Isn't GBA Era the best? Post if you agree or disagree

[Westbrick]

Oh, I'm awfully sorry that I forgot to provide evidence beyond "I didn't like it" for why I didn't like it. I really should have provided an equal amount of evidence as to why FE7 was bad as you did as to why FE4 was good.

Wait, I did. (note: your "evidence" was simply calling it a "captivating political drama")

This entire post is littered with examples of you not reading carefully, so I'll try to spell things out as clearly as I can:

1) Sage and I were originally having an innocent back-and-forth about why he didn't like FE4, when you decided to jump in and take things up a notch. Not that I don't love heated debate, but it's important to keep this in mind.

2) I've provided many reasons why FE4 is good; what you probably want to ask is for clarification on what I mean. Example: saying that FE4's story is good because it involves captivating political drama is a fair claim, but backing it up with textual evidence and/or specific examples would make it even stronger. This is what I want from you, not just "I don't like it lalala"

Okay, sarcasm mode aside, you're confusing character development with character definition, mate. The cast of FE7 is defined, sure, can't argue against that, but they don't go anywhere. Hector in BBD is the same as C11 Hector.

Hector is entirely different. He's had to go through the death of his brother. He's witnessed the death of many troops, the supreme power of Nergal, and the near-resurrection of calamity-bringing dragons. He's had to deal with his vengeful streak and learn forgiveness. He's had to learn to cooperate with those around him, and learn to fit more within the rules that he was previously comfortable with. He's had to choose between kinship and duty to Elibe. Assuming you've gotten him some supports along the way, he's also fallen in love and made or further explored some key friendships.

He's very different. This applies to the FE7 cast as a whole.

Speaking of confusions, you're conflating character development (learning more about a character, seeing how he adapts to different conditions and responds to conflict, seeing him learn and grow and form new bonds) with character evolution (a radical change in how a character thinks, feels, and/or behaves). Evolution is a *type* of development, but not the *only* type of development, and you seem to be suggesting that a character has to undergo some kind of personality surgery for development to have taken place. Watching a goody-two-shoes become a sadistic serial killer is indeed one type of development; watching that same goody-two-shoes grow, suffer, and triumph while learning about himself is also development.

This is pretty basic English stuff, honestly. Not sure why I have to go through and explain it.

So I never disputed that FE7 had fleshed-out characters. I disputed that they evolved at all.

Oh, I hadn't even seen this until after I typed up the above. Glad to see you're supporting my case.

Okay, no. FE4 has not aged gracefully. Somebody provided FE4 and FE6 mugs (was it you?), but that's not fair.

Another example of you not reading carefully. I was responding to eclipse, who was comparing FE4 and FE6.

Compare same-system mugs:

Can you really say that you don't see a difference, or that the FE4 ones are actually better? FE5 is significantly better graphically than FE4. Even the landscape shots (that you posted) are better. The overworld sprites? Maybe not so much, but that's just as much one category as mugs are one category.

I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to take this seriously. Let's see...

Fire Emblem 4 was released in May of 1996.

Fire Emblem 5 was released in September of 1999.

It should come as no surprise that one looks better than another. Speaking of Super Nintendo games, Yoshi's Island came out five years after Super Mario World. It looks way better. Does that mean Super Mario World is "ugly"? No. You can have two games on the same system where one looks better but both look great.

I'm going to focus on Generation 1 for the time being, since that seems to be the place you're more open to being convinced about. We'll table Gen.2 for the time being.

C1: Ignoring the fact that this is among the worst maps in the series for gameplay, what's the intrigue? Jamka betraying whatsisface? He was obviously going to be open to that from the very moment we first saw him. Evil cult in control of the evil empire? You can't tell me that was novel even for 1996. Also, Ayra and Dew.

The obvious drama here, which has somehow eluded you, is that Sigurd's agenda radically evolves from a simple rescue mission to the occupation of an entire country, which foreshadows the similar, but darker, consequences of this type of approach towards the end of Chapter 2 and into Chapter 3. Among the smaller elements of drama here include:

-The escape of Adean and Dew

-Ayra's determination to protect her nephew and the struggle to convert her to the other side; also touches on the conflict between Isaac and Grandbell, marking another instance of foreshadowing

-The skirmish between Eltshan and Elliot, giving the player insight into the schism taking place in Augustria

-Introduction of the Loptu sect and a demonstration of their manipulative power (taking control over Verdane)

-Sigurd's fated meeting and falling-in-love with Diadora, and his successful attempt to woo her

...Having typed all this out, there's actually a lot more going on here than even I gave it credit for at first. Great chapter in terms of plot development.

