All things Fire Emblem

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ratsoalbion
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All things Fire Emblem

Post by ratsoalbion »

We'll be focusing mainly on 2013's Fire Emblem: Awakening for the 3DS but also delving into the history of the Nintendo/Intelligent Systems franchise with entries on GBA, GameCube, DS and Wii each having received Western releases over the past decade or more.

Please let us have your experiences and opinions of the game and series to share on the podcast, recording this coming Thursday (24th July) at 20:00 BST.
Nekemancer

Re: Our next podcast recording: Fire Emblem

Post by Nekemancer »

Final Fantasy Tactics pretty much ruined me for grid based tactics games. No other game in the genre even came close and all looked worse in comparison. I'd dip my toe into the pool now and then to see if anything could measure up, but never had any luck.

And then my brother lent me his copy of Awakening. I finally found another game of the genre that not only didn't look bad in comparison but was quite solid in it's own right.

I don't play handhelds very often. Almost never actually. But Awakening grabbed hold of me so tightly that I didn't put down my wife's 3DS for the 36 hours I spent on it to beat the game. The combat is fairly good, though if you spend any time grinding relationships the battles become trivially easy on any mode below the most difficult. However, it wasn't the combat that had me fall in love with the game. The characters are very interesting with an incredibly broad range of personalities. Funny, melancholy, silly, stoic, heroic, timid and more. And the relationships between the characters that you marry together are well enough written that you'd think that the combination you made was "The Right" pairing of characters and not just one of a dozen options. The system works remarkably well and had me grinding battle after battle to see the stories develop between romantic partners and, later on, parents and child.

Unfortunately, playing the game for those little storyline bits leads to an incredibly overpowered team in the end. In my game Donnel was so powerful that he could finish the final battle with just his wife assisting, and I had a handful of other characters who were just a bit behind him. The gameplay is still fun, just didn't present a challenge. Playing through on hard would grant the challenge from what I understand of the changes in difficulty, but I don't regret going in on normal with classic deaths. It's still a very fun game and must be played by anyone with an interest in JRPGs and/or tactics games.

Just for fun (this part doesn't need to be read obviously), here's a list of the character pairings I made and used. I had fun comparing the combinations I set up and used against what my brother used.

Fem. Robin-Stahl
Chrom-Sumia
Lissa-Kellam
Virion-Maribelle (Didn't use them much, just wanted to pair them up)
Donnel-Nowi
Ricken-Tharja
Cherche-Henry
Gerome-Nah
Lucina-Morgan

Most of those not listed didn't get used much, though some of the kids that aren't listed were used with their parents.

Whoever reads this, my apologies for the length. Please edit as you see fit. =x
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Re: Our next podcast recording: Fire Emblem

Post by mikeleddy83 »

Fire Emblem Awakening was my most anticipated game of 2013, so much that my Hong Kong holiday of 2012 was frequently wrought of visits to game stores just to see the game in advance of its European release.

I've been obsessed with SRPG's for a long time starting with the Megadrive classic Shining Force and its follow up which marked the first time (of many) that I pulled an all nighter playing a game.

There's something that makes me feel as though I've accomplished great feats in these games and no list of completed games feels right without a game of this genre.

Some of the most significant memories I've had whilst playing games have come from the genre:
  • Vandal Hearts marking the first unexpected game as a gift from my mum that I didn't have to lie about loving.
  • Disgaea 2 keeping me company on a gardening job when the rain helped to increase my playtime by 6 hours.
  • Chasing the perfect PC setup to play Shining Force III on the ever changing specifications of Sega Saturn emulators through the years.
  • Being blown away by Final Fantasy Tactics in classy monochrome thanks to the joys of importing and a rubbish TV.
Against the odds I always managed to put monstrous amounts of times into these games yet too many of these series have for the most part mysteriously disappeared from the map.

Their inspiration remained the same though I barely knew it at the time, Nintendo's Fire Emblem series never felt like the blueprint to these games I'd loved through the years even by the point I'd played The Sacred Stones on the GBA - Very much addictive as anything I'd played before although not groundbreaking! By the time I'd played the gamecube game I had the series held in high esteem. It might not have been enough to play the later DS and Wii successors but with the arrival of the 3DS that old flame had fully kindled and I simply had a desperation to paint this game as the official sequel to so many well loved series that it could have been squashed by the pressure within seconds of arriving.

