Is pre- and post-Awakening a meaningful/useful distinction?

[lenticular]

In fandom discussions, it's pretty common to see a distinction between FE games from Awakening onwards and those that came before then. I've done so myself. And in some ways, yeah, that's a meaningful distinction. Not only did it see a massive upswing to the popularity of the series, but there were also some changes to design philosophy, with more focus on social sim elements, more character building, and greater accessibility to casual players, which have largely continued to this day.

But at the same time, none of these things have a clear dividing line where they were absent beforehand and then present after. Support conversations and skill systems are both longstanding features that have been growing more complicated over time. Casual mode debuted in New Mystery. And they've also continued to be developed since Awakening, especially with time rewind being introduced in Shadows of Valentia.

And it's also not the only notable inflection point in the evolution of the series as a whole. There's a meaningful split between the Kaga games and the post-Kaga games, or (very similarly) between the Japan-exclusive games and the ones with international localisation. And then more recently, I think that Shadows of Valentia is another good watershed, introducing not only time rewind but also full voice acting, both of which substantially change the feel of the game.

So my question is: is it still worth our while to discuss pre- and post-Awakening Fire Emblem as if they are different beasts?

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Probably not, to be honest. I've noticed I've stopped distinguishing the era like that, and I'm not even sure when it happened. It just did.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I would say that, yes, the release of Awakening still holds mighty significance within the context of the series' history. As New Mystery never made it out of Japan, it had been four years since the last international release, which was Shadow Dragon. We haven't had a gap that long since. Moreover, while certain reforms initiated with FE12, like the Avatar and Casual Mode, they only became internationally-known through Awakening.

I would say that we are still in the third "era" of the franchise: the first running through the Kaga games, and the second including GBA, Tellius, and DS. Of course, five years from now, we might look back and decide that Three Houses kicked off a "fourth era". Who really knows? Still,

51 minutes ago, lenticular said:

And then more recently, I think that Shadows of Valentia is another good watershed, introducing not only time rewind but also full voice acting, both of which substantially change the feel of the game.

I'd rather say that Echoes was a "prelude" to Three Houses, in the same way that New Mystery preluded Awakening. It brought new elements to the table, both in presentation (nearly-full voice acting) and in gameplay (rewinding, combat arts), that its successor took and ran with. Of course, while Engage retains the rewinding, it backslides in the other regards. Combat Arts weren't here to stay, it seems, and while most things are voice acted, stuff that was fully voiced before (i.e. in-town and in-Monastery dialogue) is supplanted by only semi-voiced dialogue in the Somniel.

As such, I don't think there's been enough of a decisive "turn" to say that we've entered a "fourth era". Nor has there been any jump as significant - for international audiences, at least - as that between Shadow Dragon and Awakening. Personally, much as I don't care for a lot of what Awakening did, I do think it's probably the second-most important release for the series outside of Japan. The most important, of course, having been Super Smash Bros. Melee.

[lenticular]

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

I'd rather say that Echoes was a "prelude" to Three Houses, in the same way that New Mystery preluded Awakening. It brought new elements to the table, both in presentation (nearly-full voice acting) and in gameplay (rewinding, combat arts), that its successor took and ran with. Of course, while Engage retains the rewinding, it backslides in the other regards. Combat Arts weren't here to stay, it seems, and while most things are voice acted, stuff that was fully voiced before (i.e. in-town and in-Monastery dialogue) is supplanted by only semi-voiced dialogue in the Somniel.

Combat Arts didn't make it to Engage under that name, but Engage Attacks certainly share a lot of DNA with them, in terms of being fancy special attacks that the player chooses to perform instead of a regular attack. Though, by the same measure, the idea of "choose to perform a special attack" wasn't new in Shadows of Valentia either. Off the top of my head, I recall that the Gamble skill worked that way in at least one of the Tellius games, for instance, and there are probably other examples too.

