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Battle themes vs dynamic map themes


Alastor15243
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Which do you prefer?  

41 members have voted

  1. 1. Which do you prefer?

    • Battle themes (FE1-12, FE15)
      14
    • Dynamic map themes (Awakening, Fates)
      27


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I wanted to get the general opinion on this issue.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, originally FE games cut to is own battle music whenever you entered battle, while in the modern 3DS titles (save for Echoes), it instead just ramps up the intensity of the normal map music.

I am personally of the opinion that this is basically a vast all-around improvement. It keeps the battle music from getting really stale, and prevents a jarring tone interruption during the darker, sadder or more dramatic map themes.

I frankly wish they would have done that for SoV and I hope they will do it for future remakes, turning the original battle music into one of the game's many boss themes. Quite frankly, having this beautiful work of art

constantly get interrupted by "DAnana DAnana DUN! DUN!" every few seconds was irritating as all hell and ruined the emotional impact of the music. Having ten seconds of the exact same song playing constantly throughout a battle can get old real fast, and it gets even worse when the music doesn't line up with the tone of the map theme.

But I understand that some people like the old system, and I'm interested in hearing your reasons why.

Edited by Alastor15243
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Generally speaking I prefer dynamic themes. I love Alm's battle map theme but I'm meh on the actual fight music. Going from a calm version of a track to an intense version is really great. I absolutely love timing Road Taken with my fights in Fates. Initiating the battle right when the main rhythm kicks in for the ultimate crescendo.

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Honestly, I played Fates with animations off most of the time, the same with SoV. 

Both dynamicism and battle themes work. But I voted for battle themes. Why? Probably because the earlier FEs do have good/great battle themes IMO.

Repetitiveness is an issue with any VG soundtrack, but turning off animations, which I increasingly do as I get older and want to get things over with, lets me bypass the battle themes altogether. So I'd just do that and turn on animations only when I rarely want them.

Ideally, IS would give us a choice between dynamics and battle themes, but why'd they do that unless they wanted to be real nice?

Remind me- do Awakening and Fates even have boss battle themes? I can't remember. I don't recall Grima having one, and I don't recall anything associated with Gangrel or Walhart either. To be fair, the final boss of RD doesn't have a battle theme- but the bosses right beforehand do, which more than compensates.

Alternatively, IS could go the SRW route and give everyone their own personal battle theme, or assign group themes. Like Ace Attacker belonging to all non-SRX psychodrivers, the Hoshidan royals sharing a "Scion of the Dawn" for examplewould be sweet. Sirius with Trombe would be a dream come true. Rushing Dandy (Kai Kitamura's theme) on Tauroneo would also rock. This would be a metric ton of effort though.:sweatdrop:

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Remind me- do Awakening and Fates even have boss battle themes? I can't remember. I don't recall Grima having one, and I don't recall anything associated with Gangrel or Walhart either. To be fair, the final boss of RD doesn't have a battle theme- but the bosses right beforehand do, which more than compensates.

Oh, Gangrel and Walhart had boss themes alright:

 

 

 

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Personally I prefer the dynamic themes in the 3ds titles. One of my pet peeves in Echoes was that the battle theme keep repeating  from the beginning after every battle. Quite annoying on the enemy phase. Maybe in the next entity on the Switch can find a balance between that two camps.

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I prefer dynamic themes, but battle themes are still a thing in Fates and Awakening as boss themes.  I think that's the most appropriate place for a battle theme too, because a boss encounter - specifically one against an important character (as opposed to the generic bosses from Shadow Dragon or whatever) - should have a different mood than the rest of the battles.  Of course, if it's a final boss - like Anankos or Grima - then a final dynamic theme is good enough.

I don't think battle themes as they were implemented in the past were bad, though...  But it can get annoying if you just want to be able to hear the enemy army's theme, but it keeps getting interrupted abruptly.

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I prefer the dynamic themes but i don't mind battle themes. The battle themes themselves do sound good, the issue is that they restart every battle. I can see why they kept the battle themes for Echoes, since it is a remake, and i imagine future remakes would do the same but i would honestly prefer dyanmic map themes.

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I prefer dynamic map themes  - while the battle themes are good, you only can really enjoy them through the sound test or YouTube because they reset after every fight (it's kinda hard to enjoy In the Name of Bern when all you get to hear of it is the first 10 or so seconds of it).

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh, Gangrel and Walhart had boss themes alright:

Ah this, I kinda remember it now. Fairly good. 

 

They could easily fix battle themes restarting over and over by remembering where it left off. Not that difficult to program I think, and yet some games keep doing it. It was annoying in XCX since 1 second of flight and the ground theme is back to the beginning.

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1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Ah this, I kinda remember it now. Fairly good. 

 

They could easily fix battle themes restarting over and over by remembering where it left off. Not that difficult to program I think, and yet some games keep doing it. It was annoying in XCX since 1 second of flight and the ground theme is back to the beginning.

