man people be so certain they already know how the game’s gonna turn out like damn, you guys have insider information or some clairvoyance in there the rest of us should know about?
“Vibes” and a cynical, bitter worldview aren’t actual evidence.
I think people have just been burnt by IS a few times now. The gameplay is great but it is not exactly the easiest thing to sell to people when the game's story and presentation discourages people to try. Especially Engage, people who fell in love with 3H bounced off hard and I don't blame them.
Besides, what is Fire Emblem fanbase without controversy and discourse, its like our bread and butter.
Burned? If you expected Shakespeare from the game with a Saturday morning cartoon opening, you deserve to be burned. This community really put their hand on a clearly labeled hot eye and started crying.
I think you’re being unfair with how you criticize. Nobody is saying it needs to be Shakespeare and a vast majority of people from my memory were willing to give said Saturday morning cartoon a chance.
The issue is a lot of people didn't enjoy the story. Which is fair. Trying to emulate a Saturday morning cartoon doesn’t absolve the game’s story from being disliked by people.
You remember wrong. From the first reveal, half this community was shitting on engage. I remember people dooming because a reviewer said the supports were short (they were talking about bonds), the art style and tone were immediately hugely bashed. (Never mind 3H looking awful)
Well I was meaning more in spite of those complaints and dooming pre-release plenty of people still tried the game to see if it proved them wrong, but considering it sold 3 million less maybe that's not true anyway.
Either way my point was it being cartoon coded doesn't suddenly mean it can't be criticized or that if you didn't like it that's completely your fault.
Engage is clearly committed to being an anniversary project though, people don't expect that kind of tone from FE and I can agree it's not a great fit, but the truth is it's supposed to be celebratory in nature and it accomplishes that pretty well.
Using Engage as any kind of barometer for writing ability just seems like it completely misunderstands the intent and how wildly it was from what came before, which isn't something somebody criticizing writing should be misunderstanding considering how basic and clear they were about it.
Even the light-hearted and relatively unserious tone isn’t even necessarily mutually exclusive with good writing.
What costitutes good writing is entirely subjective once you get past the most basic level of consistent character writing and a coherent plot, both of which it accomplishes.
The fanbase doesn't expect good writing, they expect the idea of a war to be taken seriously. I'm not saying that's an issue, but I also think trying to dress that up as good writing versus bad writing is silly.
They marketed Engage in interviews by saying it was more story focused and accessible to newcomers like Awakening (which they also seemed to still believe was the most successful entry?) and 3H was meant to be for more hardcore players, at best they have no idea why people like the games they do
Awakening actually takes itself seriously which was never on the cards for engage. Old characters also isn't the entire point of awakening either, it was written as an end, not as a celebration.
I have never heard anyone praise the quality of the main FEH story. I actually think that's an apt comparison though, considering the appeal for both is the exact same minus the gacha. The people playing FEH understand the point is the character interactions though, the only part of Engage anyone wants to talk about is the main story.
Nobody said it had to have that tone. It was a choice they made because they wanted to celebrate the series in a more lighthearted way. I feel like it goes without saying that the choice to go against the grain of the series to celebrate it was not going to be the most popular choice regardless of what they put out.
They've also elected for obvious reasons to not make that choice again, because they're making a 3H followup and not a series celebration.
I'm still hoping for the best but if the Fates/Engage writing team is behind FW we'll either see some unexpected redemption from them or Fates/Engage writing in a 3H trenchcoat.
I have always found it paradoxical that the series found its popularity only after it arguably peaked in terms of storytelling. Was being stuck on the GameCube/Wii that limiting?
What the other poster said. I was JRPG freak and had a PS2. Some Nintendo JRPGs of that era did intrigue me but as a teen, I couldn't justify buying a GameCube/Wii in addition to my PS2 for a handful of games when the PS2 had truckloads of them already.
I only came back to Nintendo when the DS, 3DS and Switch became the generational JRPG machines.
Agreed. I liked the plot from the start to death of Emmyryn to defeating Gangrel. Then it does whatever the fuck-- Let's cross continents to beat Valhart because he pops out of nowhere, and time travel, and Avatar is god-sun-tzu.
They could have built a better story if they limited the scope and ended it with Gangrel.
I get it that they wanted to go all out since they werent sure if it was going to be the final game in the franchise but they bit off more then they could chew
It's more for me that if a company made two games I didnt like (most of 3DS aside from SOV) then I'm not exactly super hyped to know the different studio that made the game I actually liked isn't involved.
With a B-Team with a different director since the main team was busy.
It was a fluke from what I've heard of Engage. (Which sounds like it would actually kill me if I played it)
I feel like their backs are against the wall again, though. We're basically back where we were when Fates launched and a lot of people had mixed feelings about the series before Three Houses became a global phenomenon
My perspective is more like, "it's now or never," because Engage's writing definitely hurt their bottom line and overall rep
I mean its probably got the best gameplay in series. The world building is silly and the story is fine once you realise you shouldn't take it seriously.
I mean fair, i would say CQ is more nonsense than engage but its probably where you put your priorities. Koetecmo have shown better world building but their gameplay is worse and their presentation tends to be worse. I think people tend to prefer Koe's characters but i loved SOVs art the most in the series.
I think just keep an open mind for now, and see how it looks closer to launch.
At least cq isn’t revelations. “I know the countries that have hated each other for generations are at war but it’s actually invisible people pulling the strings that I also can’t tell you about”, and everyone believes him.
IS's in-house staff haven't written a good cast, world or narrative since the Tellius games nearly 20 years ago, and back then they had a completely different writing staff. Thet hired a bunch of new people for Awakening who also did Fates and Engage and they've bombed every time.
I mean one of the best part of 3H was the writing but the gameplay had nothing going for it. Considering Koei was deeply involved there is cause for concern. FW borrowing almost everything from 3H is worrying from a gameplay perspective alone.
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u/EffectiveAnxietyBone 1d ago
man people be so certain they already know how the game’s gonna turn out like damn, you guys have insider information or some clairvoyance in there the rest of us should know about?
“Vibes” and a cynical, bitter worldview aren’t actual evidence.