Playing Binding Blade before Blazing Blade?

[MuteMousou]

On 10/12/2021 at 7:39 PM, Clear World said:

Nope. It is definitely in line with what you were talking about because if the game is designed to make players be fine with breaking weapons, but then also base additional gameplay behind not breaking certain weapons, there is a conflict of interest.

The main game mechanic of weapons being breakable versus that being tied to a completely separate mechanic of that affecting an ending of the game are entirely different things. We were talking about weapons breaking in normal gameplay and how that relates to player expectations then you brought up this one thing that does not matter hardly at all in most contexts in which you are talking about the general FE mechanic of weapons being able to break, this is like saying that "characters being able to die and then you lose their items is dumb" is an argument against the permadeath mechanic rather than realizing that this is actually a criticism of the fact that the game decided against letting you keep items of dead characters. 

On 10/12/2021 at 7:39 PM, Clear World said:

Never say this was an exclusive issue for FE6.

You entered the thread stating that you wouldn't recommend fe6 to new players for reasons that are related to what this was talking about, and you specifically mentioned FE6 literally in the paragraph before you stated the thing I responded to here.

On 10/12/2021 at 7:39 PM, Clear World said:

Except, it can get a lot harder if the unit(s) the player are losing are the one they have been pouring exp & resources towards. Getting a massively weaker unit than the player lost would easily be consider a set-back for most. Lose too many and the player digs themselves in a hole they might not be able to recover from.

That's the entire point is that you lose things when characters die. Like if you're going to make a specific argument about how the game doesn't design around it with what characters it gives you, then that would make sense to use to argue as the game being too difficult for what it tried to do, but if you just explain that "this thing can happen in the game," that doesn't tell me much about how feasible that actually is, so I'm not really sure what your point is. For example, if I said "you can lose all your lives in mario brothers and have to restart a world so the game is too hard," that doesn't really tell me about how often or easily this can actually happen, or how much this actually sets the player back. 

On 10/12/2021 at 7:39 PM, Clear World said:

You clearly seem to want to ignore the actual point: Making mistakes & losing units or weapons can have long term effects & also have a delay negative impact on the player. Instead of just letting them make the mistake and hope they figure, it would be better to give them the information on what they can be doing so that when they do fail, they have an actual baseline in what they could've done to make a better decision. It's easy to overlook and/or to not be able to pinpoint exactly what were all the wrong choices made that cause the bad result when it could've been coming from multiple directions at different time, and this all assumes the player was even aware of most of the things that were affecting the outcome. You can't really learn about a thing when you don't know that thing exist.

What is the "actual point"?
 I don't even know what you are arguing against because I never claimed that the game shouldn't inform the player on how the game works, I think you are taking "I think the game is better if it informs the player in certain ways" for "the game should not inform the player at all," if the game cannot inform the player of what is happening through gameplay then that is the game's fault, it doesn't have to wall of text explain everything to you what's going on for you to understand, because it is a video game and not a book. 

[Samz707]

2 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

I'm not entirely sure what your overall point in saying this is. The thing with popular anything in general is that people may never know if x game in a series would be one they actually like because everyone on the internet is only ever recommending the same game in a series that has 16 games, when pretty much all of them could reasonably be played as your first in the series.

With how I see it, people can be frustrated with anything no matter what you do, the idea that potentially bad things can happen to a new player should not be a reason to not recommend the game to them, there can be consequences for anything in any game and the player will have to come to terms with them eventually anyway. It's all a matter of what people might want.

 

I highly doubt Thracia should be someone's first game from what I hear and just because in theory, every game could be someone's first game, that doesn't it mean it should. (I literally quit the series for a while because I assumed they were all like Awakening due to me only hearing praise for it at the time, same with a friend who's first experiences around the same time were Awakening and Birthright and hated them for near enough the same reasons.)

 

It's not just "Bad things" it's "Long term crippling bad things due to the game poorly explaining/throwing players in the deep end."

