Why all the hate for SS?

[-Cynthia-]

I actually found Father and Son worse than Ghost Ship, and Cog of Destiny worse than Father and Son. I'm not a fan of the multiple status staff maps I guess.

[RNG Princess]

I actually found Father and Son worse than Ghost Ship, and Cog of Destiny worse than Father and Son. I'm not a fan of the multiple status staff maps I guess.

Got to hate those berserk staves

[chococoke]

I'm gonna throw out that Ghost Ship is more difficult than anything HHM has to offer. Although I'll agree that HHM as a whole is more difficult.

Absolutely no way Ghost Ship is more difficult than Cog of Destiny. Battle Before Dawn is another one that can really suck dick in general.

[Florete]

Mostly it's because people played FE7 first.

FE7 is waaaaaaay worse in terms of story, characters, and gameplay.

Wut.

FE7's story is nothing amazing, but I thought FE8's pretty much sucked.

FE7 has both more characters and I believe it had more supports on average per character to develop them. Plus they were more interesting in general.

FE8 is way too easy.

I'm gonna throw out that Ghost Ship is more difficult than anything HHM has to offer. Although I'll agree that HHM as a whole is more difficult.

Absolutely no way Ghost Ship is more difficult than Cog of Destiny. Battle Before Dawn is another one that can really suck dick in general.

Yeah, that.

Anyway, I don't think most people really hate SS, they just find it too easy. It's a fun game in its own right, it just has too many shortcomings. The biggest disappoint for me is the branched promotions. That could have been awesome, but instead it's imbalanced and there are just too few characters.

[eclipse]

FE7 brought me back time and again due to things like really amusing RNG antics, support conversations, and the split difficulties, among other things. FE8's RNG wasn't anywhere near as amusing (PEMN, shaddap), the support conversations were lackluster, and the "hardest" difficulty wasn't that bad. I'm not a fan of the art style in SS. Lyon's differing motives were amusing (Eprhaim) and OMGwhowrotethis (Eirika's).

That sums up why I like FE7 better.

[Lord Raven]

Absolutely no way Ghost Ship is more difficult than Cog of Destiny. Battle Before Dawn is another one that can really suck dick in general.

Play the HM patch and tell me how Ghost Ship goes. I'm grinding -- I've never had to do that for FE8 -- just to finish that one with my hair intact.

I'll post a snapshot of the boss in the HM patch. It's a flying unit (Gargoyle promotion?) with 17 str/23 skl/17 spd or something, and a short spear. Holy frak dude... I killed it once with a killer lance hit and something else, but he doubles every single one of my units.

[Paperblade]

The problem with Ghost Ship is that base Duessel can solo it.

[-Cynthia-]

Play the HM patch and tell me how Ghost Ship goes. I'm grinding -- I've never had to do that for FE8 -- just to finish that one with my hair intact.

I'll post a snapshot of the boss in the HM patch. It's a flying unit (Gargoyle promotion?) with 17 str/23 skl/17 spd or something, and a short spear. Holy frak dude... I killed it once with a killer lance hit and something else, but he doubles every single one of my units.

Yeah with the Hard Mode patch, Ghost Ship is a really unpleasant map. Promoted units are very tough with the patch.

[General Banzai]

Cog of Destiny?

Harken/Pent/Priscilla/Florina. Done.

FE7's story is nothing amazing, but I thought FE8's pretty much sucked.FE7 has both more characters and I believe it had more supports on average per character to develop them. Plus they were more interesting in general.

FE8 is way too easy.

Er, quantity is not better than quality. For starters, FE7's supports are actually horrendously poorly written. Go read Dart/Geitz and see if it makes any sense. Renault is really the only saving grace in this game as far as supports go. Even the so-called "funny" supports (oh haha Serra thinks Lucius is a girl, how fucking amusing) pale in comparison to anything Rennac or Lute dish out. The best thing about FESS as far as supports go is that even the boring as fuck characters like Vanessa and Moulder can actually have good supports (Vannessa/Moulder B is probably one of the better supports in any of the games which have supports).

Furthermore, FE7 has a whole slew of characters who are oddly out-of-place or otherwise put in only as nods to FE6 characters. What purpose does Karel have in FE7? None. He shows up, Joins you. For no real reason. Just cuz. Geitz, Vaida, Priscilla, Legault also follow this pattern. Many characters just seem like obstacles thrust in to a map to make them more complicated (Guy, Priscilla, Raven, Legault again, Fiora, Farina). In FESS, most characters have a real reason for joining your team, or at least their cause is more explictly detailed in the actual story. Garcia/Ross, Neimi/Colm, and Joshua/Natasha all have chapters where they are pertinent to what happens. Of course there are exceptions (Artur/Lute), but even then, Artur and Lute at least appear in the actual plot of the chapter instead of OH LOOK OTHER UNIT MUST RECRUIT.

