawn a close second (fourth?). the gameplay is challenging, each unit performs a different role even with reclassing involved, the maps are not very enemy phase-heavy, be it for good reasons (conquest, to a lesser extent also birthright) or bad reasons (revelation and its gimmicks), and the storyline is so bad you can't just tune it out because you are always staring at your 3DS going "WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIIIIIIIS". radiant dawn also requires your constant attention with its constantly changing rosters, healthy difficulty, and also complex storyline, but at least that one is mostly good.

armor knights shouldn't have one less movement to begin with. their low speed already gets the point across, and the existence of horse and flying units already puts all foot units at a disadvantage. units that are worse than other foot units are an entirely unnecessary concept.

i don't think weapon weight is necessary anymore because fates has showed us how you can balance weapons without it, but if it's going to stay, it certainly should be mitigated by dexterity and not strength (or constitution, dear god let that die). it makes sense and gives a new utility to a stat that needs it. weapon rank could have some minor effect too. also weapon weight shouldn't affect avoid, only attack speed. avoid penalties should be the fates way always.

this would also be great but it doesn't even need to go that far. just some "you know you sided with the evil guys, right? you are evil now. you know that, right?" is good. the way conquest absolves corrin and the nohrian royals of ANY moral shortcoming (and to be honest, garon as a villain is incredibly hollow because of revelation anyway) is preposterous.

happy new year everyone! i am not sure which direction IS plans on following for the franchise (i still get the feeling 3H, as much as it sold, didn't get as much talk outside the fandom as awakening or even fates? i was outside the fandom for a while and was even under the impression it didn't sell very well until i got back here), but they would be dumb to not follow the money. i'd rather get slightly worse games than, well, no games, which seemed like a real possibility in the DS era. i do wish IS decided to be a bit more daring with its storyline and characters again. fates, and apparently also 3H,was incredibly frustrating with how it desperately tries to make the player not feel bad for anything the main character does ever. you can always have your cake and eat it too. if you'reggoing to be ambitious and do route splits, give the player decisions to make, allow the player to feel like they are being kind of evil at some point. if you're not gonna commit to that, don't do that kind of route split, and at most do a ephraim/eirika shindig. gameplay-wise i have few observations other than keep the off-battle shenanigans to a minimum and never get rid of classic mode. otherwise, i welcome change and experimentation. new ideas never hurt, as long as you actually let the good ones stick (weapon weight should have stayed gone because fates absolutely nailed it for example).

awakening was trying to explore the perceived last opportunity of swiping money from fire emblem fans by expressing how previous fire emblem universes existed, in the most chaotic way possible. there. i guess if we remove all of that, we have a story of... idk, there are two wars and a time travelling villain and not much of a message? it's a very anemic story that counts on its previous references to impress, yet they also make it nonsensical. but at least it's something, which makes it a better story than BlaBla. blazing blade: the game that ends the exact the same way it starts, with some elibe desecration in the middle.

i love this game and wouldn't remove anyone because what is the negative of more characters? but i'd say the most superfluous ones are - merlinus. gameplay wise it's a dated and pointless chore, story wise he is a pointless bad copy of malledus. he can disappear entirely. - lot or wade. i know this is not the only game who does two early axe fighters but dear god did we not need even one this time. - saul and dorothy. a third staffbot and a second bow user (who joins in the same chapter as the third bow user anyway)? over a plot point yoder could have carried by himself? - trec. most other games gave us at least three cavaliers, so one of noah and trec isn't that superfluous, and noah recruits fir, so he stays. i am almost saying zelot is superfluous too, but i think a second prepromote this early might be fine. maybe marcus should have lost usefulness earlier though. - barthe. gwendolyn at least is a woman at a time where they didn't do many female characters, but barthe adds nothing. also he is just one letter away from bartre, and that's whack. - ogier. between deke, rutger and fir, all of whom i think are more relevant, not sure why he'd get to stay. - playable elffin. i feel like larum always being the playable dancer would have been fine since elffin shows up regardless? and larum isn't that irrelevant that we could have just cut her instead. - gonzales OR garret. we didn't truly need lilina showing off her inner caeda twice, i'd rather give her story relevance. i like gonzales more, but with geese joining around the same time it might make more gameplay sense to keep garret. - cass. i mean, great character, but also lol. that's already 10, without counting zelot, and there is a case for more if we wanted to be really mean and cut sin, because there isn't reeeeeally much relevance to him (way less than igrene, who some people want to cut), or go ahead and cut larum AND echidna instead of playable elffin. i love big rosters though, it adds to replayability.

oh fates question! will you do a different avatar for every game? i guess it doesn't change much for us readers but i got curious because i never do the branch of fate thing no matter how boring the first five chapters are lol also good lord i never quite realized how thoroughly awakening desecrated valentia lore, too, because that isn't as fresh on my mind. all of that for a story that isn't even good without it? god bless this silly game.

i wish fire emblem had an option of more elaborate map animations for people who do think animations add to the experience but find the standard animations to be too much to be constantly exposed to them. that would be my ideal setup. as it is, i do turn animations off even if i don't really enjoy playing without them either.

also the story awakening tells is stupid and nonsensical and would be better if it respected the building of the world it was set on even without any info dumping, so there

i also vote revelation-birthright-conquest because gameplay matters the most and it might be best to follow awakening with a game that is also badly designed but for entirely different reasons instead of the perpetually slighted birthright also you will have such fates storyline burnout by the time you hit conquest that it will be funny lol

conquest doesn't have THAT many non-rout/seize objectives (though most FEs don't and i am sure conquest is above average on the matter, people just act like it's almost a different new objective every chapter or something). birthright's maps aren't THAT open. this often repeated praise/criticism reads almost entirely as reactionary to how badly designed awakening's maps were, and birthright just happened to be slightly closer to awakening while still being nothing like it at all. objectives are overrated anyway. BinBla is entirely seize and that's fine, gaidens aside. it would be ideal to have multiple objectives but it's better to have well designed maps around said objective than badly designed multiple objectives.

