i just finished playing fe4. some final thoughts and review

[Re: The weirdo.]

oh yeah. minor character spoilers, though you probably have heard these names before.

Spoiler

so overall, i enjoyed the game  a LOT. i mean, its broken as fuck and has no idea how fucking broken it actually is, so sends unvaried, underpowered enemies at you in case you picked bad pairings, or just lost everyone except Sigurd/ Seliph like an idiot, but it has got good points to it as well.

for example, it has... fuck i cant think of anything to genuinely praise about the gameplay, other than the guide thought provoking inheritance system, adding replay value to the LAST part of the game, but i digress. the gameplay is honestly some of the slowest and most tedious in the series, due to a combination of a number of factors, including;

• weight just being badly put together
• density of enemies being in bursts but not enough throughout the whole map to sustain large amounts of combat for all of your units, usually placed at chokes, to keep you there as long as possible
• mAAp. bIIIIIIg.
• DOUBLING SHOULD BE INNATE NOT A SKILL DAMMIT KAGA
• trading not being in the game is kinda justified so that money means something, but you could just as easily work it as normal trading and it being in the game still slows down inventory management to a fucking crawl.

and of course, this game loves to throw way to much terrain and (actual) bullshit map design in your way to progress at a reasonable pace, like for example, the masses of forests in ch1, the chokey cliff faces of chapter 2 slowing combat to a crawl, plus trees, lotta trees in ch3, even more in four(nice), and the endless yied desert in 5.

 now, gen 2

6 is fine, 7 is more desert, 8 is slightly foresty, but not as bad as THAT part of chapter 1 and is overall pretty good. chapter nine (if all recruiting that is) is a bloody nightmare due to mister thracia himself, that is ,Hannibal to recruit ,which is a pain, and I count him as terrain because he might as well be. 10 is fine design wise but the sleep staves are a nightmare. seriously, fuck them.

and at last, final, which i finished but an hour ago, and can safely say, its not terrible. the sleep radii are manageable-ish, but there should be fewer of them overall. this map is to long though, and fuck the walk too and from Manfroy castle, (i forget which castle it is hes in) with julia because, i had to manipulate the AI, by risking up Cairpre for THREE TURNS, all thanks to charge being fun and fair, is what i would probably would have said, if i didnt know about the trick that Julius prioritises besieging Seliph over every other action he can take. so yeah. fantastic parting note.

yet somehow, the fantastic ost,  the best in the series, i'd say, the awe-inspiringly grand scale of the game, and the best story in the series all kept me playing this amazing, awful, unbalanced, cathartic, game.

the in-battle conversations gave life to the characters, the darker, almost, tragic tone gathered my interest more than the sappyness of other games that shall not be mentioned. So much of this game conflicts in terms of quality, yet here i am, leaving it as my favorite in the series? yes. but some how, this game still manages to keep my attention after all, and i still feel like replaying it now, dammit. 

there is this almost intangible quality to this game, that gives away the incredible amount of effort put into this game, and despite all of the things i said that quantifies negative traits, there is so much good to this game that is hard to quantify, and break down, that it seems to be an almost perfect game to some, and a travesty of patience expectations. positive criticism in the games direction is often hard to properly express, making a definitive opinion hard  ,reasonably, at least, to form. thats part of why im making this, actually, so i can structure thoughts a little better.

honestly, i can't come up with a score, or any measure of quality for this game that would be both honest and fair, and i know that other games in the series are just, well, better overall games, i still can't help but love this freaking game so much.

so... yeah. id like to discuss thoughts on this game, so PLEASE @ me with responses to my obviously appalling opinions.

[Roxas]

wait a minute this isn't the FE4THREAD

[Re: The weirdo.]

huh. i couldnt find it. whatever.

[indigoasis]

A brief plot summary: Sigurd gets caught up in political turmoil, Eldigan dies, Arvis cucks over Sigurd and steals his wife, Sigurd's son Seliph continues his dad's legacy and starts liberating half the continent, Seliph has a half-sister that he can marry by exploiting the game (like there wasn't enough incest), Seliph cucks Arvis for cucking his dad, and then proceeds to cuck over Arvis' son Julius (who is basically the anti-christ of the series) and becomes King of Grannvale. The End.

