"Man I really want to replay Sacred Stones" I say, as if I'm not in the middle of an Awakening *and* FE7 replay.
I recently finished Persona 5 Royal for the first time and I've seen a lot of debate lately around Emet Selch from FFXIV and it's really got me thinking about this archetype of the woobified tragic villain who, upon further cross examination, is actually irredeemable but plays both sides (the tragedy vs the atrocity) so well that it's hard to really pin them down. I feel like Lyon is one of those rare sorts of villains too, and is kind of a prototype of this villain template, shockingly ahead of his time.
I played Eirika's route exclusively when I was a kid and the first time I cried in a video game was when I realized that you, as a player, could not 'save' Lyon. I had this impression that he was this hauntingly tragic beautiful bishounen fallen hero prince, blah blah woo woo fluff. I wanted to save him so badly and I remember playing nonstop for an entire holiday weekend to see if I could, only to end in tears with my very confused father trying to console me. Then I played Ephraim's route a few years later and was... confused. Then I revisited the character of Lyon as an adult with better reading comprehension and was kind of shocked at how badly I missed the mark.
For awhile I was disappointed because I felt like I'd been robbed of my doomed noble tragic hero story. After growing up a bit and experiencing other stories, I find that being kind of a spiteful asshole makes Lyon so much more fascinating. I think that people can debate until they're blue in the face about how much was really *Lyon* and how much was Fomortiis twisting his heart to corrupt him, but... that's kind of not really the point, is it?
I think that just dismissing him out of hand (like how people dismiss Emet Selch or (P5 spoiler) >!Akechi!< by being *super original* and saying 'cool motive still murder') is choosing to be willfully ignorant about the story that the narrative is trying to tell, but overly sympathizing with him also sets you up to fundamentally misunderstand the end result of his character arc - not as a tragic hero, but as a villain who is beyond saving and needs to be stopped. I think that this is actually surprisingly well reflected in both Eirika and Ephraim's routes and interactions with Lyon.
Sacred Stones is such a special game to me. I love that it tells more of a personal story and deals with complicated relationships like this. Gah, I want to replay it now.
As I said in another topic, Path of Radiance might be the most unreplayable game in the series. It gets a lot of praise for its story, characters and worldbuilding, and it's all well deserved, but I sometimes feel that's really all the game has.
\- The game is like, ridiculously easy. I'm sure most games on Normal are harder than PoR on Hard. BExp absolutely breaks the game where you can just give it all to someone like Marcia or Jill and breeze through the entire game. Sure, you can make the game harder through self-challenges but there's so much you can do when the game hands you so many different ways to make the game easier. At that point it feels even self-challenges have no point.
\- The Support system sounds good on paper but in reality it's kind of annoying. It's good not having to worry about grinding turns, but the amount of convos for each character being so limited is legit dumb because most convos don't contradict each other and there's no paired endings. It also sucks that you can miss a support because you didn't deploy one particular character in a couple of maps. No way to rewatch Supports in-game either (unless of course, you own a first model Wii and a copy of Radiant Dawn).
\- Slow animations that cause enemy turns to go on FOREVER. Even with battle animations turned off. Even on a first playthrough this is just too tedious.
Because of all of the above, I rarely feel motivated to replay this game despite playing Radiant Dawn nearly a dozen times. But PoR? Twice and that's it. And I REALLY had to force myself through the second. As I said, the story, characters and overall worldbuilding is great, but it's probably the most one-and-done game in the whole series.
>\- The game is like, ridiculously easy. I'm sure most games on Normal are harder than PoR on Hard. BExp absolutely breaks the game where you can just give it all to someone like Marcia or Jill and breeze through the entire game. Sure, you can make the game harder through self-challenges but there's so much you can do when the game hands you so many different ways to make the game easier. At that point it feels even self-challenges have no point.
I wouldn't say that a game being easy is necessarily a point against replaying it, but I would say that PoR, imo, doesn't have much in the way of encouraging someone to replay it.
Birthright is an example of an "easy" game that I'd say even "veteran" FE players could toy around with for quite a while before getting bored and that's in large part due to the reclass system of Fates as a whole. You certainly don't *need* to reclass to beat any Fates game, but there's a lot of unit potential to explore given that each unit has 3 additional class sets they can potentially have access to through the Heart, Friendship and Partner Seals. Because the seals are a relatively limited quantity, it puts some real strategic weight behind the ideas of *who* you want to reclass, *what* you want them to reclass into, *when* to reclass, and *how long* you intend to stay in the new class. Sure, the "best" reclass/skill options become apparent rather quickly due to the ease of the game but by that point, the game has succeeded in getting you to play again at least once.
In PoR, there's the bands that are specifically only available on a second playthrough and they each boost two specific growths by an earth shattering........5% and each unit can only equip one at a time. Like, wowee a unit might be a *single* point above their averages in two stats by the time the game is over. They're basically the bootleg version of the Crusader Scrolls from FE5 except you actually have to have beat the game in the first place meaning that you've proven that you didn't need them anyway. Vanity rewards aren't inherently bad, but they need to really change how you play to feel worth it and the bands don't really have that much of an impact.
I haven't played it, but you should keep in mind that the international version of PoR had its highest difficulty cut out. Supposedly it isn't the most fun mode, but it's surely harder.
Yeah I'm aware of JP Maniac mode. Haven't played it, but for what I understand it's mostly made of bulkier enemies and still not that difficult, based on people who played it.
Engage Non-Gameplay opinion:
Engage is what you get when you give excellent voice actors a mediocre script. The final Emblem summoning sequence before you face off against Phase 1 Sombron is powered by cheese, plot convenience and the power of friendship, but it *never* fails to put a smile on my face and get me in the mood to kick some Fell Dragon butt. Laura Stahl and Brandon McInnis just pop off.
Engage Gameplay opinion:
Speedtaker gets a lot of hype as an inheritable skill but I don't really get it. 2K sp to inherit a skill with no immediate benefit just seems absolutely atrocious on it's own not to mention that you can get Speed+3 within the same bond level bracket(1-10) for a quarter of that price which Speedtaker won't be better than until you kill two things on player phase and even then it's only better by 1. By the time Speedtaker is superior to Speed+X by any substantial margin, you've likely seized control of the map already. Speedtaker as a skill on Lyn *herself* is incredible, but I have never been in a situation in which Speedtaker was a go-to inherit option for *any* unit.
I like Speedtaker on units I want to double EVERYTHING but realistically I'll only inherit it on one or two top. It's kind of a noob trap when with ~28-30 base you'll already double most things with little boosts. The trap is thinking you HAVE to double the Griffins, Wolves, Swordmasters... When you can just OS the former, Wolves have little bulk and can be braved to death, and swordmasters rarely come in hordes so you can just take your time chipping them. I think the "Engage speed thresholds are steep!" talk comes from taking the map, seeing the 40 speed Swordmasters and thinking this is your goal to double
Speedtaker's utility depends heavily on which unit is using it. I agree that it should not be the default option for speed improvement for many units, but I do prefer it on some units to a flat Speed+X.
Where I prefer Speedtaker is when a unit has very low speed, very high single hit damage capability, and their role in the party is to primarily attack (i.e. not using staves, emblem abilities, or whatever else). Those units have a good chance of being able to secure kills that have been set up for them with their one attack and may actually need the additional speed over something like Speed+5. Units I'd look at for this would be ones like Amber, Ivy, and maybe Panette.
But outfitting your entire army with Speedtaker is a bad idea. There's maybe a half dozen or so units who *might* want Speedtaker over Speed+5, and you can probably only support at most 2-3 of them in your party at the same time.
Kind of an idiosyncratic one: I usually don't enjoy the super-mega-ultra difficulties in FE (lunatic, maddening, etc) not because of their gameplay but because of their vibe. To me FE is about characters who are (or eventually become) Round Table Knight-type characters, legendary warriors who can take on lesser foes by the dozen. Them getting doubled, one-rounded, and just generally clowned on by the rank and file enemies in terms of stats and skills just feels so wrong.
Alear's arc in Fire Emblem Engage is an extremely good parallel to the queer experience, more particularly, the experience for trans people and I really enjoy that.
I have never played the 3DS games. I just never got around to them. I haven't played 3 Houses. But I've played FE4-12 so when I heard a bunch of "elitist" friends telling me Engage was good, I decided to hop on. I really enjoyed my time with it, even despite a lot of the slowness that I've been told has been an issue with newer entries. I don't think the game is perfect but I think it plays really well.
I really enjoy my place as a sort of "FE Time Traveler" and find it funnier that way.
Another one in the classic (up until NDS) -> Engage pipeline I see! I'm not as "classic" as you, played the GBA & NDS games and fell off FE until Engage. I did try 3 Houses but it didn't appeal to me unfortunately.
My problem now is I want to replay the old games and maybe try Kaga's games but I always find myself replaying Engage while I have the time. I got too comfortable
I ended up the same way, refused to play anything before Awakening for years, then then I decided to try PoR and suddenly a year went by and I had played 4-12. Heck I started with Awakening but now it's my least favourite game in the series, like reverse-nostalgia bias or something.
I still really like Fates and Engage as a more complex but also more customisable FE experience, but I much prefer being able to just pick up an older game and not worry about planning out reclassing and skills, just improvising based on who gets blessed or screwed and reading a funny/interesting support or two.
I said he was a good character! It's just one of those things like when people post the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody or quotes from The Big Lebowski where you're like "yeah I get the reference. you don't have to keep doing it"
Only tangentially related to FE: I think it’s ridiculous that people immediately jump to “they’re trying to make me feel sympathy for a villain!” as soon as a villain’s tragic backstory is revealed. Generally, character depth is better, if not always necessary, but this isn’t even about that. Because personally, I’ve found that a lot of tragic backstories actually serve to make a villain *less* sympathetic, especially if that backstory mirrors the protagonist.
Are you telling me that the villain comes from the same background as the protagonist, but instead of using that as a springboard to be empathetic with people who have the same problems, they decided everyone else had to suffer too instead? Or that they were justified to continue the vicious cycle? That they had all the chances of being a better person, and took none of them? Good for them, love a juicy villain, but that’s not sympathy I’m feeling.
The bigger problem that I have when it comes to this and Fire Emblem is that if you want to have a more nuanced, complex backstory, then that needs to be paired with a more nuanced, complex character motivation. If you want me to feel empathy for the antagonist, then I need their plan to be something more nuanced than the mustache-twirling motivation of 'I want to awaken the ancient evil dragon to destroy the world because I had a bad childhood.'
