Switch and Play: FE on the new hardware

[Zapp Branniglenn]

We're about to end two separate generations of Fire Emblem on the Nintendo DS and 3DS. I think we can agree the two screen format has been a boon for Fire Emblem in being able to display both map and information screens at once. I rag on Shadow Dragon a lot but even I must admit its UI was fast to use and unobtrusive. And I can see why newer fans don't immediately catch on to the FE6-10 format of "press R/Y to learn more".

But soon we must say farewell to dual screens as Fire emblem makes a return to the console format. What features of the switch can provide new gameplay possibilities for this series? The most obvious is the free transition between handheld and console playstyles. It's also worth mentioning this will be the first game of the series with HD resolution graphics, which gives me high hopes for excellent battle animations.

Another feature of the switch is a focus on local multiplayer. Fire Emblem doesn't have a large focus on multiplayer, and I struggle to think what mode could be implemented using the system's dual joycons. Fire Emblem is a turn based game and a co-op mode where player 2 gets their own cursor for moving your units isn't very engaging. I don't know how many of you have tried but strategy games can be surprisingly fun with another person. Just watching and coming up with strategies together is enough. And I feel like the best actual multiplayer the series has had is recruiting player-made avatar characters into your army for some variety. A simultaneous multiplayer mode may be a dead end for FE Switch.

Similarly, the motion controls and HD Rumble of the joy cons may not provide any new gameplay possibilities. I do not know what the joycon is capable of beyond the vague advertisements provided in January's Switch Conference. I can think of a few gimmicky gameplay ideas, like a training ground mode between missions where you take a first person role of one of your units knocking down target dummies with their weapon, and that awards you experiences or weapon ranks. I also may have made some comments on how IS could borrow certain data for their next go at Fates' Private Quarters petting mode. More seriously, perhaps the HD rumble can somehow portray the feel of your units hitting and getting hit in battle. Or a tense heartbeat effect in your hands when a unit reaches critical health during enemy phase.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Make sure the characters designs, while a harmonious blend of the realistic and the fantastic, are specifically attuned to HD beauty.

Also, Awakening's magic animations were nothing good, and while I didn't watch Fates's that much, they appear to have been more of the same. Surprise me if you can and find some way to outdo RD's Rex tomes plus Balberith, Crieddylad, and Cymbeline- they were all so wickedly good. Overwrought you say? How dare you! If speed is your thing, just turn it off!

Watch from 9:59 onwards of the 2nd video and the very start of the third to see what I mean (WARNING: Contains obvious spoilers!)

Spoiler

 

 

Phew! That feels good!

To get back on topic, I'm not sure what special features of the Switch are really all that amenable to FE.

Multiplayer might be able to do something fun and frantic in an alternate mode. If each player gets their own screen/half a screen and has to compete to complete certain objectives, using the same/similar units, with players being able to end their turns independently of each other. Might be a bit crowded though.

I recall an online co-op mode in the RTS game Battalion Wars II. The four missions it had were fairly fun. Each gave one player half of an army, generally with something the other didn't have (like anti-air vs. anti-armor). To compensate for having twice the control over units, the enemies in co-op were much stronger than their story mode equivalents, meaning you needed cooperation and talent to take them out. It wouldn't be as fun in turn-based strategy, but IS could try.

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

I doubt there'll be anything particularly new either in handheld mode or TV mode the only thing I can see being used is the touch screen probably for easy navigating of your units on the map like FE 11 and 12 of course Character overview Data/Stats/Weapon display will be easily toggable with a click of a button the other thing of course is Private Quarter stuff unless they revamp that mechanic to something easier and non tedious, HD Rumble can be used for a sense of urgency when units get attacked and adds more thrill to the combat animations, Co-op for a game like this is a little iffy and I'm not sure how that would really work for a game like Fire Emblem but I guess they can experiment on that if they want. Of course full on HD models, cutscenes, graphics, presentation, fluid animations are the more prominent things that will be big notable changes!