For instance, I've been playing Stalingrad, an old Blitzkrieg/Sudden Strike Engine RTS, it, is brutal, you will definitely lose at least a decent amount of infantry and vehicles by the end of the average mission.

However Units in Stalingrad are purely on a mission-by-mission structure, while there are occasionally bonus missions unlocked by keeping a certain amount of Vehicles alive, you do not need to worry about being crippled for the rest of the game, losing units is only a temporary set-back for the current map and the game's ranking system is generous with allowing vehicle/infantry deaths because you're expected to lose units.

Meanwhile, Blitzkrieg itself has a lite-RPG mechanic with "Core Units", while nowhere near as in-depth as FE, it tries to reward careful play with units you keep over the course of the game getting stronger and upgrading to better units....except it's actually more unfair due to terrible balancing and map design, so even if it's not as crippling as FE, it's still annoying to essentially get punished in the long run through no fault of your own.

Meanwhile, in say, Awakening, the game never I think actually explains that Mountains have a drastic movement penalty and this is your first encounter with them, on a map filled with ranged flying enemies that can ignore it, so losing a valuable unit, crippling you for the rest of the game since you also lose their child unit due to how Awakening handles late-game recruitment, (Not to mention ,your next healer, Not-Lucius, is literally near the end of the pre-time skip for my example of Lissa.) is a massive penalty for the rest of the game that doesn't feel like the player's fault, same with Ambush Spawns. (The game literally gives you the tutorial page on Ambush Spawns after the first ambush spawn has already happened, which for a Young Samz new to FE, was after one spawned, killed Chrom and forced a reset.)

While FE7 also doesn't quite explain it, the first few maps with forests/mountains in FE7 are designed in a way where the player isn't potentially having to deal with strong units who can instant-kill their units while ignoring terrain, you're given a "safe" map essentially to figure out how terrain slows the player. 

Losing even a single unit in FE can horribly cripple you, especially Dancers and Healers generally and Awakening means you a lose their child unit as well.

So you lose a useful unit, anything they were carrying and a future recruit.

And since Awakening isn't exactly well-balanced, it's generally not fun in a game to have a big penalty like that due to poor map design and unfair reinforcements, being punished sucks, being punished because the developers sucked at their jobs, is outright unfair and is the number one thing that will make me quit any "strategy" game because when my tactics feel more up to RNG/entirely exploiting exploits, it's generally not fun to play anymore. (Among other factors, like Tile Bonuses being so terrible in Awakening that generally make it feel more up to RNG rather than proper tactics or how the game in a way indirectly punishes actually getting supports due to how terrible Pair-Up is.)

For instance, I lost Matthew early on in FE7, I think I even had to leave some chests alone/use keys due to that, was it a crippling blow? yes, did it annoy me? A little, except the circumstances in which I lost Matthew were actually my fault, so it actually felt fair, as opposed to be not knowing where the enemy ambushes are and getting "Punished" for not looking at a walkthrough, same with me losing Erk early on and actually having to make do with a lack of mages since I also didn't get Lucius.

For FE6 in particular, you can not only lock yourself out of the true ending by whoever was carrying a Legendary weapon dying but the throne bosses are so stupidly strong that there's a reason Critger is a meme, if the player kills/has Rutger die at any point, they are pretty much just relying on RNG to defeat any bosses.

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Samz707

[MuteMousou]

7 hours ago, Samz707 said:

I highly doubt Thracia should be someone's first game from what I hear and just because in theory, every game could be someone's first game, that doesn't it mean it should. (I literally quit the series for a while because I assumed they were all like Awakening due to me only hearing praise for it at the time, same with a friend who's first experiences around the same time were Awakening and Birthright and hated them for near enough the same reasons.)

