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The Worst Part of Fates


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Worst Part of Fates  

48 members have voted

  1. 1. What is the worst part of Fates?

    • The Characters
      12
    • The Maps
      1
    • The Gameplay Changes
      0
    • Chapter 20 of Conquest
      5
    • Corrin's character development
      30


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11 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Chapter 20 is not even in the top 10 of the worst parts in Fates. My choice would be the story, but since that isn't an option I'll go with Corrin's development.

Oh, Corrin had character development?

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Den of Betrayal and the final mission are the worst. Den of Betrayal is not a hard map if you know exactly how to beat it, but its a terrible map because it great restricts viable strategies. Basically you want to abuse choke points and let a few units widdle down the ninjas. Its best to position units that either have too high a defense to be attacked or can only be attack by 1 ninja and you won't kill them (like Camilla with an throwing Axe). Using this method you can kill the enemy during the player turn and it gives you the time to get Saizo to the top left room and trap him there (you want this speedwing).

Thats the same reason the final missions is also terrible. Sure, it can be and has been beaten with out pass warp skipping the map but its not worth the effort.

Thats sad, I don't mind a few unfair maps in conquest, overall I found the challenge of lunatic conquest very fair (unlike awakening) and with great replay value because of how many viable units there are in the game and all the mix and matching you can do with class changing. Great map designs as well.

The real worst part of the game is the story, its childish and feels like a saturday morning cartoon. Thats not a big deal to me because fire emblems tend to not have appealing stories to me but hopefully Three Houses will have better writing then the 3DS generation. Heck, I'll take echoes level of writing at the very least.

Edited by wissenschaft
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10 hours ago, wissenschaft said:

The real worst part of the game is the story, its childish and feels like a saturday morning cartoon. Thats not a big deal to me because fire emblems tend to not have appealing stories to me but hopefully Three Houses will have better writing then the 3DS generation. Heck, I'll take echoes level of writing at the very least.

Agreed, though I don't think "saturday morning cartoon" is a good short hand for describing the quality of this game's story. I prefer to describe it as a "an edgy 14 year old's attempt at writing a morally complex anime" or to sum it up another way "your generic light novel harem bullsh*t that tries to tell a morally complex story." and yes I specifically state anime cause of all the tropey harem nonsense. Honestly a lot of fate's writing problems can be best summarized as way too much otaku pandering. I mean I'm all for fanservice but when it's this blatant, shallow, and in your face about it you sort of lose me. I mean that's stuff is fine in a game like senran kagura where fanservice is kind of the entire point and the game is so over the top and self aware that it's actually kind of funny. But when you have a game that's trying(Key word: trying) to tell a serious morally complex story putting all this shameless fanservice and pandering just doesn't work. I could go on all day but you get the idea.

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The worst thing about Fates is its appalling lack of dignity. 

The FE team had a really compelling premise and an audience that was surely going to check the game out after the success that was Awakening. But suddenly that was no longer good enough, suddenly IS got really nervous and fled back into the comfortable shadow of Awakening.

So the premise of the whole game was undermined just so that those really into the pairing system could have pseudo incest pairings with the Hoshido siblings. 

And then a select few characters from Awakening had to be dragged in by their hairs and forcefully inserted into the plot just because they were popular. And even after that they dragged in even more Awakening characters and outright cloned them just to keep appealing to fans of that game. 

And because IS apparently really feared to disappoint fans of the children mechanic they suddenly created a children's mechanic for Fates despite the game's story and lore not having any room for that, and thereby heavily damaging some otherwise great characters.

It really seems like IS was still deathly afraid of the series getting cancelled and thus they were willing to engage in any sort of pandering to any group or fetish in order to avoid that fate. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

It really seems like IS was still deathly afraid of the series getting cancelled and thus they were willing to engage in any sort of pandering to any group or fetish in order to avoid that fate. 

Thats because Fire Emblem WAS in danger of being canceled. Awakening saved the franchise and thats not an overstatement. It was going to be canceled after one more game. So IS was certainly afraid of deviating too far from their most successful formula. They made gameplay/maps have far more depth in conquest but writing quality certainly took a back seat.

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Is Conquest's Chapter 20 really that annoying for most people?
Having arrived late to the party (I got the game in mid '17), I could not experience the reactions first-hand. Its being 'the worst chapter' certainly does not reflect my experience, specially when one can finish it in six turns or so (sacrificing the west chests.) Yes, it can be annoying, but I very much prefer it over the bland Ch 11, 14 or 15; and I honestly struggle more with Ch 23 and 25. [Hard Classic, no royals, no grinding, no backpacks, ten-units party.]