I do like the framing of New Mystery and Shadows of Valentia being preludes to their subsequent games though, since it does make a lot more intuitive sense to talk about Awakening and Three Houses as being big touchstones for the series, while the remakes have felt more experimental. I wonder if that means we shouldn't expect a Jugdral remake (if it happens) to be either a faithful remake of Genealogy or to look similar to Three Houses and Engage, but to be a wild west of new and experimental ideas, some of which might make it into the next mainline game.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I don't disagree that Fire Emblem has a lot of linear progression in terms of mechanics and concepts. Most of Awakenings "innovations" were in fact born in the previous game. 3DS era in general is one big grab bag of nostalgia bait - they brought back witches IMMEDIATELY BEFORE the Gaiden remake. However I think it is a good distinction. Better than Pre-kaga/Post-Kaga which I would grant the runner up best distinction. Better than saying "Modern FE" because by now awakening is a decade old and the shutting down of the Eshop makes it as accessible as the physical only era of Fire Emblem from now to the end of time. As for the games themselves, most if not all of Awakening-onward games are:

• non linear, with the possibility of between battle grinding
• emphasize skill "builds" and reclassing
• Have online features that can break the game balance
• Have DLC that can break the game balance
• Have Avatar characters that the plot centers around exclusively.
• Emphasize lifestyle/sim elements like modern RPGs do
• let you turn off permadeath

And the FE12-and prior Fire Emblem games have 0-2 entries for each of these bullet points. The way we talk about the modern era is different too. In tier list/viability discussion, the main sticking points between two perspectives is more so player preference and unit favoritism than it is in a study of Fire Emblem: The game that runs on easily-parsed numbers. And I don't think that's our fault either. Fire Emblem was a series built at least in part on the idea of resource scarcity (money, weapon uses, human life), but resources are hilariously abundant/debatably infinite starting with Awakening. Mekkah talked about that in a recent video and it's too true. Base level, non reclassed Benny can double Master Ninjas. A thorough Three Houses run can have enough stat boosters to raise all of a unit's stats by 10-15, and another temporary +3 for all units with the right meal each week.

I often feel like strategy in Fire Emblem has taken a major backseat to these RPG elements. But on the other hand there are so many mechanics to learn, so much busywork between maps, so many choices to be made with your units, that it all feels overdesigned. Mechanical bloat. I just wanna drag and drop units.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Zzeae]

Eras in Fire Emblem games should be defined by changes in design philosophy and goals, rather than individual mechanics. Awakening is a useful break point in the series as it marks a clear shift in the goals and perspectives of the series, doubling down on the RPG elements in both the story and gameplay. Starting with story, nearly every FE after awakening has centered around an avatar protagonist designed for the player to insert themselves into. Even when these elements existed in the past (Mark, Kris) they were exclusively tertiary characters, as opposed to the new approach of making them the most important characters in the game. Supports are similar, as the support system as it existed from FE6-9 usually had 2-4 sets of support conversations per character, while in Awakening and beyond it's not uncommon to see 10 or more. This is again representative of a change in mindset, as instead of using the required amount of supports to give the player a feeling for the character's background and personality, Awakening supports aren't afraid to be redundant with each other and instead use the sheer breadth of character interactions as their main draw.

Gameplay also saw a considerable change in philosophy in Awakening that persist to this day - namely, the focus on character customization. Even FE11 with reclassing had a fraction of the customization of any game post awakening. Skills completely changed the game as far as customization is concerned, and the general inflation of stats and growth rates meant that what class you made your units and the path they took to get there dramatically changed basically everything. Alongside this was the change in resources, where resources became so much more abundant. Overall, these two combined to make out - of - map character building take a comparable amount of effort (and in some cases arguably more) than the actual tactical gameplay.

This is of course all ignoring the elephant in the room that is Shadows of Valentia, but that game I think furthers my point even more. SoV was designed with much more of an "old style" philosophy for the series, and feels distinctly different than any of it's peers in the "modern" era of fire emblem. None of this is to say I prefer one over another, but I do think that Awakening remains a crucial tipping point in the series' history that should be discussed.

[Dark Holy Elf]

19 hours ago, lenticular said:

So my question is: is it still worth our while to discuss pre- and post-Awakening Fire Emblem as if they are different beasts?

I'd say "different beasts" is going a bit far, but I do think it represents a major transition point, the most significant since the Thracia/Binding Kaga breakpoint (which one is more significant is something I can see going either way on).

