What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[DragonFlames]

3 minutes ago, Hekselka said:

I don't think that people dislike the anime look but that some people dislike the modern anime look. What I mean is, when I look at the older FE games (GBA and SNES) art the first anime that comes to mind is Record of The Lodoss war or at least an anime that looks like that. When you show me Awakening/Fates art the first thing that comes to mind is Sword Art Online. Maybe I'm wrong and my inner anime viewer is just speaking up but it's something I've always thought about.

I have seen people compare older artwork (especially from the Kaga era) to Dragon Ball Z. Looking at some of it, I can definitely see it.
Awakening and Fates have never reminded me of a particular show, but maybe I haven't seen enough anime to judge. As far as SAO goes, the closest comparison I can draw (besides the fact that Fates' most discussed issues are scarily similar to SAO's in some ways) is maybe the Tellius series, especially the clothes. You can't tell me Lucia's outfit in Radiant Dawn doesn't at least look similar to Asuna's. 

On that note: Would you like a Fire Emblem game with a Persona-esque artstyle? I imagine that would be pretty cool.

[Shadow Mir]

On 2/3/2018 at 5:42 PM, Jingle Jangle said:

• People tend to overemphasize the "sympathetic" part and ignore the "villain" part for most antagonists in the series.
• The magic triangle was always too much of a niche to use.
• Genealogy had some interesting story ideas, but it was poorly handled.

I agree with these. Especially the second and third.

[SoulWeaver]

50 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

The only Royals people seem to dislike openly are Sakura and Elise, as far as I have seen at least, mostly on the basis of them being lolis (which Sakura arguably isn't). Ironically, these two are the only Royals I like.

Huh, that's weird. I knew people who liked them got looked at funny - heck, I started automatically clarifying whenever I said Sakura was my favorite to say it was as a little sister, not a waifu - but I didn't realize there was open dislike for them, at least not to the level I often hear about Camilla.

[Armagon]

57 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

I'll probably never get the appeal of these characters in particular.

And that's perfectly fine. I personally don't get the appeal of most of the Hoshidian characters (Hoshidian characters do appear to be the more popular compared to Nohrians). I don't hate them, i just find the Nohrians to be better (but why does Peri exist?)

57 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Even in Warriors, the other characters seem to get sidelined in their favour.

Warriors' roster in general is hit-or-miss. They've been fixing it with DLC but the base roster is too much Fates (ironically, that's why Azura was cut from the base game).

I'm just waiting for FE16 to come in and then it's characters get popular and then IS starts pushing them and the Fates Royals begin to lose popularity to the new guys. It's gonna happen, trust me.

50 minutes ago, Hekselka said:

/v/, SF and Reddit are places where I saw people disliking Azura. From calling her a walking plot device to calling her an idiot for some of her actions in the story. She definitely isn't the second Lucina IS hoped she would be.

Though in the case of /v/ and the Fire Emblem reddit, it's really hard to tell the difference between criticism and hate. 

57 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

The only Royals people seem to dislike openly are Sakura and Elise, as far as I have seen at least, mostly on the basis of them being lolis (which Sakura arguably isn't). Ironically, these two are the only Royals I like.

I like both as well (Elise is the better of the two but that's just me).

 

41 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Would you like a Fire Emblem game with a Persona-esque artstyle? I imagine that would be pretty cool.

Let's go a step further and have a Fire Emblem game with the JoJo artstyle.

[Strullemia]

36 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

On that note: Would you like a Fire Emblem game with a Persona-esque artstyle? I imagine that would be pretty cool.

Hmmm, it's difficult to say how I would feel about that. I honestly find it difficult to imagine a FE game with the Persona art style. I do love the Persona 5 art style. There has never been a game where I loved going to the menu as much as P5.

 

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

1. Though in the case of /v/ and the Fire Emblem reddit, it's really hard to tell the difference between criticism and hate. 

2.Let's go a step further and have a Fire Emblem game with the JoJo artstyle.