Despite such huge expectations I adored the game. The dynamic soundtrack, those mysteriously footless yet visually splendid characters, it's hard to ignore the small touches, the attention to detail and general fun Nintendo gladly injects which really push Fire Emblem back into that place where they can claim the genre once again as their own. I'm impressed with the relationship system which though corny at times kept me coming back over and over, the amount of content on the cart is unprecedented and the 3D anime-esque cutscenes were jaw dropping. The most understated thing to say about this game is that in terms of gameplay it was simply a pleasure to play, everything just felt right and every element on screen enhanced the underlying solid system to the game.

The story may be over but I keep some additional side quests to play around with and I'm always happy to meet teams through streetpass. A little sad I'll have to restart to save those side characters I lost and to beat those bosses that dished out some heartbreaking lifetaking damage.

Looking to the future I don't expect a repeat of history. To bathe in the glow of the SRPG flame alongside other brilliant examples of the genre like Valkyria Chronicles and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together I'm optimistic for the future of the Fire Emblem series with its renewed vigour and will continue to seek out these games as it's clear to see that for the genre as a whole the volume of titles isn't increasing but that quality is still out there. The days of the SRPG aren't over yet!
sonuckles

Re: Our next podcast recording: Fire Emblem

Post by sonuckles »

The Fire Emblem game I put the most time into was The Sacred Stones on GBA. I got it through the early 3DS adopter program. I found the game to be really tough if you wanted all of your troops to survive each battle. I made it about 10 or 11 battles in, then tossed it aside. I guess the constant resetting whenever a character would die wasn't that appealing to me. I know they removed it from Awakening, but I've just not had the drive to play that game yet.

The real standout thing for me was the graphics. There's just something cool about approaching an enemy, then seeing the giant sprites attack each other. I love that really cool HUD and those lifebars. It's satisfying to watch your enemie's health bar drain after a particularly devastating attack. It's one of the few game series where the user interface design really stood out to me.

Outside of that, I don't really have much to contribute on the series as a whole. That's probably because the Fire Emblem series as a whole being REALLY hard to obtain. They often fetch for ridiculous prices on eBay and Amazon. Somehow I managed to get the DS and Wii Fire Emblem games after the fact, but it was sheer dumb luck that I found them at affordable prices. I bought 2 copies of Awakening because I was sure it would become a collector's item much like the others. I opened one, but kept the other sealed.
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Re: Our next podcast recording: Fire Emblem

Post by Flabyo »

I'm conscious of the fact that I only seem to have had negative things to say lately, so I'll try and be a little more articulate this time.

I should love the Fire Emblem games. The original Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favourite games of all time, and I tend to love playing anything in the genre. Even the obscure stuff like Jeanne d'Arc.

But I've never managed to get sucked in by this series. There's something about it that pushes me away, and I really struggle to put my finger on what it is.

It isn't the permadeath mechanic. FFT has that, as does another of my favourites Valkyria Chronicles, although Fire Emblem is less generous in giving you a chance to save the fallen than those games are.

It certainly isn't the mechanics, it's a very solid game series with a lot of interesting tactical depth to it.

All I can think is that there must be something about the way the games are plotted that puts me off. Perhaps it's the localisation, which seems to be very earnest and a little bit twee. But again, complaining about that when the original FFT had a laughable localisation doesn't feel right either (the PSP remake of FFT was completely retranslated and so it's incredibly dense plot now actually makes sense, it's basically the Game of Thrones of the Final Fantasy series).

So yeah, these games sit as a weird oddity for me. Something that I want to enjoy, something that I should enjoy, but for some reason I don't...
Todinho

Re: Our next podcast recording: Fire Emblem

Post by Todinho »

The tactics genre was one I always I had some interest in but not enough for me to go out my way and actually play the games,it wasnt until I played the new X-COM that I started to really crave for this genre so I started with FF tactics and after loving that I started searching for more,luckly for me there was a new one just coming out in the form of Fire Emblem Awakening.
Coming out of the greyness and melancholy FF tactics the first thing that jumped out at me was the colorfull art style and more upbeat tone of Awakening there's something about this style that can be very anime-ish but still retains an identity of it's own and especailly in 3D it looks really good,the music was pretty good and while many of the tracks kinda of blended together for me after a while there were some real highlights like "Dont Speak her name!","Conquest" and "ID(Hope)".

