Samz707
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Posts posted by Samz707
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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:
Three Houses Day 61: Chapter 18 Week 2-4
So, fun fact: over the weekend I confirmed something that has been gnawing at my very soul for ages now. Remember that 3DS launch title, Kid Icarus Uprising, which got repeatedly shit on for its bizarre and uncomfortable controls involving holding the handheld one-handed and then using the stylus in the other, while still pressing a shoulder button despite your weak grip? A game that needed to come with a plastic stand in order to be remotely playable for tons of people?
Yeah I did.
A friend got me it for my birthday...for the past few years, a different friend borrowed it, because I really hated it.
I do want to maybe give it another chance some day but it just felt like a not-very well made incredibly simple TPS. (Also they had dodging mapped to moving twice in one direction, which is absolutely terrible, the only other game I can think of which did this was Cry of Fear but that at least let you turn it off and the actual aiming
But yeah if you have to sell a stand, for your handheld console, you did not make good controls, it simply didn't click with me, even the humor was more grating than funny generally.
That said, I hope absolutely no game ever copies it's difficulty system, nothing like getting less rewards/patronizingly having the difficulty lowered because you died thanks to the bad controls meaning you sent Pit dodging off a narrow ledge trying to simply slowly edge your way forwards.
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19 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:
But... if that's the case... they failed. They set it magnitudes too high, by the admission of basically everyone in this thread, even the people trying to defend it. Their "safety net" for the player is still an astronomically absurd time sink. Nobody is contesting that spending four hours of a playthrough fishing is madness, the only thing we're arguing about is whose fault it is, the devs for making it or the player for doing it. So by your own hypothesis, the devs categorically failed.
So I finally played a bit more 3H today in the Monestary.
While I didn't buy a ton of bait, I did use up the bait I found/was given and my save file is 33:27, just before starting the Chapter 11 battle, so to my knowledge, that's over 30 hours before the half-way point where my decisions actually matter. (Aside from going with Edelgard to the Capital, which felt really kinda rushed considering how her dad doesn't even acknowledge our presence and it was literally once scene and back again.)
I'd say to my knowledge, the limits don't work, they don't sound like they stop you being OP and if anything end up encouraging to over grind stats/fish/supports because "If I don't do it now, I can't do it later."
I'm not even sure I was 20 hours in around chapter 20 of Blazing Blade, it really does suck up an absurd amount of time and I wasn't exactly trying to min-max. (I did mainly do battles when possible, I guess but still.)
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I'm not really a fan, it honestly sounds like a fan-cover with how the lyrics clearly were not made with the singer in mind and are honestly kinda hard to make out at times thanks to the actual music being louder than the vocals, it's like they got the VA to do the song, then made literally no effort to change it to account for the English Language. (While I don't know if HOA from Echoes also did that, if it didn't then it at least wasn't super obvious.)
It's not the worst anime-y music I've heard but it's pretty unremarkable and while I've not played Fates much, knowing that Azula is apparently ment to be a good singer is going to be hard to take seriously with how it actually sounds. (Since well, it doesn't make her sound like a good singer, at all.)
So I'm just kinda indifferent to it, it's not offensive like say, Smash's Vocal Track (And I think 3H's vocal track as well from what I've heard of it while playing Smash.) but it's not something I actively want to listen to like say, The Heritors of Arcadia.
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1 hour ago, Jotari said:
Would kind of take away from Hector's own death too (which is already a bit underwhelming in retrospect).
To be fair, Hector was practically a throw-away character in FE6, dude has practically no screentime.
I'm not sure where to do it, but I do think Mark dying would be cool, I like how FE6's war retroactively has alot more weight and emotions behind it thanks to FE7.
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7 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:
Should Mark return for a Binding Blade Remake then I think the best thing they could do is to kill him off.
At a glance Mark really doesn't belong in Roy's story. The whole point is that Roy goes to battle without a safety net. His father is ill, his advisor is worthless and his uncle figure/national leader dies very early on. Roy's a kid leading an army because Lycia has essentially no one left. But Mark could reinforce this story by introducing him as Roy's safety net and then yanking him away. Have you customize him, have him be a kinda broken unit, have him take some amount of spotlight and then have Bern kill him off. It could both reinforce the theme as well as serve as a very bold narrative step to shock the player.
As a Mark fan.
Yes.
If they ever do joint-remakes, having the option to import your FE7 Remake Data could work here. (Since you'd have your Mark and maybe a few lines referencing supports.)
Granted, my idea was more having him die in the backstory (Such as during the intial Bern invasion of Elibe.) though I did see a fanfic which had him dying in the battle that kills Hector due to meeting and trying to help Hector just before the attack happened. (Which could also work.)
