Princess Rescuer
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2018
- Messages
- 119
Thread warned for spam; rant threads have no place here
I have another theory as to why there are so many Fire Emblem characters in Smash. No, not because it's fun to animate all the flips and slashes, but rather a business reason.
Fire Emblem games can't sell themselves on their own.
I can't tell if Fire Emblem games are good or not, but they certainly aren't appealing. I doubt many people would care about (or know about) Fire Emblem games if they weren't advertised in Smash Brothers. I have actually played some Fire Emblem on my Switch thanks to having access to the Japanese account (and the games are still free- they don't even require a "Japanese subscription" or anything). Between the Famicom and Super Famicom, they only have the first game. Not the allegedly superior SFC installments. Not even Gaiden, which has more in common with current FE games than the first game does. I played it for a bit, and I just can't get into it. It's slow and tedious, and that's WITH savestates and rewinds. On every single turn, you inch each one of your units forward one at a time, marching the mob wherever the objective is. Whenever you get into battles, you get to watch some nice animations that are pretty cool for the time, but tend to repeat themselves. Whenever a character lands a hit, they don't keep hitting. For some reason, they need to run back to the starting point... before running back at the enemy to hit them a second time. Huh? Future installments fix this... until they go back to repeating canned animations that go back to the starting point. It's very inconsistent. Apparently, after lots of investment and many chapters, you're supposed to get some satisfaction out of watching your army grow and taking on more powerful foes as well. But many won't bother getting this far. One too many resets after not seeing the beginners traps coming or losing one character (who stays dead in every game prior to the 2010s with rare exceptions) will cause the average player to lose their patience. As well as discovering that they "played the game wrong" and have a difficult time winning. I have given up on every Fire Emblem game I've ever played (including 5) and I don't miss them.
The real impact of Fire Emblem is the numerous copycat Turn Based Strategy games, many of which never left Japan and are only remembered in obscure fan translations. Don't feel bad you've never heard of them though- they double down on how tedious and pedestrian the genre is. Usually, successful franchises will have spin-offs and copycats sell. Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon do that to some extent, but Fire Emblem doesn't. You've probably barely even heard of or remember the name of any other series or title in the genre other than Shining Force (a series that's long since abandoned its roots). Another thing a successful series can do is make you desire the most obscure characters imaginable, like what Mario does for Waluigi and Geno (who, if they are ever revelaed, will almost certainly not live up to your lofty expectations you imagined for yourself in some way). Without looking it up, can you even remember which game a character named Ephraim is from? What about Julia? Fa? Eyvel? I suspect that the lack of units other than "Lord" characters is due to the abysmal recognition everyone else has by comparison.
Finally, the thing that annoys me the most about FE characters in Smash is how they got my hopes up. Watching FE battles, I was expecting to actually do the fighting myself and have a blast executing all those cool and slickly animated battle techniques. But no, it's purely a strategy game with an element of luck that never ceases to be irritating. And that's all I have to say on that for this post. In terms of making me want more Fire Emblem, the Smash characters have only gotten me as far as trying the games out, but not actually wanting more of them. I've had my fill.
As for the six upcoming characters, don't get your hopes up. Five dollars for one character and stage is ridiculous. Especially when they end up being hated by the player base and nerfed into nothing special. For all the speculation done on the non-Japan-centric Smashboards, it's not going to matter as much as what Japanese players, the most profitable customers and the ones the developers are most likely the most in tune with, are requesting in random surveys. Don't waste your keystrokes everyone.
Fire Emblem games can't sell themselves on their own.
I can't tell if Fire Emblem games are good or not, but they certainly aren't appealing. I doubt many people would care about (or know about) Fire Emblem games if they weren't advertised in Smash Brothers. I have actually played some Fire Emblem on my Switch thanks to having access to the Japanese account (and the games are still free- they don't even require a "Japanese subscription" or anything). Between the Famicom and Super Famicom, they only have the first game. Not the allegedly superior SFC installments. Not even Gaiden, which has more in common with current FE games than the first game does. I played it for a bit, and I just can't get into it. It's slow and tedious, and that's WITH savestates and rewinds. On every single turn, you inch each one of your units forward one at a time, marching the mob wherever the objective is. Whenever you get into battles, you get to watch some nice animations that are pretty cool for the time, but tend to repeat themselves. Whenever a character lands a hit, they don't keep hitting. For some reason, they need to run back to the starting point... before running back at the enemy to hit them a second time. Huh? Future installments fix this... until they go back to repeating canned animations that go back to the starting point. It's very inconsistent. Apparently, after lots of investment and many chapters, you're supposed to get some satisfaction out of watching your army grow and taking on more powerful foes as well. But many won't bother getting this far. One too many resets after not seeing the beginners traps coming or losing one character (who stays dead in every game prior to the 2010s with rare exceptions) will cause the average player to lose their patience. As well as discovering that they "played the game wrong" and have a difficult time winning. I have given up on every Fire Emblem game I've ever played (including 5) and I don't miss them.
The real impact of Fire Emblem is the numerous copycat Turn Based Strategy games, many of which never left Japan and are only remembered in obscure fan translations. Don't feel bad you've never heard of them though- they double down on how tedious and pedestrian the genre is. Usually, successful franchises will have spin-offs and copycats sell. Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon do that to some extent, but Fire Emblem doesn't. You've probably barely even heard of or remember the name of any other series or title in the genre other than Shining Force (a series that's long since abandoned its roots). Another thing a successful series can do is make you desire the most obscure characters imaginable, like what Mario does for Waluigi and Geno (who, if they are ever revelaed, will almost certainly not live up to your lofty expectations you imagined for yourself in some way). Without looking it up, can you even remember which game a character named Ephraim is from? What about Julia? Fa? Eyvel? I suspect that the lack of units other than "Lord" characters is due to the abysmal recognition everyone else has by comparison.
Finally, the thing that annoys me the most about FE characters in Smash is how they got my hopes up. Watching FE battles, I was expecting to actually do the fighting myself and have a blast executing all those cool and slickly animated battle techniques. But no, it's purely a strategy game with an element of luck that never ceases to be irritating. And that's all I have to say on that for this post. In terms of making me want more Fire Emblem, the Smash characters have only gotten me as far as trying the games out, but not actually wanting more of them. I've had my fill.
As for the six upcoming characters, don't get your hopes up. Five dollars for one character and stage is ridiculous. Especially when they end up being hated by the player base and nerfed into nothing special. For all the speculation done on the non-Japan-centric Smashboards, it's not going to matter as much as what Japanese players, the most profitable customers and the ones the developers are most likely the most in tune with, are requesting in random surveys. Don't waste your keystrokes everyone.
