So, how do you guys feel about Fire Emblem surviving extinction?

[Solareia]

It is good that Awakening saved the series we all know and love, I just hope it will continue in a better direction, like with FE games in the past.

[amadeuscho]

Cool. Point to where I said that they would dislike it because they have a predisposition against things that are anime like.

Rewjeo: "How extremely anime the game is (and no, I don't just mean the style for the artwork, I mean the anime tropes) works for some people, but is also awful to a lot of people."

Cool. Point to where I specifically talked about the anti-anime faction on SF and applied that to the whole world.

I wasn't just talking about you. Hence, the "you all". But anti-anime people on SF seem to have no regard for the worldwide popularity of anime.

Cool. Point to where I said that FE13 is a game that no one can enjoy and would drive away any and all potential newcomers to the series.

Talking broadly to everyone who espouses that opinion on SF. But:

Rewjeo: "No, it is not. If I suggested Awakening to a friend to get them into the series, they'd probably end up saying "This is awful. I don't know if I can be friends with someone who actually enjoyed this because clearly we don't have much in common."

Sounds like you are saying that Awakening drives away newcomers to me. But you're also adding in something that I never said. I can understand people not enjoying it. I never said that anyone on SF (including you) said :it drives away all newcomers." But I don't there is a sizable population that can be driven away from the FE series because of the "anime" factor, considering the sizable population of people who really hate anime actually hate it also due to its art style. FE has always had an anime art style (considering it's by a Japanese company), so those people are lost causes.

I don't like to be so sarcastic, but you're talking to me like I'm some elitist hipster who hates FE13 or anime or something. I'm not.

The whole idea of anime tropes relies on the idea that you know what they are. If you don't know what they are, then you have no reason to be against them on those grounds. And again, not individual talking about you.

[Thor Odinson]

I dunno man

I'm hardly into anime and knowing its tropes but I do know the writing annoys the shit out of me because of how repetitive some of them are and the multitude of supports are not taken advantage of to really expand on character development despite clearing having enough space to do so

[Refa]

@Viewtiful Joe

Pretty sure anime isn't as popular as you think either.

Also most people hate anime due to its art style? Citation needed.

Edited October 20, 2013 by Refa

[General Banzai]

@Viewtiful Joe

Pretty sure anime isn't as popular as you think either.

Also most people hate anime due to its art style? Citation needed.

hell lets get this peer-reviewed

do an academic expose on the cultural effects of anime on western audiences

how has the western culture machine juggernaut had to deal with this encroaching form of media from a non-western source? or is japan now effectively "western" because as we all know the only way to not be a shitty country is to be western, duh

we could link this to broader themes of japan's unique place as a first world economy when the only first world economies are euroamerican capitalist centers

is anime japan's mcdonalds?

[Refa]

Also it's cool that FE didn't get killed by the comet that is poor sales. I like FE.

how has the western culture machine juggernaut had to deal with this encroaching form of media from a non-western source? or is japan now effectively "western" because as we all know the only way to not be a shitty country is to be western, duh

western = 1st world, clearly!

is anime japan's mcdonalds?

nah, that's moe.

[MRDRHAWK]

Japan has McDick's too

But yeah moe is their common export that everyone loves to hate on

[Rewjeo]

Rewjeo: "How extremely anime the game is (and no, I don't just mean the style for the artwork, I mean the anime tropes) works for some people, but is also awful to a lot of people."

But it's not awful because "oh anime it must be bad." I'm saying that if I plopped down the script, these friends, many of whom probably have no idea at all what a tsundere is or what moe is, they would dislike it. The things that would make it dislikable would be the things that make it an anime trope. Correlation is not causation.

I wasn't just talking about you. Hence, the "you all". But anti-anime people on SF seem to have no regard for the worldwide popularity of anime.

But literal anime is not all "anime-ish," if you understand what I'm saying. You don't have horribly written cardboard-cutout stereotypes filling every anime. That is the issue here, and I don't know of a word that really works perfectly here. Animu, maybe? I dunno, I'm not a scholar in all things anime-discussion related.

