Fire Emblem

If they remake FE 4, then no. They are going to bring it in because it's the best solution for a male-and-female pairing together when they are going to use the support system for the Gen 2 inheritance.

Edited by mariovsonic999 on Jan 12th 2019 at 8:36:01 AM

I do hope that if they continue to use S-ranked supports, we get more same-sex romance. Heck, maybe have some characters who can only achieve S-ranked supports with characters of the same sex.

So I'm biased as I got into the series through Birthright and thus like the way Fates handles Supports, even if the way it handles children is dumb.

That said, I think a compromise would be the best solution: everyone can Support with everyone but are limited to only six romance options with three opposite sex romance options and three same sex options per character.

Instead of just C-B-A-A+/S ranks support ranks are F-E-D-C-B-A-A+/S ranks in order to make the romances actually believable. For characters than can romance each other hitting A rank nets you two options. You can either choose to get together which ranks them up to S rank or you can have them stay as friends which puts them into A+ rank similar to Fates.

As far as children goes, I would give them their own separate storyline that only unlocks once you've either beaten the main campaign or reached S rank for everyone you've kept alive, whichever comes first. This would solve the problem of having to justify child characters since they have their own story set years after the main one.

Speaking of children, I still hope that if we get an Elibe remake that has both Blazing Blade and Binding Blade, they find some way to connect the games so pairings in Blazing Blade affect some things in Binding Blade. I know that Binding Blade already has a lot of characters, but I would love it if some of the characters from Blazing Blade came back as playable units, especially Lyn.

I also want whoever Roy's mother is to survive and be a playable character. Doubly so if they retcon Ninian's death and make her a second Manakete unit. It would also be nice if Ninian gets unique dialogue with Jahn; I can probably see her insisting that Roy is proof that dragons and humans can get along while Jahn just brushes her off or something like that.

Marriage and S-supports are fine. They just need to have some actual variety in them, something 1st gen Awakening failed at when all of them involved a ring. Supports in general need to be limited somewhat because that just makes too much writing to make each support good enough, as was seen in Awakening and Fates. Though the DLC for those games did have good unique conversations for each parent-child combo, so maybe it's not as big an issue with the right writers?

Kids need to go though, no question about that.

I mean, S-Rank doesn’t HAVE to equal a marriage proposal when there’s no children involved in-game. They could start a relationship in the conversation based on the C-A conversations, and then get married in their ending.

So I just promoted Alm and Celica to Conqueror and Rigain. I kind of like how instead of running into battle, they slowly walk while drawing out their sword.

Also finished all of the sea battles in Act 6. That third one with all the monsters was a tad nerve-wracking at the end, but thankfully the team pulled through.

Still going to do some grinding before I go into the Thabes Labyrinth.

I think that would be the best choice. A-supports for paired endings in Sacred Stones were generally the beginning of the courting process, and the ending revealed how it progressed after the game's story is finished.

Edited by Resileafs on Jan 12th 2019 at 1:20:54 PM

The one major flaw is that paired endings would almost always be the S-rank supports. The only ways to solve that I can think are to give everyone four conversations (with the last one being either S or A+ rank, depending on if it’s romantic or not) and allow only one fourth level, unbalancing the number of characters so that not everyone will be able to reach S-rank with someone, or locking S-rank behind an item with limited numbers.

Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, chapter 11: Knorda Market

Entering Akaneia proper, we have a map map consisting of a long path between two mountain ranges. One mountain range encloses a large settlement patrolled by several Ruffian Mercenaries, making this the first appearance of Ruffians in the series. The other mountain range encloses an area with a large number of forts, patrolled by Grustian Cavaliers, Horsemen, Pegasus Knights, and a couple of Ballisticians, another first appearance.

Mart is accompanied by his ever-faithful companions Shiida, Cain, Abel, Ogma, Nabarl, and Hardin. Minerva comes along because I can always use another great flier, Maria and Lena to provide healing, Gordin to deal with the Pegasi, Merric for magic, Draug for stonewalling, and Barst to make up the numbers.

I begin by sending Shiida and Minerva east across the mountains. Over the next few turns, their combination of Spd and Str makes short work of the Mercenaries.

