I have to emphasize that I really enjoy what Intelligent Systems have done with Fire Emblem Fates. Splitting the game into different titles depending on which side of the war you're on is clever--and I can't levy any accusations that either side relies too heavily on reused content. The two games share a handful of characters and of course are two sides of the same coin as far as plot is concerned, but post-Chapter 6 (where a crucial decision point takes place), their actual content is quite different. One might assume that the two could have easily been combined into one game and this is probably true, but very few JRPGs out there boast a runtime comparable to the combined span of Birthright and Conquest, which ran me a combined time of about 120 hours (not including restarts, of which there were many). Granted, I definitely took my time, but I also feel I definitely got my money's worth.
It is very inventive how the two Fire Emblem titles differentiate themselves from each other. Their gameplay is not only different in terms of content, but thematically as well. Birthright of course takes place from the perspective of the Eastern-themed kingdom of Hoshido, with such characters as the mighty samurai Ryoma, the timid priestess Sakura, and the brash young prince, Takumi. Characters wield weapons like yumi (bows), naginata (spears), and clubs, which in this case sub in for axes. Axes are nowhere to be seen in Birthright unless acquired from the opposing kingdom of Nohr. There are diviners that conjure animal spirits to harry foes, ninja that hurl shurikens to disable opponents, and majestic sky knights that ride pegasi into combat. In many ways, Birthright eschews Fire Emblem convention by including very few traditional classes--although of course there are obvious analogues. Samurai are essentially myrmidons and of course promote into swordmasters as usual, but there are just enough wrinkles in the format to make the Birthright side of the equation feel very fresh.
Conquest feels more familiar at first blush, steeped as it is in Western tradition with its armored knights and mounted cavaliers. The kingdom of Nohr also boasts access to fearsome wyvern riders and dark mages--but they're definitely not the bad guy or anything! Bear in mind that the Japanese titles for Birthright and Conquest are White Knight Kingdom and Dark Knight Kingdom respectively, so the games aren't necessarily subtle about setting up for the player which side is in the wrong. Of course, things are a little more complicated underneath the surface, but... not very. The foul Nohrian king Garon is characterized as despicably evil regardless of which perspective the player chooses and of course his character arc possesses all the subtlety of a comic book supervillain. I've always enjoyed media that explore the shades of gray of morality and Fates touches on that a little, but for the most part the plot stretches your suspension of disbelief to the snapping point, especially when playing from Conquest side. Why you would voluntarily side with Garon is anyone's guess, especially as he continually sends the avatar off to one hilariously evil task after another. It's not about playing the bad guy in Conquest, though. It's still about trying to resolve the conflict underlying the war, just in perhaps the most misguided way possible.
The general premise of Fates is sound. The avatar has grown up around his siblings in Nohr for the majority of his life, but his true family hail from Hoshido--and they want him back. Meanwhile, King Garon has no other desire than the complete eradication of all who would oppose him, and there's no room for even an ounce of mercy in his heart. There are no shades of gray for Garon, whose fanatical devotion to violence leaves his reasonably normal children (and main characters of Conquest) surprisingly unfazed. It takes a shocking number of atrocities committed by Garon and in the name of Garon before the avatar finally convinces his foster siblings that maybe something is up. Alternatively, if the avatar elects to side with Hoshido, where his true family resides, he's more or less disowned and attacked on sight. Granted, neither side is very reasonable about this, but it was pretty clear to me from the outset that Garon was as megalomaniacal a villain as they come. Hoshido boasts no character as fearsome as that so it's hard not to view them as anything but the "good guys," even if the games are structured in such a way that you're led to believe that neither side is in the right.
Although Fates is plagued by a more hackneyed plot than is typical of the series, this can be somewhat forgiven so long as the character development is sound. Plot has never been exactly the strong point of Fire Emblem, even if it has frequently been solid (as in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn in particular), but the main non-gameplay draw for me has always been the way the characters interact with each other. Fates certainly has a lot of that and in some cases the conversations these characters can have with each other between battles is interesting and serves to flesh out their backstories. Unfortunately, in many cases it's very close to irrelevant and poorly written. Such a fate (heh) seems inevitable when the marriage system from Awakening is shoehorned into a game that doesn't feel conceived from the ground up with it in mind. On the surface, it's really cool that just about any character can pair up with a character from the opposite gender, get married, and have a child--but because of the staggering number of possible combinations, the writing starts to run a little thin. There are some genuinely cute and clever moments buried in the mountains of text in these support conversations, but many are disappointing and shallow.
