The world needs more official 2D art, not less.
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Fire Emblem Community | Anime Game Of Thrones
- Thread starter Shun
- Start date
I would be really disappointed if they abandoned still portraits for dialogue, it's part of FE at this point, you know?
As far as the setting goes, putting it on Mars or something sounds kind of dumb but I'd love if they followed what they did with Hoshido and set the next game (or even just an area from the next game, with appropriately themed classes) in another non-western European based setting. A Middle East/North Africa or China setting would be really cool.
As far as the setting goes, putting it on Mars or something sounds kind of dumb but I'd love if they followed what they did with Hoshido and set the next game (or even just an area from the next game, with appropriately themed classes) in another non-western European based setting. A Middle East/North Africa or China setting would be really cool.
Yeah, just got approved today haha.
Speaking of portraits though, I dislike how they stopped using the animated portraits. I really liked those from the GBA games.
They worked okay with the pre-GC sprites, but combined with the 9 and 10 artwork (as well as the DS portraits) the animations were stiff and off-looking. The 3DS games came off better visually for removing them. A Live2D solution could lead to smoother facial animation, but they might be more conservative in their application of it, if at all - I'd prefer solid static artwork to janky animation.
Hmm, I didn't think they looked bad in PoR tbh.
And Live2D sounds pretty cool.
I'd like a return to the simple and snappy 2D battle animations from the GBA games. Aside from that, as long as the gameplay is engaging (not really Echoes' forte), and as long as the story is decent (something which was severely lacking in Fates), I'm in.
They should have Arc System Works teach them how to 3D...
And then team up for a fighting game.
As much as I dearly want Fighter Emblem, Fire Emblem Warriors showed me that it's possible to make an FE crossover game that I'm completely uninterested in. I know full and well that the roster they pick won't appeal to me.
Haha, yeah, the roster choices in Warriors and even TMS have been oddly limited. It would be disappointing to finally get a FE fighting game and have IS still ignoring so much of the series with its roster choices.
a FE spinoff needs to have a large cast to really work, I think that's clear enough at this point
I don't have any particularly strong feelings regarding 2D vs 3D presentation, but I'm guessing 2D portraits are more cost efficient and I definetely wouldn't want IS to spend more time and budget than needed on unimportant cutscenes, so I guess I slightly favor portraits if it means more focus on the things that actually matter. Besides, P5 has good looking HD cutscenes with portraits so I'm sure FE could pull it off.
Now, which approach to music do you guys prefer? I'm guessing IS is gonna stick with what they did for Awakening and Fates with the whole dynamic soundtrack, but playing Echoes kind of made me want them to go back to separate field and battle themes for FE Switch. I just think the juxtaposition makes them more memorable, while Awakening and Fates map tracks sort of blur together in my mind for the most part. Having separate map and battle tracks also frees them of the need to make the field themes too passive/mellow. They could still keep the uninterrupted map themes for the important fights. The only thing I'd change in that approach is making the boss themes override the regular map theme once you trigger a confrontation with them. That way we could maybe listem to them for more than 10 seconds.
Now, which approach to music do you guys prefer? I'm guessing IS is gonna stick with what they did for Awakening and Fates with the whole dynamic soundtrack, but playing Echoes kind of made me want them to go back to separate field and battle themes for FE Switch. I just think the juxtaposition makes them more memorable, while Awakening and Fates map tracks sort of blur together in my mind for the most part. Having separate map and battle tracks also frees them of the need to make the field themes too passive/mellow. They could still keep the uninterrupted map themes for the important fights. The only thing I'd change in that approach is making the boss themes override the regular map theme once you trigger a confrontation with them. That way we could maybe listem to them for more than 10 seconds.
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That's interesting, because for me Echoes only reinforced how much better the dynamic approach was. The first two versions of Mila's Divine Protection and Alm's map theme segue into the battle music well enough; but Sacrifice and the Saint and What Lies at the End don't suit the transition at all - that was a case where ditching the separate battle theme would have been much smoother, and the way it obstructs the sound design as a whole is quite clear. That especially persists in the final dungeon, where the more grandiose version of the battle music is even more of an unwanted interruption.
All I know is Echoes' use of operatic songs was gloriously dramatic and should stay a constant in FE.
That's the thing, these more grandiose map themes would be relegated to "Ablaze" versions of the tracks in Fates/Awakening, while the actual map theme would be more mellow. I just thought having separate tracks allowed them to have better arrangements for the music in general, and it stuck with me far more than the regular map themes from Conquest and Fates. I'm willing to take the transition if the music I'm hearing for the most part is consistently more memorable.