I believe that the first experiences have a greater impact on our overall perception. I can understand how the mechanics of Ch 20 can make it a very slow and cumbersome map, yet I did not 'suffer' it the first time (or its restarts.) If anything, a unit may die because of my wanting the gold, and not because of the goal itself (Fuga is gone by turn six or so.)

The same goes for Ch 17. Many people dislike it, but once one deals with the south-east group, the map itself is rather easy (Kotaro is an entirely different beast.) It is so slow paced that it is perfect for levelling up characters who fell behind, or let a character learn their L25 skill.

In my case, I think that I had a less 'traumatic' experience with those chapters precisely because I was new to the series. I played the first chapters countless times while learning the basics, and I had nothing to compare Conquest to; its mechanics were all I knew. And if I was lucky enough to complete Ch 17 and 20 after a couple of tries, then my first experience was undoubtedly better than that of players frustrated by them.
Conversely, on my first (complete) campaign, Chapter 21 was a nightmare. I could not come up with a strategy to complete it no matter how hard I tried, and 'cheesed' it with with a flyer plus Corrinette. Hell, I still do not know how to complete it without mages (against the Stoneborn.)
 

Anyway, for me, the worst part of Conquest is its storytelling, not the story itself but how it is told to the player. Actors are either shallow or dull or incoherent... or all. I still love Conquest, but 'Start and skip' is a must.

I also heavily dislike being able to ship everyone with everyone. I would rather have fewer, more meaningful supports (romantic or friendly.)
And as much as love Ophelia and Velouria, how the children were included in the story is just dumb. Honestly, if Intelligent Systems recycled popular characters from Awakening, why could they not reuse time-travelling? It could not be worse than the deep realms.

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The most egregious flaw in fates is the total disregard for any character outside of royals. This is a problem throughout fire emblem, but most games at least make an attempt to give them some story integration. Take FE4 for example, between chapters and castle seizes it usually boils down to sigurd or seliph talking with their advisor. Rarely do characters get any dialogue in these scenes outside of a few moments like the opening to the prologue with Arden, Alec, and Noish, but in every chapter there is some sort of special conversation between characters that take place in the context of the story. Example, Ethlin speaks with Aidean in chapter 1. They have a short conversation, in which Ethlin shares her concern for Aidean's capture and imprisonment. Not only does this give us a small bit of characterization (Ethlin cares for Aidean) it also allows a side character to have a voice in the main campaign's happenings. This is seen in other games as well, but fates keeps character development separate from the main story, religating it to support chains that feel awkward and disjointed from the main story.    

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36 minutes ago, Tenders said:

Example, Ethlin speaks with Aidean in chapter 1. They have a short conversation, in which Ethlin shares her concern for Aidean's capture and imprisonment. Not only does this give us a small bit of characterization (Ethlin cares for Aidean) it also allows a side character to have a voice in the main campaign's happenings. This is seen in other games as well, but fates keeps character development separate from the main story, religating it to support chains that feel awkward and disjointed from the main story.    


Enlightening opinion, mate. Conquest was my first Fire Emblem, and thus I do not have the context of other games, but I fully agree with you in that the (flawed and scarce) character development is independent of the story itself. One hardly ever learns something about Fatesland through the supports, nor do these supports tie the characters to the main story.

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Well the story and most of the chars were lame, but the gameplay of conquest was really great so it didn't bother me. I guess I'll say what bothered me most was that the maps/gameplay of  birthright didn't start to get good until the final few chaps.

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Look Corrin...let's not go there, just let's say that was my vote.  However the worst part is not him/her.  The worst is missed potential particularly on Conquest.  Yes finally, you get to be the bad guy!!!! Except not actually, besides the plot holes and all that, it is clear Corrin is trying to do the right thing...he is not siding with King Garon.  Now the writing is a mess and perhaps it still wouldn't be great, but if they actually let  you side with King Garon be a ruthless conquerer, use and then even slay your siblings.  I mean something completely different from other games in the series, it would have been amazing.  We already got the 'traditional' style story with Birthright, so people who wanted to be 'good' had that.  

