If you could change one thing...

[Knusperkeks]

I apologize if I came off as immediately condescending, but FE veterans need to get off the bashing the game for giving freedom. The difficulty not being standard or being designed to be appealing to a wide audience and not making them feel special enough is the vibe I get from that kind of opinion.

You just jumped to a conclusions, for which I am at least partly responsible for because my post didn't provide enough reasoning.

#71 didn't come off as condescending to me, there is no need to apologize for you. Based on your reactions, my post (#74) cleared up the misunderstanding. If so, that's all I could ask for. Sorry for the misconception.

[Magical Glace]

Ditch the anime-esque art style, in favour of the more realistic style seen in Radiant Dawn.

If avatars in FE don't work, then why is Awakening the best selling game in the series? In fact, I'm sure the Avatar is one of the reasons why Awakening sold well in the first place.

It makes the game read like a bad fanfic.

FE shouldn't need a dumb avatar to sell. It shouldn't need to kiss up to the player at every opportunity.

Awakening sold well because Nintendo marketed it.

In my eyes, Avatar is the symbol of everything wrong with the game.

[Jotari]

It makes the game read like a bad fanfic.

FE shouldn't need a dumb avatar to sell. It shouldn't need to kiss up to the player at every opportunity.

Awakening sold well because Nintendo marketed it.

In my eyes, Avatar is the symbol of everything wrong with the game.

Just because it's been done badly one or twice (in your opinion) doesn't mean the system is inherently flawed.

[Sentacotus]

But that's the entire point of Awakening.

This game gives you complete and total control over the difficulty through how you decide to play it. Want it to be hard? There are dozens of tiny things you can do (don't even bother to try listing them) to adjust the difficulty on the fly in terms of playstyle choices that aren't limited to your difficulty selection.

It's what makes this game great. Complaining about the game being easy when you tried to make it easy is, well, complaining about yourself. Want a game where your entire control over the difficulty comes in the form of a menu selection at the start? Well, OK, but it's going to be accomplished simply by cutting stuff, and that's usually not a good thing.

Also, I happen to like speedruns, so saying something can be done in a few hours innately registers as a good thing to me.

This 100X's over. As far as difficulty goes I think Awakening is just fine. Its not like anyone forces you to play casual or classic or to use the DLC to "break" the game. Sure that stuff is all there but if you wanted to do a hard classic no grind run more power to you. In actuality I have little to gripe about this game and most of them are just nitpicks or ideas of things that could be added in the future because in truth I can tell that IS put a lot of time and effort into the game which I can appreciate. The reason I said pick one thing is to make people think of maybe the one thing that could benefit FE in the future or be improved upon and maybe gain some insight myself. I've played FE since it was localized with FE7 on the GBA and even though Awakening isn't my absoulute favorite its also the one I've played the most out of all of them and actualy had incentive to fully playthrough more than 2-3 times.

[~Silver]

I can agree with that I can imagine Lon'qu and Inigo having funny conversations the father a gynophobe the son a philanderer (how in the hell does that happen) if he and Olivia marry.

The irony, as this is my favorite pairing that results in Inigo. (I guess that's a weird way of saying, "I support Olivia with Lon'qu the most." It feels natural, the two of them, as they both worked in-a-ways at Ferox, right?)

It's explained that Inigo learned his... Go-Getter Personality from Olivia supporting the idea at a young age, thus why all his supports with his Fathers are the Fathers all: Y U GO CHASIN' SKIRTS?!

if i absolutely positively had to choose only one thing, it'd be to change nowi's outfit so she isn't just shitty lolicon-bait.

And can Morgan's Manakete Model change for that matter as well? ,_, Edited December 8, 2014 by ~Silver

[Czar_Yoshi]

I still don't understand why Morgan and Spotpass!Tiki don't use Nah's model.

[saifors]

One thing I really want changed, if you don't have the dlc, dlc-exclusive skills (Outrealm skills) in streetpass battles should either not work or be replaced automatically for another skill.

I can't do anything against Limit breaker Walhart.

[shadowofchaos]

One thing I really want changed, if you don't have the dlc, dlc-exclusive skills (Outrealm skills) in streetpass battles should either not work or be replaced automatically for another skill.

I can't do anything against Limit breaker Walhart.

