"Waifu Emblem" Features.

[Anacybele]

3 minutes ago, ElectiveToast said:

Guys, let's not get into this fallacy of "Any source that doesn't agree with me is unreliable." Just a side note. 

Dude, IGN said gen 3 Pokemon was bad because of too much water. This is dumb and I'm not even a fan of those games myself. There were plenty more reasons than that to say that RSE wasn't very good. They DID have too much water, imo, but that alone is not a reason to say a game is bad.

As for VGchartz, people are referring to it having inaccurate numbers at times, not any "disagreement."

Edited July 16, 2017 by Anacybele

[ElectiveToast]

Wasn't the too much water meme Game informer? 

[Anacybele]

1 minute ago, ElectiveToast said:

Wasn't the too much water meme Game informer? 

Nope, pretty sure that was IGN.

Also, IGN seems to have a tendency to rate games much lower or much higher than the fans do.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Anacybele

[ElectiveToast]

I think I left out the choice of kids with minimal romance. 

 

 

[Alexmender]

Here's my two cents:

Character creation: I actually like creating my own character and giving him/her custom growths and class. The main issue that the avatar system has is how they're implemented in the story, Kris steals Marth (and Jeigan) spotlight, Robin steals Chrom spotlight and Corrin is a terrible mix of an avatar and a lord. The problem that the 3 of them share is player pandering, it makes their character worse because they can't be hated by anyone who isn't a villain and the games tend to elevate them to something they're not which breaks immersion pretty badly. If the avatar system comes back I'd like the avatar to be like Kris in terms of customization where you can choose his/her class, growths, upbringing and speech patterns/personality if possible while having the importance of Robin during the 1st arc in Awakening.

Children: This needs a break, while playing Eugenics Emblem is kinda fun it has come to a point where it detracts more than it offers to the game. In Fates the children are such an afterthought that IS had to create a BS excuse in the deeprealms to feature them in even if they had no place in the game. I'm not entirely against children but I'd rather not see them until a FE4 remake or a game with a similar story (hell, it could be as simple as a war that extended for too long that the 1st gen got old and now it's up to their children to finish it.).

Romance: I'm iffy about this, Fire Emblem has had romance since the beginning so there's no reason to leave this out but I'm not a big fan of the actual S-Support system where everyone marries anyone just because. I'd prefer the S-Support to be just a 4th conversation that alters two characters ending, some endings would be romantic, others platonic and some could even be sad/bittersweet. This system would need a restriction of course, like a character has 4-6 support partners and they can have up to an A support with all of them but only 1 S-Support.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Alexmender

[ElectiveToast]

27 minutes ago, Alexmender said:

(hell, it could be as simple as a war that extended for too long that the 1st gen got old and now it's up to their children to finish it.).

 

Wars don't typically last more than a few years. 

[XRay]

45 minutes ago, Armagon said:

It's worth noting that Birthright was heavily Japanese themed. It makes sense why Birthright sold more than Conquest over there.

I am not sure where to find the sales figures for the Western release, but if the Western release follows Japan's sales ratios, then it cannot be attributed to just the Japanese theme.

48 minutes ago, Armagon said:

VGcharts is unreliable.

I do not mind disputing sources as long as you bring your sources too for comparison.

49 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Though Echoes did sell what was expected, so it's technically a success.

I did not say it was a failure, but it is not the success in terms of Awakening and Fates.

7 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Really though. We can have a Fire Emblem game that pleases both sides of the audience. You can have your Avatars and your S-Supports and children, while also making the game appeal to the more hardcore fanbase. The best example of this is New Mystery of the Emblem. That game had an Avatar, Reclassing, Casual Mode, Support Conversations in the vein of Awakening and Fates, basically stuff that would appeal to the newer side of the fandom. If FE16 can do what New Mystery did, then i think it could work. You can have your newer series elements while also using some of the older series elements. Everyone wins.

