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Which characters could have been removed/combined and the game would have been better off?


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So I'm working on a personal project of mine where I'm recreating this game through FE7. At the moment I'm working on diversifying the cast a bit more through changing classes further extending differences in growth rates, as well as simply removing/combining characters and changing their roles.

For example Roshea and Vyland of Hardin's Wolfguard. I can understand wanting 4 units there as 3 is a small number for an "elite guard" but as far as characters go, Vyland basically lacks anything that really represents much of a personality, and he doesn't have anything going for him that shows him as a real character or unit. Meanwhile there is SOME backstory for Roshea as he was in Archanea BS, and as well as having more material on him if you do the research (Though in SD he was equally irrelevant as Vyland.) So I decided to combine the characters into Royland so as to reduce the numbers in the cast as well as trim down Cavalier Emblem.

However enough about that project, it's still on the backburner, however it did make me think of an interesting topic of discussion that I'd be interested in the opinions of others.

There are probably other characters that overall are redundant to the setting of FE11 even when considering if they had a larger/more significant role in the sequel. So I thought I'd ask others, who in this game either as a unit or for the sake of plot, was a pointless character that the game didn't REALLY need or who's role is shared by another character and could have just been shoved together. Are there characters that should have had a purely support role in the story a la Nyna? I'd love to hear thoughts on this.

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It's hard to say really since the vast majority of the cast is kind of just filler to act as replacements if the early units in the same class die so many of the don't have story significance and just exist. In FE 1 a lot of these characters just shared portraits to further emphasize this even though that was more due to technical limitations.

- Bord, Cord, and Darros could be removed since you have Barst and the maps in Shadow Dragon don't benefit a ton from having units that could traverse water too much.

- Rickard is pretty pointless

- Matthis doesn't need an explanation.

- Castor is kind of justified as the only playable hunter without reclassing

- Caesar and Radd are worse versions of Ogma and Navarre

- Roger, Dolph, and Macellan are pointless (We only need one man who can choke a point)

- Mathilda's arguably worse than Jagen, but she does recruit Astram who is a guaranteed wielder of the Mercurius

- Boah's a worse Wendell

- Tomas is literally a Gordin clone

- Also depending on whether or not you make Excalibur or Aura into personal tomes or give them the same restrictions as the DS games Merric is pointless in comparison to Wendell and Linde is pointless in comparison to both.

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51 minutes ago, Modamy said:

- Mathilda's arguably worse than Jagen, but she does recruit Astram who is a guaranteed wielder of the Mercurius

You mean Midia don't you? Mathilda's Clive's girl from Gaiden and SoV (and actually good).

Anyway, as adverse as I am to changing up the cast, I could see why you'd want to prune or adjust it for a fan project.

-Rickard's inferiority to Julian as a thief is only made worse by his inability to be recruited by anyone but Julian, meaning if you want to recruit him to replace Julian you're out of luck. I'd say either give him another recruitment option (Lena, Castor or Navarre perhaps due to the retroactive continuity that is Akaneia Chronicles)

-Bantu is likely to only be used for recruiting Tiki, and as such could just about be moved to support character

-Maria is a plot device, and perhaps would be better off as a plot device again. But that could be tricky to pull off

-Due to the effort it'd take to make their classes, Jake, Beck and Xane are probably better off dropped.

-Instead of dropping Bord and Cord entirely, I'd say combine (to ironically allow a Bord/Cord archetype with Barst). Likewise with Dolph and Macellan, as both cases only one is really needed.
 

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29 minutes ago, Mad-manakete said:

You mean Midia don't you? Mathilda's Clive's girl from Gaiden and SoV (and actually good).

Damn, your right and here I was proud I remembered so many Archanean characters names off the top of my head.

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1 minute ago, Modamy said:

Damn, your right and here I was proud I remembered so many Archanean characters names off the top of my head.

To be fair, it's all fairly fresh in my mind. I only did playthroughs of the Archanean Shadow Dragon, SoV and New Mystery recently. Yet I still forget half the generic bosses.

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Keep Merric. The number of mages is as low as it is.

Roger is inferior to Draug, merge Dolph and Macellan.

Keep both Jake and Beck, we only have 2 Ballisticians after all.

Remove Wrys, probably? Personally, I like him, but Lena is superior to him in every way so he seems redundant.

Remove Samson, as Arran seems like the canon choice because in Mystery, he's part of the Altean Knights while Samson is with Princess Sheema in Gra.