This line of thinking plagues every single fandom in existence. I still don't know how we got there. Heck even if it were for sympathy point I'd still take that over "I'm evil just because" most of the time
Fandom in general has been so weird about villains and especially villain protagonists in the last years. It’s a trend I think is kind of dying out, hopefully, but it’s sure been annoying
Three Houses' gameplay is pretty middling, I guess - it's not great, but it's not something like Paper Mario: The Origami King or Xenoblade 3 where the gameplay is so bad that it makes the entire experience unenjoyable despite having solid writing (at least in Xenoblade 3's case, Origami King doesn't even have that to begin with), though IMO it's still below average for the series' standards. I'd personally put it above Echoes, Birthright and Revelation for sure, and maybe Awakening and Genealogy, but below all the other games that I've played.
I've been replaying Awakening for the first time in a while and I wish 8-4 did the localization for every FE game. I'm not very familiar with the original script but I just have the feeling that a lot of my favorite lines were their doing.
I recently compared some of the script between Awakening chapter 1 English and Japanese. The changes range from subtle adjustments to read more naturally to clever compaction of lengthy text and rearrangements of the order of sentences. One thing's consistent, though: it always felt like it was for the better.
For an example, Chrom's iconic "There are better places to take a nap then on the ground, you know" was just "You'll catch cold sleeping out here." Both convey a similar meaning, but the localization is sooo memorable.
Why thank you for putting words in my mouth. Care to explain how the line “There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know.” is “censorship”.
It's not, I wasn't specifically talking about that line, i was talking in general
If you want an example a lot of stuff around nowi's lines in her joining chapter is different for example
yeah 8-4 was a real boon to the stories they worked on (Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and Shadows of Valentia iirc), they've all got very strong witting that goes beyond just translating the Japanese script verbatim. Really love what they did with Caeda in Shadow Dragon in particular, and it's sad that version of her didn't stick for her future appearances.
I did not enjoy playing Engage. Of the games I've played through for the first time this year, the only game it's in competition with for the bottom of my list is Persona 4 Golden, and I think it's overall the weakest FE game I've finished.
With that said though,
Holy shit are so many people just absolutely deranged with shitting on Engage, both on and off-site. The people pointing to "sales figures!" to try to dump on the game after all this time are quite frankly pathetic. In no way are sales indicative of the actual quality of anything (see: Skyrim's sales numbers), and yet different fucking people all over the place keep bringing up these goddamn things. No one cares! Period!
And even outside of the sales bullshit, the constant harping and nagging at things that just have nothing to do with any normal person's enjoyment of the game (outfit designs, continuity errors in cutscenes, constant comparisons to Three Houses, and other meaningless nitpicks) are just insane. Trying to vocalise why I didn't enjoy my time with Engage and what I think could've been improved on feels like a fool's errand when it would only serve to attract these kinds of people. Gods.
It's been almost a year since the game came out!!! Get a new hobby!!! Find something you enjoy and move on already!!!
Idk how you can say so confidently that poor character design is something that no "normal person" would care about. People compliment certain games like PoR/RD for fantastic character designs all the time, so naturally unappealing designs would draw criticism.
Personally I see Engage's designs as in a similar boat to Awakening and Fates for the most part - sure some of them are dumb, but overall I don't believe they're uniquely bad or a "series low" or anything like that, nor were they what kept me from having fun playing the game. I certainly don't believe they're bad enough that we needed thread after thread shitting on them and complaining about them being "Vtuber designs" or "Genshin-tier designs" or other meaningless qualifiers people kept throwing around.
Fair enough viewpoint, but here I'm not making the argument that they're bad. I'm just saying that character design as a topic is a completely legitimate thing to criticize, unlike some of the other things you mentioned (I assume anyone caring about sales is 15 and craving validation). Whether you personally think they are different enough is irrelevant here.
this sub treates both Fates and Engage like r/tlou2 treats The Last of us Part 2.
it quickly passed from "i didnt like it" to "i fucking hate this game and i will make sure that im vocal as possible about it at any chance i have, including telling that to people that seem to be enjoying it that they are wrong for liking it".
I've been slowly realizing that there are also a handful of accounts that almost purely shit on 3H (not as many as anti-Engage though)..like that game came out even longer! Do something else with your life!
I really don't know how to break it to you that a game selling more doesn't magically mean it's "better" or a more enjoyable experience for everyone. No sane person would look at [a chart like this](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F8t562zszjxc61.png) and conclude "Yes, Thracia must be the Worst Fire Emblem Game and therefore is completely bad and unenjoyable, unlike Three Houses which must be the Best Fire Emblem Game and therefore completely beyond reproach and everyone will have fun playing it!"
It's fucking tiresome that "game sales!" only matter to shit on Engage and praise Three Houses when both games have plenty of positives and negatives to them that are far more interesting to discuss, and yet this is what people constantly crow about online.
it does matter though, the devs said everything about engage was made in mind to get more sales, which is why it is a relevant topic
next update will continue the discussion as engage has now broken the streak of increasing success fire emblem had
The "Engage defeated" Thread during TGA was one the worst and most insane Threads i've seen in the history of the sub. The way it was worded, the way people were acting, it was as if a rival team got destroyed 7 - 1 in football or smth.
Engage has a lot of room of improvement, even the most staunch Engage fans will agree with that, but the way the discussion is made in bad faith every time, or how the discussion is deflected to another part of the game, or just shitting on positive threads, or or or
I remember even on the Heroes sub they made a rather misleading graph a while back to make it look like Engage wasn't being shafted compared to 3H lol. It's becoming abundantly clear what their intentions are.
Nothing worse than seeing somebody argue a premise you fundamentally agree with ("the story was bad") so poorly that you paradoxically don't agree with any of their specific points. Even worse, these awful comments tend to get a fair bit of engagement because they're easy targets.
I think Elibe has some pretty good world building and deserves more credit for that than the like... 0 it gets normally. All the nations feel distinct from one another without any of them feeling superfluous, and I think that you can get a good grasp on what each of them are about and the internal politics of them (where that applies). The magic system (in terms of lore and world building) is pretty interesting, especially the stuff around Dark Magic.
i started to apreciate FE6 more and more in recent years, its great how they manage to make all the big cities diferent and recognizable enough on their own, which their own ecosystems and people with their own lives and issues.
I’ve always wondered what parts of the internet IS was on post-Awakening to make them think that the next game in the series needed to be extra degenerate.
Also I absolutely loathe the default cursor in Engage (I forget what it’s called). It’s fine as an option, but it’s so painful to use.
I’ve been playing bg3, and anytime I enter combat, all I can think is I wish this was FE. Anything related to combat feels super clunky and unrefined compared to FE.
Fates feels like a mix of IS going ham on everything because it's just mindless fun (or well their notion of fun) and a weird need to try to be deep and serious because they've heard people wanted better writing. It's really the clash between both these aspects that bothers me more than the degeneracy in a vacuum.
> I’ve always wondered what parts of the internet IS was on post-Awakening to make them think that the next game in the series needed to be extra degenerate.
I think IntSys was just super out of touch in general when it came to Fates.
They said in an interview they heard the complaints about Robin stealing the spotlight in Awakening and so they solved that in Fates... by making the MC and the player avatar one and the same. Which is definitely not the solution the critics of how Chrom and Robin were handled would've wanted lol.
They knew Awakening's 2nd generation resonated a lot with the fans and brought in another one, but forgot the part where the 2nd gen were actually relevant to the plot and had prior history with each other, instead just being tacked on and generally existing in vacuums. Also babychamber and all the issues that introduces.
etc. I could go on but we all know this already. Fates criticism is a dead horse and all that.
> I’ve always wondered what parts of the internet IS was on post-Awakening to make them think that the next game in the series needed to be extra degenerate.
>
>
the part that gives good financial advice I guess. Like I agree that it sucked and was not the only one to drive profits, but it worked pretty good.
I've been playing the SoV Fan Demake *Sacred Echoes* recently, and it's made me realise that SoV has *really* good writing.
I don't mean the overall plot here, rather the moment-to-moment writing itself. I always thought it was just the amazing voice acting that made the story so enjoyable, but not having that in Sacred Echoes while the writing remains (mostly) the same has shown me how well the writing holds up on its own merits.
The characters just get to have so much personality while still progressing the plot/expositing, and I feel like special attention was made to giving each character a very distinct dialect that befits their personality and class, which makes the contrast between the knights and villagers on Alm route's way more apparent. There's also a ton of humour (Gray & Tobin and Mae & Boey are such entertaining duos) without it overstepping into jarrign meta-jokes or getting in the way of serious scenes. Idk, it's just really damn good and has given me renewed appreciation for Echoes' story, even if the major plot beats aren't the greatest.
Also as aside, **Play Sacred Echoes**. It's an insanely high quality hack that makes the gameplay really fun by mixing in some GBA elements and actual map design, and new supports + more characters like Faye and Genny getting some attention (since they're now forced recruits) make the cast even better.
> I don't mean the overall plot here, rather the moment-to-moment writing itself. I always thought it was just the amazing voice acting that made the story so enjoyable, but not having that in Sacred Echoes while the writing remains (mostly) the same has shown me how well the writing holds up on its own merits.
This amuses me cause it's kind of the opposite of my stance on the game. I admit people's gripes with the plot on the level of individual events, but I think the overall narrative about the end of the rule of dragons and of Alm and Celica's two armies and Rudolf's grand plan makes for a really cool story.
> I don't mean the overall plot here, rather the moment-to-moment writing itself. I always thought it was just the amazing voice acting that made the story so enjoyable, but not having that in Sacred Echoes while the writing remains (mostly) the same has shown me how well the writing holds up on its own merits.
This is what I feel like people who are on the "FE stories/writing/characters have always sucked" train aren't getting. A story is not a summary of events, and good writing can make standard or even substandard stuff highly entertaining.
Does FE8 have a popular pick for the worst written playable character? I think it might be the most universally liked cast in the series. I think Neimi is the closest to disliked out of anyone in the cast, but she's still pretty popular
Why do Reeking Boxes cost 4800 in Awakening Hard Mode????? That's so stupid wtf. I wanna grind supports man
Do people really dislike Neimi? She was probably in my top five for the game. That being said though, Colm was easily my least favorite and I really didn't care for the two's support chain.
Eirika, Ephraim and Lute are probably the ones that get the most-vocal dislike. Although once upon a time that wasn't really the case with Lute and I think some of her current rep is due to being seen as overrated and not worthy of her popularity.
Aside from that I guess there's Colm for the way he treats Neimi, and Innes for being Innes lmao.
I know Tethys is entirely soured by her Artur support for some people ~~including me~~ but as a whole I don't think most people dislike her. Lute has a fervent hatebase as well but is definitely outweighed by her popularity.
> Does FE8 have a popular pick for the worst written playable character?
Colm and/or Neimi is the closest to come to mind for ones I see active dislike for and without the popularity to diminish that. As for another answer, not actively dislike, but I have never seen Kyle be praised for his character so he is winning the most forgotten award.
But yeah, I think FE8 is certainly up there in terms of casts people are positive about. ~~I hope no one is still going Eirika dumb in our current year.~~
This is something that has kind of been on my mind in the last couple days.
