screenshot Ike's FE Megathread {15.5}

[IceBrand]

So moral of the story is: Anime can't be taken seriously in this type of narrative?

[Integrity]

anime could absolutely be taken seriously in a serious narrative; the problem is that it's very "anime" to have flow-breaking conversations like this. it's not a phenomenon that's constrained to anime, but it definitely seems to crop up there more than in other places. think advance wars, that shit is Anime Prime.

[Serpent of Sheol]

There would be a lot to say about story telling in Video Games.

I think that Video games could (can) be an amazing way of conveying strory, since it doesn't have to do it through text alone.

Being able to freely explore a whole city, or conveying information through gameplay. Even playing with the video game format itself.

​This haven't been fully exploited yet (Truth be told, it's barely exploited at all), but there's a golden mine of story telling there, I'm convinced.

I may get back to this in more détails when Thracia 776's turn arrive, but its gameplay works pretty well to convey the overall ambiance of the story.

I wouldn't even begin to compare all video game RPG stories together, mostly because depending on how the game is designed, the story must also be manufactured to fit the gameplay. This is why it's unwise to compare something like Fire Emblem (the older series, anything pre-avatar) to something like Undertale. In my opinion, you can divide RPGs into to types of stories based in gameplay: ones that immerse you in the game through the means of an avatar and dialogue options, and ones that lay out the story in front of you with no avatar and no variance in dialogue options. It looks something like this:

[spoiler=the drawing, it's big]

Using this line, you can define how a game needs to tell a story. On the left side, story details and plot would be given to you through exploration and the dialogue options influence the story. In these types of games, you "create" your own story along a linear path in a defined universe. The intricacies of the plot still need to be written down into parts of the story, but because these types of games are typically open-world, all details are not dropped on the player at once. On the other hand, stories without an avatar and without dialogue options must tell you all the details since you can't access the majority by yourself. (I might actually position FE4 a bit closer to the middle of the graph). Anything in between the two areas gets continually worse and has a higher chance at failing at telling its story. One of the issues the right side of the graph has with good storytelling is a sense of scale. When do you drop plot details? How do I flesh out my characters? In the example of FE4, it fails primarily with storytelling in the sense of scale. Too many details are dropped at once, too few details are dropped at once, and the characters are never fleshed out. (accounting for the fact that FE4 also has a bad story at parts, but we're putting that aside to generalize it in this case)

The problem with the middle of the graph is that it tries to mix the two types of stories. Since the two have to be executed in different ways to have similar end results, the combination of the two ends in poorly written and poorly implemented characters. I used Awakening and Fates as examples in the graph because they are fresh on my mind. Fates in particular suffers from trying to implement a self-insert character that serves as "you" for the purposes of the story, yet gives you almost no freedom as to what your character impact is on the story. You have no choice outside which waifu you want in your treehouse castle, so each "insert" character ends up being the same. Anything you imagine the character would do doesn't actually occur in the game. This is why the avatar is bad. The story is set up around the avatar to the point where it barely focuses on anything else, and the plot has a huge dependency on a character that is supposed to be you, yet you can't make your own choices. The story relies on you to be able to almost make the plot as you go because you are the person driving the plot, yet it doesn't give you the ability to. The result is the avatar lacking any meaningful growth in a satisfying way and a stripped-down story too dependent on its main character to actually develop a plot. (This is mostly evident in Conquest and Revelations, less so Birthright).

I'd type more, but I have to leave soon, so I'll leave it at this point. I'll probably reference this line again in later posts.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Knight of Argentum

[IceBrand]

anime could absolutely be taken seriously in a serious narrative; the problem is that it's very "anime" to have flow-breaking conversations like this. it's not a phenomenon that's constrained to anime, but it definitely seems to crop up there more than in other places. think advance wars, that shit is Anime Prime.

Yeah I agree. For a game about war no one really takes it seriously and it seems more like an excuse for these characters to interact. I know the series is meant to be lighthearted but I can't tell if all of it is intentional or not.

