Official Camilla Discussion Thread

[XRay]

36 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Too much focus on degenerate otaku pandering and not enough focus on writing actually good stories. as the legend, miyazaki, once said himself "the reason anime suffers is because of too many otaku in the industry" 

I feel like an old record repeating myself, but otakus are people. I could just as easily egg on non-otaku Fire Emblem fans for being narrow minded stingy prudes for allowing Fire Emblem to get to the point of being nearly axed by Nintendo, but I do not do that. It is rude, disrespectful, and super unproductive.

I welcome the inclusion of characters like Tharja, Camilla, and Loki if they can guarantee the financial stability of Fire Emblem. As a fan of Advance Wars, I will not hesitate to pay $100 for an Advance Wars game if they revive the series, and if all it takes to be financially secure is to have a bunch of COs be sexy waifus, I will gladly accept it. If you do not like where Fire Emblem is heading, then be prepared to put your money where your mouth is and lead Intelligent Systems away from that direction. If you do not have the dough to spend, then to do not ruin the experience for others who can and are willing to spend that amount.

[Interdimensional Observer]

29 minutes ago, XRay said:

As a fan of Advance Wars, I will not hesitate to pay $100 for an Advance Wars game if they revive the series, and if all it takes to be financially secure is to have a bunch of COs be sexy waifus, I will gladly accept it.

Days of Ruin was definitely running in the direction of modern anime. Aesthetics/tone wasn't a problem, and need I remind you of proto-Peri?

 Stupid weak XRay! How could you forget I exist! Now go my servant make the batter so it can rest overnight, tomorrow is Waffle Day!

A real problem is that AW didn't get off the ground in Japan. AW1 was supposed to release in Japan on September 11th, 2001, but then the American tragedy happened (US got the game before Japan did). Apparently AW1 was not released until later when it was bundled with AWII in a single cartridge in Japan. Sales in Japan remained weak with Dual Strike, and weren't exactly singing extraordinarily in the US either. Then comes Days of Ruin, and they scrapped the Japanese release entirely, it only was made available years later with a Club Nintendo offer.

[Ottservia]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

I feel like an old record repeating myself, but otakus are people. I could just as easily egg on non-otaku Fire Emblem fans for being narrow minded stingy prudes for allowing Fire Emblem to get to the point of being nearly axed by Nintendo, but I do not do that. It is rude, disrespectful, and super unproductive.

I welcome the inclusion of characters like Tharja, Camilla, and Loki if they can guarantee the financial stability of Fire Emblem. As a fan of Advance Wars, I will not hesitate to pay $100 for an Advance Wars game if they revive the series, and if all it takes to be financially secure is to have a bunch of COs be sexy waifus, I will gladly accept it. If you do not like where Fire Emblem is heading, then be prepared to put your money where your mouth is and lead Intelligent Systems away from that direction. If you do not have the dough to spend, then to do not ruin the experience for others who can and are willing to spend that amount.

I'm not saying Otaku aren't people nor am I saying they shouldn't be allowed into the fandom or anything of that nature. Hell I'm as much of a degenerate otaku as you're gonna get that much I can assure you so if you think I'm being prudish, I'm sorry but you're sadly mistaken. I'm saying IS or anime producers in general for that matter should not sacrifice good writing for the sake of fetish pandering. I mean I like my anime waifus and husbandos as much as the next guy(if my profile picture is any indication). I've seen and enjoyed my fair share of isekai, harem, and ecchi shows. I don't mind sexy characters or fan service so long as it's done tastefully and respectfully(or you know in the way like senren kagura). My problem with the way IS handles characters like camilla and tharja is that it just feels exploitative like the devs think all I care about is tits and that gets annoying after a while. People can like what they like who am I to say otherwise. All that I'm trying to saying is that, again, fetish pandering should not come at the cost of writing quality. Like I said I don't mind fanservice at all, I mean there's a reason I like Severa so much and let me tell you her official artwork has a lot to do with it. In fact I'm more in favor of it than against it again I like my cute anime waifus as much as the next guy. It's just that when I see the devs just shove into my face like this with no real rhyme or reason other than to just pander to the lowest common denominator I get annoyed. I get it sex sells but still. 