Err... rally?

Pair up? Brave weapon?

Dual Attack with Brave Weapons?

Rescue staff for hit and run?

[KMT4ever]

This was said already, but more flexibility with the support system.

1. Same-gender S supports, PLEASE!! Cordelia and Sumia could get a Sully and Stahl-esque ending where they become the two Pegasus Generals of Ylisse. Inigo and Brady could become a musical duo outside the Future Past. And so on...

2. More supports for the "extras" like Anna and the Khans. Basilio can't even support with Lon'qu and Olivia!

3. Some males have set children too. Granted, that would require a lot of unique sibling conversations, but I think it would be comedy gold to see sibling pairs like Inigo and Kjelle or Nah and Gerome.

[Magical Glace]

Just because it's been done badly one or twice (in your opinion) doesn't mean the system is inherently flawed.

They've proven they can't do it, they shouldn't.

They didn't learn from the barely better FE12 MU. Who says they're going to suddenly realize that what they're doing is just going to go poorly?

[Jotari]

They've proven they can't do it, they shouldn't.

They didn't learn from the barely better FE12 MU. Who says they're going to suddenly realize that what they're doing is just going to go poorly?

That is an extremely faithless and defeatist attitude to take. Have you seen how big a difference there's been in the series since the beginning. In the first game there was no magic stat or resistance meaning tomes did set damage. In the second game magic was cast from HP. By your logic they should have gotten rid of magic entirely because it didn't work well when they first tried it. Each installment of the series has improved the basics. Initially we had no battle calculations. No way to see your own units movement range let alone the enemy's. Now we have a beautiful interface that shows us everything, let's us ignore battle animations on the fly and even skip enemy turns entirely. the Avatar was far from perfect in the two games it's been in so far but that's an awfully quick judgement to make about the entire concept. Even if we had ten games with the Avatar and it was badly implemented every single time, then I'd still want them to keep it up. You don't just throw away something if it's hard to get right. You keep on working at it until it works or is literally deemed impossible to do. I believe the Avatar can be done well and if IS doesn't have the ability to achieve that then they should get better instead of giving up.

And aside from the Avatar's role in the story I'd like it to stick around as it gives me a good, reliable combat unit that I have more control over than others.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Oh another thing I was thinking

Custom palettes for all reclass options using some sort of hue-swapping algorithm applied to textures. Generic blue is so boring. That way it can dynamically generate the custom palettes for child characters who have dynamic class sets.

Also using the same algorithm, let me pick Avatar's custom palette.

Coloooooors

MY KINGDOM FOR GREEN LOKI AVATAR STUFF!

Other than like, completely rewriting most of the story and Emmeryn, the only thing i would change is Avatar's hair options. More hair options and freaking facial hair on Male Avatar. Im a bit unreasonably bitter that Avatar doesnt really have a good nappy hair option. Build 1 feMU has an ok big bushy hair, but maMU doesnt and argh!

[Jotari]

MY KINGDOM FOR GREEN LOKI AVATAR STUFF!

Other than like, completely rewriting most of the story and Emmeryn, the only thing i would change is Avatar's hair options. More hair options and freaking facial hair on Male Avatar. Im a bit unreasonably bitter that Avatar doesnt really have a good nappy hair option. Build 1 feMU has an ok big bushy hair, but maMU doesnt and argh!

Some more skin tones would be nice too. It's kind of weird the Avatar is Validar's kid despite being such a whitey.

Edited December 9, 2014 by Jotari

[Loki Laufeyson]

Some more skin tones would be nice too. It's kind of weird the Avatar is Validar's son despite being such a whitey.

And how! That would be pretty damn great, tbh. So yeah, color scheme, skin tone, and more hair options for Avatar. That can count as one thing, cuz its all a part of Avatar creation.

[Chastlily]

What I would have loved in FE:A would be that all characters had more depths than what they currently have, some character really appear as bland (something something blue haired female lord). Most FE:A characters are unfortunately stock characters and have very few trait that are really specific to them.

Also, more coherence in the general plot and in support conversations (I think that Avatar x Tiki pairing is totally improbable). And please IntSys explain why the hell flachion is glowing like the Champs Elysées or why no one pays attention to the purple glowing brand of the Fell Dragon.

