Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[Endemic]

It's too bad he couldn't just take that engine and use it for his Vestaria Saga games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadokawa_Corporation owns it.

 

[dacencora]

Finished the DS Remake of FE1: Shadow Dragon. It was pretty good. I have seen lots of complaints on the art style and sprites, but I actually thought they were pretty charming, even if they were very different. I had no idea that Gaiden/Echoes had so much in common with the first FE, so that was kind of fun. The Pegasus Sisters don’t seem to have the same triangle mechanic that they do in SoV, so that was a little bit of a letdown, but overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. Three Houses was my first FE, and so far, still my favorite, but I liked the lighter focus on story in this one. (I actually liked 3H story quite a bit, but sometimes it’s ok to not have a super in-depth thing). I would say that the maps in SD are much more to my liking than SoV. Also the weapons triangle is superior to SoV’s strange system, in my opinion. I would say that SD is much better than the Alm chapters in SoV, but not quite as good as the Celica chapters in SoV. But again, overall, I had a fun time with SD. It was also quite a bit shorter than expected, it only took about 15 hours to beat. It kinda feels like I only barely scratched the surface in terms of weapon forging and stuff like that. I’ll probably play New Mystery soon.

 

[Morm]

I've never played a FE game, so I decided to try the DS remake of Shadow Dragon, and after playing a few hours (chapter 5, hard difficulty) I'm not thrilled at all.
The perma-death coupled with the fact that any unit can die very quickly forced me to play very defensively, turtling and advancing slowly toward the objective while abusing forts to recover HP with my wounded units. And the "bosses" are really boring, all you need to do is send your stronger and fully healed units at it and pray it doesn't one--shot you with critical hits. It's not even really difficult (for the moment), but just tedious.
Am I missing something ?

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Nope, that's just the nature of FE gameplay. There is so much going on in a map and maps go on for so long, that inevitably you're going to slip up and overextend a unit one more tile than you should have and then that unit gets eviscerated by multiple enemy units and killed, or one of your units is killed by a crit. So you wind up resetting. It is extremely difficult trying to progress through the game having lost a unit, because that is one less unit on the field (in a genre where your guys are almost always outnumbered), so that is a huge disadvantage, and can easily lead to softlocking your game because a level snowballs against you where eventually you just don't have enough guys to progress at all. Not literally impossible to beat, just practically impossible to beat in a timely manner. So the gameplay boils down to resetting which is painful if you are playing on console (or constantly making save states on emulator).

The implementation of "casual mode" in the 3DS Fire Emblem games was widely mocked, but I view it as an acknowledgement of the reality of FE game game design. The permadeath was an impediment to the series, not a well executed feature. Almost everyone resetted anyway, so allowing a unit to survive and just get taken out for this level allows the player to just move on with their life and save time. Permadeath only really works if you have a humongous pool of party members to draw from, and you can catch up replacement party members very quickly, so the death of a few party members isn't a game over (ie, Suikoden, Romancing Saga, etc).

 

[Puukko]

The limited rewinds in TH were also a welcome addition.

 

[dacencora]

As a newcomer to the series myself, I probably wouldn’t have kept playing the series if Shadow Dragon was my first. It’s not necessarily the best entry point in my opinion. The permadeath isn’t too bad in Shadow Dragon because it just throws units at you, but yeah it does suck if one of your veteran units gets one-shotted. Casual Mode is pretty sweet because it means that losing a key unit will make the battle harder, not the rest of the game. Three Houses and Echoes are both really well done, in my opinion, but Shadow Dragon has better maps. Echoes and Three Houses both have limited rewinds as well as casual modes (I prefer casual mode + highest difficulty, it makes for very interesting gameplay). Three Houses has a really in-depth unit customization mechanic that makes it a joy to play and replay.