Also I don't mind at all the direction the series is heading. Awakening is my favorite game in the franchise because I love it's characters and because it has best girl(I.E Severa) in it. Fates while coming up short in a lot of aspects(namely how much it panders to the lowest common denominator) is still a lot of fun and has some great characters in it. I enjoyed echoes for what it was(though it was probably my least favorite out of the 3ds era if you ask me) and Three houses is looking great. I am a person who likes good writing, characters, gameplay, and cute anime girls. if IS can stop sacrificing those things just to pander to the lowest common denominator(like shows such as eromanga-sensei), then that's all I ask for.

Edited February 2, 2019 by Ottservia

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Aesthetics/tone wasn't a problem, and need I remind you of proto-Peri?

You mean Peri is not actually Tabitha who went missing at the end of the game and traveled to Nohr and lost her memories?

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Then comes Days of Ruin, and they scrapped the Japanese release entirely, it only was made available years later with a Club Nintendo offer.

Days of Ruin had decent sales in my opinion. It rivaled Shadow Dragon in global sales while having a massive handicap of not being available in Japan until the 3DS era.

56 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

All that I'm trying to saying is that, again, fetish pandering should not come at the cost of writing quality.

56 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I get it sex sells but still.

For Heroes, it feels like they are just putting in the minimal amount of profits back into the game. With limited funds, I think they have no choice but to rely on the sex sells strategy to drive the most sales.

It would be nice if they can implement better writing and more game modes and mechanics, but I do not have much faith in Intelligent Systems's upper management anymore based on how they have handled Heroes for the past year. My two main gripes with the company are their refusal to improve their workflow for Summoning Foci and their abysmal ability in communication and PR. If they are able to create Foci faster, they would be able to better respond to players' demands and increase the rate of new characters making it into the game. May be it is the norm for a Japanese company, but compared to a western company, Intelligent Systems' PR is god awful and they practically might as well just not have one. If they really want to cut cost while still maintaining decent player perception, they can spend less money on developing new Foci and game modes, and put some money into hiring a competent PR manager to engage with players and relieve their worries and hear their complaints. It does not take a genius to spin something like "We know there are a lot of Camilla alts lately, but please bare with us as we need to hit sales targets and we cannot easily change our Foci release plans. We really appreciate the support that Heroes players have given us, and we promise that Camilla's profitability will be reinvested back into the Fire Emblem series. We have also heard that players wanted more Hoshidan representation so there will be a Special Heroes Foci featuring more of your favorite royals."

Edited February 2, 2019 by XRay

[Lewyn]

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

which I personally find to be a problem with modern anime in it of itself. Too much focus on degenerate otaku pandering and not enough focus on writing actually good stories. as the legend, miyazaki, once said himself "the reason anime suffers is because of too many otaku in the industry" 

Anyway this leads me into my problems with Camilla. She's a decent character but is held back because of how much the devs want to use her to pander to the lowest common denominator. Like shit she has probably one of the most interesting and unique backstories in the game and it's barely touched upon if at all in her supports but no time to actually flesh out and develop an interesting character let's just shove tits in their face. They'll certainly love that and not be totally annoyed and put off by it. It's a shame cause if they had fleshed her out a bit more she could've easily been one of if not the best written character in all of fates but oh well what can ya do.

This is just perfect, exactly what I think.  I've been a long time anime fan, but is so damn embarrassing to say this to friends and other people cause there is all that other otaku pandering weeb stuff.  There is so much great art being made in the realm of anime, mature complex story telling, beautiful art styles, in depth characters however the first thing people think when they hear anime is the harem, lolicon, maid, and all types of fetishes.  

