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crystalelemental · 4 years

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I know it's way too early for this kind of speculation, but what do you think FE17 will be? the Genealogy remake would be interesting, but that'd possibly damn FE18 into a Thracia remake, much like Shadow Dragon/New Mystery. unless they decide to make it into 1 game, which doesn't sound probable to me. maybe they'll make a new story, with less, uh, questionable morals to keep the new 3H fans interested into the franchise? will they keep the calendar, the instruction stuff, or go back to the laid back way of Awakening/Fates/Echoes? you don't have to give a long answer if you don't want, I'm just musing a bit here

“You don’t have to give a long answer,” as if that’s ever stopped me.

What do I think it will be? I have no idea. But given its popularity, they could be considering it like a Tellius situation, with a prequel game. I don't think they can go sequel (more on that in the other response), but prequel with Seiros as the focus, going from the Red Canyon Massacre to the end of the War of Heroes? Sign me up. I would love more on that. And I adore games that focus on side stories (Thracia, Blazing Blade), so I'm super on board for a fleshed-out side story about that period in Fodlan.

I can't say what they'd try to do with gameplay, but I do think they'd keep a sort of "home base" kinda thing at a minimum. The instruction aspect of Three Houses was very specific to that game, and truthfully, I don't know if it will maintain. Not to be how I am constantly, but I hope it doesn't. I really feel like the monastery exploration and having to fine-tune instruction for students was more tedious than anything, and ultimately didn't add much to the gameplay experience. I also feel like the calendar was kind of a bad call too. A lot of events, as they're laid out, feel like they should be happening back to back. But because of the calendar focus, you have situations where it implies you traveled far off to engage in a big battle, but then just walked back to the monastery for a whole month before marching out the same direction. I don't think it blends events together all that nicely. Frankly I think Fates' decision to have a pocket dimension where you can take care of your bullshit was a better way to hand-waive the question of how you're able to backpedal and stock up in the midst of a campaign.

That said, any non-remake game, and possibly even the remake game, will take inspiration from Three Houses in the same way Fates and Echoes did from Awakening. The massive success of Three Houses is guaranteed to be an anomaly to them. They still don't know why Awakening worked, I doubt they'll know why this one worked. So I anticipate a lot of character tropes and storytelling angles will be reused in future games. They'll try to mess with perspective and the idea of hidden history muddying the morality of things for sure. I don't think there's any benefit for them to go back to more clear-cut morality. Even if there's a lot of fan argument about it (Edelgard and Dimitri fans), that's never a bad thing. That's still attention being drawn to your game. That's still discussion around it. No press is bad press, and this game is still more popular than the rest of the series ever had been. So they'll keep characters like Lysithea, and Bernadetta, and have that attempt at a complex plot, and a bunch of mysteries that never get answered, and oh god every MU is going to be like Byleth now oh god oh fuck.

But personally, I want the next game to be a Genealogy remake. I have issues with Genealogy as a whole, both gameplay and story-wise, and a remake could salvage at least some of that. Support conversations definitely could, and a changing of certain story elements would be nice, although Fallen Julia's already in FEH so like...there goes my greatest hope.

That said, I don't really want them to do too much? Like, Echoes added a few characters, and while those are some of the best in the game, a lot of that I feel like was to add any sort of significance to Alm's journey beyond the end goal. Alm's route would be boring as all hell without Berkut, so his inclusion was a massive benefit to the game. But I can't think of a situation where my qualms with Genealogy is "This just isn't engaging enough, we don't have enough people." Genealogy almost has too many characters. If anything their bigger problem is that characters and themes they set up are never utilized. So it's more about reworking the narrative a bit rather than needing to include things to make a blander game stand out, you know?

I definitely don't think they'd combine Genealogy and Thracia. I mean they could, but I don't think it's a good idea. Genealogy, again, has too many characters already. Combining the games leads to the question of where the hell Leif's army is, and that's adding like 50 characters to the roster. Since you deploy every unit you have in Genealogy, that's...way too much. They'd have to completely rebalance the game. Not to mention Thracia doesn't play at all like Genealogy, and is way too long to be a brief side-story or DLC exclusive. There's just no effective way to integrate the two. I think it would be better to just make the game after that the Thracia remake, which...honestly is the best possible outcome as far as I'm concerned.

Binding Blade may not have come to the west, but people know Roy, and this series started over here with Blazing Blade. We know a lot of Binding Blade information, by virtue of dedicated fans being upset the logical continuation of their starting point never got translated. Comparatively, Genealogy and Thracia are pretty damn isolated, and it shows in their CYL placements. They're not well known games at all, and gameplay-wise, they're really awkward and (in my humble opinion), not actually fun to play at all. A remake is ideal for those games, because it gives them a chance to gain more attention and popularity in the general public's eyes. Which is good! Genealogy does have a worthwhile story to tell despite my gripes about its problems, and I honest to god thing Thracia's one of the best stories in the series, with one of the best protagonists in the series. These games deserve more recognition than they get, and they're not gonna get it until they get remade to be more accessible.

It also dawns on me that the "less questionable morals" may have been about Genealogy's whole incest thing. Listen, I get it, but they can't take it out. I don't say this lightly, but that is like...the central point of Genealogy. The awakening of Loptous is a matter of converging its bloodline, which had only one surviving member. You really cannot work around this one, without making things either too confusing or too stupid. If they really felt the need for that, they might back off of the remake entirely, which would be to their detriment. But considering the Byleth/Rhea situation, I don't think they'll have much trouble. And besides, it's pretty clear that an act of incest was the catalyst for almost destroying the continent, so I think it's safe to say the game doesn't agree with the practice.

#zeldafanmaria #fire emblem

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pandoriasbox · 4 years

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Jade’s SSO Rambles - 3 Archaeology (Current System)

(Please keep in mind that these are my thoughts and opinions at the time of writing these rambles. I may change my mind in the future.)

Star Stable Online’s archaeology isn’t for everyone and that’s absolutely fine as it is a completely optional part of the game. However it does have a large impact on gameplay and not only because of Nic Stoneground and the AAE. It offers additional gameplay and a means of making shillings outside of the limited number of daily quests available. I also feel that if the game is expanded to include crafting that archaeology should play a large part in that and other future optional features. (I have some notes on ideas in the works that may link back to this but I won’t be covering anything in regards to potential future systems/mechanics and such in this particular post.)

Personally I love the idea of archaeology in SSO and I especially like how Epona’s archaeology functions. However the way the player is initially introduced to the archaeology system via Dino Valley feels incredibly outdated and I think it could be changed to better match Epona and improve the initial experience both to new players and the current digging experience for returning ones. I also have some notes on how Epona could be tweaked as well.

Also please note that there are technically minor spoilers in terms of Dino Valley/Epona and archaeology for those who haven’t unlocked these areas. (Nothing story wise though, just locations, names and game mechanics.)

Epona Praise

Epona has 4 collections and 4 areas you can find these items within. Each area is its own self contained section of Epona that doesn’t overlap with the others. This helps avoid confusion when hunting for specific collections and makes planning routes far simpler in my opinion. Each area has a “transition” between them such as the field and roads between Dews and the Marshes.

The layout of the dig sites and the general level design of each area is interesting to navigate without being excruciatingly frustrating. I do think that the Mirror Marshes and Shipwreck Shores could be improved (I will discuss this in my Epona suggestions) but once the player has established a route these are mostly negligible issues.

