Is a FE plot/game better if it leans towards comedy or drama?

[Corrobin]

Some people say the modern FE games' lighter tone makes them more relatable and fun, while others say the darker themes and stories of the earlier games make them more structured/interesting.

Where is the line drawn?

[Ottservia]

I wouldn’t say the newer games don’t cover “darker themes”. Awakening’s themes revolve around being thrown past the point of despair, failure, and hopelessness only to try and pick yourself up in order to fight against near insurmountable odds so heavily stacked against you. Fates(for as much of a mess as that game’s story is) is about the consequences of your choices and how one seemingly insignificant choice can affect the lives of so many people. Wars in the past have started over more petty stuff believe you me and the weight of choice in fates is somewhat of a reflection of that. Though again fates’s story is a bit of a mess. I find the series to be no less darker than it has been since the gba era honestly.

[Etrurian emperor]

Drama. Comedy is fine if it knows its place, namely in supports or moments in the story specifically designed for some levity. But even the most lighthearted Fire Emblem is still a story about war and death. Putting in too much humor eventually starts to become intrusive. Not only can it be intrusive but it can also be pretty hard to pull off. I'm sure Peri was designed with the intent to be wacky and comedic but murder isn't particularly funny and her very presence means Xander can't really condemn Iago and Hans despite the story really trying very hard to make Xander's resistance against them as something noble. Even Iago himself is too much of a comedic villain to really be the villainous presence that Fates requires him to be. 

In contrast I find Izuka quite funny but his eccentricities are also clearly meant as something so horrible its more dramatic than funny, and the game treats Izuka accordingly. Comedy knows it place and backs off when things start getting too vile.  

That's not to say it can't work. A lot of the more lighthearted personalities of the Awakening second gens is them trying to cope with their tragedy which works decently enough. 

Edited April 8, 2019 by Etrurian emperor

[Ottservia]

Honestly "Comedy" isn't a good way to describe what's going on here. Zany is probably a more apt term because comedy in it of itself is rooted a lot in real world issues and "dark" humor and themes. Really the core of comedy is subversion of expectation which can mean a whole lot of things. Again it really is just dependent on how it's presented

[Zihark11]

This is 100% personal preference. i prefer the darker tones and mature stories rather then the lighter tone. I wanna get deeply involved in the games i play, cant do that if everything is uninteresting/a joke. 

[Ertrick36]

2 hours ago, Zihark11 said:

This is 100% personal preference.

This, pretty much.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Honestly "Comedy" isn't a good way to describe what's going on here.

Nah, it's fine.  It's the duality of all story-driven media - comedy and drama.

 

Personally, I think people mistakenly make the assumption that lighter side - the comedy side - is pointless and has no impact, or is detrimental to a story by its very nature.  But I feel without that light, you have blinding darkness.  Those in the writing circle always tell aspiring writers that they should sprinkle in bits of hope and levity, even in an extremely dark story, otherwise the darkness becomes so overwhelming that you no longer care what happens in the story.

Point is, too much edge, despair, and darkness has the same effect as too much levity, happiness, and light.  There's a balance to be had.

So overall, I feel the best FE stories are ones that don't go too far to one side or the other.  Blazing Sword and Awakening do it quite well, mixing in some levity and drama in kind.  And for as dark as Genealogy can be (child sacrifices and all), there's also stuff like pretty much most of the minor villains being Sat AM cartoon villains and Lex teasing Azelle over his crush on Adean.  Fates... doesn't do it particularly well because its story is just bad, but the supports have a good mix of comedy and drama (my favorite character, Oboro, has both fairly dramatic supports that delve into her backstory and comedic supports like her trying to give Saizo and Mozu makeovers).

But again, some prefer more drama, others prefer more comedy.  Lately I've been leaning further and further towards the comedy side because some drama (particularly in modern shooters) remind me too much of reports I'd see from MSNBC.  Not so say I avoid it entirely - I played Red Dead Redemption 2, which I'd say leaned more towards the drama side - but I'll just say games like Spec Ops: The Line and Hatred are hard passes on me; I have no interest in sad, horrible, and edgy games, especially ones that railroad me into killing innocent civilians.