I love this game, and I agree with your sentiments. FE4 has one of the best overall stories in the series, which is why it's my favorite game in the series too, and it's hard not to get attached to the characters (atleast for me). Sigurd's tale is a sad one that leaves a melancholy taste in my mouth by the end, but then I remember, "Oh hey, Seliph exists," and it's impossible for me not to see Sigurd in Seliph. Speaking of parentage, my favorite aspect of the game was pairing units together, and then getting to see their kids finish the story for them. When you see the ending scene of Chapter 5, it makes the player realize that all the units that they built up over the course of Sigurd's tale are now gone (aside from Finn, who returns as the only playable unit from Gen 1, and Lewyn, who returns as Seliph's advisor and tactician). It's also hinted that many from Sigurd's Army survived, but not all of them, so their fates are up for interpretation... atleast until Thracia 776.

Gameplay can be a slog, but it's probably one of the most fun aspects of the game (aside from that one part in Chapter 1) and it's cool to see the Player's great big army versus other enemy armies that are almost twice as large, which gives the game a huge sense of scale if the maps didn't already do so. And then there are the Holy Weapons that destroy everything (especially Forseti on Lewyn and Ced). All in all, fun game. 

[Roxas]

24 minutes ago, indigospace said:

And then there are the Holy Weapons that destroy everything (especially Forseti on Lewyn and Ced). All in all, fun game. 

you can never not get me to mention that fe4!inflation lets you promote skasaha to "mage lord" (mage fighter) which means he can activate Astra + Luna with Holsety and it's my favorite thing in all of fire emblem

[Punished Dayni]

40 minutes ago, (s)ad touch said:

huh. i couldnt find it. whatever.

They're referring to the FFTF thread. Don't worry about it.

So, I think I agree in a lot of points. Best OST until the 3DS era hands down personally, with Doors of Destiny still being my favourite track. I give the story a strong pass despite its issues with the villains having the cards until the writers decide they don't, with Arivs still being one of the best villains anyway. The maps having a consistent scale is something that would be nice to see in a future title that resolves the issues that arise out of that. It's probably the first title in the series that really does much for minor characters at all, though not too much in terms of an arc outside of conversations at the end of Gen 1.

As for gameplay, there's a ton I could say. Weight.... Weight is stupid in this game. Swords are objectively better than lances because of it. Holy weapons mess with it, but not by much and they cause even more imbalance with their stat boosts. For some reason Ichival has only got +20 stat boost total (to be fair it is Str and Spd), while being heavier than all the sword that have better boosts and two of the tomes. Meanwhile Helswath swans around with 20 weight making it harder to justify. The map design's big size and spotty skirmish fighting makes the balance a trainwreck, leaving non-mounted units harder to use without the game handing off certain tasks to them as the cavalry will usually do it just fine. Difficulty has to account for the weakest player units possible so if you have good pairings the difficulty's laughable. Sword skills are actually sword infantry locked (THANKS S. KAGA) and something that really would have helped inheritance was not locking weapons from being bought if they couldn't buy them (I mean Lex gives a brave sword to Ayra, they're breaking their own rules here). Those along with other edits might have helped reduce the divide of good and bad pairings to at least some degree. Frustrating as the lack of trading is I think it's fine in the context of this game, with the way it's handled tying gameplay and story together while also not being as limited as I'd expected before playing (Though it's far from perfect). Interestingly some of the issues have been addressed in hacks (The Shin patch made Pursuit allow a unit to double with 1 speed, but you can double without it as well with a higher threshold and I think the sword skills are useable by other units now), though not everything can be said to be dealt with.

All that ignores map design, which varies from being the reason replay value is stunted (DAMMIT CHAPTER 2 YOU'D PROBABLY VOTE FOR MECHA GENGHIS HITLER) to having a lot of neat stuff going on. I'd consider the forests to be a bit less of an annoyance than you do (When they're not the only way to go, Chapter 1) mainly because they're able to be circumvented. The bridges have probably some of the better chokepoints in the series (See Chapter 10), while mountains cause some of the worst moments in the series (See: Chapter 4, especially if Dew is dead, the first half of chapter 9).

I think it has a value in catharsis on clear, while it also stands out so much from the rest of the series that it has to be appreciated for that. Titles having quite a few differences is a benefit to FE overall, which is quite prominent with each of the Kaga games in particular.

Also, there's some similar crazy stuff going on with Thracia as well. I'll only spoil two things: There's no 100/0% hit chance and if you thought Hannibal and Ayra's recruitment were annoying, there's even worse in that game.

