Fire Emblem: Fates Times Three

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Fire Emblem: Fates Times Three

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Rangpur posted:

even the dialogue lacks the snap of the previous game.

That's an issue of the translators changing. The translation for this game is barely equal to par. It's competent and mostly error-free, but it really lacks pizazz and there's a lot of random changes that are nothing but detrimental, for the most part. I had some issues with Awakening's translation too, but the dialogue itself was very well done and had a lot of natural flow to it, unlike Fates, which is just stiff and has a lot of characters with basically no voice.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 07:43

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:37

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Cythereal posted:

I really enjoyed the Awakening LP. This... it starts with anime French maids as a class in combat and goes downhill from there.

Why are turn-based squad tactics games like Fire Emblem and X-COM so rare?

maids and butlers are cool classes and anime is the greatest thing humanity has ever achieved as a collective society

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 15:55

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

RareAcumen posted:

. Because if people can do whatever you can end up with Stella Glow and I can't think of any other ones from the 2010's.

I liked Stella Glow more than 2/3rds of Fates.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 17:19

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

ohmygorgon posted:

Fair enough, and don't get me wrong, even by the low standards set by Fire Emblem and video games in general, I think Fates has a poor story. I just think it's strange that all across the internet, people just hate this game's story so much, when the series already had the bar set pretty low.

FE5 and FE9 have pretty good stories for what they are. They interact with the mechanics of the game, have a proper tone that isn't contradicted by gameplay, some interesting plot and characterization beats, and are exactly as long as they need to be. 5's antagonists are weak, but there's an actual reason for that. And FE4 has a really ambitious, very interesting story, even if its execution is middling due to the limitations of the time. I don't think it's really fair to act like every FE game has a bad story. Fire Emblem has done interesting things with the genre and the medium.

Not to mention, I think it's fair to criticize the game for its story when the story is pretty much what they marketed the game on. There was basically no marketing about the gameplay mechanics besides 'yeah sure it'll be like Awakening,' every bit of advertisement was about the story.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 17:59

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

It was decent? Writing-wise, some of the characters were fun and it had A decent twist. Gameplay wise it was basically exactly like Luminous Arc, but it had a wider variety of characters and decent balance so you actually had some choice in who to use instead of never using the canadian warlus because he has a 10% hit rate and 2 move.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 18:23

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

ohmygorgon posted:

That does remind me, I think IS even worked with a professional author to work on the story, which would certianly raise the expectations of the story for the game, although I am not positive if that actually happened or not.

They worked with Shin Kibayashi, who's written several popular manga, TV dramas, and plays. That said, the workflow was mostly that he wrote an original draft of the story that IntSys' writers took and heavily altered, and he mostly just outlined the flow of a hypothetical plot, not writing individual dialogue scenes or anything. Once he'd written the initial draft, he wasn't involved at all.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 22:18

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Camel Pimp posted:

I imagine a Taro Yoko penned Fire Emblem would be like Genealogy but even more wacked out and I would give my left tit to see such a thing become reality.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2017 00:04

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Junpei posted:

Why can't IntSys just call them Daggers or Shurikens on the whole?

because shurikens are different from daggers

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 00:14

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Subaki flies and has decent defense base, so he's one of the best units in Birthright.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 10:58

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

he flies and is in a game with pair-up

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 13:11

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Crosspeice posted:

Are you telling me Izuna's not recruitable???

he is, but only very late in the game

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 21:24

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

takumi is the only three dimensional character in fire emblem fates

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 18:44

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Camel Pimp posted:

It is pretty annoying that avatarsexuals in this game cannot support with anyone just the main character, with one exception. You'd think a character like Reina might be fun to bounce off someone else other than our blank state character.

Not to mention Reina was one of Mikoto's bodyguards. You'd think she'd want to talk to her kids.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2017 06:02

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Spatula City posted:

I would appreciate it if Zola DIDN'T betray Corrin, but the game writing is clearly not good enough for that to be the case. Of course the creepy enemy dude is going to inevitably betray them. but, ugh, it's so obnoxiously telegraphed. Not to mention, if he wasn't going to betray Corinn, he'd be a unit in battle by now. Game mechanics give it away as much as anything. bad writers, bad bad writers.

Zola actually has some unused portraits and lines in the code, suggesting he might have been planned to be playable at some point.

Rangpur posted:

There's much to recommend previous Fire Emblem games but subtlety in character design is not one of them. Has there ever been a primary antagonist that didn't have 'I AM EVIL' flashing in neon above their head?

most of the fe4 antagonists

# ¿ Mar 4, 2017 22:19

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Last Celebration posted:

Like half the protagonists are comically evil or literal devil worshippers?

of the major fe4 antagonists the only ones like that are manfroy and julius. and julius is literally satan so he has an excuse.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2017 01:57

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Camel Pimp posted:

You know, as over-used as that drat "grey waves" song is, that cutscene really does look nice. If you can say nothing else about them, the 3DS games' cutscenes all look really, really nice.

studio anima does p. alright cg, they do a lot of the intros for stuff like gundam games. they also did the cg dance sequences in love live.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2017 05:33