Meanwhile, the rest of my army goes northwest along the corridor. The Pegasus Knights cross the mountains to attack and one of them takes a shot at Lena, but misses and so Lena gets free Exp, gaining a level. Gordin one-shots that Pegasus, and Nabarl, Draug, and Merric together take down the other one.

Meanwhile, the Grustian cavalry comes out over the northern pass and breaks themselves on Marth and his rapier. My fliers and cavalry explore the southeast settlement, where homeowners tell me some interesting things. One tells me about the three Akaneian royal weapons - Parthia, the flame bow; Gradivus, the stone-piercing spear; and Mercurius, the legendary sword. One just welcomes me to Knorda and tells me I can get rare items. One tells me there is a slave trader headquarters on the edge of town. One tells me that war sucks, citing the same effects that Shiida used to persuade Roger to defect. And one tells me that Knorda has become terrible since Akaneia fell to Doluna, and people are aren't even safe walking the roads. Huh, that's really cool. The Ruffians were evidently a gang of bandits that took advantage of the chaos, and Marth's army forced them out, doing some good on a local level even as their march to their ultimate objective.

Marth visits the village, where an NPC offers to sell him some cheap slaves. Marth tells him to get lost, and lets the slaves return to their homes. One, however, turns out to be Linde, who fled Gharnef but was captured by slavers; she insists on joining up with Marth so she can take revenge on Gharnef, and offers to use her father's Aura tome to help. Naturally, I welcome her, as it's always good to have another mage. Linde buys Thunder and Freeze tomes from Aimee, and she and Marth rejoin the main army in the northeast.

At this point I decide to abuse the arena, and handily enough bring Hardin and Merric up to level 10, helped by Maria's use of staves and being next to Aimee's shop. Draug and Gordin prove more difficult, to the point I get frustrated and just leave them at 9.

My army advances north, taking out the Ballistas handily, and Marth slays the boss, a Manakete, with his Wyrmslayer. Shiida talks to Jake, the named Ballistician, and persuades him to join by appealing to his sense of decency. In this conversation, she mentions hearing about Jake from Anna. So far, Anna has only appeared to ask me if I want to save, and hasn't been in the game proper, so that's a bit weird; I guess Shiida happened to know Anna from before the war.

All right, let's talk about Shiida, because she is the best character in this game. She is an action girl through and through, who fights with the army to save her kingdom and, when that is done, leaps without hesitation into saving the world. Yet she isn't bloodthirsty. Time and again, when an enemy soldier is doubting his cause, Shiida sees the fundamental goodness in him and shows him that there is a better way. She is a mistress of diplomacy, and her words are as important as her lance. Yet this isn't, as is too often the case, a one-off event where words win the day once, but swords are the answer ever after. Consistently throughout the game, Shiida shows the power of kindess and love in winning over hearts and minds, yet this never detracts from her ability with the lance and the sword.

While there aren't many women in this game, those that are present are interesting and well-developed, and Shiida stands head-and-shoulders above the rest as a wonderfully-written character, full stop. And this is all the more impressive considering it happens in a NES game.

It's interesting to note that in Awakening, Cordelia talks at length about a pegasus knight who served the first exalt of Ylisse in her C support with Donnel, and describes her in a manner that sounds quite similar to Shiida:

Cordelia: She was his greatest knight and his most stalwart defender. She watched over him like the sun itself, swooping down to dispatch foes. The slow, heavy knights feared her aerial dance most of all. At night they huddled together and told tales of a death-dealing lance from the sky.
Donnel: Gosh! She sounds mighty impressive.
Cordelia: Oh, she was. But she was more than just a warrior. She had the courage of a demon, yes, but the heart of an angel. They say the people loved her even more than she loved the exalt. In fact, for every foe she defeated, she won two more to her side with her charisma.

This perhaps explains why Cordelia is such a Caeda fangirl in Warriors.

Anyway, at this point I send Linde back to the arena to grind up, and she does amazingly. She has great growths all round, and her insane speed means she beats almost every enemy, quickly getting to level 10 and earning a spot in my army. Marth seizes the castle, but before Akaneia can be freed, they need to enter and flush out the last few Grustian troops holed up inside. Time for another indoor map.

