Is Fire Emblem really screwed up?

[Junkhead]

Yeah, I've always wanted to see my Smash main's pixilated exposed-panties.

[The_antithesis]

Did you mean to say Conquest? Because this would be the first time I see somebody praise Revelations' gameplay.

Anyway, FE isn't screwed in my opinion. The gameplay is still fun, in the case of CQ even good, and the games are selling well.

No, I do mean all the paths. The dragon veins made for some excellent level design and sure, the continuation of grinding from awakening and OP skills on lunatic weren't good ideas. However, I think Fates, from a basic mechanics perspective (creative use of dragon veins, strong map design, varied objectives, and varied enemies), is the right way for the series to go. Sure, the story NEEDS to be better in the next game, and if it isn't then I would say that FE is screwed, but for now, I think we can agree the FE is not fighting a losing battle yet!

Edited October 25, 2016 by The_antithesis

[Cyas]

No, I do mean all the paths. The dragon veins made for some excellent level design and sure, the continuation of grinding from awakening and OP skills on lunatic weren't good ideas. However, I think Fates, from a basic mechanics perspective (creative use of dragon veins, strong map design, varied objectives, and varied enemies), is the right way for the series to go. Sure, the story NEEDS to be better in the next game, and if it isn't then I would say that FE is screwed, but for now, I think we can agree the FE is not fighting a losing battle yet!

I can understand Fates as a whole but your post clearly stated:

but revelations had by far the best gameplay in the series.

I agree with most things you said if we're talking about Fates as a whole but Revelation is something entirely different.

Chapters like 7, 8, 10, 24, 25, 26 etc. take a long amount of time but aren't difficult at all. Oftentimes the maps employ gimmicks that prolong them but don't add to difficulty or strategic depth.

OP skills on lunatic weren't good ideas

That's the one thing I don't agree with in the context of Fates as a whole. What OP skills does Lunatic mode feature?

Staff Savant+Inevitable End during CQ Endgame is a bit ridiculous but that's about it. There are ways to work around Lunge!Ninjas/Poison Strike+Grisly Wound!Ninjas and C25's Hallway of Death can be skipped or trivialized with staves.

BR and Rev hardly have noticeable enemy skills in the first place.

[Harvey]

With switch revealed, I wonder how the next Fire Emblem game is going to be like.....

[NekoKnight]

Gameplay-wise, Fire Emblem has never been better (if Conquest can be considered the most modern game) so I can still call myself a fan of the series. In terms of characterization and story, however, I have very little faith in IS' ability or willingness to write anything of quality. We're up to our necks in anime tropes and fanservice and it's hard to imagine Fire Emblem shifting back to its roots considering how well the current direction sells. Personally, I'd like a greater focus on world-building, characterization and morally complex conflicts.

[bethany81707]

It's somewhat hard to imagine that, all that time ago, I was browsing through Slimkirby's channel and thought 'oh hey, that's the Fire Emblem game Ike's from. Wonder what his series is like', watched those videos, and found myself hooked. It's even harder to imagine that these games (barring the remakes) would be the last of the 'old guard' for Fire Emblem.

I am writing a story using Sacred Stones as a base, and I must say, every time I read a new support conversation, I find myself interested in what the characters have to say. Amelia/Duessel A has to be my favourite Support conversation ever, and Gerik-recruits-Marisa does a really good job of establishing characters while being funny.

That said... Awakening (I haven't had the chance to see Fates)... I'm going to be honest, I found myself confused. I couldn't really find myself invested in the characters, and the sheer size of the Support library is scaring me away from looking through it. Moreover, since conversations can often reveal more about one character than another, or even have completely unrelated discussions (Cormag/Duessel A, for instance, explains what happened to Valter)... it can be a little hard to even cherry-pick favourite characters. My understanding of the plot characters also fell flat in a few instances.

Though my main problem with Awakening was the idea of reclassing. Just... I had the chance to play Shadow Dragon, and I didn't have the confidence at the time to fiddle with it (I've lost the cartridge before I could do much more with it). However, one problem I found with it was that it made the characters feel less... personal. It might've helped my feeling lost, when I saw the playthrough I did and lost track of who's who- and then you add on infinite levelling and the confusing Skill system. And then there's marriage and inheritance on top of it? If people criticise the older games for locking out new players, that's mostly because they put their terms on the front door.

