Does the amount of fanservice bother you?

[Great Geargia Gateway]

This game seems to be really focusing on the relationship aspect of the game to appeal to fans.

You mean for Awakening fans?

How don't know how to feel that my childhood game just leaned towards fancervice.

[goodperson707]

yes because the most recent games with limited supports went down so well with the fans and the buyers? (Ie 10 11 12) it is not hard to see how supports would = tie into appealing to fans in the makers minds . And supports is pretty much focusing on the relationship aspect, they just added more immersion with the My unit. And on fan service, 9 and 10 13 and 14 are really the only games even capable of having this amount of fan service in the game if the other games had the same graphics can you really say they wouldn't attempt more fan service for those games? Especially adding in the tactician in 7

[Jedi]

You mean for Awakening fans?

How don't know how to feel that my childhood game just leaned towards fancervice.

Shipping has been kind of an FE thing since 4, don't pretend it didn't start until Awakening lol.

Also fanservice was still in previous FE's YES it was a lot more subdued, but hey they decided to ramp it up, while giving us a dark/serious story.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Jedi

[Draco]

I can't say I'm real big on it?

Granted it's probably optional but I'll do what I can to avoid it because I just really don't care for it. I hope it's not shoved in your face or something.

The designs I'm not real big on either. Mostly with the females, since it's impractical and you don't really see women IRL wearing stuff similar to it.

And like how a weirdly large amount of female characters have their thighs exposed. Ehhh. I'm still gonna buy the game anyway but I was hoping they'd take it in a different direction.

I voted 'Yes' on the poll.

[Great Geargia Gateway]

Shipping has been kind of an FE thing since 4, don't pretend it didn't start until Awakening lol.

There's shipping characters like Eliwood and Lyn, then there's Tharja's revealing costume and dialog and figurine, characters basically naked artwork and non stop marriage.

[goodperson707]

^ *cough* fe4 *cough*

[Tryhard]

People like to say "but FE4", but FE4 (heh) did marriage a completely different way. I think it was actually a prime example on how to do a dark story but still have the more uplifting or less serious moments despite its limitations.

If they actually had the cajones to do the FE4 twist, I would be impressed with that. Otherwise it still feels kind of... superfluous.

I generally keep away from the shipping, though.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Tryhard

[goodperson707]

People like to say "but FE4", but FE4 (heh) did marriage a completely different way. I think it was actually a prime example on how to do a dark story but still have the more uplifting or less serious moments despite its limitations.

If they actually had the cajones to do the FE4 twist, I would be impressed with that. Otherwise it still feels kind of... superfluous.

I generally keep away from the shipping, though.

Well i was replying to a poster who said awakening and or fates had non stop marriage, revealing costumes, figurines and near naked artworks (there was also something about dialog but that was pretty vague so i won't touch it.) Which Fe 4 Did have down to the figurine.

[Loki Laufeyson]

I haven't read all of these posts in too much detail, but I've read a fair bit, and there's something I think is a general theme here: why. Where is the motivation coming from? Whose objective are we pursuing? And then, of course, how the different answers to that question can manifest themselves. For instance, as people have said, going to a beach to relax from fighting for your life makes sense. The thing is that that doesn't seem to be the motivation (I think? I haven't spoiled myself for Fates and I never got bikiniDLC for Awakening). The motivation seems to be ~boob shot~ and ~ab shot~. When the motivation is not found internally, it necessarily weakens characters and/or plot. This isn't even a serious/funny issue. (at all, even the tiniest bit) Things can be absolutely farcical, this can be Spongebob, or Disgaea, but it's still critical that characters do things because they choose to. If FE wants to just be funny, I don't care, I just want to feel like there are people making choices within the story, not outside it.

Yo. Ive read spoilas. Ive been rolling around in spoilas. I dont think you need to worry about your own choices not being also within the story, mate. Cuz hoary sheet, what you do does matter within the story, completely independent of My Castle. Most of the fanservice really is found outside of the plot. (outside of like, character designs)

These walls of text and the levels of salt. Tis a glorious sight indeed!

Its hilarious, tbh. Its frustrating to see at such a level, but its still funny to see how many people get UP IN ARMS over equally distributed fanservice.

Honestly with something Iwata said recently about their goal to raise the 3DS userbase in Japan I think that FE Amie and My Castle feature is something that may have been independant of FEA's massive sales success. I've said this in a few other topics but Nintendo's goal to raise the 3DS userbase in Japan is by appealing to more new female players and games like Animal Crossing, Nintendogs + Cats and Tomodachi Life established themselves as the systems biggest hitters outside of Mario and Pokémon(and even then Pokémon took notes from Nintendogs + Cats with Amie).

Fire Emblem could utilize these elements itself because it has a base to work on(Support Mechanics and unit managament) and expanding on the relationship aspects and expanding the menus into a town hub is to appeal to the audience games that sold 4-7 million and appealing to a larger female and casual audience than targetting the audience of sub 100k games by appealing to otakus. In fact by adding in relationships features for the Animal Crossing/Tomodachi Life audience they'd draw in the otaku audience more as a side effect. But it's much easier to criticise as you can see by this topic by pretending they're for some reason aiming directly at a userbase that's more niche than Fire Emblem was before Awakening.

