Fire Emblem Franchise

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Re: Fire Emblem Franchise

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Postby Ray » Sun May 07, 2017 4:56 pm

http://wwg.com/2017/05/06/fire-emblem-e ... 3ds-entry/

Fire Emblem Echoes will be the series Last entry on the 3DS.

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Postby chazthesilencer » Tue May 09, 2017 1:18 am

T'was expected. Leaving the 3DS with a trilogy is a nice way to go.
At least the west isn't getting stiffed on the third title this time, as it was during the GBA era.

Especially cheeky is knowing the Binding Blade is available on the virtual console, just not in English regions.
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Postby Ray » Mon May 29, 2017 2:42 am

Btw. Studio Khara did the CGI Character animation for Echoes.

Well that certainly explains why we haven't gotten Final yet.

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Re: Fire Emblem Franchise

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Postby chazthesilencer » Thu Jun 01, 2017 5:10 pm

I just hope they weren’t responsible for this:
Image
Eurgh. The choppy frames are one thing, but the Power Ranger posing is especially cringe-worthy.

After 54 hours of gameplay, I’ve cleared Fire Emblem Echoes’ main campaign, classic hard. Loved it.
Most Valuable Units ended up being Faye (Peg Knight), Tobin (archer), and Mae.

Some thoughts:

The artwork is nice. It’s good to see a subtly different style from what was used in Awakening and Fates.
I’m not a fan of Gray’s appearance however. He looks like the fleshy brother of that creepy, Saban Pinocchio cartoon that gave me nightmares as a child.
Image

English-only is a bummer, but at the very least the dubbing is pretty damn good.
My only gripe was with Est’s pronunciation of the word “herb”.
It’s not “an ‘Erb”, it’s “a Herb”. Bloody yanks…

Dungeon-exploring is a neat idea, but this game didn’t do nearly enough with it.
Run around a little, smash a few pots, battle a monster/pirate, rinse and repeat. Secrets and treasures were very few and far between, the exploration was rarely rewarding. I’ll be happy to see the feature return bigger and better in FE: Switch.

I like the short supports. Although- I do miss the ability to ship. Poor Faye. Rejected.

Archers are OP in this game.

The fatigue mechanic barely ever came up during my play through. It’s an interesting idea, encouraging you to use different units and whatnot, but if your units replenish strength automatically between story battles, what’s the point of even showing us their statuses upon clearing a stage?

“Rout the enemy”. You see this a lot. Come on, intelligent systems, be a little more creative with your stage objectives.

“Miss”. This is the four-letter word of Echoes.

I was very happy to see the white wings in this game (Est is a red-head instead of a pinky, but whatever) and even more so to see the triangle attack return.
Less happy to find out it costs 10 HP to activate the triangle attack. I would argue that It’s tricky enough positioning three units to correctly perform the attack in the first place, but fair enough, I can live with a 10 HP cost.
Not happy in the least to find out the triangle attack is not guaranteed to land a critical hit. Well, at least it’s 100% accurate, right?
Very unhappy to discover the triangle attack is not a guaranteed hit. It can miss. MISS. I’ll just say it: this is the worst Fire Emblem game ever.

EDIT- OMFG, I just realised Anna doesn't make an appearance anywhere. This really is the worst Fire Emblem.

========

Whelp, guess that’s my 3DS done. Originally bought it just to play Awakening. Fitting that it be book-ended by another Fire Emblem game.
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Postby Ray » Sun Jun 11, 2017 3:50 am

Kyle McCarley, the english voice of Alm is streaming the game on Twitch. Pop in if you're interested.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/149131148? ... 6bmGxBRn3g

I'll be giving my full thoughts on the game once I've finally finished the damn thing.

I will say this though, I'm more emotionally invested in Alm and Celica's story than I ever was for Chrom, Robin, or Corin. I like Awakening and Fates well enough (despite the botched localization in the latters case), but there was always need for a customizable man character which kept things overtly generic and kept me from getting as invested as I wanted.

I have a feeling before the end of Echoes, I'm going to be crying.