Edited April 24, 2017 by Blade Lord Lyn

[Slumber]

I don't want any unnecessary frills.

Just give me a high-budget, high polish, pretty Fire Emblem. I feel like FE: Switch will be that.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Slumber

[Arvin]

16 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Make sure the characters designs, while a harmonious blend of the realistic and the fantastic, are specifically attuned to HD beauty.

Also, Awakening's magic animations were nothing good, and while I didn't watch Fates's that much, they appear to have been more of the same. Surprise me if you can and find some way to outdo RD's Rex tomes plus Balberith, Crieddylad, and Cymbeline- they were all so wickedly good. Overwrought you say? How dare you! If speed is your thing, just turn it off!

Watch from 9:59 onwards of the 2nd video and the very start of the third to see what I mean (WARNING: Contains obvious spoilers!)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Phew! That feels good!

To get back on topic, I'm not sure what special features of the Switch are really all that amenable to FE.

Multiplayer might be able to do something fun and frantic in an alternate mode. If each player gets their own screen/half a screen and has to compete to complete certain objectives, using the same/similar units, with players being able to end their turns independently of each other. Might be a bit crowded though.

I recall an online co-op mode in the RTS game Battalion Wars II. The four missions it had were fairly fun. Each gave one player half of an army, generally with something the other didn't have (like anti-air vs. anti-armor). To compensate for having twice the control over units, the enemies in co-op were much stronger than their story mode equivalents, meaning you needed cooperation and talent to take them out. It wouldn't be as fun in turn-based strategy, but IS could try.

Why try to be like RD when that game sold like crap. Both it and PR bombed. This will be on a new console. They best try to be like Awakening at least for the 1st entry on the new console.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Arvin

[Zapp Branniglenn]

14 minutes ago, Arvin said:

Why try to be like RD when that game sold like crap. Both it and PR bombed. This will be on a new console. They best try to be like Awakening at least for the 1st entry on the new console.

You can complement a game's visuals despite it's sales numbers. It may even be a low key good game too! 

[Arvin]

1 minute ago, Gustavos said:

You can complement a game's visuals despite it's sales numbers. It may even be a low key good game too! 

We're in a transition. It's best for the franchise to keep this kind of presence or else Nintendo will treat it the same as it was back then. I'm even more concerned with how much will the FE SWITCH will get budget-wise since this is on a home console. They can try all that RD stuff once the franchise has transitioned well on the new console.

[Anacybele]

25 minutes ago, Arvin said:

We're in a transition. It's best for the franchise to keep this kind of presence or else Nintendo will treat it the same as it was back then. I'm even more concerned with how much will the FE SWITCH will get budget-wise since this is on a home console. They can try all that RD stuff once the franchise has transitioned well on the new console.

Listen.

Sales =/= quality. Tellius is generally praised/loved by those that played them. People are more split on RD than PoR, but that's mainly due to story stuff, not so much the gameplay. And overall, both PoR and RD received generally good reviews (PoR was around 85/100 while RD was 75-80/100).

Not to mention that when they came out, FE was not advertised/marketed nearly as much as Awakening and Fates were. PoR was also released at a bad time (the GC was about to be dead), and RD had Brawl to compete with when it released (the timeframe between both was only a few months). Super Mario Galaxy might've released at around the same time too. And when people can't afford to buy two or more of those at once, they can only pick one, and more people would naturally pick Brawl or the Mario game.

If both games got released now with the amount of marketing the 3DS FEs got, I guarantee you Tellius would've sold much better.

I for one really want some RD-like things back myself, including the terrain and ledge mechanics, third tier classes, unique objectives, and all that fun stuff that added to the strategy. Map design and chapter objectives are just boring these days in comparison.

EDIT: Also, trying to be like an older title can hurt the game too. See Fates and its marriage and kids as well as the shoehorned in Awakening characters/clones. This bothered plenty of fans.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Anacybele

[Arvin]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

Listen.

Sales =/= quality. Tellius is generally praised/loved by those that played them. People are more split on RD than PoR, but that's mainly due to story stuff, not so much the gameplay. And overall, both PoR and RD received generally good reviews (PoR was around 85/100 while RD was 75-80/100).

