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The Fire Emblem Thread

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
I'm actually pretty disappointed with the available FE's for 3DS in English. Disregarding the story (who the fuck cares), it seems like Awakening, Echoes, Shadow Dragon (DS) are all pretty poor gameplay wise, whether from a lack of difficulty, proper map design, or balancing. New Mystery may be decent, but it's Japanese only. Honestly, I suspect that Fates Conquest is the only one with truly good gameplay on the 3DS.

The GBAs are really where it's at, they are all very solid. Thracia 776 is supposed to be the pinnacle but the only English ROM is half-Japanese. I'm currently trying Path of Radiance (GC) and Radiant Dawn (Wii) emulated to see how they stack up.

Anyway, see the last page or two for romance shit. At least on Conquest, you can ignore it, or treat it purely as a gameplay mechanic for designing new units, and skip the fluff.
 

Siveon

Bot
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
4,509
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I'm actually pretty disappointed with the available FE's for 3DS in English. Disregarding the story (who the fuck cares), it seems like Awakening, Echoes, Shadow Dragon (DS) are all pretty poor gameplay wise, whether from a lack of difficulty, proper map design, or balancing. New Mystery may be decent, but it's Japanese only. Honestly, I suspect that Fates Conquest is the only one with truly good gameplay on the 3DS.

The GBAs are really where it's at, they are all very solid. Thracia 776 is supposed to be the pinnacle but the only English ROM is half-Japanese. I'm currently trying Path of Radiance (GC) and Radiant Dawn (Wii) emulated to see how they stack up.

Anyway, see the last page or two for romance shit. At least on Conquest, you can ignore it, or treat it purely as a gameplay mechanic for designing new units, and skip the fluff.
There's a 100% (probably like 99% but it's full) fan translation of New Mystery, so I fail to see the problem.
 

Vorark

Erudite
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
I'm actually pretty disappointed with the available FE's for 3DS in English. Disregarding the story (who the fuck cares), it seems like Awakening, Echoes, Shadow Dragon (DS) are all pretty poor gameplay wise, whether from a lack of difficulty, proper map design, or balancing. New Mystery may be decent, but it's Japanese only. Honestly, I suspect that Fates Conquest is the only one with truly good gameplay on the 3DS.

The GBAs are really where it's at, they are all very solid. Thracia 776 is supposed to be the pinnacle but the only English ROM is half-Japanese. I'm currently trying Path of Radiance (GC) and Radiant Dawn (Wii) emulated to see how they stack up.

Anyway, see the last page or two for romance shit. At least on Conquest, you can ignore it, or treat it purely as a gameplay mechanic for designing new units, and skip the fluff.
There's a 100% (probably like 99% but it's full) fan translation of New Mystery, so I fail to see the problem.

I think he meant in a way that some people are against downloading a rom and applying a patch because "piracy". So, by official channels, you don't get the best entry in the DS/3DS family.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Yes, and I also forgot that NM has the fan translation during all my rummaging. I suppose I should also check that out!
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
I'm sure there's more hardcore FE players on this board - as you can see I haven't even completed all of them, even leaving aside the probably-shitty-gameplay ones like Echoes and Awakening.

I'll be trying the randomiser once I run out of shit to try, but for the moment I'm checking out POR/RD. For anybody getting into the series, I feel pretty confident in saying just play the GBA ones, then branch out to Fates Conquest, as well as other titles like Shining fucking Force 2.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,324
Location
Flowery Land
Doing a hard mode play of Radiant Dawn. Two things pop up

1: Not letting you see enemy range isn't hard, just tedious.
2: The character balance in this game is really fucking bad, and it's even worse on hard. The Dawn Brigade has characters that are outright crap (Meg, Leonardo, Fiona), pre-promotes that are good but still suck EXP so they're little use to you early on unless you want to gimp the other units even further (Zihark, Sothe, Volug), pre-promotes that are only good for standing in front of enemies unarmed (Tauroneo), and FOUR units that are never seen again as a fuck you if you tried using them. Other than these extremes you have Jill and Nolan as good units, Edward and Aran as passable units you have no other options and Laura as mandatory.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Interesting. Yeah, (1) fucked me off immediately, and in general POR/RD seem to lack the quick and smooth feel that you get from the handheld versions, adding a bit more friction to every action. (You can click on individual enemies to see their range, but it's no substitute.) Not far enough to really say on level design / character balance.
 