Talking broadly to everyone who espouses that opinion on SF. But:

Rewjeo: "No, it is not. If I suggested Awakening to a friend to get them into the series, they'd probably end up saying "This is awful. I don't know if I can be friends with someone who actually enjoyed this because clearly we don't have much in common."

Sounds like you are saying that Awakening drives away newcomers to me. But you're also adding in something that I never said. I can understand people not enjoying it. I never said that anyone on SF (including you) said :it drives away all newcomers." But I don't there is a sizable population that can be driven away from the FE series because of the "anime" factor, considering the sizable population of people who really hate anime actually hate it also due to its art style. FE has always had an anime art style (considering it's by a Japanese company), so those people are lost causes.

Maybe "a friend" was ambiguous. I meant specific friends of mine. Again, this is not an issue of anime visuals. It's that it's being animu. (that's the word I'm going to go with for now.)

The whole idea of anime tropes relies on the idea that you know what they are. If you don't know what they are, then you have no reason to be against them on those grounds. And again, not individual talking about you.

Again, correlation is not causation. The tropes are bad. Not because they are tropes. The things are bad and also are tropes.

[Rehab]

Rewjeo: "No, it is not. If I suggested Awakening to a friend to get them into the series, they'd probably end up saying "This is awful. I don't know if I can be friends with someone who actually enjoyed this because clearly we don't have much in common."

My opinion on Awakening's aesthetics and world-building and how they bode for the series' future aside, your friend sounds quick to jump to conclusions at best, and pretty judgmental at worst, haha. Assuming they ended up saying exactly that, about what would this person think if you just said the draw for you was more in the gameplay than anything else?

[Loki Laufeyson]

There are people who prefer Casual Mode, even if they are not newbie.

If you will restart the whole chapter if you lose a unit, then Casual is the better option, because Permadeath isn't really meaningfull, and just frustrating.

I do prefer Caual Mode, even if I'm a long time player.

No, because I'm a long time player and remember what it is to start a chapter again because you losed an ennemy after 100+ turns against a lone ennemy, or the boss.

I'll still advise to play in Classic at least once, to understand what it is, once you're confident enough.

Anyway, rhe goal of a game is to have fun, so play it as you like.

Right. I have been playing FE for about a decade now and i love me some Casual mode. I dont think ALL FE games should have Casual mode though because that would cheapen some of the games. Like Casual on RD would take away a lot. Depending on how the next FE game is crafted, Casual mode may not benefit it. But a game like Awakening, Casual is good. (especially with DLC stuff involved) I know what its like to get a kickass level up and have another unit die on me and restart, get the same level up on the same guy but it being much shittier than the one before. This is actually the primary reason i use Casual mode. Especially when im training guys like Donnel who can easily die and cause me to restart after Frederick got an excellent level up. Or slogging through a terribly long and/or tricky map and get to the finish, only for one guy to get owned and i have to do it all over again. Bah. Ya know?

If someone begins the series with Awakening, i tell them to do at least one run in Classic to get the full on authentic FE experience.

But anti-anime people on SF

Wait...anti-anime people exist on this site? Really? I would never have guessed it.

But Viewtiful has a point. Anime is actually quite popular. More than one would think. Sure, not everyone knows about Experiential Lain or something like that, but nearly anyone who knows anything about anime knows about Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Naruto, etc. Hell, i had a 13 year old girl ask me about anime styled costumes at work. One lady explained how she went to conventions, and another random girl had a Hatsune Miku wallet. These things arent nearly as obscure as they seem. Plus anime is ingrained in online culture. Anyone whos spent ample time on the internet knows something about anime. Some anime style character archetypes bug people, sure. Thats the clash of cultures right there. What is considered normal or awesome in Japan is not always such across the pond. Its why Tharja isnt as popular out here in the West as she is in Japan. But Western audiences still enjoy the game overall.

