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EDIT: Apparently, the listing isn't on the website. So it could've been there earlier or the OP in this post is messing with us. So take this with a grain of salt.
Speaking of FE Fates, what does everyone think of that game as a whole here? I'm certain you guys have talked about it a bunch before. For me personally, having only played Birthright and Revelation, the latter twice:
Gameplay wise, Birthright does everything Awakening tried to, but way better, Revelation tries too hard to be a puzzle game and doesn't use enemy pairup, making it ultimately pretty boring.
Character wise, I think that pretty much everyone is extremely one-dimensional and kind of boring. Takumi, Oboro and pretty much every unimportant character (Scarlet, Reina, Yukimura, Fuuga) being the only exceptions IMO. There's a lot of likable characters, but few have substance, probably due to the sheer number of them. (which is why I wanted child characters to be gone from the very first announcement but eh)
Birthright's story is pretty good, but Corrin is such a whiny baby in it. Conversely, Corrin is a much stronger character in Revelation, but the stupid "curse" that keeps them from mentioning Valla is so DUMB because it kills the momentum they would have had. Both stories feel like they're missing something. Birthright purposefully leaves out everything related to Valla to justify Revelation's existence, but Revelation skims over plot points covered by Birthright, so they both feel incomplete. Also, the story in general is full of really dumb explanations for things in lieu of good writing, such as justifying fanservice with an alternate dimension where time is stopped.
On top of this, the fanservice in this game is so shameless than it loops back around and becomes shameful and I have a really hard time liking the game overall as a result. It's like they tried to mash up a dating sim with Game of Thrones levels of medieval drama and it just doesn't work.
Music and art direction in all paths is [****ing fantastic]. All I gotta say. It's all good in this department.
Overall, Birthright is solid despite the tropey characters and fanservice, but Revelation is extremely disappointing. Instead of pulling the curtain away to reveal a much more epic and detailed story than Birthright or Revelation, it feels like an answer sheet with some rather lame puzzles/maps on the side.
I know my response is pretty late, but I thought I'd respond and write down my thoughts once I was more awake.
Birthright: It's like Awakening in terms of gameplay, but highly improved. Most maps aren't just open fields like the last one, and the pair-up mechanic is no longer broken. Yet, it's because of the Awakening-style gameplay that playing through maps isn't as fun as Conquest. I remember thinking about which maps could've been turned into seize maps or defend missions in the game, "defeat the boss" with added conditions, or just make some of the maps bigger (a.k.a. Leo's map). The enemies don't have skills for most of the game, and only in the later chapters do some of the enemies gain a set of skills like a Conquest enemy would. Reinforcements can also be frustrating in this route. One particular late-game chapter could've been a mandatory challenge instead of an optional one.
Chapter 26 could've been improved by not allowing you to OHKO Xander right away. Yes, the chapter still allows your other units to battle the surrounding units and then kill Xander, but there wasn't a strong incentive for that other than wanting to challenge yourself.
Birthright Chapter 26's Conquest parallel, Chapter 25, basically forces you to take care of the surrounding enemies first and then defeat Ryoma. When you fight Ryoma in that chapter, it is similar to Xander where you and him are separated from everyone else. Both characters stand in an arena at the center of the map, and the floor beneath them is covered with healing tiles that not only will heal both units each turn, but also causes their attacks to lose lots of accuracy and deal very little damage. A Dragon Vein located above the arena can be used to remove the healing tiles and allow Ryoma and Corrin to deal normal damage to each other. However, that Dragon Vein is located in between two doors, and unlike other doors, those can't be opened with Locktouch or a Door Key. In order to open the doors so that you can gain access to the Dragon Vein and the arena, you need to kill both of Ryoma's retainers on the top left and top right portions of the map (in Normal, you only need to kill one of them).
