Is the hate on Shadow Dragon justified?

[Emperor Hardin]

I think Shadow Dragon as a whole may be the nicest game to armours, as there are so many reinforcements that tend to come from behind. It's a shame that idea wasn't used in better FE's to give them more use. It's also too bad that the best armour units come in the shape of horseman as there starting class.

TFJ had some pretty good points.

EDIT: I've always wondered why everyone hates the graphics so much? I get the unit models as they don't have unique palettes and are mostly just crappy transitions of the more memorable GBA sprites, but why the map tiles? They aren't as charming as the colourful GBA sprites, but I personally liked the realistic look and the touches like crop fields and such.

Yeah, the other games to give armors a break are its "New Mystery", and "Radiant Dawn."

The boost in Defense when a unit is reclassed to General is just so huge that they make the perfect wall. The class growths are very stellar as well if you want speed, and defense. Caeda makes a good General in New Mystery.

Speaking of RD, I'm surprised they ditched Armor Knights being moderately resistant towards magic.

[The Geek]

I think Shadow Dragon as a whole may be the nicest game to armours, as there are so many reinforcements that tend to come from behind. It's a shame that idea wasn't used in better FE's to give them more use. It's also too bad that the best armour units come in the shape of horseman as there starting class.

TFJ had some pretty good points.

EDIT: I've always wondered why everyone hates the graphics so much? I get the unit models as they don't have unique palettes and are mostly just crappy transitions of the more memorable GBA sprites, but why the map tiles? They aren't as charming as the colourful GBA sprites, but I personally liked the realistic look and the touches like crop fields and such.

The sprites are more detailed versions of the sprites from the SNES Fire Emblem games. I myself prefer the cartoony-ness of the GBA sprites, but I have no problem with the hyper-detailed sprites in Shadow Dragon.

[Jotari]

One of my issues with the Shadow Dragon animations is that Marth has the same lunge attack no matter what sword he has. They really should have given him a unique animation for the falchion. Even the NES game had that.

[RJWalker]

Ironically, the units that start as Knights are usually the worst people for the job.

[Just call me AL]

I think Shadow Dragon as a whole may be the nicest game to armours, as there are so many reinforcements that tend to come from behind. It's a shame that idea wasn't used in better FE's to give them more use. It's also too bad that the best armour units come in the shape of horseman as there starting class.

So Draug is nonexistant all of a sudden?

[Knight]

So Draug is nonexistant all of a sudden?

I didn't say Draug was bad, but he's not as good as General Wolf or Sedgar.

[Elieson]

So Draug is nonexistant all of a sudden?

He did say usually, and the alts are Lorenz, Macellan, Dolph and Roger. Roger is serviceable at best. The others. Nahhh

[Refa]

One of my issues with the Shadow Dragon animations is that Marth has the same lunge attack no matter what sword he has. They really should have given him a unique animation for the falchion. Even the NES game had that.

Marth had 3 different animations depending on what weapon he was holding (normal swords, Rapier/Miracle Sword, and Falchion). So yeah, kind of above and beyond most FE characters (in the 2D games) hilariously enough.

[Emperor Hardin]

He did say usually, and the alts are Lorenz, Macellan, Dolph and Roger. Roger is serviceable at best. The others. Nahhh

Lorenz has not aged well at all since the NES, and SNES versions where he was either great or rather servicable.

Macellan's growths are a joke throughout every version.

Dolph has a good base def growth at 15%. Still totally trumped by Wolf, and Sedgar.

Then there's the default Pirate, Darros! His stat growths might be even worse then the NES version. Come to think of it, he would've benefited from the Pirate Class Growths in the second DS game.

[Mekkah]

Nothing forces you to use reclass. It's completely optional and only messes with "class uniqueness" if you want it to do so.

A bad optional feature is still bad. If a game has badly designed gaidens or terribly written dialogue, I can skip them. But I should still be able to take them into account when criticizing the game.

[TFJ]

@ Bolded- What? Hector Hard Mode is very weak in the difficulty department. I take it you haven't played Lunatic in 12 or 13? 12's is anything but "just buffed enemies" and FE13 does have some genius stuff (that is not noticeable due to Avatar and other broken stuff).

And how is reclassing a bad mechanic? Sure, FE11 was just Heroes for class B and Dracos/Paladins for class A, but it was a very fun new mechanic that added replayability and even made units more versatile and added to strategy. It was also optional

Okay, let's see...

