So I dig that the kingdom of “Brodia” is the land where they really like fighting, but also their prince is a heavy-duty femboy. Really interesting stuff going on in this game, semiotically.
EDIT: nvm 5 minutes later the game introduces an exponentially more effeminate male character, with cat ears, who is clearly anti-Brodia
@“2501”#p102107 And for me, the best thing about modern QoL stuff is that it‘s all optional, so unless you’re so hardcore that you can‘t enjoy the game just knowing the QoL stuff exists in the game, you can still have that (for me) tedious experience of the older games for the most part. But I’ve also seen folks complain about newer Pokemon games telling you in-game which attacks are super effective (because we all know it's so much more hardcore to look it all up on your phone)
My partner started playing Engage this weekend, and since we are both unapologetic fans of anime bullshit, we spent the weekend laughing about the ridiculous costuming, off-putting voiced lines, and ludicrous storyline. I know it's not to everyone's taste, but... for me it comes across as fun and pretty joyful. I like that it clearly only takes itself so seriously.
Honestly this thing is just a hair’s breadth away from camp, using the literal VTuber character designs as an excuse for genderbending antics kinda clinches it
@“Tradegood”#p102103 Thanks for the honest recommendation (or… not-recommendation). Remembering Awakening is ten years old at this point is pretty weird! My impression of Engage is it has come the closest to being a thing that is separate and new compared to “old” (pre-Awakening) games in the series, which is fine. I don‘t begrudge it that, it’s making good on the promise suggested by Awakening's design which Awakening was incapable of fully embracing due to its being the first big step away from series tradition (as established in the GBA-Wii era, anyway).
Ship of a Theseus going on after 33 years and 17 games slowly evolving into something much less recognizable
Sums it up pretty perfectly.
@“2501”#p102105 the series was on death’s doorstep up to that point
The thing that frustrates me is not so much that IntSys redesigned the series for Awakening forward—I know why they did, the games weren‘t selling. Extremely wrong-place-wrong-time releases with Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon* left few paths forward aside from rethinking the series’ entire mechanical and aesthetic identity.
*which, why did they remake Shadow Dragon AND Mystery of the Emblem, when the latter is already a remake + sequel of the first game, wtf
What frustrates me is not the response to low sales, but the low sales—the marketing was wrong, reviews were wrong, and it‘s a shame because the games were doing some really interesting things! I hesitate to use the term “young adult” to describe anything in a post-Harry Potter world but the Radiance games tell a truly interesting, complicated story at that level (honestly, at times too complicated for young adults). And keeping in mind the complaints about unforgiving or frictional mechanics, those games did make notable changes to the series’ design in the name of not wasting the player‘s time, e.g. they allowed you to conserve and distribute pooled EXP to weaker units; although not as flexible as out-and-out turn rewinding, Radiant Dawn also featured mid-battle saves which could be reloaded and overwritten as many times as the player liked—you could save-scum to your heart’s content, without an emulator! But not enough Wii players wanted a sequel to a game they hadn‘t played (and may have had a hard time finding even if they’d wanted to). I won‘t conflate the interests of video game players in 2007 at large with what mainstream review sites told players to be interested in, but apparently Dawn in particular was problematic for its lack of voice acting, motion controls, and Mii implementation. GameSpot released a video two days ago in which they hilariously shrugged their shoulders at the game’s failure, citing their earlier review. The plot is “laughable.” OK! Sounds like you guys haven't played it in 15 years!
Sorry I guess I have a huge chip on my shoulder. I can play these games no problem, and anyone with a computer or hacked Wii or other emulator (oh my) can too, but I guess I can‘t help but be annoyed (and also amused, it’s complicated) seeing you and yeso and others etc hate-play these new ones, or be unable to play them without complaining publicly about how dumb the story is or whatever (DO NOT MEAN to discourage enthusiastic discussion of the new game, sorry to be mixing messages here). You can‘t play Radiant Dawn on a Switch I realize but like we don’t need to report on the stupidity of the dragon boobies just because it‘s easy and conveniently available. Play the ones that don’t have that! Which your post just explained why you do enjoy the story in a roundabout way so idk I'm not right either. This is a me problem sorry to be a party pooper
going to get back to Genealogy so I can be the change I want to see in the world
should i beat three houses or just install heroes on my phone again
I mean I think the least tortured appraisal is that it‘s a dumbed-down tactics game full of pointless junk with creep-horny trash for the nerd market. Is there and ’there there‘ wrt to campiness, gender, etc? I understand the game isn’t taking itself seriously, but it is supremely lazy and bottom-feeding
@“captain”#p102257 Nah man thank you for elaborating on your perspective. I never played the GCN/Wii entries so it’s cool to have them brought into this conversation as points of comparison. The Gamecube one especially is indeed famously hard to find, and I didn’t even know about the checkpointing mechanic!
