What makes a good plotline?

[Vorena]

A bit more of a rant, but I keep seeing comments from time to time of people complaining about the horrible plot lines, the lack of depth in characters in the FE series. All sorts of stuff. One person says they found the FE9/10 enjoyable, and another says it was smelly of piss water.

So, I am wondering what sort of model can anyone give that portrays a good character or an enjoyable plotline. If you ever complained about the FE games in some way for having a boring and predictable story arc or something else, then give us an example of something that is good. I'm convinced that all stories are cliched to death. If you ever tear apart a story enough, you'll always find something to say negative about it. Your less judgmental with stories that "seem" truly unique for the first time. But, that's only because you never saw the 50 other stories that were like it before hand a decade before you were born.

[Fenrir]

ALL OF THE PLOTTWISTS!!!!!

[Rewjeo]

The most important thing in any story is that you care about the characters. FE1/11's story is terrible not because Marth's journey to reclaim his kingdom (and world, I guess) is less inspiring or whatever than, say, Ephraim/Eirika's. It's terrible because you don't care one little bit about whether or not any of the characters accomplish their goals.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Rewjeo

[Light Lord]

Personally, I've liked the games I've played, but a little more character development would have been great. Having some plot twists is cool also, but if used in moderation or justified.

I know it would be quite difficult, but for me a good story line would be having some insight in what other characters (aside from the main ones and the plotwise) feel, see, pursue, or want to do. This counts for the rivals, enemies, things of the sort.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Light Lord

[Ein]

They're all the same "Reclaim a kingdom or defeat the evil bad or both" plot. The characters are just there for eye candy.

[Bryan]

They're all the same "Reclaim a kingdom or defeat the evil bad or both" plot. The characters are just there for eye candy.

It would be cool to see something unlike this. Everyone credits FE9 for having such a interesting and different story, but IMO, the only difference is that Ike isn't royalty.

I'd like to see something where the hero makes morally questionable choices and you have to wonder who really is the good guy. That would be cool, IMO. I don't know what the overall plot would do though.

Either way, I never really complain about the plots, I like them all. I don't care for the fapping to FE9. (I liked Lyon, ok? FE8<3)

[Byte2222]

I can think of two things that would make a story good (or at least better):

Good plot twists: not completely out-of-left-field but not telegraphed either and substantial enough that they make a difference

Characters with character: i.e. you like the likable ones, sympathise with the sympathetic ones, hate the evil ones etc.

One FE I find did these really well was, surprisingly, FE2. The plot twist and discoveries at the end of chapter4/start of chapter 5 really changed the direction of the plot and shed new light on what had happened so far. On top of that it did a good job with characterisation, particularly for Judah, Rudolph and to a lesser extent Mycen and Dozer. It also managed to do a good job of characterising people with only a few lines (something that can easily go horrible wrong, look at Sonic Generations) but some credit has to go to the excellent translation there. That said, this was still the 8-bit era and there was very, very little story actually there; this is one of the reasons why I think Gaiden would be a good remake because it has a solid base and lots of room to weave in some new material.

[Aizenberg]

So, I am wondering what sort of model can anyone give that portrays a goo

fire emblem 4

[deuxhero]

I personally liked FE7 ATTEMPTING to do something other than "evil country invades". It falls flat on its face (Assassin's guild with frontline fighters worthy of a small army!), but it at least tried (even if it was forced to by being a prequel of a game that stated it hadn't seen war recently). May have been fixed by introducing Morphs earlier, even if they weren't IDed as such ("Black Fang?" as a designation with 0 luck for instance)

[I don't play for turns]

Character development, plot twists, and uniqueness are all interesting to me.

[aku chi]

A good story is coherent and plausible. (I can't believe nobody has mentioned this yet.) Being unique is a plus, but is hardly necessary.

A good plot also has good pacing: it keeps the player engaged all the way through by neither providing all of the information up front nor witholding information critical to understanding the story. A good plot avoids monotony but also avoids jumping all over the place for no artistic reason.

