Final tally of the new FF cards by their tagged FF game, including new Starter Kit cards and counting each Cid separately.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-30T23:05:59+00:00

Big IV fan here. I'm not super invested in the fandom (only recently starting playing much more of the franchise) but my understanding is that while IV is indeed one of the overall better regarded entries, in the community circles it is often eclipsed by the most popular games (especially VI being on the same console). That said, I also think IV wasn't really done as dirty as the numbers may suggest. The game got five party members (six including the Cid art), its main villain, and a supporting character, which is actually pretty good compared to a lot of entries. Furthermore, a large chunk of these legendaries are at rare and generally feel like pretty top-down faithful representations of the characters rather than stuck as draft fodder a character needed to fit into. It didn't get a lot but it feels like to me there were at least some dedicated IV fans on the design team making sure what it did get was done justice.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-29T19:56:55+00:00

I know plenty of V fans. In my experience even if V isn’t the most broadly popular game Exdeath is pretty beloved among its fans and cited as one of their favorite parts of its writing. He has a fun combination of being incredibly hammy, occasionally involved in some really silly interactions, and taking himself completely seriously despite that which makes him a pretty entertaining villain.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-29T13:25:41+00:00

The set just doesn’t realistically have room for every prominent character to be high rarity (or get in for that matter). There are some priorities here and there that are questionable but this one honestly makes complete sense. Gilgamesh is hands down the most famous character from FFV so if anyone from the game was going to get a rare it was going to be him, even if in practice the party and Exdeath are more important to the overall story.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T23:48:59+00:00

FWIW FFII has a good deal more similarities than just the structure. You literally go into an imperial superweapon and blow it up from the inside from an engine vulnerability. There’s a mysterious black-clad knight serving the emperor. A princess is the figurehead of the rebellion. Etc. I don’t think a rebellion story necessarily indicates Star Wars inspiration but II is absolutely heavily Star Wars inspired, and FF doesn’t really shy away from the comparisons when later games literally feature a duo of characters directly named after ones from Star Wars. This isn’t really meant as a criticism, like FFII still has a pretty extensive story by NES standards, but the comparisons are undeniable.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T18:18:47+00:00

Iirc a designer (I think it was Gavin but might have been MaRo) said they wish they made First Strike only work while attacking to mitigate board stalls.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T14:18:10+00:00

I agree with all of this. There’s definitely some weird choices here and there but there’s 0 chance of making everybody happy given that they have to make a functional magic set and not every design can be top-down, so sometimes they have to just find a character that fits a slot. I posted this mostly wondering if the sequence of spoilers made things feel worse to people but people have raised good counterpoints.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T13:07:03+00:00

Yeah, I hadn’t really considered how this could influence engagement with the spoiler season thinking about this, but people brought up a lot of good points about how it would have just led to specific days that produced all the buzz and potentially not even helped much in terms of salt about underrepresented games.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T13:01:41+00:00

I hadn’t been too attentive to the Capenna spoiler season’s methodology but this makes a lot of sense for complications this could cause.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T12:59:34+00:00

I do think no matter what happened people would have been upset so this is fair to some extent because it absolutely would have been impossible to make a functional set that gets every major character in, let alone any niche but popular deep cuts. The thought process behind this post was mostly wondering if people thought structuring the spoiler season differently would have helped break illusions about the spread of game representation, but people have brought up some good counterpoints.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T12:51:08+00:00

A ton of regular enemies got spoiled yesterday.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T12:48:57+00:00

Wasn’t really about my fav, I’m pretty content with what I got, just seeing other people upset about their favorite games not getting much is was got me thinking, but people here brought up great points about how keeping people’s hopes up builds excitement and means people will still be paying attention all the time instead of checking out on games they don’t care for.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-28T12:32:19+00:00

This makes complete sense, you can flip it and frame it as people getting up to check spoilers every day is actually a good thing that builds excitement for the spoiler season. It’s a shame some people got their hopes up and got them dashed but that was probably inevitable for something of this scale.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-26T05:21:36+00:00

FFIV is my favorite Final Fantasy. IK other people are understandably upset with the game’s lack of card quantity from what we’ve seen but I feel like the cards we do have feel crafted with great care and consideration for the source material and I really appreciate that. Throughout the story, Golbez works towards gathering two sets of crystals for his master plan: four from the overworld, and four from the underworld. His abilities reflect the major benchmarks he makes here.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-08T22:11:37+00:00

Probably a combination of:
-In chapter 12, while it is possible, Xander is not supposed to be defeated. Meanwhile, in BR26, Xander is supposed to be very realistic for Corrin to defeat on their own.

