Awakening/Fates hate?

[Azure Sen]

Speaking as someone who likes and dislikes games on either side of the pre-/post-Awakening split, I think the amount of hate Awakening and Fates get just for being the newer games is vastly exaggerated, and often comes off as fans of those games trying to de-legitimatize arguments against them by claiming they're motivated primarily or solely by the fact that Awakening and Fates aren't the old games. Then again, I've also seen far more bad behavior on the part of newer fans than I have on the part of older ones, so that's something to consider. I do think there is a bad tendency for older fans, even ones I wouldn't consider elitist, to ignore that several of Awakening and Fates' flaws had been in the series for years, and I do agree that there is some elitism in the community, but trying to blame the current split in the fandom on one side solely is a bit disingenuous.

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Any character is bland and/or one-note if you don't like them. 

I've seen this sentiment echoed several times, but it just comes off as reactionary. I like a lot of characters in Awakening and Fates, but I'll also admit they're not particularly deep or multi-dimensional, and sometimes the line between like and dislike is razor-thin and banks entirely on if I find their gimmicks/personalities entertaining or not. There's nothing inherently wrong with characters being one-note, it's just that a lot of Awakening and especially Fates' one-note characters reek of lazy writing.

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

And if you're gonna argue that FE4 deserves a pass for being "experimental and ambitious", then i guess you need to give Awakening a pass too since stuff like Pair-Ups and Reclassing were also "experimental".

Pair up is not a particularly experimental mechanic, and re-classing had been in the series since Shadow Dragon, it was just particularly poorly balanced in Awakening. That being said, I do agree that trying something new and failing is not worthy of praise, nor should it be counted as one of the game's merits. 

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

I would agree with you here except resurrection has been an established thing in this particular continuity since FE1. 

Using a specific, one-use item outside of Valentia, and there are no characters who have canonically been resurrected in such a manner. Also, Robin was literally wiped from existence by killing Grima. It's less resurrection and more Gurren Lagann-esque kicking reality to the curb and doing the impossible.

Edited September 16, 2017 by AzureSen

[CrimeanRoyalKnight]

18 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

They're hated because there's only one thing worse than your favorite series being unpopular: your favorite series being popular.

I suppose that "older" players got sick of new players praising Awakening, since it was the only FE that most newcomers played at first. Awakening was designed as a last ditch effort to make the series popular (which it succeeded at), and since it was meant to capture a new audience rather than appealing to the existing one (as that approach evidently was not working as well as Nintendo wanted), older players felt "left out" since the maps and plot were simplified. Or something like that. I was one of the people who got into the series through Awakening, so I guess my testimony is biased to some degree.

As for Fates it's just because the series is still popular, Birthright and Revelation inherit Awakening's "dumbed down" gameplay, and the plot apparently wasn't as good as people wanted.

The amount of passive aggressiveness in this post is astounding.

You know something I noticed in recent years? That some of Awakening's most loud haters actually started the series with it or after its release. They started hating on it because surprisingly, contrarians will always hate what's popular, and have wayyy to much spite towards the new titles.
But I hate it when all older fans get thrown under the bus with those spiteful haters. We're not all like that, some of us like Awakening and Fates, some of us dislike them, some of us like them less than the games prior to them, some of us like them more, etc.
The older FE fans who did not like the series' new direction and bitched about it are now either gone from the fandom and series, or stopped caring about this quarrel (because trust me people are not all masochists); usually (and hopefully) after a certain age people have better things to do than loudly proclaim their hate for a videogame.

I'm really tired of seeing people demonize and criticize older fans even as of today. Or even giving us subtle jabs to the older games such as "that approach evidently was not working as well as Nintendo wanted". The usual argument: Awakening and Fates MUST be the best in the series because they sold the best...
You don't know the kind of magic a damn good marketing strategy and casual mode can do, and you don't know how much the new games need a spin on the Awakening formula already. It's definitely not evergreen like Pokémon's, and I can guarantee you that a lot of new fans (who do like Awakening and Fates) would not like IS to give us children and marriage for a third time.

Also I want to remind to everyone that IS is giving a lot of fanservice to older fans through games like Heroes or Cipher's artwork or Echoes. They are not like other companies who throw our support and money away.

[Koumal8]

@Armagon Your FE4 hate is so cute, I can always count on it to come through :)

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

Yes, it was Awakening's marketing that saved the series, so people technically aren't wrong when they say Awakening saved the series.

