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FE: Mature or Family-Friendly?


SullyMcGully
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FE: Mature or Family-Friendly?  

86 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you think the ESRB rating should be for future Fire Emblem games?

    • E
      0
    • E10+
      12
    • T
      66
    • M
      8
    • AO
      0
  2. 2. Do you think Fire Emblem games should feature more mature content than they do now?

    • Yes
      45
    • No
      41


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On 4/17/2017 at 2:05 PM, Finian said:

If by "mature content" you mean deeper plots with more politics and nuanced characters then 100% yes.

If you mean more tits and ass and other stuff that middle school boys consider "mature" then 100% no.

Seconding this, with a bit of an addendum that my own personal desire for "mature content" is really for writing that's more mature in the actual sense of maturity, not just "mature" as in "pushes the age rating up higher". Mother 3 was given an "all ages" rating by CERO, yet I'd consider its writing to be more truly mature than most T-rated games I've played. A lot of people seem to think otherwise, but in my experience, maturity and family-friendliness in a work are not diametrically-opposed qualities.

What I would like is for Fire Emblem's writing to handle its characters and its plot points in a more nuanced, genuine, grounded sort of way, and put real effort into showing how the series of events in the main story affects and shapes the characters involved as people, as well as the future of their world. I don't think the series should be afraid of covering darker or more serious themes, and hell, it kinda already does, to some extent, but I also don't think that that means that it has to deliberately try to be super gritty and graphic about it, which is something I'd frankly rather it didn't do.

On this note, something I don't think people bring up enough as an element of maturity is something I don't actually know the formal name for, if there is one, but that I have decided to call "tonal variance". Essentially, a story should not just be have the same mood or tone nonstop through the whole thing; there should be lighter, sillier moments to contrast the darker, grimmer ones, and vice versa. It's the same principle as with contrast in art; that variation, that contrast, is a necessary component to the effectiveness of both lighter and darker moments in a story. Individual dark moments won't stand out if the whole story is all just dark and bleak, and the same goes for lighter, sillier moments in a story that's 100% light and silly. The same tone nonstop all the way through just gets exhausting and the impact starts to peter out quite a bit.

The reason I bring that up is that having tonal variance is also what's most true to real life; real life has as many silly, heartwarming, or generally gladdening moments as it does frightening, bleak, or sorrowful ones. Reflecting this in a story is a crucial step to helping it feel truly mature and believable... I think, at least.

As for language, I wouldn't mind a few swear words slipping in, basically around the same level Awakening and Fates had with "damn", "hell", etc. showing up in the script from time to time, but the various writearounds to avoid using any actual harsh language the series often comes up with are too wacky and charming to give up, so I think those should stay.

Edited by Topaz Light
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I don't mind the tits and ass.  I want more of it.  Its a game, and if i'm going to be spending countless hours playing it, i want to enjoy what i'm looking at.  

In regards to swearing, they can add some more, but try and keep it relevant to the plot.   yelling a "shit" or "fuck" when something bad happens is ok, but i don't need it to be every other word. 

If they want to up the violence and blood and guts, they should try to push the "T" rating as far as they can.  I don't know what guidelines the "T" rating has, but i don't need Fire Emblem's version of God of War.

 

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  • 5 weeks later...

I was honestly surprised that the Australian version of Sacred Stones was rated G (an Aussie "E") considering that it's a war story with even elements of horror added in. Sure it's not as graphic as, say, Private Ryan, but I was expecting a PG (basically an Aussie E+10) at the very least.

Yeah, T is fine; FE has always been a more mature franchise compared to Nintendo's other franchises and should stay that way. (Though I would rather not be forced to see dismembered body parts left, right, and centre.) If anything, I don't understand why the censorship for swimsuit DLCs for Awakening/Fates and the swimsuit scene for Tokyo Mirage Session - the two games are not "for everyone" in the first place, and the former two are even optional content!

Edited by henrymidfields
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If you mean "more mature content than currently" as in more sexual content, swearing, and violence, no.

If you mean it in the sense of stories that tackle more mature themes, I don't think there's a lot farther for FE to go thematically (they could write some of those themes better though). 

