• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Fire Emblem Community Thread | Together We Ride

NeonZ

Member
Anyone else having a problem of Fates' chapters feeling pointless?

I feel like there's no real reason I'm fighting these enemies in most of these chapters, and it really makes a lot of them super unmemorable. To be fair though I thought Awakening had the same problem.

Well, the only other works from Fates' writer I've seen have been episodic too, which just makes that choice even odder.
 

Draxal

Member
I mean just like every other top grossing game in both Japan and worldwide.

I'm just hopeful that they're relatively aggressive in updating content like every other f2p game.

Sigurd Event when
No fire jokes, please
 
I'd be well surprised if it was a paid download XD

Hopefully it's playable for a good while without paying or stopping. Gonna be weird if, for example, we're 2 turns into a mission and suddenly our stamina bar runs out.
 

jnWake

Member
Finally got around to replaying Fire Emblem 8 and...

1) The game's balance is considerably better without Seth.

2) The narrative and main characters are actually pretty good.

3) Eirika is a good Lord.

4) Lute sucks, and so do the majority of the bit characters.

5) Varied antagonists[/spoiler]

My opinions:

1) I never used Seth so I can't comment much. However, I did like the level of challenge in the game. Ephraim's route in particular has some pretty cool/challenging levels).

2) Agree here. Plot is great and I love how the two paths help the player understand the whole story. Lyon has a pretty sad story and the motives for what he did make you feel pretty bad for him. There's also some very interesting/morbid plots like
Orson and his zombie wife (whatever it was) and Grado's Emperor being some sort of zombie too
.

3) Eirika is great. She was a bit
dumb when she gave the stone to Lyon
, but is usually very nice. Ephraim is just portrayed as the cool strong guy so he tends to be the favourite.

4) I disagree here. It's true that many of the guys have similar backstories but there are some awesome characters like L'Arachel (her supports with Ephraim are godlike).

5) I love the antagonists here. Valter takes the cake as best one though, with Caellach as a close second.

I haven't played that many FE games, but Sacred Stones has my favourite chapter in Scorched Sand. It's so intense that it makes almost the entire game after it feel lame.
 

Draxal

Member
I think FE 7 has the stronger villain cast than FE 8, but other than that I like Stones a lot (and yes Stones villains >>>> Awakening and Rev's villains).

I think what I like most about Sacred Stones is that its so self contained, it's not a prequel, sequel, no world hoppers or continent hoppers. No need to play a second game to continue the story.
 

CazTGG

Member
Chapter 15 of Sacred Stones (Scorched Sand) can be seen as a sort of proto-Fates, in that the map is the exact same in terms of house and village locations but the actual layout for your troops and, to an extent, your goal, are fairly different. In Eirika's, the best strategy tends to be to turtle up, to defend yourself until Ephraim arrives whereas Ephraim's path puts you on the offensive given the lack of troops near Eirika and the constant influx of Pegasus Knights that threaten her, even with the defensive bonus of the burnt palace. Of course, both still require to get rid of all the enemies, but the strategy needed to fulfill that goal is different for the two of them due to where your units are deployed and when reinforcements arrive...as well as waiting for Colm/Rennac to get the hidden treasures but that's just standard desert level fare for Fire Emblem. Frankly, I wish more maps in Sacred Stones had that sort of difference for the maps the twins share like Fates did since the ones after only differ by changing up a few enemies like Druid-Sage, Hero-Warrior, etc. since Sacred Stones isn't the most challenging of the GBA entries.
 
I mean just like every other top grossing game in both Japan and worldwide.

I'm just hopeful that they're relatively aggressive in updating content like every other f2p game.

Sigurd Event when
No fire jokes, please

yeah the fire jokes are for Flora now
 
I think FE 7 has the stronger villain cast than FE 8, but other than that I like Stones a lot (and yes Stones villains >>>> Awakening and Rev's villains).

I think what I like most about Sacred Stones is that its so self contained, it's not a prequel, sequel, no world hoppers or continent hoppers. No need to play a second game to continue the story.

Most Fire Emblems are pretty self contained. They do span across 2 games, but once it's over, it's over.
 
Most Fire Emblems are pretty self contained. They do span across 2 games, but once it's over, it's over.
SS is the only one where its completey self-contain.

Awakening attempted to connect PoR and RD.
Fates connected to Awakening.

Actually. Awakeing can connect to every game with its Plot Device outrealms
 
SS is the only one where its completey self-contain.