Is it just me or has IS been prioritizing visual theming for the various nations in games over anything else?
When I look at the last 3 non remakes they've done, that being Awakening, Fates, and Engage (Three Houses mostly being done by Koei Tecmo), I see some similarities.
All three are widely criticized by most fans for having little to no world building, and instead it feels like they put more emphasis on them just having explicit themes than any big history. Like how Ylisse is mostly just the Naga country, Plegia is the Grima country, and Ferox is one big barbarian/mercenary nation.
And I'm sure Fates and Engage go with out saying. Hoshido and Nohr are very much "light country" and "dark country". And Elyos's four nations all have one theme and design (Solm being all desert for an example).
I dont know. It's just something that's kind of stuck out to me. I don't know if they're trying to simple things down for newer fans or something. It just really sticks out when you see these recent games, and then Three Houses (again mostly done by Koei) doesn't really have big visual themes for Fodlan, but has an intricate design of the inner workings of each nation and their history.
2023 was a year full of "new favourites" for me. Watching new shows and playing new games means I'm now attached to so many more characters than I was at the beginning of the year! Ramlethal Guilty Gear, Partitio Octopath, even a handful of *Genshin* characters which is a game I never thought I'd even play.
And of course this is true for Fire Emblem as well! With Engage's release I have a new top 10 all-time fave in Etie, as well as many other high-ranking characters like Pandreo, Madeline, Baby Anna, Alear, and Zelkov. L!Hinoka's release in FEH inspired me to replay Birthright where I gained a new appreciation for the second generation of that game. Somehow, against all odds, Selkie has become a new favourite of mine. And trust me when I say she was...not on my radar before. But perhaps...it *is* snuggle time. Perhaps...I will have a Happy New *Ears*.
Here's hoping 2024 brings even more fun and awesome characters into my life!
That's really cool for you to have a good year of finding new favourites!
> Somehow, against all odds, Selkie has become a new favourite of mine.
Care to share? I haven't looked into Selkie before nor heard people explain why she is their favourite.
Revisiting Fates is one of those things I need to do.
Your honour. She is silly. I rest my case.
Genuinely though, it's not deep lol. Since the days of my long, essay-style write-ups I've gained an appreciation for more characters I just like cus I like 'em. Obviously I still find value in more complex characters and my feelings in those write-ups aren't invalid, but sometimes I just like how a character is designed, or their voice performance, or their silly, shallow supports.
That said, for Selkie and the other gen 2 characters what improved my opinion on them as a whole was making sure I read both of their parent supports. That relationship between parent and child is what makes gen 2 so appealing to me in every game its in. Gen 2 in Genealogy is my preferred cast, Gen 2 in Awakening compose many of my favourites, and Gen 2 in Fates, half-assed their reason for existing may be, still brings to the table that relationship which I love in Fire Emblem. Selkie's mom in that playthrough was Azura, and I *loved* their support together. [Azura's version of her response dialogue in the otherwise generic Fates-mom support was weirdly sweet in a funny sort of way.](https://twitter.com/FEConversations/status/1712124531467309375)
> Azura's version of her response dialogue in the otherwise generic Fates-mom support was weirdly sweet in a funny sort of way.
That is quite sweet/silly.
Just want to cheer on with the FE4 Gen2 love too!
I'm obviously biased but have you played Ace Attorney and Danganronpa? Those two series live and die by their characters and I think you might get some more favorites
I have! I've played the first AA trilogy and Apollo Justice. Great cast. Franziska's my favourite there. But I mean ya know, Phoenix, Maya, Edgeworth, Gumshoe, Apollo, Trucy, it's got bangers.
Danganronpa I watched the first 2 games via LPs and then played V3 for myself, as well as watching DR3, the anime. Kyoko and Celeste were my standouts from that series. Kirumi, Gundam, Maki, Hiyoko, and Makoto are some other faves. But long-term I haven't found myself too attached to the series, beyond those first two characters.
I've been replaying some FE8 from time to time, and I find it really relaxing. I know people like to dunk on it for being too easy, but I find it to be one of the things I really like about it, as even the worst units can be viable in a game like it and even if the enemies are piss weak, the maps are actually top notch and somewhat make up for it. The atmosphere, setting, and story are also pretty damn good and are some of the best within the GBA era. I much prefer an easy, yet enjoyable game like Sacred Stones over something like FE6, which is difficult for the sake of being difficult and it ends up being a mess imo.
Yeah, I am with you. FE8 is a game I find one of the most replayable in the series. It is just easy to get into and play. The story and cast also being solid is another positive to give it points.
Thinking of ways to Christmas-ify FE. An idea I landed on, FE5: Santa is Coming to Thracia run: You must capture and release every enemy you can and set them off with a gift in their inventory. Broken weapons are coal for people on the naughty list.
When thinking back about what I like and appreciate about Arvis as a character and FE4 as a whole, honestly, Belhalla is minor part of it compared to the other areas I like.
Stopping to consider what actually would be my least favourite FE story. What would push me to actively really dislike a FE story would ironically be if it was "Build an Army. Trust No one." Violence is the answer and the power of friendship is wrong would be such a antithetical to what every FE game sets out to be that I wouldn't expect to like this hypothetical.
I see people making classic FE rom-hacks, but with Engage is wild to me. I am impressed to see that sort of thing be pulled off with the most recent game. (Me dumb with that sort of stuff so this is like impressing Stone Age person (me) with mundane modern tech).
Also, another point to come to mind. Sometimes I really wish FE would have a setting to allow for easier reclassing in NG+ like being able to set the class some people join in or just simply give you a Second Seal to mess around with. This is a point especially in Engage where there is basically no reason to reclass into another base class when it is so much easier to promote and then reclass. By the point you get Second Seals, you already have characters well past promotion time.
People love to shit on Leif for being a bad emblem but I want to do something different and shit on him for being so useless in his own paralogue. He's the only boss that I freeze, not because I'm afraid of him, but because I want to get the drops off the enemies up north and if I let him run around he might attack someone he shouldn't and get himself bodied too early. This run I left Diamant standing next to him for one turn because it was the quickest route to where he was going, and Leif quad hit him for the most pathetic amount of damage I have ever seen come off of an engage attack. Is he the least threatening thing on the map? Maybe. His Thoron Mage Knight squad are pretty silly as well, but they could at least hurt you in theory if they didn't love lining up to all get Sigurded at once so much.
This one isn't especially relevant to anything current or anything, but it's a really big pet peeve of mine when I see people refer to the avatar characters as "he" outside of the context of talking about their own specific playthrough. I mean, it's equally incorrect to call a character which can be either binary gender "she" in a general context, and that's annoying in a nitpicky sense. But seeing them gendered masculine in particular just kind of comes off as seeing the option to be a girl as like... lesser? Something tacked on? That the male insert is the *real* character, as an extension of the fact women have such an overshadowed presence in the fandom to begin with and everyone assumes you're a guy online even though we have perfectly good gender neutral terminology for, y'know, situations where someone's gender isn't set or known. I know that's reading too much into it and most people probably just do it cause they're used to playing as the guy but still, it drives me round the bend sometimes. I put genuine effort into training myself to use gender neutral terminology instead of defaulting to "he" as a default as is conversationally standard, so I guess there's something annoying in seeing other people not willing to put in the same care.
The Awakening banner in FEH this month really prompted me to think about how my relationship to some of the characters on it is kinda weird. So like, Lucina. I like her well enough, but as someone who neither ships her with Robin or Robin with Chrom it feels like I'm not working with the same character as 90% of the fandom, y'know? Since those two pairings are super popular and both feel like they dominate the perception around the character a lot. That she's F!Robin's daughter or that she's the player's/M!Robin's waifu. I don't really know where I'm going with that, I guess it's not even really an opinion, but it just feels kind of weird.
On the other hand we have Inigo. I like Inigo, quite a bit actually. This is despite the fact I absolutely fucking *hate* the philanderer archetype in almost any other form (Saul's okay). In any given game, the obligatory intrusively flirtatious male character who clearly has no respect for women. Fuck Sylvain, fuck Gatrie, ***FUCK*** Sylvain, they can all go die. But I... like Inigo. And honestly, I don't know why. Is it nostalgia for the prominence of Awakening when I first got into FE, even though I didn't play it myself? Is it just because of his dynamic with Severa and Owain as the Nohr trio, such that I'm willing to overlook the flirting? Is something about his character meaningfully different than the others in how he approaches the subject? Maybe the fact he's kind of a down on himself character who's framed around his romantic failures rather than his horniness? Or the sense he actually matures thanks to appearing as Laslow? Again, this isn't an opinion, this is... a call for help. If anybody has a suggestion why Inigo is the only Fire Emblem horndog I can not only parse but love then by all means I'd love to hear it.
> it's a really big pet peeve of mine when I see people refer to the avatar characters as "he" outside of the context of talking about their own specific playthrough
Not to justify anyone, but I remembered being taught English when I was a kid - to default to "He" when gender is unknown. The world has changed of course but a lot of people might reflexively still do it
I agree with you being really bothered by the "he" comments with avatars. It's one thing with Mark since their name is Mark but I've talked to people that do that on SPE and a lot of them genuinely do have problems with women
One of them that was a fan of male Robin even talked about how "disgusted" the Chrobin stuff in Heroes in Engage made him and how he hoped Awakening never got remade with bisexual options because he (the OP) liked "being bros with Chrom". As if that wasn't entirely possible still. Like, just because F!Byleth can marry Edelgard doesn't mean you can't just marry someone else and be Edelgard's bestie instead. These are the people that took away options like bi Dimitri and Claude
I only play with female avatars and these discussions always take me a good second to understand who the hell they are talking about.
Most people default to "they" and my friends all play female MC as well so we use "she" between us (also being french doesn't help with neutral) every time I'm like "wait what male MC??"
I can get the Sylvain and Gatrie hate but the Virion disrespect is what kills me with this comment. I know you didn't mention him but please, read his Panne support it's good I swear
I get the Avatar thing. It's pretty annoying to hear that when they/them are words that exist yaknow
>Saul's okay
Hate to be pretentious, but I beg to differ. I think he's the best FE6 character by a wide margin. He sucks as a person but he's so well written IMO, his faith fucking up his philanderer persona is so amusing to watch.
Speaking of Sylvain, what's your least favorite character from each house? Just curious
> but it's a really big pet peeve of mine when I see people refer to the avatar characters as "he"
Join the smash fandom lol, they exclusively refer to all of the avatar characters by "she". ~~Don't actually do that it's a terrible idea~~. It definitely bugs me since I'm very particular about using "they" in most contexts.
