Fire Emblem series

[AzuraAquafina]

It's not that its just a side story, it's that it's a side story that introduces questionable content to the lore and doesn't make much sense. Why not a DLC in Dagda, Brigid, or (even better) Morfis? Why has no one talked about this fourth house until now? Why is it so easy to find them? Why did we not hear about the apostles until they were introduced (I think) in an update? They had tons of opportunities to do a side story in a unique location and culture and instead we got this.

A side story wasn't even my preferred DLC, they seriously needed to focus on adding content to CF and SS. But at the very least tie the side story into the main story a bit, like doing a DLC on a culture we've heard about but haven't seen.

Probably because Cindered Shadows is a draft that they went with long before the game released and then some poor soul had to write a coherent story afterward. People say that the worldbuilding is deep, but I genuinely believe the devs could not give less of a shit and that it was more of an afterthought. I mean, there's one map that I can think of that takes place in Brigid and it's a reused map with bland aesthetics.

As I said, this game is overly ambitious. A side story that takes place underneath Garreg Mach is easier to program than say, a fortress in Dagda that looks nothing like the monastery. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if the devs were more concerned about finishing a half-baked product rather than putting the time and care into a work of art. I think that answers why the lore is dumb. This game really does feel like a product than a work of art. I know that sounds gay, but play any of Kaga's games and, while they're not perfect, you can tell he really puts his heart into his games. I would argue that Vestaria Saga had more integrity than 3H. And that game had a budget of a penny.

While I do agree that a side story in Dagda or Morfis would have been more interesting than someone's basement, I would have preferred a story that took place during Serio's war against the Agarthans or Nemesis. In fact, I was actually expecting it. Not only is it a pivotal moment in history, but a lot of the assets from the base game could be reused. They already have models of the major characters and some of the maps are relevant historical sites. All they had to do is design new characters, specifically the ten elites and the other Nabataens plus a new Sothis design and also rework the pre-existing maps to fit the times.

 

[SnowBall]

Kaga is overrated and his fans tend to be more obnoxious than any modern FE stan I have come across. I have left several classic FE discord servers and even stopped reading both the main sub reddit and r/shitpostemblem because I got annoyed by the stanning. Even Jugdral is all style no substance, the exposition dumps at the start of each chapter do a good job at hiding all the weak spots in the world building and characters. Part one was decent and part two was extremely weak, it was obvious Kaga used up all his good ideas in the beginning.

Maybe its the Kaga stans tainting my view but after playing most of his games and even watched playthroughs of those I didn’t I just don’t think he is the genius many old school fans portray him as.

On an unrelated note if it is any comfort there is a massive anti Edelgard circlejerk on Tumblr where everyone is obsessed with writing massive essays screaming about Edelgard being literally Hitler. One is even a huge Fates stan who gets really angry when you say bad things about it and say 3H is a better game. That is right there are legit Fates stans who defend its story and world building.

 

[AzuraAquafina]

Part one was decent and part two was extremely weak, it was obvious Kaga used up all his good ideas in the beginning.

If you're referring to FE4 then you have a point there. I think the only reason why people like the story so much is its emotional heartstrings and that gen 1 overshadows gen 2. As much as I gush Kaga, I don't think he's a literary genius. He did write Gaiden after all. I just think that Kaga cared a lot about what he was designing even if it wasn't executed well.

 

[SnowBall]

Yeah I see what you are saying. Don’t worry I wasn’t referring to you in my post about Kaga stans. They definitely exist though and are extremely loud from my experience with the “classic” side of the fandom. Despite my harshness he does have a lot of strengths. I really like Jugdral even with its flaws and it is a shame we never got to see the third part dream scenario Kaga wanted to add in. I just got tired of Jugdral fans monopolizing a lot of the classic FE discussions and I can only take so many “lol Sigurd on fire aren’t I original?” jokes before getting annoyed.

 

[HeyYou]

On an unrelated note if it is any comfort there is a massive anti Edelgard circlejerk on Tumblr where everyone is obsessed with writing massive essays screaming about Edelgard being literally Hitler. One is even a huge Fates stan who gets really angry when you say bad things about it and say 3H is a better game. That is right there are legit Fates stans who defend its story and world building.

As far as I know, Dimitri is still the most popular lord. So there's no need to freak out about Edelgard taking over everything.

 

[SnowBall]

As far as I know, Dimitri is still the most popular lord. So there's no need to freak out about Edelgard taking over everything.