Now Gameplaywise Awakening is nothing short of fantastic I had my reservations at first especially with how the weapons system worked,how you couldnt revive characters and basically anything that was different form FF tactics but once I really paid attention to the mechanics and how they worked together my fears were snuffed out and I was then addicted to the game,there nothing like getting stuck at a battle and then figure out which formation or combination of characters were necessary to win of course there is RPG elements and as you progress a certain level of grinding is pretty much required but it never felt boring or terrible just because the core gameplay is so satisfing,now the core gamepaly would be fine being a normal tactics game but what makes it brillant here is the pair-up/relationship system this is not only a great gameplay-story integration tool but it changes how you play completely this allows you to not only buff your units during a fight but also to eliminate a characters weakness to your advantage:having trouble keeping a healer alive? pair him up with Chrom and only take him out to heal when necessary,need to get a slow moving unit to the front fast? pair him up with a flying unit and get him there! this also serves to teach players to have tight formations and rewards them for playing conservatively instead of rushing to their deaths.

It's really good that the gameplay kept me invested because the story unfortunally didnt,now dont get me wrong Im not saying it's bad it's just cookie cutter good vs evil and there's nothing wrong with that but I guess I was just expecting a little more,now while I wasnt really interested in the main plot the characters on the other hand really pulled me in and made me care a little bit about what was going on,each one was unique and likeable in their own way(even if Tharja was the best by far) come to think of it I dont think there's a single character I disliked(maybe the farmer kid but thats just because he wasnt worth the hassle to get)they even give the player made character a personality which is something I usually hate but they nailed it here(my main character in this game shall always be female and named Voyevoda),watching them interacting and pairing them up to how things would turn out became a reason to play on it's own and while I couldnt give a crap about who the last boss was I sure was gonna get all of them through it alive.

I really cant recommend this game enough despite some minor issues it was still one of the best games of 2013 without a doubt,I bought a 3DS mainly to play this game and have not regretted it so if you can do yourself a favor and play this one!
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Fire Emblem has been one of my favorite series and a staple of my gaming repertoire ever since I played the first localized title for the GBA over 10 years ago now. I purchased (and kept, thankfully) a copy of every new release in the series since and even imported some of the japanese-only titles. I routinely revisit them and always have a blast while doing so. Recently, I finished my first playthrough of FE7 on Hector Hard Mode (still using the same cartridge without any issue, thanks Nintendo!), and am currently in the middle of replaying FE6 (the one with Roy). Fire Emblem is just a total package for me. I love the aesthetics, character design (especially in Path of Radiance & Radiant Dawn), music and sound design, and the simplicity of the UI. I unironically enjoy most of the stories (some more than others, of course) and find the characters usually very memorable, which is no small feat considering the average of 40+ characters per game. And, of course, I love the gameplay.

Given the focus on in-depth analysis around here, I've been thinking about the best way to express why I find the traditional FE gameplay to be so special, and this is what it all boils down to: Every decision you make in the game is about balancing short-term and long-term benefits. And this puts the player in complete control of the difficulty curve.

The usual moment-to-moment gameplay is much more layered than it may look like at first glance. Difficulty is more directly tied to your level of investment than to the difficulty setting itself.

First, any chapter has a clear objective. Kill the boss, seize the gate, rout enemies, protect NPC, survive X number of turns, etc... That one is fairly straightforward.
Then, you may want to keep all of your units alive.
Then, almost every map has its own set of secondary objectives like saving villages or opening chests in a certain number of turns, visiting shops or recruiting special characters.
Then, given the limited EXP pool, it may be a good idea to plan ahead on how best to optimize its distribution.

The thing is, it's perfectly possible to brute force your way through the early chapters by just taking your Lord and your strongest units and rush to the goal in order to progress to the next chapter while letting your weakest units die left and right and without worrying about any of the other stuff. That's the easy, short-term-benefit way to play. The game won't punish you for it. Not now, anyway.

It's much more demanding to plan and execute an ideal playthrough of the same chapter. It will require a lot of planning to send the right characters to the villages/chests on time and/or to optimize the EXP distribution while paying attention to reinforcements and protecting your weakest units against enemy threats. At this point, the game becomes almost like a puzzle game where every move matters and every choice has consequences, even on the lower difficulty settings. You quickly learn the ins and outs of the mechanics. This is the tedious, long-term-benefit way to play.

But man, does it pay off.