Not to mention that when they came out, FE was not advertised/marketed nearly as much as Awakening and Fates were. PoR was also released at a bad time (the GC was about to be dead), and RD had Brawl to compete with when it released (the timeframe between both was only a few months). Super Mario Galaxy might've released at around the same time too. And when people can't afford to buy two or more of those at once, they can only pick one, and more people would naturally pick Brawl or the Mario game.

If both games got released now with the amount of marketing the 3DS FEs got, I guarantee you Tellius would've sold much better.

I for one really want some RD-like things back myself, including the terrain and ledge mechanics, third tier classes, unique objectives, and all that fun stuff that added to the strategy. Map design and chapter objectives are just boring these days in comparison.

EDIT: Also, trying to be like an older title can hurt the game too. See Fates and its marriage and kids as well as the shoehorned in Awakening characters/clones. This bothered plenty of fans.

Here we go again with the advertisement part. That Fates brouhaha never affected sales both in Japan and abroad. Word of mouth would've killed it in America alone yet it never happened. All I can say is to whoever is gonna pitch an RD/PR remake is that they better be ready to lose their job.

Killing the franchise is possible again with this shift to a new system.

[Anacybele]

7 minutes ago, Arvin said:

Here we go again with the advertisement part. That Fates brouhaha never affected sales both in Japan and abroad. Word of mouth would've killed it in America alone yet it never happened. All I can say is to whoever is gonna pitch an RD/PR remake is that they better be ready to lose their job.

Killing the franchise is possible again with this shift to a new system.

...What? Do you even know what the hell you're talking about here?

I would argue the entire opposite, that whoever suggests a PoR/RD re-release/remake would get a great deal of approval and maybe even a raise. And for several reasons. 1, Ike is insanely popular now, and those who love him would throw money at IS to buy his games right now because of how DAMN INACCESSIBLE they are at the moment. 2, As I just said, they're very inaccessible and the only way to play them is to emulate which not everyone prefers to do or else pay insane eBay prices. 3, A lot of new fans have been brought in since Awakening and Fates released, so more people know of the series and Ike's games in general now, meaning more people will buy them. And a bonus reason: Micaiah is fairly popular now too.

The franchise will not die anytime soon with how much money it's making and how popular it's become. If the Switch title didn't do all that well, the franchise would not be killed. It would be set back a bit, but not killed. IS made plenty of money off Awakening and Fates and they could try again and learn from whatever would cause FE Switch to fail.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Anacybele

[Arvin]

17 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

...What? Do you even know what the hell you're talking about here?

I would argue the entire opposite, that whoever suggests a PoR/RD re-release would get a great deal of approval and maybe even a raise. And for several reasons. 1, Ike is insanely popular now, and those who love him would throw money at IS to buy his games right now because of how DAMN INACCESSIBLE they are at the moment. 2, As I just said, they're very inaccessible and the only way to play them is to emulate which not everyone prefers to do or else pay insane eBay prices. 3, A lot of new fans have been brought in since Awakening and Fates released, so more people know of the series and Ike's games in general now, meaning more people will buy them. And a bonus reason: Micaiah is fairly popular now too.

The franchise will not die anytime soon with how much money it's making and how popular it's become. If the Switch title didn't do all that well, the franchise would not be killed. It would be set back a bit, but not killed. IS made plenty of money off Awakening and Fates and they could try again and learn from whatever would cause FE Switch to fail.

 Ike's fans are only from Smash. Those casuals will never touch his games just like how they ignored it on the Wii. Pitching a game where all territories outright rejected it(Especially Europe) is a very good business proposal.  Unlike the other JP exclusive FE game, PR/RD have already shown its puny market around the world. Remaking it on SWITCH and bombing for a 2nd is LOL worthy. SWITCH assets ain't cheap.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Arvin

[Anacybele]

7 minutes ago, Arvin said:

 Ike's fans are only from Smash. Those casuals will never touch his games just like how they ignored it on the Wii. Pitching a game where all territories outright rejected it is a very good business proposal.  Unlike the other JP exclusive FE game, PR/RD have already shown its puny market around the world.

