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[sensui-tomo]

Awakening definitely has its flaws (but pretty much every Fire Emblem has their respective flaws as well), but that mentality is what pervades these threads and is annoying.



Well you got Kaga's upcoming game!

I'm all for constructive criticism, but yeah looks like everyone is in agreement that "I hate awakening and wish for fire emblem to die than have another game like it" are shit posts and are overall toxic. Waifu talk otoh,

Just need bish's face put on here to get the message across.

 

[Clefargle]

The weapon triangle changes are bullshit, but what else are you forced to do that makes it "Fire Emblem in name only"? Granted there's clearly some of the pandering crap still in the game with the idea of a maid class, that I strongly dislike, but whatever.

Here you go again, I fail to see how Maids and Butlers are pandering when they are not sexualized and they fit into the setting. Maids and butlers have been around for centuries. And many of these battles will be fought inside castles. It makes sense, and you're dragging your salt between multiple threads now.

 

[DecoReturns]

All of the stuff I read about Nohr makes me think that the designers still like the older type of FE. They're trying to find ways to put that in while also retaining appeal to the newer audiences. I'm pretty hopeful about the whole thing, honestly. I get a good vibe from the developers, they've said a lot of things post-awakening that resonate with me.

Although, really, all I want is just a better story. FE isn't known for having the best stories ever, but Awakening's was just a tad too frivolous for my tastes. This is easily fixed, however. The developers even mentioned as much, so I have faith moving forward.

This. I want the story to be as good as 7 or Path of Radiance.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

I actually really liked Awakening despite how it differed from other FEs...But what I like A LOT more is that it sold well and this awesome series is staying alive!!!

 

[Sterok]

Excellent. Much deserved, though other Fire Emblem games deserved high sales too. Awakening had a few flaws, but the only ones that bugged me were too much fanservice (will probably tone down in a few games), no variety in objectives (fixed by Nohr), and pathetic map design (could just be a one-time thing). It was very much Fire Emblem, and there was plenty of strategy needed when you didn't know how to break the game, and on higher difficulties you still needed good strategy and planning.

 

[NeonZ]

Although, really, all I want is just a better story. FE isn't known for having the best stories ever, but Awakening's was just a tad too frivolous for my tastes. This is easily fixed, however. The developers even mentioned as much, so I have faith moving forward.

I think the main issue there is that you can't make a longer story without sacrificing Awakening's level of presentation, unless you have a higher budget. Really short and basic cutscenes are pretty noticeable during the whole Valm arc of Awakening, and even outside of that the intermissions scenes are much shorter than in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.

Now, maybe this time they'll have a higher budget though, and can keep that level of presentation for longer and more complex story scenes.

 

[Lunar15]

This. I want the story to be as good as 7 or Path of Radiance.

PoR/RD are my favorite, but I don't think I enjoyed the story as much as I simply enjoyed the world and the characters. The story is coherent and effective, but nothing crazy. It worked. But I was mainly just invested in the conflict and the politics. Awakening has some pretty great characters, but nothing was really tied to the world's conflict. The devs themselves talked about how the game was basically a celebration of the series' tropes and such, so I'm fine with that as long as they lock it down a bit better moving forward.

I think the main issue there is that you can't make a longer story without sacrificing Awakening's level of presentation, unless you have a higher budget. Really short and basic cutscenes are pretty noticeable during the whole Valm arc of Awakening, and even outside of that the intermissions scenes are much shorter than in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.

Now, maybe this time they'll have a higher budget though, and can keep that level of presentation for a longer and more complex story scenes.

Most of the story in PoR/RD is told through static dialogue screens, so I don't see what makes that so different than Awakening. Heck, there's no real "cutscenes" in any game before PoR, and all of those had pretty sufficient stories.

I guess my point is, I'm not looking for more complexity, just more coherency and urgency. I can't really say with a straight face that PoR or RD's stories were particularly complex. Just compelling.

 

[Solid Samus]

dear Fire Emblem fans,


WAR HAS CHANGED
KNOW THIS HURT
KNOW OUR PAIN




signed, Fallout fans



loved Awakening despite its silliness and kinda lax map/scenario design and I'm hoping both sequels will be respectable followups in their own ways

 

[SliceSabre]

PoR/RD are my favorite, but I don't think I enjoyed the story as much as I simply enjoyed the world and the characters. The story is coherent and effective, but nothing crazy. It worked. But I was mainly just invested in the conflict and the politics. Awakening has some pretty great characters, but nothing was really tied to the world's conflict. The devs themselves talked about how the game was basically a celebration of the series' tropes and such, so I'm fine with that as long as they lock it down a bit better moving forward.