Read my post again please. Awakening could have been 10x better than it is but have the same marketing and it would still have saved the series. Marketing Awakening saved the series, not the game in itself, no game saves a series on its own unless it's like best-game-ever, think Ocarina of Time for popularity comparison.

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

Any character is bland and/or one-note if you don't like them. If you were to ask me, i find Sigurd to be the worst Lord in the series. Nothing about him is interesting. But that's just me. To me, Sigurd is incredibly bland and boring but to you, he's probably one of the most well written Lords out there.

There's so much wrong here. 1) A character being bland is unfortunate: it doesn't mean that the character is bad, it only means that they are forgettable, which is not a problem at all... unless the whole cast is bland of course. 2) If all a character has going for it is one personality trait they're one-note and they're just a bad character, unless they're like that for comedy's sake (think Arthur), in which case it's all up to personal taste; Awakening is the king of one-note character with a couple of exceptions, out of the characters I listed Chrom is the only bland one, all the others are gimmicky, so either prove me wrong or don't waste my time 3) lol Sigurd is even more bland than Chrom, and you know what? because FE4, surprise surprise, DOESN'T have support conversations! his romance with Deirdre is infamously rushed and if I love him it's only because he's stronk to memetic levels; in the future don't assume other people's opinions, it's bad for your health

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

No, FE4 does not have an excuse. Just because it was experimental and ambitious doesn't give it a pass. Using Mario Party 9 as an example, it tried something new with the car mechanic. Did it try? Yes. Was it good? No. Does it deserve an excuse? No, because it wasn't good. Same deal applies to FE4's shitty map design.

And if you're gonna argue that FE4 deserves a pass for being "experimental and ambitious", then i guess you need to give Awakening a pass too since stuff like Pair-Ups and Reclassing were also "experimental".

FE4 has a reason for its bad map design: the big-ass maps are supposed to convey an atmosphere of grandeur, they're there so that the player can really feel the epic proportions of the conflict they're taking part in; in the end it didn't work as planned, at all, in the same way putting a fuckton of green units on the map doesn't work in that FE10 chapter where the Dawn Brigade is supposed to be participating in a big battle (all those green units are just annoying, steal your exp and you spend entire turns doing squat with your units because the greenies just cover your entire half of the map).

Awakening's map design is bad because "lol map design? nah we're gonna put SIM SIMULATOR ELEMENTS and CHILDREN and TIME TRAVEL in the game why should we spend resources on MAP DESIGN? you say clever map design helps in making maps challenging but fun to play? nah Imma put LUNA+ on enemies because wynaut"

Do you see the difference between the two? Nothing gets a pass just because the devs were being ambitious, neither in FE4 nor in Awakening, we don't do double standard at my house

Edited September 16, 2017 by Koumal8

[Emperor Hardin]

Basically a shift in characterization and story.

Awakening made very obvious mistakes with the story of the Archanea games, including stuff like forgetting what the Fire Emblem did, which was very controversial.

They also did stuff like replacing Marth in the backstory with some exact duplicate of him, whose identical history stretches disbelief. Then there's aborted plot arcs like Emmeryn's mentor betraying her for unexplained reasons, the taguel's whole existence, and the worst written antagonists in the series.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Emperor Hardin

[Armagon]

27 minutes ago, Koumal8 said:

Your FE4 hate is so cute, I can always count on it to come through :)

I can say the same about your FE13 hate, so i guess we're even.

27 minutes ago, Koumal8 said:

Sigurd is even more bland than Chrom, and you know what? because FE4, surprise surprise, DOESN'T have support conversations!

It's funny because Mystery of the Emblem also had no Support Conversations, yet Marth had more personality than Sigurd could ever wish for.

27 minutes ago, Koumal8 said:

FE4 has a reason for its bad map design: the big-ass maps are supposed to convey an atmosphere of grandeur, they're there so that the player can really feel the epic proportions of the conflict they're taking part in; in the end it didn't work as planned, at all,

You're right, it didn't work as planned because Kaga put the story before the gameplay. That's not how you make a good game. What good does a good story do if the gameplay behind it is trash? 

27 minutes ago, Koumal8 said:

nah we're gonna put SIM SIMULATOR ELEMENTS and CHILDREN and TIME TRAVEL

S-Supports were never meant to be seen a sim simulator elements. That's just something the anti-Awakening elitists has deluded itself into thinking. Children had a story relevant reason to exist, just like you're beloved FE4 (now in Fates, it's a different story). Time Travel was a new plot mechanic that the series hadn't seen before. Was it a good one? Not really, at least, not in the way it was executed. 

