Three Houses' Announced Return of FE4's "Holy Bloodlines"

[Florete]

"They're doing something they did in a game I liked! That's awesome!"

And then kids happened in Fates. Just because it worked in one game doesn't mean it will work in another. People do this with games like Genealogy and Path of Radiance without thinking of the potential consequences. I get the same reaction when people get excited over the potential return of Canto. How is that a good thing? It just gives more advantages to an already advantaged class.

Not saying it can't work. But I don't think the prospects of it are all that strong.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

52 minutes ago, Florete said:

"They're doing something they did in a game I liked! That's awesome!"

Not saying it can't work. But I don't think the prospects of it are all that strong.

This is where my head is at as well. 3DS era was almost entirely self-referential of the series at large. Recruit these legacy characters, play as these classic classes, hey do you know what witches are? So many returning, one-time gameplay elements like branched class promotions, a world map, children, all making a return. And how are Archanea and Valentia holding up these days? Let's ask Tiki

As for whether Holy Blood is conceptually a good thing, I think there's some potential. In a game with gratuitous, rampant, reclassing, it can promote unique traits in a character the same way personal skills do. Will that make some much better than others, maybe. Personally I'd come up with some regalia that rejected Holy Blood outright. If a sword can reject all but a certain blood, it can certainly do the same in reverse, no?

Edited May 16, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, coldhand25 said:

I don't see how they could mess it up so bad. If they were to do the same what they did with SoV, the game would only benefit from it. Technically they need even less to do, as Genealogy already has a whole, well-written story. They could keep the maps from the original, throw in new models, arts, sprites, add some voice-acting and animated cut-scenes, make the animations less clunky, make the overall gameplay a little-bit faster, and there it is. I would be perfectly fine with it. Unless they change and screw up the story.

The problem is, Genealogy isn't exactly casual-friendly as it is. It doesn't help that it's love-it-or-hate-it, largely because of most of the factors that make it unique. From what I've seen, in terms of discussion, there are two camps (the camp that would rather it retain its unique features, and the camp that would rather it be changed into something that's actually playable), and no middle ground.

[eclipse]

Holy. . .where do I begin?

First, and I'm going to be blunt, anyone with some knowledge of FE4, the recent Famitsu article, and a working brain knows this.  Unless you think that the majority of FE fans are stupid.

Second, there's a lot of unknowns, so keep your pants on.

Third, not everyone follows Three Houses news.  And some actively don't WANT to follow it, because they'd rather find this stuff out when they play the game.  I'd be in this camp, if I didn't have to moderate this forum.

Honestly, this reads like a blog article.  Thus, I'm going to move this to the Three Houses subforum, and decide on whether or not this topic should be locked outright.  If my head wasn't so fuzzy, I'd have a better answer.

[SSbardock84]

Interesting. I wonder if this is a sign that they may do a remake of FE4 and 5 then. I certainly hope so.

[Slumber]

Popping in again for the regular reminder that Mir hasn't played Genealogy and arguing with him about it will go nowhere.

[Alexios Blake]

About the whole balance thing, this is just a observation from the limited data that we got but. As mentioned in the latest Famitsu article some characters have three stars besides their professor level and when filled those characters will get a new ability. Now all the characters shown with those stars are Dorothea and Hubert and if I am not wrong both characters do not have crests. So maybe it’s done that way that characters with crests have no stars and those that don’t have some. That way even crestless characters will become strong. Naturally I could be wrong we haven’t seen much yet so far after all and I am not sure but there might have been a screenshot where Edelgard has stars besides her professor Level though that might just be because she’s a Lord.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Alexios Blake

[BastienSoul]

17 minutes ago, Alexios Blake said:

About the whole balance thing, this is just a observation from the limited data that we got but. As mentioned in the latest Famitsu article some characters have three stars besides their professor level and when filled those characters will get a new ability. Now all the characters shown with those stars are Dorothea and Hubert and if I am not wrong both characters do not have crests. So maybe it’s done that way that characters with crests have no stars and those that don’t have some. That way even crestless characters will become strong. Naturally I could be wrong we haven’t seen much yet so far after all and I am not sure but there might have been a screenshot where Edelgard has stars besides her professor Level though that might just be because she’s a Lord.

If I remember correctly, Dedue doesn't seem to have any stars and doesn't have a crest either.

[HappyHawlucha.]

7 minutes ago, Alexios Blake said:

About the hole balance thing, this is just a observation from the limited data that we got but. As mentioned in the latest Famitsu article some characters have three stars besides their professor level and when filled those characters will get a new ability. Now all the characters shown with those stars are Dorothea and Hubert and if I am not wrong both characters do not have crests. So maybe it’s done that way that characters with crests have no stars and those that don’t have some. That way even crestless characters will become strong. Naturally I could be wrong we haven’t seen much yet so far after all and I am not sure but there might have been a screenshot where Edelgard has stars besides her professor Level though that might just be because she’s a Lord.

Nah it's almost definitely not - they wouldn't give Edelgard or any of the lords that kind of treatment. 

The real question is are the skills obtained unique to this awakening system, because if they're just skills you'd get later on if you were to be normally proficient at the weapon class I don't really see the point in that.

