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I hope they finally learn to use models next game. Every talking cutscene that's not pre-rendered was just pretty bad in direction that made the okay scenes worse in execution. Shot reverse shot poo poo.
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Feb 18, 2023 07:33
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:sorry if this statement is too controversial for the fanbase, but I think it's okay to let people have opinions By the same token, people are allowed to agree or disagree with opinions in a discussion thread for a video game on a discussion forum. There's not much point to a thread where people post their takes and no one interacts with those takes. Disagreeing about someone's takes on a game isn't a personal attack on that person unless it's worded that way. Tae posted:I hope they finally learn to use models next game. Every talking cutscene that's not pre-rendered was just pretty bad in direction that made the okay scenes worse in execution. Shot reverse shot poo poo. It was at least a big step up from 3H in terms of the models having more animations and expressions for emoting, but yeah, it's still a real sore point. Almost all of the conversations in Engage are very bland visually. We really need more conversations taking place while the characters are doing something while talking, like speaking over a meal(and I don't mean sitting still at the table like the meal supports) or walking together. Kanos fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Feb 18, 2023 |
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Feb 18, 2023 07:35
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I actually am legitimately curious to hear what makes them like fates better because I'm struggling to think of a single thing I like more in fates. Some people get really really into conquests map design but I don't think that's the take here
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Feb 18, 2023 07:37
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Is there a legit way to get to the far house in the Heroes of the Oasis map?
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Feb 18, 2023 07:40
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Tbh it’s hard for me to even nail down core tenets of the Fire Emblem formula, since every single aspect of the series has been challenged at some point. Even direct sequels, midquels, and sidequels feature story, themes, and gameplay that’s almost diametrically opposed to what came before. The only thing I know for sure, that I feel in the very pit of my soul, is that Classic is the correct way to play.
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Feb 18, 2023 07:51
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I'm very curious what the "From the makers of fire emblem" game that comes out next week will do, especially in the story presentation department. Because I just heavily dislike the visual execution of the dialogue since they moved to the switch.
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Feb 18, 2023 07:55
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lih posted:idk this just sounds like you don't like fire emblem much at all? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYDvg46Sogg&t=25s What I mean is, the way this scene plays out is just so  to me, like they're standing 5 feet away from Hortensia, the Queen looks bored out of her mind, and they very obviously could just shove the poor girl to the floor and end the whole chapter. "physical space in cutscenes doesn't make sense" is not unique to Engage but it feels really wild in scenes like this. The chapter prior to this also involved Timerra getting ambushed by two bandits while she's camping, leading directly to the battle, in which the bandits are on the other side of a village full of barricades and are now pillaging houses one by one. it just feels like the game is operating under dream logic and the cutscenes are not literally happening.like, all i want is for Hortensia to be holding a spear up to the Queen's neck or something. but instead she's wearing this big gay clown outfit and isn't even physically touching the person she's kidnapping. There's a throwaway line about how "you know how easy it'd be to kill her with an Emblem Ring," but the characters are so close to each other that it would actually be easier to like, smack Hortensia before she could even finish saying "Emblem, Engage!" Maybe if they had her Emblem be the one holding a weapon it'd be better. Something, anything. Please make some sort of physical sense! I think even SNES games were able to do things like have a character hold a knife up to another character's throat when they're kidnapping someone. that's what i mean by how I'd genuinely prefer to just have dialogue bubbles with portraits. The character models in this game look great, and their combat animations are really nice, but there is almost zero physical acting going on in the cutscenes. It just, idk, it combines with the over-the-top costuming, the bland characterization in cutscenes, and the endless dialogue about getting the mcguffins back and i am just not here for it. i think "i just don't vibe with this game" is exactly it lol. I love my sword lesbian simulator but the priorities in this installment are just off-kilter to me. anyway i think liking the game is valid but I have just found it to be totally bizarre cheetah7071 posted:I actually am legitimately curious to hear what makes them like fates better because I'm struggling to think of a single thing I like more in fates. Some people get really really into conquests map design but I don't think that's the take here the plot in Fates was a completely unhinged trash fire, but there were some decent character interactions. I liked that Xander/Leo/Camilla/Elise's personalities were coping strategies for being in a dysfunctional family unit. Selena/Odin/Laslow were a fun throwback that I actually enjoyed. In Engage, the characters are fighting over rings, and in Fates, the characters are fighting over Corrin. If nothing else I feel like I can see what the devs were going for with Fates, because the characters all genuinely seem to care about each other at least. I also appreciate that the plot in Fates is basically about how a war is keeping two families that otherwise have no quarrel with each other from getting along. Like it reminds me of the complicated international bloodlines of European royalty, and I can see the seed of an interesting idea coming from families of two enemy countries wanting to take back custody of one of their prince/princesses.