C2: Eltshan helped us, we go help Eltshan. I LIKE THIS. Then run all over the place, get Levin from nowhere, get Fury from nowhere, the castles each decide to go to war against you one by one (surprising?).

Tons and tons of drama here, but the central plot thread is the accidental occupation of Augustria by Sigurd & Co. There's also the flight to save the villages and the introduction of Prince Levin and the nation of Silesia.

C3: Go kill this castle. I don't even remember why we have to go kill the first castle. Then Eltshan is FORCED TO FIGHT and this CANNOT BE RESOLVED WELL. This is the first "twist" and my first stickling point with FE4's plot because I don't like the way it's handled. Either you kick the piss out of Eltshan and send him deading or you get Lachesis to talk him out of it and he ...goes home and dies. Also Trabant shows up and then suddenly the pirates decide to try to steal from us. In sequence.

You might not "like" how Eltshan was handled, but it's fitting thematically: he decides to ally himself to the interests of his motherland, and he dies along with Augustia. It would have been out of character, given how he acted previously, to simply up and join Sigurd's army; trying to return home and rectify the situation made for a believable, fitting sacrifice.

Eltshan aside, I'm sure you'll agree that tons of stuff happens here. The fall of Augustria, the abduction of Diadora, the introduction of the Church, the band of pirates and the resulting power-play, the realization of a brewing plot against Grandbell at the capitol, and the flight of Sigurd's army.

C4: Longest run ever, the only twist in the first part of the map is that they decide to pull the bridge up on you and Cuan leaves sort of arbitrarily. Once you have the first castle, something actually good happens in that Mahnya and Co die. This would have been much better handled if we weren't arbitrarily blocked by the Silesian soldier (rather, just making it impossible to get to Mahnya in time with any combination of available resources besides Fury) but I'm not going to nitpick it. Then you shitstomp whatserface for killing Mahnya.

That, and the seeds of Levin's evolution (see?) from an irresponsible, carefree idealist to a focused, dependable leader hardened by tragedy.

C5: The BIG TWIST. Sigurd's dad is alive (but only to deliver the sword) and then a lot of fighting and Cuan shows up to help and dies, cementing our hatred of Trabant. It's one of my least favorite scenes and I like it because I actually hate Trabant until he shows up again late in Gen 2. THIS IS EFFECTIVE. Then Sigurd and everybody die to the backstabber who backstabbed Reptor who turns out to be Alvis' front.

So we pretty much agree this chapter is the real deal. Great.

End result? It's not bad. It's not as amazing as you're 'sperging it up to be, but it isn't bad. For the time? Sure, it's great (even, dare I say, revolutionary), but that doesn't hold overmuch relevance. Things deserve credit for being revolutionary for their time when they retain relevance years later.

...Not to sound too contrarian, but having typed all this up, FE4's plot is actually significantly more developed than I had first recalled. Every chapter, barring perhaps Ch.4 (which serves its eye-before-the-storm role well anyway), absolutely oozes with juicy subplot goodness. Still an excellent story to this day, and this conversation has me hankering to sit down and give this game a go again.

My "standards" primarily involve giving me characters that provide me with feelings, good or bad. Most of Gen 1 fails to do this. Well, that's not fair since most of Gen 1 doesn't appear in cutscenes, so we'll modify that to most of the main characters of Gen 1. The only person in Gen 1 who provides a strong enough showing to give real emotional feedback is Trabant. Everybody else is either a throwaway betrays-Sigurd, is in your party, or is actually Eltshan.

I'm not sure I understand this point. Plenty of people in Sigurd's army are well-developed, such as Sigurd himself, Cuan, Levin, Lachesis, and many others. Plenty of people not named Trabant provide a storng emotional feedback, as you'd describe it, such as Alvis, Manfroy, Eltshan, and Chagall. What's the problem?

As for FE11... we'll table that discussion for another time. Much like with FE7 vs. FE8, it appears that the Serenes community has a very non-mainstream view of FE11 that I'm not at all used to seeing.

