Critical Hit! ~ The Fire Emblem *Universe* Club

[RedJ]

Possibly worth mentioning that Gaiden had infinite weapon uses, too...but not many people liked Gaiden for multiple reasons.

I don't see why they didn't just bring back the ability to repair your weapons. That seems like it would be a good enough way to balance it instead of just outright throwing out the concept entirely, especially since the Nohr version is supposed to have 'limited resources'.

 

[saifors]

That's different, in Pokémons case it's just making a process that takes really long less tedious.
Here it's just giving those that have been with this franchise for years the middle finger.
At this point they might as well separate this game asnd Awakening from the rest of FE as different franchises, because obviously it's been proven once again that Shouzou Kaga was the only member of the FE dev team that had any idea what the "essence of Fire Emblem", that kept getting mentioned in the Awakening Iwata Asks, actually is.

 

[Nah]

They're probably trying to attract more and more casual gamers to the series is what it is. Stuff like perma-death is probably off-putting to most casual gamers, hence the "Casual" mode in Awakening. And then removing weapon durability and adding Pheonix mode is just the next step in appealing more to the casual gamers. They're a company first and foremost; their highest priority is making a large profit. One easy way to do that is to make the game(s) more appealing for the large untapped audience that is casual gamers, and the money they get from them will more than make up for the small number of people who are pissed off at these changes and don't plan to buy FE: If. Whether anyone likes it or not, it's an understandable move from their perspective.

At the very least Casual mode and Phoenix mode are just options and we still can play on Classic. I'm not really into hardcore strategy stuff myself but I do hope that If has overall better map design than Awakening because a lot of the maps in Awakening weren't all that great. I don't understand though why they're removing weapon durability. It adds a tiny bit more to the strategy element and it's not like it makes your life difficult or something to have your weapons eventually break. Hammernes do exist, and do you really need your Iron Lance to last forever?

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

My guess is that they'll balance it out by making weapons far more expensive to purchase than they were in previous games.

 

[saifors]

They're probably trying to attract more and more casual gamers to the series is what it is. Stuff like perma-death is probably off-putting to most casual gamers, hence the "Casual" mode in Awakening. And then removing weapon durability and adding Pheonix mode is just the next step in appealing more to the casual gamers. They're a company first and foremost; their highest priority is making a large profit. One easy way to do that is to make the game(s) more appealing for the large untapped audience that is casual gamers, and the money they get from them will more than make up for the small number of people who are pissed off at these changes and don't plan to buy FE: If. Whether anyone likes it or not, it's an understandable move from their perspective.

At the very least Casual mode and Phoenix mode are just options and we still can play on Classic. I'm not really into hardcore strategy stuff myself but I do hope that If has overall better map design than Awakening because a lot of the maps in Awakening weren't all that great. I don't understand though why they're removing weapon durability. It adds a tiny bit more to the strategy element and it's not like it makes your life difficult or something to have your weapons eventually break. Hammernes do exist, and do you really need your Iron Lance to last forever?

How do you think Dark Souls fans would feel if that franchise started to appeal to casuals? Not happy.
Fire Emblem games have always been one of Nintendo's "hardcore gamer" games.
A franchise that takes pride in the tactics and strategy involved in beating it, a game that makes their player feel satisfied when they beat a chapter through their ability to strategise alone.
That's gone now.

 

[Nah]

How do you think Dark Souls fans would feel if that franchise started to appeal to casuals? Not happy.
Fire Emblem games have always been one of Nintendo's "hardcore gamer" games.
A franchise that takes pride in the tactics and strategy involved in beating it,

Aye, but that doesn't rake in the big bucks. Like I said, a company's first and foremost concern is maximizing profit, usually at any expense. Appealing only to the more hardcore people tends to not do that, since they're usually a relatively smaller audience. Gaining large amounts of casual players will probably both offset losses from losing some hardcore players and give them more $$$ than if they just stuck to appealing to the hardcore sect.

I'm not saying that I agree with all the things they're doing with If, I'm just saying that this is a likely reason as to why they're doing the things they're doing.....and given the franchise's steadily increasing popularity over the years, it'll probably work.

And again, except for the removal of weapon durability (which they shouldn't have done at all really), all of the casual features of the game are optional. You don't have to play on Casual/Phoenix, you don't have to grind, you don't have to Second Seal, etc.

a game that makes their player feel satisfied when they beat a chapter through their ability to strategise alone.

And this is more of a little side nitpick of mine, but not everyone gets a feeling of satisfaction out of that. To some people it's just more of a hassle that's not worth it to them in the end. It applies for anything that people get a feeling of accomplishment out of really.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

I'm also seeing a few people actually praising the removal of weapon limitations:

OH THANK GOD. I hated the limited weapon system in all FE games. Yes it added a sense of realism but it honestly made the game artificially difficult. In Awakening, it was just a nuisance especially since if you max your characters stats out, you can use lower rank weapons, save the good weapons for when the game actually gets tricky. Thus defeating the purpose of it. What I hope is that this will make the game actually difficult and more focus on battles and strategy rather then be a death ball of stats and roll enemies over.

