I still don't get the praise of this game...

[RJWalker]

So if the final conclusions of romantic supports were moved to S supports, like in Awakening, and you could get multiple C - A supports then there wouldn't be any contradictions and the system would work fine.

The contradictions in Awakening I'm talking about aren't related to romance. Consider Yarne. If you C support him with one character, he'll be a spineless coward who leaves his allies to save himself. As you rank up the supports with that character he gets criticized for being a coward, learns the value of allies and learns to be more brave and help out his allies more. Now if you C rank support with anyone else, he's back to being a hopeless coward. Now repeat this procedure for almost every single character he supports with.It's awful and it makes Yarne one of my most hated characters. There's no redeeming him because he never learns and grows as a character in a way that lasts. These kinds of contradictions aren't present in previous games. You get minor inconsistencies at best.

There was That One Guy who bitched about FE7 so much that the topic got shut down, but that is for another day. . .

I didn't mind Cordelia popping in like that, and the only objection I had to Fiora was her urge to fly straight into archers. I didn't feel that either detracted from the recruitment/overall story.

Isn't she suicidal though? Makes sense for her character.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Ranger Jack Walker

[eclipse]

The contradictions in Awakening I'm talking about aren't related to romance. Consider Yarne. If you C support him with one character, he'll be a spineless coward who leaves his allies to save himself. As you rank up the supports with that character he gets criticized for being a coward, learns the value of allies and learns to be more brave and help out his allies more. Now if you C rank support with anyone else, he's back to being a hopeless coward. Now repeat this procedure for almost every single character he supports with.It's awful and it makes Yarne one of my most hated characters. There's no redeeming him because he never learns and grows as a character in a way that lasts. These kinds of contradictions aren't present in previous games. You get minor inconsistencies at best.

Let's take Real People (like me). Ask the people I interact with about me, and you'll get conflicting results. That's because I show certain parts of myself to people, depending on how much I trust them. If I want to overanalyze Yarne (yes I do), I can hypothesize that he trusts the people he talks to and values their opinion, which is why he's willing to stick his neck out a bit more for them. That dude he just saw from the corner of his eye? Not really.

Isn't she suicidal though? Makes sense for her character.

It's quite annoying from a gameplay perspective, when I'm trying to recruit her.

[RJWalker]

Let's take Real People (like me). Ask the people I interact with about me, and you'll get conflicting results. That's because I show certain parts of myself to people, depending on how much I trust them. If I want to overanalyze Yarne (yes I do), I can hypothesize that he trusts the people he talks to and values their opinion, which is why he's willing to stick his neck out a bit more for them. That dude he just saw from the corner of his eye? Not really.

It's quite annoying from a gameplay perspective, when I'm trying to recruit her.

This isn't about revealing your likes and dislikes to a comrade. He flat out leaves his comrades to go save himself, let's the others take risks so that he doesn't have to, tries to get out of duty. He's not jusbeing a coward to the support partner but everyone else. His behaviour puts the whole army in danger. And then he eventually learns to stop doing this. Cut to the next support and he's back to doing the exact same thing.

[Skynstein]

If what you did in a single C-rank support affected all your other supports, the script would've been massive and, therefore, impractical. It's a problem of the system, and Awakening isn't the only game in the series that uses this system, so bashing Awakening for this limitation is completely unjustified. I'd rather more space for better graphics and gameplay code. This isn't a VN.

[RJWalker]

If what you did in a single C-rank support affected all your other supports, the script would've been massive and, therefore, impractical. It's a problem of the system, and Awakening isn't the only game in the series that uses this system, so bashing Awakening for this limitation is completely unjustified. I'd rather more space for better graphics and gameplay code. This isn't a VN.

It's funny how that didn't really happen in the previous games, isn't it? That BS excuse isn't going to work. PoR even had supports that were perfectly tied with what was currently happening in the game. The system the game used to unlock supports allow that. As I've already stated, the only time this caused problems for earlier games was when romance was involved and even then, there was some room for interpretation. Besides, the problem isn't Awakening's supports not affecting each other or the plot. The problem is them being too similar to each other and using the same gimmick repeatedely.

So yes, criticizing Awakening for this is completely justified as this problem didn't occur in the previous games, even those with supports that didn't affect each other.

[eclipse]

This isn't about revealing your likes and dislikes to a comrade. He flat out leaves his comrades to go save himself, let's the others take risks so that he doesn't have to, tries to get out of duty. He's not jusbeing a coward to the support partner but everyone else. His behaviour puts the whole army in danger. And then he eventually learns to stop doing this. Cut to the next support and he's back to doing the exact same thing.