The available item pool from archaeology is relatively small and even with all the items filling your inventory stacked you still have 2-3 full inventory rows free. There are 4 collections with 4 items each, 4 junk items and 4 “interesting find” items. All of these make sense to find in Epona and the collections also give a hint to the history of Epona. In total if you had at least one of each item in your inventory it would take up 24 slots. I highly prefer the maximum of 4 junk items as this means I can repeatedly stack the junk to avoid taking up more space. I also greatly appreciate that only the tradable items can be pulled from golden dig sites and doesn’t include extra “valuable junk.”

While you can make a full run of Epona without having to stop and sell if you have 24 slots available the overall design of the region lends itself to doing so. There are two major areas you can go to for this, New Hillcrest and Crescent Moon Village both of which are located between major areas as transitions and optional pit stops in routes. Trailering is also really nice when it comes to planning routes as you can easily start at Wolf Hall Inn to begin with Dews or Crescent Moon Village to begin at Shipwreck Shores. There’s also the trailer at New Hillcrest for when you need closer access to Mirror Marshes or you want to turn in items for rewards to Chiron and Winterwell.

Overall I feel the pricing of the items picked up from Epona is pretty fair especially to end game players. At the levels where you unlock Epona there’s hardly anything the player is locked out of (besides due to reputation) and therefore the player often must pay the highest prices for apparel and tack. Epona gives end game players a means of grinding currency outside of the limited daily races and quests. For me personally I make most of my money off of Epona because I do work a full time job and I often only have time to run through the area on a semi daily basis to collect interesting finds and turn them in so I can sell the rewards for high shilling payouts. I think this is extremely fair for end game players and works perfectly with Epona’s archaeology. It is also optional and requires the player to hunt out each golden/interesting find dig spot across the entire map in order to earn it. Often meaning the player must plan a route and figure out how to navigate then adjust if they don’t run the full route. This also plays a huge part into why I personally love archaeology in the game as I adore more explorative features. (Such as hunting for stars, token photos and memories.)

Winterwell’s interesting find rewards I especially feel are well balanced both in how many you turn in as well as pricing. You have a chance of receiving higher priced items that could hit up to around 1,000-2,000 shillings or you can get something that is only worth 250-500 shillings. It’s a gamble and makes it so the player needs to keep hunting every day to find the interesting golden dig sites. I also greatly prefer the setup of having 2 single trade items and 2 double trade items. This means that the player has a 50/50 chance of getting something they can immediately turn in but also doesn’t clog up their inventory with 4 different items if you don’t find enough of each that day. In general Winterwell’s interesting find system and rewards feel far fairer and more interesting to me than Dino Valley’s.

I actually prefer the fact that after you get the Jones apparel the game won’t let you turn in items again to Chiron as it means I can simply chose to either skip or sell all of the excess items I receive from Epona. (I think if it were tack instead it should unlock the ability to buy additional ones after the first freebies.) I also really appreciate that both Chiron and Winterwell are within New Hillcrest and don’t require me to go outside of Epona or even the general area to turn everything in after I’m done.

Epona Suggestions

When Epona is updated I would love to see some adjustments made to the overall model/terrain and movement flow of the Mirror Marshes especially and to a lesser extent Shipwreck Shores.

The Mirror Marshes while it is supposed to be somewhat difficult to navigate should keep the actual digs arranged to allow for routing without too much trouble to players who are familiar with the area. I personally think adding more “underwater land bridges” would greatly help avoid water slow down (if this isn’t fixed in some other way.) There are some throughout the rivers and such where the player isn’t slowed down but I think some more mindful placing would be nice in terms of directions players will naturally move between dig spots. Or could do fallen logs if the collision isn’t difficult to path over. I would also avoid making dig spots that are extremely far out of the way. For example I have a problem with the current layout when it comes to the single dig spot over by the Moon Spring as there’s no natural reason to go in that direction.

Shipwreck Shores actually works fine as is since you can run through it with minimal getting stuck in the bigger holes thanks to the race course. However I feel it’s worth mentioning as the race course will likely get a change if the area does. Overall I like the idea of Shipwreck Shores being this location that may have once been underwater and now we’re moving over this jagged terrain that gave it its name. However I think the team can definitely adjust it so there’s less painful collision and getting stuck in holes while maintaining this feel and keeping a reasonable digging route.

For all areas of Epona (and Dino Valley) I think that the dig spots should be relatively in plain sight. Brush shouldn’t be mostly or partially covering them and placement should avoid having the spot in a very open area that makes it extremely difficult to find. It’s one thing where you go in a straight line between a few dig spots (like in the Mirror Marshes) but another to find those two dig spots in the red/pink dino bone area that are by the portal and tree amongst the dead brush/brambles. I’m not opposed to making it a little more difficult to spot in terms of a cursory glance, it’s fun to hunt down everything but it shouldn’t be difficult to spot when you know where to look. (Unlike the Dino ones I mentioned.)

There appears to be a bug with the coins received from Winterwell where sometimes they are called “Weird Object.” I might actually submit a bug report on this but thank you Cen for bringing this up.

Dino Valley Suggestions

Dino Valley in general I feel needs to be updated to match Epona as a bare minimum. A large part of the issues with it will likely have to be addressed with an entire update to the whole area. However I think the team should focus first on adjusting the item pools, payout and turning items in until they are able to do more with the entirety of Dino Valley.

Item pools should have their “junk” reduced down to 4 items max and should remain related to the valley’s history. I could see items such as dino eggs, used up kalter stone, ice crystal and broken pickaxes making sense. I would avoid using too many human tools or other items personally.

The golden “interesting find” sites need to have only the 4 tradable items available to be pulled from them instead of a chance of random higher paying junk. I would like to see the counts for trading these items match Epona’s 2 single and 2 double as I think this is better for inventory management and player interest/game feel. I’d also replace the tradable items with things that make more sense. At the very least I just don’t like having to turn in so many cellphones and action figures I dig out of the ice in a closed off valley that wouldn’t make sense to hold those. It’s really more of an immersion/lore nit pick.

Overall I think pricing should be adjusted for how much items in Dino are worth but this is something the team would need to decide the balance of based on the level the players who access Dino are at. Overall Dino doesn’t currently lend itself as well to regular archaeology like Epona does and I think that’s fine right now both as an early archaeology area as well as for grinding money for earlier leveled players. But I do think having it is a good boost for shillings grinding before players can access Epona. I would imagine most (non-end game) players who have access to Dino will be making a large amount of shillings from actual main/side quests instead of purely from world wide dailies like end game players do.

Small note on the dig sites I actually think the snow effect on them should be removed and the normal not gold interesting find ones should be more blue (like Epona’s) or otherwise made more noticeable for players. The current color scheme of Dino Valley makes it difficult to make the dig spots out against the ice/snow/rock that they are usually hidden against.

In general I would move many of the dig sites to more reasonable locations such as taking the ones off of the dangerous cliff side beside the elevator or in harder to reach (semi hidden is fine) areas such as the one you must fall down to get to the dig spot on the semi secret side path towards Icengate. If it’s possible to adjust the dig sites so they all have their own individual areas with transition points using the current appearance of the world that would be preferable but I wouldn’t expect it before a proper full terrain/area update. (The only area I think that works mostly well right now is the red/pink bone area. It could be tweaked a lot but I like how it’s sectioned off properly.)

