The Fire Emblem Thread

[Delterius]

-- Anime was a Mistake.

 

[Deflowerer]

Looks pretty tasteful all things considered. At least it's not a loli.

But yeah, the waifu thing has become way too prominent.

 

[Siveon]

Sadly, it probably won't go away anytime soon. It's easy money, and pretty much free publicity.

 

[Morality Games]

I blame the doujinshi generation coming into its own. Once they made fanfics and distasteful art about Fire Emblem Lord characters taking their 14th century class, culture, and gender stratified army to the beach for summer break, NOW Fire Emblem lords really do take their (for all purposes) classless genderless cultureless army to the beach for summer break.

Good-bye, realism. Farewell, plausibility. We shall miss you, plotting.

 

[Mr. Pink]

I blame the doujinshi generation coming into its own. Once they made fanfics and distasteful art about a Fire Emblem Lord characters taking their army to the beach for summer break to the beach, NOW Fire Emblem armies really do go to the beach for summer break.

the blame for the direction of the FE series rests squarely on the massive female fanbase. More than half of the doujinshi in awakening is gay.

Fun things are fun though. Now I'm trying to capture as many maids as I can to make an all maid party for my streetpass.

 

[Siveon]

That, doesn't really sound fun at all.

 

[TigerKnee]

Looks pretty tasteful all things considered. At least it's not a loli.

For you

 

[Zetor]

Ugh. Is this 'support' shit completely optional at least? Like, can I just play through the game normally and not care about parking characters right next to each other to unlock fanservice_cutscene_01? Or do they actually give ingame bonuses that are necessary to complete the game on harder difficulties?

 

[TigerKnee]

They already said Swimsuits are in DLC, you would have to literally pay for it.

Standard supports are just storyline scenes between 2 characters, if it's the final S Rank then they get married. If it's your MC then you get the confession picture and that's it.

And yes, you do get bonuses because higher relationship ranks gives the characters stats bonuses when they are close to each other but hey, if that triggers you so much, people have beaten Fire Emblem games in 0 growth rate games so you can just be super hardcore about it.

 

[Zetor]

To clarify, I was talking about Fates (and maybe Awakening, too). I'm just playing through FE7 and I don't think the support thing came up even once (not even in a tutorial) even though I'm a few missions into Eliwood's campaign already.

The gameplay component doesn't really trigger me (unless it's really annoying to do, like "park the cleric next to the knight each turn, even if it's a tactically stupid choice"), but I'm not a big fan of face rubbing minigames and waifu shit in my sRPGs.

 

[Archibald]

Well you can skip it, but generally speaking thats how newer FE games are "supposed to be played". They keep selling much better than older titles so expect waifu shit to get more prominent with each new FE game.

 

[Zetor]

Mini-necro time!

Played through FE7, was pretty decent overall, except for the last boss fight. I only had 3 people who could even touch the dragon, and 2 of them would die to a follow-up attack on the next turn... and maybe 2-3 people who could do single-digit damage and get one-shot by the 100% counterattack. This with my 'A Team' using the best weapons they could get, because most of my team barely got any str/mag during level-ups (Lyn ended the game with like... 7 str, and that's as a level 10 in her elite class). Not a fan of RNG character progression, is all I'm saying. I'm also not feeling the entire support system: I tried to keep 'compatible' people next to each other, and I only unlocked a conversation between Eliwood/Hector and one between Lyn/Florina with regular play, ie. not passing turns deliberately just to increase support levels. How do people get all those S/A/B ranks? Do they just pass 50+ turns per battle with just 1 enemy remaining, or something?

 

[Elthosian]

Yeah, you've got to leave the characters next to each other for a while (depends on how much the chars like each other but generally its like 15 turns for C rank, 30 for B rank and 50 for A rank) in the GBA games in order to unlock support convos and bonuses, also note that each character can only have 5 conversations, meaning having too many C rank supports will block you out of getting to A with any of them.

 

[Gozma]

You can get the faster supports playing naturally, but you have to basically adopt a "support playstyle" to keep units paired up for it, and pick tactically compatible units too. When there are units that have no reasonable way to move together (like a fat knight and a horse knight or something) there's no natural way to make it happen. Plus sometimes there are garbage turns (e.g. some people had to go rescue a town at the start of the map that are now too far from the goal to help, so they can't impact anything in the battle) and you might as well get support turns then.