You overused and let the pre-promoted units gobble all the EXP because they seemed so strong at the time? They'll struggle later on. The units who start out weak usually grow to become much stronger, which is why it's important to train them early on.
You didn't bother to visit this one shop or to save that one village which would have granted you a Wyrmslayer? Later chapters may have lots of wyvern reinforcements and you'll be stuck with iron weapons, making very little damage.
You promoted at level 12 to get the juicy stat bonuses early? Your character will have 8 less opportunities to level-up and won't achieve his potential.
You dismissed that one character (or killed another you could have recruited) because his stats looked meh? He may come in handy later on or have fantastic growth rates or a good item or good support possibilities which your other units might have benefited from. Which could end up being the one point of damage making all the difference against a particularly tough boss.
The list goes on, you get the point.

It's a really nice feeling when you start seeing your efforts pay off and to finally reap the benefits of decisions you made hours earlier. Your careful planning and team building often allows you to breeze through later chapters which might prove to be a real challenge otherwise.

Long story short, Fire Emblem's traditional long-term meta-game is incredibly rewarding. And I love it.
(I was also kind of disappointed when the podcast hardly covered any of that.)


Which brings me to Awakening.
I'm really torn when it comes to that game. On the one hand, it has a lot of content (including callbacks to older titles), brought back support conversations, and has quite a few playability improvements. Most importantly, people actually played that one and its sales numbers might very well have saved the series. I was massively hyped for it, bought the SE 3DS and definitely enjoyed my time with it.
On the other hand, it has by far the worst story in the series, the tone is all over the place, and the meta-game I just mentioned is almost non-existent given the numerous grinding opportunities and overpowered mechanics like skills and pair-up. It's has so much complexity and yet so little depth in comparison.

The game very much split the fanbase. It feels very strange hearing people praise Awakening all the time while ignoring the brilliant rest of the series it's a part of. Out of curiosity. did anyone here went back to play any of the older games after being introduced to Awakening? I'd love to hear your impressions if that's the case.

Anyone else looking forward to Fates?


Oh, and before I forget: The GBA titles have hands down the best sprite work I've ever seen in video games. Even more so than classics like Castlevania. The animations have so many little details and are brimming with personality. None of the 3D games ever came close to that.
I'll leave this one right here:
Image

Edit: Oh, and haha at Mr.Cox actually recommending people go and play Shadow Dragon of all things in case they liked Awakening. What a sick practical joke, man. Why troll your audience like that? :lol:
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by Michiel K »

KSubzero1000 wrote:Fire Emblem has been one of my favorite series and a staple of my gaming repertoire ever since I played the first localized title for the GBA over 10 years ago now. I purchased (and kept, thankfully) a copy of every new release in the series since and even imported some of the japanese-only titles. I routinely revisit them and always have a blast while doing so. Recently, I finished my first playthrough of FE7 on Hector Hard Mode (still using the same cartridge without any issue, thanks Nintendo!), and am currently in the middle of replaying FE6 (the one with Roy). Fire Emblem is just a total package for me. I love the aesthetics, character design (especially in Path of Radiance & Radiant Dawn), music and sound design, and the simplicity of the UI. I unironically enjoy most of the stories (some more than others, of course) and find the characters usually very memorable, which is no small feat considering the average of 40+ characters per game. And, of course, I love the gameplay.

Given the focus on in-depth analysis around here, I've been thinking about the best way to express why I find the traditional FE gameplay to be so special, and this is what it all boils down to: Every decision you make in the game is about balancing short-term and long-term benefits. And this puts the player in complete control of the difficulty curve.

The usual moment-to-moment gameplay is much more layered than it may look like at first glance. Difficulty is more directly tied to your level of investment than to the difficulty setting itself.

First, any chapter has a clear objective. Kill the boss, seize the gate, rout enemies, protect NPC, survive X number of turns, etc... That one is fairly straightforward.
Then, you may want to keep all of your units alive.
Then, almost every map has its own set of secondary objectives like saving villages or opening chests in a certain number of turns, visiting shops or recruiting special characters.
Then, given the limited EXP pool, it may be a good idea to plan ahead on how best to optimize its distribution.

The thing is, it's perfectly possible to brute force your way through the early chapters by just taking your Lord and your strongest units and rush to the goal in order to progress to the next chapter while letting your weakest units die left and right and without worrying about any of the other stuff. That's the easy, short-term-benefit way to play. The game won't punish you for it. Not now, anyway.

It's much more demanding to plan and execute an ideal playthrough of the same chapter. It will require a lot of planning to send the right characters to the villages/chests on time and/or to optimize the EXP distribution while paying attention to reinforcements and protecting your weakest units against enemy threats. At this point, the game becomes almost like a puzzle game where every move matters and every choice has consequences, even on the lower difficulty settings. You quickly learn the ins and outs of the mechanics. This is the tedious, long-term-benefit way to play.