I would be fine if every FE story didn't boil down to "I must protect my kingdom/clan!"

 

[NeonZ]

Most of the story in PoR/RD is told through static dialogue screens, so I don't see what makes that so different than Awakening. Heck, there's no real "cutscenes" in any game before PoR, and all of those had pretty sufficient stories.

Previous games in the series told story through narration, sprites (or map 3d models in PoR/RD) or static images and profile pictures with dialogue boxes. Awakening dumps narration and heavily uses cutscenes with the 3d battle models, keeping the scenes with portraits in static backgrounds mostly for the paralogues and DLC.

I think that attempting to keep that higher level of presentation might have been a big factor in leading Awakening to having a simpler story, since making it longer and more elaborate would take much more effort and budget, rather than just a better script.

 

[Draxal]

I'm all for constructive criticism, but yeah looks like everyone is in agreement that "I hate awakening and wish for fire emblem to die than have another game like it" are shit posts and are overall toxic. Waifu talk otoh,

Just need bish's face put on here to get the message across.

To be fair, waifu talk completely dominated the original threads it was 80% of a very active thread, and these don't get nearly as much traffic.

 

[Lunar15]

I would be fine if every FE story didn't boil down to "I must protect my kingdom/clan!"

Given that it's a tactics game involving armies, I'm not really sure what else you could boil that kind of story down to? I don't really care as much about the plot as I do the story. Big difference in my opinion. All plots boil down to a handful of archetypes. It's the way they're presented and the world they're presented in that matters.

 

[Kinsei]

dear Fire Emblem fans,


IT'S NOT YOUR FRANCHISE ANYMORE
KNOW THIS HURT
KNOW OUR PAIN




signed, Fallout 1/2 fans



loved Awakening despite its silliness and kinda lax map/scenario design and I'm hoping both sequels will be respectable followups in their own ways

Hey, I already know that pain. I love Fallout 1 & 2 and I also love the classic RE games.

At least to me Fallout 3 & New Vegas and RE4 are good games if you think of them as their own thing.

 

[DecoReturns]

PoR/RD are my favorite, but I don't think I enjoyed the story as much as I simply enjoyed the world and the characters. The story is coherent and effective, but nothing crazy. It worked. But I was mainly just invested in the conflict and the politics. Awakening has some pretty great characters, but nothing was really tied to the world's conflict. The devs themselves talked about how the game was basically a celebration of the series' tropes and such, so I'm fine with that as long as they lock it down a bit better moving forward.

I think what made me love Path if radiance was the base conversations that made me care about the characters and how supports worked in that game. Also Ike wasn't a perfect cliche protagonist like Awakening.

 

[KillerDark]

FE:A is a great game, glad to hear it sold well!

 

[Draxal]

Previous games in the series told story through narration, sprites (or map 3d models in PoR/RD) or static images and profile pictures with dialogue boxes. Awakening dumps narration and heavily uses cutscenes with the 3d battle models, keeping the scenes with portraits in static backgrounds mostly for the paralogues and DLC.

I think that attempting to keep that higher level of presentation might have been a big factor in leading Awakening to having a simpler story, since making it longer and more elaborate would take much more effort and budget, rather than just a better script.

Pretty much see the difference between Starcraft 1/BW and Starcraft 2. The talking portraits in SC1 did such a better job of a story than SC2.

Awakening was definitely rushed as well imho, everything about Valm (story cutscenes/lack of supports for characters introduced there/map design) seemed very haphazard compared to the earlier/tighter game design.

 

[Solid Samus]

Hey, I already know that pain. I love Fallout 1 & 2 and I also love the classic RE games.

At least to me Fallout 3 & New Vegas and RE4 are good games if you think of them as their own thing.

to be honest I didn't like Resident Evil before 4, and 4 is one of my favorite games, possibly the most polished and well designed action game I've ever played. I'm not gonna act like new directions for a franchise are a bad thing in and of itself, especially when it leads to that franchise getting its second wind, which is the case with all these series

 

[Diddy Kong]

I've still yet to buy it, so +1 from me eventually...

