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Which FE game has the most missed potential?


Which FE game has the most wasted potential  

65 members have voted

  1. 1. Which FE game has the most wasted potential

    • FE1
      1
    • FE2
      0
    • FE3
      0
    • FE4
      0
    • FE5
      2
    • FE6
      1
    • FE7
      0
    • FE8
      1
    • FE9
      2
    • FE10
      3
    • FE11
      8
    • FE12
      0
    • FE13
      7
    • Conquest
      23
    • Birthright
      5
    • Revelations
      12
    • Echoes
      0


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Is there a FE game you don't like, but would, if certain things in terms of story a / o gameplay were executed more carefully?

Here are few examples of mine:

  • FE13 has very lazy made map design by removing classic defend, arrive and turn limited maps. Also pair-up is implemented just badly. Same goes for the difficulty.
  • Fates as a whole for having a very poor plot.
  • Revelation has interesting map gimmick ideas, but most of them don't work in a round based strategical game as FE is. Most of them slow down the game and are based on luck.
  • FE5 could be liked by newcomers more, if certain mechanics like missing staves or 1-99% hitrate would be fixed. Also the traps in 24x are a huge issue.
  • FE6 has the issue in terms of mission objectives as FE13.
  • FE10 for having a cast with a total unbalanced availibility.
  • FE11 for not adding anything plotwise; characters are still bland.
Edited by Hecatia Lapislazuli
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Conquest, and it's hardly a contest.

There was a lot of new elements to the series that they could've done story-wise.  You are working along people more "villainous" than any other playable characters in the FE series, the story promised to be more "morally grey" than the rest of the series, and they apparently worked with a renowned writer.  Yet the morality was just handled so terribly that I could barely really sympathize with Nohr in either base path, the most villainous characters on your side wind up being fought anyway, and it seems like there was generally a lot of dysfunctional communication between the writers.  This all makes Conquest's story a whole heap of potential down the toilet.  It could've been great, but it was awful.  For me, not even the gameplay can make me want to come back to it.

And Genealogy, despite being one of the best stories in the series, has missed some potential marks.  The most standout ones are conversations between couples who don't have conversations, a better characterized story (lots of exposition is not good; showing is better than telling in the case of the story of Velthomer's family or all the plotting with the Lopt Sect/anti Chalphy league), and more screen time for the better villains (Arvis and Travant).  Though in Genealogy's case, it's mostly just me wanting more out of it because its story has so much going for it, rather than me not liking it without these changes.

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I feel as if all of Fates had wasted potential. FE11 (which I haven't played in years, but from what I remember) could've been a lot better. Awakening is definitely on my list as well. FE8 (and I may be a bit biased as its my first FE game as well as my favorite) seemingly has a lot of potential as well. 

 

Lets start at the top then (In order of my playthroughs of them)

FE8-- Valter was kind of an underwhelming boss. Sure he has the Fili shield (I believe that's what it's called), but  the way the game hyped him up didn't match up. Plus we get no backstory of what he was like before he got Duessel's family lance. If that was included in the story rather than a support + the fight against Valter being restricted to lets say, Seth + Eirika and maybe Ephraim, that could've been awesome. 

Then there was Selena. She was supposedly the "Camus" of the game. The one person the player was supposed to feel "bad" about killing. But again, kind of an underwhelming boss, and I didn't really even feel all that bad. Storywise, she serves Vigarde because of his kindness when her village was starving. The villages on her map also contribute to her not being a bad person, but Ephraim doesn't falter at all. If I had my way. I'd make Selena's chapter in a small mountain range, where she blocks the only path to the capital of Grado, and has her own personal tome which is 1-10 range + doesn't slow her down.  

 

Edit: I accidently posted this, edited it to write everything down, then my computer crashed, and I lost everything I was writing, so I'll do it all again later. If a mod sees this, feel free to delete this post, I'll eventually either post again or edit this post. (spent the last hour writing everything, too angry to do it right now, also my family's going out to dinner and I have no time to anyway)

Edited by Bhoop
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Shadow Dragon is the champion of wasted potential. Compared to Radiant Dawn-no, the series at large-it felt like a huge step backwards. Sacred Stones is also high on my wasted potential list. For a game that supposedly has a good story and good villains, it sure fails to meet those benchmarks. Most of the Grado generals are bad, and the story felt more like that of a half-assed hack.

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fe10

They almost had it

They almost fucking had it

But then the availability of everything is fucked up. Thereby rendering it to be the Jill/Haar party.

 

also fe6 was an attempt at giving a massive cast but fucking the writing up big time.