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Feb 18, 2023 07:57
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cheetah7071 posted:I actually am legitimately curious to hear what makes them like fates better because I'm struggling to think of a single thing I like more in fates. Some people get really really into conquests map design but I don't think that's the take here this is what i was most confused about, they can dislike whatever they want but a lot of the criticisms didn't make much sense in comparison to fates (which they occasionally cited as a favourable comparison), and it didn't sound like they were going to really get what they wanted from other games either Cephas posted:like, all i want is for Hortensia to be holding a spear up to the Queen's neck or something. but instead she's wearing this big gay clown outfit and isn't even physically touching the person she's kidnapping. There's a throwaway line about how "you know how easy it'd be to kill her with an Emblem Ring," but the characters are so close to each other that it would actually be easier to like, smack Hortensia before she could even finish saying "Emblem, Engage!" Maybe if they had her Emblem be the one holding a weapon it'd be better. Something, anything. Please make some sort of physical sense! I think even SNES games were able to do things like have a character hold a knife up to another character's throat when they're kidnapping someone. yeah the cutscenes are goofy and i wish they'd given them more budget too, it's a pretty obvious shortcoming. i just didn't understand the comparison to three houses because the exact same thing is a problem there too. i agree that it'd be better if the characters were more interesting & involved in their main plot appearances, just that it doesn't seem like that much of a step down because a lot of the other games have similar problems & there's still plenty of interesting character interactions in the supports. lih fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Feb 18, 2023 |
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Feb 18, 2023 08:00
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Kanos posted:By the same token, people are allowed to agree or disagree with opinions in a discussion thread for a video game on a discussion forum. There's not much point to a thread where people post their takes and no one interacts with those takes. That's totally fair, and I don't actually think anyone's said anything particularly aggressive at this point. I may have falsely assumed the thread was heading towards a big angry derail and that was an overreaction on my part. For my two cents, I really didn't care for Engage's presentation, either. The models are definitely better and more dynamic than the older entries, but turns out I never noticed how stiff the models were in Houses or before that because those were accompanied by portraits, while Engage puts everything on the models alone.
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Feb 18, 2023 08:04
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cheetah7071 posted:I actually am legitimately curious to hear what makes them like fates better because I'm struggling to think of a single thing I like more in fates. https://i.imgur.com/zZpgbuv.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/ycvayO7.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/ae11Ko6.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/XjnYsJ7.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/BJiV1W0.mp4 I mentioned it before at some point in the mega-thread but Fates has the best attack animations since the GBA crits and jet boosting armored generals days.
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Feb 18, 2023 08:07
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I screamed when they used the dutch angle at one point
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Feb 18, 2023 08:14
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The merchant class animations are so loving good!!!
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Feb 18, 2023 08:15
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Ryoma’s “You die… NOW!” before giving enemies the big boot is burned into my head for life. God-tier crit.
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Feb 18, 2023 08:20
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The only thing I think Fates did especially well was the home base mechanic because it was quick and unintrusive lol. If you don't count Revelation, Fates has a cast of around 35-ish total per route, which is basically the same as Engage's. However, about a third of the characters in Fates are gated behind the child mechanic, so the player gets to decide the pace at which they are unlocked (if at all). Likewise, for as flawed as the child mechanic is in Fates, when you get a kid as a new unit, you feel some inherent connection to them because you actively sought out a relationship between their parent characters. So the level of connection with the characters is somewhat higher. Engage also feels like it has a significantly bigger roster because of all the Emblem characters, and for better or worse the Emblem characters are the ones who get paralogues, so any additional characterization you might get from a paralogue is given to Emblems instead of core party members. I also thought it was cool how there were differences between the western units and weapons and the eastern units and weapons, the aesthetic differences were fun. And yeah the battle animations in Fates were rad. I still love how the samurai crit attack is just kicking someone in the chest and slashing them while they're off-balance.