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5 hours ago, MuteMousou said:
Every game in the series was made so that it can be your first game in the series. The biggest thing with fe5 is that you could potentially not understand some story things but honestly it can pretty much stand as a separate thing from fe4 for the most part, but I would still recommended fe4 first just for story context even though it's a worse game in every way. There is also a manual for fe5 that explains pretty specifically many basics of the game such as moving your unit, they definitely intended for the game to be playable to new players. Not to mention that many of the things that I often hear complaints of never being explained in the game are also explained in the manual, (the Shaya patch also contributed to this with bad translations in parts) I feel like people forget that in the 90s and 2000s, game manuals existed and people actually read them. But regardless I still think fe5 would be an easier first entry than conquest, but you can still do either as your first if you want, it wouldn't be that insane really, since I think the main reason people have issues with those games is just because they're different from other FEs, which would not matter to someone who hasn't played FE before.
Afaik the enemy phase reinforcements don't exist on normal, so that probably won't be an issue for new players. Regardless I generally wouldn't recommend Awakening to new players over any of the other 3DS and newer games since it's the worst one out of all of them. The effective strategies in it are so incredibly braindead that it kind of ruins your playstyle for other games in the series also.
Yes, technically each game is built with a difficulty curve and such, doesn't mean it works in the end. (Most obvious example is Awakening which becomes literally impossible to lose with Nostank outside of the final boss so the early game is actually the hardest section.)
The problem is that a new fan doing a glance of difficulties online, might only see that Normal is more akin to an Easy mode, then jump on Hard. (or restart mid-way through because the enemies become total push-overs on Normal relatively early on like I think I ended up doing because of how easy it gets back in 2016-ish.)
Tell that to the FE Subreddit. (Where Awakening is one of the most suggested games for newcomers.)
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2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:
I'm not entirely sure what your overall point in saying this is. The thing with popular anything in general is that people may never know if x game in a series would be one they actually like because everyone on the internet is only ever recommending the same game in a series that has 16 games, when pretty much all of them could reasonably be played as your first in the series.
With how I see it, people can be frustrated with anything no matter what you do, the idea that potentially bad things can happen to a new player should not be a reason to not recommend the game to them, there can be consequences for anything in any game and the player will have to come to terms with them eventually anyway. It's all a matter of what people might want.
I highly doubt Thracia should be someone's first game from what I hear and just because in theory, every game could be someone's first game, that doesn't it mean it should. (I literally quit the series for a while because I assumed they were all like Awakening due to me only hearing praise for it at the time, same with a friend who's first experiences around the same time were Awakening and Birthright and hated them for near enough the same reasons.)
It's not just "Bad things" it's "Long term crippling bad things due to the game poorly explaining/throwing players in the deep end."
For instance, I've been playing Stalingrad, an old Blitzkrieg/Sudden Strike Engine RTS, it, is brutal, you will definitely lose at least a decent amount of infantry and vehicles by the end of the average mission.
However Units in Stalingrad are purely on a mission-by-mission structure, while there are occasionally bonus missions unlocked by keeping a certain amount of Vehicles alive, you do not need to worry about being crippled for the rest of the game, losing units is only a temporary set-back for the current map and the game's ranking system is generous with allowing vehicle/infantry deaths because you're expected to lose units.
Meanwhile, Blitzkrieg itself has a lite-RPG mechanic with "Core Units", while nowhere near as in-depth as FE, it tries to reward careful play with units you keep over the course of the game getting stronger and upgrading to better units....except it's actually more unfair due to terrible balancing and map design, so even if it's not as crippling as FE, it's still annoying to essentially get punished in the long run through no fault of your own.
Meanwhile, in say, Awakening, the game never I think actually explains that Mountains have a drastic movement penalty and this is your first encounter with them, on a map filled with ranged flying enemies that can ignore it, so losing a valuable unit, crippling you for the rest of the game since you also lose their child unit due to how Awakening handles late-game recruitment, (Not to mention ,your next healer, Not-Lucius, is literally near the end of the pre-time skip for my example of Lissa.) is a massive penalty for the rest of the game that doesn't feel like the player's fault, same with Ambush Spawns. (The game literally gives you the tutorial page on Ambush Spawns after the first ambush spawn has already happened, which for a Young Samz new to FE, was after one spawned, killed Chrom and forced a reset.)
While FE7 also doesn't quite explain it, the first few maps with forests/mountains in FE7 are designed in a way where the player isn't potentially having to deal with strong units who can instant-kill their units while ignoring terrain, you're given a "safe" map essentially to figure out how terrain slows the player.
Losing even a single unit in FE can horribly cripple you, especially Dancers and Healers generally and Awakening means you a lose their child unit as well.
So you lose a useful unit, anything they were carrying and a future recruit.