I would like to see Professor Jura moved to Nic’s Camp so you can turn bones in right away in the same place as the interesting finds guy.

Update the Dino Valley dig site expression of “Nearby” vs “Close to” so it matches Epona’s. (Epona has it where nearby=junk, close to=collectable/tradable items.) Technically you could do the opposite and update Epona’s to match Dino since I guess Dino came first, it really doesn’t matter which as long as they match.

I made some notes in my Quality of Life UI rambles post as well, basically I would like to see it where when completing a dig there is no pop up pausing the player. It should do the items flying into your inventory and the shillings and rep you receive will float up and disappear much like after you turn in a race.

This may require a large inventory update/overhaul but I would like to see the game stacking items automatically in your inventory when you receive more than one of the same item. I’d also prefer this being implemented after we can remove items from a stack just in case.

I will have additional thoughts on the game’s archaeology system in the future and I plan on elaborating further on it in regards to potential new features as well as Dino Valley and Nic Stoneground. However I wanted to do a rambles post specifically about the current archaeology system and how I would like to see it upgraded before any new systems are introduced (or before updates to Nic’s quests and the terrain.) I also feel it’s important to point out how Epona has greatly improved not only the general archaeology experience but also the end game for players.

Again thank you for taking the time to read through this! If you have any thoughts of your own or questions feel free to reblog, reply or shoot me an ask!

#jaderambles #sso #sso talk #archaeology #archeology #3 #dino valley #epona #game mechanics #mechanics

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kitsoa · 5 years

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The Duality of Ven

Speculation of a Potential Split-Personality Plot Twist

I’m a big Ventus fan, and Ven’s involvement with Khux has been a maddening scenario for me because a lot of the time, it feels like his role is laying the groundwork for whatever tie-in khux has with the next chapter in the kh saga. He’s an observing force meant to bring the questions to the forefront of the main characters. After all, we’d know what his deal is by now right?

Well dissatisfaction with that line of thought can probably be traced in the Ven is the Murderer theories that have risen in alarm and it is from there that I found myself captivated with the idea that something major is happening with Ventus in the khux story. And I think it’s gonna hit us upside the head honestly.

This is not a “Ven is the Murderer theory”. I’m actually not in that camp, but if this helps the believers so be it. No, I’m gonna compile my walk through of the idea that Ven’s got a split-personality. And I’m probably gonna walk through my speculation on how that ties in with the logic of the greater plot of khux and the circumstantial evidence left in our understanding of Ven’s future in the series.

We’ll start from the beginning, analyze Ven’s character, connect that to the process that drives the theory, speculate some details, take a stab as to why and finally glance at some circumstantial hints. You know, a long post.

A Heart Half Dark

The birth of most all of Ventus’ suspicion theories lies in the fact that we have had a glimpse of the exact ratio of dark and light in his heart. The BBS scene shows at least a third of his heart was gouged out but Xehanort’s experiment to create Vanitas. As this is a lot of darkness, the train of thought is to conclude that Ven must be hiding something. It’s the reason Ven’s got a following as a suspect in Strel’s murder.

I don’t necessarily see this capacity for darkness as indicative of Ven’s guilt of course. But alongside other hints in the narrative, we are forced to consider that this darkness in him is not something to dismiss, both based on Vanitas post-split and the mysteries presented in the age of Fairy tales.

We are in search of this potent darkness. We begin with the evidence of Ven’s personality and we watch the conclusions unfold alongside what I believe are hints at this possibility.

What is “In-Character”

Ventus does not have a lot of scenes as a complete person which makes this aspect of the analysis something worth returning to, but if I had to make a blanket statement on Ventus’s pre-split personality... it’s that it really didn’t change much at all.

We’ve known this for a hot minute. In the flashback of Xehanort’s experiment, Ventus is pleading in frightened surrender. He doesn’t believe he is strong enough and he collapses at the impressive threat. This is the image of a frail, sensitive personality that persists post-split. So frail that it makes him weaker than a minority portion of his heart. But say it’s the amnesia. Let’s look at Ventus before the time-jump.

He is introduced as a lonely, down-on-his-luck key wielder. He is soft spoken. A follower with low self-esteem. This much is true in his very first scene. He doesn’t understand why he was chosen as he does not have excellent rankings. He expresses his wonderment and surprise at the prospect of having friends.

This pretty much matches up with the short glimpse of pre-split, post-amnesia Ven (uh... the khux amnesia not the trauma amnesia gdi nomura).

Ventus is timid. So much that when he stands up for a strong belief, it surprises and amuses everyone in the room. Overall, this is not the personality of a selfish, cruel, albeit very troubled dark personality that would eventually create Vanitas. I’ll get into why he may potentially have these strong values and the impressions this entire plot could lead toward in the narrative but let’s parse it down to this.

Ven’s personality doesn’t match up to create Vanitas. It’s too night and day.

Opposing Argument: “It’s an act”

The potential of Ven’s khux personality being an act for the sake of some kind of ruse is troubling for a multitude of reasons. First of all, it’s too good of an act. He’s got the self deprecation and he’s made no suspicious moves or actions for it to be logically foreshadowed. But let’s say he’s as good as he seems-- the only suspicious error he’s made thus far is...

“Failing to read the rulebook”. Which, is a very grave error. Like one that wouldn’t happen with an honest, strategic infiltration. I’ll get back to this exact error later. But if he’s a lying liar, he’d be too good to make this mistake.

Finally, if it’s an act we have a conundrum as to where exactly post-split Ventus’ personality derives from. It’s far too similar to his khux behavior and we know for a fact that post-split Ventus is an honest good boy. That’s his personality, albeit with some childhood amnesia.

Manifestation of Darkness

Khux Ven has darkness, that much is undeniable, but how does it manifest?

Well it’s worth considering how darkness manifests naturally in a person in kh. Riku is the best example, harboring jealousy, rage, and a lust for power to manifest his darker powers. We also know that loneliness, sadness, and isolation are a form of darkness as seen with Aqua. These are natural and only when those emotions take over do we have the heartless phenomenon and corruption jazz happening.

So where is Ven’s darkness?

Well, it’s very likely suppressed. Like we are talking more suppressed than Sora’s darkness. Missing Ache is probably the greatest indication of a very real, very crippling habit of shoving one’s bad feelings in box and this is because of the keyblade’s symbolism and history. See, it’s not just there to give him another connection to Roxas.

Missing Ache is a keyblade from Day’s that Roxas wields and it fits right along with the depressing themes of everything Nobody we’ve become used to. But the name is important. For a Nobody, who doesn’t feel anything-- being unable to feel the heartache of pain is just another reminder of what isn’t there. The keyblade is touting the power of the pain that is missing. A bit of a conundrum for a Nobody but ultimately indicative of their real and growing hearts or even their desire to have hearts (even the pain they come with).

So for Ventus to wield Missing Ache kind of suggests that he’s missing some kind of pain. He’s not feeling something. And knowing that pain often buds darkness we can assume that this missing ache is the very darkness in his heart that we know he harbors. Ven has gone through some things, even before Khux introduced him and that pain has been suppressed in his heart so much that his keyblade reflects that absence.

Gameplay wise, Missing Ache is a rather dark leaning keyblade in khux from my understanding (this part is not my forte) so that supports it’s name more so than anything. Because when you start pushing down darkness and refusing to feel it or let it pass, it logically finds outlets to escape (think of anti-form and rage form for Sora).

