you know, FE9 FIXED the "they can't talk about the main story" problem because instead of smacking your units around an empty throne for 300 turns supports were based off of how many maps units got deployed on. so if you go back and read certain FE9 supports they often do reference certain events or battles. Ike X Soren gets stalled at C rank until Ike gets the reveal about his dad from Volke, and Ike is still clearly distraught over the news.
And thanks to this system characters that get thrown late into the game can also comment about the main story events with a character that has been there from the beginning, since the script writers know exactly when the characters are supposed to interact! Genius!
Although they didn't get everyone, Ike and Oscar can speak about the Raven birds before even meeting them, quite a shock to me on the first playthrough.
I could maybe see Lance considering Roy as family. He was taken into Roy's squad of knights despite being an outsider, and his final battle quote says something like "Lord Roy... Lord Eliwood... Thank you for everything..." Its not nearly as out there as Kyle and Ephraim, but I could see a case for Lance considering Roy family
I don’t know how well it is known, but Three Houses did have some rather neat things added to its supports. In some supports, they will reference a past support which I thought to be really cool. I had a support with Sylvain and Marianne where Sylvain tries to get Marianne to smile and then when she later had an A support with Ashe, she brings this up saying “Sylvain says that a person’s value is in their smile” and Ashe commenting on Sylvain. These two lines won’t be in the support of Sylvain didn’t support Marianne beforehand and it works either way, but helps build upon it!
There’s a lot of this in three houses. In Black Eagles during the ball, if you progress Dorothea and Ferdinand’s support she is less resistant to dancing with him.
If Ferdinand and Hubert get A support, Ferdinand and Edelgard’s support switches his drink from tea to coffee, which was obviously given to him by his new best friend Hubert
I think its not the system, it is the way the devs use the system. Too many supports are less abput characters and more about giving them gimmicks. And yeah man, writing over 100 scenes is really difficult. I decided to tackle on small scenes during the main plot, wonder how that will work out once it is done.
I was going back and forth for a while on if this should be a scripted video or the sort of podcast of 1 laid back vibe, but I enjoyed how this one came out. I might make more like this.
Removing supports is an idea not even worthy of consideration, to be frank One of the most valuable and humanizing aspects in warfare is camaderie: those stat boosts aren't just numbers, they represent someone's desire to protect another person beyond themselves. We care about the units we use because they about one another. If looking only from a strategic value, then sure, giving characters those extra boosts from get go is for the best, but much of one's interaction with the game beyond its main value is lost in the process. In the end, to each their own, but FE will always be a more complete game if it allows me to see those little people on the screen share their thoughts and feelings to one another
Also a reason why every character can't involve themselves is the main story is permadeath. You'd just get absolutely everyone going "I can't fall here I must retreat" which would be really jarring.
To be fair some cutscenes accout for that, there's cutscenes in fe8 and fe7 where if characters are dead they just don't appear and the scene continues on without them or another character (Usually an npc) delivers the info instead. Mind you this would then add even more work time for the devs
Thank you for making a small jab at how 90% of people base their opinions on fire emblem based on whatever opinion their favorite youtuber had on a subject
oh god oh no the Kaga fanboy's talking about an obscure game of his again- So, Berwick Saga. A game I love, and with the terms you laid out, I want to talk about it a bit, because I think its system of character writing shows a good example of what I think people who complain about current FE's support system are looking for, but also shows what it sacrifices. Of the game's 35 character cast, just about everyone has a story of their own, and so do a ton of NPCs. Take Bluck, the NPC bow salesman, has a series of stories about accepting how far he's come as a person, or among the playable cast, Leon, who has a story about learning to be less of a boisterous, reckless asshat. Some characters have long arcs; some don't. Most of the characters are really good (a few among the playable cast are underwritten, sadly), and the game structures this by having a character's progression benchmarks (permanent recruitment, promotion are key examples) weave in with personal events in main chapters and side missions. I feel like this is what people who complain are generally thinking of: the side characters don't bog down the story anywhere near as much as in TRS/VS1/VS2 because their arcs are strictly kept to the side, and you interact with as much of them as you want them to. However, what I wanted to write about is the sacrifice this system makes: the phenomenon you described as getting invested in another character because you're invested in one. In Berwick, many characters are paired together for their personal stories - the game's Christmas Cavs, Leon and Adel, play off each other a lot, but have their own stories at the same time. But, being invested in one of these two will NOT help you get invested in, say, Christine, since they really don't interact much with one another. Because this structure focuses so much on fleshing out the individual characters and their stories during the >year and a half spent in the main plot, what is lost is dynamism between characters you may not expect to interact. You won't get a Marisa/Colm moment. That's okay, Berwick is a very well-written game and every character gives something interesting in their introduction, but it's NOT what FE is going for. As you said, FE excels in these interpersonal dynamics, and though I don't want to give the impression that Berwick is lacking in that regard for specific characters - Alex, the barkeep, has no personal arc or focus of his own, but damn are his interactions with a wide range of characters fun - it is something that the game lacks when compared to FE. If it had a support system of its own, it would largely fix this issue, but it could also conflict pretty heavily with characters that do develop, and at what point would it cross from a support system to... just more optional events? That's the unbreakable knot at the heart of this dilemma. I could sing Berwick's praises all day (I've gone on so long as is haha), but its structure simply WOULD NOT WORK in FE due to how different and odd it is, and if every game were structured like it, it'd get rote and stale. FE supports have flaws, and though very good similar alternatives exist, I think they're flexible enough to be able to fit FE's constant experimentation and self-reimagining. They're a fantastic companion for the series, and as you said, perhaps we too readily attribute flaws with character writing to the system as a whole without sufficient evidence. (Bernadetta's annoying to me because she has SO MANY c supports, not because she regresses between an A support and a C support. Or maybe she's just not built for the system.)
Some games technically do that. Three Houses I definitely recall having character supports that will reference each other, with Marianne's support with Ashe referencing if she has a support with Sylvain already being an example.
