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Lord Koth posted:Haha, no. Not that you aren't broadly correct, but even in instances where there was personality, Treehouse occasionally ripped it out, like the infamous Saizo/Beruka support, where they stripped everything out in order to do a lovely "......." meme. While there wasn't much to work with, Treehouse did an utter poo poo job even taking that into account. Ohhhh no. I hear this lovely argument trotted out every time Fates is brought up. Fates' story problems go way deeper than anything to do with the localization. The problem is with the original story. Garbage in, garbage out. Also the "..." support is hilarious and yes that is the hill I will die on. 
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Jul 20, 2018 02:43
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EclecticTastes posted:I'm aware of some of those changes, my theory is that their localization budget and timetable were calculated and handed down before it became clear that they'd need to spend extra time and money excising all the groping minigames and dummying out the lingerie. As for why they weren't adjusted for what was clearly a tentpole project, I wouldn't know, but to simply claim incompetence when the circumstances could well have been more complicated than that feels a little reductive and unfair. But, given how all the changed scenes involved replacing more detailed dialog with very brief jokey-jokes that required zero effort to slap in, it feels to me more like they ran out of time/money than they genuinely thought it would be better that way. Treehouse didn't do any of that. Localization teams very very rarely do the actual coding needed to adapt the game The much more likely problem is just that they were translating three games in the time they'd normally get to translate one
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Jul 20, 2018 02:47
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Silver Falcon posted:Ohhhh no. I hear this lovely argument trotted out every time Fates is brought up. Fates' story problems go way deeper than anything to do with the localization. The problem is with the original story. Garbage in, garbage out. ...That's exactly what I said, in regards to the story. Just that even taking into account that the story was garbage, Treehouse STILL did a complete poo poo job at the translation.
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Jul 20, 2018 02:48
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Lord Koth posted:Haha, no. Not that you aren't broadly correct, but even in instances where there was personality, Treehouse occasionally ripped it out, like the infamous Saizo/Beruka support, where they stripped everything out in order to do a lovely "......." meme. While there wasn't much to work with, Treehouse did an utter poo poo job even taking that into account. I'd also point to speaking styles. You look at Chrom's supports and compare them to Lucina's, you see distinct word choice and styles. You can pick out most characters from a few lines. Fates, meanwhile, has much more flat dialog. If you compare Mozu and Donnel, it's obvious which localization leaned in harder. Despite starting from the same base ideas, Donnel's dialog is much more memorable, making him one of the top 25 in choose your legends where Mozu couldn't even make the top 100.
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Jul 20, 2018 03:13
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Ehhhhhhhhh. I don't like Fates. But I do love specific characters from it. I really, really liked a few characters who had the same (or similar) roles on both sides of the Birthright/Conquest split. Leo/Takumi, Kaden/Keaton, Shiro/Siegbert, and Hana/Arthur are my big 4/8. Fates has some REALLY charming, memorable characters. It just has a lot more flat/recycled/boring characters.
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Jul 20, 2018 03:39
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Conquest is my favorite of all FE plots. Yes it's dumb garbage that doesn't make any sense, but I'd take that over Awakening's bog standard Dragon Priest plot with a warlord who wants to end war by conquering the world awkwardly shoehorned in the middle. The only interesting plot hook Awakening had was that Robin was an alternate timeline version of the evil dragon god, and Lucina's conflict over whether she could let Robin live. The scene where Corrin goes "yes father, I think murdering civilians is cool" to get Garon and Iago off their back, and Azura subsequently completely flipping her poo poo is the greatest scene in the series. I don't understand how anyone could not love it. There's also so many characters that you can completely excise the boring royals and only keep the fun colorful characters in your army. And each royal comes with two better retainers, while you're stuck with boring Shepherds for a while before you can fill in the Gregors and cool kids.
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Jul 20, 2018 05:56
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Source your quotes
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Jul 20, 2018 06:01
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For context, I'm also a huge The Room enthusiast. Fates is right in my sweet spot for being poorly written yet entirely earnest, Conquest especially.