[Jotari]

The most important thing in any story is that you care about the characters. FE1/11's story is terrible not because Marth's journey to reclaim his kingdom (and world, I guess) is less inspiring or whatever than, say, Ephraim/Eirika's. It's terrible because you don't care one little bit about whether or not any of the characters accomplish their goals.

Maybe I'm just backward or something but I found Marth's journey to retake his kingdom more entertaining that Ephraim and Erika's. Mainly because Gharnef and Doluna seem like a much more formidable enemy, managing to take over the entire continent aside from two or three insignificant nations in what a year? Grado on the other hand only mounted one successful invasion from what i can remember and even that didn't last very long. Of course there are more factors and they are very different approaches to plot but in terms of reclaiming what was lost I preferred Marth's story to Erika's and Ephraim's.

It would be cool to see something unlike this. Everyone credits FE9 for having such a interesting and different story, but IMO, the only difference is that Ike isn't royalty.

I'd like to see something where the hero makes morally questionable choices and you have to wonder who really is the good guy. That would be cool, IMO. I don't know what the overall plot would do though.

Questionable choices and wondering who the good guy is. That seems like pretty much what they were going for in Radiant Dawn. The bulk of the plot in that game isn't reclaiming land from an evil empire, Ike and the Laguz are the aggressors of that war with full knowledge of the consequences involved with regards to Lehran's Medallion.

[Original Alear]

-Characters being interesting and talking a fair amount. This happened particularly well in FE9 with Ike's ability to talk with just about every character at least once in a fairly extended, non-recruitment based conversation.

-Interesting/awesome villains. Alvis, Lyon, Lehran, Hardin and Trabant are compelling. Kempf, Valter, Calleach and Jarod are magnificent bastards. The BK is ominous and threatening and has a great theme. Dheginsea and Ashera are magnificent and powerful.

-Feeling of being under threat. Done well in FE5.

-Somewhat more "regional" issues. I already mentioned Ashnard, but I like how in FE9, the conflict is a little less openly a world threatening one (I mean, it's about the Fire Emblem but that only becomes a known issue to the hero when he's already leading the army into Daien), and the main goal is just to stop/kill Ashnard and liberate Crimea. FE5 also does this well as the whole thing takes place in Thracia, and most of it in North Thracia.

A good plot also has good pacing: it keeps the player engaged all the way through by neither providing all of the information up front nor witholding information critical to understanding the story. A good plot avoids monotony but also avoids jumping all over the place for no artistic reason.

Although I agree that plots tend to avoid provide all the information up front within the structure of the plot itself, it is not necessarily a problem if the person experiencing the plot already has "all the information" on what will happen and is moree interested in the very particular details of execution and style.

[Aizenberg]

fire emblem 4 is like the game of thrones of fire emblem

its got great storyline

great characters

sigurd

incest

Edited June 15, 2012 by Aizen

[Jotari]

fire emblem 4 is like the game of thrones of fire emblem

its got great storyline

great characters

sigurd

incest

And bad shit happening to everyone.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Jotari

[Aizenberg]

And bad shit happening to everyone.

exactly

red wedding=battle of barharra

[Elhienn Hovercast]

It really depends, if you have a good main character, good plot or awesome "secondary characters" most of the things can be enjoyable,

Speaking in terms of FE?Almost every FE has something to offer in some points.

1)Main Character wise?Leaf, yes, FE5 Leaf.

Why you ask?Well, why do you feel "afraid" when you play Thracia?Besides the unfair RNG, the mission escapes are nightmare because there's infinite reforces and you start with 0 money, unlike the others FEs.

Leaf had the worst childhood of all the Main Lords, Even since he was small he needed to always flee so that he wasn't killed, Celice didn't had this problem.

