What you have to say about this game

[Ingen]

Well, I took the advice of Fireman and decided to go ahead with it.

Something new I wanted to bring up. The characters. Personally I think it was a bad idea to have every single PoR character return, although with the exception of Largo. Really, why is that? It's not like we didn't get to know them enough in PoR already... Certain characters that had something new to offer, like Danved and Sothe, or characters that had little play time in PoR like Largo and the late-joining characters like Largo, Elincia with her personal retainers and of course: Ena and Nasir. You didn't have that many chapters to use them in PoR so it would've been great to use them some more in RD. To top it off, Ena and Nasir could not support anyone in PoR so it would have made perfect sense for them to make a return. I guess if this approach was taken then the Support Conversations we've grown to love could have been done.

The main problem with this approach would be... I suppose if this approach was taken, the story would have to have been totally different altogether. Heck... If Beorc and Laguz need eachother in order to survive in the end... Wouldn't the "end of the world" be nothing more than the the extinction of both species being the end result of the extinction of either one? And so... Beorc and Laguz waking up to the importance of their symbiosis with one another teaming up to erase Lekain and all of his bad influence would've made better sense. I really hated Lekain, his fellow senators and all of his corruptness but at the same time they were interesting villains for those reasons. I always enjoyed mauling Valtome.

Now this is more of a gameplay critique. First off, why, just why do most of your own characters not wear helmets. Imagine a Sniper who would gawk at the sight of the walking fortress that is the Marshall but then realize that all he needs to do is headshot the exposed head, only to realize that he is in a video game and realism doesn't necessarily apply. I guess he should've figured that out when he could see that person could even walk in all that armor in the first place!

Ah, the Earth affinity continues to tip the balance, causing an avalanche in your favor. I did a Fiona x Nolan support once. It was helpful in the beginning but ended up as a total borefest when those two were picking up and dodging... Everything. Where's the challenge in that?

Someone mentioned the stupidity of the recyclable skills system and I agree. I suppose if demands for skills were high, they could have just sold extra copies in the Bargains... It's nice to have options to weigh.

I think Laguz were more balanced in PoR. Right now, they're made of glass when not transformed but become overpowered as hell when they are transformed. At least they made pretty good meat shields in PoR when in human shape. And if you get unlucky with stat growths... Oh, your Laguz unit is so screwed. Deviations are incredibly amplified with the doubling of stats. I had a level 30 Kyza with 20 Strength and Defence while transformed. The dice wasn't on my side... For those reasons, the fixed transformation bonuses should've been maintained. It could've been equivalent to 20 level-ups or something *shrugs*

The single favorite thing in the gameplay are hands down the newfound diversity in the weapons arsenal and I think Greatlances, Poleaxes, Longbows and Arcspells should be standardized. What better way to take advantage of high accuracy than having high power, lower accuracy weapons like those?

That's all I got for now.

[Junkhead]

I think much was said already about it: The gameplay is very ideal, but the backround, characters and the plot needed strength.

[ReformBlade]

I still say this game is a 9 out of 10 for me. There's lots of replay value, tons of customization, and plenty of challenge if you wish it.

[Junkhead]

The same can be said about FE11's eye candy.

[ReformBlade]

True, and yet, I say FESD (It's not FE 11 darn it!) is only a 7 out of 10.

In my opinion, a unit should only be so customizable. In FESD, every unit that wasn't Marth, a thief, a dragon or a ballista could be whatever they wanted to be (That is, an attacker, a healer, a tank, or a mounted person).

[Junkhead]

I meant that it sucks that only forced characters get the spotlight, which some aren't even worth it seeing as how generic they can be.

[ReformBlade]

Oh... hahaha. I can agree to that.

I should stop getting defensive like that.

[Fireman]

Question here: Am I just misremembering info, or was this game rushed to be released by the anniversary?

Someone mentioned the stupidity of the recyclable skills system and I agree. I suppose if demands for skills were high, they could have just sold extra copies in the Bargains... It's nice to have options to weigh.