New units: Linde, Jake

Levelups: Marth, Shiida, Minerva, Hardin, Merric, Draug, Gordin, Cain, Linde

Caeda is arguably in Nintendo's top 3 NES heroines along with Samus and I guess Celica.

Knorda has always been a hellhole in the lore.

The fact that's a city right outside Archanea's capital should tell you how poor a king Nyna's father was, something which Camus makes sure that he tells Nyna when he captures her. He straight up tells her that her father may have been good to her but he was a poor king who failed his people. And this is mere hours after Nyna has learned that her father is dead and her world has been shattered.

Even during peace times, it used to be the sight of a grand arena where slaves were forced to fight to the death. It's the same place where Ogma and Samto used to be. It's where Caeda saved Ogma from his punishment after he helped his fellow slaves escape. Caeda's father was visiting Archanea when Caeda was just a little girl when they encountered the scene of Ogma being punished and Caeda put a stop to it. And thus, Ogma became eternally loyal to her and came back with her to Talys. Do yes, Caeda is best girl.

This is especially true in Shadow Dragon where the writers amped up her manipulative methods. You could just argue that in the original, she was just being the typical kind hearted princess who's kindness wins over her enemies. In the remake, they make it quite clear that she's manipulating them. She seduces Roger over to her side. Lorenz also says that she's had men wrapped around her little finger since she was little and is pretty much an expert in manipulation. And this despite all this, she's still kind hearted and always has Marth's best interests at heart. When was the last time you saw a character like that? Usually, female characters that manipulate men like that are generally straight up villains or at least anti-heroic. But Caeda is still sweat and kind and the game only ever presents her as absolutely good.

Edited by RangerJackWalker on Jan 12th 2019 at 2:50:21 PM

I find that last one to be very subjective

Would be better to either...

• save the romance for the Implied Love Interests to y'know not make them ILI (on top of having hints in the story)
• or have a separate set of supports (preferably written by a separate writing team s the quantity might match or exceed that of Fates and Awakening depending how many pairing there are) for dates, preceded by a prompt that asks if character A wants to date to charterer B first. (and make sure that the characters can't date other units unless the player breaks them up or one of them dies).

That sounds needlessly complicated, particularly for a secondary feature.

...And now I remembered how Genealogy had this "Jealousy"-mechanic that, from what I heard about it... Sounded rather sexist.

Let's just say that nintendo dodged a bullet by having jealously be a completely hidden mechanic in a twenty year old game.

Although...the bones of the idea aren’t that bad. There would be something kind of cool about an anti-support system, where there are units that don’t get along and have stat debuffs when they’re near each other.

I'm reminded of Mount & Blade where my generals would sometimes bitch about one another to me and I had to send one off to raise an army on their own so they'd stop bothering me about it.

There are plenty of supports where the characters can't stand one another at first and that's emphasized with low support growth but they still get stat boosts, which in my mind helps hammer home the True Companions feel that they're usually going for with Fire Emblem armies.

I want to point out that the 5-support limit used by the GBA system and PoR was also very much a game balance thing. Bonuses are very proportionally large in those games, particularly the Avoid and Crit bonuses (granted, Awakening's also got significant boosts, but enemy stats are made with the assumption that these factors are in play, whereas GBA and PoR had really wimpy enemies who really didn't need more bonuses stacked against them). Five ranks of +Avoid is usually enough to make a dodge tank actually legitimately invulnerable (sometimes a reaver weapon is required to push enemy hit to 0, but not always) and five ranks of crit bonuses could push many units well over 70% Crit (off the top of my head, Guy can hit a 100% rate).

EDIT: They could do it as a sort of "rivals" support, with trade-offs similar to Faye's crush on Alm. They're trying to show off to one-up the other, so they're more likely to get whacked, but also more likely to hit and crit.

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Jan 12th 2019 at 8:18:12 AM

And Radiant Dawn had even more massive bonuses to make up for only allowing one support per character at a time. In particular, two Earth affinity characters could give each other +45 evasion.

Ike and Oscar OTP.

I don't see the need to overly pick through the support system. Axe the b a b y r e a l m and it's okay by me.