How to depress yourself while playing FE:A

[RandomSwordmaster]

I feel like a character in Darkest Dungeon....this song is testing my resolve.

Best when watched on Youtube's site.

Go and read the video's comments while listening, won't you?

brb, need another box of tissues

[shadowofchaos]

Kisama... Nee-san no kotoba WO KATARUNAAAAAAA!... made me cry more, actually.

The rain was kinda more effective with that than the aftermath.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Not that much stuff actually happens in the game though...

[RandomSwordmaster]

Eh, even so, post-Chapter 10 was somewhat depressing.

[Knusperkeks]

I've witnessed worse in rl, so the feels in this game don't really get to me.

[fengaridotdll]

I've beaten Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky three times so this doesn't really bring me to tears at all

[RandomSwordmaster]

The fanfiction in the video comments is quite interesting though.

[Czar_Yoshi]

I've beaten Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky three times so this doesn't really bring me to tears at all

Funny you should mention EoS with how many parallels its story has to Awakening (only somehow being able to be cuter and more serious at the same time)...

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i got depressed everytime i tried to play it a third time

[eclipse]

Funny you should mention EoS with how many parallels its story has to Awakening (only somehow being able to be cuter and more serious at the same time)...

IMO EoS did a better job of it.

[spoiler=EoS ending stuff]You, the main character, speak (for the first time, IIRC) right before you disappear. Your partner returns, alone, and guild life goes on. Your partner eventually returns to the place where you first met, and amidst the Krabby bubbles (which were also present back then), reminisces. You see the impact your sacrifice had, both for good and bad. Then your partner starts bawling like the loser you thought you beat out of him/her/it.

And then Dialga's like "lolno postgame", and brings your sorry ass back, blunting the impact.

Awakening skipped right to the final sentence of that spoiler. It's why I didn't really feel anything as the credits rolled.

[isetrh]

IMO EoS did a better job of it.

[spoiler=EoS ending stuff]You, the main character, speak (for the first time, IIRC) right before you disappear. Your partner returns, alone, and guild life goes on. Your partner eventually returns to the place where you first met, and amidst the Krabby bubbles (which were also present back then), reminisces. You see the impact your sacrifice had, both for good and bad. Then your partner starts bawling like the loser you thought you beat out of him/her/it.

And then Dialga's like "lolno postgame", and brings your sorry ass back, blunting the impact.

Awakening skipped right to the final sentence of that spoiler. It's why I didn't really feel anything as the credits rolled.

Awakening did leave it a little vague whether or not you come back... or at least I like to keep telling myself that. I like to think it was symbolic of something, or all in Robin's head, because it mirrored the first scene too closely. Agreed that PMD2/3 had a much better ending than Awakening (and story in general). Plus, Chrom can't be a Piplup.

[dapperlace]

I get really upset at the escaping chapter (10, I think?). I wish I could recruit Mustafa.

[Czar_Yoshi]

IMO EoS did a better job of it.

[spoiler=EoS ending stuff]You, the main character, speak (for the first time, IIRC) right before you disappear. Your partner returns, alone, and guild life goes on. Your partner eventually returns to the place where you first met, and amidst the Krabby bubbles (which were also present back then), reminisces. You see the impact your sacrifice had, both for good and bad. Then your partner starts bawling like the loser you thought you beat out of him/her/it.

And then Dialga's like "lolno postgame", and brings your sorry ass back, blunting the impact.

Awakening skipped right to the final sentence of that spoiler. It's why I didn't really feel anything as the credits rolled.

Awakening did leave it a little vague whether or not you come back... or at least I like to keep telling myself that.

Aside from the certainty of disappearance (Awakening gave you a 0.001% chance which is basically 100%, EoS said 0%), there's a big difference in the way it's presented, though: in Awakening, Chrom knows about it as soon as you do (right before the final boss) and is constantly like hey don't do it. In EoS, you find out about it much earlier, but don't tell your partner until after the deed is done- much more weighty that way. Also the choice is between disappearing and letting the world end and Grovyle's "sacrifice" go to waste, as opposed to disappearing and only sealing the bad guy away for 1000 years as opposed to killing him (EoS is against a natural disaster at that point rather than a bad guy, too).

