How Would YOU "Fix" Fire Emblem?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ม.ค. 2025
- Watch Part 1 of this discussion HERE: • Fire Emblem "NEEDS" to...
This took FAR too long to put together but it turned into another good discussion.
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My big thing for Fire Emblem would be for Fire Emblem to commit to its ideas more often. A lot of the time the writing in Fire Emblem tries to include "dark" elements with minimal commitment. So you get awkward situations where atrocities occur but then "it's totally not your fault" or "anyways, next" excuses are rolled out. Either commit to a dark tone or a lighter one. This flip-flopping just undermines both. This isn't to say that you can't have levity in a dark story or dark moments in a lighter one. Just that you have to give those moments genuine consequences. Not immediately try to undermine it the very next moment.
Also Fire Emblem generally does a poor job exploring perspectives against what is commonly considered good. They usually just dump those ideas into the "evil" category and call it a day. Other ideas that could make for interesting fiction like the realities of feudalism, how peace can be a bad thing to people and how they justify it, the effects of pillaging on a civilian population and by association how medieval supply lines functioned (or didn't in many cases, hence the pillaging), and even something like casualties taken due to bad weather/terrain are often forgotten or underdeveloped.
Honestly what sets FE apart is its _chess_ part of 'anime chess,' that is: moving specialized units around on the board. Particularly in the GBA FE, where and how you move your units are the most consequential strategic decisions.
Fun video! I just have to point out that 58:16 is quite literally Telepath Tactics Liberated. 🙂
I personally think missable characters should be a must
I also think we should be able to have higher con units throw lower con units as a ranged option.
I am very pleased to see my suggestion be cause for such discourse
Game design should not fall to defeatism. Designing the game around losing units is possible, but it helps to reduce individual investment into units, increasing the recruitable roster and balancing out joining times, and building game difficulty around effective utility usage (thieves, staves, rescue, rallies, supports with impact) so that even under-invested units can be useful contributors
So Thracia 776
Fire Emblem needs to be louder, angrier and have access to a time machine.
Whenever a Fire Emblem is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's the fire emblem?"
I actually missed the community post in question, so i would like to give my 2 cents here:
About the base/hub: I liked how the Tellius games handeled this with the base being a single background with a menu. It was simple, elegant and had an in-game explanation.
About Laguz/Manakete/etc. As much as i like the idea, i highly doubt we will see a return to it. It would require higher unit balancing effort and better story and worldbuilding, something i don`t have much faith in IS doing nowadays....Even if they would try it, it propably would again be either a "tribe is small and hidden" story, or another story about fantastic racism. For the idea you two have with it, it would practically require IS to hire Rhianna Pratchet for the writing and not to cut down her writing, like it happened with Fates....
As a Warcraft lore buff (until Shadowlands happenned) i have to correct you about the Worgen. They underwent a specific druidic ritual that balances their wild side and their human side. They are basically normal humans with the ability to transform and at worst they struggle with their instincts similar to how people with anger issues struggle keeping calm. They are fully accepted into the Alliance and have the distinct advantage of being immune to necromancy, making them a great asset against undead in particular. And considering that Worgen are not excluded from the monk class anymore, i think self-discipline is also not a major issue anymore.
About Engage attacks: I am not sure, if Engage attacks were that much of a good idea overall. The potential for abuse and DLC powercreep is too high to be worth it in my opinion. Engage already had this problem where the DLC emblems basically broke the game. And "just don`t use them" is no argument, since that is basically just an excuse for bad game design.
23:15 At this point, shelcarred1604 asks for a completely different game. FE is primarily characterised by two things: Risk assessment thanks to permadeath and managing a finite XP count. Generic mercs and revival stones are antithetical to the risk assesment part and Cantors being used as farms are antithetical to the second. I personally don`t want to see runs where certain maps become farm maps...And yes, i don`t like Arenas for the same reasons.
About the turn wheel/divine pulse, i actually liked how SteamWorldHeist 2 handled it. Its rewind puts you back exactly 2 turns, no more/no less. It can help you retry a difficuilt situation, but it still keeps mistakes punishable.
31:00 "As long as you don`t break the game." Well for your merc system to work fliers and cavalry have to be entirely removed from the game or the game will boil down to Flier/Horse Emblem once again.
About limited reclassing, except for villagers: Yeah, i agree with the poster here. It is not only a good tool for character design, but also removes the issue of "Flier/Horse Emblem".
44:01 About dual protagonists: Having different sides of the stories is great, but that again requires competent writing, which from current IS is sadly too much too ask....
