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[Rutger]

I like Robin a lot more than Corrin, because while they're both (too) central to the story, at least Robin is a character of his/her own.

But I think the avatar character being central to the story is inherently limiting to the story -- that is, it makes the writers' jobs a lot more difficult. And it is painfully obvious that they are not up to the task.

For the sake of the story of these games, they should make the avatar character an anonymous unit. or better yet, a non-playable tactician just along for the ride.

I ended up restating a lot of this post -- which is to say that I agree with most of it. I will say that the player character having a key role is not inherently limiting on its own, per se, but it's an added layer of difficulty that requires nuance and care that no one at intsys has demonstrated.

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Robin an Corrin are the main characters, so it's not strange that they are central to their stories.
What are the avatar characters doing to the story that makes it worse?
All the problems with Awakening's or Fates's stories is due to poor writing in general.

 

[Elfforkusu]

eh, Robin and corrin have defined characters you really have zero control of them like firemind said. The problem with Corrin as a character is independent of being an avatar.

I do think that they have tone down the worship of the main character but lets be real main character worship just didn't start with nmoe.

For me the avatar right now basically lets you choose the gender of the mc and thats it, and its an important thing when the fanbase for fire emblem has expanded.

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I don't think I ever got anything out of Corrin's character other than frowny faces at a time of crisis and a general unwillingness to make a decision except when the story demanded one.

This is ultimately bad writing, but it's bad writing with the excuse that they did not want to give him/her too much personality. Because it's the player character

Robin an Corrin are the main characters, so it's not strange that they are central to their stories.

What are the avatar characters doing to the story that makes it worse?

All the problems with Awakening's or Fates's stories is due to poor writing in general.

Click to shrink...

What they are doing worse is, at risk of repeating myself, existing at all. By putting a character the player is supposed to associate with -- their link to the game -- in a pivotal role, the writing takes on an extra set of hurdles to overcome. Intsys's writing team can barely keep this thing afloat, even without the extra baggage.

 

[Rutger]

What they are doing worse is, at risk of repeating myself, existing at all. By putting a character the player is supposed to associate with -- their link to the game -- in a pivotal role, the writing takes on an extra set of hurdles to overcome. Intsys's writing team can barely keep this thing afloat, even without the extra baggage.

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But IS was doing that with the main characters long before the avatars were a thing. As was said before, there's a reason most FE protagonists are teens.
Rather bland and safe protagonists is standard for this series, and it's a pretty safe bet that that will continue to happen with or without the customization.

 

[Drax]

I don't think I ever got anything out of Corrin's character other than frowny faces at a time of crisis and a general unwillingness to make a decision except when the story demanded one.

This is ultimately bad writing, but it's bad writing with the excuse that they did not want to give him/her too much personality. Because it's the player character


What they are doing worse is, at risk of repeating myself, existing at all. By putting a character the player is supposed to associate with -- their link to the game -- in a pivotal role, the writing takes on an extra set of hurdles to overcome. Intsys's writing team can barely keep this thing afloat, even without the extra baggage.

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I'm not sure if you read what I posted earlier but this was always Int Sys's mo, the marths, seliphs, and Roy's were always these milquetoast safe characters that you could almost input your own character with.

The only time they really diverge from that is RD.

 

[Nocturnowl]

Corrin was a problematic avatar because you (probably) never agreed with anything he/she did, Conquest demands you keep staring at your 3DS in disbelief as the character potentially holding your own name goes off to the land of stupid on the regular.
Gods no!

 

[Elfforkusu]

I'm not sure if you read what I posted earlier but this was always Int Sys's mo, the marths, seliphs, and Roy's were always these milquetoast safe characters that you could almost input your own character with.

The only time they really diverge from that is RD.

