Slumber

As @Jotari mentioned, if it's in the game, then the game is built around it being there. You're now asking me to just pretend a core feature of the game doesn't exist. The game will keep tossing Friend and Heart seals at me, and encouraging me to reclass. It's just that easy, right? Just ignore it! Yeah. Okay. The people who don't like the kid units in Fates shouldn't complain, either. Just pretend the kids aren't there. I'd rather argue about how the system could work better, or argue whether the feature even really has a place in the series, which is the point of this thread. Do I want it back, and if so, how should it come back? Or is it even worth it for it to come back?

I'm gonna be 100% honest here. In a post-Awakening world, I'm reasonably positive that a majority of the new Fire Emblem Fanbase couldn't give two fucks about the gameplay and are mostly in it for the waifu/husbando pairing. Look at Shadows of Valentina reviews. Most of the reviews I saw complained about things like not being able to hook up an underage priestess with a gruff pirate twice her age, not that said gruff pirate couldn't prance around in a tunic and throw fireballs(Without DLC or Dreadfighter looping at least). For the actual gameplay complaints that were there, most were pretty divorced from reclassing. Most knocks against SoV were things like dungeons not being all that fleshed out, maps and objectives being really dull, and a limited selection of total playable classes, NOT that you couldn't freely swap between classes. I really, really doubt that anyone besides the really hardcore players even play around with reclassing all that much, and I don't think those people make up that much of the new Fire Emblem crowd. It's likely either older FE fans who do have an inherent desire to play around with new FE mechanics(Whether they like them or not) or new players who got hooked on things that weren't reclassing and wanted to know all they could about the games. And between those, I wouldn't argue one was bigger than the other. Hell, a complaint I saw for SoV that I'm pretty positive is waaaaay more central to a lot of new players' enjoyment than reclassing is an Avatar. I saw a lot of reviews mention that it's disappointing that there wasn't a My Unit, but that they understood since it was a remake. If you got rid of reclassing and kept an Avatar unit(That would be the only unit that you could reclass), I don't even think most of the new FE Fanbase would even notice anything had changed. And classes add a lot to do with unit identity. What's Effie as a unit? You can't say shit about her specifically beyond maybe that she has a high strength growth. She's a Knight who can reclass into a Troubadour. She has two classes on wildly different ends of the spectrum that don't even really rely on her main stat. Knight gets more out of it, but that's generally not why you want a Knight and you don't even really need anything to be a solid healer. She's just kind of a blur and will just function kind of alright in either class set. But you can turn other units into these things and they'll probably be fine as them, too. Now what can you say about Gwendolyn in FE6? I mean, it will all be negative, but you can say an awful lot about her as a unit based on her class, and her in her class relative to Bors, Barthe and Douglas. She probably leaves much more of an impression on most people as a unit than Effie does. Regardless of if a unit is good or bad in the pre-Awakening games, there's almost always something pertaining to their class that gets said when people talk about them. Whole archetypes are built around unit identity. The skill and class-centric style of the newer games mutes this a lot. If there is unit identity, a lot more of it seems to be tied to what a unit can't do or what a unit isn't, which usually ends up being a much broader defining process. "This unit isnt this, this or this and they can't do this or this because they don't have access to this or this". It's a lot harder to nail down what exactly a unit is. I've played all 3 paths of Fates and Conquest twice and I can't say jackshit about Silas as a unit beyond just the classes/skills he has access to. I don't know what makes any of the Butler/Maids all that different from one another besides when they show up.