Regarding HHM, I found it to be reasonably challenging without feeling unfun. I don't judge difficulty in a absolute scale, it's all about having a good balance of challenge and fun. Also, I'm taking in account mostly how the hard mode actually feels different from standard mode. And HHM succeeds in this, with lot's of extra content and level design changes. This is what I look for in hard mode.

About FE12 and FE13, I did play both Lunatic modes. FE12 I didn't care to finish, because as I said, it was hard but not fun for me for a multitude of reasons. FE13's Lunatic mode I did finish, but again, it wasn't a fun nor interesting experience. And by late game, I only used 6 paired units (making in practice 3 controlled units) while abusing nosferatu, forged weapons and stat boosters. Unfortunately, that's the completely opposite from I'm what I'm looking in a FE game.

I'm also faling to see the genius stuff behind both difficult modes. I know FE12's has different enemy AI, but for me this hardly impacts the game much. Care to elaborate?

Indeed, reclassing is completely optional, and I have never used it in my playthroughs. But still, it's a terrible mechanic for me that adds nothing of value to the game and actually makes it worse, by reducing unit differences. Also, it's funny you say that it added replayability for you. For me it was the complete opposite, because there was no reason / motive to use different characters. Units became more bland, just numbers. Actually, "just numbers" could be said for a lot of stuff in the game.

And let's think in this way: the time and money spent on implementing the reclassing mechanic could have been spent on implementing a skill system and making every character more unique.

I know which of the two I would take.

[Constable Reggie]

A bad optional feature is still bad. If a game has badly designed gaidens or terribly written dialogue, I can skip them. But I should still be able to take them into account when criticizing the game.

It depends on what it's being criticized for. Something like "is extremely unbalanced" or "wasn't well implemented" is a legitimate criticism for (optional) reclassing. Something like "it eliminates unit uniqueness" is not. Someone trying to argue that Luigi mode in NSMB "destroys any sense of challenge and trivializes the game" would be laughed out the room.

Fe13's reclassing on the other hand can be criticized for the latter, because it heavily pushes you, if not forces you, to reclass your units to different classes. No one complains of 13 "eliminatating unit uniqueness", though. Whereas in SD, a completely optional and ignorable feature somehow does this.

This is why I only quoted a specific part of your post.

I'm also faling to see the genius stuff behind both difficult modes. I know FE12's has different enemy AI, but for me this hardly impacts the game much. Care to elaborate?

12 has the most meticulously placed enemy units out of any Fe (lunatic particularly). This probably doesn't mean much for most players (partially including me), but it probably makes 12 the most strategic of any Fe game. You really have to think about the right way to place units and such.

Edited July 2, 2014 by Constable Reggie

[The Geek]

It depends on what it's being criticized for. Something like "is extremely unbalanced" or "wasn't well implemented" is a legitimate criticism for (optional) reclassing. Something like "it eliminates unit uniqueness" is not. Someone trying to argue that Luigi mode in NSMB "destroys any sense of challenge and trivializes the game" would be laughed out the room.

Fe13's reclassing on the other hand can be criticized for the latter, because it heavily pushes you, if not forces you, to reclass your units to different classes. No one complains of 13 "eliminatating unit uniqueness", though. Whereas in SD, a completely optional and ignorable feature somehow does this.

This is why I only quoted a specific part of your post.

12 has the most meticulously placed enemy units out of any Fe (lunatic particularly). This probably doesn't mean much for most players (partially including me), but it probably makes 12 the most strategic of any Fe game. You really have to think about the right way to place units and such.

I think the issue of unit uniqueness in relation to Shadow Dragon vs. Awakening has a lot more to do with how the story is written. Many of the characters in Shadow Dragon don't actually have any character. Shadow Dragon's cast only has a very few characters, but to make up for it, I personally think they're well written.

[dondon151]

Regarding HHM, I found it to be reasonably challenging without feeling unfun. I don't judge difficulty in a absolute scale, it's all about having a good balance of challenge and fun. Also, I'm taking in account mostly how the hard mode actually feels different from standard mode. And HHM succeeds in this, with lot's of extra content and level design changes. This is what I look for in hard mode.