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

4 hours ago, Corrobin said:

Some people say the modern FE games' lighter tone makes them more relatable and fun, while others say the darker themes and stories of the earlier games make them more structured/interesting.

Where is the line drawn?

if we're talking about plot, Awakening, Fates and Echoes all had wars between factions involved in the main story, not to mention all the tragedies regarding Ylisse and Plegia, the twisted change of the Nohrian kingdom, and the corruption of Zofia along with the fall of the Rigelian Empire.

i wouldn't exactly call them "lighter tone". many people died in those games, and some even had horrible deaths.

 

as for comedy, it's alright when it's managed properly and it doesn't get overused in skits.

needless to say, an entire plot based on comedy could hardly become memorable, since it would be just a silly parody with not much value in terms of story writing( at least for how i see it ).

 

20 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

Personally, I think people mistakenly make the assumption that lighter side - the comedy side - is pointless and has no impact, or is detrimental to a story by its very nature.  But I feel without that light, you have blinding darkness.  Those in the writing circle always tell aspiring writers that they should sprinkle in bits of hope and levity, even in an extremely dark story, otherwise the darkness becomes so overwhelming that you no longer care what happens in the story.

Point is, too much edge, despair, and darkness has the same effect as too much levity, happiness, and light.  There's a balance to be had.

i partially agree.

i said partially because while i do understand that balance is important in a specific context, there's also unique games such as the very first Drakengard that are actually beyond the concept of being "edgy", yet they still managed to keep people interested in the plot despite having a very obscure story from the start to the end. those may be rare exceptions, but they do exist.

so overall it's not only all about the balance between seriousness and silliness, but it's also about how a story is written and told that really makes the difference.

[Ertrick36]

4 minutes ago, Fenreir said:

i partially agree.

i said partially because while i do understand that balance is important in a specific context, there's also unique games such as the very first Drakengard that are actually beyond the concept of being "edgy", yet they still managed to keep people interested in the plot despite having a very obscure story from the start to the end. those may be rare exceptions, but they do exist.

so overall it's not only all about the balance between seriousness and silliness, but it's also about how a story is written and told that really makes the difference.

Well, I can't really say anything for that because I've never played or even seen that game, and I can't just take someone for their word when they say a story is edgy and dark in the same way I'm thinking about.

I'm not talking about "so edgy it's cheesy" or anything like that.  Nor am I talking about a story that's super serious.  What I'm referring to is a story that lacks any semblance of joy.  The tone and the characters are never uplifted, they're always angry, sad, or despairing about this or that, and bad things always happen all the time.  In the kind of story I'm referring to, there cannot be so much as a small joke to be had - even if it's a dark one - or a smirk to be had.  Nothing but frowns, death, and horror.  It's the kind of crap amateur and avant-garde writers whip up when they feel it's finally time to "make something serious" - something that instead is so disgustingly dreadful and dark that no one wants to read/watch/play it because they'll just end up feeling empty inside after observing it.

[Slumber]

Drama. The thing the franchise is known for is permadeath. Even though it's optional nowadays, it's still pretty intrinsic to Fire Emblem's identity. It's really tough to sell a light hearted, silly story if your characters are also dying constantly. "Haha all my friends are dead let's go stop the Hamburglar" only works as absurdist dark comedy.

Treat the stories seriously. There's plenty of room for comedy outside of the main story.

[Gregster101]

I'd prefer FE stories that are more serious and less comical. You can have some moments of levity here and there, but if it just becomes kooky like Fates, I can't take it seriously.

[Ertrick36]

7 minutes ago, Gregster101 said:

I'd prefer FE stories that are more serious and less comical. You can have some moments of levity here and there, but if it just becomes kooky like Fates, I can't take it seriously.