[Maimishou]

9 hours ago, Florete said:

"They're doing something they did in a game I liked! That's awesome!"

And then kids happened in Fates. Just because it worked in one game doesn't mean it will work in another. People do this with games like Genealogy and Path of Radiance without thinking of the potential consequences. I get the same reaction when people get excited over the potential return of Canto. How is that a good thing? It just gives more advantages to an already advantaged class.

Not saying it can't work. But I don't think the prospects of it are all that strong.

While you raise a good point, I'd say kids did work in Fates. Sure the explanation behind them was dumb but from a gameplay perspective that has no bearing on how they worked. Storywise kids weren't handled well but as a gameplay mechanic? They were fine.

[thecrimsonflash]

1 hour ago, Maimishou said:

While you raise a good point, I'd say kids did work in Fates. Sure the explanation behind them was dumb but from a gameplay perspective that has no bearing on how they worked. Storywise kids weren't handled well but as a gameplay mechanic? They were fine.

as a gameplay mechanic the kids in fates and awakening were inconsequential at best, the inheritance was fairly shallow due to the only question being "what skill can I give this unit that they cant get anywhere else?", I mean in genealogy there is a real point to the children given that you are required to use them, but in fates and awakening the only child character that has any bearing on the plot is lucina and she becomes increasingly more irrelevant after her true identity is revealed to chrom, this means that in the grand scheme of things you could easily remove the children from fates and awakening entirely and lose little if anything.

[Sentinel07]

1 hour ago, thecrimsonflash said:

as a gameplay mechanic the kids in fates and awakening were inconsequential at best, the inheritance was fairly shallow due to the only question being "what skill can I give this unit that they cant get anywhere else?", I mean in genealogy there is a real point to the children given that you are required to use them, but in fates and awakening the only child character that has any bearing on the plot is lucina and she becomes increasingly more irrelevant after her true identity is revealed to chrom, this means that in the grand scheme of things you could easily remove the children from fates and awakening entirely and lose little if anything.

Yeah, story-wise, I wasn't fond of how the children were kind of hyped up for Awakening and then disregarded following Lucina's reveal.

Them all being in optional Paralogues kind of lessens their overall impact on the game, and even Lucina doesn't really do a whole lot beyond a support role in the Valm and Grima arcs.

[ShinkaiNoAki]

Wait, wait, I see people saying that characters without crest will be less usefull than characters with a crest? I can't agree.

I'm currently playing Genealogy and the big thing which make a unit with holy blood really strong is the holy weapon which is only bearable by those with major holy blood. The change in growths is not that big deal. Look at Jamke (no holy blood) and Briggid (major Ulir blood), it's pretty similar and I prefer Jamke's growths. Also Quan does have major holy blood but without the Gae Bolg he was a unit I had hard times to use because of his lame avoid. Dew (no holy blood) is actually one of my favourite units because even if he don't have a lot of strengh, his avoid is insane and if you throw him in a tree with a magic sword, he's a monster. So I mean, a unit can be really good even without holy blood, it really depend of your strategy. I'm sure there's people who can't use Dew and are really good with Quan. Not everyone have the same strategy. Me I prefer high avoid than high defense for exemple. (Dew/Quan is not a good exemple of growths comparaison tho, so just check Dew/Ayra for a better one if you want. And again, I prefer Dew's growths.)

Anyway Three Houses will not be Genealogy so I don't really think there will be things like one holy weapons per major crest unit. Also, the only major crest unit we saw was Felix (EDIT: and Byleth) right? Not even the lords. I'm sure major crests will give a bonus but I don't know what. All I can say is these Crest Stones like the one from the trailer's Black Beast (the Crest Stone of Gautier) are linked to this major/minor thing. Like, maybe only major crest units can use it without becoming a "Black Beast"? I really don't know, I guess I'll wait for more info. About minor crests, it may influence the growths or the weapon rank/compatibility? Anyway I don't think it'll make the crest units better than others. If you like and want to use Dorothea, Hubert or Dedue or any other with no crest, use them.

And actually we don't have enough informations about it right now to say "crest units are stronger" but I like to see this system back and look forward to see how IS will manage to use it.

17 hours ago, thecrimsonflash said:

as a gameplay mechanic the kids in fates and awakening were inconsequential at best, the inheritance was fairly shallow due to the only question being "what skill can I give this unit that they cant get anywhere else?", I mean in genealogy there is a real point to the children given that you are required to use them, but in fates and awakening the only child character that has any bearing on the plot is lucina and she becomes increasingly more irrelevant after her true identity is revealed to chrom, this means that in the grand scheme of things you could easily remove the children from fates and awakening entirely and lose little if anything.

Yeah I agree. I actually feel like a mad scientist creating a monster by fusing two genes when I'm planning the inheritance things in Fates/Awakening. I think the irrevelance of child units in these games is because of the too much units. Parents are here and they are the focus. Children are importants in Genealogy because parents are not here anymore.

Actually, even if it was badly written, I liked to be a mad scientist and creating strong children. It was fun. But I don't really want to see it again (except if it's like Genealogy)

Edited May 17, 2019 by ShinkaiNoAki