Okay, let's do this. Adjustable AI - show me what changes. I already asked everybody's favorite weeaboo Serisu, but I seriously have zero confirmation that that AI switch does *anything* at all besides, anecdotally from one person, that the AI actually becomes stupider. Ranking system is not a difficulty option. Generation system is not even close to a difficulty option.

I can already predict the response, "but you can do subpar pairings/do subs runs for extra difficulty!" because that's the only thing I can even think that you were thinking of when you said it was a difficulty feature. If that counts as difficulty, FE11 blows FE4 out of the water because of how many shitty units FE11 has - and six levels of increased enemy stats to boot!

I actually don't know about the AI myself; someone else can confirm it.

I understand your point about the generation system, but it's different from simply "using bad units." Either way, what you can't do is ignore rankings as a legitimate mode of play. It's in the game, the game itself grades you and rewards you for your performance, it's a difficulty option. Period.

Despite the fact that this was already covered, I might as well snipe at it too. "Terribly paced gameplay" means the time shuffling units between castles, which you have to do multiple times in every single map besides Prologue. There are massive stretches of empty land that will never be skirmished on. Obviously, this is a stylistic choice (since they have the ~30 chapters of other FEs stitched into 12) but that doesn't really make it better.

Doesn't really make it worse, either. Much like the terrible graphics of FE11, the maps of FE4 are a stylistic choice. Naturally, they favor mounted units, but most Fire Emblem games are hopelessly imbalanced to begin with, making this nothing out of the ordinary. You sacrifice movement efficiency for the feel of an epic scope. Preference. I happen to love it.

And again: every FE has terrible, easy-to-manipulate AI except FE5.

Overall? I'd say the only games (taken at a modest difficulty like H2 for FE11, no reverse lunatic bullshit) that are less fair than FE4 are FE5 and *maybe* FE6. That doesn't make for "one of the fairer games in the series", chief. That said, that was utterly not my point. I never insinuated that FE4 wasn't a fair game overall, I only said that several points in the game were pure bullshit. Like Alvis. Hooray, a boss who literally 1HKOs most of your army (and doubles, with ~100% hit) and can only actually be damaged by, uh, Celice/Ares/Shanan/maaaybe Holsety!Sety with anything resembling accuracy. Also he has crit immunity and Big Shield.

Just because FE5 and 6 are worse doesn't make FE4 good relative to 7/8/9/10/11. That's lower echelon, mate.

You seem to be equating an "unfair game" with "unfair moments." FE5 and 6 are consistently unfair. Alvis is unfair to a degree, but can you name any other specific moments where this is a problem? And it's hardly as though Alvis is Cyas; he's just a guy you need to use your best unit on.

There's also no particularly strong correlation I can see between "fair" and "good." FE5 is considered by many to be the gem of the series, and it practically demands you've played the game before playing it. Conversely, FE2 is pretty fair, I'd say, and it's considered by most to be the worst.

[dondon151]

How are FEDS graphics bad? They look really sharp and are significantly better at creating atmosphere than graphics in FE games on any other handheld or pre-N64 system.

I don't think that "everyone" agrees that they are bad. In fact, I think that hardly anyone would argue that they are terrible outright. The only complaints that I ever see are about the sprites that they use in battle animations (and I don't personally see anything wrong with them), but the map graphics are excellent, the CGs are amazing, and the portraits look more lifelike than those in any other FE game.

Edited June 29, 2012 by dondon151

[Othin]

The only serviceable plots are FFVII, and- funny enough- FF1 and 3, because in those cases, the story is minimal and lets the gameplay shine.

Funnily enough, one could praise FE11 for the same reason.

[Westbrick]

How are FEDS graphics bad? They look really sharp and are significantly better at creating atmosphere than graphics in FE games on any other handheld or pre-N64 system.

I don't think that "everyone" agrees that they are bad. In fact, I think that hardly anyone would argue that they are terrible outright. The only complaints that I ever see are about the sprites that they use in battle animations (and I don't personally see anything wrong with them), but the map graphics are excellent, the CGs are amazing, and the portraits look more lifelike than those in any other FE game.

