I finished Berwick Saga!

[RPGuy96]

And I loved it so much I wanted to write down why!  

Berwick Saga is the best Fire Emblem game.

First, a huge thank you Aethin for the fan translation (and TRS as well!).  I'm so happy I was able to play these games and it's thanks to you.

Berwick is in many ways the most Kaga game to have ever Kaga'd, and it all works spectacularly well.

The turn mechanic and the general lack of counterattacks and second attacks leads to a very different Fire Emblem experience.  I don't think I would like every Fire Emblem to play this way, but I really wish more than just this game did.  The way turns work is a great compromise between a pure player and then enemy phase system (like Fire Emblem) and a pure agility system (like Tactics Ogre) that lets all sorts of units shine.  And it's the lack of counters that probably makes it all work, since you can't rely on just sitting in enemy range to kill them.

Heavily related to turns and counters is the 0-1-2 range split and the related hexes, which I do wish basically every Fire Emblem would adopt.  Letting really fast 0-range units counter 1 range attacks gives fast and dodgy units a nice niche, and the ranged crossbow/bow/magic/thrown weapons sets up really interesting weapon and positioning decisions.  All these changes make bow users way better than they are in regular FE, and magic users and throwing weapons much more specialized solutions than general purpose murder machines that they often are.  (The only really annoying thing here is that enemy dark magic tends to get better range, but that's just because Kaga hates the player.)

Probably the last big mechanical change is using specific weapon skills, and this is something else I think all FE should adopt, though I think it should be combined with weapon levels (rather than using level as weapon level as in Berwick).  Especially since weapons contribute more to unit offense than is typical in FE (since unit stats are so low), it would be an even better change to use weapon skill levels for not only hit, and but also ability to use/failure rate.  Berwick's shaky hit rates aren't to everyone's taste, but there's no reason you have to have bad hit with this setup, it's just that stats in general are low.  Tying weapon skills to promotion also makes intuitive sense, although in practice some rates are so low it becomes very annoying.  One typical Kaga thing missing is giant promo gains - promotions are more of a nice bonus than a necessity in Berwick, in keeping with the general low stats.

Low stats are a pretty common Kaga thing, and they work well here.  You gotta team up to take guys out, which also plays very nice with the alternating turns - it doesn't work if they flee and heal, or get in one last blow on a squishy unit.  Weapons and the longterm economy in general are super important, much more so than in typical FE, which combines well with the story of slowly losing a war.  In addition to great weapon variety, Berwick also does equipment much better than any FE: mounts can typically equip shields for the possibility of extra defense, and infantry get stat boosting equipment and miracle charms.

Mercenary characters are another thing I liked but wouldn't want in every Fire Emblem.  It makes more sense that not every character would join you immediately, and paying for units gives Berwick the ability to offer you super strong units (like Clifford) to use when you need them.  I really wish the game was more transparent with happiness and recruitment conditions (and other things like food effects), but overall it's a cool system and works well with the story.

The story is pretty cool, too.  For a decent amount of the game, it feels like it's exploring "what if the player was a Camus?"  Of course, the Raze Empire doesn't have a Marth on its side, and the game does a good job of showing good and evil units on both sides of the war, but King Volcens being such a bad king is a neat setup.  I'd compare it to Conquest, but it's so much better that that seems insulting to Berwick.  Maybe a better comparison is Gen 1 of Geneology - Reese is not entirely unlike Sigurd, but he has the advantage of learning politics by being in the seat of power.  We also get to see him do things that we only talk about with Sigurd - Reese is constantly actually helping the citizens of Navaron, which is really cool.

Things start to shift in Chapter 11 and 12.  

Spoiler

Throughout the whole game, Reese plays an important role in the war, but he doesn't do everything - there's other fronts and other commanders.  I was worried after rescuing Bernard and saving Saphira that the game was going to shift into Reese being single-handedly responsible for ending the war, like how Celice in Genealogy is much more straightforwardly heroic than Sigurd.  But I should have had more faith in Kaga.  Zephyros, Faisal, and Bernard all act independently to start a succession war in the Raze Empire, and kick the weakened Empire out of northern Berwick.  Reese's story stays more limited, and more personal.

I obviously expected the Sinon Knights to not let Reese solo Chapter 14, but Vanmilion and Vester coming to Reese's aid was a genuine surprise.  Narratively, it works really well, because Reese spends a good amount of time helping those two, and now they return the favor (by letting their troops serve as meatshields climbing a cliff).  It means that Chapter 15 can focus on an incipient Berwick civil war that the three of them can stop before it starts.  I was really worried that we were going to get a Veld-type final boss in Pope Urbanus, but, no, he's Zephyros's problem.  We get fucking Duke Herman / Cardinal Jakram, a nice surprise, and I'm all about murdering him.  I'm really happy with how the story turned out.

