What was the point of hiring Shin Kibayashi?

[NekoKnight]

They probably could've lengthened the story a bit more by not diving straight into the main plot and recruiting.

Maybe not going to Valla until Chapter 10 or something?

The cast probably could've been fine if it was Kamui, Azura and the Royals + retainers. The cast is a bit too big for Revelation.

[spoiler=Dark Souls stuff]

That's fair. I'm just glad to have the fuzzy-haired blacksmith back though!

If you kept the cast down to the people you mentioned (+ Fuuga), the cast would be 41 characters, same as Birthright. There would be 13 first gen females so you would have a mother for all the kids no matter your spouse choice. But if you chose Femui, at least one woman will be forever alone.

Sounds like a good deal.

[Time the Crestfallen]

If you kept the cast down to the people you mentioned (+ Fuuga), the cast would be 41 characters, same as Birthright. There would be 13 first gen females so you would have a mother for all the kids no matter your spouse choice. But if you chose Femui, at least one woman will be forever alone.

Sounds like a good deal.

That's fine, just another reason to bench Peri :D

[Abysswalker25]

The story is simple enough and sets up the villain from the start and the contrivance only exists due to Azura's role (even though it doesn't explain why she doesn't reveal everything in Conquest). Remove her knowledge that's pointless in the other routes, giving it to some Revelations-only character that only meets Kamui there and then suddenly you won't need the "you can't talk about Valla" stuff either.

A route where both royal families fight together has some potential. It just didn't need everyone else there. Cut the neutral characters that already are in both Norh and Hoshido at least. Also, limit the resources of the Castle, rather than just giving it twice as much.

They could've given the exposition role to the Rainbow sage but it is kinda cliche if they did. Would've preferred a couple of the first chapters of revelations to have you on the run before finding anything out, so to speak.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Abysswalker25

[NekoKnight]

That's fine, just another reason to bench Peri :D

"Reclassed to corpse" was the term used in another thread.

If I ever play Revelation, I might selectively trim down the cast to try this character selection. It might need a little tweaking because all of the Diviners are non royal + retainers. Plus you'll lose all the Meidos.

[Time the Crestfallen]

"Reclassed to corpse" was the term used in another thread.

If I ever play Revelation, I might selectively trim down the cast to try this character selection. It might need a little tweaking because all of the Diviners are non royal + retainers. Plus you'll lose all the Meidos.

Yeah, I saw that. I haven't found anything that funny or relatable in a while.

As for the roster, I don't know why you think you're losing the meidos. Wouldn't Felica, Flora, Jakob and Kaze count as retainers for Kamui?

[NekoKnight]

Yeah, I saw that. I haven't found anything that funny or relatable in a while.

As for the roster, I don't know why you think you're losing the meidos. Wouldn't Felica, Flora, Jakob and Kaze count as retainers for Kamui?

I guess? I thought "retainer" implied an official position and Kamui was a prisoner for most of his life... Then again, if this route is Kamui's ascension to his *true* birthright, it might be thematic that he has all of his servant sycophants retainers.

[Thane]

I guess? I thought "retainer" implied an official position and Kamui was a prisoner for most of his life... Then again, if this route is Kamui's ascension to his *true* birthright, it might be thematic that he has all of his servant sycophants retainers.

Revelation makes it clear that everyone in the cast is Corrin's retainer.

[Time the Crestfallen]

I guess? I thought "retainer" implied an official position and Kamui was a prisoner for most of his life... Then again, if this route is Kamui's ascension to his *true* birthright, it might be thematic that he has all of his servant sycophants retainers.

Well the dictionary definition of a retainer in this context is "a servant, especially one who has worked for a person or family for a long time", so I'd say that Felicia, Flora and Jakob are the most literal use of the term considering their class.

So how many playable characters would that be? Eight royals, 16 royal retainers, Kamui + five retainers (Felicia, Flora, Jakob, Kaze and Gunter) + Azura= Thirty-one characters, not counting children. That seems reasonable enough, if a little on the large side.

[Vitezen]

I would have a hard time believing that Kibayashi's original full script could be that bad. He's asked to write about 10 pages, but instead writes 1,500. If he were putting that much investment into it, wouldn't he take the time to ensure that it was high quality as well? Why would he put in the extra effort to write something 150 times the expected length, but then blast through it just to get it done, not caring at all about quality? It would've been simpler in that case to stick to the original length.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Vitezen

[deadlinedance]

I think Revelation's main mistake was existing.

They say they wanted a simpler plot? Then no need for a bunch of confusing greater-scope villain stuff and contrivances; just focus on the conflict between Hoshido and Nohr, with neither route getting it all.

This.

Remember why we were all excited for the plot in the first place? It was all about The Choice. That emotional conflict, all stemming from a terrible decision with no right answer. No matter which way you chose, you would lose something, both as the character of Corrin and as the player.

And then they decided to make a third "neutral" path, which is of course The Right One in which you can have it all with no consequences!

And everybody lives! Including your attractive siblings from the other kingdom, because OF COURSE they're not bad guys!

And you slay the REAL villain that you didn't even know about until five minutes ago and he's not even human (he's a demon/dragon/ugly old man) so you don't have to feel any guilt in killing him whatsoever!

