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Which DS game do you like better?


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Which DS game do you like better?  

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  1. 1. Which DS game do you like better?

    • Shadow Dragon
      24
    • New Mystery of the Emblem - Heroes of Shadow and Light
      48
    • I like both equally
      16


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Well, I think for most people it's either gonna be that they never played New Mystery because it's Japan-only or it'll be New Mystery no question.

For me, it's not necessarily that clear cut.  I had more fun with Mystery, and I like Book 2's story better than Book 1's, but I didn't particularly like the ridiculous amount of worship that was lauded onto the avatar.  SD formally introduced western audiences to Marth and his story and breathed new life into his old as dirt games with some revamped and updated mechanics which serve as the basis for its sequel, so I can't help but appreciate what it did there.  It also fixed the problem with the original Mystery cutting out some levels in Book 1.  And I much prefer SD's preparation screen music over New Mystery's, though the latter's isn't bad.

I think they're about equal for me.

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I found both to be really good, preferably I would say 11, but I can't choose. 12 could do without Kris, but that's whatever. 

11 is over hated for no reason. Supports mean nothing, enjoy it for what it is, not what YOU want. 

12 was fun, I liked it, that's all I have to say about it. 

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New Mystery, SD was WAY to easy, while New Mystery actually made me restart sometimes save states. Plus New Mystery had supports to flesh out the characters a bit more, althought not much, it was still something. I also loved Yubello, So Mystery by a long shot.

 

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Easily new mystery. Shadow dragon didn't even try to breath life into its blank slates or its world. I don't think new mystery did enough but at least it tried through limited supports and by giving the platoon a solid introduction. I may still not know who Barst or Draug are supposed to be but at least Gordin, George, Xane and others came across as a likable bunch.

I also think that new mystery happens to have some of the best maps in the series. 

37 minutes ago, Kazuya said:

Oh yeah, on the topic of supports, FE 3 started them, so it only makes sense that 12 had them and 11 didn't. 

It would have made much more sense if they just went the extra mile and added them to Shadow dragon. If you played the previous games before going into Shadow dragon then the lack of supports and story is a big step back. FE 1 had justification for not having them but that's exactly why those things should be put into the remake. Its a flaw they had the chance to correct. 
There was no harm in adding them to Shadow dragon while the decision not to include them ensured the game would be hopelessly dated upon its release. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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tbh I liked Shadow Dragon more.

The balance in FE12 is fucking wonky where some chapters are way harder than others out of order. I also find FE11 is just.... smoother. FE12 certainly brings more to the table and is a mechanical improvement but FE11 just has a nicer feel to it.

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shadow dragon

fe12's balance is really weird and generally kinda bad, both in difficulty and unit usability (the latter's a problem in shadow dragon too but not to the same extent since fe12's cast is way too big)

the story is also kinda dumb and doesn't do much to update the original's, which wasn't particularly great to begin with, whereas shadow dragon's is decent enough and does an alright job of improving on the original's 

i guess fe12 did add stuff like the avatar and actual conversations for the characters and the stuff with the assassins but honestly a lot of the conversations feel super forced and I can really only think of 2 or 3 i liked

katarina and friends were alright but nothing really special, it's not exactly the first time in an fe game that i've seen an organization of assassins including a mage girl who's fairly reluctant to the idea of having to kill people being manipulated into doing bad things by an evil woman who has some kind of connection to the evil sorcerer villain

despite shadow dragon having a total of about 4 real characters, I think I still liked more characters in shadow dragon than fe12, which is saying something

so yeah shadow dragon mainly because it was just more fun to me but also I just didn't really enjoy any of the new stuff fe12 added

Edited by unique
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21 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Easily new mystery. Shadow dragon didn't even try to breath life into its blank slates or its world. I don't think new mystery did enough but at least it tried through limited supports and by giving the platoon a solid introduction. I may still not know who Barst or Draug are supposed to be but at least Gordin, George, Xane and others came across as a likable bunch.

I also think that new mystery happens to have some of the best maps in the series. 

It would have made much more sense if they just went the extra mile and added them to Shadow dragon. If you played the previous games before going into Shadow dragon then the lack of supports and story is a big step back. FE 1 had justification for not having them but that's exactly why those things should be put into the remake. Its a flaw they had the chance to correct. 
There was no harm in adding them to Shadow dragon while the decision not to include them ensured the game would be hopelessly dated upon its release. 

It's not a step back though, since it's a remake I expect it to be similar to the original, and it is. I don't understand why people complain about no supports especially when they are a novelty and aren't needed. 

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1 hour ago, Kazuya said:

It's not a step back though, since it's a remake I expect it to be similar to the original, and it is. I don't understand why people complain about no supports especially when they are a novelty and aren't needed. 

Guess it depends on what you seek in a remake. Staying faithful is important but to me updating the original game and adding to it is more important. Echoes wouldn't be half the game it is if IS didn't go the extra mile with its characters. Shadow dragon could have been faithful to the original while still giving everyone supports or even just a clearly defined personality. New mystery tried to do just that and avatar aside it was better for it. 

Its true that supports, stories and all those sorts of things aren't strictly needed. They are bells and whistles to enhance the base game. But if you only have the base game without any sorts of bells and whistles you're going to lose out to games that do have those things. Shadow dragon's gameplay is okay but its not all that different, not any better then earlier games that did have all those fancy novelties. Its adequate gameplay we already know without the novelties we came to expect. In that sense I don't see what the game has to offer compared to Binding blade, stones or Tellius that can offer more than just the basics. 