And since Awakening isn't exactly well-balanced, it's generally not fun in a game to have a big penalty like that due to poor map design and unfair reinforcements, being punished sucks, being punished because the developers sucked at their jobs, is outright unfair and is the number one thing that will make me quit any "strategy" game because when my tactics feel more up to RNG/entirely exploiting exploits, it's generally not fun to play anymore. (Among other factors, like Tile Bonuses being so terrible in Awakening that generally make it feel more up to RNG rather than proper tactics or how the game in a way indirectly punishes actually getting supports due to how terrible Pair-Up is.)
For instance, I lost Matthew early on in FE7, I think I even had to leave some chests alone/use keys due to that, was it a crippling blow? yes, did it annoy me? A little, except the circumstances in which I lost Matthew were actually my fault, so it actually felt fair, as opposed to be not knowing where the enemy ambushes are and getting "Punished" for not looking at a walkthrough, same with me losing Erk early on and actually having to make do with a lack of mages since I also didn't get Lucius.
For FE6 in particular, you can not only lock yourself out of the true ending by whoever was carrying a Legendary weapon dying but the throne bosses are so stupidly strong that there's a reason Critger is a meme, if the player kills/has Rutger die at any point, they are pretty much just relying on RNG to defeat any bosses.
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-Story: Mostly like Mark from FE7, a Tactician or at most a soldier/mercenary who's also trained in Tactics, they aren't super important to the plot and are more of a side-character in the story.
They aren't the big chosen one to defeat the villains but they are the ones giving the orders when it comes to battle.
-Gameplay: Maybe like Kris where you can pick your class? I've not played his game yet but the player should be able to pick any class they want with the exception of maybe Dancer. (And that could always be new game plus.), no unique fancy weapons since those end up discouraging the player from not using that weapon type. (Such as 3H, where the game really wants Byleth to use Swords.)
Since we could always use good choices, maybe we essentially get the choices between several maps at a time, like for instance, we need to rescue someone who's been captured recently (such as a Prince for instance) but we get the option to do a side-map of hunting down some bandits, we could maybe get a recruit out of it (Some Villager who can fight, similar to Rebecca) but then when we actually arrive to rescue that person, the squadron of troops who were going to transport them away have shown up, so the map of actually rescuing them gets harder because you have harder and more well-trained enemies to deal with.
However if you gun straight to them, rescuing them is actually very easy since there's alot less forces but that Villager joins later because they're a traveller you stumble across now, because their village actually got wiped out since we didn't help them, perhaps a good few supports/dialogue changes to be alot more bitter and angry due to this, We had a much easier time but we let a village get destroyed due to leaving them to the bandits.
So the choices would be in a single route story with some branches (and maybe effecting the ending) depending on if we make things harder for ourselves by stopping to help with issues but we get the choice to also disregard people in need to make our lives easier, maybe we can even do some awful things in decision moments, like poisoning the enemies water supply before attacking a settlement they own (Like what happened to the Lorca), so you get a much easier map since the enemies had permanent stat-debuffs for that map in exchange for poisoning civilians and probably getting on the wrong side of a few members of your army.
So you'd get choices that effect what maps you get in your playthrough as well as how difficult they are.
-Character:
Fixed Name: Every Avatar has their name canonized anyway with Heroes anyway, I'd rather the other characters actually use it in-game instead of awkwardly dancing around it.
Appearance customization would be nice but isn't required.
IMO, actual dialogue choices that let us shape our character should matter the most, 3H sometimes did this well, it wasn't great but it's more than Corrin/Robin ever got, so improving on that would be good.
As I suggested on the gameplay section, a decent chunk of the Avatar's character could be dealing with when to be utterly ruthless or trying to be a hero but usually making things harder for themselves in the process.
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2 hours ago, lenticular said:
And then there are growth units. People have brought up Donnel, Rolf, and Amelia, for example. Almost by definition, how good a growth unit is will depend on how much effort you're willing to put into raising them. This is especially relevant for Donnel and Amelia, both of whom are from games with infinite grinding. They're going to be rated considerably difficulty in the context of a no-grinding playthrough compared to a grinding-allowed playthrough.
I'd argue that that just makes them a giant waste of time.
Sure, I could prolong by playthrough by a signifficant amount of time, hoping I get random battles/reeking box encounters that are easy enough for Donnel to get kills. (So not the maps that spawn with you in the middle, surrounded by enemies, where the only real chance of weak units getting a kill is a dual strike as Stat Backpack.)
Or just use literally anyone else, such as Nostank Robin.
If I have to put plenty of dedicating grinding into them thanks to infinite grinding, they're still not exactly good because they basically bloat out the game's run time with grinding.
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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:
Whoa, seriously?! Yikers!