Avatars, casual mode (this one is huge IMO), voice acting, an emphasis on support conversations being easily accessable and intended content for most players (I can't tell you how many players of GBA Emblem I've talked to who got a single-digit number of support conversations per file), an emphasis on a class system which you can carry skills between, and an emphasis on character relationships are all very notable, and all either began with Awakening, or New Mystery. And while New Mystery is certainly an important transitional game to note for this conversation, the fact that it never left Japan means that for the average player discussing this in series on an English-speaking forum, Awakening is further cemented as the big shift.

[KMT4ever]

20 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I don't disagree that Fire Emblem has a lot of linear progression in terms of mechanics and concepts. Most of Awakenings "innovations" were in fact born in the previous game. 3DS era in general is one big grab bag of nostalgia bait - they brought back witches IMMEDIATELY BEFORE the Gaiden remake. However I think it is a good distinction. Better than Pre-kaga/Post-Kaga which I would grant the runner up best distinction. Better than saying "Modern FE" because by now awakening is a decade old and the shutting down of the Eshop makes it as accessible as the physical only era of Fire Emblem from now to the end of time. As for the games themselves, most if not all of Awakening-onward games are:

• non linear, with the possibility of between battle grinding
• emphasize skill "builds" and reclassing
• Have online features that can break the game balance
• Have DLC that can break the game balance
• Have Avatar characters that the plot centers around exclusively.
• Emphasize lifestyle/sim elements like modern RPGs do
• let you turn off permadeath

And the FE12-and prior Fire Emblem games have 0-2 entries for each of these bullet points. The way we talk about the modern era is different too. In tier list/viability discussion, the main sticking points between two perspectives is more so player preference and unit favoritism than it is in a study of Fire Emblem: The game that runs on easily-parsed numbers. And I don't think that's our fault either. Fire Emblem was a series built at least in part on the idea of resource scarcity (money, weapon uses, human life), but resources are hilariously abundant/debatably infinite starting with Awakening. Mekkah talked about that in a recent video and it's too true. Base level, non reclassed Benny can double Master Ninjas. A thorough Three Houses run can have enough stat boosters to raise all of a unit's stats by 10-15, and another temporary +3 for all units with the right meal each week.

I think this just about sums up my own thoughts on the topic, although I'd also make a distinction between the gameplay and story aspects. In the former case many of the features Awakening is well known for were already present in Tellius or the Archanea remakes, only now they were all put together in one game. As for the latter case I think Awakening represented much more obvious of a shift, with Robin getting far more plot importance than Kris and infinitely more than Mark, supports being vastly expanded in quantity, and the sim elements not just increasing in variety but also more heavily affecting gameplay (children, meals, etc).

Quote

I often feel like strategy in Fire Emblem has taken a major backseat to these RPG elements. But on the other hand there are so many mechanics to learn, so much busywork between maps, so many choices to be made with your units, that it all feels overdesigned. Mechanical bloat. I just wanna drag and drop units.

100% agreed. I haven't played any FE game past Fates, partially because I don't have a Switch but largely because whenever I read about all of the things to do outside of maps or preparation for them my eyes tend to glaze over from boredom. I'm not opposed to optimizing, but ultimately I'm playing FE to command my army in battle, not cook a meal so the right stat gets boosted or micromanage classes to get the best skills.

[Jotari]

Skipping over what everyone else has said to give my earnest perspective, I think it was a pretty meaningful distinction for about seven year. Because at that point the distinction was stark enough. I remember when Warriors came out someone was pissed because we only saw only hints to Archanea, Fates and Awakening characters in the trailer. My response was, "that doesn't mean other continuities won't be there, wait and see". But that guy, whomever they were, totally called it. Warriors was a Fateswakenings affair with only obligatory Archanea. All other continuities were secret or DLC single characters.

But then Three Houses was released, and while it wasn't a stark difference in design, it was still big enough that grouping it with the 3DS and associated games wasn't comfortable. And with Engage reaffirming a lot of Three House's elements while offering plenty of its own, it feels very much like we're in a totally distinct era, which will end only on future retrospect.