Last but not least, I'd have liked more objectives for chapters and a somewhat less important Avatar character, more important than in FE7 but not as important as in Awakening.

[Cat1803]

And how! That would be pretty damn great, tbh. So yeah, color scheme, skin tone, and more hair options for Avatar. That can count as one thing, cuz its all a part of Avatar creation.

This.

Also, while not going into too much detail, I think they should mention the extra effects of your asset and flaw. For trying to market to new players so hard, the creation thing did a terrible job of telling you what your asset and flaw were going to do. How is a new player supposed to know that going -Mag will negatively affect their speed growth (and cap, though a new player won't care about that). Something as simple as "Magic. Affects damage done with Tomes and some other special weapons. Also affects speed and resistance." Awakening was my first FE game, so the Asset/Flaw thing confused me so much. "Should I choose speed? WHAT DOES SPEED EVEN DO?!" Just because I know the effects on mods and growth rates now doesn't excuse that you can't even look at what each stat does until you've already started the game.

Anyway, since that was kind of a piggyback...

Plot-related: It's better than most video games I've played (heck, the plot carried me along until I figured out what I was doing gameplay-wise), but I'd shorten the length of the Valm arc. I haven't had a playthrough where I haven't just mashed the start button to the point of breaking during those chapters in months. The other story points other people have brought up are gravy too (especially Emmeryn. I can't even feel it with my heart because I'm too busy thinking with my head...)

Gameplay-related: I'd like to choose the skill Chrom passes down to his kids, or just give his kids Lord access. I always prioritize Aether and Galeforce, which forces ChromxSumia if I'm minmaxing. It's a great paring for those reasons, but it limits my willingness to experiment. Maybe I'm just being picky. Heck, give the Lord line to Lissa, Owain, and Emmeryn for all I care. "You get an Aether, you get an Aether, ERRYBODY GETS AN AETHER!" And Dual Strike+ for 100% DS teams

[Magical Glace]

That is an extremely faithless and defeatist attitude to take. Have you seen how big a difference there's been in the series since the beginning. In the first game there was no magic stat or resistance meaning tomes did set damage. In the second game magic was cast from HP. By your logic they should have gotten rid of magic entirely because it didn't work well when they first tried it. Each installment of the series has improved the basics. Initially we had no battle calculations. No way to see your own units movement range let alone the enemy's. Now we have a beautiful interface that shows us everything, let's us ignore battle animations on the fly and even skip enemy turns entirely. the Avatar was far from perfect in the two games it's been in so far but that's an awfully quick judgement to make about the entire concept. Even if we had ten games with the Avatar and it was badly implemented every single time, then I'd still want them to keep it up. You don't just throw away something if it's hard to get right. You keep on working at it until it works or is literally deemed impossible to do. I believe the Avatar can be done well and if IS doesn't have the ability to achieve that then they should get better instead of giving up.

And aside from the Avatar's role in the story I'd like it to stick around as it gives me a good, reliable combat unit that I have more control over than others.

Those are game mechanics, it is not a very good comparison

What I'm mainly talking about is how the avatar is usually written, which is noticeably worse than most if not all other lords because it's a Mary Sue/Gary Stu Self insert. That at it's core is why I hate their presence, removing completely broken unit is a nice side effect.

As a writer, it makes me cringe considering the GBA games except 6 had such good characters then that monstrosity. Even FE9 (which I hate with a passion) did better for the most part. Really, it does nothing good for plot or gameplay, it has no reason to stay.

This is, however, all my opinion as an Awakening hater. So.... naturally I'm going to feel strongly about a feature I feel ruined the whole game.

[Czar_Yoshi]

As a writer, it makes me cringe considering the GBA games except 6 had such good characters then that monstrosity.

Keep in mind that 6's supports do suffer from a slightly lower quality translation than 7 and 8. There's still nothing there that could ever be as great as Bartre x Canas, but don't sell it too short.

[Magical Glace]

Keep in mind that 6's supports do suffer from a slightly lower quality translation than 7 and 8. There's still nothing there that could ever be as great as Bartre x Canas, but don't sell it too short.

Yeah, it's still my favorite FE, but the translation is what it is. Until we get an official translation, it's all we got.

