More Unpopular Fire Emblem Opinions

[Jedi]

To a Japanese player they would definitely be a better known.

But what about Western players? Those probably started with Blazing sword and would only know the Akaniens through a Wiki glance until the ill received Shadow Dragon came out. SD wasn't really a game that could convince people that the Akanean characters were worth such a large focus. The one game that expands on those characters through Avater supports was Japanese exclusive once again which is a bit of a weakness of that continent.

If a Western player entered the series with the Awakening boom there would be an added bonus of seeing a past Ylisse but the characters would still seem out of date without supports.

As a forum of general Fire Emblem information we know Cain by his archetype even in the west, no other Red cavalier has that kind of significance in the fandom itself, back when Blazing Sword was first a thing was back when this fanbase was more curious about how this franchise begun, thus the knowledge of said older archetypes.

Do we call Archetypes, the Kent, The Sain, The Marcus, The Nino, The Athos? Or The Stahl, The Sully, The Fredrick, the Donnel or what have you? Even with the massive success of Awakening, people still refer to particular archetypes as the ones Akaneia started, they have staying power.

[KoimanZX]

I'm not inherently opposed to the Hoshido bias that I often see thrown around. Sure some greyness is prefered, but places like Pherae, Altia or Renais weren't the most morally ambigous countries either. My main problem isn't that Hoshido is the good country, but more the Nohr simply got nothing to work with. No goals, no motives, boring villains and no reason to support them.

I think the reason why the characterization of Hoshido was particularly troubling is due to the unfortunate implications. Hoshido is this perfect and idyllic Japanese-inspired country, while Nohr is this evil, imperialistic Western-inspired country. This fact, combined with Japan's habit of denying the war crimes it committed during WWII and changing history textbooks to make themselves seem perfect, was a bit too on-the-nose for many. At least, that is my guess.

For the other conversation: Japanese companies have always cared more about their local audience more than their International audience in most cases (the exceptions to this rule were Castlevania and the 3-D Mario platformers, which had always sold poorly in Japan, but did well enough internationally for the companies to care about them). Tokyo Mirage Sessions is an incredibly niche game on a console that sold horribly, meaning that the international audience was never going to be big enough to be given any special consideration. Moreover, the first installment in a series always has special treatment, no matter how much better the successors are (unless that successor is Mario 3, in which that installment will be given special treatment and will be milked ad infinitum). It is the same problem that Pokemon has, where Generation I is often regarded as the only one that matters due to it being the first installment (even though the newer games are far superior and most Gen I Pokemon are outclassed by pocket monsters from later generations).

Edited December 26, 2016 by KoimanZX

[FrostyFireMage]

Kent? Really?

Kieran and Sully sure, but Kent? Kent has almost no personality.

Kent does have a personality, you just don't notice it that much with the other cavs shoving their one character trait down your throat all the time

[Rezzy]

Kent does have a personality, you just don't notice it that much with the other cavs shoving their one character trait down your throat all the time

Yeah, Kent's my favorite FE7 cavalier, and I OTP him with Fiora, who people might notice I like.

[Harvey]

Graphics don't mean shit in a game, you'd be best to wise up on this. The Tellius games were more marred by their marketing and the fact that FE wasn't quite big yet, despite this however the games got a cult following over the years, and heck Nintendo even did a reprint of Radiant Dawn several years later after FE got much more popular, a games quality isn't based on their sales either.

If they don't mean anything, then why do games like Breadth of the Wild make it mean otherwise? And if FE is more popular, wouldn't it make sense to do a remake instead of reprinting Radiant Dawn?

[Lord Raven]

Graphics dont tend to mean much in an FE game, because FE game is arguably not at all about the graphics. Zelda games and Final Fantasy games are actually cutting edge for their specific platforms in terms of graphics, but Fire Emblem doesn't come close to it.

And if FE is more popular, wouldn't it make sense to do a remake instead of reprinting Radiant Dawn?

With what money? Remakes cost a ton of money, reprints don't cost nearly as much.