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Postby chazthesilencer » Sun Jun 11, 2017 9:17 am

View Original PostRay wrote:I have a feeling before the end of Echoes, I'm going to be crying.

I won’t spoil anything- I’ll just say that this unlikely. Pardon the pun- but Echoes’ ending feels are far cry from those of Awakening and Blazing Sword.

One week after Echoes’ completion I can see now that the game’s replay value is disappointingly low.
I often start a new save file right after completing a Fire Emblem game, to try out different difficulties, take different routes, collect supports, experiment with different characters etc.… but there’s only one real decision in Echoes that creates a branch of sorts, requiring a second play-through to experience both branches:

Who do you fight: Sonya or Deen?

No, not a significant decision at all. The game doesn’t even hint that this is a choice. Fight one, and the other disappears without warning.

I played on hard difficulty, collected all the supports, promoted all my units… the game really is completed, and on my first play-through no less. Sure, you’re allowed some free-roaming after the story ends like in Sacred Stones, but what’s the point?

Oh well.

========

Started a new game of Fates. I’ll grit my teeth and give the child units a go this time.

Some of the support science videos by youtuber Ghast station have been enjoyable. He also does gameplay vids, but I can’t stand those. Nothing I hate more than someone who “Um”s and “Uhh”s between words.
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Postby Ray » Sun Jun 11, 2017 5:11 pm

Well branching storylines are something you sometimes have to sacrifice for the sake of telling a compelling, if somewhat linear story. the story of Last Of Us would likely have been hampered with Branching paths.

Also, I love the into animation when Alm and Celica enter their dungeons, How Alm lights a torch and draws his sword, and Celica pulls out a little floating ball of fire to light her path.

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Postby chazthesilencer » Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:18 pm

Fire Emblem Three Houses - Official Game Trailer - Nintendo E3 2018

I was very much groaning with increasing discomfort watching this...

In terms of visuals and overall presentation- this was a rotten trailer.
Looks like the cutscenes are once again being handled by whoever made this atrocity:
Image
Just look at that sleeve clipping the rest of the coat during the run cycle, the animators and or riggers should be ashamed.
It's too early to speculate on gameplay, but parts of the footage looked like something out of FE: Warriors... and that makes me very sad.

Low expectations, here.
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Postby Ray » Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:03 pm

Anyone here playing Three Houses?

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Re: Fire Emblem Franchise

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Postby The Killer of Heroes » Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:33 pm

View Original PostRay wrote:Anyone here playing Three Houses?
I played the Black Eagles route last year but didn't like the game enough to want to replay it.

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Postby chazthesilencer » Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:45 pm

chazthesilencer wrote:Low expectations, here.
Wow, I completely forgot how I was feeling 2.5 years ago.

Three Houses was my summer + autumn of 2019. Played all 4 routes starting with Golden Deer. I wasn't sold on the story in some of the routes (can anyone really get behind Edelgard if you didn't pick the Black Eagles in your first playthrough?), but loved the characters and loved the game. Lysithea is a beast, can't play any route without her.
Wasn't really interested in the Ashen Wolves DLC, but it had been a year since I last played, so gave it a go. The side-story maps were a welcome challenge, although the stupid plot and final boss can sod right off.

After a few more months of cooldown I'll probably pick it up and replay again; earn a missing S-support or two.
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Postby Ray » Sun Feb 07, 2021 8:42 pm

View Original PostThe Killer of Heroes wrote:
View Original PostRay#906325 wrote:Anyone here playing Three Houses?
I played the Black Eagles route last year but didn't like the game enough to want to replay it.


Not surprising considering everyone says that the Black Eagles/Church route is the worst route in the game. It's not three branching paths it's more two and a half paths, people complained about a lack of content on Edelgards route.

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Postby The Killer of Heroes » Tue Feb 09, 2021 10:27 pm

I didn't really have a problem with the story itself of the Black Eagles route, more that the social sim elements, exploring the Monastery and being a professor etc. just really dragged the game out even compared to the 3DS games (Which I thought all had a much better balance about this sort of thing, despite whatever other issues they had).

Like I get we're basically never going back to the GBA days of Fire Emblem being a quick and solid SRPG above all else with only stock plots/characters, but modern FE has kind of lost what I thought made the series once feel unique too.

