I’m skipping FE4 (Genealogy of the Holy War) & 5 (Thracia 776) because the fan translations are incomplete and dodgy, so I’m waiting for the inevitable remake for those.
After FE5, the original creator of Fire Emblem left the company to make his own games, which were Fire Emblem in all but name. I’m playing them currently and will report if I have any thoughts. In the meantime, I have thoughts on the GBA games, where the series tried to reinvent itself after the creator’s departure.
Shadows of Valentia is a 3DS title and a remake of the second game in the series, Fire Emblem Gaiden. It’s a true remake this time, not merely retelling the same story but adding tons of new content. It has a lot of good and a lot of bad.
Last time, I gave an overview of my thoughts on Fire Emblem‘s core gameplay mechanics. Now, I’ll begin giving my thoughts on individual entries in the series. This will be more focused on writing and aesthetics, though I will also discuss unique gameplay elements when they come up.
I began at the beginning, of course, though where applicable I played the remakes, because I don’t hate myself.
Hey, it’s been a while. The reason for my absence is that I’ve been working my way through the Fire Emblem series, which is quite a timesink.
I’ve been interested in strategy RPGs for a while, but they’ve rarely clicked with me, usually due to an overreliance on RNG that rather defeats the purpose of the “strategy” part. I knew that Fire Emblem was both extremely random (even stat gains are up to chance) and extremely punishing of failure, so I avoided it for a long time. However, the hype over Three Houses (the sixteenth game in the series) convinced me to try it and I quite liked what I found, so I decided to give the whole franchise a shot.
Unfortunately, as with Shin Megami Tensei, I started with the best entry in the series and experienced only disappointment thereafter. I do think there are some notable things to discuss, however.
Inside: CrisTales, Axiom Verge 2, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
Inside: OVERWHELM, Islets, Moonlight Pulse, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
The opening of my first draft, back when I thought I’d be doing this in a single post, was “Persona 4 is better than Persona 3.” That was very naive. I’m now quite confident the opposite is true: Persona 4 is so bad it makes Persona 3 look good.
Let’s go over all the social links before the conclusion, including the ones I didn’t finish in the liveblog.
Last time, I went through the optional dungeon added in the rerelease revolving around how the rerelease-exclusive character was very special, but I didn’t care because they didn’t put any effort into making her likable.
This time, it’s Valentine’s Day! I am dreading the horrors.
Last time we beat the real real culprit and the spooky demon man behind the real real culprit, but the game still didn’t end.
Last time, the villain begged me to pretty please come fight him, but I had to complete a social link first or I’d miss out on an optional dungeon, so I left him hanging for a month.
Last time, the investigators deduced the real real culprit by, I kid you not, literal process of elimination. Perhaps today we’ll learn there’s a real real real culprit?
Last time, we hit the ending divergence point, by which I mean the “pick the right options or get a bad ending” point. Trying to actually solve the mystery didn’t work because the game wanted me to act like an idiot who didn’t know anything, so I did that.
Last time I made a new social link, but I still don’t have them all. This time, the plot continues… maybe?
Last time, the real culprit was revealed to be even more boring than the fake culprit and John’s baby cousin got hospitalized. That means now is definitely the best time to go on dates!