Tellius Veteran and Heroes Addict Here

[Jhedin]

Hello all,

I've lurked here awhile, indulging in the great resources and lively conversation, and decided it was time to chime in every now and then.

I always knew about the Fire Emblem series without ever playing them - I'm in my 30s now, so I grew up largely with the SNES and PSX systems.  I was an avid RPG player, and often knew about the Big Name Games in Japan that didn't come over here (hey Bahamut Lagoon).  I enjoyed what strategy RPGs we had, though, such as Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics.  Some of my favorite games of all time include Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Suikoden II, Xenogears, and Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne.

Anyway.  Cut forward a bit - it's 2007 and I just moved to the Seattle area.  I was fresh out of college and looking for a job in QA.  Lo and behold, I run into a temp hiring run at Nintendo of America for product testing.  Not a glamorous gig, I assure you, but I figured I'd meet some folks and get some bills paid.  Since my NDA is long expired, I can share with you my great fortune - my first project?  Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

Now, I never played a Fire Emblem before this.  And RD is scripted well so I could pick up on what I was supposed to know from PoR.  But I dove in and I loved it, and got honored with the task of "full completion" - which is to say, I had to do all of the annoying hard stuff, like trigger rare dialogue and make sure no one died on Hard mode completion, and beat normal quickly to unlock Hard, etc.  I ate it up.  Two other guys had the same assignment and we had documents upon documents, plus stuff straight from dev.  It was grand.  Then the project ended and I never got to be on something so good again.

Eventually, I picked up Path of Radiance and played it, and it feels like Suikoden 1 to me after having played Suikoden 2 first - a good game, but its sequel improved wholly upon it.  Radiant Dawn remains a favorite of mine, and I've been playing through both PoR and RD again lately to wax nostalgic.

Of course, some of this is prompted by my playing Fire Emblem Heroes over the past year and a half or so, which is a remarkably fair game for the mobile gacha genre that I can't put down for long.  It's gotten me much more interested in the larger Fire Emblem series, and has me more actively seeking out titles, and that's part of why I came here - to be communal and chit chat about PoR and RD and Heroes, but also the others as I find and play them, and to get some community input on which games I should really prioritize over others.

Anyway, happy to see there's such a lively and organized Fire Emblem community out there.  Look forward to getting to future conversations.

[Dragoncat]

Dude, you were a game tester??? AWESOME.

Tellius is best FE for sure, glad to have you here, and someone closer to my age too! (27).

[smgrinus]

@Jhedin That's pretty awesome that you got to playtest RD. The English translation for Bahamut Lagoon exists now if that still interests you. I dig the Tellius series more than the others. I always liked how it tackled prejudice and other issues in RL. I do feel that PoR's writing was better due to its focus but RD's map design has a lot to like, well as the massive scale of it. 

I do wish the Dawn Brigade had more backstory but I guess it was left out due to the game being so large, to begin with. I think Part 2 could have used more levels, as well as some additional maps leading to the main battle in Part 1's capital. Possibly, more dialogue explaining the whole deal with Sephiran and the Senate as well.

[Dandy Druid]

Welcome to Serenes! RD was my first FE too, so it holds a special place in my heart. 

Glad you're interested in the FE series now thanks to Heroes. Although I do think the Tellius saga is the most polished overall, the other FE installments are still enjoyable. Some more different than others.

[Ycine]

Welcome to the Forest, Jhedin!

Wow, that's a hell of an introduction in the series. Also, I'd say go on and play wichever game you feel like. I'd recommend the GBA one though (FE6 to 8).

Have a nice day and enjoy your stay!

[Re: The weirdo.]

damn thats cool. wish i could make money by playing yet unreleased video games, and props for playing through such a slow game with such vigilance to do everything in it, i mean, its nearly impossible to get a hold of a legit copy of RD so im damned jealous of you just for that

[DisobeyedCargo]

Woah @Jhedin

thats really cool

anyway welcome aboard!

[Zihark11]

Nice read! such a cool experience for sure. Radiant dawn is for sure my favorite Fire Emblem game of all time and my favorite game of all time. ive beaten the game 142 times. i got inspired by FM Volke on twitch to play another PoR playthrough as well and its awesome as usual.

[Jhedin]

Thanks for the warm welcome, folks.

Believe it or not - game testing is not as awesome as you'd think, although it's definitely not an experience I regret.  That said, the gaming industry suffers greatly from overuse of temporary contractors, which suppresses stability + wages.  That said, it was a good "in-between jobs" job as a younger person, and I made friends there that I've kept to this day.  I was luckier than most, getting to test a handful of games I genuinely enjoy (such as RD), but the majority of games are games you haven't heard of or don't want to play for 8 hours a day for 2-3 months (among less desirables I tested were Endless Ocean and Millionheir).  Fun testing story, though - playing the same game for 8 hours a day (or more) for weeks/months on end kinda gets into some loopy humor, so we made the "Ike Song" in a bored moment, which largely was just repeating "Ike Ike Ike Ike" over and over.  In honor of it being a sequel, though, we decided it was more fitting for it to go "Ike Ike this is the remix Ike Ike Ike"... good times.

@grinus I have tinkered with the English translation of Bahamut Lagoon; I would have probably enjoyed it more when it was a more "current" game; it's hard to play retro stuff nowadays, but I try sometimes.

