What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Metal Flash]

On 12/5/2023 at 9:16 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Not sure how unpopular this one is exactly, but I don't think I have shared it in this thread yet. Engage is a game that is funner to play than it is to talk about, while Three Houses is a game that is funner to talk about than it is to play.

Honestly, I find myself agreeing with this. 

I actually don`t mind Avatars having platonic final supports. Not all their endings need to be romantic. However, they should not both be labeled as S-supports. Have the romantic ones still be S-rank, while the platonic final support is A+-rank.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Metal Flash said:

Honestly, I find myself agreeing with this. 

I actually don`t mind Avatars having platonic final supports. Not all their endings need to be romantic. However, they should not both be labeled as S-supports. Have the romantic ones still be S-rank, while the platonic final support is A+-rank.

Does S have any inherent connection to romance though? Like, the S doesn't stand for Snuggling or something I'm pretty sure. It's just the standard rank denoting something higher than A(for some reason, who came up with that?*). They very well could have went with A+ in Awakening and that's what we could call marriage supports nowadays. I guess, one can say Fates established A+ as a "platonic non marriage marriage support", only, A+ supports don't actually have conversations attached to them in Fates, so separating romantic and platonic supports into S and A+ could mistakenly give veteran players the indication that those supports don't have conversations. If they're to be split (which honestly I don't see much need to do, especially in a game without children where it effects nothing mechanically), it should probably be something like R for Romance and F for friend, though F rank sounds kind of bad, so maybe IDK, P for Pal.

*Huh...Japanese schools. That...was not what I was expecting. I work in a Japanese elementary school and there is no rank. In fact it's a bit weird for Japan to even be using Roman characters for grading at all, though I suppose circle double circle and triangle looks a bit juvenile outside of elementary school despite geometry being the one universal set of symbols all humanity (and all intelligent life if it's out there) share.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Jotari

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

2 hours ago, Metal Flash said:

However, they should not both be labeled as S-supports. Have the romantic ones still be S-rank, while the platonic final support is A+-rank.

Why tho? To avoid abstract confusion on the content of what you might be about to read? 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Does S have any inherent connection to romance though? Like, the S doesn't stand for Snuggling or something I'm pretty sure. It's just the standard rank denoting something higher than A(for some reason, who came up with that?*). They very well could have went with A+ in Awakening and that's what we could call marriage supports nowadays. I guess, one can say Fates established A+ as a "platonic non marriage marriage support", only, A+ supports don't actually have conversations attached to them in Fates, so separating romantic and platonic supports into S and A+ could mistakenly give veteran players the indication that those supports don't have conversations. If they're to be split (which honestly I don't see much need to do, especially in a game without children where it effects nothing mechanically), it should probably be something like R for Romance and F for friend, though F rank sounds kind of bad, so maybe IDK, P for Pal.

Colour code it instead - grey-green-blue-violet-orange - and when u reach orange it loudly yells LEGENDARY!

didnt PoR and that other Ike game denote relationships or base camp talks with X amount of stars to show progress?

[Eltosian Kadath]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Does S have any inherent connection to romance though? Like, the S doesn't stand for Snuggling or something I'm pretty sure. It's just the standard rank denoting something higher than A(for some reason, who came up with that?*). They very well could have went with A+ in Awakening and that's what we could call marriage supports nowadays. I guess, one can say Fates established A+ as a "platonic non marriage marriage support", only, A+ supports don't actually have conversations attached to them in Fates, so separating romantic and platonic supports into S and A+ could mistakenly give veteran players the indication that those supports don't have conversations. If they're to be split (which honestly I don't see much need to do, especially in a game without children where it effects nothing mechanically), it should probably be something like R for Romance and F for friend, though F rank sounds kind of bad, so maybe IDK, P for Pal.

*Huh...Japanese schools. That...was not what I was expecting. I work in a Japanese elementary school and there is no rank. In fact it's a bit weird for Japan to even be using Roman characters for grading at all, though I suppose circle double circle and triangle looks a bit juvenile outside of elementary school despite geometry being the one universal set of symbols all humanity (and all intelligent life if it's out there) share.