Finally, a note on Berwick vs modern Fire Emblem.  Berwick is much older than modern FE - it came out the same time as Path of Radiance - but it's 2D-ish style holds up a lot better than the Tellius games, so it feels more modern.  I'd say the main elements of modern Fire Emblem are reclassing (introduced in Shadow Dragon), pair-up (introduced in Awakening, and toned down a lot in 3H and Engage), and class skills (introduced in Awakening).  You could also throw high growth rates & stats in there.  All these things combine to make characters feel kinda samey.  That's not necessarily bad - it means you can often use the character who appeals the most to you for non-gameplay reasons without suffering any gameplay penalties - but it does take away from the uniqueness of pre-Shadow Dragon characters.  

Berwick is the exact opposite of this.  Every character has their own carefully considered skillset which gives them their own niche.  They're pretty well balanced, I think, minus the obvious joke character, and all clearly different.  And they're useful in different situations, which encourages you to switch your team up.  (So does the very harsh EXP formula.)  The general lack of stats also contributes to characters differentiating themselves with skills.  It's not necessarily better than modern FE, but it is different, and I really like it for variety's sake.

(Funnily enough, I think Engage's Emblems smell a lot like a Berwick-style specialized skillset, it's just you can move them around your units, who can reclass and do some limited skill inheritance.  I think this is a cool way to give more genericized characters special niches, though it's kind of weakened by the fact that everyone who wants can inherit Canter and Alacrity or whatever.  Often, it feels like a unit using Lyn is more of a Lyn-user than they are their own unit or class.  It's also worth noting that all post-Awakening games have borrowed heavily from the skills of TRS and Berwick - I guess Nintendo decided that if they were going to lose their lawsuit over TRS borrowing from FE, they might as well return the favor.)

Finally, I want to gush about the characters a bit.  I'll put the spoiler characters in spoiler tags as well.

Spoiler

* Reese: Gram is amazing.  It's weird to have such low availability on the main lord, but it ends up working since you'll usually want to deploy others on side missions anyway.  And then the game abandons side missions at the end so you get to focus on him for the last 7 maps.  My Reese was badly strength screwed: he got +4 strength the whole playthrough, 2 of which were from his promotion!  He had the bracketing min of 11, when the max was 17, but it didn't really matter because Gram is so good.  He's a solid unit with a great prf.

* Ward: Excellent in a pinch.  I didn't use him much, but when I did it was in a tougher mission where he was invariably helpful.  He does indeed have endgame-ready stats - he did get two levels, but didn't get a single stat up, and still made valuable contributions in his (forced) final chapter deployment.

* Leon & Adel: I didn't end up using the Spear Bros at all.  When I play this again, I will.  One thing I learned is that there's more than enough experience to go around, and the difference of a few levels for the last chapter or two doesn't really matter.  For the first playthrough, though, I wanted to focus more on recruiting the mercs, and I was already going for some annoying promotions (Elbert, Ruby, Aegina).  But, Clifford is amazing with Lances, and while I'm not sure how it would transfer to these two - or, more likely, just Leon - I want to try.

* Sherlock: Really slow start thanks to inaccurate weapons, but eventually [Double|Triple]-Shot and One-Two make him extremely valuable.  I was quite frustrated with him early on (FUCKING HIT SOMETHING YOU JACKASS) and then very happy to have him later (Triple-Shot Raijin Arrows this armor guy to finish him off, then One-Two with Mythril Arrows to oneshot this guy, then Canto away).  Overwatch is the coolest skill in the series, though I associate it more with Sylvis.

* Elbert: Another unit with great skills - Provoke and Arrowbane are great, and Shieldfare helps him out too.  I went for promotion with him, which meant deploying him extensively and using spears exclusively, which was kind of annoying.  And then when he finally gets Spear 20, his hit rates are pretty bad compared to your other units that have ~35 in their main skill.  I think I would like him more if I just ignored his promotion altogether and just had him use swords, which is what I did after he promoted.  Another thing I learned is that most promotions aren't a big deal, so it's fine to go easy on them.

* Christine: Kind of surprisingly good?  I gave her basically all of my good crossbows (and her prf), and enough bows to get her to Bow 20 and promotion.  She was never amazing, but often useful.  Like with Elbert, I'm not sure her promotion is really worth it, but, with Aim, she doesn't need quite as high of a Crossbow skill anyway.

* Dean: Dean smash things good.  With Depseration and a high Axe skill, he's oddly accurate for a Kaga axe user in a low accuracy game.  I never found Vengeful reliable enough to count on, but Desperation is fantastic, Adept is a great bonus when it triggers, and there's amazing axes with his Bhuj, hammers, and Mjollner.  A little fragile, but otherwise great.