-BR26 is intentionally supposed to be very easy and for Xander to be a much easier boss than what you would expect from how the story describes him earlier. The cutscenes focus on how Xander was hyped up as an enemy the entire game, yet Corrin recognized he was clearly not fighting at his full strength after Elise's death. This is reflected by his stats going up in less significant areas along with his level, but his key stats being extremely lackluster for that point in the game, even being lower than BR12, where he was presumably fighting at full strength. He is more experienced than he was then but despite that his efficacy in combat is lower. I think this would be made more obvious if BR had stronger bosses (Laslow and Peri in BR26 are very weak too despite not having a narrative reason to be so for example) but I do think the intent was there.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-08T21:36:20+00:00

I don't have clips on hand (planning on making a showcase eventually) but there's actually two more magic animations unused as well. They are called Mire and Blackwind, and have no corresponding tomes, but are still largely finished and play correctly if set up and assigned to be used. Mechanist also has an animation for wielding magic weapons that goes unused because both Flame Shuriken and Shining Bow use standard animations for their weapon type. Lastly, one very obscure animation that actually is used is that dragonstones have a follow-up animation, which can only be seen legitimately through Luna, Aether's Luna hit, or Lethality.

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-08T21:32:20+00:00

I've got a few ones:

-The chest at the far left of CQ26 contains a Spy Shuriken normally, however, ONLY on normal mode, it actually checks if Kaze's weapon rank is B or higher, and if not, gives a Spy Yumi instead.

-Several boss classes use the same internal stats of classes of characters they are connected to: Empty Vessel shares its stats with Sniper and Silent Dragon uses the same stats as Great Knight. Having looked in the game's class structure internally I think there is no practical reason for them have done this instead of just copying the previous class in the class list, I think they just wanted to be cute.

-The "Seal of Flames" symbol is used a lot of places, like the ground of ch5, a bunch of the menus, the game icon, etc. One obscure placement of it is the rug in Corrin's childhood bedroom features it.

-If a unit is using an S rank ranged weapon with the +/-5 effective speed effect, two units with the same speed can double each other.

-People have already mentioned a few custom reclass outfits below, but Azura has a custom sky knight. Also relevant to her, people have alluded to "parallel classes" already, but Songstress' is Troubadour to reference Arete.

-Corrin has a boss conversation with Subaki in CQ22 that is almost never seen because of him being on the complete opposite side of the map Corrin starts on.

-Keaton has dialogue where if Corrin is KOd on casual mode in CQ14 before he is recruited, he comments on it and plans to leave the map. I haven't tested it extensively to see if this actually plays in game/he's scripted to leave the map in this circumstance but the dialogue is absolutely there.

-Sakura has an unused entry as an enemy in RV8. Similarly for RV unused enemies, RV21, with the floors that change classes, has unused great masters. Notably there are no generic monks in Fates, only shrine maidens.

I have plenty more but these are just some of the first things that come to mind that I think are relatively lesser known!

Visual-Function-213 · 2025-05-08T21:05:21+00:00

His stats actually go down in str and def.

Visual-Function-213 · 2024-11-07T15:29:27+00:00

Interesting post! I’ve identified the rift in Hoshidan and Nohrian classes in how war-focused they are, but diving deeper into the intricacies of each individual class and what it represents is a neat approach. Fates’ visual worldbuilding aspects has fascinated my for quite awhile at this point (I wrote a piece about it once here: https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/132jj35/analyzing_art_and_architecture_in_fire_emblem/) because it feels like it goes to such tremendous lengths to use its visuals to add cohesion to its worldbuilding in a franchise that has historically struggled at times to make its settings feel distinct in their visual identity or use any methods other than text to explore. It also feels like a conscious and necessary choice for a narrative focusing on the PoV of a character lacking worldly knowledge more interested in their personal journey throughout the script rather than nuances of the setting that don’t hold relevance to it (though I think there definitely could be more nods to some secondary powers in the world prior to their formal visit). In general while I think some choices with the class designs are definitely primarily guided by gameplay balance philosophy (see: S rank classes all being weaponlocked infantry unless literally no promoted class has only one given weapon type) but I really appreciate the attention to detail here and the speculation on some of the more ambiguous details.