27 minutes ago, Koumal8 said:

nah Imma put LUNA+ on enemies because wynaut"

Ah yes, a Skill that only appears on the "hardest" difficulty. And i put that in quotations because Lunatic+'s difficulty is about as artificial as Thracia's, if not, more.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Armagon

[Lightchao42]

2 hours ago, CrimeanRoyalKnight said:

The amount of passive aggressiveness in this post is astounding.

I agree that I was passive aggressive and it was wrong of me to imply that most hate comes from older fans, but...

2 hours ago, CrimeanRoyalKnight said:

I'm really tired of seeing people demonize and criticize older fans even as of today. Or even giving us subtle jabs to the older games such as "that approach evidently was not working as well as Nintendo wanted". The usual argument: Awakening and Fates MUST be the best in the series because they sold the best...
You don't know the kind of magic a damn good marketing strategy and casual mode can do, and you don't know how much the new games need a spin on the Awakening formula already. It's definitely not evergreen like Pokémon's, and I can guarantee you that a lot of new fans (who do like Awakening and Fates) would not like IS to give us children and marriage for a third time.

That wasn't a jab at older games or fans; IS has repeatedly stated that, in the past, Fire Emblem wasn't doing as well as Nintendo would like and that Awakening would be the last game if sales didn't pick up. I know that sales don't equal quality, as I've played and enjoyed plenty of the previous games. I also feel that Awakening is one of the weaker games (it's success I mainly attribute to marketing and accessibility, more than quality), and I agree that future games shouldn't emulate it by including marriage and children just because Awakening did it. Basically I enjoy the whole series and don't think that Awakening and Fates are inherently better than previous games just because Awakening was my first.

[Emperor Hardin]

Awakening saving the series is an overstatement as IS already made their money back with the DS Remakes of the best selling games in the series. 

Awakening's sales in Japan weren't noteworthy.

[bethany81707]

My big problem is the waifus, but largely the attitudes on both the developer and the player's part.

On the developer's part, we have this interview about Advance Wars, which regardless of your opinion on Awakening and Fates, you can probably agree is a stupid idea. Except... character development through Tellius's base conversations and the like wouldn't be entirely bad. I think reading this interview and thinking about it a lot exposes a critical idea: Fire Emblem isn't really any more suited to waifus than Advance Wars. It can just find a way to implement them into gameplay.

On the player's part, well, the shipping arguments have taken on a more personal tone since Genealogy, hm? Honestly, I think making the kids optional is a major contributor in that, but there isn't really a solution beyond making Genealogy II story wise. Sure, the old stuff has shipping warfare, but so does every fanbase. There's a difference between shipping characters without consequence and shipping them with kids and other opportunity costs in mind, because that leaks into the gameplay discussions. Just like real life, relationships get more complicated when kids get involved.

[Koumal8]

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

It's funny because Mystery of the Emblem also had no Support Conversations, yet Marth had more personality than Sigurd could ever wish for.

That's an exception in the series which I feel thankful for. Sigurd could or could not have been an interesting character if given support conversations, we'll never now. Marth being well written outside of support conversations doesn't change the fact that Sigurd had much less of an opportunity to develop when compared with the majority of FE characters, which in turn does not excuse Sigurd being a boring lord. So I don't know why you replied to that. 

5 minutes ago, Armagon said:

You're right, it didn't work as planned because Kaga put the story before the gameplay. That's not how you make a good game. What good does a good story do if the gameplay behind it is trash? 

Dunno, for me in a game it's 50% story, 50% gameplay. If it's different for you I guess... good for you?

6 minutes ago, Armagon said:

S-Supports were never meant to be seen a sim simulator elements. That's just something the anti-Awakening group has deluded itself into thinking. Children had a story relevant reason to exist, just like you're beloved FE4 (now in Fates, it's a different story). Time Travel was a new plot mechanic that the series hadn't seen before. Was it a good one? Not really, at least, not in the way it was executed. 

Okay, so there is this game. In this game you can have your own character (or rather a perfect mary-sue that the game wants you to believe represents you, but let's leave that aside for a moment). In this game you can have your character marry any other character in the game. This game has dating sim elements. This game is FE13. Where am I wrong?

