The Fire Emblem Thread

[GentlemanCthulhu]

You haven't modded your 3DS because...?

I don't actually know what that means.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

1. (and i assume the answer to this is a yes, of course dummy) Do characters unlock new abilities as they level up? I have gotten a handful of level ups, but none of my chars have as of yet unlocked any abilities

For basic classes, you get an ability at level 1 and 10
For promoted classes, the ability is at 5 and 15.

2. Does this game feature a job system or anything like that where you can switch classes and mix/match abilities?

There's an item called the Second Seal that resets your level (though you keep the stats) and allows you to change class trees (different depending on the character except for the MC who has access to everything)

Thanks for the info.

 

[Kaivokz]

Finally finished Three Houses. Blue lions route, madness difficulty. Last battle was very challenging, but I did manage to do it on my first try losing only one unit. Boss can attack twice a round over the entire map, basically, reinforcements spawn groups of mages with bolting and meteor, real PITA. The MC was the only one who could stand toe-to-toe with the last boss, so I had him 1v1 her while the rest handled the reinforcements coming from behind. Took 60 turns.

I played side-by-side with my fiance. She did the golden deer route. I have to say, the last few blue lion battles were very lame in comparison to golden deer. The final song for blue lions is also way worse than the final song for golden deer or black eagles. It isn't bad, but it is definitely more vanilla heroic music that sounds like the rest of the battle themes from the game. Black eagles get an amazing piano piece reflecting the church and golden deer have an awesome operatic, intense, driving theme for nemesis. Even the names are better: a funeral of flowers (black eagles) and god-shattering star (golden deer) vs the apex of the world (blue lions). Plus golden deer get a pretty sweet techno/electronic theme in the lost city of shambhala (no joke, it goes full cyberpunk for that battle).

Have to say blue lions seem like the worst of the routes for both story and music. Still enjoyed the game, though. Madness was tough. The last few battles had unpredictable reinforcements, which was the only "dumb" difficulty. Everything else could be countered with good tactics and strategic planning of character/team development.

 

[Reality]

The first time I played Three Houses, my biggest takeaway was that the addition of the "attack lines' letting you see what the enemy's would do on your own turn was finally a new era of honesty from the fire emblem marketing department. I got Into The Breach feelings that whole first weekend. I'm still half convinced that "SRPG" is a fake genre made by the marketing department and these are really Puzzle-RPGs, but I haven't made up my mind if the "Honesty" of Three Houses is a good thing and should be in the next FE game or if the franchise should go back to trying to keep up the lie.

 

[Tigranes]

......attack telegraphing is "honesty"? So not telegraphing is "lying"?

A design decision is honesty from the "marketing department"?

OK buddy

 

[Reality]

My main feeling on this is that in the west, Fire Emblem is consistently presented as "Strategy" RPGs, but to an extent more than the other SRPGs. the game's emphasize maximizing combat on enemy phase rather than on Player phase - this is at it's most extreme in a game like Genealogy, where even if you wanted more player phase combat, you would fight something like ten times the amount of battles on the enemy's turn anymore.

Three Houses, gives us telegraphging enemy's so that there's is no longer any pretense about the tactical part of fire emblem - it's more strongly about mind controlling the enemy into attacking your bricks so that they will die to the counter attack than ever before, as the enemy's are tagged just as hard with the "if in range must attack" thing as ever before and don't bother with 2-3 turn planning to look for your squishy units when there is something it can sense doing THIS turn... no matter how disadvantageous it may be when you pick your def/res guy who does as much counterattack damage as possible.

Hence I feel it has completed a transition into puzzle-RPG

 

[Matador]

That's serious decline. If an experienced player has figured the AI and can exploit it is fine. But for a normal player that is a great tactical loss. I have fun thinking tactically sound and logical plays that are good enough to beat the maps elegantly, not being completely optimal for metagame reasons.

The RNG is there so the scenarios aren't deterministic, so it should be with the AI not giving you complete information about its moves. It is even contradictory with how war and battles work on real world, where intel about enemy future actions are critical to improve success.

If they can't figure out good AI, they should at least make it not totally predictable. Not eliminating completely risk/reward uncertainty decision making.

