Board 8 > Gauging interest in a Fire Emblem ranking topic

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Panthera 04/14/20 12:13:46 AM #453:	Oh yeah, getting inventory back upon death is great. Unfortunately I have to disappoint you though... 8. Radiant Dawn The second game in the series that I played, making me perhaps an oddball for having it played it so much sooner than Path of Radiance, the game it's a sequel to. In fact, I don't think I've even played it since I finally got around to playing Path of Radiance. Anyway. Radiant Dawn is certainly an ambitious game, having you switch periodically between three groups of characters who eventually join up in part 4 only to immediately split into three again, with some characters switching between groups, sometimes optionally. Featuring a third tier of classes to promote into, something not seen since Gaiden, and one of the largest casts the series has ever seen, it's as big in scale in gameplay as it is in the story, and in fact has a truly massive 42 chapters, one of the highest numbers the series has ever seen (I believe FE7 might surpass it if you count Lyn Mode). But is it quantity over quality or is it actually good? Well, the fact that it's ranked where it is probably tips you off to my thoughts on the matter. Mechanically Radiant Dawn is pretty damn good, albeit with a few noticeable nuisances. Super canto is always fun to play with, it uses the Binding Blade weapon triangle effects (and has the old Jugdral anima triangle, which has minimal effect here) which I quite like due to them being enough to be relevant but not dominant, forging once again lets you burn your money on goodies and the new bonus experience system that ensures three stats are gained per level is a nice change of pace from the extremely potent but rather dull Path of Radiance system that made little matter beyond what class you were, though it tends to not really be much use until later in the game. There's also ledge mechanics where fighting from the high ground gives you weapon triangle advantage on steroids, which is...honestly uncommon enough to not care about much. I don't much care for tier 3 classes having built in mastery skills, making every attack have a random chance of deleting things, or the removal of wyverns weakness to arrows, which makes them unreasonably strong (I love me some wyvern riders but they really did not need to only be weak to thunder tomes). Then Hard Mode turns off the weapon triangle and the ability to highlight enemy ranges, which is just plain dumb. But overall the game mechanics here are pretty good. There are some significant flaws with unit balance though, and they can be a real negative. Your early game units are largely scrubs that struggle to keep up with the rate that enemy stats scale up without building your entire strategy around feeding them kills to try to let them feel like they matter. And along the way you keep picking up new powerhouse units that just dominate everything. And even if you train up the scrub squad, their availability beyond part 1 is so bad that by part 4 when everyone is around they'll inevitably be underleveled anyway. I'm not even someone who just loves growth units above all else and I still find it a bit disappointing how hostile Radiant Dawn is to them. I do actually appreciate that the game throws tough enemies at you, then gives you super strong units and expects you to be smart enough to use them instead of freaking out and trying to do everything with the scrubs because you think killing an enemy with a promoted unit will give you ebola or something, but I would still prefer there to be more payoff for using the lower leveled guys if you happen to like them. Another issue that comes up is that class balance is screwy in some really weird ways. Your first cavalier is, well she's a joke no matter what but even if you use her, she exists almost exclusively for maps that nerf horse mobility into the ground. Then the other mounted units are good for most of the game, but their speed caps are mostly too low to handle some important tasks in the final few chapters. A lot of classes suffer from tier 2 speed caps that hold them back from doubling various enemies, and no one gets it worse than the magic users, who are defined by low tier 2 and 3 caps. Mages can have doubling problems even when capped, not helped by the fact that pretty much every magic user in the game is weak statistically to begin with, and with enemy resistance being abnormally high in this game it pretty much invalidates them. Then the laguz classes have their transformation mechanics to contend with, which tend to make it so you either have ludicrous stats and are thus fairly good, or you don't and thus you're ass. And the cats are just bad by design with how fast they untransform. And then the royals show up and make you wonder why anyone else even bothers... All that being said, balance issues are secondary to map design, and luckily Radiant Dawn is pretty good in this regard. It does have a few more bad ones than I would prefer, like pitfall bridge making its hideous return to torture us once again or that map where you have to defend Elincia from doing what green units do best and getting herself killed, but the rest maintain a pretty high standard. The last two maps are some of the most interesting boss fights in the series, the supply burning mission is unique and fun, and 2-E and 3-5 are some of the best defense maps the series has to offer. Additionally the game is reasonably challenging, enough so to make things more interesting, though the difficulty does go down a bit for much of part 3. Little frustrating that the highest difficulty removes highlighting enemy ranges for the sole sake of being annoying though. Oh, and did I mention that after beating the game, you can turn off map animations entirely, solving that huge problem Path of Radiance had? Because that's really nice. Stepping away from the gameplay side of things, first things first I believe I've already stated that Tellius music doesn't really do much for me and that's not appreciably changed here relative to Path of Radiance. Visually the game can be a bit drab in its colours at times but it mostly looks fine, and the portraits and overall character designs are strong (this does apply to PoR as well). And then there's the story, probably the most controversial aspect of the game. I don't really want to get into an in depth breakdown of every single aspect of it, so I'll summarize a little. Radiant Dawn's story, in my mind is actually fairly good overall up to a certain point. There are some dumb elements like the infamous Blood Pact, which I actually don't mind too much beyond the fact that it kind of comes out of nowhere and just serves to advance the need for conflict without character driven reasons, and the game's attempts to make Daien sympathetic after being the enemy nation in PoR, though interesting and well done most of the time, <cite>Panthera posted [p:937356447] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Oh yeah, getting inventory back upon death is great. Unfortunately I have to disappoint you though... 8. Radiant Dawn The second game in the series that I played, making me perhaps an oddball for having it played it so much sooner than Path of Radiance, the game it's a sequel to. In fact, I don't think I've even played it since I finally got around to playing Path of Radiance. Anyway. Radiant Dawn is certainly an ambitious game, having you switch periodically between three groups of characters who eventually join up in part 4 only to immediately split into three again, with some characters switching between groups, sometimes optionally. Featuring a third tier of classes to promote into, something not seen since Gaiden, and one of the largest casts the series has ever seen, it's as big in scale in gameplay as it is in the story, and in fact has a truly massive 42 chapters, one of the highest numbers the series has ever seen (I believe FE7 might surpass it if you count Lyn Mode). But is it quantity over quality or is it actually good? Well, the fact that it's ranked where it is probably tips you off to my thoughts on the matter. Mechanically Radiant Dawn is pretty damn good, albeit with a few noticeable nuisances. Super canto is always fun to play with, it uses the Binding Blade weapon triangle effects (and has the old Jugdral anima triangle, which has minimal effect here) which I quite like due to them being enough to be relevant but not dominant, forging once again lets you burn your money on goodies and the new bonus experience system that ensures three stats are gained per level is a nice change of pace from the extremely potent but rather dull Path of Radiance system that made little matter beyond what class you were, though it tends to not really be much use until later in the game. There's also ledge mechanics where fighting from the high ground gives you weapon triangle advantage on steroids, which is...honestly uncommon enough to not care about much. I don't much care for tier 3 classes having built in mastery skills, making every attack have a random chance of deleting things, or the removal of wyverns weakness to arrows, which makes them unreasonably strong (I love me some wyvern riders but they really did not need to only be weak to thunder tomes). Then Hard Mode turns off the weapon triangle and the ability to highlight enemy ranges, which is just plain dumb. But overall the game mechanics here are pretty good. There are some significant flaws with unit balance though, and they can be a real negative. Your early game units are largely scrubs that struggle to keep up with the rate that enemy stats scale up without building your entire strategy around feeding them kills to try to let them feel like they matter. And along the way you keep picking up new powerhouse units that just dominate everything. And even if you train up the scrub squad, their availability beyond part 1 is so bad that by part 4 when everyone is around they'll inevitably be underleveled anyway. I'm not even someone who just loves growth units above all else and I still find it a bit disappointing how hostile Radiant Dawn is to them. I do actually appreciate that the game throws tough enemies at you, then gives you super strong units and expects you to be smart enough to use them instead of freaking out and trying to do everything with the scrubs because you think killing an enemy with a promoted unit will give you ebola or something, but I would still prefer there to be more payoff for using the lower leveled guys if you happen to like them. Another issue that comes up is that class balance is screwy in some really weird ways. Your first cavalier is, well she's a joke no matter what but even if you use her, she exists almost exclusively for maps that nerf horse mobility into the ground. Then the other mounted units are good for most of the game, but their speed caps are mostly too low to handle some important tasks in the final few chapters. A lot of classes suffer from tier 2 speed caps that hold them back from doubling various enemies, and no one gets it worse than the magic users, who are defined by low tier 2 and 3 caps. Mages can have doubling problems even when capped, not helped by the fact that pretty much every magic user in the game is weak statistically to begin with, and with enemy resistance being abnormally high in this game it pretty much invalidates them. Then the laguz classes have their transformation mechanics to contend with, which tend to make it so you either have ludicrous stats and are thus fairly good, or you don't and thus you're ass. And the cats are just bad by design with how fast they untransform. And then the royals show up and make you wonder why anyone else even bothers... All that being said, balance issues are secondary to map design, and luckily Radiant Dawn is pretty good in this regard. It does have a few more bad ones than I would prefer, like pitfall bridge making its hideous return to torture us once again or that map where you have to defend Elincia from doing what green units do best and getting herself killed, but the rest maintain a pretty high standard. The last two maps are some of the most interesting boss fights in the series, the supply burning mission is unique and fun, and 2-E and 3-5 are some of the best defense maps the series has to offer. Additionally the game is reasonably challenging, enough so to make things more interesting, though the difficulty does go down a bit for much of part 3. Little frustrating that the highest difficulty removes highlighting enemy ranges for the sole sake of being annoying though. Oh, and did I mention that after beating the game, you can turn off map animations entirely, solving that huge problem Path of Radiance had? Because that's really nice. Stepping away from the gameplay side of things, first things first I believe I've already stated that Tellius music doesn't really do much for me and that's not appreciably changed here relative to Path of Radiance. Visually the game can be a bit drab in its colours at times but it mostly looks fine, and the portraits and overall character designs are strong (this does apply to PoR as well). And then there's the story, probably the most controversial aspect of the game. I don't really want to get into an in depth breakdown of every single aspect of it, so I'll summarize a little. Radiant Dawn's story, in my mind is actually fairly good overall up to a certain point. There are some dumb elements like the infamous Blood Pact, which I actually don't mind too much beyond the fact that it kind of comes out of nowhere and just serves to advance the need for conflict without character driven reasons, and the game's attempts to make Daien sympathetic after being the enemy nation in PoR, though interesting and well done most of the time,</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/14/20 12:13:57 AM #454:	And then it turns out the answer is ~~pretty much literal deus ex machina as Ashera wakes up, turns everyone to stone, and everyone just gets together to try to stop her.~~ And from there the previous conflicts are almost all just kind of swept under the rug with the understanding that the good guys all being on the same side now means everything will work out for reasons. Part 4 of Radiant Dawn is a gigantic mess when it comes to the story. Everything interesting the game had been building up is tossed aside in favour of something much more generic and dull, and the few parts remaining that aren't generic are far from great. The game seems to have a pervasive need to try to make you sympathize with people who decide that everyone being killed by the goddess is totally cool, even though that's kind of the thing only an evil asshole would ever agree to. In fact, it's not even all that dissimilar to Ashnard's whole "if the dark god can destroy us we don't deserve to exist" thing! Not to mention the people who are supposedly oh so sympathetic for siding with Ashera are kind of responsible for things going so wrong to begin with. Dheginsea sat on his for 1000 years preaching a brand of "neutrality" that meant never attempting to make the world a better place, and Lehran is the mastermind of the whole thing. And remember, these two not only started out the current era as highly respected heroes with tons of influence, but they're also the only people left alive who even know the truth about the "dark god" and Ashera's pact with Yune. Which means they're ultimately trying to get Ashera to punish a bunch of people who didn't know better because they themselves were too lazy to actually explain things properly to anyone, instead just giving vague warnings that no one had any reason to listen to and actually inventing the entire idea of the Branded being "cursed by the goddess", thus encouraging persecution against them and hatred between beorc and laguz. Which might make for interesting villains, but the narrative seems to try to paint them as sympathetic men who we should all feel really tried their best to do the right thing. Then there's the Black Knight, returned from what it turns out wasn't actually his death. I'm not even going to spoil his identity here because really, it doesn't even matter. The good news is he has a backstory and a bit more personality this time. The bad news is it doesn't make a lot of sense. He's suddenly this honourable dude who has just been looking for a friendly face all his life, which clashes horribly with the previous game where, aside from one scene with Ena, he acted entirely differently, notably threatening to torture Mist and Ike to get information from Greil in his first appearance, which he sounded quite gleeful about. He's also suddenly presented sympathetically and Ike is acting all respectful of him, which really does not make sense. So that's...fun? It's a shame that the story falls apart so badly towards the end. At least it was pretty good up until that part! Overall, Radiant Dawn is a very good game. The maps are generally good, the mechanics are good, and even the writing is good up until a certain point. That said, between its unique structure and balance issues and bias against growth units and aforementioned story collapse, it's not hard to see why it tends to be a pretty polarizing title. If the 3DS titles and their dramatic changes had never come along it would likely hold down the title of the most controversial game in the series forever. For all its faults though, there's enough good stuff here for me to consider myself a fairly big fan of it. Up next: A game that for a long time people didn't really know didn't actually come up with some of the stuff it did. --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937356455] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote> And then it turns out the answer is pretty much literal deus ex machina as Ashera wakes up, turns everyone to stone, and everyone just gets together to try to stop her. And from there the previous conflicts are almost all just kind of swept under the rug with the understanding that the good guys all being on the same side now means everything will work out for reasons. Part 4 of Radiant Dawn is a gigantic mess when it comes to the story. Everything interesting the game had been building up is tossed aside in favour of something much more generic and dull, and the few parts remaining that aren't generic are far from great. The game seems to have a pervasive need to try to make you sympathize with people who decide that everyone being killed by the goddess is totally cool, even though that's kind of the thing only an evil asshole would ever agree to. In fact, it's not even all that dissimilar to Ashnard's whole "if the dark god can destroy us we don't deserve to exist" thing! Not to mention the people who are supposedly oh so sympathetic for siding with Ashera are kind of responsible for things going so wrong to begin with. Dheginsea sat on his for 1000 years preaching a brand of "neutrality" that meant never attempting to make the world a better place, and Lehran is the mastermind of the whole thing. And remember, these two not only started out the current era as highly respected heroes with tons of influence, but they're also the only people left alive who even know the truth about the "dark god" and Ashera's pact with Yune. Which means they're ultimately trying to get Ashera to punish a bunch of people who didn't know better because they themselves were too lazy to actually explain things properly to anyone, instead just giving vague warnings that no one had any reason to listen to and actually inventing the entire idea of the Branded being "cursed by the goddess", thus encouraging persecution against them and hatred between beorc and laguz. Which might make for interesting villains, but the narrative seems to try to paint them as sympathetic men who we should all feel really tried their best to do the right thing. Then there's the Black Knight, returned from what it turns out wasn't actually his death. I'm not even going to spoil his identity here because really, it doesn't even matter. The good news is he has a backstory and a bit more personality this time. The bad news is it doesn't make a lot of sense. He's suddenly this honourable dude who has just been looking for a friendly face all his life, which clashes horribly with the previous game where, aside from one scene with Ena, he acted entirely differently, notably threatening to torture Mist and Ike to get information from Greil in his first appearance, which he sounded quite gleeful about. He's also suddenly presented sympathetically and Ike is acting all respectful of him, which really does not make sense. So that's...fun? It's a shame that the story falls apart so badly towards the end. At least it was pretty good up until that part! Overall, Radiant Dawn is a very good game. The maps are generally good, the mechanics are good, and even the writing is good up until a certain point. That said, between its unique structure and balance issues and bias against growth units and aforementioned story collapse, it's not hard to see why it tends to be a pretty polarizing title. If the 3DS titles and their dramatic changes had never come along it would likely hold down the title of the most controversial game in the series forever. For all its faults though, there's enough good stuff here for me to consider myself a fairly big fan of it. Up next: A game that for a long time people didn't really know didn't actually come up with some of the stuff it did. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
MysteriousStan 04/14/20 12:29:03 AM #455:	Soren, Micaiah, and Sanaki are literally the only magic users I've ever used in Radiant Dawn because magic really isn't that good in that game. I mean I still like it and all but magic being so irrelevant kinda sucks. Part 4 might such but it does give us some great boss convos imo! Especially Haar. <cite>MysteriousStan posted [p:937357144] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Soren, Micaiah, and Sanaki are literally the only magic users I've ever used in Radiant Dawn because magic really isn't that good in that game. I mean I still like it and all but magic being so irrelevant kinda sucks. Part 4 might such but it does give us some great boss convos imo! Especially Haar. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Hbthebattle 04/14/20 12:30:28 AM #456:	New Mystery, with the Avatar and Casual mode? --- Patience. <cite>Hbthebattle posted [p:937357198] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>New Mystery, with the Avatar and Casual mode?</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
