What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Spatha]

59 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think that's because there is a pretty strong overlap between a lot of anime tropes and some of the characters. 

Ricken isn't a cheery freedom fighter, a bitter dark mage or a persecuted dragon who just happens to be a shota. He's just a Shota mage. 

Severa too is much more of a text book tsundere than a character who just happens to be a tsundere. 

Even the characters you've have mentioned some depth to them.

1. Ricken isn't just shota bait. The kid wants to join the war in order to help his fallen noble house but at the same time shows how reluctant he is at killing.

His supports with Lissa and Henry shows it best, especially in the later with how even the throw-away Plegia bosses are given a bit of depth and humanity.

2. I'm not a fan of Severa but I can understand that her tsundere tendencies aren't textbook at all and are caused by some very complicated motives.

Her mother's obssession with Chrom for example.

Sure some character are indeed lacking (Stahl, Nowi) but I can argue that they have even better characterization than even the previous games. (I say this as a Kaga fan).

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by Spatha

[Flere210]

2 hours ago, Spatha said:

Fire Emblem Awakening had some of the best characters in the series. Many of the units in your army are surprisingly multi-faceted and memorable and the fact that they can all have frequent conversations with each other that (mostly) say different things is something other games in the series could really benefit from.

I don't understand where the sentiment that the characters are all "Anime stereotypes and one-note" is coming from.

Because most of Awakening character buikding comes from support conversations. Most people will play the game once and get an impression based on the join chapter, an s rank support and a few c rank that they made along the way. Awakening characters only emerge when you see multiple supports. 

For example, i have seen many people claim that Stahl is all about food, when most of his supports are actually about him being a generic guy and a pushover that easily follow other people in their antics. 

I love awakening characters, but even i have read less than 50% of the supports, it's no surprise that the people turned off by anime tropes only read a couple at most.

 

And i 100% agree on the previous games. Like, Jugdral have Arvis and Travant, but also many characters whit less than 5 lines. Or Nergal, that is a decent villain only if you have a guide and do a lot of specific things in order to unlock the scenes that expand on him. I tought he was "generic bbge that have nothing to do whit Nils and Ninian." for like 6 years.

Edited January 27, 2019 by Flere210

[Von Ithipathachai]

I'll admit I'm not sure why Selkie is so popular.  I always found her rather grating.

[Ottservia]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Severa too is much more of a text book tsundere than a character who just happens to be a tsundere. 

depends on what you mean by textbook. If it means generic and cliche, no I can't agree with that. If it means playing the archetype completely straight, then yeah I agree but that doesn't make her a poorly written character. She's a far more complex character than being "just a generic tsundere". She has deep and underlying reasons for acting the way she does which make sense and are well integrated into her personality to make her character compelling and interesting. If you wanna see generic cliche tsundere with no depth or nuance to speak of and is just there to pander to a fetish I highly suggest watching asterisk war or hidan no aria. Severa is no where near as bad as julius or aria if you ask me. She's about on the level of taiga in terms of writing quality if not a little below to me personally(then again comparing the two characters is kind of stupid cause they are in fact different people even though they fall under the same general archetype)

Edited January 27, 2019 by Ottservia

[Hawkwing]

13 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

I'm not sure if people actually want FE1&2 designs or if they're just meme-ing but I don't think CYL winners should be given joke outfits. All of the CYL winners (barring maybe Celica who was given a retro outfit for...reasons) seemed to have matured or are showing their respect to mentor figures. CYL should be the characters at their peak form, not a mockery of themselves.

I see. Although I know first and foremost that that stuff like "pantsless marth" are simply memes, it's one of those kind of memes where I can easily see the developers getting ideas to reference or even insert it in some fashion. It has happened before countless times in other media and franchises, Fire Emblem included, so I wouldn't be surprised if IS actually does put it in eventually.

I do still want older and wiser (and by that, I mean middle-aged to grey-haired) versions of several of the lords. It'd be interesting to see what's the same and what's different with their characters after years of ruling.

3 hours ago, Spatha said:

I don't understand where the sentiment that the characters are all "Anime stereotypes and one-note" is coming from.

While I do agree that the complaint that Awakenings cast are "one-note anime tropes" is overblown, I can see where it comes from. A good number of characters give very "tropey" first impressions, even if it is to ranging degrees, and for a while, that's going to be what the player is stuck with until they start unlocking supports. It doesn't help that if the player isn't good with using a unit or class, then they won't see many of their supports, and are thus stuck with that questionable first impression.

