FE13: To Chapter 17, Plus Xenologue 2
Feb. 15th, 2013 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelI enjoyed setting Sigurd on fire.
Ahem.
In a sense, the concept of this game is a present to fans like me.
I mean, seriously. Future!Archanea/Barensia tie-in with Marth and Tiki and the Fire Emblem and Spheres all of that? And a pretty damn cool female Lord? I wanted that. I was asking for that. Hell, I even got a mid-ocean battle. I also wanted sea dragons and a female Peg Knight Lord, but I guess we can't have everything.
Anyway, now that we're on Valm and have encountered Tiki, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the execution of it all. I'm also feeling increasingly iffy about the entire time-travel gambit and how it all comes together. I guess I'll just have to keep plowing ahead.
So far I am unhappy with the way Tiki being sleepy is played for a lark. She was traumatized by her long sleep and dreams in FE3. She didn't want to go back to sleep. I assume she's not having nightmares anymore... except the Shield of Seals clearly got trashed again, so why wouldn't her sleep still be unpleasant? IDK. Maybe my fears on this will be allayed, but taking a major character's worst-case-scenario and plopping them back in it for a giggle kind of sucks. Hey, let's make feral laguz and play that one for laughs while we're at it.
Other things I don't like:
So, Valm has a million-man army. Some over yonder on SF are upset about this, because medieval warfare blah blah. Um... a really long time has passed since the Marth games which means it's been even longer since Jugdral. By my estimates, Ylisse is as far removed from Jugdral as we are from the actual Trojan War. So if we want Walhart to have a million-man army, that's fine by me. My problem is that 1M Valmese are apparently going to be Dealt With by Chrom and Friends, and while Chrom clearly has invisible soldiers tagging along, he doesn't have anywhere close to a million... and right now, he's the invader. Yes, Robin has a Plan; as Plans go, it's pretty nice. But he concocted the Plan after they already landed and engaged the Valmese! So... what was the strategy gonna be on the front end? No, really! Have you guys ever heard of an exit strategy?
Oh, and what's happening back home? Is there a reason BOTH Khans of Ferox are fighting abroad? There's two of 'em-- why isn't one minding Ferox? Yeah, they're both cool and I like them as characters, but that's just dumb.
Oh, hey, I found one of the supports that genuinely turned me off Frederick when I read the fan-translation, and it still sucks in NoA's version. Frederick/Henry shows off Chrom's right-hand-man in full-on Training Freak mode, and it just doesn't work for me. Look, Frederick is supposed to be wary, suspicious, mature, looking out for the good of the team and all that. When confronted with Virion, he was pretty annoyed and guarded about Virion's entire act. When confronted with Henry, what concerns Fred is not that Henry is a disturbing little blood-lusty fucker who is, oh yeah, Plegian and into dark magic... it's that the boy has a lax attitude toward training. FAIL.
And this hits my overall problem with the characters-- the quirks really are too quirky. They're tics. Compulsions. Nutty. Adding flaws to characters is good, but undercutting their entire purpose and making them ridiculous is... ungood, man. And while some of the quirky, crazy Sheperds skirt ungood on sight (hi, Miriel), branching out into the support network pretty quickly hits some deeply ridiculous stuff for people I'm supposed to be taking seriously.
And again, why is no one more concerned about fake!Robin and Robin's nightmares and headaches and the mark on his hand?
Basically, it comes down to this: I'm not surprised these people all died horribly in their original future. I haven't seen a cast begging to be smacked down by fate so badly since the last time I played Gen 1 of FE4. Sigurd and his posse weren't cut out for what they were facing and neither are Chrom and his buds. And this, I presume, is a timeline in which they're growing and learning and developing as people in ways they didn't the first time around!
Pairing update: Anna and Robin tied the knot, so I get to recruit Morgan. First I need to "unlock" Owain and Inigo, though.