MalcolmMasher 04/14/20 12:34:31 AM #457:	Up next: A game that for a long time people didn't really know didn't actually come up with some of the stuff it did. That sounds like Sacred Stones to me. --- I don't like this duchy. Now, it's an adventurer. <cite>MalcolmMasher posted [p:937357390] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Up next: A game that for a long time people didn't really know didn't actually come up with some of the stuff it did. That sounds like Sacred Stones to me.</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/14/20 12:37:22 AM #458:	MysteriousStan posted... Soren, Micaiah, and Sanaki are literally the only magic users I've ever used in Radiant Dawn because magic really isn't that good in that game. I mean I still like it and all but magic being so irrelevant kinda sucks. Part 4 might such but it does give us some great boss convos imo! Especially Haar. I used Calil once solely because Rexflame's speed boost can let get above the 34 speed needed for a lot of end game stuff. It wasn't worth it at all, but at least it was kind of fun and it did have the novelty of giving me a unit who was oddly good at fighting the final battle auras that are on cover tiles. I like bad units a lot more when they at least have something interesting or unique about them, even if it's not actually that useful in the grand scheme of things. Yeah Radiant Dawn's boss conversations do tend to be on point. Hbthebattle posted... New Mystery, with the Avatar and Casual mode? I'm pretty sure New Mystery did come up with those things, unless you want to count Mark in FE7 for the former. --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937357519] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>MysteriousStan posted... </cite> <quote>Soren, Micaiah, and Sanaki are literally the only magic users I've ever used in Radiant Dawn because magic really isn't that good in that game. I mean I still like it and all but magic being so irrelevant kinda sucks. Part 4 might such but it does give us some great boss convos imo! Especially Haar.</quote> I used Calil once solely because Rexflame's speed boost can let get above the 34 speed needed for a lot of end game stuff. It wasn't worth it at all, but at least it was kind of fun and it did have the novelty of giving me a unit who was oddly good at fighting the final battle auras that are on cover tiles. I like bad units a lot more when they at least have something interesting or unique about them, even if it's not actually that useful in the grand scheme of things. Yeah Radiant Dawn's boss conversations do tend to be on point. Hbthebattle posted... </cite> <quote>New Mystery, with the Avatar and Casual mode?</quote> I'm pretty sure New Mystery did come up with those things, unless you want to count Mark in FE7 for the former. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Hbthebattle 04/14/20 12:43:41 AM #459:	Panthera posted... I'm pretty sure New Mystery did come up with those things, unless you want to count Mark in FE7 for the former. whoops I think I misread the thing --- Patience. <cite>Hbthebattle posted [p:937357802] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Panthera posted...</cite> <quote> I'm pretty sure New Mystery did come up with those things, unless you want to count Mark in FE7 for the former. </quote> whoops I think I misread the thing</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/14/20 8:47:50 PM #460:	To be continued...right now 7. Sacred Stones Sacred Stones apparently thinks it's Gaiden, what with the world map, monsters, random encounters, the whole "villager" concept in the form of the trainees, two lords who split up (albeit it works a bit differently here), and you could argue even branching promotions as a nod to the option in Gaiden to promote villagers to a variety of classes. This game must have seemed pretty creative to western fans when it first came out! Kind of funny that it was actually just borrowing concepts from the forgotten black sheep of the series all along. Besides the new branching promotions, Sacred Stones is pretty much identical to Blazing Sword mechanically, which is fine by me. Its new addition of shops on the world map is honestly quite nice, as I've never been a huge fan of the old "some chapters have shops but you'll never know how long it is until you get something again" method used in a lot of the pre-Tellius games. There's still some cases where the shops found in battle carry things you can't buy otherwise at the time, which strikes a good balance between giving you incentive to go out of your way for them and not encouraging you to be paranoid that you'll run out if you don't stockpile a million of everything at every shop. And the new monster enemies are...fine? Most of them are pretty wimpy (though the Cyclops and Gorgons are serious business), but in practice they're just like any other enemy and they fit the story. I've heard complaints that they don't fit the series very well, but I've never agreed. We've had dragons running around since day one, non-human enemies aren't exactly a big departure from that. I will say the branching promotion concept ends up being a bit of a mixed bag. It does offer some variety and give you room to try new things on subsequent playthroughs, but the choices are usually pretty poorly balanced, with one option just being clearly better than the other. Gerik's choice between hero and ranger is pretty much the only debatable one. And the game doesn't really tell you itself what bonuses you'll be getting from each path, meaning you either save scum to compare or look it up or just guess, which is a bit disappointing. Good idea, not the greatest execution though, which leaves it as only a slight positive overall. Unit balance in Sacred Stones is kind of a funny topic. For the most part it's fairly good by Fire Emblem standards, but the exceptions are...dramatic, to say the least. Seth is, of course, hilariously overpowered, while conversely the trainees are saddled with an inherently weak gimmick, and then two of the three join too late to even pretend to have anything to offer. Other than that things are pretty good, though granted it's partially because this is one of the easier games in the series, which allows otherwise weak units to still be sufficient for many tasks. This brings us to map design, and I think this is actually the games strongest point. While it's definitely a bit easier than I would prefer, Sacred Stones is notably lacking in maps that I dread playing, and remember it was having maps like that that dropped Blazing Sword down several pegs. It's pretty much the only game I didn't even consider when planning out my worst chapters list, and this is an important part because it adds a certain degree of extra replay value when I can pick it up and know I'll actually have fun the whole way through, unlike pretty much every other game in the series that has parts I know I'll just be pushing myself through to get back to the good. And while Sacred Stones' best maps don't rank super highly for me (I put two in my top twenty, but the highest was at 15 and could easily have been a bit lower), it is pretty consistently good. In addition to Ephraim chapter 14 and chapter 19 that made that list, chapter 15, chapter 16, chapter 20 and the final chapter are all very good, and chapter 5 is a great early game chapter. The final final boss is a bit of a chump though sadly, and the game is a bit too short, but those are fairly minor issues in the grand scheme of things. Over on the story side of things, Sacred Stones isn't particularly special but it manages to avoid outright annoying me much, which is more than a lot of games can say. That one scene where Eirika is a dumb dumb sticks out like a sore thumb, but other than that the game usually manages to make sense and not have characters acting in ways that I find hard to take seriously. And the differing presentation in central antagonist Lyon between Eirika and Ephraim's routes is actually pretty neat and serves to make him one of the more interesting major villains in the series. We also get one of the more memorable side villains in the series in the form of the eternally creepy Valter, and one of the best boss conversations in the series between Joshua and Caellach on Eirika's route. Our true main villain, the Demon King, is a generic evil thingy who is cliched even by the standards of a series where multiple games feature main villains who pull the old "as long as evil lives I will return" card unironically, but at least the details of his character aren't really important to the story in the way that they are for someone like, say, Ashnard. As per usual for the GBA games, a ton of characterization is locked away behind supports no one will ever see without sitting around grinding for them, which was dumb when Blazing Sword did it, is dumb in this game and will still be dumb when I get around to Binding Blade. And also as per usual, I'm not hugely invested in the cast of this game, though I think they're probably my favourites overall of the GBA era. There's fewer characters that get on my nerves (though some do exist, like L'arachel) and I generally like how a lot of the characters from Grado have conversations that put a bit of focus on their conflicted feelings in helping to fight their own homeland and how much work it will take to rebuild it, which is not the kind of thing you usually see in the series. And the conversation between Cormag and Seth in particular about Emperor Vigarde helps sell me on why people were so loyal to him that it took a while for them to start questioning things when he changed. This is also probably my favourite soundtrack of the GBA games and one of the better ones in the series. Pretty much every player phase theme is great, with the sinister track that plays for the first part of the final chapter standing out in particular. The boss music for the Grado generals and the one for Lyon are likewise great tracks that make me actually turn on animations sometimes to hear them, something I don't do very often. Overall Sacred Stones is just a very enjoyable game. While I would like it to be a bit longer, it delivers consistent quality for the time it does have. While I <cite>Panthera posted [p:937411511] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>To be continued...right now 7. Sacred Stones Sacred Stones apparently thinks it's Gaiden, what with the world map, monsters, random encounters, the whole "villager" concept in the form of the trainees, two lords who split up (albeit it works a bit differently here), and you could argue even branching promotions as a nod to the option in Gaiden to promote villagers to a variety of classes. This game must have seemed pretty creative to western fans when it first came out! Kind of funny that it was actually just borrowing concepts from the forgotten black sheep of the series all along. Besides the new branching promotions, Sacred Stones is pretty much identical to Blazing Sword mechanically, which is fine by me. Its new addition of shops on the world map is honestly quite nice, as I've never been a huge fan of the old "some chapters have shops but you'll never know how long it is until you get something again" method used in a lot of the pre-Tellius games. There's still some cases where the shops found in battle carry things you can't buy otherwise at the time, which strikes a good balance between giving you incentive to go out of your way for them and not encouraging you to be paranoid that you'll run out if you don't stockpile a million of everything at every shop. And the new monster enemies are...fine? Most of them are pretty wimpy (though the Cyclops and Gorgons are serious business), but in practice they're just like any other enemy and they fit the story. I've heard complaints that they don't fit the series very well, but I've never agreed. We've had dragons running around since day one, non-human enemies aren't exactly a big departure from that. I will say the branching promotion concept ends up being a bit of a mixed bag. It does offer some variety and give you room to try new things on subsequent playthroughs, but the choices are usually pretty poorly balanced, with one option just being clearly better than the other. Gerik's choice between hero and ranger is pretty much the only debatable one. And the game doesn't really tell you itself what bonuses you'll be getting from each path, meaning you either save scum to compare or look it up or just guess, which is a bit disappointing. Good idea, not the greatest execution though, which leaves it as only a slight positive overall. Unit balance in Sacred Stones is kind of a funny topic. For the most part it's fairly good by Fire Emblem standards, but the exceptions are...dramatic, to say the least. Seth is, of course, hilariously overpowered, while conversely the trainees are saddled with an inherently weak gimmick, and then two of the three join too late to even pretend to have anything to offer. Other than that things are pretty good, though granted it's partially because this is one of the easier games in the series, which allows otherwise weak units to still be sufficient for many tasks. This brings us to map design, and I think this is actually the games strongest point. While it's definitely a bit easier than I would prefer, Sacred Stones is notably lacking in maps that I dread playing, and remember it was having maps like that that dropped Blazing Sword down several pegs. It's pretty much the only game I didn't even consider when planning out my worst chapters list, and this is an important part because it adds a certain degree of extra replay value when I can pick it up and know I'll actually have fun the whole way through, unlike pretty much every other game in the series that has parts I know I'll just be pushing myself through to get back to the good. And while Sacred Stones' best maps don't rank super highly for me (I put two in my top twenty, but the highest was at 15 and could easily have been a bit lower), it is pretty consistently good. In addition to Ephraim chapter 14 and chapter 19 that made that list, chapter 15, chapter 16, chapter 20 and the final chapter are all very good, and chapter 5 is a great early game chapter. The final final boss is a bit of a chump though sadly, and the game is a bit too short, but those are fairly minor issues in the grand scheme of things. Over on the story side of things, Sacred Stones isn't particularly special but it manages to avoid outright annoying me much, which is more than a lot of games can say. That one scene where Eirika is a dumb dumb sticks out like a sore thumb, but other than that the game usually manages to make sense and not have characters acting in ways that I find hard to take seriously. And the differing presentation in central antagonist Lyon between Eirika and Ephraim's routes is actually pretty neat and serves to make him one of the more interesting major villains in the series. We also get one of the more memorable side villains in the series in the form of the eternally creepy Valter, and one of the best boss conversations in the series between Joshua and Caellach on Eirika's route. Our true main villain, the Demon King, is a generic evil thingy who is cliched even by the standards of a series where multiple games feature main villains who pull the old "as long as evil lives I will return" card unironically, but at least the details of his character aren't really important to the story in the way that they are for someone like, say, Ashnard. As per usual for the GBA games, a ton of characterization is locked away behind supports no one will ever see without sitting around grinding for them, which was dumb when Blazing Sword did it, is dumb in this game and will still be dumb when I get around to Binding Blade. And also as per usual, I'm not hugely invested in the cast of this game, though I think they're probably my favourites overall of the GBA era. There's fewer characters that get on my nerves (though some do exist, like L'arachel) and I generally like how a lot of the characters from Grado have conversations that put a bit of focus on their conflicted feelings in helping to fight their own homeland and how much work it will take to rebuild it, which is not the kind of thing you usually see in the series. And the conversation between Cormag and Seth in particular about Emperor Vigarde helps sell me on why people were so loyal to him that it took a while for them to start questioning things when he changed. This is also probably my favourite soundtrack of the GBA games and one of the better ones in the series. Pretty much every player phase theme is great, with the sinister track that plays for the first part of the final chapter standing out in particular. The boss music for the Grado generals and the one for Lyon are likewise great tracks that make me actually turn on animations sometimes to hear them, something I don't do very often. Overall Sacred Stones is just a very enjoyable game. While I would like it to be a bit longer, it delivers consistent quality for the time it does have. While I</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Hbthebattle 04/14/20 8:59:31 PM #461:	Conquest? or maybe FE6, since you've stated you dislike its plot. --- Patience. <cite>Hbthebattle posted [p:937412152] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Conquest? or maybe FE6, since you've stated you dislike its plot.</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/14/20 9:11:06 PM #462:	That hint would definitely apply to both of those games --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937412830] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>That hint would definitely apply to both of those games </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Kenri 04/15/20 1:07:48 AM #463:	"hit and miss in gameplay" is definitely an FE6 thing with its low weapon accuracy FE8 is probably the most easily replayable FE for me. As you said there aren't any maps to dread (aside from Ephraim hard mode ghost ship), and the branching promotions make up for the low number of playable characters. I played an FE8 randomizer a while ago and it was super fun (I got mage Ephraim, bishop Orson, and dancers Kyle and Forde, which made chapter 5x very interesting). --- Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else. <cite>Kenri posted [p:937425044] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>"hit and miss in gameplay" is definitely an FE6 thing with its low weapon accuracy FE8 is probably the most easily replayable FE for me. As you said there aren't any maps to dread (aside from Ephraim hard mode ghost ship), and the branching promotions make up for the low number of playable characters. I played an FE8 randomizer a while ago and it was super fun (I got mage Ephraim, bishop Orson, and dancers Kyle and Forde, which made chapter 5x very interesting). </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/15/20 2:29:13 AM #464:	Kenri posted... "hit and miss in gameplay" is definitely an FE6 thing with its low weapon accuracy You know what? We're going to say that I was not just using it as a figure of speech and actually meant it this way all along. f6. Binding Blade The first of the GBA games and also apparently my favourite of the three, something I'm always a little conflicted about (despite five spots separating this from Blazing Sword, the gap between the two isn't very large at all) and could easily see myself changing my mind about at any given moment. Binding Blade set the table for the mechanics that would appear in the next two games as well, with things like skills and combat canto disappearing, not to mention all the random stuff Thracia came up with. Weapon weight being subtracted directly from speed and Thracia's awkward system of constitution growing randomly on level up gives way to a set constitution stat per character, and the weapon triangle, in addition to its +10 hit/avoid, also provides +1 damage dealt/-1 damage received, marking the first time damage would be affected by it after the previous two games had it modify accuracy alone (and very little in the case of Thracia, to the point that it essentially didn't exist). The end result is the beginning of the more basic and streamlined experience that these three titles are known for. There are definitely some faults to find in the gameplay of Binding Blade. Weapon hit rates are infamous for being quite low, which they don't really seem by comparison to the Jugdral games at first glance, but with enemies having better speed in general and actual luck stats, their avoid is high enough that previously acceptable hit rates are now questionable. Reliability can be annoyingly low at times, and the bosses in this game are notoriously frustrating for their incredible mixture of avoid and durability. This led to the game developing a reputation for having "bugged" RNG that screws the player, ironic considering it's the first one to implement the 2RN system that makes hit rates above 50 a bit more accurate and hit rates below 50 a bit less so, which actually tends to help the player overall. Even funnier is that the RNG of this game actually is bugged, it's just bugged in a way that has essentially zero impact and will never be noticeable unless you stumble across the staggeringly low chance of it cropping up in one specific situation (status staffs use a single RN for accuracy, and can miss with 100 displayed hit...the odds of it happening are just something like 1/18th of 1%) Carrying on the proud tradition of the series, Binding Blade also has pretty terrible unit balance, with many being hard to see a purpose behind why they even exist. Sophia is the most notable example, a shaman who dies in one round (generally one hit) to everything on her join map, needs 3+ hits to kill anything and doesn't even break 55 displayed hit on a single enemy, meaning even if you reduce an enemy to 1 HP for her she still fails about as often as not, as if she were deliberately designed with the specific intent of being unenjoyable to use. There are of course others, like Wendy who is basically a physical, slightly less trash version of the same thing, or both of the early game archers, who have some utility in chapter 7 but otherwise just can't do anything because their bases are too awful. On the flip side, you have utter monsters like Milady, Rutger and Perceval running around, or one of the greatest staffbots ever in Niime. At least there's some respectable balance between the absolute best units, as Marcus falls off after a while, Milady joins late and Rutger is always a foot unit without proper 1-2 range. On the plus side, this is maybe the game with the best balance between weapons. The high accuracy on swords is a legitimate advantage instead of a novelty for a change, and javelins and hand axes have terrible accuracy and lack the might to kill the durable enemies hard mode throws your way, meaning their lack of ranged options is still a serious issue but it's not a crippling one. They also get some great boss kill options in the Armorslayer and Durandal. Axes are a bit dubious due to their hit rates being so sketchy, but they perform well against the legion of enemy lancer users you fight and the Hammer and Halberd, despite their inability to hit the broad side of a barn, can be great last ditch efforts to salvage things in the early game (or a core part of a very useful strategy in chapter 7 to recruit Jerrot and Treck on turn 2). Lances are good as always, but their accuracy problems are real, even if not as bad as axes. Bows are also better than usual here due to Binding Blade's greater focus on player phase combat to deal with the powerful enemies, as well as their utility in killing the incredibly nasty wyvern riders. Anima magic is almost unfair in how good it is, but is held back by a lack of good users. Light magic might as well not exist though, and dark magic is mostly unremarkable outside of some fun Niime shenanigans. Map design is very good here, though unlike Sacred Stones it's a lot more up and down. Binding Blade has some real stinkers, like chapter 14 or pretty much every side chapter, that can make the game feel like a bit of a slog when you're playing them. But when it's not screwing up, man is it ever good. Chapter 7 is one of the absolute best the series has to offer, 11A is held back from similar quality only by some annoying random AI issues, 4 and 21 are more classics and there's still plenty more that are very good, like 12 and 13. This is one of the harder games in the series (though definitely not in the running for THE hardest) and you'll get a good, fun challenge out of most chapters. There are a few maps that are a bit too big for their own good, notably 8 and 16, but even they have their strong points, like the corridor south of where the scrub squad joins in chapter 8. Overall, while there are definitely some weak links scattered throughout, the map quality here is among the best in the series, and the good ones are worth putting