Was very lightly touched on here but my main issue with supports is the gamplay side Gba they are never being unlocked from blind play or casually if you see them you go out of your way to get them this next thing prob just a me thing but this leads to me just reading the supports on a wiki which kinda sucks the life out of em its less fun interaction and just reading fun trivia its not the same feeling Meanwhile newer games have the reverse problem of they’re super easy to unlock which by itself isnt bad but its bad when every unit supports with nearly half the cast instead of having to read a minute long thing of dialogue im having to sit through an hour of this after some maps which slogs the pace down to nothing which hurts the usual fe pacing In an ideal world id like the cast only having on average 5ish support chains so they dont overdue the gimmick while still having enough time to show off (tho obviously theres some exceptions if characters need more like ephriam has a good list of supports) maybe have it unlock like por since everyone agrees it did it best lol
I know the video yoiu're taking about and post my overly long comment I left on it to sort of add to the pro-support argument "I get that you're a gameplay guy at heart, and so am I to a degree, but I think you undervalue supports, especially the simpler ones. Supports are a series staple for a reason, and while they can be a bit intrusive, for people that enjoy the characters a lot, they're worth looking into. In fact, I think a better way to make my point is to use an example to get my thinking across. A very basic support that just gets boiled down to just "pies lol" is Chrom and Sumia's. However, this is down to people who don't really like to engage with writing, it's mechanical function for information distrubition, or its' ability to craft an important theme in Fire Emblem that Shozou Kaga likely baked in from the beginning :Man vs Man in relation to Man vs Monster. (Which is arguably still a fairly surface level thematic to Fire Emblem as a whole) In the Sumia and Chrom support, we can get some very vaulable information, that, when combined with other Supports, and story dialogue, allows the game's internal consistent world to be further built, then reinforced. The main takeaways from the Support is this: Chrom and Sumia both know a character named Nurse Nan, whom they both share a history with. Chrom mentions being wetnursed, and growing up without parents, and House Ylisse has a tradition of wetnursing. Nurse Nan, therefore, was likely this wetnurse, or a former wetnurse who took on a motherly/grandmotherly role, as her name, Nan, is an English dialectic shortening of Grandmother, or Gran, starting in the country's northern area before moving down. Though it may also come from Nanny, the association with an aged woman still applies. This indicates her older age, and provides context clues to her relationship to Chrom, Lissa, and Emmeryn. Not only that, but as Sumia states, she learned from Nurse Nan as well, so she was a mentor to her. In her Gaius support, he refers to Sumia as a noble, and given her armour and status as a mounted knight, like Sully who is also from a noble house that serves as knights to the Exalt, it makes sense that Sumia would be at the castle, and be mentored by someone who cares for royalty, as she would have to serve as a charge to them, and Nurse Nan may also be preparing her for wifely duties, given the obvious romantic leanings Chrom and Sumia's support has. We also learn that Chrom dislikes Rhubarb, yet Sumia bakes him a Rhubarb pie that he likes. Given Nurse Nan being referred to in past tense, and her assumed older age, she may very well have either retired, or passed. Meaning she no longer makes these pies, as Chrom remembers her doing. This means Chrom may not have had one since he was a child, and so as an adult, his tastes may have changed to appreciate both Sumia, and Nan's cooking, which is a nod to Chrom's obvious maturing into a man during the first arc through the second and third arcs, as seen by his leadership and fatherhood. What did we learn? Well, by getting one other support (a dastardly, ineffecient use of valuable low turns, I know) we can see Sumia's status, and familairity wth the royal family, her shared history wih Chrom, her mentor, what her mentor's role was to that family, and how Sumia now takes on a parallel role to that mentor figure within this family as she potentially joins it. We also learn that Sumia can cook (big surprise) and that Chrom has food preferences, that his enjoyment of his disliked foods has gone up, that he is maturing, even early into the game, as well as a nice life tidbit not to overdo it with the meat when you're tired ;). We have a foundation for a relationship between the two, through the backing of a character we never meet, but can infer much about by stopping to think about the other pieces of the worldbuilding provided in other dialogue. This relationship obviously brings on the themes of motherhood, wifehood, shared history, maturation from boy to man, and a simple domestic scene amidst warfare. That last part does also tie in to Fire Emblem's Man vs Man, and Man vs Monster theme. For the former, though Chrom and his army fight mostly other humans, Risen aside, they are fighting their fellow man, and while the obvious bonds of friendship and trust carry them through, it's small, humanising moments of domesticity, warmth, reminiscence, and mutual experience that realy preserve our humanity, doubly so for the leader in charge. Similarly, for Man vs Monster, it keeps the monster within at bay, represented by Chrom's father, a man who became a monster through his own actions and inability to keep himself grounded in humanity, and the literal monsters that Chrom fights, from the undead Risen, to a bitter warmongering Gangrel who rejects the connections with others and thus loses the warmth of simple human interaction, to the cold but determined Walhart who inspired many but similarly let no one in and became a monster not unlike Chrom's father, and finally Validar and Grima who reject humanity altogether, and whose shared history lacks any warmth or comfort, but insteas is a bond of hatred towards humans and Naga. In the end, Man, Chrom and his allies, defeat Monster, their various enemies, through utilising the qualities found in their supports that invite simple humanity into their lives. Even the goofy ones. Supports are deeply important to the thematics of Fire Emblem both as a video game, and as a story. The additional worldbuilding, the information we learn about our characters, the different sides of them we see (part of why I actually prefer the Chrom/F!Robin support over the M!Robin one is down to it showcasing a wider emotional range and capacity for the two characters and providing more building information to greater understand their characters as a whole) and the ways in which it humanises our units in contrast to the enemy ones allows us to explore the wider themes applies to works of fiction depicting open warfare between nations. There is a lot to value in supports, for fans of the characters, as it allows for an important slice of interaction the main story cannot afford, and uses what are effectively self contained side stories, to flesh out its world in small ways, and reinforce the roles and places of its people, allowing each setting to really come to life the more you replay the games, no longer just seeing a map as a set of tiles, but as a real place, and eventually allowing the stakes of saving the world to settle in with a greater attachment to it. Also sorry for the essay lol hope ur having a nice day bro :)" It's kind of cringe but you get the point. Supports good.
I say this as someone who has a pfp from TRS, most people wouldn't enjoy the series turning into that. Also I love that part in the middle talking about tropes, feels like one of those things where people complain, without realizing how it's a part of what they like.
It's still pretty funny how this is even a concern when path of radiance(we don't talk about radiant dawn's support system) literally did this best. It's just a matter of when are they gonna go back to the support increase per chapter combined with some sort of info talk system like that game. Not every support was talkinga bout story events obviously but the option was there. Hell even a good portion of info talks don't have anything to do with the story. Like how basically every character you get has at least one info talk which does good at making you interested in seeing their supports(zihark is a great example imo).
I feel like You could bring back base convos along with supports to fix these issues, base convos can reference current and past chapters and for characters that need to overcome flaws can overcome them across base convos and battle dialogue against bosses if they have ties to personal villains or such
15:48 I think that Three Houses handles it best by not so much giving each character a arc but keeping them relevant throughout the whole game by letting them chime in on almost every story moment. It does suck when a character you like or a majority of characters only appear for their recruitment chapter and like one other scene outside of supports, but the way Three Houses does it should be more common in FE. Don't give each character a arc but let them show up and speak more OUTSIDE of supports.
Talks about Marisa supports Marisa supports : I'm bad at everything except fighting Marisa : is bad at fighting My problem with supports is that while I appreciate them, I would prefer an evolution of conversation from jugdral. Characters can talk to each other at certain point talking about events or just relationships or stuff like let my train my rookie knight. The rewards are also different of a often times hidden or unexplained bonus: a stat boost, an item, a skill (Shanam goated). With a new system, they could also give access to copbat arts or reinforce a personal skill or upgrade a weapon level or idk give access to a triangle attack. There are still conversation that grants hidden supports. This system also breaks the three/four acts structure which is sometimes not really good. Some supports are just one scene but divided in three parts. The old conversation system is far from perfect but with fire emblem playing with new and old systems like weapon durability or triangle for example, why not experiment a bit more with the way characters interact meaningfully (not in the base saying two lines with the main character). Another complaint that I have is that there are too many supports in recent games. Meaning you can't really explore different facet of a character with each support and is also why the "this character reverts back to C support everytime" exists. More supports good but more average to bad supports kinda not very good. Also the animation of 3D supports bad. If you can't or don't want to animate them just make less supports. Oh no the character must move their arm, let the game fade to black real quick. Also if you don't like reading in your video game, press the skip button, best regards, a tear ring saga apologist. (I now realize that jokes can't be understood on the internet, I am not literally saying that if you don't enjoy reading for hours you should skip everything I just tried to be funny) Tldr supports are not bad and in some games are in fact good but try someting else once in a while please intelligent system.