I think you have solved it with your side note about grading, we should use symbols for the final support: ❤️ for romantic, ♦️ for platonic...

Although using those symbols makes me think back to Homestuck and the quadrants of the trolls, and while♣️ would be a bit complicated to adapt, and would probably be better used to represent a different final relationship type, using ♠️ to represent a consuming lifelong rivalry would an interesting addition for a possible final relationship position for supports.

 

Edit: In a sense Engage was already transitioning towards symbols for final support with it being labeled💍 instead of S, they just didn't differentiate things beyond that.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Eltosian Kadath
wanted to add something immediately after posting...

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Why tho? To avoid abstract confusion on the content of what you might be about to read? 

Colour code it instead - grey-green-blue-violet-orange - and when u reach orange it loudly yells LEGENDARY!

didnt PoR and that other Ike game denote relationships or base camp talks with X amount of stars to show progress?

No, I'm pretty sure base conversations in Tellius have a grading based on their gameplay value. Something like 1* for unimportant character information, 2* for map based information (in universe ways of suggesting strategies or warnings for traps) and 3* for an actual item or character recruitment. Maybe it goes higher than that based on value of items/characters obtained.

That being said, New Mystery does rank its base conversations that are blatantly actually supports by stars for wether it's the first second or third conversation. That's probably what you were thinking about.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Jotari

[Dayni]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Honestly it's a bit strange they even made the original Black and White to begin with and didn't just stick to the one generation per hand held console format they'd established before. They could have kept things spinning without a whole lot of effort and still earned a bunch of money.

Thing is, it could argue about the DSi being different enough like the GBC to the GB to be on it's own, but it was available on the regular DS (Same with Gold/Silver). And while I know Gen 7 wasn't released for just New 3DS, considering how performance issues were a presence on the older models that could be argued too.

As for keeping the wheel spinning and leaving Gen 5 to the 3DS, it seems like BW were being worked on for a bit beforehand, even if their release was close to HGSS. So maybe they felt they could act on the DS because the 3DS specs hadn't been given and they had the time to release on the DS?

6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Admittedly, Pokemon has always been late to the party. The original RG came out in 1996, while RB made it out of Japan in 1998. On a console that came out in 1989/90. Months before the Game Boy Color was due out. RS took about 18 months, while Diamond & Pearl came out about 30 months after the DS in North America. Likewise for X & Y. Game Freak probably don't want to get out in front of any unproven console.

There's also the prep time needed for a new set of hardware, especially for something specialised like the DS would add time on to the start of the first title to a new console. Localisation of course being another factor up to Gen 6.

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Quite unpopular, apparently. The prevailing notion from what I recall is that FX's story was much better than the main game's.

I disagree. Feels just darker and edgier and Darkness Induced Audience Apathy on me... but that's just me.

Thing is, it's funny.

Spoiler

The stakes for the story end up being completely torn down by the end, with the entire world barring the Fell Kids and the Four Winds being corrupted, so the goal has been to secure the bracelets from an uncertain foe to preserve a dead humanity, who it turns out was Rafal, who pretended to be Nil and got so into it that it conflicted with his ambitions that had been both pushed on him by Sombron and influenced by the stone Sombron had corrupted..... and in the end the answer was Nel stabs herself to break the stone that it turned out would influence Nil. When they could have removed and hidden the stone....... Or would the influence of the stone be like The One Ring? Anyways, the answer was Nel kill herself rather than the man she considered her brother, which freed him to revive her. I dunno, this didn't click for me, though I at least think the emotional threads for this are fine.

Meanwhile, just because the characters had mirror personalities didn't mean they changed sides beforehand, see Alear and Sombron being where they were but they also don't seem to have changed much in their personality. That could have been an interesting change, but alas(alack). For a time I thought Nel might be mind controlled by Nil or whoever was running things to kill the royals, but then of course I got to see the full reveals and it makes more sense than I was expecting.