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Honestly that one convo in FE4 where you find the children's drawings praying for the dark god's revival also makes the central conflict fairly gray, even if manfroy is basically skeletor. It's hard to blame people for not wanting to be oppressed for their religion, and it's suggested that at least part of the reason the cult became so evil to begin with is because they were forced into hiding.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2017 07:13

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Rigged Death Trap posted:

Which is sort of moot when the dark god is literally evil personified.
I mean yeah the cultists can be in the gray but the end result is pretty clear cut.

i mean hypothetically worshiping that dude only becomes a bad thing when you're actively seeking to revive him

# ¿ Mar 5, 2017 18:28

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

SC Bracer posted:

I feel like this is missing out an entire complement of assholes like Blume or his comically assholish wife Hilda who made it their life's mission to abuse the poo poo out of a small child, or literally every identical evil devil-worshipper who spends their free time sacrificing children. If they don't count as major villains hardly anyone does because FE4 doesn't give us sympathetic or multilayered characterization of most villains outside the incestuous demon family.

bloom was actually fairly kind to tinny, or at least within the realm of a normal father figure, and was against the child hunts. Tinny even has a line where she says that he's just self-interested and cowardly, not a complete monster like Hilda. He's still a dick but he gets some amount of depth.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2017 16:20

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

camilla is a really cool character, and i like her, and also her big boobs

if you want an actual demonstration, peep sera in dragon age inquisition or something

# ¿ Mar 6, 2017 23:37

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Cythereal posted:

I dunno, out of curiosity I looked up who's the series' first marriage option for queer women, a part of this game's cast, and holy crap who thought that was a good idea? I guess the likes of her and Sera are at least proving that gay and bi women in RPGs can be complete asshats and loving creepy. Equal opportunity.

the japanese supports for her gay marriage are actually really sweet and have her expressing doubt about her sexuality in a pretty natural, human way. the localization stripped out the unique dialogue for the gay support and just made it a stalking gag like the male corrin support for her is, and also made the stalking even more exaggerated and weird than the JP version. it's really hosed up.

We should save that conversation for when she actually gets introduced, though.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 03:51

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Cythereal posted:

Then again, I've soured on Awakening in general. A lot of the supports still make me laugh, but in retrospect it's a painfully sexist game in a lot of ways and most characters are one quirk or personality gimmick taken to absurd extremes. Cordelia, Sumia, and Olivia are not much better than Tharja.

yeah, the ways like 'letting women be physical classes without making them be statistically inferior' and 'retconning the 'only men can wield the falchion' thing and presenting a woman as the future of the franchise in a metatextual sense'

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 05:26

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

ohmygorgon posted:

You're not wrong, but there were still gender exclusive classes playing to stereotypes, including a literal Bride class.

pretty much everyone i know who got that dlc got it so they could put their self-insert robin in it and put them next to chrom/gaius/henry

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 05:34

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Tae posted:

I'm giving a warning to stop, like seriously dude. I've played more fates than anyone here, I know how to navigate votes.

iunno why like five separate people have gotten insanely weird about unit voting

you could beat birthright with nothing but captured generics (I should know, I've done it) and those dudes are almost always worse than actual units.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 18:04

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Hunt11 posted:

When we get to Conquest we will have plenty of time to worry about who is and isn't included.

beat conquest with nothing but generics, also

and also a run where i immediately second sealed everyone regardless of how fitting their default second class was

conquest is challenging but you can beat it with whoever, especially since i imagine tae will be doing it on hard, not lunatic

# ¿ Mar 7, 2017 19:02

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

inthesto posted:

Why does this series hate axes so much

FE6 has Gonzales, who's one of the best units in that game. FE5 has Othin, Halvan, and Dagda sitting on top of the heap. FE8 has Duessel. FE9 has Titania. FE10 has Nolan.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 02:50

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

characters with weird growths are good, imo. kill all myrmidons with high speed and low str.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 03:32

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

I'd just introduce the dlc classes when Ryoma joins up, since it's not like the stat boosts from that will be able to make anyone stronger than him.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 04:11

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

azama and kaze

# ¿ Mar 8, 2017 06:19

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

almost no enemies in birthright have skills, granted by their class or otherwise.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2017 14:27

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Lord Koth posted:

Not that I disagree with the scene being ridiculous for multiple reasons, but how, exactly, is Hinoka going to fly under them when they're flat against a sheer cliff? Have her pegasus phase its 20+' wingspan through the cliff face? Somehow hover it sideways (at which point Corrin has to somehow drop through said wings in addition to the other issue)?

wyverns have a smaller wingspan, they could get scarlet to do it

also even ignoring that why didnt any of the other 30 people in the army go to help kaze up when he was clinging for life. like saizo. or rinkah. rinkah could lift kaze up easily. 'not with that str growth hurr hurr'

also the kaze scene overshadows what i feel is an even worse part of the scene

quote:

An apology may be in order, but we're not at fault here.

