Reviews VideoGame / Fire Emblem Fates

A JRPG that\'s more of a cowardly lion than a tin woodsman... sounds like a rarity if you ask me.

Oh, for the love of... haven\'t you anything better to do than parrot narrow-minded pundits at me?

"Workmanlike"?

I suppose critiquing word choices isn't exactly the most involved criticism, but...I dislike that you used that word, it sounds off.

Good review otherwise, although I don't think the way the game was distributed is related to it's quality.

Weirdly enough, you said exactly what i predicted would happen when the splitting was announced =/ well, i guess i\'ll wait until Revelations is sold standalone =D

Honestly, I wouldn\'t start with Revelations. It loses a lot of its punch if you haven\'t experienced the better storytelling moments in the two other routes first, and there\'s some nice clues in both routes that were clearly at one point supposed to serve as tantalizing hints as to the existence of a third route... before the marketing team decided to chop it apart instead.

Um...how exactly would the marketing team chop it apart if there were always supposed to be three routes?

Because they were intended as three separate routes in a single, cohesive game. Three parts of a single experience. Many of their problems come from simply not holding up as standalone stories.

Hmm...where was that stated?

In my review? Or in general?

I think they might be asking in general.

In general, yes.

In general, yes.

Who\'s going to admit to that? Whoever does is going to get a rep as a fuckin\' snitch and never work in the industry again.

But I can tell you, from having played the game, from the way the stories and campaigns are structured, and from the simple fact that the availible-from-the-start Revelations campaign outright tells you to play the other two first, that it makes more sense if it\'s true than if it weren\'t.

What\'s more likely? That Nintendo intentionally built three separate games that are individually less-than-satisfying and only really make sense as a story when combined together into a whole? Or that a bunch of dumb, artless marketeers carved a good title into three chunks to make a quick buck at the expense of the product\'s quality, and all the workers had to sigh and bear it?

Well, to be honest, I'm not inclinded to support speculation without any tangible evidence.

And yes, I can believe that a company whose purpose to make money off of video games planned to release the three paths as separate games from the beginning. Would the story have been any different if the paths were released in one individual game?

Also, Revelations wasn't exactly "available from the start" - it was released after Birthright and Conquest.

All I can tell you is that, if you buy the game as-is, you are getting an incomplete experience. And the reason you are getting an incomplete experience is because someone down the line deliberately chose to distribute the title in a manner antithetical to its quality.

That, answering your initial question, is how the way the game was distributed affected it as a game.

All of which leaves aside the people who otherwise might've liked the game that didn't buy it because of the confusing way in which it was distributed and marketed. That it outsold Awakening is irrelevant. Indeed, given the "triple-dip" distribution philosophy, it was almost certain to do so in the short term. But, unlike Awakening, it is unlikely to have done so as a break-out title, and failing to capitalize on that gain in the name of short-term profits is a new and worrying direction for Nintendo.

I disagree about getting an incomplete experience. Honestly, playing through Birthright and Conquest felt like playing through Path of Raidiance for me. Path of Radiance felt like a complete game, even if there were a couple questions left unanswered and only answered in the sequel. Birthright and Conquest both felt like complete games that told the story they wanted, and the unanswered questions got answered in Revelations, much like Radiant Dawn answered many questions presented in Path of Radiance.

...I\'d argue the point about Radiant Dawn, simply because I dislike its story a lot, but opinions are opinions and taste is taste.

But I guess I just didn\'t like that both games ended with, essentially, the Avatar asking some questions and getting a shrug in return. At the very least, won\'t you agree that Path does have a self-contained story, even if it has some loose ends? I just don\'t feel that Conquest or Birthright do to the same degree.

I did mention that Path of Radiance felt like a complete game, just one with loose ends. Same with Birthright and Conquest; each one told a complete story to me, just with a couple loose ends. And hey, at least I didn\'t have to wait as long for Revelations to come out.

I too wasn\'t a fan of the story in Radiant Dawn, but I cannot deny that it at least tied up some of the loose ends that Path of Radiance left.

"All of which leaves aside the people who otherwise might've liked the game that didn't buy it because of the confusing way in which it was distributed and marketed."

How do you know this was a substantial number of people, anyway? Do you have a source for this?

Also, this might be a bit of a tangent, but there's something that's bugging me - if they had released all 3 paths as one game, do you think that it should have cost the same as a single copy of Birthright/Conquest does? Because altogether, the 3 paths have considerably more content than, say, Awakening.

The number of sales represents an increase over Awakening\'s, but not a truly substantial one. And that\'s before we remind ourselves that a significant portion of those sales numbers are doubled or even tripled-up from the way the games are being distributed.

As to that question... I do, frankly. You\'re not wrong, but previous Fire Emblem titles have featured similarly-divergent stories. And many of the stages in Fates hit similar beats over the course of each route: there\'s the chapter where they fight Kotaro, there\'s the chapter where they fight in the opera house, there\'s the chapter where they rescue Izana... those latter two even take place on similar maps!

And even a brief trip to the YMMV page will quickly reveal just how many corners got cut on Revelations from a level-design perspective to push it out the door.

I\'ll admit, the short-term profit losses would probably have been high, especially given that it was a relatively-expensive title to make and the extra sales made would probably have been counter-acted by the fact that the consumer wasn\'t sinking the price-equivalent of a whole \'nother game in to get the complete title. But it wouldn\'t deal potential long-term damage to the brand and possibly chase away the new fans brought onto the series by the last game either.

Plus if all your marketing, and most of your writing, stresses the \"choice\" the player has to make, taking that decision out of their hands because they bought the wrong title is just bad design from an artistic and business perspective.

And that\'s before we remind ourselves that a significant portion of those sales numbers are doubled or even tripled-up from the way the games are being distributed.

They\'re really not. The NPD is one of the major sales trackers in the US, and it\'s said that the three versions at launch combined would more than triple Awakening. And the NPD solely counts retail sales, so I highly doubt much of anyone was double or triple dipping there.

And even then I highly doubt additional sales of that nature would really factor in, since they\'re being sold as add-ons to the game you already own, and not as separate games entirely.

Oh...

...Well, nevermind then!