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Feb 18, 2023 08:22
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cheetah7071 posted:I actually am legitimately curious to hear what makes them like fates better because I'm struggling to think of a single thing I like more in fates. Some people get really really into conquests map design but I don't think that's the take here The beginning of fates has a better build-up that falters hard, but the main problem with Engage is that you are given nothing to do or learn before the cliche parent death. In Engage, you are introduced to the fan squealing twins and vander and that's it. Don't even know the world outside at this point. Path of Radiance has multiple missions and major talks with Greil, even a lot of heated arguments on the merit of being a leader from the likes of Shinion. Fates has you span across the continent, meeting both sides, and even settling down before Mikoto's death in a slow burn. Sacred Stones is the only one "recently" (being a 20 year old game) that has a super fast parent death, but his death didn't last twice as long as their actual appearance.
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Feb 18, 2023 08:27
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mycatscrimes posted:Is there a legit way to get to the far house in the Heroes of the Oasis map? People have found a way, yeah. Considering what it requires and that all you get for it is an Elixir, though, there's no real practical reason to bother.
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Feb 18, 2023 08:51
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mycatscrimes posted:Is there a legit way to get to the far house in the Heroes of the Oasis map? You get the warp staff last chapter, so yeah, probably.
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Feb 18, 2023 08:52
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Cephas posted:the plot in Fates was a completely unhinged trash fire, but there were some decent character interactions. I liked that Xander/Leo/Camilla/Elise's personalities were coping strategies for being in a dysfunctional family unit. Selena/Odin/Laslow were a fun throwback that I actually enjoyed. In Engage, the characters are fighting over rings, and in Fates, the characters are fighting over Corrin. If nothing else I feel like I can see what the devs were going for with Fates, because the characters all genuinely seem to care about each other at least. I also appreciate that the plot in Fates is basically about how a war is keeping two families that otherwise have no quarrel with each other from getting along. Like it reminds me of the complicated international bloodlines of European royalty, and I can see the seed of an interesting idea coming from families of two enemy countries wanting to take back custody of one of their prince/princesses. This part confuses me because I feel like the "dysfunctional family unit" aspects are way more apparent in this one than in the Fates games. LIke, there's hints of the dynamics (how incredibly reluctant the Nohrian siblings are to act openly against Garon), but they're so openly loving and supportive of each other that the whole "den of snakes eating each other" setting they grew up in feels distant. I can read Camilla talking about it and think, okay, yes, I see how that could fit into how she acts, but it's just not really present in the main plot. The supports just end up feeling siloed from everything else. The big twist with Alfred in supports and its effect on Celine is about on the same level as the Nohr siblings history, in that when it's pointed out you can see it. Similarly, there's not too much complication in the past of Timerra or Fogado, who are mostly happy people who are secretly clever schemers. (Gotta do something for the Three Houses Claude fans, especially the ones that think Three Hopes ruined him.) But the other two nations do a good job of making their characters' history more apparent. But in two scenes in one chapter in Brodia, you have the exact historical dynamic of Alcryst, Diamant, and Morion: Alcryst is his father's favorite because when he gets out of his own way he's properly decisive and strong and Brodian, while Diamant gets less of his father's approval because he's trying to be a perfect king which isn't really Brodian, which makes Diamant try even harder and seem even more perfect, which Alcryst sees and gets insecure about. And then that's all borne out in supports. And even without the Nohr-like aspects of the Elusian royal family showing up outside of supports (multiple wives, court is a den of snakes), it's obvious that Ivy is really unhappy in Elusia (and the "worships the Divine Dragon" thing is all but stated), and you see Hortensia not putting on the cute act before chapter 10 to make it obvious that it is a cute act, and with the context of Brodia and Elusia and what you see of their father it all feels pretty clear why those things are the way they are. Like, these aspects do become seriously deemphasized after their chapters, and the Engage royals are pretty flat in cutscenes outside their own individual arcs, but this is an aspect where the game feels pretty unambiguously superior to Fates. This is like someone complaining that Conquest has too many maps that are boring empty fields compared to Awakening, it moves past "I think you're wrong" and into "?????"