*walks into racial minority's territory, kills all the men of age*

'an apology MAY... MAY be in order, but, look, an explosion!'

corrin totally fails to take responsibility for things that are totally his fault - 'cause just having a bit of a moan to kaze doesn't make things up to the wolfskins, it just makes him feel better - and then everyone acts like he's the most self-sacrificing and pure person ever, since he just moaned about how bad it feels to have killed 50 people. at least i hope it was 50 people. considering the way the game treats large-scale engagements (which isn't a problem unique to it in the series, but still), maybe he just killed 5000.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2017 20:20

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

even if you did care about kaze, it's so random, out of nowhere, and meaningless that it's hard to care. why not have xander's forces catch up and have kaze die protecting you from him? that'd actually be a plotpoint someone could feasibly care about, as opposed to Kaze randomly falling down a cliff for literally no reason.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2017 21:05

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Heaven Spacey posted:

Has there ever been a postmortem by Nintendo or any of the writers as to why the writing for Fates is so sloppy? "A young Lord is torn between their family on both sides of a terrible war" is great idea for a story, but they could hardly have messed it up any worse than what we got.

here's your postmortem: the game had 20 separate writers. 20 people. for comparison, path of radiance had 4. imagine 20 people all trying to give their own ideas for how a story should progress. now imagine those 20 people trying to work within the context of a video game, that has to have battles to go with every plot beat. now imagine those 20 people trying to tell three separate but intertwining stories. now imagine those 20 people having to write 80+ characters. now imagine those 20 people trying to keep any of that consistent between them.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2017 02:13

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Heaven Spacey posted:

Do the DLC classes include the paid ones that came out a while after the game did? I'd like to see those shown off, I didn't buy them.

I'm pretty ignorant how these things usually go, but surely plenty of games with at least acceptable stories have had similarly huge writing teams. Besides, there must have been some degree of compartmentalization, with some writers working on the core plot for one of the campaigns, others working on supports, etc. Obviously some things would be lost with that many people working together, but I really feel like the reason why Fates's story is such a mess has to be more complex than "too many cooks".

does it really have to be complex?

And yeah, games can often have as many writers, and there's some compartmentalization to be sure, but the issue is how this game was written. shin kobayashi submitted a script, then they rewrote that, then they rewrote that, then they came up with revelations and rewrote that. that much we know for certain, since kobayashi's talked about what was in his original script and what wasn't (hinoka didn't exist, for instance). And revelations is, without spoiling anything, very obviously an extremely late addition.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2017 02:57

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Junpei posted:

Is the writing (in general, that is) as bad in the Japanese version?

The overall plot is just as much of a mess, naturally, but the dialogue is a little better? Characters have more of a distinct voice and supports flow a little more conversationally. The supports themselves still go over the same topics, though, so I wouldn't really call those 'better' either, with a few exceptions in Conquest. And the 'distinct' voices are still pretty much jrpg tropes 101, you could find a thousand characters that talk the way, say, JP Ryoma does, but he at least stands out a little more in terms of word choice and how he speaks compared to other characters in the same game.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2017 10:23

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Junpei posted:

I actually had this weird theory as for why Priestess's got Bows to use. Basically, it was that someone on the dev team was replaying Geneaology of the Holy War, looked at Aideen and Lana, and thought "Hey! Wouldn't it be cool if they could actually put their Minor Ulir blood to use by giving them Bows on promotion?". I thought the same thing had happened with Patty and Outlaws as well.

I'm probably wrong.

thieves use bows in this game because there were already plenty of sword classes in this game and having them use shurikens would just make them ninjas, and nohr needed a bow class, so they use bows. the obvious inspiration is robin hood.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2017 07:47

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

i dont even get why flora has to die here, she's barely even been in the game so it's not like her death is that affecting.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2017 00:11

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Carlioo posted:

No but don't you see how heartbroken our protagonists are over this tragic loss of a maid who thought burning herself to death was a honorable way to go. Look how sad they are, clearly you should be sad as well!

Incidentally, I think it was around this point that I stopped playing this dumb game.

like im the kind of person that cries at just about any hokey death scene. give me a tragic sacrifice and ill need tissues, even if it's from a character who's had like eight lines up until now. the thing is the sacrifice needs to make some vague amount of sense. like cuan and ethlyn bringing their freaking baby to the battlefield is dumb in fe4, but at least them getting ambushed by travant's dragon knights makes sense. they came to help sigurd, the enemy had an ambush prepared for them. it follows a string of logic.

I literally do not know why Flora set herself on fire. It'd be one thing if she'd actively hurt the party somehow or had been an antagonist for half the game, but she just showed up, tossed two dozen dudes at you, then killed herself. what does she have to feel so guilty over? takumi did worse than that the five seconds he was possessed by ??? back in chapter 10.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2017 02:02

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

funfact: fates' setting is never given a name. there is no name for this continent. hoshido has a name, nohr has a name, there are some individual countries and territories with a name, but the overall continent is never given a name, and neither is the world itself. The wiki literally just has to call it 'fire emblem fates continent.'

that kinda summarizes the worldbuilding right there.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2017 02:51

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:37

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

inthesto posted:

Considering how Fates's writing has been going so far, not actively detracting from the plot is adding to the story at this point

too bad that the kids actively do detract from the plot

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 16:11

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