My point still stands, no matter how bad you think his behavior is.

[Jotari]

The contradictions in Awakening I'm talking about aren't related to romance. Consider Yarne. If you C support him with one character, he'll be a spineless coward who leaves his allies to save himself. As you rank up the supports with that character he gets criticized for being a coward, learns the value of allies and learns to be more brave and help out his allies more. Now if you C rank support with anyone else, he's back to being a hopeless coward. Now repeat this procedure for almost every single character he supports with.It's awful and it makes Yarne one of my most hated characters. There's no redeeming him because he never learns and grows as a character in a way that lasts. These kinds of contradictions aren't present in previous games. You get minor inconsistencies at best.

Isn't she suicidal though? Makes sense for her character.

That's what I'm trying to say. It's a flaw in Awakening itself and not an inherent flaw in the system Awakening presented.

[arvilino]

This isn't about revealing your likes and dislikes to a comrade. He flat out leaves his comrades to go save himself, let's the others take risks so that he doesn't have to, tries to get out of duty. He's not jusbeing a coward to the support partner but everyone else. His behaviour puts the whole army in danger. And then he eventually learns to stop doing this. Cut to the next support and he's back to doing the exact same thing.

Hence why it makes sense that C's, B's and A's occur simultaneously or atleast in sets(like the first B takes place after all C's which means once all the characters that someone can support with are recruited). Otherwise you get bizarre occurrences where in FE7 again for example you can have Kent and Sain talk about the journey they haven't had and Sain talking about heading back to Caelin while they're still at Caelin during chapter 14:

A Support

Sain: Hey, Kent! We've learned quite a bit on this quest, haven't we?

Kent: I suppose.

Sain: You suppose? Why, when we get back to Caelin, we should gather all the lovely lasses we know and have one big, magnificent--

Kent: Don't start with that again, Sain. This is no time for gaiety. There is still much fighting ahead of us. Either one of us could fall in the battle to come.

Sain: You always expect the worst. That's why Lady Lyndis never...

Kent: Hold your tongue. I'll have none of your foolishness now! Just keep your wits about you, that's all I'm saying. One overconfident lurch into danger could easily--

Sain: Overconfident? Who's overconfident? I know this isn't going to be easy... But I'll not let that shake me. After all, I'm not alone. I've got you. And you've got me, right? Right?

Kent: Yeah, you're right.

Sain: So let's get riding, shall we? And watch my back, partner!

Kent: Of course, my friend! With honor.

A similar case is Dart's supports with Wil and Rebecca since having the separate full supports(C-->A and C-->B) taking place one after each other doesn't make much sense when he doesn't acknowledge the other has claimed(Wil) or even given nearly conclusive evidence(Rebecca) that he's Rebecca's brother.

Edited June 8, 2014 by arvilino

[RJWalker]

Hence why it makes sense that C's, B's and A's occur simultaneously or atleast in sets(like the first B takes place after all C's which means once all the characters that someone can support with are recruited). Otherwise you get bizarre occurrences where in FE7 again for example you can have Kent and Sain talk about the journey they haven't had and Sain talking about heading back to Caelin while they're still at Caelin during chapter 14:

What the hell are you talking about? Kent and Sain are not in Caelin in Chapter 14. Chapter 14 is when Eliwood and Hector fight Erik in Laus. You get Kent and Sain in Chapter 15 and you can't have them get an A rank support until at least Chapter 16x where they've left Caelin already.

...Have you even played the game?

Edited June 8, 2014 by Ranger Jack Walker

[arvilino]

What the hell are you talking about? Kent and Sain are not in Caelin in Chapter 14. Chapter 14 is when Eliwood and Hector fight Erik in Laus. You get Kent and Sain in Chapter 15 and you can't have them get an A rank support until at least Chapter 16x where they've left Caelin already.

...Have you even played the game?

Supports aren't limited to one per chapter in FE7 are they? And I made a mistake with the number there, and yes I've played the game 6 or 7 times since 2004.

[Interceptor]

Boy, those FE7 supports really are cringeworthy; I have no idea why people are in love with them.

Seems to me that it's easy to dislike Awakening's support system if you are predisposed to do so. Personally, I appreciate the fact that nobody wasted resources on bulletproofing a system that would still get criticized anyway. This is a game with multiverse time-travel, so I just assume that the support conversations are more like flashbacks, and not necessarily connected to the present.

