I really liked a lot of the things three house did, But the way it handled classes made characters feel less unique, less interesting to me, i would like for characters to only have one or two classes after each promotions, essentially branching promotions. Also i really dislike the amount of downtime between battles, in my opinion fire emblem is at it’s best when the focus is on gameplay rather than on the story, so i would like it for things like the monastery to not make a return, i have nothing against a hub but it really slows the pacing down for me if it’s a big open thing (with nothing interesting going on, and just a bunch of repetitive activities to fill space), the idea of going through that again really killed my desires to replay the game, so i have only played through the dimitri route.
I don’t want to see an explorable hubworld like the monastery. I get that the monastery segments were meant to immerse the player in Byleth’s role as a teacher, but they ultimately weren’t very interactive because the real gameplay is still the grid based strategy segments. Pretty much all of the monastery actions involve going to a facility so that the player can engage with that facility’s menu, so a lot of the fat of the monastery could be trimmed down into something more like Tellius’s base menus (what I consider the best execution of the hub concept in Fire Emblem). Even the silly fetch quests could be slimmed down into base talks. Going back to Tellius style bases would also prevent the hub from throttling the story by forcing the army back to the hub for a month between every main event.
I agree 100% with this. It doesn’t take long to realize that for all the options the player has, there are a only a handful of optimal builds that you will wind up putting on everyone. Make physical units Wyvern Lords (maybe Falcon Knights) and possibly make one or two bow knights. Then make Gremories out of your mages (male mages have no good final class options without a solid White Magic list) and possibly have a Bishop as a dedicated healer. Give units Death/Fiendish Blow depending on what they attack with; add Darting Blow for women; and add Hit +20 or the Valkyrie skill for consistency. For all of the options Three Houses gives, that’s really all that anyone needs to know. Sure you can use the other options, but you will know that you are playing suboptimally if you take them. I just don’t think reclassing is a great feature in Fire Emblem because it means that maps are not built around what the player has available.
I don’t think Avatars are automatically a bad feature so much as I haven’t seen it executed all that well in Fire Emblem yet (I’ve never played FE12, so I don’t know if Kris is a good Avatar). Personally, I prefer actual characters to player inserts, but I won’t moan at the sight of an Avatar until I see the execution. The FE7 Avatar is the best in my eyes because it’s limited to the lords thanking the player for getting them through the maps (what the player is actually doing) and it never takes focus away from the actual characters. A lot of the various Avatars’ interactions with other characters frankly creep me out because it feels like everyone wants to have my babies as soon as I meet them, unless they’re one of those rare exceptions who will have their walls up against me before gradually realizing I’m the best person ever.
I guess my last point is that I’d like the next FE to be an all new game rather than a remake. Fire Emblem is kind of a special case because a lot of the world doesn’t have great access to the first six games, but in general, I find new experiences more worth getting excited for than remakes. I’d rather just see the older games translated and made available on modern consoles than remade.
i liked echoes exploring because each place was new. but the monastery was really boring since all you got as the game went along was small areas instead of sprawling dungeons. Plus the vast majority of 3h characters were just uninteresting to me, so i wasn’t about to chase them down to spam persona activities to increase social links.
Undermining of Permadeath and bad localizations
I’d hate to see the franchise go away from being primarily focused on Ironman/Permadeath.
It’s one thing to make the game a bit easier for newer or bad players, but reducing the number of Characters to a point where you’re expected to keep them all alive (i heard one of 3H routes has like 13 characters, haven’t played 3H yet but that sounds horrible), or basing the chapters around stuff like the turnwheel to the extreme, as in, instead of telling the player “watch out, reinforcements next turn” you just expect them to go back a turn if they get caught by random unannounced reinforcements. Pretty sure the latter hasn’t been done yet, but I’d like it to stay that way.
I’m not even generally against these things, lower character count can mean better characterization, and the turnwheel can help with a misclick, although i much prefer DSFE’s on map battle saves, and there should be some sort of filler units incase some of your units die. Generally IS should be careful not to rely on these things to a point where the core gameplay gets undermined.
Another thing i absolutely do not want to see is a horrible localization like for example fates or awakening, while not bad grammar wise or in understandability, i was shocked to hear how certain characters are totally different personality wise in the Japanese and English version. I can understand cultural differences between the Japanese and foreign markets to a certain degree, but totally changing up the personality of characters is too much.
permadeath as always been underminded since people will usually just reset at that point. the vast majority of players don’t do Ironman runs except when they don’t know that resetting is even a thing. I also don’t think that, except in the case of FE book 1 since that is literally how the cast was designed, Fire Emblem has ever been ironman focused. you basically just said the equivalent of “man I hope the next pokemon game isn’t less Nuzlocke focused” since I’m fairly certain Ironman runs and Nuzlocke runs were concieved around the same time.
the turn wheel was the culmination of trying to mitigate the frustration of having to redo an entire chapter because of losing a powerful unit to a bad crit near the end after a half hour long map.
as an example where the ability to rewind is absolutely needed, imagine if you’re on the last turn of Elincia’s Gambit when out of nowhere Geoffry gets crit’d and now you get to do then entire long ass map over again barring any resets or game overs in the time spent getting back there.
also you’d better believe that Geneology would get a turn wheel if they release/remake that with how long some of those god awful maps are.
now as for bad localization, only fates had it rough since awakening put a giant spotlight onto fire emblem and the Treehouse basically got blasted with so many characters having personalities that only due to twitter would be problematic. the only character in awakening to get gargleblasted was henry if I remember right.