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Feb 18, 2023 09:18
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I’m going to be completely honest with you Veyle, I much preferred you when you were a psycho and wish we got to recruit her instead of you.
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Feb 18, 2023 09:40
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Cephas posted:The Academy was too much for subsequent playthroughs, but at least in the first run it was novel and had a good sense of being a part of the world.
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Feb 18, 2023 09:52
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The academy should've been a DBZ capsule Rhea threw on the ground like a smokebomb
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Feb 18, 2023 09:57
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Endorph posted:my favorite part of the academy being part of the world was the five hundred times in three houses post timeskip where the characters are halfway across the continent in the middle of an epic war and then go 'okay, time to go back to the academy for a month!' and turn the entire army around to go have tea parties and have felix win another sword tournament. really made me feel like the setting was cohesive. Did they even say this? In my mind it was always just "oh. We're back at the academy even though we're halfway across the world. That's weird." E: RareAcumen posted:The academy should've been a DBZ capsule Rhea threw on the ground like a smokebomb She's not even around in the war phase!
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Feb 18, 2023 10:00
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:sorry if this statement is too controversial for the fanbase, but I think it's okay to let people have opinions
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Feb 18, 2023 10:00
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The more characters thing is weird to me. As the game goes on you start to really feel how some classes are entirely represented by only a single character (especially since all the royals have unique classes) and if you're not using them you don't get to explore those classes unless you second seal (and re-classing is of course evil and wrong). Only 1 pegasus knight? No lance fighter? Game is still probably my favourite FE mechnically but I really think it coulda used a good bit more recruits.
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Feb 18, 2023 10:05
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One of those statements is not objectively incorrect, though?
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Feb 18, 2023 10:07
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SyntheticPolygon posted:Did they even say this? In my mind it was always just "oh. We're back at the academy even though we're halfway across the world. That's weird." quote:Judith: It should be safe to return to the monastery by following the border between the Alliance and the Kingdom. quote:Claude: All right, everyone. Let's meet back at the monastery next month. quote:Hubert: We should eturn to the monastery and prepare to face the Kingdom. these are just a few rando examples but the game's fairly consistent on having the characters mention that they're explicitly returning to the monastery, its not just a gameplay contrivance. in engage the somniel is this floating doom platform you can teleport up to via divine dragon magic so it makes sense that the characters would pop back up there for a day or two to restock and refuel.
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Feb 18, 2023 10:07
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:One of those statements is not objectively incorrect, though? The only FE games I'd say are significantly better than it at this are the tellius and jugdral games.
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Feb 18, 2023 10:08
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SyntheticPolygon posted:She's not even around in the war phase! Fine, Byleth can also do that too while cooking a special meal for two students at a time, returning everyone's lost items, teaching a class, fishing, going to the training grounds, the choir, gardening, having a tea party and maybe relaxing in the sauna. They're like Larry from The Amazing World of Gumball.
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Feb 18, 2023 10:16
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I will say that the Somniel is probably the most clunky and tedious aspect of the game. While I am aware that it is all not mandatory, it doesn’t change the fact that most, if not all, of the activities are needlessly long or finicky. The exercise mini games are terrible and the ring polishing mini game is stupid. Having to jump between the arena and ring chamber to level up bond ranks and inherit skills is dumb and I don’t know why skill inheritance couldn’t be done in the menu.
