The Reason for the Problems With Awakening

[Rxmonste]

Yeah but there's an actual cost to the decision to save the main character in Dragon Age, either the lives of one of the other Wardens or the unknown cost of Morrigan's ritual.

In Awakening, I have no problem with the Chrom sealing Grima with Falchion choice- the avatar chooses to save themselves, but Grima comes back eventually. There's little incentive to choose it though when the other ending kills Grima forever, but the avatar comes back anyway with no indication that they're harmed (and no one even believes they die which sucks even potential emotional weight out of it).

Yeah, true. One of the things that disappointed me about Awakening is that the occasional Yes and No answers didn't have at least have some effects to the story like in a Bioware game. The final battle's choice did have that but as you say, there's no incentive to do the other ending. Then again, I played through Dragon Age: Origins 3 times over and was never put off the idea of Morrigan's ritual. I suppose that makes me selfish? Carefree of what could potentially happen as a result of that choice? Choatic Good in D&D alignments, I suppose.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Rxmonste

[Delphi Sage]

Since Balzerack wanted to condense post activity, I'll just post this stuff here instead of the Grimleal topic. Was getting off-topic anyways...

OK. Here's a quote from Morgan-M's father B support, and three different fathers' responses to it.

If you've actually read any of Awakening's dialogue, you probably know who those are right off the bat regardless of whether you've had them father Morgan (and bothered to read his identical support three times) or not. If this were any other FE, could you do that?

This is a kind of crude example, but I'm not an English teacher and it's neither my job nor my talent to demonstrate this.

Sure, the characters are a bit memorable and have distinguishable speech, but not without cost.

Most of the memory of FE13 characters comes from their over-the-top designs, repeated voicelines, and easy patterns of conversation. This...means...something...bad?

I don't know, something to do with Rule 36 or so of the Internet? "It is somebody's fetish and that's why it's evil"? I just can't get past the fact that they were clearly made to invoke player fetishes. I guess if someone made this game, but instead did it while respecting the player's intelligence like Kaga did with FE3, maybe things would be different.

I liked Cordelia and Cherche and others at first. I just hated that they eventually boiled down to "NTR" and "MILF" after a while. And I especially hate the fangirls that use this game as their own personal sex fantasies, AKA "Anybody who husbandos Chrom".

And FYI, I like FE11, it's just that Metacritic, GameFAQs, 4chan, etc. said that "less just ends up less".

Edited March 19, 2015 by Delphi Sage

[eclipse]

You're free to link the stuff you're replying to in the old topic, if it's a lot of things.

Signed,

clipsey

I liked Cordelia and Cherche and others at first. I just hated that they eventually boiled down to "NTR" and "MILF" after a while. And I especially hate the fangirls that use this game as their own personal sex fantasies, AKA "Anybody who husbandos Chrom".

Erm. . .what? Rest assured, people fantasized about FE characters long before Awakening came out. The Avatar simply made it more public.

I'm amused by this iteration of FE - on the surface, the characters look like they're defined by one or two traits. Dig in deeper, and there's a method to the madness (I'm not sure if this applies to the entire cast that can marry other people besides Avatar, as I haven't read every single support). Can't really say if it's the same for the "only has babies with Avatar" crew, as I really didn't pay attention to them.

[Czar_Yoshi]

All of them actually have some sort of hidden depths. Just for a good half the cast (more concentrated in the 1st gen units), those hidden depths tend to be no more interesting than what they've got on top (and sometimes make you like them less).

[Delphi Sage]

All of them actually have some sort of hidden depths. Just for a good half the cast (more concentrated in the 1st gen units), those hidden depths tend to be no more interesting than what they've got on top (and sometimes make you like them less).

For example, Cordelia being a pettanko.

Or on a less disgusting note, people claiming that Henry is deep because he got beaten to death every day of his life as a child. While I do kinda prefer it over Memespout McPontacGraff, it seems like they could've had a servicable borderline shota that people would find as a functional version of Ricken without such an edgy character revelation. Reminds me of Mary Sue non-karma.

Course, he wasn't made to be shota; he was made to appeal to the White Haired Pretty Boy crowd. (As if girls couldn't just do that to their player character...)