Though I think in general just sticking to only what Awakening did wouldn't really give the series even a shot at growing and much less likely to increase the audience whereas stuff like My Castle could draw more new players and while also being something new and interesting to retain players who are already part of the playerbase. Which means if it proves popular enough it might equal Awakening's sales or if they're lucky beat it.

Ofcourse as a long term player of the series face rubbing isn't what I play the games for. but fighting against it when everything I do like about the series is in and from what I've played been refined would be incredibly petty(and it is a tiny aspect, I'm up to chapter 14 and I've spent like 7-10 minutes total on the feature and that's fully using it every time the option re-appeared). The older Fire Emblem fanbase is not that big and already divided on how they perceive even the core gameplay between games so much that it'd ludicrous to expect every aspect of the game including story, characters and gameplay is tuned to meet my preferences(however gameplay-wise IS coincidentally made a lot of changes that I wanted the series to have for some time).

You, have a Free Internet:

You deserve it. You actually addressed the Elephant In The Living Room in your post. Bolded (and enlarged) parts, there it is. The Elephant. Well done, ser. This...THIS is why the salt and negativity and vitriol over the optional features in the games pisses me off to no end. Its one thing to be like "thats not my style" but that is not what im seeing. "Its ruining the series! Id rather it die than this! Its depraved! It does not belong in games period let alone FE!" This is saying the audiences that Nintendo is directly aiming for are not, and never were welcome to play this franchise. Therein lies the difference between saying it makes you a little uncomfortable, and saying its the death knell of the series.

[SonicKeyblade00]

Yo. Ive read spoilas. Ive been rolling around in spoilas. I dont think you need to worry about your own choices not being also within the story, mate. Cuz hoary sheet, what you do does matter within the story, completely independent of My Castle. Most of the fanservice really is found outside of the plot. (outside of like, character designs)

Its hilarious, tbh. Its frustrating to see at such a level, but its still funny to see how many people get UP IN ARMS over equally distributed fanservice.

You, have a Free Internet:

You deserve it. You actually addressed the Elephant In The Living Room in your post. Bolded (and enlarged) parts, there it is. The Elephant. Well done, ser. This...THIS is why the salt and negativity and vitriol over the optional features in the games pisses me off to no end. Its one thing to be like "thats not my style" but that is not what im seeing. "Its ruining the series! Id rather it die than this! Its depraved! It does not belong in games period let alone FE!" This is saying the audiences that Nintendo is directly aiming for are not, and never were welcome to play this franchise. Therein lies the difference between saying it makes you a little uncomfortable, and saying its the death knell of the series.

I'm new to these forums, so I would put all of this in a box that could be shrunk if I knew how to...

But that aside, I agree with you completely and the person you quoted. I am fine with people who don't agree with how things are going, but the "it's killing the franchise" bit it what bugs me. It's what made me post in this thread to begin with. The sky isn't falling, just shifting from night to day if anything.

Oh and expanding the audience isn't a problem with me. I still enjoy what I am seeing so far.

[BlueL]

You mean for Awakening fans?

How don't know how to feel that my childhood game just leaned towards fancervice.

No, let's not lump people who liked Awakening in one group. I loved that game and don't care for any of the new fanservice they added to Fates, as is true for many people. I think it's like what arvilino said and that some of this stuff might have gotten added regardless to raise the 3DS userbase. Streetpass is a lot bigger this time around from what I've seen and I know it's used much more in Japan than NA.

Edited June 29, 2015 by BlueL

[eclipse]

I'm new to these forums, so I would put all of this in a box that could be shrunk if I knew how to...

But that aside, I agree with you completely and the person you quoted. I am fine with people who don't agree with how things are going, but the "it's killing the franchise" bit it what bugs me. It's what made me post in this thread to begin with. The sky isn't falling, just shifting from night to day if anything.

Oh and expanding the audience isn't a problem with me. I still enjoy what I am seeing so far.

Two options:

1. Link the post itself (the post number is a link to the post itself).

2. Copypasta the entire thing and shove it in a spoiler (though whether the Free Internet coupon is necessary is another story).

[Othin]

I love the game, but I gotta go with yes.

I don't mind the kids. The explanation for them seems a bit weird, but whatever. It's a fun feature and it's popular. Fates is packed with enough new stuff to justify keeping a few things like that. I don't feel like removing the kids would make it a better game, although I'd be in favor of removing just the incest. Also the face game is pretty weird and could probably stand to go; even an optional feature can cause more trouble than it's worth. I can't imagine who actually wanted it and how it seemed like a good idea.

What really bugs me is the character designs, which aren't optional. And really not even the Dark Mages, actually. They're weird and magic so I can understand them having outfits that don't make any sense by human standards, so if they all want to parade around in their underwear, regardless of gender, I say that's fine. But what gets really obnoxious is the stuff that's blatantly impractical at times it shouldn't be and when the fanservice designs disproportionately affect female characters. The knight-like classes are where this gets really bad, and while Awakening was already pretty screwy about them (Cherche), it seems to be getting even worse. You get classes like Corrin's where the male version has a full suit of armor and the female version has the same thing except around the crotch, where it has basically nothing over the underwear. It makes no sense to portray someone who would bother to wear armor as thinking that would make any sense as battle wear, and having the men get a relatively practical outfit while the women get a clearly impractical change for fanservice is just ridiculous.