Despite all the criticism I can levy at Fire Emblem Fates, I can't help but wholeheartedly recommend the game for its addictive gameplay and the steps its taken forward for the series. It certainly hasn't supplanted the last two console games from my series favorites, but the updates Intelligent Systems have made to the core gameplay are generally very good. Weapon durability, once central to the series, is almost completely gone, only remaining on healing staffs. Weapons have been rebalanced to offer tradeoffs for their power. More powerful weapons are heavier and more difficult to wield, or temporarily penalize stats after use--but they can be used as many times as you like. No longer will I come across a legendary weapon and never use it because it only has 25 durability.
Additionally, the counterplay between the support and pair-up mechanics (also known as attack and guard stances respectively) is brilliant. Characters positioned adjacent to each other can follow each other up in combat. Alternatively, they can pair up together defensively, lending a statistical bonus to the character in front, and protecting the character in the back from harm. After landing and/or receiving a number of attacks, the paired-up characters fill the Dual Guard gauge, which guarantees the next attack received will be nullified. It is essential to make use of both mechanics to conquer hard mode on either version of the game.
Speaking of difficulty, Conquest is certainly the harder of the two games. It also features by far the most variety in map design, with a slew of different objectives to complete across the course of the campaign. Birthright features missions that generally amount to defeating all enemies on the map, but Conquest has more missions in which only a boss must be defeated, a location seized, or even missions where you are tasked with defending an area or escaping. Map design is not always intrinsically better in Conquest, however, and in fact at least two of the missions are impossibly annoying. It is overall a more stressful game, but perhaps a more rewarding one. Speaking personally, I did enjoy Birthright because of how foreign and unfamiliar it felt, even if the missions themselves lacked variety. In the end, I really enjoyed both sides of the coin and I can't wait to see what the final DLC path has to offer.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Friday, March 18, 2016
Fractured Dimensions ~ Tales of Retread
I finished Tales of Xillia in May of last year and although it carried with it a lot of flaws typical to the Tales series, I felt I could pretty safely say I enjoyed it. At the very least, the series is always worth it for its combat system. Although some of these games do tend to devolve into button-mashing, there is enough to play and experiment with during combat that the trope-laden plots and sometimes irritating characters are made bearable over 40-50 hours of gameplay. Tales of Xillia 2 is no different in that regard, with a combat system that is virtually identical to that of its predecessor--with a few key differences.
The main quirk to the format that Xillia introduced was the "linked artes" mechanic. Two characters could link together and fight in formation, unleashing deadly combination artes when the Overlimit gauge reached a certain threshold. There was a decent variety of these artes, some of which were very clever and nice to look at. Xillia 2 expands on this pretty considerably not only by adding three new playable characters (increasing the roster to 9 from Xillia's 6) but by including a series of generic linked artes for combinations of skills that wouldn't otherwise yield a result. Therefore, it is possible to unleash a linked arte when the gauge reaches certain thresholds regardless of which skill is being used, even if the generic linked artes are rarely as powerful or flashy as the unique ones. There are dozens and dozens of unique linked artes to use with every possible combination of two linked characters. The new protagonist, Ludger, appropriately boasts the highest number of these unique linked artes.
Xillia 2 also completely reworks the way in which new artes and skills are learned. The game's predecessor featured a system called the Lillium Orb (which is explained in the plot in as incomprehensible way as Tales fans are now accustomed) that is very similar to systems like Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid or Final Fantasy XIII's Crystarium. Skills are acquired by spending points on a network of connected nodes. It's very simple, but it worked. The Allium Orb of Xillia 2 is actually a little more interesting, but more difficult to understand at first glance. Characters must equip elemental Extractors that translate elemental ore acquired from completed combat encounters into five disparate elements. The Lightning Bolt extractor, for instance, transforms this ore into the fire and earth elements. Skills and artes are acquired by reaching certain amounts of these elements. Some require a certain amount of two different elements. To learn all of a specific character's abilities, it is required to switch out extractors on a regular basis. As one advances further into the game, extractors with higher growth rates (ore is transformed into more of a certain element) are unlocked and abilities are learned more quickly.