And as far as villains go. Valter Caellach and Orson murdalize anything FE7 can come up with, considering half of FE7's enemies are soulless puppets.

[Florete]

Cog of Destiny?

Harken/Pent/Priscilla/Florina. Done.

Way to understate. If that's all you need for CoD, Ghost Ship can be made easy as well. SS has plenty of good characters.

Er, quantity is not better than quality.

Then it's a good thing I pointed out they were better, right?

For starters, FE7's supports are actually horrendously poorly written. Go read Dart/Geitz and see if it makes any sense. Renault is really the only saving grace in this game as far as supports go.

Dart/Geitz seems fine to me. Others like Priscilla and Farina actually get some good development from their supports as well. It seems more like you pick and choose specific supports you didn't like.

Even the so-called "funny" supports (oh haha Serra thinks Lucius is a girl, how fucking amusing) pale in comparison to anything Rennac or Lute dish out.

I find Rennac annoying and Lute kind of boring. And hey, at least they acknowledged that Lucius looks like a girl, which doesn't always happen with traps. Plus that was amusing. Supports from people like Farina and Bartre I found to be generally more entertaining than FE8's supports.

Honestly, it sounds like you just have a grudge against FE7.

Furthermore, FE7 has a whole slew of characters who are oddly out-of-place or otherwise put in only as nods to FE6 characters. What purpose does Karel have in FE7? None. He shows up, Joins you. For no real reason. Just cuz. Geitz, Vaida, Priscilla, Legault also follow this pattern. Many characters just seem like obstacles thrust in to a map to make them more complicated (Guy, Priscilla, Raven, Legault again, Fiora, Farina).

Because this isn't common in every single FE, right?

In FESS, most characters have a real reason for joining your team, or at least their cause is more explictly detailed in the actual story. Garcia/Ross, Neimi/Colm, and Joshua/Natasha all have chapters where they are pertinent to what happens. Of course there are exceptions (Artur/Lute), but even then, Artur and Lute at least appear in the actual plot of the chapter instead of OH LOOK OTHER UNIT MUST RECRUIT.

This is also a testament to how few characters SS actually has. When you have so few, giving them purpose is easier. FE characters do not necessarily need to have some kind of importance. That is not the point.

And as far as villains go. Valter Caellach and Orson murdalize anything FE7 can come up with, considering half of FE7's enemies are soulless puppets.

Probably the only one I can give you.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Red Fox of Fire

[Colonel M]

With sacred weapons having 3x MT

I hate being a nitpick, but Sacred Weapons have only 2x eff Mt, as otherwise Ivaldi would be superior to Aura still (when it's the other way around).

[Paper Jam]

Most Fire Emblem games repeat the same political dynamic: Evil Empire conquers Good Republic; survivors from Good Republic flee to Good Empire; combined forces of Good Republic and Good Empire strike back and defeat Evil Empire.

For the most part, FE8 embraces this trope (or dare I say, cliche?), so politically I find it rather less interesting than FE7, which seems to avoid it.

[General Banzai]

Way to understate. If that's all you need for CoD, Ghost Ship can be made easy as well. SS has plenty of good characters.

Way to understate? The trick to Cog of Destiny is merely spamming those res-increasing items you never use anywhere else in the game, like Barrier and Pure Waters. You ought to have a Restore staff around then too, and Pent and Priscilla can pull double-duty on it. Harken and Florina have decent res to begin with, too. By Ghost Ship's point in the game, however, there are very few characters with high def. Seth probably has around 13-14, Vanessa and Franz 10-11, and Ephraim 9-10. Duessel of course starts with 17 defense but he can't tank damage for your entire team, not with three chokepoints to cover, Gargoyles coming from every direction, and Mogalls dicking around at the top of the map. Your team isn't quite uber by this point in time, either. Using Colm to torch is a liability. Using Moulder to torch is a liability. If you have a mage of any sort, they're a liability.

Not only that, but Ghost Ship is difficult because it's harder for units who ARE good than those who are bad. What do I mean by this? The worst thing possible in this map is the ability to ORKO those paper-thin monsters on the actual Ghost Ship. Because if you can, then they just keep coming... and coming... and coming... Perhaps with 40-50% hit chances, perhaps even less, perhaps only doing 7 or 8 damage a pop... but there are so many that by the end of the turn they've whittled you down. That's how they get you. And again, Duessel isn't all that helpful because since there's three chokepoints to cover you're gonna need two other dudes besides Duessel, and the monsters on the ship are gonna attack him instead of the good general.