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Feb 18, 2023 11:09
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heres a list of playable characters in the series who, even in a small way, actually impact the main plot - that is, the plot would be different if they didn't exist - in each FE game, along with my explanation for why I'm counting them. I'll be very inclusive just as a matter of preference. FE1: Marth (main lord), Jagen (advisor man), Caeda (her family hides Marth and she makes the bad ending exist, this one's a stretch), Gotoh (magic advisor man), Minerva (she has lines i guess), Maria (shes the reason Minerva has lines), Est (she stole a magic sword but not the magic sword that matters that much), Jeorge (hes basically fulfilling the same role Diamant or Alfred does in this game), Bantu (leads to Tiki), Tiki (magic dragon?), Elice (teleported marth out at the start), Hardin (Nyna???), Xane (I think he exposits a bit of backstory unless that's an FE11 thing) Total: 11 FE2: Alm (main lord), Celica (main lord 2), Mycen (raised them and was involvd in the Plot), Lukas (recruited Alm), Clive (gave Alm authority), Nomah (raised Celica after Mycen did), Zeke (minor antagonist I guess?), Total: 6 FE3: Marth (main lord), Linde (chucks the fire emblem at marth's head), Yuliya (Lorenz explosion.gif), Jubelo (Lorenz explosion.gif), Wendell (he does a bit of magic stuff), Arlen (minor antagonist??), Bantu (Tiki again), Tiki (magic dragon again), Astram (gets like A chapter but i guess thats some focus?), Sheena (see Astram), Jeorge (basically the same as FE1), Minerva (see FE1) Nyna (very important to the overall plot, technically playable) Total: 13 Note: I'm trying to be inclusive here but I refuse to count the other there last chapter clerics that are mindwiped by Gharnef because they're basically plot macguffins as much as the emblems are, and I doubt anyone'd let me get away with counting them for Engage. Also if I counted them I'd have to also count the people who recruit them and I refuse to consider Julian a plot important character FE4: Sigurd (main lord), Quan (basically a main lord), Oifey (tactician, kind of), Ethlyn (sure we can count her I guess), Fin (is around for the whole game, occasionally gets lines), Edain (her getting kidnapped technically kickstarts this whole cluster), Deirdre (obviously), Lachesis (ties into the Eldigan subplot), Ayra (is the reason Shanan is alive), Lewyn (actually an extremely important character despite not being a main lord, good on you Lewyn), Claud (uhhh he prayed once), Seliph (main lord), Leif (main lord 2), Shanan (sure I guess), Ares, (sure i guess???), Coirpre (is the reason Hannibal, etc), Hannibal (minor antagonist i guess???), Altena (see Hannibal but with only a single question mark) Total: 17 FE5: Leif (main lord), Finn (has Dialog, sometimes), Eyvel (raised Leif basically), Lifis (leads to pirate misadventures), Brighton (I don't wanna count the entire Magi group because that feels a bit too much, so I'll just count the leader of the group that springs Leif), Fred (leads to olwen misadventure), Olwen (is basically the reason all the Kempf stuff happens), Mareeta (is the reason Eyvel gets turned to stone), Linoan (slightly important for the midgame plot), Sara (unstones Eyvel), Saias, (recurring antagonist turned playable unit,) Ced (the deus ex machina of choice), Galzus (minor antagonist, ties up the mareeta subplot???) Total: 13 FE6: Roy (main lord), Merlinus (advisor), Saul (very small ties to the St. Elimine/Divine Weapons stuff), Lilina (shows Roy where Durandal is and also explicitly goes 'hey we should grab those,' Also Roy's motivation in the Ostia arc), Elphin (Etruria stuff), Melady (has a minor subplot even if Guinevere is a very wasted character), Perceval (I guess???), Cecilia (roy's mentor, gets beat up by Zephiel once), Sophia (shows Roy the desert), Fa (magic dragon stuff), Douglas (See Percy), Yodel (see saul but without the words 'very small', chucks the divine weapon Roy missed at his head) Total: 12 but frankly this number feels extremely inflated and i would probably cut saul, percival, and douglas but im not gonna go back and edit this. also i dont feel like counting lalum because she basically just borrows plot importance from Elphin association if you dont recruit him and he still gets all the main story dialog. shes kind of weird in that regard honestly FE7: Lyn (main lord for prologue), Kent (leads to Lyn realizing she is a Noble Lady of Caelin), Nils (magic dragon stuff), Eliwood (actual main lord), Marcus (advisor type), Hector (main lord 2), Oswin (advisor type 2 though he gets less of this dialog in Hector Mode than Marcus gets in Eliwood mode), Matthew (has a subplot), Ninian (magic dragon stuff 2), Pent (magic advisor stuff, leads them to Athos), Nino (has a subplot), Jaffar (has a subplot), Athos (gotoh 2) Total: 13 FE8: Eirika (Main Lord), Seth (Advisor type), Joshua (has the Jehenna stuff), Ephraim (main lord 2), Orson (i guess hes a minor antagonist?) Tana (Has a bit of main story dialog), Innes (largely takes over Tana's role as Frelia rep), Duessel (has a couple cutscenes on Ephraim's route), L'arachel (Rausten stuff), Dozla (hell he gets enough main story dialog in her