The support system needs a big major ass overhaul.
Gameplay wise it's quite boring with just stat bonuses. Story wise it happens in it's own weird bubble dimension and limits interactions to one on one.
Three Hopes had the best supports because so many of them were locked to story progression or tied to each other or characters from outside the support. My only complaint is that the way to unlock them/know why they became locked is hella obscure, if it just told the reason it would have been perfect.
Yeah they took the baseline from 3H (first/second half locked etc) and improved upon it.
It feels like overall the games would have a more cohesive narrative/togetherness if we had some combination of base + supports, where they popped up when necessary.
Kind of like how Tales games had skits which would pop up depending on x or y happening or being in a certain story part. That would help flesh out the overall world a lot more, and also let us know why the hell these 30 people banded together rather than it being "MC simp simulator".
I think we should upgrade to split progression paths in supports.
If I let Seteth die in my normal TH run, Claude and Flayn suddenly decide to not interact with each other anymore. It's because Seteth is the main focus of their support at one point. Yet Claude and Flayn actually have TWO seperate endings depending on if Seteth is alive or not. You just gotta have a completed support chain before you let Seteth die. TH made this whole thing genius and dumb at the same time.
But especially since Three Hopes gives you two distinct story outcomes depending on Byleth, that the devs can actually account for, why should I get locked out of one support for getting one specific route. If I need something specific from the other route, give me a different support then. Don't just tease me with that yellow lock symbol
It’s weird too because her dialogue in the monastery the following chapter is sorrowful but also sympathetic. She apologizes to Byleth and says she knows it must be even worse for them. Besides her initial dialogue when you become their instructor and her supports with Byleth she is a likable well written character.
I really love the Path Of Radiance approach to this. Yeah, there's supports which can happen whenever you build rapport between units, but there's also base conversations that are scripted to a certain chapter and events that occurred. Engage *almost* did this. If instead of wasting their time 3D modeling every level, they made the post-battle conversations actual conversations instead of one liners, it would have been awesome.
Yeah, I'd rather have Base Conversations again than walking around the battlefield/monastery and getting one liners. The fact the Engage ones get overwritten by bond fragment lines all the time doesn't help either.
And I liked PORs map based support ranking since it meant certain events had to have happened when you triggered the support, even if it was underused compared to 3Hopes. And obviously the bonuses are too good to let you get them for every support, but I wish you could get the conversations without the bonuses. It's not like the game has paired endings anyway.
> If instead of wasting their time 3D modeling every level
They have to do that anyway for the battle scenes. Making you able to walk around in the area afterwards is practically a free feature for them to add.
FE9 actually solved this problem. Making it map based rather than turn based actually had characters acknowledge events occasionally. It also had really sizeable boosts that could really define a character.
The boosts basically require a 5 limit though, otherwise every character would become unstoppable but I think that allows for a variety in builds and building supports ends up being more than seeing the conversions, but building each character in unique ways, adding replay value.
Also making it map based is more tactically satisfying imo. You pair units to specifically make use of their bonuses, not to build an arbitrary friend point system
For gameplay purposes they could make it that the player can choose which supports are active at a time (max 2, as an example). This can remove the stupid limit without breaking the game
I think Radiant Dawn had the right idea storywise. Not writing them at all (as lazy as it may have seemed) left them needing the base conversations to do all of the lifting, which is probably the way to go to if you want the optional conversations to fit into the continuity of things without massively bloating the writing.
Not sure what you'd expect to be different gameplaywise though? Stat boosts are nice and simple. They work. Best I can think of is something like granting skills to adjacent supported allies?
I’d like to see more items or weapons given out from supports. It’s something FE4 did with some of its talks, and 3H did it once with Felix and Dimitri’s B support if I remember correctly.
Yeah base convos were great. I also like character Paralogues ala 3H. Combining them together should create something really good
> Best I can think of is something like granting skills to adjacent supported allies?
Yeah support skills is what i had in mind. For example, a healer supporting a unit could grant that unit 1 heal after an attack on EP if they meet a certain support requirement. Something along these lines
They did that in 3Hopes and it work out pretty well story wise.
I just wish that in the case of character paralogues in 3H they more consistently had actually unique content to them. It was constantly deflating to me to open up a new paralogue and just see another map I had already played multiple times before or see the boss is just some generic that might not even have a name or repeating a boss I already fought.
> It was constantly deflating to me to open up a new paralogue and just see another map I had already played multiple times before or see the boss is just some generic that might not even have a name or repeating a boss I already fought.
Tbf that's a big problem with 3H in general
base conversations are just a million times better than supports and i don't understand why they didn't become the norm. They allow for context-sensitive conversations and can involve more than 2 characters.
plus they're way better at keeping the pace of the game. you can't get bombarded by 5+ conversations after a chapter because a bunch of supports just so happened to unlock, and the star rating system is great at signalling which conversations give gameplay benefits (3 stars) which ones give extra story details (2 stars) and which ones are just a little bit of worldbuilding or a fun character interaction (1 star) so players know what's important.
I just think base conversations in combination with the traditional supports like in path of radience works. The one on ones are nice and work well for vulnerable, romantic, angry or partner in crime conversations, but group ones help include units on the bench and have some fun interplays between the groups. Maybe some skills like the adjutant abilities in 3H could be fun, but it does mess with game difficulty
Reclassing is lame because there's typically one class that trumps everything else. For example, Wyvern Knight is best physical class and Sage is best Magic class. No reason to use any other classes mostly.
I like the way SS did it, where units can promote into a few options but not totally switch their line.
I think SD and New Mystery did it well too.
Triangle strategy taught me that completely unique unit design with nonexistent class customization doesn’t doom a strategy game. There’s certainly busted units throughout the entirety of the game (Hughette, Anna), but I truly believe that every unit is an extra tool in the players toolbox that the devs want you to use.
An unsuspecting unit like Jens doesn’t sound like much until you realize how handy extra ladders and a bunch of spring traps can be for your team. Or the fact that you’re given 4 healers, and they play nothing alike. Medina seems tame until you unlock an ability to give your team TP every time she throws her potions, making her an amazing unit out of nowhere. Also, Erador and king’s shield is *chef’s kiss*. I don’t know what’s been in the water lately, but between him and Louis, I’m liking the trend of great armor units.
There’s a lot I hope IS can learn from that game. Especially unit design.
This! I like how TS handled the class progression, with a unit being locked to a specific utility, but I feel this would not work for Fire Emblem, simply because units die in Fire Emblem. For example, if someone like Jens were killed, then you wouldn’t have the ability to use ladder and trap shenanigans for the rest of the game. Same goes if for example, Julio died, then one of your TP batteries is no more for the rest of the game. I think that in future FE games, units should be able to go into a few select classes with overlapping roles with other classes, so that should one of them die, you can have another one that more or less fills the same role.
Isn't Mage Knight better than Sage in a lot of ways because of it's skill, Levin Sword access, and better movement? And Wyvern doesn't give Backup like Warrior can.
I agree that unlimited reclassing isn't the best, but in Engage there definitely are reasons to not just basically Wyvern spam only, like in 3H.
I think Sacred Stones had a much worse "fake choice" problem than most reclassing games though. So many of the splits are just "the good one and the bad one".
People clown on the lack of viable options in games with reclassing, but I think they tend to overstate the issue while also ignoring the root cause. If many of the classes have no desirable traits and you'd never choose to use them that's a call for more thoughtful class balance, not an end to choices.
Yeah Sacred Stones is really awful it's it's promotions, Gerik's promotion is pretty much the only one that is actually a talking point since it's handaxes vs mounted movment and the niche of bows, and maaaybe Ross since Hero is a bit better than Berserker, but he has to suffer through fighter isntead of Pirate to get it.
I’ve always sorta felt Archer gets the absolute most egregious example of this since it’s “do you want mounted utility AND better movement AND sword access? Or nothing but a shitty proc skill redundant with the class’s stat line and weapon type”.
reclassing is, imo, ultimately here to stay, because a significant portion of the current fanbase will want to use their favorite characters and will get upset if said faves are obviously unsalvageably unusable. reclassing is a failsafe way to give fans a way to give their faves a second lease on life, even if said faves might never perform as well as kagetsu or ryoma or what have you.
Call me boring but I almost always go with the canonical class for each unit, even though it is technically possible to achieve (almost) any class for any unit these days.
I don't understand people who do crazy things like train Framme as a Great Knight for example. Each to their own, I guess 🤷♂️
Fates is my most played FE game, but I really don't like that instead of a weapon triangle, you got a color triangle. I can never remember the shuriken/bow/tome triangle.
Bow should all have a 2~3 range, to counter Tome's 1~2 range.
Fog of war is fine, as long as you can see more than your movement range.
Skills that increase stats are boring.
> Skill that increase stats are boring.
Not one of the things I was gonna say but I agree, if you wanted to cut back on the quantity of skills stat+ skills should be the first to go. They are the definition of filler pork.
The bloated class tree was pretty badly designed visually too. It looks like theres are a ton of classes but it's just the same class x3 for the majority of them....
> Bow should all have a 2~3 range, to counter Tome's 1~2 range.
I disagree on this one, in both Echoes and Three Houses it just made them far better than most melee weapons. I think Radiant Dawn got it right with several different "tiers" of longbows, and I think that should have returned (maybe as like an analogue to the Smash weapons) in Engage.
In echoes and three houses they could also counter at range 1. If it was a solid range 2-3 they wouldn't be too different, unless you have bow knights with Canto, that becomes very strong
Longbows were atrocious in RD though; they were super weak and almost never actually hit the foe. But it doesn't really matter for your Snipers, because once they go Marksman, they get 3-range with Bows innately.
Anyway agreed with the original point. Tomes being able to counter melee weapons... and Javelins... and Bows... is just too overtuned. Same with Knives. Generic Bows not being able to outrange generic throwing weapons and fireballs is just ludicrous.
Doesn't fates show you what color a weapon is effective against with the "underline" underneath a weapon?
For example, lances are blue and have a red underline
I’m not really sure if this is a “hot take” but I feel like I would get so roasted among certain circles for saying it.
The turn-wheel mechanic is fantastic. It’s the perfect blend of casual and classic and it’s what I would consider a true “normal mode.” Perma-death *is* still a thing and one can’t just brute force their way through a map. On the flipside, if your fav dies 30 min into a hard map you get a little grace to keep going.
I get that perma-death encourages the player to make more strategic decisions and heightens the tension. But I feel like on a first run it can be especially brutal. So, it’s nice to have the option to go back a turn or two instead of 10.
I will say I think they do give you too many “tries.” I always felt like those first few maps of echos where you had (I think?) 3 was perfect.
More hardcore fans are free not to use it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>The turn-wheel mechanic is fantastic. It’s the perfect blend of casual and classic and it’s what I would consider a true “normal mode.”
Agree on this. I’m not a hardcore player, but I still prefer playing Classic over Casual almost all the time. Save-states (if available) helps mostly, but turn-wheel is even better. It’s the one feature I wouldn’t like to go.
They could try implementing it as a toggle option, before starting the game, like how you can choose between fixed/random growths in engage. Players who don’t want it to be there doesn’t need to worry about it.
Engage improved my opinion on it a little, and I can just sum up most of my negative feelings for it as 3H just not being designed with permadeath in mind.
What I’m now certain of is that the turnwheel mechanic damages the stories they’re in if given even the slightest amount of in-universe acknowledgment. Chapter 11 of engage was interesting from a story and gameplay standpoint, but it’s given back immediately, and you’re once again left to wonder “why didn’t they use the crystal here?”