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I agree that the old status quo isn't great -- though it's maybe worth noting that the main character playing the relatable, boring "straight man" is a tried and true concept in fiction, and is not really a problem in and of itself. What I'm arguing is that the problem becomes much, much worse (and harder to overcome) when it's an avatar character. For example:

Corrin was a problematic avatar because you (probably) never agreed with anything he/she did, Conquest demands you keep staring at your 3DS in disbelief as the character potentially holding your own name goes off to the land of stupid on the regular.

Gods no!

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[Rutger]

I agree that the old status quo isn't great -- though it's maybe worth noting that the main character playing the relatable, boring "straight man" is a tried and true concept in fiction, and is not really a problem in and of itself. What I'm arguing is that the problem becomes much, much worse (and harder to overcome) when it's an avatar character. For example:

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That was pretty easy for me to overcome, actually.

I named Corrin as "Corrin".
Not once while playing Fates did I ever feel like Corrin was an attempt to represent me, Corrin was very much their own character and I simply laughed at the stupidity of the plot that had nothing to do with being able to customize the appearance of the main character. And on the plus side I had an extra layer of customization for gameplay.

 

[NeonZ]

I don't think I ever got anything out of Corrin's character other than frowny faces at a time of crisis and a general unwillingness to make a decision except when the story demanded one.

This is ultimately bad writing, but it's bad writing with the excuse that they did not want to give him/her too much personality. Because it's the player character

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Corrin's basic character (noble living in isolation for most of his life) likely was set up to allow the game to introduce the world to him and the player at once, however, outside of that, I think he actually has too much character - at least in the main story.

Look at the basic route split for example. In Conquest, Corrin acknowledges that Nohr is wrong too, but can't side against them because she loves the 4 royals as a family. That motivation already deviates from a player insert, since the player barely has any time to bond with them. Then you get Corrin attempting to prove herself to Garron, even though from the player's point of view (including scenes Corrin can't see but the player can) Garron is just setting up a big trap to Corrin. And these are all intentional deviations between the player's point of view and Corrin's, there are obviously unintentional ones later, like the throne stuff. You also get scenes like when Corrin starts playing evil once to satisfy Iago, but right afterwards you get Azura reprehending them saying they shouldn't lose their purity. That kind of scene just makes no sense for a player avatar.

In Birthright and Revelation, in spite of turning against Garon from the start, leading to a more standard narrative, Corrin is still shown trusting characters that obviously aren't trustworthy to the player, which still causes dissonance. They also still push him as extremely idealistic, which although fairly generic, actually ends up a very strong element here. He isn't just fighting to protect his friends, unlike Robin or Alm, you get him spouting about bigger concepts, like his cheesy discussion about justice with Xander during their battle.

Like I said before, I'd guess this all comes from the outline originating from someone who usually doesn't write for games.

 

[Disclaimer]

Some previous lords being "milquetoast" is a different beast from the self-insertion of avatars and their resulting difficulties or failings. Leading characters being fairly generic is a common staple of fiction which, while not as deep as would be preferable, works. Those Lords still had backstories, characterization, previous relationships, character growth, etc. They're meant to be relatable, as are most characters, but they aren't the player.

With avatars as a story-integral MC—Robin, Corrin—they're forced to characterize them in a fixed manner that is inevitably going to conflict with the player's preferred response (Corrin: failing as a self-insert MC, frustrating the player), or they're going to be treated as an infallible genius (Robin: weakening the narrative, taking away from the Lord).

Ultimately, to have a successful and well-utilized self-insert, they have to make a choice and either (1) allow the player to make their own decisions and roleplay their character's personality, which probably wouldn't be conducive with Fire Emblem, or (2) have them serve a background role, allowing the writers and protagonists to reference and explain things to the player in a manner that doesn't break the fourth wall.

Being able to pick a female MC via the avatar system is obviously wonderful, but I would argue is a less impactful form of inclusion than them simply creating a strong female Lord who doesn't share spotlight with or damsel for a male Lord. The avatar system is all well and good—don't get me wrong, I do think it's an allure to players—but it needs to be implemented in a way that doesn't infringe on the narrative, imbalance the gameplay, or annoy the player with "their character's" stupidity.