But man, does it pay off.

You overused and let the pre-promoted units gobble all the EXP because they seemed so strong at the time? They'll struggle later on. The units who start out weak usually grow to become much stronger, which is why it's important to train them early on.
You didn't bother to visit this one shop or to save that one village which would have granted you a Wyrmslayer? Later chapters may have lots of wyvern reinforcements and you'll be stuck with iron weapons, making very little damage.
You promoted at level 12 to get the juicy stat bonuses early? Your character will have 8 less opportunities to level-up and won't achieve his potential.
You dismissed that one character (or killed another you could have recruited) because his stats looked meh? He may come in handy later on or have fantastic growth rates or a good item or good support possibilities which your other units might have benefited from. Which could end up being the one point of damage making all the difference against a particularly tough boss.
The list goes on, you get the point.

It's a really nice feeling when you start seeing your efforts pay off and to finally reap the benefits of decisions you made hours earlier. Your careful planning and team building often allows you to breeze through later chapters which might prove to be a real challenge otherwise.

Long story short, Fire Emblem's traditional long-term meta-game is incredibly rewarding. And I love it.
(I was also kind of disappointed when the podcast hardly covered any of that.)


Which brings me to Awakening.
I'm really torn when it comes to that game. On the one hand, it has a lot of content (including callbacks to older titles), brought back support conversations, and has quite a few playability improvements. Most importantly, people actually played that one and its sales numbers might very well have saved the series. I was massively hyped for it, bought the SE 3DS and definitely enjoyed my time with it.
On the other hand, it has by far the worst story in the series, the tone is all over the place, and the meta-game I just mentioned is almost non-existent given the numerous grinding opportunities and overpowered mechanics like skills and pair-up. It's has so much complexity and yet so little depth in comparison.[/img]

Edit: Oh, and haha at Mr.Cox actually recommending people go and play Shadow Dragon of all things in case they liked Awakening. What a sick practical joke, man. Why troll your audience like that? :lol:
Wonderful analysis. The plan-heavy way is how I learned to play the games and the depth you encounter in doing so makes most other SRPGs feel shallow in comparison. Instalments with grinding opportunities like Sacred Stones and Awakening miss the mark entirely, for me.
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Michiel K wrote:Wonderful analysis. The plan-heavy way is how I learned to play the games and the depth you encounter in doing so makes most other SRPGs feel shallow in comparison. Instalments with grinding opportunities like Sacred Stones and Awakening miss the mark entirely, for me.
Thanks! I agree about grinding opportunities taking away from the core formula, although to be fair, arenas and Bonus EXP were a thing even before Awakening outright encouraged it. Conquest was a nice attempt to go back to the series' roots, but it was still held back by its Awakening-like basis and bogged down by all the unnecessary elements you've mentioned in the other thread. As appealing as the game sounded on paper, it didn't really click with me the way I was hoping it would. I don't know what to expect from either Echoes or Switch!FE at this point...

As uncertain as the franchise's future may look, I take comfort in the insanely high replay value of the classic titles. 6, 7, 9 & 10 are still wonderfully engaging after all these years, and I really have to dive into 4 & 5 one of these days. I'd also like to see Nintendo make these available to a broader audience, either through a physical collection or Virtual Console. The Radiant games are especially hard to find for a decent price nowadays. Why would they leave such gems stranded on dying hardware, especially considering Ike's popularity in Smash Bros? That makes no sense whatsoever to me.

Another element I like is the notion of using a different artist for every platform / universe, thus granting the characters and their respective worlds a very distinct feel. Do you have any favorite among the character designs? I've always been fond of Titania's design in Radiant Dawn. She just exudes discipline and maturity without cheap sexualization (not unlike The Boss, really).
Image
Those were the days, I'm telling you. :D :(
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by Michiel K »

Titania is also a favorite of mine, for the same reasons. Although other Paladins in PoR have greater potential, I still kept her in the main line-up and maxed her out near the end of the game, just because I like her. Story-wise, she feels like such a crucial and integral component of Ike's band of mercs.

Agreed on Conquest. I'll still keep buying and playing Fire Emblem games because I love the series that much and even the weaker entries satisfy me to some extent, however limited it may be. Hopefully we get a game that caters more to our tastes and isn't a half-measure like Conquest is, somewhere in the future.