Personally, I liked that skills were reusable. If I wanted to slap Adept on someone and test it our for a chapter, or to just use it until character x arrived, I could do that. That's just me, though. Not sure about everyone else.

Edited May 1, 2010 by Fireman

[Kaplan]

I have to agree with the OP, skills being reusable isn't good. I like the idea of skills being personal and they make characters unique, not something that can be removed and given to someone else.

[Ike-Mike]

From the chapters through the characters to units to the gameplay additions to the story it just feels like I felt like I was playing one giant filler of a game that could've been easily condensed into a much more compact and shorter game.

It feels to me that there are too many chapters that are just there to waste your time and artificially lengthen the playtime and don't move the story forward in any significant manner.

While part 1 can be somewhat justified that it establishes the Dawn Brigade, aka most of the characters in this game that are actually new and could've needed even more chapters to fully develop them it can also go the other way that since most players won't be using them later either way thanks to the character (im)balance there shouldn't be any need to develop them and the only really important plot points for later on, the BK's reappearance and Pelleas becoming king of Daein, could've easily been shoved into a cutscene.

Part 2 could've been cut out from the game completely and it wouldn't have affected the overall game in any way whatsoever.

Part 3 felt even more like a bloated mess with switching perspectives around every two or three chapters without any sense of real focus, though I admit that a few maps there were really good and some of the best FE maps ever like 3-3 or 3-E, which was a fantastic build-up to the actual Endgame.

IS didn't even feel to cover up that part 4 is just to grind a few more levels before the Endgame and it shows. The Endgame itself however is fantastic with its five parts, the bosses you face there and all and this is where the game really picks up and shines but the Endgame is waaaay too late for any video game to pick up.

I think it would've been fine when the story was just about the Dawn Brigade wandering through Tellius trying to stop an actual dark god along with meeting various other people from the Mad King's War. Instead IS tried to be 'original' and went with an 'epic' story with a 'huge' twist that the dark god was actually part of the good guys and that the goddess you've been all worshipping was actually the bad one. No actually that there was no good or evil in this story, just something about order vs. chaos. Excuse me, but there's a reason why all the most popular fictions all are basically the same dozen or so stories retold and that they all revolve around good vs. evil, so why did IS feel the need to stray away from that, especially since that way they also destroyed everything that PoR established?

All in all while RD's story spanned through a much bigger territory and was bigger in scope overall it didn't have much focus and while in PoR the scope was smaller and there was much less going on I still was really hooked to reading its story, unlike RD.

Next up is the balance, or rather the complete lack thereof that is at times even more apparent than in FE4 or FE8. Actually most of the imbalance comes from actually trying to balance the game out. IS decided to give every single unit pretty much the same growths and the same chance to cap everything at 20/20/20, completely disregarding that other factors that decide how good a unit is such as join time and starting level are still there and as such the game is dominated by most of the GMs and Laguz Royals, along with a few others. Quite ironic that trying to make everyone equal made one of the greatest unit discrepancies between any FE. It seems that IS did notice that though, but instead they tried to cover it up by giving you over 70 units and a stupid parts system so you would still be forced to use every unit. And before someone comes up with "but FE5 fatigue had the same effect", in FE5 for every fatigued unit there was always a good replacement whereas in RD this is not the case. IS also tried to rebalance the skill system ... by making almost every mastery overpowered. The terribly unbalanced caps system is also there thanks to taking realism a bit too much into consideration. Sure, a mage who spends most his time delving into books won't have a good condition, it's just that when accomoding their caps to this they get their floor wiped by everything else. Also the heightened Res, but FEs 7-9 also strayed away from the "no Res for physical units" BS and mages there were still a considerable threat. Then again seeing as how the rest of the fandom loves this game while decrying FEDS it's apparent that balance is the least thing the FE fandom seems to care about.

Now come all the new additions that RD brought to the table. The height system isn't so much new as taken from other 3D SRPGs where they actually worked much better. Either way the 3D FEs can't hold up to the varied and colorful tilesets and terrain types of the 2D FEs.

