Should "Pick your Path" be a series mainstay?

[Wintails]

Seems like its heading this way. Fates gave us a choice between Nohr, Hoshido or neither. 3H we choose between the Eagles, Lions and Deer.

Should this be the series direction?

[AnonymousSpeed]

Kinda depends on what the developers wanna do, really. If they keep wanting to do that, good for them. If they don't, I'm fine with that too. I guess I wouldn't insist on it being one way or the other, that's all.

[Florete]

No. The core of the issues for both Fates and Three Houses stems from the path options. Go back to a single unified narrative.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

What @AnonymousSpeed said. I think it should be decided on a game-by-game basis. Between "strict linear narrative" and "choose your path", I don't think either option is strictly superior. I don't really want "choose your path" introduced to remakes of games that didn't really have it (i.e. FE4), but other than that, they can use it where ot makes narrative and gameplay sense.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

What @AnonymousSpeed said. I think it should be decided on a game-by-game basis. Between "strict linear narrative" and "choose your path", I don't think either option is strictly superior. I don't really want "choose your path" introduced to remakes of games that didn't really have it (i.e. FE4), but other than that, they can use it where ot makes narrative and gameplay sense.

IDK, that actually sounds like it could be a bit of fun; if it's like some kind of post game trimmed down second quest so the integrity of the main story remains.

[Sunwoo]

They're not even good at writing multiple paths. They get so hung up trying to make it so that you, the avatar, always remain the "good guy" no matter what you choose and they do it poorly.

Unless they learn how to do it better, no.

[lenticular]

I don't want it to be a mainstay, and definitely think we could use a break after Fates and Three Houses, but I wouldn't mind it showing up from time to time. I would be wary of seeing more games where you (can or must) fight on multiple sides in the same conflict. To various extents, I have problems with how that ended up working out in Three Houses, Fates and also Radiant Dawn, which did it without a route split. But there's no reason why a route split has to be "which side of this conflict are you fighting on?" Instead it can be "how are you choosing to fight against this enemy?" which Sacred Stones and Gaiden/Echoes both played with to some degree.

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

They're not even good at writing multiple paths. They get so hung up trying to make it so that you, the avatar, always remain the "good guy" no matter what you choose and they do it poorly.

Unless they learn how to do it better, no.

To be fair, they're not that great at writing single path stories either.

[Benice]

I think for the next FE game, they really should focus on getting one route right; Fates' plot kinda combusted over having too many routes (I think? Something sure went wrong), and TH isn't truly finished; lots of map reuse, and I'm pretty sure that the devs didn't have time to really get the game ironed out as much as they'd have wanted to overall. I'd personally rather see something that's more simple in terms of structure in order to let the devs get a really clean game out the door, especially if they can reuse it as a base for future games that maybe try something more complex with routes. Plus, I've kinda had enough of having to play the same game multiple times just to see everything.

Overall, I don't think that the series should go all-in with picking routes, but I don't mind seeing it again at some point, once they've made at least one game that's actually finished.

[Sunwoo]

16 minutes ago, Jotari said:

To be fair, they're not that great at writing single path stories either.

Well, yeah ... but that feels like more of a reason why they should stick to single-path stories. Something simple and straightforward, but with enough lore to make the world feel "real enough" (as opposed to Fates' continent not even having a canon name), where regardless of the bad guys' reasons for doing what they're doing the takeaway is that they are still in the wrong and have to be stopped.

Fates and 3H just have too many issues, the underlying reason being the existence of an avatar and their need to pander to the player. In which case let's not do multiple paths and watch them fail yet again at doing morally gray.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Sunwoo

[Zapp Branniglenn]

It's ridiculous to ask us to play a 60 hour JRPG three times with extremely minor alterations that only crop up in the last third of the game. Just pull the trigger on having role playing choices in a singular narrative. Don't fake us out with Byleth. Have you guys played games with that stuff? Even the basics like Mass Effect or Fallout New Vegas where you side with entire factions and see the consequences of your actions? You'll love it, trust me. You'll be sitting in those credits, tweeting about what you loved in the game, drafting out your next playthrough's choices. 

