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Were the Children Really Handled All That Well?


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I'm in agreement Fates's Deeprealms are worse than whatever Awakening did with the 2nd Generation characters. But even with recognizing this, were the children characters in Awakening truly executed well from a plot perspective?

I've only ever in all my playthroughs of Awakening recruited two children who weren't Lucina- Noire and Kjelle (the former was an experiment in seeing if it was possible to create a good ingame no-grind Bow user, even though Tharja and Stahl were both heavily used, she didn't turn out as well as I hoped). From what I remember, neither child's Paralogue had a story that in any way related to the overall plot. If this is the case for all the child Paralogues, then do the children really matter? The idea of people coming from the future to warn others of a coming calamity and to help avert it is a cliche, but it can still be done to good effect. The idea of the children in the plot was good, but the substance of the children in the plot was weak. The only one who ever shows up is Lucina, and while I buy the idea that timespace travel can scatter people who hop in at the same time, you'd think they would've made an active effort to find each other again, or at least make a beeline for Chrobin and co.. 

The only purely story problem I see is that the children can start being recruited during the Valm arc, and that you can still recruit them during the Grimleal arc- so to which arc do you set stories of the Paralogues? A bigger problem seems at first superficial- variable hair color. You can't have the non-Lucina kids show up in the plot prior to their parents' marriage, because it'd be odd if Owain had blonde hair in a cutscene, only for it to turn into a shade of green later. (IS should really just give us hair dye in the future if they want character appearance customization.)  The second gameplay issue, the biggest issue of them all, is that Awakening likes giving us the freedom to take all the time in the world making the babies. From a gameplay perspective this rocks, but from a narrative perspective it means the children characters can only show up when we the players feel like it- and in my case I mostly never felt like it. How does one write the children into the narrative when random human whims are the sole determinant for each of them individually can appear? You can't. Lucina is forced to be born and forced to be blue, and thus constitutes the sole child to actually matter at all in the plot.

Though more critical to the plot and better done than the Taguel's farcical imitation of the Laguz and the Serenes Massacre or Tiki's cameo, the children of Awakening are in my eyes an idea of potential wasted.

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The point of the children mechanic is to give the player freedom when it comes to pairings and what the children inherit. Making all the children forced recruits would require giving all the parents fixed pairings or making them the offspring of NPCs, both of which would mean that it is no longer an actual gameplay mechanic, or everyone would have to marry before a certain point, which is too restrictive. If you didn't recruit all of the children then it's not the game's fault. The main draw, at least how I see it, is the personalities of the children themselves and how their future affected them, not how they fit into the overall narrative.

Either way it's an instance of storyline potential being exchanged for more freedom and better gameplay.

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I agree that the rest of Lucina's friends should have show up at some point before the Valm's arc. 

There's is one problem about that as you said:

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 A bigger problem seems at first superficial- variable hair color. You can't have the non-Lucina kids show up in the plot prior to their parents' marriage, because it'd be odd if Owain had blonde hair in a cutscene, only for it to turn into a shade of green later. (IS should really just give us hair dye in the future if they want character appearance customization.)  

There's a simple and I would even say, dumb solution to fix that problem: make them wear hoods (for Yarne and Nah) or even hats that hide their hair.

This might sounds dumb at first but that would hide the hair color, allowing you to do whatever pairing you want while also making them important for the story and not just side characters.

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In a plot standpoint?  It was alright, not the best way to implement children into the plot, but not the worst like the Deeprealms.  I was kinda upset that any non-Lucina child doesn't show up when she does or prior or whatnot. Lucina is the only actually scripted child to always be in the game no matter what so I see why they only chose Lucina.  But I feel that there would've been way more intrigue with the plot and Lucina's timeline if the other children showed up mysteriously.  Because really, none of them really contributed to the plot if their name isn't Lucina and maybe I would actually go out to get all the children if they were more integrated to the plot.

And I've always wondered this question.  If Gerome was the one that gave Lucina her mask, what if Cherche never married?  Wouldn't that mean Gerome wouldn't have existed in Lucina's timeline anyway and therefore she wouldn't have her mask?

weallalsoagreethatLucinaisbasicallyFutureTrunksright?

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I never really understood the complaint about the kids that only Lucina is really relevant to the plot. That's how Fire emblem has always worked. The lords and a select group of plot important people drive the story and the rest must make due with their recruitment cutscenes, supports and an occasional boss conversation. 

Inigo being recruited and then not appearing in the rest of the story segments doesn't strike me as any different then Erk being recruited and then not appearing in the rest of the story segments anymore. At least the kids have future past to add some story scenes for them.

But kids needing hair dye is something I've always been a supporter of. Some kids just look really weird or really good with particular hair colors though this is more of an issue in Fates. In Awakening must kids looked at least decent no matter what hair they got.   

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2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I never really understood the complaint about the kids that only Lucina is really relevant to the plot. That's how Fire emblem has always worked. The lords and a select group of plot important people drive the story and the rest must make due with their recruitment cutscenes, supports and an occasional boss conversation. 

I understand that, but I still think we should've gotten the illusion of the other kids being a tad more relevant. For instance, if Inigo came with Lucina to the Emmeryn assassination, chopped down an assassin she didn't, exchanged a quick word with her and then ran off to fight baddies off screen, and afterwards became an optional recruit. And maybe later if you have Inigo recruited before you begin a certain chapter he throws in a little extra line or two when Lucina speaks. Just something a little more substantial. I'm not asking for either them nor all the Shepherds (which could use a little more group development too- they ain't no GMs) to chime in all the time- that'd be difficult to do without making things overly verbose.

I will agree that Future Past helped the children out, if at the same time making Lucina's plans a little more futile because the time/universe mechanics it establishes, which are more vague in the base game, makes it impossible for her to save her own world. Tiki also got a much needed relevancy boost.

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