Because modern Japanese media writing is completely averse to any sort of moral ambiguity whatsoever.

ESPECIALLY when the one they'd be accusing of said morally imperfect choices is the loyal customer player, even if having to make The Choice in question was literally the driving creative force and/or selling point of the game from the beginning.

[Augestein]

I would have a hard time believing that Kibayashi's original full script could be that bad. He's asked to write about 10 pages, but instead writes 1,500. If he were putting that much investment into it, wouldn't he take the time to ensure that it was high quality as well? Why would he put in the extra effort to write something 150 times the expected length, but then blast through it just to get it done, not caring at all about quality? It would've been simpler in that case to stick to the original length.

If anything, I'd expect it to be worse. If I ask for a person to write me a 12 page essay on an event that happened, and they write me 1200 pages, I'm going to have to spend a lot of time cutting things. A lot of time. Honestly? I'd be pretty angry, because this person just gave me a whole lot of pointless fluff that I KNOW I have to get rid of to make the story. What he did would be the equivalent to asking a person to buy you a bag of flour for making a cake, and then bring you 150 bags. What are you supposed to do with that now?

[B.Leu]

You have a point, the 'Ask 10 Receive 100' problem is bound to cause... well, problems, lot and lot of problems.

The communication/relationship/ between the devs and Kibayashi must've been very archaic.

In fact, all of this seems pretty archaic, it seems like there was a lack of organization in there.

This.

Remember why we were all excited for the plot in the first place? It was all about The Choice. That emotional conflict, all stemming from a terrible decision with no right answer. No matter which way you chose, you would lose something, both as the character of Corrin and as the player.

And then they decided to make a third "neutral" path, which is of course The Right One in which you can have it all with no consequences!

And everybody lives! Including your attractive siblings from the other kingdom, because OF COURSE they're not bad guys!

And you slay the REAL villain that you didn't even know about until five minutes ago and he's not even human (he's a demon/dragon/ugly old man) so you don't have to feel any guilt in killing him whatsoever!

Because modern Japanese media writing is completely averse to any sort of moral ambiguity whatsoever.

ESPECIALLY when the one they'd be accusing of said morally imperfect choices is the loyal customer player, even if having to make The Choice in question was literally the driving creative force and/or selling point of the game from the beginning.

Modern japanese writing tend to be dumb, convenient, take you and everything for an idiot, and is downright hypocritical at times. Take a look at the tales of series now. Maybe it's the same on the West and I haven't noticed but... *shrug*

But I wanted to say, you made me remember when we were all excited when the first trailer came out, we were all hyped, and we were all talking and looking at each pieces of informations whetever one came out... Even if the game have a very, very, very shitty plot, I don't regret the time we spent talking about it.

Edited March 4, 2016 by B.Leu

[NeonZ]

Modern japanese writing tend to be dumb, convenient, take you and everything for an idiot, and is downright hypocritical at times. Take a look at the tales of series now. Maybe it's the same on the West and I haven't noticed but... *shrug*

Something like Tales is written intended for young teenagers, since Japanese adults aren't seen as dedicated gamers. Meanwhile, in the West, most gamers are adults nowadays. I think this also affects modern Fire Emblem, with its fear of political/geographical exposition scenes.

[Vitezen]

If anything, I'd expect it to be worse. If I ask for a person to write me a 12 page essay on an event that happened, and they write me 1200 pages, I'm going to have to spend a lot of time cutting things. A lot of time. Honestly? I'd be pretty angry, because this person just gave me a whole lot of pointless fluff that I KNOW I have to get rid of to make the story. What he did would be the equivalent to asking a person to buy you a bag of flour for making a cake, and then bring you 150 bags. What are you supposed to do with that now?

That is a valid point, and as the poster below you mentioned, it raises an important question now: how much communication was there between Nintendo and the writer?

Here's my guess.

Nintendo came to Kobayashi with just the barest ideas of what they wanted to do with the game. Their intentions were to get a solid, interesting outline from a skilled writer, which they could expand upon with their own ideas, and take inspiration from it. To get this level of inspiration, they told Kibayashi he basically had complete creative freedom.

Kobayashi took this to mean that he had complete control over the creation of the story, not just the outline, and therefore decided to pen the entire plot. Whatever he wrote, exactly, is unknown, but I'm going to take it as a given that it was at least logical and didn't break a reader's suspension of disbelief. He is an experienced writer, he would be able to manage this. The draft he sent to Nintendo was the 1,500 page script, written as a full expression of his ideas, without any input from Nintendo, with the hopes that they would use the script he submitted with as little changes as possible.

Nintendo, upon receiving the script, is in a difficult position. They asked for a framework, and they got a finished product. And this finished product, in some ways, did not agree with the sort of story they wanted to tell. Changes had to be made, but they wanted to salvage as much as possible. But this hacksaw approach to editing the script, without any contact with the original author, is what gave us the final result; an unclear, confusing storyline created by cutting out parts that were inappropriate, and the insertion of new parts without regard for the meaning or coherence of the work as a whole.

[NekoKnight]

Nice analysis Vitezen. That sounds like it could have happened.

I think the moral of the story is, if you're going to hire writers, make sure they can commit to sticking around for the whole project.