That said, I do have some degree of hope. While the plot seems off-putting and the Support library is another pile of hay on top of the first needle-in-a-haystack, Conquest apparently has enjoyable gameplay. And while I do enjoy some Paper Mario and have similar issues with the problematic direction that series is going in, Colour Splash also demonstrates promise, if somewhat stilted.

Well, darn, comparing FE to PM just destroyed any positivity I hoped to gain.

[Dinar87]

In terms of fire emblem's direction, I wouldn't say it's "screwed" but it could be much, much, MUCH better in terms of story, reducing fan service y designs that strip the games of any ability to be taken seriously in any way (you actually crash into Camilla's...coconuts in a cut scene! Who thought that was a good idea?!?) and the ability to grind using pay to win DLC all add up to make the newer fire emblems more disappointing than enjoyable.

However, now that I've actually played fates, I like SOME of pretty much everything. Some of the designs are cool and others are blatant fan service. Some points in the story are cool and have that game of thrones vibe I desperately want in fire emblem and others are...well...Camilla...ugh...*pukes* Sorry I just thought of that one cut scene that focuses on Camilla's "assets"...oh god *pukes again* And the game play is good most of the time but the pressure the game puts on players is sadly lessened with all the pay to win DLC. Sure it's technically optional but then again so is playing the entire game! I guess we can't criticize any of fates since playing it is technically optional! A self imposed challenge is never as fun as one given to you in my experience with games.

That being said, conquest at least has the game play down mostly. When I finally beat chapter 10 on hard mode (after failing to do so many times before) the sense of satisfaction felt immense. That was something the tellius series has yet to offer me. I don't know about lunatic mode but hard mode seems to have a great balance of difficulty...again at least I think so.

I JUST want a fire emblem with the tone and story quality of path of radiance and some parts of radiant dawn. I want the tellius style to return dammit!! I'd give everything I own to get another game like 9 and 10 but sadly it seems IS is more interested in fan service and waifus than crafting an actual good story. Oh well, at least the game play is still alright (mostly).

Of course, when I say shit like "an actual good story" I'm talking about my opinion. But it's obviously not just me who thinks this way since plenty of other people who've actually played the tellius series, even if they enjoyed fates overall (like I did) will admit the story, world building and all that was pretty disappointing in fates.

So in conclusion, in my oh so humble opinion, fire emblem is not "screwed" but it's in a state where it's still great but could be massively improved.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Dinar87

[Harvey]

Since this thread is on topic somehow, I want to lecture as to why Nintendo/IS will never be able to provide the story dept as what they used to or occasionally would.

Let's compare Hashi No Tsurugi and One Piece both manga books. Both talk so much about friendship and compassion but in terms of depth, as much as I don't like it, One Piece just does it better simply because the dialogue was deep something that the former wasn't deep enough. Luffy and Al are simple characters but the difference here is that Luffy expresses better than Al. Luffy rages whenever he misses out his hat or if one of his friends is badly hurt but Al just can't deliver that kind of expression.

Ok compare FE7 and One Piece as both of them have friendship incorporated but the depth that one piece has is deeper than FE7 because it just elaborates it more than FE7. Not to mention that One Piece as of now has little to no plotholes compared to FE7 since FE7 is suppose to be a prequel of FE6 and none of the questions that the fans wondered about were never revealed or elaborated.

Why am I comparing a game and a manga? Because inorder for Nintendo to deliver a great story, they need to provide depth to the story. And to do this, Nintendo has to focus on Story as much as gameplay which is something I don't think will ever happen considering that they focus solely on gameplay alone.

The only times they gave a damn about a great story was the Paper Mario series, the past Fire Emblem games and Xenoblade Chronicles after which their games were just having simple plots.

[Dinar87]

Since this thread is on topic somehow, I want to lecture as to why Nintendo/IS will never be able to provide the story dept as what they used to or occasionally would.

Let's compare Hashi No Tsurugi and One Piece both manga books. Both talk so much about friendship and compassion but in terms of depth, as much as I don't like it, One Piece just does it better simply because the dialogue was deep something that the former wasn't deep enough. Luffy and Al are simple characters but the difference here is that Luffy expresses better than Al. Luffy rages whenever he misses out his hat or if one of his friends is badly hurt but Al just can't deliver that kind of expression.

