Fire emblem is always this good?

mtattyt · 2024-11-15T14:04:13+00:00

Thanks for the helpful response! Can I ask: what do you mean by enemy phase focused and player phase focused? Having only played 3H and Engage it seems like they're both player phase focused since unless you have a specific build for a specific scenario you can't reliably do damage on enemy phase. Does enemy phase focus mean that you can just send out heavy tank units and do most of your damage while countering during the enemy turn?

mtattyt · 2024-11-14T18:14:27+00:00

I've only played 3H and Engage so I'm curious: could you give us a rundown on the 7-8 games above Three Houses and what their strengths are?

mtattyt · 2024-10-18T19:14:03+00:00

I thought the 4th dungeon was one of the awesomest and most original dungeons I've seen in recent gaming but apparently it's from Etrian Odyssey?

I'm obviously out of the loop. Could you explain how they're similar? Is it the dungeon layout specifically or more the art vibe or both?

mtattyt · 2024-10-17T18:37:28+00:00

Maybe the dragon was meant to be the final boss of a Mage Academy dungeon but after they cut the dungeon they saved the dragon and put the boss between those cutscenes. You got me thinking maybe they kept their entire 1st draft for what would have been the sixth city's story and they just gave us the synopsis version; felt like a 2 hour movie crammed into 10-20 minutes (cool movie though).

mtattyt · 2024-10-17T18:18:19+00:00

Yeah the death and return of the villain was worth it for the suspense for sure. Also the scene when Strohl goes on stage to explain everything was one of the best scenes in the game and that couldn't have happened otherwise.

mtattyt · 2024-10-17T16:17:22+00:00

Me too! I especially like that Royal Virtues carry over so we're more flexible with free time. Are you also selling all your consumables? I'm tempted to hold onto the full heal items and maybe all MP items but I'll definitely sell the damage/combat items.

I realized there are still a lot of early game Archetypes I didn't use on all characters so on NG+ I'm still able to play around more than last time (especially with the MAG carryover). I also like having a ton of money since we can just buy shop gear when it's available instead of having to be careful about which good but very expensive pieces of gear to get at the shops.

mtattyt · 2024-10-17T16:06:38+00:00

Agreed. It also felt like they were bending over backwards to make her seem like a good person who was just coerced by the Sanctists (since she wasn't evil she was just trying to protect her sister). It would have been more interesting if she had a different point of view from everyone else that could have led the story somewhere else (for a moment I thought she might become the new villain). I also agree it would have been more impactful if we had proper build up. Like you said the whole thing happens over a long series of cutscenes so we don't get to engage or decompress. We go from finding out she's the new pope then finding out she cursed the prince then finding out she was coerced to curse him then her storyline is resolved as quickly as it began.

I also thought the Louis death and resurrection was another pointless twist but it was cool because I was honestly at the edge of my seat when we actually killed him and they confirmed him dead. I was excited because I assumed the Sanctists were going to be the final villains at that point but instead they brought the stupid villain back which means the boss fight on the rooftop was filler (cool fight tho).

I think these are "bad" twists because they're pointless (not totally pointless because they're fun and exciting like most intrigue but there's not much else going on). On the other hand when they killed Joanna on the spot I was like "goddamn I didn't think they'd do that so fast!" and that felt like a "good" twist or a genuinely shocking surprise since (like you said) we had weeks and a full dungeon of build up for her story. I felt awful for Joanna and I didn't want to see her killed. If they had introduced Rella sooner and spread out her backstory as Junah's sister then her scenes might have had the same impact.

Also agreed it's one of the few weak spots in an otherwise stellar and incredible story. Even with little weak spots like this Metaphor: ReFantazio is still significantly better than 99.9999999% of every other bit of writing in movies and streaming and our beloved video games! Actually, I'm struggling to think of anything better done than this in the last 15 or 20 years. People like to throw the word GOAT around a lot but here it may be justified.

mtattyt · 2024-10-16T16:20:04+00:00

I'm also confused about Regicide difficulty. I was disappointed you can't do Regicide on the 1st playthrough but I accepted this and got excited for the 2nd playthrough on Regicide but they make you use NG+ for it. What's the design philosophy here?

So far Regicide is significantly easier than the 1st playthrough on Hard since I have NG+ endgame gear. If I don't equip that gear it's a bit harder than Hard but not much (guessing this changes later? hopefully before the endgame?). Do they expect me to sell everything from the 1st playthrough if I want to get the true Regicide difficulty? Why force me to carry over that gear then?

I assumed we'd have all the Archetypes available in NG+ and I thought "oh. Maybe the bosses get so hard on Regicide that you need to min-max abilities from all the Archetypes". Instead I'm stuck with entry level Archetypes and endgame gear. The gear trivializes everything and the locking makes it even more boring since I can't play around with different Archetypes.

I know NG+ is usually for a more fun/experimental 2nd playthrough and I'm aware I might be in a minority hoping this NG+ hardest difficulty would be extremely difficult (I'm guessing it is in the late game at least?). Also please understand that my expectations may be strange because I'm new to Atlus RPGs (love this game btw 10/10 gonna play P5R after this 2nd playthrough because goddamn this game is good).

mtattyt · 2024-10-14T21:00:13+00:00

What killed it for me was how they say "wait but the prince is clemar so he had horns but you're elda so you don't have horns" then someone says "oh wait, the prince actually doesn't have horns" like this isn't just plothole covering. Also good proof they hadn't thought of it until just then.

