Could Holy War Work With A Chapter Count of Other Games?

[Jotari]

Could Genealogy of Holy War work if it was given the standard 25-30 short chapters with a base preparations each chapter rather than the 12 monstrously huge chapters with a castle to return to, and would you like to see it done that way/have any ideas of what could and couldn't be done with it.

[bottlegnomes]

It'd take away some of the charm and uniqueness, but it'd still work as a game. I guess my only suggestion would be make some different objectives, like when Eltshan attacks in C3 have it be defend or something.

[Psych]

It'd probably just split a chapter up into like 5 and instead of going around all the castles you'd just take them one at a time.

[Oshimos]

The more linear chapters would probably benefit from it; not to mention it would make foot units more useful because they'd be bumped up to the current castle at the start of every new chapter.

It would hurt a few of the more convoluted chapters where you're multitasking or have branching paths. Lief and Lewyn's chapters come to mind, but I feel like there were some other spots where the huge maps work better too.

[Shin]

Castle by castle could work pretty well. For the branched chapters, it'd be kinda cool to have to divide your units into teams, having certain groups take on different tasks. For example, you might have Sigurd going to take on Macbeth and try to get Beowulf recruited whilst you could delegate someone like Noish and a few other guys to go handle the villages on another map.

[Jotari]

The more linear chapters would probably benefit from it; not to mention it would make foot units more useful because they'd be bumped up to the current castle at the start of every new chapter.

It would hurt a few of the more convoluted chapters where you're multitasking or have branching paths. Lief and Lewyn's chapters come to mind, but I feel like there were some other spots where the huge maps work better too.

It'd be cool if for the first Leif chapter you had to defend for the number of turns it took Celice to complete the last chapter as you're waiting for his reinforcements.

Castle by castle could work pretty well. For the branched chapters, it'd be kinda cool to have to divide your units into teams, having certain groups take on different tasks. For example, you might have Sigurd going to take on Macbeth and try to get Beowulf recruited whilst you could delegate someone like Noish and a few other guys to go handle the villages on another map.

That would actually be really cool. Kind of like the first half of Part 4 in Radiant Dawn. Though I think if they were to do that upping the number of playable characters would probably be necessary... Even though you tend to do the exact same thing in game just on one large map.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Jotari

[Shin]

You could probably get away with not adding any. The prologue and chapter 1 are fairly linear and by the time chapter 2 comes about you've got 14 units.

[Jedi]

I quite like Shins idea.

My idea if you were to split up the game into smaller chapters though is to have castle attacks and then inside castle sieges where fe5's dismount would come into play.

[Mekkah]

I think castle by castle would make the chapters too short. You would have to change other things like enemy density, interaction, number of parties fighting, etc. Not enough things happen story-wise between castles.

[Jotari]

I think castle by castle would make the chapters too short. You would have to change other things like enemy density, interaction, number of parties fighting, etc. Not enough things happen story-wise between castles.

It's not like a whole lot happens during chapters story wise in most Fire Emblem games. It's usually just some plot at the beginning, some plot at the end and maybe some reinforcements with some plot partway through. Outside of that it's just killing things.

[Guy Starwind]

Probably. I mean have each castle roughly be it's own mission objective. However, as others have said it would take away from the uniqueness of the giant maps which is one of the reasons I love FE4.

[Ownagepuffs]

It would take away from Genealogy's scale, which is its main charm.

It could probably work, but a lot would have to change with it like Mekkah said.

[Mekkah]

It's not like a whole lot happens during chapters story wise in most Fire Emblem games. It's usually just some plot at the beginning, some plot at the end and maybe some reinforcements with some plot partway through. Outside of that it's just killing things.

Differs on a chapter-by-chapter basis, I reckon. Take FE8 for example, Ch3 has nothing really happening midchapter besides Colm joining, but Ch14 has all of the dialogue between Lyon, Caellach, Ismaire and Carlyle. But I think the happenings in pretty much all of FE4's mini chapters would be too short.

[Jotari]

Differs on a chapter-by-chapter basis, I reckon. Take FE8 for example, Ch3 has nothing really happening midchapter besides Colm joining, but Ch14 has all of the dialogue between Lyon, Caellach, Ismaire and Carlyle. But I think the happenings in pretty much all of FE4's mini chapters would be too short.

I don't think you give Holy War enough credit. Plenty of things happen in it on a castle by castle basis. Probably more so than normal Fire Emblems. There's loads of plot important reinforcements and character appearances. Think of all the times Ishtar shows up. Or Trabant appearing with his pesky Dracoknights mid raid. Sigurd trying to reach Byran before he dies and the same thing with Celice later on. Celice also spends a portion of his time saving kids. There's also the whole Johalva/Johan recruitment. There's the multiple different mercenaries and hirded muscle that appear like Beowolf's gang or Andorey showing up to kill that Pegasus chick with his army of bow knigts. Holy War has a lot going on and I 'm only touching the surface. I'd say there's very few possible chapters in the game without a mid level development, even if its something like opening a bridge.