 

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On 10/8/2018 at 12:38 AM, wissenschaft said:

Den of Betrayal and the final mission are the worst. Den of Betrayal is not a hard map if you know exactly how to beat it, but its a terrible map because it great restricts viable strategies. Basically you want to abuse choke points and let a few units widdle down the ninjas. Its best to position units that either have too high a defense to be attacked or can only be attack by 1 ninja and you won't kill them (like Camilla with an throwing Axe). Using this method you can kill the enemy during the player turn and it gives you the time to get Saizo to the top left room and trap him there (you want this speedwing).

I've found that playing hella aggro is better than playing defensive on Ninja Rape Cave. With some planning you can get a Calamity gate mage, a forged throwing axe for Camilla, and maybe a decent archer. With those, you can bumrush the MNs and kill them fairly safely. Playing defensively is asking for a slow, protracted death.

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For me, the worst part of Fates was Corrin being the protagonist. I would've been fine if the plot of the three games was more like Awakening's, with Corrin being more of a secondary protag, and the main story focused on Chrom- who, IMO, is much stronger than both Corrin and Robin as a character, because of a certain trait known as "having a personality". 

But no, Corrin's front and center in pretty much every chapter of all three games. Idk how popular an opinion this is, but I can't see Corrin as anything other than completely bland, without any flaws to speak of, and no defined personality- but every other character loves them, or is at least friendly to them, except for the obvious (and often totally forgettable) villains. I get that the reason for this is probably because Corrin's meant to be a blank slate for the player to insert themselves into, but that was really hard for me to do when I couldn't see anything resembling myself in them. 

The only thing about Corrin that interested me was (spoiler warning, I guess... do we even use those here?) the fact that they are the child of Anankos, and the sibling of Lilith. That, while it did surprise me, still wasn't anything really redeemable because I had to play through two other entire games before I got anything that I felt was worthwhile.

Yet, with all this said... I honestly wouldn't have minded Corrin's dullness so much if they were anything lesser than the main character. A lot of my problems with them can also be applied to Robin, but to a much lesser extent, since I never really felt like Awakening was focusing more on Robin than on Chrom, at least not until the last few chapters. This all is probably why I've been enjoying Echoes so much, now that I think of it, since I definitely prefer following a main character with a strong personality, defined flaws, and a clear goal to accomplish, rather than a blank slate that's supposed to represent me. If I were actually in Fire Emblem, what with being a pretty absentminded individual who's cripplingly prone to panic, I'd probably fuck things up so badly that whoever's in my army would be dead before the first chapter ended. 

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1 hour ago, Farina's Pegasus said:

For me, the worst part of Fates was Corrin being the protagonist. I would've been fine if the plot of the three games was more like Awakening's, with Corrin being more of a secondary protag, and the main story focused on Chrom- who, IMO, is much stronger than both Corrin and Robin as a character, because of a certain trait known as "having a personality". 

The avatar system was growing until it became too much. It began on Blazing Blade, where Mark was just a minimal story character. Then, on Mystery of the Emblem remake, the avatar was a playable character but their character didn't messed up the story. On Awakening, the story had to do with the avatar but not to the point of being the focus, because Chrom was. Now... Corrin was supposed to be a blank slate so players can identify and so on, but he/she was nothing that I would find "identifiable". If they wanted to create an avatar with the involvement that they supposedly wanted to see, at least let me choose my fate not by picking a voice tone, but like a morality system or something.

Design choices are something that I dislike on Fates too, mostly on Nohr which is full of BDSM clothing. A friend of mine asked me why Fighters don't wear pants and why Dark Mages look like old women if they are supposed to be men, he also made a comparison between Minerva and Camilla's armor (He played Shadow Dragon, Awakening and Conquest, in that order) and he addressed the tits by saying this: "Probably Minerva does have big ones, but she wears proper armor to not being impaled by a goddamn arrow, having your boingy bits exposed means death, you know." For Hoshido there's not much to talk about... But for Azura and Corrin, being barefooted is really stupid, like, I imagined that they would take more damage from traps.

On 10/15/2018 at 5:22 AM, henrymidfields said:

It's not just the story that was problematic; there was very little in the way of world-building unlike Tellius, Jugdral, FE6!Elibe, or even Magvel.

This!
We don't even know the name of the continent where the "story" is "developing"! We know that it has a Bottomless Canyon, some Endless Stairs and some independent nations/tribes that appear one time only.

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1 hour ago, Critical Sniper said:

Out of context but I had to search that up...

Nani the heck?

