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Do you like the story telling in the Akaneia games?


Jagen
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Story telling, world building, and character development in the Akaneia saga  

78 members have voted

  1. 1. Was it any good?

    • Yes
      51
    • Somewhat
      16
    • No
      11


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So I saw that somebody made a thread like this one in Gamecube and Wii Era section of the website, and I thought it would be an interesting thing to ask here too. Especially as Shadow dragon, I feel, gets a lot of unnecessary hate simply because it's a remake of the original FE1 without very little new content. Some even considering it the worst game in the series. However, at the same time, even with all the hate it gets, I often times see that these same people say, that they feel like Shadow dragon, and it's sequel, new mystery of the emblem, while having pretty simple plots, has some of the best that Fire Emblem has to offer.

In terms of character development, while I do understand that quite a bit of people are put off by the fact that most of the side characters get little to no dialogue after their initial recruitment, I personal feel that it's not really necessary in a game like this one as the main cast, Marth, Nyna, Hardin, Minerva(too an extent, Jeorge and Astram in the sequel, or the wolfguard) etc. get enough character development throughout the Akaneia series as they need. What are your thoughts?

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Shadow Dragon has some of the best and most comprehensive worldbuilding in the series, if not the best.

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Archenea's storytelling could best be described as the elegance of simplicity. FE1 and 3 were originally made with players drawing their own conclusions about the characters and situations in mind in order to compensate for the lack of hardware capabilities to deliver a plotline overflowing with dialogue. I voted yes because I feel FE3 and 11 do this job very well and I can choose to ignore FE12 if I choose to for vanilla FE3.

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I agree with the sentiment; Shadow Dragon especially did well and while New Mystery certainly had its issues wrt Kris I still think it did well and even excellently in certain areas.

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For their time, yes. I think that if it was made now, more development could have been given to Medeus, and maybe Camus to explain why he's so loyal. But yeah, it's not a bad story, especially with its theme.

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I really like Shadow Dragon story: It's very simple and is very classic too, but, because of this, It gives me a fantasy feeling that no other title is able to give me.

For New mistery, I must say that enjoyed Its story, altough It doesn't have the "fantasy feeling" that SD(and the originals games too) had for me and Kris was terrible abd didn't add anything interesting for the story.

But I liked the assassin subplot(It's not amazing, but I personally don't find it to be awful either)

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I'll have to agree on SD being something that just can't be offered in recent titles and certainly a game I like. I can't comment on the older games since I have never been able to play FE 1 to 3 but I've heard good things about Book 2. Honestly, if the game hadn't gone with the artstyle it took, it would get a lot more positive points from other people.

New Mystery of the Emblem... I don't know, it's the unofficial history of what happened in Archanea but truthfully the official history sounds and plays way better since I never liked Kris. Assassin subplot was a hit or miss, but I just dislike it for taking away possible development from established characters but especially Marth who had development but was cutdown due to the focus on Kris.

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It excels in being simplistic, and getting to the point, what character development is good, but there is far too much that is also supplementary.

Headcanon is kind of nice though, I actually think they could pull something great with a more simplistic approach again, instead of over convolution.

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I rather enjoyed FE3 book 2 looking back on it its original glory, although I feel that it sacrificed book1 a lot and only partially fixes it by giving the returning cast perrsonalities retroactively in book 2, which makes you forget/overlook the go-there attitude of the first book.

However, liking it doesn't make it sacred, light and shadow tells you what it's going for in the title and it invokes the IDEA of something rather interesting in a nation, especially if you are interesting in anthropology or wondered how the hero-king myth is so widespread when the success of realists elsewhere makes you wonder about the historical and neccesary parts of their adminastration

That said I find the different intro with the new recruites training to be more immediately interesting, mosttly because I can't get into the role of FE3 book1 as easily, as it asks you to kind of reunite with marth for the campaign, I think going straight to book2 mid-intermission, in a kind of "it's a lived in world, history doesn't begin with you watching" while jarring, would have been the better move in FE3's case. Although at times it's a bit too game-y to remind me that they're becoming professionals and aren't just teens who have watched their paretn's go at it (the feeling of FE9's tutorial).

I could go on about the assasin'splot and the changed fate of the wolfgaurd /michalis, but really at the end of the day I look at FE12 the way I look at plays, the writer's ceirtainly use FE3 but they aren't hamstrung by it, and they feel fine with interpreting to do what they want to (the hero-king image obsessed society and the the "dark" people who want to do work and whose recognition isn't important in inspiring confidince) Actually I feel that FE12 is a little TOO true to the original given that light/dark is a vaguely pessimistic dichotomy and kind of the opposite of a returning prince in exile becoming savior story.

However it doesn't work consistently on its own "seperated from FE3" merits. Kris gets undue respect,status,recognition for the "dark" making it feel more like a rise as the player story than being the handyman to the "light's" well meaning charity/chivalry and obliviousness tactical disadvantes in the face of moral wrongdoing. Marth is also not quite shown to be undeserving or incompetent as the theme requires, despite the dialogue of his sister,etc, and we aren't given a valid explanation of wh the people NEED to fixate on him// would drop suppor if Kris's responsibilty was known.

Overall it's interesting for what it suggest more than it is, and is surprisingly respectful to the source materia (given it's reputation and other FE avatars), despite being its opposite on paper. For me a story is never "total", and it's always good to experrience different dimensions of it through other people's interpretations.

As for FE11, I can be more positive and less defensive. It's minimilism works very well, and it actually complements the gameplay (and GBA/console FE gameplay is almost as minimilistic and kind of at odds with story sometimes) The story telling just feels right next to such an economical system. The only slight gripe is that the GBA story's would seem to leave a shadow on it, not in quality- but in "Fire-emblemness" If 11 is purporting to be an echo of the first game, why do we see so little to identify it as being different from other pulp sword and sworcery and standing its succesors clearly in their own territory? But taken as a non-FE story, I'd say it works even better than taking 12 as a non-FE story, to the extent that that is possible.

