Does NES Fire Emblem have better animations than DS Fire Emblem?

[Jotari]

So believe it or not one of the things the original Shadow Dragon was praised for back on its NES days was its graphics. Or at least I know Masahiro Sakurai was blown away by it as he mentions it in the Iwata Asks for the DS remake. And it sort of makes sense when you consider RPGs for the time, which were mostly static sprites and character animations hitting from the other edge of the screen. Hell a lot of RPGs didn't even show your player characters. So Fire Emblem for the NES was going the extra mile by having sprites walk up and actually hit each other with their weapons.

Meanwhile Shadow Dragon and New Mystery for the DS were pretty critisized for having poor battle animations. This seems to be a pretty universal opinion. I don't think I've seen anyone who has displayed a liking of the DS animations (though I probably will now that I've brought up this topic). But a question remains, are the DS animations considered bad because they followed the awesomesauce GBA animations, or are they just really bad in general? And then, if they are bad in an objective sense one must ask the question, were the animations made for games on systems 20 years earlier actually better? I'm honestly not sure. I think I like the NES ones better, but one aspect I do appreciate about the DS ones is that they're a lot faster (the NES ones can be a bit sluggish, especially wen you double attack without a counter attack). And honestly they move pretty smoothly, it's just that the models themselves look really drab and featureless. I'd love to accompany this post with a collection of animations for both but I can only find a video for Shadow Dragon. Here's a video for the first chapter of the original game though which includes the class role at the start.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Jotari

[Pengaius]

I think it's less that DSFE animations were bad and more that they just clashed with their backgrounds more than the previous games 2D sprites. They're obviously more detailed and technologically better but I think that Shadow Dragons sprites are just more seamless (they still aged kinda bad but hey) that's all just my opinion tho. 

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Pengaius said:

I think it's less that DSFE animations were bad and more that they just clashed with their backgrounds more than the previous games 2D sprites. They're obviously more detailed and technologically better but I think that Shadow Dragons sprites are just more seamless (they still aged kinda bad but hey) that's all just my opinion tho. 

 Well the technology is obviously better. That's rather the point of it. Is something with archaic technology literally better than something produced almost two decades later?

[null]

I'd say they both have their own distinct charm, so to speak.

DSFE has that look of early 3D technology (despite that not actually being the case), and NESFE has that older charm of pixel art that games from that era have. I think they're both good in their own way, although I'm slightly partial to the pixel art.

[Captain Karnage]

As a product of each of their times NES FE looks pretty good, as for the DS the look pretty bad especially when you compare them to the gba games. The ds games were a missed opportunity to have some really cool looking sprites.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

If the DS animations were thrown back in time twenty years, then I'm sure we'd find them extremely impressive (although no video game hardware would be capable of displaying it). But I think in fairness, the context does matter. NES games dealt with sprite limitations (not just in the amount of pixels, but in the size of the sprite in its entirety) while the DS game's sprites look like something ripped from a Sega CD or Phillips CD-I game. Heck, I'd even say the original Mortal Kombat has more impressive visuals, and that's just de-rezzed photos of human actors. FE11 looks to me like the same technology used to render characters in Donkey Kong Country. Render the model first in 3D, get it to pose for each sprite you want as you digitize a snapshot, then hope it looks good in 2D. One thing that always bugged me is that enemies just continue standing there when they fade away during death. Sure the GBA games did that too, but by the time Shadow Dragon came out, we had the Tellius games where characters were reacting to their death and hunkering down or falling over. 

Not totally related, but what's that rooster getting murdered sound they put in for critical hits in the DS game? Sound design is the real missed opportunity. GBA enthusiasts will tell you that their system was probably the least well equipped nintendo console for sound quality for its time, despite how many GBA games seem to knock it out of the park like Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Mother 3, etc. But I've never found an excuse for why DS games sound like they're underwater.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Glennstavos

[AnonymousSpeed]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Meanwhile Shadow Dragon and New Mystery for the DS were pretty critisized for having poor battle animations. This seems to be a pretty universal opinion. I don't think I've seen anyone who has displayed a liking of the DS animations (though I probably will now that I've brought up this topic).

Well, I think people might like the pirate animation, at least. I say that based on nothing but the fact that there's a GBA rendition of it used in fangames.

I think the DS sprites look a little doughy, honestly. A bit like clay models, even more than they resemble early renders. They also have a "floaty" feel to them, which makes them awkward looking and unsatisfying to watch.

1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

Sure the GBA games did that too, but by the time Shadow Dragon came out, we had the Tellius games where characters were reacting to their death and hunkering down or falling over. 

True, but to be fair that also took like a million years so it's not so bad they got rid of it. 3DS fire emblem made death animations a bit snappier and didn't have the camera linger on them, which make the whole affair actually tolerable.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

The NES animations, I will grant, were good for their time. But personally, I don't hold the DS animations in nearly the degree of disdain that many others do. They're fairly fluid and quick, even if they're not as flashy as certain predecessors. The backgrounds have a good level of detail. And some of the spell aninations (Imhullu, Starlight, Aura) stand with the best of them.