Why am I talking about this? Oh yeah, I wanted to snipe at NGE but couldn't find an angle in retrospect.

[eclipse]

All of them actually have some sort of hidden depths. Just for a good half the cast (more concentrated in the 1st gen units), those hidden depths tend to be no more interesting than what they've got on top (and sometimes make you like them less).

I think the only person who I've seen (so far) that wasn't interesting when prodded was Miriel. . .though digging into Sumia's personality made me like her a lot less.

[Baldrick]

Most of the characters aren't very interesting by themselves. But they bounce off of each other fairly well, for the most part.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

tharja's a pretty deep character, but she's also pretty unlikeable.

spouse and child abuse is just not cool.

i'm not sure if awakening plays this off as a joke or as something serious tho.

[eclipse]

tharja's a pretty deep character, but she's also pretty unlikeable.

spouse and child abuse is just not cool.

i'm not sure if awakening plays this off as a joke or as something serious tho.

My personal theory is that Tharja herself was abused when she was growing up (though it feels like Noire and her father's convos are more of a joke than anything, possibly to lighten the mood from Tharja/Noire). I feel sorry for her.

This also makes me look like a giant hypocrite for disliking Severa, in regards to the abuse thing. . .but I'll address this later.

[Knusperkeks]

My personal theory is that Tharja herself was abused when she was growing up (though it feels like Noire and her father's convos are more of a joke than anything, possibly to lighten the mood from Tharja/Noire). I feel sorry for her.

This also makes me look like a giant hypocrite for disliking Severa, in regards to the abuse thing. . .but I'll address this later.

Please Eclipse-chan, make all the people who bully Tharja and Severa eat their words! ;-;

btt: The game would be better if some of the males (besides Chrom) had children of their own designated to them. Just stop killing the guys off and let them "flee" the battle if they have an S rank support and there are no problems with the space-time-continuum.

[Saladus]

Tharja and Severa aren't well written.

Anyway, you can see how poorly written Awakening is by looking at how Grima could have won if he freed his past sooner than he did. And how that makes the Grimleal trying to complete the Fire Emblem non-required.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Saladus

[Delphi Sage]

My personal theory

See, that's another of my problems. People fail to notice when joke characters are joke characters, or when fetish appeal characters are fetish appeal characters; and so they make up their own rationalizations on why Severa is Tsundere, Owain is chuuni, Brady is Kanji from Persona 3, etc. They fail to understand the concept of Occam's Razor, using the thought process "How can I best comprehend this character?" rather than "Why does this character exist how they are?".

For example, anyone who's played the remakes of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire will have noticed what they did with Courtney. They fail to understand the train of thought that she spawned from, and instead label her "autistic".

Ah, there's my "NGE ruined society" connection.

[Knusperkeks]

My personal theory

See, that's another of my problems.

Did you consider that forums aren't a good place for people who have problems with other people's opinions? See, I can also butcher posts and quote out of context to make a "point".

From what I can make out of post #112, you yourself also fail to grasp the concept of Occam's Razor, since you assume people are reducing characters to a specific archetype, which isn't strictly true.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Knusperkeks

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Anyway, you can see how poorly written Awakening is by looking at how Grima could have won if he freed his past sooner than he did. And how that makes the Grimleal trying to complete the Fire Emblem non-required.

Do you mean the part where Grima did that at the very start of the game, which in turn gave Robin the vision she/he needed to turn Validar's C23 plan on its head? If Grima hadn't been impatiently screwing around trying to get the jump on things at the very beginning, the betrayal probably would have played out as it had before. For all the things Lucina tried to do, it was Grima's own meddling that brought things crashing down.

[Saladus]

Tell me how Grima's past body was freed.

Hint: Grima didn't need the Fire Emblem.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Saladus

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i am confused by the whole grima thing.

the story makes me feel like he needed the thing the whole time, then they do the switcharoo with the gems, then after the validerp battle he's summoned anyways.