Everything always seems major at the time, but I think, in hindsight, Fire Emblem can very comfortably be split into eras neatly separated by their console releases. As I see it we have the following eras with sub eras.

*Kaga era

**NES

**SNES (probably the smallest divide in an era, coming almost entirely down to technology improvements)

*GBA era

*Tellius era (feels tempting to combine this with GBA due to nostalgia maybe, but looked at objectively there is a pretty distinct difference in approach to both plot and gameplay, even the approach to supports is different to the GBA games, radically so in RD's case)

*DS era

*3DS era

*Switch era/modern era

Which, now that I look back on it, if we combine the two Kaga eras, is pretty much exactly how we set up the forums here on Serenes. So I guess I'm with the Serenes mods on this one.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Jotari

[LamerGamer776]

No distinction, at least not moreso than the distinction between other sets of titles in previous games. FE3 is significantly different from FE4 / 5 for example, Radiant Dawn is completely different to Shadow Dragon, etc. Awakening probably shares more DNA with New Mystery of the Emblem than Shadow Dragon does with Radiant Dawn imo. Actually, it shares more DNA with the rest of the series, from child units in FE4, Skills in the Telius / SNES games, reclassing from the DS games, Casual Mode from New Mystery, etc. One could call it a celebration of the series.

It has been a while since I played Awakening, but I distinctly remember it feeling different than other FE games because there was a bigger focus on grinding to obtain the best skills. That being said, I also played Fates a similar way in the past and after coming back to it, realize that there is a lot more flexibility in how units can be leveled, optimizations & reclassing being useful but not necessary, etc. I may need to come back to Awakening again later, since this perception of needing to grind and reclass may be wrong, but Three Houses, Fates, and Shadows of Valentia don't feel that similar to Awakening. Another point is that skills in 3 Houses and Engage aren't as meaningful as the ones in Awakening or Fates.

19 hours ago, Jotari said:

Skipping over what everyone else has said to give my earnest perspective, I think it was a pretty meaningful distinction for about seven year. Because at that point the distinction was stark enough. I remember when Warriors came out someone was pissed because we only saw only hints to Archanea, Fates and Awakening characters in the trailer. My response was, "that doesn't mean other continuities won't be there, wait and see". But that guy, whomever they were, totally called it. Warriors was a Fateswakenings affair with only obligatory Archanea. All other continuities were secret or DLC single characters.

But then Three Houses was released, and while it wasn't a stark difference in design, it was still big enough that grouping it with the 3DS and associated games wasn't comfortable. And with Engage reaffirming a lot of Three House's elements while offering plenty of its own, it feels very much like we're in a totally distinct era, which will end only on future retrospect.

Everything always seems major at the time, but I think, in hindsight, Fire Emblem can very comfortably be split into eras neatly separated by their console releases. As I see it we have the following eras with sub eras.

*Kaga era

**NES

**SNES (probably the smallest divide in an era, coming almost entirely down to technology improvements)

*GBA era

*Tellius era (feels tempting to combine this with GBA due to nostalgia maybe, but looked at objectively there is a pretty distinct difference in approach to both plot and gameplay, even the approach to supports is different to the GBA games, radically so in RD's case)

*DS era

*3DS era

*Switch era/modern era

Which, now that I look back on it, if we combine the two Kaga eras, is pretty much exactly how we set up the forums here on Serenes. So I guess I'm with the Serenes mods on this one.

I found Three Houses to share a lot of elements w/ Shadows of Valentia, probably since it came out immediately before. Stuff like equipment, being able to learn spells, Archers having 2-3 range by default, 3rd tier promotions, and Combat Arts all come to mind as stuff lifted from Shadows of Valentia.

Edited July 7, 2023 by LamerGamer776

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, LamerGamer776 said:

No distinction, at least not moreso than the distinction between other sets of titles in previous games. FE3 is significantly different from FE4 / 5 for example, Radiant Dawn is completely different to Shadow Dragon, etc. Awakening probably shares more DNA with New Mystery of the Emblem than Shadow Dragon does with Radiant Dawn imo. Actually, it shares more DNA with the rest of the series, from child units in FE4, Skills in the Telius / SNES games, reclassing from the DS games, Casual Mode from New Mystery, etc. One could call it a celebration of the series.

