This thread is permanently archived
Fire Emblem
| Echoes is really good, but the map design drives me up the wall. Fucking swamps, fucking boats, fucking cantors, fucking mogalls. Everything else is extremely solid though, and I definitely enjoyed my full playthrough quite a lot.
Now to play Sacred Stones... But I need to finish Awakening first. Which is surprisingly a lot better than I thought (and was led to believe by the community) it would be, despite all the waifuism shit and pairing up being completely broken.
| While we're on the topic of Fire Emblem, how's Three Houses? I'm kinda on the fence about getting it, and the more I look at it, the more this doubt grows.
| Ah Fire Emblem Echoes *sips tea* Nuibaba's fucking abode *sips tea* hugeass plains separated by a tiny tiny bridge *sips tea* remember that mountain with one tiny stairs and at the top there's a river that you can't get across anyway? *sips tea* DUPLICATING EYEBALLS *sips tea* Good times.
In all seriousness though, Echoes is still my favourite FE despite the bonkers map design. A solid story with solid characters all around. Top-notch voice acting too. Please play it.
| >>693737
I have no idea why you doubt it. Yes it has its flaws, yes the map design is such that unless you're playing Maddening it puts all its great mechanics to waste, yes the story has holes.
But it's still an extremely good game and manage to balancing so many things. Its characterization is superb, more than previous games. Its world feel lived-in.
Echoes might be my fav, but I've poured wayy more hours into 3H and I still love it.
| >>693737 It's actually better than you'd think. Three Houses is far from perfect, there are imperfections. But it is a good Fire Emblem entry, definitely a step up for the franchise.
>>693746 I enjoyed Echoes myself. Though honestly I feel like they mostly made Echoes as a test for future mechanics to put in Three Houses. Combat arts + spells changing from tome to individual based lists, music direction, even some story beats and ideas I feel were taken.
| >>693760
Oh yeah, I played Echoes after Three Houses and I can tell they learned a lot from the experience. Personally, I think Echoes did the "land ruled by dragon divinity" story angle much better than 3H, but 3H is a lot more ambitious.
3H really feels like this culmination of their previous games (multiple timelines from Fates, player as a sidekick to the main lord from Awakening, deckbuilding-like abilities from FEH, etc).
| Sacred Stones with the other 2 GBA FE games are the best FE games.
| >>693760 imo 3H and Fates are the least impressive FE games. I really found it hard to complete these two games as I didn't like most elements of it for e.g the new class and skill system in 3H.
| Grid based strategy game is not everyone. Pushing niche games to a wider audience is a recipe to get people hating on your game.
| >>693783 That's how I feel about Fire Emblem's direction lately. Echoes and Three Houses felt like they were aimed towards people who don't like strategy and consequences. I really don't like both games. :(
Not to mention there are other games in the genre that do a better job at being min-maxing grind fests than FE could ever hope to be.
| >>693737 Don't get 3H if you're turned off by repetitive padding. It's far longer than it needs to be by its recycled maps and school activities. It's also developed by Koei Tecmo, so they cut a lot of corners in production to spread itself thin.
Get Valkyria Chronicles 4 instead. It's more Fire Emblem than the recent Fire Emblems because you're actually stratrgizing in a focused campaign.
| >>693807
Well, I don't mind recycled maps too much and school activities are pretty much one of the main selling points for me.
As for Valkyria Chronices, I remember struggling to get through the first game and eventually dropping it around the midpoint, for some reason it felt way slower. Plus, scout rushing was pretty broken and from what I've heard it wasn't really fixed.
| >>693807
Three Houses is definitely long, but I think that's less padding and more due to how much story/dialogues there is in it. You can just ignore most of the activities and zoom through (though I guess that's missing half the fun).
And I don't think there's any recycled maps other than the random battles? Some paralogues reuses maps, but usually with different starting positions and that already changes a lot.
| Do ya'll genuinely like Fates or do the negatives weigh heavier? Just finished Birthright and I sort of enjoyed it. Problems with the plot here and there but, at the very least I was still able to have fun
| >>693851
This might be a bit salty, but
Birtright's story is the most ok of the three, but the maps are kinda boring. Conquest has the absolute best maps in all of Fire Emblem, but also have the most godawful mess of a story this series have ever seen.
Revelations has Weird Maps, which I like but I've heard people who don't. The story is batshit but by this point I've gotten numb to it.
I'd say Fates is a bad game, but Conquest's map design redeem it all.
| Fates have great music and a really good UI too, so there's that.
| >>693851 I love Fates. It gets way too much hate for very hypocritical reasons. Engaging gameplay, varied map design even across each of the routes, and a lot of replay value. People tend to shit on the story but I actually prefer it over the other FEs for trying something different and mixing some cool elements of Buddhism. The characters aren't bad either, they're as likeable and distinct as other FE casts.
| >>693843 I actually hate the story. It's badly paced and has very weak payoffs. And if I skip the school activities, which are boring, I'm skipping what's supposedly 3H's selling point and that works against it.
As for recycled maps, let me paraphrase a thread that counted. There are just 36 maps that have been used across 98 chapters. Playing one route for only story missions (12) makes players repeat 3-4 of the same maps.
| >>693843 I just can't call 3H a good game. It may be a notable introduction to the basics of a grid-based strategy game, but I can't call it a good SRPG when there are better alternatives in the genre that doesn't drag itself out and encourages players to think more critically. It's not even a good story-driven game either, it treats its players like idiots with too much telling/explaining and just flirts with the ideas of a dark political fantasy story without good execution.
| >>694007
Dang gonna have to heavily agree to disagree with you there. FE3H's storytelling is great (not flawless tho) but I'm guessing on a completely different vibe from what you like.
Also, huh, the only wholly repeating map in a single playthrough I can think of is Gronder Field, which is repeated for a good reason.
> Playing one route for only story missions (12) makes players repeat 3-4 of the same maps.
Uhh if there are 36 total where did you get this "repeat 3-4" numbers?
| >>694010 I suggest checking out The Witcher 3, The Banner Saga Trilogy, Final Fantasy Tactics, and the Dragon Age series. They handle the genre and tropes better than 3H IMO.
As for the repetitive maps part, well I felt them myself when I finished Silver Snow before I dropped the game but theres a chart/spreadsheet in this reddi thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/gg2mug/analysis_three_houses_has_only_36_unique_maps/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
| >>694029
This is a very weird comparison. 3H's
story (or like the stories in Fire Emblem in general) is fundamentally different from any of those. Fire Emblem doesn't "handle genre tropes", they're all about drama between characters and clashing personalities.
You don't really play Fire Emblem for the plot, you play for the characters!
| >>694030 yeah, I like the characters. But they don't make the story cutscenes worth watching. Likeable characters don't always translate to interesting drama. Otherwise I'd be singing high praises for fighting game plots.
And 3H is still pretty typical for the kind of fantasy stories I've experienced. Its only distinct hook is emphasizing the academy setting but that's about it.
| >>694030 I hate Byleth though. I just really don't like silent protagonists in games where everyone talks unless it's an old school JRPG.
| >>694038
That's fair. From my perspective, I grow so attached to most of these characters that I'd go through hell and heaven for them. I don't feel this way towards TW3 or FFT or Dragon Age.
And I like Byleth as a protagonist! But only because I can identify with what little traits we see of them (quiet, stoic, tries to be helpful, likes to teach) and can self-insert myself for the rest. They do work better as adjutant to a main lord though, so Silver Snow isn't really ideal.
This thread is permanently archived
| Please play FE Echoes and FE The Sacred Stones. Definitely won't disappoint you