Speaking of bloat, the new classes and items make it even more apparent. All the new classes aren't so much new as they are previous classes split up, such as Axe/Sword/Lance General or Fire/Thunder/Wind Sage, which comes off as redundant to say the least. With 3rd tier promotions the biggest problem that I have with it is that I can't really calculate damage anymore when the stats go up above 30. Not anymore does having 150 hit or 70 dodge mean that this unit will hit or dodge almost anything. The main reason why they've been introduced in the first place, to prevent the PoR characters from demoting, also sounds half-assed since outside of the GMs, Crimean Knights and a few others everyone else decided to live a peaceful life and as such they would've become less skilled in combat. Besides no one really wanted for every PoR character to return.

As for the items, I was already content that there was only one type of Longsword and Poleaxe, so why did IS have to redundantly introduce Iron, Steel and Silver versions for them? Not to mention that a 7th weapon rank along with fixed ranks instead of the usual "first weapon to get to S wins" throws the balance off even more.

Actually RD helped me show me that 'more' is not always 'better' and that many concepts that I thought would be great for FE weren't actually so good after all. Aside from 3rd tier promotions of which I already pointed out the flaws I always wanted to have a mage lord but then it turns out that thanks to most of the earlygame consisting of physical units you have to baby him constantly.

My dislike for it grew even more thanks to the fandom loving it for reasons that I still can not fathom. I kept hearing "yes, this game is really good" and "this is a worthy successor to PoR" while I was plowing through the game my feelings for it to be the exact opposite only grew even stronger and now everytime I try to think about RD only more reasons come up on why I should dislike it.

All in all I have to say that it's the worst Fire Emblem that doesn't get much hatred because everyone gets swayed away by all the fluff and bloat that covers all the flaws it has. If RD should be summed into one phrase then it would be "missed potential" because that's what it is: every single faucet of the game had the opportunity to make it truly the best FE ever but has been botched in one way or another.

With that being said, RD does have its few good parts. Ike being the father of Sothe's children along with many other lines as well as the unintentionally bad voice acting make it the most humorous FE to date. Maybe I was just looking the wrong way at RD and I should've seen it as some twisted parody of previous FEs. It just wonders me why they'd waste the PoR sequel for that. And before anyone says "Why do you hate RD so much when your avatar comes from it?" it's because its FMV cutscenes are some of the most amazing Youtube Poop material I've been able to work with.

I also like that part 1 was a nice deconstruction that we were supposed to believe in past FE games that the civilians of the country we've conquered will eventually realize that the army that conquered them was right and that they will grow and live in peace with everyone else.

I also love how you can support with anyone.

After being bummed out on RD I expected Shadow Dragon to be as much of a disappointment, but instead I had to find out that it fixed many of the flaws I had with the former. All the imbalance was gone and instead we've got the most balanced FE to date. Instead of trying to be original with the story and failing with it they stuck with a tried and true story type. Instead of 40+ chapters there were just 25 and each one felt just as significant and it really felt that with each chapter I was helping Marth liberate Akaneia from Medeus step by step. Instead of choosing between "pathetically easy", "horrendously difficult at the beginning" and "horrendously difficult all around" FEDS has 6 difficulties that accomodate to each type of FE player. Instead of adding lots of gameplay changes that might or might not work they rightfully decided to go back to the most basic FE structure possible. Also instead of trying to experiment with new classes it just gave us the few basic classes that everyone knows and loves. Not only did it fix most of RD's flaws it also fixed most of the flaws of FE8, the next worst FE, too. The game doesn't insult newcomers' intelligence by having tutorials in most of its difficulty modes and making the game pathetically easy even on the hardest setting by compressing the tutorials down into small title cards and actually having some hard difficulty modes. The imbalance in branched promotions was fixed and even richly expanded upon it by giving us reclass. Instead of a story that was so full of plot holes that we don't even know most of the legendary heroes' names we have a clichéd, but as I mentioned, a tried and true story where we actually get a full lore with all the legendary heroes' profiles.