Every game in the series was made so that it can be your first game in the series. The biggest thing with fe5 is that you could potentially not understand some story things but honestly it can pretty much stand as a separate thing from fe4 for the most part, but I would still recommended fe4 first just for story context even though it's a worse game in every way. There is also a manual for fe5 that explains pretty specifically many basics of the game such as moving your unit, they definitely intended for the game to be playable to new players. Not to mention that many of the things that I often hear complaints of never being explained in the game are also explained in the manual, (the Shaya patch also contributed to this with bad translations in parts) I feel like people forget that in the 90s and 2000s, game manuals existed and people actually read them. But regardless I still think fe5 would be an easier first entry than conquest, but you can still do either as your first if you want, it wouldn't be that insane really, since I think the main reason people have issues with those games is just because they're different from other FEs, which would not matter to someone who hasn't played FE before. 
 

7 hours ago, Samz707 said:

For FE6 in particular, you can not only lock yourself out of the true ending by whoever was carrying a Legendary weapon dying but the throne bosses are so stupidly strong that there's a reason Critger is a meme, if the player kills/has Rutger die at any point, they are pretty much just relying on RNG to defeat any bosses.

I can see that mattering mostly only for 8x which is a bad map anyway and is still bad like that even if you have rutger who always faces crit rates from the boss there (unless you grind supports i guess). But I think the true ending thing makes sense with what the game was going for, since it's designed around permadeath and based around the fe3 ending basically. So essentially it's rewarding you for being better at what the game doesn't require you to do to finish it, which is cool imo. I also think it could be really rewarding for first time players to have more deaths in the first playthrough, then get more content and enjoyment out of playing the game again and being better at it. Regardless, the final 3 maps are kind of bad barring the first one, I don't think you're missing a whole lot if you don't play them and you can just play the game again if you really want to see them. 

7 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Meanwhile, in say, Awakening, the game never I think actually explains that Mountains have a drastic movement penalty and this is your first encounter with them, on a map filled with ranged flying enemies that can ignore it, so losing a valuable unit, crippling you for the rest of the game since you also lose their child unit due to how Awakening handles late-game recruitment, (Not to mention ,your next healer, Not-Lucius, is literally near the end of the pre-time skip for my example of Lissa.) is a massive penalty for the rest of the game that doesn't feel like the player's fault, same with Ambush Spawns. (The game literally gives you the tutorial page on Ambush Spawns after the first ambush spawn has already happened, which for a Young Samz new to FE, was after one spawned, killed Chrom and forced a reset.)

Afaik the enemy phase reinforcements don't exist on normal, so that probably won't be an issue for new players. Regardless I generally wouldn't recommend Awakening to new players over any of the other 3DS and newer games since it's the worst one out of all of them. The effective strategies in it are so incredibly braindead that it kind of ruins your playstyle for other games in the series also.

Edited November 6, 2021 by MuteMousou

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

I'm not entirely sure what your overall point in saying this is. The thing with popular anything in general is that people may never know if x game in a series would be one they actually like because everyone on the internet is only ever recommending the same game in a series that has 16 games, when pretty much all of them could reasonably be played as your first in the series.

In theory, any game could be used as an entry point, but in practice, that's not true. Pretty much no one recommends the likes of Radiant Dawn or Thracia as an entry point. I know I wouldn't. I'd also hesitate to recommend Genealogy of the Holy War as someone's first game, and would definitely consider this one off the table. Anyhow, I agree that these games can be very punishing if you happen to lose units, as you also lose whatever they happen to have had on them, as well as whatever characters they recruit (I will also note that it wasn't until Shadow Dragon for the DS that dead characters had their items sent to the convoy). Case in point: I recently dropped in on an ironman run where the player realized that they might have put Bors into a position where he could get killed. Their gambit to try to get him to survive involved taking all his weapons away, except for a Silver Lance he couldn't use. Bors died, taking the Silver Lance with him to the graveyard. Of course, I had fun at their expense. 

7 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

For example, if I said "you can lose all your lives in mario brothers and have to restart a world so the game is too hard," that doesn't really tell me about how often or easily this can actually happen, or how much this actually sets the player back. 

Mario Brothers and Fire Emblem don't even compare. They're completely different games.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[MuteMousou]

6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Mario Brothers and Fire Emblem don't even compare. They're completely different games.