recurring gag bits that I'll count him, won't count Rennac though since he only gets one cutscene iirc), Saleh (magic advisor stuff), Myrrh (magic dragon stuff), Knoll (has a plotdump and is technically partially responsible for the entire plot of the game), Total: 12 FE9: Ike (Main Lord), Titania (advisor type), Mist, (sister) Shinon (gets a very large amount of main story dialog early on and exposits Laguz relation stuff, in his own special way), Soren (tactician type), Lethe (leads Ike to Gallia), Volke (gets the Greil infodump), Jill (has A chapter), Stefan (does he teach Ike Aether canonically? they kind of imply it), Tormod (has One chapter), Reyson (Heron stuff), Ranulf (gets a large amount of main story dialog even before he joins, is treated as the Gallia rep), Elincia (obviously), Ena (has a subplot that spans the whole game), Nasir (see Ena, also acts as a magic advisor type like a Gotoh or Athos), Naesala (see Ena), Tibarn (see Ena), (rip giffca) Total: 17 FE10: look im not sitting down and doing this you know this number is going to be big. i also dont feel like doing the archanea remakes tbh. add kris and katarina to FE3 and you get FE12's. FE13: Chrom (main lord), Robin (main lord 2), Frederick (advisor type), Lissa (Has Lines), Virion (initiates the Valm arc), Maribelle (has One chapter), Say'ri (has the Valm arc), Lucina (obviously), Basilio (tells the antagonist to eat his rear end), Flavia (is there when Basilio does that), Tiki (has a couple bits of exposition) Total: 11 (not counting the spotpass characters because they'd be free points that dont really count) (except priam) FE14: Corrin (main lord), All The Royals (im not listing them out), Azura (basically a main protagonist), Gunter (his revelation plot point is stupid, but existant), Flora (her setting herself on fire is stupid, but existant), Izana (sure), Fuga (uhhh i guess he has a dumb map in every route) Total: 14 FE15: echoes give Tobin, Kliff, Saber, Mae, and Boey some amount of main story dialog and adds Conrad, so +6 to Gaiden's score for Total: 12 FE16: Byleth (main lord), Edelgard (yea), Dimitri (yea), Claude (yea), Seteth (basically the equivalent for Silver Snow), Flayn (the death knight made her play D&D with him), Felix (kiiind of has a main plot mandated subplot?), Sylvain (has A chapter if hes around), Ashe (has A chapter if hes around), Jeritza (made Flayn play D&D with him), Hubert (edelgard's advisor and also a major antagonist on the other routes), Dedue (ties into the Duscur stuff), Catherine (sure?), Lorenz (sure???) Total: this game is very hard to rate because a lot of people will point to paralogues but i dont consider that main story content anymore than like, the base convos in fe9/10 but i feel like a lot of people are counting them as that main story content rather than what the cast actually does in the main story which is mostly stand around t-posing. also 14 FE17 (its this one) (its engage) (spoilers btw): Alear (main lord), Vander (gets standard Jagen dialog), Alfred (leads to the firene stuff), Diamant (leads to the Brodia stuff), Alcryst (gets A chapter and some dialog with his dad), Ivy (recurring antagonist turned playable unit), Zelkov (steals the Time Crystal offscreen somehow in a moment that even i wont defend but it happens, feel like you could have quite easily shown Zelkov and Ivy manipulating Veyle a bit and then have him yoink it or something and that would have been a cool moment, anyway), Hortensia (recurring antagonist turned playable unit), Rosado (chucks the Eirika/Ephraim ring at Alear's head), Fogado (gets A chapter), Timerra (chucks the ike ring at Alear's head), Mauvier, Veyle (obviously) Total: 13 Like im not seeing the massive difference here and I also put way too much work into this. What I think people are identifying isn't so much an actual major difference in the *amount* of the playable cast that gets anything to do, but rather the sharp drop in amount of random side characters who get a chapter where they're the focus. Like Engage has no equivalent to Battle Before Dawn where Jaffar and Nino take center stage, or the Kempf subplot in FE5 where Olwen and Fred are the focus. And those are pretty minor moments (Kempf especially) and the actual amount of characters who get anything of significane to contribute to the main story is the same, but the feel is different. Furthermore, unlike, say, FE6, where most characters would get at least a couple of random lines explaining why they're there, and for a decent chunk of the cast recruitment conversations explaining why they're joining, in Engage's case they're just mostly there because they're either royals or retainers to royals. Fates had the same problem, but the split route structure and immediate focus on a single conflict taking space in a relatively small space mitigated it. They're soldiers, there's a war on. The slightly more world-spanning adventure feel of Engage combined with the more macguffin centered plot makes it feel more like an adventure story, which means you want to know why this ragtag band of misfits has come together, but largely they're there because, iunno. I hope all the protein power Alfred makes Etie and Boucheron down is covered in their contracts. I hope working out is on