Compounding things upon this, the boss appears behind your units on, what, the third turn? He's a Deathgoyle with 40 HP, enough speed to resist doubling from all but your fastest units, and enough def to make ORKOing him impossible. With his Short Spear he hits hard and probably isn't getting counterattacked. So you can send all your units out just to deal with him, sure, but at the same turn about six Mogalls show up from the top of the map and they can easily screw over Franz and Ephraim. Even Seth's taking about 6 damage each from them, and considering his lowish HP and the fact that this is all happening right after the turn you decided to take on the brunt of the Ghost Ship lest Larachel get raped means that none of them are probably full HP--in fact, some are probably prone to death. So you bring Moulder along to heal them but damn, Moulder's durability to nonexistent. The Deathgoyle's 1-2 range means defending Moulder is difficult, and considering Moulder's res isn't even very good he's prone to Mogall death too. You could rescue him with someone but whoever gets rescued is getting doubled by the Deathgoyle next turn and is gonna have lower avoid for the Mogalls.

So yeah, in comparison, the handful of Berserk and Sleep staffs in Cog of Destiny is a joke. Lloyd doesn't even move, either, so there's absolutely no reason to be afraid of him. The druids next to him are more imposing due to Luna, but they don't attack unless you're in range, making luring them out pathetic.

Dart/Geitz seems fine to me. Others like Priscilla and Farina actually get some good development from their supports as well. It seems more like you pick and choose specific supports you didn't like.

And you simply said "I like them". So we're even.

I find Rennac annoying and Lute kind of boring. And hey, at least they acknowledged that Lucius looks like a girl, which doesn't always happen with traps. Plus that was amusing. Supports from people like Farina and Bartre I found to be generally more entertaining than FE8's supports.

Next you're gonna tell me that Kefka wasn't a good villain.

Because this isn't common in every single FE, right?

This is also a testament to how few characters SS actually has. When you have so few, giving them purpose is easier. FE characters do not necessarily need to have some kind of importance. That is not the point.

I'd argue that PoR also manages to avoid purposeless characters, and does so with a much higher set of rosters. Er... and I fail to see why having pointless characters is a good thing.

Edited July 10, 2011 by General Banzai

[RNG Princess]

I actually like that in SS characters join for a reason, I hadn't noticed it but I agree with the point.

[Momo]

Every single FE game's (Except 10 which I haven't played) plot is the same, with slight deviations from each other. Comparing one to the other is completely moot.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Saloma

[Hippoman]

OK, so my question is, is this game worth driving 75 miles to buy?

[Florete]

Way to understate?

Yeah. The point: if you know how to get around CoD to make it easy, you can probably do the same with Ghost Ship. Both are very tough for more inexperienced players, but these days I don't find either of them to be *that* difficult. However, I find FE7 has more maps that can be pretty tough (most Defend maps, Genesis), especially when you throw ranks into the equation. The only FE8 map I recall having real trouble on was Rausten Court, but even that was before I realized I could easily just end it by killing Riev.

And you simply said "I like them". So we're even.

Thanks for accepting that your point was meaningless. I'm not about to say all of FE7's supports are brilliant (stuff like most of Eliwood's make me snooze) but they are at least more memorable than FE8's. I recall at one point even being pissed off because of how boring multiple FE8 supports were. It's got some good ones, and I can see people enjoying Lute and Rennac like you mentioned, but I just remember reading (I think) Innes and L'Arachel and thinking "What the fuck is this shit?"

Next you're gonna tell me that Kefka wasn't a good villain.

Who's Kefka? (translation: nice strawman)

I'd argue that PoR also manages to avoid purposeless characters, and does so with a much higher set of rosters. Er... and I fail to see why having pointless characters is a good thing.

Brom, Nephenee, Zihark, Sothe, Astrid, Stefan, Devdan, Calill, Tauroneo, Largo, and arguably Marcia, Makalov, and Haar. None of them have any importance to the story at hand. Showing up a couple times and having a few lines does not make a character important. It's been a while since I've gone through SS's story, but I'm sure there's at least a handful who have no true purpose for existing. Marisa comes to mind.

Anyway, I never said pointless characters was a good thing, I said it wasn't a bad thing. This is an SRPG, so as far as gameplay goes, having more characters is better, pointless or not. At least it's not something like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (or Shadow Dragon) where you're just fed generics.