[SonicKeyblade00]

Two options:

1. Link the post itself (the post number is a link to the post itself).

2. Copypasta the entire thing and shove it in a spoiler (though whether the Free Internet coupon is necessary is another story).

I had no idea # 1 was a thing, so thanks. I was going to do # 2 but I don't see the spoiler tag box. I'm just haven't figured how it looks. But I'm sure I'll figure it out. :)

[Mogs]

I can't say that it doesn't bother me, but I'd have to really think about it for it to really bother me. The face rubbing's a little weird, but at least I don't have to see it 90% of the time. I would be a bit more bothered by the camera shots on Camilla, but now that I've really thought about it, it's something that kinda lingers, but it's not something I'd be too terribly bothered with because I'd only have to see it a couple times, max. I'm getting more and more use to the notion of incest in the game (and I probably shouldn't), but hey, it's something that I don't have to force the characters to do. I think what bothers me the most are the character designs that are reminiscent of a lot of Awakening's characters and it makes me wonder if the artist has any better designs to use, but c'est la vie. I can't go complaining about it too much, since they're already finalized.

The direction that they're taking with this game reminds me a lot of how the Final Fantasy series changed when Square Soft shifted to Square Enix, tbh. I guess I can't really talk since I don't play much FE, but it doesn't mean I can't watch playthroughs of the older games, right?

[OhHaiThar]

I'm not really that bothered by the fanservice either. And didn't we establish:

that it's not really incest and the Hoshidans aren't really your "real siblings"

?

By the way there was an argument back there, that socially, it's still incest.

Counter-argument:

What binds a family together if it's not by blood? The answer is mutual love and respect. Now let's think about our friends. We respect and mutually love our friends. I mean you could even have sex with your friend and nobody calls that incest. Wonder why?

It's because we like to stick to traditional thinking, which is usually based on religious factors. And if we have to argue scientifically, then it's because the problems within our genetics become more pronounced.

We know for a fact that no one has the right to say doing this is right and this wrong. Think about homosexuality for second; people used to say it was wrong on the basis of religion or that it was "unnatural" (scientifically) and hindered the evolution of humanity. Yet we don't see anything wrong with it now. Why? BECAUSE LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDS, LITERALLY.

I'm not for or against incest; I just thought it was important to know why we think the way we do.

And all the touchy rubbing stuff w/sisters and brothers is an attempt to make us attached to the characters, even if it is weird by American standards.

Edited June 29, 2015 by OhHaiThar

[Glorie]

Yes and no.

The rubbing and hot spring mechanics? Not one bit.

The swimsuit DLC episiodes that totally focus on fanservice? The SUPER HYPER SEXUALIZATION of a character that's supposed to be your adopted sister? And I'm not talking about her outfit, I'm talking about how in nearly every instance she's shown, she looks like she's trying to seduce you. That pushes the line for me.

[Soapbar]

And all the touchy rubbing stuff w/sisters and brothers is an attempt to make us attached to the characters, even if it is weird by American standards.

I thought you were supposed to get the player attached to your characters by writing them well

Not by allowing the player to pet them like a dog.

[OhHaiThar]

I thought you were supposed to get the player attached to your characters by writing them well

Not by allowing the player to pet them like a dog.

You're definitely right, but that's what the Jap devs decided. I think they had the wrong impression of what we liked in FE:A (by that I mean character interaction) or they just sort of wanted to implement that portion as a selling point. (I mean we did get a whole Japanese direct for My Castle)

Edited June 29, 2015 by OhHaiThar

[Shengar]

Though I think in general just sticking to only what Awakening did wouldn't really give the series even a shot at growing and much less likely to increase the audience whereas stuff like My Castle could draw more new players and while also being something new and interesting to retain players who are already part of the playerbase. Which means if it proves popular enough it might equal Awakening's sales or if they're lucky beat it.

Of course if they want to expand beyond Awakening's audience, they need to add in more feature. MyCastle is perhaps one of the right answer for that considering the popularity of Animal Crossing and base building these days. Plus, my castle gives the game a even better and more fitting streetpass feature. But on the aspect of character relationship, I thought IS got really the wrong idea. The main impetus of their character relationship is the support conversation and marriage system. These contrary to the popular believe, is what sold people on Awakening, not fanservice (unless you count what ever happened on those support convos as fanservice). Amie feature while indeed is a form of character relationship, it just happened between one character (Kamui/Corrin, basically you) to the rest. One better to expand this is by having more characters (which it seems they did) and better writing of their personality and interaction.

It just you know....the sense of IS overestimating stuffs like Amie, not support conversation that sold Awakening kinda irks me.

