Fire Emblem Pet Peeves and Petty Complaints!

[Armagon]

You know what's another thing that's always bothered me?

Spoiler

How apparently Elibe's air is toxic for Nils and Ninian (with Ninian dying in a few years because of it, should she stay with Eliwood) yet it's perfectly fine for the other Dragons living in Arcadia.

It can't be because Nils and Ninian are half-human, because Sophia is also half-human and she has no problems. And Nils and Ninian were born in Elibe too. So why is the air toxic for them?

 

[shadowofchaos]

On 4/25/2017 at 5:28 PM, Thane said:

Oh I've got nothing against the word. What bothers me far more than it should is how that's the standard word for humans. They could've just made the Laguz call humans Beorc as a fantasy insult, which would've made much more sense, but no, the humans of Tellius are Beorcs and just call themselves humans. It's beyond silly to call regular humans something else and then have the word human be an insult.

Just for context: In Japanese fantasy settings the word 人間 is regularly used as a condescending term by antagonists that aren't human.

So, for them it works A LOT better.

 

As for me, it's mixing gameplay and story.

People inherently have biases for characters they like in gameplay, that's understandable. But unit evaluation means removing yourself as much as possible from the equation.

Edited April 30, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Thane]

Just now, shadowofchaos said:

Just for context: In Japanese fantasy settings the word 人間 is regularly used as a condescending term by antagonists that aren't human.

So, for them it works A LOT better.

I actually knew that, but if that's what they were going for, then maybe this is something that should've been changed in the localization. Even then, having a different name for humans while the same term exists and is considered wrong is odd. 

If I put it like this, just to double check: is there any way Beorc, or ベオク, could not work as a standard fantasy insult? As far as I know, it means nothing.

[shadowofchaos]

1 hour ago, phineas81707 said:

Or how Hector's wife didn't grind Zephiel into fine paste?

Context-wise: It's assumed, just like Chrom, in other media outside of the very game, that any lord pairing is defaulted to the "Generic Village Girl".

I mean, hell. Eliwood could have found a generic village girl that likes Ilian Flowers.

Edited April 30, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Slumber]

6 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Really? I thought it was alright. Less cool than the sword beams at first, but throwing a sword straightforward like a spear was actually a viable (albeit situational) technique that was used historically.

Yes, but swords aren't designed for throwing. And as far as I know, no swords are designed to be thrown. Even if it was used situationally in history, that doesn't mean this was practical or plausible.

Compare to hatchets, tomahawks or various other axes, which are light enough and have proper weight distribution to make for pretty good throwing weapons. And many spears/javelins, which again, are ergonomically designed to be thrown.

Granted, you could argue that "Well, axes in general aren't good war weapons either. They tend to get stuck in flesh and bones, and how their wide arcs leave you open. Maces and clubs are generally just better as they do their damage and don't get stuck." but Fire Emblem's established from the first game that axes are just used in every army ever. Fire Emblem established that throwing swords are a thing after 12 iterations, right after they already had a decent solution for 1-2 range swords that worked for a magic fantasy setting.

Plus, it just looks silly. And, despite what the FE games tell you, swords aren't cheap. They're like, 90% metal, 10% wood.

Edited April 30, 2017 by Slumber

[bethany81707]

10 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

Context-wise: It's assumed, just like Chrom, in other media outside of the very game, that any lord pairing is defaulted to the "Generic Village Girl".

I mean, hell. Eliwood could have found a generic village girl that likes Ilian Flowers.

Well, at the very least, Hector should be able to beat Narcian and Brunnya.

[Omegaprism]

For years I have wished for a manakete lord, and when we finally get one, IntSys managed to ruin it. I could have forgiven more of Corrin's total lack of agency or character development if they had just let us be more like the manaketes in every. Single. Other. Iteration. But no!

-No double attacks!

-It's a melee attack that uses the dragon's body in the animation, but it works off of Magic for some reason!

-You only get two kinds of stone: The rough equivalent to an iron weapon, and then a C-rank stone that is arguably even worse than the first one!