Awakening attempted to connect PoR and RD.
Fates connected to Awakening.

Actually. Awakeing can connect to every game with its Plot Device outrealms

Awakening is a weird case. While it makes references and connections to previous games, it's not an outright sequel, prequel or in-between-quel to any previous Fire Emblem.
 

Draxal

Member
Awakening is a weird case. While it makes references and connections to previous games, it's not an outright sequel, prequel or in-between-quel to any previous Fire Emblem.

It's way too referential to 1/2/3/11/12 for my liking. Valentia being renamed after Alm, Lucina being a genderbent Marth, Cherche having a wyvern name Minerva, grown up Tiki, not to mention Priam traveling from Tellius and having Naga from 1/2/3/11/12 back (which could be the same Naga from 4/5); Cordelia being Catria Mk 2. I'm pretty convinced that a huge reason of the popularity of Awakening in Japan was that it was such a call back to 1/3, and #FE double downed on that even further.

In addition it's kinda of a prequel and sequel to Fates at the same time due to Owain/Severa and Inigo, which I really hated as well.
 

PK Gaming

Member
It's so cool that we're talking about FE8

CiSF2ewUUAAQ_63.jpg

First time turning Tana into a Wyvern Knight and goddamn, she's a monster. I never did it in the past because of the sprite change, lmao.

Also Cormage is the best


If you don't let him kill Valter...
 
Cormag is hilariously strong and another great example of how stupidly powerful Wyvern Riders consistently are. He's also a pretty good character.

FE8 to me is sort of the end of the golden era of FE for me. I think FE5-7 are the series at its best, all are reasonably challenging but never unfun for me and their map design stresses a lot of understanding the simple core mechanics rather than dumping gimmicks into each map. FE8 reintroduced skills, which didn't ruin the game but were pretty pointless for the same reason as they were in PoR, low/unreliable proc rates and most of the effects weren't meaningful (lol Sure Shot). It also marked the end of buying equipment in the middle of maps which I think makes for an interesting side objective. Balance is kind of wonky too but like Path of Radiance everyone overlooks it because it isn't that hard anyways.

It still has those really strong core GBA-era mechanics and I've never not liked a Fire Emblem. Eirika is a great character and a lot of the side characters are people I'm really fond of (Forde, Gerik/Marisa/Tethys, Lute) but I think it's pretty disappointing in the sense that it marks the decline of FE for me.

Edit: I know Thracia is weird but I really wouldn't call it gimmicky aside from maybe Murder Hollace and the chapter with Olwen's brother. Most of the maps still follow the same rules and instead just expect the player to have a good understanding of how to play the game.
 

CazTGG

Member
Cormag is hilariously strong and another great example of how stupidly powerful Wyvern Riders consistently are. He's also a pretty good character.

FE8 to me is sort of the end of the golden era of FE for me. I think FE5-7 are the series at its best, all are reasonably challenging but never unfun for me and their map design stresses a lot of understanding the simple core mechanics rather than dumping gimmicks into each map. FE8 reintroduced skills, which didn't ruin the game but were pretty pointless for the same reason as they were in PoR, low/unreliable proc rates and most of the effects weren't meaningful (lol Sure Shot). It also marked the end of buying equipment in the middle of maps which I think makes for an interesting side objective. Balance is kind of wonky too but like Path of Radiance everyone overlooks it because it isn't that hard anyways.

There are legitimate grievances with the skill system in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn along with the skills they offer like how ridiculously overpowered Aether was and still is, but them being useless is not one of them. Sure, some skills aren't as useful as others but there's a ton of room to experiment with which skills go best with which, Resolve + Wrath being a particularly potent combination. It's not as good as some of the later games but it's still a rather solid system.

That said...yeah they're pretty useless in Sacred Stones. Great Shield works for the occasional magic attack and Slayer's good on Eirika's route but none of them are particularly helpful.
Also the Assassin technically marked the return of the skill system with lethal before Sacred Stones along with the hidden skills for Bersekrers and Swordmasters.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Cormag is hilariously strong and another great example of how stupidly powerful Wyvern Riders consistently are. He's also a pretty good character.

FE8 to me is sort of the end of the golden era of FE for me. I think FE5-7 are the series at its best, all are reasonably challenging but never unfun for me and their map design stresses a lot of understanding the simple core mechanics rather than dumping gimmicks into each map. FE8 reintroduced skills, which didn't ruin the game but were pretty pointless for the same reason as they were in PoR, low/unreliable proc rates and most of the effects weren't meaningful (lol Sure Shot). It also marked the end of buying equipment in the middle of maps which I think makes for an interesting side objective. Balance is kind of wonky too but like Path of Radiance everyone overlooks it because it isn't that hard anyways.