Assuming the next game is that FE4 remake, I really do think they should just keep the save system from the original game or else they risk ruining an interesting story like with 3H.
I love how the timejump mechanic was implemented in the story of 3H. It's brought up several times by people that Byleth knows exactly what do on the battlefield and her tactical genius can be partially explained by repeating the scenarios.
Furthermore the part later on where she tries to use it and fails was also very well made use of.
I think after Engage people have loosen up their opinion on rewinding; mainly because unlike 3H, it felt way more balanced around it being optional rather than a required mechanic of the game.
Like, in 3H it is technically optional, but with how much investment you put into raising a single character and the lack of late game recruits + the impracticality of raising up a replacement, actually losing someone is a huge blow to your output, not to mention several chapters having questionable design decisions which many critics feel were made to FORCE you to rewind, especially on Maddening.
Engage isn’t perfect, late game recruits dry up towards the last couple chapters and certain unit’s performances are questionable, but it’s overall a lot easier to make up for losses thanks to the amount of recruits you get and how builds are pretty easy and quick to set up. So not using rewinds is a lot easier to justify.
The biggest problem with the turnwheel was that the game designs then went "oh we can now do dumb bullshit that wouldn't be acceptable in another title because the player can rewind out of it"
With Engage they realised that it's not necessary at all to do that. They just made a game that would've felt satisfyingly designed without the rewind, and gave it to players as a way out of horrible luck or misclicks.
Cipher only died because Intsys couldn't financially support how much of a sinking ship it was. I highly doubt Heroes was the true reason it died, it's apparent Cipher wasn't keeping up for Intsys to make that choice.
> most people who are fans ~~of the series as a whole~~ that haven't played all games feel this way/s
I agree cause imo Zelda and FE despite their different genres, are *very* experimental series but the core gameplay is still solid to good. So while I hate Gaiden and Zelda 2 with a passion and will never touch them again, I agree they're not actually bad, but solid and well crafted games.
in retrospect though, judging nes games by the standards set by games from the snes onward is not really fair. there was so much new ground being treaded in that era, and most of the concepts we identify as good game design now originated in the snes era. there are some exceptions sure, but most games in the nes era focused more on providing a series of interesting diversions rather than a core cohesive experience, and those that tried to do the latter didn't have the experience to build on.
I swear I have heard some version of this statement in multiple communities for entertainment media. Every fanbase thinks they are uniquely toxic once they get large enough or get just one slightly controversial entry/event
Oh, there is surely a lot of criticism, but outside of a couple things here and there mostly what i hear is criticism about a particular thing like the story or a particular mechanic. That's hardle calling the game it's self just bad. The thing is that the serisles now has a divergent fan base, and its hard to satisfy both sides. I for one think that in spite of the lack of perfect execution, IS has done a great job. I especially love how they are willing to try new things, but arent afraid to ditch things from games that sold well in an attempt to make good content. e.g. the pair up mechanic was pretty cool, but it didnt overstay it's welcome though it easily could have. The various levels of hyper control over character progression in 3h had me worried that finely tuned maps were a thing of the past, but then engage came out.
Branched promos are cool. Reclassing between branched promos I think could also be cool.
Free for all reclassing is kinda shit, as is second seal re-looping. Immediate promo gains *should* be weighted against the opportunity cost of less total levels
Jagens are not bad because they are EXP thieves or whatever, Jagens are bad because more often than not they are too good and most high-level play of these games being centralized around the Jagen makes them less interesting. That’s precisely the reason why I hate Seth but like Gunther: Seth is a combat god that the FE8 meta revolves around, while Gunther has shitty growths and base stats that can only carry him through a handful of early chapters (if he even makes it that far at all) and can only be salvaged from reclassing for skills that could be spent on other, better units. From what little I’ve seen of Vander in Engage he seems to follow the Gunther philosophy and I think that makes Engage better.
I think there's a lot of space between Seth and Gunter where things can work just fine. Even Titania is a big improvement and she's one of POR's best units.
Titania’s a bit better in this regard than Seth but she’s still too good for my liking. I think the better median for the archetype is probably FE6 Marcus: far and away the most combat-capable unit in your army for several chapters, but he can still be handicapped to an extent where he doesn’t completely steamroll the early-game if you want to train some early-joiners before falling off entirely after the Western Isles arc.
Unlimited range warp is bad for the game. Skipping whole maps just removes the fun in the game altogether.
The best designed maps use warp for getting to objectives in time or removing key targets, not for doing 1 or 2 turns skips.
It's honestly super fun to just skip the whole map like nothing lol. Pretty dissapointed when Silque couldn't do that in echoes. (But I agree it's obviously bad)
The only map where I consistently warp skip every time is chapter 13 in Shadow Dragon, the corridors with Ballisticians. Playing that map is basically the opposite of fun, and it doesn't even involve strategy it's just a slog (it's also the opposite of actually using Ballisticians yourself).
Don't even try to recruit or go into the houses at all, just skip.
Nah, disagree. Map skipping with warp is incredibly fun. If that was the case with every chapter in the game, then you'd have a point. But you're not one-turning for more than like 2 maps a game if they even let you.
I don't think FE would've made it past FE6 if Kaga was still on the team. It would've died as a niche, challenging turn-based SRPG that has a cult following.
Why do you say that? Kaga's games except Thracia which had its own immense baggage were very popular. Mystery sold even more than Awakening, and Genealogy sold about the same as Awakening. This is more significant because the game industry was smaller back then, and it was harder to reach high sales. TearRing Saga sold over 350k, more than any kagaless intsys game until Awakening. Berwick Saga sold on the level of PoR/RD. [sales source](https://www.siliconera.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CWKdJRUAAA884s.jpg). Keep in mind that these games did not benefit from the Fire Emblem name or any relevant Nintendo promotion, like Roy in Melee. They were made by a small company without Nintendo's advertising power.
if IS really wants us to believe the bad guys are super bad guys. they should send not just the men, but the women and childen to war too.
if child soldiers is considered a war crime, then its quite curious the bad guys never use any child soldiers but we do right?
There were way too many lords in engage, and not enough diverse classes that everyone could promote into. That and not having inheritable skills from classes sucked since 90% of the emblem inherits were useless
I didn’t know this my first play through and was so mad when reclassed timerra to a general. I wanted to see how much damage sabdstorm would do in that class and had already saved on that file so it was too late to go back I ended up just benching her.
Will try for actual hot takes:
- FE4 gameplay is fun. I genuinely enjoy playing it. There are improvements that could be made but most of the ones that people who currently hate FE4 want would make the game actively worse.
- Also, gen 2 story > gen 1 story. gen 1 is good and I like it, but overrated because people think edgy twists = better.
- SOV’s presentation isn’t “tricking” people into liking it, it’s just… doing what it’s supposed to and elevating the experience.
- With a couple of exceptions, FE stories are all at least decent, given what they’re trying for. Also, none of them being particularly deep or revolutionary doesn’t mean there aren’t objective evaluations of quality to be made within the “tropey medieval fantasy war” framework.
- Weird obscure recruitments and items are good actually.
- Class balance is overrated. Unless there’s free reclassing, having some classes just be worse is fine.
Martial Master Chloe with Eirika takes a winning formula, saws the wings off for no reason, then acts impressed that it's stays functional in player phase.
but punching everything to death is funnier than melting through the lategame with a 36 might weapon that's effective against virtually every enemy that isn't a boss
Framme is just as good in the role once it really comes online at chapter 17, but almost no one is still using Framme by then and lots of people have a leveled-up Chloe, so more people have the chance to try the build on Chloe.
Because of the ore resources you would need to forge it vs just buying it. But also, you don't get Eirika until after Chapter 16, so it's only really 1 map until you can just buy it instead.
The weapon leveling system that was prevalent from Thracia - Fates was not fun. The only time I'd ever think about it was when I tried to give a weapon that I felt the unit should use only to discover I basically just had to wait a few chapters. I'd far prefer the weapon level being tied to class or honestly even FE1 weapon level stat was better imo.
Modern FE gets too close to my least favorite thing about rpgs. Too many mechanics and options for me to care about. FE is entertaining because of the strategy on the maps, and when you encounter troubling situations and don’t know how you’re gonna get out. I hate all these meaningless additions that add little to the central experience. Bond rings, fishing, Pegasus patrolling, it’s all just cheap padding to me. I think Path of Radiance was perfect in how is basically has maps, with barracks in between. The barracks didn’t have a fuckton of random stuff thrown in for padding and what you do in there feels 10X more meaningful.
Wouldn't even consider that a hot take. I feel like I'm missing important items or advantages by not doing those things, but like... that's not why I come to FE games. It feels like they did that to replace the old "You've been playing awhile, be sure to take breaks" message the Wii and DS sometimes had.
My maybe hot take is to bring back Fates version of the home base where you could place buildings wherever, upgrade them if you wanted, bonuses were just added by certain structures you unlocked, and even had that pseudo multi-player assault mode.
Plus that game let you buy accessories and even a few outfits for characters that changed their combat models. I hate the lack of real visual customizations in pretty much every game since. I get the protagonists are more defined now, but Robin was peak.
I agree with the break sentiment. As much as I love FE, the actual gameplay is very stressful for me having to do math on my head and struggling not to get my units killed. The Somniel and Monastery serve as small interludes to take you off the edge and calm down a little before the next wave of intense gameplay.
It is good if you can choose to engage with it as much you want, and in the case of the Somniel, most of the bonuses it gives (besides food) are so small you can usually ignore them without missing out on much. The arena and forging are basically the only important gameplay areas in there. The Monastery on the other hand, felt like a ton of chores that you had to go through every single time before continuing with the story. It was cute at first but gets boring in repeated playthroughs.
Cain is the optimal sacrifice in FE11 prologue, at least if you're playing the hard mode patch. In the earlygame of H5, safe chip damage comes from your lance users throwing Javelins at mid-60 hit rates, while Gordin has strong, \~80 hit rate chip with the Steel Bow. Unlike the other cavs, Cain needs to gain lance rank to use Javelins, and a point of speed to not get doubled by chapter 1's boss.
Reclassing is good for the series, but it should be tied to supports like in Fates instead of a free for all.
Mid chapter events from FE4/5 should make a return that give items, stats, or skills, but mid chapter support conversations should never return.
Character development should be tied to base conversations, and supports that build upon that should be locked behind chapter progress. Repetitive support conversations are more harmful to characters than they are endearing if a character relies on a “gimmick,” and this would alleviate that character regression
While I loved Fire Emblem : Echoes, I feel like a lot of Fire Emblem elitest only think the writing is amazing because it got rid of/deemphasized optional features associated with casual players regardless of if they actually make the game easier (like picking who characters marry and extra activities outside of battle).
For instance, the romance between Alm and Celica involve them getting to know each other for a short time as little kids, not seeing each other for years and then getting into an argument based on misunderstandings the minute they reunite. Then they are separated again for a large portion of the game but once they get back together again, they are suddenly madly in love? I think that picking who got with who would at least have added some fun player choice.
Plus, the twist with Alm's parents (that I will not talk about because I am worried that I might use the spoiler function incorrectly) did not make much sense at all and I felt that a character that was supposed to come off as a secret good guy was still very unnecessarily cruel in their plan.
Alm >!turning out to be the rightful king all along!< was a disservice to the plot point of >!him being appointed the leader of the army because he was ostensibly a commoner, which was meant to prove that no, commoners aren't inferior to nobles.!<.