I'd rank the DS animations not only ahead of the NES ones, but also ahead of the SNES and Gamecube ones. But that's probably an unusual taste.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Well, I think people might like the pirate animation, at least. I say that based on nothing but the fact that there's a GBA rendition of it used in fangames.

I think the DS sprites look a little doughy, honestly. A bit like clay models, even more than they resemble early renders. They also have a "floaty" feel to them, which makes them awkward looking and unsatisfying to watch.

There's fan animationa for DS Thieves and Knights too. Though I'm not sure if that's because people really, really like them, or if they're just a nice base line to practice making animations. Either way they'll be hella useful to me when I get around to making my "Marth marries Nyna and Hardin becomes the hero" fan game.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

There's fan animationa for DS Thieves and Knights too. Though I'm not sure if that's because people really, really like them, or if they're just a nice base line to practice making animations. Either way they'll be hella useful to me when I get around to making my "Marth marries Nyna and Hardin becomes the hero" fan game.

Legit intriguing, I love the idea of an older character functioning as the Lord. Does this mean that Caeda is dead, while units like Cain and Abel show up as enemies? Also, that Roshea and Vyland will finally be somewhat good?

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Legit intriguing, I love the idea of an older character functioning as the Lord. Does this mean that Caeda is dead, while units like Cain and Abel show up as enemies? Also, that Roshea and Vyland will finally be somewhat good?

What I want to know is what classes Sedgar and Wolf would be. It feels like heresy to make them just horsemen since nobody makes them that.

[Jotari]

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

Legit intriguing, I love the idea of an older character functioning as the Lord. Does this mean that Caeda is dead, while units like Cain and Abel show up as enemies? Also, that Roshea and Vyland will finally be somewhat good?

Yes. It's specifically based of the Artemis Curse ending of Shadow Dragon (which will also be the title of the game). Cain and Abel and much of Marth's OG army I plan to make enemies in a chapter resembling the Deadlords chapter in Awakening. Ie a low number of elite enemies all comparable powerful to your party.

30 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

What I want to know is what classes Sedgar and Wolf would be. It feels like heresy to make them just horsemen since nobody makes them that.

The game will have reclassing, though unlike Shadow Dragon there'll only be one alternate class (Hardin is getting General for obvious reference reasons, undecided now about the rest of his crew). This is the only aspect of it I've actually worked on so far. The rest is just in various thoughts and ideas as to how to approach chapters.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The game will have reclassing, though unlike Shadow Dragon there'll only be one alternate class (Hardin is getting General for obvious reference reasons, undecided now about the rest of his crew). This is the only aspect of it I've actually worked on so far. The rest is just in various thoughts and ideas as to how to approach chapters.

Hero Wolf and General Sedgar would be my vote. Honestly this seems really interesting. Wish I had more time and emotional energy to check out your projects, because you do a lot of interesting work!

[Axie]

aw, i like the DS animations. i know that's not popular, because the remakes are not popular, but they look fine to me. better than the 3DS games to be honest, i have never gotten used to the 3D models and mostly play those games with the animations off.  i guess it's hard to follow the glory of the GBA in 2D.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Axie

[joevar]

huh.. isnt the remake animation a 3D model on top of 2D background?

[Axie]

2 hours ago, joevar said:

huh.. isnt the remake animation a 3D model on top of 2D background?

i guess, but you get the point, they still play like 2D games

[vanguard333]

If we're just talking about the animations (as in the movement of the characters, spells and such), DS Fire Emblem; not even close. Don't get me wrong; the NES animations are good for their time, but it is sprite walks up, hits, moves back, and I'm not even being reductive. The DS animations are more fluid, the weapon attacks have a weight to them while still being fast, and the spells look really cool. 

Honestly, I never understood the criticisms of Shadow Dragon's graphics or art style; I thought they gave the game a nice retro look without looking 16-bit; nothing wrong with 16-bit graphics; I'm just saying that it did a good job looking retro without resorting to 16-bit graphics like everything else that tries to call back to JRPGs from the early 1990s, making it also a bit distinct in that regard.

[scigeek101]

I think it's mostly criticism in comparison to the awesome GBA animations. 

Nothing tops the GBA battle animations really. That marks the last time they really tried 2d unfortunately. And personally I think it was the only time that the battle animations were particularly good vs being just perfectly serviceable for what they are. 

I don't think any of the games had really bad battle animations. But once they started to go 3d you could tell they were out of their element. They've gotten slightly better with each game though so that's good. 

I think most of the criticism of the DS games comes from trying to recreate the 3d style in 2d rather than going with the superior sprite work. The DS graphics aren't bad per say, but they are lame in comparison. 

Personally I wish they had stuck with sprites for all of them. But now we probably won't be seeing sprites again. I think for a future game they could totally do hand drawn hires battle animations though. I'd love to see the GBA style come back without having to pixilate it. Or maybe the charm would be lost like the FFVI remake? Guess it depends on the art director. 

 

[Axie]

i think spriting will never be done again, so they should just do the "3D models but actually 2D battles" like DS again. they never got 3D battles as good as even the DS ones, and they can only improve on the latter if they keep trying, so...

[Dragoncat]

Wow, the NES FE Theme is surprisingly a bop.

I do think people were spoiled by GBA and Tellius animations. Also, GBA are easier to sprite.