It still has those really strong core GBA-era mechanics and I've never not liked a Fire Emblem. Eirika is a great character and a lot of the side characters are people I'm really fond of (Forde, Gerik/Marisa/Tethys, Lute) but I think it's pretty disappointing in the sense that it marks the decline of FE for me.

Edit: I know Thracia is weird but I really wouldn't call it gimmicky aside from maybe Murder Hollace and the chapter with Olwen's brother. Most of the maps still follow the same rules and instead just expect the player to have a good understanding of how to play the game.

It's actually the opposite for me. Never played 5, but I can't say I liked 6 or 7 that much. FE8 is when FE really starts to take off for me.

PoR (and RD, to a lesser extent) had the story, Awakening had the new support system/near infinite replayability and Fates is a refinement of the good things Awakening brought to the series as well as the return to form when it comes to gameplay (Conquest).
 
There are legitimate grievances with the skill system in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn along with the skills they offer like how ridiculously overpowered Aether was and still is, but them being useless is not one of them. Sure, some skills aren't as useful as others but there's a ton of room to experiment with which skills go best with which, Resolve + Wrath being a particularly potent combination. It's not as good as some of the later games but it's still a rather solid system.

That said...yeah they're pretty useless in Sacred Stones. Great Shield works for the occasional magic attack and Slayer's good on Eirika's route but none of them are particularly helpful.
Also the Assassin technically marked the return of the skill system with lethal before Sacred Stones along with the hidden skills for Bersekrers and Swordmasters.
Sol is legitimately overpowered in PoR but I don't think most other skills are all that great and there are a ton of useless skills, like the Biorhythm ones or Wrath on Kieran or a lot of the Prestige skills (especially when they come at the cost of losing a Sol/Aether). I'll admit that I've never done Wrath/Resolve but I don't like that Wrath doesn't guarantee a crit. Even some of the other good skills (like Luna) are locked to shitty classes and don't really make up for that. They just aren't all that important with a couple exceptions.

Radiant Dawn was better but many of the proc skills felt like glorified crits and I just wasn't a fan. It also nerfed Wrath again which is meh.

I think skills are really interesting in the Juggdral games but kind of lame after that, most of them feel like artificial complexity which kind of goes against what makes Fire Emblem appealing to me.

It's actually the opposite for me. Never played 5, but I can't say I liked 6 or 7 that much. FE8 is when FE really starts to take off for me.

PoR (and RD, to a lesser extent) had the story, Awakening had the new support system/near infinite replayability and Fates is a refinement of the good things Awakening brought to the series as well as the return to form when it comes to gameplay (Conquest).
Other than story a lot of those aren't really things I think of as plusses in the series direction relative to 5-7. People talk about 7 being vanilla but that's the appeal to me there, I think it's (along with 6's) lack of specialness makes them just incredibly fun from a gameplay perspective and I also love the story and characters of 7, moreso than any later games (nostalgia is probably at play here admittedly). The new support system is a weakness that leads to a lot of filler conversations, I don't think the gameplay is better so much as different and more mechanically complicated and that it's defined much more by skills, map gimmicks, and weapon effects, which just add layers of systems and I don't find that as appealing in my Fire Emblem. I also don't really think Awakening brought replayability to the table, the series has always been very replayable.

I'm probably sounding more harsh than I intend to come off as, I love every game I've played and had a ton of fun with Fates but I do wish things could scale back and we could get more games in the Thracia mold like Binding Blade and Blazing Sword were.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Other than story a lot of those aren't really things I think of as plusses in the series direction relative to 5-7. People talk about 7 being vanilla but that's the appeal to me there, I think it's (along with 6's) lack of specialness makes them just incredibly fun from a gameplay perspective and I also love the story and characters of 7, moreso than any later games (nostalgia is probably at play here admittedly). The new support system is a weakness that leads to a lot of filler conversations, I don't think the gameplay is better so much as different and more mechanically complicated and that it's defined much more by skills, map gimmicks, and weapon effects, which just add layers of systems and I don't find that as appealing in my Fire Emblem. I also don't really think Awakening brought replayability to the table, the series has always been very replayable.

I'm probably sounding more harsh than I intend to come off as, I love every game I've played and had a ton of fun with Fates but I do wish things could scale back and we could get more games in the Thracia mold like Binding Blade and Blazing Sword were.