Like I said before, I must be clouded by the community (GameFAQs) I started in. Over there, the DS FE titles were received, and are treated, pretty horribly. The common complaints about the graphics are that they're overly dark, not particularly well-detailed, and the battle animations look clunky and cheap. Everyone loves the CGs and portraits.

Funnily enough, one could praise FE11 for the same reason.

You could, yes. Better to have no story than a bad story, especially if that story is going to be the focus of your game (most every Final Fantasy). It's too bad FE1/11 hasn't aged all the gracefully.

[Integrity]

Quick preface: I didn't read anything in this thread between my one post from like eight years ago and the one I originally responded to. So yes, any allegations of me not reading carefully/not knowing what was going on are entirely founded. I'm perfectly aware that I'm the aggressor here.

Hector is entirely different. He's had to go through the death of his brother. He's witnessed the death of many troops, the supreme power of Nergal, and the near-resurrection of calamity-bringing dragons. He's had to deal with his vengeful streak and learn forgiveness. He's had to learn to cooperate with those around him, and learn to fit more within the rules that he was previously comfortable with. He's had to choose between kinship and duty to Elibe. Assuming you've gotten him some supports along the way, he's also fallen in love and made or further explored some key friendships.

He's very different. This applies to the FE7 cast as a whole.

Either I'm remembering an entirely different FE7, or I didn't actually play it. Hector goes through all of that but he doesn't change a bit throughout. It affects him for moments, maybe, but beyond that? I cannot remember an instance of lasting repercussions. Granted, I didn't pay too much attention to Hector Mode since I played Eliwood Mode first and didn't think it would be much different.

Speaking of confusions, you're conflating character development (learning more about a character, seeing how he adapts to different conditions and responds to conflict, seeing him learn and grow and form new bonds) with character evolution (a radical change in how a character thinks, feels, and/or behaves). Evolution is a *type* of development, but not the *only* type of development, and you seem to be suggesting that a character has to undergo some kind of personality surgery for development to have taken place. Watching a goody-two-shoes become a sadistic serial killer is indeed one type of development; watching that same goody-two-shoes grow, suffer, and triumph while learning about himself is also development.

This is pretty basic English stuff, honestly. Not sure why I have to go through and explain it.

You'd be a lot more fun to argue with if you could keep the down. Actually, that's why I fired off half-cocked in the first place, because the pure smug of your one post incited me (and I was bored and in class; mistakes were made).

Anyway, I cannot find a reference to character development being anything other than what I called it. Even ewwtvtropes has some throwaway line about how it's the change of a dynamic character. So what you're describing as character evolution ...is, in fact, character development.

I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to take this seriously. Let's see...

Fire Emblem 4 was released in May of 1996.

Fire Emblem 5 was released in September of 1999.

It should come as no surprise that one looks better than another. Speaking of Super Nintendo games, Yoshi's Island came out five years after Super Mario World. It looks way better. Does that mean Super Mario World is "ugly"? No. You can have two games on the same system where one looks better but both look great.

My throwaway leaf/leaf was in direct response to this:

I'm going to assume I went to sleep and woke up in an altered reality where FE11 wasn't universally considered to be an ugly, ugly game. Oh, and clearly, FE4 and FE5 are different enough to be distinguished. Compare: beautiful, timeless sprites...

...to ugly, outdated eyesores:

If I misunderstood this part of the post (assumed it was sarcasm), please correct and disregard me. I find the FE5 graphics to be, as a whole, leaps and bounds better than the FE4 graphics, which I find to have not aged gracefully.

EDIT2: Note that I don't think FE5 has aged especially gracefully either, but I do think it has done better than FE4.

(fuck it getting all the plot shit out-and-out isn't worth it *snip*)

...Not to sound too contrarian, but having typed all this up, FE4's plot is actually significantly more developed than I had first recalled. Every chapter, barring perhaps Ch.4 (which serves its eye-before-the-storm role well anyway), absolutely oozes with juicy subplot goodness. Still an excellent story to this day, and this conversation has me hankering to sit down and give this game a go again.

Frankly, I still think you're overblowing it, but there is more than I was initially willing to cede. It would be just churlish of me to cherrypick this part of the post, so I'm going to leave it be with half a concession.

Incidentally, you don't have to go about tabling Gen 2's plot to me. I'm the only person I know of who will argue that Gen 2 has a decent plot.