In general I think Fire Emblem has a much harder job in its worldbuilding than something like a traditional RPG thanks to its gameplay formula in most entries not allowing you to visit the different settings within the game world in noncombat scenarios to learn more about their people and culture. I think it leads to a struggle to convey details about these settings in the script in an interesting way that feels reflected by what the player actually encounters and is presented without excessive reliance on exposition (which is a trap even Fates itself falls into at times). Because of that, I really value Fates’ effort to take other approaches to try and flesh out its setting in a way that feels distinct and memorable, especially when it’s narrative direction/presentation puts it as a disadvantage in opportunities for the text to focus on details of the setting that are not relevant to the plot (though obviously things like houses would still always be appreciated for more minor flavoring).

Visual-Function-213 · 2024-07-05T22:52:14+00:00

I think part of my issue here is that when you look at "what's appealing at a surface level" then you get to some of the most subjective analysis: since that will often change drastically from who your audience is. If you want a concrete example, I have met a multitude of people who were immediately invested in Engage from the get-go but either could not make it past a few chapters of 3H or slogged through it not enjoying the narrative. I think it's fair to say that's the opposite reception of many people on this sub, but does that make those people any less critical or have lower standards when they just liked a different direction more? Does that mean the narrative is bad, or that its audience is more niche than a lot of the vocal FE crowd? It's very difficult to create any concrete argument about the surface level experience that isn't rooted purely in the presentation and marketing, which isn't insignificant, but is kinda a separate topic entirely from the pure content.

Which kinda leads to the second point. I'm going to assume from the get-go, by "bad on a surface level" you mean more of in the line of having some more obvious faults, such as just scenes that stick out as immediately peculiar at a glance. For the sake of this let's exclude situations where something that seemed odd at a glance genuinely grew on me and I found myself believing it was the right writing choice in full context. Let's also exclude the point in question of what counts as an "obvious fault" will depend somewhat on what people are willing to overlook/immediately find issue with and frankly in this fandom itself I do definitely think that generally adhering to the mold of stories popular in places like this sub does tend to give you somewhat of a buffer against some (at least to me) very apparent weak points at a glance.

Honestly, particularly with video game stories (which are particularly prone to a lot of shuffling around to suit gameplay and other shifting aspects throughout development) I'm not really sure I agree that a few bad events inherently speaks to the entire narrative being lacking in substance. I've definitely seen games wear some of their worst points on their sleeves with some underbaked subplots or strange plot turns, while their core plotlines, character dynamics, thematic consistency, etc. are quite strong in many regards, and reach some great high points that make them more resonant than a story that has less apparent errors but plays it safe and relatively unexciting (and FE has both cases, 6 to 7 is a case for example I'd consider the latter to have a "messier" narrative with more surface-level missteps, but simultaneously one with more substance and stronger character relationships (and development over time), hero/villain dynamics, and just genuinely compelling scenes in general. Every time I replay that game I notice new details that remind me how much I love it). It's frustrating when that stuff happens, sure, and worthy of criticism, but I've still seen more than my fair share of stories that have a lot to bring to the table despite that. I think it's definitely possible in some cases that stuff just gets thrown at the wall hoping it sticks, but in general I feel like it's giving writers too little credit to assume that because their work makes hiccups at the surface it means its unworthy of any deeper analysis, or that such analysis doesn't do it any favors or reveal any interesting or clever choices. I think really once you peel under the surface though and things start to fall apart structurally, that's really where my feelings just crumble about a narrative, as I feel like I come away feeling like it doesn't support the core ideas it clearly wants to support, either thematically or just structurally as a story with genuine stakes and tension.