-This unique, unseen-in-generations power that you have is TOTALLY IGNORED BY THE ENTIRE CAST, NAY, THE ENTIRE GAME WORLD ITSELF!

I just want an awesome dragon lord, IS. Is that too much to ask?

[Fala]

On 4/25/2017 at 7:34 PM, Armagon said:

Some of my FE pet peeves.

1. Redundant Classes. One of the things that bothered me about FE4 was that we had Classes like Fire Mage, and Wind Mage, and Thunder Mage. And then there was the regular Mage. Why so many Mages? This applies to the Sword, Lance, and Axe Cavaliers too.

FE4 had specialist classes because it's easier to specialize in weapon type that your dukedom/kingdom is known to be good at. FE10 has NO excuses what-so-ever.

My actual problems:

Why the fuck didn't Eirika or Ephraim get a second class to pick from. The class that they do get is boring as fuck (all they get is a horse. Yey.) and doesn't change anything in terms of how they play outside of movement.

Why the fuck do swords and wind magic dominate FE4?

Why the fuck can't they're be a morally ambiguous Lord? Not everyone is morally sound all the time. And not every member of royalty is going to be good. King John of England, anybody?

Edited May 4, 2017 by Fala

[Azzurohr]

Spoiler

• People drawing Lucia's fringe on the right side of her face, not the left where it actually is. A true pet peeve and a stupid one lmao.
   
• Giving Lucia low bases, low availability AND high starting level but stupidly amazing growths in PoR; then giving her good bases and starting level but bad availability AND growths in RD. WHY IN THE HELL, I.S. YOUR BALANCING PLEASE. Oh; bonus points for emulating her PoR growths onto RD Mia. Also this doesn't have Lucia live up to her name of being Elincia's retainer; realistically she should be the second best swordmaster after Stefan. Seriously WHY MAN WHY. 
   
• Elincia not ever interacting with Micaiah or seeing her view on her in RD.
   
• Elincia as well as the rest of the Crimeans getting pretty much shafted apart from Heart of Crimea in RD. 
   
• Heart of Crimea not being entirely dedicated to the Crimeans and making them playable. 
   
• The Crimeans being turned into a comedic act (no seriously; Marcia, Heather, Astrid, Makalov, Nephenee, Bro- ALL OF THEM OK)
   
• Elincia not being able to hurt and take down Ashnard in FE9. HE KILLED HER PARENTS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER AND TRAVELLED WITH IKE ALL THIS WAY TO RESTORE HER HOMELAND. COME THE HELL ON MAN. Not even smashing Ludveck for what he did to Lucia is enough despite being VERY satisfying.
   
• Yep, all for the only Ike can defeat Ashera bullshit. Yep. 
   
• The grinding for skills in Awakening. I'd sooner shoot myself in the foot thanks.
   
• Trying to recreate and recapture Part 2 Endgame of RD with Chapter 9 of Awakening. You just CAN NOT RECREATE PART 2 ENDGAME OF RD. YOU CAN NOT; and they recreated it HORRIBLY too btw (no character development, surprise bullshit attack of archers out of nowhere, what the hell man)
   
• Deathright. No literally not Birthright; Deathright because of how they threw deaths left right and centre at you to try and make you as sad and feelsy as possible. I was especially peeved off at Flora's pointless suicide; I was so angry at that WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT.
   
• Do I even need to mention Mr. Gloryfied Over-Hyped taking every single character's spotlight limelight Radiant Hero in Radiant Dawn who shafted who was meant to be the true lord of Radiant Dawn? 
   
• Ike's Radiant Dawn ending which completely contradicts what he promised in FE9 to Mist and literally everyone there as well as even in FE10. NO, YOU DO NOT JUST NOT EVER SEE MIST AND TITANIA AND ALL THE PEOPLE YOU LOVED AND CARED ABOUT EVER AGAIN LIKE THAT. NO IKE, NO. YOU GO VISIT THEM AFTER A FEW YEARS AND SEND LETTERS YOU DOOFUS.
   