* Izerna: Best healer, with Expert meaning she can use great healing orbs early on.  In a normal FE (where I wouldn't care about Owen and Saphira), I would've just used her for healing all game.  Her low movement can really be a burden on escape maps, though.

* Volo: Volo murder things good.  As a (relatively high level) pre-promote, I didn't use him often until other units caught up to his level, but he's great, if a little underpowered eventually.  I didn't take as much advantage of Deathmatch as I probably should have (too scary), but it was there when I needed it.  All your foot swordies have a niche, and Volo's is deathmatching things.  To death.

* Axel: Since I wanted to promote Czene, I didn't use too much Axel, but he's a cool guy with some unique waterwalking utility.

* Sylvis: The legend herself.  Overwatch, Aim, Deadeye, Hide, Expert - her skill list is the best.  Definitely the most fun bow user in all of Fire Emblem, and possibly my MVP for the entire playthrough.  I know I've been saying that promotions don't matter, but I kind of wish she had one - as a level 3 Sniper she's not quite the same as your Volos or Cliffords, but it would have been nice for her to have a promo event, maybe after her paralogue.  This is mostly my bias against prepromotes speaking.  Anyway, another great thing about Berwick, as brought out by her Hide, is that the AI follows fog of war / other visibility mechanic rules, which makes fog maps bearable.

* Ruby: I used her to promotion, and then she's just kind of good?  It seems like you should get more payoff.  I guess the payoff is actually Clifford. Axebane is nice (unless you're working on her S Shield skill for promo....), and her terrible weapon skill go up very quickly.  She just goes from pretty bad to reasonably competent, which doesn't feel as great as you might like.  She ended up being my best Spear user, which was nice, since Arthur and Elbert preferred swords and Clifford lances.  Maybe she should get Lancebane or something on promotion?  It would fit with her story and give her more of a niche of her own.

* Arthur: He's great, though.  With Medium Shields he fills a pretty valuable mobile tanky unit role early on, heading in first and taking hits so others can do the offense.  Like Dean, he can use Desperation to boost his hit.  He's not that special but he was consistently useful. In a second playthrough, I'd probably focus on crippling more, and get more use out of Flourish.

* Czene: I got her to promotion!  She's got obvious utility but knives are so bad. I didn't forge the Tempest Knife for a while because I wanted to have a backup Dire Thunder, but maybe I should've gone for it sooner so she could have some offense.  I'd probably use her a lot less on a second playthrough to give more time to Thaddy and Axel.  The horse is nice, but the only time I thought it was amazing was, oddly enough, the [second] desert dragon map.

* Kramer: He's got a super weird niche with Arrowbane and Climber.  A solid unit, albeit kinda fragile against non-bow users, with a cool blade on recruitment.  My Kramer had blessed strength - 18 at his final level, either the bracketing max or one off - which helped him OHKO some weaker enemies with his Balmung.  His swordie niche is climbing cliffs and dodging arrows, which is surprisingly useful.  Enemies get Overwatch and like to use it.

* Faye: Unlike Ruby, I thought training her was worth it, for dodging and Astra.  5 hits is usually overkill, but on some bulky-non-armor-units (like terrifying Lance Knights) it can be really clutch.  With her super high speed, she's about as dodgy as you can be in Berwick, which is also really helpful.  She's got a weird arc - great until her Cutlass breaks, then pretty bad, then really useful once her Sword skill and Speed shoot up and especially as she promotes.  Kaga learned from FE6 that the way to make high Skill and Speed useful is to have really compressed hitrates - never too low and never very high.  Her swordie niche is dodgetanking and murdering non-armored units with Astra.  

Spoiler

Plus Vitra-Astra-ing Chaos was _so_ incredibly satisfying, even though Chaos himself is pretty meh.

* Derrick: A joke unit that can't move.  I never used him, probably still wouldn't in a second playthrough.

* Clifford: As with Ward and Volo, I didn't use him that much, but he was key when I did, especially in the later chapters.  His stats hold up better in the endgame than the swordie prepromotes.  Spears are a cool idea, and Lances kicks that idea up to 11.  The AI even shows you how to use lance users to bring death upon your enemies.

* Faramir: As above.  Celerity is good, Cutlass+ is great, bows are nice.  In the lategame, it always felt to me like he was getting hit by everything while Faye dodged everything, which is annoying because they're both very frail.  But that's probably confirmation bias more than the ~10-15 avoid difference between them.  His swordie niche is moving fast and occasionally shooting things from range.

* Esteban: I felt like I had enough bow users, so I avoided using him.  I did recruit him and did his Sophie events, but he wasn't especially close to promotion.  In a second playthrough, I'd bring him into the team more, especially in the midgame - there's plenty of use for archer units, so I'm sure I can fit him in.  He's got a cool skillset.