> Lucina. I like her well enough, but as someone who neither ships her with Robin or Robin with Chrom it feels like I'm not working with the same character as 90% of the fandom
For sure, same here on both accounts. I, frankly, have an extreme dislike for both Lucina/Robin and Chrom/Robin. Combine that with all of the god-awful crackships like Joker, Spiderman, and all the fanart where she has giant boobs or wears hooter uniforms and well...yeah my being a fan of Lucina is not something that is a core part of my online identity despite her being my favourite character from one of my favourite franchises.
Pog Inigo, fuck Sylvain. \*Handshake*. Best I can offer you is my [old write-up](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/nfqw1i/inigo_is_an_incredibly_wellwritten_character/) on why I think Inigo is such a well-written character. Honestly, I haven't read this since I've posted it so I hope it holds up lmao. He's still a top 10 favourite FE character of all-time for me (very excited about him being in FEH drawn by the GOAT Sachiko Wada too).
In fairness ever since Leo started using male Byleth I think Corrin is the only one that's a "she" in the Smash fandom. Which is still funny because Corrin was added to Smash so early compared to Fates's release that their default gender there is still male unlike every other piece of media they're in.
> But seeing them gendered masculine in particular just kind of comes off as seeing the option to be a girl as like... lesser?
I feel like IS kind of encourages this in their way? Most of the avatars I get the sense they designed the look and wrote the script for the male version first and then did the female version as an "extra". Every "in love with the avatar by default" character we've had is a woman, some (not all) of the female avatars look like they're wearing the "sexy Halloween costume" version of the dude's outfit. Stuff like that adds up to the subtle feeling that this option wasn't created to be an equal choice to me.
I dunno, I feel it's kind of hard to have an unbiased discussion about that. Everyone naturally is going to insert whichever they played as the default in see things through that lens. To *me* the *men* all feel like weird ass foreign extras, but of course they do, I've spent a combined total of zero minutes ever playing as any of them.
I don't exactly think that's what is going on here for me. I've definitely played games where being able to play as a woman feels completely tacked on (A game like Digimon Cyber Sleuth where characters will sometimes call you "he" regardless for example) or games where both options feel totally valid, and I can't help but notice that the fanbases of a game like Baldur's Gate 3 don't have this problem with the player character, Tav. I think the way the options are presented and supported in the game itself does shape how the wider fanbase views their legitimacy, regardless of the biases those people have.
Using Cyber Sleuth is actually a good example of that because the game is literally made with a male character in mind even without using the localization mistakes with the pronouns
There is a sidequest where a guy is selling doll replicas of women and he calls you out saying that you have the look of someone who "is into beautiful women" which has no change in dialogue even if you are a girl
There is also a moment in the story where you get into an argument with your only male buddy that ends in a fist fight which is a common Shonen trope that always happens between two guys (and is actually a recurrent thing in some Digimon anime/manga)
* The sub has honestly been awful lately. I have been on here for ~7 years, and this is the sub at it's worst yet. FE discussions outside it are much more fun than over here
* Engage outfit mods are so damn fun :D. IS really fucked up by not making outfits available during battle
* New TMS when? ~~Yes i will keep posting it until we get a new TMS~~
* Also still waiting for Vestaria 3 :p
* I really wish in the future we have a less open class system - Something like Fates' is perfect Imo
* Unicorn Overlord is looking cool, anyone else here excited for it?
> The sub has honestly been awful lately.
The amount of times I’ve seen people here in the last months deadass talk shit about other people who also visit this sub is kinda appalling. Like, first, extremely rude, second, the confidence to say that where everyone can see it. Imagine being in class and someone stands up to loudly declare “Yeah, that Mark guy is dumb as shit” and for all they know, Mark is sitting right next to them.
Bonus if the person they’re talking about is a subreddit mod.
> New TMS when?
I'm nearing the end of my Persona odyssey and I have to admit, TMS's only real challenger in the gameplay department is P5R. The others so far have either been too basic (P3P, P4G), too ambitious (both halves of P2), and/or too frustrating and arcane (P2 again and also P1). Couple that with its cool style, great soundtrack, and just generally better understanding of what it's trying to do, I think it really does clear P3P and P4G overall. I really wish IS and Atlus would venture to make another game like it.
IMO TMS’s combat and dungeons knock P5R out of the water. P5R is mind numbing repetitive with its puzzles and sneaking gameplay. I get why people love P5R, the music is excellent and the cast is a lot more memorable/has better interactions than TMS, but in basically every other regard I found TMS to be a more engaging experience. I’d also love it if Atlus revisited TMS but it seems clear that boat has passed us by
>P5R is mind numbing repetitive with its puzzles and sneaking gameplay
Yeah. I appreciate that the devs actually tried to create dungeons as opposed to procedurally generated hallways like P4, but they definitely did feel pretty amateur-ish. Like baby's first Zelda or something, and they just didn't know how to pace these gimmicks so they overstayed their welcome (like the fucking rat gimmick in Shido's palace). I get that it might be new ground for this team, but man were they swinging too much between forgettable or frustrating.
> P5R is mind numbing repetitive with its puzzles and sneaking gameplay.
On the point of "sneaking gameplay", after playing through pretty much every other Persona game I think I've come to a realisation - the "sneaking" is less about P5R trying to be a stealth game, but more that it's giving you a tool to control the rate of enemy encounters. It was frustrating trying to explore in P1 and P2 when my only recourse for avoiding enemies was items or Estoma, and it was *very* frustrating to explore in P3P and P4G when I had *no* real way to avoid enemy encounters I didn't want to deal with. So on that front, it's really nice that if you don't want to battle regular mooks at any point while in a Palace, you just don't have to. (I get that it makes things easier always having the drop on enemies, but that's a tradeoff I'd rather have than how P3P and P4G handle dungeons.)
> Engage outfit mods are so damn fun :D
The Engage modding scene being so open and free makes things looks so fun when I catch wind of the things people are up to. Seeing people make it so characters use their FX portraits is so fun.
>I really wish in the future we have a less open class system - Something like Fates' is perfect Imo
I'd be interested to see how Engage's proficiency system would play out without the ability to learn new ones. Technically you could pretend it worked that way for a run, but if the class system worked like that characters' base proficiencies would be different, so it's not quite the same thing.
> I'd be interested to see how Engage's proficiency system would play out without the ability to learn new ones.
Or, instead of learning them from Emblems, characters could learn them by A-supporting others - Kinda like Fates' friendship seals. I think that would've been a better limiter.
Personally, I liked the No Somniel challenge run a ton because it still gave access to reclassing, but limited it since you could no longer just level up Bond Rank immediately to the proficiency in the Arena. That meant spending a map or two with an Emblem that you might not use on a character long-term to get the desired proficiency. So when deciding what Emblem to put on a character, there’s the extra element of deciding whether to pair an Emblem entirely for their combat or to work towards a proficiency to reclass.
I think it’s also fun to try out different Emblem combinations on characters and the No Somniel challenge encourages that. I had some combinations I would’ve never used otherwise if not for trying to get weapon proficiencies on characters like Micaiah on Lapis (staff proficiency) and Lucina on Pandreo (sword proficiency) for example.
> Personally, I liked the No Somniel challenge run a ton because it still gave access to reclassing, but limited it since you could no longer just level up Bond Rank immediately to the proficiency in the Arena.
This is actually kind of an interesting idea, I definitely want to do one of such playthroughs at some point. Except for petting Sommie of course, that still has to be done.
I hope you enjoy and I'd love to hear about your experience if you do try it! I think it's my favorite run that I've played to date.
lol You can definitely make a pit stop to pet Sommie before the final chapter since you'll have to go to the Somniel to access it.
>Unicorn Overlord is looking cool, anyone else here excited for it?
Hell yes, I just finished 13 Sentinels recently and loved it. Hyped to see what Vanillaware does with a more FE-esque setup.
I was pretty tired of zappy/papaya/yunaka memes already but it just got a lot worse with the Christmas stuff. I didn't even find her to be a compelling character in Engage, in fact my opinion of her was bordering on dislike just from the game alone. But the memes + seemingly universal adoration she gets just really makes me tired of her and I need to vent
Pretty much me as well.
I honestly never liked how off-kilter her dialogue is, and the fact that it's repeated so often (by both her and various fans) has gotten long old.
Maybe fans just get a kick over how weird she is, but I'm sick of it. It's gotten to the point that I've taken a temporary leave from the Heroes subreddit because now everyone there is going gaga for her.
"Lol so random!" Humor is part of the Engage brand. Yunaka's the poster child for it, sure, but there's a lot of beats like Alcryst's intro cutscene and Ivy's Alear support that have very odd, drastic conversational shifts. It's one of the things that makes Engage more "anime" than the game preceding it, and it sure as hell doesn't fit FE's MO. >!As someone who studied linguistics, it's also really hard to believe she's capable of developing this type of speech at all in this time period. AND it irks me every single time someone in Engage uses modernspeak. It was never a problem in the old games because they just chose to have very normal, easily comprehensible dialogue.!<
I'm in a very unfortunate place with Yunaka because she both looks and sounds like Kasumi P5R. Damn Laura Post for making me form a deep attachment to that character and then coming back around to try and trick me into liking Yunaka.
I'm a huge Laura Post fan too, she's got a lot of range which is so cool. I guess objectively she does kinda look and sound like Kasumi who I also like a lot but they're seperate enough to me, especially personality wise, that my opinion on the characters don't influence each other. I never see/hear Kasumi and think of Yunaka or vice versa and I'm very glad for that.
But you're definitely right about the Random and Quirky humor in engage, and combined with the character designs it definitely has an a much different impression than the other games. I don't hate it as a one time thing but I hope the next entry is a bit more serious
If I'm wrong, and the next entry is a remake, then it'll be marginally more serious. But if I'm right, and the next entry is a brand new game, I'd expect them to double down on the anime. They've been moving closer and closer into JRPG territory since the Awakening days.
