BZL8
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Posts posted by BZL8
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21 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:
Honestly, what you described could easily be something you could use for Lucina's Future as a game. There is really nothing bleaker than Lucina's future, and having the characters there deal with that hellscape is something I want to see more of.
The thing is though (your mileage might vary), is that something like Lucina's Future comes no where close to what hell a Cormac McCarthy-like setting would be. You thought Grima or Loptyr/Loptous was nasty? Try Judge Holden, a human villain who feels more like evil incarnate himself, or Anton Chigurh, an assassin that feels more like an unstoppable force of nature than a regular old assassin. Those villains, are arguably more terrifying than an evil dragon. The scenes of violence in a McCarthy setting is more terrifying than any violence in a Fire Emblem game. The worlds of Cormac McCarthy are haunting because they show nothing but humanity at its very worst or show few small sources of light in an otherwise dark world. I personally want to see how a usual FE cast would respond to such a setting.
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11 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:
....god I hope not...
It would be an execution thing. It would have to be done correctly, organically, and respectfully to the franchise. I actually think Fates with its Birthright/Conquest split and the whole light-vs-dark duality theme would have been the perfect game to give it an experimental try.
Like they could have purposefully gone out of their way to make Birthright the most light, fluffy, upbeat, unicorns-and-rainbows installment in the history of Fire Emblem.
And then as a point of contrast--with Conquest just gone full grimdark.
(i.e. imagine a reworking of the plot of conquest where there's absolutely no pretense of Corrin is a good person and trying to do the right thing here, with all the the storytelling problems that premise caused within the context of what Corrin actually does in Conquest. Corrin in this imagining of conquest is unambiguously and unapologetically evil. There's no pretense of "FOR THE GREATER GOOD!"--you're playing the villains. You're sacking towns, massacring entire populations, and crushing the hopes and dreams of the hero-prince so badly that the game ends with him killing himself in shame and despair. Oh btw--you have this weird masochistic fetishy thing going on with "Big Sister." One of your Lord Brother's most elite and respected retainers is a bone-fide serial killer. Annnnndddd YOUR retainers are slave-girls in maid costumes with the all the connotations THAT entails, in your indentured service because you demanded that a particularly troublesome and rebellious village chieftain produce his daughters as "tribute." Thats not a trope or a silly moment or a fanservice thing--thats just par-for-the-course on how dark this story is gonna get. Now lets talk about the scene where you put down the rebellion in Cheve...)
...there's a more interesting story then what we actually got in Conquest...
*sigh* so many missed opportunities in that game. Fates could have been so spectacular it they stuck to their original concept and just ran with it.
Well, not necessarily by making the protagonist a full-blown edgy villain. I would rather see a traditional Fire Emblem lord and cast be displaced in a brutal, bleak setting that is crawling with a mixture of Cormac McCarthy-esque villains (think Judge Holden and Anton Chigurh) and Genealogy schemers like Arvis and seeing how they respond to such a brutal setting (Think Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, a traditional archetypal Western hero, being displaced in the bleakness and violent world of "No Country For Old Men"). I pretty much want Genealogy's first half, but to an even more extreme extent. I voiced this idea in a different thread, and I acknowledge it may not fly well with some.
When I think about it though, tossing Corrin in a world that is more like "No Country For Old Men" would be pretty similar to how Sheriff Bell is displaced in his setting.
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Having recently read Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" and "No Country For Old Men", as well as watching the Coen Brothers' adaptation of the latter, I can't help but wonder how a McCarthy-esque Fire Emblem installment would turn out. Everything from the story, archetypes, and characters would be significantly changed in the bleak, brutal setting and characterizations that Cormac is often known for.
That said, while I personally want to see a very dark and mature installment, I am not sure everyone would be on board.
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Regarding story or gameplay, I personally lean towards story more, though the latter also plays a factor as well. I will admit, that my ideas for story may not sit well with some (not to mention, I have read some works by Cormac McCarthy recently, so they are fresh in my mind).
- Characters and themes over political intrigue, complex story, and lore: I don't care about byzantine lore, story, or politics. For me, very complex characters are what matter the most. Even if it may mean reducing the cast (both playable and non-playable), I personally would rather take 20 strongly-written characters over 50 poorly-written ones.