A Darkling Conundrum

As Khux has established, Darklings are Keyblade wielders who have succumbed to darkness. They are basically a heartless variation that is unique in that they have more sentience than a typical heartless with the ability to speak and less mindlessness. They are visually distinct and there have been nods to their appearance in modern examples of keyblade wielders bathed in darkness suggesting a universal darkling transformation process.

So say, Ventus has been suppressing his darkness big time. It grows and festers, becoming stronger. We don’t know what exacerbates his darkness (though I do think there are hints as to what his shtick is) but it’s probably persisting and we know this isn’t healthy. But it creates a very interesting conundrum.

If Ven’s refusing to feel the pain of his darkness, if he’s rejecting it so much that he’s ignoring it to this point, he’d theoretically be unable to actually succumb to it. It wouldn’t go away, it would just... get stronger. And now his heart has this paradox. Ven should be a Darkling. But he isn’t.

So this is my speculation. Instead, a second personality develops. Ven doesn’t fall to darkness, but the overwhelming strength of the darkness in his heart hijacks his heart and that other self is born. This is basically Ven’s Darkling self. And in a narrative this dark personality will most likely have goals. But Ven basically lives alongside this other personality with a questionable level of awareness of said personality.

An Enemy Within

A second personality, a heart that is basically a Darkling in human skin, logically wants to act upon the heartless-like instinct we see from the former keykids in the previous entries. And while that is vague at best, it does not see the light favorably and seeks conflict. But the best way to devise the ambitions of Ven’s secret personality we have to wonder what kind of darkness actually created it.

(the above hilariously compiled by @twilightsthorn on twitter)

And Ven paints that picture very clear.

Loneliness.

I speculate that Ven is the product of the Daybreak Town system. We see this with Skuld’s story with Ephemer, and Strelitzia. The keykids of Daybreak Town have this superficial concept of friendship. Making allies to complete missions and moving on without any real friendship or connections. It’s a culture like this that completely ignores someone like Ventus who clearly has not been able to keep a party and feel the connections of friendship. He’s lonely. And that pain’s probably stirred resentment against his fellows and the system. Maybe even Daybreak Town in general.

An Inner Battle.

So one of the aspects about Ven’s personality is his very strong pacifism. Something that also doesn’t mesh well with the Daybreak Town system or the system that the New Leaders are tasked to put into place.

He reacts dramatically to the concept of PvP. The idea of pointing keyblades at each other is unthinkable. And as I’ve noticed before, his atypical keyblade stance enforces this unwillingness to fight.

By wielding his keyblade in the reverse-grip he is incapable of pointing his keyblade at another. It’s a part of his belief system. A very dedicated. Very honest belief system. Which brings me back to the most suspicious things Ven’s ever done.

The rulebook thing. He specifically ‘fails’ to read the passage about the PvP. And while his flimsy defense paints him as a lazy reader, you could also read it as Ven having disliked the idea so much that he simply... suppressed it. Now it’s up in the air how much Ven is aware of this personality. The other possibility is that the pacifism comes in response to his knowing that the darkness in him desires that kind of combat.

Enemy Without

And this brings us to the ultimate conclusion of this second personality. It becomes Vanitas, through and through. Meaning that at the time of his split, Vanitas was essentially already a separate entity born from Ventus’ heart. Even Xehanort’s verbiage supports this.

‘Riven’ means ‘to be split from.’ Which makes sense as he is a broken off piece of Ven’s heart but it can also suggest that it was already there and attached to the whole to begin with. But now that he’s split from the body and light half of his heart, Vanitas begins to prove his strong association with Darklings.

His darkness suit, in much the same way as Riku and Anti-Aqua, hearkens to the visual design of the Darklings-- (the black and red, textured hands, and tattered clothes, though anti-aqua fits this link the best).

And if the speculation about Missing Ache is logical, this darkness comes from a stark sense of loneliness and a rejection that Ven buries and refuses to feel, meaning Vanitas bears all of that pain and it consumes the entire personality as darkness would consume the heart of a whole person.

A pain that is Ventus’s through and through.

While this aspect of the theory is almost pure speculation, I draw this connection to place Vanitas and this dark personality of Ven’s on a side in the khux conflict. At this moment the darkness has served no purpose in machinations of MoM, Ava, Brain, or the mysterious murderer, but the darklings move about nevertheless. Despite being pulled by more basic instincts, the Darklings and any associated force can’t be underestimated as either having a goal or being manipulated toward someone else’s goal.

Sleeper Agent

‘Peace is but a dream’ and the Darklings are still an at large, unaffiliated force in khux. The connection with Ven’s dark side would add a substantive face and power player to the entire narrative. It either gives them an edge, provides a leader, or simply infiltrates the system needed to consume the most lux. And from my perspective, the most advantageous thing the forces of dark could do is start the keyblade war (again). Where best to do that than from inside the Union’s sworn to prevent that from happening?

It’s an inside job. An infiltration. This is where you start to wonder if Ven is the outsider in the group-- The Virus in the Master’s system. Honestly, I don’t think any of this turning true would conclude that necessarily. See, for all we know MoM could be invoking the war even with the intent on ‘stopping the wars for good’. I wouldn’t put it past him to set the Dandelion’s up for a sham scenario so planting a Darkling Agent into the Union Leaders is on the table for him to have authored. But from the ‘dark perspective’ (for the record, I don’t think the darkness is a conniving force) Ven partially falling to darkness would work in the interest of all things dark and make him an ‘agent’. But I consider it more happenstance than actual scheming.

Thematic Associations

aka: less concrete forms of support or hints

Box Art Proximity

So we know there’s a ton of secrets hidden in the kh3 cover, one of which most amusingly being the Nomura’s cat, standing guard next to Ven as a reference to Chirithy. But I’m more interested in Ven’s proximity to the Darkling as well. We never get a complete idea of the Darkling’s symbolic purpose and I still think it’s up in the air, but it it’s drawing a connection to the Dandelion under it’s gaze, that would be indicative of it’s purpose.

Void Gear Symbolism

I am not alone in seeing Void Gear as a potential reference to the clock tower of Daybreak Town. From here things become speculation central but knowing the Darkling’s desire to consume the light and the value of instigating the Keyblade War in that ambition, Vanitas’ essential homage to the clock tower is potential a nod to his goal, or perhaps success in using that clock for it’s fated purpose: which is to toll the start of the war.

Ven’s Character Design

Since we understand that Nomura is clearly working backwards, we can’t take his character design as hard evidence that he’s got a split personality but I do think it’s worthy to serve as corroboration. Ven has a unique black and white theme with his jacket that perfectly represents 2 equal halves-- 2 selves. Yes, he’s fashioned to be the light half to an equal dark half, but you might think he’d be styled more toward the white/light colors to contrast with Vanitas’s dark color scheme. They would then appropriately compliment each other as a pair then. But Ven holds the body of the complete being. The original being that was styled symbolically to represent two equal halves and his former incarnation in khux is consistent.

Ven’s Actions Going Forward

Now again, Ven’s awareness of this second personality and the exact nature of it’s ability to interact is still in question but there’s a lot of a angles it could take. For example, it could be a body hijacker, acting and moving things toward a specific goal at opportune times, potentially acting as the Ven we know in temporary situations. This means that we can start being suspicious of who is in control of Ven’s body at a given time.

Then there’s the more passive method which simply has the personality observing and gaining strength through Ven’s suffering until it finally breaks free at some crucial time. This means we can expect a surprising twist when things get heated.