[Rezzy]

Graphics dont tend to mean much in an FE game, because FE game is arguably not at all about the graphics. Zelda games and Final Fantasy games are actually cutting edge for their specific platforms in terms of graphics, but Fire Emblem doesn't come close to it.

With what money? Remakes cost a ton of money, reprints don't cost nearly as much.

Most FE games tend to go for a more stylized graphic form that ages much better in my opinion than trying to be cutting edge. Ocarina of Time and FF7's graphics have not aged well at all, but in comparison, the GBA FE games look decent enough, even today.

[Lord Raven]

Sprite based gameplay has historically aged better than 3D, especially FF7 and OOT's early 3D.

It's still not entirely relevant, since the point was that graphics don't mean a thing for FE games, which is most likely Jedi's context.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Lord Raven

[Jedi]

If they don't mean anything, then why do games like Breadth of the Wild make it mean otherwise? And if FE is more popular, wouldn't it make sense to do a remake instead of reprinting Radiant Dawn?

What I was trying to get at is that Graphics mean nothing in terms of the quality of a game other than eyecandy, sure its nice to look at, but at a games core. They mean very very little.

Remaking another FE would take more money and effort than to reprint Radiant Dawn.

[Refa]

We talked about this, but I'm assuming you mean literal graphical quality over aesthetics and art direction?

[Harvey]

Ok you know what? Fine, I was wrong about Mirage Sessions and yeah, Atlus is more risky than Nintendo. We all should be happy that such a game is part of Fire Emblem and its a unique game of its own. No sarcasm here.

But know this one thing. Before Atlus is what it is now, Atlus used to make terrible games back in the 8-bit era where they constantly lost a lot of money. Somehow, Shin Megami made them what they are now and so Atlus is what it is now, atleast to what you guys want it to think it is which is a fine quality producing RPG maker...who knows maybe even better than Square Enix.

But It doesn't suit my taste and I'm only paranoid of how this will affect the overall FE. There, some proper rephrasing. Happy now?

[Lord Raven]

Many of us are FF fans, and Final Fantasy was a company-saving hail mary to save Square, and it worked despite all of the bad programming. As far as getting third party influence to Nintendo games, I'd say wait it out before throwing doom and gloom. I mean, people feel much more strongly about the issues with Awakening possibly continuing to pervade into FE games hereafter. Not everyone's gonna be a winner and not every FE game will be to everyone's liking.

[Etrurian emperor]

As a forum of general Fire Emblem information we know Cain by his archetype even in the west, no other Red cavalier has that kind of significance in the fandom itself, back when Blazing Sword was first a thing was back when this fanbase was more curious about how this franchise begun, thus the knowledge of said older archetypes.

Do we call Archetypes, the Kent, The Sain, The Marcus, The Nino, The Athos? Or The Stahl, The Sully, The Fredrick, the Donnel or what have you? Even with the massive success of Awakening, people still refer to particular archetypes as the ones Akaneia started, they have staying power.

Sure, we still use the names but when asking people to name a particular Est I'd wager that a lot of them would be quicker to talk about Nino than about the first Est.

When we talk Jagen's I also think that Marcus or Seth evoke more memories than the first Jagen. Though the divide between Oeifey's and Jagen's makes that one a bit murkier.

And in the end those newer characters also have more to work with. If you can only include one red cavalier in a crossover and you choose Cain over Sully or Kieran you have a characters in your story who's not particularly deep or memorable in the personality department, no matter how iconic birthing an archetype made him. And this goes for a lot of Akaneans. Abel seems a little bland compared to the womanizing Sain, Meric can't hope to become as interesting as Soren and Lorenz doesn't have the strong points that Tauroneo has.

And perhaps its not entirely fair to compare them to much more modern versions of their archtype but the chance to make the Akaneans catch up to their counterparts was missed in Shadow Dragon. They got some much needed development in 12 but that game reached a lot less people and I personally say those one or two supports weren't enough to make them catch up.