FE13 Children had no story relevancy whatsoever. Time travel was done in such a half-assed way in Awakening that it only makes me laugh and I honestly didn't think Fates could handle their children in a worse way. You know, people coming back from the future to save the present is not really the most refreshing plot idea ever, especially when it's an excuse to put these broken children in the game. Lucina is the only child with story relevance, all the others are optional characters for christ's sake! FE4 children on the other hand have all the reasons in the world to be there: the story doesn't have to bend in laughable ways to include them, they're a natural part of it, if only because (if you'll allow the poor guy to have some kind of personality) Sigurd was too dumb of a lord for his story to end well for him and his army. But you seem to agree with me on time travel being badly handled in Awakening, so again, I don't get why you're defending the children.

17 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Ah yes, a Skill that only appears on the "hardest" difficulty. And i put that in quotations because Lunatic+'s difficulty is about as artificial as Thracia's, if not, more.

Taking Lunatic aside, let me ask you a question: what makes Awakening on Hard a difficult game? Or rather, what is the main source of difficulty for Awakening's Hard difficulty?

[Nobody]

43 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Awakening's sales in Japan weren't noteworthy.

they were very noteworthy. They weren't the highest they had ever been, but they were the highest since Genealogy of the Holy War.

It sold twice as many copies as the past two entries, almost three times as many copies as the tellius games and almost twice as much as FE7 and FE8. That's definitely noteworthy. It revived a Franchise that was on a sales freefall.

Those are the sales of every fire emblem game in Japan according to Famitsu:

 

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 # _Nintendo Power_/ 158.695

Fire Emblem Gaiden/ 325.000

Fire Emblem: The Sealed Sword/ 345.574

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon/ 252.309

Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem - Hero of Light and Shadow/ 250.592

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn/ 171.924

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light/ 329.000

Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword/ 265.286

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem _Retail/Nintendo Power_/ 776.000

Fire Emblem: Holy War Story _Retail/Nintendo Power_/ 498.000

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones/ 246.719

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/ 156.413

Fire Emblem: Awakening/ 484.521

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright / Conquest #/ 538.669

As you can see, Awakening sold significantly more than anything starting with Thracia.

I'm no fan of Awakening, but you sholdn't go spreading misinformation about sales numbes.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Nobody

[Emperor Hardin]

2 minutes ago, Nobody said:

they were very noteworthy. They weren't the highest they had ever been, but they were the highest since Genealogy of the Holy War.

It sold twice as many copies as the past two entries, almost three times as many copies as the tellius games and almost twice as much as FE7 and FE8. That's definitely noteworthy. It revived a Franchise that was on a sales freefall.

Those are the sales of every fire emblem game in Japan according to Famitsu:

  Reveal hidden contents

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 # _Nintendo Power_/ 158.695

Fire Emblem Gaiden/ 325.000

Fire Emblem: The Sealed Sword/ 345.574

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon/ 252.309

Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem - Hero of Light and Shadow/ 250.592

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn/ 171.924

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light/ 329.000

Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword/ 265.286

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem _Retail/Nintendo Power_/ 776.000

Fire Emblem: Holy War Story _Retail/Nintendo Power_/ 498.000

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones/ 246.719

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/ 156.413

Fire Emblem: Awakening/ 484.521

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright / Conquest #/ 538.669

As you can see, Awakening sold significantly more than anything starting with Thracia.

I'm no fan of Awakening, but you sholdn't go spreading misinformation about sales numbes.

New Mystery of the Emblem, the remake of the best selling Fire Emblem game ever in Japan, sold more then that in Japan.

[Nobody]

2 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

New Mystery of the Emblem, the remake of the best selling Fire Emblem game ever in Japan, sold more then that in Japan.

It did not

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=419169

Beyond that, it never appeared in the charts again, and sales of RPG games in Japan tend to be extremely front loaded.

Where are you getting your wrong information from? Because I'm getting mine from a sales tracker.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Nobody

[DisobeyedCargo]

3 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

New Mystery of the Emblem, the remake of the best selling Fire Emblem game ever in Japan, sold more then that in Japan.

I checked the sales numbers of New Mystery, and @Nobody is right from where I checked. I could be wrong though

Edited September 16, 2017 by DisobeyedCargo

[Emperor Hardin]

5 minutes ago, DisobeyedCargo said:

I checked the sales numbers of New Mystery, and @Nobody is right from where I checked. I could be wrong though

i'll check again, New Mystery of the Emblem was a massive moneymaker and was made on a lower budget then most Fire Emblem games.

IS cranked out the DS remakes because they'd lost a ton of money on Radiant Dawn overseas, thus they decided to make the money back in Japan by re-releasing the best selling games in the franchise.