Whether he’s aware of it or not, Ven’s behavior should be considered separate from this force. It has the double benefit of keeping Ven’s hands clean.

Finally we have to consider the reasons for Ven’s selection in the Union Leaders. At first I thought maybe a second personality could create this double life for Ven that would qualify him with the arbitrary powerful keykid excuse for the position. But with a more passive role being just as viable, there’s a very good chance that MoM selected Ven with the intention of creating tension or tempting the rise of darkness with the Daybreak Town experiment. Whether MoM is earnestly trying to prevent the endless cycle of darkness destroying and light reviving the world or simply trying to invoke it for his own gain, we can at least be assured that there’s no sacrifice he wont make. This is assuming Ven is one of the selected and not the impostor (But I’m pretty sure Brain’s the impostor).

This is ultimately why I kind of dub Ven as a ‘sleeper agent.’ While harboring this second personality, he could very well be the infiltration of the forces of darkness which until this point have behaved as a mindless force of nature. Be it circumstance or not, he is for all intents and purposes a ‘sleeper agent’ in that regard. And while I don’t personally believe this makes Ven the murder of Strelitzia, I do think this makes him capable of anything.

Conclusion:

There’s a lot of speculation but the mystery is very much there and I think there’s enough to assume that the question of Ven’s darkness is very much something we need to be asking. Now we have additional strands this idea could branch into consider what this means for Ven’s role in creating the X-blade and may explain why he was so specifically poised to be the vessel for that project. And then we have to wonder what this means for Ven’s future. Was it a good thing that Xehanort separated Vanitas? Is Vanitas redeemable? What does it mean for Ven to get his memory about this back?

Overall, I have my eye on Ven. He’s still a good boy in my eyes. But he could be the very thing that brings the khux world into chaos.

(A big thanks to @kaweebo for some of those screencaps)

#kingdom hearts #kh meta #kh theory #ven split-personality #kh speculation

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wwwps4 · 5 years

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Mafia III

There is such a sign: if copies of the game are not given to the press in advance, so that journalists can write their review for the start of sales, then wait for trouble. In the case of Mafia III, I wanted to believe in the best. The second part was so amazing that its aftertaste pleased players for six years, until the opening of a new Chapter of this criminal history. And I'll just say that the trouble with Mafia III is not in the black hero (he was entered here just fine), not in the plot, not in the visual component, but in the most important thing — in the gameplay, which only does that self-repeats throughout the hours-long game campaign. I don't know what kind of masochist would like it.

But back to the game itself. In 1968, Lincoln Clay returns to his hometown of new Bordeaux after the Vietnam war. Here his family is waiting for him: friends, brother and father. If it hadn't been for these people, and especially if it hadn't been for Sammy's foster father, Lincoln would have starved to death in the city's slums. Sam raised an unwanted black Tomboy, gave him shelter and his love. From an early age, Lincoln began to help his father in his criminal Affairs and even became friends with the son of the godfather of new Bordeaux. When Lincoln returned home, it seemed to him that the war was over, but he himself had to unleash a new massacre in pursuit of the mistress of vengeance.

It all started with a RAID on a Bank. Lincoln decided on this case to help close all of his father's debts to Mr. Sal Marcano. However, the godfather decides that he will need all the stolen money, and that it is time for Sammy's family to go to another world. Lincoln is kept alive by a great accident. The incident changes his life, he decides to devote himself to revenge. Along the way, he will recruit old acquaintances and make new friends, and find out that Sal Marcano has long had a grudge even subordinates. Lincoln turns out to be the force that can break through the old foundations and build a new and promising Empire on the remnants.

From the first hour of the game in Mafia III is simply impossible to break away. There are many amazing story clips that are intertwined with interesting gameplay and a variety of tasks. I just have to praise the direction of the game, the developers can easily create an emotional closeness between you and the characters of the game. You rejoice with them, worry, and begin to want revenge with the same intensity as Lincoln. And this quality bar is not lowered until the final of the game. That's just gradually you are given less and less story clips, and the long-awaited story mission is not happy at all, since your entire mood is mercilessly shot by the gameplay.

"What's wrong with him?"you are already exhausted. Lincoln decides to destroy the Marcano Empire from the bottom. First, he recruits several lieutenants who were once close to Sal, but now want him dead. They include the head of the Haitian mafia, Cassandra, the out-of-shape Irish alcoholic Burke, and the once-promising and now exiled authority Vito Scaletta in new Bordeaux. Together, you will squeeze areas from Marcano, kill his subordinates, which keeps the criminal business, and get closer to the godfather himself.

The entire gameplay is focused on capturing new areas of the city. We arrive, find an informant who tells you about the kind of activity in the area, destroy everything we find, kill or recruit the head of this branch of business, and then declare a hunt for Lieutenant Marcano, associated with this area. We repeat all this 9 times and get the opportunity to take revenge on the offender.

And now I will describe in detail the entire process that took me the second sentence in the last paragraph. We get in the car and drive to the new district of new Bordeaux. We learn something interesting from the informant and find several points on the map. The goal is to cause damage to the specified amount. It is necessary to kill some people and interrogate others, to Rob caches, destroy property and do other similar things. You can deal a lot of small damage to achieve the goal, or you can destroy one large target and close the rest with short ones. A big goal is usually to infiltrate a well-guarded enemy object and destroy it. I've blown up a crane on a construction site, stolen gay porn for blackmail, destroyed a garbage recycling plant.

The damage we do is to lure out the leader of the business. When he decides to show up, you can stop your activities and go to kill or recruit him. Where do you think the leader is hiding? Right! In a place where you used to accomplish a big goal! You will find exactly the same location, a slightly increased number of enemies that are in the same places as before. In fact, you need to pass the same place twice. "Why not?",- apparently so thought the developers. "New Bordeaux is so small, we'd rather use the same location twice than make a new one next door. Let the city continue to remain lifeless!".

Surprisingly, the game is very pleasant to play. Driving the car is implemented perfectly and is somewhat similar to the recently released Need for Speed, skirmishes are exciting and often tense. Virtual dummies, however, are usually stupid and try to crush the number rather than tactics. In Mafia III, it's nice to play, but to perform the same tasks from place to place-no, and at least some variety in the game, too. The action takes place in an open world, but it is dead initially. Here you can only kill and there is no way to relax. And this is despite the fact that the city is made perfectly, its changes from district to district are very interesting to watch. Here you will find swamps, suburbs, poor areas, working-class neighborhoods, and a contrasting center with skyscrapers. Even side missions from friends can not bring pleasure to the game, because they are built on the familiar scheme: interrogate, kill, steal, come back for a reward.

There is also an economic component in Mafia III. Each captured point, and then the entire area can be given to one of their lieutenants. This will affect the profits that the subordinate will make, as well as the opportunities that Lincoln will get at his disposal. What is surprising is that every Lieutenant is a person who fights for his own importance and tries to grab a bigger piece. If you offend or offend one of them, it will definitely come back to you. So the choice of who to give the next section, you should always approach wisely.