I remember I did a winning ranked game in FE7 a long time ago and I had a C support or two on most characters, with a few Bs/As on people that had ideal setups. And the FE7 turns rank was pretty hard because of bugs.

I think the support thing was pretty awful design for story people (so much crappy anime writing locked behind tedium!) but as far as giving you an excuse to use pairs/triplets of units as recurring tactical squads it was OK.

 

[Zetor]

Yea... I just read a FAQ and it seems that most supports either take an insane amount of time (getting 80/160/240 support points for rank C/B/A with a gain of 1/turn? 2 is a bit better, but it's still a non-starter for anything above C). There are a handful of support combos that give 3 or 4 per turn, but even that is like 50+ turns, plus most of those are tactically stupid -- why'd I have my two axemen next to each other each turn... heck, why'd I have them both deployed in the first place unless I'm fighting a horde of lancers? Ditto with the three pegasus knights.

The semi-decent ones I can see are things like priest+caster, too bad both Serra and Erk were absolutely awful in my run (I tried to level Erk as much as possible, and Pent demolished him in stats even though I just included him in the 'required' plot battles; Serra was trrbl compared to either Priscilla or Lucius). Archer + non-mounted melee is OK too, but there aren't too many of those.. same with two melee units of different weapon classes as long as neither of them is mounted (so basically Eliwood/Hector... until Eliwood gets promoted, that is)

e: I guess my main beef is that a lot of this stuff is metagaming / FAQ fodder. Sure, some good support matchups are obvious, but I only got the option to even see everyone's support options once I was 2/3 through the game.... and even then I didn't see which of the combos only give 1 point (so basically no chance of getting it completed without grinding) or something more reasonable.

 

[Siveon]

e: I guess my main beef is that a lot of this stuff is metagaming / FAQ fodder. Sure, some good support matchups are obvious, but I only got the option to even see everyone's support options once I was 2/3 through the game.... and even then I didn't see which of the combos only give 1 point (so basically no chance of getting it completed without grinding) or something more reasonable.

You'll find that lot of stuff from this era was really reserved for FAQ's and strategy guides. God save your soul if you want to 100% any JRPG on the PS2. For FE7 in particular, there was barely any mention of the support system at all. Hell, looking at the manual, the thing covers everything but the support system (even how damage is calculated!). I would simply treat the supports as extras rather than a main game mechanic. Trying to actually use them instead of just playing the game and only sometimes pair up units purposely, is just boring.

That's not to say I like the alternative in FE:A, where pair-up = win.

Though, I am curious as to how you got such low stats on Lyn. Typically, if you advance at the optimal rate of level 20, you'd at least get above 7 STR. The RNG isn't that damning.

 

[Zetor]

You'll find that lot of stuff from this era was really reserved for FAQ's and strategy guides. God save your soul if you want to 100% any JRPG on the PS2. For FE7 in particular, there was barely any mention of the support system at all. Hell, looking at the manual, the thing covers everything but the support system (even how damage is calculated!). I would simply treat the supports as extras rather than a main game mechanic. Trying to actually use them instead of just playing the game and only sometimes pair up units purposely, is just boring.

That's not to say I like the alternative in FE:A, where pair-up = win.

Though, I am curious as to how you got such low stats on Lyn. Typically, if you advance at the optimal rate of level 20, you'd at least get above 7 STR. The RNG isn't that damning.

Oh yeah, I didn't really care about the support stuff (and the only in-game mention was some tutorial NPC in a house saying "you should have good compatibility with your companions" or whatever), it's just a poorly-implemented and needlessly opaque system IMO. I also suspect that getting good supports is necessary to make it through the hardmodes...

As for Lyn: I have no idea either. She had insane speed and skill (and luck I think), but that doesn't do much when you're still hitting the enemy for 0 damage using the best weapon possible for the situation. Her HP was very low too, so exposing her to frontline combat was a liability -- dodge or not, all it took was a magic user or a high-skill enemy to put the hurt on her. She did not hit level 20 before I promoted her (was around 12-13 I think?), but I figured I may as well use that heaven seal with only 3 battles to go to at least get SOME improvement in her stats.