[Jotari]

Those are game mechanics, it is not a very good comparison

What I'm mainly talking about is how the avatar is usually written, which is noticeably worse than most if not all other lords because it's a Mary Sue/Gary Stu Self insert. That at it's core is why I hate their presence, removing completely broken unit is a nice side effect.

As a writer, it makes me cringe considering the GBA games except 6 had such good characters then that monstrosity. Even FE9 (which I hate with a passion) did better for the most part. Really, it does nothing good for plot or gameplay, it has no reason to stay.

This is, however, all my opinion as an Awakening hater. So.... naturally I'm going to feel strongly about a feature I feel ruined the whole game.

In my opinion, also as a writer, Mystery of the Emblem and Awakening would still have a myriad of problems writing wise even if they took out the avatar completely. The quality of story in the last two games (or three, Shadow Dragon's writing style seems very polarized) is not indicative of the potential IS has to tell a story over all. I believe it was a conscious decision to delegate more effort to the gameplay rather than the plot. The way the Avatar was handled is one of the problems but is isn't the route of all evil. WIthout the avatar Awakening would still be an uncoordinated, unfocused mess and Mystery of the Emblem would still randomly throw every last character in existence at you. And regardless of whether it's gameplay or story, it doesn't change the belief I'm trying to express. If something is broken then fix it if you're able to, don't throw it away. And I personally believe the Avatar can be integrated well into the plot of a Fire Emblem game.

[BrightBow]

In my opinion, also as a writer, Mystery of the Emblem and Awakening would still have a myriad of problems writing wise even if they took out the avatar completely. The quality of story in the last two games (or three, Shadow Dragon's writing style seems very polarized) is not indicative of the potential IS has to tell a story over all. I believe it was a conscious decision to delegate more effort to the gameplay rather than the plot. The way the Avatar was handled is one of the problems but is isn't the route of all evil. WIthout the avatar Awakening would still be an uncoordinated, unfocused mess and Mystery of the Emblem would still randomly throw every last character in existence at you. And regardless of whether it's gameplay or story, it doesn't change the belief I'm trying to express. If something is broken then fix it if you're able to, don't throw it away. And I personally believe the Avatar can be integrated well into the plot of a Fire Emblem game.

I don't see how this can be true. I mean, look at the credits of those last games:

FE9:

Scenario

Ken Yokoyama

Scenario Assistant

Kouhei Maeda

Yoko Naka

FE10

Scenario

Ken Yokoyama

Scenario Assistance

Kouhei Maeda

Suzuyo Umezawa

Yurie Hattori

FE13

Scenario

Kouhei Maeda

Nami Komuro

Masayuki Horikawa

Yuichiro Kitaoka (Lepton)

Sou Mayumi (Lepton)

Shuntaro Ashida (Red Entertainment Corporation)

Scenario Supervisor

Yurie Hattori

Scenario Support

EdgeWORKS Inc.

FE13's story has to be the most expensive story in the series by far. And that is before you even account for cutscenes and voice acting. This game lists entire companies in the credits for their scenario. And even without that, the list is still longer then those of the past games. And needless to say, in the SNES days, Kaga was the only person credited for the scenarios of all the games he worked on, with the exception of Thracia which also lists Masayuki Horikawa. So the story of FE13 seems to have a lot more effort put into it then ever before.

Edit:

FE12 lists only Scenario Support btw. Maybe because it's still Kaga's story.

FE12 Scenario Support

Naohiro Yasuhara

Hiromi Tanaka

Sou Mayumi (Lepton)

Yuichiro Kitaoka (Lepton)

Edited December 9, 2014 by BrightBow

[Jotari]

I don't see how this can be true. I mean, look at the credits of those last games:

FE9:

Scenario

Ken Yokoyama

Scenario Assistant

Kouhei Maeda

Yoko Naka

FE10

Scenario

Ken Yokoyama

Scenario Assistance

Kouhei Maeda

Suzuyo Umezawa

Yurie Hattori

FE13

Scenario

Kouhei Maeda

Nami Komuro

Masayuki Horikawa

Yuichiro Kitaoka (Lepton)

Sou Mayumi (Lepton)

Shuntaro Ashida (Red Entertainment Corporation)

Scenario Supervisor

Yurie Hattori

Scenario Support

EdgeWORKS Inc.