 

[Lunar15]

I think what made me love Path if radiance was the base conversations that made me care about the characters and how supports worked in that game. Also Ike wasn't a perfect cliche protagonist like Awakening.

He is in RD, lol.

Yeah, I really dug base convos. Needs to be brought back!

 

[Box]

I really don't like the smug narrative about how even if you don't like Awakening, you can't really say that it should have been different because it saved the franchise.

The truth is that we don't really know what would have happened if another type of game had been released. People bring up the fact that it was stated that FE13 needed to sell 250K copies to avoid cancellation, but that doesn't mean that Awakening was the only game capable of selling that amount.

Would Fire Emblem be better off dying than becoming like Awakening? It's a false dilemma. It could have just continued to exist as it had.

 

[Yoshi]

They kept the toggle in as there are some people who prefer to play ironman mode, and they did not want to invalidate that style. Personally, I'm not happy about the weapon durability change as scarcity is a hallmark and there's no way to play it traditionally now,

You are still able to play fire emblem traditionally with limited xp, and you are purposely averting that system. It's akin to going to a buffet and complaining that you only wanted course a, and instead went up to the buffet line got course a and course b and said it was forced upon you.

Complaining about not having the option to have the permadeath on would then be absolutely the same, but somehow, IS thought it was worth it to ad the option. Also by that logic, complaining about a too lenient save system or a platformer always putting you on the last platform you stood on when you fall into an abyss is also unjustified because you could always artificially not use it.

 

[DecoReturns]

I would be fine if every FE story didn't boil down to "I must protect my kingdom/clan!"

I find pretty funny that in Radiance revenge is actually encouraged. I always laugh at the part were Ike is like "I'm going to kill the man who killed my father" and Titania is like "look how much he's grown, I'm so proud".

 

[Kinsei]

to be honest I didn't like Resident Evil before 4, and 4 is one of my favorite games, possibly the most polished and well designed action game I've ever played. I'm not gonna act like new directions for a franchise are a bad thing in and of itself, especially when it leads to that franchise getting its second wind, which is the case with all these series

I dunno, I just don't see why they can't end the series and then start a new one with the new gameplay. At least that way fans don't see their series change into something they hate and fans of the newer games would still have gotten the games they love.

 

[Draxal]

Complaining about not having the option to have the permadeath on would then be absolutely the same, but somehow, IS thought it was worth it to ad the option. Also by that logic, complaining about a too lenient save system or a platformer always putting you on the last platform you stood on when you fall into an abyss is also unjustified because you could always artificially not use it.

No, because you couldn't play ironman mode at all (.ie if a character dies you still play on), you still can play with limited xp if you purposely avoided those maps.

 

[theprodigy]

Yes and no. The metric was 250k in Japan, and even higher if on the Wii U ... and there's no way it would have hit the marks on the Wii U.

Hoshido is also destroying Nohr in Japan but I'm not sure if you can isolate it to the game being easier or it being just as Patriotic as Code Name Steam was (except for Japan this time).

TIL 55/45 is "destroying"

 

[Raggie]

Like you said, romance elements over here at least have been consistently framed as things for social rejects who haven't seen the sun for the past 20 years.

It's so weird. You don't get the same attitudes with any other forms of fiction. You'll find more romance from an average Hollowood movie than from this game, or a Bioware game, which constantly get tagged as 'dating sims'. Say, Vuxia films have always had romance as an important driving force behind the action in the scripts. Jade Empire is an interactive vuxia movie, but the romance is a tiny, optional and easily missable sidestory. And still people complained about it.

I don't get it. Is it the interactivity that supposedly makes the difference? Then why don't people make a fuss about the rest of the interactive elements? The rest of the game is mostly about killing people and robbing their bodies. Does that mean we have homocidial tendencies in real life and try to act out the fantasies in games? Of course not.

 

[jwhit28]

I dunno, I just don't see why they can't end the series and then start a new one with the new gameplay. At least that way fans don't see their series change into something they hate and fans of the newer games would still have gotten the games they love.

Awakening is so different as to be a new series despite IS setting out to write a love letter to the series?

 

[Draxal]

TIL 55/45 is "destroying"

I thought it was higher than that in the past when I last checked, oh well.