After succesfully playing through FEDS I went to see if most of the fandom would agree with me that RD was ultimatively a bloated experience and that FEDS deservedly went back to the roots and as such was the better out of the two, but instead I had to watch in terror that RD was held on a high podest along with FE7 (which love should be frowned upon just as much as FFVII fanboys are frowned upon, but that's for another topic) and FEDS was a hated as a game that is "too shallow" and "too simplistic".

What the hell, fandom?

Oh and to anyone here who thinks I'm trolling: To my understanding, trolling means to provoke others by posting an opinion you don't agree with filled with factual inaccuracies and other things that show that you're just trying to make others angry. But the whole rant really is my honest opinion that I finially got the opportunity to speak out and the reason why the rant turned out so long-winded in the first place is because I wanted to cover all the bases to that no one could tell me that I missed something or that I got something wrong. Besides SF and the internet as a whole has already enough trolls so why bother?

Edited June 1, 2010 by Ike-Mike

[Junkhead]

I agree on you with that, the fandom is shit, it's also full of horndogs who overrate female characters.

inb4fangirlsoverIke: Ike a great unit, but his personality just doesn't exist.

[Fei Mao]

I thought FE 10 was a good game. Here's what I think

Difficulty: Enemy and ally stats in this game are good so you don't steamroll them unless if you are Ike or Haar. Nor will your cannon fodder allies get steamrolled by the enemy.

Music: The soundtrack was good there were a couple of good and memorable tracks in the game. Yoshito Hirano did a good job with this game.

Story: Well the story was alright nothing too spectacular.

Level Design: Some were alright I enjoyed the maps with allies in them, though also I agree that part 2 shouldn't have been in the game.

The only thing I didn't like was character availability and the bosses weren't really threatening until the part 4 endgame cause you have some awesome units and their stats are almost equivalent to the generic enemies and also some blunders like Mist's prf weapon that said "Uses magic to attack at range." while it uses her strength stat.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Generic Officer

[Ingen]

The reason I really like the iron, steel, silver poleaxes/greatlances/longbows addition was mainly because of how plagued I was with the Blades in the Sword arsenal. Why did the swords always have more variety than the other weapons? Now this is more like it I thought.

As for the egalitarian balancing of characters... I'm pretty sure the character hierarchy has been around for a good reason. The stronger characters would be better suited for use with newcomers before they really pick up how everything works. But yeah, as long as the character imbalance doesn't get ridiculous... Then comes the experimenting with other characters. It's like a hidden difficulty setting and it does have its new discoveries and rewards. Keeps the gameplay from getting too repetitive too quickly. Why didn't PoR have the Support Library in the first place??

Why do side characters usually end up far more interesting than the main characters? Why do they usually end up as this... absolute model of morals and ethics. In doing so these characters end up being... simply inhuman. WTH? Oh, but Mary Sues aren't quite... human, are they? Bleh.

Regarding this... Perhaps giving the characters an actual personality will also depend on the story itself. I suppose it's still interesting to see how beacons of morality will act when given hard dilemmas or other kinds of usual situation to test the limits of those characters...

You see... I once worked on script for my own FE and someone commented on how well-made a certain story-important side-character of mine was. Apart from his complex personality, there were quite a few situations that tested his character. There were moments he gets scared out of his skin and there are a couple of nutjobs around him that mess with his mind. My point is, circumstances like story events and surrounding characters also contribute to bringing out the many sides of a character's personality (assuming it isn't one-sided to begin with) and testing the limits of one's optimism, sense of humor, confidence, resourcefulness...

[Fireman]

Did anyone else feel that the Endgame's generic enemy music was extremely slow and dull?

[Rewjeo]

Personally, I loved just about everything about this game... until part 4. That, along with the BK's identity being revealed, was just, IMO, one of the worst things I've ever seen happen. I feel like the game peaked in mid-late part 3, slowly went down hill, then fell off a cliff at part 4. And then another one for endgame. I've done a bunch of playthroughs of this game (far more than any other FE), but I almost never finish since endgame bores me to death.

And then I wish there'd been real support conversations. But, on the other hand, supporting anyone is really nice, and means that you can use just about any team and support people, which is nice. Character development is my one other complaint about this game.