An aside, both can use dragonstones after being recruited, despite Nil not being able to without the wish and Nel's base stone being broken when she died.

This is the real theme to FX.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

It's really down to Pokemon's recurring issue of playing it too safe. It's been four years guys and the DS is still going strong. What should we do? Silver/Gold remake? Something like Pokemon Coliseum again? Shake up the formula entirely somehow? Nah, let's just get the artists in here to design a few more Pokemon and release a new generation. Then we can do all that same stuff only now it feels vaguely newer.

Huh? HGSS came out as part of Gen IV, before BW. They had already remade Johto. Admittedly, they were probably working on both games simultaneously.

And Gen V deserves credit for, if notjing else, introducing the most Pokemon at once. Sure, a lot of them were derivative of templates that had been around since Gen I. But there were plenty of creative winners in the bunch.

[Jotari]

21 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Thing is, it could argue about the DSi being different enough like the GBC to the GB to be on it's own, but it was available on the regular DS (Same with Gold/Silver). And while I know Gen 7 wasn't released for just New 3DS, considering how performance issues were a presence on the older models that could be argued too.

As for keeping the wheel spinning and leaving Gen 5 to the 3DS, it seems like BW were being worked on for a bit beforehand, even if their release was close to HGSS. So maybe they felt they could act on the DS because the 3DS specs hadn't been given and they had the time to release on the DS?

There's also the prep time needed for a new set of hardware, especially for something specialised like the DS would add time on to the start of the first title to a new console. Localisation of course being another factor up to Gen 6.

Thing is, it's funny.

  Hide contents

The stakes for the story end up being completely torn down by the end, with the entire world barring the Fell Kids and the Four Winds being corrupted, so the goal has been to secure the bracelets from an uncertain foe to preserve a dead humanity, who it turns out was Rafal, who pretended to be Nil and got so into it that it conflicted with his ambitions that had been both pushed on him by Sombron and influenced by the stone Sombron had corrupted..... and in the end the answer was Nel stabs herself to break the stone that it turned out would influence Nil. When they could have removed and hidden the stone....... Or would the influence of the stone be like The One Ring? Anyways, the answer was Nel kill herself rather than the man she considered her brother, which freed him to revive her. I dunno, this didn't click for me, though I at least think the emotional threads for this are fine.

Meanwhile, just because the characters had mirror personalities didn't mean they changed sides beforehand, see Alear and Sombron being where they were but they also don't seem to have changed much in their personality. That could have been an interesting change, but alas(alack). For a time I thought Nel might be mind controlled by Nil or whoever was running things to kill the royals, but then of course I got to see the full reveals and it makes more sense than I was expecting.

An aside, both can use dragonstones after being recruited, despite Nil not being able to without the wish and Nel's base stone being broken when she died.

This is the real theme to FX.

They explain how the different stone weapons work and where they came from in their support together.

19 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Huh? HGSS came out as part of Gen IV, before BW. They had already remade Johto. Admittedly, they were probably working on both games simultaneously.

That is me just plain misremembering the timing of releases. Which makes perfect sense looking back on it now as Heart Gold and Soul Silver didn't indulge nearly as much in the whole pseudo 3D 2D style.

19 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

And Gen V deserves credit for, if notjing else, introducing the most Pokemon at once. Sure, a lot of them were derivative of templates that had been around since Gen I. But there were plenty of creative winners in the bunch.

Oh yeah, like I said, the effort was there. Deciding to throw out the entirety of all previous Pokemon initially was certainly a choice.

[Hrothgar777]

6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Huh? HGSS came out as part of Gen IV, before BW. They had already remade Johto. Admittedly, they were probably working on both games simultaneously.

And Gen V deserves credit for, if notjing else, introducing the most Pokemon at once. Sure, a lot of them were derivative of templates that had been around since Gen I. But there were plenty of creative winners in the bunch.

