Alef Zero Posted November 16, 2023 Share Posted November 16, 2023 (edited) After a long pause, and loosing save files, I started the game anew, this time finished it. I know this topic has been discussed to death, but Celica's portrayal and decisions in chapter 5 made me rage. After she decided to give up her life for a dubious offer of an even more dubious man (Jedah is literally purple, and serves a god you know is evil), I just stopped caring about the story completely. The scene when she realized she's been tricked made me utter phrases, many of which could be considered sexist, and since Integrity is probably onto me, I'll refrain from recalling them. Add to that the fact, that, in hindsight, Celica's entire journey was largely pointless (aside from saving many lifes and killing bandits of course) and I ended the game largely disliking Celica. Also, I still have no idea why did the falchion un-stoned. If Milla could still communicate, why didn't she speak to Celica? That would spare a lot of troubles. Alm will not be one of my liked protagonist - guy is way too soft and apologetic. I have no idea why did killling Rudolf affect him in any way - at that point, he was a stranger to him, AND a man who invaded his country. I get why would he be shocked, but sad? Same goes for Fernand and Berkut - first was a traitor who would let his friend be executed, while the other was a pathetic looser who would sacrifice his lover's soul just out of spite. Neither of them deserve more than a cold stare at best or a swift dagger to the chest at worse (Hell, if you don't save Mathilda, Clive still calls him a friend, despite the fact that he spoke to her and left her to death. This is just ridiculous). Maybe I'm too biased having started with more modern games, but aside from a couple of characters, most of the cast was incredible bland. Lack of supports AND any story relevance really hurts them. And also: Deen. This guy is bland, he may as well not exists. He acts like he's in the game as a punishment. Sonya is more interesting visually, mechanically AND has a relevance to the story. Recruting this guy is a trap, like many things in the game. Also Nomah, is he supposed to be a joke character? The "Eleventh hour old (gay) man character"? He's so useless I don't know why he's even in the game. Mechanically, game does not hold well - too few classes, that feel largely the same, too little mechanics to work with. Many decisions made me rage: All archers having close counter and absurd range, meant that there was no strategic way to deal with them - normally you'd try to close the distance to prevent them from attacking, now it's impossible. Witches having unlimited teleportation range is straight terrible design. They can teleport anywhere they like and you can never protect every single unit, you are always at risk of random instakill. Why are enemies so tanky? Even dumb mages can easily take doubling from physical unit to the face, and survive Class progression is terrible. Mages take so long to promote, I ended up benching Boey, Mae and even Delthea. In fact, pristesses ended up being superior mages, since they always learn seraphim, powerful spell effective against half of the game's enemies. Also physic, warp, invoke. What's even the point of mages? Dread fighters and gold knights are absolutely superior to everything. Barons are ok, but with most maps, they'll not see much actions. Same for mages There are so many traps for newbies - making Faye anything other than cleric is going to make your run needlessly hard. Saving Mathilda is so much more stressful and luck-based without physic, it's insane. Making any of the villagers a cavalier is also such a trap, because you get so many other, better cavaliers. Not recruiting Sonya rips you from an interesting, story-related unit (getting Deen made me regret ever wanting to not prioritize women over men). I also most of chapter 3 without Palla and Catria, because nothing in the game suggests they would return to the harbor - I expected to run into them some time after saving Est. When they joined, they were vastly under-leveled. Ugh. Music was very good. I knew to expect that, but it still surprised me how good many of the tracks were. Track when fighting Rudolf was even better than final fight theme. In general, the final fight was a little underwhelming, but oh well. Honestly, every part of the story regarding dragons was weaker than liberation of the country. One thing that bothers me more and more - does every FE game ends up being about killing an evil dragon? I first played three houses. After engage, I assumed they wanted to copy the story of awakening (which wasn't good anyway), since it was an anniversary title, but shadows ends up with very similar premise. I don't have to tell, that I find TH vastly superior that any of these stories. I though "This is basically a fire emblem" was supposed to be parody, yet it described these games mostly unironically. Next one on my list is Path of Radiance. Should I be worried? Edited November 16, 2023 by Alef Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted November 16, 2023 Share Posted November 16, 2023 You played SoV? You poor soul... Well your first main exposure to FE maps was 3H so at least you already knew what bad maps were like 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: I know this topic has been discussed to death, but Celica's portrayal and decisions in chapter 5 made me rage. After she decided to give up her life for a dubious offer of an even more dubious man (Jedah is literally purple, and serves a god you know is evil), I just stopped caring about the story completely. The scene when she realized she's been tricked made me utter phrases, many of which could be considered sexist, and since Integrity is probably onto me, I'll refrain from recalling them. Add to that the fact, that, in hindsight, Celica's entire journey was largely pointless (aside from saving many lifes and killing bandits of course) and I ended the game largely disliking Celica. Also, I still have no idea why did the falchion un-stoned. If Milla could still communicate, why didn't she speak to Celica? That would spare a lot of troubles. I don't know many that would legit defend Celica's character/actions in SoV. We all know it's bad. Some may try to say it's not as bad as others make it out to be, but you can't exactly call this good writing, or even passable really. It's really dumb no matter how you look at it, and the player will naturally get ticked off seeing the lord they control make such stupid actions that they themselves would never unironically pick if the choice was up to them, but the game clearly wants you to root for both Alm and Celica. Personally, what I find most baffling about Celica isn't just the whole "I want to trust the purple cultist that all my friends are telling me not to", but the fact that this is a remake of an NES game in which the character that barely speaks handled this a lot better. Is it great? Not really. This isn't a Kaga shilling moment, and the general premise is still there where you have to let him capture you, but at least in that game, it's forced upon you. The idea is that Celica knows that she's been screwed over by Jedah, mostly reaching him to slay him or whatever, but then she sees Jedah do the "Alm is trapped and has to fight 3 waves of necrodragons" and is basically given no choice but to surrender to save Alm, which she obviously will given the theme of the game. And when you are captured, Celica is taken with her army to the endgame location to fend off against the horde of monsters and 3rd tier soldiers until Alm can make it to help her from a fight she relentlessly has to take the charge and fight against to keep her comrades from dying this far into their journey, whereas in SoV, you're constantly considering going with Jedah's plans and assuming that he could mean well while literally everybody else tells you that you're insane, including the OC who's sole purpose is to turn Celica into a pure damsel in distress and constantly tell her that what she's doing is wrong, only for her to do it anyways! Why!? You make Celica yell at Alm and call him ignorant of the situation due to what he couldn't possibly know that you aren't telling him, and then you follow that up with her story of constantly avoiding the advice of her friends and getting them into trouble because she doesn't want to talk about her thoughts and consider the suggestions of said companions before making rash decisions? It's a recipe to make an extremely hate-able lord! And at the end, she causes all her friends to get sent to the pits to die in while she herself gets Kaga'd for the most pointless premonition scene that lasts 30 seconds! Yeah she is also suffering technically, but this feels like her allies weren't standing with her, but are victims to her horrible decision making skills and Celica is once again forced to simply have Alm rescue her and do all the lord handling for her. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: Alm will not be one of my liked protagonist - guy is way too soft and apologetic. I have no idea why did killling Rudolf affect him in any way - at that point, he was a stranger to him, AND a man who invaded his country. I get why would he be shocked, but sad? Same goes for Fernand and Berkut - first was a traitor who would let his friend be executed, while the other was a pathetic looser who would sacrifice his lover's soul just out of spite. Neither of them deserve more than a cold stare at best or a swift dagger to the chest at worse (Hell, if you don't save Mathilda, Clive still calls him a friend, despite the fact that he spoke to her and left her to death. This is just ridiculous). I know a guy who said the same thing about Alm having no real reason to mourn Rudolf's death. I often don't really think about that, but I'm usually distracted by thoughts extremely offensive statements I can't say here about Celica, and how much I hate mao design in SoV. Alm is a very odd character. As a person, I like him. He's everything that many would want to see in a traditional lord. Not too noble (something something ike fans), kind and charismatic, silly and sometimes funny with his dialogue (mostly bad puns), and brave. On the other hand, that's not what Alm should be. At all! SoV Alm can be best described as what Gaiden Alm would be at the end of the game, after his journey with Celica who's pure soul prevented his savage desire for battle consume him onto becoming someone like Walhart. I always considered Walhart to be a reference to the idea of what Alm would've become without someone like Celica at his side. After all, Alm is clearly meant to be more like Duma, and Celica like Mila. They're meant to be the Yin and Yang or whatever. But in SoV, he's already pretty light hearted, and he knows when he needs to fight for the sake of protecting his homeland. He's unafraid to take the charge against Rigel. He more or less already possesses both the "oonga boonga" and the "I wouldn't hurt a fly" aspect from both gods. It basically sounds like I'm saying he's too perfect, which makes Celica's main purpose mute, at least form a perspective of symbolism. Then again, what does she actually do? Open a gate? 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: Sonya is more interesting visually What does bro mean by this 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: Recruting this guy is a trap, like many things in the game Gameplay fans on their way to burn you at the stake for not having 5 dread fighters for act 4. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: Also Nomah, is he supposed to be a joke character? The "Eleventh hour old (gay) man character"? I have no idea where you got that bit from, but give old men a chance. Hanneman is like, one of 4 good things about 3H anyways. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: He's so useless I don't know why he's even in the game. Hear me out. Use pitchfork. Reclass him into a merc. Give him Zweihänder (forge from steel sword). Obtain Tigerstance combat art. Profit. In case you must know, Nomah has a pointlessly high amount of skill, which does nothing for magic, but tigerstance adds might based off of skill, making Nomah one of the best candidates for dealing 150+ damage with tigerstance crit (I've done this way too many times). Is it optimal? No. Is it funny? Absolutely. In Gaiden, he's a lot more useful given how that game functions overall and the laughably awful growths. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: Witches having unlimited teleportation range is straight terrible design. They can teleport anywhere they like and you can never protect every single unit, you are always at risk of random instakill. Well........at least they're kinda fun to use in Fates, so that's something. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: Class progression is terrible. Mages take so long to promote, I ended up benching Boey, Mae and even Delthea. In fact, pristesses ended up being superior mages, since they always learn seraphim, powerful spell effective against half of the game's enemies. Also physic, warp, invoke. What's even the point of mages? Fun fact: In Gaiden, you had to be lvl 20 to promote female mages. Funny stuff. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: There are so many traps for newbies - making Faye anything other than cleric is going to make your run needlessly hard In the game's defense, you're not actually supposed to have 2 healers. Faye is SoV only, and the game can very easily be trivialized with cleric faye. For new players that want to do silly exploits and such for an easy time, use cleric Faye, but I'd personally avoid it to keep things balanced. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: One thing that bothers me more and more - does every FE game ends up being about killing an evil dragon? I first played three houses. After engage, I assumed they wanted to copy the story of awakening (which wasn't good anyway), since it was an anniversary title, but shadows ends up with very similar premise. I don't have to tell, that I find TH vastly superior that any of these stories. I though "This is basically a fire emblem" was supposed to be parody, yet it described these games mostly unironically. Did you think we made this joke out of thin air? Yes, most FE games are about killing dragons. Most FE games have mid stories, and I will never understand the amount of FE fans that play the series for the story. There's a reason most Engage Dark Emblems can't be what the og final bosses were. They're almost all dragons. Originality. Nobody say Sacred Stones. Formortis could've been a dragon and nothing would've changed. Back on topic, I would say SoV is more offensive with it's bad writing, because many FE games have their moments of cool writing or characters done well through the unique design of FE, but SoV in my opinion has some of the worst writing in the series obscured by it's pretty presentation of cutscenes and voice acting. I know many FE fans who say they love this game, and the main reason is usually either its story or presentation, which I find ironic. And I haven't even gotten started with the Mathilda Fernand prison scene. Somehow, Gaiden feels like it has better writing due to barely having writing at all! At least it doesn't contradict itself! 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: they wanted to copy the story of awakening (which wasn't good anyway) I mean I like Awakening's story for FE standards. Archanea references and continuity is always appreciated, even if some people argue over what is and isn't canon about it. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: I don't have to tell, that I find TH vastly superior that any of these stories. I won't turn this into a 3H story debate or even Awakening. I honestly don't care about stories at the end of the day and mainly hate SoV for gameplay reasons, but I certainly feel that 3H has a ton of flaws and manipulative antagonizing amongst fans from different routs when it comes to storytelling. Leaving holes and just saying "it's all morally grey" feels like a very cheap get out of jail free card for inconsistent or absent writing when 95% of all problems are technically still just "evil cult le bad". If Nemesis was a dragon and you couldn't side with Edelgard, it would largely just be a normal FE game with an emphasis on Blue Lions supports going hard. A lot of part 2 is just "stop the empire" or "here's why your emperor did nothing wrong and also teehee she drew something for you right after you slaughtered the Alliance". Thanks game. I almost forgot that I have the choice to marry my student. This isn't to say that 3H doesn't have good writing in it. I really do believe it has some of the best lore regarding it's world building and struggles within nations like Faerghus or House Ordelia or House Gloucester, but the main plot does a terrible job integrating said lore into itself properly. Again, I don't want to turn this into another "Is 3 Houses a good game" thread, but I mainly brought this up to emphasize the idea that even 3H does fall under many of the same tropes that most of FE does with semi crappy writing over basic premises like "stop le empire" and "the evil cult is behind almost everything" and "avatar saves the world by literally not saying anything" while the CF rout is like "we will undo every support chain line and ignore Hubert's murderous tendencies and Jeritza's bloodlust as clear signs of villain tropes to pretend that you're morally justified in choosing to help who you probably call your waifu over the church that we actively portrayed as poorly as possible in BE white clouds so players don't actually think about their choice when ordered to kill the person they spent 12 chapters with. I dunno. 3H writing just leaves a foul taste in my mouth that I often see regarded as peak storytelling, which I feel can hinder one from enjoying any other FE story that isn't "different". 2 hours ago, Alef Zero said: Next one on my list is Path of Radiance. Should I be worried? Luckily for you, PoR is often regarded as one of the best in the series for its storytelling, probably considered 2nd or 3rd best after Genealogy. I personally think it's somewhat overrated and consider Radiant Dawn, its sequel, to be one of the best stories in the series, although that game does have one story element that basically everyone hates. Gameplay wise, it's one of the easiest games. If you're looking for a mostly chill game with a non-traditional lord and a bunch of dialogue about furry racism being bad, it'll be the best thing since sliced bread. There's a JP exclusive maniac mode, but I really wouldn't recommend it. A lot of people hate it, and for good reason. As for the story, there's very little wrong with it, so it's leagues above SoV, and the final boss isn't a dragon! I mean, the villain is pretty simple, but it's something, and I like comically evil villains. Most of what I personally enjoy about PoR's writing is due to how it perfectly connect with the sequel, so I'd highly recommend doing RD right afterwards. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to rant about SoV by risking the wrath the Integrity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted November 16, 2023 Share Posted November 16, 2023 13 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said: Gameplay fans on their way to burn you at the stake for not having 5 dread fighters for act 4. Honestly, I agree Deen is the trap choice. Fighting a bunch of witches and a boss who WILL one punch anyone on a crit? Hell no. Especially when the best thing about Deen doesn't even require recruiting him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alef Zero Posted November 16, 2023 Author Share Posted November 16, 2023 Quote SoV Alm can be best described as what Gaiden Alm would be at the end of the game, after his journey with Celica who's pure soul prevented his savage desire for battle consume him onto becoming someone like Walhart. I always considered Walhart to be a reference to the idea of what Alm would've become without someone like Celica at his side. After all, Alm is clearly meant to be more like Duma, and Celica like Mila. They're meant to be the Yin and Yang or whatever. But in SoV, he's already pretty light hearted, and he knows when he needs to fight for the sake of protecting his homeland. He's unafraid to take the charge against Rigel. He more or less already possesses both the "oonga boonga" and the "I wouldn't hurt a fly" aspect from both gods. Hmm, when exactly does he show "savage desire for battle"? The entire reason he leaves the village is to help his country and possibly find Celica. In fact, I don't remember one moment when he was bloodthirsty or even angry. He sounded pissed a little when first fighting Berkut, but... what else? Yes, I understand that this is PG12 game, so I may expect too much, but I guess I'm just reaaally tired of child protagonists. When you say battle thirst, first thing I see in my mind is Dimitri riding into battle with a sadistic smirk in three hopes, and remember his awesome battle lines from boar phase. THAT is PG12 bloodthirst. Quote What does bro mean by this Well, she's a beautiful woman with long hair and a sexy outfit. Yes yes, very shallow, but when the other choice is a guy with black armor, I'll still go with sexy. Deen is not even "edgy cool" guy, he's so boring. Quote Fun fact: In Gaiden, you had to be lvl 20 to promote female mages. Funny stuff. Quote In the game's defense, you're not actually supposed to have 2 healers. Faye is SoV only, and the game can very easily be trivialized with cleric faye. For new players that want to do silly exploits and such for an easy time, use cleric Faye, but I'd personally avoid it to keep things balanced. You want to play almost entire route with ONE healer who doesn't even learn physic? No thanks, healers who don't have physic have no place in my party. In fact, only after I finished the game did I learn Silque can learn Invoke. She was basically relegated to being a warp bot, and casting seraphim when needed. Quote I mean I like Awakening's story for FE standards. Archanea references and continuity is always appreciated, even if some people argue over what is and isn't canon about it. The fact that you may be right terrifies me. Quote I won't turn this into a 3H story debate or even Awakening. Sorry, that was never my desire. Awakening WAS a fun game. I simply prefer three houses with it's (mostly, whoever shoved those who rave n the dark into the game should be fired) grey morality, and more flawed heroes. TH also had more supports, so even if some were boring/stale, you still have more good ones, due to sheer quantity. I'm still mad they had to shove a map that looks like a space station into a surprisingly grounded fantasy, but japanease gotta japanease. Alas. I also happen to align very closely with Dimitri who is my favourite lord, one of my favourite characters in jrpgs in genreal, and my one and only lord I'd follow (just no homo, please). So, I'm biased. Quote 3H writing just leaves a foul taste in my mouth that I often see regarded as peak storytelling, which I feel can hinder one from enjoying any other FE story that isn't "different". I consider it good by the standard of jrpgs. Comparing it to disco elysium or planescape torment is an unfunny joke, but hey, it's better than dragon quest. Quote Luckily for you, PoR is often regarded as one of the best in the series for its storytelling, probably considered 2nd or 3rd best after Genealogy. I personally think it's somewhat overrated and consider Radiant Dawn, its sequel, to be one of the best stories in the series, although that game does have one story element that basically everyone hates. 