[DisobeyedCargo]

1 minute ago, Emperor Hardin said:

i'll check again, New Mystery of the Emblem was a massive moneymaker and was made on a lower budget then most Fire Emblem games.

IS cranked out the DS remakes because they'd lost a ton of money on Radiant Dawn overseas, thus they decided to make the money back in Japan by re-releasing the best selling games in the franchise.

I checked a couple of places and they were both around 250000 units sold. Here's what I checked:

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_Emblem

http://sourcegaming.info/2016/02/23/series-analysis-fire-emblem/

 

[Rikkisix]

Hey guys, i've been a long time player of FE Pretty much started when it came to my country with 7, so clearly i'm slightly bias but i'll try to be fair.and not copy and paste what others have said already. This post is long and has spoilers, so i'm sorry about that.

 

The whole Wiafu, thing joke (Honestly i can see how that's annoying though i've never see or heard of it still i started lurking these fourms.) Is a bit silly and annoying, although i totally do enjoy the romance arc's to some characters, i feel some of it is jaded tone up. To well, have love for the sake of love. There's a ton of problems wrong with that, I think although i'm sure others will disagree that it can cheapen the char etc.

 

That Fan service stuff, while it doesn't really bother me, i sorta ignore it, it's a bit silly. But the newer titles have been sorta... Well sillier?

 

The big thing for me, while this isn't bad nor good, (and i'm surprised this isn't as big as a thing for others IS the fact they're trying to make mainstream, although  i don't blame fault them, etc if this was a chance to come back and not a cash grab. In fact if it keeps them making games i'm happy they did this.) Personally i'm against things that are mainstream, now this is just me, but that's because i just enjoy smaller community / cult fandom much more. then when they get big, a lot of things suffer from this, due to the fact you now have to pump out things faster, and for more people then before. Most would wait, and enjoy what you'd give them. Take music for example, and compare underground to mainstream of the same gerne. I suppose it can also be about taste. This is also a BIG thing with MMO's of recent, if music is a bad way to explain it, then sorry but let's look at MMORPG's new to old, since they became well Mainstream. Older MMO's (At least to the ones i knew.) Where slower and followed a more DND guide line over all, in there worlds and in game story and so on. Newer types of these games more take on a Hack and Slash with a Mix of RPG into it. It's sort of strange when you think about it.

It also depends on what well, you're playing this game for, or what parts you're taking from it to enjoy, i enjoy mostly the story, Charters, the setting and the type of game it is (Strat with Rpg in it.) The newer characters, while not all of them are bad, (And i mean... OH YEA older games had a ton of forgettable people. if not for there stats.) You'd assume, This would improve in some way but, if they don't follow anime tropes (Which the older games had but not to the amount of the extreme of the newer)

I personally don't enjoy the direction the newer games are going, but i'd still buy them and try them out to see if i enjoyed them ( I did play through both games and enjoyed them the first times and a half more so fates then awake.) and i do feel the newer version steal the spotlight of the older which is what well, made it amazing in the first place. and yes, they all have problems from the first to the recent. But since they are going to a more mainstream line. It will effect story art music and so on of the game. I suppose a lot of that isn't a big deal to a lot of people, and i'm sure people enjoy the Awakening and fates OST but not myself, an example, would be how world building is, From holy wars / Thrac to Fates, (All three parts of fates.) While the world building is there, The older titles, seem to really feed into it, and give you a sense of the world and everyone in it, some way some how. and the music was much more impressive, i think at least, Though i'm sure others disagree and that's good. Fourms would be a worthless horrible place if we  all agreed on everything.

 

 As for the worlds themselves, well I just enjoy darker (semi realistic settings?) Awakening doesn't have that at start. (While fate sorta starts at it in a way.) Both newer games, tend to go for a more overall overly joyful starting setting, and slowly it becomes darker when things happen. Earlier titles, do this, in some way or form (Although i haven't played Gaiden or third so i'm not counting those two in this.) and yes i know it's all about saving peasants or this or that from bandits mostly, but let's take Fates and awake. In awake you're some rando guy with no memory, and the prince is a total bro, and sister's alright with you, In fates, you're the prince (Who may be hated by his father) still having a loving family and staff, that hang out and train you to be more. Compare that to, Let's say 9 and 5 (The despoiled prince and merc.) As the merc, Ike you're a Motherless Kid, who has to learn how to become stronger in a world that will tear you down, although you're with friends, and family there are still people who dislike you in the group. and it's a tough living, With 5, you're exiled prince... I think #8? The closet you have to family is a loyal knight, and your buddies, while a evil army tries to hunt you down and find you.