- Displace characters in a bleak, brutal world (Cormac McCarthy-esque): If Genealogy of the Holy War displaced Sigurd and co. by placing them in a world that is less like Fire Emblem and more like George R.R. Martin's, my personal wish is to have the characters of Three Houses be displaced in a world that feels more like Cormac McCarthy's. This would interesting to see since a lot of long time story and character traditions and standards in the Fire Emblem series would either be deconstructed, twisted, and/or dismantled in a McCarthy-like setting. Like Ed Tom Bell of "No Country For Old Men", a Classical Western character displaced in a brutal Western setting who must to the terms with the world he is in, and Llewellyn Moss, a traditional hero who perceives the conflict he is in as black and white when in reality it is black and grey, I would like to see traditional FE characters be displaced in a brutal setting and how they respond and/or come to terms with the world they are in. (Think Genealogy's 1st half, but an even more extreme setting).
- Who says an ending must be happy?: It would be interesting to see a world where the protagonists and the armies don't get what they want. This might be a big no from long-time fans, but I personally want to see one. If done and well-executed in conjunction with the above two points, this could be extremely effective.
- The villains shouldn't be supernatural deities or dragons, but rather human characters who feel more like forces of nature/evil: Another thing from Cormac McCarthy's works is that many of his villains are humans that feel like unstoppable forces of nature (Anton Chigurh) or even evil incarnate (Judge Holden from "Blood Meridian"). Having villains like those would shake up the narrative significantly.
- I am okay with an Avatar but make moral and ethical choices and actions more difficult for the player (to the point of discomfort): Having an Avatar character can be extremely effective if used correctly in conjunction with the story. Have the player make extremely difficult choices that forces them to think. Forcing the Avatar and thus the player to make extremely difficult moral and ethical choices in the narrative is probably the best way for the Avatar to be handled in the series IMO.
All of these would shake up the Fire Emblem series to its core. For better or worse, these ideas would make for a very interesting installment.
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A user on ResetEra made a post that may be of interest for this topic.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/my-concern-for-fire-emblem-three-houses-it-becomes-a-jrpg.80331/
QuoteAnd no longer a SRPG. What I mean by this is that the new Fire Emblem basically ditches the chapter based progression like most older Fire Emblem and Conquest in favor of open world style with world map and ability to grind exp easily from regular encounters, seen in Sacred Stones, Awakening and Echoes. In my opinion Fire Emblem no longer feels like a tactical strategy by giving players the freedom to grind with ease. It's just becoming like a standard JRPG welfare of winning fights through bigger numbers instead of using strategy. Some people likes grinding, so I like the way Conquest did with dlc for that, keeping the main campaign a series of challenging, fair battle of wits and some luck.
Unfortunately, with how they allow players to roam the towns in Three Houses, I think my worst concerns of the game will likely just come true. :(Personally, I think it is too early to make a judgement on Three Houses.
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I am not expecting too much on the graphical side of things, though frame rate issues should be generally resolved by release. Bear in mind that this is IntSys and the Fire Emblem team's first dive into a HD Fire Emblem game and the first FE console game since Radiant Dawn. I can imagine the transition from 3DS to Switch being very daunting for employees on the team who don't have a lot of experience on console-level games. I wouldn't be surprised if some work on the game is being outsourced to other development teams (like some of Breath of the Wild being handled by Monolith Soft). As for cutscenes, if Khara's primary focus is on the new Evangelion movie, don't expect too much effort on them.
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1 hour ago, Book Bro said:
That's all wrong though. First of all, in SoV there were also scenes where the portraits just appeared in small boxes inside the text boxes. Same thing happened in RD. By extension, Three Houses will probably also alternate between having the smaller portraits for smaller scenes and full portraits for important scenes. The Tellius games also used hand-drawn backgrounds with full portraits in important scenes without the SoV style blurring and it didn't look ugly. Three Houses may/could do the same and it would be fine.
The point that TH will probably have more scenes with the 3D models and less with the 2D portraits is on to something, but linking that to the art style doesn't make any sense. There's plenty of games where you only see characters' full portraits in one menu (Bravely series and Octopath Traveler come to mind) and that doesn't mean they have a simpler art style or are less detailed. Saying Hidari wouldn't have worked because all the details would be hidden is odd fundamentally but also because we most likely will see the full portraits several times in the game, if SoV and Tellius serve as a reference in any way.