About customisible difficuilty: I know two games that do this to great effect from the start: SteamWorldHeist 2 and Sniper Elite 4. In SteamWorldHeist 2 you have sliders for enemy HP, enemy damage, enemy aim (it relies on covers and manually aiming your gunshots) and damage on the overworld (having a traversable overworld on a submarine). In Sniper Elite 4 (which is a third person stealth shooter) you can even customise your HUD to the point that it is invisible, so you have to completely rely on what you see.
About different map objectives: There was one game back on the PS1/Sega Saturn that was an absolute master of map objective variety. Vandal Hearts even had some gimmicks for your typical route missions like ambushing an enemy caravan where you have to wait a few turns in the bushes before you strike and the enemy fleeing with even one unit reaching the edge of the map being a lose condition....
58:30 Nothing to add here.^^
About the less argumentative fan base: Yeah, not gonna happen.....
About the lords+retainers routine: Dani Doyle actually made a video recently showing that the problem lies less in the lord and retainers routine (which is actually quite common throughout the series), but in the lack of diverse recruitment scenarios. The fact that it basically comes with the 1 lord + 2 retainers package instead of being more spread out makes the recruitment of characters repetitive and boring and gives the retainers bad first impressions.
And last but not least to add something of my own. I wish the maps in FE wouldn`t be so flat and two-dimensional and actually have ledges and platforms like in Radiant Dawn. Cause that automatically made maps more interesting and added a new niche for archers and other ranged units.
I'll add onto the ledge point by throwing out that Micaiah's Engage stage is awful since it removed the ledges from the original which were major point in why that map was so cool, the second issue naturally is that it's better to just one round her on turn one than actually play the map but that's more of the issue with Engage attacks in general which you did bring up too.
Keep perma death i love living with consequences. And I agree that's the difference between easy and hard
Definitely would like to see more of this it was fun to listen to.
What I'd like to see changed is higher difficulties require fundamentally better/different/harder to execute tactics to succeed instead of relying on weaker player stats or stronger enemy stats to or reinforcement spam. Something like extra side objectives or different starting formations for the enemy. Something to make the tactics harder rather than the enemies
If I made all the "fixes" I'd do to fire emblem, I'd end up with either tactics ogre or unicorn overlord.
yeah, the mercenary thing would just kill what makes fire emblem fire emblem the reason for the mercenaries in Unicorn is because squads system . It would take away like rolling bad on a character wouldn't matter because you can just make a generic merc
I'm currently playing unicorn overlord and I really don't want fire emblem to be the same as it. I love them both but for different reasons. The only thing that could work and not take too much from fe is maybe picking a leader and then having "retainers" similar to the group you have in unicorn overlord. Also be good for people like me who can never decide which characters to use 😅.
I would like to see no central hub like engage and more of a genealogy spot but at the same time have the replay able maps like engage
My biggest issue is that some classes don't have enough upsides or downsides. A swordmaster will always be worse than a cavalier with good enough speed, you will never want a lance fighter over a wyvern, why use sniper when bow knight exists, etcetera.
what if you could put a "cheatcode" to unlock the diificult / proggressive difficulties on your first playthrough as in what you said in the video, to unlock the hades / path of pain. that way even with a new copy you could get it on first playthrough and newbies wouldnt have to deal with it ... honestly with just a toggle it should be fine.
Definitely bring basck Bonus Exp from Path of Radiance as an incentive to clear maps faster and clear additional objectives, and as a reward for not using turnwheels.
I would either end up with FE7 with some Objective* improvements.
...Or some wild ass sRPG that sits there and goes "What if Depression was a unit's passive?" and then the unit next to them just REALLY hates standing next to that prior unit.
Great video! Don’t know if I have ‘better’ ideas to fix the series but here are my thoughts
-never played any FE games older than Awakening, but I was most satisfied with Fate’s MyCastle hub system best, but respect Engage’s beautiful looking Somniel but it was.. just too much. Fate’s hub felt most comfy and system and I liked the system that you can do invaded-battles while the Monestary and Somniel don’t get attacked frequently lol. So I guess keep Fate’s hub, but make it as pretty as Engage
-Have great characters; I enjoyed 3Houses’ characters most, Awakening had some good, and then wasn’t too fond of Fates and especially engage..
-despite 3Houses being my most favorite game as of now, I don’t know how I feel about a game having 1 or multiple paths. I think Fate’s concept was better, but story wasn’t so good; so keep Fates’ multi-route concept, but make the story good, and keep it in 1 game like 3Houses
I think that’s all I got; the rest of my thoughts is what you guys have mentioned :) hopefully we’ll get an FE game that’s 90-95% great.
But just wondering, what FE game would you recommend trying that’s older than Awakening?
@@DSeditor22 im 100% with you, My Castle was the Pinnacle of hub systems in the series imo.