As far as turtling goes, you can do it on some maps in Shadow Dragon, but you’ll get punished on other maps (the primary example being Endgame). I actually really enjoyed Endgame because it was satisfyingly difficult in comparison to the rest of the game. You had to set up chokepoints, but if you played it too cautious, your units would get locked behind doors. It had a Bishop with Swarm as well as multiple Manaketes. It also had two ballisticians including a square that would spawn a new ballistician every few turns. Overall I felt it was a nice sendoff for the game.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

The only game not properly mode for rolling with dead units is three houses, in that game you are only able to recruit during the first half of the game but it also gives you too many rewind uses so the game expects you to save scum. In contrast every other FE game gives you new units almost every chapter. I enjoy rolling with my mistakes because it makes the gameplay much better a consecutive playthroughs are always different.

That playtime is old, it's probably 800+hs now.

 

[Doktor Best]

So is FE Three Houses a worthy entry in your opinion? How is map quality, balancing etc?

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

I think i talked about in this same thread if i remember right. At the end of the day, what do you look for in FE? Do you enjoy grooming talking with you students, play house with them pairing them up with other units or are you for a tactical deep game? You will enjoy it more if you are in the first group, FE has gotten a big female fanbase for good reason.

Don't get me wrong, min maxing it's incredible fun but you will spend half your time or more in the monastery and you only need to pay attention on maddening, hard is a fucking cakewalk. It's also fun as fuck making and satisfying making a unit work in some other class that on paper it shouldn't work. I say that you should do your first run on hard which is the old normal but to me is on maddening where the game really shines.

Some routes are really similar between each other but i don't really want to spoil much and the first part of the game is the same on every route so it gets tiresome doing it each playthrough.

I say it's definitely worth it, but Fe Conquest will always be number 1 for me, no other FE is so poilished gameplay wise also you should play it with the fan translation, NoA butchered characters so much that they couldn't release some dlc for the game because it wouldn't make sense.

This is Shamir's review of the game.

 

[Endemic]

The perma-death coupled with the fact that any unit can die very quickly forced me to play very defensively, turtling and advancing slowly toward the objective while abusing forts to recover HP with my wounded units. And the "bosses" are really boring, all you need to do is send your stronger and fully healed units at it and pray it doesn't one--shot you with critical hits. It's not even really difficult (for the moment), but just tedious.
Am I missing something ?

What difficulty level?

Also, you do get replacement characters if you fall below a certain number of units in SD, as well as the campaign naturally introducing new recruits as in the NES original.

 

[GhostCow]

So is FE Three Houses a worthy entry in your opinion? How is map quality, balancing etc?

Three Houses is my favorite because of the character customization. Map quality and balancing are average. You can definitely make some OP builds that abuse the hell out of the warp spell. The DLC has some pretty tough and interesting maps though.

 

[Puukko]

So is FE Three Houses a worthy entry in your opinion? How is map quality, balancing etc?

TH's outstanding aspect is the unit investment. It's such a long game you'll be putting a lot of effort into each one and there is lots of potential build variety. Maps are just average, OST is bangin', DLC is great, difficulty on hard was just a tad too easy (much tighter in the DLC, if only the entire game was like that), setting is based but monastery management will be a coin toss whether it's up your alley - a hefty chunk of the game is spent running around the hub. Story is an improvement over say, Awakening for sure but still has wasted potential.

 

[dacencora]

So is FE Three Houses a worthy entry in your opinion? How is map quality, balancing etc?

Three Houses was my first Fire Emblem, as well as my first SRPG, and really my first JRPG-style game too. I loved it so much that I stopped hating on anime and JRPGs in general. I realized that I had been woefully wrong.

It is a fantastic game. The maps aren’t as good as in Shadow Dragon, imo, but they’re pretty fun. It’s Fire Emblem so it’s got that asymmetric balance that’s a blast to play.

Because I was coming from a place of reluctance regarding anime stuff, I didn’t do much of the supports lol, so I can’t really comment on the quality there, but of all the Fire Emblems I’ve tried so far, Three Houses certainly has my favorite cast.

I would say the main weakness for some people would be the monastery aspect. I really enjoyed it, but it may not be to everyone’s taste. Also Tea Time is great, but I can see why it wasn’t super popular lol. It could be a teensy bit cringey.

Edelgard is a monster of a unit, she was the map MVP like 90% of the time.

 

[Doktor Best]

I'm one of those who likes the slice of life part in Persona games so this is probably a game for me.