Speaking of supports, it takes viewing a lot of them for the characters to become fully three dimensional. While it is like this for every game in the series, perhaps the thing that turns people off from Awakenings cast is it that, again, the first impression gives off that they'll be more of a trope than a character. I've said it a number of times before, but the handling was a double edged sword. On the one hand, seeing characters go from one dimensional to three is rewarding, and it makes unlocking even average supports worthwhile. On the other hand, it also demands the the player that "if you want to see these characters fleshed out, you're going to have to work for it", and to some this could be seen as a rather pointless considering other games in the series have had characters interesting from the get go while the player would still be invested in unlocking supports to view the whole story.

It was an interesting experiment, but I hope that IS doesn't try it again

[starburst]

11 hours ago, Flere210 said:

I agree, but i believe that the only needed restriction is good map design and enemies scaling. The restriction is that you have 9 units on the field instead of 10, make it count. Far too often lowmanning and juggernauting maps are the optimal strategy, but if the map is designed around having to use exactly 12 people the choice of using 11 or less in exchange of a stat boost is often going to be suboptimal.

I partially agree with you. The thing is that if a certain number of units were forced on certain maps, people would still be able to field Main & Backpack pairs. Even in maps with high enemy density, very strong pairs might be able to advance. That is, unless the enemies are so challenging that the player has more incentives to field more units at close Experience-levels and use Attack Stance.

And I am not sure how to improve enemy scaling. An algorithm based on the number of units fielded? As in, the less units used, the more or the stronger the enemies. Perhaps counting the number of battles or kills of all units fielded? So that if many units have very few battles or kills (typical for 'backpacks'), then there will be more or stronger enemies.
I am just thinking out loud. Both of my (probably dumb) ideas would produce artificial difficulty. And I still think that diminishing pair-up bonuses based on the Experience-level difference of the units would be a better approach to discourage 'backpacks'.

 

11 hours ago, Flere210 said:

Hell i'll throw an unpopular opinion of mine: juggernauting should not be possible unless you exploit some unintended gamebraking skill combination and enemies should be designed in such a way that you just can't murder 6 on them in the enemy phase whit the Jeigan alone. I also dislike damage sponges, but i think a balance can be found.

I am of the same opinion, mate. Soloing or heavy low-manning should not be possible, specially after the Casual and Phoenix modes have been implemented. Limiting the Experience gain is one step, but unless the enemy levels rapidly escalate accordingly, the player can still throw a monster on the field and not care about the Experience.

[Icelerate]

Micaiah and Sothe is the best written pairing involving any FE lord. 

[Etrurian emperor]

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

depends on what you mean by textbook. If it means generic and cliche, no I can't agree with that. If it means playing the archetype completely straight, then yeah I agree but that doesn't make her a poorly written character.

With text book example I did indeed mean playing it straight. I never said it meant Severa was poorly written. However Severa can immediately be identified as a tsundere and most of her conversations follow the general tsundere routine of first being overly hostile and then progressively warming up to someone and revealing your true colors. And that's okay even if its definitely not something for me. 

4 hours ago, Spatha said:

1. Ricken isn't just shota bait. The kid wants to join the war in order to help his fallen noble house but at the same time shows how reluctant he is at killing.

His supports with Lissa and Henry shows it best, especially in the later with how even the throw-away Plegia bosses are given a bit of depth and humanity.

Sure, Ricken has his own reasoning for joining the war but his character is primarily a typical shota who gets annoyed at being treated like a kid. There is more to him but being a shota is his primary character trait in ways it isn't with other young characters. There is a place for such characters and I'd even say it works well for Ricken, but it is noticeable and also a bit of a downgrade compared to the ones that came before him.

[Ottservia]

6 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

With text book example I did indeed mean playing it straight. I never said it meant Severa was poorly written. However Severa can immediately be identified as a tsundere and most of her conversations follow the general tsundere routine of first being overly hostile and then progressively warming up to someone and revealing your true colors. And that's okay even if its definitely not something for me. 

alright then apologies for sounding overly hostile. It's just that I can get a little passionate(which is something I need to learn to control) over this sort of thing if you couldn't already tell. Also I may have been projecting a bit. Again I apologize for my rudeness. 

Edited January 27, 2019 by Ottservia

[Decerd]

The GBA trio of lords are uninteresting, especially Lyn. Eliwood is dull and Hector is...Hector, but at least the actually fit into the Elibe's story. Lyn felt like she was added in at the last mintue, yet somehow she's one of, if not the most popular female character in Fire Emblem.

 

[NekoKnight]

8 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

Speaking of supports, it takes viewing a lot of them for the characters to become fully three dimensional

This is very true, and it's my biggest complaint about the presentation of the Fateswakening characters. To make characters memorable, they bombard the player with their primary character tropes, and you need to read the right supports, in an ocean of supports, to be convinced they aren't just a gimmick character. Some characters are actually quite nuanced but it's a bit much to expect players to sift through so many filler conversations just to get to the meat of the character.