up with the weaker ones to get to. And aside from 14, most of the bad ones are more dull or tedious than they are awful and unpleasant. The soundtrack is decent but unspectacular. The first player phase theme you hear might get a little tiring after a while because it plays a bit too much for an only decent track. The western isles bring some great player phase music them though, and the Ilia/Sacae chapters also have a solid one. In The Name of Bern, the boss theme for the Bern generals, is up there with Shadow Dragon's Clash of Two Virtues as one of the best "enemy general" boss themes in the series, though I'm not hugely fond of the boss themes for either Zephiel or Idun <cite>Panthera posted [p:937427706] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Kenri posted... </cite> <quote>"hit and miss in gameplay" is definitely an FE6 thing with its low weapon accuracy</quote> You know what? We're going to say that I was not just using it as a figure of speech and actually meant it this way all along. f6. Binding Blade The first of the GBA games and also apparently my favourite of the three, something I'm always a little conflicted about (despite five spots separating this from Blazing Sword, the gap between the two isn't very large at all) and could easily see myself changing my mind about at any given moment. Binding Blade set the table for the mechanics that would appear in the next two games as well, with things like skills and combat canto disappearing, not to mention all the random stuff Thracia came up with. Weapon weight being subtracted directly from speed and Thracia's awkward system of constitution growing randomly on level up gives way to a set constitution stat per character, and the weapon triangle, in addition to its +10 hit/avoid, also provides +1 damage dealt/-1 damage received, marking the first time damage would be affected by it after the previous two games had it modify accuracy alone (and very little in the case of Thracia, to the point that it essentially didn't exist). The end result is the beginning of the more basic and streamlined experience that these three titles are known for. There are definitely some faults to find in the gameplay of Binding Blade. Weapon hit rates are infamous for being quite low, which they don't really seem by comparison to the Jugdral games at first glance, but with enemies having better speed in general and actual luck stats, their avoid is high enough that previously acceptable hit rates are now questionable. Reliability can be annoyingly low at times, and the bosses in this game are notoriously frustrating for their incredible mixture of avoid and durability. This led to the game developing a reputation for having "bugged" RNG that screws the player, ironic considering it's the first one to implement the 2RN system that makes hit rates above 50 a bit more accurate and hit rates below 50 a bit less so, which actually tends to help the player overall. Even funnier is that the RNG of this game actually is bugged, it's just bugged in a way that has essentially zero impact and will never be noticeable unless you stumble across the staggeringly low chance of it cropping up in one specific situation (status staffs use a single RN for accuracy, and can miss with 100 displayed hit...the odds of it happening are just something like 1/18th of 1%) Carrying on the proud tradition of the series, Binding Blade also has pretty terrible unit balance, with many being hard to see a purpose behind why they even exist. Sophia is the most notable example, a shaman who dies in one round (generally one hit) to everything on her join map, needs 3+ hits to kill anything and doesn't even break 55 displayed hit on a single enemy, meaning even if you reduce an enemy to 1 HP for her she still fails about as often as not, as if she were deliberately designed with the specific intent of being unenjoyable to use. There are of course others, like Wendy who is basically a physical, slightly less trash version of the same thing, or both of the early game archers, who have some utility in chapter 7 but otherwise just can't do anything because their bases are too awful. On the flip side, you have utter monsters like Milady, Rutger and Perceval running around, or one of the greatest staffbots ever in Niime. At least there's some respectable balance between the absolute best units, as Marcus falls off after a while, Milady joins late and Rutger is always a foot unit without proper 1-2 range. On the plus side, this is maybe the game with the best balance between weapons. The high accuracy on swords is a legitimate advantage instead of a novelty for a change, and javelins and hand axes have terrible accuracy and lack the might to kill the durable enemies hard mode throws your way, meaning their lack of ranged options is still a serious issue but it's not a crippling one. They also get some great boss kill options in the Armorslayer and Durandal. Axes are a bit dubious due to their hit rates being so sketchy, but they perform well against the legion of enemy lancer users you fight and the Hammer and Halberd, despite their inability to hit the broad side of a barn, can be great last ditch efforts to salvage things in the early game (or a core part of a very useful strategy in chapter 7 to recruit Jerrot and Treck on turn 2). Lances are good as always, but their accuracy problems are real, even if not as bad as axes. Bows are also better than usual here due to Binding Blade's greater focus on player phase combat to deal with the powerful enemies, as well as their utility in killing the incredibly nasty wyvern riders. Anima magic is almost unfair in how good it is, but is held back by a lack of good users. Light magic might as well not exist though, and dark magic is mostly unremarkable outside of some fun Niime shenanigans. Map design is very good here, though unlike Sacred Stones it's a lot more up and down. Binding Blade has some real stinkers, like chapter 14 or pretty much every side chapter, that can make the game feel like a bit of a slog when you're playing them. But when it's not screwing up, man is it ever good. Chapter 7 is one of the absolute best the series has to offer, 11A is held back from similar quality only by some annoying random AI issues, 4 and 21 are more classics and there's still plenty more that are very good, like 12 and 13. This is one of the harder games in the series (though definitely not in the running for THE hardest) and you'll get a good, fun challenge out of most chapters. There are a few maps that are a bit too big for their own good, notably 8 and 16, but even they have their strong points, like the corridor south of where the scrub squad joins in chapter 8. Overall, while there are definitely some weak links scattered throughout, the map quality here is among the best in the series, and the good ones are worth putting up with the weaker ones to get to. And aside from 14, most of the bad ones are more dull or tedious than they are awful and unpleasant. The soundtrack is decent but unspectacular. The first player phase theme you hear might get a little tiring after a while because it plays a bit too much for an only decent track. The western isles bring some great player phase music them though, and the Ilia/Sacae chapters also have a solid one. In The Name of Bern, the boss theme for the Bern generals, is up there with Shadow Dragon's Clash of Two Virtues as one of the best "enemy general" boss themes in the series, though I'm not hugely fond of the boss themes for either Zephiel or Idun</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/15/20 2:29:22 AM #465:	A big problem the game has is that it really doesn't sell you much on why Bern, the enemy kingdom, is even all that big a deal. You actually spend almost no time fighting them directly, mostly just facing off against people who are working with them for various reasons, sometimes with a few Bern troops thrown in for support. In the backstory they conquered Ilia and Sacae simultaneously and launched an assault on Lycia soon after, suggesting their army must be truly overwhelming, and everywhere you go people are trying to get on their good side, but in the end you fight their army head on once in chapter 21, then just kind of...teleport into the royal palace unopposed...? It really makes me wonder how they conquered half of Elibe to begin with if they only have the troops for a single battle. There's also some issues in their characterization, as your main source of engagement with Bern for the first two thirds of the game is Narcian. On his own, Narcian's unique brand of narcissism works well for a villain, but the problem is he's kind of a joke whose story arc is all about how he's a fuck up that falls from grace, which doesn't exactly make Bern seem all that threatening when he's one of the best they have to offer. By far the biggest problem though is our main villain, Zephiel. He's often regarded by fans as a great villain, but I will probably never understand why. He's an example of a type of villain I've come to despise in recent years, the villain who is "sympathetic" not because they have respectable qualities or noble goals or anything positive about them, but because they had something bad happen to them once. Zephiel had something awful happen to him growing up, sure, but he then went on to choose to be a genocidal tyrant with zero interest in thinking through his own hypocrisy of being the embodiment of everything he claims to hate about humanity. There's nothing sympathetic about him. He's just an evil asshole who had something bad happen to him, and the whole idea that he was once a good person is very hard to buy because there are countless people out there that suffer greatly at the hands of others but do not decide that that's their queue to murder the world. I don't have a problem with the idea of a villain like this existing exactly, I just object to the fact that the game seems to want us to think of him as oh-so tragic instead of as a mass murderer whose past, while horrible, does not in any way make him less of a monster. This segues into what I raised earlier about how he drags Guinevere down. She has this whole arc about deciding she's willing to do what's best for the world and to look after Bern after the world ends even if she's seen as a traitor for opposing Zephiel. The problem is that Zephiel literally gives his big speech about wiping out humanity in his throne room, in front of his mostly human soldiers (who continue to fight for him for some reason). There's no actual emotional weight to her situation when the guy she's opposing openly admits to wanting to exterminate everyone, his own people included. No one could ever think of Guinevere as a traitor when she is undeniably doing what's best for Bern by opposing Zephiel, who is the actual traitor due to wanting to kill his own people. It's also hard to really buy into her talking about how Zephiel was once a nice guy when his transformation to super-Hitler is so staggeringly implausible a response from anyone who wasn't already pretty fucking bad. Phew, that was a lot of ranting about the story! It's a good thing I don't put too much weight on the writing in most games, especially not ones that let me skip past things if I want to. Binding Blade's story is not good at all, but at least that doesn't get in the way of my enjoyment of the game. And in fairness, its actually decent most of the way, somewhat dull and uninspired but also inoffensive. It's only when you fight Zephiel that it goes off the rails. I guess I should address the cast of characters at some point too. I mostly don't care for these people beyond the story of Milady and Gale, but hidden in the midst of boring support conversations that barely go anywhere is Astore/Astolfo (depending on which translation you're used to), whose messy past and the depression and drinking problems it has caused is shockingly serious and engaging and makes you wish this kind of effort could have been put in elsewhere too, like perhaps into the character of our main villain. Have I mentioned I don't like Zephiel? I feel like I have but I just want it to be clear. Binding Blade is definitely carried by its gameplay, and even there its best maps carry the weaker ones. It's a much more distinctly flawed game than Sacred Stones, but the things it does right are just too damn good. If you could give me maps like the best of Binding Blade all game long, I'd put up with unskippable Fates level storytelling if that's what it took. And will I ever get a Boots shop again? Probably not, but a man can dream. Up next: We enter the top five with another game whose story shows why the start button exist - to get you to the great gameplay faster --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937427716] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote> A big problem the game has is that it really doesn't sell you much on why Bern, the enemy kingdom, is even all that big a deal. You actually spend almost no time fighting them directly, mostly just facing off against people who are working with them for various reasons, sometimes with a few Bern troops thrown in for support. In the backstory they conquered Ilia and Sacae simultaneously and launched an assault on Lycia soon after, suggesting their army must be truly overwhelming, and everywhere you go people are trying to get on their good side, but in the end you fight their army head on once in chapter 21, then just kind of...teleport into the royal palace unopposed...? It really makes me wonder how they conquered half of Elibe to begin with if they only have the troops for a single battle. There's also some issues in their characterization, as your main source of engagement with Bern for the first two thirds of the game is Narcian. On his own, Narcian's unique brand of narcissism works well for a villain, but the problem is he's kind of a joke whose story arc is all about how he's a fuck up that falls from grace, which doesn't exactly make Bern seem all that threatening when he's one of the best they have to offer. By far the biggest problem though is our main villain, Zephiel. He's often regarded by fans as a great villain, but I will probably never understand why. He's an example of a type of villain I've come to despise in recent years, the villain who is "sympathetic" not because they have respectable qualities or noble goals or anything positive about them, but because they had something bad happen to them once. Zephiel had something awful happen to him growing up, sure, but he then went on to choose to be a genocidal tyrant with zero interest in thinking through his own hypocrisy of being the embodiment of everything he claims to hate about humanity. There's nothing sympathetic about him. He's just an evil asshole who had something bad happen to him, and the whole idea that he was once a good person is very hard to buy because there are countless people out there that suffer greatly at the hands of others but do not decide that that's their queue to murder the world. I don't have a problem with the idea of a villain like this existing exactly, I just object to the fact that the game seems to want us to think of him as oh-so tragic instead of as a mass murderer whose past, while horrible, does not in any way make him less of a monster. This segues into what I raised earlier about how he drags Guinevere down. She has this whole arc about deciding she's willing to do what's best for the world and to look after Bern after the world ends even if she's seen as a traitor for opposing Zephiel. The problem is that Zephiel literally gives his big speech about wiping out humanity in his throne room, in front of his mostly human soldiers (who continue to fight for him for some reason). There's no actual emotional weight to her situation when the guy she's opposing openly admits to wanting to exterminate everyone, his own people included. No one could ever think of Guinevere as a traitor when she is undeniably doing what's best for Bern by opposing Zephiel, who is the actual traitor due to wanting to kill his own people. It's also hard to really buy into her talking about how Zephiel was once a nice guy when his transformation to super-Hitler is so staggeringly implausible a response from anyone who wasn't already pretty fucking bad. Phew, that was a lot of ranting about the story! It's a good thing I don't put too much weight on the writing in most games, especially not ones that let me skip past things if I want to. Binding Blade's story is not good at all, but at least that doesn't get in the way of my enjoyment of the game. And in fairness, its actually decent most of the way, somewhat dull and uninspired but also inoffensive. It's only when you fight Zephiel that it goes off the rails. I guess I should address the cast of characters at some point too. I mostly don't care for these people beyond the story of Milady and Gale, but hidden in the midst of boring support conversations that barely go anywhere is Astore/Astolfo (depending on which translation you're used to), whose messy past and the depression and drinking problems it has caused is shockingly serious and engaging and makes you wish this kind of effort could have been put in elsewhere too, like perhaps into the character of our main villain. Have I mentioned I don't like Zephiel? I feel like I have but I just want it to be clear. Binding Blade is definitely carried by its gameplay, and even there its best maps carry the weaker ones. It's a much more distinctly flawed game than Sacred Stones, but the things it does right are just too damn good. If you could give me maps like the best of Binding Blade all game long, I'd put up with unskippable Fates level storytelling if that's what it took. And will I ever get a Boots shop again? Probably not, but a man can dream. Up next: We enter the top five with another game whose story shows why the start button exist - to get you to the great gameplay faster </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
NBIceman 04/15/20 2:48:36 AM #466:	Wait, people like Zephiel? Mr. Generic "War is bad but humanity is worse" Guy? Huh. Anyway, Fir and Geese are underrated units don't @ me. --- https://imgur.com/UYamul2 Spurs - Yankees - Eagles - Golden Knights <cite>NBIceman posted [p:937428320] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Wait, people like Zephiel? Mr. Generic "War is bad but humanity is worse" Guy? Huh. Anyway, Fir and Geese are underrated units don't @ me. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/15/20 2:54:53 AM #467:	NBIceman posted... Wait, people like Zephiel? Mr. Generic "War is bad but humanity is worse" Guy? Huh. Anyway, Fir and Geese are underrated units don't @ me. I have seen so much talk about how great a villain he is in comment sections of Fire Emblem videos Fir is a bit underrated by a lot of people, she's actually decent. Geese I don't really know about, I've never bothered to really look at how he performs, though his base speed leaves a lot to be desired. I guess I'd agree he's underrated relative to Gonzales, but that's more a function of Gonzales not actually being very good than anything else --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937428477] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>NBIceman posted... </cite> <quote>Wait, people like Zephiel? Mr. Generic "War is bad but humanity is worse" Guy? Huh. Anyway, Fir and Geese are underrated units don't @ me.</quote> I have seen so much talk about how great a villain he is in comment sections of Fire Emblem videos Fir is a bit underrated by a lot of people, she's actually decent. Geese I don't really know about, I've never bothered to really look at how he performs, though his base speed leaves a lot to be desired. I guess I'd agree he's underrated relative to Gonzales, but that's more a function of Gonzales not actually being very good than anything else </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Mewtwo59 04/15/20 3:08:56 AM #468:	>Female myrmidon >Underrated Pick one --- ""Love" is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope." HK-47 <cite>Mewtwo59 posted [p:937428883] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>>Female myrmidon >Underrated Pick one</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Kenri 04/15/20 3:14:33 AM #469:	Geese was a serious disappointment for me. Just bad all around. I think mine was worse than average but it just didn't leave a good impression. Zephiel's a bad villain but the rest of the villainous cast is solid (...minus Jahn). I like FE6's emphasis on human politics rather than dragon-gods too, even if ultimately it goes dragon-god heavy for the ending. --- Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else. <cite>Kenri posted [p:937429036] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Geese was a serious disappointment for me. Just bad all around. I think mine was worse than average but it just didn't leave a good impression. Zephiel's a bad villain but the rest of the villainous cast is solid (...minus Jahn). I like FE6's emphasis on human politics rather than dragon-gods too, even if ultimately it goes dragon-god heavy for the ending. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/15/20 3:28:55 AM #470:	Mewtwo59 posted... >Female myrmidon >Underrated Pick one Look, if people who think Marisa is good don't seem to think Fir is anything special, they must really hate her --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937429379] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Mewtwo59 posted... </cite> <quote>>Female myrmidon >Underrated Pick one</quote> Look, if people who think Marisa is good don't seem to think Fir is anything special, they must really hate her </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