I won't go into Camilla again but you describe the problem well and what is the biggest reason she has been criticized.  

[Roflolxp54]

It seems like another person has forgotten or doesn't understand the concept of "vocal minority, silent majority". Camilla has largely been marketed as a fanservice character to keep those otaku whales invested in FEH. Bath Camilla being made a TT unit is ultimately to get said whales invested in Aether Raids so that they could +10 her.

[Interdimensional Observer]

15 minutes ago, XRay said:

Days of Ruin had decent sales in my opinion. It rivaled Shadow Dragon in global sales while having a massive handicap of not being available in Japan until the 3DS era.

Really? Wikipedia says 274k in Japan, 250k in NA, nothing on Europe for SD. DoR it puts at 130k in NA, nothing on Europe. Your sources?

 

17 minutes ago, XRay said:

You mean Peri is not actually Tabitha who went missing at the end of the game and traveled to Nohr and lost her memories?

Actually, you're right on this.

But what you forget is that like the Creeper virus, Garon is actually a failed Caulder experiment. It entered the same dimensional rift Tabitha fell in when the Great Owl, that giant bomber able to have 20+ armored vehicles wage a battle inside, fell from the sky. Now without the pollution of meteor dust in the atmosphere and soil, the experimental mass of slime came to life and crawled into King Garon, who was near the site of its entry. Slowly, it drove Garon insane and then assimilated his body to its own cellular structure. The Anankos possession only came after this.

In the meanwhile a Caulder clone tucked on the Great Owl survived, awoke, and killed the Rainbow Sage and then altered his body to look like the RS's. He then created the Yato, Ganglari, the royal prince personal weapons, and used Caulder Missiles containing poison gas to trick the entire world into thinking they were ancient, he also made all the S rank weapons and the Hexing Rod. Why? So he could reestablish Intelligent Defense Systems and hawk his wares and carry out his experiments without anyone suspecting him of being morally dubious. You know Corrin had nanomachines monitoring his every action and vital sign since Chapter 1 of Fates right?

[XRay]

6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Really? Wikipedia says 274k in Japan, 250k in NA, nothing on Europe for SD. DoR it puts at 130k in NA, nothing on Europe. Your sources?

I looked at VGChartz, and they claim Shadow Dragon got 0.61 million units sold, while Days of Ruin also got 0.61 million units sold, and for comparison, Dual Strike sold 0.39 million units.

13 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Actually, you're right on this.

But what you forget is that like the Creeper virus, Garon is actually a failed Caulder experiment. It entered the same dimensional rift Tabitha fell in when the Great Owl, that giant bomber able to have 20+ armored vehicles wage a battle inside, fell from the sky. Now without the pollution of meteor dust in the atmosphere and soil, the experimental mass of slime came to life and crawled into King Garon, who was near the site of its entry. Slowly, it drove Garon insane and then assimilated his body to its own cellular structure. The Anankos possession only came after this.

In the meanwhile a Caulder clone tucked on the Great Owl survived, awoke, and killed the Rainbow Sage and then altered his body to look like the RS's. He then created the Yato, Ganglari, the royal prince personal weapons, and used Caulder Missiles containing poison gas to trick the entire world into thinking they were ancient, he also made all the S rank weapons and the Hexing Rod. Why? So he could reestablish Intelligent Defense Systems and hawk his wares and carry out his experiments without anyone suspecting him of being morally dubious. You know Corrin had nanomachines monitoring his every action and vital sign since Chapter 1 of Fates right?

Now if only they had Camilla time travel back to Dual Strike or Days of Ruin, that might have saved the Advance Wars series.

[Poimagic]

Sooooooooo........
Why does this exist? If people are mad about Camilla winning, why did she get their in the first place?

[Dark Holy Elf]

25 minutes ago, XRay said:

I looked at VGChartz, and they claim Shadow Dragon got 0.61 million units sold, while Days of Ruin also got 0.61 million units sold, and for comparison, Dual Strike sold 0.39 million units.