I was honestly blown away when it happened. "Ah, I'll have Wendy lure that Archer close for when I break the wal- how the hell is she dead already?"
I know you're intended to check stats, but I really think "surviving one round of combat with an archer on their join chapter" is something I should be able to assume an Armor Knight is capable of.
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3 hours ago, GonzoMD1993 said:
Does she actually get one rounded by Archers? Please tell me that's in HM at least xd It'd be beyond pathetic for an Armor Knight to get one rounded by an Archer in NM (although it's still plenty pathetic that they one round her in HM).
Nope.
Normal.
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These are admittingly all from a single Normal/Hard playthrough of each game:
FE6: Wendy/Gwendolyn , Armor Knight that gets one rounded by archers, in her joining chapter, she has all the downsides of an Armor Knight without the actual advantages.
FE7: Since I didn't get Karla, I'll just say Wallace, he re-joins so late that it really hurts him as a unit.
Awakening: Donnel, is there any question? He's literally so bad it makes Chrom look like even more of an idiot for convincing him to fight, you know you suck when you actively make the Main Lord look like an moron for thinking you can fight.
Echoes: Mycen, Jagen with the worst availability, joking aside he just sorta exists and joins painfully late.
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3 hours ago, Jotari said:
I thinl that's a particularly poor metric to judge by. Fates was also phenomenally successful. And it's not like these are novels. They're video games. There can be far more attracting people to the game other than the writing. It's also a franchise, meaning it's past success is influential on its future success.
Tomb Raider 2013 sold the best out of any TR game, it also did so by literally changing genres entirely and is a highly controversial game in the fandom.
Resident Evil 6 is wildly accepted to the worst or at least, one of the worst Resident Evil Games ever and it's the one that sold the best.
Sales if anything can be argued to be more indicative of Hype as well as the performance of past-games, Resident Evil 7 for instance didn't sell anywhere near Resident Evil 6 when it came out, yet it's one of the most positively received Resident Evil games in recent years.
I and a friend for instance, were initially turned off from Echoes, because I played Awakening and he played Awakening/Birthright first and we both hated our experiences with FE, while I don't know if he saw Echoes on a shelf back then, I did, thought it would be like Awakening and therefore didn't play it, so I didn't buy Echoes because I actually knew I wouldn't like it, I didn't buy it because I assumed it'd be like the past game, which I hated. (You can even kinda see this with the Tomb Raider reboots, since if I remember those had a sharp drop-off in sales compared to 2013.)
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10 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:
Heroes also downplayed Shinon by completely ignoring the fact that he's a racist. Dude doesn't even canonically have a reason to dislike them other than being a twat. As opposed to Jill, who was indoctrinated by Daein's teachings and eventually overcame it. But Xander is also one of the only non-OCs who had an actual recurring story role in the game for some time. Hence, why he gets singled out.
In general, Heroes leans way too much on the player worship and downplays negative traits of certain characters. But it still doesn't change the whole Xander thing specifically.
Yeah obviously but he's not the only one.
Lyndis got flanderized in Awakening and we're still stuck with that characterization. (I hear that her Uncle, her literal driving motivation in Lyn mode, gets mentioned in one or two non voiced lines, in all of Lyn's alts, because why talk about that when we can have her simp for the player?)
Oh yeah Veronica has a thing for Xander, I actually completely forgot about that.
Doesn't Shinon actually get over it? but it's late-game and easy to miss.
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22 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:
Yeah but most of the internet doesn't play and in fact really looks down on Dynasty Warriors. So there aren't many people to argue about it.
Do they? I hear they're kinda painfully easy but there's a ton of them so I figured they'd be popular. (Really the big reason I'm not interested in FE:W is because I don't like over half the cast.)
They even made not one but two Dragon Quest ones.
40 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:I mean, I don't need FE to be all serious and stuff. But what does need to stop is how the more recent games keep trying to shove certain interpretations of characters down the players' throats when it's not actually displayed in-game.
For example, Fates and all FE spinoffs can fuck off with Xander being the "good, noble prince" when in the actual stories, when faced with decisions, he just sticks his hands in his pockets and goes all "justice is an illusion". Xander can say whatever he wants to in the supports, we never really see him actually take action as he thinks a good prince should do, until it's revealed that Garon is a literal monster instead of just a metaphorical one. And yet, Warriors and Heroes seem very insistent on painting a picture of Xander that was never reality.
THAT is the kind of stuff IS needs to stop.
To be fair, Heroes also downplays the negative aspects of some villains.
Like Zephiel liking Kiran and basically saying how Kiran has changed his mind a bit.
Because we all know some random robed Mute will change his mind.
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1 hour ago, ping said:
Reminds me of Ghost in the Shell.
Motoko/Major (The Protagonist) is bisexual.