I really dislike the assumption that people are criticising the fe support system because a TH-camr said so. I've seen criticism for it for a long time, and was convinced myself that the system needs to massively change around when I was in the replaying cycle of 3H, which would be nearly 4 years ago now. The YT:er just kicked up discourse that I joined.
One thing I really don't like is that some people change their opinion based on what TH-camr said instead thinking for themselves. I watched Makkah for while I do like his content, I don't start worshiping him as god of fire emblem or something. He has good takes and he also has bad takes. Not having a support is one of those takes that I am disagree with him.
Sure, but I don't like the implied assumption here that a lot of people changed their mind because of his video. I've thought the system needs a massive overhaul for years.
@@Sashitoge yeah you are right. Even though I said 'some people', people who read my comment might think I am talking about a lot of people. I guess I need to be careful with my word.
PSA: Character development =/= Character Growth. Character development just means expanding on the character. That can be achieved either by the character growing as a person, or simply learning more about them which adds layers to their character.
I really liked the Mekkah video, honestly. And I love supports so much. I spend SO LONG grinding them on my Gameboy as a kid to get all the fun tidbits and try to pair my favorites up. It's a system that has a lot of benefits. That said though, I'm super down for them to try something new. I don't think Fire Emblem needs the support system for its characters, but I won't act like I don't love the contents of support convos in the old games. Also hell yeah I love Trails so much
I think supports are fine as well. People can be harsh on them. I rather have an ensemble cast where any character can be anyone’s favorite and have a variety of different supports than just a few conversations over the course of the game because supports are too many. It always up to the players choice too.
From the perspective of someone who was brought into the series through Three Houses and feel head over heels for it, supports are the primary reason I love the characters of the game as much as I do now. Characters like Sylvain, Ferdinand, Dorothea and Lysithea had so much more depth when I actually bothered to try out their supports.
Great video. I super agree with just about every point made. I especially agree that having supports rarely discuss current story events is not bad/maybe a little good? I get that the war going on is a really present issue but God forbid these people try and distract themselves with some more frivolous conversations while they’re at camp.
Support are one of the few reason I preferred fe8 a bit more than fe7 (I didn't finished both it may change) it give life to other characters. Its also something that makes me doing the other routes in three houses less repetitive because of the new characters that developed. For engage there is plenty of great support but I wish tgey developed more the emblems ones. Its just like 30 second. I want more 😩
I really hope people don't turn on that youtuber for that, even more so because that video genuinely had a point, but the support system definitely does a lot for the huge size of fire emblem main casts, so people who say it's outright "bad" can't be reasoned with.
bro mad tear ring got good story. I like the dinner scenes because they develop the charakters. And they dont kill the pacing at all, they happen after critical points in the story where you celebrate and wind down. God king kaga did it best
While I do agree non-protag characters should have some plot reference and situational awareness, I think the lack of these is not a result of supports working how they do (fe6-fee). If anything, the issue I have with supports is how much some banter repeats. The more supports there are for a single character, the more chances for writing similar interactions. I'd say character writing peaked in the GBA, even FE6 manages plenty of interesting bits for rather plain characters in game that doesn't believe in full sentences.
I love supports for their replay value as well. Even nowadays where I can look up every support on a whim, I still prefer unlocking them myself using different characters each play through.
Banner of the Maid is an SRPG with a big cast and no supports. Writing's great, characters are great, but just... Damn. When the plot moves forward and a character's arc ends that character is **gone**. I love the game to death but I really feel it's a good proof of what Fire Emblem would look like with no supports and how much would be missing.
i still think that support are an amaing inclusion,especially when paired with the endings cards,seeing how the support affected the character and thus seeing how that support changed their normal ending is always something i look foward to in every fe game that has paired endings,that's the main reason why i ended up having three houses with 540 hours which somehow passed my two 100% (excluding koroks cause that's for the insane) playthroughts of Botw with the dlc included,mostly cause it was fun seeing what would happen if Felix ended up being paired with dorothea on the blue lions route or seeing how that ending changes in golden deer route due to now dimitri and faerghus being nothing,that's something that i always look foward to and that's my one complain with engage cause i did want to see what pair ending character in that game would get only to be hit with "only alear has paired endings"
I think Three Hopes has the best support system. One thing that makes the support system in FE less fun to me, is that you constantly need to memorise specific pairings to deploy in the same map/place next to each other, which takes away from the actual strategy part of the game and makes units like Reina or logbook units unsatisfying to use because you could've instead filled their slot with someone who can gain support points. Three Hopes fixes a few things: Every character can gain support levels with anyone, so Avatar-sexuals get at least a non-dialogue C support for gameplay purposes. Not every support level leads to a conversation, which frees them from the forced three-act structure and general bloatedness. And lastly, the PoR-lock that hinders you from seeing specific supports before the story sets the circumstances surounding it up. So yeah, Three Hopes is pretty goated
Imagine being so whimsy-less that you hate supports, couldn't be me. My brain is big and I enjoy having little side stories to look forward to in between The Plot
I don't think the support system is bad, but it has flaws. With the way it works, it is nearly impossible to have a character who grows as a person unless they are heavily involved with the story, and while yes, character development isn't the end-all be-all of good characters, it'd also be very weird if *none* of the characters got to see development due to the limitations of the system. When Fire Emblem *does* try to do character development through supports, it's usually very janky and awkward. The way I see it, there are two solutions. The first is to just suspend your disbelief and understand that the chronology can't be perfect with such a free-form system The other is to make the system more rigid in some way or another. Maybe have characters gain their conversations based on story progression rather than proximity for X turns. Maybe have checks in place to see "hey, has the player read this support with this character? If so, this new support can change a little bit to accomodate that". I'm not sure what would be the best method to accomplish it, but it could certainly help.
While i agree about suppurts being needes to make the cast not feel like an empty husks they still have major problems. And it needs and i do mean needs heavy refinement at this point. Especially with permadeath not being an option, perma death in 3h for instance is there purley for difficulty sakes vs what the game intends to. So even that argument inst exactly holding up. The jist of it is suppurts as a system overall is just character interaction hidden behind a gimmick feature of "immersive gameplay" honeslty doing it somthing like fe⁹ except these are shenanigans or convos at the base at the time available for certain chapters etc. Which would also help story intregration and events. Would also stop the issue of a 1000 hrs of tapping the a button to get through all of it like in 3h.
17:50 I once picked up this game called Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven, simply because it was the only thing that looked remotely appealing at GameStop that trip (and even then only because it was anime). I bring it up because I put it down real quick because of EXACTLY this. Each stage of its weird strategy gameplay was separated by a half hour of cutscenes each.