FYI, VGChartz is basically garbage; they've been known to just make numbers up where none are publicly available.

 

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

All that I'm trying to saying is that, again, fetish pandering should not come at the cost of writing quality.

I'd agree with this in principle, of course, but I kinda feel like this is a bit of a false choice. One need not come at the expense of the other. Shadow Dragon characters are probably less pandery than those of Fates on average, but they're also less well-written IMHO (everyone is free to have their own opinion on this, obviously, but CYL results suggest I'm in the majority). In Camilla's case, I would certainly argue she is an interesting, well-written character, which is a huge part of why she's so much more popular than other characters often labeled as pandering. (I don't care about the pandery aspects one way or another; I'm married and too old for that shit. Camilla is still great.)

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

FYI, VGChartz is basically garbage; they've been known to just make numbers up where none are publicly available.

They may be garbage, but it is the most convenient source I can find. Until I can find a more reliable source, I am sticking with them for now. Having an estimate is better than having no estimate in my opinion.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The problem is their estimates can be way off. I've heard comments from people in game development to the effect of "I can't say the correct figures due to my NDA, buuut yeah VGChartz isn't even close."

You're always better off citing the figures which are properly documented then trying to extrapolate from there. (e.g. in this case, if it's true that Shadow Dragon nearly doubled Days of Ruin in North America and also put up meaningful numbers in Japan then it's almost inconceivable that Europe/Australia could make up the difference.)

[XRay]

23 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The problem is their estimates can be way off. I've heard comments from people in game development to the effect of "I can't say the correct figures due to my NDA, buuut yeah VGChartz isn't even close."

You're always better off citing the figures which are properly documented then trying to extrapolate from there. (e.g. in this case, if it's true that Shadow Dragon nearly doubled Days of Ruin in North America and also put up meaningful numbers in Japan then it's almost inconceivable that Europe/Australia could make up the difference.)

Destructoid also says 610,000 sold, although they could be copying off of VGChartz. Unless another person can provide a better source, I think VGChartz is good enough as a reference to give a rough estimate.

[Kori]

8 hours ago, XRay said:

I feel like an old record repeating myself, but otakus are people. I could just as easily egg on non-otaku Fire Emblem fans for being narrow minded stingy prudes for allowing Fire Emblem to get to the point of being nearly axed by Nintendo, but I do not do that. It is rude, disrespectful, and super unproductive.

Nintendo allowed Fire Emblem to flop enough to be nearly axed because of their bad marketing. There's nothing in Tellius or the Archanea remakes that "stingy prudes" would have objected to enough not to buy the games.

[Garlyle]

Purely the title of this topic is a thing that is bothering me and gives me the feeling that this shouldn't exist.

Brave Camilla, at least they don't have the chance to vote for her again, I can save orbs on this years Brave banner and the only one you can truly blame is IS itself.

[XRay]

14 minutes ago, Kori said:

Nintendo allowed Fire Emblem to flop enough to be nearly axed because of their bad marketing. There's nothing in Tellius or the Archanea remakes that "stingy prudes" would have objected to enough not to buy the games.

Bad marketing does not change the fact that the fan base did not buy enough of those games.

Shadows of Valentia had decent marketing, but its sales pales in comparison to Awakening's and Fates' sales with only 0.75 million units sold world wide. Days of Ruin had shit marketing (I do not remember how I found out about the game, but it certainly was not from Nintendo) and it still manages to outsell Shadows of Valentia in North America (DoR 0.43 million; SoV 0.34 million).

[NekoKnight]

To me, Camilla is first and foremost a fanservice character with her serious traits being treated as an afterthought by the developers. I have plenty of criticism for her writing but we've already done that song and dance so let's talk about how she is in the game.

