What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

You'll have to forgive me for not knowing/remembering much about his experience with Conquest outside of the singular post that I saw. Anyway, to use an example from my latest playthrough Nichol costs 15 Meat and 14 Wheat. With my current resources it would take 5 trips to the arena (so effectively 5 chapters) to get the necessary resources with a second round arena win compared to 2 if I won all three rounds every time. I wasn't able to use the bribe mechanic all that much outside of getting rallyman asap, but your mileage may vary.

Using Persuade lowers Bribe requirements.

[samthedigital]

8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Using Persuade lowers Bribe requirements.

I'm aware, but that's not really the point.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Standing in terrain and moving (unit placed in forest at beginning of turn moves into another tile) should consume the additional Movement cost. No reason why walking through is more diffcult but standing in it is just fine.

[Scanman]

On 8/18/2023 at 12:43 PM, samthedigital said:

Don't you need to get enough of your "main" ore, swap at a reduced rate to a new one, and then hope to not lose in the arena for the first one? After that a lot depends on how many rounds you're gambling and winning, and I've found that winning the second round can be inconsistent. You might be able to skip this process with some luck and you might be able to get some more earlier on in the game, but that goes back to my original thoughts on the topic where the luck plays a part in my ability to get a captured unit at a specific time.

I found it creates a perverse incentive to kill off characters that you're not going to use (or who can't cook, in Rinkah's case) because you might roll them for the arena and they're just useless. Or they'll get a bonus from the kitchen, which is useless because they won't be used regardless.

I also think the food/ore spawns being based around real-world time is... strange at best, and I don't understand the reasoning behind it. I don't think it makes sense to punish you for going through the game more quickly, rather than doing basically 1 level a day.

Fates is just weird sometimes; they tried to do way too much and some of it fell flat.

[Etrurian emperor]

Hortensia seems pretty divisive but I like her. Of course Hortensia is pretty cringy but mostly just when she's supposed to be. But she's also endearing and somewhat tragic when she needs to be. She's arguably among the characters with one of the more complete character arcs and the game handles it decently enough. She starts out as a Team Rocket villain, then a shaken and desperate villain, and finally a good natured member of the team. And despite the spoiled brat persona there are supports where its shown she takes her duties as princess seriously. 

It also helps that out of all the royals she seems to be the most buddy-buddy with her retainers.

[Metal Flash]

While I`m not a fan of her design, I ended up liking Hortensia much more than anticipated. Her supports with Ivy and Lindon showed a much more mature side to her. 

Spoiler

Her boss dialogue with Corrupted Hyancinth was also pretty touching.

 

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

There c-/should be animal units.

Dogs as pointers (reduce avoid/mov) and, to some degree, Rallybots (pet the damn dog) but Hawks for Hunters (Vision/Range to gamefiy their existence) if the class exists, are examples I can think off without descending into cruelties FE needn´t protray. But then we also have mythical animals - a Wyvern Rider getting off his Wyvern gives you one scary lizard and one footsoldier.

Heck, i can´t remember if the existence of animals as is - livestock, wildlife -  is acknowledged in FE. Not even for purpose of communication. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I always wanted Wyvern Rider to be recontextualized into a Beast Master / Ranger class line, with Wyvern Rider as one of the final branch options that offers flying movement. It would be distinct from other mounted units in that they don't use weapons. Functionally dealing unarmed / "brawling" damage as the beast claws, bites, and pounces on enemies. If you want to mechanically call back to Laguz units you can give them stamina meters too. But yeah, a lot of it comes down to "What animals are people okay with watching have a sword jammed into their face?". Why are we okay with watching horses get murdered? Probably because IS smartly doesn't put a pained Horse Neigh sound whenever they take damage. It helps imply that the Rider is taking all the damage while the horse is just taking a little nappy.

...Hm. Maybe shape shifters turning into animals are the way to go after all. No animal abuse, and we still get to see a unique monster tearing enemies apart in battle. I'll settle for manaketes, IS, just bring 'em back

[Etrurian emperor]

I think morph's or something like it should be given another try. Lately Fire Emblem has been fond of magical monsters as enemies. And they're all boring. Even monsters as imaginative as a bondage shrek always made things far less interesting whenever they showed up. Sacred Stones had the most imaginative designs with giant spiders(...okay not THAT imaginative), centaurs, and all manner of Greek monsters, but because those didn't have personality either they were all boring as well.

