Fire Emblem series

[mrs thickness]

i'm gonna talk about Fire Emblem: Vows of Fate a bit so half of my posts in this thread aren't just weeping and shitting when people are mean to Fire Emblem Steven Universe and because Dark Stone, which I originally wanted to sperg about, is actually kind of filtering the fuck out of me Shoutouts to Nigger's playthrough of this on /v/, who I'll be aping most of these screenshots from.

<What's Fire Emblem: Vows of Fate, you fucking autist?

Yeah, somehow it hasn't come up in this thread before, has it? It's pretty good for a giggle, so I guess it's on me to spread awareness of it. Here, I'll let the author speak for himself.



Did you get all that? I'll break it down. It's a gay soyboy making a rom hack as a gift for his gay soyboy friends who couldn't have a gay wedding because they got scared of COVID.

No, really.



Yes, that is what what the portraits look like.



I don't have any pictures of what the mid-blink frames look like, but you can rest assured that they're just as scary and predatory as you're probably imagining. What, the Oscar archetype on the right? Nah, he just looks like that, or maybe really likes that one part of the David Bowie China Girl music video.

<...Covidiots and Covid monsters????

TCD, actually.

Spoiler: piccies

Most of the game is just the Covidiots trying to stop your gay wedding while not wearing masks. Those of you with Media Literacy Awards might have noticed that the protagonists aren't wearing masks either. Intentional irony? Morally grey sociopolitical commentary? Three Houses 2? That's for you to decide, dear reader.

Anyway, they don't succeed and you get gay married. That's actually before the fight with Covid-19 itself though, where upon Fateing your Vows your characters receive their Regalias.



<There's no way this isn't parody/shitpost.

It's hard to say, isn't it? The author doesn't seem particularly active outside of this hack, at least on FEU.



My e-stalker sleuth-fu extends exactly as far as typing "cactusyote" into google, which lead to an abandoned and mostly-dead furry tumblr (plugging 'fire emblem' into the search yields nothing), a deviantart commission, and a Twitch channel that no longer exists.



Not really much of anything concrete. I dunno. Furries don't come up in Vows of Fate, or at least not enough for me to remember. There are some powerful creative entities over in the FE rom hacking chudsphere that are exiled from the Halls of FEU. From my own experience, the writing and visuals absolutely feel that they could be spat out mostly as-is from well-trained language and image models. The hack doesn't feel amateurishly-made in the way one might expect, either. Even considerably higher-scope rom hacks that I like replaying to this day have some of that scuzz where I'm afraid going to a shop or skipping a cutscene will softlock the game. Vows of Fate manages to behave itself. So, chud shitpost masterpiece, or average FEU user passion project? The world may never know.

<Should I play Fire Emblem: Vows of Fate?

It's probably right up your alley if you don't like Engage. BOOM!!!!

Spoiler: bonus homeless piccies

EDIT: added a few more forgotten unsorted piccies

 

[Computer God Autism]

<Should I play Fire Emblem: Vows of Fate?

It's probably right up your alley if you don't like Engage. BOOM!!!!

But do they all get Engaged?

 

[Peru oso donas]

There are some powerful creative entities over in the FE rom hacking chudsphere that are exiled from the Halls of FEU.

One word: Niggardly

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Previously on Fire Emblem: Descent of Jihad, an entire pack of spoiled noble brats is foiled by an honorable bro with a cursed blade (can you tell the creators liked Lodoss War?). Also nice to finally see who Owain was larping as in Awakening. Mystletainn > Missiletainn.

With nothing more to worry about at out rear, we continue at a generally slow-paced conquest liberation campaign through the woods of Verdane. After killing ANOTHER one of Jamke's brothers, Sigurd meets a sage named Deirdre in the capped castle town. Knowing about her through Heroes, I can believe Sigurd would fall in love with her due to her beauty, the immediate romance is fairy tale corny but I like it.