I don't really see what them being similar or not has to do with the point I was trying to make.

[Shadow Mir]

39 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

I don't really see what them being similar or not has to do with the point I was trying to make.

On a fundamental level, Mario games are by far easier to get into than Fire Emblem games.

[Samz707]

5 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Every game in the series was made so that it can be your first game in the series. The biggest thing with fe5 is that you could potentially not understand some story things but honestly it can pretty much stand as a separate thing from fe4 for the most part, but I would still recommended fe4 first just for story context even though it's a worse game in every way. There is also a manual for fe5 that explains pretty specifically many basics of the game such as moving your unit, they definitely intended for the game to be playable to new players. Not to mention that many of the things that I often hear complaints of never being explained in the game are also explained in the manual, (the Shaya patch also contributed to this with bad translations in parts) I feel like people forget that in the 90s and 2000s, game manuals existed and people actually read them. But regardless I still think fe5 would be an easier first entry than conquest, but you can still do either as your first if you want, it wouldn't be that insane really, since I think the main reason people have issues with those games is just because they're different from other FEs, which would not matter to someone who hasn't played FE before. 
 

Afaik the enemy phase reinforcements don't exist on normal, so that probably won't be an issue for new players. Regardless I generally wouldn't recommend Awakening to new players over any of the other 3DS and newer games since it's the worst one out of all of them. The effective strategies in it are so incredibly braindead that it kind of ruins your playstyle for other games in the series also.

Yes, technically each game is built with a difficulty curve and such, doesn't mean it works in the end. (Most obvious example is Awakening which becomes literally impossible to lose with Nostank outside of the final boss so the early game is actually the hardest section.)

The problem is that a new fan doing a glance of difficulties online, might only see that Normal is more akin to an Easy mode, then jump on Hard. (or restart mid-way through because the enemies become total push-overs on Normal relatively early on like I think I ended up doing because of how easy it gets back in 2016-ish.)

Tell that to the FE Subreddit. (Where Awakening is one of the most suggested games for newcomers.)

 

[JimmyBeans]

While mentioned before, I think a lot of comments are thinking of hard mode when talking about these games, there is a reason as to why they are locked behind completing normal mode first.

I don't think either of these games are bad to start with and that they have their merits for a blind play through as long as we are thinking of normal mode. Additionally, while FE7 is easier, you can miss a ton of stuff in that game as well as FE6 which is why we so often want to replay them. Learning and overcoming challenges that we didn't see coming is a huge part of FE, and it's one of the reasons I find it so entertaining.

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

36 minutes ago, JimmyBeans said:

I don't think either of these games are bad to start with and that they have their merits for a blind play through as long as we are thinking of normal mode. Additionally, while FE7 is easier, you can miss a ton of stuff in that game as well as FE6 which is why we so often want to replay them.

You know, that reminds me. You can actually get the true ending in your first playthrough of FE6, whereas you have to unlock and beat Hector mode to get the true ending of FE7. People have mentioned downloading save files before but I think we've already discussed that, and really, I just thought it was interesting to mention.

Bord good.

[MuteMousou]

5 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

You know, that reminds me. You can actually get the true ending in your first playthrough of FE6, whereas you have to unlock and beat Hector mode to get the true ending of FE7. People have mentioned downloading save files before but I think we've already discussed that, and really, I just thought it was interesting to mention.

I already mentioned this before but I do think that games don't have to offer everything to you on the first playthrough, and that the true ending can be seen as a reward for repeated playthroughs as a player gets better. In the FE series, it's normal to have only 1 ending because all of them except 2 do that so it makes the multiple ending ones seem weird in comparison, but I think if there were more games in the series with multiple endings then people wouldn't cite this as an issue nearly as much. 

[JimmyBeans]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

You know, that reminds me. You can actually get the true ending in your first playthrough of FE6, whereas you have to unlock and beat Hector mode to get the true ending of FE7. People have mentioned downloading save files before but I think we've already discussed that, and really, I just thought it was interesting to mention.