I do not have a problem with pleasing both sides. I want them to please both. But if Intelligent Systems had to choose one side due to cost constraints, then they should choose the one that makes them the most money. Profits matters above all else. Without it, we would not even be seeing Fates and Echoes after Awakening. I rather have a game series going in the direction I do not want it to go and still be able to play it rather than not being able to play it at all.

55 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Fates' children didn't mess with the plot, but they had no reason to be there.

Not factoring in taking resources away from other parts of the game, if given choice of having badly written children versus no children, I would take badly written children.

9 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Nah, Fire Emblem isn't anywhere close to being on it's deathbed for a second time. Heroes is a cash-cow for IS, and having not one, but two Fire Emblem titles on the Switch (admittedly, there's some heated debates about Warriors) would definitely earn them money.

I know it is not dying anytime soon. You cannot unlearn the success from Awakening, Fates, and Heroes this soon. However, if they forget that lesson, it can easily slip into decline again. Advance Wars and the Wars series was doing really until the transition to DS and Wii, and it did not do so well for some reason. The only reason I can attribute it to is that no matter how much I like the game play and improvements, it is clearly not good enough to entice new players.

12 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Again, marketing for Fire Emblem pre-Awakening was abysmal. I found out about Fire Emblem thanks to Brawl, and i also learned that there was a Fire Emblem game for the Wii called Radiant Dawn. But i never saw the game in stores, ever. None of my friends knew anything about it other than it existed. I didn't even know what Fire Emblem gameplay was like until i saw Awakening in a Nintendo Direct.

Marketing for Echoes was just as good as Awakening and Fates in my opinion (I am not the best judge on this topic since I am hyped at every trailer), so I do not think marketing is the only reason why Echoes did not do as well as Awakening. The argument that it is released at the end of the console's life is sound though.

39 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Oh, and we can't forget the infamous FE7 commericlal

The ad seems like it is the opposite of what Fire Emblem is trying instill in us in terms of values like trust and friendship. It still made me laugh though.

40 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Btw, i should mention that, prior to Fates, Mystery of the Emblem was the best selling Fire Emblem, with the Jugdral series being a close second. Now, the Tellius series had very poor sales in Japan, but i don't know how marketing went over there. They at least had commercials for each game though, as opposed to the West not getting a commercial for Fire Emblem besides the one above (pre-Awakening). So if someone with knowledge of the Japanese FE community can tell me why Tellius sold so poorly, i'd like to hear it.

I never played the Tellius series, but I do like its Weapon Triangle and other game play mechanics. Its themes also resonate well with Western, or at least American, audiences, so maybe it does not suit Japanese tastes. If that is not it, then only game play mechanics is left to explain the poor sales no matter how much we like it.

18 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Comments like these are why the Fire Emblem community gets a bad rep.

I agree I could have chosen better words.

21 minutes ago, Armagon said:

And we can't forget that cutscene. Stuff like that is what gets under people's skin. I don't mind it, but i understand where people are coming from.

Also, Japan really loves dating sims iirc, which would explain why newer FE games have had S-Supports.

That is an industry problem, but until it can be proven to companies that subtlety sells more games, I do not see blatant fan service going away anytime soon. With sales figures from Fates out selling Awakening, it is kind of hard to convince Intelligent Systems that blatant far service is bad. Letting the localization team to heavily edit and censor the game also turns it into a PR mess for the region that is given a lesser version.

That is the reason why Fire Emblem should adapt and incorporate elements from other genres to stay relevant.

[ElectiveToast]

I need that FE7 commercial. 

[Alexmender]

1 hour ago, ElectiveToast said:

Wars don't typically last more than a few years. 

True, but they could always do something like that if they really need to include children in the game, at least it sounds better than the deeprealms.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 hours ago, ElectiveToast said:

Wars don't typically last more than a few years. 

Maybe not in the twentieth/twenty-first century sense. Historically, nations can be in informal war for centuries.  Even if a peace accord happens, that peace can be disturbed creating a new conflict with the same actors. 

[Book Bro]

A few comments on some stuff that's come up...