For me, even in the older entries I always found the narrative aspects of these games pretty bland (certainly compared to my beloved Matsuno games setting the TRPG standard for me in that department) so in some ways I prefer gaudy tongue-in-cheek weeaboo camp to earnestly solid-but-not-great high fantasy hokum. All my “complaints” here are being made with a big fucking grin on my face because somehow I am finding the totally unserious gusto of this new game’s particular brand of stupidity more endearing than offensive, even if the character designs are genuinely (hilariously) awful.
Mechanically though, structurally, outside of the inter-mission silliness, Engage honestly does feel closer to the 00s era of the series than Awakening and I think that’s worth emphasizing as a positive. Genuinely, playing through the maps on the highest difficulty feels fantastic. Every move matters and no unit is either an effortless field-cleaner or dead weight. (I appreciate the tweaks this game makes to healer classes to make them more strategically versatile - they can now perform limited offensive and defensive maneuvers that rescue them from being just the mandatory but boring/frustrating soft targets of every team.) Compared to Awakening’s core mechanical conceit of turbocharging the affinity and pair-up mechanics, Engage’s goofy sentai transformation mechanic leads to interesting and diverse choices - when will you activate your powers? On offense or defense? Which units will you assign them to? Huddling my units cautiously turn by turn until I feel out the strategy that lets me rout an overwhelmingly stronger enemy (sometimes by the skin of my army’s teeth) has me pumping my fist and declaring that on this day I am a martial god - my only complaint is that the battles seem to be getting easier!
I was sort of starting to enjoy Triangle Strategy before this but Engage’s balancing, battle mechanics, game pacing and UI design are so clearly better it’s a joke. So if you care about actually playing Fire Emblem, a challenging puzzle-lite tactical RPG, I’d suggest at least thinking about looking past the gaudy aesthetics or simply surrendering yourself to the absurdity of it.
I forget, did you say you’d checked out the Gaiden remake? I feel like that would have the most appeal for you out of any latter-day Fire Emblem. It has weird looking 3D anime cutscenes made by Hideaki Anno’s studio lol
@“yeso”#p102281 bottom-feeding, absolutely. but i‘d push back on the game being supremely lazy. in my experience it’s actually sweaty - working very hard to appease longtime FE fans, as well as those who became addicted to the mobile game, and to have some of the most polished and slickest audiovisual presentation on the Switch. maaaaybe you can say it‘s lazy when it comes to issues of camp, gender and representation, but we can’t really be sure the game is striving to make meaningful contributions to those kinds of discussions, can we?
by lazy I mean that it doesn’t even bother to rise to
earnestly solid-but-not-great high fantasy hokum
and is even more gruel-like in terms of setting, atmosphere, and character. Apart from the colorful character designs, it’s totally bland. It seems like the MO in fact, indicated also I think by the presence of protagonists from earlier (better) games just sort of being around in the form of equippable items (that ofc you do weird social linking with). I’m not attached to any of the old characters or anything so it’s not an affront or anything, it’s just everything is like ultra processed food.
Apparently there’s some aesthetic or something I’m blind to so what the hell do I know
@kowloonwalledcity I think 2501’s advice to play Tactics Ogre is correct
got it. yeah i hear where you‘re coming from, BUT i think there’s something to be said about which storytelling and world building targets this game is trying to hit. i feel like there are (at least) two schools of thought. in one, originality and authorial voice is prized, and in the other, adherence to tropes and familiarity for the audience with just a light sprinkling of individual identity (or brand recognition) on top. anime falls into the latter category, in my experience, and i don't think that the work required in producing it is inherently more lazy or minimal-effort than the former category. certainly more meetings are required to produce that latter style.
Gotta be honest I’m pretty beside myself that specifically the storytelling of this series is even medium regarded by anyone and I’ve been consistently blown away by this ever since people first started insisting that Awakening was somehow a horrific encroachment on the integrity of the series’ stories to that point. Outside of the one example already given of the GCN game having one aspect of the story be a little good I’m honestly completely lost here.
Granted of course that stuff like Fates is truly terrible by all standards.
once again we return to the old adage: a lot of people who love GAME X for its story have simply never read a single book.
@“whatsarobot”#p102362 I think there’s an additional layer to this where hardcore Nintendo fans are not only in the general Gamer boat of not reading books but are not even used to video games attempting to have stories as anything other than background noise, so even the smallest amount of effort in this department blows minds.
