Fire Emblem series

[Bofa Shekelstein]

but the changes and additions between new titles are much more exaggerated and contentious than they were in the GBA/Gamecube days.

This is objectively a good thing, IMO. I personally don't care for Engage or Fates, but I absolutely adore Three Houses, Echoes, and Awakening, while some are the total opposite. Normgroids and diehards always have at least one or two games that they enjoy the hell out of within a decade or so because of the more drastic changes. Not to mention Awakening's drastic changes saved the entire franchise.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Old news now, but one of my favorite factoids about FE4 is that, with the exception of Ninis's [sic] Grace, all the rings in FE7 are references to the crusaders: Set[y]'s Litany, Thor's [Thrud's] Ire and Filla's [Fjalar's] Might.

 

[Computer God Autism]

This is objectively a good thing, IMO. I personally don't care for Engage or Fates, but I absolutely adore Three Houses, Echoes, and Awakening, while some are the total opposite. Normgroids and diehards always have at least one or two games that they enjoy the hell out of within a decade or so because of the more drastic changes. Not to mention Awakening's drastic changes saved the entire franchise.

Awakening's most drastic change was just removing forced permadeath (which I think was a good decision as, imo, it was the main thing holding FE back from wider appeal), almost all the other changes it made were just simplifications or refinements of preexisting systems and then throwing all of them into a single game. The only other thing that didn't really have precedence was the Second Seal.

It was still a pretty noticeable change vis-a-vis a thousand cuts compared to Radiant Dawn, but there's a lot more shared DNA between Awakening and the titles before it than Awakening and 3H/Engage.

 

[AWarmToiletSeat]

Awakening's most drastic change was just removing forced permadeath (which I think was a good decision as, imo, it was the main thing holding FE back from wider appeal), almost all the other changes it made were just simplifications or refinements of preexisting systems and then throwing all of them into a single game. The only other thing that didn't really have precedence was the Second Seal.

It was still a pretty noticeable change vis-a-vis a thousand cuts compared to Radiant Dawn, but there's a lot more shared DNA between Awakening and the titles before it than Awakening and 3H/Engage.

Obligatory reminder that New Mystery was the first game that let you turn permadeath off.

 

[Bofa Shekelstein]

Awakening's most drastic change was just removing forced permadeath (which I think was a good decision as, imo, it was the main thing holding FE back from wider appeal), almost all the other changes it made were just simplifications or refinements of preexisting systems and then throwing all of them into a single game. The only other thing that didn't really have precedence was the Second Seal.

It was still a pretty noticeable change vis-a-vis a thousand cuts compared to Radiant Dawn, but there's a lot more shared DNA between Awakening and the titles before it than Awakening and 3H/Engage.

It was still quite a dramatic shift in tone and function; there wasn't any big changes, just a billion small changes that resulted in a completely new experience.

Permadeath optionality was also a huge factor. I like turning it off because it lets me use niggardly and retarded nuclear warhead strategies where I send off a unit to assassinate a stronger unit ahead and said unit subsequently gets obliterated into its constituent atoms.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Obligatory reminder that New Mystery was the first game that let you turn permadeath off.

True, but JP only title.

I think another thing the FE fanbase suffers from is the assumption that most of the oldfags had played the JP-only titles in the aughts and not just read about/watch someone else's playthrough.

It was still quite a dramatic shift in tone and function; there wasn't any big changes, just a billion small changes that resulted in a completely new experience.

Permadeath optionality was also a huge factor. I like turning it off because it lets me use niggardly and retarded nuclear warhead strategies where I send off a unit to assassinate a stronger unit ahead and said unit subsequently gets obliterated into its constituent atoms.

I don't disagree, but my point is that it's still a lot less exaggerated than the changes in the most recent titles, especially in terms of forcing you to interact with it. If you want permadeath in Awakening you just turn it on and that's that; now, there's a debate to be had about how much of the gameplay and maps were designed around that choice, but that's a less lot readily apparent than having to skip out on all the story context and camp activities if you don't want to have to go through the monastery or somniel.

 

[mrs thickness]

Speaking of dunking on FE, I've been playing some Shining Force lately, which led to a funny a little 2010 interview with Mr. Shining Force (formerly known as Mr. Dragon Quest IV) where Fire Emblem gets a mention:
https://web.archive.org/web/2012051....co.uk/retro/behind-the-scenes-shining-force/

You know he fuckin hated that game with how polite Japanese devs usually are in interviews. It's also really surprising to see, well, gameplayfag rhetoric for the genre going back that far. From my very limited understanding of them, it sounds like those kinds of arguments and dichotomy in RPGs go back as far to things like Ultima and Wizardry. Probably even the tabletop and board games that inspired them, too.

Something else that gets mentioned is how hard Shining Force got fucked by Sega of Japan despite being relatively successful. Sega of Japan is it's own can of worms, but it's just another example on the mountain of the niggas on a grid genre being utterly cursed (don't look up what day Advance Wars released in the US). A major contingent of modern FE fans are likely refugees from other strategy games or SRPGs that were all over the place a few generations ago and have fallen to the wayside due to corpo maleficence. It's hard to get excited about your indies and Unicorn Overlords and Triangle Strategies knowing that they're probably not going to come back or be iterated upon in any form besides a Gamebanana tranny or two, if you're really lucky. What, you want more Final Fantasy Tactics? Devil Survivor? Don't be silly.