1. Not liking these features doesn't mean we want the series to stay static. The series can evolve in other ways. You could also argue that keeping these features just because they were popular a few times, even if they don't fit in the next game, would be remaining static.

2. The success of 3DS FE is not owed just to these features. It's also due to much bigger advertising and more accessibility.

3. Since the topic of censorship was brought up again, I'm pretty sure even in Japan stuff like petting and tits and ass are focused at a very specific niche audience. It rubs me the wrong way when people refer to this as part of "Japanese culture" to justify FE being more fanservicey now, as if Japan is way more open to sex and sexy stuff than the West. Maybe @shadowofchaoswould have a better point of view on this though it may not be the best thread to discuss it in.

4. The kids in Fates affect the plot in that it makes no sense for the characters to get married and go through 9 months of pregnancy during the campaign, and they all end up abandoning their kids anyway which makes even the most well intentioned of them look like dicks. 

[Armagon]

2 hours ago, XRay said:

I am not sure where to find the sales figures for the Western release, but if the Western release follows Japan's sales ratios, then it cannot be attributed to just the Japanese theme.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

I do not mind disputing sources as long as you bring your sources too for comparison.

The best source of sales figures are the one officially released by the company. VGcharts is universally considered unreliable because they only use estimates, sometimes being far from accurate. So far, we haven't gotten an official source of Echoes' sales, other than the game being in the "best selling" category in the eShop but that doesn't tell much.

Also, Western sales don't necessarily follow Japan sales. For example, Metroid Prime sold more in America than it did in Japan. In fact, even for Fire Emblem, most of the sales come from America.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

if given choice of having badly written children versus no children, I would take badly written children.

I can't agree with this. As someone who values the characters over the story in story-driven games/anime/movies, etc, if the characters are badly written, then what's the point? Now, granted, Fates' children are pretty decent characters, the only one who i dislike is Rhajat (she's one of the four FE characters i don't like, the other three being Tharja, Peri, and Sigurd). However, the issue isn't the children, it's how they were implemented. The Deeprealms was a terrible idea. That's people's main issue with the children characters. Children in FE4 made sense. Children in Awakening made sense. Children in Fates don't. In general, i think Fates got too carried away with the whole "other worlds" thing. Alternate worlds are fine and all, but Fates made it a main focus with how My Castle and the Deeprealms works.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

Marketing for Echoes was just as good as Awakening and Fates in my opinion (I am not the best judge on this topic since I am hyped at every trailer), so I do not think marketing is the only reason why Echoes did not do as well as Awakening.

Marketing is a pretty big reason. Awakening was supposed to be the last game, which is why it got advertised as if the world was ending. Fates in particular had E3 coverage, which was very good for the game. Echoes had marketing, and it had enough, but not as much as Awakening and Fates. And Echoes is a very different game from the rest of the series, so some people were turned off by the lack of the Weapon Triangle, etc. Then there was the whole Season Pass thing.

But again, no one, not even IS, expected Echoes to sell as much as Awakening and Fates. But again, it sold what was expected.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

I never played the Tellius series, but I do like its Weapon Triangle and other game play mechanics. Its themes also resonate well with Western, or at least American, audiences, so maybe it does not suit Japanese tastes. If that is not it, then only game play mechanics is left to explain the poor sales no matter how much we like it.

It's the fact that Tellius barely got advertised. The gameplay featured the return of Canto and Skills, mechanics from the Jugdral series, which is very popular in Japan. Then there's forging and all the new stuff. So i t couldn't have been the gameplay that was the cause of poor sales.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

That is an industry problem, but until it can be proven to companies that subtlety sells more games, I do not see blatant fan service going away anytime soon.

Oh, fanservice is never going away. That's just a fact. Of course, that doesn't mean people have to like it. I don't mind it fanservice, unless it gets shoved in my face.

2 hours ago, XRay said:

With sales figures from Fates out selling Awakening, it is kind of hard to convince Intelligent Systems that blatant far service is bad.

