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What features (new or old) would make FE16 a "reimagining" a la Breath of the Wild? (No spoilers, please!)


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Breath of the Wild was praised for redefining the conventions of Zelda and Mario Odyssey seems to be going in the same direction. What do you think a future FE should add or bring back to do so as well?

Please no plot spoilers for past games!

Edited by DefyingFates
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I think that being able to reforge weapons a la Genealogy would be a perfect marriage of the limited vs unlimited weapon use debate. I personally like weapon durability in Fire Emblem, but I love being able to spend gold to repair weapons more than almost anything. Weapons in Genealogy also got the critical ability after getting a certain number of kills, and I think that something similar to that would be a nice return to form too. Finally, I think that random stat boost and new weapon conversations should come back too. It was like the predecessor to support conversations, and it really added a lot of depth to the game as well as loads of flavor

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Gaiden Chapters from the older games is something I think would fit in rather well - it was always cool to see the game offer me a sidequest Chapter and know I fulfilled secret conditions, even if I had no idea what those conditions were.

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Personally I think "redefining the series" is an unhealthy attitude. Breath of the Wild (and hopefully Mario Odyssey) managed to do quite well by breaking the mold, but it shouldn't be taken as meaning that "originality" is inherently good. There are a lot of profoundly original (indie games) that unfortunately take big missteps by not trying to focus on playability and simple "fun" first. In the context of SRPGs, being too original IS VERY Dangerous. If you think about Tactics Ogre, or Final Fantasy Tactics, you might remember heavy duty class/job system, and mechanics like zodiac compatibility- even though they might add "depth" to the game, they also run the risk of being overly cumbersome, or worse, arcane and difficult to learn for players. An over-designed game can achieve it's goal of being  unique much more easily than the goal of being  good.

Personally, what fire emblem 16 needs to do is to simply focus on making another game with level design of the quality seen in conquest- there are a number of FE games that had equally good (or better) mechanics/systems, but not level design- it is an element that is fairly weak in the greater part of FE games, which is a shame considering how tightly designed Advance Wars Campaign maps were- 

If you really want to brainstorm ways that a Fire Emblem game could "redefine the series" (limiting myself to 3/4 view turn based strategies here)

A:You could  imagine a FE game using a D&D tabletop engine, complete with attacks of opportunity, vancian magic, and the A/C system to determine hit rate.  .

B:You could have a FE that played up  strategy elements and stripped down RPG elements much more (or entirely), possibly to the point of being a spirtual advance wars game (no unit carried over between maps, just the ultra-fragile people built in bases/forts for that individual mission)

C: You could have a FE that went all in for full complications- besides of just Shadow of Valentia's "white magic/black magic/arts" any unit line could have it's own command list ("chivalry" for paladins, "trickery: for thiefs etc) and each units abilities would open up a number of non-standard attack/support commands. I've said elsewhere that I HATE this kind of thing, and imo it wouldn't even be original since EVERY non-FE SRPG does this, and that it is FE's dedication to the basics that makes it so interesting to me in the first place, but in the context of someone else who only played FE games, it would be a change of pace within the series itself.

D: You could a game that finally tried to succeed the legacy of Master of Magic (albeit with a greater emphasis on hero units to showcase FE's strengths in charather interaction)

As far as using "past FE" games- Radiant Dawn and Thracia 776 have the most wholesome mechanics of those that haven't been explored very well (eg the DS/3DS games) The GBA games were all startlingly conservative, and mechanics wise don't really have anything to offer. The same goes for FE1-3. I would suggest that FE11-14 should be the primary source of mechanics, but that kind of goes against the OP- 

FE4 had mixed mechanics, to say the least- the Holy blood system isn't really as interesting as growth bands/star shards/Crusader scrolls, and is anyway kind of redudant with modern FE games combining personal growth rates and class growth rates. Besides this it was unabashedly broken , The love point system was had no tutorial within the game itself (And how many English fans have even read the translated manual) and besides that it had no visual indicator like the meters on modern CBAS support, and in the case of one charather pair, was even bugged to prevent them from using their other partners;  The individual money for each charather was ONLY a nuisance, and people defending it as "essential to the game's balance" should admit that it A: it's not that hard to work around, only time consuming. and B: In no way prevented the game from being the sixth easiest (at most, it COULD be even lower) FE in the series.