My words exactly! Why on the Jormungand tome those fellows dress like that?!
Does King Garon has a kink issue?

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1 hour ago, 1% Critical Hit said:

Design choices are something that I dislike on Fates too, mostly on Nohr which is full of BDSM clothing. A friend of mine asked me why Fighters don't wear pants and why Dark Mages look like old women if they are supposed to be men, he also made a comparison between Minerva and Camilla's armor (He played Shadow Dragon, Awakening and Conquest, in that order) and he addressed the tits by saying this: "Probably Minerva does have big ones, but she wears proper armor to not being impaled by a goddamn arrow, having your boingy bits exposed means death, you know." For Hoshido there's not much to talk about... But for Azura and Corrin, being barefooted is really stupid, like, I imagined that they would take more damage from traps.

I never minded the bare feet much, what with them technically being dragons, or half-dragons or whatever. I thought it added a bit of a unique touch to Corrin's otherwise-pretty-boring human design.

I agree with the rest, though, the Sorcerer outfit also always looked pretty silly to me, with the single-fingered gloves and skin-tight, lace-thin outfit. I'm sure that'll be useful in battle. And the bare-chested Barbarians in pretty much every FE game have always bothered me, it's basically painting a target on your vitals if you're not gonna wear the barest form of armor. 

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10 hours ago, Farina's Pegasus said:

But no, Corrin's front and center in pretty much every chapter of all three games. Idk how popular an opinion this is, but I can't see Corrin as anything other than completely bland, without any flaws to speak of, and no defined personality- but every other character loves them, or is at least friendly to them, except for the obvious (and often totally forgettable) villains. I get that the reason for this is probably because Corrin's meant to be a blank slate for the player to insert themselves into, but that was really hard for me to do when I couldn't see anything resembling myself in them. 

I actually think its the opposite problem. Corrin is too much of his own character to properly be an Avatar.

Robin could carry the role of Avatar pretty well because his personality was fairly low key, he played the straight man to a wacky cast and he rarely give a particularly strong opinion on what was happening. But with Corrin its different. He's not low key or a blank slate. Corrin is super friendly, Corrin is emotional, he's a dork and he's very naive. This immediately makes him unsuited to properly represent a player who doesn't have a very soft personality. Constantly making mistakes and having others bail him out also isn't a very flattering depiction if you're supposed to represent the player. A lot of players will likely tell themselves they would totally be able to outsmart Validar like Robin, but I doubt any Fire Emblem player would think they need to be constantly protected and cuddled by their babysitters like Corrin. 

Quote

Does King Garon has a kink issue?

Garon got countless of mistresses and a very active sex life....so he probably does like some kink. When clicking on him in Heroes he also says ''Oh...yeeah'' as if he's aroused so I imagine Garon is a bit of a pervert. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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I didn't post in this thread yet?

Oh right, Corrin's awfulness speaks for itself.

 

That being said, it's actually hard for me to say what I least like.  And I can't help but think in many of these cases about how Genealogy did it so much better.  World building?  Genealogy did it better.  Family conflicts?  Genealogy did it better.  Scale and epic?  Why, Genealogy, fancy seeing you here.  And I mean of course some will say Genealogy did all of that better than a lot of other FE games, but I feel like it sticks to Fates because that's sort of the scale and risk in storytelling the game was going for, while most other games tried to play it safe.

On 10/8/2018 at 5:31 PM, Tenders said:

The most egregious flaw in fates is the total disregard for any character outside of royals. This is a problem throughout fire emblem, but most games at least make an attempt to give them some story integration. Take FE4 for example, between chapters and castle seizes it usually boils down to sigurd or seliph talking with their advisor. Rarely do characters get any dialogue in these scenes outside of a few moments like the opening to the prologue with Arden, Alec, and Noish, but in every chapter there is some sort of special conversation between characters that take place in the context of the story. Example, Ethlin speaks with Aidean in chapter 1. They have a short conversation, in which Ethlin shares her concern for Aidean's capture and imprisonment. Not only does this give us a small bit of characterization (Ethlin cares for Aidean) it also allows a side character to have a voice in the main campaign's happenings. This is seen in other games as well, but fates keeps character development separate from the main story, religating it to support chains that feel awkward and disjointed from the main story.    

My biggest problem as of yet with modern FE is how the supports are integrated.

Right now, the supports are so disjointed from the main story, you literally have people saying that one of the Fates characters is actually two different characters.