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I have to give the storytelling in Archanea (at least in the games besides FE12) props because, while it is simple and a bit bare bones, what's there is consistently good and doesn't really ever contradict itself or fail to make sense. I'm also seconding that it has this distinct sort of epic fantasy "it" factor to it that the other games haven't really been able to capture.

Edited by Topaz Light
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Absolutely. As much as I don't play games for the plot, the original Mystery is a masterpiece. It has incredible worldbuilding, well-written protagonists, some of the best villains ever made... There's just so much to love. In my opinion, nothing else in the series can compare.

More than anything, the Archanea games master minimalistic storytelling - which should be the standard for all games, not just Fire Emblem. Very little text feels wasted. I'll use an example of characters people criticise for being "bland" - Radd and Caesar. The narration and the little sequence where they join your army tells you multiple things with very little dialogue:

- Port Warrens pay dearly in tax under Doluna rule...

- ...And yet they still feel their autonomy and safety is pressured, so they need to hire mercenaries to protect their little merchant town...

- ...so they are very receptive to the Archanea cause to defeat Doluna, lending your their finest fighters.

And that's it! I'm very glad to have them on my team, and I don't want to know any more! I don't need FE12 to waste valuable time telling me Caesar's sob story about his sister, and how Radd wants to give her his Iron Sword. They were fine as is.

Edited by Dark Magician
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Somewhat. I think the world-building is great, and Marth's characterization and development in Shadow Dragon is fantastic, but the majority of other characters don't really get much more than maybe two sentences...it kinda hurts it, in my opinion.

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Hmm... do I like The storytelling? Well, considering that the way the stories are told, and How I'm not confused at all near the end of the game, I'd say... Hell Yes.

I've had to re-play the first generation of Fire Emblem 4 Seven times Just to understand what was going on, Even After seeing a Let's Play of the game! If a game can explain its own story at a comprehensive pace, AND build the world around it, I don't care if it's simple, complex, or has 200 cliches written in the plot. So, yes. I do.

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Hell yes.

The main character is Marth, and the events around him. FE12 kind-of shot itself in the foot thanks to this, because Marth had to share the spotlight.

As for characters, I liked how FE11 handled it - just enough text to give me a barebones idea of what to expect from a character, but not so much that I was forced to view a character in a certain way. That's why I enjoy Archanea as a subject for my fanfic-logs.

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Haven't played FE12 so no comments about that one, but I really liked the overall story of FE11. I think it's overall it's really charming and fun. Simple stories can really help a game since a complicated plot-line can easily get out of hand, but that just doesn't happen in FE11.

It's certainly nothing special either compared to other RPGs storylines, but it's something I can enjoy overall.

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No. Bland storytelling, bland one-dimensional characters, generic main lord (I mean, he had a cool line about being a prince before being a brother, but that's it), subpar ost, ok worldbuilding (better than Fates, surprisingly). I couldn't find a less harsh way to say that. It doesn't help that I'm already used to the fleshed out mechanics of the newer FEs (which I played before FE12 and Awakening/Fates came out).

FE12 is kinda better. I rather like its ost, the gameplay is decent and Marth's character development was ok (not sucking up to Hardin and doing what was morally right, independently of the consequences, for example).

I also don't buy the "it was good for its time" excuse because all it [indirectly] says is that the storytelling is still objectively bad.

Edited by Rapier
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  • 3 weeks later...

Characters being zero dimensional (IE not having almost any dialogue or personality) isn't really better than the one dimensional nature that Awakening/Fates characters frequently get accused of. Even Hardin, who's the main villain in the next game and a source of great drama and whatnot, gets like 5 lines in Shadow Dragon. The best thing I can say about it is that it's serviceable and doesn't distract from the gameplay or whatever, but that doesn't make me think it's actually good.

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I hated Shadow Dragon's storytelling when it first came out. The lack of lines and the very short cutscenes weren't something I liked at the time.

I recently replayed Shadow Dragon again and I started to appreciate it a lot more. The game had more strong scenes then I remembered such as Marth's bit after he finally retakes his kingdom and the map narrations where amongst the best of the series.

Fe12 was merely ok. I liked how they gave everyone at least a conversation or two, but Chris wasn't really used well in the game.

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I still think FE3/11 tell one of the better stories in the series because it doesn't trip over itself at all, sure theres very little in terms of story dialog, but you get all you need, and of course theres some of the supplemental information to help things along.

It's still much better than 12, 13 and 14 ever got to, not to mention others like 10's overly convoluted mess (Although that still had some really good moments before the whole part 3/4 deal). Simplicity works best for FE and this is shown in games like 3, 6, 9 and 11. 4 and 5 were the best tries at a more convoluted plot though probably.

I think 15 needs to try having a simple plot again. Have it focus on the main character and the world around them without resorting to main character worship, and a little on the people that join, have supports flesh them out and have different aspects of the characters be shown in the supports like in the GBA/GC/Wii era and we can call it a day.

Edited by Jedi
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A simple plot isn't the worst, but it certainly isn't anything spectacular.

At least in FE12, Kris doesn't hog all the limelight that Marth gets. Marth is practically still the Main Character, it's still Mystery of the Emblem, it's just slapped on with an Avatar who sits around supporting with others, who we actually see more personality from as a result.

I started playing New Mystery again yesterday and actually respected it more when in comparison to Awakening / Fates.

In short, don't make anything too complicated, sometimes simple is good.

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