My problem with the supports is that a lot of them just don't feel like conversations that are worth watching, like the characters just repeat the same conversation with 5 different partners. I know that isn't literally accurate, but they could stand to make things at least a little more interesting in a lot of cases. Another problem is number of convos, where some feel like they could be a one-off or only go to B, and others feel like they deserve twice as many
Supports literally aren’t even that hard to unlock. It’s really easy to keep two characters together when you aren’t focused on ltc strats in a casual play through just because your favorite fe TH-camr said it was “optimal”
FE9 onwards, sure, but the only way you are A-ranking supports in 6 and 7 is by not ending the chapter and pressing end turn alot (8 allows you to grind, but 240 support points is still 240 support points), and for some characters it is required due to their late join time.
i just wish we had base convos between chapters so side characters have their own stories without the awful gimmick-repeating supports of the modern era or the grinding of gba
Right; they used to give us the most random lore. I remember Natasha and knoll had a crazy A support. I love when they give good lore. Idk engage just wasn’t the best example. But I’m obsessed with path of radiance supports.
I recommend Mekkah's 2nd video on supports He praised 3H monastery convos, and tried to discuss how supports could be improved in terms of integration and to be less tedious
while I love what Kaga did with all his non FE games, good lord I would not want that for mainline fire emblems because I honestly don't think I could trust them to make it worth the time, Supports are not perfect but the system itself is fine and only really needs to keep having small touches done to it, I will agree with the Yarne thing is that if a character has bad supports, it's not the system, it's either the character themselves or they are in the wrong game.
im gonna be honest, in the gba supports i think there are plenty of characters where they dont reset at the start of supports. i really think this problem only started in awakening
I think supports are pretty cool. I think GBA supports get a lot of flak because of how you unlock them (and let’s be honest, FE6 is probably one of the worst cases for this since there’s a support point cap per map). That said, I’m all for supports and convos between units because it helps add replayability. The “resetting to 0” thing makes sense on paper, but like it only happens if you grind two units up to A and not work on other supports. That said, something that could fix that is to have several different traits that could be focused on in different supports. Also, do supports need to be tied to the story? Not really, no. Jill’s supports in PoR focus on her racism and her overcoming it. That’s super interesting to see! But then you’ve got like Ilyana and all her supports revolve around how hungry she is. And I like Ilyana’s supports despite that! Like, supports don’t have to have plot relevance. They can just be fun and goofy interactions between characters. I think having anyone support with anyone is a bit much. I think it’ll be better if you only have a few units you can support (which can also help with story integration, like how Volke only has one support with Bastian because Volke doesn’t like to hang around with other people, and Bastian is extremely nosy.) It’ll help prevent potential burnout in the writer’s room if they only have to write like 4-5 support chains per character.
I just want to start this off that I don't agree with Mekkah. I just think you didn't really understand the arguments Mekkah made. For the issue with characters returning to 0 and losing their character growth when starting a new c support. The issue isn't that "character growth is the only thing to make a character good/interesting". The issue is that support chains have to be written assuming you didn't do any of the others, so despite Bernie growing as a person to no longer be afraid of the people in her own class by one A support, all of that is thrown out because she's back to being C support Bernie for a different support chain how is scared of her own shadow. The argument was never about character development being needed, it was about it being inconsistent. Unironically though, if you remove character growth from all of the supports, that would remove this problem lol. I think the next part may have just been a timing issue as Mekkah's follow up video which explains it more, might have been posted after you recorded this, but before you posted it. You bring up how 3H has the monastery and characters to talk to that comment on recent events. I don't really know why you brought this up, because that isn't the support system that you're defending. That's a completely different system. The other thing is that in Mekkah's follow up video he mentions that the monastery is actually a great thing. It's a lot like the base convos that give characters chapter relative convos and let's them exist in the world. It helps build them up as characters. These issues kind of made it feel like most of the video you were arguing with someone who said "Red is the best color", and then you go on to say that "Blue is the best color" and make your arguments based on how bad of a color green is. Your arguments don't really go against what argument was, they just kind of argue their own thing. You did argue against having them all be story relevant well, so I do give you credit there. Even with modern casts getting smaller and smaller, it would still be way too many people to make relevant.
The first issue is a non issue to me because you simply have to kinda acccept that the order you do supports isn't necessarily the canon one. Its more logical that a character does like all their C supports, then B, and then A supports, so their personality would be somewhat similar everytime. It's just a gemplay limitation you have to deal with and use your imagination. Also saying that supports dont need necessarily to comment on the story, tho they can easily be made to fit like certain arcs, because there is like the monastery thing is still a defense of the support system because if someone criticizes it for it it doesn't make much sense because the thing they are asking for already exists in the game in another way
Except that said TH-camr's words are irrelevant. When you make a video where you claim that a core system of the game is pointless, you know they're just talking shit.
I wouldn’t exactly say it’s a core system. Honestly the main thing I like about supports is that they ARE optional. Some people just aren’t gonna care about every character, so I just get to look deeper into characters I do like. However I will agree one one point though, fuck Mekkah.
@rileyjackson9835 Given how massive the casts in Fire Emblem are, a Support System is extremely necessary. Otherwise, why would you care about non-MC units other than their stats? Shadow Dragon DS & especially Radiant Dawn suffered from that issue. Plus, it's been in the series since Binding Blade... Since OG Mystery & Genealogy if you wanna go even further, so I'd say that at THIS point, it's a core part of the game & its writing style
@@BardockSkywalker maybe this just has to do with what I enjoy about fire emblem, but I barely cared about supports being gone in shadow dragon. Supports are more of a spice than a main course, if you took out supports from fe7 would you really think that much less of the game? You might think “ah that’s a shame” but it wouldn’t cripple the game or anything. When I look at supports it’s more fun little tidbits about characters than something I couldn’t understand them without, (with a few exceptions) which is what I like about it in the first place.
I think the not referencing current events is still relevant. While Houses and Hopes did it well, Engage has FAR LESS commenting on current events and none of it is voice acted, it's a sharp decline in quality for that content and a relevant thing to be worried about leaving given it was only done well in that instance [and sorta in PoR/RD with base convos to a lesser extent]
you know, FE9 FIXED the "they can't talk about the main story" problem because instead of smacking your units around an empty throne for 300 turns supports were based off of how many maps units got deployed on. so if you go back and read certain FE9 supports they often do reference certain events or battles. Ike X Soren gets stalled at C rank until Ike gets the reveal about his dad from Volke, and Ike is still clearly distraught over the news.
And thanks to this system characters that get thrown late into the game can also comment about the main story events with a character that has been there from the beginning, since the script writers know exactly when the characters are supposed to interact! Genius!
Although they didn't get everyone, Ike and Oscar can speak about the Raven birds before even meeting them, quite a shock to me on the first playthrough.
I could maybe see Lance considering Roy as family. He was taken into Roy's squad of knights despite being an outsider, and his final battle quote says something like "Lord Roy... Lord Eliwood... Thank you for everything..."
Its not nearly as out there as Kyle and Ephraim, but I could see a case for Lance considering Roy family
I don’t know how well it is known, but Three Houses did have some rather neat things added to its supports.
In some supports, they will reference a past support which I thought to be really cool.
I had a support with Sylvain and Marianne where Sylvain tries to get Marianne to smile and then when she later had an A support with Ashe, she brings this up saying “Sylvain says that a person’s value is in their smile” and Ashe commenting on Sylvain. These two lines won’t be in the support of Sylvain didn’t support Marianne beforehand and it works either way, but helps build upon it!