FE7 HHM falls short in all of these areas. most enemy position changes between HHM and other modes amount to zero functional difference in how the player would approach the chapter (with a single exception in CoD). this is precisely because enemies are weak enough in FE7 HHM that it really doesn't matter in the slightest how they are positioned.

the game itself possesses some of the worst examples of level design in the franchise. chapter 23x divides your party into two groups of four, with each of them facing enemy staff users that they really have no reliable way of dodging. chapter 28 can result in a game over before the player even has a chance to prevent jaffar from dying. chapter 28x features a triplicate of bolting mages that can be anywhere from innocuous to fatal depending on their coinflip chances of hitting.

About FE12 and FE13, I did play both Lunatic modes. FE12 I didn't care to finish, because as I said, it was hard but not fun for me for a multitude of reasons. FE13's Lunatic mode I did finish, but again, it wasn't a fun nor interesting experience. And by late game, I only used 6 paired units (making in practice 3 controlled units) while abusing nosferatu, forged weapons and stat boosters. Unfortunately, that's the completely opposite from I'm what I'm looking in a FE game.

you may not complain about FE13 encouraging small teams of overpowered units when FE7 is just as guilty of that.

[Baldrick]

How exactly are the 23x and 28x situations bad level design? They require a little more thought to overcome compared to what HHM usually gives you, but they're certainly not luck-based like BBD is.

HHM is good for low-manning because the enemies are weak. In Awakening Lunatic mode they're a lot tougher, so allegedly being just as good for low-manning is telling. To my knowledge, in New Mystery it's better to have a larger team, but I haven't played it.

[Constable Reggie]

Can anyone tell me what 6's level design has over 7's. Compare, say, 7's 28x to 6's 14x (since they are conceptually similar levels).

Particularly, 7's level design actually uses the whole map. It includes alternative objectives (the north chests), and encourages splitting up by having spread out long range users. Meanwhile, the disappearing tiles do not entirely remove control of units from the player by leaving several units stuck in water, like 6 does.

WTF does Fe6's 14x do right compared to this. It's a straight, boring line to the throne room that doesn't utilize like 50% of the map (no one would be slow enough to not get to the boss in time via short path unless they horribly sucked) and has ridiculously stupid disappearing tiles that pointlessly bottlenecks/strands your units.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Constable Reggie

[Irysa]

I think you're mistaking "more" for "better" here. 28x is a pretty convoluted map in general, and part of its layout also heavily assumes the player has the delphi shield from the previous map. The assumption itself is fine, but the comparison between the two is flawed for this reason, 14x doesn't really demand you to use fliers at all, or even have trained fliers. 28x without fliers is a pretty different kettle of fish (ever tried it?).

Anyway, for one, the siege tome enemies on that map can't really gang up on a target, nor do they have leeway over such a huge portion of the map. The three mages and Sonia can hit almost 70% of the map area combined, wheras the two relevant siege magic users on 14x control much less space and have very small overlaps, unlike in FE7. Now the obvious solution to this is...kill the mages at the start. How do you do that? Send some fliers over.

Second, the layout of 28x full of bottlenecks period. In FE6 the outer tiles are always the one to dissapear first, which results in a slow choke, but if you rush forward it's pretty feasible to never be inhibited by it at all. In FE7 it's a constant source of annoyance, and anyone not fielding a bunch of fliers has to put up with a lot of situations where you simply can't do anything beacuse everybody is swarming around the same chokes. This is exemplified by the fact that enemies are using status staves. How do you deal with this? Fliers again.

Third, in FE6 you're actively rewarded and encouraged to attempt to beat the map faster and not mope around near the start, which is by far the most dangerous area. Contrast this to FE7 where it takes 10 turns for most of the map to connect itself, and it takes IIRC, 30 turns for the chests to even connect themself via land. How do you deal with that? Deploy more fliers.

Is FE6 14x an annoying map? Yes. Why? Because the start of the map is a clusterfuck and if you don't move fast you suffer for it. Move fast, and, the chapter is not that difficult at all. It does not demand you to utiilise fliers, clearing out most of the enemies on the map whilst steadily progressing to the boss is pretty feasible. You have the easy option of warp since you got that the previous chapter too, or potentially ferrying people over the initial short gap between the center of the map and the start of it.

Is FE7 28x an annoying map? Yes. Why? A new, completely untrained unit is forced, positioning won't save you from the siege magic or status staves, and basically 90% of your army became nearly useless on the map. Even desert maps aren't usually that awkward, you're inhibited but not forced to wait around, and there are usually other things for non flying/magic units to do, or just non desert parts of the map to be useful on.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Irysa

[dondon151]

HHM is good for low-manning because the enemies are weak. In Awakening Lunatic mode they're a lot tougher, so allegedly being just as good for low-manning is telling. To my knowledge, in New Mystery it's better to have a larger team, but I haven't played it.

yes, i was telling TFJ that it's hypocritical to condemn FE13 for encouraging low-manning and still praise FE7, and that it's hypocritical to dislike FE12 for stat inflation when it's the only design choice that has thus far been shown to discourage low-manning.