[NekoKnight]

8 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

Speaking of supports, it takes viewing a lot of them for the characters to become fully three dimensional

This is very true, and it's my biggest complaint about the presentation of the Fateswakening characters. To make characters memorable, they bombard the player with their primary character tropes, and you need to read the right supports, in an ocean of supports, to be convinced they aren't just a gimmick character. Some characters are actually quite nuanced but it's a bit much to expect players to sift through so many filler conversations just to get to the meat of the character.

[Slumber]

27 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

This is very true, and it's my biggest complaint about the presentation of the Fateswakening characters. To make characters memorable, they bombard the player with their primary character tropes, and you need to read the right supports, in an ocean of supports, to be convinced they aren't just a gimmick character. Some characters are actually quite nuanced but it's a bit much to expect players to sift through so many filler conversations just to get to the meat of the character.

The kicker is that there are also a fair few characters who don't develop substantially past their main gimmicks.

If somebody goes down Vaike or Miriel's supports to find that there's really nothing about them past what we see in random base dialogue, why bother going through somebody like Tharja's supports to see if there's a method to the madness at all?

[Hawkwing]

35 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

This is very true, and it's my biggest complaint about the presentation of the Fateswakening characters. To make characters memorable, they bombard the player with their primary character tropes, and you need to read the right supports, in an ocean of supports, to be convinced they aren't just a gimmick character. Some characters are actually quite nuanced but it's a bit much to expect players to sift through so many filler conversations just to get to the meat of the character.

Agreed. Although on the bright side, the internet exists, and if you find a wiki or something similar that has all of a characters supports in one place, they're pretty easy to dash through. While I don't find that the supports really "develop" the characters per se, they do aid tremendously in rounding them out. It also helps in quickly finding out Awakening writing quirks, namely that the quality is actually pretty impressive considering the quality, and even if every character has one or two bad supports, the good outnumbers the bad I find.

It does range between characters, though. For instance, I really only disliked two of all of Stahl and Panne's supports (speaking of which, while it still isn't stellar, the taguel do actually get some decent worldbuilding in nearly all of Panne's supports. Some thought was put into it, too, as none of the information contradicts each other, and even when a fact is repeated, you learn something new about it), yet there are a handful of Laurent's I don't like (despite him being my second favorite character in the game personality-wise) and I got the impression that the writers didn't go as far as they could have with showing off Kellams clever side.

I do also treat S-Supports differently from from the C-A supports, just because they're all over the place. Some are really good, and a fair number are believable. Others come out of nowhere, and seem that they rushed into marriage just because it's a gameplay mechanic. And they're all subjective to boot, making it difficult to judge the actual quality.

[Tuvy2]

On 1/25/2019 at 1:47 PM, Sasori said:

Also I vaguely recall Elincia actually wanting to contribute a lot earlier then she actually did. Did't she tell Ike she was trained to use the sword and that she could fight like really early in the game? I believe Ike told her to stay out of combat because protecting her was their job and that it would't get any easier if Elincia saw a lot of combat.
 

Eh,  whatever. People can like her, everybody has their own opinions,  I meant that mainly as a joke. I personally just really don't like her, my opinion is not going to change. Same about how I dislike RD and Jill, except I have a lot of reasons why I don't like those things.

[Tuvy2]

I think that the problem could be fixed with only a few select supports per character, like GBA era, with only one of them maybe being a filler-esque option for shits and giggles where the rest offer good character building. Hell, the shits and giggles one could also have good character building.

[Icelerate]

A lot of people in the FEH community complain too much about power creep right after seeing the trailer even though in practice the units are no where near as problematic as people imply. 

[henrymidfields]

On 1/28/2019 at 5:53 AM, starburst said:

I am of the same opinion, mate. Soloing or heavy low-manning should not be possible, specially after the Casual and Phoenix modes have been implemented. Limiting the Experience gain is one step, but unless the enemy levels rapidly escalate accordingly, the player can still throw a monster on the field and not care about the Experience.

Same here. It goes against the intended design of the game, and it's just plain unrealistic. What? You somehow summoned a Terminator/Shin Godzilla in a medieval battlefield?

Apart from Pokemon BW-styled scaling experience and improved enemy AI like in Conquests, the game should focus more on teamwork. Perhaps maybe emulate actions used in warfare, such as flanking (damage and accuracy bonuses/penalties for two allied units flanking an enemy unit), or support firepower (a modified Attack Stance with optional attack bonuses for a units and an nearby allied unit with an appropriate long-distance tome/ballista attacking an enemy) - make it so that you are encouraged to field more units. Maybe make it so that you gain bonuses/penalties depending on how many enemy and allied units are nearby (to emulate morale and desperation). And the bonuses as fixed numbers and penalties percentage-based to discourage Seths/Titanias from soloing.