@jackofblades1991 Pretty sure i clicked reply to your messase, so idk why it didn’t do that. Maybe it’s because im on mobile. Well here’s my Response nonetheless.
Response
Regarding localization, i did know of henry in particular but i thought there were more in awakening, still the point remains, i want an accurate translation of the characters personality, regardless if the twitter crowd cries about it or not, they’re usually not the ones to actually buy the game either way.
Fire emblem not being designed around permadeath however could not be more than wrong, most of the games have filler characters and prepromotes incase people die, usually not as good as trained up early units but still perfectly useable, a good example of this is Gonzales, Geese and Garret in fe6, the former will be better with training pretty much all the time, while the latter can still be very useful from the moment he joins if you got a free slot.
That aside the developers themselves said FE was designed around ironman runs, which you can clearly tell in the way the games were designed, which is also the most fun play them, i mean think about it, what’s more fun, playing chapter 4 5 times because a character you most likely weren’t gonna use anyways died off, or just playing chapter 5 after chapter 4? The only fe games i can think of that are not as ironman friendly as most other fe games would be radiant dawn, due to its stingy game over conditions and split up party, and, from what i’ve heard, 3Houses, thanks to its low character count and no real new characters in the late game. Pretty much every other FE game takes into account that your characters can and will die off at some point.
That being said its hard to get to a point where you’re literally unable to beat the game, so even if you do lose a powerful unit, you still have more than enough to fill the gaps.
The pokemon comparison also doesn’t really make sense, your pokemon fainting doesn’t matter much normally. At most you’re going back to a pokemon center to heal, even a full party wipe just makes you lose a bit of cash. You never actually have to load a save, correct your error, and lose out on progress. In an ironman you just keep playing, in a nuzlocke you deliberately release the pokemon on your own accord.
In regards to the turn wheel, most FE games are easy enough as is, especially if you’re not doing an ironman, and for the really hard chapters you’re better off learning when to take risks and when not to, rather than just reverting every tiny error you made. Fire Emblem is not just about the battle itself but also about the preparation of the battle, because often, that can be the deciding factor between an easy win and an easy loss. Having problems with hitting enemies? Get varried weapon types or specific weapons to counter enemies with, decide who goes where before starting the chapter. Don’t wanna face low % crits? Invest in a goddess icon if you really need it, or just get a support with another character, if all of that doesn’t help then lure the crit heavy enemy with a tanky unit who’d survive a crit, or rush them down before they can act. Sometimes its also worth it to miss a stat booster or other good item in favor of knowing that there is no chance of losing a unit.
One thing that new characters showing up as replacements to mitigate permadeath doesn’t help with, is the loss of items, sometimes the unit that got Critted to death could have been holding a reaver or killer weapon in a game that doesn’t offer them as often, in newer games it’s not as hard to get weapons of that type, but it always can set you back when you lose them (I’m not saying this is bad, since it’s an extra insentive for the player to plan out their turns). One thing that could be done to get less players to reset is to have something like a resolve mechanic, where certain units get stronger, or maybe unlock proficiency weapons when other units die, maybe having gaiden chapters that only show up if you have lost certain units, or number of units, rewarding players for pressing on despite their loses, and to play around their mistakes can make these games much more interesting.
Ok, i understand wanting a cleaner translation but you have to understand there is ALOT of stuff that goes into that. Including taking the various ratings boards of the world into account. If i remember correctly most of what fate had changed was to avoid an M rating in America and a Pegi 18+(?) in Europe, hence why localization and translation are not the same thing.
I suppose i shouldn’t have assumed you would know what a nuzlocke run of pokemon is, since if you did you’d know the comparison is actually very apt.
A nuzlocke IS an ironman run of a pokemon game. With an additional stipulation of only the first pokemon you encounter per route can be caught barring duplicates. So any fainted pokemon is considered dead and you have limited replacements for the dead ones.
The inherent flaw of assuming fire emblem is intended to be ironmanned is that the game gives you the option to reset. Which is inherently in opposition of the intent of an ironman run. Remember, even when FE 1 was new people just reset for the good units. Only kaga thought people wouldn’t reset and was surprised when he found out people reset to save units.
Another thought with all of this is forcing the player to undergo an ironman run would be detrimental to the potential enjoyment of the player.