 

Edited by Reality
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Awakening already did that, yo

No, really. I think Awakening is praised because it was breaking linearity, in a way at least. Pair-up, reclassing, paralogues, 2 modes and 4 difficulties, marriage/children, avatars, mixing skills and other mechanics helped the players to play the way they want. I experimented with the tactics, characters pairs and skills way too much, and every new run feels fresh. I don't consider Fates to be a real succesor of Awakening, because the 3 path thing locked too much content and divided the players playstyle. 

Make FE more non-linear. I am playing Breath of the Wild and is great. Must Have tier I say. That Zelda is full of choice and I think that could fit FE quite well for it's role playing nature. I am imagining a FE game with a large world map full of well-designed levels that I can acces from the start, building up an overpowered army, exploring non-linear dungeons to get items that can break the game, recruiting characters in the time and way I want, and much more while handling the storytelling like BotW to not mess up the players own experiences.

(Yes, I'm new on the forums and english is not my native language).

Edited by Morian
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28 minutes ago, Morian said:

Awakening already did that, yo

No, really. I think Awakening is praised because it was breaking linearity, in a way at least. Pair-up, reclassing, paralogues, 2 modes and 4 difficulties, marriage/children, avatars, mixing skills and other mechanics helped the players to play the way they want. I experimented with the tactics, characters pairs and skills way too much, and every new run feels fresh. I don't consider Fates to be a real succesor of Awakening, because the 3 path thing locked too much content and divide the players playstyle. 

Make FE more non-linear. I am playing Breath of the Wild and is great. Must Have tier I say. That Zelda is full of choice and I think that could fit FE quite well for it's role playing nature. I am imagining a FE game with a large world map full of well-designed levels that I can acces from the start, building up an overpowered army, exploring non-linear dungeons to get items that can break the game, recruiting characters in the time and way I want, and much more while handling the storytelling like BotW to not mess up the players own experiences.

(Yes, I'm new on the forums and english is not my native language).

Other games before Awakening have also done that. Gaiden, Sacred Stones, Blazing Sword, Binding Blade. They didn't have paralogues though, so I'll give Awakening credit for that.

Tbh, I don't think having a more non-linear Fire Emblem would work. Awakening and Fates were still linear for the most part, and you were still following a set path, the only difference being when you did the optional paralogues. It's not like BotW where you chose the order of taking down the divine beasts.

I think the most non-linear an FE game could go would be a mashup of AwakeFates and the GBA games- have paralogues available meanwhile also having a split path that somewhat affects the story based on the choices you have made. Is that what you meant by more non-linear?

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I'm going to quote an old wise man: 

Quote

What Breath of the Wild did was reject the ‘text based adventure game’ style which brings Breath of the Wild more into the classic Zeldas. When the player has choices, the experience feels like a world. To the developer, the game though feels like a garden or arena.

But if the game was made as a linear adventure, it is swapped! The player, lacking choice, sees the game experience like a garden or arena. The developer, having all the choices, sees the game experience as a world. “Here is backstory.” “Here is dialogue you cannot skip.” “Oh my! What an amazing world this is!” Gamer: “There is no world here. It is so linear. It sucks!”

I'm going to take another example: The first NES Super Mario Bros. looks pretty linear today. But it is? You can go through land, the sky, underground or underwater. You can kill goombas and koopas or ignore them. You can break blocks an discover hidden items. Heck, you can skip entire levels! If you look at the pre-SMB games you see SMB breaking linearity. Now, I feel Awakening did something similar because it mixed so much old mechanics and added new ones, and that makes a pretty customizable experience. Yes, the game mostly it is linear but you have too many ways to kill all the enemies on the map. You can go with a large party of mixed units, or 3 pairs, or all the children, or a Nosferatank grinded avatar who can wipe the floor with the enemies in a few turns (haha a way to skip a boring map), no pair ups, tree-branch type weapons as the only ones lol, etc. etc.

I loved Radiant Dawn, specially the final part at the tower, because you have all the roster and weapons available there. Past chapters are great too but they feel like an scripted puzzle with not much options.