That said, Birthright Chapter 26 could be improved by making it similar to Conquest Chapter 25. First, cover the entire arena Corrin and Xander are trapped in with healing tiles so that they deal very little damage to each other with highly inaccurate attacks. Next, make sure both doors (to the arena) cannot be opened with a Door Key or Locktouch. The only way you would be able to open the arena doors is by killing Laslow AND Peri in battle. Behind Laslow and Peri would be a long wall door for each side that guards the Dragon Vein to deactivate the healing tiles located where Corrin and Xander are. In addition to the arena doors, those long wall doors would only be opened by killing both of Xander's retainers.
Additionally, I would leave Xander's stats lowered simply because it makes sense story wise. Because of the emotional guilt he's feeling following Elise's death, he wants Corrin to end his life. In order to make Xander a threatening foe even with lowered stats, I would give him skills that would still make him a challenge. Rend Heaven could allow him to deal more damage, Death Blow would increase the chance Xander would land a critical hit, or maybe Wary Fighter would be used to make up for his low speed. Furthermore, make Xander avoid attacking on the enemy phase for roughly 20 turns (normally in Birthright, Xander will attack immediately on the first turn on Lunatic, but will not attack at all except for counterattacks on Normal or Hard). This way, you would have a time limit for your other units to reach the Dragon Vein. In Conquest, Ryoma will avoid attacking on the enemy phase for 25 turns so that your other units can reach the Dragon Vein first while trying to beat the clock.
All these changes would make Chapter 26 a true challenge you must experience instead of making it optional. Once you activate the Dragon Vein, you then have a choice: do you want to make Xander's battle honorable by allowing Corrin to finish him off from there, or do you want to take the darker route and let your other units kill Xander.
Story-wise, Birthright is my favorite of the three routes. Yes, it has your typical Fire Emblem plot, but for me, that approach allowed the plot to feel more consistent in its writing compared to Conquest, Revelation, and even Awakening. Birthright's story still has some issues (and its issues are much less than Conquest and Revelation's), but it does have some good moments. All of the Nohrian siblings get much more spotlight in Birthright then the Hoshidan siblings (minus Takumi) in Conquest, and Chapter 18 + Chapter 22 onward was my favorite part of the story.
As for characters, I can understand why the Hoshidan characters are rather bland compared to the Nohrian characters and the Awakening cast, but to be honest, I enjoyed much of the Hoshidan cast as much as the Nohrian cast. The royal siblings (Takumi especially; he's my favorite character in all of Fates), Oboro, Scarlet, and Saizo definitely come to mind right away as the more interesting, though I also enjoyed characters like Hinata, Kaden, Azama, Setsuna, and Kagero.
Hinata may come out bland at first, but he actually has a lot of great support conversations (namely his supports with Takumi, Azura, Mozu, Felicia, Odin, Kagero, Oboro, Kaden, Sakura, and Hinoka; the last one is especially noteworthy because that's where Hinoka experiences the most character development) that flesh him out to be a really enjoyable character (Hinata and Oboro are also my favorite retainer duo in Fates). I enjoy Kaden for his humor, design, and kind personality, and he too has a lot of good supports much like Hinata. I enjoy Azama and Setsuna for their humor, while I enjoy Kagero for her loyalty to Hoshido, her art hobby, and a somewhat nice backstory (her supports with Corrin and Orochi explore that); Saizo is still the winner between him and Kagero for the more interesting character though.
Conquest: In terms of gameplay, Conquest is awesome. There is a diverse range of missions, well-designed maps, and a great challenge provided throughout most of the game. In fact, some of the maps can be aggravating as I played through them, but when I beat those maps, I felt some nice satisfaction for making the accomplishment. Some of my favorite chapters in the game in terms of gameplay were Chapters 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 20, 23, and 24 (Chapters 10 and 23 are my top 2 favorites). Admittedly, I dropped the difficulty from Hard to Normal at Chapter 12 because I got stumped there, but even some of the later chapters took multiple tries to complete.
Story wise, Conquest was my least favorite of the three routes. The writing felt very poor, with forced conflicts and inconsistent writing that primarily come to mind. The story really falls apart from Chapter 15 onward because the events that happen from there are the result of a dumb plot device. There, the only good Conquest chapters in terms of plot were Chapters 22 and 25 (prior to Chapter 15, I enjoyed Chapters 10 through 12 story-wise).
