fire-emblem-strategy:

lanonima:

comradewodka said: why, because awakening’s missing like all the tactical terrain and the magic advantage triangle and is pretty easy unless in hard mode?

What about even the weapons triangle which is kinda of there but not really and the fact that there’s no rescue feature and the unpredictable partnerships kinds really fuck up your ability to actually…you know, use tactics?

Also the terrain thing that really makes me made.

Because those things would be super useful and don’t actually exist. Like it doesn’t give you enough options to juggle with so they simplify it down way too much….

In short Awakening is still the most disappointing FE game I can’t stop playing.

Let’s define Awakening in terms of one of its skills: Slow Burn.

Awakening did some cool things for the series.  It introduced the Pair Up and Dual Systems, one of which added a facet to battle, while the other replaced Rescue.  In fact, it made “rescuing” a good thing, encouraging players to use the mechanic more.  But these don’t really affect the player’s tactics until the late-game, when marriage partners and other relationships result in >80% Dual Strike chances.  Then, a player’s tactics may come down to how many Dual Strike opportunities can they chain together with just five units to use.

Terrain…yeah, I missed diverse terrain.  Quite a lot, actually.  And the magic thing was a bit disappointing, but not dissimilar to FE1/2/3/11/12.  And people liked those just fine (didn’t have a weapon triangle either in the first three).

Speaking of the weapon triangle, if you were looking for “rock beats scissors, you win”….that’s never been prevalent in the series, except on the easiest difficulties.  Case in point: try to take a sword unit in Holy War, I don’t care how evasive they are, and pit them alone against an army of axe-wielders.  The hit chance for the enemies could be 12%, and they’ll still die nine times out of ten.  Now pelt the axe-users with all types of units, lance-wielders included.  Unless you make a critical error or the RNG trolls you hard (frequent in Holy War), all of your units, not just the sword user, have a much better chance of surviving.  In a Sun Tzu-esque statement: having the advantage does not always mean having the obvious one.

However, my point: Awakening’s depth comes in the immense number of ways you can play it, much like Radiant Dawn.  The skill system used in Awakening is the most diverse and most expansive, allowing for deep customization and idealization.  There are marriage options that are better than others because they ideally combine child characters’ stats, classes, and consequently, skill options.  A single unit could boast an effective skillset of as many as two dozen different skills, and the Avatar and his/her children can literally adapt to any situation if the player makes the effort (although personally, I get tired of grinding all too soon).  But if you need something that increases damage output at one point and at another you just need to survive, you can adjust.  I try to end up with several units with Locktouch just so I can pick up chests with various unit types, sans keys, and that is a possibility that only Awakening allows.  And some players will adamantly defend that Henry!Noire is the best option, while others will say Libra!Noire, and still others might make an argument for Vaike!Noire or Gaius!Noire or any other option….and that’s just for one child character.  It continues…for all of them.  Because of this, the depth of the game increases over time, much like most FE games.

I’m not sure what you mean by “use tactics”.  You still have chip units, fast, fragile units, tanks, weapon effectiveness bonuses, multiple races, and the widest range of weapon loadout combinations that players have ever been provided.  Seriously, where did the idea for an axe- and staff-user come from?  But it’s there, and they have a place in the army.

I’m not saying Awakening is the best Fire Emblem game out there, far from it.  But I think that the liberty that it provides, the fact that you can play it as creatively as you can imagine (within the rules of course), allows for a certain under-appreciated depth.  Especially among those of us (like myself) who are concerned with playing them as effectively and efficiently as possible, that’s something we often miss.

It’s funny because a lot of the things you bring up are things I DON’T like about the new game. Honestly though, a lot of my problems come with the characters, the supports, and the story-telling.

While I admit the dual strike has its uses but I don’t entirely like it all the time because it makes the game a little too easy. As for the rescue function, yeah no. The pair up option doesn’t count as a rescue function since the character moving in is in the back and you can’t switch positions because you used your turn moving in. How is that useful if someone takes a lot of damage and can’t move out of enemy range? It isn’t. It frustrates me.

The weapons triangle isn’t super present in the games but when you get to a point where you can put a pegasus knight next to an archer and not even worry a little bit, that’s kind of a problem for me. I just wish all of that was a little more prevalent than it is.

Also, depth? Excuse me while I laugh. This game isn’t about depth it’s about breadth.  EVERYTHING is available. Reclassing, restocking, grinding, customization…it’s hard to have meaningful anything when you can literally get anything you want.

The classes mean nothing, the weapons mean nothing, the terrain means nothing. You can grind at the drop of a hat so that takes all the challenge out of it right there (something I also disliked in Sacred Stones). The babies don’t matter because they’re going to be awesome no matter who the parents are so why bother? The supports are mostly empty and meaningless since you can pair up everyone with almost everyone else. And they took away our different kinds of levels. What happened to arrive? What happened to protection? What happened to night levels and sneaking around levels? I mean every level is kill the boss or clear the map, that’s no fun!

I don’t think the game encourages creativity at all because it hands you so much. Creativity is using limited resources to make it through not having everything at your fingertips.

Long story short: yes I think Awakening is fun and yes I enjoy it and play it a lot and like to talk about it but I’m also not really happy with it.

Also can we talk about what happened to all of the queer characters.