But Morphs have personality. Very much so in Sonia's case. Even the lack of personality in cases of Limstella and Denning become them having some sort of personality. They're also cost efficient. No need to create new monster models, just turn some skin grey and some eyes gold. 

[Samz707]

On 9/7/2023 at 10:05 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

I think morph's or something like it should be given another try. Lately Fire Emblem has been fond of magical monsters as enemies. And they're all boring. Even monsters as imaginative as a bondage shrek always made things far less interesting whenever they showed up. Sacred Stones had the most imaginative designs with giant spiders(...okay not THAT imaginative), centaurs, and all manner of Greek monsters, but because those didn't have personality either they were all boring as well.

But Morphs have personality. Very much so in Sonia's case. Even the lack of personality in cases of Limstella and Denning become them having some sort of personality. They're also cost efficient. No need to create new monster models, just turn some skin grey and some eyes gold. 

I agree, Morphs are pretty cool. 

[DefyingFates]

My hot take is that I like Engage's story and characters. It's obviously not as intricate as anything from Three Houses and gets cheesy at times, but Engage has a fine enough story with fun characters (and a few genuinely interesting ones) and some scenes I fully enjoyed, either because they got me in the feels or were downright awesome. Obviously it'd be a problem if every Fire Emblem was like this going forward, but I don't mind some simpler plots from time to time.

It's also better than Fates' plot and cast.

[FRZNHeir]

IDK How unpopular this is but I actually like the biorhythm mechanic in the Tellius games, for what it seemingly wants to achieve- forcing you to rotate your roster depending on who's vibing today and who isn't. I think it would be a lot better if the mechanic was introduced in a game that had skirmishes/map encounters so that everyone had the chance to actually get enough XP to keep up with the game while changing the units you deploy based on map/biorhythm, but that's a separate thing entirely IG

[Shadow Mir]

On 9/7/2023 at 4:05 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

I think morph's or something like it should be given another try. Lately Fire Emblem has been fond of magical monsters as enemies. And they're all boring. Even monsters as imaginative as a bondage shrek always made things far less interesting whenever they showed up. Sacred Stones had the most imaginative designs with giant spiders(...okay not THAT imaginative), centaurs, and all manner of Greek monsters, but because those didn't have personality either they were all boring as well.

But Morphs have personality. Very much so in Sonia's case. Even the lack of personality in cases of Limstella and Denning become them having some sort of personality. They're also cost efficient. No need to create new monster models, just turn some skin grey and some eyes gold. 

Homunculi, huh? That's where you're heading. Cannot say I dislike it, though. Also, have you watched Fullmetal Alchemist? Because I'm of the mind that the morphs in Blazing Blade were inspired by FMA's homunculi.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

25 minutes ago, FRZNHeir said:

IDK How unpopular this is but I actually like the biorhythm mechanic in the Tellius games, for what it seemingly wants to achieve- forcing you to rotate your roster depending on who's vibing today and who isn't. I think it would be a lot better if the mechanic was introduced in a game that had skirmishes/map encounters so that everyone had the chance to actually get enough XP to keep up with the game while changing the units you deploy based on map/biorhythm, but that's a separate thing entirely IG