* Aegina: I used her a fair amount, but her Wind skill was never anywhere close to promotion.  I had some unlucky level ups where she got Fire skill rather than Wind, which was annoying.  Still, Focus Chant and her regenerating spell made her useful, although the least helpful of the three mages for me.

* Sherpa: Kind of a weird unit - Guard and Byrmranger giving -50 avoid don't work super well because he can't really take hits.  Still, three hits with the Byrmranger is really good, and having Counter and an enemy phase helps.  I consistently forgot that Counter exists, so I don't think I used him to his best advantage.  (Also, he would miss with Counter and get hit again and die.  Whoops!)  His swordie niche is having an enemy phase, but it's tricky to use him that way since he's got low def and isn't super dodgy.

* Saphira: She's a worse healer than Izerna!  But still worth deploying every now and again to get her some level ups, so she can use Mend and Physic.  

Spoiler

Because once she gets Starlight and her crazy Apostle skills, she's got 2 maps of pretty good usefulness (14 and 15), which doesn't sound like much, but they're hard maps.

* Owen: Also sort of worse than Izerna, although not as bad as Saphira since he can use any Orb thanks to Expert and comes with a whole bunch.  He has his weird gimmick, too, which means he comes with Escape and can Escape himself, useful for Escape maps.  

Spoiler

I never ended up using his Raze-Monkiness, because after Heretic God I rolled with the other healers.  It's a shame, I did manage to pick up a 2 use Sleep somewhere, and it probably would've helped.

* Daoud: A promotable unit that I didn't use.  I would on a second playthrough.  I had too many good axes for just Dean, really, and while Arthur was a competent tank, it wouldn't hurt to have another.  There's plenty of maps where you either you don't need cavalry movement, or it's actively harmful.

* Larentia: What a fun unit!  Mainline FE tends towards making flyers super overpowered, and Larentia is a nice contrast to that.  She's extremely useful, but not for her somewhat mediocre combat.  Flyers in Berwick can't be attacked by 0 range weapons, so she can hang out and block spaces.  Flying movement is great for doing optional objectives in timed maps, like in normal FE.  Watchful is increasingly useful, and Mercy is nice for setting up kills or trying to cripple.

* Thaddy: Because I was focused on promoting Czene, I didn't use him too much.  He's got an interesting skill list, Steal is probably more useful than Mug because it's not like knives are killing too much.  And while I usually wanted to attack with Elbert and Clifford, using Provoke with him sounds fun.  I would focus more on Stealing things with him in a second playthrough.

* Marcel: Didn't use him.  Unlike Daoud, he can't promote, so I'm less interested in using him on a second playthrough.  There's also plenty of sword users, and his move is awful.

* Enid: If Ruby doesn't quite pay off and Faye does, Enid REALLY does.  Of course, she's more annoying - you need her to get 5 magic to promote, and she starts with 2.  With bracketing, she can reach 4 at level 6, so I rigged that levelup, and then can get another point from a potion.  With Paragon and Lady Swords, it's not even so bad to get her to level 6 (although I wouldn't want to wait too much longer...).  And, then, presto, you have a unit that can absolutely roast things with Pallas Leia, which regenerates two uses per chapter.  She's somewhat less squishy than the other mages, hits much harder, is fairly accurate despite a low Fire skill, and has Focus Chant.  She's not without her weaknesses, but she's supremely useful as a unit that can consistently OHKO extremely bulky armored units.

* Perceval: Percy's less work than Enid and in return is less good.  Dire Thunder makes a triumphant return, and though Enid can use it too, I was happy for her to use fire magic.  Percy doesn't get a Pallas prf, though, and his accuracy with Dire Thunder is a little shaky.  He has Arrowbane and Adept, but it's a bad idea to rely on either of them, since he can sometimes be oneshot by archers, and his AS isn't great.

* Burroughs: A ballistician is always a cool idea, but I didn't end up deploying him much.  He wants to stay still and Battle Cry so he can actually hit someone, but the maps after him aren't very conducive to that.

* Alvina: Late-joining competent Paladin, exactly the kind of unit I don't really use.  Nice prf.

Spoiler

* Paramythis: Late-joining competent healer Pala---wait, PURSUIT?????  Half of the time I used Paramythis - only in Heretic God and Silent City - I completely forgot that she had Pursuit.  Like in Genealogy, it's absurdly good.  Unlike Genealogy, she (and leveled-up-Estaban) get it, so it's less "mandatory to be a good unit" and more a super special bonus.  Kaga enjoys giving you stuff at the end of the game to make sure you're not screwed, and Paramythis is definitely part of that for Berwick.  A healer a thousand times more mobile than your other healers that can one-round things thanks to having Pursuit.

