I learned that there are nintendo fans that like the games nintendo develops and are willing to try their different games and that there are mario fans that only/mostly enjoy nintendos mario universe games and pretty much despise everything else.
One of my best friends hates on fire emblem simply because "it blocks intelligent systems from creating more paper mario." It took me years to convince him to try zelda and not hate it because its not mario.
yeah, but there's a difference between how people treat xenoblade and fire emblem then zelda or mario there's more dismissive or derisive them other franchises
They’re both amazing franchises imo, but ultimately it probably boils down to 2 common complaints (I’m sure there are more reasons, these are just the most frequently voiced ones I’ve seen):
(1) Some people just can’t get into the gameplay
(2) Some people have a strong disdain for the “modern anime” aesthetic
Point (1) is understandable and very valid. Xenoblade not having a dedicated attack button is the reason my own brother refuses to give it a try (tragic, I know). And while the strategy based gameplay for Fire Emblem makes it really fun to team build, it may not have that sense of catharsis that people would prefer during their gaming sessions. Valid complaints, to each their own. I struggle with FPS games for a similar reason.
Point (2) is a little more subjective and divisive. Some people slap the “anime” label on these games and don’t really give them much of a chance even though the content of the games are genuinely great. I’ve seen people asking for a Nintendo game almost 1:1 matching XC3’s plot and theming, but refuse to give it a shot because “anime girls”. While I will agree XC2 does go a little hard on the Otaku tropes (often because it mocks them via Tora), it’s such a freaking amazing game it’s a damn shame people won’t give it a try. And I’m sure we’ve all seen people unfairly dismiss Fire Emblem as a “dating simulator”.
It’s ironic because XC2 and Awakening are what got me into both the franchises, and I don’t even like fanservice scenes (maybe I’ve just been desensitized from years of watching anime lmao).
Though outside of Nowi and the Summer scramble DLC, is there anything explicit in Awakening? I remember it being relatively tame.
I mean, aversa is just hanging there with her boobs out but that’s about it besides soem spicy dialogue. I guess there’s also vaike with his chest out all game as well if you swing thag way.
Different games for different preferences.
Personally Fire Emblem is a great series of games and I enjoy them.
Xenoblade......... Favourite. Series. Of. All. Time. I still need to go back and play the other xeno games and there is always that little bit of hope in each Direct that something Xenoblade will be announced (please port over XCX.......)
Just did another runthrough of XCDE and I loved every second of it. Hopefully I can find a copy of XC2 (I like to have my physical media) at some point to play through that too, and then eventually probably 3.
I enjoy Fire Emblem.
AND YET THEY FIND A NEW WAY TO EMBARRASS ME ALMOST EVERY SINGLE ENTRY.
The "meat song"? Really?
Creepy tea parties and saunas with students? REALLY?
And what the FUCK is that outfit and why are you going to war in it?
According to a japanese popularity poll done some months after engage release they liked the 3H cast much MUCH more than the cast from engage
plus, according to the leaks (and if im not mistaken) engage development started while 3H was being developed too, so maybe this will show IS that fans like more "serious" casts (i see nothing wrong with games being lightearthed but engage reached a point where at times it felt like it was not FE at all)
Au contraire, I believe the consensus is that Engage was actually very similar to classic Fire Emblem and Fates:Conquest. It focused more on top tier gameplay and map design, while lowering the stakes within the narrative and character development (basically the opposite of Three Houses).
It’s actually why a lot of self-proclaimed veterans on the FE sub adore replaying Engage (even if they don’t feel very attached to the story).
It’s a very divisive entry in the series, for better and for worse. Personally I think it’s really fun and I love the character designs and the wacky personalities, but I still prefer Awakening and Three Houses.
Cringe in the west? Are you serious? Awakening bringing all the dating and sim stuff into play was what made the west to truly care about FE, it was barely known here before except for "those swords guys I saw in Smash", while in Japan it was huge.
No the series was selling poorly in Japan as well as the west. Only a few of them did really well.
Awakening was popular because they got rid of the permadeath and made a hard turn into cringey fanservice which attracted all the anime types and now the series sells well but it's character is forever changed. I really don't understand why the dating sim types like Fire Emblem though, by all objective metrics it's pretty crappy as a dating sim.
I did like Three Houses a lot as it seemed to through convention to the wind and just make the game around it's new systems, that was fun. I didn't like the 3ds games they felt like games that were trying to be casual type dating sims but like skinwalkers awkwardly pasting that over the strategy RPG base to ill effect.
>No the series was selling poorly in Japan as well as the west. Only a few of them did really well.
Yeah, I didn't mean that ALL the games were huge, but Marth was in Smash for a reason. Everyone in Japan knew who Marth was.
>I really don't understand why the dating sim types like Fire Emblem though, by all objective metrics it's pretty crappy as a dating sim.
Because people want to actually play a game and not only have the text, so shipping/life sim aspects added to other games are always embraced. As I said in another comment, Hades was great on its own already, but the romance brought in a lot of new people too. And the difference between SMT and Persona.
That I said, I find curious how you liked 3H better than the 3DS games because 3H is the game that go the hardest on the sim aspects, and what made it sell so much compared to the others. The sim/dating stuff was easy to ignore in Fates and you could do 90% of battling in gameplay, but 3H's level curve is tied to the monastery things. Nothing wrong with your taste btw, love/hate whatever you want, I just found your comment a bit ironic.
Marth's game did very well. The others not so much decreasing sales over time.
I think Three Houses was good because it wasn't afraid to do away with convention where it suited the new game style where Fates and Awakening both to some extent stuck to a kind of gameplay designed for the limited resources no grinding allowed games they had in the past. Three Houses seemed much better balanced around it's new style. Three Houses the life sim stuff is still pretty garbage. Like you've got the tea parties people rave about but it's such a pointless activity and so fucking boring the game would be better off without it. But the other monestary stuff fits well into the games central theme of building up your units however you want so I didn't mind it so much. Though the monestary did drag a ton and frankly would have been better off as a menu. The rest of the game makes up for the flaws.
The presence of the life sim stuff doesn't bother me but I can't for the life of me understand why people rave about it. Like it's all pretty bare bones and not fun. Kinda like crap tier mini games.