I may be misremembering Fates' story because I haven't actually watched the cutscenes for a long time, but I thought the story itself was more serious than comical.  The only bits of comedy I recall were just small bits like the climb up to the Rainbow Sage or some of the quirkier characters' introductions.  Conquest in particular was almost devoid of comedy in its story, I remember more moments of levity in Genealogy than in that path's story.

And I wouldn't say it's comedic just because the story's bad.

[Yexin]

talking about Fire Emblem, i generally prefer mature and serious atmospheres, dialogues and characters. this doesn't mean that i don't like funny moments, such as makalov running away from marcia, or lighter interactions, such as soren talking to aimee instead of ike

i just don't like when comical characters and interactions are more numerous than the serious and mature ones: Fire Emblem is about war (... right?), and war is not something to laugh about or something that should make you feel at your ease

as i already said, funny and light interactions are ok, especially when characters interact with each other while not on the battlefield (base conversations and supports), but i don't want them to exceed and become the main focus of the game

that's just how i feel about this topic

Edited April 8, 2019 by Yexin

[Slumber]

59 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

I may be misremembering Fates' story because I haven't actually watched the cutscenes for a long time, but I thought the story itself was more serious than comical.  The only bits of comedy I recall were just small bits like the climb up to the Rainbow Sage or some of the quirkier characters' introductions.  Conquest in particular was almost devoid of comedy in its story, I remember more moments of levity in Genealogy than in that path's story.

And I wouldn't say it's comedic just because the story's bad.

Fates is a really weird one. It's tonally all over the place.

Conquest specifically is borderline grimdark. Scarlet dies so horrifically that it can't even be described.

It's one of the more prominent instances where going from the main story to the in-camp shenanigans is such a tonal whiplash that you can't do much more than just sit there, slack-jawed in awe.

Fire Emblem should never go to Conquest levels. Ideally Genealogy is tonally what I'd prefer in the story, with Path of Radiance being what the side-stuff is more akin to. I definitely don't think going from a noble, good hearted Wyvern knight being ripped apart off screen while the good guys sit around doing nothing in the story, to slap-stick and over the top comedy is how FE should be handled.

[Ottservia]

5 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Fates is a really weird one. It's tonally all over the place.

Conquest specifically is borderline grimdark. Scarlet dies so horrifically that it can't even be described.

It's one of the more prominent instances where going from the main story to the in-camp shenanigans is such a tonal whiplash that you can't do much more than just sit there, slack-jawed in awe.

Fire Emblem should never go to Conquest levels. Ideally Genealogy is tonally what I'd prefer in the story, with Path of Radiance being what the side-stuff is more akin to. I definitely don't think going from a noble, good hearted Wyvern knight being ripped apart off screen while the good guys sit around doing nothing in the story, to slap-stick and over the top comedy is how FE should be handled.

I feel like that's a problem with the support system as a whole. Aside from maybe the tellius games, supports are generally almost completely separate from the main story which creates these kinds of tonal whiplashes. Thing is the whacky zany slapstick stuff can work to alleviate a lot of the tension and edge of conquest's story. I've seen it done elsewhere in other stories to great effect but the problem is that it's not integrated naturally into the story's flow and overall pacing. It just kind of happens cause of the way supports work. The devs can't really control when you'll get a support or really what support you'll get at any specific point in the story which presents a problem. That is what creates the whiplash, it is far too sudden and doesn't really have anything to do with what just happened in the main events of the story. Overall I agree with @Ertrick36 that a story needs brief moments of levity and such between bits of drama in order to not exhaust the player. The problem with FE however is that it's never integrated naturally or organically within the story.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Drama with light comedy. Path of Radiance hit that perfect balance and didn't have to be super dark to do it.

[Slumber]

22 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I feel like that's a problem with the support system as a whole. Aside from maybe the tellius games, supports are generally almost completely separate from the main story which creates these kinds of tonal whiplashes. Thing is the whacky zany slapstick stuff can work to alleviate a lot of the tension and edge of conquest's story. I've seen it done elsewhere in other stories to great effect but the problem is that it's not integrated naturally into the story's flow and overall pacing. It just kind of happens cause of the way supports work. The devs can't really control when you'll get a support or really what support you'll get at any specific point in the story which presents a problem. That is what creates the whiplash, it is far too sudden and doesn't really have anything to do with what just happened in the main events of the story. Overall I agree with @Ertrick36 that a story needs brief moments of levity and such between bits of drama in order to not exhaust the player. The problem with FE however is that it's never integrated naturally or organically within the story.