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  • 2 months later...
31 minutes ago, Jedi said:

Shadow Dragon doesn't have Kris therefore this choice is very easy.

late post is late.

Pretty much this.

Kris ruins any reason for me to want to play NMotE. Also for a game that added a lot of characterisation to characters that didn't have it, which I will give it credit for' it actually ruined some. Like I dunno Michalis and the Wolfguard. Michalis should have died, with him giving Marth Starlight his redemption. As for the Wolfguard, wtf. The whole point of them is that they are willing to die for Hardin and also force Marth and the player to fight former allies. Ugggh, But speaking for, literally all the character he got in SD is thrown out the window for the almighty Kris. It frustrates me to no end.

/end rant.

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I would say that I like Shadow Dragon better. Now this is unfortunate because if one plays the original Heroes of Light and Shadow there is a VERY interesting narrative and premise going or just watch either Mangs or Mageknight404 on youtube play it. Marth is supposed to be the protagonist and central character however in the Heroes of Light and Shadow remake a LOT of the spotlight and focus is stolen away from Marth and is instead placed on Kris. This is something that I DO NOT like at all. Whereas Shadow Dragon doesn't have anyone stealing the spotlight from Marth, also Jaigen doesn't seem as present as he was in the original another person Kris steals the spotlight away from.

I would say story wise I like Heroes of Light and Shadow better as there is a very compelling narrative going on but I prefer Shadow Dragon as there is no mistaking who the main character is.

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New Mystery doesn't have that thing where you have to kill off your own characters to get the extra side chapters, so it wins.

They're pretty similar games overall to me, and definitely the two weakest FE games I've actually played to completion. I can't speak to what they might be like as a starting point in the series, but for me, going into them after Tellius was so jarring. They had less writing, characterisation, setting-building, supports (in FE11's case); and there was the lack of shove/rescue, lack of skills, evade not a functional strategy, uneven map design, ambush reinforcements. It definitely felt like a step back in time, and I don't mean that in a good way.

Reclassing and how it interacts with weapon ranks is interesting, though, and they did have some nice polish improvements like enemy phase skip and dead characters dropping their items into inventory.

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9 hours ago, UNLEASH IT said:

FE12 has unit balance on par with Revelation while SD hands you Sedgar, Wolf and 3 warp staves to trivialise the game

I put equal.

Don't forget the true Über-Speer of the series. ;) I guess it's techically still present in FE12, but it doesn't one-round 95% of the game's bosses anymore.

Personally, I prefer FE12 since I find that the gameplay has improved and I usually value that higher in a video game than story and writing. It's true that New Mystery's unit balance is beyond ridiculous, but there's still a decent collection of decent and bad-but-salvageable units to play around when replaying the game. The issue that some units are just plain outclassed by another one (that usually joins earlier) is something both games share, so I won't hold it against either in this comparison. And while Kris is, er, not exactly a stellar character storywise, it's fun to play around with some stupid builds once in a while - I'm currently playing with a magic-based Kris (switching between Sage and SM with a Lewyn Sword) who unfortunately got screwed badly in both Magic and Speed :D.

Edited by ping
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Having played both, Shadow Dragon is more fun imo. Map design is about the same in both games and NM's story is frustrating at points and the avatar was the first of the bunch of mary sues, so there you go.

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I say New Mystery - Shadow Dragon is honestly the weakest Fire Emblem game I have played to completion (and it's also one of the few games that I, who can at least tolerate most anything I play, couldn't bring myself to like or even tolerate). It does NOT help that most of the new stuff was hidden behind a wall of bad design choices, nor does it that it was too faithful to the original game (I'm okay with being faithful to the original, but there are limits).

On 9/14/2017 at 12:13 PM, Kazuya said:

11 is over hated for no reason. Supports mean nothing, enjoy it for what it is, not what YOU want. 

I cannot agree with this, especially because it's a huge step backwards from everything after Gaiden imho.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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14 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I say New Mystery - Shadow Dragon is honestly the weakest Fire Emblem game I have played to completion (and it's also one of the few games that I, who can at least tolerate most anything I play, couldn't bring myself to like or even tolerate). It does NOT help that most of the new stuff was hidden behind a wall of bad design choices, nor does it that it was too faithful to the original game (I'm okay with being faithful to the original, but there are limits).

I cannot agree with this, especially because it's a huge step backwards from everything after Gaiden imho.

How is a step back? 11 added a lot to 1 and changed quite a bit too. It's not a big step back, it's a remake. It's supposed to be faithful.

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9 hours ago, Kazuya said:

How is a step back? 11 added a lot to 1 and changed quite a bit too. It's not a big step back, it's a remake. It's supposed to be faithful.

Easy - just think about the fact that the last game before Shadow Dragon was Radiant Dawn. And on that note, DHE brought up a point I agree with - going from Radiant Dawn to Shadow Dragon is off-putting. The latter has a criminally undeveloped cast (FFS, it's obvious something's wrong when about 1/4 the cast has no lines aside from their death quotes), as well as overly simple gameplay (simple gameplay isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when you're taking about a game as barebones as Shadow Dragon, it's all the more noticeable). And sure, SD may have added a lot to the original, and changed it up, but it didn't do enough, for one, and second, some of its changes were NOT for the better (adding the weapon triangle being the main culprit in that regard). As for remaining faithful to the original, that's fine - to a point. But I consider updating and adding to the game more important, and that's where SD came up woefully short.

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Saying that the weapon triangle is a completely subjective statement which I very much disagree with.

Calling SD gameplay "barebones" and implying that it didn't update or add to the original ranks somewhere between "gross generalization", "extreme exaggeration", and "flimsy falsehood".

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