Fire Emblem Awakening

[Makudomi]

4 hours ago, Okarin said:

I bought if *before* the console. I got tired of it though. Played up to "Walmart" battle and it is kinda nightmarish. Then restarted it to do things more properly, recruiting Kellam and Tharja, etc.

Hey people, how many battles to the end after Walmart?

Seven chapters. Including the final boss. (Just looked it up.)

[kyrt]

Conquest plays a lot more like the older fire emblem games which is an attempt to draw back the original crowd. I do really enjoy awakening though and I just hope Fates/If is good.

I will be extremely surprised if bandits are not the enemy in the first real mission of the games. 

 

[Soulless Watcher]

Found out today that several characters in Fates may have had their personalities altered in the localized version of the game. Case in point Camilla from the Nohr faction had a more yandere personality, but in the localized game most of her threatening lines have been toned down or straight up replaced to give her a more "older sister" personality. 

I wonder if this is one reason the dual audio option was removed. 

[kyrt]

So while we wait for Fire Emblem Fates what was everyone's favorite male and female character and which support was your favorite and why? 

If you find yourself bored even after answering those questions then you can read everything below which makes mention of all the major concerns/issues with the game pre-release and a brief bit of speculation about them. I'll admit I'm not happy about a lot of these things but I'm still going to buy the games and dlc since I did enjoy Awakening and previous Fire Emblem games. Expect the game to be significantly different from its Japanese (and potentially European counterparts). 

I am also now going to discuss a few things;

1. Swimsuits are gone. It seems that the NoA version of the game has removed swimsuits (which is odd since now you only get the option of the towel which seems to be more risque). This is strange since we've seen previous trailers of the game show characters in the bathhouse in these various swimsuits. Kinda odd. It's a bit unfortunate that NoA is so damn paranoid by certain elements of various groups that they would find that this should also be censored. Admittedly this might not actually be an issue of covering their ass but rather a cost increasing endeavor. Since the trailers seem to have shown that some of the swimsuits used to exist it's quite possible that they removed them after the fiasco with the other issues. Perhaps they thought they would make less money because of all the censorship and perhaps removed the swimsuits out of spite or profit. Spite would just be nitpicking and I doubt TreeHouse would do this but the profit issue is a lot more probable. Since so many of the games have been getting canceled due to these issues perhaps they decided to try and widen their audience by removing a few things that could upset potential buyers. It's unlikely but this also makes no sense...then again petting was also in the game a few months ago as well (which I still find creepy not the action but the 3D face images of the characters...just looks a bit weird).

2. Petting despite what Nintendo may try and say is truly and fully gone. Poking is not petting. The feature where you could pet the other characters is gone as is the relationship boost up and the dialogue given for doing so. The only thing that has stayed is poking or briefly touching a spouse's face and getting a very limited reaction and no support increase. The feature where petting was supposed to boost support is gone which is going to make Conquest even harder since there are now even fewer ways to get units at a reasonable support outside of battles. People are too focused on the petting aspect but the removal of the support increase is I believe a far more serious concern. They could still have an alternative to that but it's unlikely given how it likely would have been mentioned by now. Removing a core gameplay mechanic is not a good idea. Conquest has been made more difficult because of it...it would be different if there was an option to grind in Conquest but it seems as if there isn't which means every action counts and will count even more now. I'm curious if this feature was only added because the developers knew the late game characters would need it to actually properly support up. For example if you get characters near the end game how do you fully level up their supports now? I imagine we might see some issues with this unless they have a different way to go about increasing supports for Conquest.

3. Changing of Characters. Honestly this was going to happen regardless. Tree House is going to make characters appeal more with American audiences and that might be changing some characters. This is nothing new for games. In Awakening a number of characters were changed some for the worse but some also were changed for the better. Gregor for example was a character that in the Japanese version did not seem to have an overly interesting personality but for the American localization he's become his own character. He's not quite as bland as despite the fact we only hear him every so often thanks to supports he actually does have a character now. Camilla changing from a yandere personality to a more big sister type of personality is definitely interesting and we've yet to see how it changes fully but I doubt that stereotype is going to be removed completely. A character that appears eventually called Rhajet is likely going to be taking that more yandere personality if for no reason than the character looks like a character from a previous game. I would not say that this is a huge issue although they could easily try to change too much I'd be more concerned with Tree House's obsession with changing adding in something else.

4. Memes. Honestly what is NoA thinking with this? Yes it is a culturally significant thing but I've noticed it's more attributed to kids rather than adults and I have in my experience seen that most adults find memes rather annoying. This is merely NoA trying to target a specific audience. All games do this and it is a part of the localization process. Sometimes jokes and puns in Japanese simply don't work well in English and changes are required. I've only heard that the game has a significant amount of references to memes but let's hope that this is mere unsubstantiated rumor. Admittedly I suppose it could work in certain situations but we also want them to focus on characters and not fully go over to the joke side.