IMO Gen V was a technical achievement and is one of my favorite Pokemon generations. Diamond/Pearl had such a sterile feel to it graphic-wise. Like, it was "smoother" than Ruby/Sapphire but at the same time it lacked the weird quirkiness of Gen. III. Black & White took the same hardware and yielded a dramatically better experience. Plus, its wireless and Wi-Fi capabilities were fully exploited, with things like Entralink and that one website you could connect to for in-game benefits ("Dreamworld"). For something that could be played on the original 2004 Nintendo DS, it was quite the feat.

One thing I like learning about is "games which pushed their console to its highest level of performance". Black & White seem to have been this for the classic DS. Coincidentally, this is one part (the other part, of course, is just me getting older) of why I stopped appreciating the series 3DS-era and beyond; 3D modeling technology plateaued sometime around 2008 and any given improvement since then has been less readily noticeable, so it's harder for me to judge what pushing a 3D console to its technical limits looks like. For example, see Arkham Asylum just now being adapted to the Nintendo Switch despite being roughly 12 years old, and it still looking fine.

The DS was the world's last major "2D" console, though of course it did sport some 3D rendering abilities.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Hrothgar777

[Metal Flash]

22 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Why tho? To avoid abstract confusion on the content of what you might be about to read? 

Because that way, we avoid the complaint people had with Engage where people had no idea which supports were romantic and which were platonic. Then people can more easily choose which type of ending they want.

On 12/7/2023 at 8:19 AM, Jotari said:

Does S have any inherent connection to romance though? Like, the S doesn't stand for Snuggling or something I'm pretty sure. It's just the standard rank denoting something higher than A(for some reason, who came up with that?*). They very well could have went with A+ in Awakening and that's what we could call marriage supports nowadays. I guess, one can say Fates established A+ as a "platonic non marriage marriage support", only, A+ supports don't actually have conversations attached to them in Fates, so separating romantic and platonic supports into S and A+ could mistakenly give veteran players the indication that those supports don't have conversations. If they're to be split (which honestly I don't see much need to do, especially in a game without children where it effects nothing mechanically), it should probably be something like R for Romance and F for friend, though F rank sounds kind of bad, so maybe IDK, P for Pal.

I just suggested the romantic rank still be S cause that is the letter that has been associated with romantic final supports for Avatars in recent games. But the symbols idea Eltosian suggested could also work just as well.

[Jotari]

40 minutes ago, Metal Flash said:

Because that way, we avoid the complaint people had with Engage where people had no idea which supports were romantic and which were platonic. Then people can more easily choose which type of ending they want.

Such complaints are not something I think we necessarily need heed. And for Engage specifically it was always going to be fucking weird because they tied the paired ending mechanic to a paralogue where you get an actual ring in a game where children and the Avatar's sister are playable characters.

[Metal Flash]

17 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Such complaints are not something I think we necessarily need heed. And for Engage specifically it was always going to be fucking weird because they tied the paired ending mechanic to a paralogue where you get an actual ring in a game where children and the Avatar's sister are playable characters.

Fair point, I just don`t wanna have to look up weather a character I like has a romantic S-support or not again

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Such complaints are not something I think we necessarily need heed. And for Engage specifically it was always going to be fucking weird because they tied the paired ending mechanic to a paralogue where you get an actual ring in a game where children and the Avatar's sister are playable characters.

I think that we can safely ignore anyone who is complaining about not being able to marry Veyle or Engage's incarnation of Anna, but I think that the complaints about Alois and Gilbert were far more legitimate. Which isn't to say that I think they should have been romancable, just that I understand why people were frustrated by what felt to them like a bait and switch.

I think that the bigger bonus of more clearly differentiating between romances and friendship would be that it would open the door for more friendship endings to be written, which would allow for more diverse casts of characters. At least in theory. May be that nobody at IS is interested in moving beyond the "hot singles in your area" paradigm for putting their casts together, but if they are then I think they'd have more freedom to do so if they had notational convention that would indicate "not interested in smooching you" to the player.

[Jotari]

38 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I think that we can safely ignore anyone who is complaining about not being able to marry Veyle or Engage's incarnation of Anna, but I think that the complaints about Alois and Gilbert were far more legitimate. Which isn't to say that I think they should have been romancable, just that I understand why people were frustrated by what felt to them like a bait and switch.

