A couple of hours into FEF, and I'm hooked for
good—confirming in the process that I can indeed enjoy SRPGs just as much as
any other RPG subgenre. I'm deeply relieved, all the more so as I own a
considerable number of SRPGs that I yet have to play. One may call me
air-headed for having bought so many games without even knowing if I could
enjoy the genre they belong to in the first place, but you know how I
am—collection is me passion! But I digress. Let's go back to my young FEF run,
which happens to take place on the Hoshido side—i.e. Birthright—and to
follow the lenient setting combination of Casual mode and Normal difficulty.
Hey, I am an SRPG and Fire Emblem beginner, after all.
I may be totally captivated by FEF right now, but that love didn't bloom
immediately. Far from enthralling me, the very early stages of the game left me
cold, annoyed and ultimately deeply unsatisfied. I was bothered by a multitude
of details that spoilt my pleasure, and here are those joykillers in their
unholy glory:
—Much to my dismay, the story comes across as quite asinine. The overall
premise is both silly and ludicrous, and main character Corrin accepts the
cataclysmic change in his life and takes his new situation in stride a bit too
fast and willingly for my taste. Shouldn't he feel at least a bit conflicted
about the whole thing? Shouldn't he have legitimate doubts about the truth of
the matter? And what's with the cliché of the oppressive kingdom ruled by a
crazy tyrant living in an cold stone castle devoid of furniture vs. the
oppressed kingdom that favours diversity and is ruled by a kind royal family
all decked up in silk? I honestly expected more from a series that's always
been hailed as deeper and more mature than most of its peers. Alas, the
narrative content I've seen so far is really no different from your average
J-RPG story—there's even a reference to Corrin's supposed amnesia, for
crying it out loud!—and as a result, FEF's narrative left me thoroughly
unimpressed.
—The amount of moe injected in the game really disturbs me. I've always envisioned Fire Emblem as a venerable, serious and austere SRPG series that relied more on gameplay quality than on flashy looks; and somehow, the presence of moe doesn't quite square with that solemn picture. I wanted a mature-looking Corrin, yet the character creation interface is so soaked with kawaisa that I really struggled to create a character that didn't look like a 15-years-old cosplayer in full convention mode. (And I still feel like I failed for the most part.) As for the "private" conversations taking place in Corrin's abode, they are absolutely cringeworthy. To see your teammates utter lame and cheesy sentences with a coy, please-be-gentle expression is deeply embarrassing, and I'm immensely grateful that Nintendo removed the Petting minigame for the Western release, because I don't think I could have stomached it. These people are my fellow soldiers, damnit, not cute and fluffy pokemons begging to be stroked!
—The battle animations are painfully long and so frequent that they totally
disrupt the flow of the gameplay. Never before in any game have I been
confronted to battle animations so shamelessly intrusive; I'm pretty sure that
if I were to count the amount of time devoted respectively to gameplay and to
battle animations in any given battle, the latter would win by many a minute.
Combine these ubiquitous battle animations with the omnipresent story-related
cutscenes and you're left with the feeling of playing an interactive movie that
requires player input solely to trigger cutscenes.
—The menus are ridiculously confusing and sorely lack ergonomy. Actions as
simple as changing a character's equipment or browsing the available selection
in shops are much more complicated than they should be, and the amount of
character data displayed on the lower screen is so abundant that it nearly
comes across as a parody. What's the "rating" of a character supposed
to refer to, for instance? Heck, this is the one game that would absolutely
require an detailed, paper-based instruction manual to refer to at all times.
All these hurdles made the game such an absolute pain to play that I
seriously considered giving up after a couple of battles. Fortunately, my messy
young run was salvaged by the discovery of the Options menu and the fantastic
possibilities it harboured. I cranked up the game speed to Fast and totally
shut off the combat animations, and a totally different game appeared before my
grateful eyes: a brisk, fast-paced, no-frills game with deliciously retro
low-fi looks. Then I discovered the possibility of grinding senselessly
through subsidiary battles, and there was no turning back. (I unfortunately
couldn't alleviate the moe-soaked conversations and the complicated
menus, but I'm getting used to the latter and looking elsewhere during the
former.)
I've been playing for roughly seven hours now and I'm loving FEF more by
the hour. I'm pleasantly surprised by how portable-friendly the game is: it's
incredibly easy to play it in short bursts thanks to the Battle Save feature,
which makes it the perfect game for commuting. Of course, it also accommodates
long playing sessions just as well, and my own sessions often stretch far
beyond their planned boundaries—as a matter of fact, I was so engrossed by the
game once that I nearly arrived late at work. I can sense a glorious
playthrough ahead, and FEF will probably end up being my main Summer
2016 game. It's not as light-hearted as my usual summer picks, granted; but
after the massive Pokemon rampage of these last weeks, a change of tone
is most welcome. To a Fire Emblem summer! Thanks for reading, and be my
guest anytime!
Labels: Fire Emblem, Nintendo 3DS/2DS, SRPG
I'm glad you
liked it, SRPG make a good addition to any gaming library!