FE heads to some really great places. I like the games thematically and content-wise as they are. That doesn't mean the stories and characters don't have flaws (they do), but it's not a case of needing to be more "mature."

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Hm. A difficult question, honestly.

If you answer yes, it should be made more mature(in whatever sense of the word you choose), you then of course have set a precedent that others can follow to continue to make it more mature until who knows where it goes because we never established a final concrete line that shall never be crossed.

If, on the other hand, you answer no, it should stay at exactly the same level, you run the risk of your games becoming same-old same-old and losing money, and in the end games are in fact a business decision that needs to make more than it cost to be worth continuing.

Personally, I think Fire Emblem doesn't really need to go anywhere as it is right now, but it both will need to be made more mature(as in maturity level) and will actually be made more mature(as in B&B-Mature) at some point.

The first part of this is because honestly the closest I've seen any protagonist get to being mentally affected by war is Corrin on non-Revelations paths because Birthright and Conquest are both really messed up when you think about it - Birthright makes you turn against the only family you've ever had and forcibly subdue them plus battle with Xander and Conquest shows the emotionally/mentally excruciating path of someone trying to change a dark kingdom from within plus Demon Takumi. Admittedly, I haven't played most of the FE franchise and so there may be a protagonist on one of the older games who goes through something like this, but Corrin is the only one I see freeze up when attacked by a Hoshidan Ninja because he's not sure if he really should be defending himself considering his choices and the people he's killed, and Corrin is the only one I see who has to kill his own elder brother and also watch another beloved sibling die and have to live out the rest of his days knowing it was his fault. It was a very emotionally moving story to play through, particularly as Corrin was YOU - it was YOUR fault that an unfortunate chain of events led to Flora setting herself on fire while her twin sister had to watch, horrified but unable to save her, it was YOUR fault that Kaze had to turn against his country, not to mention his own brother, it was YOUR fault that the light within Nohr was forever dimmed when you did battle with Xander, it was YOUR fault Ryoma had to do the only thing he could to assist your cause, which was to 'fulfill a Samurai's final duty' to prevent Iago from catching on to the fact that you were trying to save both kingdoms as best as you could. Messed up or not, a lot of people will buy that because it's moving just like more people seem to enjoy movies that are moving, and the more realistic they can get the games, the better people will like them provided they were able to do so properly. There are of course exceptions, but there always will be.

The second part of this is a much more mundane reason: Sex sells. There's a reason Camilla and Charlotte were as high on the popularity polls as they were, and somehow I don't think it was for their amazing cooking skills. Yes, you can like Camilla for her actual personality as opposed to for her 'personality', but nobody will believe you when you say the reason you like her is because she seems like a very motherly kind of person albeit a slightly extreme case of one. It's much easier to just inflate a couple ladies' breasts and butts and throw away their clothes as clickbait than it is to work on a more fulfilling storyline, and unfortunately it's also sometimes more positively influential on sales, though hopefully not always. Thankfully, Fire Emblem has managed to hold out for some time remaining relatively clean, but it's beginning to creep into Marth's beloved franchise as well, and sadly many people are responding positively to this, which hurts some players who are trying to avoid that kind of thing - I was quite upset at the Harrier Overclass Design as it wasn't something I felt I could support, yet I really liked using the Whitewings and wanted to unleash their full potential and felt that the Harrier had been specifically designed to get people to buy it because risqué at the cost of the few who like me didn't want to support that. In the end, as long as the Fire Emblem fans keep saying yeah we like the more inappropriate pieces of the game, they'll keep adding more because it brings them more money.

Edited by SoulWeaver
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The GBA era was pretty tame in general, the NES and SNES era was darker (Not really dark, but not happy-go-lucky Roy/Eliwood/Erika saving the day), the series just kind of went "back" after it. I mean FE4 had incest, hinted at rape, child sacrifice in the name of religion, among other things not exactly kid-friendly.

If they want to go for mature, then calm down with the immature "mature" content, and add an actual interesting mature story dealing with dark topics. Eye-candy irks me unless the game in and of itself it meant for that (Which FE isn't, or at least wasn't).