And at least it was a benevolent deity who owes you a favor rather than the power of friendship- it makes sense in-universe too. I wouldn't have said no to a few plot dungeons in between Dialga and getting your mc back, though.

Honestly though I was more of thinking about EoS's Special Episode 5 in comparison to Awakening than its first endgame (they've got a looot more similarities than that...).

Edited April 16, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[BrightBow]

From my personal experience, the easiest way to get depressed with this game is to keep Battle Voices activated for 5 minutes or so.

Now Id was a very emotional song that actually got me to cry and effortlessly at that. But this one just doesn't seem to hit the right notes in that regard. I don' t feel like this song really goes anywhere, basically like it was written with the assumption that every slow song played with a violin and a piano would be sad by default.

Anyway, the fake drama about Robin possibly dying was just embarrassing, given that once we find out about it, the game immediately offers a loophole to get out of this situation without skipping a beat. It would be laughable seeing everyone humping Robin's legs when it's so freaking obvious that she wasn't going to die, if it wasn't for everyone's willingness to sell out the future of their own children to a world-eating dragon, like their lives aren't even something worth to take into consideration.

Of course, Chrom was the worst, dedicating his entire victory speech to Robin as if she was the only person to die for the sake of the day were Ylisse would finally see peace.

Now as far as sacrifice scenes in video games go, what comes to my mind is "Tales of the Abyss", which I think is a really nice example of both how to handle a sacrifice in general... and to also pull it off in the middle of the story, when you KNOW that a main character couldn't possible die

Because in Tales of the Abyss, the "sacrifice yourself to save the world" part isn't really about whether or not the hero does die but...

the drama comes instead from Luke coming face to face with the certainty of death. He was basically suicidal at that point, believing himself to be superfluous and just taking taking someone else's life away simply by existing and it's only through this experience, that he finally sees the value in his own life, turning what is basically a convenient excuse to end his miserable existence into a true, heroic and selfless sacrifice.

Also, unlike what you would expect, sacrificing himself actually does kill Luke... just not immediately, essentially turning him terminal ill.

The whole part is engaging because of the journey that the characters are going through and not because of the possibility of death.

Edited April 16, 2015 by BrightBow

[Irysa]

I can't miss an opportunity to complain about Tales of the Abyss, even if it is off topic.

Now as far as sacrifice scenes in video games go, what comes to my mind is "Tales of the Abyss", which I think is a really nice example of both how to handle a sacrifice in general... and to also pull it off in the middle of the story, when you KNOW that a main character couldn't possible die

The problem is that the crux of Abyss' narrative is dependant on a really whiny, really ignorant, really inconsiderate, and overall, really irritating lead - Luke.

People tend to jump to his defence and say he's "realistic" (lol), but I'm not obligated to like real life shitty people I meet. I'm not obligated to feel bad for people who treat others like shit either, and none of this is helped by the fact that the game incessantly drags each stage of Luke's character arc. I get it, he's sheltered and self centered, but the game likes beating you over the head with it for what feels like an eternity, and then beats you over the head with his "waaa I'm useless, just kill me" for another eternity, then other characters still find time to poke fun at his resolve for the entire game (which he usually regresses over until someone props him up again, gaaah).

There's nothing wrong with a typical redemption/prodigal son plotline but you can't expect a viewer to not develop a deep seated resentment towards obnoxious characters with shit behaviour if you spend such a huge amount of time on it. The payoff just isn't worth it, and it doens't help that they pull the exact same bullshit where Tear sits around saying I BELIEVE HE'LL COME BACK at the end and then Luke does come back. Seriously dude, it takes some gall to complain about Awakening's shitty personalities being shoved into your face (make no mistake, I agree), point out how lame the sacrifice was, and then pull Tales of the Abyss out as a counterexample which has the same problems magnified. This isn't even getting into the other characters having many of the same hyperexaggerated anime stereotype nuances, or the fact most of them take about as much pleasure in killing people with battle voices on (if not more) as Awakening's cast do.