How exactly are the 23x and 28x situations bad level design? They require a little more thought to overcome compared to what HHM usually gives you, but they're certainly not luck-based like BBD is.

they are luck-based. in chapter 23x, you can either commit to using 2/8 unit slots on serra and priscilla or gamble on sleep misses. in chapter 28x, any appreciably quick clear of the chapter doesn't have enough time to kill all 3 bolting mages, so they'll always be running around with a chance to finish units off.

cog is also a pretty terribly designed map because not even in FE6 did IS fit so many enemy staff users on a map at once, let alone gave them AI that allowed for movement.

WTF does Fe6's 14x do right compared to this. It's a straight, boring line to the throne room that doesn't utilize like 50% of the map (no one would be slow enough to not get to the boss in time via short path unless they horribly sucked) and has ridiculously stupid disappearing tiles that pointlessly bottlenecks/strands your units.

the short answer is that you can pretty reliably halfskip FE6 chapter 14x (with the only hiccup being the boss's avo) whereas you have to gamble in FE7 chapter 28x on bolting mages not killing ninian or whichever flier had to venture into sonia's bolting range.

Edited July 3, 2014 by dondon151

[Constable Reggie]

Irysa's post makes for a good argument/comparison between the two (thanks for the great response), whereas Dondon's answer is only really applicable to those who care about ltc. That's all good and well for ltc folk but level design needs to incorporate more than a somewhat niche style of play. A chapter like 14x shouldn't exist as it is. It may look pretty, but it does not equate to good gamplay. In comparison, 28x's map aesthetic is pretty ugly. But it fully utilizes the entire map; it doesn't waste any portion of it on completely extraneous water tiles. The long range enemies may be a bit excessive, but it also requires you carefully consider the path(s) you take. 14x is just straight lines to the throne. It's not hard or anything, it's just terribly tedious.

This is pretty consistent for several of Fe6's levels, particularly in the later game. Chapters like 19S, 21, 21x and 22 are some of the most egregious examples.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Constable Reggie

[Baldrick]

@Dondon; that's only a problem if you're doing ltc, which will almost always be luck-based to some extent as long as the RNG exists.

[Florete]

the short answer is that you can pretty reliably halfskip FE6 chapter 14x (with the only hiccup being the boss's avo) whereas you have to gamble in FE7 chapter 28x on bolting mages not killing ninian or whichever flier had to venture into sonia's bolting range.

This makes it sound more to me like the FE7 design is better. Instead of being able to skip half the map, you have to actually look at it and plan accordingly. FE6 only wins if you specifically want an easier time ltcing.

[Ein]

Is dondon seriously saying that worrying about something hitting you is bad game design. The games are about lowering the odds of taking damage and/or losing units. Just because a ltc strategy has a higher risk is simply part of the playstyle.

[dondon151]

Irysa's post makes for a good argument/comparison between the two (thanks for the great response), whereas Dondon's answer is only really applicable to those who care about ltc. That's all good and well for ltc folk but level design needs to incorporate more than a somewhat niche style of play.

Is dondon seriously saying that worrying about something hitting you is bad game design. The games are about lowering the odds of taking damage and/or losing units. Just because a ltc strategy has a higher risk is simply part of the playstyle.

i ask you not to pillory me when i felt no need to parrot irysa's excellent points.

ein is being intellectually dishonest by purposely misrepresenting what i said. you always have to worry about enemies successfully hitting allied units, but the hallmark of poor map design is forcing the player to go into coinflip situations. this is why, for example, FE12 map design is rated so highly, because it utilizes high quality enemies to reduce the incidence of these situations.