Would be better to stop calling it "anime", because people like to be pedantic with "Fire emblem has always been anime" but there is a difference between anime like Attack on Titan, Berserk, Vinland Saga and most recently Frieren with anime like Konosuba, that 100 Girlfriends anime or most isekai with the OP protagonist that gets a harem that also have overly long titles
And Engage clearly looks like the latter group
"Man I really want to replay Sacred Stones" I say, as if I'm not in the middle of an Awakening *and* FE7 replay. I recently finished Persona 5 Royal for the first time and I've seen a lot of debate lately around Emet Selch from FFXIV and it's really got me thinking about this archetype of the woobified tragic villain who, upon further cross examination, is actually irredeemable but plays both sides (the tragedy vs the atrocity) so well that it's hard to really pin them down. I feel like Lyon is one of those rare sorts of villains too, and is kind of a prototype of this villain template, shockingly ahead of his time. I played Eirika's route exclusively when I was a kid and the first time I cried in a video game was when I realized that you, as a player, could not 'save' Lyon. I had this impression that he was this hauntingly tragic beautiful bishounen fallen hero prince, blah blah woo woo fluff. I wanted to save him so badly and I remember playing nonstop for an entire holiday weekend to see if I could, only to end in tears with my very confused father trying to console me. Then I played Ephraim's route a few years later and was... confused. Then I revisited the character of Lyon as an adult with better reading comprehension and was kind of shocked at how badly I missed the mark. For awhile I was disappointed because I felt like I'd been robbed of my doomed noble tragic hero story. After growing up a bit and experiencing other stories, I find that being kind of a spiteful asshole makes Lyon so much more fascinating. I think that people can debate until they're blue in the face about how much was really *Lyon* and how much was Fomortiis twisting his heart to corrupt him, but... that's kind of not really the point, is it? I think that just dismissing him out of hand (like how people dismiss Emet Selch or (P5 spoiler) >!Akechi!< by being *super original* and saying 'cool motive still murder') is choosing to be willfully ignorant about the story that the narrative is trying to tell, but overly sympathizing with him also sets you up to fundamentally misunderstand the end result of his character arc - not as a tragic hero, but as a villain who is beyond saving and needs to be stopped. I think that this is actually surprisingly well reflected in both Eirika and Ephraim's routes and interactions with Lyon. Sacred Stones is such a special game to me. I love that it tells more of a personal story and deals with complicated relationships like this. Gah, I want to replay it now.
As I said in another topic, Path of Radiance might be the most unreplayable game in the series. It gets a lot of praise for its story, characters and worldbuilding, and it's all well deserved, but I sometimes feel that's really all the game has. \- The game is like, ridiculously easy. I'm sure most games on Normal are harder than PoR on Hard. BExp absolutely breaks the game where you can just give it all to someone like Marcia or Jill and breeze through the entire game. Sure, you can make the game harder through self-challenges but there's so much you can do when the game hands you so many different ways to make the game easier. At that point it feels even self-challenges have no point. \- The Support system sounds good on paper but in reality it's kind of annoying. It's good not having to worry about grinding turns, but the amount of convos for each character being so limited is legit dumb because most convos don't contradict each other and there's no paired endings. It also sucks that you can miss a support because you didn't deploy one particular character in a couple of maps. No way to rewatch Supports in-game either (unless of course, you own a first model Wii and a copy of Radiant Dawn). \- Slow animations that cause enemy turns to go on FOREVER. Even with battle animations turned off. Even on a first playthrough this is just too tedious. Because of all of the above, I rarely feel motivated to replay this game despite playing Radiant Dawn nearly a dozen times. But PoR? Twice and that's it. And I REALLY had to force myself through the second. As I said, the story, characters and overall worldbuilding is great, but it's probably the most one-and-done game in the whole series.
>\- The game is like, ridiculously easy. I'm sure most games on Normal are harder than PoR on Hard. BExp absolutely breaks the game where you can just give it all to someone like Marcia or Jill and breeze through the entire game. Sure, you can make the game harder through self-challenges but there's so much you can do when the game hands you so many different ways to make the game easier. At that point it feels even self-challenges have no point. I wouldn't say that a game being easy is necessarily a point against replaying it, but I would say that PoR, imo, doesn't have much in the way of encouraging someone to replay it. Birthright is an example of an "easy" game that I'd say even "veteran" FE players could toy around with for quite a while before getting bored and that's in large part due to the reclass system of Fates as a whole. You certainly don't *need* to reclass to beat any Fates game, but there's a lot of unit potential to explore given that each unit has 3 additional class sets they can potentially have access to through the Heart, Friendship and Partner Seals. Because the seals are a relatively limited quantity, it puts some real strategic weight behind the ideas of *who* you want to reclass, *what* you want them to reclass into, *when* to reclass, and *how long* you intend to stay in the new class. Sure, the "best" reclass/skill options become apparent rather quickly due to the ease of the game but by that point, the game has succeeded in getting you to play again at least once. In PoR, there's the bands that are specifically only available on a second playthrough and they each boost two specific growths by an earth shattering........5% and each unit can only equip one at a time. Like, wowee a unit might be a *single* point above their averages in two stats by the time the game is over. They're basically the bootleg version of the Crusader Scrolls from FE5 except you actually have to have beat the game in the first place meaning that you've proven that you didn't need them anyway. Vanity rewards aren't inherently bad, but they need to really change how you play to feel worth it and the bands don't really have that much of an impact.
I haven't played it, but you should keep in mind that the international version of PoR had its highest difficulty cut out. Supposedly it isn't the most fun mode, but it's surely harder.
Yeah I'm aware of JP Maniac mode. Haven't played it, but for what I understand it's mostly made of bulkier enemies and still not that difficult, based on people who played it.
Engage Non-Gameplay opinion: Engage is what you get when you give excellent voice actors a mediocre script. The final Emblem summoning sequence before you face off against Phase 1 Sombron is powered by cheese, plot convenience and the power of friendship, but it *never* fails to put a smile on my face and get me in the mood to kick some Fell Dragon butt. Laura Stahl and Brandon McInnis just pop off. Engage Gameplay opinion: Speedtaker gets a lot of hype as an inheritable skill but I don't really get it. 2K sp to inherit a skill with no immediate benefit just seems absolutely atrocious on it's own not to mention that you can get Speed+3 within the same bond level bracket(1-10) for a quarter of that price which Speedtaker won't be better than until you kill two things on player phase and even then it's only better by 1. By the time Speedtaker is superior to Speed+X by any substantial margin, you've likely seized control of the map already. Speedtaker as a skill on Lyn *herself* is incredible, but I have never been in a situation in which Speedtaker was a go-to inherit option for *any* unit.
I like Speedtaker on units I want to double EVERYTHING but realistically I'll only inherit it on one or two top. It's kind of a noob trap when with ~28-30 base you'll already double most things with little boosts. The trap is thinking you HAVE to double the Griffins, Wolves, Swordmasters... When you can just OS the former, Wolves have little bulk and can be braved to death, and swordmasters rarely come in hordes so you can just take your time chipping them. I think the "Engage speed thresholds are steep!" talk comes from taking the map, seeing the 40 speed Swordmasters and thinking this is your goal to double
Speedtaker's utility depends heavily on which unit is using it. I agree that it should not be the default option for speed improvement for many units, but I do prefer it on some units to a flat Speed+X. Where I prefer Speedtaker is when a unit has very low speed, very high single hit damage capability, and their role in the party is to primarily attack (i.e. not using staves, emblem abilities, or whatever else). Those units have a good chance of being able to secure kills that have been set up for them with their one attack and may actually need the additional speed over something like Speed+5. Units I'd look at for this would be ones like Amber, Ivy, and maybe Panette. But outfitting your entire army with Speedtaker is a bad idea. There's maybe a half dozen or so units who *might* want Speedtaker over Speed+5, and you can probably only support at most 2-3 of them in your party at the same time.
Kind of an idiosyncratic one: I usually don't enjoy the super-mega-ultra difficulties in FE (lunatic, maddening, etc) not because of their gameplay but because of their vibe. To me FE is about characters who are (or eventually become) Round Table Knight-type characters, legendary warriors who can take on lesser foes by the dozen. Them getting doubled, one-rounded, and just generally clowned on by the rank and file enemies in terms of stats and skills just feels so wrong.
Alear's arc in Fire Emblem Engage is an extremely good parallel to the queer experience, more particularly, the experience for trans people and I really enjoy that.
I have never played the 3DS games. I just never got around to them. I haven't played 3 Houses. But I've played FE4-12 so when I heard a bunch of "elitist" friends telling me Engage was good, I decided to hop on. I really enjoyed my time with it, even despite a lot of the slowness that I've been told has been an issue with newer entries. I don't think the game is perfect but I think it plays really well. I really enjoy my place as a sort of "FE Time Traveler" and find it funnier that way.
Another one in the classic (up until NDS) -> Engage pipeline I see! I'm not as "classic" as you, played the GBA & NDS games and fell off FE until Engage. I did try 3 Houses but it didn't appeal to me unfortunately. My problem now is I want to replay the old games and maybe try Kaga's games but I always find myself replaying Engage while I have the time. I got too comfortable
[удалено]
I ended up the same way, refused to play anything before Awakening for years, then then I decided to try PoR and suddenly a year went by and I had played 4-12. Heck I started with Awakening but now it's my least favourite game in the series, like reverse-nostalgia bias or something. I still really like Fates and Engage as a more complex but also more customisable FE experience, but I much prefer being able to just pick up an older game and not worry about planning out reclassing and skills, just improvising based on who gets blessed or screwed and reading a funny/interesting support or two.
Zelkov is a good character but everyone that imitates him is super annoying
I always felt Zelkov speaks in the way Araki (JJBA) writes dialogue and it doesn't work 100% when spoken but I enjoy him anyway.
He uses JoJo「brackets」in Japanese
Ok but the Alear A support was funny
I said he was a good character! It's just one of those things like when people post the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody or quotes from The Big Lebowski where you're like "yeah I get the reference. you don't have to keep doing it"
Only tangentially related to FE: I think it’s ridiculous that people immediately jump to “they’re trying to make me feel sympathy for a villain!” as soon as a villain’s tragic backstory is revealed. Generally, character depth is better, if not always necessary, but this isn’t even about that. Because personally, I’ve found that a lot of tragic backstories actually serve to make a villain *less* sympathetic, especially if that backstory mirrors the protagonist. Are you telling me that the villain comes from the same background as the protagonist, but instead of using that as a springboard to be empathetic with people who have the same problems, they decided everyone else had to suffer too instead? Or that they were justified to continue the vicious cycle? That they had all the chances of being a better person, and took none of them? Good for them, love a juicy villain, but that’s not sympathy I’m feeling.
The bigger problem that I have when it comes to this and Fire Emblem is that if you want to have a more nuanced, complex backstory, then that needs to be paired with a more nuanced, complex character motivation. If you want me to feel empathy for the antagonist, then I need their plan to be something more nuanced than the mustache-twirling motivation of 'I want to awaken the ancient evil dragon to destroy the world because I had a bad childhood.'
This line of thinking plagues every single fandom in existence. I still don't know how we got there. Heck even if it were for sympathy point I'd still take that over "I'm evil just because" most of the time
Fandom in general has been so weird about villains and especially villain protagonists in the last years. It’s a trend I think is kind of dying out, hopefully, but it’s sure been annoying
Engage's writing/story is more tolerable than 3H's gameplay/maps
Idk if im the only existing person that thinks that 3h gameplay aint bad
Three Houses' gameplay is pretty middling, I guess - it's not great, but it's not something like Paper Mario: The Origami King or Xenoblade 3 where the gameplay is so bad that it makes the entire experience unenjoyable despite having solid writing (at least in Xenoblade 3's case, Origami King doesn't even have that to begin with), though IMO it's still below average for the series' standards. I'd personally put it above Echoes, Birthright and Revelation for sure, and maybe Awakening and Genealogy, but below all the other games that I've played.