For older FE games to try, I recommend Sacred Stones. It's the best of the GBA era, while giving you the world map, ability to grind, and branching paths that the modern games tend to include. Absolutely stellar title, if slightly easier than some of the other games.
Good analysis
Just steal everything from Berwick Saga
- hex grid
-horses are expensive to replace and take damage. dismounting avoids this damage but dismounted cavalry tend to have worse movement than infantry
- fire magic: strong and accurate. thunder magic: 1-2 range. wind magic: multihit
- prfs for most of the cast. gives you a reason to use neglected units
- bad stat growths. emphasis on skills over stats
- keep the permadeath but give out broken items when a specific number of units die.
- hiring units as mercenaries for a large fee as a primary or alternative path to recruitment
-weapon growths ping constantly, and each level gives +1% accuracy
-players and enemies alternate turns based on how many of them there are. no more player phase and enemy phase
- the concept of 0-range as being unable to counterattack 1-range, but can be counterattacked by 1-range.
-combat ends when a unit takes damage. no free doubling its impossible to balance when 1 point of speed equals twice as much damage. the counterattack happens before the second attack
-get rid of broken movement options. no warping/rescue chaining to the boss you actually have to traverse the map
-enemies can pass through flyers
-dont be shy about putting black knights on defend maps. either immobile while deaggroed or a late turn reinforcement at the opposite end of the map
-mechanically different weapon types like how axes can disarm the enemy or lances give +1 damage per tile moved before attacking or crossbows dont use the player's strength (bows do) or daggers dont use enemy def
-no freeclassing. youre telling a story its okay for a unit to have an identity. makes map design better as well
I would love to be able to hire mercenaries to replace certain named characters. imagine if you could replace Shinon with a blank npc with the same stats. would love it. i dont want them in my line-up and dont want them in my camp, but i do want their benefits. itd also allow for some fire emblem characters to be awful people because you no longer have to rely on them for their benefits. what if relationship events between characters could end up with them getting themselves killed or killing each other youd be able to replace them with generic mercs and still get the juice, the drama.
I want to see "Elitist Tom" appear as a Channel Awesome circa 2010 type of character where he has a big mustache and a beret and he makes you review bad games and then at the end of the video you two have to fight to the death or something.
Anyway lots of fun recording this video with you! I hope everybody liked it, I'm always down to do more!
My primary problem with Fire Emblem is the difficulty. By having permadeath, you design the battles so you can beat them without losing any characters. The game is balanced around it. I don't think I have gone into any battle thinking that I might lose the battle, just that I might lose a character. This is why it is so difficult to make a threatening boss in it. I have not played many modern Fire emblems so this may have changed.
That's not true, older fe games managed to do it. Granted, the majority of fe bosses are generic and forgettable, there are still many non-endgame bosses throughout the series that are threatening such as rumel, reinhardt, oates, llyodd and ursula and valter to name a few. Having permadeath doesn't mean thedifficulty of the game has to tank, so long as they provide a decent amount of replacement units to prevent softlocking
@@justintsui2522 I think I am going to disagree with this. With the exception of Reinhardt, I have fought all of these bosses. Story-wise they may have been some cool characters, but gameplay-wise they may have been a stronger version of a basic unit, maybe with a better weapon or long range. If you compare their stats, you likely have characters with better stats than them. They still die in 1-3 hits from your best characters. Most of the threat is that you may lose one character while encountering them but you will still always kill them if you use any halfway decent strategy.
This may change on harder difficulties. I personally enjoy bosses that have the potential to wipe my army and make the fight close, but that would have me bring up games like FFT, and Shining Force. Each of those games have tough boss fights, usually for reasons that still have problems (requires grinding, excessive RNG, one-hit kills, 100% status disabling status effects) but I still often end up winning battle with half of my army dead and sometimes when I'm down to my last few characters.
I do believe SRPGs in general have difficulty making good boss fights. There are so few that are mechanically memorable to me compared to other genres.
@@Single-PlayerGamers yeah im usually talking about either the hardest or close to the hardest difficulties, though some difficulties I kinda disregard cuz i think it’s a little bs like h5 fe12 or luna plus awakening. I still think that fe12 h3 or h4 rumel can be a nightmare sometimes in a fair way and while not too difficult on repeat playthroughs, in a blind run llyodd and ursula can definitely catch a player off guard in HHM. Oates in Fe6 HM can definitely one shot a lot of your squishier units with his Seige tome and the map makes it hard to approach him. I also avoided ds and 3ds emblem since they have causal mode but if you include those, the flier bosses of ch 7 and 9 of awakening can be scary as well as a whole bunch of bosses in conquest.