[Roy: Marquess of Pherae]

I am very happy, but a Blazing Sword + Sword of Seals remake for 3ds or Wii U would make my life complete.

[Mighty Kamina]

I'm very glad that Awakening did so well. I'd be perfectly happy if the next game in the series went in Awakening's direction, just with a better plot, and refined a few gameplay elements of course.

I'd say a large majority (not all of it, as there are legitimate complaints) of the Awakening hate comes from hype backlash to be perfectly honest.

Also this is just me but if a large majority of the people who play a game likes it, I'd say it's a good game.

Oh right, one last thing It's actually nice to have my friends know what Fire Emblem is, as a lot of them have been gushing over Awakening and trying the older games in the series because they jumped into the franchise with Awakening.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Junpei Iori

[amadeuscho]

I dunno man

I'm hardly into anime and knowing its tropes but I do know the writing annoys the shit out of me because of how repetitive some of them are and the multitude of supports are not taken advantage of to really expand on character development despite clearing having enough space to do so

That's not because it's anime tropes. It's because that would be bad writing. I don't agree with that, but if you think that, it's the writing, not the tropes themselves. Any trope can be bad, but a trope in itself is not what makes it bad.

@Viewtiful Joe

Pretty sure anime isn't as popular as you think either.

Also most people hate anime due to its art style? Citation needed.

When I say anime, I mean anime and manga. Many popular anime start out as manga and tell the same story (Dragonball, Naruto, One Piece). There are definitely more people that like anime than detractors who refuse to purchase a product because of anime/manga influence.

The influence of anime as a pop culture phenomenon is undeniable. There's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime-influenced_animation. There's also those pesky anime conventions: http://animecons.com/events/. There's the tracking of manga by the New York Times as best sellers, separate from graphic novels: http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2013-10-20/manga/list.html. etc.

As I said, it's a bit logical. How can you watch something you hate? How would you research about what tropes exist if you hate it? People who make the decision to not purchase something because of its animeness would probably do it by first glance, not by playing the game, examining it, and then deciding not to purchase it.

But it's not awful because "oh anime it must be bad." I'm saying that if I plopped down the script, these friends, many of whom probably have no idea at all what a tsundere is or what moe is, they would dislike it. The things that would make it dislikable would be the things that make it an anime trope. Correlation is not causation.

But literal anime is not all "anime-ish," if you understand what I'm saying. You don't have horribly written cardboard-cutout stereotypes filling every anime. That is the issue here, and I don't know of a word that really works perfectly here. Animu, maybe? I dunno, I'm not a scholar in all things anime-discussion related.

Maybe "a friend" was ambiguous. I meant specific friends of mine. Again, this is not an issue of anime visuals. It's that it's being animu. (that's the word I'm going to go with for now.)

Again, correlation is not causation. The tropes are bad. Not because they are tropes. The things are bad and also are tropes.

That would because of the poor writing, not because a supposed similarity of the game to anime. And your original statement framed "extremely anime" in a negative connotation. And how "extremely anime" is awful to people.

Again, that's writing. Like any form of animation, some of it's poor, and some of it's really great.

Again, just say poor writing. Animu means nothing if you have never watched anime.

You keep saying correlation is not causation, but I never said anything cause something else. You put words into what I said, not the other way around. Here was my previous claims: 1) Anime tropes are meaningless to those who have no opinion on anime. Such an opinion on anime more broadly reflects the opinion of the one who is labeling the tropes. [whether positive or negative] 2) Anime is very popular worldwide. The anti-anime population nowhere near compares to pro anime population. 3) There are great deal of people new to the franchise whose feelings on anime had no effect on their decision to purchase the game, so they purchased the game.

Wait...anti-anime people exist on this site? Really? I would never have guessed it.