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From what I experienced, Shadow Dragon felt like it really, really needs a support conversation system, but instead it's just about reaching the end and seize the throne or whatever. And it's also weird that only your main lord can visit the villages, I haven't seen this in other FE games. Reclassing looks like to have a potential, as the game already throws 10 mounted units on you in the first 5 chapters, but it doesn't really suggest to you how it should be utilized.

I see Binding Blade popping up in this topic. To be honest, the only  thing that really bothered me is the late promotion of Roy. It really cripples the main lord of the game, but everything else could be excused. Wait, I almost forgot to complain about the......

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I think Fates has the most wasted potential as it's initial concept and idea is rather intriguing but I don't like where they took that idea or that in reality Corrin is the son of Annankos but you only ever learnd this through the DLC when I really think that is something the game itself should have told us. Awakening has a pretty solid if standard story, I just wish they had dug a little deeper into it's themes. The arcs feel rushed to me at times though I suppose that could be said of a lot of Fire Emblem games.

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fe5 100%

they added so many new features to the game, yet failed on possibly every account to do them well

Level 20 caps: probably just a bad idea, but potentially could have been improved

Stamina: if done in a logical and less annoying way (maybe not fe15 in terms of leniency, but still) could have really added something to the series as a whole. For one, it stops someone from just spamming 1 character for ever and encourages using more of your army than just 10-13 people. The whole reason you're given a massive army is because originally the idea is people will lose them and need replacements. However, by the time I want to say fe4 was around(because it affects so much if you let a gen1 character die), that idea was almost out of the window. With a large cast and little incentive to rotate your units, using stamina in that way and having it clearly explained to the player would have been big

FoW: black tiles that you can't see anything was the worst thing ever. It was immediately fixed in fe6, which shows how it could have been improved

Movement stars: a seriously cool idea but is so random that it's extremely unreliable. Some sort of gauge that fills up and when it's filled you get the option to move again would have been much better

Con growth: the number was so low that it was basically negligible; gba could have also used this since weapon weight was offset by con, but instead decided to scrap the idea as a whole.

Terrain: who in their right mind thought giving a boss an extra 10 flat defense on any chapter, much less the first one, was a good idea? Especially when you have a strength cap of 20

Magic (stat): now combining magic and resistance into one stat was an interesting idea, but it's much too powerful as one stat. I don't know the fix, but I acknowledge the problem

Magic (weapon): given that fe5 is the land of the prfs, you'd think there would be more than three playable magic weapons of each type. You'd be wrong. Now, I'm not saying fe4's number of 5 was super impressive, but why reduce the number instead of increase it? And the weapon ranks were so janky with magic weapons in general; E rank and A rank magic only??? What happened in between?

Saves: Who thought the chance of missing a heal on your unit was fun. Get out.

Dismount: Admittedly doesn't debut in fe5, but nonetheless... By far had the most potential but in the end just screwed you over in every instance. Why is it that lance cavaliers are forced to use swords when dismounted exactly? Axe cavaliers? Soldiers can use lances and they're on foot, why is this a different situation? It just made the indoor maps needlessly tedious, especially since they were often spammed with lance wielding soldiers while you have no lance unit to use. The option to always dismount was nice(used well for a gaiden requirement), but there was never a reason to do it. You lose stats when you dismount, and you switch to a weapon that you usually have an E rank with.

 

There's probably more, but this suffices for now.

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To me, I'm tied to either FE6 or FE 14.

FE6 really when you think about it, has the most missed potential in so many regards. It was the first FE on handheld, the first one to have ACTUAL support conversations and the first game to have implemented the true hit system. It had one of the largest casts in FE history before Fates and its structure is how FE today almost plays.

Sadly it was wasted for several good reasons. The first one being that majority of the cast are bland and nearly forgettable. Only reason to have supports would be for those bonuses and not the actual conversation and since supports take wayyy too long to develop, only few characters benefit from them in the long run especially the lord of the game.

The second reason being balance in practically everything. Maps are way too long in general and this is bad because you are playing it on the go and that the level structure is often frustrating that its begging you to pray. I would forgive the devs for doing objective variety except that you get bar none but seize which itself feels too repetitive after playing FE7. This game spawns enemies like crazy and they start as soon as they spawn making it even more tedious to deal with. Anyone with a horse or a flier are better off used compared to the large quantities of footies that you're stuck with. Then comes the weapons which for some dumb reason, Swords are the best weapons, Lances being meh and Axes being the worst to the point that anyone axe locked is an automatic bad unit.

Speaking of units, nearly half the cast utilities are downright bad that you won't bother using them. Only about 17 units of the 60ish cast you're stuck with are worth using. Some may argue that those units are replaceable units to which I say, replaceable units my ass if they can't even put a dent on the enemy force.