There’s a lot of this in three houses. In Black Eagles during the ball, if you progress Dorothea and Ferdinand’s support she is less resistant to dancing with him.
If Ferdinand and Hubert get A support, Ferdinand and Edelgard’s support switches his drink from tea to coffee, which was obviously given to him by his new best friend Hubert
I think its not the system, it is the way the devs use the system. Too many supports are less abput characters and more about giving them gimmicks.
And yeah man, writing over 100 scenes is really difficult. I decided to tackle on small scenes during the main plot, wonder how that will work out once it is done.
I was going back and forth for a while on if this should be a scripted video or the sort of podcast of 1 laid back vibe, but I enjoyed how this one came out. I might make more like this.
I would be entertained of you going through all of the supports and mentioning what you think of them
Supports are what endeared me to the cast of these games in the first place. It’s not perfect, but I can’t hate it.
Well tbh without supports most units are forgettable.
Removing supports is an idea not even worthy of consideration, to be frank
One of the most valuable and humanizing aspects in warfare is camaderie: those stat boosts aren't just numbers, they represent someone's desire to protect another person beyond themselves. We care about the units we use because they about one another. If looking only from a strategic value, then sure, giving characters those extra boosts from get go is for the best, but much of one's interaction with the game beyond its main value is lost in the process.
In the end, to each their own, but FE will always be a more complete game if it allows me to see those little people on the screen share their thoughts and feelings to one another
Supports are a great system which help us know more about the characters in our army. It definitely isn’t perfect but it is pretty good.
Why does it take so long and have to be so tedious though? Lol
Also a reason why every character can't involve themselves is the main story is permadeath. You'd just get absolutely everyone going "I can't fall here I must retreat" which would be really jarring.
It IS jarring in Awakening and Fates, where like half the cast for each run away like cowards so they can spawn a child soldier.
To be fair some cutscenes accout for that, there's cutscenes in fe8 and fe7 where if characters are dead they just don't appear and the scene continues on without them or another character (Usually an npc) delivers the info instead. Mind you this would then add even more work time for the devs
Thank you for making a small jab at how 90% of people base their opinions on fire emblem based on whatever opinion their favorite youtuber had on a subject
oh god oh no the Kaga fanboy's talking about an obscure game of his again-
So, Berwick Saga. A game I love, and with the terms you laid out, I want to talk about it a bit, because I think its system of character writing shows a good example of what I think people who complain about current FE's support system are looking for, but also shows what it sacrifices.
Of the game's 35 character cast, just about everyone has a story of their own, and so do a ton of NPCs. Take Bluck, the NPC bow salesman, has a series of stories about accepting how far he's come as a person, or among the playable cast, Leon, who has a story about learning to be less of a boisterous, reckless asshat. Some characters have long arcs; some don't. Most of the characters are really good (a few among the playable cast are underwritten, sadly), and the game structures this by having a character's progression benchmarks (permanent recruitment, promotion are key examples) weave in with personal events in main chapters and side missions. I feel like this is what people who complain are generally thinking of: the side characters don't bog down the story anywhere near as much as in TRS/VS1/VS2 because their arcs are strictly kept to the side, and you interact with as much of them as you want them to.
However, what I wanted to write about is the sacrifice this system makes: the phenomenon you described as getting invested in another character because you're invested in one. In Berwick, many characters are paired together for their personal stories - the game's Christmas Cavs, Leon and Adel, play off each other a lot, but have their own stories at the same time. But, being invested in one of these two will NOT help you get invested in, say, Christine, since they really don't interact much with one another. Because this structure focuses so much on fleshing out the individual characters and their stories during the >year and a half spent in the main plot, what is lost is dynamism between characters you may not expect to interact. You won't get a Marisa/Colm moment. That's okay, Berwick is a very well-written game and every character gives something interesting in their introduction, but it's NOT what FE is going for. As you said, FE excels in these interpersonal dynamics, and though I don't want to give the impression that Berwick is lacking in that regard for specific characters - Alex, the barkeep, has no personal arc or focus of his own, but damn are his interactions with a wide range of characters fun - it is something that the game lacks when compared to FE. If it had a support system of its own, it would largely fix this issue, but it could also conflict pretty heavily with characters that do develop, and at what point would it cross from a support system to... just more optional events?
That's the unbreakable knot at the heart of this dilemma. I could sing Berwick's praises all day (I've gone on so long as is haha), but its structure simply WOULD NOT WORK in FE due to how different and odd it is, and if every game were structured like it, it'd get rote and stale. FE supports have flaws, and though very good similar alternatives exist, I think they're flexible enough to be able to fit FE's constant experimentation and self-reimagining. They're a fantastic companion for the series, and as you said, perhaps we too readily attribute flaws with character writing to the system as a whole without sufficient evidence.
(Bernadetta's annoying to me because she has SO MANY c supports, not because she regresses between an A support and a C support. Or maybe she's just not built for the system.)
preach berwick saga enjoyer
I just Kinda Wish there were dynamic small changes to supports based on if another support has already been done but that is a lot of effort
Some games technically do that. Three Houses I definitely recall having character supports that will reference each other, with Marianne's support with Ashe referencing if she has a support with Sylvain already being an example.
Then that is progress at the minimum
Was very lightly touched on here but my main issue with supports is the gamplay side
Gba they are never being unlocked from blind play or casually if you see them you go out of your way to get them this next thing prob just a me thing but this leads to me just reading the supports on a wiki which kinda sucks the life out of em its less fun interaction and just reading fun trivia its not the same feeling
Meanwhile newer games have the reverse problem of they’re super easy to unlock which by itself isnt bad but its bad when every unit supports with nearly half the cast instead of having to read a minute long thing of dialogue im having to sit through an hour of this after some maps which slogs the pace down to nothing which hurts the usual fe pacing
In an ideal world id like the cast only having on average 5ish support chains so they dont overdue the gimmick while still having enough time to show off (tho obviously theres some exceptions if characters need more like ephriam has a good list of supports) maybe have it unlock like por since everyone agrees it did it best lol
I know the video yoiu're taking about and post my overly long comment I left on it to sort of add to the pro-support argument
"I get that you're a gameplay guy at heart, and so am I to a degree, but I think you undervalue supports, especially the simpler ones. Supports are a series staple for a reason, and while they can be a bit intrusive, for people that enjoy the characters a lot, they're worth looking into. In fact, I think a better way to make my point is to use an example to get my thinking across.