• No support conversations for Lucia/Elincia and Eincia's only convos in PoR being her "love interests" as such. 
   
• Selena's death in FE8. BUT SHE COULD'VE LIVED. BUT SHE COULD'VE BEEN SAVED. ANYTHING MAN, ANYTHING TO KEEP HER. WHY HER MAN.
   
• How long-spiralling Eliwood's story is in FE7. Yes I know it's praised to the high heavens the story and all; but for me it got long, draggy and boring for me. Especially with how long it took Nergal to tell Eliwood he'd killed Ninian. WHAT THE HELL MAN. 
   
• Not describing skills when viewing them in base in FE9. Um hi? How are you supposed to know what they are? HELLO?
   
• How broken skills are in RD. 

That's...all I can think of atm. But I bet I have more lol.

Edited May 5, 2017 by Azzurohr

[Cute Chao]

Ike landing the final blow is a big one for me. I think it was what set the final thing off for me really hating him as a character. Being forced to use him like that for a final boss, when there were several other strong characters around... it just grated on me. And all the hype he gets everywhere since. Ike just annoys me now. 

Abel's ending with Est. Seriously biggest wth ever. It's made me hate her so much, and I think it's the stupidest ending in a game where half the characters just vanish. 

Wolf still being suicidal despite his conversation with Kris. They should have an ending together. He clearly is in a different mood after that talk. 

Geoffrey only being able to support with two characters in PoR. He had so many supports removed >.<

Supports being removed for RD and SD. It's my biggest draw with playing the game. I can forgive pre-fe6, but this really annoyed me. 

RD's weird act structure as a whole. I like building units up and recruiting from start to finish, not being forced to use random ones and not being given time to raise others. I don't want to play a whole chapter about frickin' Meg. 

NMotE not coming out over here. I'll never get over that >.<

Manakete girls. They're always girls (save Bantu and M!Corrin). They're nearly always loli. Clothes seem to be getting skimpier with each iteration. I don't want to play a practically naked twelve year old in any game! Oh yeah, Nowi is '1000' or whatever. She looks twelve! And you can pair her with Gregor, who looks forty!

Pants. Seriously, just give the female armoured people pants. Stop taking them away. Do guys really find that sexy? Even if it were done for men (and I like male fanservice), I'd be too distracted by how stupid it looks and is :/ 

They randomly reduce Chrom and Sumia's supports. It feels like they're trying to force them together, which in turn makes me not want to put them together. 

Michalis can't save Maria in NMotE. Seriously, he's just left out of it? I'm glad he's saved (it was heartbreaking to think of Maria doing all that only for him to die... and he's pretty), but he should be able to recruit her as well. 

You can't recruit Gale in FE6. I want Gale :( I also want FE8 Glen, but at least there are reasons you can't get him (I still fanfiction him getting saved lol).

Kent isn't in Heroes yet. (Well, you said petty xD). 

Bunny!Kent is also not in Heroes yet. (...yeah, super petty...) 

[Armagon]

16 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

Manakete girls. They're always girls (save Bantu and M!Corrin). They're nearly always loli. Clothes seem to be getting skimpier with each iteration. I don't want to play a practically naked twelve year old in any game! Oh yeah, Nowi is '1000' or whatever. She looks twelve! And you can pair her with Gregor, who looks forty!

Bold: You sure about that? Because, Adult Tiki, Nah, F!Corrin and F!Kana don't have skimpy clothing. It's literally just Nowi who does that.

This is just my thought.

[Cute Chao]

Just now, Armagon said:

Bold: You sure about that? Because, Adult Tiki, Nah, F!Corrin and F!Kana don't have skimpy clothing. It's literally just Nowi who does that.

This is just my thought.