I know there is a rather large amount of players who would drop the franchise if they were forced to do an ironman run due to a design change that restricted the player choice aspect of reset vs continuing on.
Tl:dr if the game was 100% with no room for error ment to be ironmanned then the lord would have replacements, but they don’t since the story revolves around them.
Last Response
Im well aware you can’t just translate stuff word for word because of marketing, which includes ratings and cultural differences. I already mentioned that in my first post. That being said i still want an translation that is as accurate as possible. Not everything they changed from japanese to western fates really had to be changed to keep a lower age rating.
I am also well aware of how a nuzlocke works. My point was that an Ironman for fire emblem is regular gameplay just like going to a pokemon center to heal is regular gameplay for pokemon. In a nuzlocke you are deliberately challanging yourself by going out of your way to only catch 1 pokemon per route, and deliberately releasing them if they faint. The game is not built around this. By reseting for every small inconvenience in fire emblem, you are also going out of your way to reset the chapter, and thus deliberately only using like 15 characters of a cast of 40+ or more. The game is not built around this either.
The game giving you the option to reset doesn’t mean it is meant to be reset. Save files exist because you can’t just play through a long game in one sitting. Like come on man, nearly every game has this.
Similiarly as to how a game giving you the ability to grind does not mean you should always grind, as you’re literally just destroying your own fun by doing repetitive tasks for no good reason. It is well known for game designers that if there is the option to exploit the fun out of a game by giving yourself an edge, the players will do exactly that. But i mean, if you don’t have any enjoyment why even play games in the first place? Only other reason i could think of is that you could learn something through the game, but that certainly isn’t happening here either.
The last point doesn’t make any sense either. The game revolves around the main character, this is a gameplay mechanic in almost any game. Your goal can be described by just “Get this guy from point A to point B” how you do it, does not matter, who apart from the MC survives till you reach point B, does not matter. From a gameplay perspective, non MC characters are replaceable, granted their replacements might not be as strong.
Regarding the players not playing the game if there was forced ironman: so what? Everyone has different tastes, if they enjoy this type of game, then they can play it, if not, they should play a game which does bring them enjoyment. Not every game has to be made for absolutely everyone. I can’t stand Smash Brothers for example, so i simply play Tekken, which is much more fun to me, instead.
Now that i adressed your points by themselves to the best of my ability, i would like to remind you that i never even said to outright fully delete all of these features in my original post, but rather that Fire Emblem shouldn’t forget their roots and core gameplay. I don’t care much if theres’s an optional easier mode for new players, as long as that easier mode does not become the primary mode which the game gets balanced around for all games in the future, in other words as long as it stays optional.
That being said we’re going to derail this thread if we just keep argumenting in favor of ironman or non ironman for a thousand more messages, so i suggest we end the discussion here.
Funny Armor Knight
Summary
I was mostly referring to a few concepts of how replacement units work with ironmans, since there are a many instances of a unit death that the player cannon afford. Not to mention fire emblem has long since moved away from worse replacement units.which is why i made that comment about a replacement lord, which fire emblem has done, exactly once so far.
Fire emblem as a whole hasn’t forgotten about its permadeath roots, it’s just become more accommodating with anti-frustration features implemented to mitigate the more frustrating nature of its rng dependent gameplay mechanics. And as per the nature of repetition if the gameplay itself is fun to me i can grind for hours.
Modern fire emblem is kind torn between how it should be played, and the level of what games are ironman friendly varies wildly from game to game, its why i got so heated with this exchange.
i could have phrased alot of this better, but I can be rather dense
Its the most fun way for you. It is not the most fun way objectively because fun is subjective. You cannot determine what is fun for everyone else simply because thats the way you like it.
Not everyone enjoys every game the same, and not everyone can enjoy the same games, there’s nothing wrong with games going out of their way to widen the amount of play styles they can acommodate, While it is sad when a game creating varied difficulty options cause some of them to become aftertoughts there is a lot of good which comes from lower difficulties which can help bring new players into a franchise, the same can be said about harder ones since they give players a new goal, a new mountain to climb once they have completed the game, Maybe a player who began fire emblem playing easy phoenix mode or whatever the game may offer them can end up becoming a long term fan, explore different difficulty options and different games in the series, this is great, even if i dislike a lot of the new changes to the series that have been made to help new players i can’t blame or hate the developers for doing them.
Hey look, you defined me.
I find it difficult to take most 3H characters seriously once I realized that their entire worldviews are shaped by whether their creepy, silent teacher ate lunch with them.
Fog of War.
There, I said it. Put up the pitchforks and torches if you desire.
consequence of avatar pandering. i wish they never added player stand-ins
Avatars. They honest to god ruin what could otherwise be a pretty good story and also make it impossible for there to ever be any canon gay/ace characters due to “oh, there NEEDS to be an otome mechanic there just NEEDS TO”
Also 3H handled classes and recruitment really badly and I don’t wanna see that ever return. And tedious out-of-battle zones like the monastery were bad too.