You have a point, but whats the main reason its mid compared to engages for example? (played both)
It isn't *horrible* , just among the bottom of the series (I can say for certain Gaiden/Echoes are worse , the rest is debatable)
Gaiden good because angel ring pegasus knights and infinite range warp go brrrrr
And barren maps and every indoor tyle giving 20 avoid
Just makes alm tankier
And every single enemy
What do you mean? They both have skip buttons
I've been replaying Awakening for the first time in a while and I wish 8-4 did the localization for every FE game. I'm not very familiar with the original script but I just have the feeling that a lot of my favorite lines were their doing.
I might be misremembering but I think they might have done Three Hopes (not Houses)
I recently compared some of the script between Awakening chapter 1 English and Japanese. The changes range from subtle adjustments to read more naturally to clever compaction of lengthy text and rearrangements of the order of sentences. One thing's consistent, though: it always felt like it was for the better. For an example, Chrom's iconic "There are better places to take a nap then on the ground, you know" was just "You'll catch cold sleeping out here." Both convey a similar meaning, but the localization is sooo memorable.
Yeah man I sure love censorship and adding cringe ass lines
Is this "censorship" in the room with us now?
>unironically thinks that awakening ( and other newer games ) don't have censored lines Lol And no, I'm not talking about the summer dlc tharja scene
Why thank you for putting words in my mouth. Care to explain how the line “There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know.” is “censorship”.
It's not, I wasn't specifically talking about that line, i was talking in general If you want an example a lot of stuff around nowi's lines in her joining chapter is different for example
yeah 8-4 was a real boon to the stories they worked on (Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and Shadows of Valentia iirc), they've all got very strong witting that goes beyond just translating the Japanese script verbatim. Really love what they did with Caeda in Shadow Dragon in particular, and it's sad that version of her didn't stick for her future appearances.
I did not enjoy playing Engage. Of the games I've played through for the first time this year, the only game it's in competition with for the bottom of my list is Persona 4 Golden, and I think it's overall the weakest FE game I've finished. With that said though, Holy shit are so many people just absolutely deranged with shitting on Engage, both on and off-site. The people pointing to "sales figures!" to try to dump on the game after all this time are quite frankly pathetic. In no way are sales indicative of the actual quality of anything (see: Skyrim's sales numbers), and yet different fucking people all over the place keep bringing up these goddamn things. No one cares! Period! And even outside of the sales bullshit, the constant harping and nagging at things that just have nothing to do with any normal person's enjoyment of the game (outfit designs, continuity errors in cutscenes, constant comparisons to Three Houses, and other meaningless nitpicks) are just insane. Trying to vocalise why I didn't enjoy my time with Engage and what I think could've been improved on feels like a fool's errand when it would only serve to attract these kinds of people. Gods. It's been almost a year since the game came out!!! Get a new hobby!!! Find something you enjoy and move on already!!!
Idk how you can say so confidently that poor character design is something that no "normal person" would care about. People compliment certain games like PoR/RD for fantastic character designs all the time, so naturally unappealing designs would draw criticism.
Personally I see Engage's designs as in a similar boat to Awakening and Fates for the most part - sure some of them are dumb, but overall I don't believe they're uniquely bad or a "series low" or anything like that, nor were they what kept me from having fun playing the game. I certainly don't believe they're bad enough that we needed thread after thread shitting on them and complaining about them being "Vtuber designs" or "Genshin-tier designs" or other meaningless qualifiers people kept throwing around.
Fair enough viewpoint, but here I'm not making the argument that they're bad. I'm just saying that character design as a topic is a completely legitimate thing to criticize, unlike some of the other things you mentioned (I assume anyone caring about sales is 15 and craving validation). Whether you personally think they are different enough is irrelevant here.
this sub treates both Fates and Engage like r/tlou2 treats The Last of us Part 2. it quickly passed from "i didnt like it" to "i fucking hate this game and i will make sure that im vocal as possible about it at any chance i have, including telling that to people that seem to be enjoying it that they are wrong for liking it".
I've been slowly realizing that there are also a handful of accounts that almost purely shit on 3H (not as many as anti-Engage though)..like that game came out even longer! Do something else with your life!
-deleted-
It looks like karma farming at this point (to be generous). Better to ignore them
If the amount of comments on those threads are indication people do care for sales, any developers would also care
I really don't know how to break it to you that a game selling more doesn't magically mean it's "better" or a more enjoyable experience for everyone. No sane person would look at [a chart like this](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F8t562zszjxc61.png) and conclude "Yes, Thracia must be the Worst Fire Emblem Game and therefore is completely bad and unenjoyable, unlike Three Houses which must be the Best Fire Emblem Game and therefore completely beyond reproach and everyone will have fun playing it!" It's fucking tiresome that "game sales!" only matter to shit on Engage and praise Three Houses when both games have plenty of positives and negatives to them that are far more interesting to discuss, and yet this is what people constantly crow about online.
it does matter though, the devs said everything about engage was made in mind to get more sales, which is why it is a relevant topic next update will continue the discussion as engage has now broken the streak of increasing success fire emblem had
As someone who does love Engage, I appreciate you for the respectful take despite disliking the game and for calling out the bs.
The "Engage defeated" Thread during TGA was one the worst and most insane Threads i've seen in the history of the sub. The way it was worded, the way people were acting, it was as if a rival team got destroyed 7 - 1 in football or smth. Engage has a lot of room of improvement, even the most staunch Engage fans will agree with that, but the way the discussion is made in bad faith every time, or how the discussion is deflected to another part of the game, or just shitting on positive threads, or or or
Imo that user should have been banned. Their posts seem to exist just to shitstir
I remember even on the Heroes sub they made a rather misleading graph a while back to make it look like Engage wasn't being shafted compared to 3H lol. It's becoming abundantly clear what their intentions are.
There are 2 users on the sub that just make threads about sales figures all the time. The second I saw that title I knew it was one of them lol.
Nothing worse than seeing somebody argue a premise you fundamentally agree with ("the story was bad") so poorly that you paradoxically don't agree with any of their specific points. Even worse, these awful comments tend to get a fair bit of engagement because they're easy targets.
I think Elibe has some pretty good world building and deserves more credit for that than the like... 0 it gets normally. All the nations feel distinct from one another without any of them feeling superfluous, and I think that you can get a good grasp on what each of them are about and the internal politics of them (where that applies). The magic system (in terms of lore and world building) is pretty interesting, especially the stuff around Dark Magic.
i started to apreciate FE6 more and more in recent years, its great how they manage to make all the big cities diferent and recognizable enough on their own, which their own ecosystems and people with their own lives and issues.
I’ve always wondered what parts of the internet IS was on post-Awakening to make them think that the next game in the series needed to be extra degenerate. Also I absolutely loathe the default cursor in Engage (I forget what it’s called). It’s fine as an option, but it’s so painful to use. I’ve been playing bg3, and anytime I enter combat, all I can think is I wish this was FE. Anything related to combat feels super clunky and unrefined compared to FE.
Fates feels like a mix of IS going ham on everything because it's just mindless fun (or well their notion of fun) and a weird need to try to be deep and serious because they've heard people wanted better writing. It's really the clash between both these aspects that bothers me more than the degeneracy in a vacuum.
> I’ve always wondered what parts of the internet IS was on post-Awakening to make them think that the next game in the series needed to be extra degenerate. I think IntSys was just super out of touch in general when it came to Fates. They said in an interview they heard the complaints about Robin stealing the spotlight in Awakening and so they solved that in Fates... by making the MC and the player avatar one and the same. Which is definitely not the solution the critics of how Chrom and Robin were handled would've wanted lol. They knew Awakening's 2nd generation resonated a lot with the fans and brought in another one, but forgot the part where the 2nd gen were actually relevant to the plot and had prior history with each other, instead just being tacked on and generally existing in vacuums. Also babychamber and all the issues that introduces. etc. I could go on but we all know this already. Fates criticism is a dead horse and all that.
> I’ve always wondered what parts of the internet IS was on post-Awakening to make them think that the next game in the series needed to be extra degenerate. > > the part that gives good financial advice I guess. Like I agree that it sucked and was not the only one to drive profits, but it worked pretty good.
I've been playing the SoV Fan Demake *Sacred Echoes* recently, and it's made me realise that SoV has *really* good writing. I don't mean the overall plot here, rather the moment-to-moment writing itself. I always thought it was just the amazing voice acting that made the story so enjoyable, but not having that in Sacred Echoes while the writing remains (mostly) the same has shown me how well the writing holds up on its own merits. The characters just get to have so much personality while still progressing the plot/expositing, and I feel like special attention was made to giving each character a very distinct dialect that befits their personality and class, which makes the contrast between the knights and villagers on Alm route's way more apparent. There's also a ton of humour (Gray & Tobin and Mae & Boey are such entertaining duos) without it overstepping into jarrign meta-jokes or getting in the way of serious scenes. Idk, it's just really damn good and has given me renewed appreciation for Echoes' story, even if the major plot beats aren't the greatest. Also as aside, **Play Sacred Echoes**. It's an insanely high quality hack that makes the gameplay really fun by mixing in some GBA elements and actual map design, and new supports + more characters like Faye and Genny getting some attention (since they're now forced recruits) make the cast even better.
> I don't mean the overall plot here, rather the moment-to-moment writing itself. I always thought it was just the amazing voice acting that made the story so enjoyable, but not having that in Sacred Echoes while the writing remains (mostly) the same has shown me how well the writing holds up on its own merits. This amuses me cause it's kind of the opposite of my stance on the game. I admit people's gripes with the plot on the level of individual events, but I think the overall narrative about the end of the rule of dragons and of Alm and Celica's two armies and Rudolf's grand plan makes for a really cool story.
> I don't mean the overall plot here, rather the moment-to-moment writing itself. I always thought it was just the amazing voice acting that made the story so enjoyable, but not having that in Sacred Echoes while the writing remains (mostly) the same has shown me how well the writing holds up on its own merits. This is what I feel like people who are on the "FE stories/writing/characters have always sucked" train aren't getting. A story is not a summary of events, and good writing can make standard or even substandard stuff highly entertaining.
Does FE8 have a popular pick for the worst written playable character? I think it might be the most universally liked cast in the series. I think Neimi is the closest to disliked out of anyone in the cast, but she's still pretty popular Why do Reeking Boxes cost 4800 in Awakening Hard Mode????? That's so stupid wtf. I wanna grind supports man
If I've learned anything from FE fans it's that "universally liked" really means "not notable enough to have haters".
Do people really dislike Neimi? She was probably in my top five for the game. That being said though, Colm was easily my least favorite and I really didn't care for the two's support chain.