Each Lieutenant immediately after recruitment provides you with special services. Vito allows you to call a consiglieri-a girl who will take your money and take it to a safe place. After his death, Lincoln loses exactly half of the money he had in his pocket, so the services of a Consigliere are always welcome. Cassandra allows you to call a gun shop on wheels anywhere in the city. In it you can buy not only weapons, but also special features: increased accuracy, the number of one-time wearable first aid kits or grenades, and more. Burke specializes in cars. After the call, his subordinate will quickly deliver you one of the six cars. The list includes both Lincoln's personal car and an armored sedan and truck. The list of cars is generated for you, you can't change it. If you destroy one of the cars, it's okay. They won't even charge you money, but just bring you a newly ordered car. Gradually, your friends will give you access to new features: disabling phones in the area (so the villains will not be able to call for help), bribing the police (the cops will instantly forget about your existence, even if they just held you at gunpoint), automatic collection of kickbacks from the leaders.

I have few complaints about the technical part of the game. The game looks good, works at a stable 30 frames per second, and sometimes it seems more. I didn't notice any severe bugs during the game, except for a couple of times when the game was treacherously closed. Local cars are extremely sad. They almost do not fight, but just immediately explode. At the same time, it looks like a faded and rotten special effect. The local police also made fun of him. Even though they watch your every move, it's easy to break away from them. In most cases, you only need to drive a meter away from the search area and the police will no longer have questions for you. The main thing is not to show up in the search area.

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dlamp-dictator · 7 years

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Allen Rambles About Fire Emblem (Allen’s Rambling XXIX)

I’ve reached my usual 30-hour mark with Fire Emblem Echoes, so I think it’s about time I actually talked a bit about my experience with it and the Fire Emblem series in general. For the last few weeks I’ve been saying I was going to dig deep into this game and more or less tear it apart while discussing why I like Fire Emblem Fates a lot more, but... I’m not. I thought about it while trying to finish the map against Jedah, and as frustrating a time I have with that map and the game as a whole, I’m not going to start whining about it. Well, not in a petty sense anyway. There are still a few issues I have with Echoes, but I won’t be a baby about them.. I hope.

Ah, but before I get onto that...

My History

I feel it’s only fair to discuss my history with the Fire Emblem series in general before getting to talking about Echoes, just so people know where I’m coming from. I’m gonna’ be honest, it’s not much of a history. Much like Dangan Ronpa (another series I need to talk about at some point), fandom discourse got me interested in this series. I heard a bunch of complaints about Fire Emblem Awakening when it first came out. Complaints about how anime-esque it was, how it’s “waifu-baiting” was ruining a serious game known for itself dramatic story-telling, how making it was easier and more accessible for newcomers with Casual Mode would kill what the made the series great, how easy it was to break the game and created no challenge for what was suppose to be an intense strategy game. Honestly... I was getting flashbacks of the Guilty Gear and SMT fandom complaining about Blazblue and Persona, so I ignored it and the series in general while that was going on.

That, and I didn’t have a 3DS at the time, so I honestly didn’t care. But then I eventually got a 3DS somewhere around the time Fire Emblem Fates came out. I originally got the 3DS to play Senran Kagura Burst and Burst 2, play a few of the Pokemon games I missed out on, as well as a few unnoticed JRPGs that I don’t feel like talking about. But anyway, Fates had came out at the time I finally started caring about my 3DS, and I heard much worse complaints about the newest entry at the time. I’m not going to go into detail on what the issues people had with Fates was, but I’ll just say from an outsider’s perspective it sounded like the Awakening complaints times ten.

And that got me curious. Was the game really that bad? Was the game that pandering? I had to find out for myself, so I did a bit of research on how to play the game, and bought Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright. Now, when I say ‘research’, I mean I went deep into how Fire Emblem gameplay worked. I studied which characters had the best growth rates for tanking and attacking, I looked at skills and how they’d help make each unit’s job easier, I studied which characters were worth keeping around until endgame, which units should be reclassed at which times for getting the optimal skills, and so on. If I was going into a series who’s biggest feature was perma-death, I wasn’t going in blind.

Anyway, Birthright had optional grinding in it, and as a newcomer I didn’t want to get destroyed my first time playing the series. I played it on Classic Mode at first like most of the fandom recommended, and I got use to the concept of perma-death. Since a lot of the fandom focused on optimizing party members and viewing most of the characters for there stats than their personalities I didn’t get too attached to many characters outside of Azura and Silas (who is best girl).

I have the say, playing this game on Classic Mode was a trip. I honestly couldn’t stand Corrin’s pacifist personality in a game where enemies permanently killed your characters. To just see him/her refuse to kill others because of his/her soft heart after they killed so many of my own units made me rage. THESE SCUMBAGS KILLED HINOKA AND RINKA. MY DEFENSIVE CHOKE POINTS ARE RUINED. CORRIN YOU USELESS WHORE, STOP SHOWING MERCY AND KILL THEM!

...

Ahem.

That aside, for a game that had perma-death being its most prominent feature, I was a little annoyed by seeing “dead” characters in cutscenes due to them being “vital” to the plot at points. Death didn’t seem to have much weight when characters were technically not dead and just unable to fight due to injury, and when the fandom kept saying how vital that aspect was when the game didn’t treat it that way, I felt cheated. I felt like my actions had no consequence outside of gameplay. No one berated Corrin for letting people die under his/her command, no one lamented in the base how certain characters were “critically injured” and couldn’t fight back. Hell, no one even brought attention to the fact that Corrin’s base was in basically the Hyperbolic Time Chamber between chapters. Things just... didn’t have emotional weight to it outside of gameplay. Still, I kept going while on Classic Mode, despite losing half my army. I didn’t know soft resetting was a thing so I just... dealt with it... by force.

And then Sakura died, and I lost my (main) healer.

So, like the filthy casual I am, I made a new file on casual mode and never looked back. Yeah... losing healers is kind of my sign for sucking the game so much I need a handicap for it. Around that time I figured out how to soft reset, but I still saw that as cheating, so I just stuck to casual mode. I found the game fun after that. Corrin’s pacifism made a bit more since when lost allies merely retreated at 0 HP instead of died. Every survives, no one was killed, and Corrin’s army didn’t kill in turn, so Corrin’s pacifism didn’t make me want strangle him/her, and I could tolerate the story a little better.

But moving onto the game itself, I liked all the strategies and crazy combination of skills you could have. I loved how you could break the game with the right skills and pairings around mid game. I loved the pair up system and how it could save you so many times in dire situations. I had a lot of fun with Fates, I even bought some of the DLC for it.

It’s got its flaws though. Some of the support conversations were just terribly written, the story felt like it was trying to appeal more so to thirteen-year-olds that an older crowd with how one-note a lot of the characters felt, and how... obsessed with Corrin they were. I mean, the game was rated Teen, but I’m 23 and I expect a game that had a perma-death system to have a better story than... Birthright. And honestly, for a game that was hated to the point of being call “Waifu Emblem” because of the anime style and marriage system, very few of the girls were written well enough or even looked hot enough for me to attach myself to. Honestly, Azura, Elise, Kagero, and Charlotte were the only girls I liked out of all the girls, and only 2 of those 4 had decent supports. Like I said, the game is fun, but the story... not so much.

So with all that out of the way, let’s get onto what I really wanted to talk about.

Fire Emblem Echoes

So... my thoughts on Echoes can basically be summed up as Echoes being the better story, but Fates being the better game. I’m more invested in Alm and Celica’s situation than Corrin’s, and I find their story more believable. Well, not as cheesy anyway. A bit of explanation on the Brand would be nice, but I kind of get the point of it so I’m not gonna’ whine about that too much. The only thing I’ll say against it is that Alm doesn’t seem keen on becoming king at this point in the game, yet his army pushes him to that role and he... doesn’t really react to it much. I find that a bit strange, but I’m still on Act 4, so... maybe I’m just missing something.