I don't think it was intended as a deployment mechanic. As it changes as each turn passes. Radiant Dawn also doesn't give you a huge amount of control of who you're actually fielding in any given chapter, and I'd say Path of Radiance's support mechanics means it's outright encouraging you to use the same team for each map. That being said, I do also like the Biorhythm. I think it helps to prevent a single unit from doing too much enemy phase tanking. And, while I've never been big brain enough to intentionally try it, it could probably help you deal with ledges if you know whose biorhythm is at peak. Mostly I like it for how it characterizes certain units. Like Ashera having a pure neutral biorhythm. I think it could be a really good mechanic if you had more ways to actively change it during gameplay. Technically there are, but they consist of very high level Heron skills you will absolutely never use (because +10 hit is never going to be able to compete with a whole second action) or a very late game staff. Some more freely available skills and mechanics could go along way. Like, what if using the Wait command ensured that next turn your biorhythm jumped to it's best state? Like the unit is taking a moment to compose themself? Milling one turn for +10hit on the next turn wouldn't be a terrible deal if you have nothing to do with that unit anyway (though I wouldn't like enemies to use that skill if they're naturally waiting all map to be aggroed). Or just a skill that ignores the negative effects of Biorhythm or doubles the positive effects. Such light weight but still useful skills are perfect for the capacity system where each skill is a resource to distribute. It would never compete with a skill that's just plain hit+20, but in a system where you can only give such a skill to one unit, and how good a skill determines how many skills you can have, low capacity, low yield skills that would influence the biorhythm would be cool.

9 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Homunculi, huh? That's where you're heading. Cannot say I dislike it, though. Also, have you watched Fullmetal Alchemist? Because I'm of the mind that the morphs in Blazing Blade were inspired by FMA's homunculi.

It's possible, but Full Metal Alchemist was in its infancy when Blazing Blade would have began development, and the Homunclus wouldn't have been an explored concept until several chapters in. Nor are they really that similar in execution between Full Metal Alchemist and Blazing Blade. Instead, I'd say that the Morphs were more based on what Fire Emblem had done itself, namely the War Dragons of Binding Blade. They are, if you look at it, pretty much the exact same concept. Artificial soulless beings created to fight. And in the lore of the game itself, Nergal even created them by studying the magic of the dragons in Arcadia (it wasn't those exact dragons who created Idunn, but it isn't a leap to imagine they had similar ideas on how magic works). And, while it's possible FMA could have influenced Blazing Blade, it stands virtually no chance of impacting Binding Blade. As Binding Blade was initially going to be released the very same month as the first FMA manga chapter was released, it ended up getting delayed and pushed back to the following year (resulting in Roy debuting in Melee first), but I think we can conclude that the story itself would have been pretty finalized by July 2001.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Jotari

[FRZNHeir]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I don't think it was intended as a deployment mechanic. As it changes as each turn passes. Radiant Dawn also doesn't give you a huge amount of control of who you're actually fielding in any given chapter, and I'd say Path of Radiance's support mechanics means it's outright encouraging you to use the same team for each map. That being said, I do also like the Biorhythm. I think it helps to prevent a single unit from doing too much enemy phase tanking. And, while I've never been big brain enough to intentionally try it, it could probably help you deal with ledges if you know whose biorhythm is at peak. Mostly I like it for how it characterizes certain units. Like Ashera having a pure neutral biorhythm. I think it could be a really good mechanic if you had more ways to actively change it during gameplay. Technically there are, but they consist of very high level Heron skills you will absolutely never use (because +10 hit is never going to be able to compete with a whole second action) or a very late game staff. Some more freely available skills and mechanics could go along way. Like, what if using the Wait command ensured that next turn your biorhythm jumped to it's best state? Like the unit is taking a moment to compose themself? Milling one turn for +10hit on the next turn wouldn't be a terrible deal if you have nothing to do with that unit anyway (though I wouldn't like enemies to use that skill if they're naturally waiting all map to be aggroed). Or just a skill that ignores the negative effects of Biorhythm or doubles the positive effects. Such light weight but still useful skills are perfect for the capacity system where each skill is a resource to distribute. It would never compete with a skill that's just plain hit+20, but in a system where you can only give such a skill to one unit, and how good a skill determines how many skills you can have, low capacity, low yield skills that would influence the biorhythm would be cool.

In that case, let me say that I think biorhythm should be a thing on a map-by-map basis, with a slightly larger effect on performance, though I think to balance it, the more experienced the unit, the less biorhythm should affect their performance, but that's not really related to unpopular opinions anymore.
Edit: Biorhythm worked chapter-by-chapter in Path of Radiance. SF Page on PoR Biorhythm
 

Edited September 19, 2023 by FRZNHeir

[Etrurian emperor]

I think giving Relics to non crest wielders should have turned them into monsters and permanently killed him off. Some might consider it overly punishing but if the game shows a cutscene of Miklan gruesomely turning into a beast for holding a relic you'd only have yourself to blame if you go out of your way to give a relic to characters with the same handicap as Miklan.