When it comes to the characters, I enjoyed the Nohrian cast as much as the Hoshidan cast as previously mentioned. A good number of them have some interesting backstories with some lovable personalities. My favorite Nohrian characters include Laslow, Niles, Arthur, Charlotte, and Xander, though I also enjoyed characters such as Benny and Effie. The Nohrian royals were mostly enjoyable characters for the most part, though I'm one of the new that prefers the Hoshidan royals over the Nohrian ones. I found Takumi to be a much more interesting and relatable character than Leo, while I liked Sakura more than Elise because I found her less clingy than the latter (not to mention I like Sakura's personality more than Elise's). Despite this, I still like Leo and Elise as characters (and I will admit that Elise is much more likable in Birthright than she is Conquest). Xander is the only Nohrian royal I liked more than a Hoshidan royal, Ryoma. I found Xander's character more interesting because of his flaws and hardship pointed out in his supports. Camilla is a character that I didn't like even though I read her supports. I'm just not a fan of her over-attachment to Corrin.
Revelation: I found Revelation to be the middle ground between Birthright and Conquest in terms of gameplay and story. Gameplay-wise, a number of maps are pretty disappointing. The two chapters that I particularly didn't like were Chapters 10 and 22. Chapter 10 is easily my least favorite map in all of Fates because of its tediously boring "break the ice" gimmick, while Chapter 22 was just very bland. One major thing I liked about Revelation's gameplay compared to Birthright's is that there is a diverse range of missions and not everything is just "Rout the Enemy" or "Defeat the boss." Other than that, most chapters felt meh at best, and most of the enemies also don't a diverse set of skills similar to Birthright.
I liked Revelation's story more than Conquest's story but less than Birthright's, but Revelation has issues some bad issues with its plot.
I thought the plot got pretty weak for the Valla portion of it. The Anthony arc was very poor since it was blatantly obvious he was going to backstab Corrin the moment he was introduced. The deaths of Sumeragi, Mikoto, and Arete weren't very moving since we barely got to know their characters, and the Gunter plot twist was ruined not only by the Chapter 18 cutscene, but also by removing all of his support conversations for that route. The fact he didn't have any supports made it obvious he was going to have a big moment later in the story. I'm guessing the reason his support conversations were removed was because they didn't want to create the awkward situation where you marry Gunter and then find out he had a family later in the game. Honestly, I think the best solution to keeping Gunter's supports to make the plot twist less obvious was by making him the only character you can't achieve an S-Support with (and I would also make this support change in Conquest as well).
We also never have any explanation for why Valla ended up being such a torn up land, and that issue comes from the lack of world-building (more on that later). Did Valla turn that way from Anankos' black hole attack, causing Valla, which might've once been located between Nohr and Hoshido because of the Bottomless Canyon in between the two kingdoms, to sink into it and split into a million pieces? That's my theory how Valla turned that way, but again, the game never tells us.
Being able to recruit all of the playable characters also felt very fan-fiction-like. To be honest, a part of me did feel a sense of satisfaction when gaining access to all the playable characters from Nohr and Hoshido because I didn't have to worry about any major character deaths...
(minus Scarlet of course, which I will also admit was pretty dumb)
.... not to mention I enjoyed pairing Nohrians with Hoshidans to see how their supports would play out.
Other: Some of my other qualms with Fates include Phoenix mode's inclusion and the children. I honestly think Casual is good enough for a beginner's experience; Phoenix mode was just pointless.
As for the children, they were simply shoe-horned into the game. I bet the developers thought, "Children units in this game would be pretty pointless since this isn't Awakening where time travel plays a big role, but you know what, let's just add them anyway to please the Awakening fans. Then, let's use the Deeprealms to justify their existence, even though it will probably look stupid." Most of the children characters are also very one-note in terms of disposition.