Something else I’m having trouble dealing with in Echoes, gameplay wise, is... well, how different it is from Fates gameplay-wise. It’s good gameplay overall, but it’s making me think in a way completely opposite of Fates. With how... well frankly, with how bland the maps are in Echoes gameplay can feel boring at times. Mountainous and swamp areas are especially annoying since it turns the map into a crawl. I’m down with a slower, more methodical approach to this game, but... eh, I’m not feeling these maps. Not to say Fates didn’t have its fair share of boring and uninteresting maps, but Echoes has it worse, and with spawning enemies and maps I have to cross through just to do things like upgrade weapons and class change, they feel less like optional grinding and more like unnecessary battles.

There are a few other issues I have with them, but I’ll save them for a later segment.

Speaking of my issues...

The RNG

Look, I’m just gonna’ say this flat out. The defensive, slow, strategic way I feel this game wants me to play feels moot when the RNG comes into effect.

I’m sure everyone that’s played Fates knows that infuriating feeling when Kaze's 97% hit rate misses and he dies when an enemy’s 2% critical comes in. I feel like Echoes has this even worse than Fates. Few weapons have a 100% hit rate, and even 30% enemy hit rates feel risky at times. I really feel that this higher focus on strategy is downplayed by the fact that a lucky critical can utterly destroy a defensive line. Alm died on the first turn of enemy phase to a 2% crit when I was playing defensively, and it sucked. It feels like the gameplay contradicts itself. This was an issues in Fates too, but since you could more or less break the game around chapter 16-ish with the right skills and pair ups it didn’t sting as much. Here? With Echoes? With how they do skills and with the fatigue system? With how skills are tied to weapon experience? Yeah, you can’t really break the game, you have to play smart, so every instance of RNG nonsense that kills off a character with a single-digit chance of a critical just... sucks.

So... with that out of the way, I’ll move onto to talking about...

The Good

The Story

Like I said, I find this story leagues better than Fates’ story. Alm wanting to save his country even if it means taking on a role he didn’t ask for, Celica wanting to be a devout servant of Mila to the point of near martyrdom. This is all good stuff, and the story highlights a little about war and what it can do to people, how politics can ruin friendships, how faith can be tested in unforseen ways. I like it a lot. Every character feels real and understandable. No one feels like an outright jerk without a good reason behind it. I read that Echoes was a remake of an older Fire Emblem game, and if this is the kind of quality of writing we missed out on in Fates then I am deeply disappointed in the writers of that game for not living up to the expectations of its predecessors.

The (Fully Voiced) Supports

In the words of TFS’s Vegeta:

“Never in my life have I needed something so much and never known until I received it.”

I lost my mind when I saw how these supports were being done. Actually chatting on the battlefield in real time (as real time as turn based RPGs get anyway), hearing characters actually speak their lines. I... I legitimately screamed when I heard Alm and Faye chatting with each other. It... it made so much sense, of course it should be done this way. I wanted to buy five more copies of this game just to see it done again in the future. It actually reminds me of how Disgaea 5 and D2 had certain characters chat to each other when they stood next to each other. I only wish it was an automatic thing like in Disgaea 5. And the supports are well-written as well. Character development is done solely in the story, while the supports are little extra bits of character relations and how they grow and improve over time. My only regret is that certain characters didn’t get supports with each other like Clair and Clive, but... I suppose it’s fine.

The Waifus

For all the talk I hear about Echoes breaking the “Waifu Emblem” stigma, this game has sooooo many girls I like in them. Genny is precious, Clair is a lovable and cheesily haughty noblewoman, Faye... is my second Pegasus Knight with decent defense and high mobility, Mae’s bubbly, tomboyish personality is endearing, Sonya X Genny needs to be a thing, and do not get me started on the GODDESS that is Matilda and her 10 resistance. No, this is Waifu Emblem as far as I’m concerned, and all it took was a decent writer to make me care about these girls.

The Bonus EXP

This really helps me out when trying to grind the weaker units. Forsyth and Python are actually useful to the army now because of it. It’s nice to get an extra reward for completing the map, and it makes all the spawning enemies and replaying of maps a little more worth it, as much as I don’t like doing it.

Upgrading Weapons

I really like how upgrading weapons is paid for with money instead of praying you had the right gem type like in Fates. Makes it so much easier to upgrade weapons. Now if only Gold marks came by a little easier... but that’s what DLC is for. The upgrades feel more optional if anything, an Iron Sword is good enough of a boost on itself, and so on, the boosts help though.

Leon the Mage Killer

I love Leon. I love Leon almost as much as Leon loves Valbar. In an army full of Mages and Dread Fighters, this man and his Steel Bow activated criticals on just about every mage on the map. For at least 6 maps he was the mage killer until Saber became a Dread Fighter. I think he does it solely to protect Valbar and his non-existence resistance stat, and that’s okay. You do you Leon, you magnificent Mage destroyer you.

Dread Fighters

Well, Celica’s army is made up of dread fighters for a reason. They’re just soooo handy to have, especially with all the witches and arcanist I have to face on her route. The ninja aesthetic is real man. It clashes with Saber’s design, but it’s real, and it feels good.

Zeke

Zeke is voiced by Patrick Seitz and has decent stat growths, this can only lead to good things.

The Not So Good

Celica’s route and her finding optional party members is so annoying... I swear, I picked up Catria and Palla AFTER I rescued Est because I figured that automatically join after I saved her... three maps later and they didn’t, and now I’m stuck grinding them... it sucks.

Again, the RNG in this game makes the more strategic way I need to play feel unrewarding when it can boil down to a lucky critical on enemy phase.

As much as I like how you upgrade weapons, getting the money to do it is a pain. There’s DLC maps, yes, but... it doesn’t feel worth it to mean unless you’re trying to break the game. And this isn’t really a game that’s fun to break.

Speaking of weapons, gaining skills through weapons doesn’t feel good to me. I can’t switch out weapon without sacrificing utility, and on Terror maps, Conrad and the Pegasus Sisters are the only useful units. I’m not giving anyone a Blessed Sword when they have fulled upgraded Brave Swords, Silver Bows, and Ridersbanes.

The fatigue system, dear lord. This isn’t Dark Souls, why is there a stamina system in this game? I just... I just can’t even man. The climb of Duma Tower was NOT FUN.

Arcanists with Death and Fortify. That’s... that’s just annoyingly unfair.

Witches and the fact they can teleport to my armored units without any cost on the first turn of enemy phase just destroys any strategy I can make against them, and it sucks.

Dracoshield enemies... Dracoshield enemies on maps where taking them out is optional and the game doesn’t tell you... Goddamn, need I say more?

So yeah, I still think I like Fates more to play, but Echoes is definitely the kind of challenge I need in my strategy RPGs, especially for my handhelds. I’ll probably try a Classic run of Echoes when I beat it on casual mode, but I’m having fun with it at the moment, so... yeah. I recommend you guys get it if you’ve got a 3DS and the cash. I might save up for Awakening too and see how that plays out since I love breaking video games.