Reminder that Fates' sales combine both Birthright and Conquest. Of course it's going to outsell Awakening. 

2 hours ago, XRay said:

Letting the localization team to heavily edit and censor the game also turns it into a PR mess for the region that is given a lesser version.

Localization changes happen for a reason. Was Fates' localization good? Ehhhhhh. It was alright. But i'm glad stuff like skinship was removed. That was just weird. And then Solei's Supports with Corrin were handled much better in localized versions of the game. I do want to see FE games get Echoes level of localization though. Out of all the 3DS FEs, Echoes has the best localization imo.

4 hours ago, Anacybele said:

RD got a reprint in 2014, but that got no marketing either, and was very limited.

I didn't know about this. Still, i doubt that would've done much for Radiant Dawn. The Wii U was already out and 2014 was also the same year that we got Mario Kart 8 (i think), Hyrule Warriors, and most importantly, Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U.

[Slumber]

On top of the "Japan is waaaay more open about this stuff!", there's also the "Well, I'm a straight male, and the main audience is straight males, so I don't see why fanservice is bad!"

I'm a straight male. The fanserivce has turned me off in the franchise so much. It's not what the franchise used to be. It's incredibly gross, distasteful and dumb. And again, it came out of nowhere.

[Anacybele]

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

I didn't know about this. Still, i doubt that would've done much for Radiant Dawn. The Wii U was already out and 2014 was also the same year that we got Mario Kart 8 (i think), Hyrule Warriors, and most importantly, Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U.

Nobody knew until copies with "2014" written on the cases turned up online. Then a bit of research was done on this to confirm legitimacy and that was that.

This was earlier in the year than those games though.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Anacybele

[Sunwoo]

The "waifu emblem" features aren't necessarily the problem -- the real issue is that IS can't seem to put these features together with a good, coherent story. I'm not even sure how good they are at just writing a coherent story. If IS can implement a plot-important avatar, marriage, and children without fucking up everything, I'm fine with that. If IS makes a good story without including any of these features, I'm fine with that. What I'm asking for is basically just ... IS, please stop being bad at making believable stories and likable characters!

... I will say this, though. I would like for the developers to mix and match some of the features of their games. Maybe one game can be heavily focused on marriage and have an avatar, while the next one doesn't have an avatar and only has limited supports. It'd keep things from getting too samey.

[shadowofchaos]

1 hour ago, Book Bro said:

A few comments on some stuff that's come up...

1. Not liking these features doesn't mean we want the series to stay static. The series can evolve in other ways. You could also argue that keeping these features just because they were popular a few times, even if they don't fit in the next game, would be remaining static.

2. The success of 3DS FE is not owed just to these features. It's also due to much bigger advertising and more accessibility.

3. Since the topic of censorship was brought up again, I'm pretty sure even in Japan stuff like petting and tits and ass are focused at a very specific niche audience. It rubs me the wrong way when people refer to this as part of "Japanese culture" to justify FE being more fanservicey now, as if Japan is way more open to sex and sexy stuff than the West. Maybe @shadowofchaoswould have a better point of view on this though it may not be the best thread to discuss it in.

4. The kids in Fates affect the plot in that it makes no sense for the characters to get married and go through 9 months of pregnancy during the campaign, and they all end up abandoning their kids anyway which makes even the most well intentioned of them look like dicks. 

The face petting in Fates is a super simplification is regarded by Japanese as fully intimate stuff... That well they don't talk about.

Chances are if you show it randomly to a typical Japanese person they'd be a little off put by it.

But because it's understood that things behind closed doors happen... Specifically between spouses... They wouldn't be completely repulsed by it that some westerners may be.

This is because Fates' feature falls into stereotypical game otaku things.

Fates' controversial feature is BY NO MEANS norm for Japanese culture. Especially face petting other units and not just your in game spouse.

Like holy Naga man, I was embarrassed to play the my room game anywhere near others that might interpret those noises. Aqua or Felicia saying "Ahhh please touch me more" or "Whatever you wish darling" or "If you touch there I..." has enough ecchi sounding noises that you don't need Japanese to get the wrong idea.