i can't even imagine playing T776 without safy or SD without lena (sure SD has reclassing but she already has the weapon rank for warp and hammerne is personal to her). best two staffbots of the franchise without a doubt. other honourable mentions go to clarine (she has a horse and is repellent - gameplay-wise and also personality-wise, which is a positive too), tina (thief staff!!), and all of the gaiden/echoes clerics that learn warp (silque and tatiana?). erinys and elincia are very competent with staves but i do see them as combat units first.

as much as i love to endlessly shit on BlaBla's catastrophe of a script and how it's an unjustifiable mess in every aspect, i actually have a new unpopular opinion to add birthright is underrated in its gameplay AND conquest isn't even some high point of map design for the franchise as i see it get treated by the fandom. tears??? i think both are closer in the gameplay aspect than anyone gives them credit for, and both are pretty good, probably above average for the franchise. not sure which fire emblem game has the best map design, actually. maybe it is just conquest, but it would be close, and then i'd calmly accept birthright as second best. on the other hand, i also think birthright's storyline has an argument for being almost as disastrous as conquest's, which gets more attention for being horrible, so i am not sure which of the two games i like better overall.

the biggest change a remake needs to do, and the only one i feel is absolutely necessary, is an overhaul of the maps. basically every castle seize could be its own chapter, and then some indoor chapters could be added instead of that action being confined to text. one time i did the count in my head and i think we end up with anything from 15 to 19 chapters for both gen 1 and gen 2. with that done, the following changes are optional, but i would like them: - changing the class of some characters, and particularly do something about the excess of horse units, which would be unnecessary. in particular, seliph wouldn't need to promote into a horse. - add modern weapon ranks. holy blood could instead work like prowess/faire skills from 3H, while also adding a weapon rank head start for the character. - this also means new weapons would need to be added, specially in the realm of magic tomes which are sorely lacking in variety. a full overhaul of might, hit and weight stats for all weapons is needed too, so it's not sword emblem again. i wish weight didn't exist because fates did it best, but i am resigned it would stay in a remake. - make levels work as the standard 20/20 with actual promotion bonuses. some pre-promotes could stand to be higher levelled unpromoted units this way, like sigurd and quan. - not sure rings need to be removed because i like them, but consumables absolutely need to be added. vulneraries, stat boosters, etc. one of the things i hated the most in genealogy was having to resort to those churches who stole my money lmao. - speaking of money, personal money to the extent it existed in genealogy is whack. at the very least, if items and money are going to remain personal, allow characters to give limited amounts of money to each other without being lovers or a thief. also we should be able to pick how much money we are giving. - SPEAKING OF LOVERS obviously give us a support system, not only for added script, but also so we actually choose our couples instead of having them automatically happen sometimes even when we want replacements, who should obviously stay. - give us a gen 1 avatar with one same gender kid plus opposite gender replacement if they die single in gen 1. - holy weapons should be usable by minor blood characters, with reduced might and stat bonuses. those bonuses should be nerfed anyway, specially the book of naga. it could kill an enemy by itself, and that's kind of fucked up lol. also they shouldn't ever be inherited, if that mechanic were to stay. forseti in chapter 6 is Too Much.

genealogy is already fanservice central as it is and people only don't call it like it is because it's an old game (tears?), might as well add an avatar (plus one kid and replacement) i don't see why one of the 1st gen women can't have three kids if she marries the male avatar. also the nature of this game ensures we can't have the avatar marrying a child since the avatar would (or should) be 1st gen only

NO not missing Best Boy Inigo for this entire run 😔✊🏻 also this discussion about awakening's writing merits has become entirely inscrutable

merry christmas dude!!!! the valm arc is so preciously pointless. and it's still the third of awakening that least turns our brains into powder trying to understand it. looking forward to it. i had an idea of how ridiculous this game's level progression is because of how easily i could grind basically every character in normal, but i am still shocked at how, in lunatic, your avatar went tactician > mercenary > bow knight > dark flier and got bowbreaker AND galeforce in 13 chapters. you do need to bring the balance category back. maybe named "cheeseability" so awakening is solidly down at the mariana trench, and then like dark/shadow dragon right above it because warpskip, and then... something?

oh, that line is better. it actually succeeds in adding some (too little too late) depth to emmeryn. so now the "no reaction" line is bad AND a weird localisation decision.

i am sorry but this is a catastrophically empty point and i am usually on the "don't nitpick the script and call it bad writing" camp lmao emmeryn's line has no point to exist because she is not supposed to even think she is wrong because of a lack of reaction to something she didn't do yet. you can't just take any bad characterisation and say "well that's the point" and call it a day. the line tries to add nuance and depth to emmeryn and instead actively detracts from whatever we have of her character, which already sucks, to be honest. it makes her look dumb(er).

i am lost i think? i do agree, as i have said before, with the point raised that minor logical inconsistencies in a script do not qualify as bad writing or storytelling and that focus really should be on the rules the built world sets for itself. however, that said, awakening fails at that at basically every turn lol. the chrom apologising thing i actually think is kind of minor in the grand scheme of why awakening's writing is busted, but it's still stupid. i don't even think it's necessarily out of character for chrom, i just think it's stupid that the game doesn't care to question emmeryn's ways, and specially not through chrom. it made for a pretty anemic first third of the story.

this page has too much text when it can be condensed as "basic strategy beats no strategy". yeah, weapon triangle is basic and simple to understand and employ. it being there is still a layer of strategy. what do we gain from removing it? four pages in, not one satisfying answer to that.