One thing that I appreciate about her in Heroes is the variety of her alts. For most characters with several alts, making a "Character Emblem" is just for the novelty and not very viable, but with Camilla you could actually make something cohesive because they're all fliers. Two solid melee units and a mage flier of every color for blade tomes or whatever else you want to run. Dagger Camilla is rather underwhelming when everyone has Eir but... she's okay I guess. I use two of them, the original and New Years Camilla for their amazing combat buffs. L!Robin is pretty underwhelming by herself but when you stack on those combat buffs and field buffs (I use Bride Ninian), Robin becomes a force of nature. So, thanks for that, Cammy.

I think her best art is the New Years, Summer and Adrift version. The OG art is decent. Her Easter and towel art is pretty unappealing to me, the latter of which is Lloyd tier, in my opinion. If we get any accessories from her in a Forging Bonds, I hope we get those horn accessories. I am forever salty that we didn't get Laegjarn's horns as an accessory.

[Yexin]

i was about to ask why someone made a camilla-dedicated thread, while people were talking about anime

then i realized this is fire emblem after all

Edited February 2, 2019 by Yexin

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 hours ago, XRay said:

Destructoid also says 610,000 sold, although they could be copying off of VGChartz. Unless another person can provide a better source, I think VGChartz is good enough as a reference to give a rough estimate.

No numbers are better than false numbers. Since no numbers can't mislead.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I definitely have to echo Interdimensional Observer. False numbers are significantly worse than no numbers. The Destructoid article linked doesn't cite any sources either that I could see, so I'd suspect that somebody writing it just used google and grabbed the only thing they could find (and this is why spreading false numbers is bad, because every time you do it they start to "look" more legitimate as they show up in more places). If you want to make an argument using sales figures, always start by using the figures that are well-cited, and acknowledge that anything else is guesswork. (Guesswork isn't bad! We can make educated guesses. But they should be acknowledged as such.)

(To be perfectly clear I have no horse in this race; I've never played Advance Wars though I really should remedy that some day. I just don't like uncited figures being posted as fact, or even anything near fact, and have particular malice towards this "source" since they've been known to post figures which are way off from reality.)

[Etrurian emperor]

16 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Obviously you have the maid girls (and by extension the entire Maid class).  Camilla feels like she has that 'mommy' thing going on.  And Forrest is a *ahem* transvestite.

I'm not sure that's it. If anything Forrest is more a callback to the Lucius archtype. 

[Hawkwing]

6 hours ago, XRay said:

Shadows of Valentia had decent marketing, but its sales pales in comparison to Awakening's and Fates' sales with only 0.75 million units sold world wide. Days of Ruin had shit marketing (I do not remember how I found out about the game, but it certainly was not from Nintendo) and it still manages to outsell Shadows of Valentia in North America (DoR 0.43 million; SoV 0.34 million).

Yet Shadows of Valentia still met sales expectations. IS knew that at the end of the day, no matter how much love and care they put into the game, it was still a remake of an NES title. Not every Fire Emblem fan, new or old, would be interested in the unique mechanics that Gaiden offered, as well as the lack of other elements present in the series. Thus, they didn't expect the game reach the same numbers that Awakening or Fates did, and set their standards wisely for Shadows of Valentia.

Unfortunately, I have little to no knowledge of the Advance Wars series, so I do not know what the expectations for Days of Ruin were, and thus cannot comment further about it. If anyone has data as to what the sales expectations were for Days of Ruin, feel free to share.

...

So I don't derail this topic, I've never tried any of the Fates games, and if I may be honest, they aren't at the top of the list of "games I want to buy". I am fine with a game having an okay story as long as said game isn't advertising the narrative as the selling point, and if I find that the gameplay makes up for it. However, I don't have much experience with games with poor or bad stories, so I do not know how much I could personally put up with Fates numerous problems and I am in no hurry to find out. As much as I enjoyed Awakening, I am also weary of seeing the games writing flaws carry over to a much larger degree in Fates. As such, I cannot make an informed opinion about Camilla as I do now know what she is like in the game itself. I do believe that her costume clearly shows that IS was banking to hard on fanservice to carry them through a flawed product, and I am glad that Shadows of Valentia and Three Houses appear to be toning it down to more reasonable levels.