Ofcourse as a long term player of the series face rubbing isn't what I play the games for. but fighting against it when everything I do like about the series is in and from what I've played been refined would be incredibly petty(and it is a tiny aspect, I'm up to chapter 14 and I've spent like 7-10 minutes total on the feature and that's fully using it every time the option re-appeared). The older Fire Emblem fanbase is not that big and already divided on how they perceive even the core gameplay between games so much that it'd ludicrous to expect every aspect of the game including story, characters and gameplay is tuned to meet my preferences(however gameplay-wise IS coincidentally made a lot of changes that I wanted the series to have for some time).

Indeed. The most troublesome things I've observed happened in the community is people focused too much on one aspect of the game while other part of its clearly gives indication of better gameplay prospect than Awakening. While I'm glad that due to how overwhelming the gameplay aspect is it managed to convinced some people to lay down and focused on it, there are still some who keep hammering the game on one aspect.

[SoulTenshi]

You don't have to do all the fanservice stuff so you can play like any other fire emblem. Also, about that incest thing some people were against:

you're not related to anyone in Hoshido and Nohr because they are your adoptive brothers and sisters (In Nohr, you were kidnapped by Garon.)

Nintendo trying to gain new supporters of the series but it will piss off some people. Hey, you can't win everyone

Also the fact Im marrying Kamui to Camilla so fanservice it up!!

[fengaridotdll]

Only because of Charlotte's godawful lower body protection

[Irysa]

That's how I feel about most of the fanservice in this game (excluding facerubbing). If you're going to have something like My Castle or the Outer Realms, it makes sense to have fun, relaxing things to do. A lot of people critical of fanservice talk about it dehumanizing the characters, but if you were in a war and had a magical base you went to after every battle, would you only want it to have weapon shops and a prison for foes? No, like Jedi said, you'd be ecstatic about a dining hall and spa. And IDK where these beach pics are coming from (avoiding spoilers), but if you could go to a beach in the middle of the war without losing ground or risking attack (which doesn't seem to be an issue with barracks or My Castle), you'd go.

Does it change the fact that they're breaking the immersion of the story for unnecessary additions? No. Is the hot spring likely an excuse just to show characters semi-nude? Very likely.

It might slightly pull you out of the story, but I think it's an acceptable sacrifice for most of My Castle's features, and more a player issue than a story issue. And by that I mean no one seriously writing up a detailed plot description will insert how they visited My Castle and did X, Y and Z between each chapter summary.

Does it go against how past FE games were? Yes and so I understand why breaking this tradition bothers some other veteran FE fans.

Rewjeo made an excellent response to this so I'll just defer to what they said. I'd also add that one doesn't need to have played the game to neccessarily form an opinion on features or implentation of features. I've never talked to our Prime Minister personally, but I definitely have an impression of him and his views based on things he and his Government have done and said to other people. Obviously I can't know all the intricacies of his character, but I have information, I intake that information, and think about that information before extrapolating on how I think that reflects on him as an individual.

I'm not going to say I haven't seen those but they're in the minority of the posts I see on the FEsub reddit and here, the only places I really go to for FE discussion. If you're referring to FE Fates discussion on places like 4chan, tumbler, /r/3DS, etc, I don't visit those places. (Emphasis on "I've seen". Not saying you're wrong on it being very common). I can see why you'd be offput if people spent a lot of time discussing that or that attitude in general since FE is traditionally about it's story, cast of characters and the war going on.

No no, I'm not offput by people discussing things they enjoy. I'm only using the behaviour of a significant portion of the community to illustrate a point about the design of the game and characters.

Well I think you're giving way too much credit to some people who dislike her (you're one of the few people I've seen in arguments about her to make this critique of her, a lot of people literally focus on her being a klutz) but I do understand you're point about her. If you were going to say she has a prominent trait, "self-depreciation moe" would be it. That being said, it truly doesn't come up in almost every support, unless by support you mean the entire group of supports per character rather than each individual C, B, A and S support. It's present in over half of them but I really wouldn't say it's played up, especially not the self depreciating part. At least not played up enough to call her exaggerated (I'm not saying you did). Minus her tripping problems (which don't come in supports) she is one of FE13's characters most capable of fitting in a prior FE game personality/behavior wise.

I may be giving too much credit but there's also the fact that as human beings, we feel things first before we articulate them into language to communicate with others. I think that when it comes to things like this, people have a sense of aversion but don't know how to articulate that aversion properly so they might phrase it incorrectly.

And yes I mean general supports per character, not EVERY support. Also I'm pretty sure Lucina or Say'ri would fit into a prior game far easier. Also whilst in an empirical sense it may not be all that much by itself, you have to consider the context again; It's a game full of similar things being done to vary degrees of intensity, so it's far easier to view it as worse than it is once one is already detached from the game.

I think I understand your point about the characters and I don't disagree with it. It's obviously ideal for characters to be able to have strong impact or enable self-reflection. Like I said in my prior post that you either ignored or didn't feel like responding too, reading about Jill overcoming the idea of Laguz being sub-human monsters was touching and was a really human moment. I've never claimed (in general, not referring to our argument) that Awakening did a good job at such things with it's characters. But people can still enjoy units who aren't quite 3-Dimensional (not saying you ever said it wasn't possible). *EDIT: 3-Dimensional relative to past FE games)

Is it more of a gamble in terms of getting people to like characters this way? Yes because the characters appeal is less about what they do and say but rather about a notable trait that either appeals to you or it doesn't. But I was on the side that found them interesting.