Edited July 16, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, ElectiveToast said:

Wars don't typically last more than a few years.

Fire Emblem: The Hundred Years' War! Featuring four generations across two sides- with resources spread over so long a game and the ambition of a plot so big, what could possibly go wrong?

*Ahem* I wouldn't mind FE actually extending the duration of its wars- they're always over in a year outside of Genealogy (and even then it kinda is). It'd make things a little more realistic and allow for plot developments and character growth that can't be done in so short a time frame. I'd put the hard cap at 5 years though, 7 tops.

 

16 hours ago, XRay said:

Children are customizable. Adults are not. I like the how they did children in Awakening and Fates because they were totally optional besides Lucina

On the second point, that optionality of the children made the irrelevant plot-wise, they were kinda there. They were awkwardly shoehorned into Fates, and in Awakening they ended up being less important than they were supposed to be.

As for the first point you made- how customizable were the children in the 3DS games really? Let us begin with Awakening and then move into Fates.

The most undeniably significant boost a parent can offer their kid is classes- which give skills and affect pretty much everything, this is major. The problem here is that if you want to go skill-hunting, the kids are going to be massively overleveled for the main game. If you want a kid to use a weapon type other than one they start with, you have to go through E rank hell, also unpleasant for a no-grind main game.

The second most significant boost a parent offers is a small adjustment to the child's stat caps- but it won't make a real difference in the main game at all (not even on Lunatic+). I guess it might in Apo and Whitewing Challenge Pack, but even then you don't need children- it's doable without them, or so I've heard, the most challenging thing I bought was R&R3. 

The third most significant offering is the direct inheritance of 1 Skill per parent, though it's possible for this to be considered the second most important inheritance thing if the child is a Galeboy. But other than Whale Horse (to lightly jab at the skill) and Veteran, there aren't any real amazing skills to inherit, nifty ones for sure, but nothing that'll change how the kiddo plays, and Hail Norse at best will be ending up on Severa or Cynthia and maybe Morgan late in the no-grind game- at which point, will they even be worth getting?

Lastly we have growths and bases inheritance- which are moot because Awakening generally has high growths and infinite leveling compensates anyhow. And on the growths side of things- you can only contribute a meager one-third of the child's growths, not including what classes add. So it's even less to a degree, the degree being if a variable parent with a high growth in a stat offers a class with a good growth in the same stat, while another parent with a lower growth offers the same or a comparable class or not. E.g. Vaike doesn't offer Yarne Sage and has crap Magic, unlike Ricken so the kid with Vaike will be awful at magic. But Kellam isn't that much worse than Ricken in affecting a kid's magic growth because they both have Sage and the difference between their 35 and 15 Magic growths for a kid is 6% growth- nearly nothing.

Moving onto Fates- there is no postgame to use those stat cap alterations on, though they might see slight usefulness on Conquest or Revelation. The removal of cheap infinite leveling, the increase of growths inheritance from a third to a half (though the difference still isn't humongous between parents with close growths), and how this affects skill learning makes growths and skill inheritance matter more. First Blood inheritance matters at all only on CQ and Rev- not BR. Class inheritance took a negative hit though, as only one class gets passed on now with the rise of new class flexibility via A+ and S supports potentially giving classes.

And mind you, you can only customize one parent all three games with kids- you can't do something more radical and assign Owain to Panne and Virion. The fixed parent's passings can't be adjusted at all. Further cutting into customizing space.

As for hair color- just add hair dye IS! As for supports- all the variable parent convos are generic (outside of Future Past?), so you're not getting writing worth anything.

One final word- Genealogy had a fair number of kids who were basically unscrewable either in offense or utility as well. They could be good or great, but certain kids just couldn't be bad. Just sayin' that to say I'm not excusing FE4's child system of having flaws.