2 hours ago, (s)ad touch said:

amazing, awful, unbalanced, cathartic, game.

This is pretty fitting as a quote.

4 minutes ago, Roxas said:

you can never not get me to mention that fe4!inflation lets you promote skasaha to "mage lord" (mage fighter) which means he can activate Astra + Luna with Holsety and it's my favorite thing in all of fire emblem

Please tell he he can get axes if Lex is his dad. That will be all I need to hear to try that hack.

[Roxas]

19 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Please tell he he can get axes if Lex is his dad. That will be all I need to hear to try that hack.

He gets B axes if you promote him to Sergeant or Mercenary though i think he would get lex's minor ulir which would bump them up to A?

too bad swanchika is like the only holy weapon you can't get in this game :^( 

maybe gungnir too idk it's been like nine years since i played this shit lul

Edited June 29, 2018 by Roxas

[Punished Dayni]

6 minutes ago, Roxas said:

He gets B axes if you promote him to Sergeant or Mercenary though i think he would get lex's minor ulir which would bump them up to A?

too bad swanchika is like the only holy weapon you can't get in this game :^( 

maybe gungnir too idk it's been like nine years since i played this shit lul

Can't get Mjolnir, Valflame and Gungnir either. Not that I was worried to get Swanchika.

That's good to read.

[Roxas]

33 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Can't get Mjolnir, Valflame and Gungnir either. Not that I was worried to get Swanchika.

That's good to read.

iirc arvis and ishtar drop them (honestly i could be mixing this up with fe4!binary)

yeah levin x ayra is still busted as hell

[Modamy]

1 hour ago, Dayni said:

Sword skills are actually sword infantry locked (THANKS S. KAGA)

So you'd rather the mounted units also got them and make the infantry units even more worthless while making the mount even stronger?

[Punished Dayni]

47 minutes ago, Modamy said:

So you'd rather the mounted units also got them and make the infantry units even more worthless while making the mount even stronger?

It is an annoyance and it feels like an arbitrary limitation on the inheritance system. More the sword than the infantry part to be fair. 

[MacLovin]

fe4 is such a fun game to break in half.

Holsety!Artur is stupid. Lex!Arthur is also pretty good with the magic ring.

 

Azel's a fun dad for swordkids since they'll get pursuit+massive magic. Fire Sword!Delmud and Earth Sword Nanna get crazy fun.

DewxAyra gets fun kids. Have fun being totally unkillable!

Lex and Anyone is fun. Lex!Lester gets you elite+ambush. But no bows. You really want bows on the dude so Midir/Jamke are the best. Or just go for Claude to make his sister better but totally fuck Lester over.

Fury gets alot of usable pairings. Arden/Lex give her kids fun growths. Noish gives them fun growths and skills (lex too), and Jamke/Beowulf make them solid with skills iirc.

Claude/Azel/Levin x Fury gets you some good magic sword Fees and totally absurb Ceds. However, I still think Lex!Ced is the most fun I've had due to ambush.

Alec is kinda sucky, but at least he passes on pursuit. Fee/Delmud can at least sorta use it.

[SavageVolug]

I really enjoyed FE4 when I played it, loved the saga like feel the game gave me. I also have always liked the amount of mounted units this game has. Due to it's design this game does require patience to play (mainly because of how large the maps are) as such some people don't enjoy it. I enjoyed the characters despite the fact that they have bismaly low development in terms of supports compared to the newer games. Where they seemed better developed even than most characters who get 20 supports apiece (I'm exagerating on the 20 support thing, but you get my point). Lex is probably my favorite Gen 1 character, I liked the RPG angle where there were rings that gave a boost to your stats, like Power, Speed, etc. 

Gen 2 gave me a lot of Radiant Dawn vibes paticularly Part One of Radiant Dawn except that FE4 is better. Oifey might be my favourite "Jaegan" because......MUSTACHE! Overall I also thorougly enjoy the desing of characters in FE4. Alteana is probably my favorite in this regard.

All in all it is a solid game (it has it's quirks and falls and it would have been nice to see more depth out of the story and it's themes but what game isn't that way?) and I enjoy it. I think everyone should at least give it a try but one should bear in mind that it plays differantly than other FE games. I will probably continue to play FE4 over the years. Many, many times I enjoyed it that much.