I legit have no interest in dunking on modern fire emblem, I just think if you want evidence for why this model doesn't work, all of us played the same games. All of us sat through chapter 17, and instead of it being this heartwrenching moment we've been thinking about since the trailer, it's all about that fog baby. It's not a fog of war map? No no no you see we can't tell friend from foe out there. You see Claude he's asking to join up with us? No that's the fog lying to you. Could be the empire, you know. 

[Shrimpica]

Not in the near future, atleast. Hopes burned me hard on routes.

I wouldn't mind routes later however if they learn from their mistakes.

• Gameplay wise be more Fates and less like 3H. Even with map reuse, the objective and enemy changes made the gameplay fresh. It was quite repititive in 3H.
• Stop trying to make all sides look good while we are playing as them. Justify them yes, but don't make them appear as guys that do no wrong. For example, choosing Conquest should show us more what it means to choose family over morals, and choosing Edelgard should show us what it means to start a war and not "we are doing it for a good cause i swear".
• Routes shouldn't be disconnected from each other. Infact, make em build upon each other and enforce a route playing order if you have to to improve the story telling experience. For example, imagine if Fates had Birthright and Conquest as "Normal"/"Bad" Ends, and then an extended Heirs of Fate replacing revelation as the true end and the kids fixing their parents mess. HoF would be a natural progression from Birthright and Conquest then. You can still have the routes telling different stories and be equally vaild, but they should build upon each other and not just work as a different PoV. And don't be a afraid of a golden/true ending if it fits the story.

The problem ain't routes. It's how FE does routes.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Shrimpy

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

I don't want it to be a mainstay, and definitely think we could use a break after Fates and Three Houses, but I wouldn't mind it showing up from time to time. I would be wary of seeing more games where you (can or must) fight on multiple sides in the same conflict. To various extents, I have problems with how that ended up working out in Three Houses, Fates and also Radiant Dawn, which did it without a route split. But there's no reason why a route split has to be "which side of this conflict are you fighting on?" Instead it can be "how are you choosing to fight against this enemy?" which Sacred Stones and Gaiden/Echoes both played with to some degree.

I think it's worth drawing a distinction between route splits and route swaps. A route split being where one Lord, and potentially their army, make a choice that affects the next chapters (i.e. Roy on the Western Isles, or Teach at the start of Three Houses). And a route swap being where the player's control shifts from one Lord, and their army, to another (i.e. Alm and Celica in Echoes, or the various armies in Radiant Dawn). Where a route split allows different stories to be told in a single game, a route swap reveals different portions or angles on a single story. Technically, the two can coexist (i.e. Radiant Dawn could've had paralogues), but I don't think any game has done that thus far.

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

IDK, that actually sounds like it could be a bit of fun; if it's like some kind of post game trimmed down second quest so the integrity of the main story remains.

That already exists, it's called Thracia 776.

3 hours ago, Shrimpy said:

Gameplay wise be more Fates and less like 3H. Even with map reuse, the objective and enemy changes made the gameplay fresh. It was quite repititive in 3H.

It's a shame that 3H didn't, at a bare minimum, offer variance in the White Clouds chapters between routes. Even using the same maps, they could've varied the victory conditions (i.e. made BL maps mostly "Sieze") or starting positions (i.e. having the GD start "split up" on most maps). Would've helped the replayability.

