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arkus-rhapsode · 11 months

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Let's Talk About Fire Emblem Supports: A Discussion on the State of one of Fire Emblem's Iconic Mechanics

So I'm sure if you are someone who is keyed into the Fire Emblem community, something that has been discussed for some time is the current state of the support system. Arguably Fire Emblem's defining feature which in recent years has almost come to eclipse other facets of the gameplay.

However, with that has come some pretty noticeable backlash. Lets back it up for a second.

This is not going to be a "This is the right way to do this and if you disagree you are wrong" post. This is me as a long time fan of the franchise giving my honest opinion on how I feel about these aspects of the game and why I think they are the way they are and what I think could be improved and what I think works as is. I don't think Fire Emblem or InSys are gonna go be "diluting" themselves if they don't make these improvements, nor do I think someone who has different interests in how the support system should be implemented is wrong. I'm just a fan with an opinion.

So Fire Emblem's support system has been with us since FE4 in a primordial state, but its modern day form really started in FE6. While entries after that varied in terms of things added to it, it was around Awakening with the franchise on dire straights did making it so every character could support and marry for their prime future baby. This pairing mechanic brought on a bunch of new fans that enabled them to get a bunch of character interactions that resulted in loads of content for fans to then take into transformative properties. But the thing is that a lot of Awakening worked in context. What was assumed to be the last FE means its flaws were less evident and were built with the child mechanic in mind.

Now, Awakening's supports are seen as okay supports plagued with a bunch of redundancies due to the fact that one character interacting with everyone character can only produce so much dialogue. That and each support's length could also lead to loads of padding. The child units were also discarded after Fates basically proved that the mechanic without some proper context can feel more intrusive. But that still leaves us with games with many many characters and a lot of interactions.

The criticism of modern FE Supports can vary but the general points are

Too many characters

Too much repetition in interactions

Length of each support

Separated from the events of the narrative

The supports themselves are just poorly written

This is also not ignoring the ways this has been shaken up like Shadows of Valentia's use of memory fragments, the base conversations of the Tellius games, the monastery scene of Three Houses etc. So any discussion of how these support systems could be improved often calls back to other variations of the support system. And that's at least how we will be trying to examine FE's support system, using its other systems and variants for reference and comparison.

So firstly, I think the stance people take on this will actually be different depending on what aspect of the game you value most. If you are a gameplay fiend your focus will be more on integrating supports into the gameplay the way a Persona game might. If you are a more narrative fan of Fire Emblem you would more take the stance that the supports are relevant and reactive to the plot. And if you're a character fan, you likely want the content of the supports to be plentiful but endearing to the characters. So I want to at least establish that where you fall on how supports are implemented will be of personal preference.

As this is my post, my personal stance is Fire Emblem is a narrative game with supports acting as ways to elevate the characters. As such, that is why I feel confident in saying that I am personally not a fan of the idea of making every FE character support relevant to the narrative. The narrative is important to me, but critical world building and character motives shouldn't just be buried in the supports or battle conversations. I shouldn't need to play with certain character combinations to find out vital information for the plot you are writing. In my personal opinion, the best remedy for this was the creation of the base convos. These were interactions the played out when certain conditions were met at certain points in the story.

This had allowed for a lot of side characters to feel as they had some relevance even if they weren't plot relevant. To contribute to how far along this journey has been and how a map scenario may relate to them. A small version of this was done in Garreg Mach Monastery where each chapter would allow for Byleth to walk around the hub world and speak with characters who would provide their thoughts on the previous chapter or what might be coming in the next chapter. These weren't as long as base convos, much shorter. But it still gave the idea of everyone contributing a new insight. That said, as much as I think base convos are good in games like FE9, they should not be a replacement for the current support system but rather an enhancement. These I would consider as narrative moments that often hinge on events that happened in the narrative. With character commenting and interacting off of it. But I feel that if we were to remove the support system and only have base convos we would be distancing a lot of the casual fans of FE who want to see characters interact, but not always as serious. And because FE is often a war story franchise, the tone of base convos are often serious in subject matter.

With Engage and the implementation of the somniel and even walking around defeated battlefields, I actually really would have liked base convos to be implemented this way. Perhaps after a battle you may be able to walk around a camp and see an indicator of who you can talk to about an event that just happened that would trigger a more fleshed out cutscene. I say camp, because while I appreciate the monastery, but one of the issues I have is that it is a stationary location and makes FE not so much a journey but rather just able to fast travel to certain conflicts. Making the world feel smaller and repetitive.

Most likely than not, you will not unlock every support in game on your first try. This to me adds replayability and an incentive to grind with characters you may not regularly use. However, in the case of base convos, unlocking them often hinges on them just being alive at the time. So if you were someone like me who impulsively starts over even on casual mode to not lose a character, when you see all base convos, you have seen them all. You can only walk around the Monastery and ask Sylvain what he thinks about fighting Miklan only so many playthroughs before you just don't bother. The replayability will then come from difficulty spikes and not character or story incentives. So I do believe base convos should return but as an enhancement not a replacement.