Bord good.

That's a good point, if I had kept douglas alive, I would have gotten it on my first play through which was blind.

Bord Good

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Every game in the series was made so that it can be your first game in the series. The biggest thing with fe5 is that you could potentially not understand some story things but honestly it can pretty much stand as a separate thing from fe4 for the most part, but I would still recommended fe4 first just for story context even though it's a worse game in every way. There is also a manual for fe5 that explains pretty specifically many basics of the game such as moving your unit, they definitely intended for the game to be playable to new players. Not to mention that many of the things that I often hear complaints of never being explained in the game are also explained in the manual, (the Shaya patch also contributed to this with bad translations in parts) I feel like people forget that in the 90s and 2000s, game manuals existed and people actually read them. But regardless I still think fe5 would be an easier first entry than conquest, but you can still do either as your first if you want, it wouldn't be that insane really, since I think the main reason people have issues with those games is just because they're different from other FEs, which would not matter to someone who hasn't played FE before. 

Bold: Tell that to someone who can't read Japanese.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[MuteMousou]

15 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Tell that to someone who can't read Japanese.

What they intended the game to be doesn't have anything to do with who can read what, what I mean is that I think people leave out the manual as something relevant to a game from that time when they discuss the game not telling you things, and also a lot of people have the context of the (bad) original translation which doesn't properly get across a lot of the things the Japanese script says. Sure, you can criticize the game for not specifically appealing to you if you can't read Japanese, but that isn't the fault of the game design. Advent, someone from the fe5 hacking community, is currently working on translating the manual anyway.

Edited November 7, 2021 by MuteMousou

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, MuteMousou said:

What they intended the game to be doesn't have anything to do with who can read what, what I mean is that I think people leave out the manual as something relevant to a game from that time when they discuss the game not telling you things, and also a lot of people have the context of the (bad) original translation which doesn't properly get across a lot of the things the Japanese script says. Sure, you can criticize the game for not specifically appealing to you if you can't read Japanese, but that isn't the fault of the game design. Advent, someone from the fe5 hacking community, is currently working on translating the manual anyway.

Sure, it was released during the time when manuals came with games, but that doesn't help someone who cannot read Japanese, as the game never saw release outside of Japan (there's also the fact that if you didn't get the game new, you probably didn't get a manual with it). Besides, I think it's highly hypocritical of you to say Thracia would make for a fine entry point to the series when bashing Awakening as not being a good entry point (In the exact same post, mind you) when Thracia is extremely arcane in terms of how to approach it. A good chunk of recruitments in Thracia require stuff that is not hinted at at all. Not to mention that the fatigue mechanic encourages rotating your party, which works in it and it alone.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[AnonymousSpeed]

A guy who comes into the series with Awakening may never venture to the games before it, even if he enjoys Awakening and the games which follow.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Tell that to the FE Subreddit. (Where Awakening is one of the most suggested games for newcomers.)

A lot of people have a 3DS, and many of the people making recommendations started with Awakening themselves.

34 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

A guy who comes into the series with Awakening may never venture to the games before it, even if he enjoys Awakening and the games which follow.

Isn't that true of any game in the series, though? Like, someone could totally go Path of Radiance -> Radiant Dawn -> Three Houses, if they're just not into handheld systems. Or Sacred Stones -> Echoes -> Three Houses, if they have a thing for killing monsters. Or just FE7 right onward, if they're leery of emulation.

[MuteMousou]

On 11/6/2021 at 11:35 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Isn't that true of any game in the series, though? Like, someone could totally go Path of Radiance -> Radiant Dawn -> Three Houses, if they're just not into handheld systems. Or Sacred Stones -> Echoes -> Three Houses, if they have a thing for killing monsters. Or just FE7 right onward, if they're leery of emulation.

Idk people are very arbitrary in what they like sometimes.

This is only tangential to what you were talking about but idk it feels relevant and I wanted to say it anyway even if it's not specifically a response to anyone.