Yeah basically I didn't have anything to say in response to your comments about Jill. Also as you pointed out, I didn't say one can't enjoy more (for lack of a better word) indulgent things. But, we've seen a general increase in the amount of games (especially when it comes to RPGs) that are blatantly indulgent. You can call me spoilt or entitled if you want, but it's pretty frustrating to lose another franchise to it, especially when this is basically the only SRPG series I actually enjoy. Almost every other SRPG I've played (bar Yggdra Union) or know of is too macromanagement orientated in that assigning correct builds and stats and weapons is more important than the individual moment to moment movement of troops and the like in the field. Most of them also have grossly inflated stats or aren't really designed to be played in a straightforward, selfcontained way, or else the meat of their content is in postgame or optional stuff, as opposed to the main campaign being the forefront.

But getting away from mechanics, it actually took me a while to realise it was the combination of endearing mechanical traits and a more "traditional" feel in terms of presentation and narrative that ultimately made me really appreciate the series. In fact I didn't realise it fully till I played FE12 and found that despite finding the game mechanically compelling in so many ways, I couldn't bring myself to call it a good game or say that I mostly liked it when it had so many complete failings in terms of narrative elements. I suppose earlier I'd had to confront misgivings like that with Radiant Dawn (which I don't really like either) but I had more complaints about the game design itself there, so the narrative being a mess was sort of just taken together with the mess of the game itself. FE12 on the other hand was just so overwhelmingly polarising that it forced me to come to terms with the fact that both facets were really important to my positive evaluations of the games.

My points in defending Awakening's roster are:

A) I disagree when people treat the roster as a whole as being inferior to past FE games. There are more than a handful of units in each prior FE game that aren't quite 3-dimensional. Not as many as Awakening, but still there. In short, I feel people gloss over the less interesting and well-rounded units of each past game and only seem to remember the well rounded ones.

Yeah but the difference is that those units didn't have that overemphasis. I talked about that in the post I linked earlier to RPGatwill. Having a small amount of dialogue has far less potential to cause impact, wheras having a lot has far larger potential; that's clearly obvious. But impact is not only positive, it's negative too. So having more dialogue and emphasis can actually serve to create a worse script overall than one with very little.

B) In a roster as big as FE's, you're not going to have an entire cast full of well rounded characters so I think inserting some really quirky characters are fine. Awakening inserted too many as a whole but doesn't stop me from being able to judge them individually.

I'd say cut the roster sizes down personally if that's the issue, but pragmatically, I can agree. However I'd still rather have bland characters with just tidbits of info than trying to force everyone to be recognisable.

C) While they may seem less human for having certain exaggerated traits, I don't consider a character's with an exaggerated defining trait that lacks depth, motivations or development to be inherently worse than one who lacks such exaggeration but still lacks the depths, motivations or development that many FE13 characters did. But I understand that comes down to personal preference whereas it's harder to go wrong if you build a character who exists for their own sake.

Well, yes, that is preference, but there's flexability within a character who doesn't have much about them, wheras one who has a forefront trait and lots of dialogue reinforcing that feels a lot more one dimensional than someone who just doesn't really get fleshed out but seems normal enough.

D) Critical people tend to over exaggerate how often and how long certain exaggerated traits pop-up in FE13's supports. Yes, you'll never read a Miriel support and not be left with impression "well she likes to use big words" but there are many characters whose "gimmick" doesn't show-up in every support or almost every support. For most "gimmicky" characters their "gimmick" pops up at over 50% of the time. That's still a lot considering the quirks they have and relative to past FE characters, but doesn't quite approach being a caricature for me.

Like how earlier you said Sumia being a self depreciaton moe is played up almost every support but, without counting each support, I'd say at least 40-50% of her individual supports she doesn't give you the feeling of "a sad puppy trying to climb into your bed, but being too small/silly to do it properly".

I view each support chain (C B A S) as complete works that need to be examined on the whole. I think you're just nitpicking here, because whilst obviously things aren't ALWAYS mentioned, they're rarely not predominant in the entire chain.

E) Last, few or none of FE13's roster is actually 1-dimensional. Some might be barely 2-dimensional, and few reach 3-Dimensional status, but most are definitely 2D and I'd say a some are like 2.5 dimensional characters. As I said before, Validar is a 1-D character. He's evil for some illogical reason and we get little backstory on him. He only really expresses one side: being a malicious man bent on world destruction that he won't benefit from. No Awakening unit is nearly as shallow or limited as him. Most units have some combination of the following: motivation, development (granted it doesn't carry over between supports, but that's something that was in the GBA's supports too), history (albeit not explored enough for most of the cast) or do and say things to make them like-able or relatable beyond the impression their bio gives. But I understand that may not be enough to overcome some people's dislike of their exaggerated traits/behavior.

This is pedantry again. The point is that they feel like one dimensional characters because that's what they're defined by - one factor, one dimension. Having a reason for behaving one dimensionally isn't depth, depth is reflected in how a character responds to changes in their situation that don't enable their natural inclinations. If a character doesn't really seem to change much then just listing some other concerns that appear here and there doesn't offset that. Again that's sort of addressed in that post I linked earlier.