A chapter like 14x shouldn't exist as it is. It may look pretty, but it does not equate to good gamplay. In comparison, 28x's map aesthetic is pretty ugly. But it fully utilizes the entire map; it doesn't waste any portion of it on completely extraneous water tiles. The long range enemies may be a bit excessive, but it also requires you carefully consider the path(s) you take. 14x is just straight lines to the throne. It's not hard or anything, it's just terribly tedious.

i'm not sure how you can say this with a straight face. the entirety of FE6 chapter 14x is "necessary" because should the player fulfill the three requirements of turtling, not deploying a flier, and not deploying a berserker, he has to go the long way around. FE7 chapter 28x is more or less the exact same; the existence of 3 chests in the NE corner really has little bearing on "full utilization" of the map.

in this respect, both are equally terrible - that is to say, i don't really care about that. if you don't go into each map with a full complement of fliers, that's your bad decision. the FE7 version has more variance in the accuracy of enemy LRT users and more staff users that cannot be easily dealt with, so it's worse.

This is pretty consistent for several of Fe6's levels, particularly in the later game. Chapters like 19S, 21, 21x and 22 are some of the most egregious examples.

chapter 19S is a pretty shitty map, but it would be much better if you could fly over the outer walls. chapter 21, on the other hand, is really nice, and chapter 22 is one of the coolest maps in the game.

This makes it sound more to me like the FE7 design is better. Instead of being able to skip half the map, you have to actually look at it and plan accordingly. FE6 only wins if you specifically want an easier time ltcing.

maybe you should try warpskipping FE6 and tell me that it's easy or that you don't have to plan accordingly.

Edited July 4, 2014 by dondon151

[Constable Reggie]

i ask you not to pillory me when i felt no need to parrot irysa's excellent points.

Sorry but when you start your post with "the short answer is" with the content being completely unrelated to above post, I'm going to take your post as its own separate opinion unrelated to the one above it.

ein is being intellectually dishonest by purposely misrepresenting what i said. you always have to worry about enemies successfully hitting allied units, but the hallmark of poor map design is forcing the player to go into coinflip situations. this is why, for example, FE12 map design is rated so highly, because it utilizes high quality enemies to reduce the incidence of these situations.

I vehemently disagree. For me at least, the greatest indication of poor level design is tedium. This is why any level where you can easily get lost (either due to a confusing map or lack of information from the game), or have your time wasted with vasts amount of nothing for no reason is usually terrible. Fe6 (particularly past midgame) has long and boring straight corridor-like OR vastly open maps with no real sense of thought put behind them. 14x is tedious. 19S is tedious. 21x/22 is REALLY tedious.

i'm not sure how you can say this with a straight face. the entirety of FE6 chapter 14x is "necessary" because should the player fulfill the three requirements of turtling, not deploying a flier, and not deploying a berserker, he has to go the long way around. FE7 chapter 28x is more or less the exact same; the existence of 3 chests in the NE corner really has little bearing on "full utilization" of the map.

Your rationalization of "necessary" doesn't really make sense. Players are already punished for turtling: the tiles disappear, which greatly encourages the player to rush ahead. A breakneak speed isn't required to reach the short path, IIRC it's pretty liberal in the time it gives you. The long way has little reason to exist other than for aesthetics. The necessity for very specific team composition should not factor into the thought process behind level design.

It absolutely and positively does have bearing on it. The inclusion of the chests signify an optional objective that requires more strategic input to reach. It doesn't take a game design major to understand how these things generally breakup monotonous gameplay.

in this respect, both are equally terrible - that is to say, i don't really care about that. if you don't go into each map with a full complement of fliers, that's your bad decision. the FE7 version has more variance in the accuracy of enemy LRT users and more staff users that cannot be easily dealt with, so it's worse.

I'm terribly sorry the game developers didn't prioritize 0% ltc as their main target audience.

chapter 19S is a pretty shitty map, but it would be much better if you could fly over the outer walls.

This wouldn't change anything except for a small niche style of play.

maybe you should try warpskipping FE6 and tell me that it's easy or that you don't have to plan accordingly.

This is deflection. You don't respond to a negative interpretation of your post with "well why don't YOU try it"

Edited July 4, 2014 by Constable Reggie

[Baldrick]

the FE7 version has more variance in the accuracy of enemy LRT users and more staff users that cannot be easily dealt with, so it's worse.

Even if they were a serious threat (excluding the unmoving boss, the former has, at best, 19 atk/74 acc and Restore exists for the latter) why is it bad to have enemies that you can't mindlessly plow through?

Before you say it's inconvenient for LTC or whatever, note that there are situations in other games where you need to win coinflips to get the lowest turn count. For example, Eirika's chapter 10 in SS, where you need your flier to dodge multiple ballista bolts and then crit the boss. Having ballistae covering a mountain to dissuade fliers is not bad level design in the slightest. If anything, not having ballistae there is worse design.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Baldrick