1. This is true but I'd like to think that some of those people were being genuine in their crticism.

2. Haha, just imagining a FE game with Jojo reactions gave me a good laugh.

[Will Bill]

2 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

would disagree with the bolded - you're only given vague messages by the fortune teller, the love system is barely explained, if it is at all, and there's also the matter of accidentally marrying units that you didn't want to marry. That's the exact opposite of "managing it beautifully", if you ask me. At least Awakening and Fates put the choice of who marries whom entirely in my hands.

As long as you know the system exists and the basics of how it works your fine. Though I’d have to agree with the whole “accidental marriage” thing. Silvia was NOT supposed to marry Alec. I can no longer Resurrect anyone. R.I.P. Finn, R.I.P.

[DragonFlames]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

And that's perfectly fine. I personally don't get the appeal of most of the Hoshidian characters (Hoshidian characters do appear to be the more popular compared to Nohrians). I don't hate them, i just find the Nohrians to be better (but why does Peri exist?)

Warriors' roster in general is hit-or-miss. They've been fixing it with DLC but the base roster is too much Fates (ironically, that's why Azura was cut from the base game).

I'm just waiting for FE16 to come in and then it's characters get popular and then IS starts pushing them and the Fates Royals begin to lose popularity to the new guys. It's gonna happen, trust me.

Though in the case of /v/ and the Fire Emblem reddit, it's really hard to tell the difference between criticism and hate. 

I like both as well (Elise is the better of the two but that's just me).

 

Let's go a step further and have a Fire Emblem game with the JoJo artstyle.

I, too, tend to favour the Nohrian characters over the Hoshidan ones. They seem to be a bit more colourful. Though I do have favourites on both sides, I think I like more characters from Nohr than I do Hoshido overall. I haven't counted, though, so I'm not sure.

I agree with you on Warriors' roster, although it doesn't bother me too much since I understand they wanted to play it safe. Sure, the over-emphasis on Fates tends to be a bit obnoxious and the choice for DLC characters is a little bit questionable (like why weren't Owain, Niles and Oboro playable from the get-go?), but I think I made my peace with it.

If the characters of FE16 are good, then one can only hope.

Sometimes, people tend to mistake hate for criticism and the other way around. Whatever seems convenient at the moment, I guess.

I also like Elise more. It's just by a small margin, though.

Oh gods, I can just IMAGINE the storm of memes that would produce...
"You thought Garon was the evil behind the war, BUT IT WAS ME, ANANKOS!"

1 hour ago, Hekselka said:

Hmmm, it's difficult to say how I would feel about that. I honestly find it difficult to imagine a FE game with the Persona art style. I do love the Persona 5 art style. There has never been a game where I loved going to the menu as much as P5.

Persona 5 is among my absolute favourite games. You can tell that everything is made to be as stylish as humanly possible and they freaking succeeded.
Though I have to agree that it is somewhat hard to imagine. I mean, the last time Fire Emblem crossed over with an Atlus franchise, we got an idol simulator that was neither FE nor SMT from what I hear.

Edited February 15, 2018 by DragonFlames

[Armagon]

30 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Sometimes, people tend to mistake hate for criticism and the other way around. Whatever seems convenient at the moment, I guess.

I get where you're coming from but like, i hear stories about how the Fire Emblem reddit spontaneously combusts every few weeks prior to a game's release. The Fire Emblem Heroes reddit though, that place is fun.

32 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Though I have to agree that it is somewhat hard to imagine. I mean, the last time Fire Emblem crossed over with an Atlus franchise, we got an idol simulator that was neither FE nor SMT from what I hear.

From what i hear from the 10 people who played the game (i'm exaggerating the super low sales there), Tokyo Mirage Sessions is quite fun. While it's definitely it's own thing, it does pull it's elements from both series. You got Class Changing and the Weapon Triangle and then you got the magic attacks from SMT/Persona. And of course, Mirages are literally Personas which are literally Stands. Definitely one of the most underrated games of the Wii U from what i hear. It's in the top Wii U games that i want a Switch port of, the other two being Xenoblade X and Tropical Freeze but Tropical Freeze's Switch port has been confirmed so we're 1/3rd of the way there.