What is your take on Shadow Dragon? As a remake of the very first game it's unfairly maligned, I feel. Sure, it has some aesthetical issues and it's a bit vanilla due to its roots, but at least it has a solid core and doesn't make any missteps.

PoR was my first FE and Sacred Stones my second. I got the GBA cart of 7 not too long ago for not too much money and I have yet to play it all the way through. So yeah, it's not like I don't already have enough Fire Emblem to play.
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

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Eh, I'm not a huge fan of Shadow Dragon. It's very bare-boned, strangely devoid of charm and personality, and I do think it does a few missteps like the gaiden chapters requirements. It's not a bad game per se, but I struggle to think of a reason to play (or to recommend) it over most other titles in the series. And 6 is already a notable retread of the original, which makes it count as a much superior quasi-remake in my eyes.

Playing 7 for the first time? Wonderful! Please do keep us (or rather, me) updated. :)
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by Michiel K »

KSubzero1000 wrote:Eh, I'm not a huge fan of Shadow Dragon. It's very bare-boned, strangely devoid of charm and personality, and I do think it does a few missteps like the gaiden chapters requirements. It's not a bad game per se, but I struggle to think of a reason to play (or to recommend) it over most other titles in the series. And 6 is already a notable retread of the original, which makes it count as a much superior quasi-remake in my eyes.

Playing 7 for the first time? Wonderful! Please do keep us (or rather, me) updated. :)
Right yeah, but it's the only localised remake. :) Dunno about the gaiden chapters requirements, but it's still a solid, core Fire Emblem game to me.

Yeah, don't know when I'll get around to playing through 7 (got the majority of the Lyn chapters done, when I first started playing it), but I'll be sure to drop thoughts in here when I do.
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by KSubzero1000 »

So with Echoes only a few days away, the first reviews started coming out and I have to admit that the game is sounding really good on paper at least. No avatar, Pair Up or forced parenting mechanics, less fanservice, well-rounded story (unlike Fates), and "excellent map design". The reception from longtime fans seems much more positive than from newcomers. I'm very nervously optimistic; should the sales not disappoint, could we maybe see remakes of FE4 and FE5 next?
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by Michiel K »

Hmmm...

I'm not too excited, personally. Dungeon and town exploration and all that standard JRPG fare is not what I'm looking for in a Fire Emblem game. Might still be fun, though and I'll probably get it anyway.
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

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So I've stumbled upon this really in-depth analysis of why exactly so many old-school FE fans were so disappointed with Awakening. The article covers everything from characterization to mechanics to map design. It's rather lengthy and the writing is a bit too informal at times, but it's very insightful and definitely worth a read. I agree with pretty much everything the authors says.

http://thephilosogamer.blogspot.de/2014 ... oming.html
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by Michiel K »

Thanks for that! I would love to read that right now, but too busy. I'll save it for when I have the time.

Points for the author for stating that the often casually dismissed Radiant Dawn is their favourite, in any case.
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by KSubzero1000 »

No problem! I'm sure you'll like it, it has maps with a bunch of arrows drawn on them and stuff! :lol:

I'm still browsing through the rest of that blog, it looks like the author has even more in store. I'll report if I find anything else.
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Okay, I've found two more.

This one explores the pros and cons of the randomized elements in FE and how/if they're doing more harm than good:
http://thephilosogamer.blogspot.de/2015 ... mblem.html

That one addresses the topic of "constitutive elements", and how concessions made in order to improve the accessibility of a franchise can sometimes betray its integrity. The author's using FE as an example of that and I think he makes some valid points:
http://thephilosogamer.blogspot.de/2016 ... -easy.html


In other news, I'm about halfway through Echoes and I really like it thus far! It's surprisingly faithful to the original, and definitely my favorite of the 3DS games. Many elements which sounded horrible on paper work surprisingly well. The writing and especially the localisation are top-notch. The only real drawback is the map design. They've mostly been copied directly from the NES original, and it shows. They're straight up bad. Still, this gives me a lot of hope for potential future remakes!
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Michiel K
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by Michiel K »

Hmmm... interesting. I might need to seek out the game sooner rather than later anyway, before it becomes hard to find and expensive.

And thanks for sharing more of these articles!
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KSubzero1000
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Re: All things Fire Emblem

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Oh, it's definitely worth buying if you enjoy classic FE. Just be aware that the map/encounter design is the low point of the game and set your expectations accordingly. The art style is also really nice, more grounded and less opulent than in Awakening or Fates, although that's more a matter of taste.

Did you get around to read the other one?
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