Edited February 4, 2019 by henrymidfields

[Kaze's favourite pillow]

Mark is the worst avatar

[SavageVolug]

Axe units (Fighters, Pirates, Warriors, Berserkers, Axe cavs, Great Knights, Axe Generals) are awesome.

 

[NekoKnight]

On 1/28/2019 at 5:41 AM, Icelerate said:

Micaiah and Sothe is the best written pairing involving any FE lord. 

I'm curious to know what you think makes them the best. I think they have a good relationship but I want to hear about why you think so, specifically.

Personally, I think the Blazing Sword trio have some of the realest relationships in the series. Assuming platonic relationships are included, Eliwood and Hector have a very strong friendship with history (unlike Chrom and Robin that just kinda get the 'soulmate' thing tacked on without much development or background). Their bond is proven throughout the events of the story where Hector joins up with Eliwood's quest immediately and doesn't return home even though he feels equally strong about supporting his brother. Lyn also works well with hector, starting out abrasive with him but ultimately developing a close bond as seen through the dialogue.

[kooger888]

I'm gonna get hate for this probably but i fell not counting it's a good its game play/ supports fire emblem fates was a horrible story, all them. The game play changes and unique classes, and some great character like Effie, jacob, kaze  isn't enough for me to forgive the story one all three routes for lazy writing.  

[NoirCore]

2 hours ago, kooger888 said:

I'm gonna get hate for this probably but i fell not counting it's a good its game play/ supports fire emblem fates was a horrible story, all them. The game play changes and unique classes, and some great character like Effie, jacob, kaze  isn't enough for me to forgive the story one all three routes for lazy writing.  

I think the story being poor on all three routes is a very popular opinion, actually. I know I didn't care too much for the stories in Fates.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

2 hours ago, kooger888 said:

I'm gonna get hate for this probably but i fell not counting it's a good its game play/ supports fire emblem fates was a horrible story, all them. The game play changes and unique classes, and some great character like Effie, jacob, kaze  isn't enough for me to forgive the story one all three routes for lazy writing.  

It's very popular, actually. Like I've seen very few people defend Fates story.

[Icelerate]

On 02/02/2019 at 9:33 AM, NekoKnight said:

I'm curious to know what you think makes them the best. I think they have a good relationship but I want to hear about why you think so, specifically.

Personally, I think the Blazing Sword trio have some of the realest relationships in the series. Assuming platonic relationships are included, Eliwood and Hector have a very strong friendship with history (unlike Chrom and Robin that just kinda get the 'soulmate' thing tacked on without much development or background). Their bond is proven throughout the events of the story where Hector joins up with Eliwood's quest immediately and doesn't return home even though he feels equally strong about supporting his brother. Lyn also works well with hector, starting out abrasive with him but ultimately developing a close bond as seen through the dialogue.

I wasn't talking about platonic relationships but yes Eliwood and Hector's relationship is better written IMO. Their relationships with Lyn are good too, especially Lyn and Hector, but Lyn does feel like a third wheel at times so they aren't as good IMO.

When I talked about romantic relationships, I meant canonical ones and I don't think Hector or Lyn have any canonical relationships. I do think Eliwood and Ninian is canon despite Eliwood having other pairings. 

First, I want you to read my Micaiah personality analysis so you can understand some references. 

Alright, the reason why I think Micaiah X Sothe is the most developed relationship that ends up in a romantic pairing at the end is because we see in the story itself how much each of them mean to each other. Every single death quote of Micaiah references Sothe and she has a mental breakdown when Tibarn captures and drops him which causes a moral dilemma for her as she's forced to choose between Sothe or continuing the war. Similarly, Sothe's forced to choose Micaiah over Ike despite Ike having the moral high ground. So their relationship has an effect on how the plot goes and further shows just how important they are for each other while also putting them in tough situations. Sothe's obsession with defending Micaiah's life as well as honour can be quite endearing. But when Sothe takes it too far and is too overprotective, Micaiah herself reprimands him which is a natural course of action and she sort of acts like the audience's surrogate for being irritated at him. Also, Micaiah plays around with Sothe and teases him several times throughout the game and it's nice to see that side of her when she's usually very polite and to the point with others.  

Finally, I like how their relationship is more compelling than love at first sight and both have compelling reasons to be close to the other. Sothe was a homeless dude so Micaiah taking care of him meant she's the only one who nurtured him. Micaiah herself remained isolated from people so the only one she had more a large portion of her life is Sothe. So the weight these two have with each other is bigger than the other lord pairings.