A very basic support that just gets boiled down to just "pies lol" is Chrom and Sumia's. However, this is down to people who don't really like to engage with writing, it's mechanical function for information distrubition, or its' ability to craft an important theme in Fire Emblem that Shozou Kaga likely baked in from the beginning :Man vs Man in relation to Man vs Monster. (Which is arguably still a fairly surface level thematic to Fire Emblem as a whole)
In the Sumia and Chrom support, we can get some very vaulable information, that, when combined with other Supports, and story dialogue, allows the game's internal consistent world to be further built, then reinforced. The main takeaways from the Support is this:
Chrom and Sumia both know a character named Nurse Nan, whom they both share a history with. Chrom mentions being wetnursed, and growing up without parents, and House Ylisse has a tradition of wetnursing. Nurse Nan, therefore, was likely this wetnurse, or a former wetnurse who took on a motherly/grandmotherly role, as her name, Nan, is an English dialectic shortening of Grandmother, or Gran, starting in the country's northern area before moving down. Though it may also come from Nanny, the association with an aged woman still applies. This indicates her older age, and provides context clues to her relationship to Chrom, Lissa, and Emmeryn. Not only that, but as Sumia states, she learned from Nurse Nan as well, so she was a mentor to her. In her Gaius support, he refers to Sumia as a noble, and given her armour and status as a mounted knight, like Sully who is also from a noble house that serves as knights to the Exalt, it makes sense that Sumia would be at the castle, and be mentored by someone who cares for royalty, as she would have to serve as a charge to them, and Nurse Nan may also be preparing her for wifely duties, given the obvious romantic leanings Chrom and Sumia's support has. We also learn that Chrom dislikes Rhubarb, yet Sumia bakes him a Rhubarb pie that he likes. Given Nurse Nan being referred to in past tense, and her assumed older age, she may very well have either retired, or passed. Meaning she no longer makes these pies, as Chrom remembers her doing. This means Chrom may not have had one since he was a child, and so as an adult, his tastes may have changed to appreciate both Sumia, and Nan's cooking, which is a nod to Chrom's obvious maturing into a man during the first arc through the second and third arcs, as seen by his leadership and fatherhood.
What did we learn? Well, by getting one other support (a dastardly, ineffecient use of valuable low turns, I know) we can see Sumia's status, and familairity wth the royal family, her shared history wih Chrom, her mentor, what her mentor's role was to that family, and how Sumia now takes on a parallel role to that mentor figure within this family as she potentially joins it. We also learn that Sumia can cook (big surprise) and that Chrom has food preferences, that his enjoyment of his disliked foods has gone up, that he is maturing, even early into the game, as well as a nice life tidbit not to overdo it with the meat when you're tired ;). We have a foundation for a relationship between the two, through the backing of a character we never meet, but can infer much about by stopping to think about the other pieces of the worldbuilding provided in other dialogue. This relationship obviously brings on the themes of motherhood, wifehood, shared history, maturation from boy to man, and a simple domestic scene amidst warfare.
That last part does also tie in to Fire Emblem's Man vs Man, and Man vs Monster theme. For the former, though Chrom and his army fight mostly other humans, Risen aside, they are fighting their fellow man, and while the obvious bonds of friendship and trust carry them through, it's small, humanising moments of domesticity, warmth, reminiscence, and mutual experience that realy preserve our humanity, doubly so for the leader in charge. Similarly, for Man vs Monster, it keeps the monster within at bay, represented by Chrom's father, a man who became a monster through his own actions and inability to keep himself grounded in humanity, and the literal monsters that Chrom fights, from the undead Risen, to a bitter warmongering Gangrel who rejects the connections with others and thus loses the warmth of simple human interaction, to the cold but determined Walhart who inspired many but similarly let no one in and became a monster not unlike Chrom's father, and finally Validar and Grima who reject humanity altogether, and whose shared history lacks any warmth or comfort, but insteas is a bond of hatred towards humans and Naga. In the end, Man, Chrom and his allies, defeat Monster, their various enemies, through utilising the qualities found in their supports that invite simple humanity into their lives. Even the goofy ones.
Supports are deeply important to the thematics of Fire Emblem both as a video game, and as a story. The additional worldbuilding, the information we learn about our characters, the different sides of them we see (part of why I actually prefer the Chrom/F!Robin support over the M!Robin one is down to it showcasing a wider emotional range and capacity for the two characters and providing more building information to greater understand their characters as a whole) and the ways in which it humanises our units in contrast to the enemy ones allows us to explore the wider themes applies to works of fiction depicting open warfare between nations. There is a lot to value in supports, for fans of the characters, as it allows for an important slice of interaction the main story cannot afford, and uses what are effectively self contained side stories, to flesh out its world in small ways, and reinforce the roles and places of its people, allowing each setting to really come to life the more you replay the games, no longer just seeing a map as a set of tiles, but as a real place, and eventually allowing the stakes of saving the world to settle in with a greater attachment to it.
Also sorry for the essay lol hope ur having a nice day bro :)"
It's kind of cringe but you get the point. Supports good.
I say this as someone who has a pfp from TRS, most people wouldn't enjoy the series turning into that.
Also I love that part in the middle talking about tropes, feels like one of those things where people complain, without realizing how it's a part of what they like.
It's still pretty funny how this is even a concern when path of radiance(we don't talk about radiant dawn's support system) literally did this best. It's just a matter of when are they gonna go back to the support increase per chapter combined with some sort of info talk system like that game. Not every support was talkinga bout story events obviously but the option was there. Hell even a good portion of info talks don't have anything to do with the story. Like how basically every character you get has at least one info talk which does good at making you interested in seeing their supports(zihark is a great example imo).
I appreciate the appreciation of Karol from Vesperia. He's fun to watch grow up in that game.
I feel like You could bring back base convos along with supports to fix these issues, base convos can reference current and past chapters and for characters that need to overcome flaws can overcome them across base convos and battle dialogue against bosses if they have ties to personal villains or such
15:48 I think that Three Houses handles it best by not so much giving each character a arc but keeping them relevant throughout the whole game by letting them chime in on almost every story moment. It does suck when a character you like or a majority of characters only appear for their recruitment chapter and like one other scene outside of supports, but the way Three Houses does it should be more common in FE. Don't give each character a arc but let them show up and speak more OUTSIDE of supports.
14:45 - 15:45 > Characters like Yarn are the wrong tool for the Supports.
This is a great point.
Talks about Marisa supports
Marisa supports : I'm bad at everything except fighting
Marisa : is bad at fighting
My problem with supports is that while I appreciate them, I would prefer an evolution of conversation from jugdral. Characters can talk to each other at certain point talking about events or just relationships or stuff like let my train my rookie knight. The rewards are also different of a often times hidden or unexplained bonus: a stat boost, an item, a skill (Shanam goated). With a new system, they could also give access to copbat arts or reinforce a personal skill or upgrade a weapon level or idk give access to a triangle attack. There are still conversation that grants hidden supports. This system also breaks the three/four acts structure which is sometimes not really good. Some supports are just one scene but divided in three parts. The old conversation system is far from perfect but with fire emblem playing with new and old systems like weapon durability or triangle for example, why not experiment a bit more with the way characters interact meaningfully (not in the base saying two lines with the main character).
Another complaint that I have is that there are too many supports in recent games. Meaning you can't really explore different facet of a character with each support and is also why the "this character reverts back to C support everytime" exists. More supports good but more average to bad supports kinda not very good. Also the animation of 3D supports bad. If you can't or don't want to animate them just make less supports. Oh no the character must move their arm, let the game fade to black real quick.
Also if you don't like reading in your video game, press the skip button,
best regards,
a tear ring saga apologist.
(I now realize that jokes can't be understood on the internet, I am not literally saying that if you don't enjoy reading for hours you should skip everything I just tried to be funny)
Tldr supports are not bad and in some games are in fact good but try someting else once in a while please intelligent system.