2 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

I think the most non-linear an FE game could go would be a mashup of AwakeFates and the GBA games- have paralogues available meanwhile also having a split path that somewhat affects the story based on the choices you have made. Is that what you meant by more non-linear?

Unfortunately, I think too we can only expect that from IS. It would be pretty cool if we can choose the order of the main chapters and affect the overworld like that. They can go with that system they implemented in the Fates paralogues were the enemies changes their stats depending of the main chapter you're in at that time but instead it's going to depend on how much levels you completed (paralogues + main ones). Not on all the chapters of course (like the final ones). But emergent gameplay and story are opposites in most games. Whatever, FE's plots aren't that great anyway.

Edited by Morian
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I think one thing they could do that wouldn't be too drastic but would ultimately have a big effect is improve on the ledge mechanic from RD and make maps multi-dimensional. Have terrain be more useful as well.

FE4 in a way was the first "reimagining" of the series. It looked at what had been done before and did everything different. They could use it as a reference point if they wanna try doing something totally different again.

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I wouldn't mind seeing multiple chapters happening at the same time, I'll use the long war mods for xcom as an example, in them you can send out a squad to do a mission you have to wait for them to 'infiltrate' and in that time more missions pop up and you can send more units to go deal with that but you can't use the first soldiers you used because they are busy infiltrating, so you are encouraged to build multiple squads. 

How I could see something like this working in fire emblem is having a few chapters that are "duel" or "trio" chapters, say you need one team to break through enemy lines, and one to hold off the enemies advancing on your rear. So you before you start this first map you choose units like normal and say its a seize chapter, you complete it then you are sent to the second map and you can choose your units for this second map but anyone who you used in the first map is off limits and your objective in this map is to defend for however many turns it took you to beat the first chapter.

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The main thing I'd add is take the world map of Echoes and run with it even further. Have the map be massive, with a huge diversity of strategic points. Have enemy armies be moving across the map, and the player has to decide where to face them(they can scout out maps for good defensive areas). You could also have units have different strategic abilities, for example, cavalry can tell you the makeup of the enemy army before you engage, while archers can set up Ballistas. There could also be something like: you can fight the enemy in their impenetrable fortress or you can go through the dangerous bandit infested mountains to get to it; it's your choice.

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On October 3, 2017 at 11:37 PM, Dandy Druid said:

Other games before Awakening have also done that. Gaiden, Sacred Stones, Blazing Sword, Binding Blade. They didn't have paralogues though, so I'll give Awakening credit for that.

Couldn't you technically consider the Gaiden Chapters as a precursor to Paralogues?

On October 3, 2017 at 11:37 PM, Dandy Druid said:

Tbh, I don't think having a more non-linear Fire Emblem would work. Awakening and Fates were still linear for the most part, and you were still following a set path, the only difference being when you did the optional paralogues. It's not like BotW where you chose the order of taking down the divine beasts.

Eh, I don't really see why you couldn't do this with a Fire Emblem. Have two or three giant Dragons as the main antagonists, and you can take them out in whichever order you wish, with the remaining foes receiving Level/Stat buffs to compensate for your Units' extra training. It would certainly be an interesting one-of idea for Fire Emblem, but I don't really want EVERY Fire Emblem from there on out to work that way. I do actually wish they'd done this to fix the Yen'fay arc - you should have discovered Excellus at some point, then been given the choice between attacking Yen'fay or Excellus. Kill Yen'fay first, the story continues as it does in the vanilla game. Kill Excellus first, get a happier ending because now Yen'fay isn't being blackmailed and can join you without SpotPass needing to get involved.

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45 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

Couldn't you technically consider the Gaiden Chapters as a precursor to Paralogues?

Eh, I don't really see why you couldn't do this with a Fire Emblem. Have two or three giant Dragons as the main antagonists, and you can take them out in whichever order you wish, with the remaining foes receiving Level/Stat buffs to compensate for your Units' extra training. It would certainly be an interesting one-of idea for Fire Emblem, but I don't really want EVERY Fire Emblem from there on out to work that way. I do actually wish they'd done this to fix the Yen'fay arc - you should have discovered Excellus at some point, then been given the choice between attacking Yen'fay or Excellus. Kill Yen'fay first, the story continues as it does in the vanilla game. Kill Excellus first, get a happier ending because now Yen'fay isn't being blackmailed and can join you without SpotPass needing to get involved.