Okay, I have to be honest there. I did exaggerate ^.^''. In Heroes, A!Tiki's attack art really shows her bosom in a bit too in-your-face way, so I kept thinking of that, although that is admittedly the most fanservicy of all the Fire Emblems for obvious reasons. Nowi is the worst offender, and the one that got me, but I was exaggerating, since Nah isn't underdressed. That being said there should not be any girls who look twelve that underdressed in anything. Seriously, I hate looking at her clothing. It's just wrong. I don't care if it's a culture thing or whatever. She's wearing practically nothing. 

F!Corrin also has that idiotic thigh gap thing that her male counterpart doesn't have. It's a huge peeve of mine. 

Plus, why no male manaketes? Are they allergic? Is Bantu really the best they can do? (Again, not currently counting Kana and Corrin as they are the main lords and aren't purely one or the other gender in canon). Even Nils doesn't turn into a dragon at all (Ninian does, though you can't play) and Xane has a different way of transforming. Bantu is the only purely male manakete, and there's never a reason why except loli girls, it seems. So yes, I would like some (preferably not shota just to replace the loli) male manaketes. Even another old, wizened one. 

[Armagon]

Just now, Cute Chao said:

Plus, why no male manaketes?

Yeah, this is also a pet peeve of mine. I don't know why playable male Manaketes are non-exist aside from Bantu (and M!Corrin/Kana but they don't really count). 

If i had to make a guess, the reason why female manaketes are so common (and also why some tend tend to be lolis) is probably a Japan thing. I feel like Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (amazing anime btw) kinda proves this.

Shoutout to Al to being one of the few males Manakets but unfortunately, he's exclusive to Fire Emblem: Hasha no Tsurugi (great manga btw).

[Cute Chao]

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Yeah, this is also a pet peeve of mine. I don't know why playable male Manaketes are non-exist aside from Bantu (and M!Corrin/Kana but they don't really count). 

If i had to make a guess, the reason why female manaketes are so common (and also why some tend tend to be lolis) is probably a Japan thing. I feel like Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (amazing anime btw) kinda proves this.

Shoutout to Al to being one of the few males Manakets but unfortunately, he's exclusive to Fire Emblem: Hasha no Tsurugi (great manga btw).

I have to admit, I didn't like that one so much, personally. I was younger at the time, though. I always thought of giving it another read but haven't got round to it. I would like to see the characters playable in Heroes, though. That'd be good. 

Even in Heroes, with the male and female Corrins, they made her the dragon and him the sword user :/ Why not do both but different colours, like they did with Robin and their tomes, or just give us one frickin' male dragon? 

Big peeve lol 

 

Edit: Another peeve I have... Why not let Inigo be a dancer or Shigure a singer? Make it so you can only deploy one singer/dancer per map, or even as a reclassing feature where you have to reclass Olivia/Azura first before they can be classed into their role? I mean, it's probably these fiddly bits that made it so you can't, but I would love for the boys to be able to dance. 

I'm glad they've at least let boys ride pegasi again... now if they could stop taking away the female armour parts (Camilla's breastplate, Cherche's back armour) and their trousers (female Corrin, Effie, Wendy, Camilla again... the list goes on. It's ridiculous) 

Edited May 13, 2017 by Cute Chao

[Etrurian emperor]

14 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

Okay, I have to be honest there. I did exaggerate ^.^''. In Heroes, A!Tiki's attack art really shows her bosom in a bit too in-your-face way, so I kept thinking of that, although that is admittedly the most fanservicy of all the Fire Emblems for obvious reasons. Nowi is the worst offender, and the one that got me, but I was exaggerating, since Nah isn't underdressed. That being said there should not be any girls who look twelve that underdressed in anything. Seriously, I hate looking at her clothing. It's just wrong. I don't care if it's a culture thing or whatever. She's wearing practically nothing. 

F!Corrin also has that idiotic thigh gap thing that her male counterpart doesn't have. It's a huge peeve of mine. 

Plus, why no male manaketes? Are they allergic? Is Bantu really the best they can do? (Again, not currently counting Kana and Corrin as they are the main lords and aren't purely one or the other gender in canon). Even Nils doesn't turn into a dragon at all (Ninian does, though you can't play) and Xane has a different way of transforming. Bantu is the only purely male manakete, and there's never a reason why except loli girls, it seems. So yes, I would like some (preferably not shota just to replace the loli) male manaketes. Even another old, wizened one. 