Two words: art direction. I feel Hidari wouldn't work is because his "watercolor-esque" art wouldn't mesh well with the notably grittier art direction of "Three Houses". If Kurahana's artwork clashed with the grittier aesthetic, the difference would be very noticeable and would raise greater criticism. That said, I don't feel Kurahana's work doesn't clash with the FE16's art direction. No matter how much effort goes into the artwork, the details in the artwork don't matter if the character art already clashes with the aesthetic.
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4 hours ago, Goesbyrem said:
Please, don't get me wrong, I believe They should cycle out artists too, but will all due respect saying "The art is too good, and it'll take away from the game" is a really weak argument to me, And having a Character portrait doesn't take away from anything in the visual narrative of a game rarely ever (i mean, look at any other RPG ever), I hold my opinion of the character model animations for dialogue as it hasn't be displayed yet, but going off of previous fire emblem games 3d animations it seems direly lukewarm.
(mind you only 3 of the recent games have been able to pull off 3d model animation.)
What I interpreted was "The art isn't as emphasized much as the 3DS games because it is no longer that essential in a console-level game". What the Redditor probably meant was that Hidari's incredible effort on Echoes wouldn't have been fully appreciated had the game been a console-game. If you want me to elaborate on this, I'd have to write a massive post on the differences in presentation in various visual mediums. In short, various visual mediums emphasize different parts in presentation and static character art like Hidari's best shine in a handheld interactive medium.
Bear in mind that 3D Model animation and its resources are best put to use and better presented in a console-level game than in a handheld-game (assuming the three recent games you mentioned are Awakening, Fates, and Echoes). If free-roaming is any indication, there is a greater amount of resources being put on 3D animation in "Three Houses" than in the 3DS titles.
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It's hard to gauge character personalities when we only have a trailer with a few quotes from Edelgard and character design to judge from. I'll hold my thoughts on the characters and their personalities until more information comes. So far, their designs are fine IMO. I like Edelgard's design more though.
As for the quality of the character designs, this Reddit post pretty much sums up my thoughts. I personally prefer having a different artist for each installment so having Chinatsu Kurahana on board is a plus in my books. Won't judge the quality of the anime cutscenes (Khara?) until I see more footage.
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Cool. Greg Chun, the music vocal director on Super Mario Odyssey (as well as the voice of Ike, Lukas, and Ephraim), also worked on the song with Cup of Tea Productions for this game as well.
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9 hours ago, Jotari said:
I'd be very anxious about such a project. It takes really good writing to pull off black comedy well and my fate in modern IS is shaky at best.
Ultimately boils down to finding the right collaboration in videogame development. My idea is definitely in the far-fetched department since it would most likely require a "story-first, character-second" focus rather than the usual "character-first, story-second" approach that the series usually uses. For something like Fire Emblem, it is very easy to write a very good story that focuses solely on a select few at the expense of many other characters (case in point: Radiant Dawn). That is something I feel is a double-edged sword for the way the series handles writing.
If people want better stories, I feel the only way is to significantly cut down the number of playable characters in the game (A game with the size of Gaiden/Echoes roster (<25 characters) with the length and scope of Radiant Dawn (38 chapters, maybe even more) is something I would like to see). I realize the best stories in the "short-term" medium (movies, theater, and videogames) are those that focus on a small cast rather than a large cast.
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1 hour ago, Collindew16 said:
Just curious, what kind of matters do you think would make it a "black comedy"? I feel that some of the background matters in these games can be seen as fairly dark. I feel that some darker matters could put the games age ratting at risk, just like how Ace Attorney Dual Destinies ended up with a M rating due to the dark events that happened in some of these cases (although this might not be a fair comparison).
By "dark matters", I sort of meant to say themes. I was thinking of social hegemony, war paranoia, and the human ability to distort, create harm and self-destruct (Yeah, pretty dark things, even more so than Genealogy). The idea sprang into my mind after seeing "Dr. Strangelove", which dealt with Cold War nuclear paranoia that gripped the world, and "Get Out", which explored racial hegemony in modern American society.
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Part of me wanted to see a black comedy "Fire Emblem", an installment that appears to be light-hearted and comedic, but has dark matters running behind the scenes.