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Jul 20, 2018 06:08
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For reference, the exact context for people hating that Azura/Corrin scene is that Corrin told her what they were gonna do like, two lines earlier. It's not that the idea was bad, it's that Azura is that dumb Also Corrin never follows up on the idea of pretending to be evil, except when they randomly genocide the Kitsune without anybody remarking on how hosed up that was
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Jul 20, 2018 06:12
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I know! Azura is the dumbest fucker in Fire Emblem history, and there is no text that actually suggests otherwise, even if the writers actually intended for her to be worldly and wise. Her support with Keaton is almost as magical, and as a bonus, you get to make Shigure a ravenous werewolf. And Corrin being all over the board is a feature. The writers had so many ideas for making the protagonist actually fight for the evil empire and uphold their integrity, and they couldn't commit to a single one and instead produced a beautiful hot mess.
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Jul 20, 2018 06:24
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I suppose if the primary reason you like the story there is because it's a train-wreck, I absolutely can't fault your logic even if I can't stand the game's story myself.
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Jul 20, 2018 07:23
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:The scene where Corrin goes "yes father, I think murdering civilians is cool" to get Garon and Iago off their back, and Azura subsequently completely flipping her poo poo is the greatest scene in the series. I don't understand how anyone could not love it. For reference, the actual best scene in all of Fire Emblem is Stefan and Mordecai's A support from Path of Radiance. It's not only a fantastic character moment for both involved, it's also a bit of excellent foreshadowing for Radiant Dawn (one of several; it was pretty clear IS put a lot of work into setting things up in PoR to pay off in RD, which is why they remain the series' peak). On top of that, it was also a pretty topical scene in a number of ways. While Fire Emblem always has the typical high fantasy moralizing, the Tellius games were the only ones that really had a clear message to them, which is something I found lacking in both Awakening and Fates. They fell back on tired anime cliches like friendship and fighting destiny. I mean, the closest thing to a central theme Fates had was "war is bad", literally the most basic possible thing within its genre, and even that got lost in all the alternate dimension bullshit. I'm sitting here struggling to think of any actual moral to the story beyond "don't do a war". Fates really is one of those games I enjoy in the moment because the gameplay works well enough and is reasonably engaging, but on further analysis, it's kinda lovely. Gonna be real, if Three Houses continues the trend of having nothing meaningful to hang its story off of and barely half an endearing cast, I'm not sure if I'll be onboard. Fortunately, Echoes pretty much hit it out of the park in terms of likeable characters, and as can be seen already, the story has surprising depth for something adapted from an NES game.
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Jul 20, 2018 10:11
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I actually do like Radiant Dawn for a lot of what it tried to do, but the villain writing certainly isn't one of those things. I wish that the antagonists that cause all the problems weren't all puppy-kicking, kitten-smashing people to such an excessive degree. It's not 'god this is a terrible person' and more, 'the writers can't be serious'.
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Jul 20, 2018 11:56
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Keldulas posted:I actually do like Radiant Dawn for a lot of what it tried to do, but the villain writing certainly isn't one of those things. I wish that the antagonists that cause all the problems weren't all puppy-kicking, kitten-smashing people to such an excessive degree. It's not 'god this is a terrible person' and more, 'the writers can't be serious'. Realistic, as far as that goes.
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Jul 20, 2018 12:22
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Xander77 posted:Meh. I actually like... well, "like" the RD villains precisely because they're no more and no less than a bunch of corrupt assholes who crave more power for the sake of indulging their corruption. Not devoted to an evil cult, no great vision of changing the world... just pure assholes. I dunno, a power-hungry, wealth-obsessed bigot trying desperately to hide his own incompetence as he illegally seizes power that rightfully belonged to a woman, supported by opportunists and those too cowardly to oppose him, as they use their distorted, wholly inaccurate version of the prevailing religion to legitimize themselves and their abhorrent views? Doesn't sound like anything that could happen in real life, imo.
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Jul 20, 2018 20:30
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cheetah7071 posted:For reference, the exact context for people hating that Azura/Corrin scene is that Corrin told her what they were gonna do like, two lines earlier. It's not that the idea was bad, it's that Azura is that dumb and it never gets mentioned again...