I think that the bigger bonus of more clearly differentiating between romances and friendship would be that it would open the door for more friendship endings to be written, which would allow for more diverse casts of characters. At least in theory. May be that nobody at IS is interested in moving beyond the "hot singles in your area" paradigm for putting their casts together, but if they are then I think they'd have more freedom to do so if they had notational convention that would indicate "not interested in smooching you" to the player.

Gilbert I guess is a bit more complex a romantic lead (ie tonnes of baggage), but for Alois...he very clearly has a family. We're people seriously expecting a romantic ending to that where he becomes an adulterer and Corrin proverbially breaking up a happy family??? I mean...I wouldn't be entirely against Fire Emblem doing something like that purely for the sake of variety, bit I don't think it's something anyone should seriously expect any deeper than a C support.

[lenticular]

8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Gilbert I guess is a bit more complex a romantic lead (ie tonnes of baggage), but for Alois...he very clearly has a family. We're people seriously expecting a romantic ending to that where he becomes an adulterer and Corrin proverbially breaking up a happy family??? I mean...I wouldn't be entirely against Fire Emblem doing something like that purely for the sake of variety, bit I don't think it's something anyone should seriously expect any deeper than a C support.

I think it mostly depends on how deeply people are engaging with the characters/story. If you're paying attention and watching every support and every cut-scene, then sure, you know that he's happily married and it wouldn't make much sense to expect a romantic relationship between him and Byleth. But for a more casual player who isn't going into things as deeply? I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to miss that. Notably, I'm pretty sure that there are no mentions of his wife and family in his support chain with Byleth, which is the only thing we can reasonably assume that someone is going to have seen if they're considering S-supporting with him.

[Jotari]

30 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I think it mostly depends on how deeply people are engaging with the characters/story. If you're paying attention and watching every support and every cut-scene, then sure, you know that he's happily married and it wouldn't make much sense to expect a romantic relationship between him and Byleth. But for a more casual player who isn't going into things as deeply? I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to miss that. Notably, I'm pretty sure that there are no mentions of his wife and family in his support chain with Byleth, which is the only thing we can reasonably assume that someone is going to have seen if they're considering S-supporting with him.

That feels like a contradiction in some way. The people that should be catered to are those that are so casual that they wouldn't actually pay attention to the characters in the game, yet at the same time are so invested they would be upset that the characters they haven't actually explored don't fit their uninformed perception.

[lenticular]

15 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That feels like a contradiction in some way. The people that should be catered to are those that are so casual that they wouldn't actually pay attention to the characters in the game, yet at the same time are so invested they would be upset that the characters they haven't actually explored don't fit their uninformed perception.

To some extent, sure. Most people are either going to be sufficiently invested to know that Alois is married or sufficiently uninvested to not care about whether the S support represents a romance or a friendship. But most is not all. I don't find it hard to think of situations where someone might reasonably fall into a middle ground where they would be disappointed. This is compounded, of course, by Alois being one of only two male S support options for male Byleth if you don't have the DLC and aren't playing Blue Lions. But even if that weren't an issue, I can still easily imagine it being a problem that some people would run into.

Of course, it isn't always possible to cater to every imaginable minority and edge case. Sometimes you do just have to decide that the group of people who will be affected is small enough, the problem inconsequential enough and the cost to fix things high enough that it isn't worth bothering with. But in this case, it's such an easy fix. It would not take a whole lot of development time and effort, and it wouldn't negatively impact other players, so why not do it?

Another benefit to clearer labelling is that it would benefit people who are actively looking for non-romantic relationships. That can be "I want to roleplay my avatar as aromantic" or it can be "Anna is my favourite character but I don't want a romance with her because ewww" or whatever.