The biggest change in Xillia 2 (and in fact, the biggest break from tradition in the Tales series) is the inclusion of the silent protagonist, Ludger. That's right--Ludger seldom says a single word over the course of the entire game, and it frequently makes the pacing of the game feel very awkward and uncomfortable. Aside from a few muttered lines and non-committal replies, all of Ludger's dialogue is determined by the player. Of course, these choices are not voiced whatsoever, which I imagine is part of the reason why it feels so strange. The other reason is that the Tales series has never had a silent protagonist, and judging from Xillia 2, it's not something it ever needed either. It's just such a hamfisted inclusion that serves no real purpose for the majority of the game's runtime, save for a few climactic moments at the very end of the game. It's clear that Namco Bandai wanted Xillia 2 to be a game about making choices, but they forgot to make those choices actually mean anything. I would have enjoyed the game a lot more if Ludger was a character with a real personality and actual dialogue--even if he was as unlikable as Luke from Abyss or Emil from Dawn of the New World. I'm all for change and evolution, but this was not a change for the better.
On the other hand, Ludger's combat style is fantastic and adds a whole new dimension to the battle system from the first game. Ludger is capable of switching between three different weapons and as a result has access to a whole slew of artes, dwarfing all of his party members in comparison with his utility. His dual swords, pistols, and hammer all boast significantly different play styles and serve different purposes in fights depending on whether he needs speed, range, or power. If that's not enough, he also unlocks the ability to transform into a Scary Demon Form later on in the game that again features an entirely different gameplay style that is unique to him.
As far as mechanics go, Xillia 2 is honestly a step up from its predecessor, but the good news ends there. Xillia was not exactly a powerhouse in the plot/character development department (then again, Tales games rarely are), but the sequel fails to live up to even those standards. The plot is as usual completely incomprehensible, featuring a serpentine plot concerning such things as fractured dimensions (essentially Bizarro Worlds), divergence catalysts, and of course some light time travel. These are all par for the course for Tales and that might be fine, but the entire structure of the game is different than usual. From the very outset, the premise is set up as an adventure in which our hero Ludger must pay off a 20,000,000 gald debt. And yes, you've gotta make regular installment payments to progress in the plot. You acquire funds by taking on quests and defeating epic monsters and as you pay off more and more of the debt, you'll unlock more of Elympios and Rieze Maxia to explore, which of course is comprised almost entirely of content most have already seen from the first game. In fact, 95% of locations visited in Tales of Xillia 2 are completely identical to areas from the first game. This left me with a bad taste in my mouth not unlike what I experienced when I played Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.
Honestly, the main things that kept me playing Xillia 2 were the combat system (which I'll maintain is quite good, despite frame rate slowdowns that still unfortunately exist) and the inane minigame which has you scouring the globe for hidden kitty cats. There are 100 of them in all. Some are hidden in holes in the wall, some in inns or deep in dungeons. I'm not sure what I found so addictive about tracking down all those stupid little cats. It's not like I got anything great from it, and it exists almost solely as an excuse for you to revisit areas which most players are going to be quite familiar with already from the previous game. Still, it was a feature I couldn't help but find hopelessly addicting and I'll proudly declare that I located each and every one of those little furballs.
Tales of Xillia 2 is a game I doubt I stubbornly finished (with help from my girlfriend, no less) but could not in good conscience recommend to others. It features a fantastic battle system but loads of reused content, asinine characters (Muzét is particularly awful), hours of boring dialogue and equally boring character-centric sidequests, and a circuitous and virtually nonsensical plot. But hey, at least I don't feel guilty at the prospect of starting Tales of Zestiria now.