Sometimes Three Houses is too timid to have the lore impact the gameplay. Crests are supposed to be super duper important but in gameplay having them only grants a units very minor bonuses. And wielding relics is supposed to turn plebs into monsters but instead it only gives a small amount of damage when using them.

[Shadow Mir]

I know that censorship is generally frowned upon, but in Fates's case, it actually made one feature BETTER. I have seen the private quarters in the Japanese version, and I can only think "Holy hell, glad that was changed". The face rubbing part bothers me, but worse, it takes too damn long.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I know that censorship is generally frowned upon, but in Fates's case, it actually made one feature BETTER. I have seen the private quarters in the Japanese version, and I can only think "Holy hell, glad that was changed". The face rubbing part bothers me, but worse, it takes too damn long.

the cringe cave is made of cringe

why even go in there, like what for

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I know that censorship is generally frowned upon, but in Fates's case, it actually made one feature BETTER. I have seen the private quarters in the Japanese version, and I can only think "Holy hell, glad that was changed". The face rubbing part bothers me, but worse, it takes too damn long.

I felt like it took too damn long even in the localized version.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I felt like it took too damn long even in the localized version.

Fair enough. I'd imagine you'd have really hated the original. It's almost as bad as Three Houses's godforsaken tea party minigame (something I actively have nothing to do with because the reward is too paltry for the real time investment needed, which is certainly going to involve using a guide if you want to do even remotely well).

[MeteorPhoenix]

Fire Emblem is the one series that makes me thankful for localisers and censors. From removing the face petting to making you unable to marry Anna in Engage, and shit like that.

[Jotari]

I'm philosophically against censorship even if I personally don't like the content being censored.

[lenticular]

I guess that my unpopular opinion is that I don't believe that localisation is censorship.

There are some translations where direct word-for-word literal translation is important. If I'm reading religious text or scripture, then I want to know that the translation I'm reading is as accurate as possible. Similarly if I'm reading a technical manual. The important thing in both of these cases is that all information is conveyed as accurately as possible.

But for a video game, that's not the case. Fundamentally, I do not believe that the job of a video game localiser is to preserve the original work as much as possible. Rather, I see it as the localiser's job to produce a final work that I, as a player in their target market, will find entertaining.

These two elements (accuracy of translation versus entertainment) are always going to be in conflict to some degree. It's inevitable. There are always going to be words that are difficult to translate or cultural context that an audience outside of the native language won't have, for instance. For a highly technical translation, the correct solution might be to have a footnote which discusses this nuance in depth, but that sort of approach isn't really viable for a video game. So, instead, stuff is going to be altered, cut and added. Inevitably. This is going to happen to some extent whether you want it to or not, but many localisers will lean into it and make substantial changes based on what they think will and won't work for the audience in their target language and culture. And from what I have heard of Fire Emblem content that has been significantly changed in localisation, I'd say say yes, most of that stuff would not have landed well for me at all. So good job, localisation teams.

I generally find it helpful to think of translations and localisations as being unique derivative works in their own right. Fire Emblem: Fates is not the same thing as ファイアーエムブレムｉf. (Apologies if I have that wrong; I don't speak Japanese so I just copy-pasted.) It can't be the same thing. If I want to experience the original exactly as its authors intended then I'd have to go and spend years learning Japanese first. Instead, I get to experience the localised version, which is heavily based on the original but is not the original.

There is, of course, a debate to be had about where the line should be drawn in the balance between faithfulness and entertainment, but I don't find that the word "censorship" is a constructive one in this debate. It's an emotive term that tends to shed more heat than light.

[Jotari]

31 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I guess that my unpopular opinion is that I don't believe that localisation is censorship.

There are some translations where direct word-for-word literal translation is important. If I'm reading religious text or scripture, then I want to know that the translation I'm reading is as accurate as possible. Similarly if I'm reading a technical manual. The important thing in both of these cases is that all information is conveyed as accurately as possible.