 

[DecoReturns]

He is in RD, lol.

Yeah, I really dug base convos. Needs to be brought back!

That's more Micaiah. Love the game but I hated her and Sothe.

 

[Solid Samus]

I dunno, I just don't see why they can't end the series and then start a new one with the new gameplay. At least that way fans don't see their series change into something they hate and fans of the newer games would still have gotten the games they love.

You'd think 25 years of solid Fire Emblem games would grant at least five years worth of goodwill for IS to experiment with the franchise but, I mean, I guess we learned with Galaxy - > Galaxy 2 - > 3D World that no matter how much you go above and beyond to sate someone, they'll feel betrayed the moment you deviate from appealing to them directly. I mean, it sucks as a longtime fan I'm sure, I understand where you're coming from but I see no reason for Nintendo to end a long running series with brand appeal just because they made a few gameplay and narrative changes to suit their, erm, expanded audience on 3DS. Although if these types of dramatically shifted FE experiences become the norm moving forward (and for obvious reasons I consider the newest two one off experiments), I can certainly see why you might complain about them.

 

[Raggie]

To be fair, waifu talk completely dominated the original threads it was 80% of a very active thread, and these don't get nearly as much traffic.

Why is it so horrible to want to talk about characters rather than gameplay? I've always found gameplay talk boring. If I want gaming advice, I go to Gamefaqs.

 

[Lunar15]

Why is it so horrible to want to talk about characters rather than gameplay? I've always found gameplay talk boring. If I want gaming advice, I go to Gamefaqs.

Big difference between talking about characters and talking about "how the female character I picked to marry is better than the female character you picked to marry!"

I don't think it happened as much as people say it did, but yeah, it gets annoying.

That's more Micaiah. Love the game but I hated her and Sothe.

Ike's one of my favorite characters ever (see: avatar), but he's kind of a mary sue in RD. I still like him though. I was actually fine with Micaiah. Expected her to be some generic, overly cheerful character, but she ended up having an interesting arc. Well, she would have had she not been almost completely removed from the story in the final act.

 

[Aveyn Knight]

1.79m is really impressive for FE.

I was already impressed when it surpassed 1 million, especially since AFAIK no other game in the series did.

 

[Draxal]

Why is it so horrible to want to talk about characters rather than gameplay? I've always found gameplay talk boring. If I want gaming advice, I go to Gamefaqs.

Because it drowns out of discussion the game for people who don't go to Gamefaqs. The mods have came down hard on waifu talk since then, so it's not going to be a repeat of the original awakening thread.

 

[theprodigy]

I thought it was higher than that in the past when I last checked, oh well.

Well you are right about the part where Japan is gonna pick the game featuring not-Japan (and they're more casual too, that's two things that favor Hoshido more in Japan).

 

[Draxal]

1.79m is really impressive for FE.

I was already impressed when it surpassed 1 million, especially since AFAIK no other game in the series did.

It really is, but it shows you how badly Shadow Dragon underperformed considering the 3ds isn't nearly as popular as the ds is.

 

[rhandino]

Why is it so horrible to want to talk about characters rather than gameplay? I've always found gameplay talk boring. If I want gaming advice, I go to Gamefaqs.

I think we can talk about the characters just fine, what people (and I tbh) don't like is when the talk gets reduce to "Mah girl/waifu/husbando/etc is better than yours" or "Am I the only one that thinks that Lucina is quite the hornbat..?"

It's amazing how that little yet VERY vocal fanbase made the FE: Awakening threads so dire and cringeworthy.

In fact if you only read some forums you would get to think that FE: Awakening, Mass Effect and Dragon Age are robusts dating sim with a dash of RPG mechanics... =/

 

[NeonZ]

I dunno, I just don't see why they can't end the series and then start a new one with the new gameplay. At least that way fans don't see their series change into something they hate and fans of the newer games would still have gotten the games they love.

A lot of Awakening came from the idea of bringing together many features from previous games and being a big celebration of the series. That did result in something that wasn't really like any previous game, but it wouldn't have existed as it was in the first place if it wasn't Fire Emblem.

It really is, but it shows you how badly Shadow Dragon underperformed considering the 3ds isn't nearly as popular as the ds is.

You could say the same thing about Radiant Dawn too...