TMS characters in Heroes when?

On the subject of Persona 5, i do want to play it but it's really hard to when i lack access to a PS4 and i can't really afford one either. I've seen the memes though.

[Erureido]

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

(Hoshidian characters do appear to be the more popular compared to Nohrians).

Really? Because whenever I check most Fire Emblem fan sites and discussions, I often see more fans liking the Nohrian cast more compared to the Hoshidan cast. I rarely find people preferring the other way around (and admittedly, I am in that minority opinion when it comes to the Hoshidan characters).

Edited February 15, 2018 by Erureido

[Armagon]

10 minutes ago, Erureido said:

Really? Because whenever I check most Fire Emblem fan sites and discussions, I often see more fans liking the Nohrian cast more compared to the Hoshidan cast. I rarely find people preferring the other way around (and admittedly, I am in that minority opinion when it comes to the Hoshidan characters).

I'm just as surprised as you are then because every time i see Hoshido vs Nohr debates, i usually see Hoshido being the more popular. It could be because Nohr's gotten a lot of representation in Heroes and people are kinda tired of that but i feel that, even before that, i remember seeing people say they prefer Hoshidian characters over Nohrians.

Admittedly, this is really the only FE fansite i go to because it's rather tame compared to other places such as the FE reddit. And don't even get me started on GameFaqs and YouTube comment sections.

[Slumber]

As somebody who has Persona 5 as their GotY for 2017 over games like Zelda and Mario, I absolutely do not want a Persona 5 artstyle for the next FE(Or any FE, really). 

Keep the artstyle as tone-appropriate as possible. Hyper-stylized anime art styles for Persona work, because it's set in modern day Japan, and for 5 especially, has a HEAVY emphasis on fashion and style. If Persona had any other artstyle, there'd be an unintentional tonal clash. Intentional tonal clashes when done deliberately(Think South Park. A construction paper cartoon about a bunch of foul mouthed kids and their dark, usually violent adventures), but I don't think Persona or Fire Emblem would ever try do this intentionally, as that kind of stuff is usually reserved for comedy, horror and/or works that art trying to make a point about something.  

Fire Emblem also isn't a flashy modern(As in its setting) series. Fire Emblem has, historically, been a pretty down to earth medieval fantasy. The plots are typically epic and bombastic from time to time, but the Fire Emblem games are slow and you spend a lot of time doing things pretty divorced from the main plot, and there's typically not a ton of melodrama. You can get away with an anime aesthetic if it's kept down to earth. Not all anime art styles have to be super flamboyant and crazy, and that's fine. Awakening and Fates were anything but down to earth in regards to artstyle. Granted Fates also amped the schlock and melodrama up to 11, so the artstyle kinda fit, but saying that Fates' art style fit its story is a backhanded complement. 

I also made the SAO comparison to Kozaki's art for the series. Yeah, Asuna and Lucia both wear white longcoats, but the trimmings and details are louder, more comparable to the Awakening/Fates style. 

[gone]

17 hours ago, Lau said:

Whereas with Fates, I don't see how any of them are shoved in your face.

I fail to see how Elise (has her moments) and, I actually can't believe I have to mention; Camilla are not shoved into your face. (their ingame CGs basically force you to like them)

Going into Supports, a character like Niles is a way to hard attempt from Nintendo to please a section of it's fanbase.

Odin (while I prefer Owain) and Selena are also hit or miss personas (when you look up to their receptions by the community). Lucky enough ,especially Selena improved, thanks to her fates supports.

Fates has a decent amount of characters but saying it has hardly flaws is ridiculous and ignorant.

 

 

[Lau]

7 hours ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

I fail to see how Elise (has her moments) and, I actually can't believe I have to mention; Camilla are not shoved into your face. (their ingame CGs basically force you to like them)

Going into Supports, a character like Niles is a way to hard attempt from Nintendo to please a section of it's fanbase.