That's kind of what I was getting at. Could have thrown in "Devs can't control this", but I guess that can segue into another opinion.

I do think a more neutral tone to the supports would work better than zany over-the-topness, ala Tellius. Tellius had plenty of levity in its supports/base convos, but it usually wasn't at odds with the story, even at its extremes. Ilyana's never-ending quest for food felt grounded, despite how silly the whole idea of a stick-thin girl who only thinks about food is. And I hate Ilyana's supports. But they didn't really clash with the events with the story, tonally or content-wise.

Compared to stuff like Arthur's extreme patriotism and his cartoonish obsession with justice, which will feel incredibly out of place right after the scene I described, where Nohr violently squashes a (Completely justified)rebellion and mutilates the traitors. If either traits were more subdued in Arthur, it might lead to more interesting conversations, and it wouldn't be so jarring right after that chapter.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Slumber

[Ertrick36]

7 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Fates is a really weird one. It's tonally all over the place.

Conquest specifically is borderline grimdark. Scarlet dies so horrifically that it can't even be described.

It's one of the more prominent instances where going from the main story to the in-camp shenanigans is such a tonal whiplash that you can't do much more than just sit there, slack-jawed in awe.

Fire Emblem should never go to Conquest levels. Ideally Genealogy is tonally what I'd prefer in the story, with Path of Radiance being what the side-stuff is more akin to. I definitely don't think going from a noble, good hearted Wyvern knight being ripped apart off screen while the good guys sit around doing nothing in the story, to slap-stick and over the top comedy is how FE should be handled.

Yeah, it's a big part why I hate playing through Conquest so much.  I have such an intense repulsion to the way it handles its tone, I have to deliberately find ways to distract myself from its story or else I'll just not have the will to play through it.  That in combination with the fact that it forces me to fight and possibly kill a lot of my favorite characters in the game (Takumi, Saizo, and Oboro, to name a few) just makes it an overly unappealing game for me.

I agree that Genealogy is tonally right.  They were actually smart about how to balance the tone between levity and seriousness.  It also helps that you actually are able to do something about the atrocities in Genealogy or at the very least weren't forced to just sit there and let the bad guys get away with things because daddy said no.  Child sacrifices?  Put an end to that awful stuff in Chapter 10.  Evil witch of a woman abusing the mother of a couple of your characters?  Roast her ass in the final chapter.  No one there to tell you "buh fadder said this how things gotta be!" and then spout off about justice being an illusion.  Even with the parts where you can't do anything (like Alvis's famous BBQ), at least you can reason why you aren't able to do anything about them instead of it being some thinly veiled plot device BS.

[Roland]

I don't care. As long as it's actually worth bothering with, I don't care what tone the story is. Just be good. 

[alatartheblue42]

Like others said, its all personal preference.

For me, the game as a whole should be fairly balanced between comedy and drama. Maybe 70 or 80% drama /30-20% comedy in the story, and vice versa for side content. Yes, its good to have fun, but the people are fighting a war. Yes, they're in a war, but I'm not going for 15 year old soldiers losing their innocence and being traumatized for life from having murdered countless people by endgame.

In general, the majority of the forced content should be relatively serious. Its fine to have zany characters in the main plot, but the main plot should still be overall serious. You're fighting a war and almost certainly going on some quest to save your world as you know it. Supports, on the other hand, should overall tend towards lighter stuff. Its characters interacting outside of the main plot or outside of battle. They shouldn't need to be serious constantly. Sometimes its fine; I wouldn't expect a pun contest between Renault and Karel or anything, and if absolutely nobody ever references the effects of war that's also a problem. But I can play other games if I want to destroy my characters' sanity.