 

[Box]

You'd think 25 years of solid Fire Emblem games would grant at least five years worth of goodwill for IS to experiment with the franchise but, I mean, I guess we learned with Galaxy - > Galaxy 2 - > 3D World that no matter how much you go above and beyond to sate someone, they'll feel betrayed the moment you deviate from appealing to them directly.

This isn't really what has happened. To those who find Awakening disappointing and many of the changes to be bad, a lot of the goodwill that IS has been expended. People have less confidence in IS because they recently made a game that was disliked. I think plenty of people were open to Awakening before they played and were disappointed by it. We're looking at the aftermath, and it's in this context that people are suspicious about FE14.

It's like how after Sticker Star, many Paper Mario fans are hoping that the next game is a return to the style of the N64 and GCN games, because the most recent experimentation was disappointing.

 

[Poodlestrike]

And as of yesterday, I'm one of them! Saw a deal on a New 3DS I couldn't pass up (160 bucks for "like new" condition), finally gonna get my Fire Emblem on... it's been so long ;__;

 

[Lunar15]

New stuff's fine. I'm all for changing it up. Just... make sure those changes result in a more satisfying game, that's all.

I'm actually fine with most of the changes in Awakening. Just tighten it up a bit, add some more interesting tweaks, and have a better story.

What I don't like is the general idea that's being thrown around where, if you didn't like awakening as much as previous FE's, you just don't like change and want the series to stay the same forever. I don't think many of us liked Shadow Dragon either, and that game was pretty damn traditional. Too traditional!

 

[Sadist]

Great stuff. Thanks Awakening for keeping the franchise alive.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

The new artist is fucking amazing, and I don't mind the pandering, but I do mind the games being easy as hell and every battle was the same tactic wise, give me fucking variety.

I also disliked the crazy amounts of DLC, but at the end of the day Awakening is a great game and it deserves the sales, thanks for saving the series.

 

[Kriken]

It's like how after Sticker Star, many Paper Mario fans are hoping that the next game is a return to the style of the N64 and GCN games, because the most recent experimentation was disappointing.

Sticker Star also had the second worst attach rate of any paper Mario game. They went in the FE:A direction because it outperformed every other iteration of Fire Emblem, including the ones on DS and Wii. If Nintendo went with a Paper Mario based on Sticker Star's mechanics, that'd tell me they clearly don't understand what the market wants from Paper Mario

Spoiler

The original Paper Mario had the worst attach rate while TTYD had the best by close to 2 times that of PM

 

[Yoshi]

No, because you couldn't play ironman mode at all (.ie if a character dies you still play on), you still can play with limited xp if you purposely avoided those maps.

If you wanted to do that, you could just not use any characters anymore once they died in one map. Same story...

 

[Draxal]

A lot of Awakening came from the idea of bringing together many features from previous games and being a big celebration of the series. That did result in something that wasn't really like any previous game, but it wouldn't have existed as it was in the first place if it wasn't Fire Emblem.

You could say the same thing about Radiant Dawn too...

Traditional console fire emblems are dead, we both know this. Radiant Dawn was a huge mistake in that they made it a direct sequel to a game that very few played.

 

[ffdgh]

Congratz on their success. Currently enjoying

Spoiler

and cheesing via dlc

a lunatic run.

 

[NeonZ]

You'd think 25 years of solid Fire Emblem games would grant at least five years worth of goodwill for IS to experiment with the franchise but, I mean, I guess we learned with Galaxy - > Galaxy 2 - > 3D World that no matter how much you go above and beyond to sate someone, they'll feel betrayed the moment you deviate from appealing to them directly.

Don't forget that Shadow Dragon was fairly unpopular too with the online fanbase. New Mystery addressed some of those issues, but didn't change others and to most people it didn't even exist due to no localization. You can see in this thread itself that most people disappointed with Awakening seem to basically consider Radiant Dawn the last proper Fire Emblem. So, it's not just Awakening by itself.

 

[Ricky 7]

I think the positive reviews must have helped as well. It got a 92 on metacritic same as Bloodborne, Witcher 3 and Smash U.

 

[Hugstable]

Wooooo Bring on FE: IF!

Great to see that Awakening has revived the series. Loved the game even though it's not my favorite FE, so it's awesome to see sales finally coming in great for Fire Emblem.