One thing I think is a problem for this series in general is both because there are 16 games, which is even more than the current number of single player FF games, and also the series is not split into spinoffs such as the Megami Tensei/Persona and Final Fantasy series, people will often group the entire FE series as a whole and judge what is appropriate based on that whereas in Megaten you are given pretty clear divisions on what each part of the series is and people can more easily recommend based on that. In FE we're kind of left with just a big group of games with no actual definitive division between them, which as far as I see it causes us to sometimes view the series as a whole as one thing that certain games are when still a lot of games are not that, since it's kind of hard to subgroup and judge what certain people will like due to them not being in a sub series or spinoff or something.

It does make sense for certain games to be generally better to start with, but I still think that games such as fe6, fe3, or fe11 can be overlooked as being one of these. Persona and Shin Megami Tensei might be very similar in a lot of aspects but there are also certain other aspects between them that will divide who will like each part of the series more, and is fine and also an easy way to recommend things to other people. A lot of the time I see people suggest that a person's first Megaten game can be SMT nocturne or Digital Devil Saga or something even though those are often seen as "difficult" games, which I haven't seem many people that seem to disagree with them being a possible starting point, and I haven't seen many people saying that you have to start with only persona 3-5 or something. Still, I do think you can start with any game and you should judge what people like based on who they are instead of only on the meta of what other people tell you is a good game to start with.

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 11/7/2021 at 12:35 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Isn't that true of any game in the series, though? Like, someone could totally go Path of Radiance -> Radiant Dawn -> Three Houses, if they're just not into handheld systems. Or Sacred Stones -> Echoes -> Three Houses, if they have a thing for killing monsters. Or just FE7 right onward, if they're leery of emulation.

Perhaps, but in practice, I know a lot more people who self-identify as "filthy casuals" and won't play games without casual mode than I do the alternatives.

[Whisky]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Perhaps, but in practice, I know a lot more people who self-identify as "filthy casuals" and won't play games without casual mode than I do the alternatives.

I self identify as a “filthy casual” and I like to play challenging games. The only game I play competitively is Smash Bros, I’m a casual for any other game. I’d consider pretty much anyone who doesn’t LTC or speed run FE games to be casuals, or do we have different definitions of that term?

[AnonymousSpeed]

9 hours ago, Whisky said:

I self identify as a “filthy casual” and I like to play challenging games. The only game I play competitively is Smash Bros, I’m a casual for any other game. I’d consider pretty much anyone who doesn’t LTC or speed run FE games to be casuals, or do we have different definitions of that term?

Well, that's just exposes an unfortunate result of self-identification, the terms just don't retain meaning. In our (me and the aforementioned filth) discussions, "filthy casual" meant someone who only plays on casual mode. Any game with necessary permadeath was off-putting to them.

[Whisky]

23 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Well, that's just exposes an unfortunate result of self-identification, the terms just don't retain meaning. In our (me and the aforementioned filth) discussions, "filthy casual" meant someone who only plays on casual mode. Any game with necessary permadeath was off-putting to them.

Personally that seems too specific. It would only apply to Fire Emblem after all and maybe a few other games that I don’t know about.

For that definition, well, to each their own I guess, people can have whatever preferences they want, but I think it’s a shame people would limit their experience like that. I think for some people, it’s their own play style and mindset that makes the idea of ‘permadeath’ seem more intimidating than it really is.

Personally I started enjoying FE games more when I stopped worrying so much about everything. When I was younger I would reset whenever a unit died, but at some point became more willing to continue on without them, and felt like FE games became a lot less stressful without worrying about stuff like that so much. The games are designed for this, losing even your best units won’t make the game unbeatable, a lot of FE games keep giving you strong units throughout the game.
 