Sigurd ("Victory over the Past". Absolutely based name.) and company must now move through the sylvan hot gates. Along the way we meet Jamke, who interestingly enough is now an only child due entirely to our actions! Thankfully I was rewarded for thinking Eideen could convince him to join us, and she did. Turns out this guy with the pajeet dot on his head ($5 they blacken him in a remake ala Bowe and Grey in Echoes) can shoot his bow >>>3 muthafuckin times<<<. With Jamke and Ayra joining our ranks it was well worth invading liberating campaigning here in this verdant paradise for resources their woman.

As if to spite my gloating, fate saw fit to buffet me with a fuck load of archers and a kill-happy sorcerer for the final castle. He one-shots. Thankfully Victory over the Past's new waifu can literally hit the mute button on the dude's magic.

After resetting numerous times to ensure Lex's survival - I allow our murderous myrmidon Ayra the honor of the final kill. Let's see how she does with just an iron sword against nature defying dark magic...

Oh shit lol.

AAAAAAAHahahaaaaaa get fucked, nigger.
Ayra is earning her keep one-rounding bosses. With the >Barbarian< nation of Verdane pacified, it's time for Sigurd to rest and pump a savior into Deirdre...

Oh, the cunts who tried to buttfuck us earlier are trying to warmonger against us again... Oh, the pacifist king of Augustria just died under extremely suspect circumstances. Oh, his corrupt son just took power. Oh, the entire nation of Augustria is now planning to invade Grannvale directly through OUR front. Oh, the new king just arrested Eldigan and his forces are marching on Nordion to kill his lover sister lover.

This shit is officially on.

 

[Sneak 'n' Snore]

i'm gonna talk about Fire Emblem: Vows of Fate a bit

I love when people with no self awareness put an extensive amount of effort into self insert projects only for it to turn into cringe. Vows of Fate especially was, lets say, dedicated.
MageKnight404 self inserting himself into FE7 along with Linoan from Thracia (I think over Hector and Lyn respectively?) had way less effort put into it considering he didn't adjust the dialogue and actions from other characters which supposedly could result in him getting cucked.

 

[mrs thickness]

MageKnight404 self inserting himself into FE7 along with Linoan from Thracia (I think over Hector and Lyn respectively?) had way less effort put into it considering he didn't adjust the dialogue and actions from other characters which supposedly could result in him getting cucked.

I actually had some familiarity with MK404Hack before the retsupurae (though i can't say the same for the pokemon black/white LP, holy shit), and as silly and embarrassing as it is, I think it's worthy of some praise. I'm getting a little off topic, but it's worth mentioning that he seems to have never gone after retsupurae for those videos, which implies some ability to take ribbing. Slowbeef instantly pussies out if any retsupurae-ee wants a video gone.

But yeah, it's very easy for him to get cucked from Linoan and that's the main meme of the game these days. Linoan takes Lyn's place, Lief takes Marcus's, MK404 himself takes Hector, some of his IRL friends are characters, there's a bunch of characters from SRW, Xeno...whatever, Chrono Cross, Yggdra, Lunar, that kind of thing. The custom portraits and even some animations actually still hold up really well imo, but that might just be nostalgia bias. Anyway, MK404 was just a dumb kid cramming in all the different flavors of weeb shit he liked when he made it, and the available tools at the time were way less robust than what's available now, so it's quite impressive considering how quickly it was cobbled together just after FE went international.



Out of context this doesn't look good or like FE at all, but he wasn't trying to make it look like FE, he was trying to make it look like this.



The pre-The Last Promise growing pains era of rom hacking doesn't get a lot of discussion or reexamination, and a big part of that is that a lot of them are some combination of barely functional, completely imbalanced shitshows, incomplete, aren't really findable anymore, or are shit like GhebFE that aren't worth the effort. MK404Hack represents an interesting footnote in FE rom hacking history and also just the history of internet culture and memes at the time. Depending on your taste, it's either the worst shit imaginable, or kind of cute. I'd actually been thumbing through it fairly recently and collecting screenshots, but sadly they've disappeared on me and I don't want to replay it.