Odin (while I prefer Owain) and Selena are also hit or miss personas (when you look up to their receptions by the community). Lucky enough ,especially Selena improved, thanks to her fates supports.

Fates has a decent amount of characters but saying it has hardly flaws is ridiculous and ignorant.

 

 

I'm sorry, what?

When did I ever say that the Fates characters didn't have any flaws? Don't put words into my mouth, and don't call me ignorant just because yeah, I actually prefer the Fates cast. Shocking, right?

You say "when you look up to their receptions by the community". Hah. Why on earth should I even care about what the community thinks? A majority of of the fan base loves Ike. By that logic, I should love Ike too. Nope, sorry. It doesn't work like that.

Look. It's clear you disagree with me, and that's fine. But to twist my words? No thank you. So let's drop this, yeah? Like I said before, getting into an argument about anything Fates related is not on my to-do list. It's tiring, pointless, and nobody comes out happy.

So, agree to disagree?

[gone]

1 hour ago, Lau said:

I'm sorry, what?

When did I ever say that the Fates characters didn't have any flaws? Don't put words into my mouth, and don't call me ignorant just because yeah, I actually prefer the Fates cast. Shocking, right?

You say "when you look up to their receptions by the community". Hah. Why on earth should I even care about what the community thinks? A majority of of the fan base loves Ike. By that logic, I should love Ike too. Nope, sorry. It doesn't work like that.

Look. It's clear you disagree with me, and that's fine. But to twist my words? No thank you. So let's drop this, yeah? Like I said before, getting into an argument about anything Fates related is not on my to-do list. It's tiring, pointless, and nobody comes out happy.

So, agree to disagree?

"I don't see how any of them are shoved into your face" is far away from concrete, it leaves me way to much room for interpretation.

Look, i'm glad you like the fates cast. You can also compare it with other cast's, no problem here. Saying Sacred's Stones cast is "averege" with little reasoning is a deep cut in comparison with fates one. If you dig enough into their supports, I would say FE8's cast is as colorful as Fates'. But we're clearly viewing this from a subjective angle, so I leave it by that.

By the hit or miss logic it also means people hate Ike for the exact  same reason, which was my intend for Odin and Selena.

It's more that I struggle to see your reasoning behind certain topics than the fact we're disagreeing.

The conversation itself is a greater goal than the right answer for me, so I gladly thank you for that.

 

[Erureido]

19 hours ago, Armagon said:

I'm just as surprised as you are then because every time i see Hoshido vs Nohr debates, i usually see Hoshido being the more popular. It could be because Nohr's gotten a lot of representation in Heroes and people are kinda tired of that but i feel that, even before that, i remember seeing people say they prefer Hoshidian characters over Nohrians.

Admittedly, this is really the only FE fansite i go to because it's rather tame compared to other places such as the FE reddit. And don't even get me started on GameFaqs and YouTube comment sections.

Yeah, that might explain it. I tend to visit the FE reddit every now and then just to see some discussions that might interest as well as some Youtube comments on some FE videos every now and then, and it's those two sites plus SF where I usually see the bigger preference for Nohr amongst the fanbase. Even on other gaming sites like Smashboards, I also see more love for the Nohrian characters there.  

There was even a recent discussion on that topic in the FE Reddit a few weeks ago, and most of the comments showed more preference for Nohr. The ones that preferred the Hoshidans were mostly around the middle to bottom of the page.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Erureido

[SoulWeaver]

18 hours ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

Odin (while I prefer Owain) and Selena are also hit or miss personas (when you look up to their receptions by the community). Lucky enough ,especially Selena improved, thanks to her fates supports.