I agree that the "parts" of RD are a bit... well, it sometimes staggers the story some in a negative way.  That said, I do like how it makes the narrative function.  In PoR, you beat Daein - then you begin RD sort of in the aftermath of that, fighting for Daein, which is a nice inversion.  Part 2 is the most bleh to me - like a throw-in to reintroduce the Crimeans, but really not enough missions to really do much with them.  I wish they could have fleshed that bit out again; the lack of exposure makes it very hard to actually use the Crimeans in Part 4 without babying some of them up.  Part 3 annoys me in that it jumps between all three groups, but from a narrative standpoint, I love that it actually pits you against your other teams.  That's really uncommon.  The downside is just that the Daein missions in Part 3 are largely "catch-up leveling" missions and not super engaging, and it's hard to go back to a barely-promoted team after rolling the Greil Mercenaries for awhile.  I actually rather like Part 1 overall.

It's interesting to hear people say the Tellius series is highly polished - I'd always heard in places that the Tellius series is a bit of a series stepchild because it didn't perform well in Japan, but maybe I'm mistaken.  I do remember reading that the series was almost shuttered due to low sales until Awakening did really well, so I'm inclined to try that one out, but of course, I'll have to find them first and finish up my current PoR/RD playthrough.  Working on an "ideal" PoR transfer file - beefing up and getting A-supports for Part 1/Part 2 characters to help round those chapters out.

[smgrinus]

@Jhedin You are not mistaken that it didn't do great in Japan but availability was and is still a big issue and also PoR being on the Gamecube didn't make matters much better.  The Japanese prefer their games on phones and portables. Living spaces in Japan generally don't bode too well for home consoles. I'm sure that is why GBA, DS, and Switch are so immensely popular over there. 

As for Radiant Dawn, I know a lot of reviewers felt it was too long but I feel having more battles where appropriate, especially the Crimean Civil War would have fleshed out the story of Elincia and her group. Only being able to recruit Pelleas on the second playthrough was a disservice to the game as well. I also feel as if the game should have made Sanaki, Elincia, Micaiah and Pelleas the main protagonists of the game, instead of it being focused on Ike once again.

[Heiden]

Oh man, I can't even imagine what it would be like to playtest through Endless Ocean (GOD THE GRINDING AT THE END......), but it's awesome that you got to playtest a game that you loved so much! (And how cool that your first gig was for a Fire Emblem game!!!)

Welcome~! :D

[Jhedin]

15 hours ago, grinus said:

@Jhedin You are not mistaken that it didn't do great in Japan but availability was and is still a big issue and also PoR being on the Gamecube didn't make matters much better.  The Japanese prefer their games on phones and portables. Living spaces in Japan generally don't bode too well for home consoles. I'm sure that is why GBA, DS, and Switch are so immensely popular over there. 

Interesting!  I suppose the proliferation of gacha mobile games is indicative of this, but I haven't really looked closely at the market research.  It'll be interesting to see how Three Houses does on the Switch.

RD's biggest issue, in my opinion, is just the poor pacing at times - Part 1 has a nice even pace, and then Part 2 almost feels like a sidequest that's hard to get involved in because it's too short, and then Part 3 really gets going until you get shunted back to the DB, and then of course Part 4 moves nicely.  I've seen some folks here suggest that RD could have been two games - one featuring the DB, and then a third installment in the trilogy that returns us to Ike.  I feel like this would have worked well, as "RD Part 1" could have covered the Dawn Brigade in full, even their battles against Ike in Part 3.  I'm not sure how to end it satisfactorily, but it's a neat idea.  Then "RD Part 2" could have been a longer installment than Part 1, reintroducing us first to Crimea and fleshing out the Crimean civil war, before Ike rides in and we go full bore with the Greil Mercs.  An interesting idea, but I have few qualms with RD as it is, so I can't complain much.  Pelleas being less of a wet noodle of a character would have been satisfying, too; his character arc isn't difficult to guess at fairly early on.  It would have been more fun to show more of him and his internal conflict so we understood him better.  

6 hours ago, Heiden said:

Oh man, I can't even imagine what it would be like to playtest through Endless Ocean (GOD THE GRINDING AT THE END......), but it's awesome that you got to playtest a game that you loved so much! (And how cool that your first gig was for a Fire Emblem game!!!)

Welcome~! :D

Endless Ocean was terrible to playtest, but sort of a neat game.  One thing about playtesting; at least back in 2008, if you were playtesting anything with wifi, you were playtesting in a 12-man Farraday cage.  You can imagine how hot it gets in a copper box when you have 12 human beings + 12 consoles/TVs/computers/etc.  Not awesome.  EO was one of my nightmares... MillionHeir was easily the worst, though, if only because it kept breaking and then it'd go back to the third party, and you knew it was coming back, and you couldn't help but wonder how a find-it-on-a-jpg game could be so hard to put together.  Animal Crossing was actually another game I tested that ended up being a major bore - most of it was grinding to unlock rare text, and I swear we were on that game for close to 6 months.

Oddly, the random WiiWare games we tested were some of the best projects.  Puzzle games have more replayability than most, and those projects tended to run short - 3 or 4 weeks - so it never felt like it dragged on too badly.  Once you cross that 4-week threshold, anything can start to become a bear.  Radiant Dawn being my one exception, naturally.