Caesar and Radd were useless to everyone except in Mangs's H5 LP (then again Caesar was still useless).

Tomas seems kinda redundant since there's Gordin and Castor who both joined way earlier.

That's all I could think of for now.

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Just look to Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 for a legit list of characters too boring to get into the game. Of course IS didn't include Wyrs, so what do they know?

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Depending on the difficulty of the game I wouldn't remove Wrys. I certainly don't think I could beat the first two (and the first half of chapter 3) chapters of Hard 5 without him after all.

I think the only mage that would get cut for being redundant would be Linde if the Aura isn't a personal tome or restricted to female units otherwise she's only really here because she's a waifu of her backstory.

3 minutes ago, Purple Mage said:

If you can't implement Chameleons, then remove Xane.

Remove Jeorge, Midia, and Astram, I guess?

Astram and Jeorge at least are two units guaranteed to have the ranks for the Mercurius and Parthia easily and you need Midia to recruit Astram.

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Well if you're changing classes, and classes partly define characters that messes with things a bit.

I would say Vyland can go, if you want to keep in Horsemen and maybe have them be unpromoted, keep Wolf and Sedgar.

Castor I agree can go. Although it'd leave Gordin as the only unpromoted infantry bow user. However, if PoR thought it perfect fine to just give you Rolf and Shinon, then keep Jeorge and all would be good. Tomas could go, but as a heads up I'd recommend leaving like three units imprisoned in Pales, although if you kept Astram, you could lock him up there.

Boah has some plot importance, and so does Wendell, and so does Lena, so I guess Wrys does have to go. Maria I agree is in hard situation being necessary plot-wise for Minerva to join and a whole chapter being spent on her rescue. But just maybe she could work if you were willing to introduce a Troubadour class or something and make her one. Elice, were it not for being Marth's sister, could go as well, if you keep her, maybe make her better, or you run that Troub Maria idea, make her a Valk.

Bord and Cord go together, but if you want to merge them and pair them with Barst for two axes, that'd be fine. Darros is the only Pirate, but as said before, waterwalk is hardly useful, he can go. Since Ymir is very likely to go, particularly if you nix the Gaiden chapters outright, make sure some Hero has a good Axe rank, in case you want a prepromoted axe user not-Minerva.

Getting rid of Rickard would leave the prison in Chapter 6 empty- not sure how you'd fill it in. And he is your second and only other thief, but Marth getting the Fire Emblem and Door Keys being buyable shouldn't make this a real issue.

If you want to keep the Samson-Arran choice, keep both, but otherwise, well Midia conflicts with the one, and Astram the other. You decide.

Don't cut Jake! He can go, as can Beck, unless you intend to keep Ballistician class playable.

Caesar and Radd aren't needed, more so Caesar, since he is a Mercenary, Radd being a Myrmidon means his only competition is Navarre, so he can stay. Or you can make a Myrmidon named Saradd via a character merge. Athena is also competition, but will you keep the Gaidens and or their characters?

Roger is not needed, and you can probably nix one of Dolph and Macellan.

If Bantu goes, then you'll need a new way of recruiting Tiki.

Maybe consider dropping one of the Peg sisters, Catria I'd say. Who needs the triangle attack?

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*cough cough* if you were to remove Catria then who would be able to perform the triangle attack due to the fact Caeda barely interacts with the whitewings

but on an other note

Wrys - he'll be forgotten one Lena or Maria joins so what's the point of having him

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Wrys can be replaced with a vulnerary. Sorry, old chap.

Bord and/or Cord are safe to remove or merge. I'd probably cut them both.

Roshea and Vyland can be merged. Same with Wolf and Sedgar.

Cesar and Radd can go, or they can be merged into one actually good unit (Cesaradd?). Roger can go.

Merge Dolph and Macellan, as someone suggested before. Make Dolphellan stronger, too, so he can actually take a hit or two when he joins.

Tomas can go.

I like the idea of getting either Samson or Astram and it being a player choice, so I would keep both.

All of the characters from Gaiden chapters can go, unless you're going to add the gaidens in which case I would only keep Etzel and maybe Athena.

Xane would probably have to be made into a dancer or something, unless you can code the chameleon mechanic into FE7.

 

Edited by YouSquiddinMe
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41 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Getting rid of Rickard would leave the prison in Chapter 6 empty- not sure how you'd fill it in. And he is your second and only other thief, but Marth getting the Fire Emblem and Door Keys being buyable shouldn't make this a real issue.

Simple, give him the Wrys treatment and replace him with a chest that's got a door key in it. Just because you can buy doesn't mean I wouldn't appreciate a free one.