 

[Puukko]

I'm one of those who likes the slice of life part in Persona games so this is probably a game for me.

Time to date your students!

Well, not really, that aspect is the most tacked on thing you can imagine.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

Play tokimeki memorial, literally Persona without the combat. You have to min max your daily routine to get best girl. Got a translation for Famicom last month and that game had a huge cultural impact in gaming culture.

The funny thing is that Igarashi worked on ir.

 

[dacencora]

Well I started New Mystery on Lunatic and I got promptly and properly torn apart. I got stuck on Prologue VI lol. I am not that good at Fire Emblem. I decided I wanted to go through Three Houses again in preparation for the Three Houses Warriors game, and I can see why people say that Three Houses is so much easier. I started the Cindered Shadows DLC because I’ve never done it yet and I guess I kinda got used to old school FE because it was a little shock how different it is in 3D, as well as realizing that Three Houses doesn’t use the Weapons Triangle. In all honesty, I think I might prefer the smaller 2D maps of Shadow Dragon and New Mystery (not Echoes, lol, those are not very interesting for some reason).

Anyways, I’ll probably end up restarting New Mystery sometime later but on a more comfortable difficulty. Lunatic really makes it tough to choose a class for Kris, because only a few will survive Prologue I, unless I’m just that bad at FE lol.


Also, man the performance is bad on Three Houses on the Switch, huh? Long loading times and sluggish map scrolling are pretty miserable after how snappy and responsive the DS games are.

 

[deuxhero]

Playing DQM2 remake on Citra. This game is weirdly designed. It has loads of convenience features (menu warps to everywhere, sorting options aplenty) but misses some very basic ones (can't see what a skill actually does without going into the in-game library menu behind a loading screen, making fusion breeding annoying for no reason. Or how you can warp to any world from the hub, but only to its entrance so you need to wait for the game to load then warp right away). Likewise mechanics are either very clear, or totally opaque (what does Wisdom do? Is this one of the DQ games where it only determines MP growth or does it boost spells? What's boosted by wisdom and what's boosted by strength?) with no in-between. That monster breeding (basically fusion that requires a male and female monster) produces a level 1 offspring that's way more powerful than a normal level 1 monster makes it really hard to tell how powerful you need to be, meaning you'll almost certainly overshoot it and be overleveled, but newly recruited monsters are basically useless and exist purely as fusion fodder since their innates will virtually never be useful for their skill sets (for example: boosting healing magic but not having any healing magic). It's not like it's because it's a remake where certain things are baked in: Most mechanics and large sections of plot were changed entirely so only the level estimating issue is really a fault of the original.

 

[Viata]

Play tokimeki memorial, literally Persona without the combat

So this is what playing Persona does to people.

 

[deuxhero]

Playing DQM2 remake on Citra. This game is weirdly designed. It has loads of convenience features (menu warps to everywhere, sorting options aplenty) but misses some very basic ones (can't see what a skill actually does without going into the in-game library menu behind a loading screen, making fusion breeding annoying for no reason. Or how you can warp to any world from the hub, but only to its entrance so you need to wait for the game to load then warp right away). Likewise mechanics are either very clear, or totally opaque (what does Wisdom do? Is this one of the DQ games where it only determines MP growth or does it boost spells? What's boosted by wisdom and what's boosted by strength?) with no in-between. That monster breeding (basically fusion that requires a male and female monster) produces a level 1 offspring that's way more powerful than a normal level 1 monster makes it really hard to tell how powerful you need to be, meaning you'll almost certainly overshoot it and be overleveled, but newly recruited monsters are basically useless and exist purely as fusion fodder since their innates will virtually never be useful for their skill sets (for example: boosting healing magic but not having any healing magic). It's not like it's because it's a remake where certain things are baked in: Most mechanics and large sections of plot were changed entirely so only the level estimating issue is really a fault of the original.