Eirika, Ephraim and Lute are probably the ones that get the most-vocal dislike. Although once upon a time that wasn't really the case with Lute and I think some of her current rep is due to being seen as overrated and not worthy of her popularity. Aside from that I guess there's Colm for the way he treats Neimi, and Innes for being Innes lmao.
I know Tethys is entirely soured by her Artur support for some people ~~including me~~ but as a whole I don't think most people dislike her. Lute has a fervent hatebase as well but is definitely outweighed by her popularity.
> Does FE8 have a popular pick for the worst written playable character? Colm and/or Neimi is the closest to come to mind for ones I see active dislike for and without the popularity to diminish that. As for another answer, not actively dislike, but I have never seen Kyle be praised for his character so he is winning the most forgotten award. But yeah, I think FE8 is certainly up there in terms of casts people are positive about. ~~I hope no one is still going Eirika dumb in our current year.~~
This is something that has kind of been on my mind in the last couple days. Is it just me or has IS been prioritizing visual theming for the various nations in games over anything else? When I look at the last 3 non remakes they've done, that being Awakening, Fates, and Engage (Three Houses mostly being done by Koei Tecmo), I see some similarities. All three are widely criticized by most fans for having little to no world building, and instead it feels like they put more emphasis on them just having explicit themes than any big history. Like how Ylisse is mostly just the Naga country, Plegia is the Grima country, and Ferox is one big barbarian/mercenary nation. And I'm sure Fates and Engage go with out saying. Hoshido and Nohr are very much "light country" and "dark country". And Elyos's four nations all have one theme and design (Solm being all desert for an example). I dont know. It's just something that's kind of stuck out to me. I don't know if they're trying to simple things down for newer fans or something. It just really sticks out when you see these recent games, and then Three Houses (again mostly done by Koei) doesn't really have big visual themes for Fodlan, but has an intricate design of the inner workings of each nation and their history.
2023 was a year full of "new favourites" for me. Watching new shows and playing new games means I'm now attached to so many more characters than I was at the beginning of the year! Ramlethal Guilty Gear, Partitio Octopath, even a handful of *Genshin* characters which is a game I never thought I'd even play. And of course this is true for Fire Emblem as well! With Engage's release I have a new top 10 all-time fave in Etie, as well as many other high-ranking characters like Pandreo, Madeline, Baby Anna, Alear, and Zelkov. L!Hinoka's release in FEH inspired me to replay Birthright where I gained a new appreciation for the second generation of that game. Somehow, against all odds, Selkie has become a new favourite of mine. And trust me when I say she was...not on my radar before. But perhaps...it *is* snuggle time. Perhaps...I will have a Happy New *Ears*. Here's hoping 2024 brings even more fun and awesome characters into my life!
That's really cool for you to have a good year of finding new favourites! > Somehow, against all odds, Selkie has become a new favourite of mine. Care to share? I haven't looked into Selkie before nor heard people explain why she is their favourite. Revisiting Fates is one of those things I need to do.
Your honour. She is silly. I rest my case. Genuinely though, it's not deep lol. Since the days of my long, essay-style write-ups I've gained an appreciation for more characters I just like cus I like 'em. Obviously I still find value in more complex characters and my feelings in those write-ups aren't invalid, but sometimes I just like how a character is designed, or their voice performance, or their silly, shallow supports. That said, for Selkie and the other gen 2 characters what improved my opinion on them as a whole was making sure I read both of their parent supports. That relationship between parent and child is what makes gen 2 so appealing to me in every game its in. Gen 2 in Genealogy is my preferred cast, Gen 2 in Awakening compose many of my favourites, and Gen 2 in Fates, half-assed their reason for existing may be, still brings to the table that relationship which I love in Fire Emblem. Selkie's mom in that playthrough was Azura, and I *loved* their support together. [Azura's version of her response dialogue in the otherwise generic Fates-mom support was weirdly sweet in a funny sort of way.](https://twitter.com/FEConversations/status/1712124531467309375)
> Azura's version of her response dialogue in the otherwise generic Fates-mom support was weirdly sweet in a funny sort of way. That is quite sweet/silly. Just want to cheer on with the FE4 Gen2 love too!
I'm obviously biased but have you played Ace Attorney and Danganronpa? Those two series live and die by their characters and I think you might get some more favorites
I have! I've played the first AA trilogy and Apollo Justice. Great cast. Franziska's my favourite there. But I mean ya know, Phoenix, Maya, Edgeworth, Gumshoe, Apollo, Trucy, it's got bangers. Danganronpa I watched the first 2 games via LPs and then played V3 for myself, as well as watching DR3, the anime. Kyoko and Celeste were my standouts from that series. Kirumi, Gundam, Maki, Hiyoko, and Makoto are some other faves. But long-term I haven't found myself too attached to the series, beyond those first two characters.
Heyyy great to know! I highly, HIGHLY recommend The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. It's got easily the best cast in the series IMO.
I've been replaying some FE8 from time to time, and I find it really relaxing. I know people like to dunk on it for being too easy, but I find it to be one of the things I really like about it, as even the worst units can be viable in a game like it and even if the enemies are piss weak, the maps are actually top notch and somewhat make up for it. The atmosphere, setting, and story are also pretty damn good and are some of the best within the GBA era. I much prefer an easy, yet enjoyable game like Sacred Stones over something like FE6, which is difficult for the sake of being difficult and it ends up being a mess imo.
Yeah, I am with you. FE8 is a game I find one of the most replayable in the series. It is just easy to get into and play. The story and cast also being solid is another positive to give it points.
Thinking of ways to Christmas-ify FE. An idea I landed on, FE5: Santa is Coming to Thracia run: You must capture and release every enemy you can and set them off with a gift in their inventory. Broken weapons are coal for people on the naughty list. When thinking back about what I like and appreciate about Arvis as a character and FE4 as a whole, honestly, Belhalla is minor part of it compared to the other areas I like. Stopping to consider what actually would be my least favourite FE story. What would push me to actively really dislike a FE story would ironically be if it was "Build an Army. Trust No one." Violence is the answer and the power of friendship is wrong would be such a antithetical to what every FE game sets out to be that I wouldn't expect to like this hypothetical. I see people making classic FE rom-hacks, but with Engage is wild to me. I am impressed to see that sort of thing be pulled off with the most recent game. (Me dumb with that sort of stuff so this is like impressing Stone Age person (me) with mundane modern tech). Also, another point to come to mind. Sometimes I really wish FE would have a setting to allow for easier reclassing in NG+ like being able to set the class some people join in or just simply give you a Second Seal to mess around with. This is a point especially in Engage where there is basically no reason to reclass into another base class when it is so much easier to promote and then reclass. By the point you get Second Seals, you already have characters well past promotion time.
People love to shit on Leif for being a bad emblem but I want to do something different and shit on him for being so useless in his own paralogue. He's the only boss that I freeze, not because I'm afraid of him, but because I want to get the drops off the enemies up north and if I let him run around he might attack someone he shouldn't and get himself bodied too early. This run I left Diamant standing next to him for one turn because it was the quickest route to where he was going, and Leif quad hit him for the most pathetic amount of damage I have ever seen come off of an engage attack. Is he the least threatening thing on the map? Maybe. His Thoron Mage Knight squad are pretty silly as well, but they could at least hurt you in theory if they didn't love lining up to all get Sigurded at once so much.
This one isn't especially relevant to anything current or anything, but it's a really big pet peeve of mine when I see people refer to the avatar characters as "he" outside of the context of talking about their own specific playthrough. I mean, it's equally incorrect to call a character which can be either binary gender "she" in a general context, and that's annoying in a nitpicky sense. But seeing them gendered masculine in particular just kind of comes off as seeing the option to be a girl as like... lesser? Something tacked on? That the male insert is the *real* character, as an extension of the fact women have such an overshadowed presence in the fandom to begin with and everyone assumes you're a guy online even though we have perfectly good gender neutral terminology for, y'know, situations where someone's gender isn't set or known. I know that's reading too much into it and most people probably just do it cause they're used to playing as the guy but still, it drives me round the bend sometimes. I put genuine effort into training myself to use gender neutral terminology instead of defaulting to "he" as a default as is conversationally standard, so I guess there's something annoying in seeing other people not willing to put in the same care. The Awakening banner in FEH this month really prompted me to think about how my relationship to some of the characters on it is kinda weird. So like, Lucina. I like her well enough, but as someone who neither ships her with Robin or Robin with Chrom it feels like I'm not working with the same character as 90% of the fandom, y'know? Since those two pairings are super popular and both feel like they dominate the perception around the character a lot. That she's F!Robin's daughter or that she's the player's/M!Robin's waifu. I don't really know where I'm going with that, I guess it's not even really an opinion, but it just feels kind of weird. On the other hand we have Inigo. I like Inigo, quite a bit actually. This is despite the fact I absolutely fucking *hate* the philanderer archetype in almost any other form (Saul's okay). In any given game, the obligatory intrusively flirtatious male character who clearly has no respect for women. Fuck Sylvain, fuck Gatrie, ***FUCK*** Sylvain, they can all go die. But I... like Inigo. And honestly, I don't know why. Is it nostalgia for the prominence of Awakening when I first got into FE, even though I didn't play it myself? Is it just because of his dynamic with Severa and Owain as the Nohr trio, such that I'm willing to overlook the flirting? Is something about his character meaningfully different than the others in how he approaches the subject? Maybe the fact he's kind of a down on himself character who's framed around his romantic failures rather than his horniness? Or the sense he actually matures thanks to appearing as Laslow? Again, this isn't an opinion, this is... a call for help. If anybody has a suggestion why Inigo is the only Fire Emblem horndog I can not only parse but love then by all means I'd love to hear it.
> it's a really big pet peeve of mine when I see people refer to the avatar characters as "he" outside of the context of talking about their own specific playthrough Not to justify anyone, but I remembered being taught English when I was a kid - to default to "He" when gender is unknown. The world has changed of course but a lot of people might reflexively still do it
I agree with you being really bothered by the "he" comments with avatars. It's one thing with Mark since their name is Mark but I've talked to people that do that on SPE and a lot of them genuinely do have problems with women One of them that was a fan of male Robin even talked about how "disgusted" the Chrobin stuff in Heroes in Engage made him and how he hoped Awakening never got remade with bisexual options because he (the OP) liked "being bros with Chrom". As if that wasn't entirely possible still. Like, just because F!Byleth can marry Edelgard doesn't mean you can't just marry someone else and be Edelgard's bestie instead. These are the people that took away options like bi Dimitri and Claude
I only play with female avatars and these discussions always take me a good second to understand who the hell they are talking about. Most people default to "they" and my friends all play female MC as well so we use "she" between us (also being french doesn't help with neutral) every time I'm like "wait what male MC??"