It has been a while since I played Awakening, but I distinctly remember it feeling different than other FE games because there was a bigger focus on grinding to obtain the best skills. That being said, I also played Fates a similar way in the past and after coming back to it, realize that there is a lot more flexibility in how units can be leveled, optimizations & reclassing being useful but not necessary, etc. I may need to come back to Awakening again later, since this perception of needing to grind and reclass may be wrong, but Three Houses, Fates, and Shadows of Valentia don't feel that similar to Awakening. Another point is that skills in 3 Houses and Engage aren't as meaningful as the ones in Awakening or Fates.

I found Three Houses to share a lot of elements w/ Shadows of Valentia, probably since it came out immediately before. Stuff like equipment, being able to learn spells, Archers having 2-3 range by default, 3rd tier promotions, and Combat Arts all come to mind as stuff lifted from Shadows of Valentia.

I did read the thread after post my comment, and someone has said that New Mystery and Shadows of Valentia are like experimental preludes to the succeeding games, and I agree with that a lot. Yet, still, I would group the DS and 3DS games separately with New Mystery and Shadows of Valentia being with their respective console. The reason being that it isn't purely about gameplay or story. --Okay, well, all truth out in the open, these terms are kind of bullshit and we all know that. Each entry is its own thing that tries to develop the series and simultaneously harken back to earlier games. Just like the terms millenial and boomer, there is no hard line, it's a continually evolving spectrum and even seeing things in terms of eras reductive and unhelpful...but well, we're now so even though it's silly and unscientific, there is still some feelings there that we're trying to express and use terminology to relate to others who share similar feelings. But, anyway, to go back to what I was saying, it's not purely about gameplay or story. There is something harder to define in there that you might call style or attitude. Like when I referenced the guy that was totally correct in predicting what Warriors would be like. Similarly I was able to predict them shaving off Alm's rough edges in Shadows of Valentia. How can we know these things about unreleased video games? We're not psychics. It's because there is an overarching attitude the developers take with the game that they transition to and away from. And because we only get games every so years, these transitions can feel sudden. It's this attitude that makes people want to group the GBA games and Tellius games together, even though with an objective look, they're completely different. Tellius reintroduced skills when the GBA's main goal was to remove them and go back to basics (but then Sacred Stones came around like Shadows of Valentia and New Mysery and had skills in as a minor feature as a prelude to Path of Radiance, even though they were made at the same time). Genealogy had radically different game design to everything else in the main series, but because Thracia went back to standard map sizes, Genealogy "feels" like it's kin to the other Kaga games. Ultimately there is nothing scientific about this and it all comes down to feelings people have and how they view the continuity or lack there of of overall design.

[lenticular]

On 7/5/2023 at 10:40 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Avatars, casual mode (this one is huge IMO), voice acting, an emphasis on support conversations being easily accessable and intended content for most players (I can't tell you how many players of GBA Emblem I've talked to who got a single-digit number of support conversations per file), an emphasis on a class system which you can carry skills between, and an emphasis on character relationships are all very notable, and all either began with Awakening, or New Mystery. And while New Mystery is certainly an important transitional game to note for this conversation, the fact that it never left Japan means that for the average player discussing this in series on an English-speaking forum, Awakening is further cemented as the big shift.

I am definitely one of those players when it comes to GBA FE. Playing in a way that picks up a lot of supports just isn't fun to me, and honestly this is one of the reasons why I tend not to like GBA FE as much as I like the later games. But I would say that easily accessible supports began with Path of Radiance. If anything, I'd say that individual PoR supports are easier to get than individual supports from many later games. (I am, after all, the person who nearly missed noticing that Fates has child characters since I just didn't get anyone's supports high enough until late game.)

Your general point still stands, though. I do agree that there is a change to how supports are handled from Awakening onwards, but I think that it's more to do with the idea that characters aren't limited to how many different supports they can have. Which has led to other consequences like having each individual support be mechanically less significant. And there definitely is more of a focus on character relationships, I don't disagree there. I think maybe I see it as more of a gradual transition ove time than you do, though?