Having an avatar MC who's essentially just a customizable Lord is just... meh, to me. I want Lords to be characters with identities and recognizability.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

I really don't think the Avatar is the cause of the story problems in any of the games. It would be fine for the Avatar not to be the focus of the story, but Awakening and Fates would've had the same story issues without the inclusion of a customizable avatar. If anything, Echoes shows that with Celica's bizarre decision making. With Echoes we got two well-defined characters with established backstories and personalities...and IS still fell into the same trap of undermining a character in service to the plot.

 

[Drax]

I agree that the old status quo isn't great -- though it's maybe worth noting that the main character playing the relatable, boring "straight man" is a tried and true concept in fiction, and is not really a problem in and of itself. What I'm arguing is that the problem becomes much, much worse (and harder to overcome) when it's an avatar character. For example:

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I think Corrin is a disaster but not because of the avatar situation, Neonz's posts go into detail showing what was very wrong with Corrin.

There's also a problem of retrofitting avatars into old games (I honestly wouldn't mind it too much in genealogy or expanding marc's role in seven, but you can not Kris it). However, with echoes I doubt they will do so.

 

[Disclaimer]

Mm, I think Celica's poor decision making and damselization were a result of the writers/developers' unwitting sexism, which is a wholly different problem from the ones the avatars have faced thus far. I also definitely wouldn't say Awakening/Fates' story issues stem completely from the avatar, they just contributed.

I'm not against avatars at all, since they're a point of enjoyment and a selling factor for many, I just want them to learn from their mistakes. Looking at their track record, I worry that without avatars taking on a more passive or inconsequential role, we'll end up with another too perfect, too worshipped, or too naive one, in pursuit of appealing to the player—but maybe not, maybe the next one will be a well-written and complementary to the cast.

 

[NeonZ]

However, with echoes I doubt they will do so.

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I'm not sure about that. It's not like their remakes have been consistent at all feature-wise so far.

Echoes performed even worse than the DS remakes in Japan. Its worldwide sales are unknown, but also significantly lower than Awakening and Fates. Considering how production values will just go up, I could see the next remake staying closer to the newer games feature-wise (well, if the next game doesn't underperform).

 

[jnWake]

The main problem with Corrin is that they make everyone follow his/her actions with almost no questioning. Conquest is just ridiculous with this since for the first 14 or so chapters you actually see Corrin and the siblings discuss that following Garon makes no sense and it's clear that Xander and the rest are against war. However, the second Corrin suggests to attack Hoshido, without any decent reason, everyone's on board.

 

[Drax]

I'm not sure about that. It's not like their remakes have been consistent at all feature-wise so far.

Echoes performed even worse than the DS remakes in Japan. Its worldwide sales are unknown, but also significantly lower than Awakening and Fates. Considering how production values will just go up, I could see the next remake staying closer to the newer games feature-wise (well, if the next game doesn't underperform).

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That's fair, and I was the one who called to questions echoes numbers in the past.

 

[Caz]

...Well, I did not expect the discussion to shift to discussing the narrative and mechanical implementation of the avatar character in Fire Emblem over what started out as a joking response to rein in one's hype for the series Switch debut.

I feel confident in saying that we're getting another avatar character given how popular a feature it seems to be outside of fan circles but I wonder whether the role will be as prominent as it was in Awakening or Fates. Ideally, i'd like to see a more balanced approach i.e. the avatar is, say, the Jagen of this game, meaning they're important to the main character and can interact with the cast but they won't overshadow or become the focal point of the story. That was my main issue with Awakening's story (that and the time paradox making no sense unless they're operating on multiverse theory): Robin hijacks the plot and takes away from Chrom's journey, to the point where it's left in Robin's hands (technically the player but let's not get that nitpicky) as to what happens to Grima.