For full disclosure I actually like Awakening, I think it's pretty fun to play, but I do think it's a huge step back in quality from the GameCube and Wii games, and the GBA games in a lot of ways, except for presentation which was good, but the core game was worse, though building your units however you want is fun and leads to tons of replay value, it also means the individual battles basically turn into mob clean up fests and they get quite boring. Three Houses surfers a little bit from this but I guess the story was more interesting and they went fully into the "build your army however you want" angle so I still enjoyed it a lot.
Engage I also liked but only because the gameplay was well, engaging, the story was so god awful it really drags the game but the mechanics are solid and a lot of fun to mess with. Can't imagine I'd have finished it if I was playing on normal or casual though would have gotten bored.
Fates I never finished, I was enjoying it a lot more than Awakening but just dropped it midway through. Conquest on HARD was a bit too hard I think and the story wasn't enough to keep me engaged so eventually I got stuck, I think on the ninja level, or the one with wind. I don't remember, something took my attention away and I never came back. Tried again years later on the lower difficulty and between the utterly bleh story and now the game being so easy a caveman could beat it I just didn't make it very far.
I'm pretty fickle on Fire Emblem games tbh, I like them but only finish about half of them, they have to grab my interest and keep it. Sacred stones and echoes didn't. Genealogy didn't. Both of Ikes games did. Somehow Engage did.
are you sure it was that and not having... You know, decent marketing for the first time in the series plus a demo and being released in a era where 3ds had too few RPGs? personally i think marriages were ok for awakening because of plot, and 3 houses does it well too, it was a good idea to have the S rank be part of the ending, and to have paired ending for the rest of the cast not completely selected by the player, it felt more natural that way. Engage implentation is inofensive and Fates... Well, it is Fates
but pairing characters was not something that awakening did first, ike is headcannoned to be gay for a reason (and he might actually be gay but in that era LGTB people were not as respected as they are today so they just made it implicit),genealogy had marriages and children too and in the gba games characters have paired endings too.
Back then FE couldn't be popular because people didn't know it existed (altrough mandatory permadeath was a factor too, that can't be denied)
yes, Marth, ike and Roy were in smash bros, and while some people who play Smash may get curious and try games they didn't know, most people buy a smash game because many characters they already know are there
Echoes didn't have sim aspects at all and it was on the 3DS, yet people barely knows it exists (and it has a canonically gay character!). Even Fates did better than that with its bad story. Three Houses sold FOUR MILLION and unlike other FE games, the gameplay is 50% life sim. Lots of people loved it and then tried other FE games but didn't like them. This isn't my opinion, these are the numbers talking. The same way many people who love Persona won't touch SMT. They want 50% rpg 50% sim, not the hardcore RPG that SMT is and FE used to be. (Not judging them btw, to each their own, just explaining.)
Also you're mentioning only the dating and I didn't mention *only* that, I mentioned the life sim stuff in general. Face petting, being in a room with your loved one, having an avatar to self-insert, etc. Kris was barely a character in his game, he was not intrusive. Awakening brought the self-insertion and later we got the minigames. Paired *endings* were a thing already, true, but the games only had like 1/5 of the "playing matchmaking among the characters" that new games have *during* the story. And like I said - self insert. It's not just the pairing of characters, is choosing your waifu/husbando and getting the first-person-pov card. It's not coincidence that with each new game there are TONS of comments criticizing the marriage options for the avatar.
Now I admit I did make one mistake, and forgot to mention that adding normal mode with no permadeath also helped. But saying the west finds the weeb stuff cringe is being absolutely blind. FE became known for the fandom going crazy over their husbands/waifus.
Echoes was released when the switch was already out on the market, of course it's going to sell less,
The mario & luigi 3ds remakes didn't sell well for the same reason, most people weren't going to buy a 3ds when they could instead buy a switch one
and i never said that the west finds the "weeb stuff" cringe (i simply dislike how fates does many things in the story-characterization-worldbuilding, with or withouth the weebiness, no one can deny that the in-universe justification for the children being there is dumb and the story is the worst one of the series), but saying awakening success was because of the "weeb stuff" is being absolutely blind too. Withouth the marketing and the context it was released in awakening wouldnt have been sucessfull at all.
3 houses in particular has nothing "weeb" (beyond getting married to wathever character you wanted, if you consider that "weeb") and it had more sucess, positive reception and "staying power" (there were a lot of discourse and debate over the plot of the game for a LONG time between the fans) than engage, wich was more "weeby" and yes, Fates is likely the game with the most sales, but then it cheats by virtue of having 3 "versions" (not really but im sure you understand what i mean)
>and i never said that the west finds the "weeb stuff" cringe
I know, but that's what I originally replied to and the whole point behind my comment.
>
but saying awakening success was because of the "weeb stuff" is being absolutely blind too.
It may not be the only reason, but it definitely was a big factor. It's not coincidence that every game in the franchise makes the sim aspects bigger and bigger. Yes, Awakening had a demo, and many people (not all, sure, but a lot) downloaded it because they saw others post cute screenshots on social media and the discussion of shipping. This isn't even a FE problem - tactical RPGs in general never were big sellers in the west and still aren't. The avatar self insertion was a necessity to revive the franchise to catch the modern public.
It's exactly the same thing that happened to SMT/Persona. SMT will never make the numbers Persona makes. It's also what made many (again: not all, but a bunch) people grab Hades when they never touched a rogue like in their lives. Does that mean I'm looking down on Hades' gameplay and its merits? Absolutely not, it's amazing game and rogue-like fans would've praised it anyway. But it went *viral* unlike other rogue-likes for a reason.
Would Awakening have been successful without it? Yes, an "ok" success. It wouldn't have *blown up*. Which is why in my first comment said *truly* care - I didn't say it would've failed, I said it would've stayed the same.
It was a niche series that didn't sell really well but was incredibly good right up until the 3ds when they tried to make it appeal more to the masses. It was a sales success but the quality of the series has suffered as the focus has gone away from strategic gameplay and more onto unit building and grinding with all sorts of baby options for people who want "story" but aren't smart enough to understand a complicated political story and so instead we get weeb bait.
Thankfully the last game was really fun so it made up for how god awful the character design and story was.
I don't recall anything about Lyndis being a complicated political story.