Edit: Also, what's with everyone thinking Masteries are overpowered? IMO, they're actually worse in this than PoR simply because you're FORCED to have them, when removing them would allow for some much better skill combos.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Slize

[ReformBlade]

Did anyone else feel that the Endgame's generic enemy music was extremely slow and dull?

Endgame as in Endgame part 4? Because I will vehemently disagree with you on that. One of the best tracks the game offers.

However, I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) you're talking Part 4 P-5. That I can agree to being slow but dull... Eh, to each their own.

[Anouleth]

I wanted to see more new characters. Also, the difficulty curve is messed up. Parts 3/4 on NM are insultingly easy, while Part 2 on HM is horrible to play through since it's so reliant on RNG. So I don't really enjoy either one. And finally, I've always hated the way that Pass allows you to go through enemy units but doesn't reduce terrain penalties. It just bugs me.

But aside from that, no complaints.

[Integrity]

Honestly, if I didn't nostalgia-filter FE8, I'd call this the best one I've played by a decent margin.

I didn't find the plot to be as muddled as I keep hearing, even when P4 reared its head. Recyclable skills were awesome, especially because it meant you could pull beautiful skills like Astrid's Paragon off her and use it somewhere else. Automatic Mastery skills > burning Occult scrolls. Actually, I always compare this to FE9, and in that light I think it's better in every way except some little details like support conversations - and I hold that the support system is better in 10 than 9.

[Sykil]

I have to agree with the OP, skills being reusable isn't good. I like the idea of skills being personal and they make characters unique, not something that can be removed and given to someone else.

I agree, but I like being able to reassign the skills that I acquire. I think the best solution would be to have removable skills but lock the ones that come preassigned to new units like Vigilance and Insight (and/or just make those self-destruct if they player tries to remove them with a warning dialog, but I like the first option better).

Personally, I loved just about everything about this game... until part 4. That, along with the BK's identity being revealed, was just, IMO, one of the worst things I've ever seen happen. I feel like the game peaked in mid-late part 3, slowly went down hill, then fell off a cliff at part 4. And then another one for endgame. I've done a bunch of playthroughs of this game (far more than any other FE), but I almost never finish since endgame bores me to death.

And then I wish there'd been real support conversations. But, on the other hand, supporting anyone is really nice, and means that you can use just about any team and support people, which is nice. Character development is my one other complaint about this game.

Edit: Also, what's with everyone thinking Masteries are overpowered? IMO, they're actually worse in this than PoR simply because you're FORCED to have them, when removing them would allow for some much better skill combos.

The only Mastery I would say isn't necessarily beneficial is Bane. It's absolutely retarded. Otherwise, who is going to argue with (generally) 20+% chance to do 3-5 times damage in one hit?

Edited May 3, 2010 by Sykil

[ReformBlade]

Am I the only one that LOL'd at FESD being called the most balanced FE to date? Cain, Abel, Sedgar, Wolf, Merric, I mean yeesh, come on... You get most of them like, super duper early, 2 of them from the start of the game!

[Sykil]

Am I the only one that LOL'd at FESD being called the most balanced FE to date? Cain, Abel, Sedgar, Wolf, Merric, I mean yeesh, come on... You get most of them like, super duper early, 2 of them from the start of the game!

Yeah, I'd say it's far from balanced. Caeda + forged Wing Spear = luls. And there aren't even words for how broken Sedgar is. Not to mention that resistance is nearly nonexistent. In terms of mechanics, sure, I guess it's more "balanced" in that it's much more restrictive, but that makes it much less interesting and limits your actual tactical options. All the skills, supports, etc. don't necessarily make Radiant Dawn an easy game to complete, and they add much more depth to the gameplay.

Edited May 3, 2010 by Sykil

[Interceptor]

Balance is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Seeing as how most of the complexities from the other FE games (Canto, Rescue, skills, Vigor/Dance, etc) don't even exist in FEDS, plus the reclassing functionality scrubs away a lot of the differences between units, I can see the argument. I mean, I could balance Street Fighter by replacing everyone with Ryu and only letting you punch people.