Oh yeah I guess you can say that the Gaiden chapters are paralogue precursors.

The main reason why I don't see it for FE is because FE is a WAR game. Certain events happen in wars that trigger other things to happen. You can't freely explore with an army like you can as an individual. It doesn't make too much sense, to me at least. The difference between BotW and FE is that in BotW, you only had Link, and there really wasn't a war going on. Everyone was fighting against Ganon. As for FE, you have an army, and not all kingdoms are friendly. There's alliances, mortal enemies, and there's dozens of individuals within your army that are there because of their own circumstances. The structure of FE just wouldn't be able to adapt to a nonlinear world as well as Zelda was able to. It can, but I'm worried about it being shoddily executed. For your Yen'fay/Excellus idea, there's ways to do that without making it nonlinear. It could follow what the GBA games and just make route splits depending on the criteria you met. I don't like the idea of the picking 3 dragons and choosing which one to go after first because

1) I'm tired of dragon antagonists, to be frank. I'm OK with the one, because you know it'll be there. But the other 2? They can stay home.

2) It works from a gameplay perspective, but from a story perspective it probably won't. Seriously, if there's 3 super evil dragons and they're still not able to conquer/destroy the world, they must be lame antagonists.

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4 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

For your Yen'fay/Excellus idea, there's ways to do that without making it nonlinear. It could follow what the GBA games and just make route splits depending on the criteria you met. I don't like the idea of the picking 3 dragons and choosing which one to go after first because

1) I'm tired of dragon antagonists, to be frank. I'm OK with the one, because you know it'll be there. But the other 2? They can stay home.

2) It works from a gameplay perspective, but from a story perspective it probably won't. Seriously, if there's 3 super evil dragons and they're still not able to conquer/destroy the world, they must be lame antagonists.

I do agree with it being feasible to make Yen'fay/Excellus stay linear, I mainly mentioned it because it's one of the main storyline issues I've heard brought up about Awakening, and as Awakening was kind of pushing the mold a bit anyways, I figured that would be a decent place to try that sort of thing.

We're all tired of Dragon Antagonists. The problem is that IS hasn't figured that out yet. Heck, chances are when we FINALLY get a Re:Magvel game, they'll retcon the big boss into a Demon Dragon.

Eh, I dunno, there are multiple instances where multiple Dragon antagonists are mentioned, the issue there is that every instance I can think of was off-screen in the distant past where the Divine Dragons kicked the others out, we've never had a game actually playing through those times, which is a shame - such a game could, among other things, be more Manakete-focused, perchance with a REAL half-Dragon Protag, do some worldbuilding for other games that could kind of use the help, and give them a chance to show off something fresh while still managing to keep ties to the elder games.
Seriously IS just give me Anri and the Scouring in games already I'm sick of waiting BRING ME MY UNDOUBTEDLY SEXY HANON I mean uh

 

…In case it wasn't obvious, the jab at Fates was sarcasm - I actually like Corrin's bloodline idea.

Edited by SoulWeaver
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There are many, many mechanics and ideas that could make the next Fire Emblem game the "Breath of the Wild" equivalent and would not be easy, but I think the best way to ensure that this is done would be to include as many features from the various Fire Emblem entries as possible. I will attempt to list all of the mechanics and features that I would like to see and hopefully I won't forget anything.

1) Affinity boon and Leadership Stars. Both of these mechanics are great ideas and I would like to see both of them return the Affinity boon was present in the GBA games and both were in the Tellius games. Leadership stars would give a boost to hit and evasion abilities of those under that person's command, and is an aspect that I think has a lot of potential, affinity boons on the other hand primarily affected the bonuses received from supports. This is something that I believe should return with the increase emphasis on supports I am surprised this mechanic has not returned as it would give even more incentive to unlock a variety of supports beyond the conversational aspect. Additionally in Radiant Dawn every map was of a particular affinity, any units with an affinity matching the maps had a slight boost in combat on that map and had a better likliness of finding hidden items, bosses also usually had a matching affinity. If the affinity boon returned this would encourage deployment of particular units.