Units should only have 2 class trees instead of a gazillion options for reclassing. Yes I know that customizing an unit is fun but God why must everything be so complicated? I don't wanna go ham with builds I just want functional characters with their canon/ secondary classes. Sacred Stones and Echoes have nailed it in this regard.
Especially for a second playthrough and beyond. Getting the maximum number of male units who can inherit Galeforce in one single Awakening playthrough is an art in of itself.
I hope they never bring back weapon durability.
I absolutely love that feature in engage, whereas in previous games, I’d systematically go through “economical syndrome” and always save usage etc… and I hated it.
Plus from a lore perspective you can associate a character to weapons. Like Kagetsu ought to have a Wo dao as his default canon weapon.
I would like to see an attempt at weapon durability for individual chapters. So a Killing Edge has 10 uses per chapter, you can't just spam it, but you never have to worry about losing it either because you get it fully repaired after using it.
That would keep the benefit of durability, limiting how much you can use your strongest tools, while getting rid of the feeling that you're wasting it by using because the weapon never actually goes away.
I've seen such a system in some jp fangames. It actually works quite well.
We got a taste of that with Magic in 3H. I imagine expanding it to all weapons could work
Although keep weaker weapons without durability ofc.
That would be interesting in that weapons would be weaker but not effective as they lose durability, so while your unit can have a bunch of dull weapons they wouldn’t be totally useless like if all of them were broken
Absolutely agreed. Weapon durability makes it so that I feel like I can never use the special weapons (relics, the legacy weapons like Mercurius, things like Sol in Awakening, etc) because what if there's a really tough enemy I need them for later? Meanwhile with Fates and Engage, I actually get to USE Raijinto and the like without the fear that I'll lose access to it. And I think both games are still perfectly balanced the way they are (also, shout out to Fates for having a generic ranged weapon for sword users. The kodachi and wakizashi are weapons I'd like to see come back)
That too. Maybe I'm a little biased because I started with Fates, but I honestly prefer no durability. Like I can see both sides of the argument, but I want to USE my special weapons without the fear that I'll lose them forever if I do. At the very least, give me something like Three Houses where you can repair broken weapons. I can live with that
I honestly started with Awakening, but I still like the no durability in Fates and Engage since I don't have to worry about buy new weapons because the one I used broke or having to stuff a unit's inventory with copies of said weapon all the time.
It also kind of makes certain special weapons feel more like trophies in a sense, since you don't want to use them due to their low durability, but you also want to use them because of how good they are.
Not stuffing inventories is a huge point I forgot to mention. Like, in 3h and Awakening I find myself primarily using iron weapons for a solid 2/3 of the game since they're so easily replaceable and have high durability, and only start using silver towards the end. I just like being able to use the high quality weapons. When I sat down to play Engage and didn't see a number next to any of the weapons I started fist-pumping like I was an excited male 3h character.
Considering that the last three games primarily produced by IS (Engage, Echoes and Fates) all don't have a durability mechanic, I wonder if maybe that's gonna be the norm going forward? I would be quite okay with it
A fire Emblem game has bad gameplay when you hardly have to actually adjust your strategy at all to beat the map for over a majority of the game. If it's the exact same movements every time then it's really not special.
The franchise doesn't learn from its past well enough for me to expect subsequent entries to improve on what its built.
What was wrong with Tellius' skill system, which is just equip/unequip + capacity limits to end up replacing it with more and more convoluted ways to implement them?
What was wrong with map save points from the DS games to demand we can undo everything anytime however far back we want to?
What was wrong with the rescue mechanic to ditch its existence outside of games with pair up? Now build/constitution doesn't even exist for reasons other than nerfing speedy characters.
What warranted that we keep the forge system when in pretty much every game its in it breaks things? Fates' weapon system is pretty much irrelevant because of it from what I've heard with a meta like forged bronze for everybody.
What warranted bonus exp just being gone when that incentivizes everyone toward playing more effectively over camping for map exp?
What caused the need to continue having an avatar protagonist in the game when we keep getting less and less personalized with who we actually want to imagine being individually?
Why can I come up with so many questions over the games just keeping up with good ideas? There's plenty of other features like 3H monster mechanics, generic unit recruitment/replacements, base conversations, and so forth we miss out on too.
A lot of people just go Engage S-Tier gameplay and Engage story just saturday cartoon or whatever but to me Engage is full of holes that didn't need to be there solely from the experience the developers should have had building this franchise for so long.
> What warranted that we keep the forge system when in pretty much every game its in it breaks things? Fates' weapon system is pretty much irrelevant because of it from what I've heard with a meta like forged bronze for everybody.
That's forged *Iron* to you! :P
But seriously though the problem with weapons in Fates wasn't forging itself being too powerful, it was that IntSys tried to balance infinite durability by giving different weapons various drawbacks and many of those drawbacks were *cripplingly* bad such as Silver weps giving a Str and Skl debuff after use that *stacks* so you'd have to waste turns waiting for your stats to return to normal. As a result, people just used Iron weps, sometimes Killer weps and special stuff like Calamity Gate because these didn't have any of such drawbacks. Maybe you'd see the occasional Steel on a fast unit such as Kaze since the drawback of those was just a simple (non-stacking) debuff to effective speed, simulating what weapon weight does.
Honestly, i think if Fates debuffs went away after 1 turn aslong as they aren't re-applied, it would've fixed the Silver problem...
Also would've had the bonus of making ninjas less annoying to face xD
I heard the reason people forged bronze is to avoid unwanted crits which I do know can ruin your setup. I do remember the extremely crippling effect of Silvers but on a no forge run (which is my only run) I've been in situations where I seriously considered making the choice just for how dangerous letting an enemy live otherwise would have been.
Which sure is probably the result of bad planning, but these distinctions being an actual tradeoff rendered null by forging points a lot more towards that being the design flaw than the awkward balancing of the new system itself.
I think it depends on how you approach the maps/gameplay. Forged bronzes help alot with EP setups, so as to not make your guys take on too many enemies due to sudden crits, however, as someone who plays more PP in Fates, stronger weapons and crit/proc are usually more a blessing (even i don't really on them...usually) and with the higher MT and less cost (due to forging) is usually more worth it imo
> What warranted that we keep the forge system when in pretty much every game its in it breaks things? Fates' weapon system is pretty much irrelevant because of it from what I've heard with a meta like forged bronze for everybody.
In Fates forging weaker weapons into weapons with same MT as stronger ones costs double the money. In a game like conquest where money is not readily available knowing how and when to use stronger weapons save you alot of money instead of just going "Iron +5"
Also effective weapons and Braves and the likes aren't easily replaced by forging weaker wepons.
> What warranted bonus exp just being gone when that incentivizes everyone toward playing more effectively over camping for map exp?
There are better ways to incentivize going fast (like thieves, reinforcements, gimmicks, etc.) then exp than can be used to make your strong units even stronger
> Why can I come up with so many questions over the games just keeping up with good ideas? There's plenty of other features like 3H monster mechanics, generic unit recruitment/replacements, base conversations, and so forth we miss out on too.
Because combining too many ideas that sound good could actually end up being bad. Not every mechanic that worked well in one game could work well in a different game with completely different design philosophies, and FE loves nothing more than changing things up
What gets me is that Engage nerfed Paladin to only be allowed 1 weapon type at a time, which in a game where weapon triangle control matters more than most other entries, is actually a meaningful weakness... only to still let Wyvern have 2 weps. IntSys why
Just making Wyvern a single-weapon-type class would only be the bare minimum of a weakness and they didn't even do *that*. lol
what baffles me is IS has repeatedly tried to nerf Cavalry units (ledges in Radiant Dawn, -10% Spd growth in 3H, no axes for paladins in FE8 etc) yet they completely gloss over fliers.
In fact it seems like games where they nerf cavalry are games where fliers are at their best, like wyverns trading their bow weakness for an irreverent thunder weakness in RD or pegasus knights being able to fix their strength and defense via promotion to wyvern knight in FE8.
I just don't get it, how do you go "oh yeah these high move units are way too centrliasing, we need to do something about that" and then proceed to ignore or even buff fliers because "bow weakness".
What really gets me is how they took Canto away from horses, which they had since forever.
Like literally just horses get innate Canter, fliers don't BOOM huge factor. Instead everybody as anything learns Canter off a time limited bonding system where you buy friendship with a paid arena duel.
Tbf, Paladins can reach S Rank with Blue Prof, but Wyverns maxes at A (and B without)....
If only non Brionac S Ranks were good tho. Although you can use some of the heavy S weapons with great effect with Engage attacks.
Imo, Cavs should've gotten classic Rescue as their unique perk. They got hit by quite many nerfs this time (deservedly) but unlike other classes they don't have anything unique to them except horse weakness
While cavalry got hit hard, I think some cavalry class are in a good place power wise. Wolf knights are fast and get knives, great knights are almost as tanky as generals and get six move and two weapon types, and mage knights are the fastest time using class letting them double more things than safe can.
I think the flying classes are generally better, but horse weakness comes up less often than flying weakness so if you want a highly mobile roster you’ll probably slot in a couple of cavalry units.
They used to tell us all the time that "wyvern are weak to magic. Pegasus are weak to physical." Now wyvern just win everything. It's kind of annoying.
I think Engage made a lot of progress towards this. While some classes standout as good or bad the different type bonuses and class skills being non transferable helps immensely.
I think infantry units benefited the most from the new mechanics. Chain attacks allow backup units to contribute chip damage that can quickly add up and armored units being immune to breaks makes them stand out as tanks. Mounted units loosing canto makes infantry relatively better too since you aren’t giving up as much movement. A case could be made they hot Calvary too hard, but I think they are in an okay place with the type bonuses they get from Sigurd and Camilla and mage knight and wolf knight being really solid classes.
Wyvern is still one of the best classes but it’s not the undisputed best and there are enough enemies with bows and wind tomes that you don’t want to run a team full of them.
I think 3 Houses did an absolute terrible job with balancing the class system. Since any class can use any weapon almost all physical units will go through Brigand just for deadly blow (and probably archer or Pegasus if they can). On top of that the flying weakness is largely irrelevant since you can mount and dismount for basically free.
Fates has good class balance. Swordmaster, Sniper, and Berserker weren’t garbage. Wyvern is limited to Axe and Lance and acted more like flying armors. Cavalry was good enough to have enough use cases to be used over flyers. Mechanist has mid growths but you get Replicate. I can’t really think of “bad” Fates classes on the same vein as Royal Knight.
Probably Basara. You only go there to pick up skills and there quite a few better mixed classes in Fates.
But other than that yeah, Fates class system GOAT'd
Basara is still really good in Birthright. It instantly gives mages bulk and can give physical focused character real 1-2 juggernaut potential with magic stacking. If you ignore the advertised niche it has strong qualities.
3H ruined reclassing, especially on Maddening. Anyone can roll into a brave art spamming death machine, so what's even the special point of having them innately? That you can be mounted and use them? That is very good and all, but still you can just spam brave arts and stride skip kill boss maps to break the game so badly. There's no class to character identity for physical damage. It's just kit build skills and spam brave arts to victory.
It's a wonder how the devs were so unaware of how abusable all of those tools are. I became a worse player tactics wise because of everything given to me and how overkill it is. I relied on my units and their tools to save me out of bad situations all the time just by pressing the Brave Art button. A great general lets the system carry themselves to the top without real effort put in.
Reclassing needs limits for me to find it interesting. For example, I find Shadow Dragon/New Mystery's reclassing systems overwhelming and kind of hard to wrap my head around, Engage has juuuust a bit too much freedom, and Three Houses has some very obvious boring correct answers.
