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Why FE14 will have the same quality characters as FE13


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#1 Cero

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Posted 25 March 2015 - 05:54 AM

One of the wishes I had when FE14 was announced was "better" characters. Though after recently going through some of 13's support convos and re-thinking why I didn't like these characters so much, I found out why I didn't like them and why probably 14's will be the same.

Now, I'm gonna preface this with 13's characters overall are not bad. They're pretty much standard, though maybe a little lower, FE quality. Every FE has their one note characters such as Kellam and Vaike. And every FE has their deep characters such as Virion. Here's the reason why I find 13's characters to appear of lesser quality.

First was the overabundance of supports. With so many supports in the game the writing quality suffered. While there are good supports, quite of few of them lacked substance and were really just there for there to be a support. Past FE games had finite supports which expanded upon the characters while 13's were more like locker room conversations with some of the old mixed in.

The second reason, which I find to be the bigger reason, is the over exposure to each character's gimmick. Along with the multitude of supports, there were a plethora of other ways to see the characters 13. From event tiles, to the barracks, to the critical quotes, to even battle quotes. And these options all amount to pretty much one-liners about their gimmick. And that is where I find the main problem to be with Awakening's characters. Compared to past FE games, a character normally only got their joining convo and any supports to show you their character. While in Awakening the gimmick of each character is shown all the time like this and gets pounded into your head. With every critical, with every battle you are reminded of their gimmick. And that's where I find to be Awakening's downfall for their characters.

Now bringing this back to the topic, considering that 14 is running on Awakening's engine, it's pretty much guaranteed these feature will be coming back. Along with the new standard set for support conversations it's most likely that the characters will be presented in the same light as Awakening's characters.

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#2 kirant

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Posted 26 March 2015 - 05:50 AM

I certainly agree about your assessment on the FE13 characters - they are mostly flat and uninteresting...the typical FE fare. I'd also agree on your analysis on why the game's characters weren't interesting. It's impossible to get a similarly sized team of writers to create quality material when they have to do 3 or 4 times the amount of work.

I also agree on the gimmick comment - I get the feeling that they couldn't up their writing team so they spread the same amount of work hours over much more work. This led to reliance on specific character aspects as oppose to developing fully fleshed characters. They could get away with flat and one note characters in old FE games where you'd never see most of that...but it becomes an issue when you have to voice virtually everything they do. This is honestly why Cordelia interests me as a character...not everything is built around her being a smitten schoolgirl but often reflect different sides of her personality. Her gimmick gets beaten in a bit during non-Avatar S supports (well, half of them...the other half she makes no mention of him or points out that the male character has replaced him utterly) but the rest of it reflects more the mind of a low confidence character who's still get a few mental issues to fix (explicitly working to improve herself to acquire approval, recovering from a traumatic incident, unwilling to lead, etc).

I would disagree on banking on the same issue in FE14 though. My understanding is that IS really felt that Awakening was going to be the franchise's swan song. As such, they put everything they've always wanted into the game, children fighting along side parents included. That gimmick was the key reason why so many supports were needed: you needed virtually every pairing you could imagine...even the ones that made no friggin' sense at all. I think we'll see a retraction to normal more along the lines of FE9 now that they've got that out of their system.

Or, you know, they might just go with what they know sells DLC beyond the base game...not that I mind as long as it includes the "Scrambles" and their extra characterization conversations. That, much more than swimsuits, sold me on the DLC pack. Honestly, they do a terrific job giving depth to some characters.

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#3 Cero

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Posted 29 March 2015 - 07:40 PM

QUOTE (kirant @ Mar 25 2015, 11:50 PM)
I would disagree on banking on the same issue in FE14 though.  My understanding is that IS really felt that Awakening was going to be the franchise's swan song.  As such, they put everything they've always wanted into the game, children fighting along side parents included.  That gimmick was the key reason why so many supports were needed: you needed virtually every pairing you could imagine...even the ones that made no friggin' sense at all.  I think we'll see a retraction to normal more along the lines of FE9 now that they've got that out of their system.


This is actually a very good point. Along with me having some respect for IS and that they will do what they want and not just cater for the sales there is a possibility the support problem could be fixed. But that's just the support problem.

The game runs on Awakening's engine so stuff like critical quotes, barracks, etc. will most likely stay. And this perpetuates the gimmick problem which is what I find to be the bigger problem with the characters. And frankly, I have no idea how they could make them to not perpetuate a character's gimmick. So sadly, I think the problem will stay.

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#4 kirant

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Posted 30 March 2015 - 10:47 PM

QUOTE (ShadowCero @ Mar 29 2015, 12:40 PM)
The game runs on Awakening's engine so stuff like critical quotes, barracks, etc. will most likely stay. And this perpetuates the gimmick problem which is what I find to be the bigger problem with the characters. And frankly, I have no idea how they could make them to not perpetuate a character's gimmick. So sadly, I think the problem will stay.

That's fair enough. I think there will be some residual changes though...having far fewer supports to write would leave more time to the rest of the writing, assuming they devote the same number of man hours to the entire text side of it.

It won't solve the fundamental issue but it might alleviate the severity of it.

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#5 ^Leo^

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Posted 31 March 2015 - 01:49 AM

This may be a huge assumption, but I think with IS bringing in a Manga artist for the story will help to take some of the pressure off of their designers. I checked out some of his work (name escapes me at the moment, but it's in one of the other threads) and he's a fairly solid writer. Hopefully he will have some input on the characters as well.

The gimmicks were annoying, but I don't think that entire idea needs to go. It just needs to be toned back. Instead of having gaius care for nothing but candy, maybe he just has a sweet tooth. Or we can look at sumia: it's constantly made clear she's a clutz. How about we make her more like neimi? Anyway that's just my opinion. I think the current formula can work with some major refinements. It may just take them a title or two more to get it right. When that happens though I think we'll have a masterpiece that makes us forget how much we were disappointed with awakening.

#6 Fire Blazer

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Posted 08 April 2015 - 09:23 PM

 

The game runs on Awakening's engine so stuff like critical quotes, barracks, etc. will most likely stay. And this perpetuates the gimmick problem which is what I find to be the bigger problem with the characters. And frankly, I have no idea how they could make them to not perpetuate a character's gimmick. So sadly, I think the problem will stay.

 

I totally get what you mean (here and in general) and for the most part I think I agree

 

 

It won't solve the fundamental issue but it might alleviate the severity of it.

 

But I also agree with this here, I think it'll be slightly better overall

 

you know, there are only so many relevant/slightly-unique silly gimmicks and such one can even use; they've got to take inspiration from different things and such or else we'd be like "hey, this person is obsessed with candy! it's Gaius #2!" or something. so hopefully they do have other, better ways to develop characters outside of this


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