He's still pretty active online, too. He did a series revisiting MK404Hack at some point, but I haven't watched it and don't particularly care to.

Spoiler: jumpscare

 

[Peru oso donas]

and as silly and embarrassing as it is, I think it's worthy of some praise. I'm getting a little off topic, but it's worth mentioning that he seems to have never gone after retsupurae for those videos, which implies some ability to take ribbing.

I remember one of the people who made threads playing the hack on /v/ once tried to contact MK404 about people's reaction to the hack, and they said he was pretty passive aggressive and pissy during the conversation.

 

[mrs thickness]

I remember one of the people who made threads playing the hack on /v/ once tried to contact MK404 about people's reaction to the hack, and they said he was pretty passive aggressive and pissy during the conversation.

In my skimming I did see some posts about MK404 having an ego (which is what got me thinking about the retsupurae), but /v/ being /v/, I don't trust like that without receipts, and even then. Plus I've been plenty pissy about dumb FE shit just in this thread, and I don't even make things, so I'm not in a hurry to throw any stones even if they're at 99% hit. Considering he's an early rom hacker and most of his e-footprint is cringe-ass let's play roleplay, he's definitely a giga autist, so it's hard to fault him for not being necessarily diplomatic about it.

 

[Kier]

To be fair, I too would be pretty pissed if someone tried to contact me about the awful rom-hacks I made 15 years ago as a middle schooler or whatever. I think there is a statute of limitations on cringe when it comes to bad hacks. For what MK404 is, it's really impressive.

I've replayed TLP recently and if you can get into the ham and the edge it really does hold up about as well as some of the real games. Even the late game slog maps I found conceptually pretty cool. The late 'conquer' map that's basically an FE4 map I strangely like a whole lot.

 

[Vapor Sauce]

A reason why you need to state growth rates is that the game sometimes does not managed to communicate growth rates though character design.

I still don't understand why IS doesn't show growths in-game. I wonder what the reason is since I don't think it would harm the games in anyway. I know you can find them but it would be more convenient to have that information in-game.

 

[Caddo Cobgang]

One word: Niggardly

this is exactly why Liberal Americans should never be given control over the IP

 

[AWarmToiletSeat]

I love when people with no self awareness put an extensive amount of effort into self insert projects only for it to turn into cringe. Vows of Fate especially was, lets say, dedicated.
MageKnight404 self inserting himself into FE7 along with Linoan from Thracia (I think over Hector and Lyn respectively?) had way less effort put into it considering he didn't adjust the dialogue and actions from other characters which supposedly could result in him getting cucked.

I've got a lot of nostalgia for that crew and their old Let's Plays. It was a terrific on-boarding point for me way back when, when I was first dipping my toes into the franchise. But, of course, all things must come to an end. Especially after Trent (Seph1212) trooned out, he was the most fun out of all of them.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

I might love Ayra... this little soldier works so hard.

Chapter 3 was amazing, also long as shit. Gotta love how armies just keep showing up to kill you. I thought the old (but utilitarian) menus and the lack of recent quality-of-life improvements would make FE4 a chore, but it's not. The game has an "auto-save" feature at phase start, and combine that with some emulator perks and you have a game that probably plays faster than a PoR enemy phase. Other than old game clunk, the sprite art is enjoyable, the ring system is great, and amazingly I don't hate the money system. Sometimes constraints on what you can do actually make a game better and more interesting. It actually forces you to >strategize< about what you actually want to do with a specific unit. In Awakening/Fates, unless a character had story significance or big tits, I couldn't be bothered to put effort into maintaining them.