🙂 I wouldn't dream of not seeing full story, obviously I'll play RD. Quote I like comically evil villains. -_- This is... problematic. I despise them. It's the easiest thing possible, to just make a despicable antagonist. No effort, no gain. That's why Edelgard I consider a good villain, while slithers are terrible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernivus of Celephaïs Posted November 16, 2023 Share Posted November 16, 2023 Oh boy, I didn't expect to be opening the SoV pot this morning. The best way to describe SoV I can think of: it's like a very pretty dress from the olden days. It looks fantastic and it will make you the prettiest girl in the ball, but the thing's got a damn corset that will take all the air out of your lungs as you beg for the sweet release of death with each step that you take. Okay maybe not that painfully extreme but it does feel like they only prettied up the presentation while leaving all of those rusty nails just as rusty as they were before. Thing is, I feel more inclined to revisit Gaiden than I do SoV, maybe because I'm old and nostalgic for dusty games, maybe Gaiden is just more lovable as a crusty Famicom underdog. It does have some great characters imo (Luthier my beloved, Saber, Valbar's gang, the comedic duo of Python and Forsyth and, of course, Mathilda makes me wish for more finely built hags in the games instead of the usual loli cringe that has always riddled the franchise). Without quoting some of your particular issues: if you think Deen is bad then pal have you even met Jesse? he's even worse and I may like ironically like him as a joke unit; plot's whatever, people who just play for the plot are silly when gameplay is king and I'm fine with the simplicity of heroic dude uses magic sword to kill evil dragon, SoV just fumbles it by wanting to have this Yin Yang balance thing / romance soap opera tension with Alm and Celica that bogs it down; maps quickly devolve into memes like downright the stuff some people would come up with if FE Maker was a thing and it had little Timmy levels; going back to Deen again, devoid of personality but makes for a good Dreadfighter next to Saber and Kamui yet nothing will ever compare to the beauty that is Dreadfighter Valbar, because again, gameplay is king; but hey, since you've played 3H and now SoV you have seen some of the lowest lows of the franchise in terms map design. It can only go up from here! An by that I mean play the DS Marth duology goddangit they're the opposite of SoV: not lookers but oh man they feel nice to replay once per year. And I hope you're joking about the killing evil dragon thing. You better get used to it, dude. Simply put, I believe there's a higher percentage of FE games that involving stopping an evil dragon and his cult than there are percentage of Zelda games that feature the Triforce, Ganondorf or even Zelda herself. And I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong on that end. In fact, the Fire Emblem isn't that important of a thing in some Fire Emblem games, sometimes it's just something metaphorical, sometimes it's a shield or a morphing sword. So if all you want is a good story, read a book, but thank you, I always enjoy seeing people open their eyes on games that aren't as good as everyone claims. Sorry you had to go through 3H and SoV buddy, if I could I'd buy you a beer out of pity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted November 16, 2023 Share Posted November 16, 2023 18 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: Hmm, when exactly does he show "savage desire for battle"? In SoV? Uhhh, I suppose when he goes "chaaarge" against Berkut's army? Yeah, I got nothing. The game is clearly attempting to imply that he gets distracted by the need to win when in battle, but I'm not sure how it was meant to be visualized when actually playing the game. Like, he's technically still more aggressive than someone like Marth, or Corrin, but Ephraim is a better Alm than Alm. I mean, Sacred Stones basically is Gaiden 2 with the Ephraim/Erika thing and the monsters. I'd honestly say FE8 is a better Gaiden remake than SoV, even if FE8 is on the easier side. In Gaiden and it's depictions through both Awakening DLC and the manga, Alm very much wants to kill the enemy. Pretty sure at the start of the dlc map, Celica's like "Oh no, bad guys! What do we do?" and Alm is like "It's simple. We crush them all". And when you obtain Alm, he asks you questions about conquering the enemy and how much victory matters. Very aggressive compared to any other lord card you get. In the manga, Alm completely destroys Desaix and his head is put on a pike to avenge Kliff, who was impaled and killed by Desaix. In the actual game of Gaiden, I'm sure the translation likes to be a bit quirky, but Alm does say "We'll crush those bastards" at the end of the game. I don't know why absolutely none of this is done in SoV. You obviously don't see much of Alm's anger in an NES game because there's hardly any dialogue to begin with, so this was your opportunity to flesh all that out, but they completely changed him as a person, and as a result, Celica is made to be a worse character due to this. And then they add MORE to make her a bad character with "Ya know I had to do it to em" Jedah scenes and "I will save you from your stupidity" Conrad. 21 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: he entire reason he leaves the village is to help his country and possibly find Celica. In fact, I don't remember one moment when he was bloodthirsty or even angry. He sounded pissed a little when first fighting Berkut, but... what else? That's what makes the Celica scene with him worse. The idea of the original was that Alm wanted to take the fight to Rigel. The motivation was likely still primarily to defend Zofia and to avenge those who died from the early attacks that Zofia has now suffered due to Rigel's invasion, but he was seeking out this battle. In SoV, he has various points and reasons as to why he feels that he has to do this fight, while making it very clear that he doesn't want to do this if he didn't think it was absolutely necessary, and yet she still considers him to be a foolish brute who doesn't get it. 32 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: Well, she's a beautiful woman with long hair and a sexy outfit. Yes yes, very shallow, but when the other choice is a guy with black armor, I'll still go with sexy. Deen is not even "edgy cool" guy, he's so boring. Well at least you're honest 33 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: You want to play almost entire route with ONE healer who doesn't even learn physic? No thanks, healers who don't have physic have no place in my party. In fact, only after I finished the game did I learn Silque can learn Invoke. She was basically relegated to being a warp bot, and casting seraphim when needed. To be fair, I have a habbit of liking unnecessarily difficult challenges. Last 3H run I did, physic was basically the strongest staff spell I had. No rescue, warp, fortify. And since SoV don't really do that much damage, I didn't find the idea of physic to be a necessity. Just eat flour bro. 35 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: The fact that you may be right terrifies me. 36 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: (mostly, whoever shoved those who rave n the dark into the game should be fired) You weren't bopping your head to TECHNOLOGY BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION? 37 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: That's why Edelgard I consider a good villain, while slithers are terrible. I still believe in my theory that the reason the combined presence of Edelgard and the slithers both serving as villains in the...."bizarre" way that they are handled is a result of a fight that broke down between Koei and IntSys, and nobody won. IntSys likes doing the traditional "get help from divine dragon", "stop evil cult who did everything wrong", "red emperor be conquering", but wanted the twist of Edel being a tragic villain who you go "nooo I thought you were my lord!" for SS (which IS did first), while Koei probably didn't want much to do with the slithers and sought to make Edel a protagonist with le moral grey stuff amidst the other house lords and the church being all sussy to create this "nobody is right" vibe, but then that clashes with each other and leaves the aforementioned foul taste I'm still brushing my teeth and tongue to remove. It feels like the writing team fought each other rather than they made unique routes that all work in their own way, at least to me. Slithers coulda worked well if they were handled more like a combination of the Loptyr from Genealogy and the friggin Dwemer from Elder Scrolls (ancient mechanically advanced race with way too much lore to summarize). I like a lot of the "the slithers were actually what made the Western Church do the things they did" and "Faerghus and House Ordeila are in ruins consequent to the slithers who received aide from the Empire to do evil FE things on the youngin's (very FE4)". The ties could've worked well and still been a classic FE trope but actually done with amazing world building, but they really botched up a lot of things due to simultaneously saying they did a ton of things while also pushing most of it aside in favor of Empire vs Church. You can't have both, at least not in the way the game wanted to do it. Anyways, here's why Garon should be the golden standard for all villains- 50 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: just no homo, please Why did bro feel the need to specify? Suspicious. 51 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: I consider it good by the standard of jrpgs. Comparing it to disco elysium or planescape torment is an unfunny joke, but hey, it's better than dragon quest Fair. I don't really play JRPG's anymore, and it's funny if I try to compare to 3H to games whose story I love like Edgeworth 2, New Vegas, or friggin any Metal Gear Solid game, and for JRPG's, I mostly just know FF7 and FF6, which I'm guessing is somewhat above the standards of JRPGS. I don't think 3H's story is awful. It's 100% better than SoV, that's for sure, and it's certainty more interesting and given more thought than Engage's plot. I just think it's annoyingly flawed and it gets people way too heated up to the point where I'd prefer a meh plot just to avoid another "Is Edel le evil" thread * 500. Although it does get harder to forgive the massive 3H fan wave for overpraising the story when it's single handedly destroying Engage's reputation and is giving me the fear that IS will just give us more "le politcal" games that will cause massive arguments over making a fun strategy video game first. By the way, I know this is all off topic, but can you tell me how DQ stories generally go? I know a guy who really loves those games and I can't exactly ask them because it will almost definitely be biased. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: Quote I like comically evil villains. -_- This is... problematic. You dislike Ashnard because he's blatantly evil and brutish. I dislike Ashnard because the game doesn't let me kill him with Shinon. We are not the same. 1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said: Honestly, I agree Deen is the trap choice. Fighting a bunch of witches and a boss who WILL one punch anyone on a crit? Hell no. Especially when the best thing about Deen doesn't even require recruiting him. Valbar when you choose to fight Sonya: 4 minutes ago, Ernivus of Celephaïs said: Oh boy, I didn't expect to be opening the SoV pot this morning. The best way to describe SoV I can think of: it's like a very pretty dress from the olden days. It looks fantastic and it will make you the prettiest girl in the ball, but the thing's got a damn corset that will take all the air out of your lungs as you beg for the sweet release of death with each step that you take. Okay maybe not that painfully extreme but it does feel like they only prettied up the presentation while leaving all of those rusty nails just as rusty as they were before. Holy crap Louis! This guy's a poet. 5 minutes ago, Ernivus of Celephaïs said: An by that I mean play the DS Marth duology goddangit they're the opposite of SoV: not lookers but oh man they feel nice to replay once per year. Once? Once? Truly, you are the fakest of DSFE fans. Play FE12 and have Warren and Tomas duo kill every boss in the game or lose your DS privileges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted November 17, 2023 Share Posted November 17, 2023 28 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said: Valbar when you choose to fight Sonya: More like anyone, to be honest. Mages are the bane of Knights, yes, but here, resistance is low for most units. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernivus of Celephaïs Posted November 17, 2023 Share Posted November 17, 2023 (edited) 32 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said: Once? Once? Truly, you are the fakest of DSFE fans. Play FE12 and have Warren and Tomas duo kill every boss in the game or lose your DS privileges. Forgive me father, for I have sinned. I wish I could play New Mystery more ofter but my PC doesn't handle "becoming a DS" so good. The curse of bad specs. But I do still remember the first time I played both of those games for the first time. It did help shut down the voices. I even smiled! Edited November 17, 2023 by Ernivus of Celephaïs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair General Posted November 17, 2023 Share Posted November 17, 2023 4 hours ago, Alef Zero said: Witches having unlimited teleportation range is straight terrible design. They can teleport anywhere they like and you can never protect every single unit, you are always at risk of random instakill. Witches were kind of weak, from my experience. But then again, I also grinded, a bit. 4 hours ago, Alef Zero said: There are so many traps for newbies - making Faye anything other than cleric is going to make your run needlessly hard. Yeah, but I kind of assumed that it was common knowledge to have at least two healers in anarmy that's larger than six people? 