 

[Elfforkusu]

Some previous lords being "milquetoast" is a different beast from the self-insertion of avatars and their resulting difficulties or failings. Leading characters being fairly generic is a common staple of fiction which, while not as deep as would be preferable, works. Those Lords still had backstories, characterization, previous relationships, character growth, etc. They're meant to be relatable, as are most characters, but they aren't the player.

With avatars as a story-integral MC—Robin, Corrin—they're forced to characterize them in a fixed manner that is inevitably going to conflict with the player's preferred response (Corrin: failing as a self-insert MC, frustrating the player), or they're going to be treated as an infallible genius (Robin: weakening the narrative, taking away from the Lord).

Ultimately, to have a successful and well-utilized self-insert, they have to make a choice and either (1) allow the player to make their own decisions and roleplay their character's personality, which probably wouldn't be conducive with Fire Emblem, or (2) have them serve a background role, allowing the writers and protagonists to reference and explain things to the player in a manner that doesn't break the fourth wall.

Being able to pick a female MC via the avatar system is obviously wonderful, but I would argue is a less impactful form of inclusion than them simply creating a strong female Lord who doesn't share spotlight with or damsel for a male Lord. The avatar system is all well and good—don't get me wrong, I do think it's an allure to players—but it needs to be implemented in a way that doesn't infringe on the narrative, imbalance the gameplay, or annoy the player with "their character's" stupidity.

Having an avatar MC who's essentially just a customizable Lord is just... meh, to me. I want Lords to be characters with identities and recognizability.

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I'm on board with all this.

Corrin's basic character (noble living in isolation for most of his life) likely was set up to allow the game to introduce the world to him and the player at once, however, outside of that, I think he actually has too much character - at least in the main story.

Look at the basic route split for example. In Conquest, Corrin acknowledges that Nohr is wrong too, but can't side against them because she loves the 4 royals as a family. That motivation already deviates from a player insert, since the player barely has any time to bond with them. Then you get Corrin attempting to prove herself to Garron, even though from the player's point of view (including scenes Corrin can't see but the player can) Garron is just setting up a big trap to Corrin. And these are all intentional deviations between the player's point of view and Corrin's, there are obviously unintentional ones later, like the throne stuff. You also get scenes like when Corrin starts playing evil once to satisfy Iago, but right afterwards you get Azura reprehending them saying they shouldn't lose their purity. That kind of scene just makes no sense for a player avatar.

In Birthright and Revelation, in spite of turning against Garon from the start, leading to a more standard narrative, Corrin is still shown trusting characters that obviously aren't trustworthy to the player, which still causes dissonance. They also still push him as extremely idealistic, which although fairly generic, actually ends up a very strong element here. He isn't just fighting to protect his friends, unlike Robin or Alm, you get him spouting about bigger concepts, like his cheesy discussion about justice with Xander during their battle.

Like I said before, I'd guess this all comes from the outline originating from someone who usually doesn't write for games.

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Corrin is not a good character (IMO), but I still think the bigger problem is Corrin's existence as the center of gravity of the story while being faceless in all but the most rote ways. She's loyal to her family -- ok, who isn't? She was raised in isolation -- ok, so what? this is used mostly as a shield from further characterization ("what are your hobbies?" "oh, sitting at the window and casting forlorn looks at the courtyard I'll never visit")

I don't think this is too much characterization, I think this is too little. Robin is one dimensional (a strategy nerd!), but also just a supporting character for large portions of the story. Corrin is 0-dimensional -- which could be ok, if she wasn't the center of the story! It's nice when background characters have strong characterization, but strictly speaking, only the main protagonists are truly important in that regard. And Corrin is The protagonist.

This is also infuriating:

The main problem with Corrin is that they make everyone follow his/her actions with almost no questioning. Conquest is just ridiculous with this since for the first 14 or so chapters you actually see Corrin and the siblings discuss that following Garon makes no sense and it's clear that Xander and the rest are against war. However, the second Corrin suggests to attack Hoshido, without any decent reason, everyone's on board.

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...and emblematic of the problem.