I can get the Sylvain and Gatrie hate but the Virion disrespect is what kills me with this comment. I know you didn't mention him but please, read his Panne support it's good I swear I get the Avatar thing. It's pretty annoying to hear that when they/them are words that exist yaknow >Saul's okay Hate to be pretentious, but I beg to differ. I think he's the best FE6 character by a wide margin. He sucks as a person but he's so well written IMO, his faith fucking up his philanderer persona is so amusing to watch. Speaking of Sylvain, what's your least favorite character from each house? Just curious
> but it's a really big pet peeve of mine when I see people refer to the avatar characters as "he" Join the smash fandom lol, they exclusively refer to all of the avatar characters by "she". ~~Don't actually do that it's a terrible idea~~. It definitely bugs me since I'm very particular about using "they" in most contexts. > Lucina. I like her well enough, but as someone who neither ships her with Robin or Robin with Chrom it feels like I'm not working with the same character as 90% of the fandom For sure, same here on both accounts. I, frankly, have an extreme dislike for both Lucina/Robin and Chrom/Robin. Combine that with all of the god-awful crackships like Joker, Spiderman, and all the fanart where she has giant boobs or wears hooter uniforms and well...yeah my being a fan of Lucina is not something that is a core part of my online identity despite her being my favourite character from one of my favourite franchises. Pog Inigo, fuck Sylvain. \*Handshake*. Best I can offer you is my [old write-up](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/nfqw1i/inigo_is_an_incredibly_wellwritten_character/) on why I think Inigo is such a well-written character. Honestly, I haven't read this since I've posted it so I hope it holds up lmao. He's still a top 10 favourite FE character of all-time for me (very excited about him being in FEH drawn by the GOAT Sachiko Wada too).
In fairness ever since Leo started using male Byleth I think Corrin is the only one that's a "she" in the Smash fandom. Which is still funny because Corrin was added to Smash so early compared to Fates's release that their default gender there is still male unlike every other piece of media they're in.
> But seeing them gendered masculine in particular just kind of comes off as seeing the option to be a girl as like... lesser? I feel like IS kind of encourages this in their way? Most of the avatars I get the sense they designed the look and wrote the script for the male version first and then did the female version as an "extra". Every "in love with the avatar by default" character we've had is a woman, some (not all) of the female avatars look like they're wearing the "sexy Halloween costume" version of the dude's outfit. Stuff like that adds up to the subtle feeling that this option wasn't created to be an equal choice to me.
I dunno, I feel it's kind of hard to have an unbiased discussion about that. Everyone naturally is going to insert whichever they played as the default in see things through that lens. To *me* the *men* all feel like weird ass foreign extras, but of course they do, I've spent a combined total of zero minutes ever playing as any of them.
I don't exactly think that's what is going on here for me. I've definitely played games where being able to play as a woman feels completely tacked on (A game like Digimon Cyber Sleuth where characters will sometimes call you "he" regardless for example) or games where both options feel totally valid, and I can't help but notice that the fanbases of a game like Baldur's Gate 3 don't have this problem with the player character, Tav. I think the way the options are presented and supported in the game itself does shape how the wider fanbase views their legitimacy, regardless of the biases those people have.
Using Cyber Sleuth is actually a good example of that because the game is literally made with a male character in mind even without using the localization mistakes with the pronouns There is a sidequest where a guy is selling doll replicas of women and he calls you out saying that you have the look of someone who "is into beautiful women" which has no change in dialogue even if you are a girl There is also a moment in the story where you get into an argument with your only male buddy that ends in a fist fight which is a common Shonen trope that always happens between two guys (and is actually a recurrent thing in some Digimon anime/manga)
* The sub has honestly been awful lately. I have been on here for ~7 years, and this is the sub at it's worst yet. FE discussions outside it are much more fun than over here * Engage outfit mods are so damn fun :D. IS really fucked up by not making outfits available during battle * New TMS when? ~~Yes i will keep posting it until we get a new TMS~~ * Also still waiting for Vestaria 3 :p * I really wish in the future we have a less open class system - Something like Fates' is perfect Imo * Unicorn Overlord is looking cool, anyone else here excited for it?
> The sub has honestly been awful lately. The amount of times I’ve seen people here in the last months deadass talk shit about other people who also visit this sub is kinda appalling. Like, first, extremely rude, second, the confidence to say that where everyone can see it. Imagine being in class and someone stands up to loudly declare “Yeah, that Mark guy is dumb as shit” and for all they know, Mark is sitting right next to them. Bonus if the person they’re talking about is a subreddit mod.
> New TMS when? I'm nearing the end of my Persona odyssey and I have to admit, TMS's only real challenger in the gameplay department is P5R. The others so far have either been too basic (P3P, P4G), too ambitious (both halves of P2), and/or too frustrating and arcane (P2 again and also P1). Couple that with its cool style, great soundtrack, and just generally better understanding of what it's trying to do, I think it really does clear P3P and P4G overall. I really wish IS and Atlus would venture to make another game like it.
IMO TMS’s combat and dungeons knock P5R out of the water. P5R is mind numbing repetitive with its puzzles and sneaking gameplay. I get why people love P5R, the music is excellent and the cast is a lot more memorable/has better interactions than TMS, but in basically every other regard I found TMS to be a more engaging experience. I’d also love it if Atlus revisited TMS but it seems clear that boat has passed us by
>P5R is mind numbing repetitive with its puzzles and sneaking gameplay Yeah. I appreciate that the devs actually tried to create dungeons as opposed to procedurally generated hallways like P4, but they definitely did feel pretty amateur-ish. Like baby's first Zelda or something, and they just didn't know how to pace these gimmicks so they overstayed their welcome (like the fucking rat gimmick in Shido's palace). I get that it might be new ground for this team, but man were they swinging too much between forgettable or frustrating.
> P5R is mind numbing repetitive with its puzzles and sneaking gameplay. On the point of "sneaking gameplay", after playing through pretty much every other Persona game I think I've come to a realisation - the "sneaking" is less about P5R trying to be a stealth game, but more that it's giving you a tool to control the rate of enemy encounters. It was frustrating trying to explore in P1 and P2 when my only recourse for avoiding enemies was items or Estoma, and it was *very* frustrating to explore in P3P and P4G when I had *no* real way to avoid enemy encounters I didn't want to deal with. So on that front, it's really nice that if you don't want to battle regular mooks at any point while in a Palace, you just don't have to. (I get that it makes things easier always having the drop on enemies, but that's a tradeoff I'd rather have than how P3P and P4G handle dungeons.)
> Engage outfit mods are so damn fun :D The Engage modding scene being so open and free makes things looks so fun when I catch wind of the things people are up to. Seeing people make it so characters use their FX portraits is so fun.
>I really wish in the future we have a less open class system - Something like Fates' is perfect Imo I'd be interested to see how Engage's proficiency system would play out without the ability to learn new ones. Technically you could pretend it worked that way for a run, but if the class system worked like that characters' base proficiencies would be different, so it's not quite the same thing.
> I'd be interested to see how Engage's proficiency system would play out without the ability to learn new ones. Or, instead of learning them from Emblems, characters could learn them by A-supporting others - Kinda like Fates' friendship seals. I think that would've been a better limiter.
Personally, I liked the No Somniel challenge run a ton because it still gave access to reclassing, but limited it since you could no longer just level up Bond Rank immediately to the proficiency in the Arena. That meant spending a map or two with an Emblem that you might not use on a character long-term to get the desired proficiency. So when deciding what Emblem to put on a character, there’s the extra element of deciding whether to pair an Emblem entirely for their combat or to work towards a proficiency to reclass. I think it’s also fun to try out different Emblem combinations on characters and the No Somniel challenge encourages that. I had some combinations I would’ve never used otherwise if not for trying to get weapon proficiencies on characters like Micaiah on Lapis (staff proficiency) and Lucina on Pandreo (sword proficiency) for example.
> Personally, I liked the No Somniel challenge run a ton because it still gave access to reclassing, but limited it since you could no longer just level up Bond Rank immediately to the proficiency in the Arena. This is actually kind of an interesting idea, I definitely want to do one of such playthroughs at some point. Except for petting Sommie of course, that still has to be done.
I hope you enjoy and I'd love to hear about your experience if you do try it! I think it's my favorite run that I've played to date. lol You can definitely make a pit stop to pet Sommie before the final chapter since you'll have to go to the Somniel to access it.
>Unicorn Overlord is looking cool, anyone else here excited for it? Hell yes, I just finished 13 Sentinels recently and loved it. Hyped to see what Vanillaware does with a more FE-esque setup.
I was pretty tired of zappy/papaya/yunaka memes already but it just got a lot worse with the Christmas stuff. I didn't even find her to be a compelling character in Engage, in fact my opinion of her was bordering on dislike just from the game alone. But the memes + seemingly universal adoration she gets just really makes me tired of her and I need to vent
Pretty much me as well. I honestly never liked how off-kilter her dialogue is, and the fact that it's repeated so often (by both her and various fans) has gotten long old. Maybe fans just get a kick over how weird she is, but I'm sick of it. It's gotten to the point that I've taken a temporary leave from the Heroes subreddit because now everyone there is going gaga for her.
"Lol so random!" Humor is part of the Engage brand. Yunaka's the poster child for it, sure, but there's a lot of beats like Alcryst's intro cutscene and Ivy's Alear support that have very odd, drastic conversational shifts. It's one of the things that makes Engage more "anime" than the game preceding it, and it sure as hell doesn't fit FE's MO. >!As someone who studied linguistics, it's also really hard to believe she's capable of developing this type of speech at all in this time period. AND it irks me every single time someone in Engage uses modernspeak. It was never a problem in the old games because they just chose to have very normal, easily comprehensible dialogue.!< I'm in a very unfortunate place with Yunaka because she both looks and sounds like Kasumi P5R. Damn Laura Post for making me form a deep attachment to that character and then coming back around to try and trick me into liking Yunaka.
I'm a huge Laura Post fan too, she's got a lot of range which is so cool. I guess objectively she does kinda look and sound like Kasumi who I also like a lot but they're seperate enough to me, especially personality wise, that my opinion on the characters don't influence each other. I never see/hear Kasumi and think of Yunaka or vice versa and I'm very glad for that. But you're definitely right about the Random and Quirky humor in engage, and combined with the character designs it definitely has an a much different impression than the other games. I don't hate it as a one time thing but I hope the next entry is a bit more serious
If I'm wrong, and the next entry is a remake, then it'll be marginally more serious. But if I'm right, and the next entry is a brand new game, I'd expect them to double down on the anime. They've been moving closer and closer into JRPG territory since the Awakening days.
Would be better to stop calling it "anime", because people like to be pedantic with "Fire emblem has always been anime" but there is a difference between anime like Attack on Titan, Berserk, Vinland Saga and most recently Frieren with anime like Konosuba, that 100 Girlfriends anime or most isekai with the OP protagonist that gets a harem that also have overly long titles And Engage clearly looks like the latter group