Fire Emblem series

[Berrakh]

My sister is playing Three Houses as her first Fire Emblem game.

She asked me stuff about it, and that I refrain from spoiling anything (at the same time).

She also chose Edeltard Edelgard as her child, and lost Hubert immediately. She is considering restarting.

What do I do?

Steer her toward Silver Snow?

 

[Peru oso donas]

My sister is playing Three Houses as her first Fire Emblem game.

She asked me stuff about it, and that I refrain from spoiling anything (at the same time).

She also chose Edeltard Edelgard as her child, and lost Hubert immediately. She is considering restarting.

What do I do?

Tell her to get Edelgard's C+ support, to talk with her on the month where you go to the tomb and then just let her choose if she wants to support the unhinged lady, or Edelgard

 

[NerdShamer]

She also chose Edeltard Edelgard as her child, and lost Hubert immediately. She is considering restarting.

What do I do?

Kind of depends on what exactly is she doing. Early game is essentially hell for mages in 3H

 

[Caddo Cobgang]

My sister is playing Three Houses as her first Fire Emblem game.

She asked me stuff about it, and that I refrain from spoiling anything (at the same time).

She also chose Edeltard Edelgard as her child, and lost Hubert immediately. She is considering restarting.

What do I do?

oof sorry to hear that, I think Edelgard sucks, I liked Azure Moons story a lot better plus Dimitri is written a lot more interestingly (traumatic backstory,his fall after Coup during the timeskip,and then getting better upon Rodrigue's death nd getting a motivation to lead his people again) my only real criticism of that route was that the Slithers dont really get covered that much despite being the main antagonists and you just kind of ccidentally kill their leader, its overall the best route regardless imo.

 

[Quartermaster]

She also chose Edeltard Edelgard as her child, and lost Hubert immediately. She is considering restarting.

What do I do?

If she wants to restart let her restart, she'll probably make better decisions the second time around too.

And besides, the newer FE games have a smaller cast so deaths are a little more hard hitting so restarting is encouraged.

Just let her do her thing, man.

 

[Mnutu]

It’d be more interesting for an FE game to “punish” the player for keeping everyone alive. There should be a mechanical disadvantage and story and character consequences. It won’t happen because it’s contrary to the gacha-like nature it’s taken.

 

[Berrakh]

oof sorry to hear that, I think Edelgard sucks, I liked Azure Moons story a lot better plus Dimitri is written a lot more interestingly (traumatic backstory,his fall after Coup during the timeskip,and then getting better upon Rodrigue's death nd getting a motivation to lead his people again) my only real criticism of that route was that the Slithers dont really get covered that much despite being the main antagonists and you just kind of ccidentally kill their leader, its overall the best route regardless imo.

If we get back into Edeltard discourse we have to acknowledge that many who dislike her are fanatical wholesome chungus rule-followers who think black people can be godly and prioritize social issues like lgbt, religiosity, and “the birth rate” over destroying the ecological nightmare that is invasive fauna from the global south.

Just something I’ve noticed.

 

[NerdShamer]

It’d be more interesting for an FE game to “punish” the player for keeping everyone alive. There should be a mechanical disadvantage and story and character consequences. It won’t happen because it’s contrary to the gacha-like nature it’s taken.

That would only work if you genuinely had an redditor on your team.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

It’d be more interesting for an FE game to “punish” the player for keeping everyone alive. There should be a mechanical disadvantage and story and character consequences. It won’t happen because it’s contrary to the gacha-like nature it’s taken.

I mean there already is a gameplay disadvantage with keeping everyone around in how you have to limit your party and there is nothing like an experience share like in Pokemon so if you want every unit possible and for them all to be equally viable, you'd have to grind hard for that to happen.

oof sorry to hear that, I think Edelgard sucks, I liked Azure Moons story a lot better plus Dimitri is written a lot more interestingly (traumatic backstory,his fall after Coup during the timeskip,and then getting better upon Rodrigue's death nd getting a motivation to lead his people again) my only real criticism of that route was that the Slithers dont really get covered that much despite being the main antagonists and you just kind of ccidentally kill their leader, its overall the best route regardless imo.

I think Edelgard works well as an antagonist, and Azure Moon perfectly does that well with her being the foil to Dimtiri. As for the slithers not being addressed and Dimtiri accidentally killing them, well its a nature with games with multiple routes, there are some loose ends that have to be loose in some routes that other routes would fill the gap towards.

An issue with Three Houses' Route system is that Verdant Wind and Silver Snow are mostly the same route with some minor differences along the way with a different final boss, and how Part 1 is the same for every route which can make replaying the game to get the routes a slog with the only difference being the interactions you have with the Lord of each route and the Class.

Only exception is Crimson Flower and Silver Snow since you could access both routes by copying the save file at a certain point in the game which will save a lot of time. Which is what I did when I played SS/CF last after finishing VW.