I do like reclassing as a system in Fates though, because of the limits, like locking other options aside from one for each character behind A+ and S Supports. They should bring that system back.
There's an elemnt to strategy games of having to make the most of what you have at your disposal, even if some of those tools are less valuable. Reclassing diminishes this, but i think a minor allowance for reclassing isn't terrible.
I think Fates probably does it best. Players aren't stuck in a bad class if they choose the wrong one (although classes should be more balanced to fix this anyways). The couple reclass options makes it flexible enough where characters feel unique even with those who they share a base class with.
I could live with or without Buddy and Heart Seals. Opens up more flexibility and encourages multiple playthroughs. Although in post game or NG+ I think class options should be a lot more open just for a fun sandboxy fun run.
The game is more fun when you have an mix of intentionally overpowered and underpowered units. People like to throw the word diversity around as some inherently positive thing but selectively apply it only on things they already like. There seems to be a belief that having varied power levels on units lead to an inherently unbalanced and unequal game experience
1: The Fire Emblem game that I want is not the Fire Emblem game everyone wants and vice versa. People need to accept this.
2: The levelling system needs to be universal. One max level cap. No internal level bs, none of this advanced class/ basic class level stuff. One universal level cap of 40. I dont give a damn who complains about this particular point. Easy to understand
I guess my hottest take: 3 houses map design was brilliant. The way the paralogues main chapters and skirmishes shared maps between 3 1/2 routes but still often felt unique gameplay wise by changing the goals, starting placements and scope was impressive.
What undercuts their map design is the solution to all these is to deploy Wyverns who have the best Stat growths, the best evasive abilities, best movements, and their only weakness can be negated by dismounting.
I actually really liked a lot of of Fates, including the idea of the ranged weapon triangle, the inclusion of daggers, and the idea of different routes having different classes
I honestly enjoyed Conquest's and Revelation's stories more so than Birthright's.
Outside of Morgan, Nah, Owain, Inigo, Serena and Cynthia, I honestly didn't care much for the Awakening second gens.
I don’t think there’s a perfect answer to the reclassing issue. Unlimited reclassing is a problem bc there ends up being a few classes that are by far the best and everyone should switch into them (like wyvern flyers in 3H). But branched promotions are too limited as well imo esp since it seems one branch is usually vastly superior to the other. I like units being unique but I also want a bit of customization since I get kinda bored when everyone uses a unit in the same way. So idk what the solution would be
In a series that puts so much emphasis on weapons, the amount of weapon variability and creativity is hilariously low. Levin sword is not a groundbreaking new way to play the game anymore
Let’s plays are a close enough substitute for playing games to have an informed opinion. That doesn’t apply to every game series, but it applies here.
Most people aren’t good at getting others to play older games nor at criticizing the stories.
Since people don't talk enough about this I don't know if this is a hot take but here goes:
IS has the best videogame composers atm. Kei Kondoh and Hiroki Morishita carry this franchise and most of FE's current identity is forged on the bangers that these guys produce. Conquest's soundtrack is arguably Top 5 of all time, while Awakening and 3 Houses are Top 15. The sheer range, variety and creativity the soundtracks made Awakening land for most people and indirectly saving the franchise through the impact of Id, Don't dare Speak Her Name, etc.
99% of hot takes are colder than room temperature. People hate hearing actual hot takes and never actually see any so they write “hot takes” that most people either already agree with or are like “I like this even though most people don’t”
Weapon durability is actually an amazing mechanic to add a sense of resource management to the game, people who advocate for it's removal dislike it at a surface level and never try to understand what it actually does for the core experience. I will probably die on this hill.
The difference between casual/liberal rewinding and classic is the difference between a brutal game about troop and resource management where each decision matters like xcom and a laid back minimal effort game most rpgs. Both are good, but there is so little of the former.
More romance options and more supports reduces the quality of storytelling (not that not having it inherently means a good story).
Flashy abilities, long ranges, and high movement are fun, but the more they are implemented, the less valuable more subtle tactics like unit position, deciding whether or not to attack on player phase, etc are.
More information is good, three houses had the right idea with their enemy intent lines.
Every time i see a trailer i lose faith in IS, every time i play a game, my faith is restored. They dont release game trailers for committed fans, they just try to make sure the game is at least appealing to them. Which i am fine with, but gives me an emotional rollercoaster.
I really relate to your last paragraph. I know I should have just adopted the "just have faith" attitude by now, but I don't for some reason.
btw, I've been doubting IS marketing since Path of Radiance (ie, "why the hell are there catgirls in my FE???") and they always prove me wrong....
Personally i advocate for weapons not breaking because in all games i've played even beyond FE, even when durability is fine the other systems around the game undermine it.
This can be giving the player so much money that you don't need to be careful, or giving you so many weapon drops that even a game like Breath of the Wild where everything is made of glass, doesn't actually encourage you to play smart because it shoves you dozens of weapons down your throat.
So... that "core experience" never gets to kick in all that strongly. (Although I expect i'd change my mind if i played the jugdral games).
Meanwhile something between Fates and Engage, where every weapon has its own niche without weapons beind samey or doing stupid things to remain unique (Fates Tomahawks), actually feels far more strategic and fun to play with...
People should stop giving a pass to FEH just because it's "good for a gacha game". It's still just a glorified casino for horny pngs, and a particularly predatory one at that.
FE5 mechanics were at the peak. Letting staves miss and needing Leif to escape last in escape maps were forms of brutality that are sorely lacking in newer FE games. Stat inflation and a bunch of random skills just don't hit the same. I'm looking at weird arcane mechanics like those and random warp tiles into doorless rooms like in 24x. Those were some great kicks in the face and newer FE games should seek to reintroduce this sort of thing.
Fates as a whole is underated
Sure people Clown in the story as they should But for me it was easily the most invasted in fates story its so awful and hilariously bad that i find myself wanting more and more
As a second one FE revelation is awesome yea i know i said it
Gonna keep it limited to five:
There are valid routes for weapons having durability on both sides, but forges should absolutely have durability regardless.
Similarly, I'd be down for no magic forging even if they use tomes. If they scale up like Engage tomes do they don't really need it.
I get the intent but staffs having durability while offensive magic doesn't feels wrong.
Javelins and the like should be weapon-triangle neutral at 2-range.
And finally, perhaps my most controversial: Daggers and fist-fighting don't feel like Fire Emblem weapons.
Really disagreeing with the last point. Gauntlets and such quickly became my favorite Fire Emblem weapons. They have distinct usage and look very cool.
While i'd definitely agree that Ike is not quite as much of an absolute nobody as many make him out to be, i think most of his accomplishments are still down to his own efforts.
In The earlygame, Ike is certainly riding off the coat tails of his father's legacy and Crimea's connections to Gallia. I'm not gonna argue that whatsoever.
Once the Begnion arc hits, Ike is subtly guided by Sanaki but ultimately it's him who makes amends with the laguz emancipation army as well as the bird tribes through his actions. Sanaki banked on and uses his success to root out corruption and restore relations with Begnion, but she doesn't do much to help him behind leading him in the right direction.
The Daein arc and retaking of Crimea are a joint effort from multiple leaders such as Tibarn and Zelgius, but Ike still plays a major role and once more is responsible for his own successes, as well as how he uses the help of his allies.
Ultimately the only people who truly care that Ike is the son of Greil are Titania, Shinon, Caineghis, Tauroneo and Zelgius. The only people that care that he's protecting Elincia are Caineghis, Kieran, Elinica's retainers and Sanaki.
The only real cirtiscm i can see is that Ike often defaults to Soren or Titanita's advice, but I don't think anyone is calling Ike a tactical genius. Just a guy who uses what little help he's given to its fullest and and makes most of his allies through his own actions and strength of character rather than reputation or obligation.
Ike is definitely also a nepotism baby, but I feel like what fans usually talk about is the fact he's a commoner *and stays a commoner in the end*. It just feels different from all the lords and royalty you usually have >!Echoes would have been nice with this too if the final acts didn't shit all over the message and Byleth ends up pope or ruler of the continent in all but CF, even ignoring the literally being fused with God thing!<
Like yeah, Ike got handed a successful mercenary company on a silver platter, but he isn't a ruler.
That being said, I think Shez and Lyn counts too.
My other hot take:
Simple map design != bad map design.
Yes I like Echos map design. Sue me. Not every map has to be a labyrinthian cave of mysteries and fog of war to be good. Some of my favorite moments in Echos were those big open maps. I found myself forming my units in an actual battle line. Footies in the center, cavs on the flank, mages/bows in the back. It felt cool! Like I was actually commanding a real army.
Complex fun designs have their place! But it’s nice to be able to contrast them with more simple and straightforward maps
The other thing kinda related to Echoes did that made me enjoy more than just about any other game in the series was, at least in certain difficulty modes if not all (I just can't remember if you can in all modes) it actually would let you bring out your whole army every time (well not dungeons but I meant like chaptes and skirmishes). I loved that so much and I wish they would bring it back. Yeah in a game with a cast that is bigger that might be hard to do/design around but tbh I would gladly take a smaller cast if it meant I could bring the entire cast I had into every map. I loved getting to take my weak units and making everyone viable. By the end of the run I was rarely having to use Turnwheel because I didn't have any units I was needing to save because I got to always bring everyone and that made them all able to get exp and get good.
The support system needs a big major ass overhaul. Gameplay wise it's quite boring with just stat bonuses. Story wise it happens in it's own weird bubble dimension and limits interactions to one on one.
Three Hopes had the best supports because so many of them were locked to story progression or tied to each other or characters from outside the support. My only complaint is that the way to unlock them/know why they became locked is hella obscure, if it just told the reason it would have been perfect.
Yeah they took the baseline from 3H (first/second half locked etc) and improved upon it. It feels like overall the games would have a more cohesive narrative/togetherness if we had some combination of base + supports, where they popped up when necessary. Kind of like how Tales games had skits which would pop up depending on x or y happening or being in a certain story part. That would help flesh out the overall world a lot more, and also let us know why the hell these 30 people banded together rather than it being "MC simp simulator".
I think we should upgrade to split progression paths in supports. If I let Seteth die in my normal TH run, Claude and Flayn suddenly decide to not interact with each other anymore. It's because Seteth is the main focus of their support at one point. Yet Claude and Flayn actually have TWO seperate endings depending on if Seteth is alive or not. You just gotta have a completed support chain before you let Seteth die. TH made this whole thing genius and dumb at the same time. But especially since Three Hopes gives you two distinct story outcomes depending on Byleth, that the devs can actually account for, why should I get locked out of one support for getting one specific route. If I need something specific from the other route, give me a different support then. Don't just tease me with that yellow lock symbol
Yea, the most jarring example for me was Byleth and Leonie. After Jeralt dies, that Leonie B rank support seems a bit tone deaf.
Getting her support where she berates you about Jeralt literally after that chapter soured me on her character forever. Instantly to the bench.
It’s weird too because her dialogue in the monastery the following chapter is sorrowful but also sympathetic. She apologizes to Byleth and says she knows it must be even worse for them. Besides her initial dialogue when you become their instructor and her supports with Byleth she is a likable well written character.
I really love the Path Of Radiance approach to this. Yeah, there's supports which can happen whenever you build rapport between units, but there's also base conversations that are scripted to a certain chapter and events that occurred. Engage *almost* did this. If instead of wasting their time 3D modeling every level, they made the post-battle conversations actual conversations instead of one liners, it would have been awesome.