I suppose a way to make the transitions more natural is having multiple battle themes for different points in the story, so it gets more dramatic as the game goes along. Perhaps different battle themes for specific types of enemies too.
I think I like the dynamic soundtrack approach a little more, they just need to make the boss battle themes stand out more. I want to see a return of themes on the level of things like Shaman in the Dark.
And catchy recruitment themes again.
I'm not opposed to a return to separate field and battle themes though. It's also possible that the two approaches could be mix depending on the style and tone of the map.
And catchy recruitment themes again.
I'm not opposed to a return to separate field and battle themes though. It's also possible that the two approaches could be mix depending on the style and tone of the map.
Both can work, though the "classic" style needs to do what RD did and not start over from the beginning every time.
I'm fond of both techniques, actually. I like having individual battle themes because it feels like I'm getting more music, but I agree that starting over each time is weird and undercuts the effectiveness of the song. I agree with Lynx that just having a "more intense version of the map theme" sometimes feels a little disappointing to me.
I'm fine with however they want to do it.
I'm fine with however they want to do it.
Imo both "classic" styles have their pros and cons. A track always starting from the beginning gives a certain rhythm to battles. The music can emphasize the beginning of a duel as well as the first strike which makes the music support those battles better while the RD style would not be able to do that. The benefit of RD's variant of course is that it wouldn't be as repetitive and you would eventually always hear the full battle theme. Personally, I don't mind the repetitiveness, I even embrace it when the (beginnings of) battle themes are as great as they are in most Fire Emblems.
Also, I'm 100% for individual battle themes. They give me a reason to turn on battle animations through most of the game because to me they are something I look forward to. I like the contrast and it makes battles more special, though I would't mind keeping the map theme for certain chapters that are some kind of turning points plotwise which then again would give those battles a special feeling to it and I agree that the contrast between a battle theme and map theme can sometimes be too much, so that another battle theme would be needed.
So I have been playing Echoes for the last 2 weeks or so, and I am impressed with what IS did here, the game is charming on all levels, graphics, characters, music, voice acting, it is such a joy to play even if some maps are...well yeah. I feel like having the opportunity to talk the your party outside of supports was a fantastic idea (one that I hope they keep in future installments) it just fleshes out each character even more. Story is serviceable which is more than we have been getting recently.
Best unit on Alm's route: Mathilda (what a goddess) / Delthea
Best unit on Celica's route: Catria/Sonya
I have come to realize that when it comes to stories in Fire Emblem, the games always start strong with a military/politic setting but they always transition into this dark culture/dragons/demons shit I don't enjoy, and it always clashes with the rest of the story (even Awakening has a memorable 1st act I feel). More politics, less dark dragon gods.
I will probably finish Echoes tomorrow, but I can't fail to mention how Celica has the FE Heroine syndrome (see Eirika/Micaiah/Corrin) where they decide to shut their brain for a good portion of the game. It is a shame too because I really enjoyed Celica's character, then Act 4 happened, yeah yeah she has her reasons she is carrying a heavy burden she is naive blah blah, that still doesn't save her, even Jedah mocks her stupidity.
Best unit on Alm's route: Mathilda (what a goddess) / Delthea
Best unit on Celica's route: Catria/Sonya
I have come to realize that when it comes to stories in Fire Emblem, the games always start strong with a military/politic setting but they always transition into this dark culture/dragons/demons shit I don't enjoy, and it always clashes with the rest of the story (even Awakening has a memorable 1st act I feel). More politics, less dark dragon gods.
I will probably finish Echoes tomorrow, but I can't fail to mention how Celica has the FE Heroine syndrome (see Eirika/Micaiah/Corrin) where they decide to shut their brain for a good portion of the game. It is a shame too because I really enjoyed Celica's character, then Act 4 happened, yeah yeah she has her reasons she is carrying a heavy burden she is naive blah blah, that still doesn't save her, even Jedah mocks her stupidity.
It really is a shame how they undermined Celica's competence and agency at every turn, both with adapted and newly created material (eg, masked knight).
They really should have altered the story in such a way that she retained her canniness into Act IV, even if the end result was maintained, and they should have altogether removed the constant Conrad ex machina.
I also wouldn't mind if they focused more on the realpolitik side of Fire Emblem storylines. Need more political intrigue, assassination, betrayal -- go full Tactics Ogre.