Admittedly, I found some of the children enjoyable. Shiro is hands down my favorite child character in Fates (as well as one of my favorite Fates' characters overall) for being very interesting overall. His personality is a contrast from his father, being laid-back instead of serious all the time. He also wants to become more skilled than his father because he feels rather insecure about inheriting the throne. Shiro is probably one of the few children where you really see how the Deep Realms affects his distant relationship with his parents, which makes him even more compelling. He's also a sociable and humorous character with plenty of great support conversations. In all, Shiro is my favorite child unit since he's generally the least one-note compared to the others.
I also enjoyed children characters such as Shigure, Kiragi, Siegbert, Forrest, Ophelia, Selkie, Velouria, Ignatius, and Nina. Of the children listed, I will admit some are pretty one note (namely Velouria, Selkie, Ophelia, and Nina) with only a few interesting supports, while the rest have a bit more personality to them and more interesting support conversations (Shigure, Kiragi, Forrest, Siegbert, and Ignatius). Many of the children even have some good support conversations with their parents; Kiragi and Nina are good examples. Kiragi and Takumi's supports further examines Takumi's insecurity issues while his son tries his best to improve him, while Nina and Niles' supports further explores the former's dislike for her father. At least the Heirs of Fate DLC fleshes out some of the characters more.
But even then, I think children should be removed for FE15 unless its plot has a good reason to bring them. I'd still leave the S-Supports, but don't have all of them end in marriage. Maybe, in some S-Supports, two characters will become much stronger friends.
As for some overarching story elements...
Most of the character deaths felt very forced. Kaze in Birthright, Flora, Scarlet in Revelation, and Lilith all come to mind. Kaze's death doesn't give you any warning in advance other than subtle foreshadowing in Chapter 7 when he tells Saizo "I owe Corrin my life." Flora, while she has the most interesting personality out of all the maids, had a pretty pointless death as well, and even Jakob states "what a terrible waste of life" after she dies. Yes, she did feel very insecure about herself and ashamed from her past choices that made her kill herself, but she could've had a much more meaningful death than that.
Then there's Lilith. Lilith's death was dumb because she become irrelevant to the plot after Chapter 6, so for her to come back only to be killed was really forced...
Lilith also dies in Conquest, and it's much dumber how it plays out there than in Birthright. Want to take a guess who kills Lilith in Conquest? Hans? Iago? Garon? A chapter boss? Nope, none of them. Who killed Lilith then?
A Faceless... Yes, let me repeat that... A Faceless kills Lilith in Conquest.
A generic enemy and the least threatening enemy unit you will face (according to Corrin in Birthright) kills someone for a "meaningful death." Having Lilith killed by a Faceless is like having Yoshi killed by a Goomba. Corrin's reaction following her death was also pretty stupid. He just stands there and starts crying, and there's another Faceless that just so happens to be coming after him, and the only reason Corrin survives the next one is because Xander arrives at the right moment to kill it.
In Birthright, at least Lilith dies to an actual antagonist, Hans (though he is disappointing as a villain), and instead of crying right away, Corrin picks up his sword and vows to kill Hans.
The best and well-played character death in all of Fire Emblem Fates has to be Elise's death. She is active in Birthright's story so that even if you haven't played Conquest, you still get to know her character and her death doesn't come out as forced. I'd rank Xander's death for the second most impactful death since he pretty much begins to realize all the mistakes he's that has culminated with accidentally murdering Elise, and while making Corrin fight despite going against Elise's wishes makes you question him, it then becomes clear that he wants Corrin to fight because he feels guilty for what he has done, and a part of him still clings on to honor that wants him to have someone else kill him rather than himself.
Xander and Elise's deaths was also the first time a video game made me cry in a very long time, though I felt more moved with Xander's death because of one part of the dialogue at one point when he brings up his favorite memory (and I tend to get emotional when memories are brought back right before death).
I'd rank Ryoma's death for the third best death in all of Fates since it captures the tense situation he is in yet he must stay true to his duties as a samurai and doesn't want Corrin to experience the pain of having to land the killing blow.
There's also the issue of a lack of world building, and one example is that the continent in Fates doesn't have a name.
