@“2501”#p102902 Yeah… one of the cutest dudes! I like how all the guys think he‘s hot or admire his gender presentation, so much that they get passive buffs from being around him in battle. Seadall trying to steal his skincare routine is one of the best supports. It’s impossible to not love him even when he's being a little vain.
Between Rosado and Libra, the gender non-conforming characters in Fire Emblem are some of the most fun imo
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@“2501”#p102703 (Fun fact though, FE7 was localized to English by the legendary Alexander Smith of Matsuno game fame, so we probably owe him a bunch of the series’ English-language conventions like potions being “vulneraries” and so on.)
I had no idea Smith—AND Rich Amtower!—had anything to do with it, but that surely explains my fondness for the texture of the writing on some level.
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aesthetically they still look very bland to me!!
Unfortunately gameplay in the two Radiance games looks pretty weak, I agree—the change to 3D was quite the stumbling block. Models are OK but the animation technique isn't the best I'd say. Different but also unfortunate for Radiant Dawn is that emulating the game on a modern setup gives you these badly scaled character portraits in dialogue—you can practically count the pixels along their edges, it's a shame. Music also unfortunately suffers from "realistic" MIDI orchestration but the tunes themselves are good if you can look past it. Anyhow if you don't like the aesthetic package that's OK, I wouldn't presume to tell you to manufacture interest in something if it isn't gripping
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when you discover the story context behind it
.....I am intrigued.......
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only TO
I've spent so much time reading the Warren Report oh my word
Well I’ve reached a point in Engage where 1) the difficulty spikes significantly and 2) I am actually begging the game to stop giving me new characters every mission because I cannot possibly train them all adequately. The EXP rate is stingy enough already!
I got kinda burnt out on Engage but still had the itch so I started playing Vestaria Saga, and damn. The maps have so much going on that it kinda spoils these modern FEs for me. Really cool that the OG Emblem guy is in his 70s and still making games in SRPG Studio of all things.
yo what up though so i just got a key for redemption reapers which is apparently made by some square enix people, a fire emblem guy, and many others. starts with a chiseled dilf guy and his anime looking sidekick, cuz a woman can never have a real face in these games unless she's some bug eyed freak.
so far it kind of rules though. AP strategy game (like ap english) where you can freely move in your squares or hexes or whatever, and have a stock of AP to do things with. the feeling so far is of desperate heroes needling in on (of course it's orcs ) orc territory in a tight formation, gaming every encounter for their own survival. you take lots of damage, it's very easy to get a total party kill from bad positioning.
@“kowloonwalledcity”#p104713 im so glad this thread name is the name of this thread
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@“kowloonwalledcity”#p104713 AP strategy game (like ap english) where you can freely move in your squares or hexes or whatever, and have a stock of AP to do things with.
If only you could stack up Action Points and get college credits for it, we would be living in a society ruled by Divinity Original Sin players.
I hadn't heard of this game! I do find it interesting when Japanese devs take on more western rpg gameplay and throw in orcs and stuff. I'm curious to learn more!
Good lord Maddening difficulty spikes colossally after chapter 10. The game really rubs your nose in how badly you need those Emblem Ring powers by >!taking them all away!< Suddenly maps are swarming with either ridiculous numbers of units or multiple ones that can 1HKO most of your party members from like 8 squares away - which really tips over into “not cool or fun” territory when you’re chucked into another level using “darkness” to conceal enemy unit placement. We’re once again at a point where enemies rolling an 8% critical or allies missing multiple 80% accurate attacks in a row wipe out an hour or more of progress. The game also just outright stops giving you money to spend at shops so there’s a bunch of good gear there all of a sudden that I can’t actually buy because I spent all my money on land investment five chapters ago when there was nothing actually useful to spend it on.