 

[Caddo Cobgang]

I agree Edelgard works well as a villian, her ideals are flawed and while having some good in them, I feel she embodies a type of radicalism that is similar with MOST modern socialist movements that just doesnt work in practical terms, Dimitri realize immediate radical change would be retarded, even in Three Hopes which is non-canon to me but it gives a good insight into Dimitris political opinons (hes more practical in realizing he cant piss off the Nobles on his side, even though he cares for commoners), whereas I feel Crimson Flower has the pitfall of the Slithers still having some degree of political control, in Azure Moon they at least suffer a major setback with Thales death, as for as VW and SS go they are not a problem at all with Shambala destroyed

 

[Metallic Blood]

It’d be more interesting for an FE game to “punish” the player for keeping everyone alive. There should be a mechanical disadvantage and story and character consequences. It won’t happen because it’s contrary to the gacha-like nature it’s taken.

Shozou Kaga? is that you? I'm a big fan of your work! Which I mean: Any work that isn't FE5's warp tiles!

My sister is playing Three Houses as her first Fire Emblem game.

She asked me stuff about it, and that I refrain from spoiling anything (at the same time).

She also chose Edeltard Edelgard as her child, and lost Hubert immediately. She is considering restarting.

What do I do?

Don't let her reset this one (considering it's post chapter 2 and she probably overwritten her savefile, which would be 3-4 hours wasted lol), but tell her that she needs to keep everyone alive next time.

3H is such a character-focused game that I believe taking one character away just hinders the experience, it's not like the old games where a character had 2 lines of dialogue and a death quote, 3H characters from start to finish are your homies, and even if you don't like them, at least none of them are boring. (Hubert for example is one of my favorites.)

It's not even just "to make you feel good for saving everyone", but when most of your gameplay is roaming on the monastery and helping these people both in their combat prowess and in their personal lives, then yeah, you won't ever catch me doing an ironman for this game.

 

[Quartermaster]

It’d be more interesting for an FE game to “punish” the player for keeping everyone alive. There should be a mechanical disadvantage and story and character consequences. It won’t happen because it’s contrary to the gacha-like nature it’s taken.

Earlier Fire Emblem games had a much larger cast as you were encouraged to keep playing after you lost a unit.

This meant that neccessarily these characters had very little well character to them.

FE4 is an obvious exception to this as the save system, valkyrie staff and second generation basically expected you to and gave you the tools to keep everyone alive.

To illustrate this point let me list off how many of each class you get off the top of my head.

In FE1 you get within the first 10 chapters around 10 Cavaliers, around 3 Mercenaries/Myrmidons, 4 Pegasus Knights, around 5 bow users, 3 Mages etc

Granted I may be slightly off but compare these numbers to FE8 for a second.

In that game you get 3 Cavaliers ignoring Amelia, 1 Fighter, 1 Mage ignoring Ewan, 1 Shaman, 1 Monk etc

Its quite a stark contrast.
To punish people for keeping everyone alive is retarded, just look at Shadow Dragon.
That game punishes you for keeping everyone alive by making you miss the gaiden chapters.

And I don't need to tell you how retarded that was.

 

[Peru oso donas]

Shozou Kaga? is that you? I'm a big fan of your work! Which I mean: Any work that isn't FE5's warp tiles!

It's quite the opposite really, Kaga's early games used to have large casts with ironmaning in mind, but his later ones have smaller casts with the upside that keeping them alive gives you story events that usually lead to more recruits or items, with vestaria saga encouraging you to rotate your characters instead of using a set party because of what said + there being army splits similar to Radiant Dawn (but not as badly designed)

 

[JamusActimus]

It’d be more interesting for an FE game to “punish” the player for keeping everyone alive. There should be a mechanical disadvantage and story and character consequences. It won’t happen because it’s contrary to the gacha-like nature it’s taken.

In the Ds Marth games (forgot the name) you get to some chapter only if you got like half your team killed.

Permadeath just does not work in modern fire emblem and maybe it never worked.

The rewind mechanic makes it a choice between losing 30 seconds, restarting the chapter and ending up handicapped for the rest of the run.

In modern fe characters take so much resources and time that it's devastating to have them gone and the game never takes death into account narratively.

 

[Billy Hargrove]

My sister is playing Three Houses as her first Fire Emblem game.

She asked me stuff about it, and that I refrain from spoiling anything (at the same time).

She also chose Edeltard Edelgard as her child, and lost Hubert immediately. She is considering restarting.

What do I do?

I love Hubert, he’s like my favorite character and a fun unit to use. But he is really not that great. Hardly irreplaceable. Tell her to just keep going and recruit another student she likes to replace him.

I didn’t love everything about engage but one thing I did appreciate was them giving you a lot of replacement units so you could let units die. It’s how fe is meant to be…

 

[Metallic Blood]

It's quite the opposite really, Kaga's early games used to have large casts with ironmaning in mind, but his later ones have smaller casts with the upside that keeping them alive gives you story events that usually lead to more recruits or items, with vestaria saga encouraging you to rotate your characters instead of using a set party because of what said + there being army splits similar to Radiant Dawn (but not as badly designed)

No yeah I understand, It's just funny to me that the later Kaga games also have some events that are only accessible if an unit dies or is unrecruited, like most of the secret events in FE4's Gen 2 requires the substitutes instead of the child units, or in FE5 where you can only recruit Illios if Olwen died or even an entire gaiden chapter if one of your units got captured.