* Lynette: Well, there's the Lightning Pallas orb.  And the only three range bow in the game?  And she gives Reese 100 crit?  And she gives your allies 5 def - many of whom don't even _have_ 5 def?  Well.  Kaga is merciful and gives you Paramythis for Chapter 13 and 14 and Lynette for 15 to make beating them much easier.

 

Next up, Vestaria Saga if I can convince myself to not immediately start Berwick again.  I opened it up to make sure I could get it to work on Linux, and it's, uh, a little bit different graphically than Berwick.

Edited February 4 by RPGuy96
Add a spoiler tag

[Saint Rubenio]

1 hour ago, RPGuy96 said:

Berwick Saga is the best Fire Emblem game.

Indeed, that is correct.

Nice in-depth impressions, with which I mostly agree. Always nice to see more people enjoying this gem. Also continuing to prove the rule that everyone who plays this game loves Sylvis lol

One thing I wanted to note; it's funny that you say you were afraid of getting a Veld-type final boss, because I do find the final boss of Berwick Saga is basically a much, much better executed Veld.

Spoiler

Think about it. Both of them are high-ranking underlings of the enemy church manipulating their opposing country from behind the scenes, as well as a human final boss without special powers or an exclusive class that is an easier challenge than their map as a whole. The concept of Veld and Jacharam is essentially the same.

The difference is, Veld has like four scenes in the game. Even while he's in the middle of making his biggest (and really, only) contribution to the plot, stoning Eyvel, Raydrik's the one interacting with her, gloating, siccing Mareeta on her and generally being a jerk. It's weird to say, but it feels like the only thing Veld does there is the act of stoning Eyvel itself, and it's Raydrik that leaves an actual impression on the player. Then he vanishes until the final chapter and they just sort of throw together some last-minute excuse for why this guy is important and we should care.

On the other hand, we spend the entirety of Berwick Saga watching Jacharam whispering in Volcens's ear and making things worse for everyone. From their very first scene it's clear that both Volcyboy and Padolf are morons and Herman is the one we should be worried about. When it's revealed he's a spy, it doesn't feel as much like a "wow that's surprising" moment as a "oh no we're actually fucked" moment. Because, unlike Veld, we've seen first hand how tight his grip on the Berwick League is. It feels like there's nothing that can be done to stop him from ruining everything without even bloodying his hands. Until Reese and co. go rogue and he has to improvise, of course.

All of this means that, even though he's not the leader of his faction, he very much feels like the main villain of Berwick Saga (a game that doesn't focus on the war as a whole to begin with). He's also one of the villains with the most screentime in both KagaSaga and FE - a constant presence throughout the game. While I wouldn't call him the deepest or most interesting villain ever (in fact I like Volcens better as a character), he's definitely an effective one, and when the final chapter comes and he's the last enemy, it's not a letdown like Veld, despite their similarities - it feels right. Because he's Veld done right.

 

Edited February 4 by Saint Rubenio

[RPGuy96]

Spoiler

4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

All of this means that, even though he's not the leader of his faction, he very much feels like the main villain of Berwick Saga (a game that doesn't focus on the war as a whole to begin with). He's also one of the villains with the most screentime in both KagaSaga and FE - a constant presence throughout the game. While I wouldn't call him the deepest or most interesting villain ever (in fact I like Volcens better as a character), he's definitely an effective one, and when the final chapter comes and he's the last enemy, it's not a letdown like Veld, despite their similarities - it feels right. Because he's Veld done right.

Oh, yes, absolutely.  After rescuing Bernard in Exile Island I thought it that the final boss was either going to be Faisal, Urbanus, or Volcens, and I wasn't sure how the last one would work since clearly Volcens cannot stand on his own.  (As we see when he is unceremoniously OHKO'd, and no one talks about him ever again.)  After Heretic God I thought Urbanus was the most likely, and that would've felt very Veld-y since he doesn't do anything (directly to Reese, at least).  Maybe I should've guessed that Herman was the missing fourth cardinal and a actually good Veld, but I totally struck out on that.  As you say, Jacharam does a ton of stuff and screws Reese over throughout the game - he's a perfect final boss.  Even the fact that Saphira totally negates him works well - there's a reason the Raze Church wanted her dead.

(I do wish the final chapter wasn't the one place in Berwick where Kaga resorted to reinforcement spam, though.  All he really needed was an enemy to go after Theodore at the right time to give some time pressure so you can't set up perfectly against the scary Dark Shield Lance Knights and it would've worked just as well and been much quicker to boot.)