In _FE_ I usually try to take the patient route and max out my basic class units before promoting them to advanced classes but suddenly I may not have a choice. I’m just plain stuck at a point where the “easiest” battle available to me is still virtually impossible to complete without losing units. I’m also learning how callous this game is about just plain obsoleting early game units. I’m used to the traditional _Fire Emblem_ “advanced class old knight guy you get at the beginning who has terrible stats and growth rate later on” but the first handful of chapters drop a bunch of underleveled characters into your lap - more than you can possibly all train, because again, this game’s EXP rate is stingy af - and then periodically gives you new units at significantly higher levels with more useful personal skills and often better stats, which because this is _Fire Emblem_ and not _Megami Tensei_ I instinctively assume is a trap. The archer the game gives you in the second chapter, who I used in almost every battle, is still at a lower level with drastically worse stats than the archer the game gives you in the eighth chapter who has a far better personal skill, who’s weaker than the mounted archer the game gives you in the twelfth chapter. Regardless of level, any unit with Spd and/or Def <10 at this point is basically unusable. The game has little rubberbanding so if I want to bring an underleveled unit up to speed because I realized they actually have a useful skill or something idk what my options are realistically because they won’t last 5 seconds against anything the game has me fighting now.
These games need to make up their mind whether units are disposable or your friends because the numbers say one thing and the words (and support system) say another!
@“Tradegood”#p104767 okay im not entirely sure what happened between the beginning of this game but something i noticed around chapter four is all of the cutscenes have this motion smoothing or something on them, and this style of cutting, that makes them look like a 90's tv show. its absurd. its supposed to be huge melodrama but im guffawing every time my boys and ladies kill a guy in a cutscene and are standing next to each other shot like one of those old, 4:3 or whatever ratio soap operas where everyone is standing around from the foot up on camera. its hilarious.
also the game is kicking my ass
I’m gonna come out and say that the critical mechanic in Fire Emblem as a whole is kind of bullshit and the games would be better off without it. It is exactly the wrong combination of unpredictable and consequential. Hit percentages are one thing because you can manipulate and strategize around them but with crits you basically just need to cross your fingers and pray that your otherwise strategically flawless approach doesn’t get completely fucked on a single-digit percentile chance - meanwhile relying on them for offense is a fool’s game. I get that it’s an attempt to introduce more variance to the game but maybe the game doesn’t need more variance?? It’s already going for a more chess puzzle-like approach compared to FF/Tactics Ogre’s sandbox of variables so why not just commit to that. On high difficulties an enemy crit doesn’t create some emergent obstacle you have to get out of with adaptive thinking, a surprise 300% damage boost just butchers you instantly. It all ties back into the games’ weird tension of simultaneously pressuring you to accept/gamble on permadeath and punishing you severely (and unpredictably!) for doing so. Annoying game design imo.
Yeah I think Crits are good in theory but can be annoying in practice. The fact that avoid and dodge are separate, and also dependent on the luck stat makes it all too abstract to reasonably try to plan or micromanage for critical hits. In Hard wasn‘t much of a problem for me until a few endgame maps, but by that point my team all had high enough dexterity/skill that we were the ones bullying the enemy with critical hits. Maddening’s a different story though, I feel like having any unpredictable variable is just pure frustration.
Once we get all the DLCs and Paralogues and characters I'm going to do my maddening run, so I am appreciating reading your thought processes as you go through it haha.
@“Tradegood”#p104993 Yeah lol on Maddening enemy criticals are just stupid, there’s no reasonable way to plan around them (no one in their right mind would forego regular offense and defense to invest in the stat that does literally nothing except reduce enemy critical rates) and they pretty much only exist to randomly ruin otherwise correctly played turns and tick down your rewind counter. You can’t just not ever get attacked so periodically losing progress to a <15% probable event is simply an inevitability no matter how well you play and it only gets more infuriating each time it happens.
On the other hand apparently unlike every other _Fire Emblem_ game ever made this one actually wants you to promote units out of their base classes as soon as the option becomes available?? I read that stat growth is superior in the advanced classes so you’re not actually screwing yourself in the endgame if you promote before reaching level 20. The game literally never explains this to you but it certainly explains why the difficulty spikes so hard once you start getting Master Seals. I’ve been just sitting on five of those unaware that I could significantly buff my best characters at any time for no cost lmao. Thanks game.