[Azure Sen]

And in the end those newer characters also have more to work with. If you can only include one red cavalier in a crossover and you choose Cain over Sully or Kieran you have a characters in your story who's not particularly deep or memorable in the personality department, no matter how iconic birthing an archetype made him.

Kieran is pretty much the definition of "shallow character," and Sully has a few moments of depth here and there, but she isn't great in that regard either.

That aside, the fact that they're "more memorable" compared to Cain (pretty much only in the eyes of Western fans) is irrelevant. First and foremost, for better or for worse, IntSys and Atlus's products are primarily aimed at Japanese audiences; of course TMS was going to primarily reference the Akaneia games, the ones most popular over there. (That being said, I would have liked if they had also referenced Gaiden, but I can understand why they didn't.)

[Hasnbaakoajsbakaiaja]

I thought this was "unpopular opinions" not "state things that are false"

My unpopular opinion is that Est are good and Pre-promotes aren't good or at least most of them. That is opinion no? Don't have to be so jerky.

[Hasnbaakoajsbakaiaja]

It was all false. I think the only one that could be true in retrospect is the green cavs always being better - it's not because speed > strength, it's because Abel/Sain/Kyle/Oscar/Alec/Stahl are better than their counterparts (and only Noish has better speed; the rest are slower and hit harder. The only green cavs that have ever been speedier were Oscar and Noish; everyone else had been slower and harder hitting, and Abel may have started faster but Kain has much higher growths in speed). I'd say Alan > Lance by a razor thin margin.

Expect a lot of edits here for the rest. Basically the entire rest was completely off.

Sounds like we agree on these?

Beginner friendly without holding your hand in the same vain that Awakening does.

I don't know how we're defining "worst" but this is subjective.

In both modes, Tate is inferior.

Moulder has better staff rank and a better base level to hit promotion faster. Natasha requires a lot of turtling to hit promotion, and promoting to Bishop raises his offensive capabilities as well as staff using capabilities a lot more, despite having somewhat lower magic and stuff.

No, see "Thany" above and replace "Thany" with "Vanessa." Similar arguments apply; Vanessa is around longer and most likely promoted by the time you get Tana.

Pre-promoted units that are not bad (or amazing at best) in general:

Yeah this is very incorrect. Rutger comes a lot earlier and has more durability, and is likely to be promoted by the time Fir promotes assuming you get Rutger the right experience.

I don't get you. These are opinions. Even if I thought Fir was better than Rutger(which I don't gameplay-wise, but I do character-wise.) that's also subjective.

Most pre-promotes are good for when they start, but get passed up by others and are then obsolete. Most are bad. Or at least I don't find them useful.

I find Tate better than Shanna. Bulkier, stronger and almost as fast. Just comes a little later. But I agree with the other person, only in HM.

Same case with Tana, really good. Better than Vanessa.

Also really? Moulder better than Natasha? Well, I disagree but that's your OPINION.

I think Sophia is pretty good after she is trained, definitely not a good unit overall but...

Nino ends up better than Pent in the end in stats. I can level her to be on par with the rest of my army by Cog of Destiny. So levels isn't a problem. I find her more useful.

In every FE game I've played I always found the Green Knight to be more useful than the red knight. Except maybe 5.

FE8 is easy. Not because of Seth, but because everyone is good and enemies are weak. Seth is good, but isn't as good as people say he is, IMO.

Also for your future reference,(and also to be little cheeky):

o·pin·ion

əˈpinyən/

noun

noun: opinion; plural noun: opinions

1. a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

[Lord Raven]

I don't get you. These are opinions. Even if I thought Fir was better than Rutger(which I don't gameplay-wise, but I do character-wise.) that's also subjective.

It's not subjective that Fir > Rutger in terms of gameplay. If you like her character and personality better, that's subjective. But Rutger is objectively better than Fir in every metric.

Most pre-promotes are good for when they start, but get passed up by others and are then obsolete. Most are bad. Or at least I don't find them useful.

I listed all of the pre-promotes that allow for long-term use, which ends up being like 70% of them or something.