[peener weener]

nice

and i get you have a slow summer and all but i hope you're not serious when you're looking for /quality story telling/ in a video game. im sure its been done well before(ocarina of time comes to mind) but at the end of the day it was a video game designed kids to play. if you want a good story go read a book or something.

this is a really dumb post. saying fire emblem's story isn't really meant to be quality storytelling is like saying it's useless to call whatever popular movie stupid (avengers? i guess that works) because it's just meant to be mindless entertainment. you're right, but you're not saying anything even remotely intelligent or interesting. fire emblem puts a lot of emphasis on its plot and character elements; no piece of media should be exempt of coming under scrutiny in its status as "art"; fire emblem has very mediocre writing; you're on a fire emblem forum; expecting quality storytelling is not the same as recognising bad storytelling; fire emblem isn't even geared towards children and that's a silly thing to say anyway; shut the hell up lmao

you can rest assured he does read books, btw, even if that might come as a surprise to most people

ocarina of time's story wasn't anything special, it was actually really basic, but i guess it had a way to tell it that would captivate young children, which is entirely fine, because ocarina of time was a videogame made for children, but we're still able to say "yeah it wasn't that great lol"

[SB.]

The issue with the animeish conversations isn't that anime is bad or anything, its that the way FE does it can be jarring. Compare Lex and Azel's conversation about Azel's crush on Aideen to things like the Gen 2 child hunting and it doesn't blend together well. Its possible to mix lighthearted stuff in with the serious, but its difficult to this without taking them out of the setting (Tellius' base conversations and supports did this pretty well imo).

[Sunwoo]

I'm enjoying this so far.

[Tamanoir]

I didn't played fates yet (obviously...), but I do share these opinions with Awakening.

The FE who do the best Avatar is FE7. It is even somewhat clever in a way.

Doing an Avatar is hard (though the problem with FE!Avatar is it's a marketing argument, not a gameplay one (Fates campaign show this pretty well.). It is a lie (like the cake)​ and that's why we react so badly to it. Even some useless dialogue choice would show some effort of insertion).

The place of the player in the game and the relation to the avatar is a pretty interresting topic, actually (not really in FE, though. Even arguments about Mark are stretching out)

[eclipse]

I have no idea how Verdane as a government concept is supposed to be sustainable. I suppose that's why they fall off of the map so quickly.

[Darros]

I feel like the fact that the FE4 conversations feel like anime is that if your name isn't Sigurd they're few and far between. Most characters are introduced, and other than one or two buddy or lover conversations are then just kind of set as yours to control. That's why things seem kind of over the top in a way. It's how your units' "personalities" are revealed. Maybe more conversations between characters would help fix this problem, but given recent fire emblem games ((looking at you FE13)) maybe it won't.

[Integrity]

Welcome back! Today we’ll be shaking it up with more gameplay stuff, even a little bit of just traditional LP commentary, since Chapter 1 is pretty light on the plot – it’s almost entirely self-contained, except for two things. Chapter 1 introduces the overarching villains of the game, and hoooooly fuck are they something else, and introduces Eldigan, who is fairly bad but not the worst thing this generation has to offer.

That’s Lewyn.

Meanwhile,

We pick up where we left off. Aideen isn’t here, so it’s time to invade Verdane now and subject ourselves to the worst thing in video gaming, possibly, also exacerbated by my own stupidity. We’ll get to all of that in time. You’ll probably laugh.

Kind of a thing about Fire Emblem as a whole – and, hell, fiction to a degree – but it isn’t usually laid out so blatantly. Guess which one of these men is a righteous person! Is it A Generic Bandit, is it Pretty Attractiveman, or is it B Generic Bandit? I feel like this is a thing that we’re gradually moving away from in fiction, and that’s good because it’s Greek to be pretty ergo heroic, but Christ, the three dudes are brothers, how are two of them a smarmy, hook-nosed motherfucker; a guy literally dressed in rags; and the third is a conventionally fairly attractive guy? Sheesh.