Ironically I think people who are put off by the idea of ‘permadeath’ aren’t playing casually enough and are instead stressing themselves out about things that don’t even matter that much. I wonder if people who are scared of ‘permadeath’ also reset when missing a village or chest? From what I’ve seen, I think some people play FE games with sort of a completionist mindset of wanting to get everything and keep everyone alive, to the point of stressing out over it, not realizing that the games become easier and less stressful if you just play through them more casually without trying to be perfect.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Whisky

[MuteMousou]

1 hour ago, Whisky said:

For that definition, well, to each their own I guess, people can have whatever preferences they want, but I think it’s a shame people would limit their experience like that. I think for some people, it’s their own play style and mindset that makes the idea of ‘permadeath’ seem more intimidating than it really is.

Tbf the newer games are poorly designed around permadeath so I can see not liking it, I think it would be pretty alright to do conquest hard or lunatic on casual because you lose a lot if just one character dies. 

1 hour ago, Whisky said:

Ironically I think people who are put off by the idea of ‘permadeath’ aren’t playing casually enough and are instead stressing themselves out about things that don’t even matter that much. I wonder if people who are scared of ‘permadeath’ also reset when missing a village or chest? From what I’ve seen, I think some people play FE games with sort of a completionist mindset of wanting to get everything and keep everyone alive, to the point of stressing out over it, not realizing that the games become easier and less stressful if you just play through them more casually without trying to be perfect.

People can play how they want, but yeah if you're not having fun with something there still is a possibility it has something to do with how you're playing it. The game gives you the option to not do certain things so you don't have to do them, I get annoyed sometimes with being seen sometimes as "doing things wrong" for not experiencing every single thing in the video game. The common meta for FE imo is just kind of weird compared to other series I play, people don't seem to feel as compelled to do literally everything in Dark Souls or Shin Megami Tensei in my (anecdotal) experience

[AnonymousSpeed]

7 hours ago, Whisky said:

Personally that seems too specific. It would only apply to Fire Emblem after all and maybe a few other games that I don’t know about.

Perhaps for general use, but in context it worked perfectly well.

7 hours ago, Whisky said:

I wonder if people who are scared of ‘permadeath’ also reset when missing a village or chest?

I know that's how I usually play. When I'm not ironmanning, I'm doing the completionist thing.

That said, I completely agree that it's less stressful to let go and makes the game more unique, more authentic, more interesting, and overall better. Generally speaking.

What I wanted to argue was that Awakening can be viewed as a bad entry point into the series because I think people who start out with casual mode available are disproportionately likely to expect it and be put off by its absence, and therefore are more likely to not try out the older games. I'm only speaking from experience there, based on my friends and our discussions about the franchise. Alas, but probably for the best, nobody has allocated extensive resources to polling Fire Emblem fans on these issues, at least that I'm aware of.

Edited November 10, 2021 by AnonymousSpeed

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 11/8/2021 at 10:28 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Perhaps, but in practice, I know a lot more people who self-identify as "filthy casuals" and won't play games without casual mode than I do the alternatives.

Just wandering here and realized I never responded to this point. I think there's definitely a point to it - that players who start with Casual Mode are less likely to play Classic Mode. But, would those players have come to the series at all if there weren't a Casual Mode? I definitely have friends who were put off enough by permadeath that they only got into it via Casual Mode in Awakening. To my knowledge, they haven't gone back to the older games... but if there were no Casual Mode, they probably wouldn't have gotten into the franchise to begin with.

In this sense, I'd say the introduction of Casual Mode expanded the Fire Emblem audience, but at some expense to the series' "purity". I don't personally see this as a problem, so long as the option of Classic Mode exists in every game. Perhaps a "Classic-Mode-only" variant of Awakening would still bring in a ton of fans who would've been more keen on trying the older games. Or, maybe it would've failed to "save the series", and we'd only have the older games to talk about. Who knows?

[AnonymousSpeed]

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

In this sense, I'd say the introduction of Casual Mode expanded the Fire Emblem audience, but at some expense to the series' "purity". I don't personally see this as a problem, so long as the option of Classic Mode exists in every game.

I see this as a gigantic problem, unless you're a libertarian.