Fire Emblem

Don't kill Mufasa in the only chapter he appears in.

Have more of the Plegia arc bosses recognize Robin.

To be fair, I thought some of Walhart's generals were interesting, and I don't mean just general science mustache.

edited 26th Apr '15 5:00:09 PM by Ekimmak

Having a noble member of the Grimleal who nonetheless ends up opposing the protagonists could help characterize the organization away from being generic badguys.

Make Secret Mustache a recruitable character.

I'd be cool with recruitable Cervantes.

Only if he gets "SEE HOW MY MOUSTACHE MOVES IN THE WIND!" as a crit quote.

Rerouting to include Pegasus Knight!Lucina shenanigans.

Well, why do you think they're good? Personally I think they make incredibly boring enemies, and while Fire Emblem doesn't exactly have the best plots ever, "monsters bad, kill" is kind of inherently a worse plot. At least when dragons are manipulating the evil empire or whatever you have some sympathetic bosses and obviously recruitable defectors, but monsters are just monsters forever. They will never be anything more than monsters. I literally do not see the point. Non-human characters would be okay, I guess, but that's not what "monster" means to anyone.

And if you really want to kill monsters forever, there are a billion other games which let you do so. Part of the appeal to Fire Emblem, to me, has always been the vaguely political war-based plots. Those are surprisingly rare in the world of video games. I mean, it's not like they won't end up being manipulated by a dragon anyway, but at least they save that for the end of the game and it really makes you feel like dragons are a big deal. When you fight giant spiders for the entire game it just adds... nothing?

edited 26th Apr '15 8:44:04 PM by Clarste

Monsters are pretty common in the series. Blazing Sword has them as well, in the form of Morphs. Eventually you have to accept that the series is about fighting unknown evil creatures in addition to standard wartime foes.

Eh. I never finished Sacred Stones, but it always seemed to me like the political stuff still was the main focus. The monsters were just, like, background fluff.

...eventually? It's pretty clear to me that they experimented with it in FE 8 and then moved away from it in all subsequent games. Certainly none of them have had the same prominence. And morphs were clearly magical soldier things, not giant spiders. They weren't enemies because "monsters are bad", they just happened to be tools of the enemy. And were sometimes characters in their own right, iirc?

edited 26th Apr '15 9:14:04 PM by Clarste

Morphs (aside from a few high profile ones like Ephidel and Sonia) were essentially mindless foot soldiers that didn't have the same impact as fighting actual humans. Gameplay wise they were the same as human enemies, but story wise it wasn't quite the same thing.

Basically like the Risen, though without the high profile ones having more personalities (unless we count the Infinite Regalia Deadlords, but I don't know...).

So how many high profile giant spiders were there? Seriously, I can't remember.

I don't think being faceless grunts matters much though because almost all soldiers are faceless grunts, human or otherwise. As a series, Fire Emblem is extremely comfortable representing armies by their leaders, so if any morphs are leaders it really doesn't change anything at all. And I'm not sure why you'd think it would, in this particular discussion.

edited 26th Apr '15 9:28:16 PM by Clarste

I believe it was implied all of the morphs had the potential for individuality.

In Tearring Saga, certain player units can summon monsters as well.

Yeah, my impression was that ultimately they were just artificial people. That just happened to get enslaved as babies and know nothing but war.

Yeah, that and Morphs aren't given alot of time to learn considering they tend to be immediately thrust into battle. I think the human quintessence that they're derived from also affects their personality and appearance.

While I'm not the hugest fan of monsters, though I don't mind them, I will say I don't think necessarily result in a black and white plot. Take Gaiden and Sacred Stones, both of them were filled with sympathetic villains, and the majority of battles were indeed with humans.

The only one that seemed to have true freedom and individuality was also the one Nergal liked the least. So Kishuna spent his days trying to get his master to notice him.

Nergal likely has great control over them, as they aren't really created with the intention of free will. That's why his strongest one Limstella follows Nergal since she's just an artificial being.

I think it would have been nice to try to see some of the monsters comunicating with each other, and the humans have no idea what they're saying.

edited 27th Apr '15 1:24:32 AM by OmegaRadiance

I guess what I'd like best is if the monsters were used more as props than as a full force? Like the early chapter in SS where Eirika's crew needs to save a few villagers from a handful of Baels.

Although I would usually agree with Clarste that Black and White morality scenarios make for uninteresting writing, I still have a strong fondness for Sacred Stones, monsters and all.

I think it has to do with the overall sorrowful tone of the game. Despite our protagonists being the undisputed heroic Five-Man Band (if the twins, L'arachel, Innes, and maybe Joshua or Tana are all counted), they are not very plucky or shiny (well, except for perhaps L'Arachel). The situation never feels easy for the characters, regardless of how much grinding you do as a player. The whole situation is presented as being a real Last Hope scenario, better than any other FE game, in my opinion. I never felt nearly as threatened by Medeus or Grima as I did by Fomortis, as far as Overpowering Evil Demon Lords go, and that's even knowing what Lucina's future looks like.

There was also a lot of tragedy in SS that struck me differently from just some standard tragic back-stories. Lyon's poor, mind controlled fate and how he was linked to both of the twins makes his fate especially hard to watch, the slaying of Fado, Ismaire, Vigarde, even the fate of Orson and his wife . . . The list goes on. It all felt pretty hopeless, when the bad guy's can get that far.

As for the bad guys, I found most of them pretty interesting. As I said before, Fomortis felt like a true threat with no real Big Good counterpart. Medeus and Grima were somewhat balanced by a good counterpart, Naga. The closest visible parallel to Naga that Magvel had was Morva and Fomortis freakin' turned Morva into a Draco Zombie, proving him to be no true threat. Valter was a damned maniac that I found less annoying than Narshen, Caellach and Carlyle were both Grade A douches with very human flaws, and even Riev played the Sinister Minister pretty effectively. The common FE villain archetypes were definitely there, with several Expies from the Elibe games such as the Anti-Villain brothers that face significant misfortune, and the sympathetic female villain. But overall I didn't roll my eyes at any of the SS villains like I did at Gharnef or Validar (Gharnef did have an excuse of being the first of his archetype in FE, however).

So, while I see the flaws in SS and can agree they are there, I still have a real liking for the game's setting.

(Oh, and on a less complex note: I love the soundtrack to SS.)

edited 27th Apr '15 6:55:00 AM by Soopor

I'm willing to give Gharnef some credit - he's competent all on his own. Validar needs to rely on Grima to bail him out, and it becomes apparent that he's not very good at adapting to the situation - Lucina's future knowledge ends up being his downfall.

I have a Gharnef rant too. Let me get to my PC to post it.

I can't wait.

a rant saved for every occasion.

and I will clarify that I do not dislike Gharnef in visual design (quite the opposite, actually), and I readily admit that he is more competent as a The Dragon/Sinister Minister to Medeus than Validar is to Grima.

I also have no knowledge of his deeds in Mystery/New Mystery, or even if he features in those games at all. My impression is based only on my playthrough of Shadow Dragon.

edited 27th Apr '15 8:50:12 AM by Soopor

My rant is about why he's the best villain in the series.