Realized that reads as a bit harsh, it's just there's some vexing design choices for the good ones and lots of lag in overworld (and I can tell this is console accurate because turbo mode still works, doubling the dropped frame rate). A lot of the actual parts are perfectly fine and the overworld mechanics are great: Monsters are visible on the field and have developed behavior rather than all wander in a room waiting for the player with some species attack other species, some sleeping till the player gets near their front, and even different patterns for going after the player when they spot them. Something that's surprisingly rare is that rather than immediately attack you after the previous battle, or disappear when the room reloads after battle like many games do with field visible encounters, multiple nearby encounters get merged if you trigger a fight with multiple enemies nearby. The monsters on the field are also very interactive: In addition to movement, you have four options always available that are linked to one of the buttons on the d-pad. Up causes the player character to shout, which scares most monsters if used from behind causing them to flee and sometimes drop their dropped item without fighting. Right whistles, which attracts monsters to the player (mostly useful for forcing monsters that hide or fly above you to come and attack you). Down crouches, lowering the range enemies can spot you (?) and left dances (I'm not sure what this does).

Another odd choice I didn't mention though: There's way too many skill sets you can get for how few skills there are (or, at least, how many skills the game gives early monsters). You can only give physical move+stats effect, stats buff magic, status inducing moves, instant kill spell, and HP half spell in so many combinations, especially since most of these are useless (at least at this stage in the game: Monsters with effective defense are few and far between while many ones with reasonable damage are still present, so even if they aren't immune to any fancy stuff why not just kill them?). Magic is in its own seperate issue in that there's too few skill sets granting it: You've either got the X & Y series that gives you the single target spells of one element and multi-target spells of a second, the "Fire" and similar lines that give you the single hit target spells of one element and non-spell fire techniques (fire element physical damage), and a few heal lines (specializing in condition removal or HP restoring). These are actually oddly uncommon even though monsters with casting focused stats are relatively common. There's also various skill trees that boost stats and/or give passives, but these are obviously imbalanced between each.

 

[Alan]

I like Super Mario RPG. Very entertaining non-stop. Didn't expect the combat to go faster than Paper Mario

Lovely graphics and sound

 

[dacencora]

Finished up the Cindered Shadows campaign. I was expecting to love it based on glowing reviews and the fact that Three Houses has long been one of my favorite games. I found it somewhat lacking, truth be told. While the maps had some pretty fun elements, I found them weaker than Shadow Dragon. Cindered Shadows also does not have the class building of the main game, nor does it have any of the social elements. I thought the storyline was fairly weak as well. I really liked the new classes, they’re great and I’m sure they’ll make a great addition to the main game. The most fun map was probably Chapter 6, with the constant health drains and dangerous enemy placement. My least favorite map was the final map. It was mostly just a slog. I have very mixed feelings on the campaign. It wasn’t as good as Shadow Dragon or Three Houses, IMO. It reminded me more of the Alm chapters in Echoes, which I wasn’t a huge fan of.

I also started Atelier Sophie and I’m quite taken with it. I like the slow pace and the alchemy is a ton of fun. It’s got one of the better explore->loot->craft gameplay systems that I’ve played. We’ll see if my enthusiasm stays but it’s very fun for me right now.

 

[Puukko]

Finished up the Cindered Shadows campaign. I was expecting to love it based on glowing reviews and the fact that Three Houses has long been one of my favorite games. I found it somewhat lacking, truth be told. While the maps had some pretty fun elements, I found them weaker than Shadow Dragon. Cindered Shadows also does not have the class building of the main game, nor does it have any of the social elements. I thought the storyline was fairly weak as well. I really liked the new classes, they’re great and I’m sure they’ll make a great addition to the main game. The most fun map was probably Chapter 6, with the constant health drains and dangerous enemy placement. My least favorite map was the final map. It was mostly just a slog. I have very mixed feelings on the campaign. It wasn’t as good as Shadow Dragon or Three Houses, IMO. It reminded me more of the Alm chapters in Echoes, which I wasn’t a huge fan of.

I also started Atelier Sophie and I’m quite taken with it. I like the slow pace and the alchemy is a ton of fun. It’s got one of the better explore->loot->craft gameplay systems that I’ve played. We’ll see if my enthusiasm stays but it’s very fun for me right now.