Anyway, I finally ponied up the cash to play Roy's map. It was cute. I really like "Roy's" inquisitive personality! All the legacy characters are an interesting thing to see in action because it's like canon fanfic-- how do we characterize Leif and Seliph in a few lines? How do we deal with multiple Marths? WHY multiple Marths? Is this a nod to his incoherent retcons? Yeah, there's the ass-pull excuse of "It's not really them," but it's kind of interesting if not totally satisfying. I do give "Leif" and "Ephraim" a passing grade, though. Not sure about some of the others...
Ahem.
In a sense, the concept of this game is a present to fans like me.
I mean, seriously. Future!Archanea/Barensia tie-in with Marth and Tiki and the Fire Emblem and Spheres all of that? And a pretty damn cool female Lord? I wanted that. I was asking for that. Hell, I even got a mid-ocean battle. I also wanted sea dragons and a female Peg Knight Lord, but I guess we can't have everything.
Anyway, now that we're on Valm and have encountered Tiki, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the execution of it all. I'm also feeling increasingly iffy about the entire time-travel gambit and how it all comes together. I guess I'll just have to keep plowing ahead.
So far I am unhappy with the way Tiki being sleepy is played for a lark. She was traumatized by her long sleep and dreams in FE3. She didn't want to go back to sleep. I assume she's not having nightmares anymore... except the Shield of Seals clearly got trashed again, so why wouldn't her sleep still be unpleasant? IDK. Maybe my fears on this will be allayed, but taking a major character's worst-case-scenario and plopping them back in it for a giggle kind of sucks. Hey, let's make feral laguz and play that one for laughs while we're at it.
Other things I don't like:
So, Valm has a million-man army. Some over yonder on SF are upset about this, because medieval warfare blah blah. Um... a really long time has passed since the Marth games which means it's been even longer since Jugdral. By my estimates, Ylisse is as far removed from Jugdral as we are from the actual Trojan War. So if we want Walhart to have a million-man army, that's fine by me. My problem is that 1M Valmese are apparently going to be Dealt With by Chrom and Friends, and while Chrom clearly has invisible soldiers tagging along, he doesn't have anywhere close to a million... and right now, he's the invader. Yes, Robin has a Plan; as Plans go, it's pretty nice. But he concocted the Plan after they already landed and engaged the Valmese! So... what was the strategy gonna be on the front end? No, really! Have you guys ever heard of an exit strategy?
Oh, and what's happening back home? Is there a reason BOTH Khans of Ferox are fighting abroad? There's two of 'em-- why isn't one minding Ferox? Yeah, they're both cool and I like them as characters, but that's just dumb.
Oh, hey, I found one of the supports that genuinely turned me off Frederick when I read the fan-translation, and it still sucks in NoA's version. Frederick/Henry shows off Chrom's right-hand-man in full-on Training Freak mode, and it just doesn't work for me. Look, Frederick is supposed to be wary, suspicious, mature, looking out for the good of the team and all that. When confronted with Virion, he was pretty annoyed and guarded about Virion's entire act. When confronted with Henry, what concerns Fred is not that Henry is a disturbing little blood-lusty fucker who is, oh yeah, Plegian and into dark magic... it's that the boy has a lax attitude toward training. FAIL.
And this hits my overall problem with the characters-- the quirks really are too quirky. They're tics. Compulsions. Nutty. Adding flaws to characters is good, but undercutting their entire purpose and making them ridiculous is... ungood, man. And while some of the quirky, crazy Sheperds skirt ungood on sight (hi, Miriel), branching out into the support network pretty quickly hits some deeply ridiculous stuff for people I'm supposed to be taking seriously.
And again, why is no one more concerned about fake!Robin and Robin's nightmares and headaches and the mark on his hand?
Basically, it comes down to this: I'm not surprised these people all died horribly in their original future. I haven't seen a cast begging to be smacked down by fate so badly since the last time I played Gen 1 of FE4. Sigurd and his posse weren't cut out for what they were facing and neither are Chrom and his buds. And this, I presume, is a timeline in which they're growing and learning and developing as people in ways they didn't the first time around!