But for a video game, that's not the case. Fundamentally, I do not believe that the job of a video game localiser is to preserve the original work as much as possible. Rather, I see it as the localiser's job to produce a final work that I, as a player in their target market, will find entertaining.

These two elements (accuracy of translation versus entertainment) are always going to be in conflict to some degree. It's inevitable. There are always going to be words that are difficult to translate or cultural context that an audience outside of the native language won't have, for instance. For a highly technical translation, the correct solution might be to have a footnote which discusses this nuance in depth, but that sort of approach isn't really viable for a video game. So, instead, stuff is going to be altered, cut and added. Inevitably. This is going to happen to some extent whether you want it to or not, but many localisers will lean into it and make substantial changes based on what they think will and won't work for the audience in their target language and culture. And from what I have heard of Fire Emblem content that has been significantly changed in localisation, I'd say say yes, most of that stuff would not have landed well for me at all. So good job, localisation teams.

I generally find it helpful to think of translations and localisations as being unique derivative works in their own right. Fire Emblem: Fates is not the same thing as ファイアーエムブレムｉf. (Apologies if I have that wrong; I don't speak Japanese so I just copy-pasted.) It can't be the same thing. If I want to experience the original exactly as its authors intended then I'd have to go and spend years learning Japanese first. Instead, I get to experience the localised version, which is heavily based on the original but is not the original.

There is, of course, a debate to be had about where the line should be drawn in the balance between faithfulness and entertainment, but I don't find that the word "censorship" is a constructive one in this debate. It's an emotive term that tends to shed more heat than light.

I would broadly agree with you, but I think your final paragraph kind of has a lot of debate to be given. Like, localization being for an intended audience is an argument that could cover almost any form of censorship. Even political censorship could fall into that (this story will resonate better with the audience without the stuff praising the minority we hate...because we're cultivating the audience to hate that minority. Positive feedback loop!). When localizing something like a book it's pretty clear cut. Are all the paragraphs there and could they reasonably be said to convey the same meaning? Good, then a localization. Has anything been outright axed? Well then that's probably censorship. For a non videogame parallel, the final chapter of A Clockwork Orange was axed for the American release because the American publishers thought it was boring and that a darker ending for the book would sell better. Is that localization? The publishers would definitely say so...but the author disagreed with it and only let them do it because he was hardup for cash. His artistic voice was silenced. He wrote that chapter for a reason and it was sort of the capstone for the entire theme of the novel (which admittedly I haven't read, so I can't have an opinion on where I'd fall on it personally). This even effected the movie (which is probably more famous than the book) where the final chapter just isn't adapted because, well, Kubrick is American and he didn't read the version of the book the author actually wrote.

To go back to games, there's also the issue of mechanics. It is very common, especially back in the day where it took up to a year for a game to get released outside of Japan, for a game to undergo purely gameplay changes with a localiation. Usually to make it easier or to finish a planned feature. Then they'd even have the gall to sell it again in Japan as the international version (okay, I say the gall because selling the same game twice I think is a scummy business practice, but usually they are pretty decent changes for games already complete. I guess it was the predecessor of DLC in a way). No one is complaining that we got Tarvos, Lughnasadh and Caladbolg in Radiant Dawn. But...is that localization? It's not really intended for us, Western fans, specifically, they just decided the game would be better with them. And if the game were ever released in Japan again they would very likely be included (if the Japanese developers remember they exist). Because why not? It's not going to hurt the game.

And to finally get back to Fates, what I think I've been trying to approach in a roundabout way, is that face touching was just axed from Fates. It wasn't localized in the sense that the minigame was poorly constructed and needed polishing, or that the sensibilities of western audiences simply wouldn't be able to understand it. It was just removed entirely and we were left with...basically nothing. Basically nothing that takes ages to load. If they had localized the minigame by changing it to something better, either stylistically or mechanically, then I doubt people would have complained as much. Instead it was changed to something worse. I straight up don't like the personal quarters in Fates. The support points you get for it is just not worth the time it takes to sit through doing nothing. And so what do I do? I ignore it. Because it's optional and I have the power to do that in a video game. And if we did get the full blown face touching, I'd probably not bother with it too. And I think that matters in games too. If it's optional content, then who is actually benefiting from it's removal? The people who wouldn't like it were never compelled to play it, and the people that might have liked it are actively missing something. So it comes across less like it's been removed to actually enhance the enjoyment of the product and more like it was remove due to pearl clutching terror that virtual waifus will take over society or something.

