Fire Emblem: Awakening is the latest entry in the Fire Emblem franchise, as many people likely have heard of by now. Heck, it's one of the few Fire Emblem titles to receive televised commercial advertisements in America (a very rare phenomena for non SquareEnix RPGs, in comparison to the genre in general). So, I was reading a more-or-less rant by some tool who was displeased with the game, so much as to label the game bad. But, how bad is or isn't it? With only my general knowledge of the game, I will offer counterpoints on all of their incessant whining.
(any spoiler-ish content will be omitted as much as possible)
1. "The story. ...
The charming simplicity of past games' stories has been replaced by a
wonky Sci-Fi/fantasy hybrid that aims for epic and ends up cluttered,
confused, and strangely uninteresting."
If one reads the articles pertaining to the game developers' thoughts and original drafts for this entry, this is actually what we nearly ended up with -- "Fire Emblem IN SPACE!". Obviously IS wanted a new spin on their old formula and they went with it which is why you'll find elements of science-fiction in the plot of FE13. If this really unnerves you, play Radiant Dawn and tell me which game feels more "confused and uninteresting". Also, does the fanbase really want a title that ONCE AGAIN deals strictly with political conflicts that only stem from social hiccups? Oh yes, Awakening has that but at least they're daring enough to add more, which seems to one as me as the entire focal point of this title--it's Fire Emblem... and more.
--their second complaint was entirely a spoiler element, skipping--
3. "Support conversations. ... While there's
plenty of character development, the characterization is never
particularly good. There's a more nuanced conversation to be had here,
but a quick example should explain what I mean: compare Erk, from FE7,
to Ricken. Erk is a young mage like Ricken, but also ambitious and
fiercely intelligent, often to a fault; he's got a quick wit, a sharp
tongue, and a short temper. He's bad with women. Despite his cool outer
appearance, he fatigues easily and obsesses over his master. He feels
like a believable and complex human being despite his limited screen
time. Ricken feels like a generic anime stereotype with a bit of
backstory."
The fault here is the characterization is entirely the choice of the original developers who are based in Japan and thus, cater essentially to themes of escapism that appeal to the audience in the east. A lot of the so-called personality the plaintiff claims to be present in Erk (who btw is only 15 years old and sounds like he has the persona of a 25 year old easily) is entirely the result of the localization team grasping at straws. In the case of FE13, the characters ARE anime stereotypes and whether or not one can feel endeared by this is solely up to the player's discretion. Personally, Erk is way too developed for an individual who hasn't even finished puberty--and there is beauty to be found in simplicity. If you want a believable ~13 year old boy, who actually shows profound maturity (if still naivety) at occasional moments (especially his introductory chapter), Ricken is your man. You will also find a few characters who were polished up a little for the western audience though; Olivia can be a bit too "soft" in the source material (intentional, her trope is "moe") and clearly shows a more proactive mindset in her support conversations with the Avatar/My Unit.
4. "Balance. Or more specifically, the lack of balance. Nosferatu
is broken. MU is broken. Frederick is broken. SpotPass content, DLC, and
Renown items can trivialize any difficulty mode. You can elect not to
take advantage of this imbalance, as I've tried to do recently, but this
leads to two sub-problems..."
4a. "Children characters. The children acquire the growths and skills of
their parents, making them exceptionally good units. To compensate,
they're hidden in difficulty-curve-botching Paralogue maps, which means
recruiting most of them on any mode above Normal a practical
impossibility. When a typical non-grinding run sees only one or two
children characters recruited, you know you've implemented a feature
poorly."
4b. "Challenge runs. I remained optimistic as long as I
could, but this Lunatic run I've been trying out proves that the
game is not designed around challenge runs. If you don't take
advantage of broken options, you're left with an under-leveled and
outmatched team that demands favorable RNG rolls on the later
maps. This leads to an infuriating paradox: the higher difficulties
can't be reasonably completed without broken options, but broken options
(unsurprisingly) break the game completely. It is impossible to enjoy
Lunatic for this reason, and cripples the game's replay ability."
Nosferatu has been nerfed from its first iterations in Western Fire Emblems to half-drain efficacy (originally was 1:1 damage to recovery ratio). The Avatar is hardly broken. Remove Veteran (possible as soon as the preparation menu shows up) and the Avatar levels at the same speed as every other unit. Remove Ignis and the Avatar's damage output goes from above average to below average as their strength and magic will always fall below more specialized classes. Don't want to reclass a bazillion times? Then don't. Frederick is entirely fair for difficulties above Normal and his internal level for starting promoted, in tandem with his crap bases is enough to hurt his longevity (while ensuring you don't explode in one turn on Lunatic/L+). Children paralogues are all optional and the reward of very potent characters certainly justifies the means. I wonder if the plaintiff understands the definition of the word "Lunatic". And are they perhaps aware that most of the development team do not personally advocate playing Lunatic (heck, one man found Hard too challenging for his self)? Lunatic is meant for the ultimate challenge and there are plenty of people who will enjoy it because it forces them to plan their moves many turns in advance (plenty of people love chess, this is a fact).
--their fifth complaint was further rants of "Lunatic+ is unfair!" and thus, skipping--
6. "Inconsistent tone. In places, this is a very dark game. People kill
themselves. Thousands are lost in war. The game takes place on the
backdrop of past cruelty and oppression. The future is condemned to
death and fire. Yet there's plenty of goofy romance, fourth-wall
breaking, fanservice, swimsuit scenes, and even awkward slapstick to
take whatever serious tone exists and undermine it completely."
"A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." This is clearly a sentiment the game presents to help keep its audience invested in "the very dark game," its developers created. If one has an honest problem with this, then maybe you should murder every light-hearted individual on the planet. Then you can have your constant grim-dark plots 24/7.
7. "Lacking map design. The open maps are devoid of interesting design, made worse by
the lack of meaningful secondary objectives. The Paralogues are better,
but still a mixed bag. Nothing says "bleh" like an escort mission with
high-level, same-turn reinforcements. The map locations are
nicely varied (mountains, plains, waterfalls, giant trees, even a
dragon's back), but the design beneath the aesthetic is drab and samey.
Awakening really could have used the multiple mission objectives of games like FE5 and FE7."
I do not completely disagree with this. But it would have likely been more trouble than it was worth to implement. They have to cut corners in places to compete with the speed of other games' developments nowadays and so I find the "lack" of variety here as moot since everything else in the game screams, "OMG! Choices!". Reclassing, children, scathes of supports returning to the beloved formula of FE6~9. Honestly I think some people are nigh impossible to please.
Well, that's how I feel. The plaintiff isn't truly wrong, nor without sympathies. But my god, they have a lot of free time to have typed all that spazz. Some people, I tell ya, too much free time!! Lol.
Ciao~.
No comments:
Post a Comment