Quote

Cesar and Radd can go, or they can be merged into one actually good unit (Cesaradd?).

Maybe they could be merged into Rad Quetz who, to put it bluntly, is simply amazing.

Edited by Modamy
for memes
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3 minutes ago, Modamy said:

Simple, give him the Wrys treatment and replace him with a chest that's got a door key in it. Just because you can buy doesn't mean I wouldn't appreciate a free one.

So you have to use a Door Key to get a Door Key? Sounds useless. Unless you just remove the prison door of course.

The prison is where they shoved Wendel in FE3, so you could relocate him there, makes more sense a former Khadein pontifex would be in jail than blending in with Macedon's goons (although Gotoh was residing safe and sound in Macedon itself).

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Removing or combining characters would not make the game "better" but there are some redundant characters:

  • Bord or Cord. One of them could go and you'll still have two axe brothers, but I'm leaning on Bord because Barst's stats lean closer to his.
  • Vyland. Roshea has presence in Book 2 but Vyland barely exists as a character.
  • Radd or Caesar. Mercenaries and Myrmidons are redundant with one another outside of promotions, but I's say Caesar would be the one to go because Radd Quetz and because otherwise Navarre (+Athena with gaidens) is the only other Myrmidon.
  • Dolph and/or Macellan. Draug and Roger are all you need, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to keep one of the prison pincushions. Tomas may be a late-joining Gordin rehash but he's also the only other archer you get barring Norne (recruitment constraints).
  • Palla or Catria is a reach because all three Whitewings have more presence than most other characters, they're merely redundant as units. I'd suggest having Catria join in Chapter 10 instead to split them up.
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I'm a little hesitant to cut any of them myself, not because i love them all or anything but because shadow dragon was always kind of built around having that large unit pool in my opinion. However, if a unit has to be cut id say cut the same ones the original mystery of the emblem did at the very least since those cuts generally made sense to me.

other then that, id say wendall can be cut easily since the player already got a mage just one chapter ago and plot wise hes not very relevant, maybe just have him in a village or house to give sage advice or something. same could be said for boah really, as hes generally pretty worthless except as a staff bot.

Matthis can probably be cut as well, the game gives you enough cavaliers and he never stood out enough in my opinion.

as for the gaiden characters, i think it might be worth it to try and work them into other chapters instead of their gaiden chapters but if you cant think of aywhere to put em and still need to cut some units they can go as well.

other then that, its mostly just a matter of improving certain bases and growth rates to help keep the unit pool more competitive.

Edited by NobodiePichu
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9 hours ago, RookofSpades said:

So I'm working on a personal project of mine where I'm recreating this game through FE7.

So why is this in the DS Era sub-forum instead of the Fan Projects one where it belongs?

As for the actual game I wouldn't cut anyone, for the sake of unit variety.

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14 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

So why is this in the DS Era sub-forum instead of the Fan Projects one where it belongs?

As for the actual game I wouldn't cut anyone, for the sake of unit variety.

agreed, though a lot of units could use growth or base stat boosts to help keep them competitive.

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23 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

So why is this in the DS Era sub-forum instead of the Fan Projects one where it belongs?

As for the actual game I wouldn't cut anyone, for the sake of unit variety.

That's a good question...

9 hours ago, RookofSpades said:

However enough about that project, it's still on the backburner, however it did make me think of an interesting topic of discussion that I'd be interested in the opinions of others.

There are probably other characters that overall are redundant to the setting of FE11 even when considering if they had a larger/more significant role in the sequel. So I thought I'd ask others, who in this game either as a unit or for the sake of plot, was a pointless character that the game didn't REALLY need or who's role is shared by another character and could have just been shoved together. Are there characters that should have had a purely support role in the story a la Nyna? I'd love to hear thoughts on this.

There we go.

For the most part mentioning my project was my way of introducing the topic of discussion that made it feel more natural to me. Though perhaps I could have worded/formed the topic better as some people mentioned reclassing characters rather than focusing on the redundency part. I was mostly looking to see what others thought which the general consensus seems to be that

Bord/Cord, Dolph/Macellan, Radd/Caesar, Roshea/Vyland, are all characters that could be fused together to trim the cast or reduce the number of background/redundant characters.

Additionally Bantu, apparently would have been better as a support character. Which interestingly I don't know why Tiki couldn't just be recruited with Marth and Bantu is a support. Perhaps to simply make the task harder? Can't say for certain.

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