 

That right there really gives you drive to see what happens, and where it goes, Against maybe it's unfair to compare but these are just examples, i can give others if asked. Another thing is the Antagonist, the evil in the world, Clearly dragons. It's always those pesky lizards! but there's always more to it, because in most, the dragons represent a primal force, not the evil itself. The "Villains" of every story, from well anything Fake real and so on. are most likely the underappreciated aspect in story telling. Awakening and Fates, i felt are more underwhelming... I didn't do the DLC content, for them and so on. But for Awakening, The king of the first evil is just... Well Evil, because he's being controlled and likes to be evil. Okay, that has a LOT to work on, but i don't think they did a good job on working around and or with it. Now, Walhart Who is your second big bad, comes off as a guy who wants to take over the world, because he wants to. (Later it will tell you why, which honestly does make him a good character, i think.)  Now let's take a look at 7,  It has a ton of bad guys, in it, but let's just poke at two, Darin, He comes off as a pretty generic guy who wants power, right? Yep! Until the chapter you meet him and his son, as a cult uses them. You see how his lust for power test's his will (I.E leaving his son behind, Erik.) Now this generic tool, comes off as a father and well a person.  He doesn't want to leave his men or his home. But posion words of a cult and so on, allow him the weakness of it. and skip ahead we meet and fight him once more, what do we see? not some "Rawr i'ma slay you all re0rieog0oreg" nope, he's a pretty messed up broken man, Sure he's still "Yea i'm gonna slay you and take over your stuff." But i can't remember, if some one attacks him. (His original goal was to take over the ruling house or become high lord of a bunch of  petty kingdoms, that have a council) Now he is ACTUALLY going to try and take over the world hopelessly, and that right there... Makes you think. Was it the cult who made him insane? Or was it the fact that he left his own son and loyal men to (to his knowledge.) Die. Clearly the small folk didn't like him, but that doesn't mean his knights and men at arms didn't. his Son even goes to battle for him.

 

TLDR?

Compare the writing Bioware does to Obsidian in there games, neither are bad, both have bad and good games. It just depends on what you like, and what you want out of it. As fans though it's foolish of us to ever mock eachother, whatever all we come together because we enjoy the games and wish to discuss aspects of them, and everyone should be mature enough to understand and respect that.

[Armagon]

1 hour ago, Koumal8 said:

Dunno, for me in a game it's 50% story, 50% gameplay.

That's how it is for me most of the time, it's just FE4's one of the rare times where bad gameplay actively hurts my overall enjoyment of the game.

1 hour ago, Koumal8 said:

Okay, so there is this game. In this game you can have your own character (or rather a perfect mary-sue that the game wants you to believe represents you, but let's leave that aside for a moment). In this game you can have your character marry any other character in the game. This game has dating sim elements. This game is FE13. Where am I wrong?

You are wrong where you said "this game has dating sim elements".  Because S-Supports were never seen as a dating sim, at least, not when Awakening rolled around. S-Supports were added as a callback to FE4. You can ship characters in FE4, are you gonna say that's a dating sim?

1 hour ago, Koumal8 said:

You know, people coming back from the future to save the present is not really the most refreshing plot idea

Neither are most of the Fire Emblem plots tbh. Especially since every Fire Emblem's plot is more or less a repeat of a previous game.

1 hour ago, Koumal8 said:

But you seem to agree with me on time travel being badly handled in Awakening, so again, I don't get why you're defending the children.

I'm defending the Awakening children because while the story reason for them being there isn't that great, they at least have a reason to be there. Unlike Fates' children where it was clearly added because it was well received in Awakening.

1 hour ago, Koumal8 said:

what makes Awakening on Hard a difficult game? Or rather, what is the main source of difficulty for Awakening's Hard difficulty?

Awakening on Hard is actually not that hard. I'd say it's about the same as Sacred Stones on Hard. Which still isn't hard but a game doesn't need to be hard to be good.

[ping]

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

You are wrong where you said "this game has dating sim elements".  Because S-Supports were never seen as a dating sim, at least, not when Awakening rolled around. S-Supports were added as a callback to FE4. You can ship characters in FE4, are you gonna say that's a dating sim?