EDIT: Including Merlinus and Athos, FE7 has 43 playable characters. Including both Dragons and Tibarn/Naesala/Giffca, PoR has 46. "Much higher" my ass.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Red Fox of Fire

[Just call me AL]

It's been a while since I've played SS myself, but last I checked: In addition to Marisa, Ross, Garcia, Colm, Neimi, Amelia, Ewan, Gerik, and maybe a few others I'm missing would make no impact to the story if they were taken out of FE8.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Elmer

[Lord Raven]

Every single FE game's (Except 10 which I haven't played) plot is the same, with slight deviations from each other. Comparing one to the other is completely moot.

"slight" deviations? You're kidding, right?

OK, so my question is, is this game worth driving 75 miles to buy?

You'll probably end up buying it used which is a problem. I don't trust used GBA carts... I'd probably get the ROM. Edited July 10, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[Quintessence]

Well I, undoubtedly, prefer FE7 over FE8. FE8 is nasty short, I got bored and disappointed when the next chapter was final... .The idea of monsters seemed extremely gothic and fantastic, despite magic users give enough fantasy to the game. The thing about the sacred stones didn't amazed me as much as I wanted. Also, the branched promotions seemed pretty useless for me, for example, who will make Natasha promote into Valkyrie since Bishop is far better option? same mag, better skill, speed and res, and above all, SLAYER! Battle maidens won't be better for having +2 movement. Ranger or Sniper? Sure Shot is almost unnecessary since bow users have hit%. The same thing for Wyvern Lords against Wyvern Knights, knights have more spd and have Pierce. However Skills were good since it applies more essence to classes.

EDIT: Aren't FE9 characters fighting for Crimea, against Daein, for Laguz Alliance, etc?

[-Cynthia-]

Thanks for accepting that your point was meaningless. I'm not about to say all of FE7's supports are brilliant (stuff like most of Eliwood's make me snooze) but they are at least more memorable than FE8's. I recall at one point even being pissed off because of how boring multiple FE8 supports were. It's got some good ones, and I can see people enjoying Lute and Rennac like you mentioned, but I just remember reading (I think) Innes and L'Arachel and thinking "What the fuck is this shit?"

I liked Innes/L'Arachel

Brom, Nephenee, Zihark, Sothe, Astrid, Stefan, Devdan, Calill, Tauroneo, Largo, and arguably Marcia, Makalov, and Haar. None of them have any importance to the story at hand. Showing up a couple times and having a few lines does not make a character important. It's been a while since I've gone through SS's story, but I'm sure there's at least a handful who have no true purpose for existing. Marisa comes to mind.

Tauroneo is one of the former Four Riders, and friend to the father of the relevant Lord, no relevance to the story is a bit off there. All FE games have people who are not very important the plot though, so it's not a big deal either way. Generally I find characters who have relevance to the main plot more interesting, but eh.

[Momo]

"slight" deviations? You're kidding, right?

Led by king _______, the nation of _________ attacks the nation of __________. __________, the main lord, comes into contact with ___________, the princess of the opposing kingdom. After defeating the king, it is revealed that he was being controlled by the evil sorcerer __________, who wants to bring chaos to the world by reviving __________.

That's essentially every single game in the series. I could surely do more, but I think you get the point. Sometimes there's no king, sometimes the princess isn't actually a princess, but it's pretty much the same thing every time.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Saloma

[Lord Raven]

How many games that formula doesn't apply to:

FE4 (considering there's no princess and the last sentence doesn't apply, on top of the many many many other differences in plot between FE4)

FE5 (... FE5 was all-in-all a rebellion plot)

FE7 (gang warfare)

FE8 (princess with lots of well-intentioned-ness to get rid of the last sentence; he was controlled, yes, but not as a result of power lust or anything to that extent)

FE10 (err... do I need to explain?)

With FE6/FE9 having none of the last sentence applying. So you're down to... FE1/2/3 which was extremely barebones to begin with.

And this doesn't get into the fact that you're vastly generalizing the fuck out of the series. You can make anything similar through generalizing.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[-Cynthia-]

It applies to FE8 to some extent:

Led by king _______, the nation of _________ attacks the nation of __________. __________, the main lord, comes into contact with ___________, the princess of the opposing kingdom. After defeating the king, it is revealed that he was being controlled by the evil sorcerer __________, who wants to bring chaos to the world by reviving __________.

A. Vigarde (technically Emperor)

B. Grado

C. Renais

D. Eirika

E. disregard

F. Lyon or Riev both sort of fit here

G. Demon King

[Lord Raven]

Not only did he SOMEWHAT provide the plot summary of the game (minus the second sentence), but a lot of the finer details that set them apart are excluded. A lot.