Failed my meticulous turn setup and lost a unit to a surprise-spawn enemy who can 1HKO most of my army because a 71% accurate attack missed. Okay. Rewind turn and fail again because the enemy’s 11% critical chance triggered. Obnoxious. Rewind again and fail again because even with a different setup, the 71% attack missed again. Infuriating! Hit again with a different unit, fuck it: that unit’s 63% critical chance triggers and the enemy’s 84% accurate attack misses. Thanks to making the strategically stupid move I’m now in the clear! But down three rewinds on an excruciatingly long map with five (5) boss characters, so good chance I’ll have to start the whole thing over again for a fourth time.
Cool game.
sounds like a blast
@“2501”#p105229 it's weird how much the games fight with themselves over their own features
In classic fire emblem you were just supposed to deal with a unit getting knocked out sometimes. sometimes you wouldn't get the chance to use them again, sometimes they'd get better a little while later. There were always surprise reinforcements and bad luck happening so you'd just have to live with it if you managed to finish the map mostly in good shape for the next one.
not so easy to bite the bullet with rewinds and reloads at your disposal undercutting the design of the series itself
what about stat growth randomization, is that still part of the OCD complex it feeds into?
@“IncompatibleKaiser”#p105252 I don’t think it’s as random as it used to be - if you reset a battle after getting lousy growth on a level-up you’ll still get the exact same growth the next time even if it’s in a different battle, and also if you get lousy growth on one level the next one will usually be a lot better.
The day _Fire Emblem_ introduced support mechanics and unique character skills accepting permadeath ceased to be an acceptable way to play for anything but masochistic challenge runs, so rewinds are absolutely a good thing in my book and I would never go back. The thing I really take issue with is the persistence of criticals as a ruiner mechanic to occasionally just chuck strategy out the window - with the highest possible penalty for the player.
@“2501”#p105272 see this is the kind of thing that makes me just not want difficulty modes in games
there should just be normal mode and accessibility mode. don't even call it casual.
Permadeath is good in Fire Emblem, and I think anyone who doesn‘t let their units die is missing out on a big part of the experience. Those deaths add so much stakes to your strategic approach and are some of my most memorable moments and opens up opportunities. Celine was kind of floundering for a while with me, and when she died I started using Pandreo and he ended up having some great growths and being one of the best members of the team. >!I also let Veyle die in the final battle with all my turns left to go back but kept playing. She was still in cutscenes afterward so I don’t really understand if she's actually allowed to die?!<
I think the more interesting question is how get those bench players up to speed, because I have issues with both Arena battles and Skirmishes. The Arenas had great risk-reward but it was a lot of just RNG. I think the Skirmishes being balanced around your average party level was smart but at one point I kind of overleveled my whole party and streamrolled a couple of the story maps, but the skirmishes were too hard to grind in haha. Banking XP like in Path of Radiance was probably the best but I kind of like having to work for it too.
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@“2501”#p105272 The day Fire Emblem introduced support mechanics and unique character skills accepting permadeath ceased to be an acceptable way to play for anything but masochistic challenge runs, so rewinds are absolutely a good thing in my book and I would never go back.
This is so true. Ain't no corrupted getting between me and my husbando Seadall.
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@“Tradegood”#p105293 Permadeath is good in Fire Emblem, and I think anyone who doesn’t let their units die is missing out on a big part of the experience.
I'll second this. I had a real emotionally impactful experience when I panicked and let a couple of my units die near the end of _Three Houses_. The feeling I had as the credits rolled and some of my favorite characters didn't get their post-war story wrap up is something I'll never forget. Yeah yeah, it's saccharine and not great literature, but it's absolutely part of the experience cultivated by the game.
idk fellas Fire Emblem games tend to be dozens of hours long at minimum and work overtime to make you feel bad emotionally and mechanically if a unit kicks the bucket - there’s no knowing if you just lost someone with an invaluable unique skill or stat growth, or a character behind which future characters or questlines are hidden, unless you’ve already played the game. Since supports are mechanically relevant losing one unit can unbalance the dynamics of your entire army. It’s always technically preventable and you’re always strictly worse off for letting it happen. If anything the games don’t incentivize you to accept permadeath enough - whether you accept it or not you’re still bound for frustration, but trying to avoid it is a frustration you can see and eventually overcome while accepting it may hit you with more severe and irreversible frustration hours down the road. It’s not a balanced system.