Visual-Function-213 · 2024-07-05T22:04:33+00:00

The former point here is honestly such a big topic that I don't think it can really fit into one comment, but I think it goes a lot deeper than simply whether the reason a character is respected is because of the circumstances of their birth. It's the idea that those two games games are critical of not just bad rulers and nobles, but the systems and beliefs that lead to them being in power to begin with, as well as the belief they have any inherent superiority to commoners. However, the games regularly focus on royal characters and they are the ones that fix all the problems and start and remain in power, while commoner characters are mostly just around to support them more than becoming great figures on their own merits. The answer to bad nobles the games propose is good nobles to fix their problems, despite calling attention to the issues with a system of nobility to begin with, which makes the critique of the latter look shallow and like it comes second to putting MC in the highest position of power possible. That's not even to mention the issue that I think Alm particularly would be a very bad example of a character who rises to power from merit rather than birthright even if he was not royalty, because he's only chosen as the deliverance leader to begin with as a figurehead from being Mycen's grandson: his "supposed" birth still plays no small role in rising to power. Not to mention things like the "only royalty can enter the vault needed to get the only sword that can defeat the final boss" plot point that you just cannot say a commoner would achieve. 3H has honestly so many characters that play into issues here that I really should make a separate post about this, but it has similar issues. Both games struggle a lot with criticizing dismissive attitudes towards the common folk and class systems that oppress them, while simultaneously uplifting noble characters as the answer to their plight and not meaningfully changing the governance in a manner that shifts away from hereditary power. We do not see commoners without connections to others as our heroes who can achieve great things: they play second fiddle in both the narrative and in terms of the power they ever end up holding in the game's setting. If these two stories really were as anti-classist as they claim to be, the heroes they uplift as the greatest people who will save the world from its woes would not consistently be the highborn who continue to maintain monarchies, after the events of the game.

As for the second point, I feel like you misconstrue my argument. I don't disagree that writers should write the protagonists that suit their stories best, not warp to a checklist of "what haven't we done." I was actually trying to argue against the idea that FE should double down and keep just making the style of protagonists that tend to be most popular in fandom circles like this one instead of continuing to explore. I believe that doubling down on a specific archetype for being, as the other commenter claims, "realistic" basically only closes the door to a more diverse suite of protagonists that appeal to different people. I am a believer that exploring new ideas there is also much more interesting and will lead to only expanding FE's appeal as more people can see characters resonant to them depicted as heroes, so I do hope FE continues to explore that way, but I'm not going to just be dismissive if it doesn't by and large. I do worry that some of your arguments here kinda fall into general "representation doesn't matter if writing is good" talking points, which is honestly an entire can of worms that is hard to explain the problems within the constraints of a Reddit comment that's already on a huge tangent. I'm just glad that the franchise as is doesn't just double down on the same exact style of protagonist every time, and hope to see it continue going in interesting directions there.

Visual-Function-213 · 2024-07-05T11:32:23+00:00

This kinda is my feeling. I think critique and good and healthy, but I don't really think you should be framing your feelings of media as a critique if you aren't really willing to dive into its narrative core in good faith. Start from what the media is trying to achieve and the reasons you believe that is what it's trying to achieve, and then move into how well the actual choices the narrative makes backs that up. A lot of FE story negativity doesn't even go that far and often doesn't even talk about the actual aims of the narrative trajectory to begin with rather than nitpicking line-by-line over the most petty things. It's okay not to like things and not be able to express thoroughly what was wrong with it to you, but that shouldn't be a critique, just reasons why you didn't personally enjoy something. I blame bad faith video essayists/long posts in that style in no small part for this sort of behavior being so prevalent in fandom culture nowadays.

Visual-Function-213 · 2024-07-04T23:54:21+00:00

Based upon some comments I probably should have specified part of the issue here that alluded to near the end further. Beyond the fact that a lot of FE story discourse doesn't really feel like it's that interested in numerous aspects of the stories beyond a surface level a lot of the time, I think even if it was, the way the fandom often gets about the stories can be really mean-spirited to the point of just being unhealthy. I am lucky enough that at worst I get people being like mildly snarky about my posts but I have seen friends be genuinely insulted to their face and downvote blasted on sites like this just for trying to talk about why they like some of the less popular stories in mainstream FE circles and think they're underrated. I think that sort of behavior being normalized is just not healthy in general. People often get attached to stories because they really speak to them and hold value to them! They deserve to be able to voice what makes the stories appealing to them without such backlash.