I also think the games didn't need that much fan service, though I wouldn't be surprised if FE15 expands on them since that's what allows Intelligent Systems to make more money than they previously did.
On the plus side, I absolutely love the music, graphics, and art in Fates though. I even bought the original soundtrack when it was released three months ago, and I've been listening to the games' music nonstop throughout the summer. The graphics are an improvement from Awakening (especially now that all characters have feet in battle), and the character portraits look very nice.
Concluding thoughts: Despite its issues such as the writing and fan service, I still enjoyed Fire Emblem Fates a lot. The gameplay was a huge improvement from Awakening overall which made the games feel like a more satisfying challenge and more entertaining to play through, and the characters were still very enjoyable for the most part. I also enjoyed other elements such as the music, graphics, and the art direction.
Planet Robobot didn't have the spear power, it's probably why they released a regular waddle dee instead of bandanna dee amiibo and it gives you parasol
Kinda weird, parasol has been associated with waddle dee a lot more than spear
TBH me neither but I do see the appeal. Plus he is cute and we do need a Spear user. He's just not exciting to me. I don't see how his basic spear moves could feel awesome w/o something like in SSF2 where it can change to parasol or have the beam effect at end.
I still often put him in my rosters and think he is the only Kirby character the Kirby series needs imo.
False. Parasols are more associated with Waddle Dees as a whole, not Bandana Dee. The only Kirby game I remember having Spear Waddle Dees was Canvas Curse, and I don't remember Bandana Dee having a parasol
Not that it helps much, but from what I've heard this is INCREDIBLY common in the animation/VFX industry. This one's just one that came to public attention. Mainly because it's hard for them to unionize or anything similar when outsourcing to overseas is a more affordable option.
You do realize Muda is an actual Japanese word, right?
Oh good, an excuse to talk about the game
The Hound class can summon a hawk or a dog during battle, which their skills are revolved around
One of the Hawk path skills is called Ice Peck and it's literally the Hawk following up one of the Hound's attack with an Ice+Stab attack
Also, you can rename the hawk and the 2nd Name path so yeah, I'm going full on Jojo with it
So I just started a new run on FE Conquest.
This time, I will try to grind alot and be sure to have the unit I want.
My old save will still be there, but honestly, I feel like the later chapter are just going to be tedious in some way. (It's Conquest after all)
Also,I have buy Birthright and I must say, I prefer alot more Birthright in term of gameplay and story. But I think Awakening just make me love leveling up my unit.
Anyway, I will buy the DLC grinding map when I could for Conquest. Yeah, it's cheap, but for me. Game are fun when you have alot of option that let you paly the way you want. And beign force to leave some good unit because you forget to use them or because your super unit do all the job is sad to me. I prefer having a little army of super soldier if I can say that.
In short, blame Takumi.
Sorry, I just find him bland and boring, really.
Makes the most sense out of a possible Kirby newcomer at this point? Yeah. But still bland and boring.
Sorry, I just find him bland and boring, really.
Makes the most sense out of a possible Kirby newcomer at this point? Yeah. But still bland and boring.
False. Parasols are more associated with Waddle Dees as a whole, not Bandana Dee. The only Kirby game I remember having Spear Waddle Dees was Canvas Curse, and I don't remember Bandana Dee having a parasol
Remind me to stop clicking on Metroid threads on NeoGaf. I can only read so much drama.
. . .It's a spinoff and it's not like anyone else is getting a glorious 30th anniversary game with all the bells and whistles on time either. It just so happens that 30 years after 1986 happens to be a pretty quiet time for Nintendo.
Where's the Zelda anniversary? Oh, it has to wait for next year. Where's the Kid Icarus anniversary? . . .LOL.
The only anniversary that's getting anything is Pokemon, and that's because it's darn close to being an annual series in the first place and Game Freak is the one handling it.
There is a normal Metroid game in. . .some degree of development hell. It should either pop up eventually or have a new idea for a main game overtake it. Federation Force didn't replace it, since FF was a DS era game stuck in it's own development hell and thus has to at least be from around the time of if not outright predate Other M in terms of when the idea for the game first started floating around. A spinoff is a spinoff, people are just taking it way too personally.