[Original Alear]

I'm OK with missable gaiden chapters like in 5, 6, and 7, but I'm not even a huge fan of the branching route aspect of Thracia and that was quite minimal. I don't want branching routes like in Fates and 3 Houses. For me, I don't really mind the storyline problems in 3 Houses, but I don't want something like playing White Clouds 4 times to play all 4 routes (though I guess you can branch most of the way through white clouds for crimson flower and silver snow). I'm more ok with it in revelation since you can start at the branch.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Original Johan Liebert

[PostZordem]

Interesting. It appears that I'm in the minority that would love for routes to become a mainstay in Fire Emblem moving forward (except for any future Echoes remakes). I love the route splits because they offer more replayability and encourage you to play the game again in order to see a different perspective of the war with a different group of characters to use. Yes, the chapters up to the "Branch of Fate" in Fates and Part 1 of Three Houses play out basically identically to the other routes, but you can skip right to the Branch of Fate on the next playthrough (if you bought the other route(s) digitally) for Fates and Three Houses offered enough differences within the cutscenes of White Clouds (depending on the route) to where I didn't find it to be that much of an issue (except for Black Eagles unless you have a save point made before the branch). 

I agree with @Shrimpy on the point that future routes should be handled in the way that Birthright/Conquest were in regards to their differing gameplay. It helps keep the second playthrough fresh and engaging. I also agree that future routes should be "objectively good" and "morally bad" instead of each route being equally good. Or at least have each route fall into the "morally grey" category. I kind of disagree on their point on disconnected routes since I think they provide more of a consequence for not choosing a different route, but I'm not opposed to the idea and think it could work quite well in execution. 

In any case, I for one am in favor of future mainline FE titles continuing the route split trend that Fates started. I loved how it was done in Three Houses and liked its execution in Fates as well, albeit to a lesser extent. It may not be perfect, but I like to think that someday down the line IS can take what worked, leave out what didn't and create the best "Pick your Path" FE game that they possibly can. 

[vanguard333]

Ever since the original game had it that Marth could only visit one of two villages on a certain chapter, IS has wanted to experiment with player choice; "pick your path" games like Fates and Three Houses, in a way, were the logical conclusion of that and it's inevitable that some element of player choice affecting outcomes will remain in the series going forward. However, I want to see IS try more small-scale and more creative ways to implement it than "pick your path".

Pick-your-path is essentially multiple games with similar gameplay & characters being developed at the same time, and the result for both Fates and Three Houses was that IS bit off more than they could chew. They mitigated that somewhat for Three Houses by bringing in Koei Tecmo to help make the game, but they still ended up having to make Verdant Wind a carbon copy of Silver Snow and have Crimson Flower be noticeably lacking in content compared to the other three routes.

I'm tired of pick-your-path; I'd like to see IS make a game with one story and be ambitious with its gameplay and with its one story, rather than be ambitious by adding more routes. I still maintain that Path of Radiance is the best Fire Emblem game; it had one story, it was creative and it was polished, and the whole game was just good to play.

To be clear, I'm not against "pick-your-path" appearing in the future; I just think that IS needs to take a break from it for now.

[Jotari]

On 7/25/2022 at 9:02 AM, CyberZord said:

Three Houses offered enough differences within the cutscenes of White Clouds (depending on the route) to where I didn't find it to be that much of an issue (except for Black Eagles unless you have a save point made before the branch). 

You have a very low treshold for what constitutes differences within cutscenes. Because White Clouds virtually had three different voice actors reading the exact same script.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Jotari

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Nah I'd rather it just be used sparingly. I prefer single focuses.

[ZeManaphy]

Like others said, I think it really depends on what kind of story they are telling. I personally enjoy it from a gameplay perspective  because it  makes it gives a different way to play compared to the past playthroughs and lets you see the conflict from a different perspective , but if the story would benefit from a single narrative, then I wouldn't mind. Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but I believe Three Hopes did the route split the best from a gameplay perspective, with the maps being completely different or having different objectives if they appear again in another route, with the story being vastly different as well alongside being on one cartridge, the two common criticisms of the 3 Houses and Fates respectively. There are even choices within choices in each route of Three Hopes. 

[whase]

A lot of people seem to forget, "Pick your path" has been a Fire Emblem mainstay for a long time, they just seem to have gotten worse at it.