[SSbardock84]

I'd prefer just marriage, I don't really care for children. Awakening it made sense, Fates was just weird, I don't think they should do it anymore unless it does make sense. I'm done with custom characters, I'm cool with custom accessories and armor for the characters though.

[XRay]

@Armagon Until you can find better estimates, VGChartz is the best I have. Having some sort of numbers is better than none. Until we have some sort of estimation, we should not make the claim that Western sales mirrors or not mirrors Japanese sales. We simply do not know.

Different players have different priorities. All things being equal, I prefer having more stuff in the game that is not done well than having nothing at all. Quantity does not trump quality, but if the over all quality is about the same anyway, I want more stuff.

Players also complain about DLC in Awakening and Fates. The fact that it is a remake with old mechanics and game play, being very different from modern conventions that players like, sounds a lot more plausible as to why it did not do so well. That was my point about Intelligent Systems moving the series forward instead of keeping game play static.

I never said it was a failure. But it clearly is not the success that Awakening and Fates was.

Pokémon is released as a pair of games, but I would not count them as separate games. Pokémon is not the best comparison since Fates features two different play styles, but picking one version essentially turns the other one into DLC.

Again, people have different views regarding things like censorship. I despise censorship in all forms. It is one thing to cover your own eyes and ears to limit your own exposure to an idea that you do not like, but I find it detestable to rob someone else the same the ability to experience something for themselves to make up their own minds. Trump and some of his more colorful supporters spew some of the most toxic crap out of their mouths, but that does not make it right to silence them from speaking on university campuses, where people who want to listen to that stuff should experience it first hand and decide for themselves.

@Interdimensional Observer We see the kids differently and compare them to different standards. I see them as side quest rewards and are basically glorified Einherjar units, so Einherjar units are what I am comparing them to. You see them as fully fledged characters and you compare them with the first generation cast. They are not important story wise and they could have made them like capturable bosses who are barely better than Einherjar units, but I am glad they took the time and effort to give them more dialogue and customization.

No one is forcing you to grind. It is an option. Just because you do not want it does not mean that other players should not have that option either.

It is possible to do Apotheosis without kids. But every little improvement helps. You might not like minimaxing but others might. I love to squeeze out every little advantage I can get to make the game easier. I do not think it is reasonable to force others to play like you.

Gender locked skills are important. Axefaire and Counter pale in comparison to Galeforce, but those skills are nice to have regardless.

Growths do not matter, but stat caps do. Again, players like me like to minimax things and like to break the game.

Fates does not have much post game content to utilize those stats, but it does not mean I do not want to have those stats.

I do not see anything wrong with customizing only one parent for the child. Intelligent Systems might not have the resources to allow us to customize both, but at the very least, giving us an option to choose one parent is better than not having an option.

I am less interested in cosmetics, but some players enjoy giving their kids certain hair colors.

I am not sure what you are trying to say about customization. I prefer having customization over having none.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I'm not condemning other playstyles- play FE however you wish. Why I take time at the end of Etrian Odyssey games to make extra characters in the classes I never actually used in the main game and grind them up, despite me being capable of handling at least most postgame bosses without any of them. It just looks pretty. And closer to home, I do have an all-males Awakening file from years ago where everyone has Limit Breaker, maxed stats, and many have Res+10 on top of that. Would I ever do that again though? Probably not. But will I max all the Jobs in Bravely Second with everyone once I get access to Obliterate? Yes I will.

Also, I liked the Einherjar in Awakening too. But the children were supposed to be more in the plot than the Einherjar, which were just cards. The children came from the future to save the world from destruction, but due to gameplay concerns (which I completely understand) none of them had a single moment in the plot outside of Lucina. Putting them in hoods and having them show up in groups of three or four for a scene or two in the main plot pre-child recruitment chapters appearance, and rewriting their paralogues a little to make them feel a bit more relevant- tweaks, not radical changes to the way things are.

My main point on customization is that decisions like "do I have Stahl or Lon'qu father Severa?" don't carry that much weight. And thus people generally shouldn't be concerned about messing up their pairings if all they want to do is beat the game or fear a bad pairing will make the postgame impossible- it won't.