5. Lack of Dual Audio. To give a bit more information about the lack of dual audio for Fates Nintendo has not really said anything substantial about why but we can speculate a number of things. 

First is the simple fact that the voices may not have been added because of the amount of room they would take up on a 3DS cartridge. To my knowledge most original 3DS releases and most XL releases were 2 GB and 4 GB only with 8 GB being extremely rare. Since the original game is roughly 1.8 GB (and this is without a second set of voices) it is quite likely that the size of the game cartridge itself would have had to be made for over 4 GB cartridges. The majority of 3DS owners would likely have to upgrade their cartridge or be unable to play it and that simply put is not a good business model. It could also be that larger cartridges would come with larger costs to make for cost of the technology, import fees, and etc...

The second major issue is the potential licensing issues involved with the voice actors (especially for the Aqua/Azura song) which I believe was by a debut artist Renka. The music industry in Japan could have put a restriction on potential licensing (look at what the Japanese music industry has been doing with content on youtube...they've been blocking access. It could also be the voice acting mafia at work...I'm not sure how big some of the names of the voice actors/actresses that worked on the game in Japan may actually be but it could be causing some complications with that. Licensing costs for voice actors and music in games can be extremely expensive and having two sets is even more so...it's not an excuse for a big company like Nintendo though...unless the Fire Emblem team was given a limited budget.

A potential third major issue is that the North American team was given a set budget to spend on voice actors and work on the localization and either they used up all or possibly went over their budget and they could not afford to pay for the japanese audio. It's hard to know exactly how Nintendo of America deals with budget concerns. It's doubtful they get a full reign and can use as much money as they may want on a product. It's much more realistic to believe that they are given a set budget and it's quite possible Treehouse went over or to the end of said budget.

Admittedly this issue with the lack of japanese audio could also be resolved in a different way. Perhaps the North American localization team was given a set budget but they were held back on a part of the budget to wait and see how the release went. The removal of content from the game and the censorship in some parts could have made NoJ weary about how well it would end up selling. Perhaps they just want to be cautious. Perhaps if the game does sell exceptionally well we will see a japanese audio option available for purchase (or for free) as DLC after the game is out and after Nintendo sees how it sells. If it sells well they could sell the japanese audio for about 3-5 dollars and potentially make up a good chunk of the licensing costs (depending on how well it sells). 

6. The Dub: I've heard a lot of people have mixed reactions on this but at the same time a lot of these people with mixed reactions played the Japanese version of the game or have a particular bias towards Japanese voices. These people have a confirmation bias that what they played first or heard first is infinitely better than anything that could possibly come after. The voice cast for the game is actually pretty significant although I fear that we are going to be getting a lot of similar characters and voices and the game will simply be less unique because of it. The voice actors they do have do seem like they could be pretty good...although I really want to know who Nigel Oakenshield is.

7. The Split: There are a number of reasons people could be annoyed with the fact the game is split into 3 and this seems like something that is not going to go away. I think Fire Emblem is suffering from the Pokemon effect. Nintendo has decided to try and make Fire Emblem into its next multi-game release series with two versions for every release. This is obviously done for profit but would it have been thus if the 3DS was actually a better system. The 3DS has severely limited capabilities and we've mentioned the issue with the memory card above so there could be multiple reasons for this. I was quite annoyed upon initially finding this out but honestly this is one of the less aggravating issues. I do have to give props at least for allowing people to buy the second game (as a digital download on the same file) for 20 dollars cheaper. They did not have to do this and could likely have easily sold them at 40 dollars each but the discount allows people to pick up both the second game and the third game for the same price as the first. If you add in the map pack dlc 1 (which is odd since to my knowledge all the dlc is in it already) the total cost of the game comes to 117.99 but if you only buy the first game physical and the rest digital the total is now 97.99 (still about a hundred dollars for all the content...if the games are truly unique then 100 dollars for 3 games and mini map pack dlc is actually a pretty good price.

[Soulless Watcher]

You know the removing of content wouldn't have bothered me if they actually added something to replace it (and actually put effort into it). Like instead of swimsuits there could be special "plain clothes" armor or special craftable armor. Their could also be a small mini-game added to replace "petting", like you could invite a character to play a simple card game to increase relationship. I know these are likely unrealistic suggestions and would be very costly, but it just feels very unreasonable that the localization process rips out content without replacing it with something and charge full price for it anyways...... especially with some of the downright offensive dlc they are trying to shove in your face (I'm talking about the stuff in the map pack, not the separate games).

Well, now that I got that out of my system I'll go ahead and list my favorite male and female character from awakening.

Female: Noire - I love the contrast she has with her mother and her "mood swings" are absolutely hilarious.