[Ottservia]

3 minutes ago, alatartheblue42 said:

In general, the majority of the forced content should be relatively serious. Its fine to have zany characters in the main plot, but the main plot should still be overall serious. You're fighting a war and almost certainly going on some quest to save your world as you know it. Supports, on the other hand, should overall tend towards lighter stuff. Its characters interacting outside of the main plot or outside of battle. They shouldn't need to be serious constantly. Sometimes its fine; I wouldn't expect a pun contest between Renault and Karel or anything, and if absolutely nobody ever references the effects of war that's also a problem. But I can play other games if I want to destroy my characters' sanity.

agreed which is why I prefer supports to take place in barracks and such rather than in battle cause there are so many more creative and "relaxing" scenarios you can put them in like teaching one another how to cook, friendly sparring matches, shopping, doing chores around the camp, etc. Those are the types of supports we need. Grounded but light-hearted and wholesome stuff that adds more to these characters and allows us to see them in different scenarios which lets us learn more about them and makes them more relatable and human.

[Hawkwing]

I don't think that the drama has necessarily decreased over the recent games, and more that the comedy aspect has been easier to spot. This is probably due to a combination of the quality of Awakening and Fates stories when compared to previous games, and how the support system was less limited. Fire Emblem still remains Nintendo's darkest franchise, and there's plenty of war, death, and banditry in every game.

I think the pattern should remain as how it has been done for most of the series; The story is mostly dramatic, with a few comedic scenes sprinkled in, while the side/optional things are where the more lighthearted conversations take place, even though there are also several serious discussions to be had. It's not flawless, due to it being possible to jump from an intense scene in the story right into a hilarious support conversation within seconds, or how a character can go from spilling their guts (figuratively, hopefully) over their past and how that affected them, to trading jokes and jabs with friends, to even getting married in some cases, but that's a problem that is inherit to the support system. It doesn't have a perfect solution, but can still be alleviated with prudence.

Besides, it's not like comedy and drama have to be separate. Tragicomedy/Dramedy is a thing for a reason. There are a multitude of ways of combining drama and comedy, whether they appear at separate times or together.

With all that said, I do think a lighthearted/parodic Fire Emblem could exist, and even be done well. I would definitely want it to be advertised as such, though, and for it to be in a similar vein to how Spirit Tracks poked fun and deconstructed several elements of the Legend of Zelda games while still being a good example of one. Something more along the lines of "The Misadventures of Captain Avatar and Their Ragtag Team of Misfits!" than the usual "several corrupt kingdoms go to war with each other, and seemingly unimportant royal has to solve it". Of course, dramatic elements would still inevitably be present, but it might take a back seat this time around.

[Decerd]

An adventurous tone, with a sprinkle of seriousness. Basically the same tone of Awakening, as it's tone was one of the many many reasons it saved the series. I don't think Fates had a bad tone, it's just that storytelling didn't really mesh well with it.

[Ottservia]

Fates’s story all around is just a confused mess. Like that story has little to no idea on what exactly it wants to be. Like does it wanna be grim dark, shounen, isekai light novel-esque fantasy, standard FE, a morally ambiguous story? What’s going on  here? I feel like fates’s story biggest problem is that it’s not focussed at all which creates so many problems in terms of pacing, tone, and overall narrative structure. I mean say what you will about awakening or echoes and their stories but at least they knew what they were(well echoes is a complicated situation in that regard)

[Faellin]

I prefer it when the game covers darker and more serious themes. But i'm fine with a side serving of comedy IF it know its place, typically with supports and scenes where it doesn't really break the story portrayal (A good example was Sumia punching Chrom in the face) Since it happened at the right time (Before any of the real plot actually started taking place), was in character for Sumia since she  is a bit of a klutz.

Typically keep the comedic stuff out of the main story. And keep it on the side or just brief moments to break up the tension a bit without ruining it 100%.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Faellin

[redtutel]

I've always like shows and movies and video games with both. My go to being Avatar: The Last Airbender.