How Should Another Archanea Remake/Re-release be Tackled?

[Acacia Sgt]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

It wasn't really. As has pointed out they did change a lot. EVen ignoring the stuff they added like the prologue and weapon triangle, classes could all promote, wyvern knights lost swords and gained axes, the entire weapon level system was remove in favor of weapon ranks, crit is calculated after hit (so no critical misses). All of that stuff could have been retained, and might have been had it been made at the time of Shadows of Valentia. They were willing to change stuff for Shadow Dragon. What they mostly kept the same was maps, enemy class types and the script. Endings would fall into the last category, but it was a specific choice rather than an overall design philosophy for the game.

Sorry, by faithful I did not meant 1:1 remake on absolutely everything. More like that at its core it's still recognizable as a remake of Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light and not, say, of Mystery of the Emblem Book 1. As I've mentioned before, this is even reflected in how the Japanese title is New Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light, further cementing the point.

[Aedan7479]

Some things were also somewhat half baked in Shadow Dragon's script. There's a scene in Chapter 21 you get if Minerva is still alive, and it's the only time something like that happens. the 'talk system' (or what ever you want to call it). But I think the worst offender is scenes where one character talks to Marth with no response; it's a detriment to both characters. Many recruit conversations go as follows:

"I am [insert name here] I was/am a [insert occupation here], I would like to join your army." and if it’s in the chapter's opening, "this is the situation, you'd be advised to do [insert strategy here]." End scene.

Another big offender is Chapter endings, especially early on. The one that bothers me the most is the end of Chapter 9; no comment on how Marth basically just conquered a kingdom ruled by a dragon, and doesn't speak to Catria, which is annoying since Catria's Crush on Marth is such a prominent part of her character, (plus Catria is one of my favourites).

[Acacia Sgt]

With Catria, at least, we can assume her crush developed after, and wasn't a "love at first sight" thing. But yes, we're not shown how it began.

I'd make a joke about the villagers of Pyrathi being quite apathetic about it. Heck, a villager (EDIT: Went to check, was a different portrait used) even points you to the Wyrmslayer you'll use to kill Mannu!

Edited July 9, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Aedan7479]

Something interesting to point out is the unused content in the games; New Mystery doesn't have much (just Gotoh stats and some unused dialogue, but Shadow Dragon's is a bit more interesting. There are portraits for a few characters in casual clothing and a Mystery of the Emblem boss that doesn't appear, as well as unused data that suggests that Orders, Dismounting and 'my Unit' planned at one point. The casual clothing piques my curiosity the most, maybe base or support conversations were planned at one point?

[Acacia Sgt]

42 minutes ago, Aedan7479 said:

The casual clothing piques my curiosity the most, maybe base or support conversations were planned at one point?

Unless it got scrapped super early, I feel the portraits may have been more for select cutscenes.

Personally, Nehring's portrait intrigues me the most. New Mystery redesigned him, but that unused one is that of his original Mystery look. I wonder if they planned to have some of the Book 2 characters have early appearances in Shadow Dragon. Either in cutscenes, or even one or two would've been playable to boot. Since Nehring only has the portrait, perhaps it was for the former purpose, most likely.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

57 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Unless it got scrapped super early, I feel the portraits may have been more for select cutscenes.

Personally, Nehring's portrait intrigues me the most. New Mystery redesigned him, but that unused one is that of his original Mystery look. I wonder if they planned to have some of the Book 2 characters have early appearances in Shadow Dragon. Either in cutscenes, or even one or two would've been playable to boot. Since Nehring only has the portrait, perhaps it was for the former purpose, most likely.

Nehring is also kind of a random character to have play the role of Archanea. Like who even is he? Ask most fans and they won't know, his role is kind of forgettable (though even more so post New Mystery where the Wolfguard over shadow him in his chapter). Why not Lang? A character much more memorable and important who is likewise an Archanean general. Even Willow would have been a more interesting choice, as he's the one chosen to guard Altea in Mystery, a job that's always seemed very important for such a nothing character. Not that I'd have objected to Nehring appearing, anyone getting more focus is nice. It's just a bit of an odd choice. There's only a handful of characters less noticable than him.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Jotari

[Aedan7479]

20 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Nehring is also kind of a random character to have play the role of Archanea. Like who even is he? Ask most fans and they won't know, his role is kind of forgettable (though even more so post New Mystery where the Wolfguard over shadow him in his chapter). Why not Lang? A character much more memorable and important who is likewise an Archanean general. Even Willow would have been a more interesting choice, as he's the one chosen to guard Altea in Mystery, a job that's always seemed very important for such a nothing character. Not that I'd have objected to Nehring appearing, anyone getting more focus is nice. It's just a bit of an odd choice. There's only a handful of characters less noticable than him.

The fact he's just a forgettable character is probably how he got left in the files; Lang would've been deleted from the files first because he's more important.

[Acacia Sgt]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Nehring is also kind of a random character to have play the role of Archanea. Like who even is he? Ask most fans and they won't know, his role is kind of forgettable (though even more so post New Mystery where the Wolfguard over shadow him in his chapter). Why not Lang? A character much more memorable and important who is likewise an Archanean general. Even Willow would have been a more interesting choice, as he's the one chosen to guard Altea in Mystery, a job that's always seemed very important for such a nothing character. Not that I'd have objected to Nehring appearing, anyone getting more focus is nice. It's just a bit of an odd choice. There's only a handful of characters less noticable than him.

Maybe he was meant to be one of many and was chosen to have his portrait made first for whatever reason it was, but the idea was scrapped so no more portraits were made.

7 hours ago, Aedan7479 said:

The fact he's just a forgettable character is probably how he got left in the files; Lang would've been deleted from the files first because he's more important.

Usually it's more trouble to remove content once it's in, which is why it's left in the data to begin with, just with access to it removed. That's how we end up with unused/dummied-out stuff in games. Best not disrupt the integrity of the data structure or end up wasting time and resources reorganizing everything again to fix the hole left by the removed data.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Acacia Sgt