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Jul 20, 2018 20:39
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:and it never gets mentioned again... To be fair, the one of the supposed protagonists doing something monumentally stupid and it then being effectively quickly dropped by everyone (or never get called on it in the first place) isn't exactly unique to Fates - see also: Micaiah, Celica.
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Jul 20, 2018 22:09
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EclecticTastes posted:For reference, the actual best scene in all of Fire Emblem is Stefan and Mordecai's A support from Path of Radiance. It's not only a fantastic character moment for both involved, it's also a bit of excellent foreshadowing for Radiant Dawn (one of several; it was pretty clear IS put a lot of work into setting things up in PoR to pay off in RD, which is why they remain the series' peak). On top of that, it was also a pretty topical scene in a number of ways. While Fire Emblem always has the typical high fantasy moralizing, the Tellius games were the only ones that really had a clear message to them, which is something I found lacking in both Awakening and Fates. They fell back on tired anime cliches like friendship and fighting destiny. I mean, the closest thing to a central theme Fates had was "war is bad", literally the most basic possible thing within its genre, and even that got lost in all the alternate dimension bullshit. I'm sitting here struggling to think of any actual moral to the story beyond "don't do a war". I agree, a lot. The story about the branded is very well thought out and written. The Stefan/Mordecai support is excellent, as is the backstory about the Apostle, and Zelgius arc. It also really spoke to me as a gay guy. I also like Sephiran a lot, even though I'm not usually a fan of the Wooby, Destroyer of Worlds trope.
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Jul 20, 2018 22:41
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Lord Koth posted:To be fair, the one of the supposed protagonists doing something monumentally stupid and it then being effectively quickly dropped by everyone (or never get called on it in the first place) isn't exactly unique to Fates - see also: Micaiah, Celica. genociding the wolfskin and the kitsune was both incredibly pointless and totally out of nowhere, in addition to being dumb as all hell though, so i'd put it a notch below that
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Jul 20, 2018 23:24
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Torrannor posted:I agree, a lot. The story about the branded is very well thought out and written. The Stefan/Mordecai support is excellent, as is the backstory about the Apostle, and Zelgius arc. It also really spoke to me as a gay guy. I often wonder if The Branded were genuinely intended to be such a clear metaphor for LGBT issues, or if it was just because the original metaphor is kind of lost in translation. I'm pretty sure the original intent behind The Branded was more literal, as mixed-race children in Japan deal with a great deal of discrimination, both overt (represented by the Beorc) and through the passive denial of their Japanese identity (represented by the Laguz). It was especially bad in the past, but even today, it remains a controversial issue that's far from resolved. That said, that it so easily applies to LGBT issues, as well as the religious overtones, suggests that the writers were at least aware that their writing would be relevant to the LGBT community. By the way, the Tellius games, and Path of Radiance especially, feels like it has the sins of Japan's past (or more precisely, the sins they like to sweep under the rug and pretend never happened) on its mind in a general sense, actually, given that Izuka's lab evoked Unit 731 (Japan's horrific human experimentation, conducted in Manchuria during WWII). That's really what puts the Tellius games over the rest of the series, there's some actual, honest-to-god literary analysis possible there, and I think that's why the story and characters resonated so well, even though, on the surface, they mostly fell into the same assorted archetypes that exist in every FE.
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Jul 20, 2018 23:26
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Lord Koth posted:To be fair, the one of the supposed protagonists doing something monumentally stupid and it then being effectively quickly dropped by everyone (or never get called on it in the first place) isn't exactly unique to Fates - see also: Micaiah, Celica. To be fair to Micaiah, she wasn't the only one that did something Monumentally stupid. That was Pelleas. She just got stuck because of his stupidity. Also, no one called her out on it because everyone was busy being garden statues.
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Jul 26, 2018 05:25
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Is anyone actually smart in Fates? I seem to remember all of Conquest being about how they couldn't just gank Adolf McBeard for reasons and then they were rewarded by Adolf and the evil henchmen trying to kill them. Conquest would have been a much better story with a smarter Corrin subverting orders and causing "accidents" to happen to loyal servants of the king like Hans and Iago.