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I haven't played myself, but I've watched several different people stream it over the last two years - two of whom have already started up the game a second or third time. I definitely think Kaga's a mechanics-first, presentation later kinda guy. Berwick does the FE1 thing where there's exactly one Player Phase theme until the final map (and FE1 is about a third of the length of Berwick). There's a clear passion there for making new and interesting systems rather than refining his previous game's mechanics. Though it could also be a desperate attempt to make Berwick Saga (a game that Kaga is purposely not in the credits for. He Ghost Directed it) different from fire emblem to avoid a third lawsuit from Nintendo.

They say this game sold better than Path of Radiance in Japan. The PS2 was the more popular system, sure, but it's also a 2D game versus a 3D game. Indie versus 15 year old Franchise. Game that was either too scared or too poor to put out a commercial versus Nintendo Marketing. Furthermore, the PS2 had a lot more games like it while Path of Radiance had virtually no competition for Strategy RPG on Gamecube.

Edited February 4 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Saint Rubenio]

22 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I haven't played myself, but I've watched several different people stream it over the last two years - two of whom have already started up the game a second or third time. I definitely think Kaga's a mechanics-first, presentation later kinda guy. Berwick does the FE1 thing where there's exactly one Player Phase theme until the final map (and FE1 is about a third of the length of Berwick). There's a clear passion there for making new and interesting systems rather than refining his previous game's mechanics. Though it could also be a desperate attempt to make Berwick Saga (a game that Kaga is purposely not in the credits for. He Ghost Directed it) different from fire emblem to avoid a third lawsuit from Nintendo.

While I agree with the statement, I'd say the presentation in Berwick Saga is pretty dang excellent. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Berwick Saga has better presentation than... basically, all of FE honestly. Have you seen the cutscenes in that game? They've never looked that good in FE. The scenes are full of sprites moving around as the scenes require, with even a number of cutscene-only animations.

No better example than this scenario that's seen many times throughout the game. I'm pretty sure the Switch would explode if the latest FEs tried to have 15 characters rendered at once. And the combat art is just gorgeous, those sprites are so elaborate.

The "player phase theme" thing is also kinda doing the game a bit of a disservice, because that only applies to regular battle music. I'll admit I'd have like a couple more regular battle themes, but then there's like 12 map themes, as well as four different boss themes throughout the entire game. And then like 50 songs otherwise lol. Game's not doing so bad on that front.

22 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

They say this game sold better than Path of Radiance in Japan. The PS2 was the more popular system, sure, but it's also a 2D game versus a 3D game. Indie versus 15 year old Franchise. Game that was either too scared or too poor to put out a commercial versus Nintendo Marketing. Furthermore, the PS2 had a lot more games like it while Path of Radiance had virtually no competition for Strategy RPG on Gamecube.

To be specific, it outsold both PoR and RD in Japan.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

22 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

While I agree with the statement, I'd say the presentation in Berwick Saga is pretty dang excellent. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Berwick Saga has better presentation than... basically, all of FE honestly. Have you seen the cutscenes in that game? They've never looked that good in FE. The scenes are full of sprites moving around as the scenes require, with even a number of cutscene-only animations.

No better example than this scenario that's seen many times throughout the game. I'm pretty sure the Switch would explode if the latest FEs tried to have 15 characters rendered at once. And the combat art is just gorgeous, those sprites are so elaborate.

Putting aside the fact that rendering a sprite is a whole different beast than rendering a fully 3D character model, every scene I remember from Berwick takes place either in that throne room, Reese's office, or one of several other stock backdrops you'd see during mission preparations. Sixty hours in it all becomes so familiar - not unlike the Monastery in Three Houses. Where something would happen and we'd all come back to the Monastery to chat in a circle about what just happened.

I don't deny that Berwick possesses carefully considered art. I also wouldn't suggest a game like Solitaire on a 2000s Windows PC lacks art. Berwick Saga is a game I fully expect you could get running on a PS1, because I can name 2D PS1 games with more detailed and varied artwork. And yes I'd also say that GBA's Fire Emblem titles have better sprite detail than Berwick. Does Berwick look better than Path of Radiance? Apples to Oranges comparison, but I'd say yes it does.

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The "player phase theme" thing is also kinda doing the game a bit of a disservice, because that only applies to regular battle music. I'll admit I'd have like a couple more regular battle themes, but then there's like 12 map themes, as well as four different boss themes throughout the entire game. And then like 50 songs otherwise lol. Game's not doing so bad on that front.

That reminds me. You'd only ever hear boss themes if you chose to animate that combat. You're right though that I shouldn't call it a Player Phase theme. There is no Player Phase. It's all One Phase for each turn. One Song for gameplay, one song for sitting at base making miscellaneous decisions.

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To be specific, it outsold both PoR and RD in Japan.