I just notice most of the anti Edelgard side of the fandom tends to hang out on Tumblr. Just like the stans some of them take their obsession with her to an unhealthy degree. I like all the three lords and Rhea equally so I just spend my time avoiding extremist fans.

 

[HeyYou]

I just notice most of the anti Edelgard side of the fandom tends to hang out on Tumblr. Just like the stans some of them take their obsession with her to an unhealthy degree. I like all the three lords and Rhea equally so I just spend my time avoiding extremist fans.

That's odd, you'd think Tumblr would be all over her. Twitter is for exactly the reasons you'd expect: "uwu revolutionary lesbian, she and Byleth scissor all the time". Maybe Tumblr finally figured out she's supposed to be an analogue to Napoleon rather than a communist wet dream.

I'm just seething that we didn't get more CF content, outside of Jeritza, and they didn't rework SS to differentiate it from VW. As of right now, I've grown to have a much more critical eye towards the second half of the game.

 

[AzuraAquafina]

Yeah I see what you are saying. Don’t worry I wasn’t referring to you in my post about Kaga stans. They definitely exist though and are extremely loud from my experience with the “classic” side of the fandom. Despite my harshness he does have a lot of strengths. I really like Jugdral even with its flaws and it is a shame we never got to see the third part dream scenario Kaga wanted to add in. I just got tired of Jugdral fans monopolizing a lot of the classic FE discussions and I can only take so many “lol Sigurd on fire aren’t I original?” jokes before getting annoyed.

I was a bit worried that I may come off as a Kaga dickrider, but I'm glad I didn't.

I read in an interview somewhere on Serenes Forest that gen 2 was actually a last minute idea. In fact, it seemed like the development was pretty turbulent since he intended to give SigurdxDeirdre a lot more development and that each character had one child assigned to them. I think it's kinda obvious that Ced was originally Lewyn's son.

This is my source on it: https://forums.serenesforest.net/in...-fan-special-roundtableinterview-translation/
A few posts down and there should be a TL;DR.

Sigurd is my favorite character and all, but I'm sick and tired of all the BBQ jokes. It's a joke that's so overused that it isn't even funny anymore. I'm also sick of the "Arvis did nothing wrong" post too.

I don't really see Rhea/anti-Edel extremist that much on Tumblr but that might be because the character stanning got pretty annoying for me to tolerate on the subreddit that I just ignore it.

 

[Lodoss Warrior]

I thought the DLC was pretty good. 25 dollars for four fully voice acted, fleshed-out characters with supports and dialogue for every route in the game (looking at you, Anna), four new classes to add even more customization, paralogues I hear are pretty good, a new area that expands on the lore in some interesting ways, and a somewhat contrived but enjoyable side story that adds more maps and objective variety that the game sorely needed.

I'm hoping this is just the first step in an unannounced but planned series of DLCs to expand the game even more. It's been a huge success for Intelligent Systems, so it seems weird that this would be a one and done DLC run. I'd strike while the iron's hot.

 

[X-Shaped Weeaboo]

Kaga is overrated and his fans tend to be more obnoxious than any modern FE stan I have come across. I have left several classic FE discord servers and even stopped reading both the main sub reddit and r/shitpostemblem because I got annoyed by the stanning. Even Jugdral is all style no substance, the exposition dumps at the start of each chapter do a good job at hiding all the weak spots in the world building and characters. Part one was decent and part two was extremely weak, it was obvious Kaga used up all his good ideas in the beginning.

Maybe its the Kaga stans tainting my view but after playing most of his games and even watched playthroughs of those I didn’t I just don’t think he is the genius many old school fans portray him as.

This is the number one reason why I'm afraid of playing FE4. The Fire Emblem fanbase has had a lot of time to stew before the modern games came in, and when you're left alone with a franchise or story for an exceptionally long time, you tend to squeeze as much substance out of it as possible, interpreting things that just aren't there in order to validate your love or hate for something so old. As such, I'm afraid of being met with shoutings of "You just don't get it" if I come to the conclusion that the story isn't impressive or that the gameplay isn't exceptionally strong. I'm already cynical to the max when it comes to Fire Emblem and I'm afraid that without having any blinders for games older than FE6 (Not counting Gaiden because ew.) I'll be much less receptive to the qualities most people love about them.

Like, the same people who told me Awakening was a garbage game and to unironically play OG Gaiden are the same people that can't fathom why I don't appreciate a game experience where every action and completing every chapter takes 50% of my day away due to the horrendous speed and pacing. (Echoes doesn't completely fix this, but holy fuck does it help.) That kind of consistent downplaying really kills my motivation, not because I don't like disagreements, but because it feels like Classic FE fans are constantly changing the rules on you.

