About choices in FE14

[Thane]

Well form the main site. the Japanese official website says this

"The keyword for this new Fire Emblem is “if”. With Hoshido and Nohr as the backdrops, the player must make choices, which will affect the story, battles, recruitable characters, while progressing two very contrasting stories"

the story choices might just be yes or no, but the battles and characters mentions make it most likely our choices will affect the battle field and maybe a route split or two. But hopefully the story changes meaningfully with the choices.

Hm...that description makes it sound like you might be able to choose who you want to join your army between two characters at some point.

[Crysta]

When I choose Nohr, I want to be capable of not being a complete jackass, but I'm not actually worried about Nintendo making the protagonist unheroic. It will be interesting if they give you the option of killing or sparing enemy soldiers, though.

We've already had choices between two units in previous games, so I'm pretty sure that's going to happen again. Remember Harken vs. Karel? I think their contribution to the storyline will be minimal at best, though: you're not likely to get several radically different stories due to it taking a considerable amount of time to write up and having too many variables to keep track of in future DLC.

I'm betting more on getting two different stories dependent on the faction you choose with slight differences within them, but ultimately the same conclusion.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Choice gets throw out a lot in video game design these days, and I have to say I'm not that big a fan of that focus. I'd far rather have a strong cohesive narrative than lots of choices for the sake of having lots of choices. Every branch you add to the story makes for more variables the writers need to account for, and more story they have to write (which invariably not all players will see). There's a limit to how many of these you can add without the writing seriously suffering.

A small number of major choices, all of which are written well, would be great though.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Dark Holy Elf

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

yeah i would love just one or three major choices

[RandomSwordmaster]

yeah i would love just one or three major choices

Well the first major choice is very apparent...not sure if there are more though.

[Sroy]

Changes in the story would be awesome, and add to replayability.

[NinjaMonkey]

I'm slightly worried about digging myself into a hole with these "choices".

[nordopolica]

Well the first major choice is very apparent...not sure if there are more though.

I think this thread is more along the lines of in-game choices, given that many people feel ripped off that the advertised choice is a commercial one.

We don't know if there will be in-game choices that have weight but I think almost everyone hopes so, especially because 'if' is such a big theme and it would be a shame to have that theme rely solely on which version(s) you buy.

[BBM]

I'm slightly worried about digging myself into a hole with these "choices".

I doubt that they'd ever make it impossible to beat the game (more impossible than you could make it for yourself by killing off all your characters or something anyways).

Something like what Eclipse suggested would be really cool but idk if that's realistic.

[SSJDennis]

I think the choices we can make will be like Tactics Ogre; Let Us Cling Together.

First you pick a route. You either get C(haotic) or L(awfull). C is killing innocent. L is going against that order (would make sense in Nohr). That could actually be the split that will decide if you go Nohr (C route) or Hoshido (L Route).

Then you move on with some battles, then you go on and fight a “boss”.

After you get another pick, which makes the game L, C or N(eutral).

N stays friendly with most sides, but also loses most on both sides (killing friends in the process, whom picked a side).

L keeps most “heroes” from before, but makes you lose your best friend, because he this C style.

C lets you keep your friend, but loses out on the “heroes”, who give L orders.

You also get other options during those playthroughs, but in NONE you can get EVERY character. Most of them will be either killed by your hands, or during the plot.

Now that I think of it, TO:LUCT is actually a great game… Too bad it didn’t make it to the NDS. I did (with a worse version of this concept, go to the PSN).

[Ryo]

Vincent has made an update on the main site translation:

The keyword for this new Fire Emblem is “if”. With the conflict between Hoshido and Nohr as the backdrop, the player must make a choice of which nation to side with, resulting in two very contrasting stories with different events, battles and obtainable characters.

So it's still unclear whether we would get multiple choices. Though that still didn't rule out such a possibility.