PS: Anime haircut redemption cliche.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Irysa

[BrightBow]

I can't miss an opportunity to complain about Tales of the Abyss, even if it is off topic.

The problem is that the crux of Abyss' narrative is dependant on a really whiny, really ignorant, really inconsiderate, and overall, really irritating lead - Luke.

People tend to jump to his defence and say he's "realistic" (lol), but I'm not obligated to like real life shitty people I meet. I'm not obligated to feel bad for people who treat others like shit either, and none of this is helped by the fact that the game incessantly drags each stage of Luke's character arc. I get it, he's sheltered and self centered, but the game likes beating you over the head with it for what feels like an eternity, and then beats you over the head with his "waaa I'm useless, just kill me" for another eternity, then other characters still find time to poke fun at his resolve for the entire game (which he usually regresses over until someone props him up again, gaaah).

There's nothing wrong with a typical redemption/prodigal son plotline but you can't expect a viewer to not develop a deep seated resentment towards obnoxious characters with shit behaviour if you spend such a huge amount of time on it. The payoff just isn't worth it, and it doens't help that they pull the exact same bullshit where Tear sits around saying I BELIEVE HE'LL COME BACK at the end and then Luke does come back. Seriously dude, it takes some gall to complain about Awakening's shitty personalities being shoved into your face (make no mistake, I agree), point out how lame the sacrifice was, and then pull Tales of the Abyss out as a counterexample which has the same problems magnified. This isn't even getting into the other characters having many of the same hyperexaggerated anime stereotype nuances, or the fact most of them take about as much pleasure in killing people with battle voices on (if not more) as Awakening's cast do.

PS: Anime haircut redemption cliche.

I wasn't praising Abyss' story (Edit: as a whole) here and I wasn't praising it's characters either. I could complain quite a bit about Abyss plot and writing myself but here I was just focusing on the way they approached a scene about sacrificing the hero.

Edited April 16, 2015 by BrightBow

[Irysa]

Abyss's overall story (and at the very least, Luke's characterisation) is an important factor that ties into the relevance and importance of the scene you were actually trying to praise. It's intellectually dishonest to slam Awakening for it's overall problems regarding an individual scene and ignore the factors that go into Abyss's scene, especially when they both have the same asspulls.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Irysa

[BrightBow]

Abyss's overall story is an important factor that ties into the relevance and importance of the scene you were actually trying to praise. It's intellectually dishonest to slam Awakening for it's overall problems regarding an individual scene and ignore the factors that go into Abyss's scene, especially when they both have the same asspulls.

Of course you can focus on individual aspects of a work and certain parts of a story without writing also a few pages about how the whole thing works. Like, if an actor gives an engaging performance in a badly written scene with a misleading soundtrack, that doesn't change that the author gave a good performance, no matter how little the scene works because of those other factors.

I myself have occasionally praised certain parts of Awakening's writing myself, like the aftermath of Ch13 in Awakening among other parts. Because yeah, it was a very powerful scene that expressed some simple and sincerely human feelings and that doesn't change because because I can't stand Chrom because of various scenes surrounding it.

...although the only other part I can currently recall praising is Chrom actually giving a decent reason for bringing the Fire Emblem along to Plegia despite the obvious risk. I definitely can't say too many positive things about that game but I like to give credit were credit is due.