[Eltosian Kadath]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Gilbert I guess is a bit more complex a romantic lead (ie tonnes of baggage), but for Alois...he very clearly has a family. We're people seriously expecting a romantic ending to that where he becomes an adulterer and Corrin proverbially breaking up a happy family??? I mean...I wouldn't be entirely against Fire Emblem doing something like that purely for the sake of variety, bit I don't think it's something anyone should seriously expect any deeper than a C support.

People came into this game knowing there was going to be a time skip riddled with war, and that there would be more than the single gay character the last few games had. Is it really that unreasonable to think something might happen to Alois's family during the time skip, or on going war, with the loving Byleth there to console the man? There were so few gay ending for Byleth, and the gay male ending are unique in that unlike all other pairing types a vast majority of them were not romantic ending (before the DLC at least, which I know little about because I don't buy DLCs). Perhaps if it were not such an outlier, it would not have been so unexpected.

 

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

People came into this game knowing there was going to be a time skip riddled with war, and that there would be more than the single gay character the last few games had. Is it really that unreasonable to think something might happen to Alois's family during the time skip, or on going war, with the loving Byleth there to console the man? There were so few gay ending for Byleth, and the gay male ending are unique in that unlike all other pairing types a vast majority of them were not romantic ending (before the DLC at least, which I know little about because I don't buy DLCs). Perhaps if it were not such an outlier, it would not have been so unexpected.

 

Sure, someone could think that might happen, but I don't think they'd have any justifiable reason to be upset that his family wasn't brutally  murdered at some point. Especially given you'll be filling out most of Alois' supports post time skip long before you reach the S rank with that explicitly not happening. It's not like the S rank choice is given at the mind point of the game. You directly choose the character just before the final boss.

[Florete]

I do like the idea of certain pairs being platonic. I Pact Ring'd Veyle in my maddening run knowing it was going to be a super-best-sisters ending and not some awkward, forced, Fates-esque romance. But as others have noted, it should be made more obvious to the player. This mechanic is pure wish-fulfillment, and getting hit with a platonic ending you thought/hoped would be romantic runs counter to that.

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Such complaints are not something I think we necessarily need heed. And for Engage specifically it was always going to be fucking weird because they tied the paired ending mechanic to a paralogue where you get an actual ring in a game where children and the Avatar's sister are playable characters.

Disagree, I think we absolutely should heed those complaints. Like it or not, this is a pretty important part of the enjoyment for a substantial portion of players and it's important to not bait-and-switch them. Children and the avatar's sister being playable are another big reason why such a thing would be helpful to have.

[Etrurian emperor]

9 hours ago, lenticular said:

I think that we can safely ignore anyone who is complaining about not being able to marry Veyle or Engage's incarnation of Anna, but I think that the complaints about Alois and Gilbert were far more legitimate. Which isn't to say that I think they should have been romancable, just that I understand why people were frustrated by what felt to them like a bait and switch.

I recall when the same sex options' were first revealed that there was a very funny comic about the male options. A crying male Byleth being stuck with a sleeping Linhardt, Alois who says ''its okay my wife won't mind!'' and an uncomfortable Gilbert when Annette enters the room. Meanwhile on the female half Fembeth was chilling with all cool female options. I'm still heartbroken we couldn't get those scenarios. 

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Florete said:

I do like the idea of certain pairs being platonic. I Pact Ring'd Veyle in my maddening run knowing it was going to be a super-best-sisters ending and not some awkward, forced, Fates-esque romance. But as others have noted, it should be made more obvious to the player. This mechanic is pure wish-fulfillment, and getting hit with a platonic ending you thought/hoped would be romantic runs counter to that.

And then there's the alleged Japanese ending where they possibly end up having a child together...

5 hours ago, Florete said:

Disagree, I think we absolutely should heed those complaints. Like it or not, this is a pretty important part of the enjoyment for a substantial portion of players and it's important to not bait-and-switch them. Children and the avatar's sister being playable are another big reason why such a thing would be helpful to have.