(Some may suggest that one could implement a support system lock like FE3H did with its time skips, but that suffered from an issue of not accounting for everything interaction when the time skip happened. So it actually feels very bizarre to watch Ashe and Petra have a lunch time excursion in Faerghus when the country is apparently under occupation. So I think weaving supports with narrative dependency for some supports but not others will actually be more confusing.)

In fact I daresay, supports that are disconnected could actually add levity. Mia and Ilyana's support is almost completely comedic, and it feels more endearing than watch the two of them brood over Daein and Crimea.

Speaking of repetition, lets talk about support redundancy. This is part of another issue in FE's supports which we will get into, but let me at least try to establish what people mean by redundant. I find saying FE characters are "too anime" rather lazy and dismissive. At their core a lot of side FE characters are stock characters with some limited traits. So when you hear Sully talking about working out, or Rosado's obsession with cute things, or Raphael loving food, a lot of the supports they have can come back to or revolve around these topics. And when you have games with the other issue of many many characters hearing them have these convos around these topics again and again can be very boring.

Some could say that this is an easy fix by simply reducing the number of characters. Focus more on say the size of a persona cast. Well the difference is that FE is a tactical RPG with permadeath while Persona is an RPG with a focus on time management. The smaller sized cast benefits the player in ways that help them interact with every character, but not having to worry about one becoming unplayable after you spend a lot of time on one. FE however as a tactical RPG where the mass amount of characters is so you have options to solve strategic map scenarios. Reducing the number of characters to only plot relevant ones would be very difficult. Hypotethically, if we reduced Engage to the characters who have to be around for the plot that only leaves you with Alear, Vander, Clanne, Framme, Mauvier, Veyle, Alfred, Ivy, Diamant, and Timerra. Not exactly a plethora of options for making interesting maps.

Now InSys seems to have begun implementing changes to this already. No longer are we going full Awakening or Fates with supports. Supports are much more limited in scope but not quite as anemic a line up as Shadows of Valentia did with who could support who. 3H and Engage have honestly made far more strides in lowering the number of supports and honing in on who may be relevant for a character to interact with and who outside of that circle could they interact with. Three Houses often relies on the house members each being to support each other with maybe one or two students from other houses or the monastery staff. Engage seems largely to focus on characters from countries having the same interactions with a few from others. This is a good thing, honestly if we were to get a remake of Radiant Dawn, I would love for something similar to be implemented between the Ike, Elincia, and Micaiah casts with some crossover supports when you get to the back half of that game.

So if this is already something InSys is improving, why is it something people are still critical of? Well I think what some may miss is that even if we compact a cast to more manageable interactions, that still leaves the interactions themselves.

Remember how I said Fire Emblem characters are stock characters with some limited traits? Well that is often done with identifiability. When you meet L'Arachel as a holy women but she has a snotty attitude or Sylvain the noble who hits on every woman, its done so you can recognize this character. But when you get into their supports, you often see that there might be reasons for why they act this way or it makes them more fleshed out and rounded characters than how they may seem at face value. This is where I think some Fates fans will often argue that Nohr's cast is very compelling in their supports even if the game's narrative had made many come off as one note. But you can see the flippside with Engage where its supports are more manageable, people didn't think supports were elevating the characters in ways that you had known them. That's not to say all of them, Yunaka is a stand outing how her supports both inform her as a non plot relevant character but also endear her to the audience. This to me is a sign that supports will ultimately be cases of writing. And there can just be poor writing and utilization of characters. This can also hinge on context as well as 3H has recruitment of characters far different from any FE game and just hands you your house with the expectation your interactions with them will make you learn more about them rather than just playing and recruiting on a quest like some may want.

I may have been a bit snide to Shadows of Valentia as even by the account of wanting less quantity of supports, I still found it almost too small. But even then some of the supports are the best in the franchise. Particularly Python and Clive's. But I don't think this was good because SoV had less character supports, I think it was good because the writers had looked at this pairing of characters and what each one was about and what depths could the reveal about each character. I would very much like to see that for a majority of supports.

Last point is length, and honestly we've seen this improved with games like 3H. Some supports can just be short. In fact some people can have only two support chains. Honestly, just doing more of that would've probably led to less issues overall and hope for that to cut down on padding.