But Viewtiful has a point. Anime is actually quite popular. More than one would think. Sure, not everyone knows about Experiential Lain or something like that, but nearly anyone who knows anything about anime knows about Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Naruto, etc. Hell, i had a 13 year old girl ask me about anime styled costumes at work. One lady explained how she went to conventions, and another random girl had a Hatsune Miku wallet. These things arent nearly as obscure as they seem. Plus anime is ingrained in online culture. Anyone whos spent ample time on the internet knows something about anime. Some anime style character archetypes bug people, sure. Thats the clash of cultures right there. What is considered normal or awesome in Japan is not always such across the pond. Its why Tharja isnt as popular out here in the West as she is in Japan. But Western audiences still enjoy the game overall.

anime ingrained in online culture:

It's Over 9000!

Dragonball, the anime practically responsible for the anime boom in the US. At Comic-Con this year, they were distributing scouters on the sides, and literally everyone wanted one. Very good points, Ser Florina.

[Rewjeo]

Again, that's writing. Like any form of animation, some of it's poor, and some of it's really great.

Again, just say poor writing. Animu means nothing if you have never watched anime.

But surely you're aware of how FE13's particular style of bad writing is stereotypical of anime?

You keep saying correlation is not causation, but I never said anything cause something else. You put words into what I said, not the other way around. Here was my previous claims: 1) Anime tropes are meaningless to those who have no opinion on anime. Such an opinion on anime more broadly reflects the opinion of the one who is labeling the tropes. [whether positive or negative] 2) Anime is very popular worldwide. The anti-anime population nowhere near compares to pro anime population. 3) There are great deal of people new to the franchise whose feelings on anime had no effect on their decision to purchase the game, so they purchased the game.

The correlation/causation thing is specifically in reference to point 1. Yes, 1 is true, but not exactly relevant. I was applying it to this situation (specifically, people not liking those tropes) and meant that in those cases specifically people not liking something and that thing being a trope were correlated, not cause/effect.

As far as point 2 goes, that is sort of a semantic argument. If by anti-anime you mean active dislikers of all things anime, then yes, you are right. But it's not like the majority of people in the world are avid anime fans, and particularly so if you look at stereotypical anime tropes.

Not sure what significance 3 has. I don't doubt that it's true, but I never meant to apply a dislike of poorly written anime tropes (that's sort of a loaded statement, though) to everyone, or even that it makes the game unlikable. Though I did at least imply that last part with some hyperbole earlier. Sorry about that.This started with me saying that I would be reluctant to suggest FE13 as an introduction to the series, most specifically on the grounds of "how extremely anime" the game is. And by that I meant the badly written stereotypical anime tropes. But, again, that's a loaded phrase, and it's awfully wordy on top of that. Some people like "extremely anime" things, and that's totally fine. But a lot of people don't, and seeing as FE13 is unique within the series in that aspect, that makes it questionable as a gateway to the series for many people. While FE has never been Shakespeare, looking the way of FE7-10, there are gems ( or at least bits of "ooh, that could be great if it was executed better!" like Micaiah) on top of being not overly challenging/confusing and not feeling dated. For some people FE13 is a great game. For some people it wouldn't be because of "how extremely anime it is." That is all I ever meant.

[amadeuscho]

But surely you're aware of how FE13's particular style of bad writing is stereotypical of anime?

I guess I understand why people have that perception. But again, that's making a generalization about anime that I believe is incorrect, because it's generalizing an entire country's form of media. It would be like if you took the cartoon network shows like the Adventures of Gumball and applied that to all US animation. The tropes in themselves don't make an anime bad. It's the bad writing and plot. Successful anime like Naruto have used these tropes. And some anime don't translate over to US as well just due to culture shock. I'm sure some people in Japan have no idea why Adventure Time is so popular in the U.S.

I get what you're saying, but there are divided fanbases with radically different games within a series, like with Zelda and Skyward Sword. I think it's general counter intuitive to call something a poor gateway product when the results from said product in terms of sales and what not indicate that it is a good gateway.

And as Rehab pointed out, I think the gameplay is a reason enough to get the game for many people. I think most gamers buy their games because of gameplay.

[LuxSpes]

People will always pick the easiest way to play the game though. You can't just handwave that by saying "well you could ignore it".