Anyway, let’s talk a little about Eldigan. I’m going to waste a lot of words on this motherfucker, because the resolution of his story is one of the things that I sort-of snagged on the first time I experienced the game and, well, it’s Fire Emblem. I never read the story after the first time. I’m looking forward to trying to explain what it is about this dude’s story that I don’t like – unfortunate, because he presents in this chapter as a pretty great character. Right here, he rolls up to our keep asking if we’re planning on going into Augustria at all, asking if Sigurd’s going to be a mensch and not invade or anything, right? He manages to convey that yeah, Sigurd’s his friend, but also that he’s nobody to fuck with – a thing that gets cemented later. Augustria and Granvalle are neutral, totally.

And then this line happens, and I’m sad to say I ran it by Japanese language experts and learned that this line was not, in fact, hella gay in the original Nihongo. I’m disappointed, but I’m glad the translators decided to make it that way, because it rules. It reads like Sigurd trying to smooth talk his way out of Eldigan being righteous.

One problem Genealogy has is that there’s entirely too much bullshit talking sometimes, with zero talking other times. It could stand to be spread out a little! Have this Ayra conversation start the enemy phase after you engage the first pile of enemies. Speaking of Ayra, is it ever explored why Shanan was in this shithole backwoods country? Isn’t this like finding the Prince of England, at war with France, in some minor city in Albania? What the fuck?

Finally time to do something! Well, that “something” is “run the arena as much as possible and then sally forth” which takes ages, but oh well. I’m not going to do any cheesy bullshit like saving the arena to heal or burning RNs to make sure my mans clear it. Everyone’s getting one fair shot to make it as far as they can at the beginning of the chapter, then a second shot at the penultimate castle of each chapter. Nobody cleared this one because of the wind mage, he’s a complete tool.

Honestly, as far as mechanics go, I really like this implementation of the arena. It’s usually a fairly good indicator of how your units are stacking up compared to the enemies, and the higher waves of the arena are really hard for your intended level at any given chapter. It’s not perfect – some shit like Miracle totally screws the system over, for instance, and some characters just get hosed by a particular enemy – but it does its job better than many Genealogy systems do theirs, in my opinion. I don’t like how much gold and experience it rewards, though; I’d encourage the game to give you diminishing rewards for the seven consecutive fights, instead of increasing rewards. It makes a little less sense, sure, but the increased rewards just kind of let good units snowball further while bad ones lose even this source of experience. On the other hand, the first one to three arena fights are really easy in most chapters, so it’s not that striking an offense.

More talking before we even start. Jamke starts out here a little bit over-aggressive towards Dew, maybe indicating he’s a different breed of character from our pretty stock heroes we have so far, but it kind of fades off. And he loses all relevance really fast. He’s going to go try to talk his dad down, because it’s his dad’s fault, a thing which will sound pretty stupid after the events of this chapter. Jamke’s plot is a microcosm of what’s wrong with Genealogy, which is sad because I honestly like him.

Again, Verdane is literally just banditry. The only two members of Verdane who are not bandits are the king (dead soon, spoilers) and Jamke (joins us, heroic). Every other Verdaneian? Verdaneman? Verdaneman, since they’re invariably men, is just a bandit you’d expect to extinguish in the first few chapters of every Fire Emblem. Except Sacred Stones, I guess, I think only Chapters 2 and 3 were about bandits in the entire game.

You can’t really see at this assy res, but we’ve finally engaged the first pile almost a thousand fucking words in. I can run my mouth. Quan, is this really the time? We’re surrounded by bandits. I’m not looking up conversations, just going with what I remember or glean from the script pages, so I forgot this one until like turn 3.

Showcasing Genealogy’s strategical mechanics, which I really like, is a perfect exhibit. Genealogy’s combination of dumb/random AI and high enemy density in groups produces a feeling you don’t really get in any other Fire Emblem, except to a very lesser extent Fates, of formation fighting. Hypothetically, you can rotate a front line with Canto, but there really isn’t too much room for that because you don’t have that many linebackers. I think that’s part of why I like the second generation more – your footmen-horsemen disparity isn’t nearly as big (Ares notwithstanding) unless you actively stack the deck to be that way, and Genealogy is played at its best when the footmen are involved.