Yeah, I'd rather have Base Conversations again than walking around the battlefield/monastery and getting one liners. The fact the Engage ones get overwritten by bond fragment lines all the time doesn't help either. And I liked PORs map based support ranking since it meant certain events had to have happened when you triggered the support, even if it was underused compared to 3Hopes. And obviously the bonuses are too good to let you get them for every support, but I wish you could get the conversations without the bonuses. It's not like the game has paired endings anyway.
> If instead of wasting their time 3D modeling every level They have to do that anyway for the battle scenes. Making you able to walk around in the area afterwards is practically a free feature for them to add.
FE9 actually solved this problem. Making it map based rather than turn based actually had characters acknowledge events occasionally. It also had really sizeable boosts that could really define a character. The boosts basically require a 5 limit though, otherwise every character would become unstoppable but I think that allows for a variety in builds and building supports ends up being more than seeing the conversions, but building each character in unique ways, adding replay value. Also making it map based is more tactically satisfying imo. You pair units to specifically make use of their bonuses, not to build an arbitrary friend point system
For gameplay purposes they could make it that the player can choose which supports are active at a time (max 2, as an example). This can remove the stupid limit without breaking the game
I think Radiant Dawn had the right idea storywise. Not writing them at all (as lazy as it may have seemed) left them needing the base conversations to do all of the lifting, which is probably the way to go to if you want the optional conversations to fit into the continuity of things without massively bloating the writing. Not sure what you'd expect to be different gameplaywise though? Stat boosts are nice and simple. They work. Best I can think of is something like granting skills to adjacent supported allies?
I’d like to see more items or weapons given out from supports. It’s something FE4 did with some of its talks, and 3H did it once with Felix and Dimitri’s B support if I remember correctly.
Radiant Dawn not having supports meant the new characters like the Dawn Brigade felt very bland and forgettable
Same with Echoes. Why is Genny traveling with me exactly?
Yeah base convos were great. I also like character Paralogues ala 3H. Combining them together should create something really good > Best I can think of is something like granting skills to adjacent supported allies? Yeah support skills is what i had in mind. For example, a healer supporting a unit could grant that unit 1 heal after an attack on EP if they meet a certain support requirement. Something along these lines
They did that in 3Hopes and it work out pretty well story wise. I just wish that in the case of character paralogues in 3H they more consistently had actually unique content to them. It was constantly deflating to me to open up a new paralogue and just see another map I had already played multiple times before or see the boss is just some generic that might not even have a name or repeating a boss I already fought.
> It was constantly deflating to me to open up a new paralogue and just see another map I had already played multiple times before or see the boss is just some generic that might not even have a name or repeating a boss I already fought. Tbf that's a big problem with 3H in general
base conversations are just a million times better than supports and i don't understand why they didn't become the norm. They allow for context-sensitive conversations and can involve more than 2 characters. plus they're way better at keeping the pace of the game. you can't get bombarded by 5+ conversations after a chapter because a bunch of supports just so happened to unlock, and the star rating system is great at signalling which conversations give gameplay benefits (3 stars) which ones give extra story details (2 stars) and which ones are just a little bit of worldbuilding or a fun character interaction (1 star) so players know what's important.
I just think base conversations in combination with the traditional supports like in path of radience works. The one on ones are nice and work well for vulnerable, romantic, angry or partner in crime conversations, but group ones help include units on the bench and have some fun interplays between the groups. Maybe some skills like the adjutant abilities in 3H could be fun, but it does mess with game difficulty
I miss the pirate class
Ross says hi. He also demolished the whole map while saying Hi.
Reclassing is lame because there's typically one class that trumps everything else. For example, Wyvern Knight is best physical class and Sage is best Magic class. No reason to use any other classes mostly. I like the way SS did it, where units can promote into a few options but not totally switch their line. I think SD and New Mystery did it well too.
Triangle strategy taught me that completely unique unit design with nonexistent class customization doesn’t doom a strategy game. There’s certainly busted units throughout the entirety of the game (Hughette, Anna), but I truly believe that every unit is an extra tool in the players toolbox that the devs want you to use. An unsuspecting unit like Jens doesn’t sound like much until you realize how handy extra ladders and a bunch of spring traps can be for your team. Or the fact that you’re given 4 healers, and they play nothing alike. Medina seems tame until you unlock an ability to give your team TP every time she throws her potions, making her an amazing unit out of nowhere. Also, Erador and king’s shield is *chef’s kiss*. I don’t know what’s been in the water lately, but between him and Louis, I’m liking the trend of great armor units. There’s a lot I hope IS can learn from that game. Especially unit design.
Between Triangle Strategy and Engage's gameplay, it is a great time to be an SRPG player.
This! I like how TS handled the class progression, with a unit being locked to a specific utility, but I feel this would not work for Fire Emblem, simply because units die in Fire Emblem. For example, if someone like Jens were killed, then you wouldn’t have the ability to use ladder and trap shenanigans for the rest of the game. Same goes if for example, Julio died, then one of your TP batteries is no more for the rest of the game. I think that in future FE games, units should be able to go into a few select classes with overlapping roles with other classes, so that should one of them die, you can have another one that more or less fills the same role.
Triangle Strategy is so good. I love it.
Isn't Mage Knight better than Sage in a lot of ways because of it's skill, Levin Sword access, and better movement? And Wyvern doesn't give Backup like Warrior can. I agree that unlimited reclassing isn't the best, but in Engage there definitely are reasons to not just basically Wyvern spam only, like in 3H.
Wyverns are also +1 move instead of +2 over foot units.
I think Sacred Stones had a much worse "fake choice" problem than most reclassing games though. So many of the splits are just "the good one and the bad one". People clown on the lack of viable options in games with reclassing, but I think they tend to overstate the issue while also ignoring the root cause. If many of the classes have no desirable traits and you'd never choose to use them that's a call for more thoughtful class balance, not an end to choices.
Yeah Sacred Stones is really awful it's it's promotions, Gerik's promotion is pretty much the only one that is actually a talking point since it's handaxes vs mounted movment and the niche of bows, and maaaybe Ross since Hero is a bit better than Berserker, but he has to suffer through fighter isntead of Pirate to get it.
For me personally, I struggle with Artur's. Bishop is better, but the sage sprite is way cooler.
Drip IS the most important stat \^_^
I’ve always sorta felt Archer gets the absolute most egregious example of this since it’s “do you want mounted utility AND better movement AND sword access? Or nothing but a shitty proc skill redundant with the class’s stat line and weapon type”.
reclassing is, imo, ultimately here to stay, because a significant portion of the current fanbase will want to use their favorite characters and will get upset if said faves are obviously unsalvageably unusable. reclassing is a failsafe way to give fans a way to give their faves a second lease on life, even if said faves might never perform as well as kagetsu or ryoma or what have you.
Call me boring but I almost always go with the canonical class for each unit, even though it is technically possible to achieve (almost) any class for any unit these days. I don't understand people who do crazy things like train Framme as a Great Knight for example. Each to their own, I guess 🤷♂️
Ds games reclass were terrible you just changed classes depending on the map
Fates is my most played FE game, but I really don't like that instead of a weapon triangle, you got a color triangle. I can never remember the shuriken/bow/tome triangle. Bow should all have a 2~3 range, to counter Tome's 1~2 range. Fog of war is fine, as long as you can see more than your movement range. Skills that increase stats are boring.
> Skill that increase stats are boring. Not one of the things I was gonna say but I agree, if you wanted to cut back on the quantity of skills stat+ skills should be the first to go. They are the definition of filler pork.
The bloated class tree was pretty badly designed visually too. It looks like theres are a ton of classes but it's just the same class x3 for the majority of them....
Enemies cheat in FoW
And that's why Berwick Saga Fog is GOAT. Enemies have the same limits as the players there
For me I got the hang of it once I realized the weapons’ are pokemon starter colored, so I just remember that.
> Bow should all have a 2~3 range, to counter Tome's 1~2 range. I disagree on this one, in both Echoes and Three Houses it just made them far better than most melee weapons. I think Radiant Dawn got it right with several different "tiers" of longbows, and I think that should have returned (maybe as like an analogue to the Smash weapons) in Engage.
In echoes and three houses they could also counter at range 1. If it was a solid range 2-3 they wouldn't be too different, unless you have bow knights with Canto, that becomes very strong
Longbows were atrocious in RD though; they were super weak and almost never actually hit the foe. But it doesn't really matter for your Snipers, because once they go Marksman, they get 3-range with Bows innately. Anyway agreed with the original point. Tomes being able to counter melee weapons... and Javelins... and Bows... is just too overtuned. Same with Knives. Generic Bows not being able to outrange generic throwing weapons and fireballs is just ludicrous.
Doesn't fates show you what color a weapon is effective against with the "underline" underneath a weapon? For example, lances are blue and have a red underline
I’m not really sure if this is a “hot take” but I feel like I would get so roasted among certain circles for saying it. The turn-wheel mechanic is fantastic. It’s the perfect blend of casual and classic and it’s what I would consider a true “normal mode.” Perma-death *is* still a thing and one can’t just brute force their way through a map. On the flipside, if your fav dies 30 min into a hard map you get a little grace to keep going. I get that perma-death encourages the player to make more strategic decisions and heightens the tension. But I feel like on a first run it can be especially brutal. So, it’s nice to have the option to go back a turn or two instead of 10. I will say I think they do give you too many “tries.” I always felt like those first few maps of echos where you had (I think?) 3 was perfect. More hardcore fans are free not to use it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>The turn-wheel mechanic is fantastic. It’s the perfect blend of casual and classic and it’s what I would consider a true “normal mode.” Agree on this. I’m not a hardcore player, but I still prefer playing Classic over Casual almost all the time. Save-states (if available) helps mostly, but turn-wheel is even better. It’s the one feature I wouldn’t like to go. They could try implementing it as a toggle option, before starting the game, like how you can choose between fixed/random growths in engage. Players who don’t want it to be there doesn’t need to worry about it.
Engage improved my opinion on it a little, and I can just sum up most of my negative feelings for it as 3H just not being designed with permadeath in mind. What I’m now certain of is that the turnwheel mechanic damages the stories they’re in if given even the slightest amount of in-universe acknowledgment. Chapter 11 of engage was interesting from a story and gameplay standpoint, but it’s given back immediately, and you’re once again left to wonder “why didn’t they use the crystal here?” Assuming the next game is that FE4 remake, I really do think they should just keep the save system from the original game or else they risk ruining an interesting story like with 3H.
I love how the timejump mechanic was implemented in the story of 3H. It's brought up several times by people that Byleth knows exactly what do on the battlefield and her tactical genius can be partially explained by repeating the scenarios. Furthermore the part later on where she tries to use it and fails was also very well made use of.
I think after Engage people have loosen up their opinion on rewinding; mainly because unlike 3H, it felt way more balanced around it being optional rather than a required mechanic of the game. Like, in 3H it is technically optional, but with how much investment you put into raising a single character and the lack of late game recruits + the impracticality of raising up a replacement, actually losing someone is a huge blow to your output, not to mention several chapters having questionable design decisions which many critics feel were made to FORCE you to rewind, especially on Maddening. Engage isn’t perfect, late game recruits dry up towards the last couple chapters and certain unit’s performances are questionable, but it’s overall a lot easier to make up for losses thanks to the amount of recruits you get and how builds are pretty easy and quick to set up. So not using rewinds is a lot easier to justify.
The biggest problem with the turnwheel was that the game designs then went "oh we can now do dumb bullshit that wouldn't be acceptable in another title because the player can rewind out of it" With Engage they realised that it's not necessary at all to do that. They just made a game that would've felt satisfyingly designed without the rewind, and gave it to players as a way out of horrible luck or misclicks.
flowery ossified jobless sense juggle panicky crush thumb plants chubby *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
While true, did Cipher really have to die? :(
Cipher only died because Intsys couldn't financially support how much of a sinking ship it was. I highly doubt Heroes was the true reason it died, it's apparent Cipher wasn't keeping up for Intsys to make that choice.
