Fire Emblem Wii U

[Knight]

Oh, and while we're on the subject of being realistic, can we have pre-FE13 armour back please? FE has been really good about armour being not too bulky but covering everything that needs protecting (ahem), but FE13 was a bit too... stylistic for my liking.

Yes, I agree, armour was way to unrealistic in FE13, although i like everything else I see from the game, the armour is... ugh... Generals, what happened since the GBA?

[Diortem]

Hmm... A couple features for the Wii U Fire Emblem...

-A better multiplayer than what Shadow Dragon and New Mystery brought. Like, for example, they could do something about ridiculously inflated stats, ban unusable enemy equipment (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, IMHULLU), and maybe make it so that rules for a match are adjustable (different goals, restrictions of weapons, etc.)

-Desginable Maps. I really think that, given the right amount of effort, this could work. It'd be a great time sink, and it has potential for being an in-depth feature.

-Make Supports reasonably possible to unlock. This is one problem I have with Fire Emblem, is that you have to go OUT OF YOUR WAY to get supports. If stuff like trying to get Hector and Farina's supports is any indication, this is a serious problem. I don't want to have to quadruple my turn count for that map just to see two lovers converse.

-Keep Manaketes from being too good to use. I think this is pretty obvious. Make it so that Manaketes have more than One 30-20 use item. FE12 was on the right track (even if it was a little hard to find them, and they were kind of useless anyway), and FE13, from what I have seen, pretty much nailed it. I think that it would serve them better to make a Manakete a regular mainstay of the army, instead of a secret weapon that is almost never used.

-Branched Promotions and Reclasssing Like FE13. FE13 got this really good. Base a characters class and promotion options on their character (Callum being a possible thief, for example), and make some interesting promotion choices to fit different playstyles better (Mighty Glacier Vs. Fragile Speedster, Jack-Of-All-Trades Vs. Squishy Wizard, etc.).

-Utilize an in-menu arena like FE12. This is moreso if the campaign is more like FE12 than FE13, but I think that the Training Grounds from FE12 were a GREAT idea. After all, you could put some extra funds to use getting a bit more experience. Honetly, this would be amazing if it returned.

That's about all that I can think of.

[Anacybele]

Yes, I agree, armour was way to unrealistic in FE13, although i like everything else I see from the game, the armour is... ugh... Generals, what happened since the GBA?

Hey, Tellius Generals had some of my favorite armor of all! D:

Oh, another thing I want back is the laguz. They are so cool and way better than Manaketes. Manaketes are too limited. Once their dragonstones deplete, they're done. Laguz can transform endlessly and are powerful. It takes a little time for their transformation gauges to fill up, but the result is worth it. Well, except for Lyre. xP

Edited December 8, 2012 by Anacybele

[Dark Sage]

You know that FE12 deliberately makes Marth out to be an idiot, right?

Also Luke is a dumbass, Ryan is an archer, Rody is too busy facepalming, Rhys is a troll, Athena is a communist, and Cecil is a LIBERATED WOMAN DAMMIT, so its understandable nobody would suspect the useless jailbait girl as an assassin or that its a dumb idea to let random shmucks be appointed Royal Guards for beating up some barbarains.

[Momo]

I'm pretty sure that Marth's an impostor anyway. He makes a big deal about not letting anyone die, but the Marth I remember killed something like 3/4 of the people he recruited, just to kill some more bandits and stuff.

Considering how ridiculously successful 13's DLC was, I think they're going to go further with that concept. I wonder if people would pay $20 to get a fourth of a game every few weeks...

[BlueLore]

Hey, Tellius Generals had some of my favorite armor of all! D:

Oh, another thing I want back is the laguz. They are so cool and way better than Manaketes. Manaketes are too limited. Once their dragonstones deplete, they're done. Laguz can transform endlessly and are powerful. It takes a little time for their transformation gauges to fill up, but the result is worth it. Well, except for Lyre. xP

yeah I think generals looked fine in tellius,I think they look even better than the gba knights/generals,with that weird shield as armor and their giant shoulders of doom.

I wouldn't like the laguz to return.Sure manaketes are done for when their stones deplete,but that goes for any unit who uses a weapon,so they just have to make the dragonstones limitless avaliable(and scale down the power of manaketes).

The problem with the laguz was,that they were pretty helpless in their human forms.

However I wouldn't mind different kind of taguel who can transform into other animals,similar to laguz.

[Anacybele]

yeah I think generals looked fine in tellius,I think they look even better than the gba knights/generals,with that weird shield as armor and their giant shoulders of doom.

...Uh, I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

[BlueLore]

...Uh, I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

nope I mean this seriously.