The main quirk to the format that Xillia introduced was the "linked artes" mechanic. Two characters could link together and fight in formation, unleashing deadly combination artes when the Overlimit gauge reached a certain threshold. There was a decent variety of these artes, some of which were very clever and nice to look at. Xillia 2 expands on this pretty considerably not only by adding three new playable characters (increasing the roster to 9 from Xillia's 6) but by including a series of generic linked artes for combinations of skills that wouldn't otherwise yield a result. Therefore, it is possible to unleash a linked arte when the gauge reaches certain thresholds regardless of which skill is being used, even if the generic linked artes are rarely as powerful or flashy as the unique ones. There are dozens and dozens of unique linked artes to use with every possible combination of two linked characters. The new protagonist, Ludger, appropriately boasts the highest number of these unique linked artes.
Xillia 2 also completely reworks the way in which new artes and skills are learned. The game's predecessor featured a system called the Lillium Orb (which is explained in the plot in as incomprehensible way as Tales fans are now accustomed) that is very similar to systems like Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid or Final Fantasy XIII's Crystarium. Skills are acquired by spending points on a network of connected nodes. It's very simple, but it worked. The Allium Orb of Xillia 2 is actually a little more interesting, but more difficult to understand at first glance. Characters must equip elemental Extractors that translate elemental ore acquired from completed combat encounters into five disparate elements. The Lightning Bolt extractor, for instance, transforms this ore into the fire and earth elements. Skills and artes are acquired by reaching certain amounts of these elements. Some require a certain amount of two different elements. To learn all of a specific character's abilities, it is required to switch out extractors on a regular basis. As one advances further into the game, extractors with higher growth rates (ore is transformed into more of a certain element) are unlocked and abilities are learned more quickly.
The biggest change in Xillia 2 (and in fact, the biggest break from tradition in the Tales series) is the inclusion of the silent protagonist, Ludger. That's right--Ludger seldom says a single word over the course of the entire game, and it frequently makes the pacing of the game feel very awkward and uncomfortable. Aside from a few muttered lines and non-committal replies, all of Ludger's dialogue is determined by the player. Of course, these choices are not voiced whatsoever, which I imagine is part of the reason why it feels so strange. The other reason is that the Tales series has never had a silent protagonist, and judging from Xillia 2, it's not something it ever needed either. It's just such a hamfisted inclusion that serves no real purpose for the majority of the game's runtime, save for a few climactic moments at the very end of the game. It's clear that Namco Bandai wanted Xillia 2 to be a game about making choices, but they forgot to make those choices actually mean anything. I would have enjoyed the game a lot more if Ludger was a character with a real personality and actual dialogue--even if he was as unlikable as Luke from Abyss or Emil from Dawn of the New World. I'm all for change and evolution, but this was not a change for the better.
On the other hand, Ludger's combat style is fantastic and adds a whole new dimension to the battle system from the first game. Ludger is capable of switching between three different weapons and as a result has access to a whole slew of artes, dwarfing all of his party members in comparison with his utility. His dual swords, pistols, and hammer all boast significantly different play styles and serve different purposes in fights depending on whether he needs speed, range, or power. If that's not enough, he also unlocks the ability to transform into a Scary Demon Form later on in the game that again features an entirely different gameplay style that is unique to him.
As far as mechanics go, Xillia 2 is honestly a step up from its predecessor, but the good news ends there. Xillia was not exactly a powerhouse in the plot/character development department (then again, Tales games rarely are), but the sequel fails to live up to even those standards. The plot is as usual completely incomprehensible, featuring a serpentine plot concerning such things as fractured dimensions (essentially Bizarro Worlds), divergence catalysts, and of course some light time travel. These are all par for the course for Tales and that might be fine, but the entire structure of the game is different than usual. From the very outset, the premise is set up as an adventure in which our hero Ludger must pay off a 20,000,000 gald debt. And yes, you've gotta make regular installment payments to progress in the plot. You acquire funds by taking on quests and defeating epic monsters and as you pay off more and more of the debt, you'll unlock more of Elympios and Rieze Maxia to explore, which of course is comprised almost entirely of content most have already seen from the first game. In fact, 95% of locations visited in Tales of Xillia 2 are completely identical to areas from the first game. This left me with a bad taste in my mouth not unlike what I experienced when I played Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.
