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Fire Emblem Community Thread | Together We Ride

GSR

Member
Having just finished part 3 of Radiant Dawn now, I think that the game is the only real successor to the Juggdral games in the post-Kaga era, with all of the strengths and weaknesses associated with that. I think it really tries to take from Genealogy, especially with its attempts at doing storytelling through the maps, which has mixed success. Radiant Dawn has way more uncontrolled friendly units and some of these maps have a ridiculous number of enemies/NPCs. This gives a real sense of epic scale but also gets kind of irritating when you're spending half of a chapter watching NPCs fight NPCs. Even if the maps themselves aren't huge, it really reminds me of the feeling I got from the ridiculously huge Genealogy maps, both the epic and the tedium. This game really heavily leans into the sort of political story Genealogy tried to pull off, with both scale and political machinations.

I think it trips up in a lot of ways though. A lot of these maps seem to be the stereotypical Awakening routfest with wide open terrain. A lot of the more interesting maps are designed around story which is pretty hit-or-miss. I looooove Geoffrey's Charge but I know a lot of people don't. On the other hand, the chapter with Micaiah and the Black Knight was incredibly frustrating and not fun at all. It definitely could have been a cutscene and had no impact on the game, it doesn't even really affect gameplay at any future point since the Black Knight has an unbreakable weapon and is max level and you definitely don't want Micaiah fighting here. The Daein maps in part 3 are pretty interesting and good at conveying of the Daein army is weak compared to the other forces at play (especially when you follow up 3-6 with how hilariously easy 3-7 is), but 3-6 is also one of the worst uses of Fog of War I've seen in the series. Jill also trivializes the Daein maps really, really well.

Also, the Blood Pact is the worst plot device I've ever seen in a Fire Emblem story. I feel like there could have been a really interesting story to tell with Daein in this whole mess and they just made the dumbest cop-out answer ever. What a waste.

Re: the bolded: oh just wait till you play Fates

(I agree with most of your post, though I haven't played RD in half a decade at this point.)
 

Draxal

Member
Having just finished part 3 of Radiant Dawn now, I think that the game is the only real successor to the Juggdral games in the post-Kaga era, with all of the strengths and weaknesses associated with that. I think it really tries to take from Genealogy, especially with its attempts at doing storytelling through the maps, which has mixed success. Radiant Dawn has way more uncontrolled friendly units and some of these maps have a ridiculous number of enemies/NPCs. This gives a real sense of epic scale but also gets kind of irritating when you're spending half of a chapter watching NPCs fight NPCs. Even if the maps themselves aren't huge, it really reminds me of the feeling I got from the ridiculously huge Genealogy maps, both the epic and the tedium. This game really heavily leans into the sort of political story Genealogy tried to pull off, with both scale and political machinations.

I think it trips up in a lot of ways though. A lot of these maps seem to be the stereotypical Awakening routfest with wide open terrain. A lot of the more interesting maps are designed around story which is pretty hit-or-miss. I looooove Geoffrey's Charge but I know a lot of people don't. On the other hand, the chapter with Micaiah and the Black Knight was incredibly frustrating and not fun at all. It definitely could have been a cutscene and had no impact on the game, it doesn't even really affect gameplay at any future point since the Black Knight has an unbreakable weapon and is max level and you definitely don't want Micaiah fighting here. The Daein maps in part 3 are pretty interesting and good at conveying of the Daein army is weak compared to the other forces at play (especially when you follow up 3-6 with how hilariously easy 3-7 is), but 3-6 is also one of the worst uses of Fog of War I've seen in the series. Jill also trivializes the Daein maps really, really well.

Also, the Blood Pact is the worst plot device I've ever seen in a Fire Emblem story. I feel like there could have been a really interesting story to tell with Daein in this whole mess and they just made the dumbest cop-out answer ever. What a waste.

I"m not sure if I would say it's the successor to the Jugdral games, but its easily the most ambitious of the post Kaga games. Post Kaga games have a tendency to be samey, and RD really bucked that trend.
 

Lunar15

Member
Yeah the blood pact was really dumb. There's so many good elements in that world but they decided to just throw in a plot device.

Also, I could be mis-remembering, but the BK/Micaiah level serves as a way to level up Micaiah before Ch 1. Endgame, no? I remember kills being easy to set up for her there thanks to the BK. That way, if you terribly mismanaged her in the earlier levels, you'd have a way out of that here.
 
I"m not sure if I would say it's the successor to the Jugdral games, but its easily the most ambitious of the post Kaga games. Post Kaga games have a tendency to be samey, and RD really bucked that trend.
Maybe, it just reminds me of Genealogy a lot. I used to compare this to Thracia in terms of it's place in the series too, but that's more "Very complicated game that sells poorly and is followed up by less complicated FE3-nostalgia grab".