I wish more had been made of the mechanic where bosses could retreat for reinforcements. Maybe have a castle have a Mans bar which makes it harder to take somehow depending on how many Mans are left, but Mans will trickle out in small groups occasionally as long as it’s not taken – unless a mid-boss runs home, in which case he’ll grab a big group of Mans and set back out. That would provide a pretty fun mechanic for castle sieging, I think, especially if the Mans got tougher the lower the bar got, making it progressively more difficult to farm them. Or something like that. Anyway, this is another thing Genealogy does Cool, Yet Halfheartedly, and I can at least respect it for that. Hell, those three words describe Thracia’s design.

Anyway, I take Genoa – Milan was my favorite faction in Medieval 2 Total War, did you know? – pretty easily. Ayra actually fires off Astra at Arden with her first attack, but the dude squeaked by with no health. Big deal.

The silly thing about Ayra is that she’s pissed at Grannvale, they’re her mortal enemy, she’s done risking her life for Verdane – but it’s never explained why she’s risking her life for Verdane (to my knowledge, thread grognards please advise), and there’s nothing stopping her right now from taking Shanan and fucking off. Or, at the end of the chapter, once Verdane has been totally humiliated and actually conquered by Sigurd, taking Shanan and fucking off. Or, at any point, taking Shanan and fucking off. According to Sigurd’s character, he’d be happy to let her go back to Isaach with him. Hell, he’d probably scrounge up an escort from somewhere. But instead, Ayra fights with us to – well, not the death, but close enough.

Here’s a low point of Genealogy’s story – Elliott. Elliott just up and decides to invade your new holding while you’re away, doing a great job of reminding us that an Augustrian lord went to a military school in Grannvale.

Eldigan sallies forth, respecting his agreement with us, and a conversation ensues. In it, it is revealed that every single lord of Augustria is in a secret pact against Grannvale (“not all of them!” eldigan protests, lying) except Eldigan. Old king Agusty is a useless old fool (the only person who listens to him is Eldigan) and literally only he doesn’t want war with Grannvale.

Course, Eldigan just fuckin’ murks his army. It’s pretty great the first time, and it continues to be great future times. This dude just isn’t a threat, because Eldigan and his Cross Knights fuckin’ rule. On the other hand, that makes the progression of Eldigan’s story really bad. Still, this scene is great, and most of Chapter 1 is pretty great, as far as Fire Emblem stories go, taken in isolation.

Which I’m not doing! :D

I’d have liked it if the enemies started in formations that faced you better, but the game actually does a decent job of it most of the time. This is one of the major screw-ups, having an enemy attack you in the time-honored column formation, but fortunately Chapter 2 will make up for it with a glorious Siegfried Line.

On cue, let’s talk about the Loptyr Cult. If I haven’t said it yet, I think Awakening’s translation team did a really hit-and-miss job on the translations of Genealogy things – Loptyr is not one of them. Loptyr is what they were always meant to be called, retroactively. Loptyr owns.

This villager is establishing that a weird sorcerer showed up a while ago, and that everything has totally sucked since then. Now, I think it’s kind of rude to hold optional, even throwaway, conversations against a game’s plot, generally speaking. I’m only using this as a springboard to talk about it – everyone knows that there’s an evil cult controlling the kingdom now. Even Jamke knows that some sorcerer has woven an evil spell over his dad, and he thinks he can talk his dad out of it. In a well-written work, one could convey this as naïve (holy shit word put the diacritical on it) thinking or idealism. Unfortunately, Genealogy is not that – every character either is on board with it (everyone but the heroes) or tries to talk it over (Jamke, Eldigan, probably others) with poor results. To top it off, this ancient conspiracy, that’s only <100 years dead, is pulling all of the strings of this generation.

Also the dude literally looks like this. What the fuck?

Anyway, molestation. Verdane is not a nuanced country, even by Fire Emblem writing standards, but this scene stands out. Sigurd even just shoos him away after an apology. This scene is dumb, and could have been a million other ways for them to meet, come on.

Okay, it’s time for arguably the low point of video game history. This fucking forest. This forest is even worse than any given point in the arguable war crime that’s Chapter 2, but fortunately it’s only the last part of the chapter. The game arbitrarily slows all of your units down to a crawl for a really long time. Actually, it seems arbitrary, but I kind of get why – your dudes would shit all over Jamke’s dudes in open terrain, so IS took the most heavyhanded way possible to get your dudes into a situation that favors Jamke’s dudes. I can respect it from a design perspective, in that light.

t-totally planned it so Deirdre would spawn in range to attack that guy, y-yeah. All skill.