The reason I liked the DLC was precisely due to its contained, condensed nature. Hefty increase in difficulty, limited resources, pre-made party with all three house leaders, never being certain what would be up next.

 

[dacencora]

The reason I liked the DLC was precisely due to its contained, condensed nature. Hefty increase in difficulty, limited resources, pre-made party with all three house leaders, never being certain what would be up next.

And certain maps, such as the aforementioned Chapter 6 utilize that to great effect. It is my opinion, personally, that the condensed, difficult (subjective), contained adventure was more successfully executed with Shadow Dragon. It’s likely that I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t just played Shadow Dragon.

 

[spekkio]

BROs, finished Fire Emblem Echoes - Shadows of Valentia

After the catastrophic failure that FE14 - Fates turned out to be, I was very worried about trying the next installment. After all, this game gets a lot of BAWWW from reviewers, due to many reasons (copying of "ancient" mechanics, shitty maps, no weapon triangle, etc.). Fortunately all this turned out to be just another example of modern gamers' retardation, 'cuz the game is awesome, and easily one of the best Fire Emblems.



I'll try to disarm some BAWWWs below.

The Good:

• Fates changed many things and failed in all aspects, Echoes does the same, but succeeds in most areas.
• Gameplay is once again SIMPLE, YET FUN (I'm looking at you with disgust, FE10 & 14). (Almost) no skills for enemies, weapon-related skills for ownfags, no weapon triangle (or in case of Fates - Star of David), fewer jobs, etc. But at least you get the control over what's gonna happen during combat back. In previous Emblems (PoR, RD, Fates), the overreliance on and overimportance of skills had negative impact on gameplay - some skills were so broken, that they were making other mechanics obsolete. So you had to analyze multiple factors when making tactical decisions, which led to lack of control over the battle ("use units with best skill to win, or risk total failure"). I think this disarms BAAAW #1: "OMG, simplified gameplay!".
• Weapon triangle is missing, but the "gist" of it remains. Armorfags with high DEF can be killed almost exclusively by mages. Which are best dealt with by using bowfags (best units in the game, for fucking once!). Pegasus bitches are zombie- and mage-killers, cavalry is kinda universal, etc. So, every type of enemy still requires certain type of "counter" unit.
• A lot of smart design decisions. Mages use white and black magic almost from the beginning, Archers finally have decent range (2-4 squares), better weapons give penalty to SPD, but nothing more (Fates' approach is retarded in comparison). Actual Intelligent Systems for once.
• Decent characters and writing. Nothing mind-blowing, but still epic incline when compared to Awakening and especially Fates.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Loved character art and 3D models. Most characters have rather "realistic" design, only some of them are typical "big-eyed animu chicks". 3D models are great too, they have a lot of details like clothing, accessories (but not those retarded things from Fates, don't worry), etc. I think word "tasteful" can be used. Chicks (and Leon, who is gay) not only look sexy, but also move sexy as well. Shit's silly, but also cool AF.
• I actually liked "empty" maps (BAAAW #2). Sometimes big distance between you and enemy at the beginning of the mission feels weird, but at least you can use some movement-related tactics, instead of being swarmed by 100 enemies from the get-go, as in many other Emblems. And shit like forts, swamps, etc. is fucking crucial. I remember when I encountered first "strong witch", who sat her fat ass on some "+60 evasion" tile and started raping my units, who were unable to even touch her. Rages were had.
  
  The final battle is irritating interesting not only due to overpowered enemies (see below), but also the map (boss is hidden in an alcove at the end of a long corridor filled with poisonous aids):
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Loved new approach to "reinforcements". Instead of entire armies appearing from outside the map and raping your anus in next turn (easy) or even same turn (hard), in Echoes new units get summoned by "conductors". Infinitely (BAAAW#3). Want to stop new units from appearing? Kill enemy summoner ASAP. This shit works and is fun. OFC if you take your time, you can end up with kill lists like these, even during "simple" missions:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• New item / equipment system is... different. Weapons work more like accessories, giving your units stat bonuses and 2-3 skills. And since you can equip only one, you're forced to choose them wisely. But it's actually not so complicated: weapons for brawlers, MAG-related accessories for mages, and that's p. much it.
  