I'm not sure I understand this point. Plenty of people in Sigurd's army are well-developed, such as Sigurd himself, Cuan, Levin, Lachesis, and many others. Plenty of people not named Trabant provide a storng emotional feedback, as you'd describe it, such as Alvis, Manfroy, Eltshan, and Chagall. What's the problem?

As for FE11... we'll table that discussion for another time. Much like with FE7 vs. FE8, it appears that the Serenes community has a very non-mainstream view of FE11 that I'm not at all used to seeing.

Most of the characters in Gen 1 did not appeal overmuch. Maybe it was a fault of the translation patch (some of the dialogue is pretty damned wooden), but any list I really thought about would only include maybe half of those. Sigurd, sure, he's got depth. Cuan a little less so, but I like him well enough. Levin, yes and as you say later at some point he does actually develop (in the right way) so I'll admit I was wrong there. Lachesis - I don't really know where that came from considering her pair EDIT: 3, I forgot the one with Dew /EDIT of conversations in the whole game. Alvis has never inspired any sort of reaction in me but with him I can see where you're coming from. Manfroy doesn't do anything for Gen 1 that I remember (does he show up after C1?) and even so he's just generically odious. Eltshan we already covered. Shagall is, again, just generically odious and obviously evil like Manfroy.

Villains like Trabant (or even Alvis) I can get behind. I hate the guy, but I want to hate the guy. Even Nergal pulled this off a little bit. Manfroy and Shagall and those Verdanians I can't remember (uh, Gandolf and some others) are just evil and that's their only facet. They're glorified bandits and very little more. The heroes are, unfortunately, kinda boned because the cast of recurring plotline heroes has to be kept minimal thanks to permadeath, so real development has to be left to characters who can't die - Sigurd, Cuan, Levin, Oifaye (I guess?), such.

You've got most of a good point here, but it's lost. Big evil villains who do one big evil thing and are evil in all of their appearances (like Shagall) aren't what I'm looking for when I say characters.

Consider FE11 dropped from this point on, then.

I actually don't know about the AI myself; someone else can confirm it.

I understand your point about the generation system, but it's different from simply "using bad units." Either way, what you can't do is ignore rankings as a legitimate mode of play. It's in the game, the game itself grades you and rewards you for your performance, it's a difficulty option. Period.

How do rankings count as a difficulty option? The only way you could argue that is it exists as a metric (beyond turncounts, which all games table for you) by which to measure your performance, but it doesn't hamper you in any way. Making a ranked run of FE4 is difficult (and mostly arbitrary but the actual rankings aren't the point here) but calling it a difficulty option is sort of inane. Every game measured turncounts, so is speedrunning the game a legitimate difficulty option in every FE? Certainly not in the same way as Hard Mode, or Elite Mode, or FE2 Easy Mode.

While the generation system is different than just "using bad units" it's little more than an extension of it. The only way for the generation system to have an impact on difficulty is for you to make more- or less-optimal pairings (or none at all) and play with the kids you're given that way. How is using Roddlevan instead of Skasaher different than using Dolph instead of Draug, except semantically?

Honestly, since you said you understood my point, I could probably have left that out, so don't feel too inclined to respond to it.

Doesn't really make it worse, either. Much like the terrible graphics of FE11, the maps of FE4 are a stylistic choice. Naturally, they favor mounted units, but most Fire Emblem games are hopelessly imbalanced to begin with, making this nothing out of the ordinary. You sacrifice movement efficiency for the feel of an epic scope. Preference. I happen to love it.

And again: every FE has terrible, easy-to-manipulate AI except FE5.

Most Fire Emblems are hopelessly unbalanced, yeah. I can get with that. I can agree that the bigger maps conveyed exactly what we both suspect they were meant to convey. The problem is that they're tedious as hell. They're cool, yes, but they're tedious. That's all I'm saying by "terribly paced gameplay" (that was another of those "bored and in class" hyperboles).