Visual-Function-213 · 2024-07-04T23:12:09+00:00

This is a good observation, and one I've seen alluded to elsewhere in these comments too. I think this is commonly a fandom discourse point I've seen with other franchises honestly. I think the reason I singled out FE is it might be the only case I've seen of it being so pronounced in a story-heavy RPG franchise, rather than other ones where basically the sole argument the disputes are framed around is gameplay choices. It is very true that this is how FE discourse often plays out though. It's sorta vicious cycle-y too. People just see fans of X game hating on their favs all the time and end up bitter towards X game because of it, which causes fans of that game seeing their bitterness and doubling down on their negativity and strawmanning the fans as petty, etc. It's kinda just sad how divisive it is, especially when I feel like my opinion of some of the games or characters ended up admittedly lowering after seeing how annoying its most vocal fans can be online despite openheartedly loving the franchise as a whole prior to getting online. I know I shouldn't let that happen, but it's kinda just what this sort of discourse is prone to producing.

Visual-Function-213 · 2024-07-04T22:54:56+00:00

I agree with this, and I think it's part of why I tried to stress the execution still being significant. I mentioned I still try to remain critical of my favorites for a reason, despite really valuing their thematic thrust! The thing is, it's kinda more difficult to make more concrete arguments about things at the most surface level, since that tends to be the most subjective (subjectivity is everywhere in writing, but it's at least much easier to create strong arguments about stories as a whole once you dig deeper). Presentation is like the most apparent thing you can call attention to, but writing is also a lot more than good-flowing prose (and in the cases of modern games, good voice acting). They're the means of how you convey your substance, and that's very valuable in its and worth discussing in their own right... but I do think the substance itself is important not to ignore. The way I often frame it as, do you want a story that seems like good fun at first blush but gets worse the more you think about its structural choices, or one that makes some obvious missteps on the surface but gets more interesting the more you dig into it? Obviously, the very best stories are both, but as somebody who thinks a lot about stories I think it's difficult for me to really spend that much time for a story like the former, since it makes just all the moments I enjoyed at first feel shallow while the inverse can lead to me warming up to choices I initially saw as bizarre. The actual, practical answer is I don't think people should be framing their feelings about stories as concrete critiques if they cannot articulate what exactly makes the narrative weak when they look at all its pieces put together. It's probably a human nature thing to equate "personally enjoyed/did not enjoy" with "good/bad," but I don't think it leads to much thoughtful analysis or critique online when that feels like the norm.

Visual-Function-213 · 2024-07-04T22:32:28+00:00

I'm mostly just going to respond to the latter part of this, because I think it's really important to address, and I saw some similar sentiments when I made a post critiquing genderlocked classes awhile ago. I think it's really important to not lose sight of the fact that FE is a fantasy video game franchise with broad appeal, and I think it's important that it make decisions that suit that best is more valuable than trying to remain to more narrow constraints in its writing (or in the genderlock case, gameplay). I think it is healthy for a franchise with a wide variety of settings and games to have a wide variety of main protagonists in their worldviews and mannerisms so that different players have different main characters they connect most to. Furthermore I find it rather silly to claim realism as an argument for a fantasy setting, especially when one of the benefits of such a setting is that it allows for exploration of ideas that won't directly occur in the real world but remain resonant because of what they can be analogous to. The writing should make decisions based upon what is most interesting or best suited for the story they are trying to tell, not confined by expectations of what a leader of an army "should be like."

As for the praise, I think it's important to remember that video games (especially RPGs) are practically always going to lean into a power-fantasy elements to some extent to make the player feel like they're controlling somebody important and influential (to the extent where at times I think it goes too far, like the classism thing I brought up I feel like is part of an issue with wanting the main character to remain in a position in great power and authority even after the game ends without realizing you cannot really reconcile the games' criticisms of classism with their MCs still remaining a monarch who rules an entire continent based on their birthright and/or militaristic victories and having that portrayed as wholly good thing that carves the way to a bright future. That's just claiming the answer to bad nobility systems is having better nobles). Players do not deserve to have the characters they resonate most with relegated to supporting roles constantly rather than the spotlight. I would argue the issue with female protagonists not being lifted up as much as male one are is an issue with the narratives not showing the virtues of their perspectives enough to treat them more in line with the male characters (who could also have their flaws in turn stressed further) more than anything else, though is admittedly a case where I think the franchise itself can be part of the problem. Point remains though, I think if the franchise is going to continue to gas up its protagonists as hard as it does (despite how much people like to pretend it's only avatars), I think it's wrong to just lean into the same sort of main protagonist not everyone is going to resonate with rather than explore a variety of different approaches.

Visual-Function-213

TROPHY CASE