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Postby chazthesilencer » Tue Feb 21, 2023 7:20 pm

After 108 hours, I managed my first clear of Engage. Classic Hard, naturally.

Things I didn’t like:
  • The worthless mini-exploration segments that immediately follow battle. Running around looking for yellow sparkles and receiving an apple for the effort is not rewarding or fun.
  • The Somniel. Loading times, uninteresting character speech-bubbles, mini-games designed to break your joycons, finding horse manure, the weird pauses when petting Sommie… on top of all these things there simply wasn’t enough narrative justification for the hub to be part of the game or story at all. It just never felt “right”. The saving grace is that the activities and mini-games are not necessary to clear the game.
  • Ring polishing. What do you mean “That spot is clean already”? I can see it’s covered in thick, black grime. Is something broken with the implementation of this feature or what?
  • Chapter 25 was an absolute slog. An obnoxious beam hazard, relentless reinforcements, two double-health barred dragons blocking your approach... took me 43 turns over the course of 2 hours. By comparison the endgame chapter required only 13 turns to clear.

Things I just sort of put up with:
  • The character designs. Too many colours. Too much hair. That stupid, distracting thing on Ivy’s head. The enormity of Celine’s skirt. Anna being 11 years old…
  • The auxiliary battles are ruthless (on classic hard, at least). If the map doesn’t have walls/chokepoints to hide my units behind, forget about it.
  • Recruitment. I counted two units you recruit through paralogue battles, the rest of your army just join automatically.
    I miss the feeling of amassing an army you got by approaching an enemy unit and convincing them to join your side, as was done during the GBA era. It felt earned. Like this is my team that I built. Now everyone just joins you without any effort, and oh- look, they brought their two retainers as well. 3 for the price of 1.
    Yay, I guess.

Things I liked:
  • Solid gameplay, as expected from an FE title. This was the most stressful-fun I’ve had since Fates: Conquest. The versatility of the emblem rings, the “break” mechanic, positioning “back-up” units, plenty of new and interesting things to learn and play with. And really- what else matters?
  • The story was nothing special, but damned if I didn’t have the biggest smile during that moment of chapter 11.
    SPOILER: Show
    The objective is simply to retreat, the enemy has access to the emblem ring powers you’ve been using for the whole game, your ability to rewind time is gone, you can’t even swap out or rearrange party members. Things are looking pretty damn grim.

    Who helps save the day? Only those two swordswomen that everybody loves.
    Image
    Don’t worry, I ‘member.

    The “Avengers Assemble” moment that came during the endgame (corny as it was) I got a kick out of, too.

Most Valuable Units:
  • Louis. Not since Blazing Sword has a General unit been so key to getting me through a tough battle.
  • Etie & Anna. An enhanced longbow along with Claude’s S-rank bond ring made these two especially useful in cheesing some bosses from a great distance.

I’m mildly disappointed that there is no New Game+. As such- I’m not feeling the urge to continue playing after the endgame, or start a new save file. I’ll probably revisit a three houses route before replaying Engage any time soon.

This may appear to be a mostly cynical post, but while there certainly were a lot of things to complain about- I really did have a good time with this one.
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Re: Fire Emblem Franchise

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Postby The Killer of Heroes » Tue Nov 21, 2023 2:49 am

I'm playing Engage right now and I'm enjoying it much more than I ever did Three Houses tbh. I really like that the scope is closer to what the 3DS games were going for (Even if yeah some of the exploration stuff is a little silly. Honestly I think Shadows of Valentia handled this better. I'm also only occasionally visiting the Somniel to get Emblem Skills and such, since the Monastery stuff in Three Houses really burnt me out and this doesn't feel nearly as necessary), and the basic gameplay is just really solid. Gonna agree that Chapter 11 is a high point so far- kind of gave me Genealogy vibes tbh.

I actually like the character designs for the most part here too even if Alear's red and blue hair is a bit much. I can't say I quite get what Mika Pizako is going for with that kind of thing, even after getting used to her very similar design for Sei Shoganon in Fate/Grand Order over the last few years.


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