The earliest FE I played is also one of the games that did path splits the best imo, Binding Blade/Sword of Seals. Slight variances in maps and story depending on choices is what I like to see most. Sacred Stones also did the split story with a different main character fairly well, nothing too great but it works.

And to be honest, as someone who replays every FE game at least a handful of times, I had zero problems with replaying White Clouds on 3H.

While I personally really like the route splits, I will say that Path of Radiance is my favorite. Even though it is (I think) the only FE I played with zero route splits (Though I'm not sure about FE11/12 on that anymore). I'll say keep the route splits coming, just don't pull another Fates on us.

[Jotari]

34 minutes ago, whase said:

A lot of people seem to forget, "Pick your path" has been a Fire Emblem mainstay for a long time, they just seem to have gotten worse at it.

The earliest FE I played is also one of the games that did path splits the best imo, Binding Blade/Sword of Seals. Slight variances in maps and story depending on choices is what I like to see most. Sacred Stones also did the split story with a different main character fairly well, nothing too great but it works.

And to be honest, as someone who replays every FE game at least a handful of times, I had zero problems with replaying White Clouds on 3H.

While I personally really like the route splits, I will say that Path of Radiance is my favorite. Even though it is (I think) the only FE I played with zero route splits (Though I'm not sure about FE11/12 on that anymore). I'll say keep the route splits coming, just don't pull another Fates on us.

Shadow Dragon has nothing resembling a route split. As for Mystery, the only ting in that vein is the true ending by getting the requisite items, similar to Binding Blade.

[Yexin]

imho route split (FE5/6/7/8 and the likes) is more than fine as it doesn't change the overall story at its core
path split (Fates/3H) isn't, mostly because IntSys doesn't seem to be able to decently handle them

so my answer is no

[Jotari]

One approach I'd like to see that they haven't done yet is two different routes with two different protagonists fighting against each other. Only the events are the same no matter which character you choose, only the perspective is flipped. Kind if like Ike and Micaiah only spun out to a full route. Probably with them teaming up in the end, but really I wouldn't at all be upset if one of them just died at the end, provided it can be framed as suitably tragic like Sigurd.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Jotari

[PostZordem]

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

You have a very low treshold fkr what constitutes differences within cutscenes. Because White Clouds virtually had three different voice actors reading the exact same script.

I wouldn't say that it's the exact same. Dimitri's slow descent into madness is something you only get to see firsthand within Blue Lions. There's also that important decision towards the end of Part 1 of Black Eagles where you have to choose whether Crimson Flower or Silver Snow becomes the Part 2 route (Assuming you got the B Support with Edelgard beforehand and went to the Empire with Edelgard). There's also Dimitri, Claude & the BE Students' different reactions to the Flame Emperor's unmasking (Dimitri even gets a special cutscene for that part). There's also the smaller things like Ashe & Lonato's dialogue or Sylvain's dialogue with his older brother Miklan (These appear in battle more so than the preceding cutscene, but I figured I'd mention it). These differences may not have much of an impact on White Clouds as a whole (except for maybe the Black Eagles branch), but they're nice little additions that make White Clouds easier to sit through on the 2nd or 3rd go. So I'd argue that while the script is pretty samey, it's definitely not the exact same one used for every route.

[Florete]

So I'm actually going to expand a bit and say that it's not a matter of execution, but that pick-your-path is fundamentally flawed for a series like Fire Emblem. It can work in a game where those "paths" are shorter, but Fire Emblem doesn't want short paths for a variety of reasons. Since game development is not free or fast, this means that pick-your-path with long paths requires a lot of re-used content. We can actually see both of these scenarios at play in Three Houses; the game from the moment you pick your house to the end is long, but the unique portion is relatively short.

Fates managed to avoid that problem by selling each route separately, justifying the increased development time and cost. Unfortunately, everyone hated them for it! Fates also ruined its chance at a good narrative with its third route, among a few other things.

This does not apply to games with small route divergences, aka the GBA trio. Those are fine, because they still ultimately follow a single narrative.