[lenticular]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

When localizing something like a book it's pretty clear cut. Are all the paragraphs there and could they reasonably be said to convey the same meaning? Good, then a localization. Has anything been outright axed? Well then that's probably censorship.

I wouldn't agree with that. Abridged versions of books are pretty common. Just from stuff I've personally read in the past few years, I've read abridged versions of Journey to the West and Les Misérables, and I don't think it would be fair to refer to either one of them as being censorship. It's mostly just that the original versions of each are approximately a billion pages long. I can't imagine that my experience would have been improved by a strained attempt to make 16th century Chinese verse forms work in 21st century English, or by digressions about the construction of Paris's sewer system.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

If it's optional content, then who is actually benefiting from it's removal? The people who wouldn't like it were never compelled to play it, and the people that might have liked it are actively missing something. So it comes across less like it's been removed to actually enhance the enjoyment of the product and more like it was remove due to pearl clutching terror that virtual waifus will take over society or something.

I do see your point here, but I think that it only goes so far. Because, yeah, it is optional content, and if I don't like it then I can just not play it... except that the only way I actually learn that is by engaging with it in the first place. I'd have to actually play through it once or twice to learn that it isn't something that I enjoy and that it isn't integral to the game and can genuinely be skipped without significant consequences. I would personally find it a worse experience to sit through something that I find creepy and uncomfortable a couple of times than to sit through something that I find boring and pointless a couple of times.

To go back to the book analogy, I could have had bought an unabridged translation of Les Misérables and then just skipped over the sections about sewers, religious orders, etc. if I wasn't interested in them. Except that how would I know that I wasn't interested in them if I hadn't read them? How would I know which chapters were important to the plot and which were asides that could easily be skipped? I wouldn't. It's part of the job of the translator and abridger to read them for me, know which parts I can skip, and then cut them out for me. I think of it as including an element of curation.

I will say, though, that one thing that complicates the issue further is how all of this interacts with copyright (and other IP) law. Les Misérables is in the public domain. If I don't like the version that I have that was published by Penguin, then I can buy a different translation or an unabridged version from a different publisher, or I can just go and download it from Project Gutenberg or Wikisource. The choice of one particular translator doesn't restrict my access to other versions at all.

The same isn't true for Fire Emblem, of course. Nintendo is the only company who can (legally) publish any version of Fates, which means that the choices of the localisation team do influence what I have access to. Sort of. Because I can still go out and buy the Japanese version if I want to. And while fan translation patches are probably at least a little bit of a legal grey area (IANAL) they aren't something that Nintendo has ever tried to challenge, to the best of my knowledge. But even if we do suppose that the official localisation is the only version available in North America and Europe, I'm still not entirely comfortable with the idea that localisers should be held to different standards based on the copyright status of the works they're localising. If cutting parts out can be the right artistic choice for a 150 year old book, can it not also be the correct artistic choice for a modern video game? Should the localiser have to consider the copyright status of the work as part of their artistic choice? I certainly hope not.

Another thing that I think is worth bringing up is that video games are not typically just the artistic vision of a single person (some indie games excepted). Instead, they're the result of a lot of different artistic voices who aren't all going to be pulling in the same direction at all times. It's entirely normal for stuff in games to be cut and reworked multiple times during development. I can only imagine that in any game, there are going to be people who worked on the game who will disagree to some extent with what finally makes it into the game and what doesn't. Content will get cut that somebody really liked or will get left in that someone else thought didn't really work. That's just the nature of large collaborative projects. But at the end of the day, somebody has to have final cut privilege. And if that's a different somebody for localised versions as for the original then it's hardly surprising that they sometimes make different decisions.