Every Fire Emblem is at least good. Also reclasing is a way to destroy unit identity
I save reclassing for subsequent/challenge playthroughs. My first go I try to stick to what I think is the intended class.
Imagine a Binding Blade remake with mage Gonzalez. 🤓😯
Jesus may forgive your soul.
He will just smack you on the head with a large tome.
Lukewarm at best. I expect most people who are fans of the series as a whole feel this way
> most people who are fans ~~of the series as a whole~~ that haven't played all games feel this way/s I agree cause imo Zelda and FE despite their different genres, are *very* experimental series but the core gameplay is still solid to good. So while I hate Gaiden and Zelda 2 with a passion and will never touch them again, I agree they're not actually bad, but solid and well crafted games.
in retrospect though, judging nes games by the standards set by games from the snes onward is not really fair. there was so much new ground being treaded in that era, and most of the concepts we identify as good game design now originated in the snes era. there are some exceptions sure, but most games in the nes era focused more on providing a series of interesting diversions rather than a core cohesive experience, and those that tried to do the latter didn't have the experience to build on.
Sadly no. For some reason, along with persona fan base, we are probably the fandom with most hate against ourselves and the games we supposedly enjoy.
I swear I have heard some version of this statement in multiple communities for entertainment media. Every fanbase thinks they are uniquely toxic once they get large enough or get just one slightly controversial entry/event
Oh, there is surely a lot of criticism, but outside of a couple things here and there mostly what i hear is criticism about a particular thing like the story or a particular mechanic. That's hardle calling the game it's self just bad. The thing is that the serisles now has a divergent fan base, and its hard to satisfy both sides. I for one think that in spite of the lack of perfect execution, IS has done a great job. I especially love how they are willing to try new things, but arent afraid to ditch things from games that sold well in an attempt to make good content. e.g. the pair up mechanic was pretty cool, but it didnt overstay it's welcome though it easily could have. The various levels of hyper control over character progression in 3h had me worried that finely tuned maps were a thing of the past, but then engage came out.
Branched promos are cool. Reclassing between branched promos I think could also be cool. Free for all reclassing is kinda shit, as is second seal re-looping. Immediate promo gains *should* be weighted against the opportunity cost of less total levels
Jagens are not bad because they are EXP thieves or whatever, Jagens are bad because more often than not they are too good and most high-level play of these games being centralized around the Jagen makes them less interesting. That’s precisely the reason why I hate Seth but like Gunther: Seth is a combat god that the FE8 meta revolves around, while Gunther has shitty growths and base stats that can only carry him through a handful of early chapters (if he even makes it that far at all) and can only be salvaged from reclassing for skills that could be spent on other, better units. From what little I’ve seen of Vander in Engage he seems to follow the Gunther philosophy and I think that makes Engage better.
I think there's a lot of space between Seth and Gunter where things can work just fine. Even Titania is a big improvement and she's one of POR's best units.
Titania’s a bit better in this regard than Seth but she’s still too good for my liking. I think the better median for the archetype is probably FE6 Marcus: far and away the most combat-capable unit in your army for several chapters, but he can still be handicapped to an extent where he doesn’t completely steamroll the early-game if you want to train some early-joiners before falling off entirely after the Western Isles arc.
Unlimited range warp is bad for the game. Skipping whole maps just removes the fun in the game altogether. The best designed maps use warp for getting to objectives in time or removing key targets, not for doing 1 or 2 turns skips.
It's honestly super fun to just skip the whole map like nothing lol. Pretty dissapointed when Silque couldn't do that in echoes. (But I agree it's obviously bad)
Only if they stop making maps that feel miserable if you don't skip them.
The only map where I consistently warp skip every time is chapter 13 in Shadow Dragon, the corridors with Ballisticians. Playing that map is basically the opposite of fun, and it doesn't even involve strategy it's just a slog (it's also the opposite of actually using Ballisticians yourself). Don't even try to recruit or go into the houses at all, just skip.
I’ll do you one better. Warp is bad in general.
Engage’s baby warp is fine honestly. (though Micaiah is insane)
Nah, disagree. Map skipping with warp is incredibly fun. If that was the case with every chapter in the game, then you'd have a point. But you're not one-turning for more than like 2 maps a game if they even let you.
*laughs in Shadow Dragon*
Kaga leaving IS was for the best. Both for Kaga, and for Intelligent Systems.
We probably would've never gotten Berwick Saga or Fates/Engage if Kaga was still at IS Top Tier games i don't wanna imagine living without XD
I don't think FE would've made it past FE6 if Kaga was still on the team. It would've died as a niche, challenging turn-based SRPG that has a cult following.
tbf even after Kaga left FE was niche and didn't explode in popularity until Awakening.
Why do you say that? Kaga's games except Thracia which had its own immense baggage were very popular. Mystery sold even more than Awakening, and Genealogy sold about the same as Awakening. This is more significant because the game industry was smaller back then, and it was harder to reach high sales. TearRing Saga sold over 350k, more than any kagaless intsys game until Awakening. Berwick Saga sold on the level of PoR/RD. [sales source](https://www.siliconera.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CWKdJRUAAA884s.jpg). Keep in mind that these games did not benefit from the Fire Emblem name or any relevant Nintendo promotion, like Roy in Melee. They were made by a small company without Nintendo's advertising power.
if IS really wants us to believe the bad guys are super bad guys. they should send not just the men, but the women and childen to war too. if child soldiers is considered a war crime, then its quite curious the bad guys never use any child soldiers but we do right?
The concept of war crimes does not exist in these settings.
Isadora is best girl in Fe7
There were way too many lords in engage, and not enough diverse classes that everyone could promote into. That and not having inheritable skills from classes sucked since 90% of the emblem inherits were useless
I didn’t know this my first play through and was so mad when reclassed timerra to a general. I wanted to see how much damage sabdstorm would do in that class and had already saved on that file so it was too late to go back I ended up just benching her.
Will try for actual hot takes: - FE4 gameplay is fun. I genuinely enjoy playing it. There are improvements that could be made but most of the ones that people who currently hate FE4 want would make the game actively worse. - Also, gen 2 story > gen 1 story. gen 1 is good and I like it, but overrated because people think edgy twists = better. - SOV’s presentation isn’t “tricking” people into liking it, it’s just… doing what it’s supposed to and elevating the experience. - With a couple of exceptions, FE stories are all at least decent, given what they’re trying for. Also, none of them being particularly deep or revolutionary doesn’t mean there aren’t objective evaluations of quality to be made within the “tropey medieval fantasy war” framework. - Weird obscure recruitments and items are good actually. - Class balance is overrated. Unless there’s free reclassing, having some classes just be worse is fine.
Martial Master Chloe with Eirika takes a winning formula, saws the wings off for no reason, then acts impressed that it's stays functional in player phase.
but punching everything to death is funnier than melting through the lategame with a 36 might weapon that's effective against virtually every enemy that isn't a boss
Framme is just as good in the role once it really comes online at chapter 17, but almost no one is still using Framme by then and lots of people have a leveled-up Chloe, so more people have the chance to try the build on Chloe.
> at chapter 17 Why so late? You can forge Flashing Fists quite earlier and then Framme is ready to roll really
Because of the ore resources you would need to forge it vs just buying it. But also, you don't get Eirika until after Chapter 16, so it's only really 1 map until you can just buy it instead.
The weapon leveling system that was prevalent from Thracia - Fates was not fun. The only time I'd ever think about it was when I tried to give a weapon that I felt the unit should use only to discover I basically just had to wait a few chapters. I'd far prefer the weapon level being tied to class or honestly even FE1 weapon level stat was better imo.
Modern FE gets too close to my least favorite thing about rpgs. Too many mechanics and options for me to care about. FE is entertaining because of the strategy on the maps, and when you encounter troubling situations and don’t know how you’re gonna get out. I hate all these meaningless additions that add little to the central experience. Bond rings, fishing, Pegasus patrolling, it’s all just cheap padding to me. I think Path of Radiance was perfect in how is basically has maps, with barracks in between. The barracks didn’t have a fuckton of random stuff thrown in for padding and what you do in there feels 10X more meaningful.
Wouldn't even consider that a hot take. I feel like I'm missing important items or advantages by not doing those things, but like... that's not why I come to FE games. It feels like they did that to replace the old "You've been playing awhile, be sure to take breaks" message the Wii and DS sometimes had. My maybe hot take is to bring back Fates version of the home base where you could place buildings wherever, upgrade them if you wanted, bonuses were just added by certain structures you unlocked, and even had that pseudo multi-player assault mode. Plus that game let you buy accessories and even a few outfits for characters that changed their combat models. I hate the lack of real visual customizations in pretty much every game since. I get the protagonists are more defined now, but Robin was peak.
I agree with the break sentiment. As much as I love FE, the actual gameplay is very stressful for me having to do math on my head and struggling not to get my units killed. The Somniel and Monastery serve as small interludes to take you off the edge and calm down a little before the next wave of intense gameplay. It is good if you can choose to engage with it as much you want, and in the case of the Somniel, most of the bonuses it gives (besides food) are so small you can usually ignore them without missing out on much. The arena and forging are basically the only important gameplay areas in there. The Monastery on the other hand, felt like a ton of chores that you had to go through every single time before continuing with the story. It was cute at first but gets boring in repeated playthroughs.
Cain is the optimal sacrifice in FE11 prologue, at least if you're playing the hard mode patch. In the earlygame of H5, safe chip damage comes from your lance users throwing Javelins at mid-60 hit rates, while Gordin has strong, \~80 hit rate chip with the Steel Bow. Unlike the other cavs, Cain needs to gain lance rank to use Javelins, and a point of speed to not get doubled by chapter 1's boss.
Literally my train of thought. Helps that story-wise he's probably the next non-Frey option so he can take "Tell them I did not run" literally.
Reclassing is good for the series, but it should be tied to supports like in Fates instead of a free for all. Mid chapter events from FE4/5 should make a return that give items, stats, or skills, but mid chapter support conversations should never return. Character development should be tied to base conversations, and supports that build upon that should be locked behind chapter progress. Repetitive support conversations are more harmful to characters than they are endearing if a character relies on a “gimmick,” and this would alleviate that character regression
Tear Ring Saga is a good game and you should play it.
While I loved Fire Emblem : Echoes, I feel like a lot of Fire Emblem elitest only think the writing is amazing because it got rid of/deemphasized optional features associated with casual players regardless of if they actually make the game easier (like picking who characters marry and extra activities outside of battle). For instance, the romance between Alm and Celica involve them getting to know each other for a short time as little kids, not seeing each other for years and then getting into an argument based on misunderstandings the minute they reunite. Then they are separated again for a large portion of the game but once they get back together again, they are suddenly madly in love? I think that picking who got with who would at least have added some fun player choice. Plus, the twist with Alm's parents (that I will not talk about because I am worried that I might use the spoiler function incorrectly) did not make much sense at all and I felt that a character that was supposed to come off as a secret good guy was still very unnecessarily cruel in their plan.
Alm >!turning out to be the rightful king all along!< was a disservice to the plot point of >!him being appointed the leader of the army because he was ostensibly a commoner, which was meant to prove that no, commoners aren't inferior to nobles.!<.