The problem is, while it does a decent job equalizing your and Jamke’s armies, the movement restriction persists after you win. So you filter, single-file, through this awful chokepoint, until eventually you slide into some kind of formation on the other side of the forest.

…eventually….

Wait, wasn’t there a …

are you fucking kidding me

Anyway, chapter’s over with this nice heart. Sigurd kills the boss, there’s a little dialogue about how the evil cult is (*gasp*) evil, and then the king of Verdane dies. Fun thing: Jamke’s the king now. And he just fucks off with us and leaves his country alone. That’s it for the chapter, honestly. I could seize, right now. So let's put it up to vote: I'm going to include you guys. Who should Ayra and Aideen marry? Bonus points for making Lana cool and awesome with your Aideen vote, and bonus points for giving me an unconventional Ayra husband, because fuck, I've done everything for her by now.

Incidentally, I think I'll let people vote on all my pairings because I really don't give a fuck, and in all cases a legal vote is, in fact, "don't." I'm happy to use some substitutes. Also, in all cases, if the chick organically falls in love with someone else because I'm bad at video games, I'm dealing with it and not resetting/abusing jealousy to make sure she marries the right guy. Your votes just mean "gun for this, man." Please bold your votes so I can notice them more easily quickscrolling through my own thread without reading your posts.

See you next time! After...

i crave only death

only the death of worlds can save me from this pain

fucking blow me

[spoiler=fe4s mechanics are hilarious sometimes]

You go, Dew.

[Moblin Major General]

Aideen x Arden

Lewyn x Sylvia

Holyn x Tailto

Raquesis x Azel

Briggid x Lex

Finn x Fury

Noish x Ayra

Claude forever alone(fuck Corpul)

Literally make Gen II fucking awful for you.

[eclipse]

So, let's do this blind~!

Aideen x Alec

Raquesis x Arden

Ayra x Azel

Briggid x Noish

Tiltyu x Dew

Sylvia x Jamka

Fury x Midir

That's how to do weird stuff to the second gen. WTF is a Forseti.

[maybe]

ike please for your own sanity do the thing that gets you the superoverpowered wind tome

levin with fury or whatever

[Refa]

Aideen x Claude

Ayra x Azel

[Konnor97]

Claude forever alone(fuck Corpul)

How does Claude being left alone screw over Corple? Unless you meant the Valkyrie Staff instead of Corple.

Azel x Raquesis is pretty nice, although Delmud needs a magic ring.

Edited May 3, 2016 by Konnor97

[solrocknroll]

sylvia x lex and azel x ayra

[Jedi]

Finn x Raquesis

This way FE5 makes a little more sense for a certain subplot.

[Integrity]

i'm not soliciting votes for all the pairings right off the bat you fucking nerds, only as i get women

EDIT: literally only refa did that right. goddamn.

Edited May 3, 2016 by Integrity

[Nintales]

Since I just want to see you comment on FE4's possibilities of Incest :

- LexAyra.

- AideenxAzel (best couple ever fite me).

[Serpent of Sheol]

Aideen and Claude

Aira and Holyn

haha have fun

[peener weener]

DewxAyra

[Integrity]

Since I just want to see you comment on FE4's possibilities of Incest :

- LexAyra.

- AideenxAzel (best couple ever fite me).

well, okay, so you negated your own vote, good job

[Baldrick]

Ayra x spinsterhood

Aideen x Levin

[Original Alear]

As far as Shanan in Verdane goes, I think Ayra ran away with him due to the war in Isaac (who knows why she went to Verdane, maybe its reputation abroad isn't so bad somehow).

In the manga, Sigurd actually has an army. I haven't finished the manga, but I remember that.

It's probably a small and heroic army surmounting overwhelming odds, but it's not just the PCs.

And Levin can like blow a hole in a castle wall with wind or elwind IIRC, to say nothing of holsety.

Edited May 3, 2016 by Togami Byakuga