4 hours ago, Alef Zero said: One thing that bothers me more and more - does every FE game ends up being about killing an evil dragon? I keep making that joke, but everyone keeps ignoring, lmao 4 hours ago, Alef Zero said: Next one on my list is Path of Radiance. Should I be worried? Yes. But maybe the series isn't just for you. FE is mainly known for the gameplay, the romhacks, and the music as opposed to how great the story is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair General Posted November 17, 2023 Share Posted November 17, 2023 2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: By the way, I know this is all off topic, but can you tell me how DQ stories generally go? It's actually pretty varied. But it's usually focused on being mostly peaceful until shit fucking happens to some random village out in the boonies. From there, it's mainly about following the breadcrumbs while occasionally picking an fight with an boss and his henchmen who's been causing trouble with the locals. At this point, it gets kind of repetitive until you get an sword that's infused with divine power...And with less fanfare, an set of keys that can open anything. With the proverbial keys to the world, you're strung along with whatever the writers consider to be an mind blowing revelation; so now you're tasked with slaying with the demon king who's probably hiding out in the underworld or something. Good luck getting there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indigoasis Posted November 17, 2023 Share Posted November 17, 2023 I think a lot of SoV's gameplay criticisms stem from it being almost faithful to a fault, which is about what I'd expect from a remake anyway. Yeah, they took infinite warp away from the player, but at least we have a new unit that can refresh once she hits level 14 depending on if you picked the right class for her! Oh, and the turnwheel! That's not a bad addition, imo, but I remember a lot of players making it out to be the death of classic FE. 5 hours ago, Alef Zero said: Maybe I'm too biased having started with more modern games, but aside from a couple of characters, most of the cast was incredible bland. Lack of supports AND any story relevance really hurts them. That's kinda how it is with some of the older titles; not everyone gets the chance to be as fleshed out as others, especially with a game (Gaiden) originally designed around the idea that not everyone is going to survive. SoV mitigates it that somewhat with GBA-style supports and other story/character additions, but I can see how it might not seem like enough given what Awakening and Fates offered in that regard. 6 hours ago, Alef Zero said: Also Nomah, is he supposed to be a joke character? The "Eleventh hour old (gay) man character"? He's so useless I don't know why he's even in the game. I don't think he's meant to be useless; he's only weak compared to the rest of Celica's army since by that point they'll more than capable without him. He can't exactly carve out a place for himself unless your units are weak or dead. He's almost a Gotoh, but not really. 6 hours ago, Alef Zero said: One thing that bothers me more and more - does every FE game ends up being about killing an evil dragon? I first played three houses. After engage, I assumed they wanted to copy the story of awakening (which wasn't good anyway), since it was an anniversary title, but shadows ends up with very similar premise. I don't have to tell, that I find TH vastly superior that any of these stories. I though "This is basically a fire emblem" was supposed to be parody, yet it described these games mostly unironically. That's lowkey a trademark of the series. You can relate nearly every final boss to a dragon in some way, shape, or form. 5 hours ago, Alef Zero said: Next one on my list is Path of Radiance. Should I be worried? Not at all. I'd argue it's at least one of the best games in the series, but that may be my early 2000s bias showing. 1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said: Frederick Fazbear? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alef Zero Posted November 17, 2023 Author Share Posted November 17, 2023 19 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: You weren't bopping your head to TECHNOLOGY BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION? I mean, I get the memes, but when I got there, I was invested in the plot. I expected it to be serious. Magic golems and stones shooting lightning still fit medieval fantasy. A futuristic base that looks like a space station, does not. It may be a preference, but I DESPISE when these get mixed, it's impossible to be taken seriously. 20 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Why did bro feel the need to specify? Suspicious. Is it? Last evening, Halsin told me he believes I care about him like I care about a lover and wants to cross the sticks, because I asked if he feels good in our camp. Once. I'm kinda traumatized. You know, I miss the times when a man could admire another man AND not be accused of being gay. Like Sam and Frodo who I consider a great example of loyalty and friendship we should all aspire to. Yet today, netflix would make them gay, no doubt about it. 20 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: By the way, I know this is all off topic, but can you tell me how DQ stories generally go? I know a guy who really loves those games and I can't exactly ask them because it will almost definitely be biased. You are a hero of light, who will traverse many places helping locals with their local troubles, giving valuable life lessons, like not punishing villains (no Vince, I will never let it go, you should be hanged), never getting angry and helping idiots obviously using you, because they asked. At the end of your journey, you will find the sword of light and kill the demon lord. Hmm. Wait a minute... Quote That's lowkey a trademark of the series. You can relate nearly every final boss to a dragon in some way, shape, or form. Well, it does not fit azure moon. I feel like I should just replay three houses (again). 20 hours ago, Ernivus of Celephaïs said: And I hope you're joking about the killing evil dragon thing. You better get used to it, dude. Simply put, I believe there's a higher percentage of FE games that involving stopping an evil dragon and his cult than there are percentage of Zelda games that feature the Triforce, Ganondorf or even Zelda herself. I, uhh... You know what, how about you just tell which titles are different, so that I may skip the other. I understand wanting to keep the tradition, but I'm simply not interested in hearing the same story every time, just told by someone else. No matter how good the gameplay is, if I don't give a damn about the world and characters, my enjoyment will be shallow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted November 17, 2023 Share Posted November 17, 2023 17 hours ago, indigoasis said: I think a lot of SoV's gameplay criticisms stem from it being almost faithful to a fault, which is about what I'd expect from a remake anyway. Yeah, they took infinite warp away from the player, but at least we have a new unit that can refresh once she hits level 14 depending on if you picked the right class for her! Oh, and the turnwheel! That's not a bad addition, imo, but I remember a lot of players making it out to be the death of classic FE. What I don't like is that they took all the bad parts of Gaiden and went too faithful despite it clearly being an archaic relic of the past that should've stayed as such (or even something as simple as extremely bad skirmishes (le archer band squad) that should've been at least somewhat tweaked to be not abysmal or any cantor user maybe being worked around to not just spam infinite enemies every turn), but then got rid of all the cool things about it like the rings! I loved how crazy those things were in FE2, and now they're just super boring in SoV. Fine, I can sometimes enjoy combat arts like Tigerstance Nomah, but I still find it funny that one of the only things I find fun about either game is only in Gaiden. Turn the turnwheel back to DSFE silly circles. Peak checkpoint mechanic. 17 hours ago, indigoasis said: Frederick Fazbear? Har har har har 27 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: I mean, I get the memes, but when I got there, I was invested in the plot. I expected it to be serious. Magic golems and stones shooting lightning still fit medieval fantasy. A futuristic base that looks like a space station, does not. So technologically advanced cities within ancient medievil settings is honestly kinda common in fictions, and I don't even think it's the worst concept. The slithers though, they use dubstep and literal fuckin nukes to show off how crazy they are. Exquizzle me? It ended up being such a dumb contradictory concept that makes you question why they never use it any other time that they got completely retconned in Hopes! How is anyone supposed to take this seriously? I remember face palming seeing both the Fort Merceus blowup scene and just playing the Shambala chapter on my first run from how stupid an off it felt from the rest of the game. If you're going to show a bunch of machinery in a Fire Emblem game, do it properly, with subtlety and vague references to the ancient past where they simply existed in the ancient Fodlan lands with the children of the Goddess or whatever they're called. Maybe have their efforts to create machinery whose purposes surpass the need for gods or they're trying to create their own god (i dunno...maybe Epimenides) which causes Sothis to feel insulted and that's what causes the mass extermination of theme (I'm literally just taking the Dwemer plot from Morrowind lol). Have machinery reflect ideas more akin to that over "we have modern nukes and we listen to early 2010s music". Like what is that supposed to convey? They're dorks who are too stupid to just nuke everyone at the Battle of Gronder? Almost anything would've been better. They don't even explain the idea of Epidenidies or Shez's past throughout all of hopes! Did they even have a plan for the Slither's lore? What the heck! 38 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: Is it? Last evening, Halsin told me he believes I care about him like I care about a lover and wants to cross the sticks, because I asked if he feels good in our camp. Once. I'm kinda traumatized. Well sorry for you bud, but this is the internet. If you go out of your way to say you don't mean something gay, you sound more like an insecure gay dude stuck in the closet more than a straight guy who apparently fumbles his wording on multiple occasions, and it's simply too hard to resist teasing those kinds of people. I wouldn't worry about it here though. There is no way anyone here is desperate enough to look for other FE fans to date, gay or straight. I do apologize though. Not for saying the first comment, but for laughing as I type over you asking if someone feels good....Come on man....That's so gay lol..... Sorry, sorry. Ah, but you have to admit there's comedy in that. I'd try not to let that get to you. I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding and no one can be blamed for that. It happens. The main person that can get up on your case over that is yourself, and that just causes other people to gang up on that. Aka me. 18 hours ago, Armchair General said: It's actually pretty varied. But it's usually focused on being mostly peaceful until shit fucking happens to some random village out in the boonies. From there, it's mainly about following the breadcrumbs while occasionally picking an fight with an boss and his henchmen who's been causing trouble with the locals. At this point, it gets kind of repetitive until you get an sword that's infused with divine power...And with less fanfare, an set of keys that can open anything. With the proverbial keys to the world, you're strung along with whatever the writers consider to be an mind blowing revelation; so now you're tasked with slaying with the demon king who's probably hiding out in the underworld or something. Good luck getting there. This sounds oddly familiar... 49 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: You are a hero of light, who will traverse many places helping locals with their local troubles, giving valuable life lessons, like not punishing villains (no Vince, I will never let it go, you should be hanged), never getting angry and helping idiots obviously using you, because they asked. At the end of your journey, you will find the sword of light and kill the demon lord. Hmm. Wait a minute... Son of a b- 49 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: Well, it does not fit azure moon. I feel like I should just replay three houses (again). Have you played every other rout? While it fails to properly provide decent replay value as a result of a repetitive monastery system and most routes sharing the same maps, it is supposed to be very replayable, and despite my many problems with the game, I have over 10 runs into it, so that has to say something good about coming back to it. Admittedly, a lot of that comes from extremely stupid reclassing. You should try out war master Hanneman. 