I don't remember FE5 having good AI particularly, but I'll take your word for it. I only remember they had extra tricks like buying items but that was extremely limited and hard-coded. It does bear mention that FE4's AI is/seems a fair degree worse than later games (to reiterate: I haven't played FE3 so I can't comment) due to the fact that a lot of FE4 enemies make utterly random and asinine decisions. As an example, the ballista in C2 between Nodion and ...the fourth castle you seize. Just today - incidentally, why they're my example - one of them attacked Lachesis, the next two attacked Dierdre, and the final two decided that a full health Lex (2 damage, ~30% hit iirc) was their top priority. This is obviously present in every single FE, but I found it rather more prevalent in FE4. Your mileage may have varied.

You seem to be equating an "unfair game" with "unfair moments." FE5 and 6 are consistently unfair. Alvis is unfair to a degree, but can you name any other specific moments where this is a problem? And it's hardly as though Alvis is Cyas; he's just a guy you need to use your best unit on.

There's also no particularly strong correlation I can see between "fair" and "good." FE5 is considered by many to be the gem of the series, and it practically demands you've played the game before playing it. Conversely, FE2 is pretty fair, I'd say, and it's considered by most to be the worst.

I never called FE4 an especially unfair game (and if I have, it was not my intention). In your quote of me I agreed that FE5 and 6 were both worse than it in that aspect, but FE4 is still certainly below 7/8/9/10/11 which makes it lower echelon which makes my statement still true. Alvis is the worst bitch. A quick think gives me two more examples, both in the last chapter. Ishtar's brigade and the three pegasus knights (uh Meng and Bleurgh and ...whatever) who all have Earth Swords and Leg Rings. I'm honestly a little out of touch with FE4's difficulty, since I've been spamming the Celicestomp for so long, so maybe somebody can come up with more. I could have sworn there were others, but whatever.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Integrity

[Parrhesia]

Doesn't really make it worse, either. Much like the terrible graphics of FE11, the maps of FE4 are a stylistic choice. Naturally, they favor mounted units, but most Fire Emblem games are hopelessly imbalanced to begin with, making this nothing out of the ordinary. You sacrifice movement efficiency for the feel of an epic scope. Preference. I happen to love it.

Again, leaping in for just one moment that you'll probably dismiss as [inane bullshit] again;

The fact that FEDS' battle animations have fairly minimalistic criticals doesn't force me to spend like ten minutes just moving from chapter to chapter castle to castle.

[Refa]

I don't get how he directly compares graphics to gameplay either. :\

[Loki Laufeyson]

Fire Emblem: Serious Business.

guys, quotewars? really? Dueagh.

So I never disputed that FE7 had fleshed-out characters. I disputed that they evolved at all.

Thats not...entirely true. Hector did evolve over the course of the game. Notably in his own mode. In Eliwood mode, we dont see his point of view so it does appear that he is, in fact, static. In Hector mode, we see Hector go from brash asshole to "omg...im fighting for my frandz...And i will be the greatest Marquess Ostia has ever seen." Hes still very hotheaded at the end of the game but his resolve is different.

Granted, I didn't pay too much attention to Hector Mode since I played Eliwood Mode first and didn't think it would be much different.

Yeah there are some moments in Hector mode where Hector begins to think a bit differently. It doesnt REALLY happen until like after the last Ostia chapter though. (the one with Denning) Most of his character growth junk is discussed when he gets the A support with Lyn. *shrug* But yeah, theres development there. Its kinda subtle though.

Eliwood does change too...Out of the main lords, its Lyn that remains the same entirely. Hell, even Florina gets some character development.

. To name one, as much as I hate the little bitch, Soren evolves somewhat.

Somewhat? Uerm...more like a BUNCH. Although i would argue that Skrimir receives the most development outside of Ike and Elincia in Tellius. Jill gets a bunch too.

I have not really played much of FE4. I did play like a couple of chapters and i personally found it mildly assy. Mostly because i was not fond of HUGE MAP OF DOOOM and the translation i had was wonky and uncomfortable as fuck all. But i am gonna agree that i liked the graphics in FE4 better than FE11. The mugs in FE11 were better of course, but the actual combat and map stuff, eeeehh... But at least you can turn off the animations in FE11....i think. (srsly the battle animations are such ass..)

[Thor Odinson]

I like in DS FE where you can skip enemy phase. Best idea. FE12's esp since that one tells you if any of your guys died.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Fat Bunny

[Refa]

I like in DS FE where you can skip enemy phase. Best idea. FE12's esp since that one tells you if any of your guys died.