Here's another post I made a while ago about why exaggeration or change of tone isn't neccessarily bad, but rather that the manner in which IS are executing it is generally poor. I'd honestly be a lot less miffed about Fates if they weren't trying to run some serious Romance of Three Kingdoms esque plot along with all of this nonsense, and instead just went full anime banzai.

Honestly with something Iwata said recently about their goal to raise the 3DS userbase in Japan I think that FE Amie and My Castle feature is something that may have been independant of FEA's massive sales success. I've said this in a few other topics but Nintendo's goal to raise the 3DS userbase in Japan is by appealing to more new female players and games like Animal Crossing, Nintendogs + Cats and Tomodachi Life established themselves as the systems biggest hitters outside of Mario and Pokémon(and even then Pokémon took notes from Nintendogs + Cats with Amie).

Fire Emblem could utilize these elements itself because it has a base to work on(Support Mechanics and unit managament) and expanding on the relationship aspects and expanding the menus into a town hub is to appeal to the audience games that sold 4-7 million and appealing to a larger female and casual audience than targetting the audience of sub 100k games by appealing to otakus. In fact by adding in relationships features for the Animal Crossing/Tomodachi Life audience they'd draw in the otaku audience more as a side effect. But it's much easier to criticise as you can see by this topic by pretending they're for some reason aiming directly at a userbase that's more niche than Fire Emblem was before Awakening.

Though I think in general just sticking to only what Awakening did wouldn't really give the series even a shot at growing and much less likely to increase the audience whereas stuff like My Castle could draw more new players and while also being something new and interesting to retain players who are already part of the playerbase. Which means if it proves popular enough it might equal Awakening's sales or if they're lucky beat it.

Ofcourse as a long term player of the series face rubbing isn't what I play the games for. but fighting against it when everything I do like about the series is in and from what I've played been refined would be incredibly petty(and it is a tiny aspect, I'm up to chapter 14 and I've spent like 7-10 minutes total on the feature and that's fully using it every time the option re-appeared). The older Fire Emblem fanbase is not that big and already divided on how they perceive even the core gameplay between games so much that it'd ludicrous to expect every aspect of the game including story, characters and gameplay is tuned to meet my preferences(however gameplay-wise IS coincidentally made a lot of changes that I wanted the series to have for some time).

Anecdotal, but I have frankly seen more female friends and generally more "casual" (lack of a better word) players put off the game because of the groping minigame, character designs, and typical "male gaze" stuff. I think you're right about My Castle though, and tbh, whilst I don't like it, it's existance not really as polarising. However, we don't have to lump these concepts together neccessarily. When we're talking about the way characters are written, presented, and behave, then it would be more correct to say that rather than explictly appealing to "otaku subculture", it's more like an expansion of appeal in general; trying to find something for everyone, which just plays back into the "characters primarily exist for the player" issue. Visual design of characters plays into this too.

As for the other points, you're lucky then, because the reason I've been frustrated by this is because things that I do like about the series are getting erased because of stuff like that groping minigame being added. It's part of a general trend admittedly, and some of us, myself included, are likely overfocusing on it as a way to point to these concerns. But to me, it's past the point where the argument of "it's okay you still have your game there" holds weight, because you can't have subservient hero worship and individual character agency. And yes, characters being individuals I cared about because I admired their personalities/actions is something I care about in games.

Yo. Ive read spoilas. Ive been rolling around in spoilas. I dont think you need to worry about your own choices not being also within the story, mate. Cuz hoary sheet, what you do does matter within the story, completely independent of My Castle. Most of the fanservice really is found outside of the plot. (outside of like, character designs)

Rew wasn't talking about the player's own choices. They were talking about the non protagonist character's choices within the world not coming off as stemming from them, and the general breakdown of belief in the world and setting as a result.

You deserve it. You actually addressed the Elephant In The Living Room™ in your post. Bolded (and enlarged) parts, there it is. The Elephant. Well done, ser. This...THIS is why the salt and negativity and vitriol over the optional features in the games pisses me off to no end. Its one thing to be like "thats not my style" but that is not what im seeing. "Its ruining the series! Id rather it die than this! Its depraved! It does not belong in games period let alone FE!" This is saying the audiences that Nintendo is directly aiming for are not, and never were welcome to play this franchise. Therein lies the difference between saying it makes you a little uncomfortable, and saying its the death knell of the series.

I dunno, does saying I want to have games that avoid doing this continue to exist whilst they're being squeezed out of existance really match up to that? I realise that's playing a victim card but it's just reality.

Also I'm pretty sure I haven't said the type of things you're describing, so I'd call a strawman but you're right that there are people who are saying stuff like that around. If I wasn't clear, I don't really mind that "things I don't find appeal exist" but I am bothered when "things I find appealing are being eradicated". If they convert my local tennis court into a shopping mall, my objection is centred around the fact that the tennis court is gone, so I can't play tennis, not the fact that the shopping mall exists or that I have anything against people who like shopping.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Irysa

[RedMage]

I'm one of those original fans of the FE series and I don't mind the fanservice that was introduced w/ Awakening at all. Not in Fates either. Never did mind fanservice actually. I think fanservice gets overboard sometimes, but it's not something I care about. Though I can see why people complain about it, especially parents of young gamers.