A lot of the state of current FE discourse is likely due to how few viable alternatives there are to FE. It'd be hard not to resent FE just for it's comparative success, even if it was sticking it's guns to it's "golden era" sensibilities. I shouldn't even need to say that the only unanimous take you'll see in FE discourse is that Intelligent Systems are half retarded and FE would probably be better off in someone else's hands. Sakurai (in)famously put Roy in Smash Bros. Melee before Roy's game even released, and I have to wonder how much of that is because he had a completely different vision of what Roy and FE6 ended up becoming. FE is also at the crossroads of several different avenues of the vindictive and retarded, including Smash fans, Scrimblos who are mad Nintendo is Japanese, gacha subhumans, Xeno fans who feel threatened by potential Da Best Switch RPG competition, and a buffet's worth of flavors of culture war griftoids. History seems to be glossing over how relevant to Gamergate Fates was, and it's a major footnote that should be considered when thinking about the implications of what kind of people are talking about FE, what kind of retard shit they're saying, and why they're saying it, constantly, for the past decade.

 

[NerdShamer]

Probably even the tabletop and board games that inspired them, too.

This shit has been going on the tabletop for as long as there's an DM who's entirely able to fuck everyone over and there's an dev who creates an autistically complicated set of combat rules.

I haven't heard of Shining Force until now, but it certainly looks good enough for it's age.

FE is also at the crossroads of several different avenues of the vindictive and retarded,

But the series only has one job: Be entertaining and to stop taking the retarded fanbase at face value. Getting involved with the culture war bullshit might not actually kill off the series. At least, not immediately

 

[Computer God Autism]

What, you want more Final Fantasy Tactics? Devil Survivor? Don't be silly.

A particularly bad example is Jeanne d'Arc, which to this day has never been released outside of a Sony console - and didn't even get a rerelease or sequel for the Vita.

History seems to be glossing over how relevant to Gamergate Fates was, and it's a major footnote that should be considered when thinking about the implications of what kind of people are talking about FE, what kind of retard shit they're saying, and why they're saying it, constantly, for the past decade.

Given FE has always had a notable proportion of its fans be fujos I think it was bound to happen as things became increasingly politicized, regardless of Treehouse being Treehouse. Granted I'm almost grateful they did because it makes it easier to actually determine motivations.

Also semi-related but Awakening was what got the ball rolling on major Nintendo IPs normalizing the use of DLC.

 

[Metallic Blood]

A major contingent of modern FE fans are likely refugees from other strategy games or SRPGs that were all over the place a few generations ago and have fallen to the wayside due to corpo maleficence. It's hard to get excited about your indies and Unicorn Overlords and Triangle Strategies knowing that they're probably not going to come back or be iterated upon in any form besides a Gamebanana tranny or two, if you're really lucky.

I guess there's always Disgaea, but that game has a different focus on grinding to level 1000 and dealing 6 digit damage rather than resource management and carefully strategizing in your fights (although from my experience, strategizing and doing a low level challenge is still fun).

But you're so right about this, it's quite sad to play a series and have just one version of the game, I feel like TRPGs would probably be the easiest concepts to get sequels on. I only ever bothered trying Fire Emblem because...

What, you want more Final Fantasy Tactics? Don't be silly.

I still look at FFT leaks/news/anything in hope we get a sequel (or even a prequel about thte Fifty Years War) and get my copium high whenever Matsuno (director of FFT and Tactics Ogre) mentions that they like Unicorn Overload. But deep down, I know it wont happen

Maybe this is why I think Conquest is my favorite FE. The story (while badly written) reminds me of FFT in someway, with the two strong nations attacking each other featuring a naive protagonist, and the amount of character/class customization is absolutely phenomenal, while it still has the FE charm of resource management and having every unit being unique in their own way (unlike 3H where you can just easily plop 8 Wyvern Lords and be good to go.)

 

[mrs thickness]

I haven't heard of Shining Force until now, but it certainly looks good enough for it's age.

I might as well mention since Sega Saturn emulation has historically been a fuck; the newest 30th anniversary edition update for Yaba Sanshiro is the first Saturn emulator I've found for Shining Force 3 that knocking on wood here, i'm not even far into the first game of the trilogy A: just werks (on windows at least), B: doesn't break during the first combat encounter.

I'm not far into it because I started over, and that's because I forgot it's a 90's rpg, so if you want to get all the cool stuff and know how anything works you either play with a guide or you eat shit

 

[Neurotypical Mantis]

It's Just Not Right.

 

[Neurotypical Mantis]

so many angels lost their wings

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

View attachment 6746962
It's Just Not Right.

There's a Hubert stan on here.

I always wondered why we got Blazing Sword first and none of the others. You would think Roy came first so the previous game would be released. Idk

 

[Neurotypical Mantis]

There's a Hubert stan on here.

I always wondered why we got Blazing Sword first and none of the others. You would think Roy came first so the previous game would be released. Idk

i wasn't the only one but then i embarrassed sergeant major buzzkill off of the site for sending me hubert cuntboy porn.
real story.

 

[AWarmToiletSeat]

i wasn't the only one but then i embarrassed sergeant major buzzkill off of the site for sending me hubert cuntboy porn.
real story.

Reminder.

Anecdotally, I've noticed that most of the people that frequently praise the Black Eagles are huge coomers.

 

[Neurotypical Mantis]

i just really like Hubert ok

 

[Gog & Magog]

I miss the critical animations of the GBA games.

 

[Computer God Autism]

 

[Friendly Primarina]

I miss the critical animations of the GBA games.

HECTORCOPTER

Posting a video for this one because you really need the sound