I think if an interaction is going to end platonic it's going to be pretty obvious from the actual character interactions that a platonic relationship is being built. For someone to complain that this C B A relationship that has been platonic every step of the way doesn't turn romantic out of nowhere at the S rank, then I think they're being a bit entitled. This is exactly the sort of thing we complain about when the romantic S rank does come out of nowhere when the C B A supports were normal. And we're right to complain about it because it's bad writing to swerve like that. This is of course a consequence of everyone needing to S support everyone else and still being able to A support others, but the mechanics that cause poor writing should be worked around, not indulged. If characters have a platonic ending together they should have a platonic set of support chains. If characters have a romantic ending together there should be at least some form of romantic aspect to their supports. And neither should swerve from one to the other at the last second. I think most of everyone should be able to agree with that.

Well either that or we transition Fire Emblem into it's final form as a dating sim and give every character a parallel platonic and romantic support chain that you actively have to achieve with correct responses and gift giving.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Jotari

[lenticular]

27 minutes ago, Jotari said:

If characters have a platonic ending together they should have a platonic set of support chains. If characters have a romantic ending together there should be at least some form of romantic aspect to their supports. And neither should swerve from one to the other at the last second. I think most of everyone should be able to agree with that.

I disagree with that.

OK, OK, I'll elaborate. If all supports with potential romance endings had to be romantic in nature, then that leads to one of two options, both of which I consider undesirable. One possibility would be to dramatically reduce the number of potential romance options. The other is to have pretty much the entire cast flirting with pretty much everyone else throughout the entire duration of the game. We already have too many instances of "why is this person vaguely flirting witheveryone in their A supports?" and I want less of it, not more. And besides, "friends to lovers" is one of my favourite tropes. I like seeing relationships that start off with a solid bond of friendship and then become romantic later on and wouldn't want that to go away.

[Florete]

27 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And then there's the alleged Japanese ending where they possibly end up having a child together...

I'm pretty sure that's not a thing.

27 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think if an interaction is going to end platonic it's going to be pretty obvious from the actual character interactions that a platonic relationship is being built. For someone to complain that this C B A relationship that has been platonic every step of the way doesn't turn romantic out of nowhere at the S rank, then I think they're being a bit entitled. This is exactly the sort of thing we complain about when the romantic S rank does come out of nowhere when the C B A supports were normal. And we're right to complain about it because it's bad writing to swerve like that. This is of course a consequence of everyone needing to S support everyone else and still being able to A support others, but the mechanics that cause poor writing should be worked around, not indulged. If characters have a platonic ending together they should have a platonic set of support chains. If characters have a romantic ending together there should be at least some form of romantic aspect to their supports. And neither should swerve from one to the other at the last second. I think most of everyone should be able to agree with that.

I mean, it's not that I necessarily disagree with all of this, but it's not always clear what's strictly platonic and what could turn romantic. A conversation that you see as platonic, someone else might see as romantic, or at least having romantic undertones, and vice versa. Fire Emblem letting the player choose their own partner and often also play matchmaker for others is always going to result in some level of awkwardness, whether it be support chains going from seemingly platonic to romantic instantly, or everyone seeming to want to smooch everyone else at the same time.

This specifically, though:

Quote

For someone to complain that this C B A relationship that has been platonic every step of the way doesn't turn romantic out of nowhere at the S rank, then I think they're being a bit entitled.

I do disagree with. Players have been conditioned to understand that S rank is romance, regardless of what happens before then. Suddenly pulling the rug out from beneath them with no warning is bad form, imo.

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, lenticular said:

One possibility would be to dramatically reduce the number of potential romance options.

Sounds great to me 👍

2 minutes ago, lenticular said:

And besides, "friends to lovers" is one of my favourite tropes. I like seeing relationships that start off with a solid bond of friendship and then become romantic later on and wouldn't want that to go away.

I think that still needs to be written well and built up, not just introduced at the last moment after three supports where they're just moving boxes together.

Alternately the suggestion I edited into my previous post just before you responded.

43 minutes ago, Jotari said:

We transition Fire Emblem into it's final form as a dating sim and give every character a parallel platonic and romantic support chain that you actively have to achieve with correct responses and gift giving.