52 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: You know what, how about you just tell which titles are different, so that I may skip the other. Let's a go: FE1/FE3/FE11/FE12 are automatically out. The Archanean games being the first of the series literally define the tropes you see from here on out. It's extremely unlikely you'll like the characters given that only New Mystery even has supports, and many of them are admittedly basic with a cast so large you'll forget 90% of it. Binding Blade is most likely not a great choice. It is very similar to Shadow Dragon in a lot of ways, including le trope-y "defeat le dragon and red emperor" with a story some like, but many consider to be basic. Blazing Blade isn't much better in this, unless you consider the Lyn-Hector-Eliwood friendship thing to be amazing storytelling. Besides, if you did play Blazing Blade, I'd probably feel insulted if you didn't do Binding Blade afterwards. Sacred Stones is known for having amazing characters and a decent story with a moderately tragic villain. As I mentioned before, it borrows a lot of ideas from Gaiden, but is done better, unlike SoV imo. It is considered extremely easy though, and while the final boss technically isn't a dragon, it might as fuckin well be. I do think that out of the other FE games, this one is more likely to be up your alley, and it's a pretty short game, so you wouldn't be losing too much of your time should you end up not feeling engaged throughout the plot. Genealogy is known for supposedly having the best story in the series, something I have no idea where the hype comes from, except I do because it's probably just the chapter 5 moment lels. The main reason to try out this game for someone like you is that A LOT of 3H is inspired by Genealogy, and I mean, A LOT. It's gameplay is extremely unique, so you'll either love it, or you'll utterly despise it, but I suppose most people who love this mainly love it for it's story (and solo'ing with silver sword Sigurd). As someone who personally despises this game, I can't bring myself to recommend it, but it realistically is one of the better choice for a 3H fan looking for a "good story" game in the series. That is if you're willing to embrace the jankiness that comes with Kaga-era FE. A support-less era will naturally have a harder time getting you to fall in love with the characters after all, although a few still have their share of really cool dialogue. Its sequel, Thracia, is, in my honest opinion, the greatest setting in any FE game with the best story in the series. As a midquel to Genealogy, you obviously have to play FE4 first and have basic understanding of the land of Jugdral to fully appreciate all the details and worldbuilding Thracia provides, and Leif is the only lord who I can say is up there with Dimitri with how much I love them as a lord. He's not as well written as Dimitri with hours and hours of dialogue, but the setting and allies around him as he struggles to lead his men through this grueling journey in such a cruel place, aka Spain, is something I found to be much more interesting to observe and watching Leif grow as a character through the best tactician/lord interactions ever make Leif far more interesting than any other lord imo, other than Dimitri. Of course, Thracia is primarily known for its unforgiving gameplay and Kaga's CBT fetish being at its prime. In other words, you need a guide to have fun. It's not stat bloat hard, but more like "How was I supposed to know that was going to happen?". If you can get past that, I'd say Thracia has some of the coolest gameplay elements in the series, so it's one of the few games where I can say I love both the gameplay AND the story, but why oh why did he he expect me to know about all my items being taken away and randomly assigned up to a limited number of items by chapter 4? Genealogy does have more generic FE tropes than some other games, mainly with the evil cult stuff and damsels in distress tropes, while Thracia is more unique, although is still heavy on le evil cult being evil with the most forgettable final boss ever, but at least neither are really about dragons...much. Fates The tellius games are most likely your safest choice. They're the most different from the usual story in some aspects, and many Tellius fans will tell you that the characters are some of the best they've ever been, with both support conversations AND base conversations allowing for your army to flesh themselves out in PoR, with RD at least retaining base conversations to continue the banter regarding story events. As I said, I really like RD's story, at least for FE standards, and while both games do feature le dragons, neither game explicitly have them serve as final bosses, and I really like the way villains are handled in RD in general. Even blatant baddies like Jarod are respected in a semi-unironic way by the community for some of the stuff he does. Tellius is the balance between the story-focused ideas of old FE based on tropes and such and modern FE focusing mainly on characters and....I dunno, anime things? To some, this is the perfect balance. Tl;dr: I'd say the Tellius games are the most likely worth your time, with Sacred Stones being a decent other choice. The Jugdral games could be better potentials for story games (Shaky Take: FE3H is FE4 remake) depending on how you like your plots, but you'll have to accept the random jank and support-less characters that comes with old FE. 1 hour ago, Alef Zero said: No matter how good the gameplay is, if I don't give a damn about the world and characters, my enjoyment will be shallow. I will never not be surprised by the amount of people who get into FE saying they value story despite everyone here agreeing that FE is special only for gameplay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair General Posted November 17, 2023 Share Posted November 17, 2023 22 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said: This sounds oddly familiar... It's by Square, which shouldn't really be that big of an surprise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted November 18, 2023 Share Posted November 18, 2023 (edited) On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: After a long pause, and loosing save files, I started the game anew, this time finished it. I have something to say to pretty much all of these points. I wish I could figure out how to break quotes automatically using enter. Sometimes it seems to work for me and sometimes it doesn't. Always works on mobile, but everything else involving quoting on mobile is a bit of a mess. Do I need to press another button while pressing enter? I try that sometimes and accidentally end up posting a quote without my actual response. Oh well, I'll just copy and paste for now. On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: I know this topic has been discussed to death, but Celica's portrayal and decisions in chapter 5 made me rage. After she decided to give up her life for a dubious offer of an even more dubious man (Jedah is literally purple, and serves a god you know is evil), I just stopped caring about the story completely. The scene when she realized she's been tricked made me utter phrases, many of which could be considered sexist, and since Integrity is probably onto me, I'll refrain from recalling them. Add to that the fact, that, in hindsight, Celica's entire journey was largely pointless (aside from saving many lifes and killing bandits of course) and I ended the game largely disliking Celica. Also, I still have no idea why did the falchion un-stoned. If Milla could still communicate, why didn't she speak to Celica? That would spare a lot of troubles. So this is less directed towards you and more at the wider community, especially those that played Gaiden. How could Celica be handled better? All of these are well worn, and very deserved, complaints. But they needed to do something. While Celica somehow manages to have marginally more agency on the NES, they still kind of needed to do something, since in the original it was almost literally climb a big tower and fall down a big hole. Is there any way we could get to the same point without making Celica look weak and reducing the entire thematic aspect of her story? On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: Maybe I'm too biased having started with more modern games, but aside from a couple of characters, most of the cast was incredible bland. Lack of supports AND any story relevance really hurts them. And also: The games had supports. They're not very lengthy supports (we'd get pretty length in the next game, much also to a lot of people's chagrin) but the game still has them. And a lot of characterisation comes from the base conversations too, which are one on one conversations with Celica Alm wherein Celica and Alm don't actually speak back. On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: Deen. This guy is bland, he may as well not exists. He acts like he's in the game as a punishment. Sonya is more interesting visually, mechanically AND has a relevance to the story. Recruting this guy is a trap, like many things in the game. You also still get his Brave Sword when you kill him too. It's like the entire deck is stacked against him. Which is impressive considering he's in the best classline in the game. On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: Also Nomah, is he supposed to be a joke character? The "Eleventh hour old (gay) man character"? He's so useless I don't know why he's even in the game. What? Nomah is gay? Obviously despite talking about supports and base conversations I haven't delved into his, where does this come from? On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: All archers having close counter and absurd range, meant that there was no strategic way to deal with them - normally you'd try to close the distance to prevent them from attacking, now it's impossible. Never had any issue with them. Sure, their range is long, but they're not particularly strong. And you have your own archers with better bows (and hunter's volley) + long range magic that can let you pick them off from afar if they are crowding a choke point like in that later game map where Slayde comes back for basically no reason. The only really troublesome bow segment is Wolff in the desert fortress. Where you don't have a lot of options but to try and lure them out one at a time. It seems their intended counter to archers was Armoured Knights, hence why Barons have an anti archer skill...but good luck actually reaching baron with anyone and ever making use of the skill. On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: Why are enemies so tanky? Even dumb mages can easily take doubling from physical unit to the face, and survive Because they are fewer in number. Aside from summons, Shadows of Valentia and Gaiden have higher quality enemies in smaller numbers, so you won't just be mowing down a bunch of them on enemy phase. I think if this is a problem, it's a problem I like a lot more than the opposite extreme which Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance had, which is a high number of weak enemies that just suicide against you on mass on enemy phase. On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: There are so many traps for newbies - making Faye anything other than cleric is going to make your run needlessly hard. Cleric is almost certainly Faye's best class, but I think it might be a bit exaggerated to say not making her a cleric makes the run needlessly hard. Shadows of Valentia is not that difficult a game and you can get by pretty easily without even recruiting Faye at all. On 11/17/2023 at 4:52 AM, Alef Zero said: Next one on my list is Path of Radiance. Should I be worried? Well you don't fight an evil dragon...mostly. Edited November 18, 2023 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Etrurian emperor Posted November 18, 2023 Share Posted November 18, 2023 I've never been overly critical of Celica's dealings with Jedah. I don't think its particularly good but I think there are mitigating factors. Overall I also think people are also a bit too fond of dismissing Jedah purely on account of his skin. Unlike other members of the Gharnef archetype Jedah is actually capable of having real conversations with people. His first chat with Celica was actually pretty reasonable with him laying out exactly why he wants Celica, why its in her best interest to agree with him and that he's just going to keep hunting her if she doesn't. Its only later that he starts to cackle like a Gharnef which I found pretty unfortunate. I think the bigger issue is that the writing with Celica is just confused in general. The