Also, he acts more human, is the youngest of the Lords and suffers a bit of inferiority complex because he compares himself with his father, his cousin Celice and the others "leaders" like Shanan and Sety(homestly who wouldn't, these guys are badasses), the others Lords didn't need to face so many harsh reality decisions like his.

About his mistakes, I'm aware that people hate/doesn't like Eirika for her silly mistakes, I like her a lot, but I must agree with this point. Leaf did way more mistakes than Eirika and got scolded a lot, Heck, his mistakes ended in the death of Dorias and soldiers, but what makes him better than Eirika?(Again, I love her, It's not bashing ok?), simply, even with these mistakes in the end things turned out well in Magvel, with Leaf, not so much.

Ex: When Leaf wanted to help Alster(I think that it's that) after taking his country back, he wanted to help the civilians because Alster helped to hide him in the past, and it was just the right thing to do to try and repay the debt, but it was reckless to try to go there with his units very exausted, Dorias and his troop ended dead because he wanted to help them in the place of taking care of the defenses of his coutry, and he got scolded for not remembering this fact, all of the others FEs except this doesn't have the Fadigue system, we forget that our units need to rest, another plus point for this game, as it's realistic.

Leaf was also scolded by August when he didn't know about how hungry people in the South Thracia are and their political problems with the North, it isn't just the case of the other killing his parents for no purpouse Aside for Trabant being a sore loser for not having Ethlin, hahah I'm kidding

Leaf made a lot of mistakes but learned with them, Leaf affected the lives of the others and was more of a leader than the other FEs lords because he had way more responsabilities than the others, Leaf managed to surpass so many difficult tasks since the beginning of the game than the other Lords, he grew a lot, his character development was one of the best.

...But in trade, everyone else in his game had a a shit development, well, everyone except Linoan, Dean or Olwen, the others that didn't have good development or shit are in the "average-almost-sucking"

2)Secondary characters

Awakening, they have a lot of support convos so it's easier to see many faces of their personality, so of course they had interesthing character development and dept, Sacred Stones may had some crappy character dept/development for their main characters but I must say that they had good supports, they felt less random and boring than the others I did in FE6 and FE7, so far, I think that the secondary characters are ok.

3)Plot

Seisen no Keifu, aka Genealogy of the Holy War, and that's because of the Villains, Malfroy may not be the final boss but the sneaky bastard was one of the best and smartest villains of the FE genre, Alvis is a son-of-a-bitch, he had depts, Ishtar...I feel really bad for killing her, this FE had some memorable villains and Douches, Nergal comes close, he's also a good villain, I would love him even more If I could complete the Extra chapter and Kill Kishuna in all of them so that I knew more about the secret scenes, aw nuts.

All, in all, I liked Thracia and Awakening the best so far.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Elhienn Hovercast

[Refa]

You know what makes a bad plotline? Do everything the exact opposite of that and you have a good plotline.

You'll probably need more than that to make it great, but it's a nice starting off point.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Refa

[Anouleth]

A bit more of a rant, but I keep seeing comments from time to time of people complaining about the horrible plot lines, the lack of depth in characters in the FE series. All sorts of stuff. One person says they found the FE9/10 enjoyable, and another says it was smelly of piss water.

Personally, I think it's a good sign if a plotline or a storyline is highly divisive. If lots of people either love or hate Micaiah, that's better than having a main lord that's bland and boring. And when you have a character that has to make difficult choices, they're always going to be divisive. That's what makes them interesting.

More ink has been spilled over the plot of FE10 than any other FE. What does that mean? That people care about it. That's always a good sign.

I think that for me, the most important thing in Fire Emblem is good villains. FE11 fails for me because the villains are boring. Medeus shows up all of once. Gharnef shows up twice. Compare that to a game like FE10 where the Senators are a constant presence in the narrative.

[Jotari]

Personally, I think it's a good sign if a plotline or a storyline is highly divisive. If lots of people either love or hate Micaiah, that's better than having a main lord that's bland and boring. And when you have a character that has to make difficult choices, they're always going to be divisive. That's what makes them interesting.