But then what do I expect? This is one of the fandoms that lashes out at any game or character that isn't theirs just because they aren't getting what they want at any given moment, so of course they'd lash out at anything less then perfection from their own series too.
Sorry, I just find him bland and boring, really.
Makes the most sense out of a possible Kirby newcomer at this point? Yeah. But still bland and boring.
Just got on Birthright Chapter 22, after this chapter, I'm probably going to grind supports to get the children and their paralogues, the only ones I have now are Dwyer and Kana
On that note, Dwyer makes for a great Dragon Vein popper with his high Mov and since I already have 3 other healers, I don't use him that much for anything else
I'm going for TakumiXOboro and SakuraXHayato, dunno about Azura and Felicia and all the other females are benched
So, considering only the kids, who should I pair up with who?
Come to think of it 2016 has been one of the most quiet years for Nintendo. We had a pretty standard Direct in the start of March and no Digital Event or Direct at E3. IIRC even 2015 with it's huge drought still had more news than this year. Here's hoping the Fall is going to be loaded with NX related Directs/news and general Directs as well.
Oh, also that reminds me. . .you're not going to believe what I saw.
Someone actually thinks Samus is getting pampered for her anniversary and DK's 35th anniversary is getting neglected.
. . .If we look past people refusing to accept the spinoff as being anything other than a slap in the face, then from a certain point of view it's not exactly wrong. . .
Oh, also that reminds me. . .you're not going to believe what I saw.
Someone actually thinks Samus is getting pampered for her anniversary and DK's 35th anniversary is getting neglected.
. . .If we look past people refusing to accept the spinoff as being anything other than a slap in the face, then from a certain point of view it's not exactly wrong. . .
If the Mario series had the same kind of fandom as Metroid and had that occur to them, then considering the reaction Color Splash and the new Mario Party are getting I'm guessing they wouldn't consider their anniversary to be any better.
If the Mario series had the same kind of fandom as Metroid and had that occur to them, then considering the reaction Color Splash and the new Mario Party are getting I'm guessing they wouldn't consider their anniversary to be any better.
Mario had so much attention for it's 30th anniversary though. Even having like 2-3 games released along with the huge marketing push for Super Mario Maker.
Mario and Zelda are the only two series that will get any noteworthy attention for their anniversary I guess. This year is Metroid's 30th anniversary and Golden Sun's 15th anniversary but neither is having any fanfare.
Yeah I agree with that statement. 2016 is the year of the spinoffs and remakes.
I share similar thoughts with Isaac. No matter how much his fans try to persuade me it doesn't work. SSF2 didn't help either, acc made me more even less interested TBH.
To be fair though all of Isaac's moves from SSF2 are Venus-related Psynergy which limits his moveset to an extent. I think a better approach would be to take the Ness/Lucas approach where their movesets are inspired from the series as a whole. Isaac might be a Venus adept but I think it's okay for him to use all the elements in Golden Sun (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Mercury) and all kinds of Psynergy, Dijins, and Summons in his moveset.
Not that i'm disappointed with Isaac's SSF2 moveset. I think the team did a good job on that. Just saying I can see why people might not be interested because Isaac had a lot more to draw from in his moveset.
So... I'm probably going to be live here in a minute on my twitch channel. Going to be playing Syobon Action on stream . https://www.twitch.tv/epicmartin7
Played the game before, but I'm going to see If I can get through the majority of it lol.
To be fair though all of Isaac's moves from SSF2 are Venus-related Psynergy which limits his moveset to an extent. I think a better approach would be to take the Ness/Lucas approach where their movesets are inspired from the series as a whole. Isaac might be a Venus adept but I think it's okay for him to use all the elements in Golden Sun (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Mercury) and all kinds of Psynergy, Dijins, and Summons in his moveset.
Not that i'm disappointed with Isaac's SSF2 moveset. I think the team did a good job on that. Just saying I can see why people might not be interested because Isaac had a lot more to draw from in his moveset.
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