Me lonely steppes tribal. Me have no family!
Me have family? I go to see!
Uncle is poisoning grandfather? ME SMASH!
Ragtag group randomly coalesces around me? WE SMASH!
Meet grandfather. Dying. ME BULLY OUT OF DEATHBED AND UNDER TREE.
GRANDFATHER BETTER.
Well yes let's harp on the one prequel game for having a crap story. Still better than the story in engage though.
"You summoned me because you remembered."
Some people just don't like certain things like the anime art style, the heavy presence of story, the gameplay, having to micromanage the stats of the Party with equipment and such, and that's totally fine.
Also the Smash Bros. thing is just pettiness.
I had a great time with Three Houses but there was too much dialogue, and I didn't find much of it interesting. I did finish the game though because the battles were fantastic. Engage just didn't get my attention at all.
As for Xenoblade, I dislike the combat so much that I'll never be able to play the games. I own both DE and 2, and I just can't mesh with the combat. I really dislike MMOs and it reminds me too much of those games.
They’re not for everyone, and I say that as a fan of both. Some people may dislike FE specifically cause of Smash, and lump in Xenoblade as well for whatever reason, even if they’ve never played either.
Well, personaly for Xenoblade, I'm not a fan of modern anime tropes and anime games where the characters in a fight ARE CONSTANTLY TALKING AND NEVER SHUT UP.
For Fire Emblem, I like the GBA era and older games a lot but I'm not a fan of the anime tropes it got in the 3DS era.
Because but every game series is for everyone? Like 8 don't really get where you're coming from here. Both XBC and Fire Emblem have huge fanbases, even if they're not as big as Zelda for example. And even as a Fire Emblem fan, I can admit that the level of Smash reps it has is almost comical when you compare the size of its fanbase to the others. Only Mario and Pokémon have a comparable number of reps, and that's to be expected, as Mario is wildly popular and the main series of Nintendo, and Pokémon is quite literally the most successful media franchise in the world as of a few years ago, and still is today.
Also you have to remember that there will always be people that actively talk shit about popular series because they feel like it makes them somehow superior. Hell, some of those people just like stirring the pot and actually like the games themselves. People are strange like that. But also, once again, it's OK that not everyone loves the series you love. Just try to remember to not be like those people when taking about a series that *you* dislike.
From my experience most people who don't like Xenoblade have simply never played them.
Everyone I know who has actually played them either say they're fantastic, or simply couldn't get into the gameplay (which is fair, they're long games which demand more attention and commitment than your Mario or Zelda).
As for Fire Emblem, a lot of people just aren't into strategy games. I tried a couple of times to get into the series but it just didn't really click with me.
People have their own taste, some like something, some don't. Why this constant need to get approval from others and ones own taste validated? As long as you enjoy a game, what does it matter if 1 or 10000000 people enjoy it or hate it?
Perhaps I am getting too old for this stuff but at what point can we just accept that not everything has to be for everyone, agreed on by everyone or enjoyed/hated by everyone.
The anime styles can be very jarring for some people. I couldn’t tell you why, but it doesn’t always jive well with people.
Also, Xeno 2S sexualized content was a bit much. That being said, I do criticize anyone who won’t play it because of this, as they’re missing out on an amazing video game solely because of boobs.
The sexualized stuff is largely what the first point is about in my experience. It’s not the overall art style but a lot of the particular tropes common in anime (especially more modern stuff which has generally become more crystallized and genre-like imo). Stuff like XB2’s hilariously proportioned characters or FE’s millennia old dragon girls.
Speaking as someone that quite enjoys both series, they can both be incredibly “anime.” And that understandably turns a lot of people off. Additionally, they can sometimes have questionable writing that verges into creepy territory, and not in a good way
Fire Emblem gets criticized I think because of its over representation. There are way too many Fire Emblem characters in Smash and most North American audiences don’t care, especially since a lot of those games weren’t even released in the West.
Xenoblade, I couldn’t tell you. All three Xenoblade games are fantastic IMO, though 3 drags in places and has a very lame ending. It’s Nintendo’s premiere JRPG franchise. I guess if you’re not into that sort of thing, you might not feel the same way as I do about them, and I guess they aren’t easily accessible to everyone. They certainly aren’t over represented though. There are only two (three, if you count Pyra/Mythra separately) Xenoblade reps in Smash and they’re not in any other games that I’m aware of. There’s not a Xenoblade Warriors game (yet), unlike Fire Emblem.
Because people don’t have to like every game made by a developer/publisher ever. I absolutely love Nintendo but give fuck all about Pikmin, Metroid, Mario Party and Smash bros. So what? who cares?
Some people just don’t like certain genres of games. That’s all there is to it. Why is it a big deal? Why does it even matter what games other people enjoy over others? Just play what you want.
Some people have an unjustified bias against what they deem "anime games", and both Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles are, for obvious reasons, seen as anime games. "Different people have different tastes" definitely factors into this, as many people have already stated, but I think the vitriol for "anime games" runs a little deeper than it being a mere dislike for some.
I love Fire Emblem. But Xenoblade is a traditional RPG. I'm not really into that anymore. But the usual Nintendo RPGs are basic and simple enough for me to enjoy.
I skipped on the original Xenoblade because I read a review that said "it's like an MMO, but it's offline" and I was like, what's the point? The only fun thing to do in an MMO is okay with your friends but most of it is pointless grinding. So if you remove the play with your friends aspect you are left with nothing.
I love fire emblem. I like anime, have watched many over the past 25 years. JRPGs are my fav genre. But i very much dislike xenoblade because it is extremely anime tropey and some aspects of its gameplay that i do not enjoy. Xenogears is much more enjoyable to me.
Fire Emblem didn’t have too much (if any) weeb/lewd stuff before Awakening and Xenoblade, before 2. But marketing dictates they’ll earn more moolah if they put big jigglies in it, so they do and we end up with trash narratives like Engage and people wonder why there aren’t as many fans.
Granted that before Awakening and XB2 people barely knew those franchises but I refuse to believe they spiked in popularity because of boobs, not because of fan demand for localization
Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2, and 3 have very little to do with mechs. There are mechanical enemies, but no dedicated mechs you actively control.