That is the very first sentence of the passage you quoted, yes.

Edited February 4 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Saint Rubenio]

19 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Putting aside the fact that rendering a sprite is a whole different beast than rendering a fully 3D character model, every scene I remember from Berwick takes place either in that throne room, Reese's office, or one of several other stock backdrops you'd see during mission preparations. Sixty hours in it all becomes so familiar - not unlike the Monastery in Three Houses. Where something would happen and we'd all come back to the Monastery to chat in a circle about what just happened.

I don't deny that Berwick possesses carefully considered art. I also wouldn't suggest a game like Solitaire on a 2000s Windows PC lacks art. Berwick Saga is a game I fully expect you could get running on a PS1, because I can name 2D PS1 games with more detailed and varied artwork. And yes I'd also say that GBA's Fire Emblem titles have better sprite detail than Berwick. Does Berwick look better than Path of Radiance? Apples to Oranges comparison, but I'd say yes it does.

I disagree, but fair enough. To each their own.

20 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

That reminds me. You'd only ever hear boss themes if you chose to animate that combat.

Not quite. I'm playing the game right now and fighting a boss. The boss theme plays even without animations on. It's the regular battle music that only plays without animations if the enemy has a battle quote.

20 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

That is the very first sentence of the passage you quoted, yes.

Well, you said "they say" like it was a rumor and not a confirmed fact, plus you only brought up PoR. So I confirmed and elaborated on the point.

[RPGuy96]

I would wager that Berwick's presentation cost less than basically every post-PoR Fire Emblem, but I think it looks better than most of them.  The low poly 3D models used until the Switch games just don't look that good compared to the Berwick 2D sprites.  And while the fully rendered 3D Switch cutscenes look good, a lot of stuff - like all the supports - are the 3D models doing kind of dumb motions on top of a pre-rendered 2D background.  It's a matter of taste, but I prefer the fully 2D Berwick environments to that.  Regular FIre Emblem does portraits better much faster (although I, like most people, don't care for the DS portraits).  Finally, I prefer Berwick's 2D sprite battle animations to even the Switch high-poly 3D battle animations - Faye's Astra animation is my favorite in the whole expanded series.

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

And yes I'd also say that GBA's Fire Emblem titles have better sprite detail than Berwick. Does Berwick look better than Path of Radiance? Apples to Oranges comparison, but I'd say yes it does.

I really like GBA Fire Emblem's aesthetics, but I think Berwick is really helped by the better resolution on the PS2.  Compare the Paladin crit animation in GBA FE to attacking with a Lance (not Spear) in Berwick.

The GBA fake charge looks awesome, and the pause and flash on the actual hit are great.  It's a great animation!

A real charge at high speed with the camera panning, a pause on hit, and then he runs through the enemy!  I would guess it's inspired by the GBA animation, but it looks even better, I think.

I really like that Berwick lets you decide to show or not show battle animations per battle, incidentally.  It's more pleasant than the all-or-nothing FE on/off swich. 

On the battle theme, I do like that Fates (I think?) introduced battle themes as more intense versions of the map theme, but that's from a decade after Berwick came out. Kaga can't do everything first.

[BrightBow]

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Putting aside the fact that rendering a sprite is a whole different beast than rendering a fully 3D character model, every scene I remember from Berwick takes place either in that throne room, Reese's office, or one of several other stock backdrops you'd see during mission preparations. Sixty hours in it all becomes so familiar - not unlike the Monastery in Three Houses. Where something would happen and we'd all come back to the Monastery to chat in a circle about what just happened.

Fire Emblem did actually do scenes like that in 3D back in the day. And they looked great.

It's just that they no longer care to show that there are people in the world outside of the avatar and his small group of simps.
 

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

And yes I'd also say that GBA's Fire Emblem titles have better sprite detail than Berwick.

It's because they are barely animated in the first place.
Berwick Saga probably has more frames in it's idle animations than the GBA games have in a whole sprite sheet.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. They just worked within their limitations on the handheld by prioritizing striking poses over natural movement and fluent animation. No doubt a good call on the small and infamously badly lit GBA screen where that kind of detail would have been difficult to appreciate.
But it does mean that comparing them to Berwick's animation style is very much an apple and oranges situation. Had they tried anything like it on the GBA, combat animations would likely have looked not much different than the series did back on the similarly powerful SNES.

Edited February 4 by BrightBow

[Saint Rubenio]

22 hours ago, RPGuy96 said:

I really like GBA Fire Emblem's aesthetics, but I think Berwick is really helped by the better resolution on the PS2.

I should've clarified that, when I claimed to like Berwick's presentation more than all of FE, I don't mean I dislike FE's aesthetics or anything like that. For the most part I think FE looks pretty good, and it's certainly unfair to compare a PS2 game to GBA games.

