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ZorbaTHut
1yr ago
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Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics, this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Any Fire Emblem people here? A new mainline game was finally announced this Tuesday, Fire Emblem Engage. It's been over three years since Three Houses released, unless you count the Dynasty Warriors game, which I don't.
There have been comments on the main characters' split color look. Specifically, his/her resemblance to the colors of a specific toothpaste brand. The character design has grown on me, but the clowning is well-deserved. The character designs of many of the side characters are more concerning for me, as many look like generic gacha fantasy art at first blush. I'll have to see them in more detail and how they grow on me. The game looks like it takes many leads from Awakening and Heroes, for better and worse.
Notably, it doesn't seem to have a route split, which the last two new (original) games did, and also seems to be rolling back some of the focus on the Persona elements of Three Houses. I'm lukewarm on route splits, since it's often obvious after you've played the routes where compromises in design and quality had to be made to support them. I liked the Monastery in Three Houses, but know it's not for everyone.
I'm also interested in how it will be built around permadeath. If you don't know, it is a staple mechanic in Fire Emblem that if a unit hits 0 HP, they die and are not usable for the rest of the campaign, unless you reload the map of course, potentially losing an hour of progress. You're supposed to play to keep your units alive and if someone is going to die, it better be for a damn good reason, because you won't have them for the rest of the run. Early games in the franchise drowned you with tons of recruitable characters with little personality to act as replacements, though you were still incentivized to keep your best alive as the replacements are often worse.
This mechanic has become more and more vestigial as time has gone on and the games add more RPG elements, to the point where it added nothing in Three Houses and actively tanked its storytelling. In a game with a small cast that puts a lot of focus on the story and relationships of each member, it kind of ruins the experience that only 3 of them can ever appear in cutscenes to account for the fact that the player may have lost them. It's... quite terrible, honestly, and I hope the devs re-evaluate the mechanic if they continue to go in that direction. On the other hand, I have nothing against permadeath as long as the game is built around it. I'm expecting Engage to be like Conquest, which in theory has permadeath but does not design around it at all.
I love Fire Emblem can't wait for January and I've been firing up 3 houses to finally beat maddening new game. My read of the trailer is that it's going to take some of the most popular mechanics from 3 houses (a calendar driven open area) and more of the classic fire emblem games.
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I'm kind of a FE person I guess? I have played (but not finished Awakening, which I enjoyed very much and plan to finish some day. I regard the series pretty highly, but just haven't played much of it. I personally don't mind the main character designs. I don't like them, but I don't hate them either. I do agree that overall the art has a distinct mobile game feel to it, which isn't a good thing at all. Still, it will be interesting to see how the game pans out.
Definitely a lot of Genshin in the DNA of the art. I’ll probably get used to it thought
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I got into the franchise with Three Houses so I don't have a good sense of what the game used to be like. I hate the new character designs, especially the MCS. Mika Pikazo has a very unique and distinctive artstyle and she was a very weird choice for FE. She's responsible for one of the weirder FGO servant designs but at least it fits the character there.
I'm disappointed about the routes too. I will probably just skip Engage.
There was a comment on the reveal trailer saying "this looks like it will be either an instant classic or feel like a mobile game" and I couldn't agree more. I'm trying to withhold judgement until I play it, but the character designs do leave something to be desired.
I actually got into the series with Three Houses as well! I downloaded it the day before release in anticipation of a 12-hour car ride and was not bored for a second on that trip. I've been working my way around the series over the last three years. You should give Echoes or Sacred Stones a shot if you liked Three Houses and are interested in playing another. Echoes is fully voiced and has some of the best art direction in the series. The story is simple but the presentation and details make it something special. Sacred Stones has really nice art and animations if you like the GBA pixel art. Great characters, solid map design, and good story.
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Yeah...that's a fairly appropriate descriptor.
The other thing they remind me of is Gundam characters. As the FE team keeps experimenting with different military aesthetics I guess some end up closer to Napoleonic. The supporting cast looks much more traditional for (post-Awakening) Fire Emblem, which may or may not be a good thing. Which game would you say had your favorites?
After a trailer featuring ghosts as equipment?
Given the formula changes made in 3H, I'm optimistic that the design will at least gesture towards permadeath. Rewinding time was an attempt at letting permadeath stay in while signaling really hard that it can and should be avoided. They just...failed to follow up on the cases when it happened anyway.
Contrast games like XCOM (or X-COM) which offer "ironman" modes and little to nothing in the way of loss mitigation. They're appropriately designed to signal "yeah some dudes will die for the cause." I'd love to see a FE game handle that better, if only for thematic consistency, but I'm not so optimistic.
Wild guess: a band-aid solution where permadead characters show up as Personas or otherwise stick around for cutscenes?
My favorite character designs overall are in Genealogy and Three Houses. Certain characters in Awakening and Fates, like Robin, Tiki, Selena, Oboro, Niles. The heroes art for most of the Genealogy characters modernized their designs really well, even if it took away from some of that sick 90s artstyle.
Heh. If this is what it takes to get Sigurd in an English release...
Regarding permadeath, if the games are going to put a lot of work into the supporting cast as 3H did, then they should allow for some ludonarrative dissonance and let all of them show up in cutscenes and have a role in the story even if they "died" in battle. It is... frustrating to have characters as important as Seteth, Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain barely do anything in the story. They should just write the story and let the supporting characters have actual roles and show up in cutscenes as if they hadn't died, even if losing them locks you out from using them. Basically, your second guess.
Some of the older games, mainly the Marth titles and Binding Blade, really make the mechanic work. More characters than you could ever use, so you tend to play past mistakes unless you lose someone really important. Few characters have any story to miss, so you don't feel like you're locking yourself out of important content by saving over their death. If the meat of the game is in its supports though, you're always going to be incentivized to reload on a character death, which just feels bad.
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How long do these games take to complete, can I save scum? Also, for some reason I thought Fire Emblem was Golden Sun.
Depends on the game. The shorter ones you can probably finish in 25 hours or so. Most probably clock in closer to 50-60, and Three Houses can take you 90 if you're being thorough. The newer ones have mechanics that let you rewind turns a limited number of times per map to make up for mistakes. If you're emulating, and you will be for most of the older entries, you can savestate scum to your heart's content.
If you're looking to play one, a safe bet would be emulating Sacred Stones, which is excellent. If you like RPGs, start with Three Houses. If you're big on strategy games and don't mind holding your nose during anything story related, play Fates Conquest.
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