Ok compare FE7 and One Piece as both of them have friendship incorporated but the depth that one piece has is deeper than FE7 because it just elaborates it more than FE7. Not to mention that One Piece as of now has little to no plotholes compared to FE7 since FE7 is suppose to be a prequel of FE6 and none of the questions that the fans wondered about were never revealed or elaborated.

Why am I comparing a game and a manga? Because inorder for Nintendo to deliver a great story, they need to provide depth to the story. And to do this, Nintendo has to focus on Story as much as gameplay which is something I don't think will ever happen considering that they focus solely on gameplay alone.

The only times they gave a damn about a great story was the Paper Mario series, the past Fire Emblem games and Xenoblade Chronicles after which their games were just having simple plots.

I see. So in other words, because there's such a focus on the game play side of fire emblem (letting players marry whoever they want, reclassing into whatever classes they want, etc...) that makes the game play more non linear and so naturally it's harder to craft a better story for since there's too many options to account for. This is a massive shame imo since, when nintendo gave a damn about the stories, they were usually pretty good at them so it's a shame to them wasting their talents on literal sex appeal(like Camilla's design) and the whole "marry whoever you want" schtick.

If you couldn't tell already I think sacrificing story to "enhance" the game play isn't something that appeals to me. I guess the real issue is that there's so many people who don't really care about having an enjoyable story and tone and, as a result of this, IS focuses on what the fans want...which is the game play and not the story. I know that isn't the case on serenes forest but I'd argue we're the minority in the grand scheme of things. The majority of consumers for fire emblem if I had to guess are probably the Etika crowd or maybe simply the silent majority.

The only solution is the potential of garnering more fans of the more-story-orientated fire emblem games by re releasing those two tellius games and the Jugdral games...the first two of which are infamous for being hard to find. If they do that, things can only get better from there if they become a success.

Despite all this, I still love fates quite a bit since it does have its moments...but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't worried about where fire emblem is heading. I just want the series' tone and atmosphere from the older games to be preserved and no longer dampened by anything.

Edited January 5, 2017 by Dinar87

[Folt]

Hm... There's no doubt in my mind that the latter Fire Emblems were very experimental when it came to gameplay. Shadow Dragon, the remake of the very first Fire Emblem game, threw out some previous staples in the series to keep it a bit like how simple the original was, yet was the first instance of a reclass system. The game after that, New Mystery of the Emblem, introduced the Avatar system (despite Nintendo wanting you to believe that Awakening did), and also added the Casual Mode which let you avoid having your units being killed forever.

Then Awakening came and overhauled both of these mechanics into something that I think in many people's eyes "worked better" than either of them did in the other two games, as well as an overhaul of the Skill system, the return of the marriage and child unit system, and a feature that let them introduce paid DLC to the series for the first time (and also the first time in history that Nintendo would feature paid DLC content in any of their games) as well as an excuse to have units from previous games make possible appearances in other games, and Awakening featured a world map and the ability to grind as well which let it have a postgame (which in turn let people keep using the units they had trained throughout the game to pursue new challenges and other stuff).

In general, Awakening also streamlined quite a bit of stuff: Characters (with exceptions) had only three class trees to reclass between, weapon types were kept to only the six general types (Swords, Lances, Axes, Bows, Tomes/Magic, and Staves) and weapon ranks could only go up to A (but a character could have every weapon type that they could use go that far up), any character could equip any skill they had learned from the classes they had leveled through up to a maximum of 5 skills, many earlygame and some midgame characters could support with other earlygame and midgame characters which meant that most of them could marry one another, and classes as a rule often had things in terms of stats, weaponry, and/or or abilities that let each have a certain role in battle. Awakening also introduced the Pair-Up feature: You could also pair up characters with one another which would boost the main attacker's capabilities and let the supporter add in a second attack as well to really play up your army's unit as working together.

Also, in general, a lot of these changes made every unit rather customizable to a point, and made child units very customizable. And in addition to that, with the DLC, they could all interact with some of the former Fire Emblem units of the old games: The way Gangrel would diss the Black Knight or Yarne finding Zephiel's lack of faith in humans troublesome are things I can still recall up to now, and it was fun fighting all those battles against the heroes and villains of now legendary epochs. I know people in general say there's a lack of character or development in Awakening's characters, but quite frankly, I find most of them to be very good, rather developed characters all the same.