Completely agree with this. Also agree on the politics shifting to demons problem the series has. I think that's why I liked PoR. It kept most of the "evil god" stuff for Radiant Dawn, making PoR almost solely focused on the invasion of Crimea and the assault on Daein. Simple stuff, but more straightforward.
Ironically, that's the problem with Radiant Dawn: The first half of the game is so much stronger than the second half, with both the liberation of Daein and the war between Begnion and the Laguz nation being infinitely more interesting than anything involving Ashera or Yune. The plot just takes an about-face for no reason and ends up far worse for it.
I finished echoes yesterday. The game has a lot of issues but I still think is one of my favorite fire emblem games post gba era.
It's amazing to me how increased production values made me more attached to the characters and history. The drawings, voice acting, music. Gotta admit I was a little shaken about some character epilogue during the credits.
Most negative thing I have to say is that I expected to fail a lot more in classic hard mode. I did a little bit of grinding but not too much, mostly just to give a couple level ups to promote 3 or 4 characters. I think the game needed lunatic mode.
On the topic of Celica, I think she was always naive and clumsy but brave. What IS did I feel is force a damsel in distress scenario just to give the spotlight to alm, and I think that was unnecessary.
The damsel in distress scenario was there in the original, what changed in Echoes was the reason behind it (from her giving her life away to save Alm who was trapped in an unwinnable battle to her giving her life away just due to her own fears).
It's nice, but I think it's still a step down from the base conversations in FE9 and 10.
For whatever reason, Alm and Celica don't talk during them, and they are also limited to just Alm/Celica and another person, never any group conversations.
Also, just about every woman you recruit is captive in one way or another. It's weird and frustrating!
You know what convos I enjoyed? The Rise of the Deliverance DLC ones. Python talking with Clive is fantastic and Clive meeting Mathilda was actually a pretty interesting subversion of a guy meeting a girl.
You know what convos I enjoyed? The Rise of the Deliverance DLC ones. Python talking with Clive is fantastic and Clive meeting Mathilda was actually a pretty interesting subversion of a guy meeting a girl.
It's a pretty cool dungeon with lore further linking this and Awakening's settings to Archanea.
Also more challenging than anything in the campaign.
Yup, it's pretty cool if you like the dungeon crawling aspect of the game
Currently replaying Fates (specifically, Conquest)... I had forgotten just how much the game's direction is all over the place. I'm not even talking about the story: I'm talking about the gameplay.
While the maps in Conquest are among the best of the series, gameplay-wise, the game is riddled with bizarre design choices. The inclusion of the "Your Castle" feature is one of them, as it gets old very quickly. You can gain access to a wide variety of items (and one can't deny the utility of some of them, especially for character who desperately need those in order to be usable, like the Goddess Icon to fix Arthur's luck (or Corrin's, if Luck is his/her bane) or the one which rank up one's weapon mastery, useful for anyone who changes class) by farming visits and battles, but doing so take ages. Since you can't grind in Conquest, if you want to access some Paralogues and children (I am not going over their poor story inclusion), the only way to do so is through Castle maps (or the free DLC map). And if you take on some Paralogues too late, some may become downright impossible to complete (or at best incredibly tedious) depending on the difficulty (Ryoma's son in Birthright says "hi!").
Characters' balance is all over the place, with the royal siblings overshadowing everyone else in stats and growths (not to mention unique weapons), making them de facto "Lords" (well, they are, actually, so... yeah, forget about that sentence). And there is the Revelations debacle (from what I've read), with some units being blatantly shafted and joining with poor stats...
The new weapon triangle was a good addition though.
Honestly, I am hoping that the next Fire Emblem game will offer a more streamlined experience with tighter gameplay, less DLC nonsense, and a better story. Echoes was a step in the right direction on some aspects, but gameplay-wise it isn't the kind of Fire Emblem experience I'm looking for.
While the maps in Conquest are among the best of the series, gameplay-wise, the game is riddled with bizarre design choices. The inclusion of the "Your Castle" feature is one of them, as it gets old very quickly. You can gain access to a wide variety of items (and one can't deny the utility of some of them, especially for character who desperately need those in order to be usable, like the Goddess Icon to fix Arthur's luck (or Corrin's, if Luck is his/her bane) or the one which rank up one's weapon mastery, useful for anyone who changes class) by farming visits and battles, but doing so take ages. Since you can't grind in Conquest, if you want to access some Paralogues and children (I am not going over their poor story inclusion), the only way to do so is through Castle maps (or the free DLC map). And if you take on some Paralogues too late, some may become downright impossible to complete (or at best incredibly tedious) depending on the difficulty (Ryoma's son in Birthright says "hi!").