2) Weapon durability and Weapon Repair. I miss the weapon durability and want to see that brought back, I believe having the durability encourages resource management instead of just buying an iron weapon for everyone and then never needing to buy a weapon again. Additionally this is a mechanic that has been apart of Fire Emblem for so long I would hate to see it permanently removed, I will add though that exceptions would be applied to legendary weapons and personal weapons like Lynn's Mani Katti or Stephen's Vague Katti. If Fates had durability it would given more significance to Xander's Siegfried sword or the Yato, but it's just another weapon with infinite uses. Additionally I want the Weapon Repair feature from FE4 to return, if a game with both durability and the aspect of repairing weapons, tomes and staves was in place this could make for a very interesting, unique and fun experience.

3) Forging. I expect to see forging again, but I hope that I do not see Fates' forging system that was way too gimmicky to the point of removing the enjoyment of forging to begin with. The forging system that I enjoy the best is Radiant Dawn's not only did the player have complete control over forging the various weapon stats, but could choose to have the weapon be a particular color such as blue, orange, pink and many other color options. My only gripe was that Brave, Killer, Poleaxes, Greatlances, and the Blade swords could not be forged and I would want that changed. I will add that I enjoy the evolve aspect of forging from Echoes and would like to see that return where you could choose to improve the weapon or evolve it to a stronger variant, such as choosing between enhancing the handaxe or evolving it too a tomahawk.

4) More weapon varieties. I liked Echoes' weapons like the Zweinhander and the Ridersbane and while I would like to see these return, I also want more variety in the weapons, Halberds, Poleaxes, Heavy Spear, Greatlance, Greatsword, Blade, and I want to see Iron, Steel and Silver variants of all of them. And while we're on the topic of weapons, I hope that weapons like Javelins and Hand axes go back to not only their original design and how they functioned in the GBA and Tellius games. Design wise I prefer the original and I don't like how say the spear for instance is locked to only 2 range use. What? What about the spear is preventing one from using it at close range, and get rid of the stat penalty for using silver or brave weapons.

5) All mounted units have Canto along with the Saviour skill or some equivalent.

6) Bring Constitution back I like this mechanic and think there's a lot of unused opportunities here. Additionally give all units the Shove and Rescue mechanics, Shove especially is fun to do and there are some interesting strategies one can pull off with it.

7) Radiant Dawn's ledges mechanic, I don't know why this has not returned yet as it could have added some unique dynamics to Awakening and Fates.

8) Visitable Villages and explorable dungeons and caves. I also would like the Main Base or Barracks to have access to a FE4 Arena.

9) Radiant Dawn's skill pool. With skills being learned either through the class or by assigning the corresponding scroll to that character. And some skills like Nolan's Nihil were essentially a personal skill and did not take up any points. Of the skill systems used to date I like this one the best, and while I don't care too much for the Combat Arts system there were some that I think should be turned into a skill. Such as Hunter's Volley for bow users and Tigerstance for Dread Fighters these are two abilities that I would like to see again but reworked to being skills.

10) Variety in map size and theme, I would like to see some huge maps like what FE4 had but then smaller maybe urban setting maps with a GBA type arena and maps that are in between these two examples. HOWEVER, I would say that if there are going to be huge maps and I would like to have at least some of them be that way, foot units in general will need higher movement but Armor Knights especially should have more movement and should have the same movement of other foot units such as mercenaries.

11) Bonus and Group EXP and automatic promotions. Echoes, had the group EXP, Radiant Dawn had bonus Exp and I would like to see both of these combined but I especially want to see Radiant Dawn's automatic promotion upon reaching level 21.

12 Third tier unit class system. I really enjoy this and want to see it reused, however I also enjoy Echoes' Villager class and would like to see more done with this maybe expand on the class choices available to them a little such as Pirate and Fighter lines.

I am sure I'm forgetting something but this is some of the mechanic I would like to see.

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  • 1 month later...