On 7/6/2023 at 3:47 AM, KMT4ever said:

In the former case many of the features Awakening is well known for were already present in Tellius or the Archanea remakes, only now they were all put together in one game.

Yeah, I think this is a good way of looking at things. Skills were prominent in Tellius, reclassing ws prominent in the DS remakes, but then Awakening took these two disparate systems and tied them together. And then we've been working on variations on that theme ever since. (Which I think is a bit of a shame, because I'd be interested in seeing a revisited version of the Tellius skill system.)

On 7/6/2023 at 1:01 PM, Jotari said:

*Tellius era (feels tempting to combine this with GBA due to nostalgia maybe, but looked at objectively there is a pretty distinct difference in approach to both plot and gameplay, even the approach to supports is different to the GBA games, radically so in RD's case)

I think that the tendency to lump these together is just because of the temporal overlap. Sacred Stone and Path of Radiance literally released on the same day in Europe. And I think that a lot of the differences in design can probably be chalked up to the different hardware. Both in terms of the technological differences, but also the perceived differences between what is desirable in a game for a handheld console versus a home console.

On 7/6/2023 at 1:01 PM, Jotari said:

Fateswakenings

You know, just the fact that the term "Fateswakening" has such traction in fandom is telling of itself. Those two games have a whole lot in common with each other that they just don't with either what went before or what came after.

[Etrurian emperor]

On 7/6/2023 at 2:01 PM, Jotari said:

*Tellius era (feels tempting to combine this with GBA due to nostalgia maybe, but looked at objectively there is a pretty distinct difference in approach to both plot and gameplay, even the approach to supports is different to the GBA games, radically so in RD's case)

Radiant Dawn is pretty different but in terms of Gameplay and Story POR fits into the exact same template as the GBA games, just with a bit more detail to things. 

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Radiant Dawn is pretty different but in terms of Gameplay and Story POR fits into the exact same template as the GBA games, just with a bit more detail to things. 

I don't think so. Tellius's approach to story telling feels a lot more "full", for want of a better word. The GBA titles are very much "the lord show" with pretty much every plot beat revolving around the protagonists, while Tellius, even in Path of Radiance has more factions and side characters of focus. Yoder's church element, for example, would get a lot more focused if he were in a Tellius game than his twoish scenes in Binding Blade. The GBA games are, in a lot of ways, more similar in story telling to the Archanea/Gaiden games while Tellius pulls more from Jugdral, if that helps to show my perspective. There are no scenes like the meeting of the Laguz leaders in the GBA games. It's either we see the villains talking or the heroes talking. Things are less fractional and neater. Sacred Stones again serves something of a prelude in how it has L'Archel and Innes as important characters that aren't protagonists (I would not class Nils and Ninian, or Merlinus, the same way), but much like it's skills, it's a very minor testing of the idea before making it part of the core design. At least, that's the way I see it. And I should clarify that I don't think either style is better than the other, just that I think there is a noticable difference in style between the two.

[Dark Holy Elf]

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

I am definitely one of those players when it comes to GBA FE. Playing in a way that picks up a lot of supports just isn't fun to me, and honestly this is one of the reasons why I tend not to like GBA FE as much as I like the later games. But I would say that easily accessible supports began with Path of Radiance. If anything, I'd say that individual PoR supports are easier to get than individual supports from many later games. (I am, after all, the person who nearly missed noticing that Fates has child characters since I just didn't get anyone's supports high enough until late game.)

Your general point still stands, though. I do agree that there is a change to how supports are handled from Awakening onwards, but I think that it's more to do with the idea that characters aren't limited to how many different supports they can have. Which has led to other consequences like having each individual support be mechanically less significant. And there definitely is more of a focus on character relationships, I don't disagree there. I think maybe I see it as more of a gradual transition ove time than you do, though?

Oh, I definitely agree that overall it's a gradual transition over time; New Mystery having a significant number of the "post-Awakening" features kinda drives that home, and yeah PoR is definitely a step toward Awakening-style supports (though the fact that most characters only have two to four people they can support iirc the five conversation limit from GBA still applies combine to make Awakening feel like it had a significantly different philosophy in that regard).