As long as you're having a little rant, don't forget the short exclamations the
characters make. I can't count the times Corrin said " I will not allow
it!" Only to have someone else doing most of the fighting!
You're right, the cheesy dubbing should have been mentioned! :p I just don't notice it that much, to be honest: since I hate voice acting in videogames, I'm playing Fates with the sound off.
Glad you're
having fun! A new FE fan is always welcomed.
Truth be told, FE:Fates is probably the worst FE game to start with, since it's
so different than previous FE's (barring Awakening) and the writing and plot is
horrendous. The only other time I've seen such near unanimous consensus about
the bad quality of a game's story was with Sonic 2006, and that's not a good
sign.
Conquest's gameplay (unit distribution and balance plus map/mission design) is
considered one of the best in the entire FE series though. So there's that.
And a shame they removed the dual audio option, since the english dub leaves a
lot to be desired.
Why, thank you!
^^ I feel like I'm entering some kind of exclusive private club, given the aura
of the Fire Emblem series. Heck, it was nearly intimidating to start playing
it! :p
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the story is a pile of horse refuse.
This means that older entries must have much better stories, which is a
pleasant thought given that I'm planning to play them. And the little I've
heard of the english dub before shutting off the sound was indeed extremely
lame and unconvincing.
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about the omnipresent moe and the
occasionnal inclusion of fan service... In my opinion, Intelligent System
compromised themselves by pledging allegiancy to the hot trend of the moment
and trying to cater to the fan service-hungry crowd. They tainted the
"serious" image of the series in the process, which is quite a shame
and may definitely repel old fans of Fire Emblem...
The most
intimidating thing in the Fire Emblem games is the permanent death which has
always been a sort of trademark thing in them. But now that Awakening
introduced a non-permadeath mode, I guess it isn't as important as it once was.
I still haven't played Fates, mind you, but I've read a story summary and
checked out the cutscenes on Youtube, so I guess while I don't have the
"hands-on" experience, I have the general gist of the story and
can't, undoubtedly say that it is a trainwreck. It looked pretty promising in
the beginning, when the game was announced and they started showing designs and
stuff. A shame the final product is so lackluster.
You want to hear my thoughts on IS's take on the modern Fire Emblems (Awakening
and Fates)? Buckles up then, this is going to take a while.
First of all: the FE games were going to be cancelled as of Awakening. So they
took a chance and implemented the new hot thing in town: moe. And why stop at
that? If they had the permission from Nintendo to experiment, they went
further, implementing more anime-ish tropes, implementing more visible dating
elements (making an Avatar for the player and making it able to support with
every single unit in game plus have children) and making the game a lot easier
(something that can be mitigated with the Hard/Very Hard/Lunatic difficulties,
however). And, BAM. Awakening surprisingly sells like hot cakes both in and out
of Japan (despite the dry map design and boring story), so Nintendo goes back
on the cancelling FE plan.
With this, IS started development on a new FE game, Fates, implementing more
moe elements (like the petting, which was censored in the west) and using very
dubious methods (making pointless alternate versions and making the True Ending
DLC only, for those that didn't bought the limited edition) disregarding the
story's quality but refining the gameplay (at least in Conquest).
As it stands, most of the old time FE fans gave up on the series while some
still remain because they still have faith that IS will make a more serious FE,
like they made in the past. However, the new fanbase they created (and that,
for the better or the worse, were the ones that saved FE) is going to demand
more anime and dating sim elements. However, number$ speak louder than words,
so IS is going to try to please the bigger fanbase and pretty much continue the
road they're currently in.
I have mixed
feelings about the permadeath, to be honest. On one hand, it makes battles more
intense and encourages the player to weigh carefully each move instead of just
charging carelessly at opponents; but on the other hand, since it's always
possible to reload your last save and replay a battle until you manage to save
all characters, it can easily lead to fake longevity. But there's no avoiding
permadeath in the older FE entries, so I'll learn to deal with it! :p
Thanks a lot for your honest opinion! I get the feeling that many reviewers and
gamers don't dare criticize these new FE instalments because of the serie's
venerable aura. And yet, there must be some FE aficionados that are unhappy
with IS' latest innovations regarding the series. Heck, I'm not even a FE fan
yet and I'm pissed off! To see an RPG series go from austerity to kawaisa is
not an evolution I condone at all; and despite loving FEF so far, I'm pretty
sure that I will enjoy the older entries considerably more. Which is a nice
prospect, now that I think of it...^^
I completely
understand. Permadeath can be very stressful. However, it all depends on how
you want to face it in FE: like a challenge, restarting whenever someone dies
(making the whole permadeath a moot point but adding a personal challenge) or
face it like necessary sacrifices to finish the mission/game, making each death
count and making the game more "real" (war deaths).
Honestly, when I played Awakening I first played Normal + Classic (with
permadeath) and then tried Hard + Casual (no permadeath) and Lunatic + Casual.
Just think of the higher difficulty options as chess; you lose your pieces
during battle and get them again in the next one.