I'm pretty sure it did that in FE11 too, except for maybe generics.

[General Horace]

^ I don't think it did, because I remember always looking at my units remaining when skipping an Enemy phase

also somewhat unrelated but the FE:DS Armour Javelin Crit is sliiiick

[Integrity]

It does in FE11 as long as it's a pictured unit. It'll pause the skip and show their death quote.

[Parrhesia]

Still means you're screwed if you have a generic on your main team. Dua, I swear you will make it to endgame!

[dondon151]

Like I said before, I must be clouded by the community (GameFAQs) I started in. Over there, the DS FE titles were received, and are treated, pretty horribly. The common complaints about the graphics are that they're overly dark, not particularly well-detailed, and the battle animations look clunky and cheap. Everyone loves the CGs and portraits.

The GameFAQs community is bad, and you should feel bad.

[eclipse]

Fire Emblem: Serious Business.

guys, quotewars? really? Dueagh.

Yes ma'am!

FE4 was not my cup of tea, and I think talking down to people who disagree with that is silly. I think the GBA era had a lot of nice things, and the improvements that came with every game kept things interesting. . .except for giving Joshua four Ice supports.

[Vorena]

-I think FE1 has the least to off the series. It gets credit for starting the whole thing, but the stuff in FE3 and FE11 overshadow it too much.

-FE2 despite its horrible graphics will hold a nice notch in the series for being completely different. Archers being incredibly useful? And other things as well.

-FE3 is what FE1 should have been. Restored graphics on the SNES with more satisfiable gameplay with healers. And dismounting is interesting.

-FE4 is great. I find it hard to pin exactly what makes it all great. The SNES graphics are good for this. The ability to mix and match skills and lovers is a nice feature. The continual feel to need to rush. So much stuff happens in a single map from the battles, to storyline, to love making, etc. You have to do it all on the go most of the time (unless you do not care about villages). You do not get bogged down by too many units and each one can be made useful (mostly).

-FE5 feels like FE2 to me. Its unique from the rest of the series, but yet still has many things that made FE3/FE4 so good.

-FE6 always felt unpolished to me. I am not sure what about it makes me feel so, but I think FE6 could have been done better. Probably in its presentation of characters, maps, and story. The little fort that they come across where Zephiel is and hector dies...That's a sad excuse for a map. The weapons felt horribly imbalanced too.

-FE7 again is what FE6 should have felt like. I feel it delievers a lot better than FE7.

-FE8... This sort of feels like filler. Its a decent title, but it never stands out in anyway.

-FE9 Similar to how I feel about FE8. I enjoy it more for whatever reasons.

-FE10 I like because it does something different again. I feel like it really shows the different perspectives of battles a lot more than previous. Pitting DB against GM in titles sort of briefly attempts to show this clash. Its sort of sad you never get to bond I feel with any group of characters because you go over them so briefly. But, it offers something unique. I bet with another title using this idea it could be applied better.

-FE11 is pile of garbage in a middling sort of way. It includes lots of stuff that makes the series decent and adds a new feature, reclass. But its still FE1 they are remaking and that game was pretty bad. Too many characters with little background and many cannot be used. Reclassing works well for really only a few units, otherwise it completely destroys their growths.

-FE12 again is the game that took a mechanic and refined it and did good. You get a MU and many units want to be reclassed and it doesn't destroy their growths all that much. It has good difficulty to boot.

I've not played Fe13 yet.

Not in any order withing a grouping.

1. Fe12/4/5

2. FE7/8/9/10/2

3. FE11/6/3

4. FE1

I don't think the gba series off a whole lot. Fairly decent. But others are more iconic, better, unique, and offer interesting things.

[tenkiforecast]

FE11 and FE12 are just burdened by being remakes of the games with the weakest stories and weakest characters. I mean, it's obvious why the stories are weak (Original game developed by four people!) but after the GBA era and the Tellius games which tried new approaches and had ambition (even if FE10 faltered because the writers wrote themselves into a hole and the Dawn Brigade is just boring, they tried something different) people in the United States were spoiled in that sense. I think that FE11 and FE12 sold really well in Japan because of nostalgia. There wasn't that nostalgia in the US, and looking at a remake of a very flawed game turns people off. That's why Nintendo decided not to localize FE12. I know I was turned off by the games. I wasn't bothered by the graphics, presentation, anything like that...I just couldn't get into the story and characters. Without that, I didn't really want to play the game after I beat it. They did try something new, the reclass feature, and it's something I'm still not fond of just because I got used to the SNES and GBA games. The MU feature for FE12 was well-implemented and well-designed, yes, but the story still suffers for being FE3 book 2, which...has even more plot holes and inconsistencies than FE10. Is FE12 better than FE11? Yes, very much so, but I still can't get into the game no matter how much I try.