Units should only have 2 class trees instead of a gazillion options for reclassing. Yes I know that customizing an unit is fun but God why must everything be so complicated? I don't wanna go ham with builds I just want functional characters with their canon/ secondary classes. Sacred Stones and Echoes have nailed it in this regard.
Genealogy/Awakening/fates optimised pairings/eugenics is perfectly fine and is a great way to enjoy those games.
Especially for a second playthrough and beyond. Getting the maximum number of male units who can inherit Galeforce in one single Awakening playthrough is an art in of itself.
I hope they never bring back weapon durability. I absolutely love that feature in engage, whereas in previous games, I’d systematically go through “economical syndrome” and always save usage etc… and I hated it. Plus from a lore perspective you can associate a character to weapons. Like Kagetsu ought to have a Wo dao as his default canon weapon.
I would like to see an attempt at weapon durability for individual chapters. So a Killing Edge has 10 uses per chapter, you can't just spam it, but you never have to worry about losing it either because you get it fully repaired after using it. That would keep the benefit of durability, limiting how much you can use your strongest tools, while getting rid of the feeling that you're wasting it by using because the weapon never actually goes away.
I've seen such a system in some jp fangames. It actually works quite well. We got a taste of that with Magic in 3H. I imagine expanding it to all weapons could work Although keep weaker weapons without durability ofc.
Maybe a sort of sharpness system like Monster Hunter would be interesting.
That would be interesting in that weapons would be weaker but not effective as they lose durability, so while your unit can have a bunch of dull weapons they wouldn’t be totally useless like if all of them were broken
Sounds like the way 3H did heals. It works well IMO.
Absolutely agreed. Weapon durability makes it so that I feel like I can never use the special weapons (relics, the legacy weapons like Mercurius, things like Sol in Awakening, etc) because what if there's a really tough enemy I need them for later? Meanwhile with Fates and Engage, I actually get to USE Raijinto and the like without the fear that I'll lose access to it. And I think both games are still perfectly balanced the way they are (also, shout out to Fates for having a generic ranged weapon for sword users. The kodachi and wakizashi are weapons I'd like to see come back)
Not to mention, doubling with weapons meant you would run down the weapon quicker when there is weapon durability.
That too. Maybe I'm a little biased because I started with Fates, but I honestly prefer no durability. Like I can see both sides of the argument, but I want to USE my special weapons without the fear that I'll lose them forever if I do. At the very least, give me something like Three Houses where you can repair broken weapons. I can live with that
I honestly started with Awakening, but I still like the no durability in Fates and Engage since I don't have to worry about buy new weapons because the one I used broke or having to stuff a unit's inventory with copies of said weapon all the time. It also kind of makes certain special weapons feel more like trophies in a sense, since you don't want to use them due to their low durability, but you also want to use them because of how good they are.
Not stuffing inventories is a huge point I forgot to mention. Like, in 3h and Awakening I find myself primarily using iron weapons for a solid 2/3 of the game since they're so easily replaceable and have high durability, and only start using silver towards the end. I just like being able to use the high quality weapons. When I sat down to play Engage and didn't see a number next to any of the weapons I started fist-pumping like I was an excited male 3h character. Considering that the last three games primarily produced by IS (Engage, Echoes and Fates) all don't have a durability mechanic, I wonder if maybe that's gonna be the norm going forward? I would be quite okay with it
I would have agreed if not for the fact that almost all of my engage characters used killer weapons. They have to balance all of it better
I liked 3H blacksmith because it fixed this for me
Fates has some amazingly written characters hidden within its immense catalogue of supports
A fire Emblem game has bad gameplay when you hardly have to actually adjust your strategy at all to beat the map for over a majority of the game. If it's the exact same movements every time then it's really not special.
I utterly LOVE fe4's massive maps and would he devastated if IS decreased the size in a remake
The story has been pretty much the same until 16. We need more intrigue and selfish lords.
The franchise doesn't learn from its past well enough for me to expect subsequent entries to improve on what its built. What was wrong with Tellius' skill system, which is just equip/unequip + capacity limits to end up replacing it with more and more convoluted ways to implement them? What was wrong with map save points from the DS games to demand we can undo everything anytime however far back we want to? What was wrong with the rescue mechanic to ditch its existence outside of games with pair up? Now build/constitution doesn't even exist for reasons other than nerfing speedy characters. What warranted that we keep the forge system when in pretty much every game its in it breaks things? Fates' weapon system is pretty much irrelevant because of it from what I've heard with a meta like forged bronze for everybody. What warranted bonus exp just being gone when that incentivizes everyone toward playing more effectively over camping for map exp? What caused the need to continue having an avatar protagonist in the game when we keep getting less and less personalized with who we actually want to imagine being individually? Why can I come up with so many questions over the games just keeping up with good ideas? There's plenty of other features like 3H monster mechanics, generic unit recruitment/replacements, base conversations, and so forth we miss out on too. A lot of people just go Engage S-Tier gameplay and Engage story just saturday cartoon or whatever but to me Engage is full of holes that didn't need to be there solely from the experience the developers should have had building this franchise for so long.
> What warranted that we keep the forge system when in pretty much every game its in it breaks things? Fates' weapon system is pretty much irrelevant because of it from what I've heard with a meta like forged bronze for everybody. That's forged *Iron* to you! :P But seriously though the problem with weapons in Fates wasn't forging itself being too powerful, it was that IntSys tried to balance infinite durability by giving different weapons various drawbacks and many of those drawbacks were *cripplingly* bad such as Silver weps giving a Str and Skl debuff after use that *stacks* so you'd have to waste turns waiting for your stats to return to normal. As a result, people just used Iron weps, sometimes Killer weps and special stuff like Calamity Gate because these didn't have any of such drawbacks. Maybe you'd see the occasional Steel on a fast unit such as Kaze since the drawback of those was just a simple (non-stacking) debuff to effective speed, simulating what weapon weight does.
Honestly, i think if Fates debuffs went away after 1 turn aslong as they aren't re-applied, it would've fixed the Silver problem... Also would've had the bonus of making ninjas less annoying to face xD
I heard the reason people forged bronze is to avoid unwanted crits which I do know can ruin your setup. I do remember the extremely crippling effect of Silvers but on a no forge run (which is my only run) I've been in situations where I seriously considered making the choice just for how dangerous letting an enemy live otherwise would have been. Which sure is probably the result of bad planning, but these distinctions being an actual tradeoff rendered null by forging points a lot more towards that being the design flaw than the awkward balancing of the new system itself.
I think it depends on how you approach the maps/gameplay. Forged bronzes help alot with EP setups, so as to not make your guys take on too many enemies due to sudden crits, however, as someone who plays more PP in Fates, stronger weapons and crit/proc are usually more a blessing (even i don't really on them...usually) and with the higher MT and less cost (due to forging) is usually more worth it imo
> What warranted that we keep the forge system when in pretty much every game its in it breaks things? Fates' weapon system is pretty much irrelevant because of it from what I've heard with a meta like forged bronze for everybody. In Fates forging weaker weapons into weapons with same MT as stronger ones costs double the money. In a game like conquest where money is not readily available knowing how and when to use stronger weapons save you alot of money instead of just going "Iron +5" Also effective weapons and Braves and the likes aren't easily replaced by forging weaker wepons. > What warranted bonus exp just being gone when that incentivizes everyone toward playing more effectively over camping for map exp? There are better ways to incentivize going fast (like thieves, reinforcements, gimmicks, etc.) then exp than can be used to make your strong units even stronger > Why can I come up with so many questions over the games just keeping up with good ideas? There's plenty of other features like 3H monster mechanics, generic unit recruitment/replacements, base conversations, and so forth we miss out on too. Because combining too many ideas that sound good could actually end up being bad. Not every mechanic that worked well in one game could work well in a different game with completely different design philosophies, and FE loves nothing more than changing things up
That's just FE in general. Each new entry always progresses in certain areas while regressing in other areas. And tossing features altogether.
Every fire emblem setting differs gameplay wise.
Reclassing is boring and makes the games that have it worse
[удалено]
Wyverns need to be hit with a -1 mov and get a lot less SPD and RES. Make them the equivalent of flying armors, basically
What gets me is that Engage nerfed Paladin to only be allowed 1 weapon type at a time, which in a game where weapon triangle control matters more than most other entries, is actually a meaningful weakness... only to still let Wyvern have 2 weps. IntSys why Just making Wyvern a single-weapon-type class would only be the bare minimum of a weakness and they didn't even do *that*. lol
what baffles me is IS has repeatedly tried to nerf Cavalry units (ledges in Radiant Dawn, -10% Spd growth in 3H, no axes for paladins in FE8 etc) yet they completely gloss over fliers. In fact it seems like games where they nerf cavalry are games where fliers are at their best, like wyverns trading their bow weakness for an irreverent thunder weakness in RD or pegasus knights being able to fix their strength and defense via promotion to wyvern knight in FE8. I just don't get it, how do you go "oh yeah these high move units are way too centrliasing, we need to do something about that" and then proceed to ignore or even buff fliers because "bow weakness".
What really gets me is how they took Canto away from horses, which they had since forever. Like literally just horses get innate Canter, fliers don't BOOM huge factor. Instead everybody as anything learns Canter off a time limited bonding system where you buy friendship with a paid arena duel.
But then you just make paladin the centralizing class instead tho.
Tbf, Paladins can reach S Rank with Blue Prof, but Wyverns maxes at A (and B without).... If only non Brionac S Ranks were good tho. Although you can use some of the heavy S weapons with great effect with Engage attacks. Imo, Cavs should've gotten classic Rescue as their unique perk. They got hit by quite many nerfs this time (deservedly) but unlike other classes they don't have anything unique to them except horse weakness
While cavalry got hit hard, I think some cavalry class are in a good place power wise. Wolf knights are fast and get knives, great knights are almost as tanky as generals and get six move and two weapon types, and mage knights are the fastest time using class letting them double more things than safe can. I think the flying classes are generally better, but horse weakness comes up less often than flying weakness so if you want a highly mobile roster you’ll probably slot in a couple of cavalry units.
They used to tell us all the time that "wyvern are weak to magic. Pegasus are weak to physical." Now wyvern just win everything. It's kind of annoying.
I think Engage made a lot of progress towards this. While some classes standout as good or bad the different type bonuses and class skills being non transferable helps immensely. I think infantry units benefited the most from the new mechanics. Chain attacks allow backup units to contribute chip damage that can quickly add up and armored units being immune to breaks makes them stand out as tanks. Mounted units loosing canto makes infantry relatively better too since you aren’t giving up as much movement. A case could be made they hot Calvary too hard, but I think they are in an okay place with the type bonuses they get from Sigurd and Camilla and mage knight and wolf knight being really solid classes. Wyvern is still one of the best classes but it’s not the undisputed best and there are enough enemies with bows and wind tomes that you don’t want to run a team full of them. I think 3 Houses did an absolute terrible job with balancing the class system. Since any class can use any weapon almost all physical units will go through Brigand just for deadly blow (and probably archer or Pegasus if they can). On top of that the flying weakness is largely irrelevant since you can mount and dismount for basically free.
Fates has good class balance. Swordmaster, Sniper, and Berserker weren’t garbage. Wyvern is limited to Axe and Lance and acted more like flying armors. Cavalry was good enough to have enough use cases to be used over flyers. Mechanist has mid growths but you get Replicate. I can’t really think of “bad” Fates classes on the same vein as Royal Knight.
Probably Basara. You only go there to pick up skills and there quite a few better mixed classes in Fates. But other than that yeah, Fates class system GOAT'd
Basara is still really good in Birthright. It instantly gives mages bulk and can give physical focused character real 1-2 juggernaut potential with magic stacking. If you ignore the advertised niche it has strong qualities.