  
  
  
  
• New forging system is decent and miles better than shit used in Fates. You need coins to use it (can be a problem - grindan can be required), but at least you can make stronger weapons from weaker ones. So, you can use a shitty Iron Sword as a base, and upgrade it up to Silver Sword or Brave Sword (which works like Killer Sword in this game). Nice.
• 3D dungeons which you can explore for items and "random" encounters are actually really fun IMO, no idea what people were BAAAWing (#4) here. Most of these are optional as well. They can be the most challenging areas too, since you can only use up to 10 units there (compared to "all units" during "overworld missions").
• Level-ups are kinda "conservative" for a change, which is a refreshing change from previous games (FE6-13). Most of the time you'll get only 2-3 stat increases, situations like these are super-rare (except for both protags):
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  And if someone has low DEF or RES, he/she will keep sucking in this stat no matter what you do (job promotions are the only exceptions - units can get decent boost to DEF or RES when advancing class).

Okay, that's more than enough methinks.

The Bad:

• Interface is kinda weird. For example, equipping items can require more clicks than necessary, since it works more like "swapping" items between units, than equipping something by a unit. If you want to equip sth, you won't get info about how doing it will affect your stats. See below:
  
  
  
  
  
  I have Silver Sword selected in item list, yet there's no info about how changing current equipment (Beloved Zofia) will affect Celica's stats (+12 to ATK & -1 to SPD). Feels ultra weird and is inferior to what we had before (but FE devs sure love to change sth in the menus with each new game...).
• ???

The Ugly:

• Enemies rely too much on "unholy" units (Terrors) which are separate type of enemies, and some allies are much better at dealing with them (mages, unicorndykes) than others (brawlers).
• Skill system is totally redundant. Going for double attack is almost always better idea than using a skill, plus skills are bound to items, so there's almost no point of learning them, except maybe the ones hidden in strongest weapons.
• Archers are imba AF. They are crucial when dealing with enemy mages, conductors and archers, so it's wise to use at least two of them all the time. And once they hit decent levels of SPD and LCK, plus you forge Brave Bows for them, they become almost unstoppable:
  
  
  
  
  
• The entire "food + fatigue" system is total waste of time, since you can cure fatigue at Mila Altars easily (pour any alcohol).
• DLCs are kinda meh TBH, esp. when compared to Awakening.
• Final battle has a huge difficulty bump: 4 conductors, two of them super-resilient to attacks, other units not too shabby as well. If you don't go cheap (strong archer moves into enemy range, attacks the conductor, gets pulled back by a mage with "rescue", repeat 20 times), shit can get tough (enemy owns your units with criticals).
• There are still some problems with emulation. One is minor ("ghosting" when running in dungeon), but another one is major. If you launch any of the two "biggest" DLCs (Cipher Legends), which include 4 bonus characters with voices loaded from DLC instead of the main rom, Citra will crash if you try to quicksave:
  
  
  
  
  
  You can still get this units, but you have to finish both missions without quicksaving, delete two biggest files in the "extdata" subfolder (game won't load saves if these files are present):
  
  
  
  
  
  And if you plan on using bonus characters - mute voices in options (or the game will again crash during quicksave).

Verdict: and one of the best games in series. Together with 4 (Holy War), 5 (Thracia), 7 (Blazing Blade a.k.a. first one released in US), 9 (Path of Radiance a.k.a. the newshit) & 12 (New Mystery a.k.a. the oldshit not released in US).

More pics inside

To my surprise, Clair reached the MVP top three, so there are only 2 archers there:

Protagonists weren't too bad either:

Took me almost 50 hrs on Hard:

But there's still a lot to do (post-game dungeon and "additional" ending):

Cheevos:

(game cleared)

(game cleared on Classic)

(game cleared on Hard)

(game cleared on Hard + Classic with 0 casualties)

(renown rank 10)

IMO not bad for playing blind:

Still TODO:
- some DLCs,
- two "protag dungeons", available via amiibo,
- bonus dungeon.



Having FE 3-15 completed, I know what's next on the menu. And you should too. Three... words:

In Kaga-sensei we trust.