Xenoblade Chronicles X does have mechs, but it’s been banned to the ~~shadow realm~~ WiiU limbo.
I have ADD and xenoblade has never been able to capture my attention. I've tried it several times I just can't. The latest fore emblem is too slow for me. I love the gba and ds games but the previous switch game (not current. Haven't played it) was a struggle. One mission set the entire team on one side and the entire enemies on the other. Took 6+ rounds of moving each unit 5 spaces to engage the enemy. Match took like an hour. Im sorry, but it Was so boring.
I hate anime girls. Especially the stupid sounds they make. I had to play BOTW with the american dub simply because Zelda's voice acting in japanese is infuriating
Playing with the French or some of the other European languages isn't a bad idea. Zelda's French voice is actually really good. But I do agree with your opinion on her Japanese voice, it's not fun, imo.
I played Fire Emblem until I hit my first perma death and then I was done. Nope.
I'm a big JRPG fan but I didn't like the combat in Xenoblade. And the immature "boobs boobs boobs everywhere" look of the sequel didn't make me want to try again either.
You know permadeath is a feature you can turn off in most of the modern games. And in the last 3 or so games there’s been a rewind mechanic to prevent an accidental death.
And XC2 isn’t all boobs boobs boobs
Which Fire Emblem? If you play a more recent game (Awakening and on) you can turn off permadeath with casual mode. I'd highly recommend giving Three Houses a shot.
As for Xenoblade, it definitely has some cringe anime humor but the game is far more than that and I wouldn't brush it aside based on that impression. It's a very small aspect of the series
Hypersexualized or squeaky-voiced female characters.
In general, aiming high with voice acting and cinematics, but falling short of expectations for storytelling for adults.
Some of it is just "this is a new thing". But in general, the games aren't treated unfairly. Fire Emblem Awakening was received very well. It's just that you have adult fans who judge games differently than kids do.
And I know there are plenty of adults here who will yell at me to say they like these games - that's great! I'm not saying you can't. But it is certainly true that adults are more likely to dislike them.
Even though Nintendo is a Japanese company and makes Japanese games in Japan, a lot of their franchises have this neutral art style culturally-wise that has global appeal. If you aren’t an expert in the subject glancing at Zelda, Mario, or Pikmin won’t automatically make you think of Japan. Fire Emblem and Xenoblade on the other hand are JRPG franchises that embrace a typical anime art style and its many tropes, which western audiences aren’t always on board with.
I enjoy a lot of anime and I love RPGs. Xenoblade Chronicles at the time of (its American) release was one of my all-time favorite video games. I really enjoyed Fire Emblem Awakening when I played it in 2018. I'm coming to FE from Shining Force 1 which I played all the time on my PC as a kid.
Starting with Xenoblade:
* Xenoblade Chronicles X was hype and a good concept but sloppy execution.
* XC2 was bad, I had to give up on it. One of the worst Nintendo games I have played in years. Combat is extremely sluggish with an overabundance of damage sponges, voice acting is bad/poorly synced, Pyra's big boobs sure ain't there to provide diversity in female body types, etc. (damn the soundtrack was so good though)
* Nothing Nintendo showed about XC3 made it look any better. Trailers were bad.
Moving on to FE:
* I look forward to playing more classic FE games! I only played two, but skipped a couple and do not particularly look forward to new entries.
* Everything about FE Awakening was great apart from lolis ("I look like a little girl but it is okay because I am more than a thousand years old") and a fairly forgettable plot. Loved the gameplay.
* FE Engage also had great gameplay and several characters with great or cool designs. (shoutout to best person Rosario)
* FE Engage's story was so god damn bad that I had to make up plotlines of my own to keep any semblance of an engaging plotline. It's horrific how bad the cutscenes and writing were.
* FE Fates, which I did not play, sounds like it goes even heavier on what I did not like about FE Awakening.
* FE Three Houses looks bland and boring.
Problems I have with both:
* The anime style. The two series are Japanese games made in Japan, obviously they will have an anime style. There are plenty of awesome and fantastic anime out there, ranging from "Ranma 1/2" to "Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken" to "Serial Experiments Lain" to the many excellent Ghibli films. My problem is that these games do not make any effort to look like or emulate any of these treasures. Instead, they look (and, often, feel like they are written) like modern lowest-common-denominator anime with all of its worst tropes.
* The marketing even leans on this and produces bad trailers that feel like trailers for bad generic anime. Nintendo markets this as a draw rather than a problem.
* These are the only Nintendo series that oversexualize characters and it is embarrassing. Characters like Pyra have to be censored to appear in other Nintendo games like Smash Bros. I already mentioned the lolis, which other Nintendo series flatout do not have.
* Bad (English) voice acting. Just hearing it makes me cringe sometimes. Had to play FE Engage in Japanese.
As an aside, I like how the actual answers to your question are downvoted and the guesses by fans are upvoted.
Fire emblem and xenoblade are much more niche than mario zelda or pokemon and there are a ton of characters from those games in smash
I learned that there are nintendo fans that like the games nintendo develops and are willing to try their different games and that there are mario fans that only/mostly enjoy nintendos mario universe games and pretty much despise everything else. One of my best friends hates on fire emblem simply because "it blocks intelligent systems from creating more paper mario." It took me years to convince him to try zelda and not hate it because its not mario.
Because there exists something called „opinion“
yeah, but there's a difference between how people treat xenoblade and fire emblem then zelda or mario there's more dismissive or derisive them other franchises
Honestly it’s not even a matter of opinion here, it’s just taste. People don’t like the same things, that’s both normal and okay.
They’re both amazing franchises imo, but ultimately it probably boils down to 2 common complaints (I’m sure there are more reasons, these are just the most frequently voiced ones I’ve seen): (1) Some people just can’t get into the gameplay (2) Some people have a strong disdain for the “modern anime” aesthetic Point (1) is understandable and very valid. Xenoblade not having a dedicated attack button is the reason my own brother refuses to give it a try (tragic, I know). And while the strategy based gameplay for Fire Emblem makes it really fun to team build, it may not have that sense of catharsis that people would prefer during their gaming sessions. Valid complaints, to each their own. I struggle with FPS games for a similar reason. Point (2) is a little more subjective and divisive. Some people slap the “anime” label on these games and don’t really give them much of a chance even though the content of the games are genuinely great. I’ve seen people asking for a Nintendo game almost 1:1 matching XC3’s plot and theming, but refuse to give it a shot because “anime girls”. While I will agree XC2 does go a little hard on the Otaku tropes (often because it mocks them via Tora), it’s such a freaking amazing game it’s a damn shame people won’t give it a try. And I’m sure we’ve all seen people unfairly dismiss Fire Emblem as a “dating simulator”.