Even so, the third problem is the lord himself Roy. Swordlocked, late promotion, bad move and an opposite of Marth but somehow worse.

And lastly the fourth problem being the localisation. This is the game that could have been introduced to the west due to Smash but instead this gets canned out and played safe and instead we get the prequel of the game.

Then comes Fates which the general stuff is lack of world building and an overall bland plot. I'll stop right there.

 

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For me it was easily BIrthright.

The way the Hoshidians are just the noble good guys is bullshit.

I would've preferred if we had seen them give a reason to not help Nohr when they were starving.

Also the cast bland and uninspired (seriously. Pickles? WTF).

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Its got to be either Fates or Awakening.

Fates is wasted potential because there was so much promise. When the game was first revealed we were given the most interesting FE premise by far and the game didn't manage to deliver, mostly because it had other priorities that were harmful to that premise. The most annoying about this wasted potential is that Fates has enough things of interest to show how powerful that potential was which makes it an even bigger shame that they squandered their chance for something really special.

There's also a good case that Shadow Dragon is the game with the most wasted potential. This was a chance to introduce the west to Marth and bring Archenea up to snuff with the other continents. This chance wasn't taken and lots of characters ended up as blank slates. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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Oh yeah, I didn't mention Shadow Dragon.  I mean, it's alright for what it is, but I personally prefer the remakes that did more to expand upon the story and characters.  As much as I may riff on New Mystery for its avatar, I'm still glad it implemented support convos and base conversations.  And Echoes is probably the best remake not from a gameplay standpoint, but simply because of what it added to the story and characters.  I'm not the biggest fan of that game's story, but I'm glad there's more than just what was on the Famicom version.

Also, another thing about Fates' wasted potential is that the whole idea behind choosing your own path is ruined by the fact that they introduced a third path that leads to an objectively better ending (as far as how well things turn out, not in terms of writing) than the other paths.  Unless you care about a certain two characters that much, there's no real incentive plotwise to go for the other endings.  I'd excuse it more if Revelation was actually even more difficult than Conquest, since it logically should be the most difficult path to take, but it isn't.

36 minutes ago, Chocolate Kitty said:

Con growth: the number was so low that it was basically negligible; gba could have also used this since weapon weight was offset by con, but instead decided to scrap the idea as a whole.

Unless the game takes place over the course of several years, or if any of the characters gorge on food a lot without exercising (I don't think either is the case in Thracia), Con growth doesn't really make sense in general.  You don't just become several pounds heavier overnight or from killing a dude.  I think it's better off scrapped, along with Con in general.

Though what I find funny about Con is that it enables speedy armor knights like Bors and Gwendolyn to actually double units that armor knights normally shouldn't be able to double (like fighters or cavaliers) with weapons that often shouldn't be able to double (like javelins or axes in general).  Armor knights in a lot of FE's are generally a pain to use, but it's absolutely hilarious to watch an armor knight not only tank a bunch of hits, but ORKO everyone that comes at him just because they're all using heavy weapons and get doubled.

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13 hours ago, Chocolate Kitty said:

fe5 100%

they added so many new features to the game, yet failed on possibly every account to do them well

Level 20 caps: probably just a bad idea, but potentially could have been improved

Stamina: if done in a logical and less annoying way (maybe not fe15 in terms of leniency, but still) could have really added something to the series as a whole. For one, it stops someone from just spamming 1 character for ever and encourages using more of your army than just 10-13 people. The whole reason you're given a massive army is because originally the idea is people will lose them and need replacements. However, by the time I want to say fe4 was around(because it affects so much if you let a gen1 character die), that idea was almost out of the window. With a large cast and little incentive to rotate your units, using stamina in that way and having it clearly explained to the player would have been big

FoW: black tiles that you can't see anything was the worst thing ever. It was immediately fixed in fe6, which shows how it could have been improved

Movement stars: a seriously cool idea but is so random that it's extremely unreliable. Some sort of gauge that fills up and when it's filled you get the option to move again would have been much better

Con growth: the number was so low that it was basically negligible; gba could have also used this since weapon weight was offset by con, but instead decided to scrap the idea as a whole.

Terrain: who in their right mind thought giving a boss an extra 10 flat defense on any chapter, much less the first one, was a good idea? Especially when you have a strength cap of 20

Magic (stat): now combining magic and resistance into one stat was an interesting idea, but it's much too powerful as one stat. I don't know the fix, but I acknowledge the problem

Magic (weapon): given that fe5 is the land of the prfs, you'd think there would be more than three playable magic weapons of each type. You'd be wrong. Now, I'm not saying fe4's number of 5 was super impressive, but why reduce the number instead of increase it? And the weapon ranks were so janky with magic weapons in general; E rank and A rank magic only??? What happened in between?

