Sure! Here is my original post in which I summed up my thoughts as to what I find so rewarding about the traditional FE meta-game and why Awakening is so lacking in comparison: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1033#p35410Todinho wrote: ↑November 30th, 2017, 12:32 am Could you elaborate a little bit more, the reinforment thing I remember being pretty annoying but other then that I thought awakening was mechanically sound, now from what I understand long time Fire Emblem fans like yourselves dont seem to like awakening all that much but I dont think I ever got why. I think you might've gone into it before but if you dont mind could go into it again?
Also what is your assessement of Fates is it better in your eyes or does it continues on a wrong path?
Also, I can wholeheartedly recommend this particular article that goes into even more depth and describes the underlying issues with Awakening's design better than I ever could. In my opinion, this is a must-read if you're interested in TRPGs: http://thephilosogamer.blogspot.de/2014 ... oming.html
But I don't mind going over it again! To put it simply: grinding is not tactically rewarding and basically ruins everything. The best Fire Emblem games are based on carefully designed maps with varied win conditions. Their difficulty is balanced so that the player should learn how to navigate each map instead of brute-forcing his or her way through them. Awakening more or less threw all that fine-tuning out of the window in favor of Disgaea-style grinding opportunities and overpowered, RNG-based skills. There is nothing tactical about pairing up your two best units with S-rank support, parking them in the middle of the map and hoping their skills will activate in order let them solo the entire army. Furthermore, reclassing takes away what little individuality the characters may otherwise have.
In short, Fire Emblem should be closer to chess than to Pokémon. That pretty much sums it up. The appeal of the traditional Fire Emblem games lies in the intricacies and careful balance of their design. Awakening, on the other hand, is pure quantity over quality. Even with all its undeniable QoL improvements and production values. So yes, it is mechanically "sound", but it's also incredibly shallow and unsatisfying in comparison to previous games in the series. Awakening simply requires so much less actual thinking and strategizing.
There is also the issue of the dumbed-down, cliché-ridden narrative. Traditional Fire Emblem aren't exactly highbrow literature, but their plots are usually a lot more serious and substantial than Awakening's, with the Tellius games being notable standouts (I'll even go on record and claim that Path of Radiance has the best narrative of any Nintendo first party game). The fact that almost every character is reduced to a walking punchline (aka flanderization) doesn't help either.
Also, don't even get me started on the game's obsession with romantic matchmaking and accompanying "fan-service". Fire Emblem had romantic couples in previous games, but they were almost always done tastefully, lots of them were open to interpretation, and they never dominated the game's support system to the point of attracting the Dating Sim crowd.
Fates is... better-ish. the Birthright path is basically the same as Awakening with all the grinding and simplistic map design. The Conquest path attempts to address the issue, but tries so hard to make every map stand out that the end result often feels gimmicky and artificial. The game also makes a lot of small changes to various gameplay mechanics for no apparent reason, which makes it a bit difficult to dive into for long-time fans of the series. But the main issue is with the plot. The concept in itself is fantastic (explore the two opposite sides of a war of aggression), but the execution falls completely flat, especially in the Conquest path. What could have been a Flags of our Fathers / Letters from Iwo Jima - style harrowing depiction of the moral complexities of war ends up being a borderline incomprehensible, tonally disjointed story with incoherent characterizations and full of unearned moments. Radiant Dawn tried to do something similar and was ten times better. The narrative in Fates is straight up garbage. Steaming pile of wasted potential. The fact that the two main paths are made to tease the "true" third DLC path just makes everything worse.
If you ask me, Echoes is by far the best of the 3DS titles. It's a remarkably faithful remake, which unfortunately means it's being held back by the odd systems and bare-boned map design of the original. But it has a fantastic localization, graphical style, voice acting and soundtrack. It also has a very old-school charm to it that I haven't really felt in any of the other localized entries in the series.
If you still have any more questions after that, I'll be more than happy to answer them.