I'll confess that I do want the differences between kids with different parents to be a little more readily significant outside of extremes like Orochi vs. Kagero to be more relevant to my playstyle, which isn't LTC or anything extreme. Just minimal to no grind and kinda sorta I guess "efficient" as vague a term as it is. I like customization and I like the idea of having kids with an assortment of skills from across their many classes, but I can't get it without severely compromising my own preferred playstyle. 

[Armagon]

19 minutes ago, XRay said:

The fact that it is a remake with old mechanics and game play, being very different from modern conventions that players like, sounds a lot more plausible as to why it did not do so well. That was my point about Intelligent Systems moving the series forward instead of keeping game play static.

Said remake also featured many one-time thing mechanics. Again, using Echoes as evidence as to why IS should be doing New Emblem things instead of Old Emblem is invalid. HP Cost? Gaiden/Echoes only. One weapon per Class? Gaiden/Echoes only. Exploreable towns and dungeons? Gaiden/Echoes only. Magic learned via level-up? Gaiden/Echoes only. Being able to play two routes simultaneously? Gaiden/Echoes only (every other FE with branching paths only has it so you could play one path per playthrough). Had the remake been about any other Fire Emblem game, for example, Binding Blade, then you're point would stand better. Though a Binding Blade remake would sell more than Echoes and maybe even get close to Awakening numbers because Roy.

But i still disagree with a FE game in the modern era using gameplay from older games. Should the Tellius games get re-released (and actually advertised), people would buy them in a heartbeat, and Tellius would see some high sales numbers (at least in the West). Why? Because Ike. And because a lot of people want to play Tellius, but you're more likely to find extraterrestrial life than a copy of either Tellius game. So having those two games actually be accessible would be extremely beneficial.

Side note, but a Genealogy remake would probably sell poorly. Echoes has shown us that while IS will add newer series elements to older games such as Skills, Supports, etc, they'll still keep the core gameplay basically the same. The hardcore fans would instantly buy a Genealogy remake, but a lot of newer fans would be put off by the game's terrible gameplay. Granted, a remake would improve said gameplay, but it'll still keep things like the enormous maps and mounted units, units with Holy Blood, and units with Pursuit being automatically better than those who don't have that.

38 minutes ago, XRay said:

But it clearly is not the success that Awakening and Fates was.

And it was never meant to be either. IS knew that. Echoes is a side-project meant to entertain us until FE16 hits the Switch.

39 minutes ago, XRay said:

Pokémon is released as a pair of games, but I would not count them as separate games. Pokémon is not the best comparison since Fates features two different play styles, but picking one version essentially turns the other one into DLC.

...When the fuck did i compare it to Pokemon? All i said was 

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

Reminder that Fates' sales combine both Birthright and Conquest. Of course it's going to outsell Awakening. 

Generally, all three paths of Fates are grouped into one game. HOWEVER, the three paths were each sold separately, (unless you count the Special Edition), so each game has it's own sales. Then, if you want to find out how much the entire game sold, then you group all three of the paths' sales together, and there's your result. Although Revelation is DLC exclusive, so i don't know if they counted DLC sales.

 

[XRay]

@Interdimensional Observer I do not mind them being better written either, but I rather have something than nothing, even if the something was not done well. As for customization, I think Speed was one of the more important factors to consider for going into Apotheosis. Minimaxing may not have a huge effect like Limit Breaker, but every tiny bit helps.

@Armagon Echoes is not the only example of players favoring more modern game play over older ones. Compared with Sacred Stones, Shadow Dragon sold poorly in the West although it did somewhat okay in Japan. Gaiden having one off mechanics does not discount the fact that it is an older gameplay style. I can concede my point until another remake comes out to prove or disprove my argument.

Sacred Stones: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/3341/fire-emblem-the-sacred-stones/
Shadow Dragon: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/25700/fire-emblem-shadow-dragon/

I do not mind them making remakes and if they do, I want them to sell well. However, we cannot just assume that Tellius will be hot cakes until it happens.