This is literally just because Masamune Shirow, the Author, "didn't want to draw a man's ass" for a sex scene.
So yeah the protagonist's bisexuality is just so the Author could avoid drawing an ass. (Which is somewhat amusing in hindsight since Motoko's Boyfriend was pretty much ignored in later adaptations which ironically enough actually feature Motoko's Girlfriend's more as actual characters.)
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43 minutes ago, Ottservia said:
And you just proved my point thanks
So how does having Lilith come back after her death scene somehow not undercut it all to you?
You should be proving why it's worth respecting, rather than just bluntly shutting down anyone who disagrees.
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2 hours ago, Ottservia said:
Personally I’d like to give writers a lot more credit than that.
This is the game with Babyrealms that also threw in several Awakening characters entirely because they won a popularity pol in Japan.
Also just because something has symbolism, doesn't inherently make it better.
If I added Christ imagry for instance to a work, then had one character suddenly betray the main cast for the sake of having a "Judas" in it, except it makes no real sense and just exists for that religious parallel, that doesn't make it better, it's still a dumb decision and if anything it arguably is worse because now it's just pretentious.
7 minutes ago, Ottservia said:Is it really so hard to not assume the worst intentions in a piece of fiction. Just because something seems shallow that doesn’t mean it actually is. The reason that people do feel anything for Lilith’s death means that there is meaning and depth to it. Instead of dismissing it as some shallow attempt to manipulate the audience, how about you actually respect the author’s intentions and try to understand what the story is trying to convey with that. You can boil anything down to a shallow barebones poor intent description. It’s so easy to do, watch.
People probably factor in alot more than just those individual moments.
In the case of Lilith, I have played and seen alot of really dumb death scenes and such in fiction, where I'm supposed to care about the death of someone who has less than 20 minutes of screen time (Such as the really terrible 2013 Reboot, where I'm expected to care for characters that have less than 20 lines in 3-5 hours when they die.), Lilith actually has more screen time than some of these characters.
Respect should be earned, not given by default.
Frankly, sometimes the meaning for something is purely "BECAUSE IT'S DRAMATIC!" or similar shallow interactions
Sometimes, something that looks shallow, is shallow.
Why is Nergal somehow able to summon a dragon after dying in FE7? because we need a dragon boss fight. (Sure you could be like me and have assumed he just needed more quintessence to actually defeat the dragon once he summoned it, but the game never actually states this so it's just head-canon.)
Why does the entirety of the Arena Ferox mini-arc in Awakening exist? so we can have a really dumb anime sword fight between Chrom and Lucina to put in the trailers.
Why does Babyreal/Awakening characters in Fates exist? because Awakening sold well.
Why does the Grima Dungeon in Echoes exist? because gotta sell that Overclass DLC, also Awakening.
And why does Heroes add tons of skimpy characters? because people will buy JPEGS of Camilla in a towel because Horny.
Sometimes, there is simply no deeper meaning or if there IS a deeper meaning, that doesn't mean it's a good well executed meaning.
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I'd say there are a few good "Morally Grey" moments but I admit they're more individual moments than being part of the larger plot.
Stuff like Dorcas turning to being a bandit for Natalie or Matthew threatening Nino so he can kill Jaffar are frankly messed up actions, but they're sympathetic and handled well. (or at least, not a trainwreck.)
Though obviously this isn't to the extent of a morally grey war between two armies.
I do think not everything needs to be morally grey, but well, if you promise it, you'd better deliver on it.
Morally Grey Situations/Aesop in general (Such as advocating for Peace), while great when done well, are IMO one of the most obnoxious things ever when messed up.
While Echoes doesn't go "full" morally grey, I do think it somewhat pulls elements of it off, we hear how Evil Rigel is and we deal with the Military...except once we actually start encountering Villagers, they're peaceful and they're surprised that we aren't evil, this may not have been intentional I admit, but I always took it as both Rigel/Zofia basically being biased against each other due to Duma/Mila's hatred of each other while not actually being that different for the average commoner. (Obviously less so for the Duma Faithful and Rigel Military but Zofia's ruler Lima wasn't exactly the greatest person either.)
Hell, even when you go to Archanea, they're surprised you're not savages, so I do think FE could somewhat pull it off, it's just that IS are bad at it. (Same with Avatars.)
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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:
...So... Dimitri... was planning on keeping him alive, but torturing him and making him watch all of his friends die. Also offering to remove his eyes instead.
And... Professr... instead of talking Dimitri down... just... summarily mercy-kills Randolph.
That, uh... was completely unnecessary, and probably also a war crime. Professr arguably has more authority than Dimitri in this army right now. She and Gilbert are decidedly the ones in charge. She could have protected Randolph from him, but she just fucking kills a prisoner of war because she was getting too upset watching Dimitri act like a monster?