No problem! Naa, the problem goes deeper nowadays. People are just blind and,
if a game (or console) goes viral, no one wants to criticize it head-on,
regardless of the game's quality.
Just take the latest E3 as an example: everyone is raging about all the new
games on the PS4 as the best thing ever. However, almost every single one of
them (the only salvageable one from the mix was The Last Guardian) looked
exactly the same: boring, brown and "mature". Not to mention the
usual craziness over bland and uninteresting open world games.
But yeah, to go back on topic, FE's fanbase suffered quite a blow with
Awakening and Fates, but it's not like the games aren't fun anyway. The writing
is just plain bad (Awakening is slightly less cringey in that regard). And it's
not like I'm a FE expert or anything, I only played 6 FEs (2 on the SNES, 3 on
the GBA and Awakening), not even half of the grand total!
I'm currently
playing Chapter 11 of Hoshido and the plot is getting worse by the chapter,
dissolving under my horrified eyes. Battles are shoehorned into the narrative
in the most blatant and ungracious way (the writers even managed to squeeze in
a battle on a sailing ship, of all places) and bloody moron Corrin refuses to
execute any opponent (the major ones, I mean, because random soldiers can die
by the score for all he cares). It's, like, embarrassingly bad.
I followed the E3 only from afar, but in my opinion, the reactions to the Zelda
presentation also perfectly illustrate your second paragraph. The gameplay of
that opus looks intensely boring, yet the game has been so hyped up for the
past months (years?) that the vast majority of gamers is crying with happiness.
The only thing remarkable about that game is the bright colour palette; all the
rest, from the open world to the tedious interactions with the environment, has
been seen, done and played before.
To be fair,
there's almost always a battle on a sailing ship in FE! That's more of a nod to
previous entries than bad writing per se. The arbitrary refusal to kill is
completely retarded and it's the same in Nohr, by the way. You're enjoying the
maps and gameplay at least, right?
Exactly, when I mentioned the open-worldness craze I was specifically talking
about the new Legend of Zelda. Heck, I like the LoZ games and while what they
shown does seem more or less interesting (except being open-world of course), I
don't understand how people got so crazy about it. All I saw was the typical
giant maps filled with nothing and a couple of gimmicky things. Still, I hope
Nintendo actually puts together something minimally interesting by release
date.
Oh, I see!
Still, this particular battle came across as silly, because foes didn't come
from another ship but literally from the bottom of the sea. But maybe it' the
case in all entries, for all I know...^^
Oh, I'm absolutely enjoying the maps and gameplay! I'm fighting free battles by
the truckload and lapping it up. This game is basically a long string of
battles, and I as a grinding aficionado, I totally love that.^^
From the bottom
of the sea? That's new, I think. I don't remember enemies simply popping out of
the water, usually there's an/several enemy ships and they board the player's
ship.
That's good to hear! Ah, but a word of advice: Conquest plays out more like
typical FEs, very differently from Birthright's world map and free grinding.
Oh, and I forgot to ask: who are you going to marry aka get support rank S? :p
Indeed. The
main opponent was a transparent faceless creature made of water that somehow
appeared between two waves and jumped on my deck, followed by guys on flying
horses that popped out of thin air. The whole thing was just ridiculous and
totally random.
I'm actually looking forward to playing Conquest! The absence of grinding will
make for a thrilling challenge by forcing me to rely more on strategy.
Funny that you should ask about marriage, because I ended up wedded to Azura
today!^^ I'm not too sure how it happened, though: sure, I invited her a couple
of times in my private quarters and fought alongside her a couple of times, but
the sudden wedding was a total surprise! Now, I'm curious to see who else will
bond for life... I'm leaving it all to chance, obviously: deliberately trying
to pair up characters would make me feel like I'm playing a fanfiction
simulator! :p
An aerial raid
is understandable, but water slimes popping out of the water is rather new in
FE. At least I don't remember that happening in other FEs I've played.
You can choose who to marry though. By pairing up you increase affection
between the characters and you can freely activate or not their Support ranks
from C > B > A > S (Married).
"deliberately trying to pair up characters would make me feel like I'm
playing a fanfiction simulator!" that is, indeed, a fun point in FEs, it's
just that Awakening and Fates have really weak (90% of the time) support
conversations. It's not like previous FEs had excellent writing sure, but
Awakening and Fates are really bad in comparison. Of course, there are always
some interesting Supports here and there, it's just a matter of
"grinding" the affection between characters.
Oh yes, the
support conversations are indeed weak. People talk about random and petty
things a couple of times, and BANG! They're bonded for life! Kinda hard to feel
the chemistry at work there, if you ask me.
I ended up with another couple, i.e. Hayato and Sakura. There was a bit of
meddling on my part, though: when I noticed that they had reached A support
rank, I made them fight alongside each other for a couple of battles and they
are now happily married! I think I'm gonna proceed like this from now on: I'll
leave the early stages to chance, and when any pair of characters reach A
support rank, I'll give them the final push to reach S rank. This way, I'll
enjoy both the surprise of seeing random couples pop up and the thrill of
playing matchmaker! :P
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