Saves: Who thought the chance of missing a heal on your unit was fun. Get out.

Dismount: Admittedly doesn't debut in fe5, but nonetheless... By far had the most potential but in the end just screwed you over in every instance. Why is it that lance cavaliers are forced to use swords when dismounted exactly? Axe cavaliers? Soldiers can use lances and they're on foot, why is this a different situation? It just made the indoor maps needlessly tedious, especially since they were often spammed with lance wielding soldiers while you have no lance unit to use. The option to always dismount was nice(used well for a gaiden requirement), but there was never a reason to do it. You lose stats when you dismount, and you switch to a weapon that you usually have an E rank with.

 

There's probably more, but this suffices for now.

FE5 was an experiment apparently.
It tried to be completly "new" by adding tons of new mechanics. Apparently they weren't appreciated by the fandom or even by the developers afterwards (justified), so most of them never came back.

Stamina's returning is Echoes is pointless since it only affects the dungeon, and FE is still no dungeon crawling imo. There are still some ways (I had ideas on my own) how to make stamina more workable in the game without screwing the player. It should be based on a number of combats or experience.

Generic caps was not a good idea because it kills the actual point of classes, but I like the idea to fix weaker stats by scrolls.

I also like movement and con growth. FE5's weight system is still fairer than in the GBA games since it punishes females and weaker classes like mages. Again a scroll could fix it. 

FOW is a generic problem since it only matters the first playthrough. It's also unfair because why can the enemy see through the fog all the time? Sure, it shall raise the challenge, but it does make no sense at all.

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No
It's a thread about a game would you might like better if certain things were executed better just with a little more time and care. It can be even a game you like actually.

As for me I consider FE5 with the most missed potential because some mechanics don't work as they should do, but I still like the ideas. I appreciate already the attempt.


 

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I disagree.  In order for a game to have "missed potential", it needs to be something that the poster doesn't have a high opinion of.  In my case, it would be RD (though HOW they could've fit all of that on one disc is another matter).

A simple tally of which games crop up here, cross-referenced to one of the "which is your least-favorite FE game" threads will most likely show a similar distribution.  It isn't an accident.

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Even though it's my second favourite FE game, Shadow Dragon has a lot of missed potential. Like others have said, the lack of supports do hurt the cast, considering how large it is and how many characters can be forgotten. The prologue was a blessing as it really hammered home how bad the situation was as 14 year old Marth is forced to flee Altea for his life, but I wish we had more scenes like that. The actual narration and Marth's dialogue was perfect, but it should have been spread to the rest of the cast more. The graphics weren't all that great, but then again, graphics aren't everything.

Fates also has a lot of missed potential. I don't hate it, it's got a lot of hidden gems, but my god, Conquest could have been fantastic if it weren't for Corrin, tbh.

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Shadow Dragon missed the potential of making the cast more interesting. Its mainly the lack of supports that makes it a problem, as supports have the big advantage of making characters (mostly characters that aren't plot important) more interesting (or, at least, less bland). At least they added Base Conversations in New Mystery. 

 

I don't think FE6 had much missed potential besides for the obvious balancing issues and Roy's late promotion. Story wise I felt like it was trying to be too much like Marth's story but it ended up being different enough.

 

I think FE4 lost potential by not having more enemy units try to attack your home castle (or any NPC castle or player captured castle), since it defeated the purpose of having someone guard your castle. This isn't exactly a big issue, but it did resulted in less opportunities for footies to fight, seeing as horses mainly take the front line due to higher movement and the maps being big.

Unless you turtle. Like I do. Cuz I'd even pick Dew over horses like Noish and TurbanBoy any day even if it means more suffering

Edited by Flee Fleet!
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6 hours ago, Hecatia Lapislazuli said:

I also like movement and con growth. FE5's weight system is still fairer than in the GBA games since it punishes females and weaker classes like mages. Again a scroll could fix it. 

Except for the part where movement growths were low to the point of being practically negligible, and with one exception, con growth was not much better. And the one scroll that you so say "fixes" this boosts it by a measly 10%.

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I disagree with the mentions of Shadow Dragon's story/writing, even though it's my least favourite game of the series (I still like it - just not as much as the other entries). But I think that "wasted potential" is the wrong term here because it never aspired to give great detailed characterizations to characters that aren't Marth. It decided for a much more minimalistic approach with very little distractions from the main plot, and honestly, I think it did a great job at that. The writing, while short, is really good and Marth's struggle to act as a prince and not a son or brother is really a lot more interesting than most other lords' personal storylines. It's just that "minimalistic approach" isn't what most FE players are looking for.