Now? Almost every single character is needed, I'm resetting the game just to keep a fucking dancer alive, and I'm taking the time to actually plan out what I want to do with a character, their items, and gold. The pawn system makes it so you can trade between units, you just get punished with gold loss for not thinking things through the first go around. Story-wise, FE4 is best FE. Characters have some spunk, but they aren't speaking in late 2000s movie references like the treehouse localization staff did for Fates/Awakening. The nobles actually talk with an air of lordly caliber and respect. The geopolitics and nations of Jugdral were also clearly thought out. You're always being updated on the state of the world, the location of your army, and the machinations of enemy forces.

I didn't care about Emmeryn dying in Awakening, and I laughed at the rushed melodrama of Corrin's mother in Fates... but...

just seeing Deirdre's empty seat next to Sigurd in the castle is filling me with a sense of dread and disgust.

 

[That Guy You Know]

I remember enjoying the 404 hack a bit when I played it for myself. It is really peak "fan-culture" if you get my drift. Just a collage of all this stuff this dude likes and trying to bring it all together in a somewhat sincere way, though there is no avoiding some of the goofiness like with the pictures that he could not edit at the time. It definitely plays like the typical casual view of FE as well, just busted as hell growths and characters for the RPG numbers fun.

Of course that honest sort of "fan-culture" is far less common now with people going for irony now. The current FE hacks are a bit more constructive and tactics focused, for better or for worse, but there is still some good stuff.

 

[Kier]

As cringe as it was, I really miss classical fan-culture. There's something really earnest and fun about "I threw all my favorite IPs into a rom-hack and included my forum in-jokes".

Anyhow, I'm feeling pretty awful so it's time to play some FE. As long as we have a mini let's play going on, I'm going to start FE4 for the first time in a good decade.

 

[Computer God Autism]

As cringe as it was, I really miss classical fan-culture. There's something really earnest and fun about "I threw all my favorite IPs into a rom-hack and included my forum in-jokes".

Nonsensical crossovers used to be fun when they were mainly the domain of Fanfiction.net and not the norm for triple a console slop. I'd rather have earnest cringe than cynical and shallow nostalgiabait.

 

[Caddo Cobgang]

And now people are saying Engage is actually good?

A Fire Emblem game is more than just it's gameplay which is the only thing Engage gets right aside from the animations.
Fire Emblem once it got good after Kaga left is about the characters mostly, their relationships and how they interact with the world.

Engage was literal proof IS doesn't give a fuck about what its fanbase wants, i mean just look at shit like this

 

[NerdShamer]

Engage was literal proof IS doesn't give a fuck about what its fanbase wants, i mean just look at shit like this
View attachment 6573525

But seriously, they could have used an better VA for him.

 

[Metallic Blood]

Engage was literal proof IS doesn't give a fuck about what its fanbase wants, i mean just look at shit like this
View attachment 6573525

All things considered, this is proof IS gives what the fanbase wants. Reminds me of all the people who see Forrest as their comfort "trans symbol" character.

I believe most fans (or at least ones I met on the internet) really don't care about a good story, it's all about the characters and the gameplay. Not saying that the former isn't important, but it sure just feels secondary.

Why care about plot when my FE Heroes waifu getting a seasonal alt is more important, eh?

 

[Tony2Timez]

Engage was literal proof IS doesn't give a fuck about what its fanbase wants, i mean just look at shit like this

Nigga the gay shit is exactly what the fanbase wants, at least most Westoid fans. Have you seen these fucking people? lol

That's the case for any Nintendo game anymore though. They were upset that Fates wasn't gay enough, then got upset that 3H wasn't gay enough because there was only like 10 same sex marriage options, then they even got upset that Engage wasn't gay enough in spite of certain lines of dialogue like that and being able to S-Support whoever, etc. etc. Your average modern FE fan plays these games as shipping/dating sims, not srpgs. More shit like that is exactly what they want and I hope IS stops conceding to them.

All that being said I'd be curious to see if that line is as on the nose in moonrunes.