FE13's story has to be the most expensive story in the series by far. And that is before you even account for cutscenes and voice acting. That game lists entire companies in the credits for their scenario. And even without that, the list is still longer then those of the past games. And needless to say, in the SNES days, Kaga was the only person credited for the scenarios of all the games he worked on, with the exception of Thracia which also lists a Masayuki Horikawa.

Edit:

FE12 lists only Scenario Support btw. Maybe because it's still Kaga's story.

FE12 Scenario Support

Naohiro Yasuhara

Hiromi Tanaka

Sou Mayumi (Lepton)

Yuichiro Kitaoka (Lepton)

Huh. Didn't know that. I guess I could say there was still an insane amount of text that had to be written for the game regardless of quality but maybe the problem was really too many people trying to have a piece of the action.

[BrightBow]

Huh. Didn't know that. I guess I could say there was still an insane amount of text that had to be written for the game regardless of quality but maybe the problem was really too many people trying to have a piece of the action.

That would be my theory too. It feels like all the arcs have what they need to work. It's just that the important elements are kinda misplaced.

Like, you would think Chrom would prove the power of bonds to Wallhart by allying with the feuding Dynasts.

After all, Wallhart thinks the only way to make people follow you is to force them into submission. So beating him by finding common ground with potential allies seems to be the thematic appropiate way to go. Yet those guys just sorta tag along after Chrom was already winning anyway, resulting in the arc ending with the implication that the fate of the continent is left in the hands of a bunch of warlords who are (as the game reminded us in almost every chapter in the arc) selfish and greedy.

Edit:

And even though Wallhart is the one who is supposed to be ruthless and brutal in his pursuit of uniting the people, Chrom is the one who burns thousands of people alive with no chance to escape or surrender. And despite this ruthlessness, the Valm officers still treat Chrom like a naive idealist who doesn't understand the harsh realities of the world.

Obvisiously an idealistic hero would make a good counterpart to a villain like Wallhart. But as much as the story insists that Chrom is Batman, according to his actions he is more like the goddamn Punisher.

This particular arc feels to me like a story that was orignally supposed to be about bonds forged by force vs bonds forged by mutual understanding and trust was at some point turned into a story about how awesome the Avatar is.

Edited December 9, 2014 by BrightBow

[Jotari]

Yeah. Someone above said they'd shorten the Valm arc but really, out of all the arcs in the game, it's the one that needs the most expansion. We get no sense of Valm as a continent, all we know is the capital is in the north. We don't know where Virion or Say'ri's countries are, Virion does nothing despite introducing the arc and having death immunity for that express purpose, Tiki does nothing either despite introducing the end game plot, Walhart has no on screen presence until he fights Basillio, where he's hyped up to be unstoppable yet the next thing you do in the plot is fight him head on with his army that is apparently a million strong, also something the game doesn't express at all.

[BrightBow]

Yeah. Someone above said they'd shorten the Valm arc but really, out of all the arcs in the game, it's the one that needs the most expansion. We get no sense of Valm as a continent, all we know is the capital is in the north. We don't know where Virion or Say'ri's countries are, Virion does nothing despite introducing the arc and having death immunity for that express purpose, Tiki does nothing either despite introducing the end game plot, Walhart has no on screen presence until he fights Basillio, where he's hyped up to be unstoppable yet the next thing you do in the plot is fight him head on with his army that is apparently a million strong, also something the game doesn't express at all.

I don't know if the problem is really length. I think it's more that the game doesn't know how to properly use the time that it does have.

Like, the time we could have spent dealing with Wallhart is instead used on Excellus. This guy just seems to exist to be as insufferable and smug as possible, so it feels more satisfying when the tides turn against him. There doesn't seem to be a deeper purpose to his existance beyond this shallow sense of gratification.

Similary in the Plegia arc, there was enough room in the script for the story to tell us that our heroes were taking the money of the defeated Plegians to make up for their losses... yet somehow not a single word is spend on how they were planning to deal with the now leaderless and broken nation beyond that.

Also for all the adoration that Mustafa shows towards Emmeryn, he and his soldiers managed to comepletly fail to express what it actually was that impressed them so about her.

While time might have been a part of the problem, I think the far bigger issue is that the story has a really warped sense about what is actually important to make itself work.

Edited December 9, 2014 by BrightBow