Honestly, the main things that kept me playing Xillia 2 were the combat system (which I'll maintain is quite good, despite frame rate slowdowns that still unfortunately exist) and the inane minigame which has you scouring the globe for hidden kitty cats. There are 100 of them in all. Some are hidden in holes in the wall, some in inns or deep in dungeons. I'm not sure what I found so addictive about tracking down all those stupid little cats. It's not like I got anything great from it, and it exists almost solely as an excuse for you to revisit areas which most players are going to be quite familiar with already from the previous game. Still, it was a feature I couldn't help but find hopelessly addicting and I'll proudly declare that I located each and every one of those little furballs.
Tales of Xillia 2 is a game I doubt I stubbornly finished (with help from my girlfriend, no less) but could not in good conscience recommend to others. It features a fantastic battle system but loads of reused content, asinine characters (Muzét is particularly awful), hours of boring dialogue and equally boring character-centric sidequests, and a circuitous and virtually nonsensical plot. But hey, at least I don't feel guilty at the prospect of starting Tales of Zestiria now.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
An informal Fire Emblem retrospective
I've been a Fire Emblem fan for something like 12 or 13 years. Like a lot of folks, I started with Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advance--otherwise known as Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken (or Blazing Sword). It was the first Fire Emblem game to be released in English despite being the seventh numbered entry in the series. I fell in love with its simple but satisfying strategic gameplay, emphasis on character development through support conversations, and challenging difficulty bolstered by a mechanic in which characters that are defeated in combat die--permanently. This adds an extra layer of tension to the series that is integral to its identity--and despite more recent entries offering the option to disable the feature, I never do. Not once. It's too important to the format.
After playing and replaying Rekka no Ken, I played Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, last in a trilogy of games released for the Game Boy Advance--although it shares no storyline with the other two games. After that, I backtracked and played Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi (Sealed Sword) which currently only exists as a fan translation. It is the sixth entry in the series but takes place chronologically after Rekka no Ken so playing it was an interesting experience. It felt like a sequel that took a lot of steps back. The gameplay itself was still satisfying, but the cast of characters was enormous and generally weak. Of course, it was a lot of fun to get more context on the storyline and to take the reins of Roy, whose appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee puzzled a lot of gamers in America at the time.
After playing and replaying those three games, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance came out (while I was still in high school!) and I pounced on it and devoured it. It was the first Fire Emblem title released for a console since Thracia 776 for the Super Famicom in 1999 (well into the N64's era). Although I missed the stylish 2D combat animations from the Game Boy Advance titles, I loved everything else about the game. The art style was polished, the music was effective, the support conversations were mostly well-written, and the tried-and-true gameplay was as addictive as ever. Radiance also brought back the skill mechanic from the SFC titles, adding another layer to the gameplay's complexity. It was my favorite of the series to that point.
Only two years later, a direct sequel to Path of Radiance called Radiant Dawn emerged--and it was an epic undertaking indeed. Not only did it feature every single playable character from Path of Radiance, but it also introduced a whole game's worth of brand new characters and weaved them into the storyline. Players alternately assumed control of Micaiah and her ragtag band of followers and Ike's mercenary group until the two become one. I've mentioned previously on this blog that I very much enjoy games in which a group of characters adventure separately until meeting up closer to the end, citing examples like Live A Live or Dragon Quest IV. Radiant Dawn is another really good example of this. Unlike Fuuin no Tsurugi's bloated roster of forgettable characters, Radiant Dawn delivers a gigantic cast of mostly solid personalities, some of which were previously established in Path of Radiance. Of course, Radiant Dawn isn't perfect and suffers from one critical flaw. Support conversations, critical to the series formula since Rekka no Ken--are with few exceptions very shallow and forgettable. It seems inevitable with such a large cast that such a thing would happen, but it's still a mechanic that I found myself missing a lot. Despite this issue, it's probably still my favorite game of the series.