Characters' balance is all over the place, with the royal siblings overshadowing everyone else in stats and growths (not to mention unique weapons), making them de facto "Lords" (well, they are, actually, so... yeah, forget about that sentence). And there is the Revelations debacle (from what I've read), with some units being blatantly shafted and joining with poor stats...
The new weapon triangle was a good addition though.
Honestly, I am hoping that the next Fire Emblem game will offer a more streamlined experience with tighter gameplay, less DLC nonsense, and a better story. Echoes was a step in the right direction on some aspects, but gameplay-wise it isn't the kind of Fire Emblem experience I'm looking for.
I agree with a lot of the things in your post, but this part is incorrect.
1) Luck is by far the least important stat in the game. You don't need to "fix" anyone's luck. Arthur's fine with his abysmal luck. Luck bane Corrin is optimal. Luck's main draw is to reduce enemy crit chance to 0 - and Luck bane Corrin hits that threshold easily in almost every chapter.
2) Using stat boosters to "repair" units' stats is also undesirable. You want to use stat boosters to make strong units' strong stats even stronger so they can abuse the heck out of them. Good use of a stat booster can trivialize certain maps.
Your main point - that My Castle makes it ridiculously easy to gain access to stat boosters - still stands, though (also, temp stat boosters are also very imbalanced).
Regarding Arthur: with his abysmal luck, he faces a serious risk to be on the receiving end of a critical hit (and his personal skill doesn't help in that regard: even if he reaches 5 in Luck, it means squat; so yeah, truth to be told, unless someone use several Goddess item in him, that simply can't be fixed). In the end, it means I have to leave Arthur's fate to, well, luck, and it rubs me the wrong way, as it makes him a liability, someone who can be killed because of an unlucky critical hit. What makes him unique also doesn't make me want to use him, as I will always fear that he will die unexpectedly.
Now, if he manages to survive and if he is paired with his son in all subsequent maps, things get quite interesting, as Percy's unique skill grants +15 Critical evasion to everyone in a 2 square radius, thus negating part of Arthur's shortcomings (still, since he has no luck, critical hits remains a very true possibility).
Anyhow, I would love a game which follows the same gimmick as Genealogy of the Holy War: two different generations to play as, and a solid story supporting the whole experience.
"Why not simply remake Genealogy of the Holy War?" you may ask? Fire Emblem has been making quite a few remakes lately: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. Remakes are fine and all, but I would prefer an entirely new game. And if Fire Emblem Echoes demonstrated something, it is that keeping the core gameplay of old titles isn't that great. Genealogy of the Holy War introduced a lot of new mechanics to the series, and as a result the game was quite unbalanced (still fun though), not to mention the very big maps. A more refined take on Genealogy of the Holy War through a completely new game sounds like a better idea to me.
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I don't want split generations again, just give me one solid game with a single cast throughout the whole thing. Having to start everything over at level 1 halfway through the game is an interesting gimmick for the story FE4 was telling, but it isn't very fun to me.
Well, if they do a remake of 4 then they need to do split generations. I agree though that outside of a remake of 4 I'd rather not see that again
joke's on you the strongest Conquest royal doesn't even have a prf!
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also hey Speedwings in Conquest are definitely used to "patch up" Xander/Leo's speed (maybe even Beruka if you're using her lol)
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also hey Speedwings in Conquest are definitely used to "patch up" Xander/Leo's speed (maybe even Beruka if you're using her lol)
Of course, I may not care for FE4, but if it gets remade it should keep what made the people like it.
But I'm hoping the next game isn't a remake.
I think we can be pretty sure the Switch game is not a remake. They will probably do a remake following this entry, to get at least two games in the series on Switch
In the case of FE 4, I would love to see the remake which hopefully comes at some point would be their original vision for the game, considering a third act was planned but didn't get made due to time limiations. From Wikipedia:
"In a later interview, Kaga felt that the focus on narrative weakened the gameplay."
yeah...no kidding
I could see them doing away with 2nd generation, because, at least in the Awakening/Fates model, it's mostly a device for grinding special units. Most of Awakening's DLC was heavily focused on that grinding too, taking the player to much higher levels than the base game ones, with the increased stat caps and higher level chapters, but Fates' DLC wasn't focused on that at all, in spite of the game having the same systems that allowed Awakening to do it. Heroes' existence might have changed their direction since that's their grinding game.