Honestly though, if they did that, then the debate would be "do we want one song that doesn't mesh properly with the map theme or five songs that do"?

And that just makes it even more obvious which option is better.

Edited by Alastor15243
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Tend to like dynamic ones better after SoV. I don't mind battle themes but the best approach with them is what RD did and have them pick up from where they left off every time instead of restarting. I think remakes should keep their battle themes.

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11 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly though, if they did that, then the debate would be "do we want one song that doesn't mesh properly with the map theme or five songs that do"?

And that just makes it even more obvious which option is better.

Or they can have multiple battle themes. RD has 5 (one for each Part plus 4-Final). Either do multiple with it changing as the game's general tone proceeds, or make different ones for different situational tones. It's a little more effort than dynamics, but it pops a little more too.

My problem with the dynamics is that they're a little "lazy" to me. Maybe its too much SSBB/4, but constant remixing of one theme can get dull to me and be a sign of a lack of creative effort. I don't mind some remixing, I adore hearing the latest rendition Fire Emblem Theme, and I'm kinda sure that my treasured Wheeling Corby is a remix of On Black Wings (Naesala's theme). I don't mind all the Id remixes either, and I recognize the dynamics are but a single remix- not two million, so it isn't like a loathe in their entirety or anything near it.

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I would go for having an option to choose between the two. I honestly didn't mind the battle themes when playing SoV or Mystery of the Emblem (I would also say that the GBA games didn't bother me in this area, but my emulator for them taught me the definition of ear rape, so I have to play those with the volume off) as they were very well done, and some of the map themes wouldn't have translated well into a battle theme. On the other hand, the I noticed that dynamic music did flow better between when moving between the map and battle and back again when playing Awakening (Haven't played fates "yet", so I can't comment on how well it was done), and FTL: Faster Than Light used the same method for its music, and its one of my favorite video game soundtracks as a result.

I like both methods, so I'd like the option to choose between the two whenever I want.

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Although battle themes work well on more primitive sound hardware a dynamic map theme is really the only way to go since redbook and high-quality MIDI became available to Fire Emblem. In my experience with the Tellius games, which are the first FE games with high-quality sound, one of the reasons I turned battle animations off was because the battle theme messed with the map theme. Same for Awakening’s boss theme, it’s annoying.

Fates is an example of the dynamic map theme done right. Its soundtrack attempts to set a mood for the level, which carries into battles and keeps the player engrossed in the mood the track sets; its battle mixes are appropriately bold too.

Edited by Cowboy Karimov
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  • 3 weeks later...

Vastly prefer the dynamic themes. I feel it makes the experience more cohesive, and I like the smoother transition between battle and map. And if there's a good map theme playing, I don't want turning the battle animations off to be the only way to keep it from being interrupted every few seconds.

If they're going to have separate themes, they at least need to pick up where they left off instead of restarting every time, like others have said.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've grow up with FE4 and FE7...so I liked battle theme and I'm glad it was not removed in the remake of FE2. I played with animation off in Fates but in Echoes I left it on because the transition to battle is perfect. i.e terrain difference, character running to attack an enemy, all area are show up, the camera following the arrow from an archer, character distance (1 to 6 square). Seriously it's remind me of FE4 Sadly there is no camera options like the 2 others (3DS) but it was better. (instead the support yelling FOR JUUUSTICE or MY HONOR AS A KNIGHT and they were idle for 0.5 to 1 sec before they're taking dmg)

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1 hour ago, link16hit said:

I've grow up with FE4 and FE7...so I liked battle theme and I'm glad it was not removed in the remake of FE2. I played with animation off in Fates but in Echoes I left it on because the transition to battle is perfect. i.e terrain difference, character running to attack an enemy, all area are show up, the camera following the arrow from an archer, character distance (1 to 6 square). Seriously it's remind me of FE4 Sadly there is no camera options like the 2 others (3DS) but it was better. (instead the support yelling FOR JUUUSTICE or MY HONOR AS A KNIGHT and they were idle for 0.5 to 1 sec before they're taking dmg)

You gotta admit, though, the main negative about battle themes is that they tend to restart afterwards, which I consider a major buzzkill - about the only way to handle them right is the way Radiant Dawn did (RD battle themes picked up where try left off).

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16 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

You gotta admit, though, the main negative about battle themes is that they tend to restart afterwards, which I consider a major buzzkill - about the only way to handle them right is the way Radiant Dawn did (RD battle themes picked up where try left off).

yeah...I forgot about that, but I don't really mind (when the battle theme are short).

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1 hour ago, link16hit said:

yeah...I forgot about that, but I don't really mind (when the battle theme are short).

The thing is, most of the battle themes that get my attention are pretty long, which is why I said it was a huge buzzkill.

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