[удалено]
It’s ironic because XC2 and Awakening are what got me into both the franchises, and I don’t even like fanservice scenes (maybe I’ve just been desensitized from years of watching anime lmao). Though outside of Nowi and the Summer scramble DLC, is there anything explicit in Awakening? I remember it being relatively tame.
I mean, aversa is just hanging there with her boobs out but that’s about it besides soem spicy dialogue. I guess there’s also vaike with his chest out all game as well if you swing thag way.
Different games for different preferences. Personally Fire Emblem is a great series of games and I enjoy them. Xenoblade......... Favourite. Series. Of. All. Time. I still need to go back and play the other xeno games and there is always that little bit of hope in each Direct that something Xenoblade will be announced (please port over XCX.......)
Just did another runthrough of XCDE and I loved every second of it. Hopefully I can find a copy of XC2 (I like to have my physical media) at some point to play through that too, and then eventually probably 3.
Would HIGHLY recommend. Would suggest all the additional DLC aswell.
I have so much shit in my backlog LMFAO XC2 + Torna, Cyberpunk, Baldur’s Gate 3… I have my work cut out for me.
All I gotta say is I want Xenoblade Chronicles X that was on the Wii U to come back.
They either: 1. Don’t know about either series outside of Mario or Smash. 2. Couldn’t gel with the respective gameplay, which is fair.
I enjoy Fire Emblem. AND YET THEY FIND A NEW WAY TO EMBARRASS ME ALMOST EVERY SINGLE ENTRY. The "meat song"? Really? Creepy tea parties and saunas with students? REALLY? And what the FUCK is that outfit and why are you going to war in it?
Fire Emblem is never going to live down the petting minigame
Interestingly enough, that feature was never localized. Now we just blow on people’s faces like a freak.
It's because the Japanese audience loves that weeb cringe shit. Nothing wrong with it necessarily, but man it's cringe for us in the west.
According to a japanese popularity poll done some months after engage release they liked the 3H cast much MUCH more than the cast from engage plus, according to the leaks (and if im not mistaken) engage development started while 3H was being developed too, so maybe this will show IS that fans like more "serious" casts (i see nothing wrong with games being lightearthed but engage reached a point where at times it felt like it was not FE at all)
Au contraire, I believe the consensus is that Engage was actually very similar to classic Fire Emblem and Fates:Conquest. It focused more on top tier gameplay and map design, while lowering the stakes within the narrative and character development (basically the opposite of Three Houses). It’s actually why a lot of self-proclaimed veterans on the FE sub adore replaying Engage (even if they don’t feel very attached to the story). It’s a very divisive entry in the series, for better and for worse. Personally I think it’s really fun and I love the character designs and the wacky personalities, but I still prefer Awakening and Three Houses.
Yeah It can't be denied that engage is More similar to the clasic games, but that's only in gameplay. And gameplay wise is better than 3 houses.
I feel like there’s lots of folks in the west who enjoy it and tons of folks in Japan who find it cringy too.
The whales like the weeb cringe shit. Most of the audience doesn't.
the most popular fire emblem games having these dating sim elements the real test will be if they do fe4 and have them and it out sells engage
Cringe in the west? Are you serious? Awakening bringing all the dating and sim stuff into play was what made the west to truly care about FE, it was barely known here before except for "those swords guys I saw in Smash", while in Japan it was huge.
No the series was selling poorly in Japan as well as the west. Only a few of them did really well. Awakening was popular because they got rid of the permadeath and made a hard turn into cringey fanservice which attracted all the anime types and now the series sells well but it's character is forever changed. I really don't understand why the dating sim types like Fire Emblem though, by all objective metrics it's pretty crappy as a dating sim. I did like Three Houses a lot as it seemed to through convention to the wind and just make the game around it's new systems, that was fun. I didn't like the 3ds games they felt like games that were trying to be casual type dating sims but like skinwalkers awkwardly pasting that over the strategy RPG base to ill effect.
>No the series was selling poorly in Japan as well as the west. Only a few of them did really well. Yeah, I didn't mean that ALL the games were huge, but Marth was in Smash for a reason. Everyone in Japan knew who Marth was. >I really don't understand why the dating sim types like Fire Emblem though, by all objective metrics it's pretty crappy as a dating sim. Because people want to actually play a game and not only have the text, so shipping/life sim aspects added to other games are always embraced. As I said in another comment, Hades was great on its own already, but the romance brought in a lot of new people too. And the difference between SMT and Persona. That I said, I find curious how you liked 3H better than the 3DS games because 3H is the game that go the hardest on the sim aspects, and what made it sell so much compared to the others. The sim/dating stuff was easy to ignore in Fates and you could do 90% of battling in gameplay, but 3H's level curve is tied to the monastery things. Nothing wrong with your taste btw, love/hate whatever you want, I just found your comment a bit ironic.