As long as they treat Genealogy as well as they treated Gaiden, I think it will do okay as Echoes has shown.

The the two paths were sold separately, but it makes no sense to treat them as entirely separate games, which is why I brought up Pokémon. Comparing the entire game with Awakening makes more sense than comparing just Birthright to Awakening. VGChartz does not say how the different versions make up the total, and I will have to do a lot more Google searches to find the results for regions other than Japan.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

The the two paths were sold separately, but it makes no sense to treat them as entirely separate games, which is why I brought up Pokémon. Comparing the entire game with Awakening makes more sense than comparing just Birthright to Awakening.

Except they have almost completely different character rosters- more than just three handfuls of Pokemon among hundreds. Don't tell stories where you could just find and replace the words "Palkia" and "Space" for "Dialga" and "Time" (to use an example). They share nearly no maps either, and the maps they do share past the first 5 play vastly differently. Conquest is also far harder and you have to pay extra for grinding purposes, while Birthright lacks as brutal a challenge and has a form of grinding packaged right into the game. To equate Pokemon versions with Fates's distinct routes is an insult to Fates, and a encomia to Pokemon. Fates's routes are like comparing a Great Dane to a Shih Tzu. Both are dogs, but of totally different physical features and suiting very different lifestyles. Pokemon versions are more "Chocolate Lab vs. Golden Lab".

[Armagon]

2 minutes ago, XRay said:

Compared with Sacred Stones, Shadow Dragon sold poorly in the West although it did somewhat okay in Japan.

The reason Shadow Dragon sold so poorly was that, aside from barely any marketing, Shadow Dragon lacked what is arguably one of the biggest appeals to Fire Emblem: Support Conversations. The gameplay in Shadow Dragon was alright for the most part, and it even introduced things such as Reclassing. However, the game didn't give a single reason for you to care about the characters. Without character development, many people, including myself, just stopped playing the game. By this time, Fire Emblem had somewhat established itself. Radiant Dawn didn't feature any Support Conversations either but it at least had a more complex storyline (perhaps too complex). For many, the lack of Support Conversations was a step back in the series.

8 minutes ago, XRay said:

Gaiden having one off mechanics does not discount the fact that it is an older gameplay style.

It's an older gameplay style, sure, but it's also one-time. I don't consider neither Gaiden or Echoes to be representative of what the series was like pre-Awakening. By that same token, i don't consider Genealogy to be representative of that, since the gameplay was terrible different from other FEs. Not to the extent of Gaiden/Echoes but different enough.

10 minutes ago, XRay said:

However, we cannot just assume that Tellius will be hot cakes until it happens.

I mean, Ike exists, and he alone will get people to buy Tellius remakes/re-releases. Ike is a very popular character. Even people who don't play Fire Emblem know who he is.

12 minutes ago, XRay said:

The the two paths were sold separately, but it makes no sense to treat them as entirely separate games, which is why I brought up Pokémon. Comparing the entire game with Awakening makes more sense than comparing just Birthright to Awakening.

You misunderstand. The entirety of Fates being compared to Awakening is what actually happened. However, Fates was sold as three games. Those three games make up Fates. The sales of those three games make up the sales of Fates in total, and that's what's taken into account. Had Fates just been sold as single package normally, then i wouldn't be bringing this up.

[XRay]

@Interdimensional Observer They have the same overall story arc and characters and each is a DLC of the other. You side with one family and you fight the other. You replace Xander with Ryoma, Camilla with Hinoka, etc. The game play is different, but Conquest can be just as forgiving on easier difficulty. I would not consider Alm's and Celica's route to be completely separate games if they released Echoes with two versions.

@Armagon Ike exists and the sales figures of remakes also exist. Going by the sales figures, as long as they do not do another Shadow Dragon, we can assume that Tellius remakes will do okay, but assuming that it will sell like hot cakes is asking for too much.