Fates took most of the gameplay elements that Awakening had and improved on them: customization of units was harder and more initially restricted than ever, but the characters could all eventually become as customizable as, and even moreso, than Awakening's (though granted, for some characters, this would have to be through multiple playthroughs). In addition, we got the My Castle feature which gave us a hub base to build and interact with as we pleased, and expanded gameplay options through the introduction of the Dragon Vein mechanic and the Daggers/Shurikens that gave us an option to debuff units, essentially adding another way to support your heavy hitters.

And then of course, there was the reworked weapon triangle (Tomes, Shurikens, and Bows were added to the existing weapon triangle and could thus get an advantage or disadvantage against Swords, Lances, and Axes, as well as themselves and vice versa) and the decision to rework the classes into counterparts of each other found mainly in the armies of opposing Kingdoms. It also took the Pair Up system from Awakening and nerfed it to the point where it was still useful, but not as broken and as overpowered as it had been in Awakening.

Moreover, thanks to the success of Awakening and Fates, Fire Emblem has become considered by Nintendo as one of their major IPs of the present. It means that it is no longer considered a niché franchise to them, and the recent Fire Emblem Direct shows that they are willing to market the Fire Emblem brand more heavily than they have ever done before.

In just about all of these games, they have one or more shared flaws: People say that the story tends to be average, boring, or just plain bad depending on who you ask and what game you're referring to, there's an overly big focus on the Avatar in the games that have them, the characters are becoming sexualized and fanservicey in the latter two games, and perhaps some other things that I can't remember at the moment.

But, honestly, as a Fire Emblem fan since the days of Blazing Sword, I don't find an average/boring/bad story, a big focus on the player-created character, and the sexualized and fanservicey appearances of characters to be a problem. I, as a fan, want to continue playing Fire Emblem games because directly interacting with a Fire Emblem game, and experiencing stuff like the visuals, the music, how characters interact with the player directly, is fun. In addition, looking at the newest Fire Emblem games, IS has been in a very experimental mood lately which has resulted in games that played different to me. New Mystery of the Emblem, Awakening, and Fates, even Shadow Dragon to a point; to me, they have all been different experiences to me, despite having essentially built on one another in terms of mechanics. And that, more than a good story, excites me when it comes to a game. And heck, as a horny perv, I like the increased Avatar focus coupled with more sexual fanservice too, so I'll go against the mold and say that this is a good thing. I want more of that.

In some ways, despite Shadow Dragon and New Mystery saying the opposite, I feel like IS has actually been playing it risky with a series that have now become my favorite videogame series of all time. And, given that Fire Emblem has become considered by Nintendo as one of their main IPs compared to when it was so close to the chopping block and permanent retirement, this has paid of, both for the franchise itself and for me as a fan: Fire Emblem Gaiden is now going to get remade from the bottom up, and it will get an official localization, which means I legally get to play a version of Gaiden. If it had been 2014, I'd have said that us getting a version of Gaiden at all would be flat-out impossible! And with a potential for it not being the only semi-remake on the cards, my dream of legally getting to play a version of every Fire Emblem that I can understand is now possibly becoming a reality. The series is also gonna get crossed over with the Musou series which has been one of my biggest desires ever since I got to experience a Musou title for myself.

So, do I think Fire Emblem is screwed? My answer: I never thought what the series did with Awakening was a screw-up. I never thought what they did with Fates was a screw-up. I never thought they screwed over the series for FE fans back then, and I certainly do not think so now.

[Raumata]

On 1/27/2017 at 0:18 PM, Folt said:

Hm... There's no doubt in my mind that the latter Fire Emblems were very experimental when it came to gameplay. Shadow Dragon, the remake of the very first Fire Emblem game, threw out some previous staples in the series to keep it a bit like how simple the original was, yet was the first instance of a reclass system. The game after that, New Mystery of the Emblem, introduced the Avatar system (despite Nintendo wanting you to believe that Awakening did), and also added the Casual Mode which let you avoid having your units being killed forever.