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I think the series is fine as it is. It's possible to explore more mature topics without going from T to M rating, because the only things that would really bump the game up to an M rating is if they added cursing and more sexual content. While I wouldn't mind an increase in either of those things, it probably wouldn't be worth it for Nintendo to to increase the rating and make the game more restrictive just for that. I do find it ridiculous whenever characters say things like "dastards," though...

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59 minutes ago, Godhand said:

I do find it ridiculous whenever characters say things like "dastards," though...

Surely a "dastard" is a person who is dastardly?

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3 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Surely a "dastard" is a person who is dastardly?

Yes, but nobody ever uses that word, and it's obvious that they mean to say "bastard" but can't because it might change the rating of the game.

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On 5/27/2017 at 3:45 AM, henrymidfields said:

 

 If anything, I don't understand why the censorship for swimsuit DLCs for Awakening/Fates and the swimsuit scene for Tokyo Mirage Session - the two games are not "for everyone" in the first place, and the former two are even optional content!

Awakening and Fates is one thing, that was probably to avoid potential controversy, but TMS showed a 13 year old (3-5 years below many ages of consent in the West, though is the official age of consent in Japan) in sexy swimsuits, as well as some of the other girls being under 18 in the presence of a creepy person, which, given the culture barrier, implies pedophilia. Western sensibilities on sex are far different (and in most cases far safer) than Eastern sensibilities.

Edited by Hylian Air Force
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6 minutes ago, Hylian Air Force said:

Awakening and Fates is one thing, that was probably to avoid potential controversy

If that is the case, then why was Tharja's arse left uncensored in the European version of Awakening's Swimsuit DLC?

Edited by NinjaMonkey
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Just now, NinjaMonkey said:

If that is the case, then why were they left uncensored in the European versions of the game?

Because America tries too hard to protect the children from the degenerate *redacted* and their skewed view of sex, damn it.

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I think (now do correct me if I'm wrong) that Fire Emblem's core fanbase does tend to be older than most other Nintendo franchises. Talking late teens and early twenties. So I think the content should naturally reflect that. I have no desire to see gratuitous content but if the game leads to a seen where graphic violence or sex can enhance the experience then it shouldn't be afraid to go for it. A lot of people (myself included) really like Genealogy for how much darker and mature it is in tone compared to the rest of the series. It's a series about war, it should have the capacity to get a little mature if need be.

I think Alm's personality in the remake of is an example of where a rating could hold something back. Gaiden was minimalistic in its dialogue but it still showed Alm as a more aggressive character than Marth in the little dialogue he had and especially in the expression in his sprite. It was reinforeced in Awakening but when it came to actually star Alm in his own game they made him more neutral and, well generic, in personality. With a consistent smile and a fight for my friends attitude. Which kind of clashes with the theme of duality the game sets up. Now how aggressive Alm acts isn't something that would actually affect the rating (unless he was swearing) but I can't help but think they made him the way they did because they knew they were making a game with a Teen rating and a more nuanced or distinct characterisation just isn't what your expected to have for a game with a E+10 or T Rating (though honestly I don't actually know what rating Shadows of Valentia actually ended up with but I doubt it's 18+). Alm became generic nice guy protagonist because that's the type of hero that does best in that demographic, even though it's quite clear from a narrative perspective the plot is just crying out for a pragmatist to balance out an idealist with its two characters.

On April 27, 2017 at 4:39 AM, Topaz Light said:

On this note, something I don't think people bring up enough as an element of maturity is something I don't actually know the formal name for, if there is one, but that I have decided to call "tonal variance". Essentially, a story should not just be have the same mood or tone nonstop through the whole thing; there should be lighter, sillier moments to contrast the darker, grimmer ones, and vice versa. It's the same principle as with contrast in art; that variation, that contrast, is a necessary component to the effectiveness of both lighter and darker moments in a story. Individual dark moments won't stand out if the whole story is all just dark and bleak, and the same goes for lighter, sillier moments in a story that's 100% light and silly. The same tone nonstop all the way through just gets exhausting and the impact starts to peter out quite a bit.