There's Nasir if you count Dragon Laguz as Manakutes. I appreciate his design a lot for not being a loli.

[Armagon]

2 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

I would like to see the characters playable in Heroes, though. That'd be good. 

I feel like it can happen. After all, the Hasha no Tsurugi characters are gonna be in the next FE Cipher set.

4 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

Even in Heroes, with the male and female Corrins, they made her the dragon and him the sword user :/ Why not do both but different colours, like they did with Robin and their tomes, or just give us one frickin' male dragon? 

I guess its because the Yato is a thing, so they needed one Corrin to use the Yato and the other to use the Dragonstone.

Though they still could've done M!Corrin being the dragon and F!Corrin using the Yato.

[Cute Chao]

2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

There's Nasir if you count Dragon Laguz as Manakutes. I appreciate his design a lot for not being a loli.

I very much appreciate Nasir's design, but I wasn't counting him. Laguz felt like something completely different to me. Although, if we did, all of them are nicely done - Kurth, Ena, Rajaion, Nasir, Deghinsea and Gareth. No over-fanservice and nice designs all round. It shows they can do it. They just won't -.- 

@Armagon

True enough. When I first thought of it, I was thinking F!Corrin just be the sword user, but then I thought, if they really had something against it, just have both be dragons. It's not like we have a large amount of dragons, unless they give the FE9/10 dragons Fire Breath... and even then, that's only 6 or 7 (if they make Almedha a dragon) more... 

Edited May 13, 2017 by Cute Chao

[Von Ithipathachai]

My pet peeves:

-Uneven distribution of Arenas throughout Mystery of the Emblem Book 2.

-How huge Genealogy of the Holy War's maps are; they make sense narratively, fitting with the game's historical epic theme, but in practice they're huge slogs to play through.  I recall a few times when I completely forgot a unit on the other side of the map who couldn't catch up with everyone else.

-The way the Fenrir spell in the Jugdral games laughs at you.  Ha-HA, ha-HA, ha-HA, ha-HA, ha-HA!

-Xavier and Douglas's recruitments.  Please, just, no.

-The fact that Nina inherits none of her father's dark skin when Ignatius does.

-The lack of playable axe users in Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia.

[Tolvir]

Spells/Abilities costing HP in Shadows of Valentia. While I can understand it for Gaiden, it just felt like a lazy excuse for an MP system in SoV. I felt it was less keeping the charm of Gaiden and just keeping an archaic system brought about only because of technical limitations. Same can be said about the maps.

Playing through Path of Radiance recently, and I forgot just how underleveled some characters are. Chapter 11 and Boyd, Oscar, and Rhys are already promoted, and Ike is level 18. Nephenee, Brom, Marcia, Mist, and Rolf all come in extremely low level to the point that I would almost rather not use them. So my pet peeve with this is underleved characters. Can we at least set characters to a reasonable level upon recruitment so that they dont get completely mauled the minute they are usable? At least Keiran comes in at level 12 and is usable upon recruitment. Might not be the best at first, but he isnt going to get killed by the first peasant with a pitchfork at least.

Galeforce in Awakening and Fates. I wish that skill would die in the very depths of hell itself. Has to be one of the most overpowering skills I have seen in any video game. I really hope it is gone in the next FE. At least SoV is giving me a break from it.

[Armagon]

Just now, Tolvir said:

Spells/Abilities costing HP in Shadows of Valentia. While I can understand it for Gaiden, it just felt like a lazy excuse for an MP system in SoV. I felt it was less keeping the charm of Gaiden and just keeping an archaic system brought about only because of technical limitations

To be fair, there at least is a lore reason as to why Spells cost HP. The reason Tomes and Staffs exist is to reduce the stress placed on the body when magic is used. For some reason, Valentians never use Tomes (though Clerics are clearly shown to have Staffs, maybe it's just decoration for them), and because of that, they channel their magic through their bodies and not an external item. Thus, the HP Magic Cost. We see this outside of Gaiden/Echoes too, as shown in Tellius with Micaiah's Sacrifice Skill. She can use healing magic without a Staff, but it takes a toll on her a bit.