The problem I had with Selena is that we don't have Cordelia in the game to show where I think most of her personality came from - her issues with losing her mother and not wanting to get close to anyone so she couldn't be hurt again, with this spilling over into her other Supports with Awakening Gen 2. Because of this, we mostly just have Selena being a (Self-Censored) for the heck of it without any real explanation - the closest thing I've seen to showing anything about her past to anyone who hasn't played Awakening is her A-Support with Caeldori, which implies she has an inferiority complex stemming from her family(though I don't know why she would marry a perfectionist like Subaki and then complain about everyone around her being perfect, I just pair them to watch her cry) and not much else. Even then, this is locked behind an extra $20 paywall thanks to Revelations not being available in physical copy bar that Special Edition that was available for like three days after it came out 2+ years ago. It's possible I'm missing something in her Supports that goes into better detail, but I didn't see anything that said that kind of thing to me, and I've almost finished seeing all her Supports.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Just to put this on the record and out of my system once and for all, I want to state this opinion one last time and then I'll try not to utter it again. It might change eventually, but for now, it rings true.

Fire Emblem Heroes is HIDEOUS!

I'm not referring to just outliers like Lloyd and Eliwood, outside of like the Black Knight (who you really can't mess up at all) I don't like nor love anyone's artwork. At best I'm ambivalent (male swimsuit bods- but I must visually behead them first- I want your body, not the symbol of your mind, personality, and individuality), at worst I'm very critical (Merric is Mauled-ic, bad when I like Merric and his SD and NM profile images). And a cheap generic iOS game polish appears to coat the game, artwork included.

Everyone looks best in their base game official artwork, barring the stuff from the NES and SNES eras for 1-4 where the first depictions weren't necessarily the best, so Treasure > FE4 game manual for instance. Change from the base artwork for anything from FE5 and beyond just ruins it for me. And yes I do like RD's artwork a lot, I consider it a progression from PoR's style of bold cartoonish colors and design to a greater measure of realism, much as was done with 4-5 and 6-7, that is my excuse. This is the same reason I have such a hard time finding video game posters I like, if fans make it and it lacks veneer of official polish, which is 99% of it, I don't like it. The freelance artists FEH uses has the same effect of looking a little too unofficial. I do like SMT, but there I accept aesthetic disparities and between different demons, because I still consider it to have some cohesiveness and I just like it there.

The sprites, when still, are the only likable aspect of the aesthetics. This I will concede and cannot hide and actually wear proudly. Simply because chibi-fied sprites that look nothing like official artwork is different- the former is what we have to work with technically and for gameplay, which is cool and fine. The latter the ideal and true appearance of a character, so if it is bad here, I take issue with it.

Call me a Fire Emblem Visuals Reactionary, you Heroes Aesthetics Internationalists can try to hang me for it.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Interdimensional Observer

[DragonFlames]

1 hour ago, SoulWeaver said:

The problem I had with Selena is that we don't have Cordelia in the game to show where I think most of her personality came from - her issues with losing her mother and not wanting to get close to anyone so she couldn't be hurt again, with this spilling over into her other Supports with Awakening Gen 2. Because of this, we mostly just have Selena being a (Self-Censored) for the heck of it without any real explanation - the closest thing I've seen to showing anything about her past to anyone who hasn't played Awakening is her A-Support with Caeldori, which implies she has an inferiority complex stemming from her family(though I don't know why she would marry a perfectionist like Subaki and then complain about everyone around her being perfect, I just pair them to watch her cry) and not much else. Even then, this is locked behind an extra $20 paywall thanks to Revelations not being available in physical copy bar that Special Edition that was available for like three days after it came out 2+ years ago. It's possible I'm missing something in her Supports that goes into better detail, but I didn't see anything that said that kind of thing to me, and I've almost finished seeing all her Supports.

I'm in the same boat, actually. Though I have only read Selena's supports with Subaki and Caeldori on the net, because I don't like people missing out on potential classes and thus skills on grind runs (which are literally the only runs I bother getting children, even though I like most of them), but that's beside the point.
The thing is, I absolutely FAIL to see how Selena has improved in terms of personality over Severa (compare her supports with Robin in Awakening with her supports with Corrin in Fates, for instance). In fact, I think the opposite happened: They upped Severa's b***iness tenfold to the point where she isn't even a real Tsundere character and just full on b*** 24/7, with her supports with Kaze and Arthur being notable (and inconsistent with the rest of her character) exceptions to this. A shame, because I actually used to find Severa endearing in Awakening, while Selena is more on the "eh, she exists" spectrum for me.