More ink has been spilled over the plot of FE10 than any other FE. What does that mean? That people care about it. That's always a good sign.

I think that for me, the most important thing in Fire Emblem is good villains. FE11 fails for me because the villains are boring. Medeus shows up all of once. Gharnef shows up twice. Compare that to a game like FE10 where the Senators are a constant presence in the narrative.

I'm not sure if that's particularly fair on Gharnef. He does warp around the place a couple of times (more than twice) after the initial encounter to randomly challenge you and brainwash Tikki and beyond that his presence in the game is felt quite heavily. A lot more so than Medeus. After getting back Altea the remaining chapters all involve a way of trying to defeat Gharnef, the invasion of Grust is really in order to get the Star and Light Spheres and taking down Medon is to meet Gotoh in person before finally challenging Gharnef for the Falchion. Though being a remake of a NES game there isn't a lot of characterization available on Marth's part but its still quite clear that Gharnef is the most personal villain towards the hero. He is the one that caused all this conflict, stole his family heirloom and kidnapped his sister. Marth says something along the lines of The world was better before he painted it red showing that despite being a NES character Marth does feel ill will towards Gharnef.

[thedominator12345]

I honestly want a sequel to radiant dawn. it starts by ike, soren, and ranulf injured on the beach. elincia sees them and rushes. the only one that can talk is ranulf, who manages to mutter, "Their coming" The screen than duirects to an armada of ships 30 minutes away from hitting crimean soil. Laguz and beorc combine to take down this enemy, who are different forms of Laguz and have different gods. they must re-awake Yune and the entire world becomes engulfed in war.

[Anouleth]

I'm not sure if that's particularly fair on Gharnef. He does warp around the place a couple of times (more than twice) after the initial encounter to randomly challenge you and brainwash Tikki and beyond that his presence in the game is felt quite heavily. A lot more so than Medeus.

Ah, that's true.

After getting back Altea the remaining chapters all involve a way of trying to defeat Gharnef, the invasion of Grust is really in order to get the Star and Light Spheres and taking down Medon is to meet Gotoh in person before finally challenging Gharnef for the Falchion. Though being a remake of a NES game there isn't a lot of characterization available on Marth's part but its still quite clear that Gharnef is the most personal villain towards the hero. He is the one that caused all this conflict, stole his family heirloom and kidnapped his sister. Marth says something along the lines of The world was better before he painted it red showing that despite being a NES character Marth does feel ill will towards Gharnef.

That's also true. I spoke without thinking.

Another problem I had with FE11 was a lacking emphasis on worldbuilding. Frequently in FE11, I was confused about which countries were where on the world map, where Marth was now, or how the different countries fit together. In comparison, FE4-FE10 have pretty world maps with the countries laid out and much more complex world building. And they did some work with making the countries seem different and unique. So the characters of Begnion, Daein, and Crimea are quite different.

[jdb1984]

When Wrys got killed in my FE11 permadeath run, I barely cared. If I was doing a permadeath run in one of the GBA games, I would probably care more.

[Anouleth]

Posted in wrong thread, sorry.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Anouleth

[Paperblade]

Personally, I think it's a good sign if a plotline or a storyline is highly divisive. If lots of people either love or hate Micaiah, that's better than having a main lord that's bland and boring. And when you have a character that has to make difficult choices, they're always going to be divisive. That's what makes them interesting.

More ink has been spilled over the plot of FE10 than any other FE. What does that mean? That people care about it. That's always a good sign.

I think that for me, the most important thing in Fire Emblem is good villains. FE11 fails for me because the villains are boring. Medeus shows up all of once. Gharnef shows up twice. Compare that to a game like FE10 where the Senators are a constant presence in the narrative.

By this logic, Twilight is good. It's divisive and a lot has been written about it.