I dunno why,but I never liked it that the knights in the gba games had this shield that more or less hang in front of them,it just looked weird(not to mention that they never used it)

I also think the shoulders of the generals were too big,even though they looked fine overall.

But I simply like their look from RD more(now that I think about it,they looked bad in PoR),I liked it that they were actually carrying their shield and used it to block.

[Vicious Sal]

nope I mean this seriously.

I dunno why,but I never liked it that the knights in the gba games had this shield that more or less hang in front of them,it just looked weird(not to mention that they never used it)

I also think the shoulders of the generals were too big,even though they looked fine overall.

But I simply like their look from RD more(now that I think about it,they looked bad in PoR),I liked it that they were actually carrying their shield and used it to block.

Even when surrounded by an Elfire spell. =] *Clank*

[arvilino]

I'm pretty sure that Marth's an impostor anyway. He makes a big deal about not letting anyone die, but the Marth I remember killed something like 3/4 of the people he recruited, just to kill some more bandits and stuff.

Considering how ridiculously successful 13's DLC was, I think they're going to go further with that concept. I wonder if people would pay $20 to get a fourth of a game every few weeks...

I highly doubt it, I think it was successful because it was content separate from the game/story. I can't see a game with "DLC" that is actually parts of the main game doing too well.

[Anouleth]

I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. :(

I'm being sarcastic. If games like Final Fantasy and Pokemon can be incredibly successful and popular even with large numbers that nobody understands, why can't Fire Emblem do the same? You say that having the numbers going up too high is a bad thing, well, clearly the majority of RPG players disagree with you, or they wouldn't play Final Fantasy where the stat caps are usually at 255 or Pokemon where stats can climb over 1000.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Anouleth

[Byte2222]

I'm being sarcastic. If games like Final Fantasy and Pokemon can be incredibly successful and popular even with large numbers that nobody understands, why can't Fire Emblem do the same? You say that having the numbers going up too high is a bad thing, well, clearly the majority of RPG players disagree with you, or they wouldn't play Final Fantasy where the stat caps are usually at 255 or Pokemon where stats can climb over 1000.

Whereas conversely Paper Mario had very low numbers where, IMO, you have a greater sense of agency and feel of your actions doing something. Final Fantasy and Pokemon do well with their large numbers but, again IMO, the system feels more abstract. This is, of course, assuming the mechanics balance the same for the different magnitudes, FE formulae have worked very differently from game-to-game but also from high-numbers-to-low-numbers. I've yet to play FE12 but I've been led to believe that it has higher numbers (especially defensive stats) than FE11 with practically identical formulae - it's hard to get a like-for-like comparison in this series .

[Anouleth]

Whereas conversely Paper Mario had very low numbers where, IMO, you have a greater sense of agency and feel of your actions doing something. Final Fantasy and Pokemon do well with their large numbers but, again IMO, the system feels more abstract.

I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "sense of agency" or "feel of your actions doing something". Or when you say that the system feels more abstract? How, exactly, do you determine how abstract a system feels? Why is 20 damage less abstract than 200 damage (as you might see in pokemon) or 2000 damage (as you might see in Final Fantasy) or 2 million damage (as you might see in World of Warcraft)? When you swing a sword, the damage you deal isn't measured as a number. But video games have to make things simpler, like in a scientific model, by representing things in terms of numbers. And like in a scientific model, the specific numbers you choose don't matter, as long as relative to each other they have the same relationships.

Fire Emblem chooses to keep the numbers small. That's fine, I guess. But it's ridiculous to scrape around for some flimsy, vague justification as to why it's superior.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Anouleth

[Momo]

You feel like that because Fire Emblem actually shows you what the stats are and how they interact with each other. With stuff like Pokemon and Final Fantasy, you're just given big numbers with no clue as to how the damage formula works. Oh, this sword gives Cloud +100 strength. How much damage is that? Fuck if I know!

[Comet]

Maybe Nintendo could bring back Bonus Experience. Not sure if it would be better like it was in Radiant Dawn of Path of Radiance, though.

[Anacybele]

Intelligent Systems makes FE. Not Nintendo. Nintendo only PUBLISHES it. :P

And I do like the idea of bonus experience better than the arenas in the GBA games, though the arenas aren't a bad idea either. I just don't like risking losing units in something like that.