[lonelyVoxel]

i am confused by the whole grima thing.

the story makes me feel like he needed the thing the whole time, then they do the switcharoo with the gems, then after the validerp battle he's summoned anyways.

maybe he just didn't feel like coming out for a while

gods need their solitude, man

It really beats me. I wish I could remember the plot in whole, though... I'm a nub at FE13, so Hard mode is killing me...

[Irysa]

My explanation for that chapter is just that the entire thing about switching the gemstones is a gigantic bluff. Or something.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Irysa

[Baldrick]

My explanation is that were you expecting Shakespeare-level writing???????

Awakening's plot is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[XeKr]

tbh I see it as an expectation thing. I found Awakening fine as a children's story ala Pokemon (if one cared about FE plot before like in Jugdral, I can understand the outrage, even I don't feel it myself)

I've made the comparison to early Harry Potter books before. It's incredibly easy to tear them apart rationally, but regardless, I think many, many people think they hold a lot of charm (and wouldn't call them "bad writing").

Edited March 19, 2015 by XeKr

[Irysa]

I think that's relatively unfair towards children's stories. They're perfectly capable of having great narratives. The Hobbit is a children's book for goodness sake.

[XeKr]

Well firstly, I didn't (intend to) make any comment regarding the relative quality (literary/entertainment/artistic value, sales potential, w/e) of children, young adult, adult, etc books, implying any are inherently worse than any others. Actually a key point of mentioning children books is they might have some irrationally heartwarming characteristic more "adult" books do not.

Secondly, I'm not sure how I see your Hobbit point here. It can be a beautiful narrative (which I certainly agree) with high literary value, yet still susceptible to rational dissection. I remember reading some criticism that a significant fraction of plot points and character motivations can be reduced (unfairly or not) to "because Eru".I'm probably inviting some attacks from more well-versed in Tolkien lore.

Edited March 20, 2015 by XeKr

[Irysa]

You did essentially imply that Awakening's plot was "sufficient" as far as the narrative cohesion of a children's story, which in turn implies that we can hold them to a lower standard in terms of cohesion.

Also there is a stark difference between hyperexamining charater motivations repeatedly and deriving a somewhat simplistic end result and a narrative failing to actually even properly convey a sequence of events.

I think your broad point about Awakening having a...more infantile-esque approach, shall we say, to portraying love and friendship is fair, and I also do not really hold that against the game either, such things have a definite charm and appeal (that I share in), it's the execution that bothers me.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Irysa

[RedEyedDrake]

On the subject of present Grima being awoken without the Fire Emblem...doesn't future Grima offer Robin to join him even during the final battle, after present Grima's awakening? I mean, I realize that this is most likely just more poorly constructed narrative, but I think there is one way to rationalize this.

What if the awakening that future Grima intended past Grima to undergo and the awakening he actually underwent are different things? Future Grima pretty much left his dragonic body behind when he travelled to the past, did he not? Only future Grima's soul in future Robin's body crossed over to the "main" timeline. He needed present Robin and the Fire Emblem to awaken present Grima's soul but because of the switch he never managed to do it. The awakening that actually took place only awoke present Grima's draconic body. Present Grima's soul never actually awakens over the course of the game. And doesn't it look like future Grima is controling present Grima's body like a puppet during the battle against them anyway? Does present Grima ever actually speak over the course of the game?

[Moishe Oofnik]

You Judge a story for your standards not if it is good for kids

Racism is bad Racism is bad This is a story about racism is bad

There was a kid name Spoonzclubner9er and he was black skinned and he was ridiculed in school for his color of skin the magical fairy enlightend the kids about racism and now they are sorry and are friend with him

A story for kids 10/10

IT HAS A MESSAGE but the narrative is crappy

If a story is bad then its bad it doesnt matter for who it was marketed too or what was its initial demographic if you are trying to write a good story you dont try you write a good story not a bad story that is fitting to a child in ages 5-10

also we are not speaking what if

What if What if What if What if What if What if What if

its not about what if its about what happened and what they told us

also if you read manga

did you know that alot of animes/mangas that are rated seinen (adult) are fucking moe like huge amounts of moe

so even adult stuff can be needless cute for the sake of cuteness

Edited March 20, 2015 by TTPK_Tal