[Yumi_Fujibayashi]

Castle by Castle sounds good. If IS ever does a remake of FE4 and FE5, it could be like Radiant Dawn, split into Acts. Prologue to chapter 6 can be act 1, then in Act 2 we get Leif's story up to the defeat of Veld, then Act 3 would be crossing the yied desert up to meeting Sety. The Final Act would defeating Manfroy, Warlords, Ishtar and finally Julius

[General Horace]

i don't think it would work at all. How would they handle the Lenster defence? Some villages like the Bargain Ring that are hard to reach that extend more than one castle (this happens with over half the villages in the game, really)

If they didn't change the enemy layout or density (which they definately would) almost all the maps would be go from castle A to castle B, beating up on a single clump of enemies without worrying about near any chapter objectives. Character recruitment would be totally different too, Ayra, Fury, Holyn, Leen, Sety, and especially Altenna, Corple, and Hannibal would all be different.

It just totally would destroy everything that made the game unique, like others have said. And stuff like arena's wouldn't work either. Mounted units would be even stronger too. Warp and Return staves would be gone or changed.

Edited October 21, 2014 by General Horace

[dondon151]

at least we would have indoor maps

[Psych]

Castle by Castle sounds good. If IS ever does a remake of FE4 and FE5, it could be like Radiant Dawn, split into Acts. Prologue to chapter 6 can be act 1, then in Act 2 we get Leif's story up to the defeat of Veld, then Act 3 would be crossing the yied desert up to meeting Sety. The Final Act would defeating Manfroy, Warlords, Ishtar and finally Julius

this, but make act 2 up chapter 6-7 of gen 2, since honestly you could just replace veld with manfloy and not affect the plot at all and the later parts of fe5 aren't really that important plotwise

so Part 1 is gen 1, Part 2 is thracia 776 up to chapter 19, then Part 3 is second generation

[Jotari]

i don't think it would work at all. How would they handle the Lenster defence? Some villages like the Bargain Ring that are hard to reach that extend more than one castle (this happens with over half the villages in the game, really)

If they didn't change the enemy layout or density (which they definately would) almost all the maps would be go from castle A to castle B, beating up on a single clump of enemies without worrying about near any chapter objectives. Character recruitment would be totally different too, Ayra, Fury, Holyn, Leen, Sety, and especially Altenna, Corple, and Hannibal would all be different.

It just totally would destroy everything that made the game unique, like others have said. And stuff like arena's wouldn't work either. Mounted units would be even stronger too. Warp and Return staves would be gone or changed.

An idea for the Lenster defense I mentioned above would be to make it a defense based chapter where the number of turns you have to defend for are equivalent to the number of turns it took Celice to complete the last chapter. Or alternatively it could just be the Lenster defense chapter from Thracia.

Also what would make mounted units stronger with smaller maps? If anything wouldn't it make non mounted units better since they can actually reach their enemies?

[Baldrick]

An idea for the Lenster defense I mentioned above would be to make it a defense based chapter where the number of turns you have to defend for are equivalent to the number of turns it took Celice to complete the last chapter.

If you're going to do that (or the team splits like Shin suggested), what's the point in splitting the chapters up in the first place? If you want more action, increase enemy density. If you want infantry to be more relevant, alter the unit/enemy balance so that mounts can't do everything. If you want smaller maps go play another game.

[sirmola]

If you're going to do that (or the team splits like Shin suggested), what's the point in splitting the chapters up in the first place? If you want more action, increase enemy density. If you want infantry to be more relevant, alter the unit/enemy balance so that mounts can't do everything. If you want smaller maps go play another game.

It would alleviate the absurd backtracking (one of my least favorate things about this game)

[Jotari]

If you're going to do that (or the team splits like Shin suggested), what's the point in splitting the chapters up in the first place? If you want more action, increase enemy density. If you want infantry to be more relevant, alter the unit/enemy balance so that mounts can't do everything. If you want smaller maps go play another game.

I'm not particularly wanting something specific here. Holy War is a great game. I don't think many people dispute that. I'm just theorizing alternate ways of possible play and what things look from a classic perspective. I love Holy War and I would like to see more games done in its style, but that doesn't mean a Holy War game done in the style of another game wouldn't be a quality experience too.

[General Horace]

An idea for the Lenster defense I mentioned above would be to make it a defense based chapter where the number of turns you have to defend for are equivalent to the number of turns it took Celice to complete the last chapter. Or alternatively it could just be the Lenster defense chapter from Thracia.

Also what would make mounted units stronger with smaller maps? If anything wouldn't it make non mounted units better since they can actually reach their enemies?

lenster defence from thracia with... three units?

if roads still worked the same way, mounts move twice as far as nonmounts, and all the chapters would be over in like 3-6 turns. You couldn't position your unmounted units anywhere to react to the next leg of the chapter, because, well, there isn't one. Can't warp them places either.

[Baldrick]

There's nothing wrong with re-imagining a game. FE4 does have a lot of flaws, though, and I don't think splitting the chapters will do much to fix it. (Backtracking is a minor problem exacerbated by other factors, and removing it would just make every chapter a run to the throne like in Marth's games and FE6.)

[Jotari]

lenster defence from thracia with... three units?

if roads still worked the same way, mounts move twice as far as nonmounts, and all the chapters would be over in like 3-6 turns. You couldn't position your unmounted units anywhere to react to the next leg of the chapter, because, well, there isn't one. Can't warp them places either.

I was thinking more along the lines of fusing Thracia chapters into Holy War chapters like someone was saying above. My mistake, I should have made that clearer. And I doubt roads would remain the same. I'm not talking about just cutting out sections of Genaology's maps and playing them one at a time. More analyzing exactly what would need to change as a result if that did happen. Movement roads being one of those things.