[Rehab]

I think it's most about how the numbers change over the course of the game. With many of the games you mentioned, the hp and damage numbers can certainly get into hundreds or thousands and still make sense, but in many RPG they start out smaller, a fraction of their potential that in many cases can easily be less than a tenth. Those games tend to be a lot about investing the player characters with power, both going directly by the stats and with regards to the plot- a character may rise from a level of power shown to be near the equivalent of an average human being to something powerful enough to threaten entities of much, much larger supernatural, even godly power. Over the course of the game, those characters might easily surpass 10 times their original strength, or even literally become exponentially more powerful, if that's measured by the numbers. (doesn't always seem to apply with the plot, but usually it's safe to assume)

In FE, I think it's less that the numbers start low than that they don't usually get that much bigger, and that the sides fighting aren't usually exponentially more powerful than an average human being. Say a character starts at level 1 with 17 hp; if they leveled up their HP by 1 every single time (let's assume a relatively prodigious HP growth and a kind RNG for the example's sake), a relatively prodigious HP growth, assuming the series' most common level cap of 20/20, they'd land somewhere around 60, given a nice promotion bonus and a high enough hp cap. Their stamina is only around 3 times greater than their inexperienced state in the beginning, and that's with a relatively generous growth for the series, to understate it. I can't say it's inherently more "realistic" for their numbers to be set at these values, but I'd say the change that the difference in numbers represents at least sounds physically possible for a human to achieve with training.

And I think FE does get something of what makes it unique from the idea that, extremely capable warriors though they may be, the characters you're controlling are all, in the end, just some dudes. The odds tend to be against them, but what they face usually also isn't something much more powerful than something the equivalent of "just some (more) dudes." I think this could be represented with stat numbers of any relative size, as long as the possible increases were kept vaguely in check, but I think it's just easier to represent the whole thing on scales of a few dozen points than of thousands.

Also, if the player doesn't know how high the scale goes in a game at a given point, it can be hard to tell how much relevance an increase in power like a levelup or a better weapon will yield, but I admit it doesn't necessarily stop making sense altogether. It's just a lot easier for me to tell when it's presented as "Your strength has increased by one. Your blows are now roughly 10% stronger (in this case whatever just roll with it). Praise be to the RNG."

(note to self: game where your health points are represented by the number of living, properly functioning cells in your body. y/y?)

Edited December 9, 2012 by Rehab

[Anouleth]

You feel like that because Fire Emblem actually shows you what the stats are and how they interact with each other. With stuff like Pokemon and Final Fantasy, you're just given big numbers with no clue as to how the damage formula works.

And yet, these games are far easier and more intuitive to play than Fire Emblem.

Oh, this sword gives Cloud +100 strength. How much damage is that? Fuck if I know!

Or you know, you could figure out how much damage it is by (get this) attacking an enemy and seeing how much damage it does! Or, you can probably guess that the sword that increases your strength does more damage. Or that the more expensive, rarer sword is better.

[BrightBow]

Well, as the numbers were in the past, they looked somewhat plausible.

I mean, if you have an RPG where you start with like 20 attack and then rise to 200 attack or even 2000, it looks kinda unbelievable.

Like Ike's lv 1 stats don't look to bad compared to Titania. Sure, she still can beat him senseless without breaking a sweat, but it's not such a big difference in numbers.

Titania has 12 Str and 33 Hp, Ike got 19 HP and 5 Strength. Given that one of them is a green rocky while the other is an experienced elite knight, it looks like a plausible difference to me.

And from Titania's stats, it's not to far off to lategame bosses like Petrine, with her 41 HP and 20 Strength. And the narrative says, she is not just an elite knight like Titania but one of the most powerful fighters in Daein. One of the top 5 to be exact.

The whole thing looks relatively plausible and grounded. And I have to say, I like that style a lot.

Edited December 9, 2012 by BrightBow

[Momo]

And yet, these games are far easier and more intuitive to play than Fire Emblem.

Because they're different? I didn't say they were harder because of this, I said it feels more like you're in control.

Or you know, you could figure out how much damage it is by (get this) attacking an enemy and seeing how much damage it does! Or, you can probably guess that the sword that increases your strength does more damage. Or that the more expensive, rarer sword is better.

Fluctuating damage and lack of enemy stats doesn't allow for this. Also "better" is all you can really know, you don't know how much better, whereas in Fire Emblem you know exactly how much damage you're going to do with an Iron Sword compared to a Silver one.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Momo

[Constable Reggie]

I feel that we really need another Fe5-esque game. Most of the Fire Emblem games have been about a smaller group being able to defeat monstrous enemies, while maybe recruiting sizable allies along the way, with no real sense of overarching danger. They usually rise up from nothing and defeat a seemingly overwhelming foe (Fe1, 2, 3, 4-2, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12), and it's been done too much. Even the characters in the games pretty much acknowledge this (Chris/Jeigan/Can't remember: "Hahaha! These losers can't compare to the almighty powerful Royal Guard! *on H3 mode*). I heard Fe13 had a really interesting twist, but since I haven't played the game, I can't really say. I really enjoyed Final Fantasy 5's story, as cheesy as it was, because it gave you the sense that Exdeath could easily destroy you even up until basically the end of the game.