I find Tate better than Shanna. Bulkier, stronger and almost as fast. Just comes a little later. But I agree with the other person, only in HM.]

Same case with Tana, really good. Better than Vanessa.

I talked about this in a lot more detail. Respond to that. Don't restate the argument.

Also really? Moulder better than Natasha? Well, I disagree but that's your OPINION.

No but it's a fact that Moulder > Natasha, for the reasons I had listed.

I think Sophia is pretty good after she is trained, definitely not a good unit overall but...

Sophia isn't worth training. That's the issue. Nothing she does is unique after you build her up, and the cost of building her up is very steep.

Nino ends up better than Pent in the end in stats. I can level her to be on par with the rest of my army by Cog of Destiny. So levels isn't a problem. I find her more useful.

In what way is she more useful? Staff rank? Is the cost to benefit ratio in her favor or in Pent/Erk's favor? By most metrics of useful - which ends up being cost to benefit ratio, by the way - Pent/Erk are ordesr of magnitude better than Nino.

In every FE game I've played I always found the Green Knight to be more useful than the red knight. Except maybe 5.

5 didn't have a green knight or red knight that was relevant... I joked in a chat that the most useful out of Kein and Alva is Finn.

But otherwise this is correct, but not for the reasons that the person who responded to me stated - though everyone says Sully > Stahl (not just Red Fox) and I'm pretty sure Alan/Lance is a 100% wash.

FE8 is easy. Not because of Seth, but because everyone is good and enemies are weak. Seth is good, but isn't as good as people say he is, IMO.

FE8 is 1000000000x easier thanks to Seth, it would be a relatively easy game otherwise but Seth makes FE8 a joke. You at least have to put work into making the other units good (like Vanessa, Franz, Tana, Artur, etc), but Seth requires zero work to make good and maintain.

a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

The point of a forum is to discuss things with others and if someone challenges your opinion, you respond not by stating that you're a special snowflake with your own opinion, but by stating the facts as to why your opinions are correct. As it stands, from your definition, saying that you have an opinion shields your viewpoint from all criticism, but the issue is that this is completely and utterly fucking false. Everything you put on the public domain means that it is liable to criticism, especially in a thread in this context that is meant to foster a sort of discussion as to why something may or may not be unpopular in the end.

As it stands, a belief in the viewpoints you hold are equivalent to believing that something like Quantum Mechanics is total bullshit. I mean, in that case you would be grouped with such intellectuals like Einstein, but nobody liked Einstein when he denied the existence of QM, because he denied its existence based on some stupid shit that was contradicted time and time again by its founders (and later on by scholars who studied it for a living). Don't be like Einstein late in his life. Open up and listen to people who are telling you that it's impossible to have an opinion on crap like Vanessa > Tana and Rutger > Fir because these things are based entirely in fact.

An opinion, in most contexts, is something that can be argued - like the fact that Alan/Lance isn't a wash, that Fates has a good narrative, and things to that effect. Or even political opinions. As wikipedia states, an opinion is not conclusive, but many of the things you stated have a very set-in-stone conclusion rooted in fact.

tl;dr I'm fucking tired of people trying to avoid defending themselves because of the opinion card. This is an open forum, not a soapbox.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Lord Raven

[Hasnbaakoajsbakaiaja]

That is not an opinion because it can be contradicted by fact.

Not really...

[Lord Raven]

Read my edit.

[Hasnbaakoajsbakaiaja]

Read my edit.

I still don't get you. Just cause you listed reasons on why you think a unit is better, doesn't make them.

I agree with you on Sophia, I don't find her good, but if someone did, they wouldn't be wrong.

I also agree with you on Seth, but I don't think he is THAT good. He is really good, but so is everyone else.

[Lord Raven]

I still don't get you. Just cause you listed reasons on why you think a unit is better, doesn't make them.

Yes it does. This sentence contradicts itself.

[Thane]

You know Raven, I really think you're making a good po...