[Westbrick]

I'll get to Integrity's quotefest later.

I don't get how he directly compares graphics to gameplay either. :\

It's not particularly complicated. When evaluating game quality, there are components that are neither intrinsically "good" nor "bad" but rather stylistic choices that appeal to a particular niche of gamers over others. This can apply to gameplay just as much as graphics. Now, I would argue that FE11's graphics are a mix of a stylistic choice I don't like and less subjective defects, but I wouldn't emphasize my stylistic preferences as an intrinsic flaw. And we're tabling that part of the discussion anyway.

I like in DS FE where you can skip enemy phase. Best idea. FE12's esp since that one tells you if any of your guys died.

Just as a heads up, FE13 employs FE12's system as well. You can skip everything.

Yes ma'am!

FE4 was not my cup of tea, and I think talking down to people who disagree with that is silly. I think the GBA era had a lot of nice things, and the improvements that came with every game kept things interesting. . .except for giving Joshua four Ice supports.

Who's "talking down," exactly? We're just having a debate. If you didn't want to have a debate, you probably shouldn't have entered into the debate.

Oh, and because I'm pretentious, let me quote myself: And people are free to feel however they like. Love Gaiden and Sacred Stones? Go for it. Love the DS games but hate the SNES titles? Good for you. That doesn't somehow preclude serious discussion about game quality...

Edited June 30, 2012 by Westbrick

[eclipse]

Who's "talking down," exactly? We're just having a debate. If you didn't want to have a debate, you probably shouldn't have entered into the debate.

Oh, and because I'm pretentious, let me quote myself: And people are free to feel however they like. Love Gaiden and Sacred Stones? Go for it. Love the DS games but hate the SNES titles? Good for you. That doesn't somehow preclude serious discussion about game quality...

I tend to be turned off by people on a high horse, especially when it comes to video game opinions. You're being smug about something extremely trivial, and I think I have better things to do with my time than waste it on the likes of you.

[Duff Ostrich]

Thracia and Sword of Seals are my favorites, which might seem contradictory considering how different the two titles are. I think Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance are fun but way too easy, and Geneology of the Holy War is somewhat compelling and with great music but otherwise a poorly designed and trivially easy slog. Mystery of the Emblem commits the sin of forgetting about my favorite characters, and I just happen to be petty enough to hold the omission of Daros and Riff against it! If I want to play Marth's adventures, I'll go to the NES or DS.

[Only My Unit]

Congratulations, this entire debate between challengers eclipse and Westbrick has been run into the ground. You've lost from an observer's perspective.

[eclipse]

Congratulations, this entire debate between challengers eclipse and Westbrick has been run into the ground. You've lost from an observer's perspective.

Please explain to me why I should care about an observer's opinion. I think it should be obvious whose opinion I hold the highest in this thread (hint: not you, either).

[Only My Unit]

The only opinion you should care about is your own, apparently. Why would I expect you to care about mine?

[eclipse]

The only opinion you should care about is your own, apparently. Why would I expect you to care about mine?

Then why make the previous post otherwise? I do listen to others on occasion, but it depends on who it is, what they're saying, and why. Someone in here reminded me that this is about video game opinions, and in the grand scheme of things, it's Really Minor. I may not like how people express themselves, but in the end, I can't change that - it's up to the other person, and if they're willing to change. If not, then I can't be responsible for the social consequences of that, either.

(I'm sad that people aren't fans of FE11, and I think that the death quotes give out enough characterization for me to work with)

[Only My Unit]

I was just bored and felt like commenting on how sad these discussions can get.

For FE11, I didn't mind it much. The only thing I didn't like were the player/enemy models because I played and have seen other DS games using that style that were terrible. It wasn't unbearable. I thought it made sense considering how the original looked.