Board 8 > Fire Emblem Topic 4: Radiant Oliver

(+) Yeah! (+)

SSBM_Guy posted...

I know that Jeigans are generally very good, but I am surprised to hear that Frederick is a lower tier one. He seems great to me. Is that more because the cast of Awakening is just so good as opposed to other games where the cast isn't as strong?

He's "only" carrying you for a few chapters and "only" has a bit less than half the game before he's just a pair up bot. Considering past Jagens involve people like Seth and Titania and FE7 Marcus, and even FE6 Marcus who is good for less time than Frederick but even better than him for most of it...it's not that Frederick isn't a good unit, it's that Jagens have tended to be downright nutty

KamikazePotato posted...

Among the concepts were a modern-day setting

A Fire Emblem game set in modern Tokyo would be cool.

TeamRocketElite posted...

A Fire Emblem game set in modern Tokyo would be cool.

They were teasing a game like this once but it turned out to be a Mirage

I've never been more baited by a game trailer in my entire life.

That's too bad. I would definitely have put in many gaming Sessions.

Honestly I'd rather have sci-fi FE than the generic JRPG high fashion magitech setting they've been moving towards in the last couple games. FE Mars sounds dope of course, ZOE: The Fist of Mars already exists so...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/4/4/AAeolZAAD8Io.jpg

It's Character Design is my Passion's long-lost cousin!

That Severa stage

WAS HARD AS FUCKING HELL

Was I not supposed to do that yet???

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/9/0/AAeolZAAD8JW.jpg

Bruh that's the same guy

Kjelle will wait patiently for her revenge, but only for 25 turns. After that, she will begin her assault.

Or in the case of every time I've played that chapter, require rescuing before the boss kills her.

My Kjelle managed to hold on for quite a while, took out 4 archers on her own. Luna and +20 Hit will manage that I suppose.

OK so.

I see now that the Paralogues actually ARE numbered by difficulty.

That explains a lot.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/9/7/AAeolZAAD8Ml.jpg
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Owain is awesome yes. Most of the children are better than their mothers imo.

MysteriousStan posted...

Owain is awesome yes. Most of the children are better than their mothers imo.

I'm inclined to agree but then I remember characters like Gerome and Yarne and I start waffling

OK this second seal stuff really is busted.

You're telling me that 10 levels through Pegasus Knight and popping back to level 1 Mercenary is enough for Severa to 1 round a level 20 Mercenary with just a steel sword?

Also I'm in the Inigo paralogue, and I forgot him and Soleil were the same character lol.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/5/7/AAeolZAAD8Tx.jpg

Oh this is horseshit he can't become a Lord OR a Dancer??

I paired Lissa up with Henry because I didn't expect to give a shit about using Owain but he is tearing shit up with a Levin Sword.

The villager situation in the Brady chapter is fucked. Not even bothering!

Bruh that ain't no PUGI CRIT

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/2/4/AAeolZAAD8WY.jpg

Just wait until you see how they massacred Forseti.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/3/5/AAeolZAAD8Wj.jpg

WHY

Shinon Strike is actually just dropping a hard R n-word

About halfway through Paralogues.

I'm gonna be in Chapter 14 for a long time.

A hell of my own making.

Got Robin to 15 Grandmaster before unlocking either kid.

Triple Rainbow Rally might be a bit much.

https://twitter.com/FireEmblemJP/status/1598578121888137219?s=19

DOG RIDERS WHAT

The Griffon Riders look great.

Also the Edge of Dawn remix SLAPS

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/4/0/AAeolZAAD8gA.jpg

Holy shit a new portrait.

Awakening supports are pretty "oof", but mainly it's just funny how many of these are "two people get into an argument and are pissed at eachother....support up!"

https://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic/childish-support

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/6/AAeolZAAD8kA.jpg

HMMMMM yeah I can probably take all these guys, let's pick neither army.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/7/AAeolZAAD8kB.jpg

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I would like off the ride now please.

Just had to have all that EXP, didn't you?

A sigh of release.

My reward?

The worst character in the game.

I HAVE ALL THE CHILDREN

THEY ARE MINE

I CAN FINALLY PLAY THE GAME AGAIN

I will NOT be taking all this excess time raising a bunch of new characters and doing all this side shit when I have to beat 3 Fates games in a row.

I mean I'll still unlock them all, but this second seal reclassing 3 times nonsense, nawwww.

The good thing about the Fates kids is that they come with an Offspring Seal after a certain point, so they'll join at a decent level no matter when you get them.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/9/8/AAeolZAAD8ou.jpg

Finally a good character.

The Awakening Auto Battle AI is so dumb lol.

Guess I was spoiled by Echoes on that front.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/8/8/AAeolZAAD8qI.jpg

Man I don't wanna be a downer but I'm going through some serious motions here.

It's wild how different I feel about this game now.

Just wait until Fates!

God.

3 games.

I don't know if I wanna take a break with FE7 (I even have an FE7+ mod lined up for that!) or just, like....keep it going.

I have 48 days which at my pace seems totally fine, so like, it's not like there's a crunch.

But I'm not taking an ACTUAL break, not this close to the end.

It depends what you mean by 'going through the motions', but Awakening isn't a difficult game at all on Normal difficulty, especially for someone who's been playing so much of the series recently. If it's more about engagement in general, I think Awakening gets better when you play around with it and extract everything you can out of the mechanics rather than play through it relatively vanilla. Maybe that's a mark against the game compared to others that are more plug-in-and-play, but I think it gives it more replayability as a trade-off.