game loves making her seem helpless to prop up Alm and Conrad while simultaneously trying to give us the message that Celica is pretty competent. In most chapters Celica hardly comes off as either a helpless damsel or an idiot. In her crusade against the pirates and slavers Celica's depicted as pretty efficient and confident. Its not like Eirika or Michy where the Jagen has to hold her hand a fair bit. She's the driving force behind the pirate hunt and in those battles she doesn't count on Saber bailing her out or stepping in for her. But then once in a while there are these jarring moments when all that competence vanishes and she suddenly becomes a helpless kitten needing Conrad to come ride out and save her. The game tries to have it both ways. One moment Celica is the sort of female lord who takes charge and kicks ass while then randomly turning into the sort of female lord who has to rely on the boys to come save her. Just pick one and stick with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lenticular Posted November 18, 2023 Share Posted November 18, 2023 21 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: I will never not be surprised by the amount of people who get into FE saying they value story despite everyone here agreeing that FE is special only for gameplay. I find the mindset of "gameplay is the only thing that matters" to be equally baffling, honestly. I mean, I like Fire Emblem enough to want to hang out on an Internet forum to talk about it, so that's the context where I say this: Fire Emblem gameplay is kinda mid. Let's imagine a hypothetical version of Fire Emblem that is stripped back to being an abstract strategy game, with nothing left other than gameplay. All our units are replaced with basic stones like in chequers or go, but with numbers stuck on them so we can reference their character sheets. There's no story, no music, only the most minimal graphics. Would you want to play that game? Because I certainly wouldn't. Abstract Emblem would just have way too many problems to be a game that I'd find compelling. It's massively asymmetric in an uninteresting way. The AI is generally not built to even try to beat the player and a lot of the strategy comes from knowing how to manipulate it into playing terribly. There are a ton of fiddly and over-complicated rules that don't really offer much in the way of strategic or tactical depth, but just serve as little traps that slow down play by making you check for them all just in case. There are dominant strategies that just completely outclass other approaches, with most of the pieces you get being largely irrelevant for any sort of optimised play. Fire Emblem works, Fire Emblem is fun -- at least for me -- because of the amalgamation of gameplay and story and art and music and everything else all coming together into a single passage that is greater than the sum of its parts. Carefully leveling up the small mage girl and the old man with the amazing beard is massively more satisfying than leveling up generic unit #14 and generic unit #27. Having context turns gameplay weaknesses into strengths. In an abstract strategy game, if option one is strictly better than option two, then I'm taking option one. In Fire Emblem, if unit one is strictly better than unit two except that I like unit two more, then I'm taking unit two and embracing the extra challenge. So yeah, it would be weird to want to play Fire Embelm exclusively for the story. Just go read a book instead, and you'll probably get a better story. But I find it equally weird to want to play Fire Emblem exclusively for the gameplay. Just go play chess or go instead and you'll get better gameplay. What Fire Emblem offers is to blend the two together. On 11/17/2023 at 8:11 PM, Alef Zero said: Is it? Last evening, Halsin told me he believes I care about him like I care about a lover and wants to cross the sticks, because I asked if he feels good in our camp. Once. I'm kinda traumatized. Going to put a bunch of reply here under a spoiler because it's drifting somewhat off-topic, but I wasn't comfortable replying to this thread without addressing some of this. Spoiler I know you're probably joking about being traumatised, but honestly, if you're that bothered by being propositioned by someone who you aren't interested in -- in a video game, no less! -- then you would be catatonic inside of a week if you had to go through life as a queer woman. On 11/17/2023 at 8:11 PM, Alef Zero said: You know, I miss the times when a man could admire another man AND not be accused of being gay. Like Sam and Frodo who I consider a great example of loyalty and friendship we should all aspire to. Yet today, netflix would make them gay, no doubt about it. Well, it was Amazon rather than Netflix, but The Rings of Power wasn't exactly full of gay people, was it? (Well, I say that, but I've never actually watched it. I'm only saying that based on reputation.) And of course, it isn't as if there have been arguments about gay subtext in Lord of the Rings going back decades. But hypothetical future remakes aside, I don't think that your perception of queer characters in media really matches the reality. Let's look at Three Houses, since that's the source material you were originally talking about. Here are close friendships between men depicted there: Dimitri and Dedue Dimitri, Felix, and Sylvain Caspar and Linhardt Alois and Jeralt Rodrigue and Lambert Raphael and Ignatz Byleth and Alois Of those, precisely zero of them are unambiguously romantic in nature. There are a few endings (eg, Felix and Sylvain's Azure Moon ending) that can be interpreted as romantic or as close platonic friendship depending on the predilection of the reader, but that's about it. The only way to see romance between men in Three Houses is to play as male Byleth and then choose an S support with Linhardt, Yuri or Jeritza. Or since this is a discussion about Shadows of Valentia, let's look at that game too. Here are the close relationships it portrays between its male characters: The Ram Village boys as a group Gray and Tobin especially Clive and Fernand Mycen and Alm Valbar and Leon Python and Forsyth Of these, only one (Leon and Valbar) has any sort of romantic element to it, and even that is one-sided and unrequited. There is absolutely no way to see a romance between two male characters in shadows of Valentia, regardless of play choice. In short: yes, there are more queer relationships depicted in media now than there were thirty years ago, but they are still by far in the minority compared to either straight relationships or platonic relationships between men. Sometimes, you just get a piece of media (or a part of a piece of media) that was made for a target audience that wasn't you, and you just have to shrug your shoulders and deal with it. And I promise you that if you are a straight guy, you have to deal with it a whole lot less than I do as a queer woman. Anyway. Shadows of Valentia. I'm rather fond of it. It's an absolute hot mess of a game, but I like it anyway. The map design gets a lot of stick, but I'm one of the weirdoes who actually enjoys it. Dealing with a Shadows of Valentia map feels like unpicking a giant knot. You have a big formation of enemy units that you can't easily approach, and you have to find just the right corner of it to tug on to give you just a little bit of give that you need to be able to get at the next part, until suddenly the whole thorny knot starts to untangle. I find it oddly satisfying, and it scratches an itch that no other Fire Emblem really does for me. I like the game's approach to balance as well. Which is to say, the "hahahaha, balance? what's that?" approach. Or to put it another way, "when everything is OP, nothing is OP". This sort of design tends to lend itself well to a more sandboxy approach to play rather than a purer abstract strategy approach, which is very much in line with my preferences for Fire Emblem. And then the story. Yeah. It's... not good. I know that. It has inconsistent characterisation and rampant misogyny, and it contradicts its own core theme. Amongst other problems. But I still kinda like it anyway? Even though I shouldn't? Mostly that's just down to the presentation. The presentation really is top notch. But beyond that, I like that it just has a simple love story at its core. That's such a refreshing change for Fire Emblem. Sure it's still a story about killing an insane dragon god to save the world, but seeing it through the frame of the love story between Alm and Celica gives it a much more human and intimate feeling than most Fire Emblems manage. There are also a few little bits of the writing that I genuinely enjoy. Clair and Gray's B support is one of my favourites in the whole series (even if it is then completely undermined by their A support). Basically, my subjective feeling about the game is a lot more positive than it possibly deserves based on objective criteria, but I don't particularly care. If I like it, I like it. But I can't say I blame anyone who doesn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samz707 Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 (edited) On 11/16/2023 at 7:52 PM, Alef Zero said: After a long pause, and loosing save files, I started the game anew, this time finished it. I know this topic has been discussed to death, but Celica's portrayal and decisions in chapter 5 made me rage. After she decided to give up her life for a dubious offer of an even more dubious man (Jedah is literally purple, and serves a god you know is evil), I just stopped caring about the story completely. The scene when she realized she's been tricked made me utter phrases, many of which could be considered sexist, and since Integrity is probably onto me, I'll refrain from recalling them. Add to that the fact, that, in hindsight, Celica's entire journey was largely pointless (aside from saving many lifes and killing bandits of course) and I ended the game largely disliking Celica. Also, I still have no idea why did the falchion un-stoned. If Milla could still communicate, why didn't she speak to Celica? That would spare a lot of troubles. Alm will not be one of my liked protagonist - guy is way too soft and apologetic. I have no idea why did killling Rudolf affect him in any way - at that point, he was a stranger to him, AND a man who invaded his country. I get why would he be shocked, but sad? Same goes for Fernand and Berkut - first was a traitor who would let his friend be executed, while the other was a pathetic looser who would sacrifice his lover's soul just out of spite. Neither of them deserve more than a cold stare at best or a swift dagger to the chest at worse (Hell, if you don't save Mathilda, Clive still calls him a friend, despite the fact that he spoke to her and left her to death. This is just ridiculous). Maybe I'm too biased having started with more modern games, but aside from a couple of characters, most of the cast was incredible bland. Lack of supports AND any story relevance really hurts them. And also: Deen. This guy is bland, he may as well not exists. He acts like he's in the game as a punishment. Sonya is more interesting visually, mechanically AND has a relevance to the story. Recruting this guy is a trap, like many things in the game. Also Nomah, is he supposed to be a joke character? The "Eleventh hour old (gay) man character"? He's so useless I don't know why he's even in the game. Mechanically, game does not hold well - too few classes, that feel largely the same, too little mechanics to work with. Many decisions made me rage: All archers having close counter and absurd range, meant that there was no strategic way to deal with them - normally you'd try to close the distance to prevent them from attacking, now it's impossible. Witches having unlimited teleportation range is straight terrible design. They can teleport anywhere they like and you can never protect every single unit, you are always at risk of random instakill. Why are enemies so tanky? Even dumb mages can easily take doubling from physical unit to the face, and survive Class progression is terrible. Mages take so long to promote, I ended up benching Boey, Mae and even Delthea. In fact, pristesses ended up being superior mages, since they always learn seraphim, powerful spell effective against half of the game's enemies. Also physic, warp, invoke. What's even the point of mages? Dread fighters and gold knights are absolutely superior to everything. Barons are ok, but with most maps, they'll not see much actions. Same for mages There are so many traps for newbies - making Faye anything other than cleric is going to make your run needlessly hard. Saving Mathilda is so much more stressful and luck-based without physic, it's insane. Making any of the villagers a cavalier is also such a