[SoulWeaver]

5 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

I'm in the same boat, actually. Though I have only read Selena's supports with Subaki and Caeldori on the net, because I don't like people missing out on potential classes and thus skills on grind runs (which are literally the only runs I bother getting children, even though I like most of them), but that's beside the point.
The thing is, I absolutely FAIL to see how Selena has improved in terms of personality over Severa (compare her supports with Robin in Awakening with her supports with Corrin in Fates, for instance). In fact, I think the opposite happened: They upped Severa's b***iness tenfold to the point where she isn't even a real Tsundere character and just full on b*** 24/7, with her supports with Kaze and Arthur being notable (and inconsistent with the rest of her character) exceptions to this. A shame, because I actually used to find Severa endearing in Awakening, while Selena is more on the "eh, she exists" spectrum for me.

I found her Corrin set interesting because I got the feeling that she suddenly realized somewhere in the A that oh yeah, I do have a decent person hidden under here…crap, I let it show, better hide it quick. The B and C, meanwhile, are…actually pretty par for the course compared to her Awakening Supports - a little harsher, perhaps, but these aren't people she's been through literal hell with like her Awakening Supports, so a little harsher may be in order. Her S, however, is frankly of embarrassingly bad quality as far as S Supports go, and falls far behind the Severa-Robin S, where she is attempting to actually improve herself - a part of her that honestly is completely missing from her as Selena.

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Just to put this on the record and out of my system once and for all, I want to state this opinion one last time and then I'll try not to utter it again. It might change eventually, but for now, it rings true.

Fire Emblem Heroes is HIDEOUS!

I'm not referring to just outliers like Lloyd and Eliwood, outside of like the Black Knight (who you really can't mess up at all) I don't like nor love anyone's artwork. At best I'm ambivalent (male swimsuit bods- but I must visually behead them first- I want your body, not the symbol of your mind, personality, and individuality), at worst I'm very critical (Merric is Mauled-ic, bad when I like Merric and his SD and NM profile images). And a cheap generic iOS game polish appears to coat the game, artwork included.

Everyone looks best in their base game official artwork, barring the stuff from the NES and SNES eras for 1-4 where the first depictions weren't necessarily the best, so Treasure > FE4 game manual for instance. Change from the base artwork for anything from FE5 and beyond just ruins it for me. And yes I do like RD's artwork a lot, I consider it a progression from PoR's style of bold cartoonish colors and design to a greater measure of realism, much as was done with 4-5 and 6-7, that is my excuse. This is the same reason I have such a hard time finding video game posters I like, if fans make it and it lacks veneer of official polish, which is 99% of it, I don't like it. The freelance artists FEH uses has the same effect of looking a little too unofficial. I do like SMT, but there I accept aesthetic disparities and between different demons, because I still consider it to have some cohesiveness and I just like it there.

The sprites, when still, are the only likable aspect of the aesthetics. This I will concede and cannot hide and actually wear proudly. Simply because chibi-fied sprites that look nothing like official artwork is different- the former is what we have to work with technically and for gameplay, which is cool and fine. The latter the ideal and true appearance of a character, so if it is bad here, I take issue with it.

Call me a Fire Emblem Visuals Reactionary, you Heroes Aesthetics Internationalists can try to hang me for it.