AxemRedRanger 04/15/20 4:40:35 AM #471:	I assume Conquest is next. --- [NO BARKLEY NO PEACE] [NO Advokaiser NO PEACE] <cite>AxemRedRanger posted [p:937430998] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>I assume Conquest is next. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/15/20 11:53:11 PM #472:	You assume...correctly 5. Conquest The one part of Fates that's actually worth a damn follows Binding Blade's example as a game of extremes, except it manages to take it to an even greater extent. I'm going to deviate from my usual pattern here and talk about the writing first, because holy god damn hell is it abysmal. Fates as a whole is an utter disaster from a story perspective, but I would argue that even the incredibly low bar set by Revelation is still too high for Conquest to clear. The overall concept is a pretty good one, with the idea being that you would try to overthrow the bad guys from within, though it's not the outright villain route I was kind of hoping it would be. But the execution is staggeringly awful. The central figure of this travesty and the chief culprit for its failures is Corrin (from here on, just assume I'm referring to the Conquest portrayal of the character unless I specify otherwise), who may just be the most worthless protagonist I have ever seen. In a story about trying to change the evil empire as a high ranking member of it, you'd expect the hero to be clever about pretending to fit in while secretly undermining it, or perhaps be forced to resort to some extreme measures to earn the credibility needed to make a change, bringing about a source of personal drama as they struggle with what they're doing. You'd expect the hero to be proactive about it. Corrin...isn't. Oh sure he loves to sit around being sad about how totally evil Nohr is and how bad it makes him feel, but to be blunt, he doesn't fucking do anything. Leo, Xander, Camilla and Elise...they all have at least some moment where they try to go out of their way to either cover for Corrin or to minimize the harm Garons orders will cause, such as Leo's plan to take charge of the search of the opera house but do so in a horribly inefficient way that will allow the singers ample time to escape. Corrin, though? Corrin just sits around whining, at most occasionally thinking that yelling about being a good guy to literal blob monster Garon will somehow help even though it never has before. His biggest, brightest moment is getting the Ice Tribe to agree to surrender for a while via essentially telling them that he has no idea what he's doing but he's pretty sure he'll try to figure something out eventually. Rather than ever come up with a method for dealing with Garon himself, he just mopes until Azura drops the Orb of Plot Contrivance on his lap and hatches a plan to thwart the evil kings ambition to conquer Hoshido by letting him conquer Hoshido so a magic chair will make him look goopy. I should probably be spoiler tagging this stuff but fuck it, no one cares about this shitshow of a story anyway. People often criticize Fates (and Awakening, and New Myster, and Three Houses...) for having characters act too favourably towards the so-called "avatar" characters. I actually disagree with this complaint to a large extent, in part because I don't really consider them to be player avatars in any meaningful sense (beyond maaaaybe Byleth), but that's not really topical here. That said, Conquest is the one time where I strongly agree with this sentiment, because Corrin flat out doesn't do jack shit worthy of praise. He's a detestably useless loser who spends the entire game sitting around talking about how sad he feels about things that he has no interest in actually trying to stop beyond waiting and hoping everything works out in the end. Corrin drags the entire story down beyond belief, making every other character seem worse for honestly believing he's actually doing anything right. That's not to say the rest of the story is good or anything, because it's not. Calling Garon a cartoon villain would be an insult to cartoon villains, who sometimes have actual charm. His chief minion Iago is every other generic sorcerer in the series, just with much less plot relevance than most of them despite his substantial screen time. Much like the other Fates routes, the whole Hoshido/Nohr conflict is utterly devoid of depth, and it's extra hard to care because Fates as a whole is allergic to the concept of world building. We don't even have a name for the continent it takes place on! There's just nothing about the setting to get invested in. Even the playable characters are mostly unlikable, though at least there's plenty of variety in this regard. Do you want Peri's unhinged psycopathy that the writers don't seem to know whether to present as a serious issue or just a funny quirk, Camilla's actual sort of interesting backstory that is largely ignored beyond giving her an excuse to be creepily obsessed with Corrin, Selena's general attitude of being an asshole to everyone and then crying to guilt trip people who object? We've got you covered! Jakob stands out as relatable to me solely because he seems to hate these people as much as I do. Oh, and there's three characters from Awakening here for some reason. Apparently DLC explains why, but I don't know. I'm not paying extra money to figure this story out. I already payed extra for Birthright and Revelation to experience the full story and that wasn't the best purchase I've ever made. Whatever the in-universe justification is doesn't really matter anyway, since the actual explanation is pretty obvious - they were too lazy to come up with new characters and wanted an excuse to recycle some popular older ones. Which, sure, I liked Owain so "Odin" is kind of fun and all, but it really speaks to the utter ineptitude of the character writing here that they need to try to bring back someone I like to distract me from their inability to come up new people I like. Okay, enough about the writing...except I forgot to talk about another issue with Fates in general. Could have done it with either of the other two games, but I guess I wanted to save it for now. The entire "Deeprealms" concept for the children characters. So imagine you get married, and you decide that rather than try to hold off on having children until after the war or having one of the parents stay with them, you'll just stick them in a pocket dimension where time flows super fast so they can age up to young adulthood instantly, having essentially never had their parents in their lives. And then immediately recruit them and send them into war (to be fair to Fates, a lot of characters are reluctant to let their kids fight, but to be fair to me, fuck this). So every character in the story is an awful person who doesn't hesitate to screw up their kids' childhood for their own convenience. Because I needed more reason to hate these people. --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937487101] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>You assume...correctly 5. Conquest The one part of Fates that's actually worth a damn follows Binding Blade's example as a game of extremes, except it manages to take it to an even greater extent. I'm going to deviate from my usual pattern here and talk about the writing first, because holy god damn hell is it abysmal. Fates as a whole is an utter disaster from a story perspective, but I would argue that even the incredibly low bar set by Revelation is still too high for Conquest to clear. The overall concept is a pretty good one, with the idea being that you would try to overthrow the bad guys from within, though it's not the outright villain route I was kind of hoping it would be. But the execution is staggeringly awful. The central figure of this travesty and the chief culprit for its failures is Corrin (from here on, just assume I'm referring to the Conquest portrayal of the character unless I specify otherwise), who may just be the most worthless protagonist I have ever seen. In a story about trying to change the evil empire as a high ranking member of it, you'd expect the hero to be clever about pretending to fit in while secretly undermining it, or perhaps be forced to resort to some extreme measures to earn the credibility needed to make a change, bringing about a source of personal drama as they struggle with what they're doing. You'd expect the hero to be proactive about it. Corrin...isn't. Oh sure he loves to sit around being sad about how totally evil Nohr is and how bad it makes him feel, but to be blunt, he doesn't fucking do anything. Leo, Xander, Camilla and Elise...they all have at least some moment where they try to go out of their way to either cover for Corrin or to minimize the harm Garons orders will cause, such as Leo's plan to take charge of the search of the opera house but do so in a horribly inefficient way that will allow the singers ample time to escape. Corrin, though? Corrin just sits around whining, at most occasionally thinking that yelling about being a good guy to literal blob monster Garon will somehow help even though it never has before. His biggest, brightest moment is getting the Ice Tribe to agree to surrender for a while via essentially telling them that he has no idea what he's doing but he's pretty sure he'll try to figure something out eventually. Rather than ever come up with a method for dealing with Garon himself, he just mopes until Azura drops the Orb of Plot Contrivance on his lap and hatches a plan to thwart the evil kings ambition to conquer Hoshido by letting him conquer Hoshido so a magic chair will make him look goopy. I should probably be spoiler tagging this stuff but fuck it, no one cares about this shitshow of a story anyway. People often criticize Fates (and Awakening, and New Myster, and Three Houses...) for having characters act too favourably towards the so-called "avatar" characters. I actually disagree with this complaint to a large extent, in part because I don't really consider them to be player avatars in any meaningful sense (beyond maaaaybe Byleth), but that's not really topical here. That said, Conquest is the one time where I strongly agree with this sentiment, because Corrin flat out doesn't do jack shit worthy of praise. He's a detestably useless loser who spends the entire game sitting around talking about how sad he feels about things that he has no interest in actually trying to stop beyond waiting and hoping everything works out in the end. Corrin drags the entire story down beyond belief, making every other character seem worse for honestly believing he's actually doing anything right. That's not to say the rest of the story is good or anything, because it's not. Calling Garon a cartoon villain would be an insult to cartoon villains, who sometimes have actual charm. His chief minion Iago is every other generic sorcerer in the series, just with much less plot relevance than most of them despite his substantial screen time. Much like the other Fates routes, the whole Hoshido/Nohr conflict is utterly devoid of depth, and it's extra hard to care because Fates as a whole is allergic to the concept of world building. We don't even have a name for the continent it takes place on! There's just nothing about the setting to get invested in. Even the playable characters are mostly unlikable, though at least there's plenty of variety in this regard. Do you want Peri's unhinged psycopathy that the writers don't seem to know whether to present as a serious issue or just a funny quirk, Camilla's actual sort of interesting backstory that is largely ignored beyond giving her an excuse to be creepily obsessed with Corrin, Selena's general attitude of being an asshole to everyone and then crying to guilt trip people who object? We've got you covered! Jakob stands out as relatable to me solely because he seems to hate these people as much as I do. Oh, and there's three characters from Awakening here for some reason. Apparently DLC explains why, but I don't know. I'm not paying extra money to figure this story out. I already payed extra for Birthright and Revelation to experience the full story and that wasn't the best purchase I've ever made. Whatever the in-universe justification is doesn't really matter anyway, since the actual explanation is pretty obvious - they were too lazy to come up with new characters and wanted an excuse to recycle some popular older ones. Which, sure, I liked Owain so "Odin" is kind of fun and all, but it really speaks to the utter ineptitude of the character writing here that they need to try to bring back someone I like to distract me from their inability to come up new people I like. Okay, enough about the writing...except I forgot to talk about another issue with Fates in general. Could have done it with either of the other two games, but I guess I wanted to save it for now. The entire "Deeprealms" concept for the children characters. So imagine you get married, and you decide that rather than try to hold off on having children until after the war or having one of the parents stay with them, you'll just stick them in a pocket dimension where time flows super fast so they can age up to young adulthood instantly, having essentially never had their parents in their lives. And then immediately recruit them and send them into war (to be fair to Fates, a lot of characters are reluctant to let their kids fight, but to be fair to me, fuck this). So every character in the story is an awful person who doesn't hesitate to screw up their kids' childhood for their own convenience. Because I needed more reason to hate these people. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/15/20 11:53:16 PM #473:	Alright, that was, uh, a lot of negativity for my fifth favourite game in the series. But I'm done with the story now. Thank god. Over on the gameplay side of things, Conquest is thankfully excellent. The overall mechanics of Fates are very interesting, and this is the one route that really takes advantage of them, with maps frequently featuring paired up enemies, AI that will actively look to set up dual strikes, and all manner of skill and weapon combinations that can make seemingly simple enemy groups incredibly tricky to take on. Conquest is pretty fond of gimmicks, but unlike in Revelation where the gimmicks exist to waste your time, here they mostly exist to make things more interesting. Chapter 10 is of course the highlight of the game, but there's a lot of really good ones, including pretty much the entire late game (barring the awful decision to not let you save before the second half of the final battle, AKA one of the hardest maps in the game). Conquest is also one of the hardest games in the series. Interestingly enough, on Lunatic it doesn't even increase enemy stats from Hard for the most part (or maybe at all? I don't recall for sure), just gives enemies more skills or adds new enemies or changes some aspects of the map layout, with pretty much every addition serving to counter a relatively mindless tactic that worked on lower difficulties. The extreme focus on skills and weapon effects can be a bit overwhelming at times, but when you're in the mood for it, it makes for an incredibly engaging challenge. There's a couple moments where the game gets carried away, like with the frustrating gimmick of chapter 19 or the whole Staff Savant + Inevitable End maid thing in endgame, but for the most part it's great. Even some widely hated chapters like the ninja cave or Fuga's Wild Ride don't bother me much. The former is actually pretty fair besides the boss, and the latter comes late enough for you to have the tools to manage its shenanigans, unlike its Revelation counterpart. Neither is among my favourites, but they're not bad maps at all. Of course, like every Fates game Conquest allows you a lot of options for customizing your approach, with reclassing, A+/S supports giving new class options, skills, cooking, tonics and forging and probably stuff I'm forgetting even all available. And unlike the other two games, there's actually incentive to using it here because the level of difficulty merits the thought you put into your pairings and class paths. You don't have to be optimal to beat it of course, but it certainly doesn't hurt you to try, and it's a lot more satisfying to set up some crazy class/skill combination that lets you deal with a chapter that's otherwise kicking your ass than it is to set up some crazy combination that lets you win for free on a map that barely tried to begin with. Insert obligatory "Fates has good music" comment here. There probably didn't need to be, what is it, five hundred and six? versions of Lost in Thoughts All Alone, but hell, at least the overused track is a good one. Conquest is a great game to play, you just have to make liberal use of the start button to make all the horrible talky bits go away. As atrocious as the writing may be, it doesn't take away from arguably the deepest and most interesting gameplay systems in the series being used extremely well. If you're the type who really needs good story or deep, interesting characters to get invested in a game, you should definitely stay away. If you're the type who doesn't care about any of that and just wants fun and challenging gameplay, this is absolutely the game for you. Up next: Only four games left! This next one has a lot of things I may have already discussed during this project. --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937487109] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote> Alright, that was, uh, a lot of negativity for my fifth favourite game in the series. But I'm done with the story now. Thank god. Over on the gameplay side of things, Conquest is thankfully excellent. The overall mechanics of Fates are very interesting, and this is the one route that really takes advantage of them, with maps frequently featuring paired up enemies, AI that will actively look to set up dual strikes, and all manner of skill and weapon combinations that can make seemingly simple enemy groups incredibly tricky to take on. Conquest is pretty fond of gimmicks, but unlike in Revelation where the gimmicks exist to waste your time, here they mostly exist to make things more interesting. Chapter 10 is of course the highlight of the game, but there's a lot of really good ones, including pretty much the entire late game (barring the awful decision to not let you save before the second half of the final battle, AKA one of the hardest maps in the game). Conquest is also one of the hardest games in the series. Interestingly enough, on Lunatic it doesn't even increase enemy stats from Hard for the most part (or maybe at all? I don't recall for sure), just gives enemies more skills or adds new enemies or changes some aspects of the map layout, with pretty much every addition serving to counter a relatively mindless tactic that worked on lower difficulties. The extreme focus on skills and weapon effects can be a bit overwhelming at times, but when you're in the mood for it, it makes for an incredibly engaging challenge. There's a couple moments where the game gets carried away, like with the frustrating gimmick of chapter 19 or the whole Staff Savant + Inevitable End maid thing in endgame, but for the most part it's great. Even some widely hated chapters like the ninja cave or Fuga's Wild Ride don't bother me much. The former is actually pretty fair besides the boss, and the latter comes late enough for you to have the tools to manage its shenanigans, unlike its Revelation counterpart. Neither is among my favourites, but they're not bad maps at all. Of course, like every Fates game Conquest allows you a lot of options for customizing your approach, with reclassing, A+/S supports giving new class options, skills, cooking, tonics and forging and probably stuff I'm forgetting even all available. And unlike the other two games, there's actually incentive to using it here because the level of difficulty merits the thought you put into your pairings and class paths. You don't have to be optimal to beat it of course, but it certainly doesn't hurt you to try, and it's a lot more satisfying to set up some crazy class/skill combination that lets you deal with a chapter that's otherwise kicking your ass than it is to set up some crazy combination that lets you win for free on a map that barely tried to begin with. Insert obligatory "Fates has good music" comment here. There probably didn't need to be, what is it, five hundred and six? versions of Lost in Thoughts All Alone, but hell, at least the overused track is a good one. Conquest is a great game to play, you just have to make liberal use of the start button to make all the horrible talky bits go away. As atrocious as the writing may be, it doesn't take away from arguably the deepest and most interesting gameplay systems in the series being used extremely well. If you're the type who really needs good story or deep, interesting characters to get invested in a game, you should definitely stay away. If you're the type who doesn't care about any of that and just wants fun and challenging gameplay, this is absolutely the game for you. Up next: Only four games left! This next one has a lot of things I may have already discussed during this project. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Kenri 04/16/20 12:42:14 AM #474:	I don't like the Fates mechanics much, but Conquest does have generally good map design. Fuga's Wild Ride is a low point though. Ninja map is fine. The story is one of the worst things I've ever read. Completely agree with all your criticisms of it. Prediction for the next one is Echoes. --- Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else. <cite>Kenri posted [p:937489367] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>I don't like the Fates mechanics much, but Conquest does have generally good map design. Fuga's Wild Ride is a low point though. Ninja map is fine. The story is one of the worst things I've ever read. Completely agree with all your criticisms of it. Prediction for the next one is Echoes. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
NeoElfboy 04/16/20 12:52:25 AM #475:	Good writeups! I'm admittedly a bit surprised you have Binding Blade as high as you do, since two things I generally see praised about the game (Zephiel, and the heavy focus on evasion as a method of durability) are things I know you don't like! I guess I'm a little less high on the map design compared to you, though I generally agree with you about some of the stronger maps. Still a solid game. Might as well talk about Zephiel. I doubt I'm gonna budge you on this, but Zephiel, unlike many FE villains, has an ideology which is informed (not excused) by both his backstory and the game's setting. He thinks humans are trash because of how he was treated, and knows the history of his world and his own kind's genocide of dragons, and hatches a crazy plan consistent with those views. You're not supposed to cheer for him, but I do find him more plausible and more interesting than someone who worships Satan for fun and that's all I really need for an antagonist. I wouldn't call him an all-time great villain or even close, but compared to most of what Fire Emblem offers? He does okay, at least to me. Regarding, Radiant Dawn's got another set which I respect if not love (speaking mostly of the second to last and third to last bosses here). I both understand where they're coming from and want to punch them both in the face really, really badly. They're up their own ass lawful types with a side of misanthropy whose behaviour is consistent, sounds kinda noble if you don't think about it, and makes me extremely angry as soon as I do, which is a pretty good feeling to have about antagonists. They help salvage Part 4 for me, which leads to my feeling that Radiant Dawn is perhaps the only game outside of Three Houses that I don't feel totally embarrassed to recommend to a non-SRPG fan for story. Speaking of, that last view probably helps my opinion on Conquest. Is its story bad? Yep. Do I think it's worse than Archanaea, Valentia, Elibe, or Awakening's stories? Not meaningfully in some cases, or at all in others. So that leaves things like gameplay and music which are holy-crap good and as you can imagine I rank the game a few spots higher as a result. The next one kinda sounds like FE4 since it topped so many lists, but if so I was expecting it to be higher! --- The RPG Duelling League: www.rpgdl.com An unparalleled source for RPG information and discussion <cite>NeoElfboy posted [p:937489765] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Good writeups! I'm admittedly a bit surprised you have Binding Blade as high as you do, since two things I generally see praised about the game (Zephiel, and the heavy focus on evasion as a method of durability) are things I know you don't like! I guess I'm a little less high on the map design compared to you, though I generally agree with you about some of the stronger maps. Still a solid game. Might as well talk about Zephiel. I doubt I'm gonna budge you on this, but Zephiel, unlike many FE villains, has an ideology which is informed (not excused) by both his backstory and the game's setting. He thinks humans are trash because of how he was treated, and knows the history of his world and his own kind's genocide of dragons, and hatches a crazy plan consistent with those views. You're not supposed to cheer for him, but I do find him more plausible and more interesting than someone who worships Satan for fun and that's all I really need for an antagonist. I wouldn't call him an all-time great villain or even close, but compared to most of what Fire Emblem offers? He does okay, at least to me. Regarding, Radiant Dawn's got another set which I respect if not love (speaking mostly of the second to last and third to last bosses here). I both understand where they're coming from and want to punch them both in the face really, really badly. They're up their own ass lawful types with a side of misanthropy whose behaviour is consistent, sounds kinda noble if you don't think about it, and makes me extremely angry as soon as I do, which is a pretty good feeling to have about antagonists. They help salvage Part 4 for me, which leads to my feeling that Radiant Dawn is perhaps the only game outside of Three Houses that I don't feel totally embarrassed to recommend to a non-SRPG fan for story. Speaking of, that last view probably helps my opinion on Conquest. Is its story bad? Yep. Do I think it's worse than Archanaea, Valentia, Elibe, or Awakening's stories? Not meaningfully in some cases, or at all in others. So that leaves things like gameplay and music which are holy-crap good and as you can imagine I rank the game a few spots higher as a result. The next one kinda sounds like FE4 since it topped so many lists, but if so I was expecting it to be higher! </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Mewtwo59 04/16/20 1:22:48 AM #476:	The ninja cave -> kitsune lair -> Fuga's Wild Ride stretch is possibly the worst stretch of 4 chapters in the series. Chapter 18 is fine gameplay wise, but the chapter's story is a total dumpster fire, so I don't feel bad about its inclusion here. --- ""Love" is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope." HK-47 <cite>Mewtwo59 posted [p:937490946] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>The ninja cave -> kitsune lair -> Fuga's Wild Ride stretch is possibly the worst stretch of 4 chapters in the series. Chapter 18 is fine gameplay wise, but the chapter's story is a total dumpster fire, so I don't feel bad about its inclusion here. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/16/20 1:26:52 AM #477:	I wouldn't say I dislike evasion-heavy games, just that in a vacuum I prefer higher hit rates all around. I think the central thing about Zephiel that bugs me is that I just don't really buy him as believing in his own agenda. He hates humanity, but he himself is a million times worse than his father was and he doesn't care, and in fact he actually uses the actions of villains who only did what they did because they thought he'd destroy them otherwise to support his position with no self-awareness that he's the literal cause of the things he's complaining about. He apparently wants to give the world to war dragons, who have no characterization beyond having been created solely for the sake of killing things, which doesn't exactly seem like something he should admire, and he feels like real dragons should have won the Scouring because they're better than humans, but the only thing we know about them is what they did to Idun, which again, is every bit as bad as what his father did. And the way he's presented just doesn't seem like the writers were aware of it. He even gets the whole "even if I die I'm always right neener neener" shit upon defeat, like we're supposed to really think he has valid points buried underneath the genocide when he really doesn't. The Radiant Dawn guys I would like as villains were it not for the fact that their villainy is like, almost entirely picked up on by thinking through the story as written rather than just looking at how they're presented, which is as these great understandable noble guys who really wanted the best all along but just got desperate (in the case of spoilerman), and spoilerman even gets a happy ending if you manage the roundabout requirements. Everyone is always talking to them like they're totally respectable and all and I'm just sitting there like "...you realize these guys are complete and utter assholes who have fucked up everything for ages through a mixture of inaction and malicious negligence and are now taking out their own mistakes on everyone else, right?" --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937491072] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>I wouldn't say I dislike evasion-heavy games, just that in a vacuum I prefer higher hit rates all around. I think the central thing about Zephiel that bugs me is that I just don't really buy him as believing in his own agenda. He hates humanity, but he himself is a million times worse than his father was and he doesn't care, and in fact he actually uses the actions of villains who only did what they did because they thought he'd destroy them otherwise to support his position with no self-awareness that he's the literal cause of the things he's complaining about. He apparently wants to give the world to war dragons, who have no characterization beyond having been created solely for the sake of killing things, which doesn't exactly seem like something he should admire, and he feels like real dragons should have won the Scouring because they're better than humans, but the only thing we know about them is what they did to Idun, which again, is every bit as bad as what his father did. And the way he's presented just doesn't seem like the writers were aware of it. He even gets the whole "even if I die I'm always right neener neener" shit upon defeat, like we're supposed to really think he has valid points buried underneath the genocide when he really doesn't. The Radiant Dawn guys I would like as villains were it not for the fact that their villainy is like, almost entirely picked up on by thinking through the story as written rather than just looking at how they're presented, which is as these great understandable noble guys who really wanted the best all along but just got desperate (in the case of spoilerman), and spoilerman even gets a happy ending if you manage the roundabout requirements. Everyone is always talking to them like they're totally respectable and all and I'm just sitting there like "...you realize these guys are complete and utter assholes who have fucked up everything for ages through a mixture of inaction and malicious negligence and are now taking out their own mistakes on everyone else, right?" </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
NeoElfboy 04/16/20 10:04:12 PM #478:	Well I don't disagree with much of what you're saying, really. All these guys are super punchable, but I enjoy that about them. (Someone like Validar isn't punchable in the same way to me; he knows he's bad, and even if he tried to pretend otherwise I wouldn't find it credible, so I doubt it'd work.) I didn't feel the game was apologizing for them as badly as you did (I mean, your characters do kill them and the game unambiguously calls your actions justified), which probably helps. I do agree that when a game thinks someone is way more moral than I do that can be aggravating. Now I'm very interested in your thoughts on some Three Houses stuff, but that can wait! --- The RPG Duelling League: www.rpgdl.com An unparalleled source for RPG information and discussion <cite>NeoElfboy posted [p:937544881] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Well I don't disagree with much of what you're saying, really. All these guys are super punchable, but I enjoy that about them. (Someone like Validar isn't punchable in the same way to me; he knows he's bad, and even if he tried to pretend otherwise I wouldn't find it credible, so I doubt it'd work.) I didn't feel the game was apologizing for them as badly as you did (I mean, your characters do kill them and the game unambiguously calls your actions justified), which probably helps. I do agree that when a game thinks someone is way more moral than I do that can be aggravating. Now I'm very interested in your thoughts on some Three Houses stuff, but that can wait! </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/16/20 10:27:55 PM #479:	I'm still not entirely sure how on Earth to approach Three Houses story. Something tells me I'm either going to end up being oddly brief to avoid having endless walls with a bunch of ugly spoiler text thrown in, or I'm going to...that --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937546045] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>I'm still not entirely sure how on Earth to approach Three Houses story. Something tells me I'm either going to end up being oddly brief to avoid having endless walls with a bunch of ugly spoiler text thrown in, or I'm going to...that </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/17/20 12:10:18 AM #480:	4. New Mystery I think I've already pointed out that Fire Emblem New Mystery of the Emblem Heroes of Light and Shadow is a very long title somewhere, but hey, here it is again. After all, this game does retread a lot of ground already covered in this topic. We once again return to Archanea, a world with free reclassing, forged effective weapons and no avoid, to follow Marth (again) on his journey to liberate his homeland (again) and defeat Gharnef (again) and Medeus (also again). We've already seen the original Mystery of the Emblem and Shadow Dragon on this list so this is starting to be well tread ground. Hell, just last write up I talked briefly about the whole "avatar" character concept and what do you know, here we are with the game that actually started the concept (unless you count Mark in FE7). And once again I'll start off with the story. The Archanean games have never really stood out in this regard, being very generic "good guy reclaims homeland and defeats evil" tales. They don't hurt your brain like Fates or anything, and I am very grateful for that, but their story isn't a positive either, it's just kind of there. (New) Mystery mostly retreads the ground of the original game, with the new additions being a bit of backstory that isn't particularly interesting and that loses a lot of its impact because it's meant to add a bit of depth to Medeus, but his behavior in each of his appearances doesn't really resemble a guy who was once relatively noble. Whenever we see him he's just rambling about how evil he is, especially in this game. The big twist is, of course, that ~~your former comrade Hardin is now an antagonist~~, and I don't know why I'm spoiler tagging that when I've probably left bigger things unspoiled in this topic. As I believe I mentioned in discussing the original Mystery of the Emblem, it doesn't really have much impact because the explanation for it is ~~just boring old mind control~~ rather than anything remotely interesting. It's a shame too, because what incredibly little we're told about the story of ~~Hardin and Nyna~~ is pretty compelling on its own. New Mystery adds a couple new elements to the mix here, with the new assassin sub plot and of course, our "avatar" character Kris. The former can get a bit melodramatic at times and occasionally raises the question of how they just so happen to be in the places they are at the right times (their ability to follow you out to the ice dragon temple for 13x is bewildering), but it does have a few decently emotional scenes thrown in here and there. The final villain of it suffers from a crippling case of the same ~~boring old mind control~~ gimmick that our apparent main villain of the original story has though. The latter is...honestly pretty inoffensive. I know a lot of people hate Kris, but to me he's just a harmless bland guy who doesn't do anything to care about one way or another. Not exactly the reception you want for a new character, but it could be a lot worse. Moving on from the story now, I know I've mentioned a few games as having very good music, but New Mystery might just be my favourite soundtrack in the series. Aside from the actually pretty bad final map theme, every player phase theme is great, with Endless Battle and that killer remix of the Thracia fog of war music that plays in 13x standing out in particular. The story scenes have some great stuff that plays for them, with Off to War and Theme of Love being the highlights. And there's some great boss themes here. Tearing Shadows, the theme for the assassin bosses, is very good, Medeus makes up for his lackluster effort last time around with the much more fitting Reign of Despair, and of course, the best boss theme in all of Fire Emblem is here in the form of the sadly spoilerrific ~~Dark Emperor Hardin~~. Onto gameplay, and it's nice that having already discussed Shadow Dragon means I can be brief on the mechanics here, because they're pretty much the same. Reclassing is almost too free for its own good, forging is super strong (though much greater enemy variety makes effective weapons less dominant, albeit still very valuable) and you can't really dodge much of anything so relying on the RNG to bail you out is pretty much out. Unit balance is pretty sketchy though. You have a pretty big pool of units who are at least decent to choose from, but you also have a pretty big pool of units that make you wonder why they're even here to warm your bench. On the lower difficulties it's not always noticeable, but when you play on Lunatic and a ton of units can't even survive a round of combat from most or all of the enemies on their join maps, well... And that segues nicely into the biggest strength of New Mystery - it is arguably the hardest game in the entire series, and it achieves its difficulty in a very straight forward way. Aside from the pervasive scourge of ambush spawn reinforcements that so many games in the series suffer from, it doesn't throw anything that could be construed as unfair at you (unless you count the linked AI on chapter 3 dracoknights being very unintuitive, maybe), unlike something like, say, Conquest where enemies just readily spam stat-bypassing tricks at you. The map design is generally very good, with the prologue in particular standing out for being a nice simple tutorial on lower difficulties but a very quick way to teach you how to approach the game on Lunatic, in the sense that if you don't make the right decision on every move you die. A big thing that I sometimes hear criticism of in New Mystery is the games linked AI mechanics, which will make certain groups of enemies not move even if you're in their range until a certain condition is met, usually that you either are in range of multiple members of the group or that you're in range of one specific enemy, generally one behind the others. Or if you engage in combat with one of them, of course. I've heard people say it's unfair to expect the player to know how the AI will behave, but I reject this argument on the grounds that it doesn't really make sense. It's a mechanic that results in enemies not moving in situations where their movement might have been a problem, after all. Sure, it's not always obvious what will get them moving, but there's no harm in experimenting so long as you always position yourself safely. If you don't trigger them, cool, nothing happened. If you do, then you're still fine as long as you were careful enough about making sure no unit could face enough attacks to die. I actually quite like this mechanic, even if it does make me pull my hair out at times when it turns things like the start of chapter 14 into nightmarish death traps. --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937551141] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>4. New Mystery I think I've already pointed out that Fire Emblem New Mystery of the Emblem Heroes of Light and Shadow is a very long title somewhere, but hey, here it is again. After all, this game does retread a lot of ground already covered in this topic. We once again return to Archanea, a world with free reclassing, forged effective weapons and no avoid, to follow Marth (again) on his journey to liberate his homeland (again) and defeat Gharnef (again) and Medeus (also again). We've already seen the original Mystery of the Emblem and Shadow Dragon on this list so this is starting to be well tread ground. Hell, just last write up I talked briefly about the whole "avatar" character concept and what do you know, here we are with the game that actually started the concept (unless you count Mark in FE7). And once again I'll start off with the story. The Archanean games have never really stood out in this regard, being very generic "good guy reclaims homeland and defeats evil" tales. They don't hurt your brain like Fates or anything, and I am very grateful for that, but their story isn't a positive either, it's just kind of there. (New) Mystery mostly retreads the ground of the original game, with the new additions being a bit of backstory that isn't particularly interesting and that loses a lot of its impact because it's meant to add a bit of depth to Medeus, but his behavior in each of his appearances doesn't really resemble a guy who was once relatively noble. Whenever we see him he's just rambling about how evil he is, especially in this game. The big twist is, of course, that your former comrade Hardin is now an antagonist, and I don't know why I'm spoiler tagging that when I've probably left bigger things unspoiled in this topic. As I believe I mentioned in discussing the original Mystery of the Emblem, it doesn't really have much impact because the explanation for it is just boring old mind control rather than anything remotely interesting. It's a shame too, because what incredibly little we're told about the story of Hardin and Nyna is pretty compelling on its own. New Mystery adds a couple new elements to the mix here, with the new assassin sub plot and of course, our "avatar" character Kris. The former can get a bit melodramatic at times and occasionally raises the question of how they just so happen to be in the places they are at the right times (their ability to follow you out to the ice dragon temple for 13x is bewildering), but it does have a few decently emotional scenes thrown in here and there. The final villain of it suffers from a crippling case of the same boring old mind control gimmick that our apparent main villain of the original story has though. The latter is...honestly pretty inoffensive. I know a lot of people hate Kris, but to me he's just a harmless bland guy who doesn't do anything to care about one way or another. Not exactly the reception you want for a new character, but it could be a lot worse. Moving on from the story now, I know I've mentioned a few games as having very good music, but New Mystery might just be my favourite soundtrack in the series. Aside from the actually pretty bad final map theme, every player phase theme is great, with Endless Battle and that killer remix of the Thracia fog of war music that plays in 13x standing out in particular. The story scenes have some great stuff that plays for them, with Off to War and Theme of Love being the highlights. And there's some great boss themes here. Tearing Shadows, the theme for the assassin bosses, is very good, Medeus makes up for his lackluster effort last time around with the much more fitting Reign of Despair, and of course, the best boss theme in all of Fire Emblem is here in the form of the sadly spoilerrific Dark Emperor Hardin. Onto gameplay, and it's nice that having already discussed Shadow Dragon means I can be brief on the mechanics here, because they're pretty much the same. Reclassing is almost too free for its own good, forging is super strong (though much greater enemy variety makes effective weapons less dominant, albeit still very valuable) and you can't really dodge much of anything so relying on the RNG to bail you out is pretty much out. Unit balance is pretty sketchy though. You have a pretty big pool of units who are at least decent to choose from, but you also have a pretty big pool of units that make you wonder why they're even here to warm your bench. On the lower difficulties it's not always noticeable, but when you play on Lunatic and a ton of units can't even survive a round of combat from most or all of the enemies on their join maps, well... And that segues nicely into the biggest strength of New Mystery - it is arguably the hardest game in the entire series, and it achieves its difficulty in a very straight forward way. Aside from the pervasive scourge of ambush spawn reinforcements that so many games in the series suffer from, it doesn't throw anything that could be construed as unfair at you (unless you count the linked AI on chapter 3 dracoknights being very unintuitive, maybe), unlike something like, say, Conquest where enemies just readily spam stat-bypassing tricks at you. The map design is generally very good, with the prologue in particular standing out for being a nice simple tutorial on lower difficulties but a very quick way to teach you how to approach the game on Lunatic, in the sense that if you don't make the right decision on every move you die. A big thing that I sometimes hear criticism of in New Mystery is the games linked AI mechanics, which will make certain groups of enemies not move even if you're in their range until a certain condition is met, usually that you either are in range of multiple members of the group or that you're in range of one specific enemy, generally one behind the others. Or if you engage in combat with one of them, of course. I've heard people say it's unfair to expect the player to know how the AI will behave, but I reject this argument on the grounds that it doesn't really make sense. It's a mechanic that results in enemies not moving in situations where their movement might have been a problem, after all. Sure, it's not always obvious what will get them moving, but there's no harm in experimenting so long as you always position yourself safely. If you don't trigger them, cool, nothing happened. If you do, then you're still fine as long as you were careful enough about making sure no unit could face enough attacks to die. I actually quite like this mechanic, even if it does make me pull my hair out at times when it turns things like the start of chapter 14 into nightmarish death traps. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/17/20 12:10:25 AM #481:	On a related note, you get some "get out of jail free" cards on these things in the form of the Rescue and Again staffs. Attacking an enemy and then staffing the unit out of there will get a group moving no problem, meaning you have a fair number of shots at solving problems if you're willing to burn these valuable resources that can be used for plenty of other nice things. You get a lot of fun stuff to play with here, actually. The star shards that just gave growth rate buffs in the original now provide flat stat boosts while held, giving you new options to play around with to try to ensure your units will be prepared for the tasks you need them for. I already mentioned the Again staff but an infinite range dance staff is just hilarious and a wonderful thing to think about when to use your limited charges of. This game will kick your ass, but it definitely gives you the tools to fight back. Another nice thing is that not only do you have multiple difficulty levels, but there's actually some reason to pick most of them. Normal is only likely to really appeal to people who are fairly new to Fire Emblem, Hard is a good starting point for people who are familiar with Fire Emblem but not this game in particular, Maniac is there to give you a challenge but not drive you up the wall, and Lunatic lives up to its name with sadistic glee. And then there's Lunatic Reverse, unlocked by beating the game on Lunatic. It's like Lunatic, but the enemies get to attack first even on player phase. This mode appeals exists for all the masochists out there. As far as "Lunatic with a twist" modes go, it's a hell of a lot better than Awakening's Lunatic+ garbage. With great gameplay that constantly challenges you and a killer soundtrack, New Mystery is one of the best games in the series. It's a real shame this game never got released outside Japan, forcing people like me to rely on the thankfully good fan translation to be able to enjoy it. Up next: With only three to go, guessing is starting to get pretty easy! This next game is probably the hardest game to really explain the details of why it appeals to me so much. --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937551147] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote> On a related note, you get some "get out of jail free" cards on these things in the form of the Rescue and Again staffs. Attacking an enemy and then staffing the unit out of there will get a group moving no problem, meaning you have a fair number of shots at solving problems if you're willing to burn these valuable resources that can be used for plenty of other nice things. You get a lot of fun stuff to play with here, actually. The star shards that just gave growth rate buffs in the original now provide flat stat boosts while held, giving you new options to play around with to try to ensure your units will be prepared for the tasks you need them for. I already mentioned the Again staff but an infinite range dance staff is just hilarious and a wonderful thing to think about when to use your limited charges of. This game will kick your ass, but it definitely gives you the tools to fight back. Another nice thing is that not only do you have multiple difficulty levels, but there's actually some reason to pick most of them. Normal is only likely to really appeal to people who are fairly new to Fire Emblem, Hard is a good starting point for people who are familiar with Fire Emblem but not this game in particular, Maniac is there to give you a challenge but not drive you up the wall, and Lunatic lives up to its name with sadistic glee. And then there's Lunatic Reverse, unlocked by beating the game on Lunatic. It's like Lunatic, but the enemies get to attack first even on player phase. This mode appeals exists for all the masochists out there. As far as "Lunatic with a twist" modes go, it's a hell of a lot better than Awakening's Lunatic+ garbage. With great gameplay that constantly challenges you and a killer soundtrack, New Mystery is one of the best games in the series. It's a real shame this game never got released outside Japan, forcing people like me to rely on the thankfully good fan translation to be able to enjoy it. Up next: With only three to go, guessing is starting to get pretty easy! This next game is probably the hardest game to really explain the details of why it appeals to me so much. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