Yeah the blood pact was really dumb. There's so many good elements in that world but they decided to just throw in a plot device.

Also, I could be mis-remembering, but the BK/Micaiah level serves as a way to level up Micaiah before Ch 1. Endgame, no? I remember kills being easy to set up for her there thanks to the BK. That way, if you terribly mismanaged her in the earlier levels, you'd have a way out of that here.
Is it? Micaiah's combat is terrible and giving her combat puts her at a ton of risk, and the BK ORKO's everything.
 

Draxal

Member
Maybe, it just reminds me of Genealogy a lot. I used to compare this to Thracia in terms of it's place in the series too, but that's more "Very complicated game that sells poorly and is followed up by less complicated FE3-nostalgia grab".

Is it? Micaiah's combat is terrible and giving her combat puts her at a ton of risk, and the BK ORKO's everything.

I understand you reminding alot of Genealogy, but Genealogy and Thracia are very very different games. Just like Gaiden and 1/3 are very different. I would say it's the successor to the Kaga style, but not Jugdral itself.
 
I understand you reminding alot of Genealogy, but Genealogy and Thracia are very very different games. Just like Gaiden and 1/3 are very different. I would say it's the successor to the Kaga style, but not Jugdral itself.
Maybe this means I just need to go play Mystery between finishing RD and February 19th, eh?

The blood pact had the side effect of making Micaiah into an actual character, so it gets props for that
I actually think it does the opposite. The big part of Micaiah's character here is her blind love of Daein, but because Daein is basically guiltless it's not nearly as interesting if Daein had joined the war of its own accord. Imagine if instead of the Blood Pact, Izuka had stayed around, ruling with Pellaes as his unwitting puppet, slowly pushing Pelleas towards racist sentiments towards the laguz and urging him to side with Begnion. Micaiah has to then confront that she put a poor and ineffective ruler on the throne and then choose between her own morality or her patriotism. It also avoids sweeping under the rug all the terrible things Daein did in PoR, which I feel like this game glosses over as much as possible as to make the conflict feel more grey. It just writes itself but they went with the awful, awful blood pact.
 

PK Gaming

Member
I actually think it does the opposite. The big part of Micaiah's character here is her blind love of Daein, but because Daein is basically guiltless it's not nearly as interesting if Daein had joined the war of its own accord. Imagine if instead of the Blood Pact, Izuka had stayed around, ruling with Pellaes as his unwitting puppet, slowly pushing Pelleas towards racist sentiments towards the laguz and urging him to side with Begnion. Micaiah has to then confront that she put a poor and ineffective ruler on the throne and then choose between her own morality or her patriotism. It also avoids sweeping under the rug all the terrible things Daein did in PoR, which I feel like this game glosses over as much as possible as to make the conflict feel more grey. It just writes itself but they went with the awful, awful blood pact.

You have a point, but I doubt her character would be even 1/10th as memorable or compelling if she followed standard FE lord flowchart. Micaiah's initial characterization was extremely weak and generic, and having her subvert her previous characterization in chapter 3 was a good call on the devs part. It was great seeing her go against her stringent morals in order to save Daein, and I loved seeing her truly suffer.

Besides, I wasn't particularly into the overarching story in RD which was bleh anyway, so the blood pact suited me fine.
 

Lunar15

Member
RD's story has all these really cool hooks, but then the back half is just kind of dumb. I loved that world, so seeing it get embroiled in a pretty big war that they were clearly setting up in the first game was neat. How they went about it and how they resolved it just kind of sucked, though.
 

Busaiku

Member
Yeah, I get used to it, but it takes a while.
Took years for me to get the Unova names down. Thankfully this is no longer an issue for Pokémon.
 

Renewed

Member
I'm checking the preload and it's split between Birthright and Conquest? I would have at least hoped they'd make Fates one version for digital and then you pick a side after making your way through. After that just download the additional data. Isn't that how it was done in Japan?
 
Streamer dude just made a comment on people with anime avatars
1.0


So is that why it's increased in file size?

I don't think so, everything went up
 
Excellent to hear the Live2D assets are being kept for the western release.

How's the stream BTW? Can't listen to it right now but is anyone able to deduce who's voicing who?
 

Shun

Member
Wow it is almost a year since I volunteered to do both Fire Emblem threads.

Since a lot of people miss out I kind of feel bad for having a English Special Edition preorder when I don't think I will be playing it for a while at all. I have the JP Special Edition already and I will eventually play again to see what the change is. But at the pricing error I got I mind as well just keep it.

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Wow it is almost a year since I volunteered to do both Fire Emblem threads.

Since a lot of people miss out I kind of feel bad for having a English Special Edition preorder when I don't think I will be playing it for a while at all. I have the JP Special Edition already and I will eventually play again to see what the change is. But at the pricing error I got I mind as well just keep it.

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Did you mean to reveal your name in that pic?
 
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