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We have a "Devilman Crybaby" reunion on our hands with Cristina, Kyle, and now Griffin in the English version. And I just learned that Griffin also voices the Fate/Grand Order protagonist in "First Order". A little voice acting joke there, Nintendo?
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8 minutes ago, Serea-chan said:
https://gamingintel.com/2018/05/09/e3-2018-unannounced-games-leaked/
This is from Wal-Mart in Canada, a supposed E3 line-up of games. The image is so small I can't make out most of the titles.Jossed. Fire Emblem is not any of the listed titles. A clearer image is from the source:
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Credits updated. Info is based on what the dataminers were gathering, so some stuff might be wrong.
Helbindi:
JP: Kazuya Nakai (Toushirou Hijikata from Gintama)
EN: Raymond K. Essel
Julius:
JP: Takahiro Sakurai (Lukas, Eliwood)
EN: Griffin Burns (Akira Fudo from Devilman Crybaby)
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JP Seiyuus:
Ares: Kazuyuki Okitsu (Jonathan Joestar from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)
Lene: Mikako Takahashi (Olwen)
Ishtar: Mai Kadowaki (Myrrh)
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I remember reading an interview with a prominent screenwriter who said, in his own experience, what tends to work on a story and/or character treatment never works on a script. I wonder if Fates was a victim of that, even though that writer was speaking from a film point-of-view.
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Datamine dropped.
Male Kana: Sandy Fox (Sailor Chibi Moon from Sailor Moon) replaces Laura Faye Smith
Kaze: Xander Mobus replaces David Stanbra
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24 minutes ago, SuperNova125 said:
Really? I had heard that before famicom wars IS did that kind of stuff but I thought that they had stopped after they started making games.
I wonder when they began working on stuff like the characters, music and story. And when they moved on to actual development.
Nope. To this day, IS still produces development tools and kits for Nintendo and third-party developers for Nintendo consoles and devices. Most tend to see IS as a game developer, but IS is also Nintendo's primary dev-kit producer.
Actual development probably started after IS produced and distributed the first Switch dev-kits to developers. Probably even before if they really knew a lot about the Switch specs and capabilities before hand. Pre-production, on the other hand, I would say after the active development cycle for "Fates", but "Echoes" and "Heroes" throws a wrench in the pipeworks as to when IS worked on FE16 during its pre-production phase.
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On the topic of development kits, Intelligent Systems is responsible for producing and distributing development kits for Nintendo (IS is more of an engineering/development firm than a game studio). The idea of them not having access to the dev kits seems rather strange, since they would likely be the first company to be aware of the tech specs and capabilities of the Switch. If they couldn't work on a Switch game immediately, it would likely been that the design and capabilities of the Switch was not fully finalized.
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Some thoughts:
- Ah, the sadist Sougo Okita has turned up in Heroes! When are we getting the rest of the Shinsengumi?
- Bit strange how Erin Fitzgerald didn't reprise Olwen. I presume its either scheduling constraints or union shenanigans.
- Not 100% sold on Roye's take on Leif, will need more voice lines.
- Alicia Stratten has shown up again! This time with full voice lines, we might be able to identify her.
- I wonder who voices Saias: will it be Xander Mobus or someone else?
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Don't know if it's been said, but someone on Reddit stumbled upon Nintendo's patent for FEH's gacha system.
More deatils from the USPTO:
Co-director Shingo Matsushita is credited for the gacha system.
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A collection of the dubbed prebattle intros; gonna try to identify Es and the UNIB characters
- Es - Eden Riegel (I thought Marie was in the game when I first heard Es...)
- Hyde - Kyle McCarley (Very distinctive voice. We know you are there, Alm/9S.)
- Linne - Sarah Williams (Hear traces of Laevatein in Linne.)
- Waldstein - I don't know....
- Gordeau - Ian Sinclair (Confirmed)
Do you want Fire Emblem to be mature and realistic?
in General Fire Emblem
Posted
I personally see a wasted potential with characters like Karel, Tharja, and Peri. Why not use those characters (particularly bloodlusted Karel and Peri) to have the other characters in the game philosophically reflect on the violence in the war and/or to explore the inner human darkness within the various characters on the roster?