For the most part, I find myself somewhat agreeing with you, but for me there are exceptions - even after SoV, Heroes Palla is still the most Bae Palla(er, just looking at the basic artwork poses, not the battle or damaged ones), though for some reason her SD portrait is a very close second, Heroes Catria is her best look, and Est…eh, I could be convinced either way there, actually. I think the voices killed a couple of them for me, though - Minerva sounds a good five years older than I expected from her artwork bare minimum, and I expected Roy's English VA to be closer in pitch and tone to his Japanese one than what we got, though Ray Chase did do a very good job all things considered. Again, Palla is my best example of where I was pleasantly surprised by the VA, though it was a little awkward to have the first thing she said be "Oh! Oh, you startled me, you trickster, you." considering I was in a public place.

Edited February 17, 2018 by SoulWeaver

[Water Mage]

6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Just to put this on the record and out of my system once and for all, I want to state this opinion one last time and then I'll try not to utter it again. It might change eventually, but for now, it rings true.

Fire Emblem Heroes is HIDEOUS!

I'm not referring to just outliers like Lloyd and Eliwood, outside of like the Black Knight (who you really can't mess up at all) I don't like nor love anyone's artwork. At best I'm ambivalent (male swimsuit bods- but I must visually behead them first- I want your body, not the symbol of your mind, personality, and individuality), at worst I'm very critical (Merric is Mauled-ic, bad when I like Merric and his SD and NM profile images). And a cheap generic iOS game polish appears to coat the game, artwork included.

Everyone looks best in their base game official artwork, barring the stuff from the NES and SNES eras for 1-4 where the first depictions weren't necessarily the best, so Treasure > FE4 game manual for instance. Change from the base artwork for anything from FE5 and beyond just ruins it for me. And yes I do like RD's artwork a lot, I consider it a progression from PoR's style of bold cartoonish colors and design to a greater measure of realism, much as was done with 4-5 and 6-7, that is my excuse. This is the same reason I have such a hard time finding video game posters I like, if fans make it and it lacks veneer of official polish, which is 99% of it, I don't like it. The freelance artists FEH uses has the same effect of looking a little too unofficial. I do like SMT, but there I accept aesthetic disparities and between different demons, because I still consider it to have some cohesiveness and I just like it there.

The sprites, when still, are the only likable aspect of the aesthetics. This I will concede and cannot hide and actually wear proudly. Simply because chibi-fied sprites that look nothing like official artwork is different- the former is what we have to work with technically and for gameplay, which is cool and fine. The latter the ideal and true appearance of a character, so if it is bad here, I take issue with it.

Call me a Fire Emblem Visuals Reactionary, you Heroes Aesthetics Internationalists can try to hang me for it.

Not criticizing you or anything, you’re free to your opinon and I can understand seeing a character in different style beig weird, but I find ironic that you call it unofficial when many are artists from famous series. 

From the Fire Emblem series we have Wada Sachiko and Senri Kita for example. But we also have character designers who worked on things like Etrian Odyssey, Ace Attorney, Haruhi Suzumiya Series, A Certain Magical Index, The Twelve Kingdoms and many more. Those are some pretty big names, so it is weird when you say the artwork “lacks veneer of official polish”.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Water Mage

[Reality]

42 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

Not criticizing you or anything, you’re free to your opinon and I can understand seeing a character in different style beig weird, but I find ironic that you call it unofficial when many are artists from famous series. 

From the Fire Emblem series we have Wada Sachiko and Senri Kita for example. But we also have character designers who worked on things like Etrian Odyssey, Ace Attorney, Haruhi Suzumiya Series, A Certain Magical Index, The Twelve Kingdoms and many more. Those are some pretty big names, so it is weird when you say the artwork “lacks veneer of official polish”.

I think having "official polish" goes a bit further than just using the same artist. In the case of the old games, they were also obligated to commit to a kind of "house style" within the game, which helped keep a level consistency. In fact it's fairly similiar to comic book phenomena, where the same artist can draw the same charather very differently for a one-shot or an out of continuity story, but for the super-heroes main book, they keep him within certain recogniable limits.