So personally, I'd nominate Fates as a whole for the most wasted potential. It has the grandest premise of the series, but unfortunately also the weakest execution (Three routes! Grey morality! Romance your real little sister!).

Gameplay-wise, I'll go with PoR, even though at the same time, I consider it one of my two favourites (the other being FE6).
I find that from a purely mechanical perspective, Tellius is GBA gameplay at its peak - it does away with a lot of the annoyances that plague FE6-8 (the support system in PoR in particular is everything good about GBA supports), as well with the weirdness of an archer carrying a pegasus on his back and introduces the coolest mechanic ever (shoving).
But when it comes to the actual gameplay - map design, enemy design and placement, that sorta thing - PoR completely fails to produce a good kind of difficulty. English hard mode is honestly a joke compared to FE6/7's hardest game modes and from what I've seen in Mangs' Maniac Mode LP, MM quickly devolves from "challenging" to "tedious" because enemy units tend to be still not very threatening, but really annoying to kill. But of course, that's second-hand experience, so I might be completely wrong about MM in general. ;)

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3 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Except for the part where movement growths were low to the point of being practically negligible, and with one exception, con growth was not much better. And the one scroll that you so say "fixes" this boosts it by a measly 10%.

I don't defend FE5's weapon weight system since no single FE game before Fates had a good system how to handle weapon weight without punishing one class or gender less than the other. (technically FE1-4 were balanced) However it's still miles better than GBA's fixed con system since it's not static. 

As for movement growths it would be a adulterate the entire gameplay, if units had more than 5%. Seeing Leif with higher movement than mounted units - which actually even happened to me - is just wrong to me. It's cool to have a bit more movement for a few more strategical purposes, but only in measures. The growthrates were fine imo. 

Still I wouldn't mind to see this back as a stat, but I wouldn't mind either if not.

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For me, Shadow Dragon seemed to have the most missed potential, simply because it stayed way too true to the original and didn't have enough of, at the time, modern mechanics that made those games fun and interesting.

Apart from that, Fates as a whole due to some of the game play changes and of course the story.  More specifically, Revelations for it's overly gimmicky map design in the second half as well as it's seriously flawed writing (I personally dislike it more than Conquest's story).  Speaking of Conquest, while I generally love the game play and map design in the first 2/3 with some exception, some of the endgame maps really up the difficulty, but not in a fair way, (looking at Chapter 23 on).  As for the story, while I feel while it is overall bad, there is a good story in there somewhere and there are good ideas, but I feel it is hurt because of Fates poor narrative structure, writing, and unnecessary elements to the story that didn't need to be there, (which is a problem with Fates as a whole).  Meanwhile Birthright is just Awakening with Fates mechanics, but I found it to be more boring.  The story for Birthright itself is fine enough, but the only time the story got really interesting was during the last parts once they get into the underground Nohr.  Other than that, nothing is necessarily bad, but a lot of elements are unnecessary to focus on.

Don't get me wrong, there are still a ton of things I like about Fates, but I feel that in some degree it was too ambitious for it's own good to some degree.

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Shadow Dragon or Fates. 

SD had the opportunity to really meaningfully expand on FE1 and modernize it, and... it didn't. 

Fates, on the other hand, was so close to being great, but it fucked up in too many ways for the things it did right to shine. 

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1 hour ago, Hecatia Lapislazuli said:

As for movement growths it would be a adulterate the entire gameplay, if units had more than 5%. Seeing Leif with higher movement than mounted units - which actually even happened to me - is just wrong to me.

That's my point. The concept itself is bad if you have to give it growth rates so low its tantamount to winning the lottery.

2 hours ago, ping said:

I disagree with the mentions of Shadow Dragon's story/writing, even though it's my least favourite game of the series (I still like it - just not as much as the other entries). But I think that "wasted potential" is the wrong term here because it never aspired to give great detailed characterizations to characters that aren't Marth. It decided for a much more minimalistic approach with very little distractions from the main plot, and honestly, I think it did a great job at that. The writing, while short, is really good and Marth's struggle to act as a prince and not a son or brother is really a lot more interesting than most other lords' personal storylines. It's just that "minimalistic approach" isn't what most FE players are looking for.

Exactly why I have an issue with it - it could have been a chance to really expand upon and modernize FE1, but... It wasn't. Not to mention questionable to outright awful handling of the bonus stuff.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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