I do think that fe could stand having stronger bosses overall and definitely less throne boss and more moving ones. My only thing is that I don’t think it’s permadeath thats the reason for weak bosses
I would release remasters on Steam of the early games, leading up to a big fancy remake of Descent of Jihad and Thracia 776 into a 2 pack, that is stylized like other remakes of SNES rpgs we're seeing today, like Dragon Quest 3. Focus on Steam Deck compatibility with accompanying Switch releases.
Break as a mechanic needs some refining, but was at least an attempt at innovation. I also really wish mages would get some aoe spells or other utility finally. They really need an identity besides being a res hitting javelin.
Engage attacks were limit breaks and i have always loved limit breaks
Fun fact: the church route was actually the first route to be written, and according to the devs, the "world vision" of the game was made to support that route. CF was originally going to be much harder to access, as kind of a secret bonus path, but some guys at Koei Tecmo asked IS to make it easier. I think it's interesting how the route that was created as the main one ended up being the least popular for a variety of reasons, including changes in the middle of development.
Didn't koei tecmo develop the whole thing?
pretty good video, didn't agree with everything but that be how it is, I personally would just try to go back to making things more simple while trying to keep gameplay/story one for one.
or in another manner of speaking, I wanna play fire emblem more, and do less not fire emblem side stuff just to get permission to play fire emblem.
1:06:25 demoman_tf2_laughing.gif
Im about to say something crazy, but i would like fe to have no player/enemy phase. Just like with berwick saga, player and enemy phase happen at the same time. Berwick saga felt SO dynamic that way, unit actions and position becomes so important that doing things like making a healer wait makes you feel like you're accomplising something since you're forcing the enemy IA to waste an action from it's units.
If your talking laguz and manaketes you can make them weaker units then regular units and then make their transformation permanent like that's their upgrade but make that investment with weaker units more valuable than a regular unit
Make it like 3H/Awakening. Never, *EVER* do some garbage like Engage again.
There fixed it for you.
Options to lock in stat progressions. Randomized stats are fine for those who enjoy them, but I avoid strategy games with random stats.
I mean fixed stats are an option in engage.
Id make the series just sacred trilogy but with tons more customization
I think that Fire Emblem should take a page out of Valkyrie Chronicles. Instead of the character leveling up, all units within the same class will level up. This means that they could kill off an important character, and bring in a new character at the same level, without soft-locking the player.
I'm not much of a Fire Emblem fan, but I do like some of the pre Awakening Fire Emblem games. GBA, GC. amd Wii. The reason I'm not really a fan of the series in general is just how much damage is favored towards attacking a weapon weakness.
In Brigandine Grand Edition, the game was remade to have blue > red > green > blue as the damage triangle, but the bonus damage was 22% for a single color, 32% for two colors, and 40% for three colors as long as the enemy had a single weakness, however, if an enemy had even one of the same colors, it'd be the same percentage but defensive.
I'm just not much of a fan of the one trick pony combat. There's a bit more balance on the earlier games with this combat, but the newer ones, atleast Awakening and Echoes balance is pretty much thrown right out the window.
I'd also never do the pairing system again. That system is the worst.
I would like to see a withdraw from hubs/bases and a return to something more like the system used in FE8: The Sacred Stones. Though having played Unicorn Overlord, I would love for it to be a world map system similar to that. But when visiting a city, town, castle, etc., actually have the group shown interacting with each residence and show interactions with shops, inns, landmarks and such.
And then for skirmishes and training sessions, show the 2 parties clashing and then entering into prep screen.
As for the Arena system, that is fairly self explanatory. Should be something similar to how it operates in FE8 but more interactive, having options for fights, setting up specific fights, etc.
High bar maybe but I'd love that sort of change.
I want characters that I can create. Male, female, color, class. I would like to add stats. I liked in final fantasy that I could pick up stats, armor after killing the enemy. I liked in Diablo to get random weapons and armors from the store. I really liked Final Fantasy Tactics, Battle Ogre,
Do away with retainers and make generics AND monster units available for recruits... and focus on making a solid ass story this time
Check out fire emblem rom hacks
Oh I have, back in the day. MK404, the last promise, FE7X etc
@@TitaniumLegman they've gotten WAY better recently, some hacks are on par with offical game quailty
I'd prefer the series to die already.
Lose the cute waifu aspect they try to give all females. Have actual good characters that reflect the setting. Humanity depends on a war against some evil force? Glad every person fighting on our side is an absolute adorable personality. FE mechanics are great, the characters and tone are god aweful since fe8. And dont get me started on the monestary BS.
get rid of the anime shit, simplify the combat and job systems. have more recruitable enemies, bring back more movement abilities like rescue and shove. Fire Emblem should be a movement focused game.
I would like to see no central hub like engage and more of a genealogy spot but at the same time have the replay able maps like engage