 

[Endemic]

My main feeling on this is that in the west, Fire Emblem is consistently presented as "Strategy" RPGs, but to an extent more than the other SRPGs. the game's emphasize maximizing combat on enemy phase rather than on Player phase - this is at it's most extreme in a game like Genealogy, where even if you wanted more player phase combat, you would fight something like ten times the amount of battles on the enemy's turn anymore.

You can avoid this problem by changing the combat rules, the unit balance (both individual units' characteristics, and player-enemy balance) and scenario design to favour player initiative and punish overly passive strategies.

Three Houses, gives us telegraphing enemies so that there's is no longer any pretense about the tactical part of fire emblem - it's more strongly about mind controlling the enemy into attacking your bricks so that they will die to the counter attack than ever before, as the enemy's are tagged just as hard with the "if in range must attack" thing as ever before and don't bother with 2-3 turn planning to look for your squishy units when there is something it can sense doing THIS turn... no matter how disadvantageous it may be when you pick your def/res guy who does as much counterattack damage as possible.

I think Intelligent Systems are too afraid of rocking the boat at this point.

 

[spekkio]

BROS,

After completing FE3-FE5 for Snes and FE6 for GBA, I've decided to move on to FE7 for GBA, a.k.a the first one that got official English release...

Only to be greeted by an ABYSMAL, forced tutorial (can be skipped on Hard difficulty, but to play on Hard, you have to complete the game first). Jesus fucking Christ, after the prestigious gameplay in previous games, where you had to learn everything by yourself and MAYBE some villager gave you some useful info once in a while (as long as you protected his home from a pirate raid), this shit feels fucking horrible.

I mean, you can't just do what the fuck you want, you have to select a forced unit, move it to a forced tile and perform a forced action. If you try to do anything else, you'll get this:

Fortunately, some nice people have made a patch that will remove the "forced actions" from tutorial stages.

Arch's Tutorial Killer Patch

After applying it, you'll still get the "normal" dialogue:

But you can do whatever the fuck you want.

I've heard that the real decline in the series starts with Awakening's story / dialogue, but these retarded tutorials shattered my faith in "newshit" Fire Emblems already.



Thank god for the modders.

 

[Delterius]

I've heard that the real decline in the series starts with Awakening's story / dialogue, but these retarded tutorials shattered my faith in "newshit" Fire Emblems already.

oh god if only tutorials were the problem

 

[Tigranes]

It's a tutorial, dude. It's dumb, but you do it and then you never look back.

I don't know if they added it for the English release, or something.

 

[Archibald]

It might be that since it was first game with English release they thought that they have to do a tutorial because, you know, westerners are retards and might not understand what to do.

 

[victim]

I bought FE7 on release (just titled Fire Emblem back then) and enjoyed the tutorial. It helped get me up to speed for the main game since I knew nothing about Fire Emblem game(s) except that they looked cool and very similar to my favorite game Shining Force.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I bought FE7 on release (just titled Fire Emblem back then) and enjoyed the tutorial. It helped get me up to speed for the main game since I knew nothing about Fire Emblem game(s) except that they looked cool and very similar to my favorite game Shining Force.

This is exactly why the tutorial was added, IIRC I read the article somewhere that being the first fire emblem in the west, whole lot of tutorial is added to familiarize player with the system

 

[Siveon]

It's the quickest most innocent set of tutorials, lol. For westerners who may have never played the genre before, I think its fine. The rest of the game is a lot better than FE6, too.

 

[victim]

It's the quickest most innocent set of tutorials, lol. For westerners who may have never played the genre before, I think its fine. The rest of the game is a lot better than FE6, too.

I played FE6 as well since the interface is exactly the same you can easily ignore the language barrier. Gotta agree that 7 was quite a bit better.

 

[Siveon]

It's the quickest most innocent set of tutorials, lol. For westerners who may have never played the genre before, I think its fine. The rest of the game is a lot better than FE6, too.

I played FE6 as well since the interface is exactly the same you can easily ignore the language barrier. Gotta agree that 7 was quite a bit better.

There's a finished fan translation that's pretty well done so the language barrier is nonexistent, unless you're referring to the time in which you played it.

But yeah there's a lot of improvements and they completely overshadow whatever small inconvenience the tutorial is. Lord balance (Roy sucks stat-wise and his upgrade comes super late), graphics (again Roy sucks, sprite-wise), design (less half baked open maps and more deliberate choke points and layout) and story/characters.