Male: Gregor - I like lone wanderers that don't align with any particular ideologies or fractions, but still have personal morals that they uphold. 

[kyrt]

I forgot to talk about these two controversial issues as well...

8. Amiibos: I honestly can't for the life of me try and paint this in a positive light. Older characters from previous games along with classes are locked behind amiibos. Each special character has a class that can only be learned by using the amiibo. Classes are Great Lord, Grandmaster, Lodestar, and Vanguard. The amiibo also allows you to select said character and they have a brief conversation with the characters. The map to recruit them is also unique and offers experience and item rewards. The fact these amiibos are like 30 dollars is just awful. 30 dollars for an exclusive character and class is a complete rip-off...sure the amiibo has other uses (apparently?) but not for fire emblem so unless you play multiple games that the amiibo is compatible with I'd suggest skipping. I really hate this gimmik and it is one of the worst things Nintendo has introduced in a long while. I don't believe content should be locked behind something like a 20-30 dollar amiibo. Now mind you I have no issue with people buying them for the collector's purpose my issue is with the exclusive content attributed to them. Why people let Nintendo get away with this I'll never understand. 

9. Map Pack DLC: I am actually surprised I forgot to mention this one as well. The map pack dlc is pretty awful. Some of it I'm okay paying some I'm not. The classes for example that can be gotten are actually in the data files of the game to begin with which mean we are essentially paying for on-disc dlc. Nintendo is one of the only companies who seems to be able to get away with this without major outcry. 17.99 is not bad for good dlc...I have no idea why it is called map pack 1 and not just Map Pack Bundle but whatever. I will say the map pack is actually a lot cheaper than the Japanese version so it does have that going for it. It does however offer additional bonus content which is annoying. Basically if you want all the content then you are forced to buy all the map packs even if you do not want some of them. The fact there is no means to grinding in Conquest (possibly so they could sell the map pack) means that unless you don't need/want to grind you have to buy the map pack to actually get some of that in. There are plenty of negatives with this map pack beyond the fact it basically costs almost that of another game and probably all of this could have been added into the main game without real issue but eh that's the nature of DLC.

[FruitsPunchSamurai]

From what i remember my favorite male character is Gaius. Reason being is that he is a candy lover like me.  

My favorite female character is Cordelia, everything about her is beautiful in all honesty. My ideal woman. 

As for the issues with Fates, some of it pisses me off and some of them i don't have a huge issue with. I'll end up buying the game, but i won't feel too good or bad about it. I do agree that Nintendo gets way too many passes with all of the shit that they pull. Most of it is in part with their worst fanboys who will literally buy everything that Nintendo hands out without ever complaining about anything. Dlc is probably the biggest issue that i have with Fates so far. I despise most dlc, and Nintendo seems to love dlc nowadays

Enough with that now. I can understand why they wouldn't have dual audio, it isn't such a huge problem as i usually don't have complaints with dubs unless it's very bad. 

Removal of swimsuits isn't that big of an issue for me, i mean i do like swimsuits but i wouldn't mind not having them either. They could atleast have a replacement for them though. 

As for the ''poking" feature, what's the point of even having it if it's not going to increase support? Atleast with the petting feature it was actually needed for the game despite it being a bit creepy. Seems like a waste to me. 

I hope that in the end it will all be worth it. If it isn't, then someone or something will face my wrath  lol

[FruitsPunchSamurai]

For some reason i posted again in this topic when i thought i was editing my earlier post, dumb moment there. Still half asleep i guess, woops

[jetpack003]

Good news for those who want the original translation as the Fire Emblem community is creating a restoration patch to revert the Japanese text back into the game. It may also include Japanese voices and the controversial petting scene as well.

 

Now the only thing I'll complain mainly about the US version is Felicia's confession scene which runs only for 5 seconds. Compared to the Japanese version which runs for around 10-15 seconds. WHAT THE HELL!!!!

They've butchered a really nice confession with the maid and reduced the lines from three long sentences to one shorter version. NOA really outdid themselves with this one....

 

Also Favourite Male Character in Awakening: Lon-qu

Favourite Female Character: Cordelia

Best support: That was a mix-up between Olivia and Anna. I love how nervous Olivia was when you talk to her and how she eventually warms up to you. At the same time it was really fun to tease Anna with her point about money. Her confession was also fun to watch. I'll also add in Tiki for the nostalgia.

[CeruleanGamer]

Awesome. Looking forward to it.

Would be great if they did bring back the skinship feature and the swimsuits back into the game. Apparent for the swimsuits, they are actually still in the game, just not normally accessible unless you hack them.

Also doing Lunatic/Classic on every game in every path as usual. Don't wanna put myself together with those filthy casuals and I want to make my streetpass data look more awesome.