Because Fire Emblem's done what I've enjoyed before, and it did it for about 15 years before it changed how it handled core gameplay mechanics that I saw as key to the identity of the franchise and drove me away. And I'm not saying "RAW RAW FIRE EMBLEM SHOULD NEVER CHANGE YOU DAMN KIDS STOP PLAYING ON MY LAWN", but I am saying that I don't think IS thought through these changes all that well, hence why Fates was a lost stricter in regards to reclassing(To some degree. Yes, through Friend and Heart seals you do ultimately get more flexibility compared to Awakening, but there's a pretty strict compromise that goes with this) than Awakening was, which was reclass-city. Too much freedom with reclassing is a bad thing, and as goofy and whacky as it could be in Awakening, if you did it enough, or just found the OP classes and skills(Like, say Sorcerers or skills like Galeforce/Vengeance), the structure of the game completely snapped in half. At a certain point, a game where the selling point was the characters and how they could die, it suddenly didn't matter at all who these units were in gameplay. Your army would just become a blurry mix of whatever broken shit was in Awakening, and using whoever could access it. Fates scaled this back quite a bit, nerfing reclassing and nixing/nerfing the hilariously broken skills and classes, but your army would still just become an amorphous blob at some point. Didn't really matter who was doing what, or if your favorite units weren't performing as you expected. Even your worst performer likely had access to something that would fix them in a brisk period of time. Which is why I, and I'm assuming most of the people in this thread who think reclassing should be scaled back even more or just flat out removed, don't like how the newer games have handled this. Unit identity is largely gone and it really doesn't matter who you use anymore, as basically anyone can do anything. This is fundamentally just not Fire Emblem to me. Fire Emblem, to me, was a strategy game where you were given a bunch of tools and you weren't sure if the tools you were given would be the tools you expected to need at the end of the game. There was a certain appeal to the idea that things might not work out how you wanted, and there wasn't so much is a safety net. Obviously these games are far from impossible and you can generally use whoever, but if Rutger keeps getting strength screwed, you have to be REALLY stubborn to keep using him and relying on him. You only get so many promotion items in FE6, and even if you goes against your plans starting the game, at some point, whether it becomes obvious or not, it'll probably be smarter to use an alternative instead of keep trying with Rutger. Which is where a lot of variations in runs comes in. I'm not sure I'm seeing the correlation of "Fates sold better than every other Fire Emblem, meaning more people must be replaying it more than other Fire Emblems". If anything, going by how generally gamers don't finish most games they buy, this just means that there are more people out there who haven't even finished Fates than any other Fire Emblem. Even if they did, more people buying it doesn't go against what you or I have said. It could just mean that there are a bunch of people going "Well, I don't want to lose all of my MyCastle progress", and just having a single 200 run like I said. Or it could mean that there are 1,999,999 people out there constantly replaying it and never getting tired of it, and I'M the outlier. Or people could have just beaten the game once(Or three times, again, depending on how you think about the 3 routes in Fates) at a reasonable pace and moved on. The only thing that we actually know is just that more people than ever before have given Nintendo money for a Fire Emblem game, and that's all the sales tell us about the game.

See, I don't see reclassing options as adding replay value. I find Awakening less replayable than Fates even though Awakening has more reclassing, and I've only played through Fates twice(Or 4 times if you wanna count each version). Meanwhile, I've played 4-10 way more than either, and it's not just because they're older. I've probably played 5, 6 and 7 more times since Awakening came out than I have played Awakening. Somebody said this earlier, and I agree with it 100%. In Awakening and Fates, additions like reclassing doesn't add replayability. It just makes you want to never stop playing the same save file. Which is why I have a 100 hour+ Awakening playthrough and one file each in Rev/BR/CQ that I'll never delete, permanently eating up a slot. And I'm starting to understand why. Games without reclassing force you to change if something goes wrong. A unit you typically use gets RNG screwed and is borderline unusable or dies, and you have to pick an alternative. You have to adopt a different playstyle, which keeps things fresh from playthrough to playthrough. My most recent FE6 playthrough was much different than my first or second. Games with reclassing force you to change the game. And in these cases, chances are, your personal preferences don't change nearly as much if the game's not incentivizing you to do anything differently. These games give you the tools so that your experience always goes the way you want, which doesn't do much to change how the game is played from run to run. If a unit you typically use starts to suck, switching to a class with better bases and getting good skills will salvage them you're back on track with a little effort. These games don't take you out of your comfort zone, and it's way less interesting to play through the games again, IMO. Hence why my first and most recent Awakening playthroughs more or less ended the exact same ways. These games need structure and rigidity to some degree. If more options was inherently better, there'd be no reason anyone would play anything besides things like Minecraft, Roblox, Gary's Mod, and custom Doom WADs. Everyone would play RPG Maker instead of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. And Disgaea would be undisputedly the king of SRPGs.