I really dislike the assumption that people are criticising the fe support system because a TH-camr said so. I've seen criticism for it for a long time, and was convinced myself that the system needs to massively change around when I was in the replaying cycle of 3H, which would be nearly 4 years ago now. The YT:er just kicked up discourse that I joined.
One thing I really don't like is that some people change their opinion based on what TH-camr said instead thinking for themselves. I watched Makkah for while I do like his content, I don't start worshiping him as god of fire emblem or something. He has good takes and he also has bad takes. Not having a support is one of those takes that I am disagree with him.
Sure, but I don't like the implied assumption here that a lot of people changed their mind because of his video. I've thought the system needs a massive overhaul for years.
@@Sashitoge yeah you are right. Even though I said 'some people', people who read my comment might think I am talking about a lot of people. I guess I need to be careful with my word.
0:27 I say the video in my recommended and thought “I don’t think people will agree with this too much” and look how that turned out.
PSA: Character development =/= Character Growth. Character development just means expanding on the character. That can be achieved either by the character growing as a person, or simply learning more about them which adds layers to their character.
I agree on so many levels supports are great my favorite part of fire emblem is the characters so stuff that fleshes them out is in turn great
"What the fuck does he have a support with Styrene?"
Me who supported them on my first playthrough
I really liked the Mekkah video, honestly. And I love supports so much. I spend SO LONG grinding them on my Gameboy as a kid to get all the fun tidbits and try to pair my favorites up. It's a system that has a lot of benefits.
That said though, I'm super down for them to try something new. I don't think Fire Emblem needs the support system for its characters, but I won't act like I don't love the contents of support convos in the old games.
Also hell yeah I love Trails so much
I think supports are fine as well. People can be harsh on them. I rather have an ensemble cast where any character can be anyone’s favorite and have a variety of different supports than just a few conversations over the course of the game because supports are too many. It always up to the players choice too.
From the perspective of someone who was brought into the series through Three Houses and feel head over heels for it, supports are the primary reason I love the characters of the game as much as I do now. Characters like Sylvain, Ferdinand, Dorothea and Lysithea had so much more depth when I actually bothered to try out their supports.
Great video. I super agree with just about every point made. I especially agree that having supports rarely discuss current story events is not bad/maybe a little good? I get that the war going on is a really present issue but God forbid these people try and distract themselves with some more frivolous conversations while they’re at camp.
Support are one of the few reason I preferred fe8 a bit more than fe7 (I didn't finished both it may change) it give life to other characters. Its also something that makes me doing the other routes in three houses less repetitive because of the new characters that developed.
For engage there is plenty of great support but I wish tgey developed more the emblems ones. Its just like 30 second. I want more 😩
I really hope people don't turn on that youtuber for that, even more so because that video genuinely had a point, but the support system definitely does a lot for the huge size of fire emblem main casts, so people who say it's outright "bad" can't be reasoned with.
bro mad tear ring got good story.
I like the dinner scenes because they develop the charakters. And they dont kill the pacing at all, they happen after critical points in the story where you celebrate and wind down. God king kaga did it best
While I do agree non-protag characters should have some plot reference and situational awareness, I think the lack of these is not a result of supports working how they do (fe6-fee).
If anything, the issue I have with supports is how much some banter repeats. The more supports there are for a single character, the more chances for writing similar interactions. I'd say character writing peaked in the GBA, even FE6 manages plenty of interesting bits for rather plain characters in game that doesn't believe in full sentences.
Yea this community no longer had self identity some mf with enough subs can say path of radiance is shit and the community will adapt his opinion smfh
I love supports for their replay value as well. Even nowadays where I can look up every support on a whim, I still prefer unlocking them myself using different characters each play through.
Thanks for this video. Really appreciated.
You're welcome Nidoking
Banner of the Maid is an SRPG with a big cast and no supports. Writing's great, characters are great, but just... Damn. When the plot moves forward and a character's arc ends that character is **gone**. I love the game to death but I really feel it's a good proof of what Fire Emblem would look like with no supports and how much would be missing.
i still think that support are an amaing inclusion,especially when paired with the endings cards,seeing how the support affected the character and thus seeing how that support changed their normal ending is always something i look foward to in every fe game that has paired endings,that's the main reason why i ended up having three houses with 540 hours which somehow passed my two 100% (excluding koroks cause that's for the insane) playthroughts of Botw with the dlc included,mostly cause it was fun seeing what would happen if Felix ended up being paired with dorothea on the blue lions route or seeing how that ending changes in golden deer route due to now dimitri and faerghus being nothing,that's something that i always look foward to and that's my one complain with engage cause i did want to see what pair ending character in that game would get only to be hit with "only alear has paired endings"
I think Three Hopes has the best support system. One thing that makes the support system in FE less fun to me, is that you constantly need to memorise specific pairings to deploy in the same map/place next to each other, which takes away from the actual strategy part of the game and makes units like Reina or logbook units unsatisfying to use because you could've instead filled their slot with someone who can gain support points.
Three Hopes fixes a few things: Every character can gain support levels with anyone, so Avatar-sexuals get at least a non-dialogue C support for gameplay purposes. Not every support level leads to a conversation, which frees them from the forced three-act structure and general bloatedness. And lastly, the PoR-lock that hinders you from seeing specific supports before the story sets the circumstances surounding it up.
So yeah, Three Hopes is pretty goated
Another L from Mekkah in a recent string of them
Imagine being so whimsy-less that you hate supports, couldn't be me. My brain is big and I enjoy having little side stories to look forward to in between The Plot
Hope you're having a good day
I don't think the support system is bad, but it has flaws. With the way it works, it is nearly impossible to have a character who grows as a person unless they are heavily involved with the story, and while yes, character development isn't the end-all be-all of good characters, it'd also be very weird if *none* of the characters got to see development due to the limitations of the system. When Fire Emblem *does* try to do character development through supports, it's usually very janky and awkward. The way I see it, there are two solutions. The first is to just suspend your disbelief and understand that the chronology can't be perfect with such a free-form system
The other is to make the system more rigid in some way or another. Maybe have characters gain their conversations based on story progression rather than proximity for X turns. Maybe have checks in place to see "hey, has the player read this support with this character? If so, this new support can change a little bit to accomodate that". I'm not sure what would be the best method to accomplish it, but it could certainly help.
berwick saga already fixes the tearring saga problems of too much dialogue, that's why it's goated
Now if only it was a good game
@kai_824 last time I checked it was 🫢
While i agree about suppurts being needes to make the cast not feel like an empty husks they still have major problems. And it needs and i do mean needs heavy refinement at this point. Especially with permadeath not being an option, perma death in 3h for instance is there purley for difficulty sakes vs what the game intends to. So even that argument inst exactly holding up. The jist of it is suppurts as a system overall is just character interaction hidden behind a gimmick feature of "immersive gameplay" honeslty doing it somthing like fe⁹ except these are shenanigans or convos at the base at the time available for certain chapters etc. Which would also help story intregration and events. Would also stop the issue of a 1000 hrs of tapping the a button to get through all of it like in 3h.
I just don't care about the story, and I dislike having to 'grind' support levels to get a stat boost. The system can be tedious.