Only a year later, an enhanced remake of the very first game of the series was released called Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. Although many features were added in an effort to update the gameplay, it still came across as fairly dated, with vanilla gameplay in comparison to Radiant Dawn that was absolutely bursting with features. It was an enjoyable playthrough just for the sake of context, but it wasn't what I was waiting for. Of course, an interminable five years later, Fire Emblem: Awakening came out and it shattered all of Intelligent Systems' expectations and became the best selling entry of the series by far.
Awakening could have been the series' swansong. Intelligent Systems execs at the time admitted that if the game didn't meet their sales expectations, they'd conclude the series. As a rabid fan, this was definitely an upsetting prospect for me, so I awaited the game's release anxiously. I knew I'd enjoy it, but I wasn't sure Fire Emblem had the kind of broad appeal it would need to be successful. Boy, was I ever wrong, since Awakening went on to become the best-selling strategy RPG of all time (as far as I know). Of course, a lot of that had to do with Awakening morphing into a game with more broad appeal, which comes with both positive and negative qualities. The most welcome inclusion for me was the marriage system, in which characters with particularly close bonds can marry and produce children--which, through some bizarre and contrived time travel plot device, grow to adults instantly and can be recruited into your army.Of course, the game is also rife with online connectivity with loads of paid DLC, some of which is pretty low-effort. Additionally, the writing for support conversations is sometimes subpar, particularly in comparison to Path of Radiance. I still thought it was a great game, but couldn't bring myself to sing its praises (like the rest of the internet and all critics) since I could name at least two other titles in the series I felt were superior to it already, neither of which got the sales they deserved.
Of course, that brings us to Fire Emblem Fates, an ambitious new title released just last month. For the first time in the series, it is split into two different paths: Birthright, focusing on the Eastern-themed kingdom of Hoshido; and Conquest, centered around the Western-themed Nohr. Both paths share a handful of characters and the first six chapters, but for the most part, the storyline and characters available are entirely different. The Special Edition of the game comes with a third path called Revelations, which evidently unites the two armies. I've only so far completed Birthright so I can't speak too much on the whole experience--but I can say that I enjoyed the game a lot, even though I'm still disappointed by a number of things. The gameplay is as usual really solid, and the skill system is as robust as ever--but the writing itself is underwhelming, and not a lot of the support conversations jump out at me as having a lot of depth. Additionally, while the marriage system returns from Awakening, it has even less of a satisfying explanation. In Awakening, the system was at least loosely tied to the plot, but the explanation provided for children growing up instantly in Fates is hilariously contrived.
Still, the idea of assuming control of a character who must make a choice between two warring armies is at its heart a good one, and Birthright did a great job at delivering on that fantasy. I don't want to say a lot about my overall thoughts on the game yet, because I feel like I won't have a clear enough picture until I can compare and contrast it to Conquest and eventually Revelations. Considering Birthright took me some 60 hours to complete (on hard mode), I imagine I won't have the full picture for some time. Fortunately, I'm invested enough in Fates that I don't dread the opportunity to explore it further.
After playing and replaying Rekka no Ken, I played Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, last in a trilogy of games released for the Game Boy Advance--although it shares no storyline with the other two games. After that, I backtracked and played Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi (Sealed Sword) which currently only exists as a fan translation. It is the sixth entry in the series but takes place chronologically after Rekka no Ken so playing it was an interesting experience. It felt like a sequel that took a lot of steps back. The gameplay itself was still satisfying, but the cast of characters was enormous and generally weak. Of course, it was a lot of fun to get more context on the storyline and to take the reins of Roy, whose appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee puzzled a lot of gamers in America at the time.
After playing and replaying those three games, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance came out (while I was still in high school!) and I pounced on it and devoured it. It was the first Fire Emblem title released for a console since Thracia 776 for the Super Famicom in 1999 (well into the N64's era). Although I missed the stylish 2D combat animations from the Game Boy Advance titles, I loved everything else about the game. The art style was polished, the music was effective, the support conversations were mostly well-written, and the tried-and-true gameplay was as addictive as ever. Radiance also brought back the skill mechanic from the SFC titles, adding another layer to the gameplay's complexity. It was my favorite of the series to that point.