What made Breath of the Wild a successful reimagining was that it isolated all the stuff that made Zelda good, got rid of all the fat, and then filled the fat in with new ideas. So lets look at what needs to be kept:

  • Basic means of gameplay (grid based tactics game that plays like, well, fire emblem)
  • A cast of colorful characters you get attached to via gamplay
  • A variety of weapons with different attributes that interact in a series of rock paper scissors interaction, and units that each have some set of those weapons they can use

What things are really annoying about FE? (Not all of these can necessarily be fixed perfectly)

  • Traditional story telling methods that doesn't mesh with the type of cast
  • The incredibly unforgiving gameplay that forces you to replay large chunks of gameplay you've already completed if you lose a character at a crucial part, lest you abandon the character altogether. Exacerbated by random chance.
  • Certain aggravating mechanics such as weapon durability and weapon rank

These aren't complete lists, but it gives some ideas of where to go. The second bullet point on the negatives list could be fixed by shorter levels or frequent, fixed checkpoints in larger levels. It could also be fixed by a new rogue-like game design that embraces permadeath and autosaves frequently and irreversibly.

The first negative could be fixed by crafting a story with no defined main character and instead focusing on an ensemble cast. It could also try to avoid a traditional heroic journey and instead go for a more focused, small scale story that gives its characters more room to breath due to the less involved plot. 

Damn this is hard.

What I do know is that I've had an idea in the back of my head of what an FE-type game could be like, and it solves some of these issues. It would have a relatively short story with a lot of branching paths, and a the end of the story it would loop back to the beginning, and everytime you game over it would also loop back to the beginning. It would be a roguelike, but every playthrough is continues after the other, and the protagonist is aware of the timeloop. You can try to make it to the end of the game and see a variety of different endings. But the way to get the true ending is to try to figure out why this time loop is going on and investigate the mystery of it all, and this is done via side stories in the campaign involving side-members of the cast, each of whom tie into the overall story in a different way.

I dunno, I think it would be cool. It would probably work better as an indie game than something targeted at a large audience, though. Maybe you can doaway with the roguelike stuff and let the player reset when a character dies, but then it's pretty much just like FE had a child with an ARG and we're back where we started more or less.

Edited by TheSS
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6 hours ago, TheSS said:

What made Breath of the Wild a successful reimagining was that it isolated all the stuff that made Zelda good, got rid of all the fat, and then filled the fat in with new ideas. So lets look at what needs to be kept:

Yeah, I agree. It's easy to tell when they showed off the prototype based on the NES Zelda ^^

Anyway, I could probably go for ages, but I'd love it if the next Fire Emblem started branching out even more in the RPG department. Right now, Fire Emblem is well known as a high quality strategy RPG, but that genre is a huge niche. So the next logical step would be to make it more of a RPG to appeal to a much wider audience that would otherwise not be interested.

Of course, I fully expect the battles to remain Fire Emblem, so grid and turn-based. But in between battles, I think it would be awesome to actually explore the world, especially the towns and castles. Gaiden already let you visit towns and Echoes lets you explore dungeons, so there is precedence.

On top of that, I imagine the developers would further expand on the support and interaction elements. I have no idea what they could do though. But for some strange reason, I'm imagining "dates" like in Persona. Or the heart-to-hearts in Xenoblade. They wouldn't have to be all romantic (although that would be a big selling point)--the main thing is focusing on the bonding between characters.

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Have any of you played with those hacking randomizers? I know a few let's players used them and hilarity ensued with the messy job selections and wild unit scenarios. Now imagine that being a real mode where units are given base classes at complete random and you'd have to deal.

 

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Breath of the Wild broke the normal conventions of Zelda, so Fire Emblem could use:

  • A Real Branching Story - Not the Fates way with 3 paths, but everything stays the same. I want a full "Choose your own adventure" style. Give a lot of decisions of where the party can go, and let the player decide. (Need to cross the border into enemy territory? 1- charge at the main gates, 2- sneak around)  Each choice progresses the story, but in different ways with different consequences, maps, and events. It would add a lot of replay-ability too.
  • No Dragon Final Boss - As cool and epic a dragon is for a final boss, it has become a series staple (almost). So if we could get a real non-dragon villain that would be awesome. Lord Berkut would be a great example to follow, a real person lead down a dark path. He has legitimate reasons to fight against the protagonists and still creates a really epic/ awesome boss fight. 
  • Tragedy in the Party - Once a character joins the party, nothing bad happens to them (unless they die in battle in Classic Mode). The only exception I know of is Kaze's event in Birthright. In FE7 several times a character leaves your party, but you are given a heads up/ warning to it coming. I want to see more of this. These are actual people, sometimes they have other things they need to do. Let some characters filter in and out of the party at times. And a more extreme version of this (which I really want) is the character just leaves and joins the enemy (like Fernand), you might get them back later, but it could show how nothing goes to plan, and people have changing loyalties. Like Fernand, character X does not like how the main protagonist is leading the army, so he leaves. I think this could create a really unique experience. Add this to the "choose your own adventure" style and different characters leave. If you take a more passive route, the "Punisher" type character leaves; or If you take the aggressive route, the pacifistic character leaves.

 

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44 minutes ago, Lord_Grima said:

 

  • Tragedy in the Party

I don't know what to feel about this. Kaze's event in Fates was very poorly executed. 

But if I can get them back later, like you said, I guess is fine, as long as they don't become useless for being underleveled.

Oh, I have an idea to make a more free FE. Why not just make your party a bunch of mercenaries? That way the protagonists has no political connections with whatever country, so they are almost free to go everywhere and do whatever job people ask them to do. 

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Perhaps "tragedy in the party" could be more "characters are tangibly altered (down to growth rates changing) and in-game events play differently if certain members of the army fall." Although, that might not work unless classic mode is enforced, but the turn-wheel exists now for inexperienced players.

A mercenary army was Ike's crew, but it would be cool to see it again.

Another option is perhaps the main army are a sort of third party that acts as a neutral voice between all regions. A mediator of sorts. I guess Corrin and Azura were this in Fates (at least in the end of them), but more of the key forces of main countries relying on them to coordinate against exterior foes. 

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On 11/30/2017 at 8:28 PM, Morian said:

I don't know what to feel about this. Kaze's event in Fates was very poorly executed. 

But if I can get them back later, like you said, I guess is fine, as long as they don't become useless for being underleveled.

 

7 hours ago, Altrosa said:

Perhaps "tragedy in the party" could be more "characters are tangibly altered (down to growth rates changing) and in-game events play differently if certain members of the army fall." Although, that might not work unless classic mode is enforced, but the turn-wheel exists now for inexperienced players.

When I say "Tragedy in the Party" I use the term "Tragedy" lightly.
I definitely want something better that Kaze's event in Birthright. That came with no warning or hints. In a first/blind run, the only way to avoid is pure luck(by having the requirements) or having looked it up. In FE7, Matthew leaves the party for one chapter, but in the preparations screen he tells you and gives you time to takes items back. So something along those lines.

For Example: your army is preparing for a battle, but one character is summoned back to the kingdom on urgent business. The player knows, and can take items off of him before he leaves. Then he comes back in a Chapter or two, nothing too long to fall behind, but can cause some change in tactics. 

The most extreme "Tragedy" I want is a pure Fernand-style betrayal. Someone is in your party, then they leave for good. We don't get many of these. Most of the time it is "I only betrayed you because I was possessed." The character can give items back, and because they leave for good they don't fall behind in levels.

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One of the many reasons that made BotW great is its non-linearity.  The player could go in any direction they wanted, and could in theory bypass the entire 'story' of the game by skipping the Sacred Beasts and flashbacks and going straight to Hyrule Castle.  The emphasis is on gameplay; I could go to any shrine I could see, cook up new foods, capture horses, upgrade armor, etc.  I didn't set foot in the first dungeon until I had been to roughly 40 shrines already.  This would be a welcome mechanic in the next FE, as the strength of the games has always been its gameplay.  Have a lot of side-quests, paralogues, challenge dungeons, invasions, etc.

As far as character designs go, I'm a little worried because they seem to have gotten progressively worse over the last few games.  I'm not a fan of their latest batch of characters in FEW and Heroes.  I'd also like to see a villain that isn't some generic super-evil bad guy that wants to invade and kill everything, and is being controlled by some even more nefarious demon/dragon.  If they're sucky at least include the option of DLC characters from past games lol.

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