Siveon

Bot
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
4,509
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Interesting. Yeah, (1) fucked me off immediately, and in general POR/RD seem to lack the quick and smooth feel that you get from the handheld versions, adding a bit more friction to every action. (You can click on individual enemies to see their range, but it's no substitute.) Not far enough to really say on level design / character balance.
By handheld I assume you just mean DS/3DS. The Gameboy Advance games lacked any way to "lock" enemy ranges down or see all enemy range. In fact I believe that was a Path of Radiance addition to hold the range for a certain enemy.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Yeah. Fates Conquest is actually pretty superb re. controls/interface/usability, and it can be a small annoyance to lose some of that. POR's range function isn't great when you're trying to compare ranges of different enemies. Also, POR doesn't seem to show expected damage output - though the equation is typically pretty simple once you know it, I suppose.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,324
Location
Flowery Land
Oh and when I say four units you'll never see again, I'm not including Illyana. She is a good unit compared to Dawn Brigade averages and usable for the most chapters of any character in the game... except past chapter 10 she's stuck with groups that simply don't need her instead of the Fail Brigade that desperately does.
 

eric__s

ass hater
Developer
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
I like Fire Emblem: Fates, but I'm getting tired of it, which is the same thing that happens to me every time I get half-way through a Fire Emblem game. Here's how I'd make a Fire Emblem game:

DAjdA7n.jpg


echoes-world-map-2-e.jpg


259ca73239c33bc3066847359b919e13.jpg


Look at these maps. Fire Emblem games are about the conflicts between nations. They're about kings and queens and rulers. And yet you do very little ruling!! I want a Fire Emblem game where, instead of being railroaded from one story battle to the next, you are the ruler of your country and you decide where your next battle is fought; you decide who you attack, how, and why. You form alliances or coalitions with other countries, you perform joint attacks, you annex castles, you defend your territory. You are the king or queen, this is your war.

Kingdoms are made up of castles and towns; conquering them adds to your resources generated. Enemy kingdoms will attack your castles and towns, so you need to place units to guard areas you think are susceptible. The only way to promote a unit is to grant them a castle, forcing you to conquer more to make your army stronger. Units will join your army at various points - some through the story, others by conquering specific cities and others when enemy kingdoms fall. Different kingdoms could have different specialties; there could be a kingdom that focuses on cavalry units, a kingdom with high defense units, a kingdom with mostly wizards, forcing you to adapt your strategy depending on who you're fighting.

I want a grand strategy game with Fire Emblem mechanics. I want to rule my own kingdom and fight my own wars. I don't want to be railroaded through another dumb Fire Emblem story I have no control over.
 
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Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Fire Emblem's ability to keep going strong at 10+ games - when at one point Awakening might have been the last title - has been reliant on its retard weeaboo stories scooping up braindead players that squeal and fap at the characters. I don't know why they're scraping the bottom of the barrel even within the anime genre, but their money keeps it all rolling. I suspect the series simply cannot afford to abandon a major focus on all that (hence when Echoes decided to branch out the gameplay, they added in more story-oriented RPGy fluff that has not a single shred of interesting gameplay).

I'm not sure how big the development teams are, but I'm also not sure if they have the capability to deliver good gameplay in the strategic layer. Encounter design and unit balancing is a whole different ball game when you suddenly have a strategic layer; it will become infinitely harder to stage the kind of delicious battles that you get in, say, Conquest 10.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
Waifu stuff in jrpgs is usually similar to SJW stuff in western games. Once it gets in it has very high probability to fuck up everything.
 

Endemic

Arcane
Joined
Jul 16, 2012
Messages
4,321
Depends what you mean by "waifu stuff", because FE4 introduced marriage and second gen characters to the series. Although it was handled a lot better in Genealogy than Fates\Awakening.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
No, I very obviously do not mean FE4 by that. Just like a game can be perfectly fine with having diverse characters and female leads and homosexuals. In my book "waifu stuff" starts when things move away from gameplay/story and more towards the fanservice. Thou I suppose it is hard to define where that line exactly is. Basically you know when you see it?
 