Supports and high replayability are absolutely plusses, lol. These are things that actively incentivize the player to play through the game again. What if I went through Birthright as a Malig Knight? What I made Felicia a hero? What if I married Takumi to Kagerou and got him the puppeteer class? What if I pursued these support chains,and so on. The new support system is a major incentive that keeps characters existent and fresh, rather than having them fade into nothing. Are you a fan of Gilliam? Well fuck you because you won't be seeing again outside of his largely mediocre (and difficult to raise) support chains. Did you like Hinata? Well you're in luck because in addition to seeing him in your castle, you can pursue a support chain in which he kicks your ass in a duel and reveals that Takumi is actually incredibly good with a Katana.

And I haven't even begun to talk about the various quality of life changes like a good item management system, unlimited supports and skip enemy turn. The older FE games are pretty replayable but they don't even compare to Fates. I've played through it like what, 6 times? Soon to be 7 and I don't feel like stopping.

You're not wrong in valuing FE7 because it's legitimately one of the best games in the franchise (and an extremely good game on its own right), but FE6 is held back by obnoxious design decisions that drag the experience down. It just doesn't compare, imo.
 

Shun

Member
Kuroneko0509 Draxal anyone else.

In the spirit of Macross and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, I feel like the subtitle Do You Remember Dubs? is a bit too inaccurate. So I thought this would be a much more colorful and appropriate thread title.

Tokyo Macross Sessions #FE: メガテンおぼえていますか?
 

PBalfredo

Member
These FE8 posts are reminding me just how goddamn good the GBA games looked. Not just the battle animations, but also the characters, UI design, map clarity and even the color pallet. I've been enjoying Fates so far but the map overview can be problematic. It can be hard to differentiate terrain types. Wastes and mountain tiles tend to blend in with plains and the visual boundaries of woods are pretty fuzzy. The GBA maps are a bit more abstracted, but much easier to read at a glance.
 

Erheller

Member
These FE8 posts are reminding me just how goddamn good the GBA games looked. Not just the battle animations, but also the characters, UI design, map clarity and even the color pallet. I've been enjoying Fates so far but the map overview can be problematic. It can be hard to differentiate terrain types. Wastes and mountain tiles tend to blend in with plains and the visual boundaries of woods are pretty fuzzy. The GBA maps are a bit more abstracted, but much easier to read at a glance.

I don't have a 3DS so I haven't gotten around to playing Awakening or Fates. But I played a quick skirmish on my friend's Birthright playthough, and I also thought that the map readability was poor compared to the GBA games.
 

Draxal

Member
Kuroneko0509 Draxal anyone else.

In the spirit of Macross and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, I feel like the subtitle Do You Remember Dubs? is a bit too inaccurate. So I thought this would be a much more colorful and appropriate thread title.

Tokyo Macross Sessions #FE: メガテンおぼえていますか?

I"m cool with it (I did cheat and babelfish it instead of using Kuroneko0509 translation PM bot).
 
I think the full game name should be there in case people want to search for it.

Otherwise I don't have much preference : P

I'm just hoping people will finally be able to enjoy the game after all the controversy, like Fates.
 

Draxal

Member
Errrrr, isn't it one more week for you cats?

Wow, they really took their time with this one, Awakenings' delayed Euro release didn't seem nearly as bad.
 

CazTGG

Member
These FE8 posts are reminding me just how goddamn good the GBA games looked. Not just the battle animations, but also the characters, UI design, map clarity and even the color pallet. I've been enjoying Fates so far but the map overview can be problematic. It can be hard to differentiate terrain types. Wastes and mountain tiles tend to blend in with plains and the visual boundaries of woods are pretty fuzzy. The GBA maps are a bit more abstracted, but much easier to read at a glance.

It's a mixed bag as far as the presentation of information is concerned, but one i'd say is better overall: The top screen (bottom in Shadow Dragon/Mystery's remake) could do a better job of telling the player about the terrain beyond vague symbols meant to represent additional avoidance, recoverable health, etc. as well as make it more clear where a forest begins and ends, but the bottom screen very neatly lays out all the information to a map, its goals, dangerous units for a selected one i.e. if they're weak to arrows which enemy is weilding them or has a "critical weapon", the selected units stats and their skills along with other information and the ability to mark. The one problem with the GBA entries' presentation is that they'd usually have all the information in different pages or in a separate menu than the map, which can be rather tedious to search through and find out "hey this enemy has X item I can get by beating them or steal from them" or "hey this enemy is wielding a horseslayer, better remember to avoid that one". Don't get me wrong, I love Rekka no Ken and Sacred Stones but they made a pretty fine step forward with Shadow Dragon onwards in terms of relaying the necessary information to the player.
 