An opinion, in most contexts, is something that can be argued - like the fact that Alan/Lance isn't a wash, that Fates has a good narrative, and things to that effect. Or even political opinions. As wikipedia states, an opinion is not conclusive, but many of the things you stated have a very set-in-stone conclusion rooted in fact.

...

[Lord Raven]

I mean, I didn't read any of Fates' plot to be fair, I got really creeped out by the sibling love crap so I started skipping dialogue around Chapter 8 of my first playthrough. I heard it's real bad though.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Lord Raven

[Thane]

I mean, I didn't read any of Fates' plot to be fair, I got really creeped out by the sibling love crap so I started skipping dialogue around Chapter 8 of my first playthrough. I heard it's real bad though.

You...You've not read the story of Fates?

I thought of numerous ways of phrasing this post, but I realized it might be for the best if you never found out just how bad it actually is.

I mean, if you really want me to rant I mean I guess I could do that...

[Hasnbaakoajsbakaiaja]

It's not subjective that Fir > Rutger in terms of gameplay. If you like her character and personality better, that's subjective. But Rutger is objectively better than Fir in every metric.

I listed all of the pre-promotes that allow for long-term use, which ends up being like 70% of them or something.

I talked about this in a lot more detail. Respond to that. Don't restate the argument.

No but it's a fact that Moulder > Natasha, for the reasons I had listed.

Sophia isn't worth training. That's the issue. Nothing she does is unique after you build her up, and the cost of building her up is very steep.

In what way is she more useful? Staff rank? Is the cost to benefit ratio in her favor or in Pent/Erk's favor? By most metrics of useful - which ends up being cost to benefit ratio, by the way - Pent/Erk are ordesr of magnitude better than Nino.

5 didn't have a green knight or red knight that was relevant... I joked in a chat that the most useful out of Kein and Alva is Finn.

But otherwise this is correct, but not for the reasons that the person who responded to me stated - though everyone says Sully > Stahl (not just Red Fox) and I'm pretty sure Alan/Lance is a 100% wash.

FE8 is 1000000000x easier thanks to Seth, it would be a relatively easy game otherwise but Seth makes FE8 a joke. You at least have to put work into making the other units good (like Vanessa, Franz, Tana, Artur, etc), but Seth requires zero work to make good and maintain.

The point of a forum is to discuss things with others and if someone challenges your opinion, you respond not by stating that you're a special snowflake with your own opinion, but by stating the facts as to why your opinions are correct. As it stands, from your definition, saying that you have an opinion shields your viewpoint from all criticism, but the issue is that this is completely and utterly fucking false. Everything you put on the public domain means that it is liable to criticism, especially in a thread in this context that is meant to foster a sort of discussion as to why something may or may not be unpopular in the end.

As it stands, a belief in the viewpoints you hold are equivalent to believing that something like Quantum Mechanics is total bullshit. I mean, in that case you would be grouped with such intellectuals like Einstein, but nobody liked Einstein when he denied the existence of QM, because he denied its existence based on some stupid shit that was contradicted time and time again by its founders (and later on by scholars who studied it for a living). Don't be like Einstein late in his life. Open up and listen to people who are telling you that it's impossible to have an opinion on crap like Vanessa > Tana and Rutger > Fir because these things are based entirely in fact.

tl;dr I'm fucking tired of people trying to avoid defending themselves because of the opinion card. This is an open forum, not a soapbox.

..!!!! Woah. I thought this was just a topic where people would state what they think in which the majority does not share the same viewpoint. I'm fine with people arguing their point on my comment. But, I disagree with you. I think that Natasha is better than Moulder and that Seth is overrated among the fandom. I would explain why, but I don't feel like it. But if I did, I would, although pointless since you seem pretty rock solid on your perspectives. Maybe someone does not value high strength in their unit or prefers speed over defense. If you are partial to the latter, maybe you would find a unit like Hana more useful than Hinata. Reasons for what makes a unit good can differ between people. Of course this is all hypothetical. I don't know. I guess in conclusion, if some people found that Tana was better than Vanessa, they wouldn't be wrong.