 

[Trashfire Garbagefuck]

This is the number one reason why I'm afraid of playing FE4. The Fire Emblem fanbase has had a lot of time to stew before the modern games came in, and when you're left alone with a franchise or story for an exceptionally long time, you tend to squeeze as much substance out of it as possible, interpreting things that just aren't there in order to validate your love or hate for something so old. As such, I'm afraid of being met with shoutings of "You just don't get it" if I come to the conclusion that the story isn't impressive or that the gameplay isn't exceptionally strong. I'm already cynical to the max when it comes to Fire Emblem and I'm afraid that without having any blinders for games older than FE6 (Not counting Gaiden because ew.) I'll be much less receptive to the qualities most people love about them.

Like, the same people who told me Awakening was a garbage game and to unironically play OG Gaiden are the same people that can't fathom why I don't appreciate a game experience where every action and completing every chapter takes 50% of my day away due to the horrendous speed and pacing. (Echoes doesn't completely fix this, but holy fuck does it help.) That kind of consistent downplaying really kills my motivation, not because I don't like disagreements, but because it feels like Classic FE fans are constantly changing the rules on you.

whoever recommended OG gaiden is not looking out for your best interest. that game didn't age well, the ideas were nice at the time but way better executed in later games. the 3ds version isn't a great game either and what they added to the story is crap, but it's actually fun to play. none of the 3ds games have worthwhile stories anyways so who cares (that might be the translators fault idk). the map design is still absurd and lazy but it's still overall more fun than awakening was imo. personally I wouldn't recommend playing FE1 or Famicon Wars either, especially with the DS remakes of FE1. god damn new mystery of the emblem was good, and you can hack the improved sprites into the first game. the only good 8 bit strategy games I'm aware of are the Shining Force Gaiden series, and even those are just decent.

FE4 deserves it's good reputation but the battles are almost too complicated. the maps are huge right from chapter 1, the battle info and stats are obtuse and the series didn't get any real quality of life adjustments till the GBA. but it's kind of thrilling in how overwhelming it is, and it isn't outright kaizo fire emblem like FE5 seems to be (haven't played that one yet). I actually haven't beaten FE4 so I can't tell you if the story is worth it in the end, but it certainly plays well. but if you wanna play it just play it. play blind once, then look up how to get all the good shit on a second run. I actually got distracted from it to start Tearring Saga. it's the old FE director's "my own fire emblem with blackjack and hookers" on ps1. pretty good.

 

[AzuraAquafina]

whoever recommended OG gaiden is not looking out for your best interest. that game didn't age well, the ideas were nice at the time but way better executed in later games. the 3ds version isn't a great game either and what they added to the story is crap, but it's actually fun to play. none of the 3ds games have worthwhile stories anyways so who cares (that might be the translators fault idk). the map design is still absurd and lazy but it's still overall more fun than awakening was imo.

Honestly, Echoes is probably one of the most overrated game in the franchise. I kid you not, I've seen people praise the story as one of the best in the series despite the plot contrivances. The only good thing they added is that they made it bearable to play.

 

[Bepis]

I really need to replay some of the older games in this series. Maybe that would help me remember what I loved about it. I honestly couldn't bring myself to finish 3 Houses. It just did not click with me.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Played Cindered Shadows the second it came out and beat it like two days later.

The side-story was really good. It was nice and challenging (I played on Hard/Classic, the hardest difficulty for it) and provided a decent story. Obviously I feel like they could have chosen better characters from BE and BL, but I suppose from a story and a gameplay perspective, Ashe and Linhardt provided enough diversity, and Ashe had some kind of relation to Yuri, just as Hilda had some kind of relation to Balthus. I suppose if they were doing that, they could have included Ferdinand, who apparently had some kind of relation to Constance, but I guess the writers figured that'd be a tad bit too convenient, and there wouldn't be any dedicated healers in the group... Though Mercedes had history with Constance and Mercie >>>>> Linny so

As units, in both the side-story and the main game, Yuri is pretty good and fun to use, Balthus is REALLY good and REALLY fun to use, Hapi is kinda good offensively but VERY lacking defensively, and Constance is decent offensively but VERY lacking in physical defense, though I suppose that's typical for mages. Her res (at least in my current run) is competent enough to be a long-range magic attack soak, even though I have better units for that role

I'm positive that I'm not the only person who's bothered by the supreme lack of consistency and continuity between CS and the main story. You can beat CS and go through all of everything that happens, and the Ashen Wolves will pretend like it's the first time they ever met Byleth. It kind of makes sense, if you're going to attempt to recruit them from the very beginning, where the events of the side-story would absolutely not have taken place, but I could probably ignore that. Balthus and Yuri also don't have their relics, despite having them in the side-story. There are numerous instances in their supports that suggest Cindered Shadows never happened, so it kinda breaks the headcanon (if you will) that it actually did happen and we all just have autism.