Wow, words can't describe how closed-minded this is.

Ike's fans are NOT only from Smash. I also can tell you that I've seen countless people say they really want to play his games, but sadly can't, including on this very site.

Also, they "ignored" it on the Wii because they likely didn't know it existed! This is where the poor marketing affects things! I had no idea RD existed for awhile myself, even after I played PoR. It took me a couple months after that to discover this game had a sequel.

And many FE players had their roots from Smash to begin with since FE has Smash to thank for even getting released in the west at all! I can say the same thing, playing Ike in Brawl led me to play his games. You cannot at all say that just because one liked Ike in Smash means they'll never want to touch his games.

Another thing, if PoR and RD are such horrible ideas to go back to, why did IS think it might be a good idea to include HD versions of their cutscenes in Echoes? Because they actually did this and know that it could be a great idea to give these two another chance.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Anacybele

[SoulWeaver]

3 minutes ago, Arvin said:

 Ike's fans are only from Smash. Those casuals will never touch his games just like how they ignored it on the Wii. Pitching a game where all territories outright rejected it(Especially Europe) is a very good business proposal.  Unlike the other JP exclusive FE game, PR/RD have already shown its puny market around the world. Remaking it on SWITCH and bombing for a 2nd is LOL worthy. SWITCH assets ain't cheap.

Even taking "Ike's fans only being from Smash" as true, there will be at least some of those players who will be willing to give Ike a shot for his home game on just that cred - heck, Lucina and Robin being in Smash were the only reason I gave Awakening a chance, so that's an example of a similar case.

Regardless of how puny a market for a game is, one does have to factor in timing and point of attempted sale. One example is the Custom Robo series - the first game released worldwide was on the GameCube but wasn't really hyped up very much by Nintendo, which among other things led to the series dying off in relative obscurity outside of Japan, with only two games ever making it out, Custom Robo for the GameCube and Custom Robo Arena for the DS. Both are excellent games with a lot of good stuff(#HailMarv), but they happened to come out at just the wrong time and so we got shafted out of what could have been a stellar franchise. In this case, Ike's fans being mostly Smash players might even be a good thing, as Ike's fanbase outside of the normal FE community are fairly committed to "Fighting for their friends" and the like and would probably be open to at least give a new Tellius game or remake a chance.

On a side-note, it sounds to me like what most anti-Re:Tellius people I've talked to are concerned about is that Nintendo will try to dumb them down for all the new players similar in fashion to how Fates was so beginner-friendly compared to all the other FE games, and they're worried about losing key elements that were part of why the game was so fun for them personally. If that has something to do with your concerns, then that's understandable, but just throwing some numbers around without going into why those numbers were where they were doesn't lead people to take you seriously.

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

Geez it went from a good idea topic to someone coming in ruining it...

Edited April 25, 2017 by Blade Lord Lyn

[vanguard333]

On ‎25‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 0:26 PM, Blade Lord Lyn said:

Geez it went from a good idea topic to someone coming in ruining it...

And all because one person said that they should make magic animations really grand now that that there will be HD, referred to Radiant Dawn as an example of cool and grand spell animations, and someone took that as praising RD and everything in it, and decided to start an argument over RD.

For crying out loud, Radiant Dawn is not my favourite game, but I really liked how grand the spell animations were in that game and, since FE Switch will be on a console with HD, they can make the spell animations in FE Switch really grand and cool. Am I praising Radiant Dawn? No. I'm not saying anything about whether or not RD was a good game, nor am I saying the spell animations should be like those in RD. I'm just agreeing with the person who said that the spell animations can potentially outdo the ones in RD.