Then Awakening came and overhauled both of these mechanics into something that I think in many people's eyes "worked better" than either of them did in the other two games, as well as an overhaul of the Skill system, the return of the marriage and child unit system, and a feature that let them introduce paid DLC to the series for the first time (and also the first time in history that Nintendo would feature paid DLC content in any of their games) as well as an excuse to have units from previous games make possible appearances in other games, and Awakening featured a world map and the ability to grind as well which let it have a postgame (which in turn let people keep using the units they had trained throughout the game to pursue new challenges and other stuff).

In general, Awakening also streamlined quite a bit of stuff: Characters (with exceptions) had only three class trees to reclass between, weapon types were kept to only the six general types (Swords, Lances, Axes, Bows, Tomes/Magic, and Staves) and weapon ranks could only go up to A (but a character could have every weapon type that they could use go that far up), any character could equip any skill they had learned from the classes they had leveled through up to a maximum of 5 skills, many earlygame and some midgame characters could support with other earlygame and midgame characters which meant that most of them could marry one another, and classes as a rule often had things in terms of stats, weaponry, and/or or abilities that let each have a certain role in battle. Awakening also introduced the Pair-Up feature: You could also pair up characters with one another which would boost the main attacker's capabilities and let the supporter add in a second attack as well to really play up your army's unit as working together.

Also, in general, a lot of these changes made every unit rather customizable to a point, and made child units very customizable. And in addition to that, with the DLC, they could all interact with some of the former Fire Emblem units of the old games: The way Gangrel would diss the Black Knight or Yarne finding Zephiel's lack of faith in humans troublesome are things I can still recall up to now, and it was fun fighting all those battles against the heroes and villains of now legendary epochs. I know people in general say there's a lack of character or development in Awakening's characters, but quite frankly, I find most of them to be very good, rather developed characters all the same.

Fates took most of the gameplay elements that Awakening had and improved on them: customization of units was harder and more initially restricted than ever, but the characters could all eventually become as customizable as, and even moreso, than Awakening's (though granted, for some characters, this would have to be through multiple playthroughs). In addition, we got the My Castle feature which gave us a hub base to build and interact with as we pleased, and expanded gameplay options through the introduction of the Dragon Vein mechanic and the Daggers/Shurikens that gave us an option to debuff units, essentially adding another way to support your heavy hitters.

And then of course, there was the reworked weapon triangle (Tomes, Shurikens, and Bows were added to the existing weapon triangle and could thus get an advantage or disadvantage against Swords, Lances, and Axes, as well as themselves and vice versa) and the decision to rework the classes into counterparts of each other found mainly in the armies of opposing Kingdoms. It also took the Pair Up system from Awakening and nerfed it to the point where it was still useful, but not as broken and as overpowered as it had been in Awakening.

Moreover, thanks to the success of Awakening and Fates, Fire Emblem has become considered by Nintendo as one of their major IPs of the present. It means that it is no longer considered a niché franchise to them, and the recent Fire Emblem Direct shows that they are willing to market the Fire Emblem brand more heavily than they have ever done before.

In just about all of these games, they have one or more shared flaws: People say that the story tends to be average, boring, or just plain bad depending on who you ask and what game you're referring to, there's an overly big focus on the Avatar in the games that have them, the characters are becoming sexualized and fanservicey in the latter two games, and perhaps some other things that I can't remember at the moment.

But, honestly, as a Fire Emblem fan since the days of Blazing Sword, I don't find an average/boring/bad story, a big focus on the player-created character, and the sexualized and fanservicey appearances of characters to be a problem. I, as a fan, want to continue playing Fire Emblem games because directly interacting with a Fire Emblem game, and experiencing stuff like the visuals, the music, how characters interact with the player directly, is fun. In addition, looking at the newest Fire Emblem games, IS has been in a very experimental mood lately which has resulted in games that played different to me. New Mystery of the Emblem, Awakening, and Fates, even Shadow Dragon to a point; to me, they have all been different experiences to me, despite having essentially built on one another in terms of mechanics. And that, more than a good story, excites me when it comes to a game. And heck, as a horny perv, I like the increased Avatar focus coupled with more sexual fanservice too, so I'll go against the mold and say that this is a good thing. I want more of that.