Actually in retrospect many of my 'A Team' had really bad stats. Exceptions were Hector (dude was a monster in every way possible), Canas (my only caster with decent speed and damage, way better supporter than Serra btw), Dorcas (52-hp monstrosity with very good skill and strength.. his defenses were crap, but that's a solvable problem, just had a healer glued to him), Wil was really powerful in most encounters (except for the last fight, again... 0 damage against both end-bosses with the top-of-the-line S-rank bow looted from one of the morphs). Eliwood wasn't terrible with good dodge and skill/speed/luck with decent str, but he got eaten alive by magic attackers. I think Kent also had like 9 strength, but he had good defenses so I used him as a meatshield in a lot of cases. Aside from the ones already listed, the only character with decent str was uhh... Oswin? If it wasn't for Athos and Nils giving him extra turns, my pitiful group would've become dragon chow in 3 turns no matter what I tried (I didn't bring the magic water consumables, but it would've just delayed the inevitable.. plus I assume the dragon would just breath on the people who didn't use it).

 

[Siveon]

Ah, there's the problem. Fire Emblem (the good ones i.e the linear ones) is very fickle with it's EXP*, so if you don't purposefully try to even things out you'll gimp some characters over others. Especially if you make the higher levels fight more (which lowers the amount of EXP you get in general). It's just another thing you get used to when you play multiple games in the series.

Just as well, I always level my Lords over other units. They're always required, and they always kick some ass if you reach level 20 and upgrade them. Except maybe Roy (FE6). He always kind of sucks, for some reason. In many cases you have to go out of your way to take higher risks to properly level your characters. Since Lyn is basically a myrmidon that relies on crits, she would be one of the hardest to level if you didn't have the foresight to know she was going to be harder to level (like, making her kill all of the bosses in her mode). There's also the fact that certain units, even halfway through the game, have better RNG chances than others. For example, I recall Dorcas actually being considered one of the worst axemen in terms of his general stats compared to the other two non-upgraded units.

Yeah, it's pretty much only stuff you'll get with searching it online or having some kind of meta-knowledge. At least now you know for the hard mode and other, more difficult, games in the series. I don't think you'd get very far in some of them if you didn't know at least about the whole Lord thing. Speaking of hard modes, I can confirm that the supports aren't needed there either. In fact, in Hector's Hard Mode, some of the units get stat boosts to compensate for the enemy stat boosts (Hector's mode is the harder mode compared to Eliwood's).

*

Unless you arena abuse. Which is also pretty damn boring.

 

[Zetor]

Lots of good info there, thanks! So I should level up lords first (by killing bosses), but let the other party members take on the trash (to get more xp) and try to stick to a single A-Team instead of rotating members in/out, right?

I've just started FE6, and it does feel a bit harder than 7 starting out (but that may just be because Lyn's missions were basically a glorified tutorial). I actually thought someone was gonna die in the first map -- mostly because everyone except Marcus kinda sucks, and my FE7 flashbacks of his XP-stealing antics forced me to give his weapons to someone else and have him act as a non-combatant (meatshield / carrier / "pick shit up from villages/shops" person) in every mission where he's a mandatory participant... guessing he's also another "noob trap".

 

[Siveon]

Pretty much, preupgraded characters tend to be shit in their stat growths and generally just make the game harder than necessary. Some units are the exception, like the overpowered Seth the Paladin in FE8. It's been said, and proven, that you can solo a good portion of the game with just him.
Just as well, Lords tend to have some of the best growths (this is that RNG thing I was talking about), but again - Roy didn't fare too well in that regard.

And yes, constantly rotating members in/out is a good way to waste EXP. This is why it's better to let the Lords do a bit more work than usual. Within reason, of course, don't want to get a game over. Choosing which units to use is mostly a personal matter otherwise (again, usually not going for a pre-upgraded unless you're desperate for that certain class). I just try to diversify as much as I can class-wise, and try not to fawn too much over stats and stat-growths. At least not for the first play-through.

 

[grudgebringer]

So... apparently US version of Fates won't include those petting scenes. I wonder what EU department is going to do about it.

 

[Abu Antar]

Probably the same thing to save those Germans from harm.

 

[HotSnack]

Popularise a series by creating a degenerate fanbase with Awakening, then snub the fanbase your new games pander to in order to pander to another group of degenerates. GG nintendo.

 

[Elthosian]

And nothing of value was lost, series died to me the moment they decided to ditch all of the mechanics they had implemented with the GC/Wii games, can't say I care about them going potato with the fanbase of the new entries.

Tear Ring Saga improved translation seems kind of dead so I might as well get with it already despite the lack of proofreading in the current one, shame about Berwick and Vestaria probably not getting any at all in the near future tho.

 

[Archibald]

You preserved long, many people said fuck it after Sacred Stones.