Only two years later, a direct sequel to Path of Radiance called Radiant Dawn emerged--and it was an epic undertaking indeed. Not only did it feature every single playable character from Path of Radiance, but it also introduced a whole game's worth of brand new characters and weaved them into the storyline. Players alternately assumed control of Micaiah and her ragtag band of followers and Ike's mercenary group until the two become one. I've mentioned previously on this blog that I very much enjoy games in which a group of characters adventure separately until meeting up closer to the end, citing examples like Live A Live or Dragon Quest IV. Radiant Dawn is another really good example of this. Unlike Fuuin no Tsurugi's bloated roster of forgettable characters, Radiant Dawn delivers a gigantic cast of mostly solid personalities, some of which were previously established in Path of Radiance. Of course, Radiant Dawn isn't perfect and suffers from one critical flaw. Support conversations, critical to the series formula since Rekka no Ken--are with few exceptions very shallow and forgettable. It seems inevitable with such a large cast that such a thing would happen, but it's still a mechanic that I found myself missing a lot. Despite this issue, it's probably still my favorite game of the series.
Only a year later, an enhanced remake of the very first game of the series was released called Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. Although many features were added in an effort to update the gameplay, it still came across as fairly dated, with vanilla gameplay in comparison to Radiant Dawn that was absolutely bursting with features. It was an enjoyable playthrough just for the sake of context, but it wasn't what I was waiting for. Of course, an interminable five years later, Fire Emblem: Awakening came out and it shattered all of Intelligent Systems' expectations and became the best selling entry of the series by far.
Awakening could have been the series' swansong. Intelligent Systems execs at the time admitted that if the game didn't meet their sales expectations, they'd conclude the series. As a rabid fan, this was definitely an upsetting prospect for me, so I awaited the game's release anxiously. I knew I'd enjoy it, but I wasn't sure Fire Emblem had the kind of broad appeal it would need to be successful. Boy, was I ever wrong, since Awakening went on to become the best-selling strategy RPG of all time (as far as I know). Of course, a lot of that had to do with Awakening morphing into a game with more broad appeal, which comes with both positive and negative qualities. The most welcome inclusion for me was the marriage system, in which characters with particularly close bonds can marry and produce children--which, through some bizarre and contrived time travel plot device, grow to adults instantly and can be recruited into your army.Of course, the game is also rife with online connectivity with loads of paid DLC, some of which is pretty low-effort. Additionally, the writing for support conversations is sometimes subpar, particularly in comparison to Path of Radiance. I still thought it was a great game, but couldn't bring myself to sing its praises (like the rest of the internet and all critics) since I could name at least two other titles in the series I felt were superior to it already, neither of which got the sales they deserved.
Of course, that brings us to Fire Emblem Fates, an ambitious new title released just last month. For the first time in the series, it is split into two different paths: Birthright, focusing on the Eastern-themed kingdom of Hoshido; and Conquest, centered around the Western-themed Nohr. Both paths share a handful of characters and the first six chapters, but for the most part, the storyline and characters available are entirely different. The Special Edition of the game comes with a third path called Revelations, which evidently unites the two armies. I've only so far completed Birthright so I can't speak too much on the whole experience--but I can say that I enjoyed the game a lot, even though I'm still disappointed by a number of things. The gameplay is as usual really solid, and the skill system is as robust as ever--but the writing itself is underwhelming, and not a lot of the support conversations jump out at me as having a lot of depth. Additionally, while the marriage system returns from Awakening, it has even less of a satisfying explanation. In Awakening, the system was at least loosely tied to the plot, but the explanation provided for children growing up instantly in Fates is hilariously contrived.
Still, the idea of assuming control of a character who must make a choice between two warring armies is at its heart a good one, and Birthright did a great job at delivering on that fantasy. I don't want to say a lot about my overall thoughts on the game yet, because I feel like I won't have a clear enough picture until I can compare and contrast it to Conquest and eventually Revelations. Considering Birthright took me some 60 hours to complete (on hard mode), I imagine I won't have the full picture for some time. Fortunately, I'm invested enough in Fates that I don't dread the opportunity to explore it further.
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