Why is there so much hate for Awakening?

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

I think one (of the several) things that bothered me about Awakening is how the whole "political" aspect is not very believable. After Chrom defeats Gangrel in chapter 11, it appears as if he (and Basilio and Flavia) merely took reparations from Plegia and never gave them another thought. Apparently none of them even knew who took control of Plegia as monarch after Gangrel was defeated until chapter 13, when they had to meet with Validar. This is ... just stupid not only as part of the story but just in common sense. Why would you leave the country that you just defeated that also was responsible for your former exalt's death to its own devices, without even bothering to appoint a king you know won't fuck things over? Same logic in Valm as well.

Well, that and the deeply stupid politics came in a series that previously had featured reasonably intelligent politicking and acknowledgements that ruling and alliances are complex things and rebuilding a nation after a war really matters. I can understand someone coming into FE13 without playing the earlier games and not being bothered by it as much, but having played the earlier games I had certain expectations for how FE as a series handles politics and man, FE13 was beyond bad in that regard. Like, why have BOTH Khans gallivanting around with Chrom? You have two rulers. Leave one at home to deal with, uh, this whole Validar guy who is obviously up to no good. Just basic Geopolitics 101 got thrown out the window there.

[NoNameAtAll]

I'm sorry, but saying Awakening's cast is worse than Shadow Dragon's is hilarious, especially when you have such riveting units like Tomas who...has no lines. And don't give me the bullshit "It's the first FE game, it's expected!" No, that kind of shit is unacceptable. It was fine and dandy on the NES, but the DS remake had no excuse.

[Refa]

No, I think everyone understood what you meant.

What I mean to say is that when a series adds a great feature then takes it out for no good reason, you can't counter the complaints by saying the earliest games didn't have said feature. What happened to progress?

It's a remake. It's not designed to move the series forwards, just to let Western/new players experience the first game in the series. It's like complaining that the latest remake of FF1 doesn't have a deep and involving story.

[RJWalker]

I'm sorry, but saying Awakening's cast is worse than Shadow Dragon's is hilarious, especially when you have such riveting units like Tomas who...has no lines. And don't give me the bullshit "It's the first FE game, it's expected!" No, that kind of shit is unacceptable. It was fine and dandy on the NES, but the DS remake had no excuse.

Like I said, I'd take an underdeveloped cast like Shadow Dragon over badly written one like Awakening ANYDAY.

More is not always better. In this case, have more conversations, more dialogue and more 'personality' doesn't mean better characters since so many of them are just terrible.

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

I'm sorry, but saying Awakening's cast is worse than Shadow Dragon's is hilarious, especially when you have such riveting units like Tomas who...has no lines. And don't give me the bullshit "It's the first FE game, it's expected!" No, that kind of shit is unacceptable. It was fine and dandy on the NES, but the DS remake had no excuse.

Brand-new DS-era RPGs like Dragon Quest IX feature mute and personality-free playable characters, and for some funny reason that didn't seem to hinder an overall positive reception. But since we're talking about Fire Emblem, I'll take a mute Tomas, Dolph, Macellan, etc, over the ridiculous attempts to flesh out all 70+ characters that we saw in FE12. Maybe an official adaptation by the localization team would've made me like it better, since they did a cracking good job on FE11, but I kind of doubt it. The mute characters at least don't waste my time like they do in FE12.

I don't honestly view FE12 as an improvement over FE11 in terms of writing. And everything that rubbed me the wrong way about FE12's plotting, writing, and characterization just got amplified in FE13.

[Mighty Kamina]

Even if you dislike Awakening's cast, I still find it hilairous that someone could find Shadow Dragon's cast (Who aside from Marth and a few other's have little to no lines) better than Awakening's. (I'll give credit to Shadow Dragon in that the characterization is does have is solid though.)

I mean, come on. Some of Shadow Dragon's characters don't even have a single line of dialouge aside from their death quote.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Kamina

[RJWalker]

Even if you dislike Awakening's cast, I still find it hilairous that someone could find Shadow Dragon's cast (Who aside from Marth and a few other's have little to no lines) better than Awakening's. (I'll give credit to Shadow Dragon in that the characterization is does have is solid though.)

I mean, come on. Some of Shadow Dragon's characters don't even have a single line of dialouge aside from their death quote.

Because I can count one one hand the characters in FE13 who are not completely terrible. More than hald the cast of FE13 makes me cringe. No one in FE11 makes me cringe.

Hence, FE11's cast is better than FE13. Subjective? Of course, but what isn't?

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

Even if you dislike Awakening's cast, I still find it hilairous that someone could find Shadow Dragon's cast (Who aside from Marth and a few other's have little to no lines) better than Awakening's. (I'll give credit to Shadow Dragon in that the characterization is does have is solid though.)