You're ignoring Robin (i.e. who the player is supposed to identify as) with that argument. Yes, FE4 has shipping as a central game mechanic, but it does not have a player insert that can woo all the ladies. Sigurd, who I assume is the closest FE4 has as a point-of-view character, even has a prechosen love interest.

The way I see it, Awakening took elements that have already been present in the series and tuned them up to 11. We had romantic support conversations as soon as support convos were introduced at all in FE6, but they weren't in any way integral to the gameplay. It didn't matter if Roy A-supports Lilina, Cecilia, Marcus or noone, other than the differences between affinities (and window of viability for support partners). And that stayed the same for the other two GBA games, then even got severely reduced for the Tellius games (where there are only a handful of semi-canon pairings) and the DS remakes. I honestly can't see how Awakening wouldn't be a huge tone shift in that regard compared to the previous games.

Personally, I agree that this development hurts the quality of support conversations. The imperative that (almost) every support between male and female must end with them bump uglies isn't only questionable in specific cases like the 1000 years old primary-school pupil Nowi, the technical adult Elise or the totally-not-a-child Hayato, but it also makes it harder for the A supports to provide a conclusion - the authors either have to leave some kind of thread hanging, or the S support comes out of nowhere. I won't say that this is a problem in every single support chain, but it definitely is for some. (And I didn't even have to mention the Hoshido royals to make this point...)

[Koumal8]

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

You are wrong where you said "this game has dating sim elements".  Because S-Supports were never seen as a dating sim, at least, not when Awakening rolled around. S-Supports were added as a callback to FE4. You can ship characters in FE4, are you gonna say that's a dating sim?

S Supports are not dating sim elements. It's the fact that you have an avatar which lets you marry any character you like that is a dating sim element. If you remove the avatar, no sim simulator elements. Or are you telling me that giving the player an avatar so that they can marry a character in the game is not a traditional dating simulator element? There might be differences in the way we two perceive dating sims. 

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

Awakening on Hard is actually not that hard. I'd say it's about the same as Sacred Stones on Hard. Which still isn't hard but a game doesn't need to be hard to be good.

Okay, this is not the answer I expected, so let's go back to that Luna+ thing: what I mean is that, and as I'm sure you know it's a widespread opinion, Awakening on Lunatic and L+ has an unfair and mostly unfun difficulty that relies on broken enemies as the source of its difficulty. That's bad game design, because there many other better ways through which you can amp the difficulty of a game: clever and elaborated map design, additional time constraints, different enemy placement etc... HOWEVER it's not like FE13 Hard difficulty is that much better of a difficulty, and that is my main issue: the difficulty (regardless of how difficult you may find FE13 on hard) mainly comes from badly designed, open-field maps with a shit ton of enemies coming at you (think Tiki's defense chapter vs CQ chapter 10 or even that mission in FE7 LM where you have to defend Dorcas' wife, think the first time you face Walhart, think Chrom+Robin vs Validar chapter, or that infamous Mila tree map, or even the Aversa map, the one in the main storyline). With that Luna+ comment I meant to criticize how very little thought went into both Awakening's map design and difficulty.

[The Geek]

Getting S supports isn't nearly involved enough to be considered "a dating sim mechanic"

[Lau]

It's hardly a dating sim when the only effect is boosting pair up stats and giving the children skills and stuff.

[Armagon]

7 hours ago, ping said:

You're ignoring Robin (i.e. who the player is supposed to identify as) with that argument.

No, i know Robin exists. What i'm trying to say is that S-Supports aren't really "dating sim elements" especially when it's far from being anywhere near an actual dating sim. Just look at how S-Supports work. 4 conversations and you're done. And the only effect those conversations have is stat boosts and passing on skills to the children units.

5 hours ago, Koumal8 said:

Or are you telling me that giving the player an avatar so that they can marry a character in the game is not a traditional dating simulator element?

Do you know how dating sims work? Because S-Supports are far from being one. 

5 hours ago, Koumal8 said:

Awakening on Lunatic and L+ has an unfair and mostly unfun difficulty that relies on broken enemies as the source of its difficulty. That's bad game design,

Agreed.

5 hours ago, Koumal8 said:

HOWEVER it's not like FE13 Hard difficulty is that much better of a difficulty, and that is my main issue: the difficulty (regardless of how difficult you may find FE13 on hard) mainly comes from badly designed, open-field maps with a shit ton of enemies coming at you

But if we're talking Hard Mode, then the difficulty is actually pretty fair. It's still not amazing but it's a fair challenge. Most of the maps aren't even that badly designed, they're just open spaces like mostly everything in Gaiden/SoV. Not the best maps but still better than any map from FE4+Ch.24x from Thracia 776.