the clock. Like, I do think there's an actual complaint here, I just think people are misdirecting it. The culprit isn't so much 'the writing doesn't have everyone stand around in cutscenes' or the idea that the plot 'doesn't give anyone anything to do' in any more significant way than most previous FEs, the actual issue that makes a large chunk of the cast feel like random extras is that their introductions are being random extras in the background of a lord's introduction. Gonzales's introduction is him going 'im a bandit... but im sad...' and Lilina tells him that just because he's mocked by the villagers he doesn't have to do evil things, and that people will eventually understand him if he works hard for them. Even if you bench Gonzales immediately you get his deal, it's a hunchback of notre dame thing. Lapis's introduction is her standing in the background of Alcryst's introduction and calling him dumb once. It doesn't really establish the basics of her character (rural girl who's embarrassed about it, has a crush on Alcryst). These are both completely irrelevant characters to the plot (and FE6 has way more of those than Engage), but Gonzales's introduction and mechanical method of recruitment expresses something about his character. Alcryst might as well toss out a pokeball and say 'Lapis, I choose you!' for all the work done to set her up. The three houses cast also don't get much to set them up when they join but the paralogues do that work instead, plus since the cast is so small you'll get everyone's supports anyway, unlike most other FEs. There's a perfectly valid complaint here that I understand and agree with, I just don't think the complaint people are saying is what they actually mean.
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Feb 18, 2023 11:15
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Olwen . . .
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Feb 18, 2023 11:20
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MotU posted:Olwen . . . like he shows up on the same map as kempf, olwen has dialog about kempf at the start of it, and you inexplicably have to have olwen dead to recruit this completely random guy who coincidentally has the same class and nearly the same stats as kempf
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Feb 18, 2023 11:23
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Endorph posted:you know you ever think that eyrios in fe5 was meant to be recruitable kempf originally wait this makes sense
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Feb 18, 2023 11:35
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 And that's a wrap. Maddening was a lot more fun than hard but also going in blind would have been a mess for me. Alcryst had MVP for over 20 battles this time, it was nuts.
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Feb 18, 2023 11:37
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That also explains his kind of mean ending where he completely fails as an administrator and runs it into the ground. Very in character for Kempf!
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Feb 18, 2023 11:38
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FrickenMoron posted:
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Feb 18, 2023 11:39
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i think it's fair to complain that the main plot could be better in how it actually writes the characters in the main plot once they're done being relevant - it would have been nice if the secondary royals all stayed around in cutscenes and the main royals all had more interesting things to say too in main plot cutscenes, give the cutscenes more character etc., but yeah that sort of issue is hardly anything new, which is what i was trying to get at before
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Feb 18, 2023 11:43
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MotU posted:Olwen . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9HCEjUo-G8
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Feb 18, 2023 11:44
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lih posted:i think it's fair to complain that the main plot could be better in how it actually writes the characters in the main plot once they're done being relevant - it would have been nice if the secondary royals all stayed around in cutscenes and the main royals all had more interesting things to say too in main plot cutscenes, give the cutscenes more character etc., but yeah that sort of issue is hardly anything new, which is what i was trying to get at before like poo poo in FE7's case lyn doesnt get anything interesting to say in cutscenes past chapter 18 or so and thats a game with 3 lords, not 9
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Feb 18, 2023 11:45
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 02:17 |
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I just gotta say that although I haven't played some of the older FE games, I'm happy that FE is in a place where we can have Emblems and their paralogues for those who get a nostalgia rush out of them.
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Feb 18, 2023 11:55
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