What, you don't think killing people for little reason makes sense?
Even though Byleth could probably beat the shit out of Dimitri if needed because anime protag with time powers.
I do admit I've not seen this scene myself yet. (Since Monastery, so I haven't actually played 3H in around a month now beyond a short session to get some of the dialogue done, so I'm still on my CF first playthrough pre-time skip.) but it really seems like a dramatic scene...for the sake of a dramatic scene, rather than if it actually makes sense so it just becomes melodrama.
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On 10/6/2021 at 9:04 PM, MuteMousou said:
Having a chance for them to fail is part of playing a video game, or learning anything new really. There are plenty of games in other series that have much steeper curves in the only entry or in all of them, and people still play them. You don't have to assume that your only option is to provide someone with the easiest possible options in the entire series.
Yeah but players need a bit of a safety net. (I struggled with Awakening as my first game, because Lissa has the durability of wet tissue paper and the game loves fliers with 2 range weapons as well as Terrain that you may not realize is impassable and accidently trap your healer in range of them.)
On 10/6/2021 at 6:11 PM, MuteMousou said:In my opinion, with most things that occur within the same world, it is better to play them in the order they were released since the later ones are usually intended to be played with the context of the earlier ones in mind, even if they might occur chronologically before the earlier ones. In particular, I think it is strange how I always see everyone saying to play fe7 first even though, by most accounts the developers probably intended it to be experienced as a component to fe6. Of course, there is also the fact of fe7 being the first game released worldwide in the series, and it's possible this could have made it more accessible to new players story-wise. However, I have no evidence to show how long fe7 was actually intended to be released in English or how much they designed the game in general around this fact.
I think if you played fe6 first, you would have the context of who Eliwood and Hector are, as well as the entire world and sort of "get" the point of the entire story in the context of Elibe, whereas this wouldn't be evident if you went into it knowing nothing about Elibe. I don't really remember much on the story of either, but I think it is pretty reasonable to say that the returning characters in fe7 are probably there sort of as "fanservice" to people who played fe6, even if you don't need to have played fe6 to understand who they are. To an extent I think you could also say the same thing for fe10, even though it is a sequel, in that, although the game definitely was intended to be experienced after fe9, you don't really need to have played fe9 to understand the story.
Another thing I could see as an argument against fe6 first is that "it's too hard." Now, I won't say that fe7 is harder, of course, but fe7 is arguably the easiest game in the series, or at least close to it. All the games before fe7 are definitely more difficult than it, and it's not like those game are insanely difficult or anything, so at times I think we set our standard a little too low with what we can expect new players to do. The easiness of fe7 normal mode is a bit too much at times definitely, even the newer games on normal mode are more difficult than it. Being the most baby easy game in the series doesn't automatically make it a better starting point, and I think we should offer people suggestions for their first game that take into account more than just this. Fe6 was intended as a soft reboot to the series anyway, so it's not like it really expected you to have been familiar with any of the previous games at all at the time of its release.
I wonder if part of the reason the English community doesn't ever suggest this is possibly because they personally didn't play fe6 first. I don't really know anyone in the English community who played fe6 first, so that's fine, like of course this is going to happen lol. But, I do think we should suggest fe6 more often as an option to newer players. I think the tutorial in fe7 is pretty unnecessary for new players anyway and there are many other fine entry points for the series.
A common argument I see made (That I admit I Don't agree 100 percent with) is that with a prequel, it's much harder to make the audience care more for someone who they know is going to die later on.
As for the Hector situation...We literally know practically nothing about him from FE6 before he dies, almost all of Hector's character is from 7, he's mostly just "Mandatory Dad who dies" in 6, his most distinctive character trait in 6 is that he's allowed to bleed in a mostly bloodless series.
I won't deny the characters are kinda fan-servicy a bit, it gets kinda silly in retrospect playing 6 and realizing how Eliwood/Hector managed to bump into the parents of so many FE6 characters but I wouldn't say it's to the point of being obvious for a "Played FE7 first" Player, it never feels really (Aside from maybe Karla from what I hear) that you're expected to already know who these characters are. (Because most of them were mentioned only in FE6 so FE7 fully introduces them because it's their first game for the most part.)
While I can't speak for a "Played 6 first" Player, I'd say playing FE7 first means A: the player cares for Hector and B: It makes the FE6 bosses look more threatening because we know Hector isn't a push over since we played 7.
As for Elibe, while it has been a while, even if we remove supports entirely, I swear FE7 fleshes out Elibe more than 6 does, with more of the narration in the pre-chapter map screens talking about the Continent than 6 does. ( I at least remember being disapointed than 6 seemed to have alot less to say about Elibe.)