I know this post is a month old, but I find it funny that someone would say that considering that some people are playing harder difficulties in nearly every games and that some people love to put self-restriction on themselves(people going through Metroid Prime 2 without the Dark suit is a prime example unintended awful pun. Some people are going through Awakening without pair-up or grindind).

It may be because I have no problems with anime tropes and I only played 4 FE games(RD, SD, PoR and FE:A in that order), but I liked FE:A's character quite a bit. The presence of the Avatar and marriage somehow made me more invested in the characters and since I try to change which waifu/husbando I pick each playthrough, it allows me to care for different characters. I never had the level of emotional investment in any other FE games(this game is the only one that I played in the series that made me cry. Chapter 10 TT_TT)

And this game had an amazing soundtrack. Other games had a couple of stand-out tracks, but this game is full of great piece of music that varies a lot in style (chaos ablaze vs Id serenity or Id purpose vs Don't speak her name)

People seem to be overly focused on the flaws of this game to the point that it looks like the worst game ever rather than a good game that saved the series from death while offering a solid base to build the next game upon.

[dondon151]

I know this post is a month old, but I find it funny that someone would say that considering that some people are playing harder difficulties in nearly every games and that some people love to put self-restriction on themselves(people going through Metroid Prime 2 without the Dark suit is a prime example unintended awful pun. Some people are going through Awakening without pair-up or grindind).

if you make a game that is super easy, it's not going to be considered a good game, even if there are ways for the player to inflate the difficulty.

[Chiki]

if you make a game that is super easy, it's not going to be considered a good game, even if there are ways for the player to inflate the difficulty.

It's certainly metaphysically possible to think of a game that's super easy and is amazing in every other area, such as story, graphics and so on. Pokemon XY comes to mind. It's considered a good game despite also being considered stupidly easy.

[dondon151]

think even easier than that

[amadeuscho]

if you make a game that is super easy, it's not going to be considered a good game, even if there are ways for the player to inflate the difficulty.

this sort of bleeds into the "is FE too easy" thread, but yeah, FE13 might be on the easy side for veterans, who should play on Hard or Lunatic if that's the case. For newcomers to the series, FE13 is still fairly difficult.

But there is no way FE13 is easier than any of the pokemon games. The Pokemon games are built on grinding and hard work, rather than strategy, if we are just talking about in game content. Pokemon games are made after all so that any age can enjoy them. Unless you create rules for yourself to make Pokemon harder, beating Pokemon game isn't hard. Hence, most people beat there first pokemon game when they were 8 or younger. And as evidenced by the "is FE13 too easy thread," there are still many adults who can't beat FE13, especially when permadeath is on.

[Refa]

nowhere did dondon say FE13 is easier than Pokemon...

[RJWalker]

Eh, FE13 on Normal Casual is probably easier than Gen 2 and Gen 3. Maybe 4 too. 5 and 6 is where they really started dropping anything that would make the player think even a little bit.

[General Banzai]

Eh, FE13 on Normal Casual is probably easier than Gen 2 and Gen 3. Maybe 4 too. 5 and 6 is where they really started dropping anything that would make the player think even a little bit.

dude dont even act like you cant blast through g/s with just typhlo and a cast of hm slaves

like oh lance you got 50 fuckin dragonites? LEVEL 80 TYPHLOSION BITCHEZZZZZZZZZZZZ

#swagggggggg

[Irysa]

If you think Gen 5 is "easier" than earlier pokemon games then it's simply because you're more informed on how mechanics actually work.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Irysa

[RJWalker]

dude dont even act like you cant blast through g/s with just typhlo and a cast of hm slaves

like oh lance you got 50 fuckin dragonites? LEVEL 80 TYPHLOSION BITCHEZZZZZZZZZZZZ

#swagggggggg

I never said Gen 2 is hard. :\

In fact, what you described was exactly what I did when I first played Silver and it was my first Pokemon game. I'm just saying that FE13 on Normal Casual is easier.