I dunno, as someone who cares too much about consistency in stories, the lack of it in this scenario bugs the hell out of me.

The facilities in Abyss are kinda meh. The teacher in the bar just (inaccurately) gauges your students' growth, the wayseer deepens bonds (and guarantees paired endings for a RIDICULOUS renown cost), there's a storeroom where you can get free broken items yaaaay, and the Pagan Altar lets you buy relatively rare items with renown, and lets you throw away useless crap in your storeroom to get very small amounts of renown. Yaaaaaaay.

Overall the expansion is not bad, I'd venture to say it's pretty good, definitely not the worst route they could have taken it in, but I feel like it could've been more. But such is the case with everything, I suppose.

 

[AzuraAquafina]

I'm positive that I'm not the only person who's bothered by the supreme lack of consistency and continuity between CS and the main story. You can beat CS and go through all of everything that happens, and the Ashen Wolves will pretend like it's the first time they ever met Byleth. It kind of makes sense, if you're going to attempt to recruit them from the very beginning, where the events of the side-story would absolutely not have taken place, but I could probably ignore that. Balthus and Yuri also don't have their relics, despite having them in the side-story. There are numerous instances in their supports that suggest Cindered Shadows never happened, so it kinda breaks the headcanon (if you will) that it actually did happen and we all just have autism.

The consistency didn't really bother me all that much. I never really found CS story consistent with the main story to begin with. It felt like it was trying to avoid stepping the foot of the main story while taking its own liberties. For example, there's no implication what house you chose so you'd think this took place in the beginning until you realize that everyone's stats looks like it's ready to transition into part 2.

It also doesn't help that CS, to me at least, has a lot of logistic issues. As someone who's currently in college, I have a hard time believing that a bunch of high school seniors are able to spend 5-6 days a week studying and also spend the rest of their week in the Abyss. Do the students just not feel fatigued? Do Hubert and Dedue not exist? There's no way those two would allow their liege to go into the Abyss without their assistants. I also find it awfully convenient that all members of the Ashen have a major crest. I get that they want crest representation, but it kinda breaks my suspension of disbelief when most crest-bearers are minor, implying that major crest are extremely rare.

In the grand scheme of things, CS feels like poorly written fanfiction. It retcons some of the lore and what's already been established, like Sitri's burial and the four apostles. Because of that, it really has no place in the main story.

 

[X-Shaped Weeaboo]

In the grand scheme of things, CS feels like poorly written fanfiction. It retcons some of the lore and what's already been established, like Sitri's burial and the four apostles. Because of that, it really has no place in the main story.

Honestly, that makes me kind of sad. I'm not displeased with 3 Houses story as it is, but there are so many angles that could be explored and I still have some problems the the story's structure that I hoped DLC would fix. (The mains Lords still amount to jack crack other than boss fights if you don't pick their routes.)

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

about to finish path of radiance. it was a good game. will start radiant dawn once i got the urge for more fire emblem.

 

[Sayon]

Honestly, as someone on tumblr put it CS comes off as a retroactive attempt to appease critics and pander to certain cuts of the fandom. Hence:
>More info on Byleth's mother
>The Church of Seiros being more "evil"
>The Lords working together

All in all, eh.

 

[Silver Chariot]

It just did not click with me.

Strangely 3H is the game that reignited the love for the series I had after Fates utterly broke me

All in all, eh.

Agreed, this is just the Echoes DLC issue all over again, but less expensive

 

[HeyYou]

Honestly, as someone on tumblr put it CS comes off as a retroactive attempt to appease critics and pander to certain cuts of the fandom. Hence:
>More info on Byleth's mother
>The Church of Seiros being more "evil"
>The Lords working together

All in all, eh.

Is it even all that evil? It's one dude, and Yuri is revealed to be working for the Church to keep an eye on the dude. And the Lords don't even interact that much. If this was to appease people, it didn't really do a good job of that.