In other words, I mash START. I have this thing I do when I want to read a good story: I pick up a book.

[RJWalker]

Supports aren't limited to one per chapter in FE7 are they? And I made a mistake with the number there, and yes I've played the game 6 or 7 times since 2004.

Yes they are. Supports with Character A and Character B are limited to one per chapter though you can continue building the support points between the two but can only unlock the actual converstaion in the next chapter. Character A can still support with Character C (unlock the conversation and everything) even if they unlocked a support with Character B. If you've played the game 6 or 7 times, you should know this. Or take the time to look it up before saying something.

Boy, those FE7 supports really are cringeworthy; I have no idea why people are in love with them.

Seems to me that it's easy to dislike Awakening's support system if you are predisposed to do so. Personally, I appreciate the fact that nobody wasted resources on bulletproofing a system that would still get criticized anyway. This is a game with multiverse time-travel, so I just assume that the support conversations are more like flashbacks, and not necessarily connected to the present.

In other words, I mash START. I have this thing I do when I want to read a good story: I pick up a book.

That's purely a matter of opinion. I find Awakening's supports to be far more cringeworthy.

Also, not expecting a good story from a video game is a really poor excuse. Especially since I think the other games do have enjoyable stories.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Ranger Jack Walker

[arvilino]

Yes they are. Supports with Character A and Character B are limited to one per chapter though you can continue building the support points between the two but can only unlock the actual converstaion in the next chapter. Character A can still support with Character C (unlock the conversation and everything) even if they unlocked a support with Character B. If you've played the game 6 or 7 times, you should know this. Or take the time to look it up before saying something.

I already said on an earlier post that checking the support library I had unlocked 15 conversations, less than 3 per playthrough on average, how should a player possibly know for sure other than spending dozens to hundreds(or an infinite amount considering since the player shouldn't know the actual rates) of turns adjacent with characters? The manual doesn't state its limited to one per chapter and the way the mechanic is actually set up doesn't make apparent that you're limited to one support per pair per chapter.

Where am I supposed to look this fact up anyway?

Edited June 8, 2014 by arvilino

[Interceptor]

That's purely a matter of opinion.

You bet it is, and I wouldn't want to be caught dead holding the opinion that FE7 supports are anything to write home about. I'm flipping through a few of them right now, and they read like bad fanfiction, FFS; thankfully without the self-inserts. Except they are canon, which is weird.

I find Awakening's supports to be far more cringeworthy.

Is there enough headroom for them to be "far" more cringeworthy? I think that they can only be a little worse, because at that point you start going into some weird negative number shit.

Also, not expecting a good story from a video game is a really poor excuse. Especially since I think the other games do have enjoyable stories.

Not "a video game". Fire Emblem: Awakening. The desired quality of something's story is dependent on what you'te talking about. Tetris? Irrelevant. Visual novel? Better be amazing. Fire Emblem? Mostly about the gameplay, so just enough to tie stuff together and move things along.

[Constable Reggie]

In other words, I mash START. I have this thing I do when I want to read a good story: I pick up a book.

I only read books for the gameplay

Fire Emblem? Mostly about the gameplay, so just enough to tie stuff together and move things along.

Because it's not like the series has had a reputation for having good stories to go along with its gameplay.

Would you prefer the game if it forgone all sense of optional story content in favor of pure gameplay?

Is there enough headroom for them to be "far" more cringeworthy? I think that they can only be a little worse, because at that point you start going into some weird negative number shit.

This doesn't even make sense.

Where am I supposed to look this fact up anyway?

Uh, by the fact that literally every other FE game with supports holds this rule?

[Phoenix Wright]

there's a few good supports. awakening is the same way. i'm pretty confident in saying that the dialogue, characters, and plot of fe7 are of higher quality than awakening.

i don't think fe13 even beats fe6, lol. and fe6 has a terrible plot. it's the handful of likeable characters that make it.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Phoenix Wright

[Jotari]

Uh, by the fact that literally every other FE game with supports holds this rule?

Actually only the Gameboy Games have that exact system. In Genealogy characters get points from being on the same map and from standing beside each other. Obviously there's no proper support conversations either to suggest how far along you are, though there are conversations that drastically boost support points. You're left completely in the dark as to how to achieve it. Path of Radiance has a more straight forward system where simple being deployed in the same chapter a certain number of times unlocks a support. Radiant Dawn didn't have have proper support conversations but the method of gaining supports is a mix up of all of them, being in the same chapter and standing beside each other as well as things like healing and shoving like in Awakening. The gameboy games are the only ones where it is pure stand beside each other for 200 turns. Really none of the games make the system clear until Awakening which gives a little indicator when ever you do something to build supports.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Jotari

[Constable Reggie]

I was referring to the "one support level per pair per chapter" rule. Fe6-8 adhere to this, Fe9-10 adhere to this, and Fe12 adheres to this.Geneology is just a straight not married or married system, so I'm not really counting it. Refer to this:

Supports aren't limited to one per chapter in FE7 are they?