17:50 I once picked up this game called Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven, simply because it was the only thing that looked remotely appealing at GameStop that trip (and even then only because it was anime). I bring it up because I put it down real quick because of EXACTLY this. Each stage of its weird strategy gameplay was separated by a half hour of cutscenes each.
My problem with the supports is that a lot of them just don't feel like conversations that are worth watching, like the characters just repeat the same conversation with 5 different partners. I know that isn't literally accurate, but they could stand to make things at least a little more interesting in a lot of cases. Another problem is number of convos, where some feel like they could be a one-off or only go to B, and others feel like they deserve twice as many
Supports literally aren’t even that hard to unlock. It’s really easy to keep two characters together when you aren’t focused on ltc strats in a casual play through just because your favorite fe TH-camr said it was “optimal”
FE9 onwards, sure, but the only way you are A-ranking supports in 6 and 7 is by not ending the chapter and pressing end turn alot (8 allows you to grind, but 240 support points is still 240 support points), and for some characters it is required due to their late join time.
Sacred Stones is the Second Smallest Cast yeah
i just wish we had base convos between chapters so side characters have their own stories without the awful gimmick-repeating supports of the modern era or the grinding of gba
Lol also just @mekkah 🙃
Right; they used to give us the most random lore. I remember Natasha and knoll had a crazy A support. I love when they give good lore. Idk engage just wasn’t the best example. But I’m obsessed with path of radiance supports.
On my current playthrout I got the A support with Joshua. What I missed ?
The hack "Andaron Saga" did the FE9 support system using FE8's engine, helped things flow very nicely.
I recommend Mekkah's 2nd video on supports
He praised 3H monastery convos, and tried to discuss how supports could be improved in terms of integration and to be less tedious
What the hell is the point of Fire Emblem characters if they can't do supports
while I love what Kaga did with all his non FE games, good lord I would not want that for mainline fire emblems because I honestly don't think I could trust them to make it worth the time, Supports are not perfect but the system itself is fine and only really needs to keep having small touches done to it, I will agree with the Yarne thing is that if a character has bad supports, it's not the system, it's either the character themselves or they are in the wrong game.
5:50 One day someone will do it
New Mystery of the Emblem Giving Arcs to its almost 80 characters
Do people actually use characters because of their personality over their stats and utility??
Yeah its called having fun with the game
Other wise FE is no better then AW
im gonna be honest, in the gba supports i think there are plenty of characters where they dont reset at the start of supports. i really think this problem only started in awakening
for the record it still happens in gba im just saying its nowhere near as common as the non gba supports
I think supports are pretty cool. I think GBA supports get a lot of flak because of how you unlock them (and let’s be honest, FE6 is probably one of the worst cases for this since there’s a support point cap per map). That said, I’m all for supports and convos between units because it helps add replayability. The “resetting to 0” thing makes sense on paper, but like it only happens if you grind two units up to A and not work on other supports. That said, something that could fix that is to have several different traits that could be focused on in different supports. Also, do supports need to be tied to the story? Not really, no. Jill’s supports in PoR focus on her racism and her overcoming it. That’s super interesting to see! But then you’ve got like Ilyana and all her supports revolve around how hungry she is. And I like Ilyana’s supports despite that! Like, supports don’t have to have plot relevance. They can just be fun and goofy interactions between characters.
I think having anyone support with anyone is a bit much. I think it’ll be better if you only have a few units you can support (which can also help with story integration, like how Volke only has one support with Bastian because Volke doesn’t like to hang around with other people, and Bastian is extremely nosy.) It’ll help prevent potential burnout in the writer’s room if they only have to write like 4-5 support chains per character.
I am also in support of supports
I just want to start this off that I don't agree with Mekkah. I just think you didn't really understand the arguments Mekkah made.
For the issue with characters returning to 0 and losing their character growth when starting a new c support. The issue isn't that "character growth is the only thing to make a character good/interesting". The issue is that support chains have to be written assuming you didn't do any of the others, so despite Bernie growing as a person to no longer be afraid of the people in her own class by one A support, all of that is thrown out because she's back to being C support Bernie for a different support chain how is scared of her own shadow. The argument was never about character development being needed, it was about it being inconsistent. Unironically though, if you remove character growth from all of the supports, that would remove this problem lol.
I think the next part may have just been a timing issue as Mekkah's follow up video which explains it more, might have been posted after you recorded this, but before you posted it.
You bring up how 3H has the monastery and characters to talk to that comment on recent events. I don't really know why you brought this up, because that isn't the support system that you're defending. That's a completely different system. The other thing is that in Mekkah's follow up video he mentions that the monastery is actually a great thing. It's a lot like the base convos that give characters chapter relative convos and let's them exist in the world. It helps build them up as characters.
These issues kind of made it feel like most of the video you were arguing with someone who said "Red is the best color", and then you go on to say that "Blue is the best color" and make your arguments based on how bad of a color green is. Your arguments don't really go against what argument was, they just kind of argue their own thing.
You did argue against having them all be story relevant well, so I do give you credit there. Even with modern casts getting smaller and smaller, it would still be way too many people to make relevant.
The first issue is a non issue to me because you simply have to kinda acccept that the order you do supports isn't necessarily the canon one. Its more logical that a character does like all their C supports, then B, and then A supports, so their personality would be somewhat similar everytime. It's just a gemplay limitation you have to deal with and use your imagination.
Also saying that supports dont need necessarily to comment on the story, tho they can easily be made to fit like certain arcs, because there is like the monastery thing is still a defense of the support system because if someone criticizes it for it it doesn't make much sense because the thing they are asking for already exists in the game in another way
Except that said TH-camr's words are irrelevant. When you make a video where you claim that a core system of the game is pointless, you know they're just talking shit.
I wouldn’t exactly say it’s a core system. Honestly the main thing I like about supports is that they ARE optional. Some people just aren’t gonna care about every character, so I just get to look deeper into characters I do like. However I will agree one one point though, fuck Mekkah.
@rileyjackson9835 Given how massive the casts in Fire Emblem are, a Support System is extremely necessary. Otherwise, why would you care about non-MC units other than their stats?
Shadow Dragon DS & especially Radiant Dawn suffered from that issue. Plus, it's been in the series since Binding Blade... Since OG Mystery & Genealogy if you wanna go even further, so I'd say that at THIS point, it's a core part of the game & its writing style
Whats the video?
@@freetoplayking7362recent Mekkah vid about supports. has >15k views
@@BardockSkywalker maybe this just has to do with what I enjoy about fire emblem, but I barely cared about supports being gone in shadow dragon. Supports are more of a spice than a main course, if you took out supports from fe7 would you really think that much less of the game? You might think “ah that’s a shame” but it wouldn’t cripple the game or anything. When I look at supports it’s more fun little tidbits about characters than something I couldn’t understand them without, (with a few exceptions) which is what I like about it in the first place.
I think the not referencing current events is still relevant. While Houses and Hopes did it well, Engage has FAR LESS commenting on current events and none of it is voice acted, it's a sharp decline in quality for that content and a relevant thing to be worried about leaving given it was only done well in that instance [and sorta in PoR/RD with base convos to a lesser extent]
but 100% agree, supports are actually my favorite thing about Fire Emblem.