 

 

[Koumal8]

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

Do you know how dating sims work? Because S-Supports are far from being one. 

If Sumia S-supports Chrom it's fine, I may laugh at the bad support chain between the two but obviously it has nothing do to with dating sims. However in Awakening/Fates there is a player avatar, a character that represents the player, a character the player is supposed to identify themselves with and that character can marry anyone in the game. If said character, customized by the player in order to better represent said player, it simulates a romantic interaction between said player and said character. This is why I say that Awakening introduced dating sim elements to the series. I've explained my thought process to you multiple times by now. Please point out a flaw in the logical steps of my thought flow. And no, S Supports = dating sim is not a step in my logical flow (I really wish I'd studied philosophy in English right now, but oh well...)

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

But if we're talking Hard Mode, then the difficulty is actually pretty fair. It's still not amazing but it's a fair challenge. Most of the maps aren't even that badly designed, they're just open spaces like mostly everything in Gaiden/SoV. Not the best maps but still better than any map from FE4+Ch.24x from Thracia 776.

Awakening's difficulty on Hard being fair has nothing to do with what I was talking about. I never said whether or not I find it fair or unfair and honestly, it's been 3 years since I last played Awakening, which means I honestly can't remember how difficult it is. What I was saying is that it's a badly designed difficulty because the maps themselves are very badly designed. Open-field maps with enemies rushing at you are some of the laziest and worst kinds of maps IMAO: there is 0 thought behind them on the developer's part and no way to handle them other than EP juggernauting. In that respect Awakening has some of the worst maps in the series and I provided you with quite a few examples. I don't know about Gaiden/SoV beacuse I only played a handful of Gaiden's chapters, so one one hand I'll refrain from judging the games entirely, on the other hand you're right, as far as I've read the community also judges those maps as some of the worst in the series. As far as FE4 is concerned, it's another matter entirely: FE4 maps are badly designed because they're way too big and due to their sheer size make infantry units way worse than they deserve to be; backtracking is also painful, as is slugging through deserts/Ch.1 forest. HOWEVER FE4 is also unique in that really no maps in the game feature open-field areas with enemies rushing at you from all sides and this is mainly because enemy placement in FE4 mainly consists of tightly packed groups of enemies moving towards the player all together and once you've dealt with them you... usually don't have much to do for another couple turns. It's still lazy, but not bad in any way, just unusual for the series. Maps in FE4 actually have a side objective under the form of villages to be saved and there is always one very clear direction that you're supposed to tackle them in (which is kinda unfortunate since it means there are rarely if ever multiple ways to tackle a specific segment of a chapter, and this is also what forces backtracking) and while they're pretty bad, these two elements (coupled with the aforementioned quirky enemy placement) make them far superior IMHO to open-field maps with waves of enemies and reinforcements just rushing the player with literally no clear paths for your units to take (as long as you can stomach the big-ass size of these maps, which I understand if you can't).

[Armagon]

48 minutes ago, Koumal8 said:

If said character, customized by the player in order to better represent said player, it simulates a romantic interaction between said player and said character.

Except there's not enough substance to simulate a romantic interaction.

50 minutes ago, Koumal8 said:

Maps in FE4 actually have a side objective under the form of villages to be saved

Awakening also had villages for you to save, as well as chests for you to unlock. This is telling me that part of the reason why you think Awakening has bad map desing is because there are no side objectives, even though they clearly are. Not in every map like in FE4, but they exist. If anything, Awakening's maps are better than Gaiden/SoV's maps because Awakening's maps sometimes do have side objectives and, in addition, the victory condition isn't always rout the enemy.

 

[Koumal8]

9 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Except there's not enough substance to simulate a romantic interaction.

Trust me, I know, which is why 90% of romances in Fates/Awakening (even the ones not concerning the avatar, but I digress) are bad. But you'll agree with me that that was the intention.

11 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Awakening also had villages for you to save, as well as chests for you to unlock. This is telling me that part of the reason why you think Awakening has bad map desing is because there are no side objectives, even though they clearly are. Not in every map like in FE4, but they exist. If anything, Awakening's maps are better than Gaiden/SoV's maps because Awakening's maps sometimes do have side objectives and, in addition, the victory condition isn't always rout the enemy.

I'm 100% sure there are no side objectives in any of the maps I brought as an example in my previous posts.