Not sure if you can call it punishing or not, since some of them might not even be worth it (like trading a Holy Weapon for a... Berserk staff), but it's funny to think that you still get rewarded by having characters die or caputred. And if there's any man that would bring such an insane idea to FE, it would be Kaga himself. (did I mentioned FE5's warp tiles?)

 

[Sneak 'n' Snore]

All this talk about unit deaths and replacements reminded me of this weird one-off character that I only have been made aware of through Youtube.
In Radiant Dawn if Lethe dies before the first chapter with the Dawn Brigade in act 3, she as a boss will be replaced by this complete rando named Kezhda. Keep in mind that he's not playable, does not change anything important and never shows up otherwise in any capacity if Lethe is alive.
It's so specific and pointless that I wonder why they went through with it at all, they easily could've given Lethe a rereat quote like they do with a couple other characters.

 

[mrs thickness]

No offense to anyone who likes ironmanning, but I hate fetubers purity testing with this ironman/turnwheel trve way to play shit based off of a misinterpretation/misrepresentation of one line in one interview from 30 years ago for game #1 and nothing else ever again. There's a new video about how you're a luddite pissing on Lord Kaga's legacy if you reset or don't hate turnwheel every fucking week. It always boils down to "ohhh it makes the story so much more ludokino. it teaches you to play well by, uh, encouraging you to use the prepromotes with high bases. and teaching you to actually look at numbers."

It changes nothing about the story and characters except for the fanfic in your head. I don't need shock therapy to force the desire to strategize for a map, look at numbers, or be curious about game mechanics. I have never, in any of my ironmans, learned something, come up with a novel strategy, or had a memorable moment that I couldn't have without permadeath. All it does is encourage you to do the same safe, usually slow shit everyone else does in their ironmans. Then they hit you with the copeacabana of "uh, just don't play optimally then. it's about the journey. you don't need to actually win ironmans to have fun and be heckin cute and valid." Ok, well, if it's about just having fun and playing how I actually want to, like how Kaga actually, literally said in the one interview they all quote, then I think I'll just do it while playing normally, resetting at my own discretion, and using whichever shitters I want instead of pretending a 40-80 hour long Fire Emblem campaign is a fucking roguelike. I don't make a living off Fire Emblem content and thus haven't fried my dopamine receptors from extracting every single morsel of content that I can out of replays, and my livelihood is also not affected from my spastic underage viewers not wanting to watch me reset and replay a map. I do not need to put the balldo on to enjoy the gameplay. Thanks

Permadeath and the turnwheel could stand to be much more dynamic than they are right now. I'd love for more dialogue, characters, chapters, etc to be locked behind X character(s) being alive or not. More choices, more options, more stuff. I'll shit on Mangs and his butt buddies until I die of dehydration, but Andaron Saga does well in that regard. It would also be cool to penalize turnwheeling or provide some kind of incentive to not abuse it, like stat reductions or 'true' ending requirements. Do that Sifu thing where if you use it too much you turn into monster mash and the thots like Hilda won't talk to you no more. It's hard to imagine a modern Nintendo game being willing to lock content away behind requiring the player to git gud, though it's probable I've overlooked some of the more recent examples.

 

[Foxxo]

3H is such a character-focused game that I believe taking one character away just hinders the experience, it's not like the old games where a character had 2 lines of dialogue and a death quote, 3H characters from start to finish are your homies, and even if you don't like them, at least none of them are boring. (Hubert for example is one of my favorites.)

I remember Excelblem saying something along the lines of "killing everyone off makes the game quicker because it removes them from the cutscenes", and I forget if he preferred that over a typical run. He beat the game by grinding Byleth and Edelgard to Level 99, killing every other recruitable character, and then killing Edelgard because someone paid him over 100 dollars to do Silver Snow, and it somehow took him less time than playing the game normally.

 

[Peru oso donas]

Permadeath and the turnwheel could stand to be much more dynamic than they are right now. I'd love for more dialogue, characters, chapters, etc to be locked behind X character(s) being alive or not. More choices, more options, more stuff. I'll shit on Mangs and his butt buddies until I die of dehydration, but Andaron Saga does well in that regard. It would also be cool to penalize turnwheeling or provide some kind of incentive to not abuse it, like stat reductions or 'true' ending requirements. Do that Sifu thing where if you use it too much you turn into monster mash and the thots like Hilda won't talk to you no more. It's hard to imagine a modern Nintendo game being willing to lock content away behind requiring the player to git gud, though it's probable I've overlooked some of the more recent examples.

I feel like Kaga came up with the perfect solution in TRS by making an item which essentially lets you make save states during a map, so save scumming becomes a finite resource you can manage however you like. Unicorn Overlord also has a similar item which you can use to continue where you left off in case of a game over, and the game actually lets you buy more of it, with caveat that you buy it with a pretty rare resource that you can also use to buy better items, so that way the strategically challenged have to choose if they would rather waste the resource on continues, or on better equipment and items.