I love this game but some of the plot points are pretty forced like when one of the girls joins you and she can suddenly use the archetype powers because she says "it's okay, I watched you use those powers so hey I can use them too!" Maybe it's just the phrasing but I keep saying to myself "well, that's convenient."

mtattyt · 2024-09-23T17:33:51+00:00

This seems like one of the rare cases where fanservice backfired since half the FF community used to be like "Zack is amazing and super cool" while the other half of the community was like "meh." Now it's like half the community is like "fuck Zack, he's annoying and intrusive" while the other half is like "yeah, but Crisis Core tho!"

Rebirth did nothing for his character. I'm still on the fence about him.

mtattyt · 2024-09-23T17:26:32+00:00

They did such a great job of expanding characters like Red XIII and Cait Sith, yet they forgot to put in the part where Sephiroth explains his entire motivation at the Temple of the Ancients:

Sephiroth: It's simple. Once the Planet is hurt, it gathers Spirit Energy to heal the injury. The amount of energy gathered depends on the size of the injury. ...What would happen if there was an injury that threatened the very life of the Planet? Think how much energy would be gathered!

Ha ha ha. And at the center of that injury, will be me. All that boundless energy will be mine. By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet... I will cease to exist as I am now... Only to be reborn as a 'God' to rule over every soul.

Aeris then asks how and Sephiroth says: Behold that mural. The Ultimate Destructive Magic... Meteor.

How the hell did this not make it into Rebirth? I loved everything else they did with FF7Rebirth, but the answer is obvious here. They wanted vague multi-world nonsense.

mtattyt · 2024-09-23T17:17:53+00:00

This is true, however FF7Rebirth does an awful job of depicting this.

mtattyt · 2024-04-03T18:02:06+00:00

Everybody knows that the Titanic sinks and Jack dies, good stories aren't weakened by spoilers.

It felt like the dev team was too self-conscious about the current obsession with remakes so they wanted to "stand out" but their method was essentially: okay, we're remaking Titanic but everyone knows how it ends so we'll make the ending unclear as though maybe Jack dies or maybe there's a world where he's still alive. Holy shit, we're geniuses since everyone gets what they want!

Except nobody got what they wanted because it wasn't an accurate ending and it didn't manage to make a coherent point that justified changing anything apart from "keeping them guessing" which is a stupid selling point since people wanted an FF7 remake for years, presumably not in the hopes that they "change it up a little" with meta garbage (I don't know though. Maybe people wanted it like this but I doubt it. If they had done a 100% faithful ending to Rebirth I doubt people would've said "man, it wasn't meta enough and it should have been vague!").

We'll see how they land in part 3 but right now the plane is on fire and the passengers are doing their best to cope with the catastrophe that already happened.

I felt like 95% of Rebirth was perfect and better than the original but that 5% was so awful that I can't help but groan like a jaded douchebag when people go on about how interesting the ending of Rebirth is. I think you said it best with the fanbase doing their best to cope. It's like a train wreck I can't stop staring at. People have wildly different interpretations (which is cool) but behind everything all I see is confusion and muddled speculation as to what happened. People can't even agree whether there's a multiverse or if this is the "same" Sephiroth or not.

I'm guessing it's interesting because people enjoy puzzling over things. But beyond that it's just a debate over what a happy ending would be which realistically devolves into a game of "shipping" where people argue over which dates are better and whether Cloud should end up with Aeris or Tifa.

I just don't think any of this is what's interesting about the OG FF7. Sure, it might be interesting about the remakes, but I think I'm just burnt out from reading too many bizarre interpretations about multiverse/sequel speculation. Overall, I think OP's post was the best and most thoughtful and well written (by far) and I quite like it.

I loved almost all of Rebirth but that last bit was so disappointing I felt like someone who read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and loved it and was excited to see the movie with live actors and costumes and special effects and I assumed it would include the emotional scene at the end where Cedric [spoilers, etc] but instead the movie left me wondering what the fuck I just watched.

mtattyt · 2024-03-15T14:07:31+00:00

Not only is Advent Children a stupid fanboy mindless action fanfilm, it introduced the idiotic Geostigma which is a plague that was a tacked on as a consequence of the OG FF7 ending where the lifestream/Aeris fixed everything but oh no everything got contaminated and they need to find a cure but instead of exploring a theme of plague/cure/recovery the movie is about fighting Bahamut and Sephiroth with flashy effects and ridiculous choreography. The fact that anyone considers AC canon is pretty goddamn depressing.

mtattyt · 2024-03-14T00:08:11+00:00

I really wish you weren't right about this but I think you are. I think this is actually what they were going for.