I think my biggest problems at this point are....well, the obvious one is that the story is boring, I don't think that controversial. I can get over that though, Shadow Dragon wasn't exactly rivetting, but all the lame supports and tropey character stuff actually kind of brings it down more than if that stuff wasn't even there at all.

Far and away though I do NOT like how easy it is to just do anything you want. In Three Houses, yeah you can get wild with the units, but unless you're going out of your way to devote a ton go time to wierd monetary stuff they've got a pretty narrow field for that first playthrough. Here though....fucking...whatever, it's like I'm playing FF7, anyone can do anything and I don't really like it. There's no unit personality in this game whatsoever, and when I say that I specifically mean gameplay personality.

Levelups aren't interesting because everyone does it like 60 times and can reset back whenever. Like, wow I got a full spread level up, whoopdi fucking doo who cares? It's a mess of near meaningless numbers to me.

Compared to Radiant Dawn, where I'm going bloodshot staring at the screen trying to psychically will Sanaki into another point of strength for her tome weight.

I've put hours into Olivia and have her set to become a full Swordmaster skill spread dancing super Saiyan, and I care less about her than I do Callil who I did not even use outside of forced deployment. Hell, I care about her less than Tormad, a unit I actively disliked, because at least he has unique quirks to make him memorable as a unit.

They spent all this time trying to make these fanfiction bait caricatures at the expense of making anything they do on the map matter in the slightest to me.

I'm a little salty lol.

But hey I've still got like 9 chapters to go or something, maybe it'll turn around...a man can hope!

Again, I hate to beat the same drum over and over but the gist of your criticisms boil down to issues with the writing and the balancing of the difficulty, which are fairly widespread complaints, but I don't think it's fair to portray them as holding the entire game back, especially when you use Three Houses as a counterpoint. You're underplaying how easy it can be to standardise the unit variety in that game without abusing academy mechanics, even on a first playthrough, if you really wanted to. IIRC the early meta was pretty stale with all the Wyvern Lord spam! But essentially I'm trying to play devil's advocate here because I feel like that's nitpicking at both games rather than something that ruins them. Like I mentioned previously, I do kind of wish they reigned in the reclassing somewhat though. I like being able to think of a character like "This is Cherche, she is a Wyvern Rider. Look, there's a wyvern in her art and everything", when actually she can also be a Cleric or a Troubadour if you wanted. They correct this somewhat in Fates where characters only have 1 reclass option by default, rather than 2 or 3, and then it's more or less on you if you want to go nuts with the support reclassing etc.

It sounds like a lack of challenge is spoiling your playthrough because the plot is telling you it's all 'backs against the walls' but there's no sense of adversity in the gameplay. Normal difficulty essentially treats you like a complete novice to the point where it almost doesn't matter what you do unit-wise, especially if you take advantage of the mechanics to accelerate your army growth like second seals and optional battles. There's no agency, so it's no wonder if you're pimping out an Olivia so much and yet don't care about the outcome because it could be any of a dozen units in her place achieving a similar result. Is this the game's fault? Probably, yes. But most of these problems disappear even with the game on Hard. It's functionally the same game but suddenly there's consequences to your actions. Lunatic and L+ take it perhaps too far the other way. The early game there is essentially a series of puzzles where you figure out how to position your units so they don't get oneshot whilst Frederick does all the heavy lifting. Personally, I have more of a problem with the lack of flexibility there compared to Normal's issues, but I don't think either ruins the game so long as I find a way of enjoying it within the available options.

The criticism of the writing is... fair enough. I wouldn't call the story boring myself but I also wouldn't rate it as anything higher than average. It's serviceable. The tone they take with the supports, which is mostly played for laughs, is not going to be for everyone. It's kind of like they took a slice-of-life approach over a shonen one. There are definitely some lazy and nonsensical ones in there too. If you were to cut through the chaff though there's some diamonds in there, about as many as there are in the earlier games, which have a lower quantity of supports but a higher percentage in quality.

Hopefully this doesn't come across too much as "you're playing it wrong", especially regarding the difficulty, but I think it can be easy to play through Awakening as a series veteran, wonder what the fuss is about and zone in on it's faults when a lot of them can be addressed. I realise you're just venting a bit in that post too and they aren't your complete impressions, but I thought it was worth responding to whilst you're still playing rather than in a post-mortem.

Naw I totally understand, and a lot of it is my own fault. I didn't have to go insane with the kids and the reclassing. My inability to prevent myself from doing that is a personal problem with how I play games. I'm incapable of finding a middle ground: either I do all the bullshit or I engage with none of it. I can't do SOME of it.

I still wish it was just....ridgid. I love branching classes but I want them to be a core selection and I want them to be final. I completely ignored second sales PERIOD when this game came out and I think that did WONDERS for my impression.

The supports are absolutely not for me though. I did Lucina Cynthia B earlier and the entire support was just..."Hey we're friends right? Right! Wanna eat cake? Sure!"

Who is that for?

One of my friends once described Awakening as the game equivalent of popcorn, which is still the best descriptor for it that I've ever heard.

I still like it though. It has a relaxing vibe which let's it get away with some stuff.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/0/7/AAeolZAAD8r_.jpg

...I can't tell if this is an emulation issue or not.

That's not correct no

Honestly other than performance issues, I am amazed this is the first time I've experienced an actual emulation glitch.

Still crushed it but it was a unique take on fog of war to deal with lol.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/6/AAeolZAAD8tO.jpg

HE LIVES