I rage-quit 6, I've finished Blazing Blade, Echoes and (Granted, abusing the hell out of the game's mechanics, would have rage-quit if NosTank Robin wasn't so OP) Awakening but the constant annoying gimmicks and hordes of Ambush Spawns in 6 ment I eventually flat-out quit it.
I'd say 7 is a Good level of Difficulty for a strategy game, it's easy enough if the player doesn't do anything too stupid but it's still able to kick the player down if they start making mistakes, It's "Easy" but not un-Tactical like say, NosTank Awakening while also lacking alot of unfair stuff, like Ambush Spawns.
Awakening I'd say is more baby easy when you start breaking it (IMO the difficulty purely comes from bad game design, like ambush spawns, Gratitous RNG and Pair-up being poorly explained and actually bad to use tactically.), and the game makes it blatantly obvious how broken it is, I was literally Robin soloing most of the game, I Managed to one-turn a boss with a Nosferatu Tome Robin/Chrom Backpack and not even Galeforce, just the basic Tactician/GrandMaster skills. (I think it was Aversa? maybe it was Walhart, I just know I Literally one turned a late-game boss map by just running Robin to the boss on Turn 1 then killing them on Enemy Phase.)
Meanwhile, FE7 actually gets harder as you go on and the OP meta units aren't extremely obvious, sure, I got a dodge-tank (100 chance to dodge against Axe Users) Lyn later on....for 3-4 chapters, then the final boss chapter Morph Bosses were enough to curb-stomp her, so sure, 7 starts easy but it actually has a functional difficulty curve so it gets harder and more is expected of you later on. (And I never literally one unit/one-turned a boss map without even a warp staff, so there's that.)
At least for my first playthrough, FE7's Final Chapter kicked me back to using tactics again just as I was starting to get OP units, while Awakening turned into literally impossible to lose aside from Grima.
I actually needed the Tutorial (And I played Awakening first) because it does a much better job IMO, Awakening just throws a "Guide" that's incomplete at you for the most part (Thanks for giving me the Page on Ambush Spawns after they spawned and killed Chrom forcing a restart!) while 7 actually properly teaches you by having you actually learning something and then putting it into practice most of the time, it has you actually learning by doing and not just walls of text where the game hopes it'll stick with you.
Throwing walls of essentially text and images isn't going to help the player remember stuff as well as actually having them put the stuff into practice. (As well as having using said stuff be worth it so the player will even more be sure to remember this mechanic that helps them.)
On 10/11/2021 at 11:27 AM, MuteMousou said:I'm not saying there is like an objectively better way to play the game or anything, like certainly the games that are supplements to other games always give the context to understand what the hell is going on at least to some degree without having played/read/whatever the other thing beforehand, as anything should do. My entire point is that, given that it was made before and takes place in the same world, that I think that is reasonable that the developers probably intended at least in some respect to have the game that came first be the one that was played first, as it was obviously intended that the latter game was made with fans of the first in mind. Also note that there are things that you won't understand the intended significance of at all if you haven't played fe6, such as the epilogue scene where you won't get what the hell the significance of Roy, Lilina and Zephiel are if you don't know that fe7 is a prequel, the only real point of some of these scenes is to tie the game into fe6, which will be completely meaningless to someone who hasn't played that game.
I don't know if i necessarily agree with the statement that because people liked the game that this means the tutorial wasn't especially offensive. The thing in general is that it is completely skippable for Japanese players who have a save file of fe6, but it is impossible to ever skip as an English player unless you finish the game twice (or more? not sure if this is correct) which in itself I thinks shows the flaw in how Japanese developers understood English audiences at the time, branching all the way back to the reason super mario brothers 2 wasn't initially released outside of Japan. I don't believe the super long and tedious tutorial was actually necessary for new players because three houses is a much more popular game with a much less intrusive tutorial.
I recall hearing that American Audiences (or at least, some of them) actually took it for a sequel hook and were waiting for an sequel to FE7. (Which it essentially is, just for a game that's already out.)
Not really? You can skip it if you show the game you've already played FE before, Japanese players without an FE6 Cart still had to do the Tutorial.
3H tutorial isn't great, I frequently had to google the new mechanics because the game doesn't explain them well. (The Awakening problem of "Throw them a Tutorial Pop-up and little else".)
I'd also argue 7 functions better as an introduction, you play 3H and it takes a looooong time before "Advanced" Tactic stuff comes into play (Or even proper gameplay or being decently written.) , meanwhile FE7 throws you a Ballista early on, something which stood out to me as something exciting when playing FE7. (As well as 7 having more advanced (in comparison) stuff in general, yes I like knocking down Trees to cross water, fight me.)
Hell, even as a fan, 3H's incredibly poor opening put me off playing it for a while after the first few hours. (Because tons of hours in the Monestary with really bad writing when you really should be still fighting dudes.), I can only imagine how much it would have actually put me off if it was my first FE game.
