Famitsu June 2015 Fire Emblem Series Reader Poll Results - Translated

[ChibiToastExplosion]

FE1's art style is horrid

And yet somehow it's a million miles ahead of the art direction in 11/12. I enjoy the character portraits but the sprites were awful awful awful, especially after the gift of the GBA sprites.

dismounting would've been better if it wasn't forced

I sort of agree here, but it was a nice variation and made it so mounted units were not the end-all be-all.

reclassing is not a bad thing and completely optional

It's a bad thing because it waters down unit importance. In most fire emblems, when cain/allen/kent die, you're down a cav. and you just can't make more whenever you feel like. A character's class is part of their identity, and now unit discussion always boils down to "well after you've reclassed 8 times and learned x skill and this unit is only good as this" etc. Re-classing offers flexibility at the cost of unit identity.

avatar is mainly bad due to being a self-insert Mary Sue

Avatars also killed the overall story, diminished Marth's accomplishments, and have watered down supports from day 1

the stat caps were stupidly low in FE1 and 3, and character balance was horrid in FE1 and 3, especially the former. Everyone was usable though, because the enemies had horrid stats.

Your second statement contradicts the first. Low stat caps prevented any unit from being completely dominating, even with max stats, and everyone being usable as a character should be seen as a plus in a series dominated by characters. If you for some reason enjoy Matthis, you CAN use him, and I don't see why that's a bad thing.

You want to talk about bad unit balance, look no further than Caeda's wing spear.

FTR, I absolutely love SD/NMotE. But 3 (and when I say 3, I mean both books, as do most people talking about it) is a better package overall imo.

[Katie]

Your second statement contradicts the first. Low stat caps prevented any unit from being completely dominating, even with max stats, and everyone being usable as a character should be seen as a plus in a series dominated by characters. If you for some reason enjoy Matthis, you CAN use him, and I don't see why that's a bad thing.

Everyone being usable=/=balance. If there are units who clearly outclass others, even if the outclassed units are usable, it still isn't balanced. Take for example, the three Fighters. While all 3 of them are usable, Barst is better than the other two in pretty much every conceivable way. He's got better bases, better growths, and as far as final averages go, Bord and Cord only beat him in HP, and in Cord's case, very slightly in weapon level. They also all join in the same chapter, and thus have the same availability. While Bord and Cord are usable, there's pretty much no reason to use them over Barst. I'm not saying everyone shouldn't be usable, everyone should, but I'm saying that I should have an incentive to use a given unit over another unit of that class. Otherwise it's unbalanced.

[ChibiToastExplosion]

Everyone being usable=/=balance. If there are units who clearly outclass others, even if the outclassed units are usable, it still isn't balanced. Take for example, the three Fighters. While all 3 of them are usable, Barst is better than the other two in pretty much every conceivable way. He's got better bases, better growths, and as far as final averages go, Bord and Cord only beat him in HP, and in Cord's case, very slightly in weapon level. They also all join in the same chapter, and thus have the same availability. While Bord and Cord are usable, there's pretty much no reason to use them over Barst. I'm not saying everyone shouldn't be usable, everyone should, but I'm saying that I should have an incentive to use a given unit over another unit of that class. Otherwise it's unbalanced.

Everything you said here also applies to 11/12 Barst/Cord/Bord. Barst is the only real usable one there, too (and he's awesome, due to being able to promote. One of the few units to really benefit from the new system).

[Katie]

Everything you said here also applies to 11/12 Barst/Cord/Bord. Barst is the only real usable one there, too (and he's awesome, due to being able to promote. One of the few units to really benefit from the new system).

This is true, though keep in mind, usability largely depends on difficulty chosen in SD/NM, and on Normal Mode of those games, the enemies are just as terrible as in the originals, so everyone remains viable in those modes. Harder difficulties are another story, but that's pretty much always been the case ever since FE6 introduced multiple difficulty modes.(FE2, 4, and 5's don't really count) Also keep in mind reclassing can be used to fix a units weak points, due to the variable growths based on class. Don't like a units defense? Make them a Knight for a few levels. A unit too slow for you? Let them be a Swordmaster for a bit. In a way, it's kind of like how you'd use the star shards in FE3 to fix a units weak stats, and I'm pretty sure that's why they don't boost growths anymore in FE12, because you already have reclassing for that.

[Phoenix_Kensai]

Thanks for translating that, Kirokan. It was an entertaining read.

I was glad to see Pegasus Knights and Blazing Sword make it to first and second, respectively. Mostly Pegasus Knights. I'm shallow.

...What are “Battle-Daddies”?

[Katie]

...What are “Battle-Daddies”?

I'm actually wondering the same thing. Google doesn't seem to be of help here.

[Kirokan]

Thanks for translating that, Kirokan. It was an entertaining read.

I was glad to see Pegasus Knights and Blazing Sword make it to first and second, respectively. Mostly Pegasus Knights. I'm shallow.

...What are “Battle-Daddies”?

I'm actually wondering the same thing. Google doesn't seem to be of help here.

A bit of silliness on my part, but was how I translated　戦う親父たち "Warrior dads" (as in, male characters who fight that can have children as well...xD I guess). The informal tone of the rest of the sentence made me opt for "battle-daddies" instead of "warrior dads"

I like how it became a point of discussion though. xD