And more generally I think just about any "shift" you might point to for the series will have aspects that showed up in other games. I would consider Rescue to be a significant feature of  GBA/Tellius gameplay, but it actually started in Thracia, for instance, the only game of the "Kaga" era to have it. There has never been a point in the series where they've thrown out all the previous innovations, pretty much every game carries over some mechanics from previous ones while adding some new ones of its own, whether the game is considered the "first" of its era or not.

But I do think Awakening still stands as a relatively significant shift, and will appear a very important one if one just skips New Mystery. It's also one of those "proof is in the pudding" things, Awakening sold more outside Japan than every previous Fire Emblem put together (I think so, at least? If I'm wrong, it's close), so naturally people want to look at some of the reasons why.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 7/6/2023 at 8:01 AM, Jotari said:

*Tellius era (feels tempting to combine this with GBA due to nostalgia maybe, but looked at objectively there is a pretty distinct difference in approach to both plot and gameplay, even the approach to supports is different to the GBA games, radically so in RD's case)

I would argue that Path of Radiance has, essentially, the same weapon system as the GBA games. Like, take a look at the Iron Sword. In the GBA games, it has 46 uses. This is bizarre, as the other Iron weapons have 45 uses, and most weapons have a use count that is a multiple of 5. Yet, the Iron Sword has one inexplicable "extra" use. Now, we get into Path of Radiance. The Iron Lance and Iron Axe have 45 uses each (just like in the GBA games), and the Iron Sword has... 46 uses. The odds of this happening by chance are infinitesimal. Likewise, 18 uses each on the Halberd and Armorslayer (also on the Horseslayer, which is technically up from 16 in the GBA era, likely to have parity with other weapon types). While it's an overstatement to say that IS copy-pasted the weapons from the GBA games, and just made minor tweaks, it's clear that some GBA-era idiosyncracies remain. These wouldn't happen if they had designed the weapon system from the ground up - which appears to be the case in the sequel, Radiant Dawn. 

As for supports, PoR is the last game to impose the "5-support limit". This may feel like a "standard" system for longtime fans, but it really hasn't existed in almost two decades. Other games either don't have support conversations (SD), allow for only a single support chain per unit (RD), or allow a character to activate almost all of their available supports on a single playthrough (the rest of them). It shares this aspect with only one other batch of games - the GBA titles. While the way support points are gained was modified (and much improved) from how they happened in the GBA era, the general framework remained the same.

Finally, all of the GBA-era games, and the Tellius games, feature the "Rescue" family of commands. The only games of the "post-Kaga, pre-3DS" era to not feature these commands are the DS games, which are themselves remakes of games lacking the command. And the only game outside this era to have the command is the one that introduced it - that is, Thracia 776. While the "Pair Up" system of Fateswakening has shades of it, it's definitely it's own beast (Con? Aid? Did you hit your head or something, Robin?). And we've gone three full games without either ability existing, so far from a series mainstay, "Rescue" is a defining trait of a bygone era.

[Jotari]

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

I would argue that Path of Radiance has, essentially, the same weapon system as the GBA games. Like, take a look at the Iron Sword. In the GBA games, it has 46 uses. This is bizarre, as the other Iron weapons have 45 uses, and most weapons have a use count that is a multiple of 5. Yet, the Iron Sword has one inexplicable "extra" use. Now, we get into Path of Radiance. The Iron Lance and Iron Axe have 45 uses each (just like in the GBA games), and the Iron Sword has... 46 uses. The odds of this happening by chance are infinitesimal. Likewise, 18 uses each on the Halberd and Armorslayer (also on the Horseslayer, which is technically up from 16 in the GBA era, likely to have parity with other weapon types). While it's an overstatement to say that IS copy-pasted the weapons from the GBA games, and just made minor tweaks, it's clear that some GBA-era idiosyncracies remain. These wouldn't happen if they had designed the weapon system from the ground up - which appears to be the case in the sequel, Radiant Dawn. 

Path of Radiance also introduced forging which has been something of a staple in every game since, with Path of Radiance's variations staying around, more or less, until Awakening.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Path of Radiance also introduced forging which has been something of a staple in every game since, with Path of Radiance's variations staying around, more or less, until Awakening.