So with all this in mind, what is my final take away. Well I ultimately think it comes back to what I usually want out of a Fire Emblem game. The narrative should be all there in the campaign with characters arcs for plot relevant characters, but the supports should be used as a way to enhance these units. Adding dimensions to characters who ultimately don't factor into the plot as a whole. I think 3H did make a lot of these improvements particularly because it was made with the social aspect in mind with that game practically carried by all of its characters and their depths. But I did feel as the narrative of 3H had suffered and wasn't all that tight. Post Engage, I think we are seeing a system I'd like to maintain, but I think what was lost was some of the added depths to cast members that supports can provide as well. Yes, Engage was made with a lot of celebratory fun in mind so it wasn't all that serious, but it would be nice to get more Yunakas and Pandreos in that case than say Ambers. Another aspect is the pairing, and I really hope that pairing characters without the need for child units returns as well.

I am all for the return of base convos like FE9, but I don't think it should be a replacement. Again it is another form of enhancement not replacement for supports. I think completely junking supports in favor of the base convos would be a bad idea especially with newer fans of the franchise. Overall, FE supports I feel are where they should be, but there are plenty of minor tweaks that could be implemented, if just more utilization of the characters beyond their face value.

#fire emblem #fire emblem supports #fire emblem fates #fire emblem awakening #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem engage #fe3h #fe awakening #fe engage #analysis

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emblemxeno · 1 year

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Thoughts on Emblem Paralogues #1

Doing this again with the base game paralogues cuz as a longtime FE fan it’s cool to see how a celebration game shows its love. I’m not really doing them in the order they unlocked, so this is mostly a random assortment.

For starters I like how for the most part, the throwback maps have pretty much the exact same enemy composition. Very wonderful and nostalgic.

Lucina, The Exalt: This one’s good. It makes for a good start to the overall reference paralogues, cuz of it’s simplicity. Wish I had more to say, but it really is that cut and dry lol. I guess I wish there was more reference to the fact that Lucina traveled back in time to prevent the bad future, but I guess that’s what bond conversations are for.

Lyn, The Lady of the Plains: I had lots of fun with this one haha, though I guess it’s cuz I was a tad overleveled when I did it. I heard the OG map in FE6 was very hated, or at least the Sacae route was disliked a lot in comparison to the Ilia one. I read that the original version had fake-out thrones that spawned reinforcements, so I would think that’d piss first time players off. The one thing that I’m kind of iffy on though is just the decision of using this map for Lyn. I know FE7 doesn’t have notable Sacae maps to choose from (I think the first 3 chapters of Lyn’s mode are the only ones, which would suck as throwbacks lol), and that her association with Mulagir thanks to FEH means it’s appropriate to choose this map in particular, but I think chapter 10 or 15 from FE7 could’ve served as good rep maps for her. It’d let her discuss her mixed heritage and connection to Eliwood and Hector, I feel. Oh well, not too fussed about it, since I do love when Lyn talks about Sacae.

Ike, The Radiant Hero: This one’s great. Ike destroying the entire castle was fucking hilarious, and I think it’s a perfect choice for his paralogue given it’s when he first took leadership of the Greil Mercs and had to establish himself as a fighter and protector who can hold out against terrible odds. Though a complaint on that front is that I wish there was some kind of defense-like objective, even though like I said, Ike one shotting a whole castle is funny. Shout-out to the mage in the same place as Ilyana and drops Elthunder, neat reference.

Byleth, The Instructor: Very much liked this one, aside from one aspect: healers with warp aspects (lol plot teleporting in 3H). Byleth’s dancing I can handle, but damn my OCD ridden brain hated beating the map without protecting all the crystals. Though I think I got the best reward anyway, it’s very lenient. Liked the House Leader stand-ins, but surprise surprise, there’s nobody representing Rhea, Seteth, or Flayn despite this being the tomb of their brethren :/ It’s also again indicative of how averse the devs are of associating Byleth with anything beyond being a teacher, cuz one could argue that chapter 10 could’ve been a better choice and still had the “power depends on the heart of its wielder” aesop cuz it dealt with Jeralt’s death and Byleth being granted Sothis’ power in the first place. But whatever, details, details.

Sigurd, The Holy Knight: My favorite of the ones I’ve done so far. I think it’s a great way to represent Sigurd through a Gen 2 map and it gave a fair challenge. The Arvis stand-in with Meteor is hilarious. I really, really regret not getting the goddess icon from the tile that references Seliph’s talk with ghost Sigurd and Deirdre, that little easter egg is so fucking cute 😭 Sigurd’s talk about revenge and there being more than one truth shows just how great of a character he is (and his significance in Engage kind of points to more evidence that FE4 is probs getting remade soon). But the coolest part of the map are the Julius and Ishtar stand-ins. It took all of my brain power to take them out without anyone dying, but I did it! Using the Tiki bracelet came in clutch, cuz even if an attack like Ice Breath misses, it still damages adjacent enemies for the calculated damage. Widdling away at Julius was very satisfying.

I’ll do the rest of the paralogues some time, trust lol.

#fire emblem #fire emblem engage

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