[BlueL]

Rewjeo made an excellent response to this so I'll just defer to what they said. I'd also add that one doesn't need to have played the game to neccessarily form an opinion on features or implentation of features. I've never talked to our Prime Minister personally, but I definitely have an impression of him and his views based on things he and his Government have done and said to other people. Obviously I can't know all the intricacies of his character, but I have information, I intake that information, and think about that information before extrapolating on how I think that reflects on him as an individual.

Hmmm well I did say in my own post that they were doing things like the beach just for fanservice so I understand where that line of thinking is coming from.

No no, I'm not offput by people discussing things they enjoy. I'm only using the behaviour of a significant portion of the community to illustrate a point about the design of the game and characters.

My bad but I do get your point despite my response.

I may be giving too much credit but there's also the fact that as human beings, we feel things first before we articulate them into language to communicate with others. I think that when it comes to things like this, people have a sense of aversion but don't know how to articulate that aversion properly so they might phrase it incorrectly.

And yes I mean general supports per character, not EVERY support. Also I'm pretty sure Lucina or Say'ri would fit into a prior game far easier. Also whilst in an empirical sense it may not be all that much by itself, you have to consider the context again; It's a game full of similar things being done to vary degrees of intensity, so it's far easier to view it as worse than it is once one is already detached from the game.

That's true, at least for some people, so I can't disagree there. But I also think their are people who are frustrated for whatever reason and have selective amnesia and exaggerate the flaws of things they criticize as well.

Oh ok, just wanted to be sure. As you can probably tell I can be a bit of a nitpicker at times. And I agree about Lucina and Say'ri, but I was just saying if you ranked FE13 characters on ability to fit into prior games that I think Sumia would be ranked high.

And your context point is true, although I don't look at things like that since I'm clearly not detached from the game.

Yeah basically I didn't have anything to say in response to your comments about Jill. Also as you pointed out, I didn't say one can't enjoy more (for lack of a better word) indulgent things. But, we've seen a general increase in the amount of games (especially when it comes to RPGs) that are blatantly indulgent. You can call me spoilt or entitled if you want, but it's pretty frustrating to lose another franchise to it, especially when this is basically the only SRPG series I actually enjoy. Almost every other SRPG I've played (bar Yggdra Union) or know of is too macromanagement orientated in that assigning correct builds and stats and weapons is more important than the individual moment to moment movement of troops and the like in the field. Most of them also have grossly inflated stats or aren't really designed to be played in a straightforward, selfcontained way, or else the meat of their content is in postgame or optional stuff, as opposed to the main campaign being the forefront.

But getting away from mechanics, it actually took me a while to realise it was the combination of endearing mechanical traits and a more "traditional" feel in terms of presentation and narrative that ultimately made me really appreciate the series. In fact I didn't realise it fully till I played FE12 and found that despite finding the game mechanically compelling in so many ways, I couldn't bring myself to call it a good game or say that I mostly liked it when it had so many complete failings in terms of narrative elements. I suppose earlier I'd had to confront misgivings like that with Radiant Dawn (which I don't really like either) but I had more complaints about the game design itself there, so the narrative being a mess was sort of just taken together with the mess of the game itself. FE12 on the other hand was just so overwhelmingly polarising that it forced me to come to terms with the fact that both facets were really important to my positive evaluations of the games.

Well I understand your point. If I'm not mistaken I think the analogy you made later about the tennis court and the shopping mall illustrates your point here too. I wouldn't call it spoilt (although I don't think you were being entirely serious with that sentence), it makes perfect sense. I feel somewhat similarly about how the remakes of all my childhood cartoons are coming out. Not that I planned on watching them consistently like I used to but even if I wanted to I wouldn't because of the changes made to them. But I'm getting off topic. Moving on...

And I completely agree with your last paragraph, although your literally the only FE veteran I've ever heard say they didn't love RD. I know on FE Reddit that game is like a sacred cow for veterans. (Sadly I've never gotten the chance to play it. I made the foolish decision to not play any RPGs that summer and didn't think to buy the game in the meantime and wait for my mood to swing back to being pro-RPG.)

Yeah but the difference is that those units didn't have that overemphasis. I talked about that in the post I linked earlier to RPGatwill. Having a small amount of dialogue has far less potential to cause impact, wheras having a lot has far larger potential; that's clearly obvious. But impact is not only positive, it's negative too. So having more dialogue and emphasis can actually serve to create a worse script overall than one with very little.

True. I guess it's like you said earlier that when you have overemphasis it comes down to whether you like the trait/behavior being overemphasized.

I'd say cut the roster sizes down personally if that's the issue, but pragmatically, I can agree. However I'd still rather have bland characters with just tidbits of info than trying to force everyone to be recognisable.

I agree with you, 6 and 13 could have stood to lose about half a dozen to a dozen characters. I think anything over the mid-30s is pushing it in terms of quality.