#fire emblem #your dictator is speaking

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postgamecontent · 7 years

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Fire Emblem Chronicles Vol. 1: Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem

Original Release Date: January 21, 1994

Original Hardware: Nintendo Super Famicom

With Fire Emblem Gaiden maintaining solid sales even in the face of a waning Famicom market and some pushback over its design decisions, it was a certainty that the series would continue. While its cousin Famicom Wars had jumped over to the Game Boy, Fire Emblem would get a shot at the console big leagues. Now, it's important to remember that although most fans think of Intelligent Systems as a game developer first and foremost, they've also historically been instrumental in developing software tools and assisting Nintendo in various other hardware-related capacities. As such, they don't tend to release a lot of games around the launch of new Nintendo systems, since they're occupied with their other work. That has become less of a problem over time as Intelligent Systems has grown and Nintendo has relied on less proprietary hardware and software. During the first few generations of Nintendo hardware, however, Intelligent Systems games usually arrived late in the generation.

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem certainly released late in the Super Famicom's life, but it was less of a problem this time than it had been with the previous two games. While the SEGA Saturn and Sony PlayStation would launch in December of 1994 in Japan, they took a little while to catch on. Nintendo wouldn't have their Super Famicom replacement ready until late 1996, and in 1994 that successor was very much just sketches on a napkin as far as most Nintendo fans were concerned. No, the Super Famicom market was essentially in its prime in 1994, and with Fire Emblem now an established brand it was well-positioned to take advantage of that. Fortunately, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem turned out to be just the right product for its time and place, and it ended up being the best-selling game in the series until Fire Emblem Awakening arrived nearly 20 years later. Mystery of the Emblem ended up selling more than 770,000 copies in Japan, more than the first two games combined.

The plum release date surely assisted with that, but the game itself was well-suited for success. After Fire Emblem Gaiden's numerous changes from the first game received a mixed response, series creator and director Shouzou Kaga opted to roll things back in Mystery of the Emblem rather than try to fix what wasn't working. He did that in more ways than one. First, Mystery would return to the setting and characters of the first game, with Marth once again taking the spotlight. Second, most of the mechanical changes in Gaiden were discarded, with the support system being the only real survivor. Finally, perhaps in deference to Fire Emblem's late arrival on the Famicom, Mystery of the Emblem would include an abridged remake of the original game in addition to a full-length sequel. Newcomers could get to know the world and its characters without having to dig out their old hardware, while fans of the series could either enjoy revisiting the original game with a whole new presentation, or dive directly into the new content.

By including this remake of the original, the development team ended up running into memory issues yet again. This didn't interfere with the sequel content (referred to as Book 2), but some cuts had to be made to the remake (called Book 1) to make it fit. While the initial plan was to make it a complete remake, Book 1 ended up having to cut a handful of characters and stages. To be honest, it's not a huge loss. Having it all would be better, but you get most of what was good content-wise in the original game. Although the remake makes use of the new engine and all of its rules, the changes are quite slight. Mystery of the Emblem feels like it's playing things very safely after the criticisms of Gaiden. Its success through this conservative approach set down a template that the series had some trouble getting away from in the future, and it would nearly be the death of the franchise.

That said, there's a lot to appreciate in Mystery of the Emblem. The support system from Gaiden that was limited to Alm and Celica alone was greatly expanded here. While we're still pretty far away from the support conversations that have taken center stage in recent releases, multiple characters in Mystery of the Emblem have pre-existing relationships that convey combat bonuses when they're positioned near to each other in battle. This gives you a practical reason to pay attention to the story and lore, as knowing who gets along with who can give you a tactical advantage. This was an important step towards creating the shape of the series as we know it today.

Another highly welcome new feature is the game displaying movement range when a unit is selected. You no longer need to push along with the cursor to see where you can or can't go. The UI in general is a lot friendlier and easier to use in this game compared to the previous games. The game gives you access to your storage and character inventory in between stages, allowing you to easily pass items around and set up as you see fit. Fire Emblem would make major strides in this capacity in the next few games, but it's far enough along here that I think most people would feel somewhat comfortable going back to it. You still have to decide on your own whether or not it's a good idea to attack a unit and what the probabilities look like, though.

The other big change in Mystery is one that only ended up appearing in a few games before disappearing. Mounted units are now able to dismount, and indeed are forced to in stages that take place indoors. Depending on whether they're mounted or not, they'll only have access to particular weapons. While on their steeds, they have to use pole arms, while on foot, they're limited to swords. The idea isn't bad, and it makes a lot of sense from a certain point of view, but it ended up blurring the lines between job classes and making a mess of managing inventories. Later games would address the whole problem of horses in-doors by giving them a movement penalty instead. Kaga was clearly fond of dismounting, however, as he made sure to include it in Tear Ring Saga after he left the Fire Emblem franchise.

Naturally, with the move to 16-bit hardware, the presentation got a real kick in the pants. I don't think Mystery of the Emblem looks particularly good for a 1994 Super Famicom game, but it doesn't look bad, either. Series composer Yuka Tsujiyoko got a lot of mileage out of the improved sound capabilities of the hardware, too. With more memory to work with, the development team was able to add in a lot more information and story for all of the characters, giving the game a much more well-rounded feel. The story of Book 2 also does some interesting things, making one of your trusted playable allies from the first game into what appears to be the main antagonist. It ends up explaining his turn through supernatural means, but it's honestly plausible on its own without any of that silliness. While fiction tends to treat friends as a forever thing, real history shows that war-time allies often become enemies and vice-versa.

The maps and scenarios are well-designed as usual, and recruiting new characters once again largely occurs through conversations on the battlefield. While that can be stressful at times, I think it's an important part of what makes Fire Emblem distinct from other games in this genre. You can't simply put your strongest units forward and roll over the enemies, because one of them might need to talk to someone in the back ranks to join your side. You have to figure out how to get that potentially vulnerable unit into the middle of a group of enemies and extract them, which is a nice challenge. Recent games tend to compromise on this by having potential recruits be distinct from enemy forces, which I think accomplishes a similar goal. It's a little weird that certain units are so willing to fight Marth when they were once apparently his loyal friends, but I suppose the game's story can explain away whatever the characters don't. Marth is treated like a dangerous rebel, and I suppose some fools would believe that, considering the source.

With the massive success of Mystery of the Emblem, it was inevitable that Fire Emblem would get another release on the Super Famicom no matter how late it was in the system's life. What was more unexpected was that the 16-bit platform would play host to two more installments, with the last of the bunch releasing in late 1999. That's nearly a year after the Japanese release of the SEGA Dreamcast. That partly explains why the momentum and goodwill generated by Mystery of the Emblem was so short-lived. But I also feel like Kaga had his own ideas about where he wanted to take the franchise, and that might not have been compatible with Nintendo's view of things. As we'll see over the course of the next couple of articles, Kaga wasn't very interested in keeping Fire Emblem in a holding pattern, and I can't help but wonder if Mystery's unusually safe approach and the overwhelmingly positive response it received bristled him.

Whatever the case, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem holds up quite well to this day, and I would strongly recommend playing it were it not for one little thing. Namely, the two Books that make up this game have both received individual remakes that significantly fleshed them out. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the Nintendo DS managed to get an international release, and outside of its bland art, it's the best way to experience that particular story. Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem was also remade for the Nintendo DS, but it never got released outside of Japan. It makes some fairly significant changes to the story, but in terms of gameplay, it's by far the best way to enjoy Mystery. Of course, since Nintendo is yet to provide English players with any official means of playing this installment, it's somewhat inaccessible in either form. I imagine Nintendo will do something about that someday, but likely not soon.

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Next: Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War

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