That is true, and the Tellius games share an important bond of being able to choose your weapon's color. My point was, the base weapons themselves in PoR are mostly the same as those in the GBA games. Whereas, RD builds its own system more-or-less from scratch, notably introducing the Bronze weapons.

Anyway, you can definitely find ways that the Tellius games differ mechanically from the GBA ones: The skill system. Super-canto. Shoving. Laguz. Fire-Wind-Thunder. Wider inventories. Biorhythm. Some wholly original, some adapted from Jugdral. And, of course, there are abundant differences between the two Tellius games: Dark magic. Third-tier classes. Coin functionality. Knives expanding out. Ledges and elevation bonuses. Indoor penalties for mounted units.

Anyway, while I could agree that the Tellius games form their own "epoch" in series history (as could the GBA games, and DS games, respectively), I don't think they're distinct enough to be their own "era". For me, there has to be a real sea-change to mark an era shift. Like the founder leaving your company, or your team betting it all on what could be their last release. If anything, the series has been too successful as of late for a new "era" to be kicked off. There haven't been any dramatic commercial failures to convince IS and Nintendo "we need to change our games - how we design them, how we promote them, and how they are enjoyed - in a big way". Yet, there have been changes and variations in the games out since Awakening, so I'm in no rush for this "era" of the series to end. It's been one defined by mainstream appeal, crossover games, and commercial success. That much, I appreciate.

[Jotari]

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

That is true, and the Tellius games share an important bond of being able to choose your weapon's color. My point was, the base weapons themselves in PoR are mostly the same as those in the GBA games. Whereas, RD builds its own system more-or-less from scratch, notably introducing the Bronze weapons.

Anyway, you can definitely find ways that the Tellius games differ mechanically from the GBA ones: The skill system. Super-canto. Shoving. Laguz. Fire-Wind-Thunder. Wider inventories. Biorhythm. Some wholly original, some adapted from Jugdral. And, of course, there are abundant differences between the two Tellius games: Dark magic. Third-tier classes. Coin functionality. Knives expanding out. Ledges and elevation bonuses. Indoor penalties for mounted units.

Anyway, while I could agree that the Tellius games form their own "epoch" in series history (as could the GBA games, and DS games, respectively), I don't think they're distinct enough to be their own "era". For me, there has to be a real sea-change to mark an era shift. Like the founder leaving your company, or your team betting it all on what could be their last release. If anything, the series has been too successful as of late for a new "era" to be kicked off. There haven't been any dramatic commercial failures to convince IS and Nintendo "we need to change our games - how we design them, how we promote them, and how they are enjoyed - in a big way". Yet, there have been changes and variations in the games out since Awakening, so I'm in no rush for this "era" of the series to end. It's been one defined by mainstream appeal, crossover games, and commercial success. That much, I appreciate.

I would describe the difference between Path of Radiance and Sacred Stones to be as big as the difference between New Mystery and Awakening. Which is to say yes, they share similarities but there is still a lot of distinct difference, either from new innovations or recycling. Hell people are kind of completely ignoring that Path of Radiance brought the series into 3D! Usually that's a massive step for a series. Granted unlike most series, for Fire Emblem it makes practically no difference to gameplay (though Radiant Dawn tried), but surely it's not nothing to change your approach to visuals entirely. And then if we extend out to the first and last entry and compare Binding Blade against Radiant Dawn there is a pretty huge difference in approach to basically everything. At the very least I would say Binding Blade is closer to Thracia than it is Radiant Dawn despite people grouping Radiant Dawn and Binding Blade as in one era. I'd even say Radiant Dawn and Thracia are closer to each other than Radiant Dawn and Binding Blade. Binding Blade was something of a gameplay and narrative reset from Jugdral, and then Radiant Dawn was a return to that (though still with it's own identity).

Put it this way, if there was no Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones or Path of Radiance, would you ever group Binding Blade with Radiant Dawn? No way, Binding Blade would be with the Kaga era. I don't think the same would be ture if we removed Fates and compared Awakening and Shadows of Valentia. Or if the only two Kaga eras were Shadow Dragon and Thracia. If GBA and Tellius was one era, then it's one era that morphed so much as to be unrecognizable as what it started as by its end.