On 10/11/2021 at 11:07 PM, MuteMousou said:The thing is I think that tutorializing through having the player forced into something and explaining literally everything is always worse than just showing you what you should pay attention to through gameplay alone, it could be a ridiculously easy level but as long as it relays something important to the player through how it uses the game's mechanics, it doesn't really matter how easy it is. If you first present a situation to them where they actually have to recognize something on their own, I think it will be better kept in their mind versus being told that something is important and not being given the actual normal gameplay context to understand why it's important.
And if the player gets the wrong idea of what's expected of them, it can be frustrating, especially since Perma-Death and the other more punishing elements of FE.
Or even simply poorly explained mechanics, like how certain tiles slow you down, which to be fair, FE7 also doesn't I think properly explain, but an early level all-but forces your units to move through a heavy forest, so you'll realize that your mounts move much slower through forest tiles thanks to it.
I honestly think people complain about 7's tutorials too much, you're given a few initial scripted turns, but after that it's all up to the player. (I say as someone who honestly had to reset a few times in 7's tutorial chapters.)
Hell, Awakening explains Tile Bonuses exist in a tutorial pop-up, I honestly thought Awakening had removed them after playing FE7 because they're so under-used in it (Since most of them got hit with the Nerf Hammer because reducing Tactical Elements in an S-RPG is a great idea.), since really only Fort Tiles are worth anything in that game, as opposed to 7 having even the basic forest tile be useful, so seeking out Tile Bonuses quickly becomes a part of your strategy, so even with the game explaining them (in an minimal way), in actual normal gameplay context, they're almost worthless in Awakening so I honestly forgot they even existed after a few sessions.
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On 9/20/2021 at 3:04 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:
You guys know there's an entire website for this, right?
https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/franchises/Fire-Emblem/
I mostly used IMDB (And Jeralt's VA's other roles I mentioned aren't listed)
I still think it can be interesting to see how a voice actor has a role you didn't expect.
I found out today that Yuri Lowenthal actually does one of the English voices for the Germans in Red Orchestra 2, which makes the Human wave stuff in Excelblem's DS remake playthroughs more hilarious.
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4 hours ago, Ottservia said:
You know the funniest part about this is that a common complaint among Japanese fans in regards to awakening is that Robin didn’t have enough of a prominent role. They didn’t like that the avatar had to share the spotlight with Chrom. Which is something they actually prefer about Corrin/Kamui. That they are indeed the main central character and is an avatar.
I do find that amusing since I basically think Awakening is generally "Robin and Friends" considering how the game treats it like they alone save the day for the most part in terms of praise. (I could be wrong, but I swear FE7 at least has it be like "We did it Mark!" generally tone while Awakening is more among the lines of "We did it thanks to you Robin!" and a good few of the Robin Supports even find ways to turn into praising Robin because of course they do.)
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On 10/1/2021 at 5:23 AM, kradeelav said:
I'm gonna say that FE:Heroes had the best implementation of the avatar/Summoner.
story-wise, it's ... a gacha game ... it's the one place to toss the believability book out the window and be as guilty-pleasure happy about creating your self insert in a world where your husbandu/waifu exists as you want to be. folks can pretend the Summoner only exists in the story mode if they want it, but then there's events like, shit, the heroic journey where it's tailored-made to be as indulgent as can be.
character design is actually nicely done because there's the detailed art versions for those who like 'em, and likewise the "blank slate" version for those who don't. To the latter point, you can get across a ton of personality through the weapon, accessories, and skills even with the base art. (edgy blue raventome vs lance paladin-esque player-phase machine).
Otherwise, nah, not a fan of avatars in the series at all, even FE7 "Mark".
if tellius remake gets an avatar imma kill it with fire.You're Ike's Adopted Step-Sibling but you only find out you're adopted if you S-Rank him.
Also you can wield Ragnell and Alondite together dual-wield like that one Heroes character.
Even in FE:H I do find it annoying with characters like Faye, who pretty much betray how they should act for the sake of adding praise to the player. (Granted, I don't have any standards for FE:H writing so it bothers me less than mainline titles but it's still a roll of the eyes at least.)
Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.
in General Fire Emblem
Posted
I also think it kinda matters how Erik's handled.
For stuff like the mage in 3H in the holy Tomb, the game proceeds to completely ignore how they were just bleeding on the ground and are now suddenly fine, or somehow aren't wounded at all like Kostas, you may as well have not even fought them.
Meanwhile Erik is heavily beaten up, while we don't see it since limitations, Hector yelling at him to get up implies he's pretty badly hurt instead of just "I took a crit to he face but am now somehow seemingly unhurt."