Chrom

Junior Member
Did anyone order the Marth nendo? I saw some photos of it on Twitter the other day indicating that it released.
 

Draxal

Member
Did anyone order the Marth nendo? I saw some photos of it on Twitter the other day indicating that it released.

Ya, nendo thread said it's been released. I also ordered the Isabelle Nendo for this month so awaiting the combined shipment.
 
Did anyone order the Marth nendo? I saw some photos of it on Twitter the other day indicating that it released.

yeah, i saw some photos on twitter today about it

ordered it, have no idea what else i got from amiami so i guess it wouldn't ship until the end of the month
 
Did anyone order the Marth nendo? I saw some photos of it on Twitter the other day indicating that it released.
I want this but I have no space for collectibles so it'd stay in the box for a bit. I guess itd be better to get it now though, I imagine the used market raises the price after they go out of production.
 

Draxal

Member
I want this but I have no space for collectibles so it'd stay in the box for a bit. I guess itd be better to get it now though, I imagine the used market raises the price after they go out of production.

Lucina's figma is expensive now even though there's a reprint scheduled.
 
I just cleared chapter 2, I am confirmed an Awakening god. It would help if Robin would get a goddamn speed proc though, I think she's only gotten one proc in her four levels. Is a level five Robin at this point too underleveled? Chrom is 2 and Frederick is 4 so far.

One other thing: is pairing Frederick up with Vaike for chapter 2 a good/normal strat? I kept trying with Robin for most of it but pairing him up with Vaike gave him a lot more raw damage and let him OHKO the mercenaries and the defense buff helped too.
 
I just cleared chapter 2, I am confirmed an Awakening god. It would help if Robin would get a goddamn speed proc though, I think she's only gotten one proc in her four levels. Is a level five Robin at this point too underleveled? Chrom is 2 and Frederick is 4 so far.

One other thing: is pairing Frederick up with Vaike for chapter 2 a good/normal strat? I kept trying with Robin for most of it but pairing him up with Vaike gave him a lot more raw damage and let him OHKO the mercenaries and the defense buff helped too.

It's been a while, but my gut says Frederick is overleveled and Robin is underleveled.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Got to the end of chapter 16 in FE8 (which is an incredibly long chapter) only to get crit by one of the sages,

Enemy only had an 8% crit too................................................

Can't skip enemy turns so I have to sit through Great Knights taking forever to move

EARGHUGHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
Got to the end of chapter 16 in FE8 (which is an incredibly long chapter) only to get crit by one of the sages,

Enemy only had an 8% crit too................................................

Can't skip enemy turns so I have to sit through Great Knights taking forever to move

EARGHUGHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

"only" 8% crit pls

also the speedup function exists on emulators :p
 
8% crit is pretty serious though, especially if it's more than one enemy or the enemy attacks multiple times. I remember with FE6 endgame I had to have Perceval do most of the heavy lifting in the endgame because he had 5-6 more luck than Milady who would inevitably get crit by a manakete eventually since the map was so long.
 

PK Gaming

Member
It was just one asshole sage with Shine. I pretty much had it in the bag, but then he starts dancing and I knew it was over

I was ready the next time though. Brought a hoplon guard just to fuck him up.
 
SPEAKING OF CRITS

THIS ASSHOLE ARCHER IN CHAPTER 3 PROC'D A 1% AND KILLED ROBIN

IT HAD BEEN GOING SO WELL AND ROBIN WAS ALMOST 10

maybe this is karma for me getting and using a Kris's Confect >.> through one of the random event tiles

Edit: okay beat it but now I have a couple questions

So for pairings, I know Sumia is Chrom's best partner but since I did F!Robin I'm trying to figure out what the best way to do the pairing for Sumia and Robin. If Robin takes Chrom, who does that leave as a good partner for Sumia, and if Sumia takes Chrom, who does that leave as a good Lunatic suitable pairing for Robin? Kind of wishing I'd done M!Robin so I could just do him with Cordelia but I reaaaally don't want to try and get through chapter 2 again lol.

Secondly, so I want to reclass then promote, not promote then reclass right? If so, should I go Peg Knight for Dark Flyer or is Nosferatu tanking the best strategy here?
 
Top Bottom