Edited June 8, 2014 by Constable Reggie

[arvilino]

I was referring to the "one support level per pair per chapter" rule. Fe6-8 adhere to this, Fe9-10 adhere to this, and Fe12 adheres to this.Geneology is just a straight not married or married system, so I'm not really counting it.

FE6-8 allow you to activate the conversations it during chapters and continue to build the friendship points up. The rest only allow you to activate support conversations between chapters where you can't normally build up more support, however both FE12 and FE13 are exceptions as barracks conversations allow you to increase friendship points outside of battle and the Seed of Trust in FE13 also allows more than one per chapter/battle. Suggesting FE9-10 only allow one support per pair per chapter because there is no method of boosting points in the preparations menu.

Considering you activate support conversations during a chapter in the GBA, why would a player think they can't keep building points and going to a second conversation during the same chapter?

Edited June 8, 2014 by arvilino

[RJWalker]

No, I have to agree that the GBA games don't actually tell you you can only activate one support per pairing but at some point, a player will just give up, move on to the next chapter and then see that the support has been unlocked at which point they'll realize that you can only activate one support per pairing. The fact that you still weren't sure yet said there are plot holes based on fault information is not cool though.

[arvilino]

No, I have to agree that the GBA games don't actually tell you you can only activate one support per pairing but at some point, a player will just give up, move on to the next chapter and then see that the support has been unlocked at which point they'll realize that you can only activate one support per pairing. The fact that you still weren't sure yet said there are plot holes based on fault information is not cool though.

Perhaps, though funnily enough according to the game script The Port of Badon is in Caelin so it can still exist as a plot hole if done as soon as possible.

I just mistakenly considered that it might have been available during "The noble lady of Caelin" when I read it which would have been even more ridiculous(I even checked the serenesforest page on the supports but it didn't mention a limit).

Edited June 8, 2014 by arvilino

[Dark Sage]

The handwavy bullshit used to justify Awakening's terrible plot and gameplay and story segregation really needs to stop. Yes there's a lot of games that do those practices too, but that doesn't make it ok, especially when you compare it to games that actually do make an effort to make gameplay and story hand in hand. The Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre games for example have mechanics that affect the story and are implemented due to the setting. In the ogre battle games, who you send to seized or unaffiliated towns to get to your side in relation to its customs/citizenry (aka alignment) affects your reputation and morality and that can change the story, including gameplay sequences, the plot, and the ending. Tactics ogre, being based off the Yugoslavia Wars, implements ethnicity as a mechanic and your behavior both on and off the battlefield affects your standing with them which affects quite a bit. And of course, your decisions actually affect shit, sometimes game changingly so, something completely lost on awakening. The point is that the developers of those games did their best to make the interesting plots and gameplay go hand in hand and it paid off very well.

Or let's take another well received game that has the gameplay/story segregation problem of character development: Persona 4. The character development in social links (read: supports) are sometimes criticized for not being taken into account in the actual main plot. First off, the writing is actually pretty good for the most part, but the limitation of the mechanic can actually be justified in a way that makes me feel thematical sense; the reason why there's that difference in behavior is because people are showing different sides of themselves to you that they wouldn't to others. That is not only how people actually behave, but that's the very definition of a persona in the first place, plus one of the game's major ideas is that people are not who they seem. So in a way, the developers were able to make the scripting limitations work for them. Awakening doesn't even try to do that.

Also I wish people wouldn't try to hand wave the gameplay imbalances with "but the other games have broken shit too!" because that doesn't mean that it's not a flaw, and awakening is worse in that regard anyway. Being told to ignore gameplay mechanics is also a really lazy defense. Plot holes in a movie? Just ignore them! Dnd 3rd edition is unbalanced? Just use house rules!

[Interceptor]

Because it's not like the series has had a reputation for having good stories to go along with its gameplay.

If it has such a reputation, I'd say it's 1) undeserved, and 2) possibly held by people that don't know any better.

Would you prefer the game if it forgone all sense of optional story content in favor of pure gameplay?