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Jul 26, 2018 07:09
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Is anyone actually smart in Fates? I was initially thinking that Conquest would basically be Char Aznable's Adventures In Not Betraying Anyone, Ever! Needless to say, I was disappointed.
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Jul 26, 2018 07:48
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Is anyone actually smart in Fates? What's weird is all the overtures towards that sort of thinking throughout the dialog, I was expecting something like Code Geass to go down at some point, but then, yeah, it just never materialized. And let's not forget, they got a so-called "professional manga author" to work on Fates. Funny story, he went on Twitter and basically said he felt all the credit should go to the "hard working staff writers" which I'm pretty sure is him openly acknowledging his story sucked and trying desperately to pass the buck. Awakening didn't exactly have a stellar story*, but at least it did what it set out to do and wasn't constantly setting up things that never paid off, so I'm pretty sure even the current writing team at IS is better than that guy. *Though, I found the overall structure to be fairly novel, it was clearly trying to go for an imitation of an actual anime series, with distinct arcs featuring distinct villains, which is why Walhart felt so out-of-place in the larger plot, he was the Red Ribbon Army to Gangrel's Pilaf and Validar/Grima's King Piccolo.
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Jul 26, 2018 08:08
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From what I recall, all said manga writer did was come up with the basic outline for the story. Having to choose between 2 kingdoms. And there was no 3rd option in that draft like there was in the final product.
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Jul 26, 2018 08:28
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Basically everything we've heard since then is that the main writers rewrote everything so thoroughly that the finished product barely resembles the original pitch. The original pitch could easily have been reasonably competent.
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Jul 26, 2018 09:08
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Sorry on delay, octopath
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Jul 26, 2018 09:12
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cheetah7071 posted:Basically everything we've heard since then is that the main writers rewrote everything so thoroughly that the finished product barely resembles the original pitch. The original pitch could easily have been reasonably competent. Of course, they asked for a little summary to kick things off, and he gave them War and Peace (except, you know. Not as good. Possibly given the final product, not good at all.) A lot happened that we don't know about, and I'd love to have more details.
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Jul 26, 2018 09:45
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Is anyone actually smart in Fates? Didn't one of the armor knights want nothing to do with fighting and only did so when forced into it? Someone that would rather play with animals than ne involved in fates is pretty smart.
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Jul 26, 2018 10:49
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also it bears repeating but there were 22 writers working on fates or some poo poo lol like, i'm just thinking to my group capstone project (5 people) and how contentious that got at times, and i'm just imagining how much worse it could have been with 22 people
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Jul 26, 2018 12:13
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KDavisJr posted:To be fair to Micaiah, she wasn't the only one that did something Monumentally stupid. That was Pelleas. She just got stuck because of his stupidity. Also, no one called her out on it because everyone was busy being garden statues. Perfectly true, but I don't really consider Pelleas a major protagonist. If I extended it to "some FE character did something monumentally dumb" I'd be here all day. Case in point: Lyon. TheGreatEvilKing posted:Is anyone actually smart in Fates? chiasaur11 posted:I was initially thinking that Conquest would basically be Char Aznable's Adventures In Not Betraying Anyone, Ever! "Reasons" being (at least partially) Xander being an utter dumbfuck basically going "but think of what he was like 15 years ago! It doesn't matter that he's been a horrific monster ever since." Then again, Xander's also the idiot employing Peri, so I don't know why anyone put any stock in anything he says ever. And yes, Our Great Adventures in Totally Not Betraying Anyone Ever would have potentially been good, instead of the garbage fire that was Conquest's actual storyline. Birthright at least mostly managed to be a generically passable FE storyline, if very much near the bottom. No comment on Revelations, because nothing can be said about that that's not already been said.
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Jul 26, 2018 17:00
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I, for one, am glad that Conquest's storyline was hilariously terrible, instead of merely bad. I mean, it could theoretically have been good, but it would have taken a whole lot of finesse, especially given the constraint that major plot beats had to mirror Birthright's bog standard Fire Emblem story, and clever plots have never really been the legerdemain of the franchise.