I mean, come on. Some of Shadow Dragon's characters don't even have a single line of dialouge aside from their death quote.

What exactly is hilarious about finding something that's neutral/non-existent "better" (in the sense of being less bad) than something that one finds actively dislikable? It's not about finding FE11's Bord, Cord, Barst, Dolph, Tomas, Macellan as good, it's more about them being null values as opposed to being an actual drag on my gameplay experience as characters were in FE12 and FE13. Zeros as opposed to actual negatives.

And, as you said, Shadow Dragon does have some genuine positives in its column. I'll take that version of Marth any day over Chrom.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Reason why SD cast is better

It took Chrom 9 chapters, months of in game time, several burning ships, and a Basilio to beat Walhart, and a paralogue to recruit him

It took Sheeda one Chapter and an hour for Sheeda to fly to Walhart, curb his logic to the ground, stab him with Wing Spear, ignores his Skill, and recruit him to the army

[Refa]

It's true, conquerors have an affinity for blue haired pegasus knights who are good in Warpskip.

Take it from one personally.

[Skynstein]

Give me tropey characters over mute drones any day.

[RJWalker]

Nothing wrong with Tropey characters. It's when they have that one gimmick and nothing else and pretty much every conversation with them hammers that trope into your head is what makes them so terrible.

In a way, FE13's characters are bigger drones than FE11's characters.

[Shev]

Nothing wrong with Tropey characters. It's when they have that one gimmick and nothing else and pretty much every conversation with them hammers that trope into your head is what makes them so terrible.

In a way, FE13's characters are bigger drones than FE11's characters.

This is why I really dislike Kellam, because his gimmick is drawn to such an extent where it's not an actual problem. It's all in his head. In his Stahl C support Stahl is like "yeah yeah, we know, you have a thing."

Story and character have seemed about the same to me, although I really liked how the core of Sacred Stones' problems were character-based, and the character dynamics (being a good leader) had something to do with the crapsack world. It was a surprise when Lyon became EVULZ, but no one is surprised when Gangrel is a dickwad.

I really enjoy Awakening and I think the story is passable, but I wouldn't want to give a good analysis of it until I've had distance from it. Sometimes, playing it makes me want to play FE7/8.

[Shu.]

Hate for FE13? Sorry, what? I'm too busy playing the piss outta Awakening

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

There is one animu BS that I'm starting to get tire of however and it's the power of the bonds. Nearly every mainstream anime has for central theme that bonds between friends are stronger than everything.

Power of the bonds is actually a solid morals

Except most mainstream anime forgot about the entire concept altogether, and goes on the opposite direction

See: Bleach, One Piece

[LuxSpes]

Power of the bonds is actually a solid morals

Except most mainstream anime forgot about the entire concept altogether, and goes on the opposite direction

See: Bleach, One Piece

Agreed. Maybe I'm just starting to get sick with it because it's not properly used or handled badly in a lot of main stream series.

Naruto is able to save people that went beyond the Despair Event Horizon long ago thanks to his speech about friendship. Bleach uses it on and off(and it took a major dip in the quality of his story on the last few arcs IMO).

I'd say One Piece and Fairy Tail uses it decently(seems at time a bit BS in FT, but not too much). In One Piece, after having an episode of deep despair after Ace's Death, Luffy regains hope because he has his friends waiting for him(And earlier in the story there's the Arlong and Enies Lobby arc)

I think that FMA:B is one of the anime that used it the most elegantly, with people being able to defeat a god-like entity by uniting themselves. And at the very end Ed, surrendering his ability to use Alchemy to save Al and saying he'll be able to live without it because he's not alone/he has friends to support him.

And I guess Awakening used it in a pretty mediocre way too. For a series known for a character that 'fights for his friends', etc. The avatar is able to survive annihilation thanks to having strong bonds(they should have made it that the Avatar only survives if s/he has A-rank bonds with most of the army).

But I consider it nitpicking, unlike a lot of people in thread it seems, I don't have problem with Awakenings cast. People say that SD's neutral cast is better, but at least with Awakening's cast, I have enough info to create my own perception/backstory of the character. I feel that SD's characters are in majority the drones since I have absolutely no emotional investment in the cast.(The only time I've beaten it, I sacrificed a unit at the end just to end the game. I went back to my SD final chapter save file and beat it with no casualty later just to have a clean finish.)

[BrightBow]

And I guess Awakening used it in a pretty mediocre way too. For a series known for a character that 'fights for his friends', etc. The avatar is able to survive annihilation thanks to having strong bonds(they should have made it that the Avatar only survives if s/he has A-rank bonds with most of the army).

