How Warriors Should Have Decided Characters

[Jedi]

1 minute ago, Glennstavos said:

Sticking to three focus games was the right call. Making FE7 one of those games probably wouldn't have gone over well with the Japanese audience. A lot of older fans got their start on FE6 if not FE3. FE7 to them is just a dumb prequel that happens to be a hugely important game for the rest of us. If you're a Japanese fan since FE3, there's good odds you missed out on Thraccia due to its inacessibility. FE4 to 6 is a larger generational gap (6 years) than between Shadow Dragon and Awakening (4 years). And we know how many of you guys got your start on Awakening.

Yeah the main games the Japanese really like are 3, 6 and of course the newer ones. They don't have that much attachment to Blazing Sword or Sacred Stones and they hardly know of Tellius besides Ike. 

[Etrurian emperor]

1 minute ago, Glennstavos said:

Sticking to three focus games was the right call. Making FE7 one of those games probably wouldn't have gone over well with the Japanese audience. A lot of older fans got their start on FE6 if not FE3. FE7 to them is just a dumb prequel that happens to be a hugely important game for the rest of us. If you're a Japanese fan since FE3, there's good odds you missed out on Thraccia due to its inacessibility. FE4 to 6 is a larger generational gap (6 years) than between Shadow Dragon and Awakening (4 years). And we know how many of you guys got your start on Awakening.

I can't say I would be sympathetic to those Japanese fans seeing as they keep getting their game of choice be showered in favoritism despite its lackluster reputation in the west. 

It sounds rather petty that they demand their nostalgia get catered to but consider western nostalgia ''A dumb prequel'' 

[Jedi]

1 minute ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I can't say I would be sympathetic to those Japanese fans seeing as they keep getting their game of choice be showered in favoritism despite its lackluster reputation in the west. 

It sounds rather petty that they demand their nostalgia get catered to but consider western nostalgia ''A dumb prequel'' 

The Japanese are overall nicer about their preference than we are to be fair to them. They have the right to be upset about this roster since SD got so shafted yet they remain quite a bit more optimistic than us about the game overall.

Although there are some hilarious moments like some of their reactions to Cloud being in Smash Brothers as Western pandering.

[Thane]

11 minutes ago, Jedi said:

Yeah the main games the Japanese really like are 3, 6 and of course the newer ones. They don't have that much attachment to Blazing Sword or Sacred Stones and they hardly know of Tellius besides Ike. 

I don't know about the details regarding this poll, but it shows the Japanese placing Genealogy of the Holy War, Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance as their first, second and third favorite Fire Emblem games, with Genealogy having a quite big lead.

[Jedi]

Just now, Thane said:

I don't know about the details regarding this poll, but it shows the Japanese placing Genealogy of the Holy War, Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance as their first, second and third favorite Fire Emblem games, with Genealogy having a quite big lead.

Certainly news to me considering last I heard, us in the West were much more fond of Genealogy than the Japanese ever were, same with PoR and Blazing Blade.

[Thane]

9 minutes ago, Jedi said:

Certainly news to me considering last I heard, us in the West were much more fond of Genealogy than the Japanese ever were, same with PoR and Blazing Blade.

I believe I've heard of them liking Genealogy before, but not Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance, since Ike and Lyn's popularity in particular are very West-centric. However, it's also possible that a lot of the fans there are tired of the 3DS games being pushed so heavily.

Or the poll is conducted poorly or at a hardcore Fire Emblem fan site where the results get skewed.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Thane

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I think if they were gonna change the way they picked characters, then the three games focused on should have been Genealogy, Blazing Blade, and Path of Radiance. With Marth and maybe Lucina as the extra bonus characters.

[Rezzy]

53 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Except it has already been confirmed that alternate weapon types aren't going to happen.

I meant in a theoretical game where we were trying to include the lead characters from every game.

18 minutes ago, Jedi said:

It had 13. 29 with DLC.

Ah, the list I saw was way off, then.  I still think Thane's list would have been a good start with some alternate weapons for variety.  I think older games fans are made more annoyed by having nobody than new games fans are made happy by getting extra characters.

And this is coming from a person who has Leo as one of her favorite characters.   I love him, but him getting in over a guy like Ike is puzzling.

[Etrurian emperor]

18 minutes ago, Jedi said:

The Japanese are overall nicer about their preference than we are to be fair to them. They have the right to be upset about this roster since SD got so shafted yet they remain quite a bit more optimistic than us about the game overall.

Although there are some hilarious moments like some of their reactions to Cloud being in Smash Brothers as Western pandering.

I'm not sure how literal we were supposed to take Glen's statement but them just dismissing the starting point of a big part of the fanbase doesn't seem any nicer then what the other fans are saying. And of course they are more optimistic. The games they tend to like less are all absent. 

 

Edited September 24, 2017 by Etrurian emperor

[Jingle Jangle]

1 minute ago, Thane said:

I believe I've heard of them liking Genealogy before, but not Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance, since Ike and Lyn's popularity in particular are very West-centric. However, it's also possible that a lot of the fans there are tired of the 3DS games being pushed so heavily.