NeoElfboy 04/17/20 11:34:33 AM #482:	Honestly, I found New Mystery's story did kinda cross into "hurts my brain" territory. Every important villain from the last game is back from the dead, for crying out loud! Plus, as you noted, way too much mind control. I thought the assassin subplot had moments but everything else was basically worthless. I like the difficulty options, as per Shadow Dragon, but again as per Shadow Dragon (and Awakening), the higher difficulty levels resulting in same-turn reinforcements is a big no bueno for me. Also I've never tried myself but I remember reading that the Prologue on Lunatic is not balanced properly at all. Agreed that Lunatic Reverse is a much cooler concept for an extreme difficulty mode than Lunatic+, though. Next... has gotta be Echoes, right? Three Houses is an easy game to see the appeal of, and Genealogy, while not one of my personal favourites, is absolutely a game I respect putting high on one's list and I suspect you'll have an easy time explaining why. --- The RPG Duelling League: www.rpgdl.com An unparalleled source for RPG information and discussion <cite>NeoElfboy posted [p:937572283] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Honestly, I found New Mystery's story did kinda cross into "hurts my brain" territory. Every important villain from the last game is back from the dead, for crying out loud! Plus, as you noted, way too much mind control. I thought the assassin subplot had moments but everything else was basically worthless. I like the difficulty options, as per Shadow Dragon, but again as per Shadow Dragon (and Awakening), the higher difficulty levels resulting in same-turn reinforcements is a big no bueno for me. Also I've never tried myself but I remember reading that the Prologue on Lunatic is not balanced properly at all. Agreed that Lunatic Reverse is a much cooler concept for an extreme difficulty mode than Lunatic+, though. Next... has gotta be Echoes, right? Three Houses is an easy game to see the appeal of, and Genealogy, while not one of my personal favourites, is absolutely a game I respect putting high on one's list and I suspect you'll have an easy time explaining why. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/17/20 3:30:32 PM #483:	Lunatic Prologue is balanced fine aside from one issue, where there are a couple of ways to make Kris that can't clear the first map. Beyond that it's good, it's very tough but you can deal with it pretty reliably if you know how. It's maybe a little dependent on picking the right options for Kris' bases but for the highest difficulty on a game that gives you several others I don't really mind that. Plus it tends to teach you about AI targeting priority as you struggle through it, which isn't technically necessary to know but is very helpful --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937585603] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Lunatic Prologue is balanced fine aside from one issue, where there are a couple of ways to make Kris that can't clear the first map. Beyond that it's good, it's very tough but you can deal with it pretty reliably if you know how. It's maybe a little dependent on picking the right options for Kris' bases but for the highest difficulty on a game that gives you several others I don't really mind that. Plus it tends to teach you about AI targeting priority as you struggle through it, which isn't technically necessary to know but is very helpful </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/17/20 8:24:38 PM #484:	I'm coming back to this post for a moment. Swear I'm not just procrastinating on the next entry <_< NeoElfboy posted... Honestly, I found New Mystery's story did kinda cross into "hurts my brain" territory. Every important villain from the last game is back from the dead, for crying out loud! Plus, as you noted, way too much mind control. I thought the assassin subplot had moments but everything else was basically worthless. So I've been thinking more about this and trying to figure out why it doesn't bother me as much as it probably should when it's basically a bad fanfic with all the pointless retreading of ground from the first game. I guess at the end of the day it's probably just that (New) Mystery doesn't feel like it tries to put as much emphasis on making the story a big deal. There's comparatively little dialogue relative to a lot of the later games and it tends to be fairly dull, so even when the writing is dumb (~~everyone is revived and also we're telling the exact same story except this time Michalis gets a random redemption arc for no reason and also Hardin is mind controlled into being mindlessly evil!~~) it doesn't actively make me angry. Fates tends to have every scene be presented with so much melodramatic dialogue and over the top acting from all the characters to try to make it seem like the most meaningful and emotional thing ever that it just wears me out (Awakening can be a bit like this too but its writing, while still not very good overall, isn't as bad), while (New) Mystery's presentation is more..."here's a bland and dumb story". And in the remake in particular the only times it really goes for a more dramatic presentation, it actually does a decent job (Katarina's recruitment and the scene where Boah tells you about Hardin and Nyna's relationship). I'll try to get the next write up out sometime tonight, hopefully before the entire world is asleep --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937603360] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>I'm coming back to this post for a moment. Swear I'm not just procrastinating on the next entry <_< NeoElfboy posted... </cite> <quote>Honestly, I found New Mystery's story did kinda cross into "hurts my brain" territory. Every important villain from the last game is back from the dead, for crying out loud! Plus, as you noted, way too much mind control. I thought the assassin subplot had moments but everything else was basically worthless.</quote> So I've been thinking more about this and trying to figure out why it doesn't bother me as much as it probably should when it's basically a bad fanfic with all the pointless retreading of ground from the first game. I guess at the end of the day it's probably just that (New) Mystery doesn't feel like it tries to put as much emphasis on making the story a big deal. There's comparatively little dialogue relative to a lot of the later games and it tends to be fairly dull, so even when the writing is dumb (everyone is revived and also we're telling the exact same story except this time Michalis gets a random redemption arc for no reason and also Hardin is mind controlled into being mindlessly evil!) it doesn't actively make me angry. Fates tends to have every scene be presented with so much melodramatic dialogue and over the top acting from all the characters to try to make it seem like the most meaningful and emotional thing ever that it just wears me out (Awakening can be a bit like this too but its writing, while still not very good overall, isn't as bad), while (New) Mystery's presentation is more..."here's a bland and dumb story". And in the remake in particular the only times it really goes for a more dramatic presentation, it actually does a decent job (Katarina's recruitment and the scene where Boah tells you about Hardin and Nyna's relationship). I'll try to get the next write up out sometime tonight, hopefully before the entire world is asleep </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/17/20 11:23:57 PM #485:	This might be a bit inconsistent on what is and isn't spoiler texted, so if you're not looking to be spoiled you might want to skip this one. 3. Echoes Turns out when you remake the original series black sheep Gaiden, you end up with a game that a lot of people don't like. I would start off this review by pointing out some particularly controversial aspect that I quite like, but that's a bit impractical when almost everything about it is controversial, and one of the few things that seems to be widely liked is actually one of my least favourite elements of the game! So instead let's start off with one of the things that is usually widely praised. From a presentation standpoint, Echoes is phenomenal, easily the best in the series. The art style is great, there's full voice acting (barring NPC/town dialogue) for the first time and it's generally extremely good, and the soundtrack is another of the best in the series. The sort of visual novel style approach to exploring towns gives the world some extra depth that never really existed in Fire Emblem before, letting you interact with some more ordinary people and see their way of life (also there's cats everywhere, which I approve of). This is a wonderful looking and sounding game, to the point that it can easily lure you into overlooking some of its more questionable moments simply because the presentation makes everything feel so good. A much more mixed bag is the gameplay. I think Echoes is actually very good mechanically. It's a bit different than standard Fire Emblem, with magic costing HP, promotions working a bit differently and the brand new combat art mechanics, but there's nothing wrong with different. The strictly limited inventory system makes choosing which weapon/item to use a genuine decision, and there's plenty of cool stuff available to you, with stat boosting rings, crazy powerful combat arts and fairly free access to spells like Warp. The overall mechanics have a lot of potential to make for fun maps, which the game definitely does show off at times. That said, the map design is admittedly all over the god damn place. At its best, you get the battle against Rudolf or the spectacular final battle, some of the greatest maps the series has to offer. At its worst, you get the endless desert and swamp map tedium Celica has to trudge her way through. There's maps with too much empty space, maps with too few enemies, maps with too little to do beyond just bang your head against a wall of enemies in open space, etc. A lot of the game can end up feeling like filler, which is pretty unfortunate. But I think the bad maps tend to get a bit too much focus in discussions of this game, and there's fewer truly bad ones than there are decent ones or good ones. Onto the story side of things, and it's certainly not any less controversial over here. I think Echoes is pretty solid for the most part in terms of writing. There's some glaring issues here and there, sure. Most of the brand new characters are varying flavours of bad. Faye is unpleasant and has too little to her character beyond her weird obsession with Alm, dude in the mask whose name is totally unknown has no reason to even exist and Berkut is a gong show of a villain with a serious disconnect between his behavior and his stated beliefs that the game ignores. His final scene, ~~where he sacrifices Rinnea only to then turn around and still get some sappy sympathetic death where her spirit or whatever forgives him for no god damn good reason~~, is also utterly abysmal and makes me want to punch something. He also has a love interest who I guess technically qualifies as a character, not that she really has any. Berkut is carried hard by great voice acting, but even that isn't enough to salvage him. Fernand is alright though. The overall story though is fairly interesting to me. It breaks from the usual Fire Emblem "evil dragon thing is evil because ???, maybe get help from nice dragon" standard a bit to present a story of two dragons/gods who started off with good intentions but could never quite bridge the gap between their philosophies, and whose decline into madness (a recurring background theme in the series) has been slowly rotting away at Valentia for a while. There's some issues, namely on the side of Duma where we don't see nearly enough of the good side of his ideals due to his religion having been taken over by a very blue bad guy, but it's a strong concept and is handled reasonably well overall. Emperor Rudolf's plan is a bit too convoluted for its own good, but I find myself liking it overall, in part because it really scratches a certain itch for me. I often find myself wishing for more villains who seem less like they're making up nice sounding reasons to justify their evil acts and more like they truly believe in what they're doing (and of course, have "what they're doing" not just be "KILL EVERYONE MWAHAHA", and Rudolf's dedication to ~~uniting Valentia under a hero both Zofia and Rigel will welcome even when the best way he has to do it is to set up his own death~~ fits the bill quite well. And now to talk about our heroes Alm and Celica. Is this another controversial topic? Of course it is, this is Echoes we're talking about. I'll start off with the less contested one first. I really like Alm in this game overall. He's fairly typical for a Fire Emblem lord, maybe a bit more reckless about getting into fights than usual but even in that regard he's not any more gung ho than someone like Hector or even Sigurd, but he's a very likable character. He pulls off the standard FE hero archetype without being as dull about it as some of the others can be too. People point out that he's too flawless, but I only sort of agree. Alm isn't super over the top flawed and doesn't have the usual Look At Me I'm Writing a Flawed Character trope where he makes huge mistakes that veer into making him seem like a worthless moron so he can later give a big speech narrating his character development, but he's still reasonably fleshed out. He's reckless and not the quickest guy to figure things out. He's more realistically flawed than he is "fictional flawed", a state of being where flaws manifest in absurd ways like being naive, so instead of, say, getting lured into a trap because you trusted someone who was just a little sketchy, you instead just instantly trust someone who explicitly told you he was your enemy when you had just been warned not to by someone else (hello Eirika). And ultimately it makes sense that he ends up feeling like he's an oddly ideal fit for everything he ends up doing, ~~because considering his backstory, he was more or less raised to be just that, even if he didn't know it himself~~. --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937612765] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>This might be a bit inconsistent on what is and isn't spoiler texted, so if you're not looking to be spoiled you might want to skip this one. 3. Echoes Turns out when you remake the original series black sheep Gaiden, you end up with a game that a lot of people don't like. I would start off this review by pointing out some particularly controversial aspect that I quite like, but that's a bit impractical when almost everything about it is controversial, and one of the few things that seems to be widely liked is actually one of my least favourite elements of the game! So instead let's start off with one of the things that is usually widely praised. From a presentation standpoint, Echoes is phenomenal, easily the best in the series. The art style is great, there's full voice acting (barring NPC/town dialogue) for the first time and it's generally extremely good, and the soundtrack is another of the best in the series. The sort of visual novel style approach to exploring towns gives the world some extra depth that never really existed in Fire Emblem before, letting you interact with some more ordinary people and see their way of life (also there's cats everywhere, which I approve of). This is a wonderful looking and sounding game, to the point that it can easily lure you into overlooking some of its more questionable moments simply because the presentation makes everything feel so good. A much more mixed bag is the gameplay. I think Echoes is actually very good mechanically. It's a bit different than standard Fire Emblem, with magic costing HP, promotions working a bit differently and the brand new combat art mechanics, but there's nothing wrong with different. The strictly limited inventory system makes choosing which weapon/item to use a genuine decision, and there's plenty of cool stuff available to you, with stat boosting rings, crazy powerful combat arts and fairly free access to spells like Warp. The overall mechanics have a lot of potential to make for fun maps, which the game definitely does show off at times. That said, the map design is admittedly all over the god damn place. At its best, you get the battle against Rudolf or the spectacular final battle, some of the greatest maps the series has to offer. At its worst, you get the endless desert and swamp map tedium Celica has to trudge her way through. There's maps with too much empty space, maps with too few enemies, maps with too little to do beyond just bang your head against a wall of enemies in open space, etc. A lot of the game can end up feeling like filler, which is pretty unfortunate. But I think the bad maps tend to get a bit too much focus in discussions of this game, and there's fewer truly bad ones than there are decent ones or good ones. Onto the story side of things, and it's certainly not any less controversial over here. I think Echoes is pretty solid for the most part in terms of writing. There's some glaring issues here and there, sure. Most of the brand new characters are varying flavours of bad. Faye is unpleasant and has too little to her character beyond her weird obsession with Alm, dude in the mask whose name is totally unknown has no reason to even exist and Berkut is a gong show of a villain with a serious disconnect between his behavior and his stated beliefs that the game ignores. His final scene, where he sacrifices Rinnea only to then turn around and still get some sappy sympathetic death where her spirit or whatever forgives him for no god damn good reason, is also utterly abysmal and makes me want to punch something. He also has a love interest who I guess technically qualifies as a character, not that she really has any. Berkut is carried hard by great voice acting, but even that isn't enough to salvage him. Fernand is alright though. The overall story though is fairly interesting to me. It breaks from the usual Fire Emblem "evil dragon thing is evil because ???, maybe get help from nice dragon" standard a bit to present a story of two dragons/gods who started off with good intentions but could never quite bridge the gap between their philosophies, and whose decline into madness (a recurring background theme in the series) has been slowly rotting away at Valentia for a while. There's some issues, namely on the side of Duma where we don't see nearly enough of the good side of his ideals due to his religion having been taken over by a very blue bad guy, but it's a strong concept and is handled reasonably well overall. Emperor Rudolf's plan is a bit too convoluted for its own good, but I find myself liking it overall, in part because it really scratches a certain itch for me. I often find myself wishing for more villains who seem less like they're making up nice sounding reasons to justify their evil acts and more like they truly believe in what they're doing (and of course, have "what they're doing" not just be "KILL EVERYONE MWAHAHA", and Rudolf's dedication to uniting Valentia under a hero both Zofia and Rigel will welcome even when the best way he has to do it is to set up his own death fits the bill quite well. And now to talk about our heroes Alm and Celica. Is this another controversial topic? Of course it is, this is Echoes we're talking about. I'll start off with the less contested one first. I really like Alm in this game overall. He's fairly typical for a Fire Emblem lord, maybe a bit more reckless about getting into fights than usual but even in that regard he's not any more gung ho than someone like Hector or even Sigurd, but he's a very likable character. He pulls off the standard FE hero archetype without being as dull about it as some of the others can be too. People point out that he's too flawless, but I only sort of agree. Alm isn't super over the top flawed and doesn't have the usual Look At Me I'm Writing a Flawed Character trope where he makes huge mistakes that veer into making him seem like a worthless moron so he can later give a big speech narrating his character development, but he's still reasonably fleshed out. He's reckless and not the quickest guy to figure things out. He's more realistically flawed than he is "fictional flawed", a state of being where flaws manifest in absurd ways like being naive, so instead of, say, getting lured into a trap because you trusted someone who was just a little sketchy, you instead just instantly trust someone who explicitly told you he was your enemy when you had just been warned not to by someone else (hello Eirika). And ultimately it makes sense that he ends up feeling like he's an oddly ideal fit for everything he ends up doing, because considering his backstory, he was more or less raised to be just that, even if he didn't know it himself. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/17/20 11:24:05 PM #486:	And then there's Celica. This may be the single most controversial statement in this whole project (then again I had a lot of criticism for Path of Radiance and a bunch of huge fans of that game weren't outraged, so idk what it takes to get people mad at me here), but Celica is actually among my favourite characters in the entire series. Personalty-wise she's great, a friendly and caring person who strikes a good balance of wanting peace but recognizing that there are times when it's not an option. Her strong desire to take on every burden for herself to keep those she cares of out of harms way is both admirable and also the kind of thing that makes you shake your head at her sometimes (in a good way, mostly). Above all though she's flawed in a way that fits the world, because she is dedicated to the goddess Mila to an extent that blinds her to how things really are. And this makes sense. She's from a royal family that has been endorsed from the goddess for ages and then, after just a few months in Ram Village, was taken off to be raised in a church. She recognizes that her father was a horrible man, but she can't quite put it together that Mila allowing his reign to carry on unchecked is a sign of a deeper problem. She's been raised her whole life to believe that Mila will always be there to care for the people of Zofia and keep them on track. Just like Duma's focus on strength and taking care of yourself begins to breed callousness and a selfish desire for power in Rigel, Mila's focus on taking care of everything has bred a sort of dependence where her followers struggle to imagine being able to survive without her. So when Mila is seemingly gone and Celica is given the chance to save her...she takes it. Everything about her way of life sets her up to believe it has to be done. Sure, Jedah is a bit more obviously untrustworthy than I would like him to be, but the basic premise is fine. We see that Alm's team are ready to throw in the towel when they see Mila has been sealed away with only Alm, the one guy you would expect to not have been raised to believe so strongly in her, still being ready to fight on at first. Why wouldn't Celica, who has been raised in an even more strongly religious context than most of the others, be in the same boat? Her error in judgment is informed by her past and the culture of the world, the very thing that the game is dedicated to showing the issues with. It's one of the most plot-relevant flaws a character could possibly have, and it brings home the idea that Mila's teachings have left people too dependent in a way that no amount of narration ever could when you see one of the heroes, a generally likable and competent woman, still struggling to overcome this issue. Echoes can be very up and down, but there's a bit of a pattern that I greatly appreciate - it delivers on its biggest moments. It's always disappointing when a game hypes up a big plot point or boss fight or whatever for ages only to have it be lackluster. It's this failure to deliver that likely makes dudes like Zephiel and Ashnard stick out so strongly to me. On the flipside, a game that is kind of mediocre at times can still be great if it nails the most important parts. Echoes has parts that drag and some bad maps, but the moments that you would want to be good never fail to disappoint. The various end of chapter battles are all good, the Rudolf battle, the final battle, the conclusion of the little subplot of Clive questioning his choice to follow Alm...the big moments are always well done here. Even when Echoes is being kind of boring, I can put up with it because I know there's going to be a strong payoff at the end to make it all worthwhile. More than anything else, this is what puts this game so high on this list when it would otherwise be down somewhere in the 6-10 range most likely. I don't expect this to change anyone's mind, to put it mildly. Everyone who is interested in playing this game probably already has, and probably already has a pretty strong opinion on what it does right, what it does horribly wrong and how to balance the two against each other. But for someone who liked the original Gaiden despite its massive problems, Echoes delivered far more than I ever expected it to. Faithful enough to the original to still feel like Gaiden, with enough new additions to flesh the world out far more, all wrapped up in a package of excellent presentation...I don't know exactly what I expected a Gaiden remake to be, but it definitely wasn't anything this good. Up next: Just two games to go! And it's pretty hard to hint at one without being super obvious, so...the one with a story/gameplay mechanic of inheriting special bloodlines? Wait, that's both. The one with a timeskip? Wait, both. Never mind, I give up. Guess you'll have to flip a coin! --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937612770] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote> And then there's Celica. This may be the single most controversial statement in this whole project (then again I had a lot of criticism for Path of Radiance and a bunch of huge fans of that game weren't outraged, so idk what it takes to get people mad at me here), but Celica is actually among my favourite characters in the entire series. Personalty-wise she's great, a friendly and caring person who strikes a good balance of wanting peace but recognizing that there are times when it's not an option. Her strong desire to take on every burden for herself to keep those she cares of out of harms way is both admirable and also the kind of thing that makes you shake your head at her sometimes (in a good way, mostly). Above all though she's flawed in a way that fits the world, because she is dedicated to the goddess Mila to an extent that blinds her to how things really are. And this makes sense. She's from a royal family that has been endorsed from the goddess for ages and then, after just a few months in Ram Village, was taken off to be raised in a church. She recognizes that her father was a horrible man, but she can't quite put it together that Mila allowing his reign to carry on unchecked is a sign of a deeper problem. She's been raised her whole life to believe that Mila will always be there to care for the people of Zofia and keep them on track. Just like Duma's focus on strength and taking care of yourself begins to breed callousness and a selfish desire for power in Rigel, Mila's focus on taking care of everything has bred a sort of dependence where her followers struggle to imagine being able to survive without her. So when Mila is seemingly gone and Celica is given the chance to save her...she takes it. Everything about her way of life sets her up to believe it has to be done. Sure, Jedah is a bit more obviously untrustworthy than I would like him to be, but the basic premise is fine. We see that Alm's team are ready to throw in the towel when they see Mila has been sealed away with only Alm, the one guy you would expect to not have been raised to believe so strongly in her, still being ready to fight on at first. Why wouldn't Celica, who has been raised in an even more strongly religious context than most of the others, be in the same boat? Her error in judgment is informed by her past and the culture of the world, the very thing that the game is dedicated to showing the issues with. It's one of the most plot-relevant flaws a character could possibly have, and it brings home the idea that Mila's teachings have left people too dependent in a way that no amount of narration ever could when you see one of the heroes, a generally likable and competent woman, still struggling to overcome this issue. Echoes can be very up and down, but there's a bit of a pattern that I greatly appreciate - it delivers on its biggest moments. It's always disappointing when a game hypes up a big plot point or boss fight or whatever for ages only to have it be lackluster. It's this failure to deliver that likely makes dudes like Zephiel and Ashnard stick out so strongly to me. On the flipside, a game that is kind of mediocre at times can still be great if it nails the most important parts. Echoes has parts that drag and some bad maps, but the moments that you would want to be good never fail to disappoint. The various end of chapter battles are all good, the Rudolf battle, the final battle, the conclusion of the little subplot of Clive questioning his choice to follow Alm...the big moments are always well done here. Even when Echoes is being kind of boring, I can put up with it because I know there's going to be a strong payoff at the end to make it all worthwhile. More than anything else, this is what puts this game so high on this list when it would otherwise be down somewhere in the 6-10 range most likely. I don't expect this to change anyone's mind, to put it mildly. Everyone who is interested in playing this game probably already has, and probably already has a pretty strong opinion on what it does right, what it does horribly wrong and how to balance the two against each other. But for someone who liked the original Gaiden despite its massive problems, Echoes delivered far more than I ever expected it to. Faithful enough to the original to still feel like Gaiden, with enough new additions to flesh the world out far more, all wrapped up in a package of excellent presentation...I don't know exactly what I expected a Gaiden remake to be, but it definitely wasn't anything this good. Up next: Just two games to go! And it's pretty hard to hint at one without being super obvious, so...the one with a story/gameplay mechanic of inheriting special bloodlines? Wait, that's both. The one with a timeskip? Wait, both. Never mind, I give up. Guess you'll have to flip a coin! </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Hbthebattle 04/17/20 11:46:44 PM #487:	Gonna bet on it being Three Houses up next --- Patience. <cite>Hbthebattle posted [p:937613741] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Gonna bet on it being Three Houses up next</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Mewtwo59 04/18/20 12:05:14 AM #488:	Genealogy has topped every list so far, and I don't think that's going to change. I'm guessing Three Houses. --- ""Love" is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope." HK-47 <cite>Mewtwo59 posted [p:937614486] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Genealogy has topped every list so far, and I don't think that's going to change. I'm guessing Three Houses. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/18/20 12:10:06 AM #489:	Hey, it did not top the bosses or worst chapters lists <_< --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937614671] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Hey, it did not top the bosses or worst chapters lists <_< </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Kenri 04/18/20 1:07:28 AM #490:	I agree with everything you said about Berkut. Him having fans is just baffling to me, like did y'all play the same Echoes I did? On the other hand I'm pretty okay with Faye. I think she's saved by her support with Alm which ends with her basically growing up and getting over him. To defend New Mystery's story for a moment, I think it's the most successful FE's ever been at trying to go high fantasy. The whole journey following Anri's footsteps is compelling to me, instead of just seeming out of place like the bigger fantasy elements in other games do. I don't think I'd like it as the first game about a character, but it being Marth's second quest makes me much more willing to enjoy it. --- Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else. <cite>Kenri posted [p:937616898] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>I agree with everything you said about Berkut. Him having fans is just baffling to me, like did y'all play the same Echoes I did? On the other hand I'm pretty okay with Faye. I think she's saved by her support with Alm which ends with her basically growing up and getting over him. To defend New Mystery's story for a moment, I think it's the most successful FE's ever been at trying to go high fantasy. The whole journey following Anri's footsteps is compelling to me, instead of just seeming out of place like the bigger fantasy elements in other games do. I don't think I'd like it as the first game about a character, but it being Marth's second quest makes me much more willing to enjoy it. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/18/20 1:31:34 AM #491:	The Anri's Way section is decent, if for nothing more than it not being a retread of the previous game. Not a huge fan of the backstory drop it provides though, it doesn't really add much. Medeus' behavior doesn't fit in with it very well and it ultimately adds up to being little more than just yet another tired old "humans are the real bad guys bet you didn't think of that" cliche that every single fantasy story ever uses as if the writer thinks they are simultaneously the only person to have ever thought of it and also the only person conveniently exempt from being oh so terrible like everyone else. It's not even all that internally consistent, since the dragons apparently had to become manaketes and lose most of their power to not go crazy, but the ones who did were still strong enough to fight the crazy earth dragons who nearly wiped out humanity, but then magically couldn't defend themselves against humanity (who we're supposed to believe were just motivated by being evil, rather than by the fact that the actions of the dragons had very nearly wiped them out of existence). --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937617743] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>The Anri's Way section is decent, if for nothing more than it not being a retread of the previous game. Not a huge fan of the backstory drop it provides though, it doesn't really add much. Medeus' behavior doesn't fit in with it very well and it ultimately adds up to being little more than just yet another tired old "humans are the real bad guys bet you didn't think of that" cliche that every single fantasy story ever uses as if the writer thinks they are simultaneously the only person to have ever thought of it and also the only person conveniently exempt from being oh so terrible like everyone else. It's not even all that internally consistent, since the dragons apparently had to become manaketes and lose most of their power to not go crazy, but the ones who did were still strong enough to fight the crazy earth dragons who nearly wiped out humanity, but then magically couldn't defend themselves against humanity (who we're supposed to believe were just motivated by being evil, rather than by the fact that the actions of the dragons had very nearly wiped them out of existence). </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
NeoElfboy 04/18/20 7:45:16 PM #492:	Echoes is a game I both on some level enjoy and definitely don't regret playing and it also makes me kinda angry to the point where I take pleasure in the fact that it is so much less popular than the other three Fire Emblems released in the last 8 years. I think you hit on its gameplay points pretty well, it definitely tries some different things and some of them (like magic feeling very mechnically different and archers feeling like they have a real niche instead of "hand axe with slightly better stats but has a garbage enemy phase") work pretty well! Others like only having one weapon kinda suck out some of the fun of the game, but hey, that's why they got dropped from the next entry, it's cool. The story... I dunno how much I want to get into it, but suffice to say I really, really dislike it. I'm glad you agree with me about that final Berkut/Rinea scene, which is my pick for the worst scene in the series. Beyond that, I will say that even if I respected the rest of the writing (and I definitely don't), I'd probably still hate it just for how bafflingly misogynist the game is. Since I'm trying to be positive, I'll say that I generally liked most of the important PCs, with a shoutout to Mae/Boey interaction in particular being great. Give me a whole game of Celica's first chapter writing-wise and I'd probably be pretty happy with it, shallow though it would be. Guess for next? Obviously it's gonna be the game about ~~the fire-themed emperor who is alligned with a creepy cult but also engaged in a powerstruggle with them~~. Or, uh, Three Houses, because your earlier lists make it clear how much you love some of FE4 and I haven't gotten as strong an impression for your views on 3H. --- The RPG Duelling League: www.rpgdl.com An unparalleled source for RPG information and discussion <cite>NeoElfboy posted [p:937657636] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Echoes is a game I both on some level enjoy and definitely don't regret playing and it also makes me kinda angry to the point where I take pleasure in the fact that it is so much less popular than the other three Fire Emblems released in the last 8 years. I think you hit on its gameplay points pretty well, it definitely tries some different things and some of them (like magic feeling very mechnically different and archers feeling like they have a real niche instead of "hand axe with slightly better stats but has a garbage enemy phase") work pretty well! Others like only having one weapon kinda suck out some of the fun of the game, but hey, that's why they got dropped from the next entry, it's cool. The story... I dunno how much I want to get into it, but suffice to say I really, really dislike it. I'm glad you agree with me about that final Berkut/Rinea scene, which is my pick for the worst scene in the series. Beyond that, I will say that even if I respected the rest of the writing (and I definitely don't), I'd probably still hate it just for how bafflingly misogynist the game is. Since I'm trying to be positive, I'll say that I generally liked most of the important PCs, with a shoutout to Mae/Boey interaction in particular being great. Give me a whole game of Celica's first chapter writing-wise and I'd probably be pretty happy with it, shallow though it would be. Guess for next? Obviously it's gonna be the game about the fire-themed emperor who is alligned with a creepy cult but also engaged in a powerstruggle with them. Or, uh, Three Houses, because your earlier lists make it clear how much you love some of FE4 and I haven't gotten as strong an impression for your views on 3H. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
xp1337 04/18/20 8:45:52 PM #493:	I'm going to be a rebel and say FE4 drops next. >_> --- xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out? <cite>xp1337 posted [p:937661023] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>I'm going to be a rebel and say FE4 drops next. >_> </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Kenri 04/18/20 9:18:52 PM #494:	Panthera posted... Medeus' behavior doesn't fit in with it very well and it ultimately adds up to being little more than just yet another tired old "humans are the real bad guys bet you didn't think of that" cliche that every single fantasy story ever uses as if the writer thinks they are simultaneously the only person to have ever thought of it and also the only person conveniently exempt from being oh so terrible like everyone else. It's not even all that internally consistent, since the dragons apparently had to become manaketes and lose most of their power to not go crazy, but the ones who did were still strong enough to fight the crazy earth dragons who nearly wiped out humanity, but then magically couldn't defend themselves against humanity (who we're supposed to believe were just motivated by being evil, rather than by the fact that the actions of the dragons had very nearly wiped them out of existence). I don't remember anything about Medeus well enough to be mad about the bad writing (which I'll take your word for). Half the time I forget he even exists and that the main villain isn't Gharnef or Hardin. --- Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else. <cite>Kenri posted [p:937662644] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Panthera posted... </cite> <quote>Medeus' behavior doesn't fit in with it very well and it ultimately adds up to being little more than just yet another tired old "humans are the real bad guys bet you didn't think of that" cliche that every single fantasy story ever uses as if the writer thinks they are simultaneously the only person to have ever thought of it and also the only person conveniently exempt from being oh so terrible like everyone else. It's not even all that internally consistent, since the dragons apparently had to become manaketes and lose most of their power to not go crazy, but the ones who did were still strong enough to fight the crazy earth dragons who nearly wiped out humanity, but then magically couldn't defend themselves against humanity (who we're supposed to believe were just motivated by being evil, rather than by the fact that the actions of the dragons had very nearly wiped them out of existence).</quote>I don't remember anything about Medeus well enough to be mad about the bad writing (which I'll take your word for). Half the time I forget he even exists and that the main villain isn't Gharnef or Hardin. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/19/20 11:03:20 PM #495:	Running out of room in this topic, kind of sad that I'll probably have to make another one just for one last write up <_< 2. Three Houses The newest game in the series is a tough one to even figure out where to begin discussing. You have a totally new system of class progression, skills work differently than ever before, weapons are mostly usable by any class, magic is changed up yet again, there's multiple routes that share a lot but still provide some different experiences overall, and plenty more. Oh, and there's this whole monastery thing where you run around talking to people and teaching your students. Kind of a big deal! I'm going to go short on the usual summarizing here and assume everyone knows this game by now, which also means there's not going to be much spoiler tagging here because otherwise half the story section would be tagged. If you don't want to know about who ends up fighting who or who I think the bad guy is, do yourself a favour and skip this write up. I might as well start with that monastery thing, because it's quite the mixed bag. It can get very repetitive as time wears on, particularly on repeat playthroughs. Also parts of it don't even load properly right away, which adds some very aggravating waiting time to getting around. There's a lot to do, but many activities are kind of superfluous. It adds a ton of play time, but it's not always being used very efficiently. That said...overall I like it. Despite all the tedium it can bring (and how odd it is that you somehow can spend a month here in between every mission despite traveling all around the continent, but I mostly ignore that as a gameplay convenience), it also offers two big advantages. First, it adds to the staggering amount of customization Three Houses has. Second, by allowing you to actually talk to characters and NPCs in between major events, it adds a layer of depth to the world and its people that has never been seen before in the series, which is something I put a lot of value on. This leads into my next point, which is that Fodlan is easily the most fleshed out setting in Fire Emblem. There's a long, thought out history here that gives a sense of a living world where past events happened for logical reasons and continue to influence the present in a way that makes sense. The first time I stumbled into the library and read the books there, my first reaction (after reading like two of them) was "wow, already more world building than the entirety of Fates". Which, granted, is not a high bar to clear, but the game continued to deliver. It's most strongly felt on the Blue Lions route, where the Kingdom of Faerghus' heavy cultural focus on knighthood and chivalry informs almost every character in some way or another, but far from absent elsewhere too. There's a bit less of a distinct culture to the Empire and Alliance and a surprising lack of details on the teachings of the Church of Seiros beyond the most basic level, but even those entities are still at least as well established as pretty much any location/institution in Fire Emblem. I'm always a fan of good world building, and Three Houses is a huge step in the direction I've always wanted for the series, where the various nations are more than just names on a map. The closest to this before was actually probably Tellius, but in the end it couldn't deliver a story that used its setting beyond "fight the obvious bad guy rulers until everything magically solves itself". The central story of Three Houses is a daunting task to approach discussing, as even with the overlaps that exist between routes there's still some serious differences, especially with Crimson Flower. There is one easy thing to talk about though, which is a little group known by the cumbersome title Those Who Slither in the Dark, who I will henceforth refer to as either TWS (if I'm feeling serious) or "the dark darkdudes"(if I'm not). They're a blight on the story who embody every bad quality of past generic evil sorcerer villains. I won't be mentioning them much from here on, so just assume everything about them sucks. Anyway. Three Houses' central plot, the conflict that arises between Edelgard and the Church (and also everyone else), is a good one. There's a bit of a lack of clarity with regards to how much Edelgard is motivated by a skewed sense of history TWS told her, how much by a genuine disdain for the Church as a whole and how much is just because the Church is in the way of her achieving her ultimate vision for Fodlan, but to some degree it works anyway because I think it's very intentional that it be debatable whether she's going off incomplete knowledge, truly views the Church's actions as more malevolent than I do (though some would disagree with me I'm sure) or is primarily just interested in ensuring her ideal world is made a reality and everything else is just secondary. The latter is what I personally lean towards, and it serves to make Edelgard a very good villain in my mind, someone who is truly committed to a noble sounding cause (that isn't quite as great as it sounds when you think it through) and willing to go to horrible lengths (like working with TWS, who she of all people should know are not a good group to give any extra leash to) to force it to come true, never willing to compromise even in the face of death if she doesn't. And I'm sure there is nothing controversial whatsoever about calling her the villain because no one has ever argued about this point ever before. My personal first experience with the game was the Blue Lions route, and I'm very glad because it remains my favourite. While it has the least closure on the dark darkdudes (which is bad), it also has them at their least relevant (which is good). This route focuses primarily on Dimitri, who is now my favourite character in the series. I know people often say his descent into madness was too sudden and went away too quickly, but I disagree. It was clear to me that he was haunted by his past even before the first in your face sign of it (on the Remire Village mission), and his experience during the time skip would be enough to mess with anyone. Then even at his worst, Dimitri still has some signs of his better self, with his constant attempts to push other people away often focusing on him warning people that he'll get them killed if they stand by him. And even after his "return to sanity", he's not exactly totally normal, admitting he still feels like he can hear his dead family speaking to him, he's just keeping himself under control. And as the pre-timeskip era showed, Dimitri is extremely good at forcing himself to act much more normally than he feels. With all this in mind, it's easy to see why I like the guy. Haunted by a deeply traumatic past and driven by an overwhelming desire for revenge, he tries his best to keep it under co <cite>Panthera posted [p:937725441] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Running out of room in this topic, kind of sad that I'll probably have to make another one just for one last write up <_< 2. Three Houses The newest game in the series is a tough one to even figure out where to begin discussing. You have a totally new system of class progression, skills work differently than ever before, weapons are mostly usable by any class, magic is changed up yet again, there's multiple routes that share a lot but still provide some different experiences overall, and plenty more. Oh, and there's this whole monastery thing where you run around talking to people and teaching your students. Kind of a big deal! I'm going to go short on the usual summarizing here and assume everyone knows this game by now, which also means there's not going to be much spoiler tagging here because otherwise half the story section would be tagged. If you don't want to know about who ends up fighting who or who I think the bad guy is, do yourself a favour and skip this write up. I might as well start with that monastery thing, because it's quite the mixed bag. It can get very repetitive as time wears on, particularly on repeat playthroughs. Also parts of it don't even load properly right away, which adds some very aggravating waiting time to getting around. There's a lot to do, but many activities are kind of superfluous. It adds a ton of play time, but it's not always being used very efficiently. That said...overall I like it. Despite all the tedium it can bring (and how odd it is that you somehow can spend a month here in between every mission despite traveling all around the continent, but I mostly ignore that as a gameplay convenience), it also offers two big advantages. First, it adds to the staggering amount of customization Three Houses has. Second, by allowing you to actually talk to characters and NPCs in between major events, it adds a layer of depth to the world and its people that has never been seen before in the series, which is something I put a lot of value on. This leads into my next point, which is that Fodlan is easily the most fleshed out setting in Fire Emblem. There's a long, thought out history here that gives a sense of a living world where past events happened for logical reasons and continue to influence the present in a way that makes sense. The first time I stumbled into the library and read the books there, my first reaction (after reading like two of them) was "wow, already more world building than the entirety of Fates". Which, granted, is not a high bar to clear, but the game continued to deliver. It's most strongly felt on the Blue Lions route, where the Kingdom of Faerghus' heavy cultural focus on knighthood and chivalry informs almost every character in some way or another, but far from absent elsewhere too. There's a bit less of a distinct culture to the Empire and Alliance and a surprising lack of details on the teachings of the Church of Seiros beyond the most basic level, but even those entities are still at least as well established as pretty much any location/institution in Fire Emblem. I'm always a fan of good world building, and Three Houses is a huge step in the direction I've always wanted for the series, where the various nations are more than just names on a map. The closest to this before was actually probably Tellius, but in the end it couldn't deliver a story that used its setting beyond "fight the obvious bad guy rulers until everything magically solves itself". The central story of Three Houses is a daunting task to approach discussing, as even with the overlaps that exist between routes there's still some serious differences, especially with Crimson Flower. There is one easy thing to talk about though, which is a little group known by the cumbersome title Those Who Slither in the Dark, who I will henceforth refer to as either TWS (if I'm feeling serious) or "the dark darkdudes"(if I'm not). They're a blight on the story who embody every bad quality of past generic evil sorcerer villains. I won't be mentioning them much from here on, so just assume everything about them sucks. Anyway. Three Houses' central plot, the conflict that arises between Edelgard and the Church (and also everyone else), is a good one. There's a bit of a lack of clarity with regards to how much Edelgard is motivated by a skewed sense of history TWS told her, how much by a genuine disdain for the Church as a whole and how much is just because the Church is in the way of her achieving her ultimate vision for Fodlan, but to some degree it works anyway because I think it's very intentional that it be debatable whether she's going off incomplete knowledge, truly views the Church's actions as more malevolent than I do (though some would disagree with me I'm sure) or is primarily just interested in ensuring her ideal world is made a reality and everything else is just secondary. The latter is what I personally lean towards, and it serves to make Edelgard a very good villain in my mind, someone who is truly committed to a noble sounding cause (that isn't quite as great as it sounds when you think it through) and willing to go to horrible lengths (like working with TWS, who she of all people should know are not a good group to give any extra leash to) to force it to come true, never willing to compromise even in the face of death if she doesn't. And I'm sure there is nothing controversial whatsoever about calling her the villain because no one has ever argued about this point ever before. My personal first experience with the game was the Blue Lions route, and I'm very glad because it remains my favourite. While it has the least closure on the dark darkdudes (which is bad), it also has them at their least relevant (which is good). This route focuses primarily on Dimitri, who is now my favourite character in the series. I know people often say his descent into madness was too sudden and went away too quickly, but I disagree. It was clear to me that he was haunted by his past even before the first in your face sign of it (on the Remire Village mission), and his experience during the time skip would be enough to mess with anyone. Then even at his worst, Dimitri still has some signs of his better self, with his constant attempts to push other people away often focusing on him warning people that he'll get them killed if they stand by him. And even after his "return to sanity", he's not exactly totally normal, admitting he still feels like he can hear his dead family speaking to him, he's just keeping himself under control. And as the pre-timeskip era showed, Dimitri is extremely good at forcing himself to act much more normally than he feels. With all this in mind, it's easy to see why I like the guy. Haunted by a deeply traumatic past and driven by an overwhelming desire for revenge, he tries his best to keep it under co</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/19/20 11:03:27 PM #496:	This is getting huge so I'm going to be less in depth now. Three Houses does have some writing problems even beyond TWS. There's some weird issues with the timing of events, notably with the Flayn kidnapping story and Azure Moon featuring the invasion of the Empire being halted to go reclaim the Kingdom only for it to then resume like nothing happened. Crimson Flower can be a bit inconsistent at times. I can kind of see the merit in going for the idea that the route where you choose to side with Edelgard means you see her as justified and thus it should be presented fairly positively since that's how you feel, but I think I'd prefer it as a more overt villain route, or at least have it be presented positively but also have Rhea not go quite so insane in the end. It does at least still have a lot of dialogue from your characters that calls it all into question a bit, which is nice. Verdant Wind ends up feeling pretty disjointed (the whole Almyran relations angle just kind of shows up and then vanishes too easily and the final boss is wack), as does the Silver Snow final boss. It's not without its flaws, but overall I think Three Houses is pretty well written and most of its issues are more from not fully delivering on things rather than from failing outright or just not having good ideas to begin with. By and large the playable characters are a fairly solid bunch. There's a few I dislike (I know everyone loves the guy but Raphael kind of annoys me, and I think Felix needed more supports that call out the problems with his own behavior and worldview), but even they don't come close to the kind of crap we've seen in the past. There are some definite pacing problems with support conversations all popping up at once, but at least the ones with paired endings tend to build up to them more naturally. Sure, it leads to people seeming to be in love with everyone all at once, but I'd much rather that issue exist that the alternative, where people never have any sense of emotional connection but then randomly hook up out of nowhere anyway. And now onto gameplay! I already discussed the monastery stuff a bit earlier, so now I'll focus first on mechanics. Three Houses can cross into option paralysis at times with how much customization it has. I'd honestly prefer a slightly more limited system, then I remember it lets me have my army of god wyverns and I forget why I objected. The lack of balance does hurt a bit, but that's far from new territory in this series (oh wow flying is the best who would have guessed). The removal of the weapon triangle but having -breaker skills essentially bring it back is a pretty cool change, and I love the way magic works in this game. The new system for determining AS also helps make AS penalties relevant all game without being as static as GBA constitution was, though it does hurt some weapon types way worse than others in the early game. Overall, pretty damn solid. Map design is a bit more mixed, though pretty positive overall. There's a fair number of maps that feature too much open space and/or just have enemies lined up in very boring ways, and a lot of the paralogues (or random encounters, of course) are entirely unremarkable. By the same token, there aren't really many outright bad maps here, the Petra/Bernadetta paralogue being the only one that really stands out. Most of the bad maps in Three Houses are just plain, not frustrating or tedious. And while there's not a ton of really great ones, there are a lot of good ones. The final pre-timeskip map and the two versions of the Enbarr siege are the big stand outs, but I like the final chapters as well (the Crimson Flower one a bit less so, but it's still solid) and some other random stuff like reclaiming Fhirdiad on Azure Moon are also very good. It's not the peak of the series, but it's enough to satisfy me. Three Houses also has a great soundtrack, but that's pretty much par for the course for modern Fire Emblem. All in all, a great game and one that definitely delivered on expectations for me. Sure, the various routes cover a lot of the same ground, but to be honest I never once expected otherwise. I always figured they would either overlap most of the time or just be criminally short, because there's no way we were getting four full games for the price of one. It does hurt the replay value a little, especially with how tedious the monastery can get over time, but Fire Emblem has inherently high replay value for me and the customization in this game adds even more, so it's still a game I can see myself playing a lot (I did play all four routes within the first month or two of release, and I've already been thinking of going back to it). Three Houses has a great world, good characters, a strong story and generally good gameplay. It's an ambitious game that mostly hits the mark, and even when it falls short it tends to still land in pretty respectable territory. Up next: With one game left unranked, I imagine this is a very hard one to guess (...and also a new topic soon, so look for that if this gets to 500 without me making a new one and linking to it here) --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937725448] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote> This is getting huge so I'm going to be less in depth now. Three Houses does have some writing problems even beyond TWS. There's some weird issues with the timing of events, notably with the Flayn kidnapping story and Azure Moon featuring the invasion of the Empire being halted to go reclaim the Kingdom only for it to then resume like nothing happened. Crimson Flower can be a bit inconsistent at times. I can kind of see the merit in going for the idea that the route where you choose to side with Edelgard means you see her as justified and thus it should be presented fairly positively since that's how you feel, but I think I'd prefer it as a more overt villain route, or at least have it be presented positively but also have Rhea not go quite so insane in the end. It does at least still have a lot of dialogue from your characters that calls it all into question a bit, which is nice. Verdant Wind ends up feeling pretty disjointed (the whole Almyran relations angle just kind of shows up and then vanishes too easily and the final boss is wack), as does the Silver Snow final boss. It's not without its flaws, but overall I think Three Houses is pretty well written and most of its issues are more from not fully delivering on things rather than from failing outright or just not having good ideas to begin with. By and large the playable characters are a fairly solid bunch. There's a few I dislike (I know everyone loves the guy but Raphael kind of annoys me, and I think Felix needed more supports that call out the problems with his own behavior and worldview), but even they don't come close to the kind of crap we've seen in the past. There are some definite pacing problems with support conversations all popping up at once, but at least the ones with paired endings tend to build up to them more naturally. Sure, it leads to people seeming to be in love with everyone all at once, but I'd much rather that issue exist that the alternative, where people never have any sense of emotional connection but then randomly hook up out of nowhere anyway. And now onto gameplay! I already discussed the monastery stuff a bit earlier, so now I'll focus first on mechanics. Three Houses can cross into option paralysis at times with how much customization it has. I'd honestly prefer a slightly more limited system, then I remember it lets me have my army of god wyverns and I forget why I objected. The lack of balance does hurt a bit, but that's far from new territory in this series (oh wow flying is the best who would have guessed). The removal of the weapon triangle but having -breaker skills essentially bring it back is a pretty cool change, and I love the way magic works in this game. The new system for determining AS also helps make AS penalties relevant all game without being as static as GBA constitution was, though it does hurt some weapon types way worse than others in the early game. Overall, pretty damn solid. Map design is a bit more mixed, though pretty positive overall. There's a fair number of maps that feature too much open space and/or just have enemies lined up in very boring ways, and a lot of the paralogues (or random encounters, of course) are entirely unremarkable. By the same token, there aren't really many outright bad maps here, the Petra/Bernadetta paralogue being the only one that really stands out. Most of the bad maps in Three Houses are just plain, not frustrating or tedious. And while there's not a ton of really great ones, there are a lot of good ones. The final pre-timeskip map and the two versions of the Enbarr siege are the big stand outs, but I like the final chapters as well (the Crimson Flower one a bit less so, but it's still solid) and some other random stuff like reclaiming Fhirdiad on Azure Moon are also very good. It's not the peak of the series, but it's enough to satisfy me. Three Houses also has a great soundtrack, but that's pretty much par for the course for modern Fire Emblem. All in all, a great game and one that definitely delivered on expectations for me. Sure, the various routes cover a lot of the same ground, but to be honest I never once expected otherwise. I always figured they would either overlap most of the time or just be criminally short, because there's no way we were getting four full games for the price of one. It does hurt the replay value a little, especially with how tedious the monastery can get over time, but Fire Emblem has inherently high replay value for me and the customization in this game adds even more, so it's still a game I can see myself playing a lot (I did play all four routes within the first month or two of release, and I've already been thinking of going back to it). Three Houses has a great world, good characters, a strong story and generally good gameplay. It's an ambitious game that mostly hits the mark, and even when it falls short it tends to still land in pretty respectable territory. Up next: With one game left unranked, I imagine this is a very hard one to guess (...and also a new topic soon, so look for that if this gets to 500 without me making a new one and linking to it here) </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Kenri 04/20/20 12:14:32 AM #497:	Panthera posted... This leads into my next point, which is that Fodlan is easily the most fleshed out setting in Fire Emblem. I loved Jeralt's little cultural lessons at the start of each chapter. Amazing how a few small details like those can sell the setting as a real place rather than just an empty space where fights happen (hi Fates). I don't think I'm quite as positive on all aspects of 3H as you, but that first playthrough (also Blue Lions for me) was damn good. Special mention also to the gambit system for making the player phase more valuable than is usual for FE. Next game is clearly ~~FE Warriors~~. --- Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else. <cite>Kenri posted [p:937728783] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Panthera posted... </cite> <quote>This leads into my next point, which is that Fodlan is easily the most fleshed out setting in Fire Emblem.</quote>I loved Jeralt's little cultural lessons at the start of each chapter. Amazing how a few small details like those can sell the setting as a real place rather than just an empty space where fights happen (hi Fates). I don't think I'm quite as positive on all aspects of 3H as you, but that first playthrough (also Blue Lions for me) was damn good. Special mention also to the gambit system for making the player phase more valuable than is usual for FE. Next game is clearly FE Warriors. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/20/20 12:23:35 AM #498:	Oh yeah those little interludes between chapters in the first part are super good Warriors is good! But not in consideration for this list --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937729206] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Oh yeah those little interludes between chapters in the first part are super good Warriors is good! But not in consideration for this list </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Panthera 04/20/20 12:32:34 AM #499:	https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78603907 Since this is pretty much capped out, I've made room to continue elsewhere --- Meow! <cite>Panthera posted [p:937729596] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78603907 Since this is pretty much capped out, I've made room to continue elsewhere </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
Hbthebattle 04/20/20 12:34:36 AM #500:	Barst --- Patience. <cite>Hbthebattle posted [p:937729690] in Gauging in... [t:78419240]...</cite> <quote>Barst</quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
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Board 8 > Gauging interest in a Fire Emblem ranking topic (+) Yeah! (+)

Board 8 > Gauging interest in a Fire Emblem ranking topic