 

[victim]

It's the quickest most innocent set of tutorials, lol. For westerners who may have never played the genre before, I think its fine. The rest of the game is a lot better than FE6, too.

I played FE6 as well since the interface is exactly the same you can easily ignore the language barrier. Gotta agree that 7 was quite a bit better.

There's a finished fan translation that's pretty well done so the language barrier is nonexistent, unless you're referring to the time in which you played it.

But yeah there's a lot of improvements and they completely overshadow whatever small inconvenience the tutorial is. Lord balance (Roy sucks stat-wise and his upgrade comes super late), graphics (again Roy sucks, sprite-wise), design (less half baked open maps and more deliberate choke points and layout) and story/characters.

I imported the jp cart in the early 2000s after I beat 7.

 

[spekkio]

Ehh, don't mind my bitchin' about the tutorial. The game already made me its bitch (currently @ chapter #17).

Some changes between 6 & 7 feel a little bit decline, though. Like the "between missions" interface which requires more clicks than in 6. And the difficulty (on normal) feels lower than 6 too. And adding the "player" as a tactician feels pointless.

But still, this shit is addicting like crack.

 

[victim]

Ehh, don't mind my bitchin' about the tutorial. The game already made me its bitch (currently @ chapter #17).

Some changes between 6 & 7 feel a little bit decline, though. Like the "between missions" interface which requires more clicks than in 6. And the difficulty (on normal) feels lower than 6 too. And adding the "player" as a tactician feels pointless.

But still, this shit is addicting like crack.

Been awhile, but I think you can hold the shoulder button to speed through the sequences between missions, especially useful if you are repeating to avoid character deaths.

 

[Puukko]

My primary experience with weeb tactics being VC1/4, I just played the first couple hours of FEA and I really like it so far. This is a series I had been eyeing for years and years but was never too sure where to start. I know the criticisms levied towards Awakening and I was recommended Echoes, but Awakening is the one that left the biggest impression on me over the years which I think is reason enough to go with it. I went with hard classic but I am not masochistic enough to go ironman on my first playthrough so unit death simply means restarting the mission.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

My primary experience with weeb tactics being VC1/4, I just played the first couple hours of FEA and I really like it so far. This is a series I had been eyeing for years and years but was never too sure where to start. I know the criticisms levied towards Awakening and I was recommended Echoes, but Awakening is the one that left the biggest impression on me over the years which I think is reason enough to go with it. I went with hard classic but I am not masochistic enough to go ironman on my first playthrough so unit death simply means restarting the mission.

Are under the impression that Fire Emblem "hardcore players" do ironman runs and just keep going? The so called "hardcore" Fire Emblem players save scum and reset a fuck ton more than anyone. Someone dies? Reload old save. Miss a chest / item etc? reload save. So yapping on about ironman mode doesn't mean shit

 

[Endemic]

Are under the impression that Fire Emblem "hardcore players" do ironman runs and just keep going? The so called "hardcore" Fire Emblem players save scum and reset a fuck ton more than anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFcdqy_vP0o&list=PLPtcK2f-aIoT9WbxLMRByDhQjGVLxqz9e&index=2

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Are under the impression that Fire Emblem "hardcore players" do ironman runs and just keep going? The so called "hardcore" Fire Emblem players save scum and reset a fuck ton more than anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFcdqy_vP0o&list=PLPtcK2f-aIoT9WbxLMRByDhQjGVLxqz9e&index=2

1 guy playing is proof that "hardcore" Fire Emblems players don't savescum and reset? You have convinced me and I take back everything I have ever said.

 

[spekkio]

This is a series I had been eyeing for years and years but was never too sure where to start.

I've started with 3 on Snes (good but "bare-boned"), then played 4 (best for Snes), 5 (beautiful but brutally difficult to the point of autism sometimes), 6 & 7 for GBA... And yesterday I've started 8 (Sacred Stones). The moment I saw first battle animation I was like:

It's surprising how fun such simple mechanically game can be. For compison, I've quit Disgaea after couple of fights in sheer disgust, despite the gameplay / systems being "very complex". Maybe so, but I was like "this shit isn't even remotely fun".