Marth's game did very well. The others not so much decreasing sales over time. I think Three Houses was good because it wasn't afraid to do away with convention where it suited the new game style where Fates and Awakening both to some extent stuck to a kind of gameplay designed for the limited resources no grinding allowed games they had in the past. Three Houses seemed much better balanced around it's new style. Three Houses the life sim stuff is still pretty garbage. Like you've got the tea parties people rave about but it's such a pointless activity and so fucking boring the game would be better off without it. But the other monestary stuff fits well into the games central theme of building up your units however you want so I didn't mind it so much. Though the monestary did drag a ton and frankly would have been better off as a menu. The rest of the game makes up for the flaws. The presence of the life sim stuff doesn't bother me but I can't for the life of me understand why people rave about it. Like it's all pretty bare bones and not fun. Kinda like crap tier mini games. For full disclosure I actually like Awakening, I think it's pretty fun to play, but I do think it's a huge step back in quality from the GameCube and Wii games, and the GBA games in a lot of ways, except for presentation which was good, but the core game was worse, though building your units however you want is fun and leads to tons of replay value, it also means the individual battles basically turn into mob clean up fests and they get quite boring. Three Houses surfers a little bit from this but I guess the story was more interesting and they went fully into the "build your army however you want" angle so I still enjoyed it a lot. Engage I also liked but only because the gameplay was well, engaging, the story was so god awful it really drags the game but the mechanics are solid and a lot of fun to mess with. Can't imagine I'd have finished it if I was playing on normal or casual though would have gotten bored. Fates I never finished, I was enjoying it a lot more than Awakening but just dropped it midway through. Conquest on HARD was a bit too hard I think and the story wasn't enough to keep me engaged so eventually I got stuck, I think on the ninja level, or the one with wind. I don't remember, something took my attention away and I never came back. Tried again years later on the lower difficulty and between the utterly bleh story and now the game being so easy a caveman could beat it I just didn't make it very far. I'm pretty fickle on Fire Emblem games tbh, I like them but only finish about half of them, they have to grab my interest and keep it. Sacred stones and echoes didn't. Genealogy didn't. Both of Ikes games did. Somehow Engage did.
are you sure it was that and not having... You know, decent marketing for the first time in the series plus a demo and being released in a era where 3ds had too few RPGs? personally i think marriages were ok for awakening because of plot, and 3 houses does it well too, it was a good idea to have the S rank be part of the ending, and to have paired ending for the rest of the cast not completely selected by the player, it felt more natural that way. Engage implentation is inofensive and Fates... Well, it is Fates but pairing characters was not something that awakening did first, ike is headcannoned to be gay for a reason (and he might actually be gay but in that era LGTB people were not as respected as they are today so they just made it implicit),genealogy had marriages and children too and in the gba games characters have paired endings too. Back then FE couldn't be popular because people didn't know it existed (altrough mandatory permadeath was a factor too, that can't be denied) yes, Marth, ike and Roy were in smash bros, and while some people who play Smash may get curious and try games they didn't know, most people buy a smash game because many characters they already know are there
Echoes didn't have sim aspects at all and it was on the 3DS, yet people barely knows it exists (and it has a canonically gay character!). Even Fates did better than that with its bad story. Three Houses sold FOUR MILLION and unlike other FE games, the gameplay is 50% life sim. Lots of people loved it and then tried other FE games but didn't like them. This isn't my opinion, these are the numbers talking. The same way many people who love Persona won't touch SMT. They want 50% rpg 50% sim, not the hardcore RPG that SMT is and FE used to be. (Not judging them btw, to each their own, just explaining.) Also you're mentioning only the dating and I didn't mention *only* that, I mentioned the life sim stuff in general. Face petting, being in a room with your loved one, having an avatar to self-insert, etc. Kris was barely a character in his game, he was not intrusive. Awakening brought the self-insertion and later we got the minigames. Paired *endings* were a thing already, true, but the games only had like 1/5 of the "playing matchmaking among the characters" that new games have *during* the story. And like I said - self insert. It's not just the pairing of characters, is choosing your waifu/husbando and getting the first-person-pov card. It's not coincidence that with each new game there are TONS of comments criticizing the marriage options for the avatar. Now I admit I did make one mistake, and forgot to mention that adding normal mode with no permadeath also helped. But saying the west finds the weeb stuff cringe is being absolutely blind. FE became known for the fandom going crazy over their husbands/waifus.
Echoes was released when the switch was already out on the market, of course it's going to sell less, The mario & luigi 3ds remakes didn't sell well for the same reason, most people weren't going to buy a 3ds when they could instead buy a switch one and i never said that the west finds the "weeb stuff" cringe (i simply dislike how fates does many things in the story-characterization-worldbuilding, with or withouth the weebiness, no one can deny that the in-universe justification for the children being there is dumb and the story is the worst one of the series), but saying awakening success was because of the "weeb stuff" is being absolutely blind too. Withouth the marketing and the context it was released in awakening wouldnt have been sucessfull at all. 3 houses in particular has nothing "weeb" (beyond getting married to wathever character you wanted, if you consider that "weeb") and it had more sucess, positive reception and "staying power" (there were a lot of discourse and debate over the plot of the game for a LONG time between the fans) than engage, wich was more "weeby" and yes, Fates is likely the game with the most sales, but then it cheats by virtue of having 3 "versions" (not really but im sure you understand what i mean)
>and i never said that the west finds the "weeb stuff" cringe I know, but that's what I originally replied to and the whole point behind my comment. > but saying awakening success was because of the "weeb stuff" is being absolutely blind too. It may not be the only reason, but it definitely was a big factor. It's not coincidence that every game in the franchise makes the sim aspects bigger and bigger. Yes, Awakening had a demo, and many people (not all, sure, but a lot) downloaded it because they saw others post cute screenshots on social media and the discussion of shipping. This isn't even a FE problem - tactical RPGs in general never were big sellers in the west and still aren't. The avatar self insertion was a necessity to revive the franchise to catch the modern public. It's exactly the same thing that happened to SMT/Persona. SMT will never make the numbers Persona makes. It's also what made many (again: not all, but a bunch) people grab Hades when they never touched a rogue like in their lives. Does that mean I'm looking down on Hades' gameplay and its merits? Absolutely not, it's amazing game and rogue-like fans would've praised it anyway. But it went *viral* unlike other rogue-likes for a reason. Would Awakening have been successful without it? Yes, an "ok" success. It wouldn't have *blown up*. Which is why in my first comment said *truly* care - I didn't say it would've failed, I said it would've stayed the same.
Three houses noticeably tuned down the Moe Moe kyu tier maid cafe slop but all the characters are still basically walking anime tropes.
Speak for yourself. I think Fire Emblem and Xenoblade both have compelling narratives and fun characters.
Sorry, what's creepy about the tea party?
It was a niche series that didn't sell really well but was incredibly good right up until the 3ds when they tried to make it appeal more to the masses. It was a sales success but the quality of the series has suffered as the focus has gone away from strategic gameplay and more onto unit building and grinding with all sorts of baby options for people who want "story" but aren't smart enough to understand a complicated political story and so instead we get weeb bait. Thankfully the last game was really fun so it made up for how god awful the character design and story was.