And that's why this is one of my favourite scenes in Thracia.

Spoiler

 

 

5 hours ago, Godhand said:

Yes, but nobody ever uses that word, and it's obvious that they mean to say "bastard" but can't because it might change the rating of the game.

I disagree. Dastard fits in much better with the tone of the series. Likewise a character might occasionally call someone a knave even though it's not something you'd likely hear anyone say in the modern day. It is a medieval setting so a bit of medieval flair is not out of place at all.

Edited by Jotari
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10 hours ago, Jotari said:

I disagree. Dastard fits in much better with the tone of the series. Likewise a character might occasionally call someone a knave even though it's not something you'd likely hear anyone say in the modern day. It is a medieval setting so a bit of medieval flair is not out of place at all.

You do have a point there, but the thing is that the word "dastard" has been warped to have a sort of cartoonish connotation because of how it is used in modern times.

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Barring the current, more-frequent (albeit on the milder side) sexual things like Camilla and Tharja, it actually does a nice job at keeping it rather innocent, overall. Like, we're probably talking about characters who don't even have their first kiss until marriage.

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On 6/1/2017 at 10:21 PM, Godhand said:

Yes, but nobody ever uses that word, and it's obvious that they mean to say "bastard" but can't because it might change the rating of the game.

So FE should have their word choices based on how people talk in the modern real world? I wouldn't support that kind of script-writing. It's set in a medieval fantasy, so things like "dastard" and "dastardly" and "knaive" and such really fit the tone better than outright swearing.

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21 hours ago, Godhand said:

You do have a point there, but the thing is that the word "dastard" has been warped to have a sort of cartoonish connotation because of how it is used in modern times.

Hang on, I thought that you said earlier that no one uses the word "dastard" anymore?

On ‎02‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 3:21 AM, Godhand said:

Yes, but nobody ever uses that word

So which is it? Either no one uses the word "dastard" or it is still used but has a cartoonish connotation associated with it?

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On 4/17/2017 at 9:26 PM, Slumber said:

I feel like a hard T is where FE should be. These are games about wars, and mostly involve some base level politics, with a bunch of border conflicts, and there's usually some genocide tossed in. These should get more focus than they do, so I feel like FE taking itself a bit more seriously is where the games can go. I don't want "And Robin was saved thanks to Pikachu's tears friendship." again. Ever.

These don't need to be Game of Thrones, though. These games benefit from a hefty dose of levity and dour attitudes don't suit them super well. Genealogy and Thracia were probably the best balance between anime tropes and actual stories with real consequences, and that's about where I think the FE games should be.

^This. I feel like we have the same tastes when it comes to out Fire Emblem games, Slumber. 

I would like a more "Game of Thrones-esque" Fire Emblem for sure. When I say this, I don't mean that I also want all the gore, guts, sex, and other screwed up stuff. However, I don't want to have the anime levity that was in Fates and Awakening, EVER AGAIN. SoV was so nice because it gave me a taste of a Fire Emblem game that took itself seriously. Even though there were moments in SoV that made me roll my eyes so hard ...

Spoiler

Like the aftermath Berkut's final battle, Fernand's prolonged dying last words, and Celica's resurrection in ACT 5.

... I really want more Fire Emblem games to be like SoV in terms of presentation and tone. I want more morally grey characters, betrayals, deaths, disasters, more political intrigue and less of evil dragons going mad and taking over the world. I want the narrative to remain on a human scale for as long as possible.

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8 hours ago, TadpoleSuperHero said:

So FE should have their word choices based on how people talk in the modern real world? I wouldn't support that kind of script-writing. It's set in a medieval fantasy, so things like "dastard" and "dastardly" and "knaive" and such really fit the tone better than outright swearing.

I already addressed this.

7 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Hang on, I thought that you said earlier that no one uses the word "dastard" anymore?

So which is it? Either no one uses the word "dastard" or it is still used but has a cartoonish connotation associated with it?

Nobody ever uses it in serious or conversational speech anymore. 

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