This is why I consider Fe5 to be the best game in the series, because not only did it give you the sense of impending doom at every second, that you're barely surviving, but, what FF5 failed to do, Fe5's gameplay greatly supplemented this point. It's not FF5 where you're rolling heads at every turn with insane amounts of money to the point where you're basically feeling invincible in gameplay, but in Fe5, you have no money, your army's not invincible, and your leader isn't even somewhat good, period. You're forced to steal weapons from enemies, sell off any spare items for pocket change, and must deal with a fatigue system that reinforces the fact that your units are not efficient killing machines. Your leader is an inexperienced failure who can't live up to other's expectations, and basically relies on his advisers for everything (his leadership stars). Your army is put in overwhelming disadvantaged situations, not just in terms of enemy quantity. Aside from the infinitely spawning enemies (which really do help the sense of impossible odds without feeling overly cheap), you've got a) being almost immediately captured at the start of the game and being forced to play with an entirely different set of units, b) forced to fight against one of the world's greatest tacticians that actually does influence his troops greatly, c) basically retreat in like, half the chapters, and so on. Are there problems with the game? Sure. Overpoweredness of staves and the blatant impossible bullshit of a certain character (stack more ridiculous skills on him, please) and chapter are there, but it's greatly overshadowed by the story and the gameplay supplementing it. It's a shame that the game was tied to the mediocrity that was Fe4's second generation story.

tl;dr: Bring capture system back

[Anouleth]

Because they're different? I didn't say they were harder because of this, I said it feels more like you're in control.

Fluctuating damage and lack of enemy stats doesn't allow for this. Also "better" is all you can really know, you don't know how much better, whereas in Fire Emblem you know exactly how much damage you're going to do with an Iron Sword compared to a Silver one.

Why do you need to know how much better one sword is than another? Surely all you need to know is that one sword is better than the other, and then use that one. For example, I might know that the Mythril Sword is stronger than the Steel Sword. Since I want to know which one to equip, I only need to know to equip the Mythril Sword. And when I kill those Crystal Dragons in three hits instead of four, I'll feel stronger and more badass. I don't need to be able to calculate in advance that I'll 3HKO the Crystal Dragons. And I don't need to be able to calculate exactly how much extra damage I do in order to make the correct decision.

[Momo]

Are you saying knowing exact damage isn't needed in a game like Fire Emblem? Even the obvious thing about conserving weapon uses is important, but there's also the matter of enemies using different weapons.

[Rehab]

Most of the RPG cases I can name offhand where damage is uncertain, I think, have a relatively small range of possible damage compared to how much they do overall, like 4500 to 4800, or at least I don't usually notice an attacks having enough variance to take differing amounts of time to kill things on repeat trials much. Even in Advance Wars, where it can "secretly" be, what is it again, an extra 1 to 9% literally out of 100? I usually didn't have a problem with that, to my memory.

Where I did get annoyed with damage values having variance, both with "regular" and critical hits, was in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, where the scale of the numbers are even lower than Fire Emblem. The difference between taking 3 damage and 4 when my guys only have 4 hp, let's just say I let that get to me a little sometimes. Best solution being to not get hit, of course, which is admittedly a mite more feasible than in, say, Final Fantasy, but when you're playing with 65 hit percentage being a relatively ok shot chance.. I've seen some shit happen, man.

Being FE's numbers usually being kind of in between AW and EU, I'm not sure what that would be like to play. Sounds a little ominous, somehow. Though I'm biased.

A spiritual successor to FE 5 would also be neat, I think, just to see how it'd play out.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Rehab

[arvilino]

Why do you need to know how much better one sword is than another? Surely all you need to know is that one sword is better than the other, and then use that one. For example, I might know that the Mythril Sword is stronger than the Steel Sword. Since I want to know which one to equip, I only need to know to equip the Mythril Sword. And when I kill those Crystal Dragons in three hits instead of four, I'll feel stronger and more badass. I don't need to be able to calculate in advance that I'll 3HKO the Crystal Dragons. And I don't need to be able to calculate exactly how much extra damage I do in order to make the correct decision.

I think it's more of the issue of the damage you take than the damage you deal in a regular RPG with more than one character it's fine because there's usually a revival mechanic. In the case of Fire Emblem I'd want to know the enemies maximum(due to skills,crits,etc.) because without a precise measurement(or even a measurement at all) you wouldn't really be able tell if your character with 1213 HP, 127 vitality, 146 spirit can take 1,2 or 3 hits before they permamently die.