Him and Charlotte are two examples of me going "Wow, how the hell is IS gonna write about this?" where I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, Charlotte is mostly because she's the sole case of self-aware fanservice of the Fateswakening era and not so much because "OH WOW, CHARLOTTE IS SO COOL", whereas Forrest I thought was a bit more interesting. "Yeah, I'm a dude and I'm beautiful, I like wearing womens' clothing and I like chicks. DEAL WITH IT." Was at least somewhat a breath of fresh air. He wasn't demure, and he wasn't super overtly feminine despite looking like it, and he chews out his dad for being ashamed of him. He was clearly just a guy who just liked dressing up like a woman, and the game put him in a position where he could do that and be the one saying "And that's okay.". For as progressive as Fates tried to be, Forrest was the only one where it felt like they got close or hit the mark. It might just be that I'm amazed that they tried to say something and actually kind of succeeded with Fates, but yeah. Forrest is cool in my book. Can't speak on his Heirs of Fate portrayal, because I never bothered with it. It felt like a half-assed attempt to recreate alternate future DLC from Awakening that was actually interesting.

I've always wanted Mt. Silver from Pokemon. It's one of the most climactic settings in the series, and the only time two protagonists face off with any sort of narrative behind it. If they're not gonna have Red/"Pokemon Trainer" in the games anymore, having him in the background facing off with Gold/Ethan, with their battle spilling over into stage hazards would be neat.

I dunno. I thought Forrest was pretty cool, and he was handled a lot better than the other... Uh, non-hetero characters of Fates(I know Forrest isn't gay or transexual or anything, just that he enjoys womens' clothing). He came off as having a lot of character and his supports with Leo always made it seem like it positioned Forrest in the right, and Leo in the wrong, which was nice. Libra, meanwhile, always came off as the most milquetoast and boring of the "Dude looks like a lady" characters. Can't say I recall a single thing about him that was interesting beyond him being very devoted to Emmeryn and House Ylisse, which was a character detail that lost its kick when, you know, Emmeryn became a non-entity.

I might do that, actually. See which gets me a lower turn count. I'm far from an FE5 LTCer, though, so variations might be a result of many things beyond using Safy or Orsin. Admittedly I forgot that warp strats can be really helpful on 12x, but I don't really think it's necessary for 12. Extra sleep staff uses can be nice, but I honestly don't think it's anywhere close to being a life saver for later bosses like on chapter 20/21.

Might be the better way to go about it. Make reclassing a DLC thing. And honestly, as much as I harp on the game, I think Sacred Stones did best with the villager/trainee concept*. Amelia, Ross and Ewan all still had some level of unit identity while still being flexible with their class choices. If they had a handful of villagers/trainees like that in the next FE, I wouldn't complain. *except the part where Amelia and Ewan were dogshit, and Ross was at best just okay. Obviously giving villagers bases that allowed them to be used right off the bat, and growths that encouraged use would go a long way. If the next FE has a "villager" branch for every set of classes, then pitchforks that reclasses every character into their base villager class might be fun. AND it wouldn't completely destroy unit identity.

Because it just immediately cheapens whatever narrative and world they try to craft when they heavily rely on fanservice. It just kills the image of the game. It makes no fucking sense 99% of the time. The 1% is with dancers, where yeah, fanservice makes a hit of sense. But Paladins riding around in thongs, insanely dumb battle armor for Wyvern riders, the weird battle underwear that Fighters and Bandits wear? And you can just hear the boardroom talk when it's so blatant. "What's an easy way to sell this game to 12 year old boys and sad lonely otaku?" "Trends show that 12 year old boys and sad lonely otaku love those terrible, dumb wish fulfillment anime, and those are chock-full of terrible, over the top fanservice." "WELL, CRAM THAT SHIT IN THERE! AND PUT A FUCKING BEACH EPISODE IN BECAUSE I LOVE MONEY!" The long and short of it is, if the people making the game don't give two shits about the presentation of their game, then I won't give two shits about the presentation of their game. And the worst part is, it didn't used to be like this. I used to like the presentation of Fire Emblem. But Fates and Heroes took that and absolutely ruined it. The Fire Emblem I used to enjoy is not the Fire Emblem most of the gaming world is aware of, and I'm not talking about gameplay here.