Or the poll is conducted poorly or at a hardcore Fire Emblem fan site where the results get skewered.

I do agree the results got screwed,  FE1 winning out on FE11 and FE3 being fourth place tells something about the ages of the participants.

[Folt]

6 minutes ago, Thane said:

I don't know about the details regarding this poll, but it shows the Japanese placing Genealogy of the Holy War, Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance as their first, second and third favorite Fire Emblem games, with Genealogy having a quite big lead.

From what I've heard elsewhere, the total number of voters in that poll was significantly small.

[Slumber]

10 minutes ago, Jedi said:

Certainly news to me considering last I heard, us in the West were much more fond of Genealogy than the Japanese ever were, same with PoR and Blazing Blade.

Genealogy was the last best seller in the franchise before Awakening came out, iirc. I think it was #2 behind FE3 before Awakening came out.

[Jedi]

Just now, Etrurian emperor said:

I'm not sure how literal we were supposed to take Glen's statement but them merely dismissing the starting point of a big part of the fanbase doesn't seem any nicer then what the other fans are saying. And of course they are more optimistic. The games they tend to like less are all absent. 

 

I mean some of us here in the West said we wanted to nuke Japan for this, so thats quite a bit of a higher bar insult.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

4 minutes ago, Jedi said:

Certainly news to me considering last I heard, us in the West were much more fond of Genealogy than the Japanese ever were, same with PoR and Blazing Blade.

I had the same assumption. Maybe the tides changed once newer Japanese fans went back and paid chump change for FE4 and 7 on their Wii/Wii U Virtual console. Accessibility is always a big factor. But that wouldn't explain Path of Radiance.

 

[Folt]

3 minutes ago, Jedi said:

I mean some of us here in the West said we wanted to nuke Japan for this, so thats quite a bit of a higher bar insult.

Some of us have said that Fire Emblem should have died with Awakening. Not sure if there's people like that in Japan, but we set the bar pretty high even before that one.

[Reese Balaski]

I know this isn't really a "how would you do warriors" topic but I would've done it like this.

Rowan, Lianna, Anna(Bow)

Marth, Caeda, Tiki, Minerva, Draug, Linde/Merric

Chrom, Robin, Lucina, Lissa, Frederick, Virion

Corrin, Azura, Ryoma, Hinoka, Takumi, Xander, Camilla, Leo

Lyn, Celica

10 swords, 4 lances, 4 axes, 3 tomes, 3 bows, 1 dragonstone 

I know it still isn't balanced per se, but the series has always had a sword bias so it really can't be helped.

 

 

[Rezzy]

If they were so concerned about the abundance of swords, why did they make the lemon twins both use swords?

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

If they were so concerned about the abundance of swords, why did they make the lemon twins both use swords?

They've explained this before. They want to teach the all-important Weapon Triangle and you simply absolutely have to start with Swords. Since you get to choose which sibling you play as during the tutorial phase, they both have to use Swords.

Never mind that the posterboys of Samurai and Dynasty Warriors are Spear users. Which if you ask me would be just as viable a starting point as Swords (Axes not so much).

 

I can approve of their choice of games for the starting roster, and I wouldn't have minded clones if KT was upfront and said characters would be lumped into "class movesets" or something. The major issue is the failure to show off a diverse roster that clearly fills all of FE niches in good numbers and covers the Weapon Triangle well. There is also the issue representation for each chosen game.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer

[Thane]

1 hour ago, Rezzy said:

If they were so concerned about the abundance of swords, why did they make the lemon twins both use swords?

Because it'd be literally impossible to make a tutorial map otherwise! Duh! Don't you get that? 

I don't get it.

[Hardin]

Rowan and Lianna are meant to be your typical FE protagonists, of course they're going to use swords. 

[Rezzy]

6 minutes ago, Thane said:

Because it'd be literally impossible to make a tutorial map otherwise! Duh! Don't you get that? 

I don't get it.

Use Lyn for the tutorial before moving onto the main story featuring Lords with different weapons.  I don't know where I got this idea, but I have a feeling it just might work.

[Tolvir]

Unpopular opinion here. I think choosing 3 games want the issue. Not even the 3 games they chose was the issue. The issue was their statements mixed with what happened.

Their reasoning was completely sound and reasonable. Choosing only 3 to have a diverse cast of classes and weapons was a good idea. They were entirely right in saying that going with all the lords across the series and maybe a handful of others would end up with a sword party, which isnt very representative of Fire Emblem at all. 

The 3 games they chose were entirely reasonable for a first game To get the series rolling. In now way, as an older fan of the series, did I see this as a slap in the face. Now why? Because Fates and Awakening were still Fire Emblem games that I enjoyed. 

The issue was what happened after that comment. Saying they wanted weapon balance, and proceeding to exclude a lot of otherwise diverse classes and characters as far as weapons go was stupid. It contradicted what they said. That was the issue.