I would say it goes far past "mediocre".

I definitely like cheesy friendship speeches like the one Sora got at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3D.

But even from that level, the problem is that the game is less "I am nothing without my friends" and more "My friends are nothing without me".

Sure, Grima keeps going on about why Robin won't join him. But Robin never gives an answer to that. It's only every else cheering him.

And then everyone sheds tears about him, as if not a zillion other people died just as noble deaths in order to protect the world from Grima. As if they had nothing else in there life that mattered and was lost in the war. Even if we only count PCs, a lot of them might have even lost their partners and children. But those lives are apparently meaningless in the radiance of Robin.

Or alternatively if the Avatar decides to merely banish Grima for a while, every single character seems to believe that Robin is more important then the future. That the inevitable reappearance of the world devouring dragon and the countless lives that will be lost, are somebody else's problem.

Edited November 6, 2013 by BrightBow

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Agreed. Maybe I'm just starting to get sick with it because it's not properly used or handled badly in a lot of main stream series.

Naruto is able to save people that went beyond the Despair Event Horizon long ago thanks to his speech about friendship. Bleach uses it on and off(and it took a major dip in the quality of his story on the last few arcs IMO).

Actually the problem with Naruto and Bleach is the fact that they perfectly shown that having a friend is useless

Power of Bonds? More like elitism

[amadeuscho]

Even if you dislike Awakening's cast, I still find it hilairous that someone could find Shadow Dragon's cast (Who aside from Marth and a few other's have little to no lines) better than Awakening's. (I'll give credit to Shadow Dragon in that the characterization is does have is solid though.)

I mean, come on. Some of Shadow Dragon's characters don't even have a single line of dialouge aside from their death quote.

My problem is that Shadow Dragon's character designs are mostly lackluster/terrible. Everyone looks so stiff, and they really don't grab at you to play them. Awakening's designs are colorful and lively.

[Rewjeo]

Awakening's visuals are actually a decent part of my dislike for the games, and for as much as I don't like the DS sprites, I do like the portraits. This does remind me of a conversation about whether or FE11 or FE12 Marth's portrait is better...

[rexcalibur]

I think if you like the characters of Awakening and their tropes, you'll get to enjoy them and be more interested in their personalities and backstories as you delve into all the supports. If not, then you most likely won't like them or be interested in their supports.

Edited November 7, 2013 by rexcalibur

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

Awakening's visuals are actually a decent part of my dislike for the games, and for as much as I don't like the DS sprites, I do like the portraits. This does remind me of a conversation about whether or FE11 or FE12 Marth's portrait is better...

FE12, of course! /is shot

I can see people being turned off by the FE11 artwork, as I remember feeling pretty shocked when it was unveiled because it was so different from FE3's or any other prior game. That said, I got used to it well before FE12 came out, and I don't much like the Awakening aesthetic and still don't. I can see people forming positive/negative opinions either way based on the impression they get from the visuals, though. For whatever reason, "I don't like these ugly characters" makes more sense to me than all the various claims that FE11 has no characters/entirely bad characters/terrible plot/terrible writing.

[Itadakimasu]

I agree, and I disagree. I had fun my first play through, just playing for fun. It's only now that I'm doing a planned play throught that all my units are so overpowered I can pretty much solo any map with any char (especially Lucina)... Yes, some characters could be better, and the supports between child and father are the same, regardless of the father (unfortunately) and yes, the story line gets bad... I mean, I was looking forward to playing as Marth (when I saw the trailer) but then to find out it was his daughter from the past... like... come on!

I plan to do 2 more play throughs on Hard and Lunatic, and for Hard, I'm just gonna wing it (and probably use Anna because I love her the most). Lunatic, I may plan, but damn... planning just makes units so Op... I have all child units at chapter 18 (had them all since chapter 15) Their levels work out to be 20/10 - 20/15.... Some are even 20/10/10

[Professor Vasuda]

Give me tropey characters over mute drones any day.

I loved Shadow Dragon's characters so much, and maybe it was partially because they were less tropey. With the simple backgrounds and small dialogue they had, I made my own stories and connections through the gameplay, having loads of fun picturing watching characters like Cain and Abel become battle bros as one tanks the front, then switching out sharing the load. It was simple compared to other FEs, but the balance was much better than awakening. Really though, I just loved the balance in shadow dragon, getting a challenge on higher difficulties instead of feeling cheated or forcing me to break the game.

Not to say I hate Awakening, I really did like the characters. When I gripe about Awakening, it's mainly how balance issues started to ruin the game for when hard mode is too easy, and lunatic mode is a lot of RNG and grinding.

[Florete]