 

Can't say the same for Arts tho. For Arts, it's purely a gameplay thing.

[Interdimensional Observer]

45 minutes ago, Tolvir said:

Chapter 11 and Boyd, Oscar, and Rhys are already promoted, and Ike is level 18.

Ike I can understand, but 3 promoted units? What difficulty did you pick? BEXP dumping can only get like 1 unit to 20/1 on Hard and probably Normal. If you're playing Easy and in an extremely casual manner, well that's the problem, not so much Neph and Brom.

Hailhorse is only bad in Awakening. Unless you play on Normal/use DLC, snowballing to 35 isn't possible. Plus, the inability to use Offensive or Defensive Stances for Wailnorse in Fates makes it not so easily abusable.

[Tolvir]

30 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Ike I can understand, but 3 promoted units? What difficulty did you pick? BEXP dumping can only get like 1 unit to 20/1 on Hard and probably Normal. If you're playing Easy and in an extremely casual manner, well that's the problem, not so much Neph and Brom.

Hailhorse is only bad in Awakening. Unless you play on Normal/use DLC, snowballing to 35 isn't possible. Plus, the inability to use Offensive or Defensive Stances for Wailnorse in Fates makes it not so easily abusable.

Hard. It was just a matter of feeding xp to Boyd and Oscar instead of Shinon and Gatrie, due to them leaving. Add in the Master Seal for Rhys and that is 3 promoted units. I was a little surprised to be honest, first time I have done that. Still though, brim and nephenee are really underleved for when they join. 

Edit: @Armagon I had no clue, interesting. That definitely changes my view on it a bit. Still not a fan of the idea, but at least it makes more sense lore wise.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Tolvir

[Zapp Branniglenn]

When a character says something that can only be said in the context of our real world and not the fictional Fire Emblem universe. Like during the Maribelle x Frederick C support where the words "dusting china" are used. Referring to dinnerware. It can only be called "china" in a universe where China exists. This is the only example I can think of offhand, but I'm certain other exists in these games, and it bothers me. Fire Emblem feels like that type of fantasy universe that takes its lore and characters seriously, even through its levity and tone direction, so mistakes like this should be easy to spot and never come into conflict with the writer's intent.

[Chad Radwell]

The immediate one that comes to mind is the sacrifice of Frey. I love him, he's a good man. He reminds me of this guy. It wouldn't be so bad if there was another character soon after that was kind of similar to him, but iirc it becomes a twink party for a while. 

No beefy male build for Corrin. I got really attached to my Julien Solomita-lookin' Robin and I wanted another big boy (like I would actually just straight up play as Gatrie) in Fates, but it wasn't going to happen, apparently.

And on top of that, still no skin tone slider for the Avatar? Why? Like, from a design standpoint even, some of the hair colours look really bad with their skin tone. 

Also, any time there's a 3D model that's got that awful, chunky hair flowing out around them. Just...stop. Have it lie flat. Hard side-eyeing pre-haircut Lucia for this one.

EDIT: Janaff's posture, especially in RD, makes me cringe. Not that the previous game is any better. When I first encountered him, I genuinely thought he was a cute little grandma because of that uncomfortable slouch. (And he's an all-time favourite too so I get to look at that a lot hoohoo)

Spoiler

His name is Isles and I repurposed him for a different story because I loved him so much. Look at this giant man. What a guy.

 

Edited May 22, 2017 by Tibarn's Distracting Lisp

[Res]

- In-game couples (with a very few exceptions, although the siblings are rather tacked-on afterthoughts) have just the one kid each

- In Fates, there's not even a single word of acknowledgement of the physical toll having kids would take on the mothers