Pairing update: Anna and Robin tied the knot, so I get to recruit Morgan. First I need to "unlock" Owain and Inigo, though.
Anyway, I finally ponied up the cash to play Roy's map. It was cute. I really like "Roy's" inquisitive personality! All the legacy characters are an interesting thing to see in action because it's like canon fanfic-- how do we characterize Leif and Seliph in a few lines? How do we deal with multiple Marths? WHY multiple Marths? Is this a nod to his incoherent retcons? Yeah, there's the ass-pull excuse of "It's not really them," but it's kind of interesting if not totally satisfying. I do give "Leif" and "Ephraim" a passing grade, though. Not sure about some of the others...
no subject
Date: 2013-02-15 11:41 pm (UTC)I'm still not sure how I feel about Tiki's sleeping issues. On the one hand, it's been a pretty long time, and things can change. On the other, as you said, the Shield of Seals is no longer intact long before the story starts. So. I don't know.
Don't get me wrong, I like Tiki's personality. I think she's great. Her latter supports with Say'ri, in particular, were a big help on that end. Still, the issues you raised are hanging at the back of my mind, let's say. It's nowhere near being the worst element of the game's execution, at least for me.
The Valm counter-invasion episode left me...confused. I mean, they're basically leaving Validar as the only leader left on the continent, which. Um. It certainly raised some flags.
The time travel mechanic felt overdone to me. I like Lucina a lot--she's one of my favorite characters in this game, and probably my favorite Lord--but I don't need a horde of time-traveling godspawn skittering around the continent looking for their respective Mommies and Daddies. Lucina plays a role in the main story. They don't.
The game emphasizes that the stronger bonds this time around are what will pull the army through in this offshoot timeline, but I'm really not sure if I buy that. My feelings are still complicated.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 02:15 am (UTC)Nothing piqued my interest in this so much as the idea of future!Archanea. There was nothing else they could've done to get me more interested in this game than "Marth" and the glimpse of the Archanean map in the trailer. Future!Tellius? Don't care. Future!Elibe? OK. Future!Magvel? Yeah, sign me up. Future!Archanea? Gimmegimmegimme.
How come Chrom can't open chests with the Fire Emblem? :(
I mean, they're basically leaving Validar as the only leader left on the continent, which. Um. It certainly raised some flags.
Even Cuan wasn't that irresponsible. :/
but I don't need a horde of time-traveling godspawn skittering around the continent looking for their respective Mommies and Daddies.
Hahah.
Lucina really rocks, though. I haven't been this happy with a female Lord since Celica.
The game emphasizes that the stronger bonds this time around are what will pull the army through in this offshoot timeline
Riddle me this: how come, if the timeline got altered way back in Chapter Six, a Henry-fathered Inigo could even exist in light of the original timeline? Given we meet Olivia in Ch 11 and Henry in Ch 13. Is there an explanation given for that sort of thing? How'd the Shepherds even encounter Libra and Tharja and the rest in a timeline where Emmeryn was already dead? It feels like they overplayed their hand on that one.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 02:53 am (UTC)Longer answer(s):
1. Some sort of inter-timeline ripple effect. I've seen another story where decisions made by a person in one of two "primary" divergent timelines could affect the decisions of their counterpart in the other timeline. So, Henry and Olivia shack up in Universe B, and those affections somehow carry over to Universe A, where Olivia and Henry meet up under different circumstances but immediately hit it off.
2. Similarly to 1, only minus the ripple effect. Some things are just fated to happen, and this includes all the wartime flings and marriages. Dependent on player choice, of course, because, I don't know, the player is fate in this scenario.
3. "Damn fans asking their damn inconvenient questions. Get off our backs! Time travel stories don't have to make sense!"
Really, though, it's weird. The game is never entirely clear on the exact mechanics of Naga-based time travel, and while I like Lucina--and the whole time travel thing is a key part of her character--it's definitely hard to wrap my head around, and any explanation anyone eventually arrives at is going to have to be mostly headcanon, because the game is inconsistent as hell on the timing of the whole thing.