And we'll just have to disagree, since I don't mind them having exaggerated traits as long as it's not too many exaggerated characters (around 25-35% would be ideal depending on the size of the roster and how exaggerated the characters are.).

Also the gimmick can be downplayed reasonably, shouldn't pop-up in almost every support.

For my last point on this, and it depends on the particular trope being used (ex: Kellam being invisible is a no no but Owain being melodramatic is a yes imo) , but I don't look at characters having a strong initial identifier as forcing them to be recognizable. At least not always; it depends on how believeable the trait is, how often it pop's up and obviously how it's delivered and executed (i.e. in Miriel's case, does it come off as they just forced her to use big words or does it seem like she's a smart person who occasionally forgets to use basic vocabulary? I think most would say the former. Also not saying that's her only issue but I think you get my point).

But I like to think of it they're experimenting with personality types, although this may tie into your critique of making a character for the viewer than their own sake. If they overly rely on the trope, THEN I'd agree that it's a poor choice to force you to recognize a character and "bland characters with just tidbits" would be better, but some people seem bothered by the mere existence of quirky or different characters.

Charlotte in FE14 is a good example. To my knowledge we've never had any two-faced gold diggers in FE history so I'm excited to see how they handle a new personality type even though she has two of my least favorite traits. But I also hope all of her supports with men (which likely will be what makes or breaks the quality of her supports) come down to her attempting to seducing them and likely getting exposed as a fake nice girl.

Well, yes, that is preference, but there's flexability within a character who doesn't have much about them, wheras one who has a forefront trait and lots of dialogue reinforcing that feels a lot more one dimensional than someone who just doesn't really get fleshed out but seems normal enough.

Yes, reinforcing that forefront trait at the expense of say just general chatter that doesn't flesh out a character is not ideal. But that goes with what I said earlier about I think the problem being poor execution due to them over emphasizing the exaggerated trait. EX: I wouldn't have viewed Cynthia as any less of energetic wanna-be hero if she had a handful of her 14 unique supports focus on things besides her dramatic entrances and instead discussed things like maybe a time she considered being a different class, a fun from her past involving another kid from the future, or even just small talk about something random. None would really flesh out her character but they also wouldn't play up her forefront trait.

I view each support chain (C B A S) as complete works that need to be examined on the whole. I think you're just nitpicking here, because whilst obviously things aren't ALWAYS mentioned, they're rarely not predominant in the entire chain.

Like I said, it depends on the character. For over 55% (and I'm probably being conservative) your definitely right. But I honestly think that in Sumia's case though her forefront trait, which I think ID'd as being a self deprecation moe, is not predominant in most of her supports. Of her 10 unique supports, her self deprecation moe routine doesn't dominate about half (Chrom, Cynthia, Sully, Frederick, Gaius). If you say it's that puppy analogy you used then I'd say those still apply. If anything, I'd say her forefront trait is being a very nice. caring girl.

This is pedantry again. The point is that they feel like one dimensional characters because that's what they're defined by - one factor, one dimension. Having a reason for behaving one dimensionally isn't depth, depth is reflected in how a character responds to changes in their situation that don't enable their natural inclinations. If a character doesn't really seem to change much then just listing some other concerns that appear here and there doesn't offset that. Again that's sort of addressed in that post I linked earlier.

Here's another post I made a while ago about why exaggeration or change of tone isn't neccessarily bad, but rather that the manner in which IS are executing it is generally poor. I'd honestly be a lot less miffed about Fates if they weren't trying to run some serious Romance of Three Kingdoms esque plot along with all of this nonsense, and instead just went full anime banzai.

Not everyone uses that description for "one dimensional" so I once again disagree my post is pedantic, but if we're going with that description, specifically the part about "If a character doesn't really seem to change much then just listing some other concerns that appear here and there doesn't offset that." than at least 50% of Awakening's cast IS one dimensional.

But I disagree with the sentence about depth in the sense that there are more ways to add to a character and make them interesting or enjoyable even if those methods (showing their hobbies, giving backstory, stating why their "one-dimensional", etc) don't change the fact that they are still one dimensional by the definition you gave. But that wasn't your argument so I won't continue making a point about something you said the opposite of.

I guess if I had to summarize my last 2 paragraphs, I understand and don't disagree at all with your definition of one dimensional...except that they're are levels of "shallowness" in terms of characters which is why I liked the definition I gave of characters being 1d, 2d or 3d because, for the 3rd time (hope that doesn't come off angry) their's enough of a difference between say Validar and Tharja (or to compare 2 non player units, Validar and Nergal because if my memory isn't betraying me he qualifies under your definition of one dimensional) in terms of characterization that I think it's good to make a distinction between them when evaluating their character.

EDIT: I read that link, and this one as well (well, skimmed through both tbh) and agree the problem is their execution, in how they're creating the characters and the context their putting them in. And I obviously the fanservice point is true. I guess they expect people to be more like me and be able or willing to not let the fanservice and time consuming mini-games not impact their view of the story or break their immersion of it. Though my view my change once I get the game. I'm just optimistic in the meantime.

Edited June 30, 2015 by BlueL