trap, because you get so many other, better cavaliers. Not recruiting Sonya rips you from an interesting, story-related unit (getting Deen made me regret ever wanting to not prioritize women over men). I also most of chapter 3 without Palla and Catria, because nothing in the game suggests they would return to the harbor - I expected to run into them some time after saving Est. When they joined, they were vastly under-leveled. Ugh. Music was very good. I knew to expect that, but it still surprised me how good many of the tracks were. Track when fighting Rudolf was even better than final fight theme. In general, the final fight was a little underwhelming, but oh well. Honestly, every part of the story regarding dragons was weaker than liberation of the country. One thing that bothers me more and more - does every FE game ends up being about killing an evil dragon? I first played three houses. After engage, I assumed they wanted to copy the story of awakening (which wasn't good anyway), since it was an anniversary title, but shadows ends up with very similar premise. I don't have to tell, that I find TH vastly superior that any of these stories. I though "This is basically a fire emblem" was supposed to be parody, yet it described these games mostly unironically. Next one on my list is Path of Radiance. Should I be worried? Celica's thing is dumb, not gonna deny that. I guess for context, I played Echoes as my second-third FE game (First one I played I didn't like and didn't play another one for two years so I was essentially a complete newbie game when I played FE7 then Echoes.) and I still found the echoes cast very lovable, I'd honestly say they're the best cast of the 3DS games for that reason. I honestly would rather have an FE where everyone can take a good bit of damage as opposed to the opposite, it's part of the reason I'm not a big fan of the other 3DS games. (Where it feels like alot of the cast are made of paper and enemies are made of paper if you're using the good units.) I found mages did good damage and their magic avoids tile bonuses, I'm honestly surprised you didn't find them useful. I honestly made Faye a pegasus rider without much issue, as others have said she didn't even exist in Gaiden. (And from what I hear, Echoes is slightly easier than Gaiden?) Underlevelled units isn't even much of a problem in Echoes due to how you have infinite dungeon grinding, it's not like Awakening/Conquest where if someone's underlevelled they're kinda screwed. Edited November 19, 2023 by Samz707 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alef Zero Posted November 22, 2023 Author Share Posted November 22, 2023 On 11/17/2023 at 2:34 AM, Armchair General said: Yeah, but I kind of assumed that it was common knowledge to have at least two healers in anarmy that's larger than six people? Sure, if you knew that the only other healer save for Silque is available for the last 2 chapters. Or that reclassing does not really exist in this game (reclassing naturally happens so late it's pointless and I've never found the villager fork thats been mentioned a few times.) On 11/17/2023 at 11:53 PM, Shaky Jones said: Have you played every other rout? While it fails to properly provide decent replay value as a result of a repetitive monastery system and most routes sharing the same maps, it is supposed to be very replayable, and despite my many problems with the game, I have over 10 runs into it, so that has to say something good about coming back to it. Admittedly, a lot of that comes from extremely stupid reclassing. You should try out war master Hanneman. Yup I have 480 hours in that game, played every route except crimson flower, because I will not support Edel, especially since it means going against Dimitri. I've played azure moon 3 times, currently thinking about SS to romance Rhea Hanneman though, I'm not sure about. I've already tried a full faculty memebers run, but I had more fun using students. Oh well. On 11/17/2023 at 12:16 AM, Shaky Jones said: I have no idea where you got that bit from, but give old men a chance. Hanneman is like, one of 4 good things about 3H anyways. Got the joke from "this is basically fire emblem". Still, you find this old dude, that you last met half the valentia apart, in the most random place and he asks to join us. I was completely sure that he was going to turn on us at some point and reveal he's a villain, there was no way he swam all that way alone on a tiny boat. Already used Hanneman, a good mage, but I really dislike his supports. No idea why does Seteth even talks with him. On 11/17/2023 at 11:53 PM, Shaky Jones said: Tl;dr: I'd say the Tellius games are the most likely worth your time, with Sacred Stones being a decent other choice. The Jugdral games could be better potentials for story games (Shaky Take: FE3H is FE4 remake) depending on how you like your plots, but you'll have to accept the random jank and support-less characters that comes with old FE. Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to write all this. I'll keep it in mind. On 11/18/2023 at 4:02 AM, Jotari said: o this is less directed towards you and more at the wider community, especially those that played Gaiden. How could Celica be handled better? All of these are well worn, and very deserved, complaints. But they needed to do something. While Celica somehow manages to have marginally more agency on the NES, they still kind of needed to do something, since in the original it was almost literally climb a big tower and fall down a big hole. Is there any way we could get to the same point without making Celica look weak and reducing the entire thematic aspect of her story? My take? Just have her try to combat Jedah and fail. Have her overpowered then whisper something like "I tried Alm. I'm sorry, but now it's in your hands". On 11/19/2023 at 12:29 AM, lenticular said: Dimitri and Dedue Dimitri, Felix, and Sylvain Caspar and Linhardt Alois and Jeralt Rodrigue and Lambert Raphael and Ignatz Byleth and Alois Of those, precisely zero of them are unambiguously romantic in nature. Communities I frequent says otherwise - it's hard to find a thread about pairing that does not involve shipping all of them save those with Alois and Rodrigue. Same goes the for girls, apparently, likes of Ingrid, Annette and Marianne are all closet lesbian. And it keeps getting worse - in engage everyone is bi, in baldurs gate 3 everyone is bi. But I'd like to not continue this topic - the longer it goes on, the higher the chance I'll write something that certain people will consider homo/transphobic and a certain person would love to rise the pitchfork, I'm certain. On 11/19/2023 at 12:29 AM, lenticular said: And then the story. Yeah. It's... not good. I know that. It has inconsistent characterisation and rampant misogyny, and it contradicts its own core theme. I've heard complaints about misogyny before, but I'm not sure If I see any. Like, the only one I can find is in Mathilda/Clive supports, but thees are quickly destroyed by Clive himself. Unless girls acting like girls is already considered misogyny, in which case I disagree. Some people dislike traditional gender roles, but I see no merit in going against them just because. Men and women are different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted November 23, 2023 Share Posted November 23, 2023 (edited) 4 hours ago, Alef Zero said: Sure, if you knew that the only other healer save for Silque is available for the last 2 chapters. Or that reclassing does not really exist in this game (reclassing naturally happens so late it's pointless and I've never found the villager fork thats been mentioned a few times.) The pitchfork is only obtainable via DLC (and even the it's only limited to three). You keep your stats when you reclass, much like the Dread Fighter loop, so it's pretty busted. Edited November 23, 2023 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samz707 Posted November 23, 2023 Share Posted November 23, 2023 13 hours ago, Alef Zero said: not sure If I see any. Like, the only one I can find is in Mathilda/Clive supports, but thees are quickly destroyed by Clive himself. Unless girls acting like girls is already considered misogyny, in which case I disagree. Some people dislike traditional gender roles, but I see no merit in going against them just because. Men and women are different. The complaint is mainly due to dungeons and Celica becoming briefly a damsel in distress in the end. I do see the dungeons as silly but I feel that's less misogyny and more "It's a new mechanic/convenient excuse why these characters haven't joined you yet despite Valentia's seemingly small size", it's not like the women characters are bad once you do recruit them so they ultimately spend far more screentime kicking ass than captive. (Shoutout to Jessie for being the only man in Valentia who gets held captive, I guess those bandits didn't discriminate.) Celica's finale thing is still dumb though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted November 24, 2023 Share Posted November 24, 2023 On 11/22/2023 at 12:43 PM, Alef Zero said: Yup I have 480 hours in that game, played every route except crimson flower, because I will not support Edel, especially since it means going against Dimitri. I've played azure moon 3 times, currently thinking about SS to romance Rhea Hanneman though, I'm not sure about. I've already tried a full faculty memebers run, but I had more fun using students. Oh well. Hanneman is old and based. Do it. Given your seemingly gigantic hatred of Edelgard, don't you want the father of crestology to beat her to death with facts, logic, and crests? Hell you can do ng+ and give him 5 different crests and 2 killer knuckle+'s. Just a suggestion. Personally, I dont think its healthy to let personal feelings against a fictional character to prevent you from even trying out a rout at least. At least it plays somewhat differently and you get 3 CF only units. Besides, don't you want to know everything so you can hate more effectively? I'd say at least try it once given that its clearly a game you love and maybe lessen the severity of how you look at characters in a freaking fire emblem game, but if it affects that badly, then at least try out more of the faculty in your SS run, mainly Hanneman. My boy needs more appreciation. On 11/22/2023 at 12:43 PM, Alef Zero said: Got the joke from "this is basically fire emblem". Still, you find this old dude, that you last met half the valentia apart, in the most random place and he asks to join us. I was completely sure that he was going to turn on us at some point and reveal he's a villain, there was no way he swam all that way alone on a tiny boat. You'd be surprised. There's an old guy in New Mystery who chases you down from one side of the continent to nearly the opposite side by the lategame just to thank you for something you did back at chapter fuckin 3, and you recruit him. Old people have the sillest recruits sometimes. Funny. On 11/22/2023 at 12:43 PM, Alef Zero said: Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to write all this. I'll keep it in mind. I really need a life. On 11/22/2023 at 12:43 PM, Alef Zero said: On 11/17/2023 at 6:02 PM, Jotari said: this is less directed towards you and more at the wider community, especially those that played Gaiden. How could Celica be handled better? All of these are well worn, and very deserved, complaints. But they needed to do something. While Celica somehow manages to have marginally more agency on the NES, they still kind of needed to do something, since in the original it was almost literally climb a big tower and fall down a big hole. Is there any way we could get to the same point without making Celica look weak and reducing the entire thematic aspect of her story? My take? Just have her try to combat Jedah and fail. Have her overpowered then whisper something like "I tried Alm. I'm sorry, but now it's in your hands". Bro thought he could defend the devs but got shot down immediately by the most basic idea that already surpasses that SoV did. On 11/23/2023 at 2:25 AM, Samz707 said: On 11/22/2023 at 12:43 PM, Alef Zero said: not sure If I see any. Like, the only one I can find is in Mathilda/Clive supports, but thees are quickly destroyed by Clive himself. Unless girls acting like girls is already considered misogyny, in which case I disagree. Some people dislike traditional gender roles, but I see no merit in going against them just because. Men and women are different. The complaint is mainly due to dungeons and Celica becoming briefly a damsel in distress in the end. I do see the dungeons as silly but I feel that's less misogyny and more "It's a new mechanic/convenient excuse why these characters haven't joined you yet despite Valentia's seemingly small size", it's not like the