Echoes started to rectify that problem, but I feel like maybe supports could also probably do it more like the Radiance games where the bonding actually happens over the course of the game.  Yes, I'm suggesting to relegate supports to base conversations.  That's a good way to keep the conversations relevant to the plot, because then you can guarantee that they'll only happen after a certain point so they can talk about current events.  Sure, it may keep people from waifuing up as soon as they may like... although knowing my luck with these games, that's actually a good thing.  I still believe my pairing of Robin and Sumia was a mistake, I don't actually like the character that much.

Either way, I feel they need to start barring you from pairing characters up immediately so that the conversations can pertain to the plot and how the characters feel and relate to what's going on.  Maybe they could also implement Valkyria Chronicles' squadmate mission system, where maybe a group of characters have their own little paralogue.  So, like, maybe there'd be a story with Takumi, Oboro, and Hinata, sort of like that CD drama.

 

Oh, and for goodness sake, why not interject the side characters into some plot points?  And not like Awakening's vain roll calls they jam into every rally segment...  I'm talking when Takumi's struggling with control over his own body, whichever retainers are still alive/uninjured come to his side to try to help him, that Effie and Arthur come to Elise in her troubled times, and even Corrin's retainers - who all have plenty of scenes with Corrin in DLC - should at least be accompanying Corrin in most scenes.  Really, how did they expect to make these retainer teams feel close-knit if they never show up with their masters outside of a few select times?

9 hours ago, 1% Critical Hit said:

My words exactly! Why on the Jormungand tome those fellows dress like that?!
Does King Garon has a kink issue?

Don't kink shame

Nohr's cast strikes me as the super kinky types.

Niles and Camilla definitely got that going for them, at least.  Maybe Hans and Charlotte too, though I feel it's more like they're open to it if that's what their partner wants.  And I don't know why, but Flora just seems like the kind of girl who'd be into some freaky stuff, yet no one would expect it of her.

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2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I actually think its the opposite problem. Corrin is too much of his own character to properly be an Avatar.

Robin could carry the role of Avatar pretty well because his personality was fairly low key, he played the straight man to a wacky cast and he rarely give a particularly strong opinion on what was happening. But with Corrin its different. He's not low key or a blank slate. Corrin is super friendly, Corrin is emotional, he's a dork and he's very naive. This immediately makes him unsuited to properly represent a player who doesn't have a very soft personality. Constantly making mistakes and having others bail him out also isn't a very flattering depiction if you're supposed to represent the player. A lot of players will likely tell themselves they would totally be able to outsmart Validar like Robin, but I doubt any Fire Emblem player would think they need to be constantly protected and cuddled by their babysitters like Corrin. 

Actually I think the problem with corrin is a mix of both. He’s basically written like your typical harem light novel protagonist(along the lines of kirito, ayato, etc.) like he has a personality, backstory, motivations, goals but all of that just seems to take a backseat because he’s the avatar who you’re supposed to project yourself onto so like robin they try to minimize those aspects as much as possible but it doesn’t work here because he’s supposed to be the main character and thus is supposed to be at the forefront of the plot. However because he’s an avatar they can’t develop and expand on the nuances of the character because then you would no longer be able to project yourself on to him/her.

 

 

Really it’s a matter of nuance. Robin worked because all the aspects of his character melded together nicely and made sense. His amnesia explains his rather plain and nice guy attitude and in some supports we learn that he likes reading which makes sense given he’s the tactician. Corrin on the other hand makes very little sense given what we know about him/her. We know corrin has amnesia but there’s really no explanation as to why and it’s never really brought up most of the time. We also know corrin lived a sheltered life with very little in terms of outside social interactions which explains why they don’t know a whole lot of the outside world but it doesn’t really explain how they’re so good at diplomacy being able to recruit nyx and such. One other aspect of their that makes very little sense is their nice guy attitude because while yes nohr did raise them choosing that side makes no sense cause within the context of that scene it would directly contradict what we know about the character. He only makes the decision because avatar. All in all what I’m trying to say is that corrin isn’t believable and my thoughts can be best summed up with this quote from digibro’s asterisk war sucks series.

Spoiler

His character isn’t constructed in a way that logically fits together; he’s just a random combination of everything that these kinds of characters are known for. He’s a cosmic badass, but he’s also a shy virgin. He’s the nicest person in the world, but he’s too cool to care about anything. He’s all of the wish fulfillment tropes that every other character embodies, all rolled up into one guy that no one can actually relate to.

 

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