I could do an entire post on all the problems with this time travel thing, honestly. How did things go down in Universe A? How did Lucina get in contact with Naga? Did Lissa survive Chapter 1 in the original timeline? Could that Risen attack even have taken place if not for the ~time portal~ that Lucina came through? [Extremely spoilery question about events past where you are in the game]? If the kids all did the Time Hop at the same, well, time, then how in the hell is Nah around and/or as old as she is? Aaaaagh!
Honestly, it's just really confusing.
How come Chrom can't open chests with the Fire Emblem? :(
The best solution that I can pull out of my rear is that said technique was lost or forgotten in the time between Marth's era and Chrom's. Without Nyna to tell him the arcane secrets of the Emblem ("Tap Up Down Up Down Left Right Left--"), Chrom had no way of knowing such a trick was even possible.
Lucina really rocks, though. I haven't been this happy with a female Lord since Celica.
As soon as I saw that first flashback cutscene, I knew she would be my favorite character. Actually shows stress, frustration, and anger at the situation around her? Is still utterly determined to fix things, in spite of the odds being stacked against her to a ludicrous degree? Oh, hell yes.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 12:15 pm (UTC)But it could've made sense, and they deliberately took a course that doesn't. As I said to booksandanimals below, it's like the difference between Celice going back to warn Sigurd right before Barhara-- when Eltoshan is dead, and Levin's claimed Holsety, and all the marriages have already happened-- and Celice going back and mucking up the Prologue before they've even rescued Aideen.
Could that Risen attack even have taken place if not for the ~time portal~ that Lucina came through?
Excellent question.
If the kids all did the Time Hop at the same, well, time, then how in the hell is Nah around and/or as old as she is? Aaaaagh!
I have to place that under "dragons/Branded/taguel age normally until puberty." That's basically consistent with everything else we've seen.
Without Nyna to tell him the arcane secrets of the Emblem ("Tap Up Down Up Down Left Right Left--"), Chrom had no way of knowing such a trick was even possible.
Hahahah.
Actually shows stress, frustration, and anger at the situation around her? Is still utterly determined to fix things, in spite of the odds being stacked against her to a ludicrous degree? Oh, hell yes.
Yes. It's great.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 10:36 pm (UTC)(Radiant Historia for the win, of course.)
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 01:45 am (UTC)(The Sigurd comment made me smile more than it should.)
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 02:08 am (UTC)Well... initially, I figured that the time-travel thing was going to be Lucina going back after everyone died to try to get at the root of the problem-- as simple as that. Things went to hell, so she charged back in to try to prevent... whatever. But she knows too damn much, and the past she describes is problematic. She's altering events that took place not when she was a child, but before her own conception and before any of her comrades could've been conceived-- before some of their parents could ever have met! That's stretching the boundaries of my disbelief. This isn't Seliph going back to tip off Sigurd's crew about the ambush at Barhara-- it's like Seliph going back and mucking around in the Prologue and then Sigurd marries Aideen or Aira and things get weirder from there.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 03:05 am (UTC)That would be another high-five moment, though I'm now wondering what ever happened to Jake.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 03:46 am (UTC)Or he's dead. Take yer pick.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 06:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 05:15 am (UTC)I actually sort of like the "it's not really them" explanation, as well as the "can't be reasoned with" thing. They were cute excuses and they made a nice context for a nostalgia funfest.
what concerns Fred is not that Henry is a disturbing little blood-lusty fucker who is, oh yeah, Plegian and into dark magic... it's that the boy has a lax attitude toward training
Right? It's not like Henry has any social filter either -- somewhere along the line I'm sure his lax attitude toward death slipped out.
The Ylissean war makes little political/logical sense to me. There's stuff I enjoy about the game but the plot is not part of that.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 12:07 pm (UTC)There's stuff I enjoy about the game but the plot is not part of that
I don't think people who are claiming this plot is any good have played enough Fire Emblem. Or I've played too many of them.