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Jul 26, 2018 18:29
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I dunno, I just want a Fire Emblem game to start off with your My Unit creation; the standard "What's your name?" "Are you a male or female?" "What's your affinity as far as Supports go?" "What color hair do you have?" and then immediately gear-shift into "HOLY loving poo poo, the entire Imperial Army is attacking your village, here's a Rapier and an Iron Sword and a Vulnerary, WHY ARE YOU STILL STANDING THERE, DO YOU WANT TO GET KILLED!?" No buildup. No subtlety. No immediate backstory beyond what can be gleaned from the back of the box. Just have My Unit be as confused as you the player are as to what the hell's going on. Next map, no explanation of plot, just "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, HERE'S YOUR BEST FRIENDS RED CAVALIER, GREEN CAVALIER, AND JEIGAN, RUN YOU FOOL," and the third map "here's your other friends Pegasus Knight, Archer, and Priestess, WE'LL EXPLAIN WHAT'S HAPPENING ONCE IT'S SAFE WHICH IT ISN'T." I guess this is why I don't write Fire Emblem games.
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Jul 26, 2018 18:37
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I don't care if Awakening had a bog-standard story or whatever, I thought it was done well and I liked all the characters
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Jul 26, 2018 19:17
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A lot of things in Awakening that felt like they came out of nowhere make a lot more sense after playing this game. (Will not elaborate until they come up in the LP, for spoiler reasons.) That said, the fact that those parts had to be elaborated on in a completely different game (which presumably wasn't already planned the way Radiant Dawn was for Path of Radiance) suggests that the writers didn't think Awakening's plot all the way through until after release.
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Jul 26, 2018 19:31
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Asator posted:A lot of things in Awakening that felt like they came out of nowhere make a lot more sense after playing this game. (Will not elaborate until they come up in the LP, for spoiler reasons.) Awakening was a Hail Mary play that wanted to be sure to hit every Fire Emblem checkmark on the way out. Not exactly a surprise some of them were a bit dashed off. The surprise is more how well the game worked overall.
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Jul 26, 2018 20:43
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Snorb posted:I dunno, I just want a Fire Emblem game to start off with your My Unit creation; the standard "What's your name?" "Are you a male or female?" "What's your affinity as far as Supports go?" "What color hair do you have?" and then immediately gear-shift into "HOLY loving poo poo, the entire Imperial Army is attacking your village, here's a Rapier and an Iron Sword and a Vulnerary, WHY ARE YOU STILL STANDING THERE, DO YOU WANT TO GET KILLED!?" The issue with this is that the mechanics of Fire Emblem wouldn't back up the story, since FE gameplay is, by nature, slow and methodical, which wouldn't reinforce the sense of urgency and panic being pushed by the story. On the other hand, this would be an interesting way to introduce a mechanic of some maps having time limits on the player's turn. It would be a pretty solid gimmick, at least.
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Jul 26, 2018 21:40
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Some maps in RD do have hard turn limits (vs the soft turn limits to unlock gaiden chapters), it’s just that they’re pretty generous time limits. If they made them a bit stricter maybe.
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Jul 26, 2018 21:42
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hopeandjoy posted:Some maps in RD do have hard turn limits (vs the soft turn limits to unlock gaiden chapters), it’s just that they’re pretty generous time limits. If they made them a bit stricter maybe. I wasn't referring to turn limits on maps, I was saying time limits. Like in speed chess. You have two minutes to move all your poo poo, or your turn ends immediately.
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Jul 26, 2018 21:44
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Snorb posted:I dunno, I just want a Fire Emblem game to start off with your My Unit creation; the standard "What's your name?" "Are you a male or female?" "What's your affinity as far as Supports go?" "What color hair do you have?" and then immediately gear-shift into "HOLY loving poo poo, the entire Imperial Army is attacking your village, here's a Rapier and an Iron Sword and a Vulnerary, WHY ARE YOU STILL STANDING THERE, DO YOU WANT TO GET KILLED!?" I don't like a game that relies on shock value for engagement.
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Jul 26, 2018 21:56
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