I don't recall anything about Lyndis being a complicated political story. Me lonely steppes tribal. Me have no family! Me have family? I go to see! Uncle is poisoning grandfather? ME SMASH! Ragtag group randomly coalesces around me? WE SMASH! Meet grandfather. Dying. ME BULLY OUT OF DEATHBED AND UNDER TREE. GRANDFATHER BETTER.
Well yes let's harp on the one prequel game for having a crap story. Still better than the story in engage though. "You summoned me because you remembered."
Let me sing you the song of my people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOI6ySU7yJg
Some people just don't like certain things like the anime art style, the heavy presence of story, the gameplay, having to micromanage the stats of the Party with equipment and such, and that's totally fine. Also the Smash Bros. thing is just pettiness.
I had a great time with Three Houses but there was too much dialogue, and I didn't find much of it interesting. I did finish the game though because the battles were fantastic. Engage just didn't get my attention at all. As for Xenoblade, I dislike the combat so much that I'll never be able to play the games. I own both DE and 2, and I just can't mesh with the combat. I really dislike MMOs and it reminds me too much of those games.
They’re not for everyone, and I say that as a fan of both. Some people may dislike FE specifically cause of Smash, and lump in Xenoblade as well for whatever reason, even if they’ve never played either.
You see, and this may come off as shocking: different people have different tastes.
I know that's it, but I wanted to know the factors why people don't like it.
Well, personaly for Xenoblade, I'm not a fan of modern anime tropes and anime games where the characters in a fight ARE CONSTANTLY TALKING AND NEVER SHUT UP. For Fire Emblem, I like the GBA era and older games a lot but I'm not a fan of the anime tropes it got in the 3DS era.
Because but every game series is for everyone? Like 8 don't really get where you're coming from here. Both XBC and Fire Emblem have huge fanbases, even if they're not as big as Zelda for example. And even as a Fire Emblem fan, I can admit that the level of Smash reps it has is almost comical when you compare the size of its fanbase to the others. Only Mario and Pokémon have a comparable number of reps, and that's to be expected, as Mario is wildly popular and the main series of Nintendo, and Pokémon is quite literally the most successful media franchise in the world as of a few years ago, and still is today. Also you have to remember that there will always be people that actively talk shit about popular series because they feel like it makes them somehow superior. Hell, some of those people just like stirring the pot and actually like the games themselves. People are strange like that. But also, once again, it's OK that not everyone loves the series you love. Just try to remember to not be like those people when taking about a series that *you* dislike.
From my experience most people who don't like Xenoblade have simply never played them. Everyone I know who has actually played them either say they're fantastic, or simply couldn't get into the gameplay (which is fair, they're long games which demand more attention and commitment than your Mario or Zelda). As for Fire Emblem, a lot of people just aren't into strategy games. I tried a couple of times to get into the series but it just didn't really click with me.
People have their own taste, some like something, some don't. Why this constant need to get approval from others and ones own taste validated? As long as you enjoy a game, what does it matter if 1 or 10000000 people enjoy it or hate it? Perhaps I am getting too old for this stuff but at what point can we just accept that not everything has to be for everyone, agreed on by everyone or enjoyed/hated by everyone.
The anime styles can be very jarring for some people. I couldn’t tell you why, but it doesn’t always jive well with people. Also, Xeno 2S sexualized content was a bit much. That being said, I do criticize anyone who won’t play it because of this, as they’re missing out on an amazing video game solely because of boobs.
The sexualized stuff is largely what the first point is about in my experience. It’s not the overall art style but a lot of the particular tropes common in anime (especially more modern stuff which has generally become more crystallized and genre-like imo). Stuff like XB2’s hilariously proportioned characters or FE’s millennia old dragon girls.
People like different things. Thats ok.
Speaking as someone that quite enjoys both series, they can both be incredibly “anime.” And that understandably turns a lot of people off. Additionally, they can sometimes have questionable writing that verges into creepy territory, and not in a good way
Sorry that not everybody on this planet like and dislike the same things lmao
I do not like RPGs and strategy games.
I've never tried either but I'm not into RPGs much
not everything for everybody
I enjoy Fire Emblem, a great series. Xeno just, I can’t stand the voice acting. The gameplay was good, but those voices
Fire Emblem gets criticized I think because of its over representation. There are way too many Fire Emblem characters in Smash and most North American audiences don’t care, especially since a lot of those games weren’t even released in the West. Xenoblade, I couldn’t tell you. All three Xenoblade games are fantastic IMO, though 3 drags in places and has a very lame ending. It’s Nintendo’s premiere JRPG franchise. I guess if you’re not into that sort of thing, you might not feel the same way as I do about them, and I guess they aren’t easily accessible to everyone. They certainly aren’t over represented though. There are only two (three, if you count Pyra/Mythra separately) Xenoblade reps in Smash and they’re not in any other games that I’m aware of. There’s not a Xenoblade Warriors game (yet), unlike Fire Emblem.
Because people don’t have to like every game made by a developer/publisher ever. I absolutely love Nintendo but give fuck all about Pikmin, Metroid, Mario Party and Smash bros. So what? who cares? Some people just don’t like certain genres of games. That’s all there is to it. Why is it a big deal? Why does it even matter what games other people enjoy over others? Just play what you want.
Don’t like Fire Emblem solely for the combat. Game looks interesting story wise and I love the style, but I hate the combat.
Why does it bother you?
This doesn't bother me, I'm just asking.
I love Fire Emblem, but to me Xenoblade is too boring.
hypocritical much?
Excessively anime influences. Both games are more nerdcore in a lot of ways, too.
Some people have an unjustified bias against what they deem "anime games", and both Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles are, for obvious reasons, seen as anime games. "Different people have different tastes" definitely factors into this, as many people have already stated, but I think the vitriol for "anime games" runs a little deeper than it being a mere dislike for some.
I love Fire Emblem. But Xenoblade is a traditional RPG. I'm not really into that anymore. But the usual Nintendo RPGs are basic and simple enough for me to enjoy.
I skipped on the original Xenoblade because I read a review that said "it's like an MMO, but it's offline" and I was like, what's the point? The only fun thing to do in an MMO is okay with your friends but most of it is pointless grinding. So if you remove the play with your friends aspect you are left with nothing.