I say this because Fire Emblem storytelling is not outstanding even by the standards of the tactical RPG genre! Since the mid-90s that genre has been defined by the twin pillars of Fire Emblem and Tactics Ogre, like the Dragon Quest v. Final Fantasy dichotomy all over again. On one side is the colorful anime hangout game with deceptively simple grid-based mechanics hiding surgically precise math; on the other side is the dark and brooding isometric political epic that takes its narrative seriously and hits you with intimidatingly complex systems of stats and variables to explore, learn and eventually bend to your will.
“Good writing” in Fire Emblem is when the characters populating its utterly generic high fantasy settings come to feel like your buddies and you get a kick out of playing matchmaker and watching their larger-than-life personalities bounce off one another in friendship and romance. Which is fine! The games are good at that! But they have never at any point had “stories” that rose above the level of passable. The Kaga-era games were solid 90s shonen fantasy anime, and yes they have gotten worse since then, but, like, come on. A Fire Emblem game deliberately reducing its narrative to a paper-thin excuse to ogle quirky anime friends is not some huge fall from grace.
@“2501”#p102372
A Fire Emblem game deliberately reducing its narrative to a paper-thin excuse to ogle quirky anime buddies is not some huge fall from grace.
Spot on. Not only is it not a fall from grace, it was a breakthrough. It's once IntSys admitted that to themselves, and then doubled down on it, that the series finally became truly lovable and found a large audience.
Remember how excited we got when we heard there'd be a Fire Emblem x Shin Megami Tensei crossover? And then remember how that turned out?
If you want a Fire Emblem that isn't a braindead J-pop confection, then you're asking for something that isn't Fire Emblem.
Fire Emblem games narratively are not fantasy dramas, they are sitcoms with some noise about war and dragons in the background. Their narrative apotheosis is pumping your fist when the hero and heroine get together at the end (Shadows of Valentia) or chuckling at the support conversations when they have TOTALLY RELATABLE quirky dialogues about hobbies, relationships, food preparation, workout routines, etc. Who’s the Valbar in your friend group? Who’s the Chloé? These are the deep questions Fire Emblem’s writers want to ask us.
@“2501”#p102374
@“whatsarobot”#p102373 I guess I can give people who like the old games the benefit of the doubt and say, like, maybe they want a story that’s Record of Lodoss War Lite and yeah the series isn’t doing that anymore. I guess it’d be nice if it was, but I’m not really convinced it’s a massive loss.
The Ogre Battle Saga being forever unfinished is a massive loss. What is Lanselot Tartaros’s long game? Does he want to free humanity from its eldritch overlords or serve it up on a silver platter? What kind of man is Pope Sardian? Does the vile sage Rashidi still live? Will New Xyteginia and Lodis dare to meet in open war, and what will be the cost in blood if they do? Have the gods abandoned their sin-stained creations? How can man grow beyond his lust for domination when the governance of natural law itself in this demiurgic world is violent and unjust? Can there truly be lasting peace without the shackles of empire or the bloodsoaked machinery of the nation-state? Who will bring about the dreaded Ogre Battle? These are the answers I need, and nobody’s paying Yasumi Matsuno to provide them.
@“2501”#p102377 its funny you bring this up cuz i think fire emblem is so totally opposed to any of the deeper questions ogre battle and other games like that ask. matsuno's a freak for ripped from the headlines war stories and wanting to know what it would take to get someone to kill their brother in country, the fire emblem devs are like “what if a cool sword could solve all war, forever?” its the sword and sandal one hour movie or paperback fantasy about guys who do cool shit.
fire emblem deals with massive archetypes and symbols it repeats endlessly through the series as a shorthand so players know who bad guys are, and then treats making some of those symbols not mean someone is a bad guy like a huge revelation in the fiction of the universe even though it happens at least once a game. treading water.
Fire Emblem is as dumb as it gets, but it still makes me squeal with glee on a regular basis.
Related: I'm surprised we haven't talked more about Engage's opening song. It's like Nintendo fed 20 years of Eurovision contests into an AI, and flipped the switch to "like that, but cornier" mode.
@“kowloonwalledcity”#p102383 Matsuno’s the only TTRPG-loving video game developer who dropped out of a political science degree and I genuinely don’t think he realizes what a treasure that makes him. A couple years ago on Twitter he was openly questioning himself and wondering whether his classic games were too heavy for this sad world and he should’ve just tried to make something that would make players happy, and it crushed me because being the one in a million video games about war that’s earnestly, intelligently, obsessively concerned with what makes a man pick up a gun and shoot another human being in the face for a cause should be celebrated by everyone everywhere who thinks popular art can dare to be about things that matter.
Shozo Kaga likes some swords & sandals, and I mean, that’s fine too.