 

[Euphoric]

They're probably trying to attract more and more casual gamers to the series is what it is. Stuff like perma-death is probably off-putting to most casual gamers, hence the "Casual" mode in Awakening. And then removing weapon durability and adding Pheonix mode is just the next step in appealing more to the casual gamers. They're a company first and foremost; their highest priority is making a large profit. One easy way to do that is to make the game(s) more appealing for the large untapped audience that is casual gamers, and the money they get from them will more than make up for the small number of people who are pissed off at these changes and don't plan to buy FE: If. Whether anyone likes it or not, it's an understandable move from their perspective.

At the very least Casual mode and Phoenix mode are just options and we still can play on Classic. I'm not really into hardcore strategy stuff myself but I do hope that If has overall better map design than Awakening because a lot of the maps in Awakening weren't all that great. I don't understand though why they're removing weapon durability. It adds a tiny bit more to the strategy element and it's not like it makes your life difficult or something to have your weapons eventually break. Hammernes do exist, and do you really need your Iron Lance to last forever?

Awakening didn't attract enough casuals?

 

[Nah]

Awakening didn't attract enough casuals?

Or they're trying to keep the interest of the casuals that they already have. Either way, they want the (continued) support of casual gamers because that means money for them.

 

[Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer]

Thank goodness weapon durability is going, I never liked it and in real life a weapon doesn't just brake after a set number or uses (granted it needs to be regularly sharpened and cared for). They should have introduced a sharpness level for weapons like they have on Monster hunter where as a weapon gets gets use it gets more blunt and weaker and needs to be sharpened again to reach its full sharpness level. That I think would have been a nice compromise.

 

[saifors]

They've had something in FE4 where broken weapons could be repaired, it worked in that case but only because of the circumstances.

 

[Loriania]

Oops, I meant to edit. In the Nintendo EShop, is the whole game downloadable or just extra content? If only extra content, why is it the same price as the game? And how do I get the Spotpass content?

 

[Warship]

Oops, I meant to edit. In the Nintendo EShop, is the whole game downloadable or just extra content? If only extra content, why is it the same price as the game? And how do I get the Spotpass content?

The whole game can be downloaded from the eshop. Which side you choose is different in a digital copy though. (You choose it after chapter 6)

 

[Loriania]

Oh, I can side with Validar? I prefer my copies of games to actually exist though. What about the Spotpass?

 

[RedJ]

Famitsu interview's been translated. Here's what I'm assuming is a portion of it.

"Looking back at our previous titles up until Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, they were created with an emphasis on 'this is the way Fire Emblem should be'," producer Masahiro Higuchi says. "While that is good in its own way, if you analyze it, you'll find that it creates this problem of making it more difficult to reach new customers."

"We'd like to have more and more fans of videogames get to enjoy Fire Emblem," he continues. "That idea is even bigger now than it was with Fire Emblem Awakening, and with Fire Emblem If, we'd like to have a widening of our horizons serve as the foundation for the game, and this is one of the concepts that went into its development."

Maeda adds," "I felt that being able to revive on the next turn, which is the Phoenix mode, should be forbidden in a Fire Emblem; however, when you think about players that might think 'I'm interested, but it looks difficult, so it might be impossible for me,' it's necessary to have something that can let them think 'maybe with this even I could play'. That's the idea that led to it."

Because Casual mode really was too hard, apparently.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

So IS has found a way to balance the weapons now that they removed the durability limit (evasion and critical hit ratio varies for each weapon). Not only that, they've also rebalanced the weapon triangle, by adding Magic, Bows, and Dark Magic into the mix: http://playeressence.com/fire-emblem-if-new-weapons-triangle-characters-more/

 

[RedJ]

So IS has found a way to balance the weapons now that they removed the durability limit (evasion and critical hit ratio varies for each weapon). Not only that, they've also rebalanced the weapon triangle, by adding Magic, Bows, and Dark Magic into the mix: http://playeressence.com/fire-emblem-if-new-weapons-triangle-characters-more/

"Dark weapons" seems like a mistranslation, but not for dark magic. I've seen others say hidden or concealed weapons, which makes more sense since it's referring to weapons like knives and shuriken.

 

[saifors]

So this pretty much deconfirms trinity of magic, doesn't it?
I'm probably not going to get used to this new way weapons work (Although I find it weird they didn't consider bringing back weapon weight with this change).
New weapon triangle... doesn't make a lot of sense to me...
My hype has pretty much died out, hoping they'll have some announcement that can get me hyped again.

 

[Dragon]

New magnezines scans + info from the new fire emblem game (new characters etc);

Spoiler:

What do you guys think. :3

 

[Nah]

What's with the card looking things?