No, I like the story/gameplay balance as-is. There is probably no such option on the table anyway; how much more could they add in the way of gameplay features by firing whatever high school students wrote the support conversations? I expect that it would be minimal.

This doesn't even make sense.

OK, I'll explain my point in your language. Let's take a random sample:

Lowen: Lord Eliwood! Please, forgive me!

Eliwood: What? What is it, Lowen?

Lowen: You must forgive me! I... I had no intention... I am sorry! Ohh... Were General Marcus to find out... Im finished! Through!

Eliwood: Lowen? Perhaps you could tell me what happened?

Lowen: Yes... Yes, my lord. ... ... It is that...uh... This morning, you see... Did... Did you eat breakfast, my lord?

Eliwood: Breakfast?

Lowen: As I thought! You haven/t had breakfast, have you!?

Eliwood: Ah...um, yes, now that you mention it. I was busy. I must have forgotten.

Lowen: I knew it! It is my fault-- I overslept! And now Lord Eliwood has gone without breakfast!

Eliwood: L-Lowen, please. Missing one meal is not such a big affair...

Lowen: Oh, but it is! This is a most unforgivable oversight! If the stomach is empty, empty, too, lies the heart. You know the proverb!

Eliwood: Actually, thats the first time I ever heard that one.

Lowen: Then you must remember it from henceforth! If the stomach is empty, empty, too, lies the heart. Remember?

Eliwood: Um, yes.

Lowen: Good! Then, I shall bring something for you to eat forthwith! ... ...

Eliwood: Lowen? Whats wrong, Lowen! Lowen...! Lowen!

Mother of god, chewing back vomit here. Somewhere, an actor in a soap opera is slightly uncomfortable without quite knowing why.

Suppose we have a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the greatest literary masterpiece known to man, and 1 is an erotic Star Trek fanfic with furries and a self-insert. Let's say that The Great Gatsby is an 8, or something. Where does this above passage rate? Or the whole set of conversations? Is it even a three? Seems pretty difficult to have Awakening be "far" worse, without either 1) using non-English gibberish, or 2) a whole lot of Hitler.

I hope that helps you understand what I meant by suggesting a lower limit on how bad something can be. Although I suppose there's always "so bad it's good", like Plan 9. I've never seen a Fire Emblem game reach that lofty perch, though.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Interceptor

[Loki Laufeyson]

The handwavy bullshit used to justify Awakening's terrible plot and gameplay and story segregation really needs to stop.

Gods forbid someone take the good with the bad! HOW DARE THEY!!!

<_< No.

I take the good with the bad with all the other games too. I think this entire argument about supports is fueled by bias. Cuz objectively, feels like PoR did the system the best. I like Awakening's support system a lot. Saves on tedium with unlocking those. Sure, they arent that well written because of sheer number, but ill take it over FE10's purely gameplay stance. Ill take "some well written supports, but not all of them are that great" over "nothing but a sentence." GBA games, well thats really tedious to unlock supports in that game. FE7 is my favorite game in the series, yet i dread having to pair up characters cuz i might never see those supports unless i stand around for hundreds of turns. Yes, a lot of the supports in that game are well written, but man, those turns. In the cases of Raven/Bartre or...Lowen in general, its not worth unlocking them. It is worth unlocking Florina's supports but still a pain to do cuz turns. Taking the good with the bad.

Interceptor, your hyperbole is really not helping your position. You had me until you started getting really pretentious about it. :/

[Constable Reggie]

If it has such a reputation, I'd say it's 1) undeserved, and 2) possibly held by people that don't know any better.

It's a statistical known fact that Awakening gave 53% of its players PTSD because of its gameplay

No, I like the story/gameplay balance as-is. There is probably no such option on the table anyway; how much more could they add in the way of gameplay features by firing whatever high school students wrote the support conversations? I expect that it would be minimal.

What balance? You just bloody said you skip all the optional story content in Awakening and hand waved its story because it's not a book. There's as much balance there as a feather on one side and a rock on the other. If Awakening had top notch story and character quality, it seems to me like you still wouldn't really care.

OK, I'll explain my point in your language. Let's take a random sample:

I know what your point was. My point was that trying to quantify subjective opinions as arbitrary numbers, even if its as some wonderful hyperbole that you love to use, is completely nonsensical. It's ridiculous to claim that there's some kind of bottom standard when it something as complicated as huge stories. There can (emphasis on this word) always be something worse.

You had me until you started getting really pretentious about it. :/

Par for the course

Edited June 8, 2014 by Constable Reggie