In some ways, despite Shadow Dragon and New Mystery saying the opposite, I feel like IS has actually been playing it risky with a series that have now become my favorite videogame series of all time. And, given that Fire Emblem has become considered by Nintendo as one of their main IPs compared to when it was so close to the chopping block and permanent retirement, this has paid of, both for the franchise itself and for me as a fan: Fire Emblem Gaiden is now going to get remade from the bottom up, and it will get an official localization, which means I legally get to play a version of Gaiden. If it had been 2014, I'd have said that us getting a version of Gaiden at all would be flat-out impossible! And with a potential for it not being the only semi-remake on the cards, my dream of legally getting to play a version of every Fire Emblem that I can understand is now possibly becoming a reality. The series is also gonna get crossed over with the Musou series which has been one of my biggest desires ever since I got to experience a Musou title for myself.

So, do I think Fire Emblem is screwed? My answer: I never thought what the series did with Awakening was a screw-up. I never thought what they did with Fates was a screw-up. I never thought they screwed over the series for FE fans back then, and I certainly do not think so now.

I actually kind of agree with most of what you've said.

[Oricorio]

Each game in the series has its strengths and weaknesses, and it's definitely good to call out games on areas they can improve on (such as the story of Fates). While I find Awakening to be overall a better game, Fates offered several mechanical improvements, better graphics, and the castles, that are steps forward from the previous game. On the other hand, calling a series "ruined" is usually a bit of an overreaction, except in certain cases like Sonic '06. In general, people do tend to pick up flaws more easily than positives. So no, I would not consider the game "ruined".

 

In most fanbases that I have experience with, Pokémon, Microsoft Windows, and this one obviously, the latest game tends to be the most hated, until the next game comes out and the game is vindicated. The only exception I've seen is the Smash fanbase, as Brawl is still more divisive than 4, but people were still more willing to acknowledge Brawl's strengths when 4 came out.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Bandido Banderas

[Akabon]

On 6/28/2016 at 0:21 PM, Katie said:

I feel like it's gotten better for the most part with each successive game.

*ahem* Awakening split the fanbase. Fates shattered it.

[Arthur97]

On 8/14/2017 at 3:23 PM, Akabon said:

*ahem* Awakening split the fanbase. Fates shattered it.

Stuff happens.

Anyways, no, the series is stronger than ever. People can complain about how Awakening ruined the series, but, honestly, I don't think it's that different from the older games I've played. Flat characters exist across the board, it's hard to flesh out 30+ characters, some will get lost in the cracks. Honestly, I find Awakening's supports more interesting anyways. People harp on Robin getting a mere compliment (even if they are deserved), yet let's not forget that "perfect" characters are not exactly new from what I gather, it's just because this time it's an avatar. The burning of the armada...well, what would you do? Let them pillage your homeland? Robin won them the day, and they congratulated him/her for saving the day and subsequently, their homes while they waged war. And, let's be honest, Fire Emblem is far from Shakespeare. Awakening's plot actually seems pretty par for the course as far as Fire Emblem plots go: country invades, lord flees, lord defeats other country, oh no more baddies, kill baddies, oh looks like there's this big evil thing, let's kill it (optional insert macguffin here)! 

Oh, yeah, and strategy and stuff.

The fact it split the fanbase is rather ironic considered how alike it is to said older games. To me, it just seems like a natural development of those games.

[Arthur97]

On 8/14/2017 at 3:23 PM, Akabon said:

*ahem* Awakening split the fanbase. Fates shattered it.

Stuff happens.

Anyways, no, the series is stronger than ever. People can complain about how Awakening ruined the series, but, honestly, I don't think it's that different from the older games I've played. Flat characters exist across the board, it's hard to flesh out 30+ characters, some will get lost in the cracks. Honestly, I find Awakening's supports more interesting anyways. People harp on Robin getting a mere compliment (even if they are deserved), yet let's not forget that "perfect" characters are not exactly new from what I gather, it's just because this time it's an avatar. The burning of the armada...well, what would you do? Let them pillage your homeland? Robin won them the day, and they congratulated him/her for saving the day and subsequently, their homes while they waged war. And, let's be honest, Fire Emblem is far from Shakespeare. Awakening's plot actually seems pretty par for the course as far as Fire Emblem plots go: country invades, lord flees, lord defeats other country, oh no more baddies, kill baddies, oh looks like there's this big evil thing, let's kill it (optional insert macguffin here)! 

Oh, yeah, and strategy and stuff.

The fact it split the fanbase is rather ironic considered how alike it is to said older games. To me, it just seems like a natural development of those games.