women characters are bad once you do recruit them so they ultimately spend far more screentime kicking ass than captive. (Shoutout to Jessie for being the only man in Valentia who gets held captive, I guess those bandits didn't discriminate.) Celica's finale thing is still dumb though. Yeah, I often criticize SoV for being unnecessarily backwards when it comes to "progression" or gender equality or whatever buzzword you want to use. Like, most girls you recruit being imprisoned damsels in distress is a comically outdated trope that very few want to see now, but this is a remake of an old game. Its not their fault that Kaga has several fetishes that should've been left outside of his games. But why the cannoli did you add MORE tropes to an already outdated game with the Fernand Mathilda scene or the Celica treatment at the end, or Celica being saved by Conrad, or Celica no longer serving as the purity to counter Alm's base nature of ruthlessness from the original, thereby making her purpose mostly exist purely as the woman that he needs to save and marry. Like how did you make an early 90s game even LESS equal to female characters? That sounds like something you have to intentionally do! On 11/19/2023 at 2:24 PM, Samz707 said: honestly would rather have an FE where everyone can take a good bit of damage as opposed to the opposite As a dsfe fan, I must heavily disapprove. On 11/19/2023 at 2:24 PM, Samz707 said: found mages did good damage and their magic avoids tile bonuses, I'm honestly surprised you didn't find them useful. When you reclass Kamui to mage 😳 On 11/19/2023 at 2:24 PM, Samz707 said: honestly made Faye a pegasus rider without much issue, as others have said she didn't even exist in Gaiden. (And from what I hear, Echoes is slightly easier than Gaiden?) Yeah Peg Faye is decent and SoV is easy a lot of the time. Like I said, I find 2 healers for early SoV to be busted, but I was already moderately experienced by the time I got to SoV. I assume many players like to have at least 2 healers, but I dont know what team the average FE player uses. I do anything but the norm. On 11/18/2023 at 2:29 PM, lenticular said: Basically, my subjective feeling about the game is a lot more positive than it possibly deserves based on objective criteria, but I don't particularly care. If I like it, I like it. But I can't say I blame anyone who doesn't. At least you're willing to admit the thing you like is bad. On 11/18/2023 at 2:29 PM, lenticular said: find the mindset of "gameplay is the only thing that matters" to be equally baffling, honestly. I mean, I like Fire Emblem enough to want to hang out on an Internet forum to talk about it, so that's the context where I say this: Fire Emblem gameplay is kinda mid. Let's imagine a hypothetical version of Fire Emblem that is stripped back to being an abstract strategy game, with nothing left other than gameplay. All our units are replaced with basic stones like in chequers or go, but with numbers stuck on them so we can reference their character sheets. There's no story, no music, only the most minimal graphics. Would you want to play that game? Because I certainly wouldn't. As a dsfe fan, yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alef Zero Posted November 25, 2023 Author Share Posted November 25, 2023 2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said: Yeah, I often criticize SoV for being unnecessarily backwards when it comes to "progression" or gender equality or whatever buzzword you want to use. Like, most girls you recruit being imprisoned damsels in distress is a comically outdated trope that very few want to see now, but this is a remake of an old game. Its not their fault that Kaga has several fetishes that should've been left outside of his games. But why the cannoli did you add MORE tropes to an already outdated game with the Fernand Mathilda scene or the Celica treatment at the end, or Celica being saved by Conrad, or Celica no longer serving as the purity to counter Alm's base nature of ruthlessness from the original, thereby making her purpose mostly exist purely as the woman that he needs to save and marry. Like how did you make an early 90s game even LESS equal to female characters? That sounds like something you have to intentionally do! Its mostly girls that are imprisoned, because, well, men tend to get killed when defeated. When you capture a woman, aside from ransom, you can have one as a trophy or a slave (sexual or regular). Women are physically weaker than men, and most of those we save are fragile (that is, all aside from Mathilda) and are less aggressive than men, so they're easier to subdue. If Mathilda was not to be used against Clive, she ought to be killed as well, since she would be a problem to keep. It's all biology, really. The fact that Jesse is not immediately killed makes no sense - he's a mercenary, so nobody's going to pay for him, and he can try to escape or fight his captors - he's too dangerous to keep as a slave, not worth any money to pay, and cannot be swayed to work for them. The only logical step is to kill him to get rid of dead weight.. The only reson none of this happen is because this is a PEGI 12 game. By the way, I didn't notice the fact that you mostly save girls at all. I also am not sure if a girl being saved by a handsome knight is an outdated trope? And if anything, Mathilda/Clive support was meant to be a commentary against sexism? At least that's how I understood it. I also don't think they meant to make Celica another damnsel in distress, that's just a result of subpart writing. In fact I have an idea - have Alm's route end with killing Rudolf, therefore uniting Valentia militarily, while Celica's route ends with killing Jedah, thus eliminating dark magic from the country - forget about fighting evil unded dragon, about magically unsealing falchion (btw. can someone explain why is this sword in valentia and not archanea? SoV is supposed to take place in the same continuity right?). You have Alm, who focuses on dealing with physical dangers, while Celica deals with the spiritual, unnatural aspects. This makes their union more balanced - Alm brings physical strength and charisma, while Celica brings enlightenment and spirituality. This is clearly how developers wanted them to be, but with how the story is currently, Celica should absolutely not be allowed to rule. Also, you seem to heavily dislike traditional gender roles, but you'd be fine with a woman being a symbol of purity to offset a ruthlessness of a man? How exactly a trope gets "outdated" and who decides that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted November 25, 2023 Share Posted November 25, 2023 21 minutes ago, Alef Zero said: (btw. can someone explain why is this sword in valentia and not archanea? SoV is supposed to take place in the same continuity right?). Naga had more than two teeth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Holy Elf Posted November 25, 2023 Share Posted November 25, 2023 22 hours ago, Alef Zero said: When you capture a woman, aside from ransom, you can have one as a trophy or a slave (sexual or regular). Women are physically weaker than men, and most of those we save are fragile (that is, all aside from Mathilda) and are less aggressive than men, so they're easier to subdue. If Mathilda was not to be used against Clive, she ought to be killed as well, since she would be a problem to keep. It's all biology, really. The fact that Jesse is not immediately killed makes no sense - he's a mercenary, so nobody's going to pay for him, and he can try to escape or fight his captors - he's too dangerous to keep as a slave, not worth any money to pay, and cannot be swayed to work for them. The only logical step is to kill him to get rid of dead weight.. "Men aren't used as slaves because they're harder to subdue" isn't historically accurate at all. Men have been made slaves frequently in societies which allowed slavery, from the Ancient World antebellum American South to gulags and more. In fact, physically strong men were very desirable as slaves because of their ability to do physically taxing labour (mining, etc.). Some were even used for their combat ability (Roman gladiators were slaves, for an example you're probably familiar with). Jesse being held as a slave is entirely reasonable. As for misogyny, yeah I would definitely say SoV has serious problems on this front. Shaky Jones says it well: On 11/24/2023 at 1:00 PM, Shaky Jones said: Like, most girls you recruit being imprisoned damsels in distress is a comically outdated trope that very few want to see now, but this is a remake of an old game. Its not their fault that Kaga has several fetishes that should've been left outside of his games. But why the cannoli did you add MORE tropes to an already outdated game with the Fernand Mathilda scene or the Celica treatment at the end, or Celica being saved by Conrad, or Celica no longer serving as the purity to counter Alm's base nature of ruthlessness from the original, thereby making her purpose mostly exist purely as the woman that he needs to save and marry. Like how did you make an early 90s game even LESS equal to female characters? That sounds like something you have to intentionally do! I'd add on to this the Grey/Clair A support (which as lenticular already mentioned, undermines an otherwise excellent support chain), Berkut being able to "sacrifice" his wife for power (because she's his possession obv) and then her forgiving him for that. There's a host of problems on this front and the maddening thing is that a lot of them were introduced by the remake; I expect a 1992 game to have some issues on this front but a 2017 game I'm gonna take a much harder eye to. On 11/18/2023 at 2:29 PM, lenticular said: I find the mindset of "gameplay is the only thing that matters" to be equally baffling, honestly. I mean, I like Fire Emblem enough to want to hang out on an Internet forum to talk about it, so that's the context where I say this: Fire Emblem gameplay is kinda mid. Let's imagine a hypothetical version of Fire Emblem that is stripped back to being an abstract strategy game, with nothing left other than gameplay. All our units are replaced with basic stones like in chequers or go, but with numbers stuck on them so we can reference their character sheets. There's no story, no music, only the most minimal graphics. Would you want to play that game? Because I certainly wouldn't. Abstract Emblem would just have way too many problems to be a game that I'd find compelling. It's massively asymmetric in an uninteresting way. The AI is generally not built to even try to beat the player and a lot of the strategy comes from knowing how to manipulate it into playing terribly. I definitely agree with the start of this and for that matter your broader point (i.e. how the appeal of FE isn't in gameplay or character writing alone, but rather their intersection and other considerations like art/music) but... I do think FE gameplay is a bit better than you're giving it credit for. Or at least, I think it is. In the case of your rhetorical question... I have and do play such games. Like, I enjoy XCOM and Into the Breach, for two examples. And those are two examples of games where I basically don't care about the writing at all. The units in those games have names, rather than serial numbers, but they're randomly pulled from a list and have minimal characterization. Some people may value some of what those games do for writing (e.g. with respect to emergent storytelling) but I personally do not; they are close-ish to what you describe as far as I'm concerned (they do have music/graphics, and some story is not none). Yet I still enjoy these games well enough, and I wouldn't personally consider their gameplay better than the stronger Fire Emblem games (again, some people might feel they are, but not me, which is relevant for the point I'm making). Of course I like Fire Emblem better and that's because of the things you said. I also want to add: Fire Emblem and games like it are asymmetric, of course, but I'm not at all bothered by asymmetrical strategy games. in fact, I enjoy them, and feel that single-player strategy games do not have to and often should not strive to be symmetric, since the AI and me are fundamentally different players, and only one of us actually experiences the game. A skilled chess player facing other equally skilled chess players expects to have about a 50% win rate (counting draws as half a win), but a skilled FE player facing the AI expects to win most of the time, and when she loses she expects to learn from her loss, try again, and ultimately win. That's intended in the design of each game and IMO desirable in both cases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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