Delterius

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2012
Messages
15,956
Location
Entre a serra e o mar.
I don't ask for much. Just get me whoever designed Conquest's maps and make a game with a simple story a la Blazing Sword or Sacred Stones. The story just needs to be good -- enough -- and the game will carry it, while the waifus will sell it.
 

Siveon

Bot
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
4,509
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Look at these maps. Fire Emblem games are about the conflicts between nations. They're about kings and queens and rulers. And yet you do very little ruling!! I want a Fire Emblem game where, instead of being railroaded from one story battle to the next, you are the ruler of your country and you decide where your next battle is fought; you decide who you attack, how, and why. You form alliances or coalitions with other countries, you perform joint attacks, you annex castles, you defend your territory. You are the king or queen, this is your war.

Kingdoms are made up of castles and towns; conquering them adds to your resources generated. Enemy kingdoms will attack your castles and towns, so you need to place units to guard areas you think are susceptible. The only way to promote a unit is to grant them a castle, forcing you to conquer more to make your army stronger. Units will join your army at various points - some through the story, others by conquering specific cities and others when enemy kingdoms fall. Different kingdoms could have different specialties; there could be a kingdom that focuses on cavalry units, a kingdom with high defense units, a kingdom with mostly wizards, forcing you to adapt your strategy depending on who you're fighting.

I want a grand strategy game with Fire Emblem mechanics. I want to rule my own kingdom and fight my own wars. I don't want to be railroaded through another dumb Fire Emblem story I have no control over.
That would be conceptually impossible for IS, and financial suicide, considering how well story-based games going for them. Grand strategy is probably an even more niche genre in the east than in the west, considering the only franchise that I can think of is Nobunaga's Ambition. Although funnily enough the earlier titles in that series do somewhat resemble Fire Emblem in at least the most superfluous aspects.

snes_nobunagas_ambition_2.gif


I also have to agree with Tigranes , IS is somewhat struggling in tactics gameplay, I doubt they'd be able to pull off strategy gameplay very well. What I wouldn't mind is a more VN approach to things, with much more branching paths to go through and maps to conquer. Of course that means more story, but I thought the story in Echoes was better than Awakening and Fates so it's not completely hopeless.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see it happen - but I just don't see it happening. Of course, KOEI riffed off the grand strategy ROTK games with their fantastic FE-likes (Sangoku Eiketsuden, etc), but that was KOEI in their golden age, and they were branching out in the reverse direction.

I tried Echoes for an hour and gave up once I saw that there are 'filler' battles every time you want to get anywhere, and it seems like, true to original Gaiden, these are all bare maps with nothing in particular. Maybe one solution is to have an overall linear path with a guaranteed set of maps like traditional FE, but then have some VE-driven C&C that adjusts the enemies you get, the type of enemies, where you appear on the map, and so on.
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,557
I want a grand strategy game with Fire Emblem mechanics. I want to rule my own kingdom and fight my own wars. I don't want to be railroaded through another dumb Fire Emblem story I have no control over.

This is essentially my dream game. I would use the FE character system and battle mechanics as my base for the tactics layer, then implement a strategy layer which incorporates elements from CK2, Mount & Blade, Civ, and even board games like Risk and Catan.

Emphasis on high replayability due to shorter campaigns (20 to 30 hours), randomized NPCs for each run, and no trash combat. And instead of a long predetermined narrative, let the story take form as a a stream of discrete events and reactivity to the player's choices.
 

Matador

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 14, 2016
Messages
1,631
Codex+ Now Streaming!
Started my first walkthrough of Thracia 776 with this translation patch:

https://serenesforest.net/forums/in...ype-menu-and-script-translation-through-ch-3/

Just began, but this is much better than Awakening.

- Story seems good so far.
- I like the capture mechanic.
- Path of Radiance is great but I prefer the 2D sprites to ugly 3D models. Fire emblem 7 had great ones also.

How would you rank Thracia 776 in the whole series?
 
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spekkio

Arcane
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
8,278
Great news that somebody is working on Thracia, as it's the only (AFAIK) game in the series not available in english.

:incline:
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
what about the Wii one? I have it downloaded for use with Dolphin but have yet to bother firing it up. I think it's called Dawn of something.
 

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