As for Camilla's inclusion in Heroes, despite having not played the game in over a year (soon to be two), I have seen and heard the complaints about how many alts she has. I am curious if some of this is simply a case of bad timing, as the banners and characters are planned out and developed several months before they are inserted into the game, and by the time IS starts getting criticism about what these banners did right and wrong, it is too late to scrap some of them outright and let that money and time go to waste. They can use that information for planning future banners, but not always on the ones they are already close to completing.

At the same time, the spacing and content of these recent banners is pretty questionable. It has been mentioned several times where a new character could have replaced an alt without any issue, and the over-reliance on Camilla and Fates, and to a slightly lesser degree Awakening, characters to save the day raises several eyebrows. I don't think that Camillia in and of herself is an issue (although being an already controversial, if popular, character in her origin game doesn't help matters), it's how often she's appeared in a short amount of time, and it only adds doubt to people who question IS's handling of the game. With hope, IS has learned from these recent complains and mistakes and will change things for the better in future banners, but some damage has already been done.

[Von Ithipathachai]

46 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'm not sure that's it. If anything Forrest is more a callback to the Lucius archtype. 

You sure?  His entire character gimmick is that he likes to dress like a girl.

[Interdimensional Observer]

52 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I've never played Advance Wars though I really should remedy that some day.

If you're going to...

AW1 starts with a dedicated tutorial akin to Lyn Mode, featuring a silent and inoffensive avatar like Mark. The main campaign is closer to Binding Blade Normal as a result. It's pretty fun with an early route split, unlockable battles, and later you get to choose you difficulty in a way- picking Andy is Normal, Max is Easy, and Sami is practically speaking a Hard Mode. Advance Campaign thereafter is EVIL! Has the least content of any of the games, but it's still fun.

AW: Black Hole Rising is AW1 with some rebalancing (Max is no longer broken), the addition of Super CO Powers, and more content (maps and COs) on the whole. The main campaign is still quite fun, Orange Star is the tutorial segment, followed by the freedom to play Blue Moon and Yellow Comet, with Green Earth being the final and harder stretch before the final battle with Black Hole. If a CO has particular strengths, their campaign battles tend to emphasize them.

AW: Dual Strike has the most content of all, the most maps and COs. But the campaign is boring, easy even on Hard, Tag Powers are broken, and the game is rather uncreative.

AW: Days of Ruin wiped away the old and cheery world in favor of a more "anime" one with a post-apocalyptic coating. CO count was slashed as a result and CO Zones were instituted to tone down COs and CO Powers, even if there still isn't perfect balance. The War Room was replaced with a set of Trial Maps, the campaign was made better than DS's, and a number of refinements to the gameplay were instituted. Might have less content than DS, but still has tons of maps, and the Design Room was expanded from 3 save slots to 50, allowing one to store many more of their own creations.

 

Super Famicom Wars also has an English translation patch. The game is in some ways archaic, no special CO abilities for all but three of them, no plot, the APC's role is actually divided among two units. But it has its charms and one could consider trying it.

 

Two 3rd Party attempts at replicating Advance Wars have since been digitally released on Switch/PS4/XBO/PC:

Tiny Metal is the first, and in ways it seems like a good game. But Fog of War always being present, the absence of unique COs, and no design room it seems might be turnoffs. It does bring its own new ideas to the mix however. A potential turnoff is that this game was developed, so I hear, using Kickstarter funds intended for a totally different game called Project Phoenix.

The second is Wargroove, which was released just yesterday. This game is getting a lot of praise, it uses a medieval theme instead of modern warfare. It has unique COs and also introduces its own little quirks. And it has a massive Design Room apparently, complete with the ability to make your own campaigns. I plan to get it soon.

[eclipse]

. . .alright, this topic can go and stay go.