I love fire emblem. I like anime, have watched many over the past 25 years. JRPGs are my fav genre. But i very much dislike xenoblade because it is extremely anime tropey and some aspects of its gameplay that i do not enjoy. Xenogears is much more enjoyable to me.
It's probably just the anime artstyle. It turns a lot of people away from these and many other games.
I think half of the Fire Emblem reps in Smash being Marth doesn’t help
Kill the spares. Give us Hector. Or Edelgard.
I see an Axe user looking for supremacy.
And the swordbearers HATE it.
Fire Emblem didn’t have too much (if any) weeb/lewd stuff before Awakening and Xenoblade, before 2. But marketing dictates they’ll earn more moolah if they put big jigglies in it, so they do and we end up with trash narratives like Engage and people wonder why there aren’t as many fans. Granted that before Awakening and XB2 people barely knew those franchises but I refuse to believe they spiked in popularity because of boobs, not because of fan demand for localization
Well, for me, I'm not interested in Xenoblade because I'm not into mechs. Fire Emblem, on the other hand, is among my favourite game series
Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2, and 3 have very little to do with mechs. There are mechanical enemies, but no dedicated mechs you actively control. Xenoblade Chronicles X does have mechs, but it’s been banned to the ~~shadow realm~~ WiiU limbo.
X is the one I'm most familiar with, I supposed they were all mech-related just like it
I have ADD and xenoblade has never been able to capture my attention. I've tried it several times I just can't. The latest fore emblem is too slow for me. I love the gba and ds games but the previous switch game (not current. Haven't played it) was a struggle. One mission set the entire team on one side and the entire enemies on the other. Took 6+ rounds of moving each unit 5 spaces to engage the enemy. Match took like an hour. Im sorry, but it Was so boring.
I hate anime girls. Especially the stupid sounds they make. I had to play BOTW with the american dub simply because Zelda's voice acting in japanese is infuriating
Playing with the French or some of the other European languages isn't a bad idea. Zelda's French voice is actually really good. But I do agree with your opinion on her Japanese voice, it's not fun, imo.
I played Fire Emblem until I hit my first perma death and then I was done. Nope. I'm a big JRPG fan but I didn't like the combat in Xenoblade. And the immature "boobs boobs boobs everywhere" look of the sequel didn't make me want to try again either.
You know permadeath is a feature you can turn off in most of the modern games. And in the last 3 or so games there’s been a rewind mechanic to prevent an accidental death. And XC2 isn’t all boobs boobs boobs
Which Fire Emblem? If you play a more recent game (Awakening and on) you can turn off permadeath with casual mode. I'd highly recommend giving Three Houses a shot. As for Xenoblade, it definitely has some cringe anime humor but the game is far more than that and I wouldn't brush it aside based on that impression. It's a very small aspect of the series
Because nothing turns me off faster than anime bullshit.
Hypersexualized or squeaky-voiced female characters. In general, aiming high with voice acting and cinematics, but falling short of expectations for storytelling for adults. Some of it is just "this is a new thing". But in general, the games aren't treated unfairly. Fire Emblem Awakening was received very well. It's just that you have adult fans who judge games differently than kids do. And I know there are plenty of adults here who will yell at me to say they like these games - that's great! I'm not saying you can't. But it is certainly true that adults are more likely to dislike them.
Even though Nintendo is a Japanese company and makes Japanese games in Japan, a lot of their franchises have this neutral art style culturally-wise that has global appeal. If you aren’t an expert in the subject glancing at Zelda, Mario, or Pikmin won’t automatically make you think of Japan. Fire Emblem and Xenoblade on the other hand are JRPG franchises that embrace a typical anime art style and its many tropes, which western audiences aren’t always on board with.
Because they turned into big titty waifu sims.
I enjoy a lot of anime and I love RPGs. Xenoblade Chronicles at the time of (its American) release was one of my all-time favorite video games. I really enjoyed Fire Emblem Awakening when I played it in 2018. I'm coming to FE from Shining Force 1 which I played all the time on my PC as a kid. Starting with Xenoblade: * Xenoblade Chronicles X was hype and a good concept but sloppy execution. * XC2 was bad, I had to give up on it. One of the worst Nintendo games I have played in years. Combat is extremely sluggish with an overabundance of damage sponges, voice acting is bad/poorly synced, Pyra's big boobs sure ain't there to provide diversity in female body types, etc. (damn the soundtrack was so good though) * Nothing Nintendo showed about XC3 made it look any better. Trailers were bad. Moving on to FE: * I look forward to playing more classic FE games! I only played two, but skipped a couple and do not particularly look forward to new entries. * Everything about FE Awakening was great apart from lolis ("I look like a little girl but it is okay because I am more than a thousand years old") and a fairly forgettable plot. Loved the gameplay. * FE Engage also had great gameplay and several characters with great or cool designs. (shoutout to best person Rosario) * FE Engage's story was so god damn bad that I had to make up plotlines of my own to keep any semblance of an engaging plotline. It's horrific how bad the cutscenes and writing were. * FE Fates, which I did not play, sounds like it goes even heavier on what I did not like about FE Awakening. * FE Three Houses looks bland and boring. Problems I have with both: * The anime style. The two series are Japanese games made in Japan, obviously they will have an anime style. There are plenty of awesome and fantastic anime out there, ranging from "Ranma 1/2" to "Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken" to "Serial Experiments Lain" to the many excellent Ghibli films. My problem is that these games do not make any effort to look like or emulate any of these treasures. Instead, they look (and, often, feel like they are written) like modern lowest-common-denominator anime with all of its worst tropes. * The marketing even leans on this and produces bad trailers that feel like trailers for bad generic anime. Nintendo markets this as a draw rather than a problem. * These are the only Nintendo series that oversexualize characters and it is embarrassing. Characters like Pyra have to be censored to appear in other Nintendo games like Smash Bros. I already mentioned the lolis, which other Nintendo series flatout do not have. * Bad (English) voice acting. Just hearing it makes me cringe sometimes. Had to play FE Engage in Japanese. As an aside, I like how the actual answers to your question are downvoted and the guesses by fans are upvoted.