Anyway, the HD graphics would really help with visuals in general. Also, HD rumble could be used for any almost inevitable cutscenes where a castle/fortress/temple either blows up/crumbles from within (PoR), or the roof of the building is destroyed by a large dragon that dramatically emerges from the ruins (Awakening, Fates, and I'm sure that, if Shadow Dragon had any cutscenes, then either Medeus or the  Mage Dragon that occupied the Altean Castle would have significantly damaged a castle upon transforming).

Edited April 27, 2017 by vanguard333

[SoulWeaver]

8 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

And all because one person said that they should make magic animations really grand now that that there will be HD, referred to Radiant Dawn as an example of cool and grand spell animations, and someone took that as praising RD and everything in it, and decided to start an argument over RD.

For crying out loud, Radiant Dawn is not my favourite game, but I really liked how grand the spell animations were in that game and, since FE Switch will be on a console with HD, they can make the spell animations in FE Switch really grand and cool. Am I praising Radiant Dawn? No. I'm not saying anything about whether or not RD was a good game, nor am I saying the spell animations should be like those in RD. I'm just agreeing with the person who said that the spell animations can potentially outdo the ones in RD.

Anyway, the HD graphics would really help with visuals in general. Also, HD rumble could be used for any almost inevitable cutscenes where a castle/fortress/temple either blows up/crumbles from within (PoR), or the roof of the building is destroyed by a large dragon that dramatically emerges from the ruins (Awakening, Fates, and I'm sure that, if Shadow Dragon had any cutscenes, then either Medeus or the  Mage Dragon that occupied the Altean Castle would have significantly damaged a castle upon transforming).

Yeah, misreads like that do happen, though it's also possible that the commenter had some really bad experience with RD and dislikes everything about the game as a result(I quit Shadow Dragon for over half a year because Palla died the chapter I recruited her, so I know that feeling to an extent).

I did feel like spell animations were kind of lacking in certain games, particularly for some tomes with excellent potential, like Micaiah's Pyre. If I'm throwing out a tome that basically drops a tiny meteor on the other guy aesthetically, I want it to look like the ShotStar Battle Chip from Megaman Battle Network 4, not one little magma lump. Most of the Wind Tomes were kind of a letdown in Awakening as well - I was hoping for a Tome that threw out a gust of wind that snaked like a Dragon, which I kind of got with the Dragon Scroll in Fates, but I wanted something cooler looking than that, and a game before we actually got it. Actually, most of the weaponry that had some legendary hero's name or other in the title ended up being a bit of a letdown for me.

Specific Tome animations I'd want because I want to throw a list out there whether you guys want to read it or not:

Thunder Tomes: I'd really like to see a Tome that throws out a giant blade of Lightning in similar fashion to Luxcaliber in Azure Striker Gunvolt, though I'd be fine with a Wind Tome tossing a Luxcaliber-esque blade around too. I'd also like to see a Tome that basically uses Voltaic Chain, also from Gunvolt, launching chains from the earth to bind the opponent before electrocuting them.

Fire Tomes: I want a machine-gun-style barrage of fireballs, and one that causes a vortex of flame to surround your foolish adversary, like Fire Spin.

Wind Tomes: Really, I'd settle for pretty much anything better than Awakening's Wind Tomes.

[property of nuvelle]

Inb4 HD rumble and motion controls so you can "pet your waifus".

[Arvin]

17 hours ago, KongDude88 said:

Inb4 HD rumble and motion controls so you can "pet your waifus".

Anything to bump the sales. Just look how SOV fared. It failed to at least entice Awakening/Fates/Heroes folks.

[sirmola]

4 hours ago, Arvin said:

Anything to bump the sales. Just look how SOV fared. It failed to at least entice Awakening/Fates/Heroes folks.

SOV was a niche game on purpose. 80-100 precent sellthrough is not a faliure (because it implies that the game met or exceeded expectations).

[Arvin]

11 hours ago, sirmola said:

SOV was a niche game on purpose. 80-100 precent sellthrough is not a faliure (because it implies that the game met or exceeded expectations).

Got to wait for Nintendo's Financial earnings next year for that to see if it at least hit the target. There won't be any PR bullshit with that. Just numbers.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Arvin