Here's the thing though; There's really not much you can do with Safy beyond repair and Magic Up, which admittedly can be very good at times. The one thing you need her C rank for is Physic. As nice as Physic is... This is a game where healing items are plentiful, you can steal them by the dozen, and they heal all HP. Nanna's not a great healer, but she can generally hang on the frontline while Safy can't. She might not be able to heal at a distance, but she can hang out up front and heal, which isn't that much of a step down. The only time where it is is when a unit is so far out(Say... Orsin) that even a frontline healer won't help and you have no healing items, and in that kind of case, that's your own fuck up, and not really one you want/need Safy for to fix. By mid-game when you really do want at least a C rank staffer, Salem shows up and can fill in for Safy for everything except some Rescue strats(And supposing Safy hasn't promoted, he'll also be frontline ready, too). Which are fine, but a little too niche to be like "Oh yeah, can't live without Safy". And by the time staves reach height effectiveness and Warps start popping up, Sleuf/Cyas aren't that far away, and Sara practically begs you to use her to get her up to speed. So again, back to the point, there are generally units who can staff as good as Safy and it isn't spaced out too crazily. Nobody outside of maybe Sety or Galzus can kill stuff as good as Orsin. From chapter 1 til Sety shows up, Orsin is basically unrivaled.

Neat artwork. The cats make me think of some sort of cat based D&D table top games. Kind of like Mice and Mystics, but with cats. I've been meaning to do the same with my guitar playing, but I keep coming up with reasons to not stream and stuff. So if I have any advice: Don't make excuses, just stream and hope it keeps you inspired.

Some memories are best left dead at the bottom of a deep lake.

I do agree that Gen 2 feels very underdeveloped compared to Gen 1. Probably due to the fact that it's literally 2 sets of characters, leading to only static characters like Leif and Aless feeling "developed". Even then, Seliph feels pretty damn bland compared to those two. The villains of Gen 2, also static characters, feel a bit more rounded by comparison. Mostly Ishtar and the older version of Arvis.

Yes. Very much so. Get his seed and make his wife a single mother.

Hector. Lyn's cool but kinda irrelevant. Erika's alright but makes some dumb decisions. Roy and Eliwood are both milquetoast as fuck. Ephraim is the biggest Gary Stu in the franchise. Hector as the musclehead military genius with a soft center is more appealing to me than the alternatives. Plus, the idea that he's actually the one who discovers what Nergal's whole deal is, and not the more diligent Eliwood, was always interesting to me.

Boxer briefs. The best of both worlds. But I tend to just hang out in boxers, because that's as close as you can get to not wearing underwear while still covering up. Just going to ignore everything not relevant to the main question.

Kindred spirits, you and I.

40-50

The damn villages argument. You're not supposed to feel rushed to save them. Most of them give relatively minor gold, the the ones that don't take 10 turns before the reward is gone. Things like the gold are extra incentive to do better, but if you can't save them and get a bigger reward, it's no big deal. And there are ways to balance the game so that mounted units don't run rampant without removing the big maps. They could be streamlined and it could be easier, but I am pretty against removing the big maps entirely.

I miss those weird promotional demo disks they used to give out. I don't think I've had chain pizza since Domino's/Pizza Hut stopped giving those out.

Chapter 8 of FE6 gives us 2. Gwendolyn, the Knight who wanted to be a Mercenary(Seriously, Gwendolyn would be a decent Soldier/Halbredier if they make that class playable in FE6 Echoes and give Wendy at least 3-4 levels) and Barthe, the Knight who wanted to be a rock.

Though that does bring up that I do think I would like an expanded castle defense system in an FE4 Echoes. I said that it'd be neat if they could make each castle have an indoor section where you have to get through more units before making it to the throne, as opposed to just killing the units guarding the gates and boom, you're instantly at the throne. Maybe you could do something like a Defense chapter every time an enemy enters the castle. There is a lot to digest with this idea, so I don't know how exactly I'd try to make it work right now, but I think it'd help break up some of the monotony of FE4, and foot units getting a buff indoors might help them a bit.

Crash Bandicoot was more of my childhood, but I've always had a soft spot for Spyro, too. I reread my first post in this thread and got upset at myself. Thankfully they're keeping true to Spyro's original design.

It could be.