I don't think there was an issue with the 3 game concept at all. I don't think there was an issue to the games they chose. The issue was saying one thing and doing the other. What should of happened is they should of grabbed some of the more diverse characters. Instead of having Lyn and Celica, we should of had Azura/Oboro and Draug. Instead of choosing the little sisters to be semi clones, we should of had Vaike/Charlotte/Arthur and Minerva/Cherche/Beruka. They should of included Cain or Abel, maybe both. We should have Odin/Tharja/Merric. Hidden Weapons should of been in the game, and rogue types included like Gaius, Kaze/Saizo, etc.

That was the problem. They went too much with the attempt to pander, and not enough with actual design. If they claimed to do it in order to have a diverse roster, and actually held up that idea and had a really diverse cast of weapons and classes, there wouldn't be an issue here.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Tolvir

[The DanMan]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I can't say I would be sympathetic to those Japanese fans seeing as they keep getting their game of choice be showered in favoritism despite its lackluster reputation in the west. 

SD has the exact same metascore as SoV and has well over half a million confirmed sales (550k in the US and Japan, nothing solid for EU but I'd bump it to the 700k range). Considering we have nothing sold for SoV sales wise and likely would've hears something if it broke a million... critical and commercial reception for both has been nearly identical. 
The "lackluster reputation" is only in a couple small circles, and even within those circles opinion has warmed over the years.

@Jedi That poll had less than 4,000 votes and only asked for "favorite game"; it shouldn't be taken seriously.

Honestly, here's what I'll say: they should've picked those 3 games and stuck with them. Pick your choices based on unique moveset potential. Don't have IS micromanage everything (that's the biggest difference between this game and HW; Aonuma and Nintendo were pretty hands-off with it, while it's been made pretty clear that IS was closely involved with FEW). Compromises, forcing in popular characters that add nothing but fanservice (Lucina)... we'd probably be looking at a very different situation of IS had let KT stay in the front seat. 

[SoulWeaver]

I think the three-game limit is a good choice that they doomed as soon as they said all the FE Amiibo would "be compatible", because everyone who knew how Hyrule Warriors did Amiibo would then expect every FE Amiibo character to be in the game so it would be exactly the same as in HW, meaning either fans would start going off about being lied to despite not being lied to because we're all spoiled little brats who jump to conclusions like that, or valuable roster spaces that could have been given to a less-popular game(in this case RIP SD) would have to be given to characters that don't fit with the others as well and would have honestly been kind of jarring despite popularity, like Ike and Our Boi™(sob). Don't ask me how Celica and Lyn got in when they don't fit as well in the overall cast, I'm just hoping we get a Lyn Amiibo out of this because I want one of those for my headboard.

Really, I don't have issues with the roster as I know it's their choice not mine, plus if game devs always just took all the player suggestions no game would ever be enjoyable because it would be a complete mess. I was rather bothered at the lack of Our Boi™, but we got Cordelia, Sakura, and Camilla, so I'm thinking it may be worth giving a chance to hopefully get a sequel with, say, Elibe as one of the focuses, which could then lead to, say, a Re:Elibe game.

11 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

Forcing in popular characters that add nothing but fanservice (Lucina)

Never mind, I do have an issue with the Roster. This is my one real issue with this game. Looking at what the devs said, they should have replaced Lucina with Owain. There is literally no Fire Emblem character more suited to this kind of game than Owain Dark/Odin Dark. Also, they actually wanted to not include Lucina anyways but were basically forced into it by IS, who were mainly thinking about her popularity and not remembering Owain was one of the two male winners of the Poll that decided who got a Yukata. Owain has everything going for him that Lucina has for her except Lucina was playable in Smash instead of being a trophy and Lucina has boobs(or at least they say she does - kind of hard to tell if you don't change her to Archer). For those of you saying Lucina has her own special sword, that was Marth's sword first, and Owain has Missiletainn, which is honestly way cooler than Falchion despite doing literally nothing for the story or plot and having no special abilities, powers, or background whatsoever.

Edited September 24, 2017 by SoulWeaver

[Dark Holy Elf]

Claiming that Blazing Blade would be a better fit for this game than Fates is crazy. BB isn't even more popular than Fates in North America, let alone Japan; it and Awakening far outstrip the rest of the series in sales. I've met many people who have literally only played Awakening and Fates. The only segments which might prefer BB are hardcore veteran fanbases (like here? Though I suspect even here a FE7 vs Fates poll would be pretty close...) who are probably going to buy this game anyway (despite complaining about its roster on the internet). Excluding either Awakening or Fates would be instant, measurable lost sales.

Personally I'm just glad that the game has some acknowledgement of other games in the series (unlike TMS#FE) thanks to Celica and Lyn (and if you think Ike won't be at least DLC, I have some summer vacation property in Ilia to sell you). The roster was never going to please anyone but it's good enough. At this point I'm much more concerned with how the game plays.