The difficulty modes have a lot to do with the "balance" problems in the game as well. Consider that the late-joining units like Horace are perfectly capable in Normal mode despite their bases, but are garbage in H5. Recruitables don't scale to the game's difficulty, so that's part (but only part) of the reason why the early guys dominate.

[Nightmare]

I think the writing is relatively weak and watered down from the magnificence that was Path of Radiance, and the same could be said for the characterisation (barring some, like Dheginsea). The story is also constructed a bit sloppily, with some poor decisions (like Black Knight's true identity, etc.), but I found it all to be entertaining, overall. Other than that, I love everything about it. The mechanics, maps, units and especially the music. <3

inb4fangirlsoverIke: Ike a great unit, but his personality just doesn't exist.

This is something I see, and I see it a lot. Let me tell you that Ike has a personality and a very well defined one, it's just much more subtle than a lot of other characters, Fire Emblem or otherwise. Seriously, do characters need to scream and shout and/or explain every single thing about themselves, their morals, their goals or whatever the hell to have "personality?" No, they don't. Ike has personality, and it's made subtle, perhaps purposefully so, to also reflect, guess what, his actual personality! Even characters who have absolutely no spoken lines have personality, and how do you think this personality is evaluated? Through their actions, and as they say, actions speak louder than words. Combine all of Ike's spoken lines and his actions and you get a character just brimming with personality.

Even Gareth has personality. It's really only a tiny bit and insignificant, but enough to build upon it and have a clear understanding of what kind of a person he is.

Seriously, it's not hard to look a bit deeper into things. Writers and game developers aren't supposed to tell you every insignificant detail about a character to give a vague understanding of what their "personality" is. They use what they feel is necessary to convey that character's personality through various messages (in Ike's case, they focus on his selflessness and apparent apathy to petty and pointless [at least from his perspective] matters by showing him in various situations that would make these traits of his shine, like how he rescued Leanne, doesn't care for racism, and all such), and the rest is left up to the reader to interpret. And before anyone says that RD Ike doesn't have any personality, does he really need to? I do agree the characterisation and writing is weak in this entry, but it is first and foremost a sequel to Path of Radiance. All of the characters from that game received enough expansion and such that there is little to no need for anything further to be done in this game.

[ReformBlade]

Balance is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Seeing as how most of the complexities from the other FE games (Canto, Rescue, skills, Vigor/Dance, etc) don't even exist in FEDS, plus the reclassing functionality scrubs away a lot of the differences between units, I can see the argument. I mean, I could balance Street Fighter by replacing everyone with Ryu and only letting you punch people.

I'd say it's more like replacing every move/button press with a Hadoken and being able to interrupt the Hadoken with another Hadoken. Yeah, it's fun to be able to reclass your team, but when your units are superior no matter what you do (game was balanced around FE1's stats, not the promoted stats!) I can hardly say having a team of horsies is balanced. Granted, they do put a limit on the number you can have, but it's still too many.

Also, it's about time someone mentioned that about Ike, THANK YOU.

[Silith]

RD is the only game I feel almost every unit has a reason to be in your army and stay in it.

I mean getting help from a villager against the local bandits is possible but why the hell would that viullager stick around with your army afterwards?

In Radiant Dawn these kind of situations are pretty scarce. Everytime a unit fights he/she has a reason to do so. The support system was there in old FE games to give personality but in RD they did it well throughout the story and the base convo's. (and slightly through support convo's)

The only one who comes to mind with no motive to be in the armies is Callil in 3-9 till 4-P.

The ones with the least amount of personality are possibly Aran and Gareth.

Aran is a daein soldier who was forved to fight along Begnion troops or be inprisoned. For Laura's sake he joins the Dawn Brigade and helps reclaim and protect his homeland.

Gareth is one of the strongest and loyal people of Goldoa and will stand by the king no matter what even if it goes against his reason. When the king dies and Kurth takes over he gladly joins you too.

Personally I like the pre-volug DB members the most. They have that mortal feel. They aren't hardened veterans and they aren't gods like Ike and the royals. Whenever you play with them you feel they have to stick together because they are no hero's just people fighting for their believes.