It's just that, the GBA limitations constrained its visuals just a tad (it still looks really good, there's a reason so many still consider them the best looking FEs), and instead of continuing to develop from there and polishing up some truly beautiful 2D visuals on more powerful consoles, the series went 3D. I frankly believe that was a mistake. I mean, look at this.

21 hours ago, BrightBow said:

That's about as good as they could get it to look in 3D at the time. And, well... If you try to picture how this scene would look in Berwick, it's just plain better. The DS FEs had a really weird arstyle (I do like the look of the maps, and I'm fonder of the portraits than most, but the batttle sprites are... eehh), the 3DS FEs are even more constrained than Tellius was, and Three Houses looks two generations outdated. Engage is... getting there, it looks nice, but it still suffers from being unable to have more than a handful of models onscreen, clipping issues, 30 FPS cap so the Switch doesn't explode, boring magic... Problems it wouldn't have if it was 2D.

Then again, I know jumping to 3D was basically mandatory back in those days, so... eh. All things considered, Kaga being a "mechanics first, visuals second" guy might be what led him and his team to avoid a pointless jump to 3D with Berwick, so lucky break there lol

[RPGuy96]

 

On 2/4/2024 at 4:22 PM, BrightBow said:

Fire Emblem did actually do scenes like that in 3D back in the day. And they looked great.

This looks good for a late GCN / early Wii game, but I hesitate to say it looks good in general.  I suppose this is a matter of taste, though - I dislike early 3D stuff.  I do like that PoR and (especially) RD actually show large armies, but Berwick does this too.  (A little more confusingly, since Reese is in charge of his allegedly large army, yet we never see them on the maps.  3H battalions have a sort of weird gameplay role, but a much more straightforward aesthetic role.)

On 2/5/2024 at 2:17 PM, Saint Rubenio said:

Then again, I know jumping to 3D was basically mandatory back in those days, so... eh. All things considered, Kaga being a "mechanics first, visuals second" guy might be what led him and his team to avoid a pointless jump to 3D with Berwick, so lucky break there lol

Yes, I think being a more indie game was helpful here.  FE returning to consoles gave us a much more expansive game in Radiant Dawn, and I'm glad for it, warts and all.  But IS couldn't have made PoR in 2D on the GameCube, that just wasn't an option at that point.  It's a shame.

But back to Berwick itself!

On 2/4/2024 at 1:11 PM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

There's a clear passion there for making new and interesting systems rather than refining his previous game's mechanics. Though it could also be a desperate attempt to make Berwick Saga (a game that Kaga is purposely not in the credits for. He Ghost Directed it) different from fire emblem to avoid a third lawsuit from Nintendo.

I kinda disagree here.  Berwick is clearly different from the standard FE formula, especially as it developed after Kaga left in FE6-8, and I think you're right that the lawsuit played a role here.  But I think there's a lot of things that show what Kaga learned from his FEs and TRS:

• Kaga was interested in turning core mechanics into skills in Genealogy (Pursuit, Critical), and that's taken to the next level here with a much rarer Pursuit, and Counter is now a skill too.  There are also other ways to counter (dodging, Vengeful), and other ways to follow up (Adept, Desperation, Deathmatch).
• I don't know that it's the only reason for the 0-1-2 split, but Kaga (and IS) consistently struggled to make archers relevant, and there's no one helped from that split more than archers. 
• Skills are featured in all Kaga games after Genealogy, but I would say they're most impactful in Berwick.  Genealogy has Pursuit for impact and TRS has a ton of skills generally, but I think most TRS units are good for stats and prfs rather than skills.  Berwick units play really differently depending on skill loadout.
• Kaga's generally been interested in the player not having a core team - dismounting in Mystery, Thracia, and TRS; free deployment in Gaiden and Genealogy; route splits in Gaiden and TRS; and fatigue in Thracia are all about the player using more units.  Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't.  Berwick does this well by having clever map design that encourages the player to bring the unit with the right skills, and the happiness requirements for mercs fit here too.  Tons of characters get sidequests.  There's the stick of the very harsh EXP formula as well.

One thing that's really core to Berwick that I don't think has any antecedents is simultaneous turns.  But I think there's a decent amount of refinement going on in addition to experimentation.

[Omegaprism]

Hey, I just finished it too! It was certainly quite an experience in changing the way I approach games like these, but when the final screen faded to black and I was greeted with the title once more I was left with a great sense of accomplishment. I also want to chime in and say that Aethin's English translation patch is top notch, and I am so grateful that someone took the time and effort to make this game playable to an old anglophone like me. Great stuff!

Now at last I have checked that big item off of my mental list, and I can tackle Vestaria Saga. Onward!