[Irysa]

You're sidestepping the issue here. I disagree with the poignance of Abyss's sacrifice related scenes exactly because they're centered on a character who is wholly unlikeable (among other reasons), but my complaint with your post was how you specifically choose to highlight tangentially related issues with Awakening's sacrifice scene yet ignored tangentially related issues with Abyss's! I can write an equally flattering analysis of the scene in Awakening that ignores various issues (highlighting the excellent soundtrack, the credits pulling out THE END before the trick opening/ending cutscene that messes with the player, etc), but the point about intellectual honesty is that this would be a blatantly biased presentation of facts.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Irysa

[BrightBow]

You're sidestepping the issue here. I disagree with the poignance of Abyss's sacrifice related scenes exactly because they're centered on a character who is wholly unlikeable (among other reasons), but my complaint with your post was how you specifically choose to highlight tangentially related issues with Awakening's sacrifice scene yet ignored tangentially related issues with Abyss's! I can write an equally flattering analysis of the scene in Awakening that ignores various issues (highlighting the excellent soundtrack, the credits pulling out THE END before the trick opening/ending cutscene that messes with the player, etc), but the point about intellectual honesty is that this would be a blatantly biased presentation of facts.

I guess the part about Abyss really fit better with Chrom's "sacrifice" which I ended up also writing about in my many rewrites since those two very similar events were so close together. But I deleted that part before posting because people were only posting about Robin's sacrifice and I didn't feel the connection proved strong enough in the end despite the similarities. The whole issue of making the characters look bad at the end of Awakening doesn't really connect at all to the Abyss example, as depressive of an experience as that one was.

The Abyss part is supposed to illustrate how a sacrifice scene can matter even if the audience is aware that the hero can't actually die at that point in the story and that there is no tension as a result. This doesn't apply to Robin's case directly because the game didn't actually have to give the loophole and the hero can actually die at the very end of a story, so on closer observation this is really just an issue of bad story execution. But the issue was in full force in Chrom's case since of course the hero wouldn't simply get killed by Narga.

[Irysa]

If thats the case, I'm still not sure the comparison is apt for Robin's sacrifice either. Awakening explictly focuses on the whole bonds/invisible ties stuff, to the point they're literally demonstrated to warp destiny and reality. It's cheesy as all hell, but, and I've said this to -Cynthia- before IIRC, I think the actual point of the Robin sacrifice isn't so much to do with the theme of "sacrifice" so much as the theme of "the power of friendship". Or if we're going with japanese/anime trope stuff, 仲間 / nakama. Which again, I'm not here to neccessarily defend, again emphasising that it's really cheesy, but the fact the loophole and reactions from characters demean the sacrifice aspect is irrelevant to the thematic consistency and goal of the overall work. The choice to sacrifice or not is also more to do with how Robin/the player feels about the characters in the story, whether they're WILLING to do it for them, whether their ties are strong enough, which again works with the main theme. (side note, lots of people complain about choices in this game but I thought they were pretty meta and actually liked them, with the exception of the Lucina one since there's barely any real reaction for saying yes)

Additionally, I don't think such a theme is neccessarily bad either, although I definitely wouldn't point to Awakening as a particularly strong example.

For Chrom though, I don't think they really even played up his potential to get burnt up by Naga whatsoever. You could quite easily remove that from the script without it changing like two or three lines, so I'd agree it's pretty pointless and not properly implemented. It would have worked better in the grand scheme of Awakening if once again they were emphasising bonds or whatever in Chrom making it through that process.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Irysa

[Rxmonste]

Ha ha ha, aaahhhh....It's funny how much fan fiction was written due to a single fanart pic that was slapped onto the video. I suppose what they say is true, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

But yeah, thank you for killing my good mood. The combination of the fan fictions AND the music in the background, I almost cried, I'll admit. Which is saying much, because despite the fact that I can have sad feelings, I would not cry.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Rxmonste

[Czar_Yoshi]

Energy equals friendship times the speed of light squared.

So while there's a lull in the Robin's sacrifice debate, what about that whole scene where Chrom is performing the Awakening and does it anyway even though Naga warns him it might kill him? I've always seen that as Chrom's (out of the spotlight) counterpart to Robin's thing.

[eclipse]

If Chrom died, Lucina's sibling wouldn't exist. Thus, it sort of shot that scene to hell and back.

[Czar_Yoshi]

But the game always stresses how this timeline is different from Lucina's future. Chrom perishing wouldn't break anything (at least within the game's world logic).

...I still wish that scene had been something other than "AAARGH" from Chrom and a white screen.