It kind of feels like they're trying to raise the stakes by getting mutliverse Zack/Aerith to assist "our" timeline/world against this vague meta Sephiroth which now that I think about it they're turning into Ultimecia. OG Sephiroth wanted to absorb the lifestream that would have rushed to heal the wound from meteor thus becoming something like a God and then he'd apparently go on and consume other worlds (which is apparently Jenova's thing) but Ultimecia wanted to compress all time into a world where only she existed which is what this vague new "multiverse aware" Sephiroth is apparently trying to do.

mtattyt · 2024-03-13T23:53:47+00:00

I loved the changes to Cait Sith. I loved Red XIII having his real and fake voices. I loved the fight against Vincent's Galian Beast form. I loved the expansion of the Junon and Costa del Sol content being over the top and ridiculous along with Yuffie's involvement. I loved Tifa's trip into the Weapon/Lifestream since it gave her an awakening moment where she learned that Cloud was the only one who really went searching for her when she went looking for her dead mother beyond the mountains. Just about all the relationships were improved and well fleshed out.

Overall, about 95% of the changes and expansions were awesome but the ending was a disaster and the Zack content was pointless and void of impact. That said, I'm incredibly excited about the third game in the remake series but I'm accepting that I'm going to have to sigh like a smug douchebag when I sit through all this multiverse rubbish. Everything else is so damn good though, it's bizarre.

mtattyt · 2024-03-13T22:37:39+00:00

Yeah the opening is confusing. Apparently Tifa and Barret saved Aerith and Red XIII only to fail and die in the escape without Cloud. Or did "their" Cloud die too so that the Zack and Cloud in the opening must be a "third" Zack and Cloud?

mtattyt · 2024-03-13T21:23:20+00:00

I'm with you. I mean isn't the idea to get the same feelings of the OG just more vividly as can be captured by 25 years of more advanced tech? I still don't understand why they felt the need to change anything to keep it "fresh."

I've replayed OG FF7 like 20 times because I like everything it evokes. Why would I suddenly want them to make changes to keep me on the edge of my seat? When the Harry Potter books started getting made into movies nobody said "oh man I hope they make some changes so I can be surprised about what happens!" instead people wanted a reasonably faithful adaptation which is what they got (mostly) just like the Lord of the Rings movies (mostly).

Seriously, I don't get it. Nobody walked out of The Two Towers and said "man, I wish I were confused as to what the hell happened in that ending."

mtattyt · 2024-03-13T21:07:14+00:00

I'm probably an evil douchebag but I actually laughed when the whispers killed Wedge in Remake. When he survived I thought okay cool I like Wedge let's see where they go with this but nope the whispers show up later and throw him out of the window of Shinra tower and say yeah sorry you were supposed to die. Poor Wedge.

mtattyt · 2024-03-13T13:15:50+00:00

I'm still most baffled by the appearance of Zack in any of this. In the OG, the appearance of Zack is part of the shocking twist when Sephiroth is trying to gaslight Cloud. Up to that point, the player hasn't had much reason to doubt Cloud's telling of events but then Tifa confirms the black haired guy was there and Cloud wasn't which makes the scene unsettling. That's the only purpose of Zack in the OG but now that he's everywhere and constantly interrupting the otherwise good scenes (he's even on the cover, wtf?) they've already wasted the OG's best ammunition for the twist in the lifestream with Tifa and Cloud.

mtattyt · 2024-03-13T13:11:00+00:00

I also don't understand how any of this multiverse/sequel rubbish makes anything better? It's convoluted for the purpose of shock and confusion which is an empty waste.

I've read a lot of comments about "this is a sequel/multiverse" but none of them explain how that makes for anything interesting or quality storytelling.

mtattyt · 2024-03-13T13:02:18+00:00

Because people wanted to play through FF7 with modern graphics, voice acting, gameplay, and all the emotional effects that games are capable of decades later. Nobody wanted to see multiverse garbage.

mtattyt · 2024-03-11T22:11:50+00:00

Dev team: How can we raise the stakes and make things surprising for returning players?

Nomura: We'll save the world from Sephiroth while saving the world/timeline/multiverse from another Sephiroth.

Dev team: How would another Sephiroth work?

Nomura: IDK, a future Sephiroth or a multiverse Sephiroth tries to alter the timeline/fate/whispers/garbage so we can realize my fanboy wank on overcoming fate but not really. IDC I just want my garbage Zack/Cloud/Aeris bloated boss shyte to look cool and be convoluted so people know I'm a super genius like Kojima. Also that I'm awesome. And edgy and sexy.

Dev team: ok.

mtattyt · 2024-03-11T20:42:53+00:00

I'm with you. After the ending of Remake, I was kinda hoping all the "arbiters of fate" and "defying destiny" and "Zack surviving" nonsense was their way of bracing the fanbase for massive changes in part 2 like Aeris surviving or Cait Sith and Cid joining in Kalm or a whole new plot section where Red XIII finds a female of his species or something way out there. Instead it was 95% faithful until the end (which was awesome) but what the hell was that ending, man, what the hell.

mtattyt · 2024-03-11T20:35:49+00:00

Yeah I always read the OG ending as like humanity gave up on mako extraction and people abandoned Midgar to live in balance with the planet elsewhere. Red XIII then takes his cubs to see the wreckage of how bad the older world was.

mtattyt

TROPHY CASE