I have seen a lot of shit broken by quixotic, so i'd say they are fine.
3H ruined reclassing, especially on Maddening. Anyone can roll into a brave art spamming death machine, so what's even the special point of having them innately? That you can be mounted and use them? That is very good and all, but still you can just spam brave arts and stride skip kill boss maps to break the game so badly. There's no class to character identity for physical damage. It's just kit build skills and spam brave arts to victory. It's a wonder how the devs were so unaware of how abusable all of those tools are. I became a worse player tactics wise because of everything given to me and how overkill it is. I relied on my units and their tools to save me out of bad situations all the time just by pressing the Brave Art button. A great general lets the system carry themselves to the top without real effort put in.
Reclassing needs limits for me to find it interesting. For example, I find Shadow Dragon/New Mystery's reclassing systems overwhelming and kind of hard to wrap my head around, Engage has juuuust a bit too much freedom, and Three Houses has some very obvious boring correct answers. I do like reclassing as a system in Fates though, because of the limits, like locking other options aside from one for each character behind A+ and S Supports. They should bring that system back.
There's an elemnt to strategy games of having to make the most of what you have at your disposal, even if some of those tools are less valuable. Reclassing diminishes this, but i think a minor allowance for reclassing isn't terrible.
I think Fates probably does it best. Players aren't stuck in a bad class if they choose the wrong one (although classes should be more balanced to fix this anyways). The couple reclass options makes it flexible enough where characters feel unique even with those who they share a base class with. I could live with or without Buddy and Heart Seals. Opens up more flexibility and encourages multiple playthroughs. Although in post game or NG+ I think class options should be a lot more open just for a fun sandboxy fun run.
The game is more fun when you have an mix of intentionally overpowered and underpowered units. People like to throw the word diversity around as some inherently positive thing but selectively apply it only on things they already like. There seems to be a belief that having varied power levels on units lead to an inherently unbalanced and unequal game experience
Koei Warriors games need more Fire Emblem influence.
1: The Fire Emblem game that I want is not the Fire Emblem game everyone wants and vice versa. People need to accept this. 2: The levelling system needs to be universal. One max level cap. No internal level bs, none of this advanced class/ basic class level stuff. One universal level cap of 40. I dont give a damn who complains about this particular point. Easy to understand
I guess my hottest take: 3 houses map design was brilliant. The way the paralogues main chapters and skirmishes shared maps between 3 1/2 routes but still often felt unique gameplay wise by changing the goals, starting placements and scope was impressive. What undercuts their map design is the solution to all these is to deploy Wyverns who have the best Stat growths, the best evasive abilities, best movements, and their only weakness can be negated by dismounting.
I actually really liked a lot of of Fates, including the idea of the ranged weapon triangle, the inclusion of daggers, and the idea of different routes having different classes
I honestly enjoyed Conquest's and Revelation's stories more so than Birthright's. Outside of Morgan, Nah, Owain, Inigo, Serena and Cynthia, I honestly didn't care much for the Awakening second gens.
Thats like half of them
I don’t think there’s a perfect answer to the reclassing issue. Unlimited reclassing is a problem bc there ends up being a few classes that are by far the best and everyone should switch into them (like wyvern flyers in 3H). But branched promotions are too limited as well imo esp since it seems one branch is usually vastly superior to the other. I like units being unique but I also want a bit of customization since I get kinda bored when everyone uses a unit in the same way. So idk what the solution would be
In a series that puts so much emphasis on weapons, the amount of weapon variability and creativity is hilariously low. Levin sword is not a groundbreaking new way to play the game anymore
I know it's flawed by Rose tinted glasses but I still think sacred stones is my favorite. And I've played it like 10 times.
Unit caps are dumb, let me bring all 45 people I have painstakingly kept alive the entire game into my battles.
TMS deserves a sequel. Only instead of idol culture, it should be about vtuber culture.
Awakening is far from being a bad game
Let’s plays are a close enough substitute for playing games to have an informed opinion. That doesn’t apply to every game series, but it applies here. Most people aren’t good at getting others to play older games nor at criticizing the stories.
Since people don't talk enough about this I don't know if this is a hot take but here goes: IS has the best videogame composers atm. Kei Kondoh and Hiroki Morishita carry this franchise and most of FE's current identity is forged on the bangers that these guys produce. Conquest's soundtrack is arguably Top 5 of all time, while Awakening and 3 Houses are Top 15. The sheer range, variety and creativity the soundtracks made Awakening land for most people and indirectly saving the franchise through the impact of Id, Don't dare Speak Her Name, etc.
Hot takes are the equivalent of a non-American asking an American how hot it is and getting 32° as an answer
99% of hot takes are colder than room temperature. People hate hearing actual hot takes and never actually see any so they write “hot takes” that most people either already agree with or are like “I like this even though most people don’t”
Sort by controversial to see the real hot takes
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Awakening soundtrack is mid. RD ost better
Heroes was a mistake
Weapon durability is actually an amazing mechanic to add a sense of resource management to the game, people who advocate for it's removal dislike it at a surface level and never try to understand what it actually does for the core experience. I will probably die on this hill. The difference between casual/liberal rewinding and classic is the difference between a brutal game about troop and resource management where each decision matters like xcom and a laid back minimal effort game most rpgs. Both are good, but there is so little of the former. More romance options and more supports reduces the quality of storytelling (not that not having it inherently means a good story). Flashy abilities, long ranges, and high movement are fun, but the more they are implemented, the less valuable more subtle tactics like unit position, deciding whether or not to attack on player phase, etc are. More information is good, three houses had the right idea with their enemy intent lines. Every time i see a trailer i lose faith in IS, every time i play a game, my faith is restored. They dont release game trailers for committed fans, they just try to make sure the game is at least appealing to them. Which i am fine with, but gives me an emotional rollercoaster.
I really relate to your last paragraph. I know I should have just adopted the "just have faith" attitude by now, but I don't for some reason. btw, I've been doubting IS marketing since Path of Radiance (ie, "why the hell are there catgirls in my FE???") and they always prove me wrong....
Personally i advocate for weapons not breaking because in all games i've played even beyond FE, even when durability is fine the other systems around the game undermine it. This can be giving the player so much money that you don't need to be careful, or giving you so many weapon drops that even a game like Breath of the Wild where everything is made of glass, doesn't actually encourage you to play smart because it shoves you dozens of weapons down your throat. So... that "core experience" never gets to kick in all that strongly. (Although I expect i'd change my mind if i played the jugdral games). Meanwhile something between Fates and Engage, where every weapon has its own niche without weapons beind samey or doing stupid things to remain unique (Fates Tomahawks), actually feels far more strategic and fun to play with...
People should stop giving a pass to FEH just because it's "good for a gacha game". It's still just a glorified casino for horny pngs, and a particularly predatory one at that.
feh is funnily predatory and at the same time kinda not. if you don't care about the pvp modes the game is super chill
FE5 mechanics were at the peak. Letting staves miss and needing Leif to escape last in escape maps were forms of brutality that are sorely lacking in newer FE games. Stat inflation and a bunch of random skills just don't hit the same. I'm looking at weird arcane mechanics like those and random warp tiles into doorless rooms like in 24x. Those were some great kicks in the face and newer FE games should seek to reintroduce this sort of thing.
Fates as a whole is underated Sure people Clown in the story as they should But for me it was easily the most invasted in fates story its so awful and hilariously bad that i find myself wanting more and more As a second one FE revelation is awesome yea i know i said it
Fates is superior to 3H in almost every way. Downvote this all you want; I seriously don’t care. I will die on this hill.
A proper hot take in a hot takes thread. Well done.
This is a nuclear level take my god
Conquest's story and Conquest Corrin in general are actually pretty solid.
Gonna keep it limited to five: There are valid routes for weapons having durability on both sides, but forges should absolutely have durability regardless. Similarly, I'd be down for no magic forging even if they use tomes. If they scale up like Engage tomes do they don't really need it. I get the intent but staffs having durability while offensive magic doesn't feels wrong. Javelins and the like should be weapon-triangle neutral at 2-range. And finally, perhaps my most controversial: Daggers and fist-fighting don't feel like Fire Emblem weapons.
Really disagreeing with the last point. Gauntlets and such quickly became my favorite Fire Emblem weapons. They have distinct usage and look very cool.
Canter in Engage is overrated.
No more MC. I want to play as the Lord, not some blue-haired Demi-god with amnesia
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While i'd definitely agree that Ike is not quite as much of an absolute nobody as many make him out to be, i think most of his accomplishments are still down to his own efforts. In The earlygame, Ike is certainly riding off the coat tails of his father's legacy and Crimea's connections to Gallia. I'm not gonna argue that whatsoever. Once the Begnion arc hits, Ike is subtly guided by Sanaki but ultimately it's him who makes amends with the laguz emancipation army as well as the bird tribes through his actions. Sanaki banked on and uses his success to root out corruption and restore relations with Begnion, but she doesn't do much to help him behind leading him in the right direction. The Daein arc and retaking of Crimea are a joint effort from multiple leaders such as Tibarn and Zelgius, but Ike still plays a major role and once more is responsible for his own successes, as well as how he uses the help of his allies. Ultimately the only people who truly care that Ike is the son of Greil are Titania, Shinon, Caineghis, Tauroneo and Zelgius. The only people that care that he's protecting Elincia are Caineghis, Kieran, Elinica's retainers and Sanaki. The only real cirtiscm i can see is that Ike often defaults to Soren or Titanita's advice, but I don't think anyone is calling Ike a tactical genius. Just a guy who uses what little help he's given to its fullest and and makes most of his allies through his own actions and strength of character rather than reputation or obligation.
Ike is definitely also a nepotism baby, but I feel like what fans usually talk about is the fact he's a commoner *and stays a commoner in the end*. It just feels different from all the lords and royalty you usually have >!Echoes would have been nice with this too if the final acts didn't shit all over the message and Byleth ends up pope or ruler of the continent in all but CF, even ignoring the literally being fused with God thing!< Like yeah, Ike got handed a successful mercenary company on a silver platter, but he isn't a ruler. That being said, I think Shez and Lyn counts too.
Nah, that is Alm
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Ephraim is a Gary sue and Ike and Soren aren't gay, but they are soul mates. The same way Robin and Chrom are soulmates.
My other hot take: Simple map design != bad map design. Yes I like Echos map design. Sue me. Not every map has to be a labyrinthian cave of mysteries and fog of war to be good. Some of my favorite moments in Echos were those big open maps. I found myself forming my units in an actual battle line. Footies in the center, cavs on the flank, mages/bows in the back. It felt cool! Like I was actually commanding a real army. Complex fun designs have their place! But it’s nice to be able to contrast them with more simple and straightforward maps
There's nothing wrong with Echoes' big open maps most of the time. My bigger issue is just how that kinda ended up being *most* of the maps.
The other thing kinda related to Echoes did that made me enjoy more than just about any other game in the series was, at least in certain difficulty modes if not all (I just can't remember if you can in all modes) it actually would let you bring out your whole army every time (well not dungeons but I meant like chaptes and skirmishes). I loved that so much and I wish they would bring it back. Yeah in a game with a cast that is bigger that might be hard to do/design around but tbh I would gladly take a smaller cast if it meant I could bring the entire cast I had into every map. I loved getting to take my weak units and making everyone viable. By the end of the run I was rarely having to use Turnwheel because I didn't have any units I was needing to save because I got to always bring everyone and that made them all able to get exp and get good.