[Water Mage]

31 minutes ago, Reality said:

I think having "official polish" goes a bit further than just using the same artist. In the case of the old games, they were also obligated to commit to a kind of "house style" within the game, which helped keep a level consistency. In fact it's fairly similiar to comic book phenomena, where the same artist can draw the same charather very differently for a one-shot or an out of continuity story, but for the super-heroes main book, they keep him within certain recogniable limits.

Does Fire Emblem have a “house style” though? Even in the same game, it was often there aren’t a lot of  unifying factors.

Besides my problem itself wasn’t the fact that he didn’t like the fact that the characters looksd different from their original games, I can understand why didn’t like it even though I don’t share his opinion. It was calling it “unofficial” that kinda bugged me, since those artists were hired by IS, so by logic, they are “officiall”.

But your comment made me realize that perhaps I was harsh on him, I mean, some characters do look very different in Heroes, so I can see why he would think that the different art styles made the art look bad in his eyes.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, Water Mage said:

Does Fire Emblem have a “house style” though? Even in the same game, it was often there aren’t a lot of  unifying factors.

Actually I think there are for each game. Which you may notice by comparing two related games, like compare the Bartres and then glimpse the rest of the FE6 and FE7 casts and you'll notice a bolder darker colors and more kiddy designs in FE6 than 7, generally speaking. 

If there weren't distinct styles for each game, then why would people complain about say Awakening and Fates designs vs. Tellius ones? I'm not good at describing the shared aesthetic subtleties of each game, but they exist.

 

As for the term "unofficial", well I guess it's official, but with a different purpose. There is perhaps I would say, a greater level of restrain when making official artwork for actual mainline games. While Cipher and Heroes can go over the moon and to Andromeda with its artwork, never obliged to any sobriety or class.

Fan art (which I had mentioned before), which can be nice, also lacks that "polish", being more a relaxed creation not to be taken all that seriously (not to say it has no artistic merit- it can), only casually since it was only made for fans by fans. I get that and I'm okay with it. I can also be okay with Cipher, much since I don't play the card game. But I guess when I'm playing a game I want it to be serious and classy in its artistic direction, while FEH is not made to be taken seriously? Square player and a round game?

It's a little hard to articulate exactly what I mean. 

I don't mean to look down on the artists though, only the art and its relation to FE. I like Etrian Odyssey's designs for one of course. Else Caiah my male-androgynous happy Swift Stabbing Landsknecht and first ever character created in an EO wouldn't be in my sig (even though he got kicked off my EOIV team by Sabatoo the Nightseeker boy in the Misty Ravine).

 

3 hours ago, Reality said:

In fact it's fairly similiar to comic book phenomena, where the same artist can draw the same charather very differently for a one-shot or an out of continuity story, but for the super-heroes main book, they keep him within certain recogniable limits.

i think the homepage of SF shows this. Look at this "Berserk Ike", which the homepage suggests to me it was drawn by Senri Kita, the designer of Tellius, although maybe it wasn't:

Those red eyes! Totally out of place for Tellius. I've always thought of the Berserk Ike idea, but this ain't what I wanted. Why we sort of know what a Berserk person actually looks like, their face at least:

Spoiler

Unless we got a Radiant Dawn remake and the aesthetic of that game when in a like direction. I would acknowledge such artwork then to be official (but not that card itself, since it came before the remake). But that has no impact on the aesthetics of original RD, nor does it stop me from calling it bad official art if I chose to.

[Harvey]

Man...been a while since I posted here so hi again y'all.

Speaking of reddit and serenes...between FE reddit and serenesforest, I like FE reddit a bit better. Sure there are some jokes here and there but I like it that when discussing a unit, its more detailed there than here where most just put a score or briefly mention a unit's flaws.

Not saying that the latter is bad or anything. Its just that to decide whether that unit is worth training or not, FE Reddit is kinda straightforward in that aspect.

 

[FRZNHeir]

On 2/15/2018 at 1:25 PM, Armagon said:

Let's go a step further and have a Fire Emblem game with the JoJo artstyle.

Let's just have a Jojo's themed FE game. No weapon triangle, but a pose triangle. No magic, just stands.