 

[NeonZ]

I do agree that the avatar shouldn't be plot relevant. That would even make it easier to customize them, like changing default class and even having some control over their backstory (something Kris had up to a point) or personality (although, like I mentioned above, I fear that the localization would be really trigger happy to cut this).

Corrin is not a good character (IMO), but I still think the bigger problem is Corrin's existence as the center of gravity of the story while being faceless in all but the most rote ways. She's loyal to her family -- ok, who isn't? She was raised in isolation -- ok, so what? this is used mostly as a shield from further characterization ("what are your hobbies?" "oh, sitting at the window and casting forlorn looks at the courtyard I'll never visit")

I don't think this is too much characterization, I think this is too little. Robin is one dimensional (a strategy nerd!), but also just a supporting character for large portions of the story. Corrin is 0-dimensional -- which could be ok, if she wasn't the center of the story! It's nice when background characters have strong characterization, but strictly speaking, only the main protagonists are truly important in that regard. And Corrin is The protagonist.

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I think what you're pointing out is more of an issue with Corrin's supports. They're mostly used to showcase other characters personalities or backstory (for the Corrin-only ones), doing little with Corrin him/herself aside from the ones that go into specific childhood events. In the main story though, Corrin is pretty active.

Conquest Corrin isn't just loyal to her family, she puts that loyalty above siding with the ones she considered correct. She also avoids dirtying her own hands, but during most of the game does nothing to stop Nohr's atrocities performed by other people. That's basically a Camus character as the protagonist.

And like I said above, the other routes push Corrin's purity to the point of naivety, which is a fairly generic flaw for an heroic character, but is rather dissonant for a player avatar.

The main problem with Corrin is that they make everyone follow his/her actions with almost no questioning. Conquest is just ridiculous with this since for the first 14 or so chapters you actually see Corrin and the siblings discuss that following Garon makes no sense and it's clear that Xander and the rest are against war. However, the second Corrin suggests to attack Hoshido, without any decent reason, everyone's on board.

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Xander expressed displeasure, but main story Xander would never go against Garon's orders anyway. In fact, later on he pushes Corrin forward when she hesitates and threatens to kill her if she's lying once she accuses Garon of being a monster. The invasion was happening Corrin, or no Corrin.

 

[Elfforkusu]

I really don't think the Avatar is the cause of the story problems in any of the games. It would be fine for the Avatar not to be the focus of the story, but Awakening and Fates would've had the same story issues without the inclusion of a customizable avatar. If anything, Echoes shows that with Celica's bizarre decision making. With Echoes we got two well-defined characters with established backstories and personalities...and IS still fell into the same trap of undermining a character in service to the plot.

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The writing of Celica's final act is pretty pathetic, and to me just shows a lack of imagination. Not only on the original writing team, but on the localization team. It reflects poorly on everybody who could've fixed it. (I know the localization team probably didn't have the flexibility to make wholesale script changes -- but I sure hope they tried)

Even a simple "she's trying to doublecross the evil dude" would've helped so much

 

[Normal]

Echoes charted on the NPD and it's a remake. Man I hope this just tells Nintendo that we don't need an avatar or marriage system for the games to succeed out here in the West.
Please don't let the next game have an avatar. If it really needs to be added just make a him silent non unit like Mark.

 

[Rutger]

I'd rather not lose the avatar unit for gameplay reasons. Having a unit we can customize their classes and growths is a really interesting layer to add to the game that would be a shame to lose.
I don't really see story as a big draw for this series, so even if I did think the avatar was somehow a cause in making it worse, it wouldn't really be a big loss compared to the far more important gameplay gain. Still, the hate Robin gets seems like trying to find an excuse for why Awakening's story isn't great, when the reality is that the game just has sloppy writing.

Echoes charted on the NPD and it's a remake. Man I hope this just tells Nintendo that we don't need an avatar or marriage system for the games to succeed out here in the West.
Please don't let the next game have an avatar. If it really needs to be added just make a him silent non unit like Mark.

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I think doing what they did with Mark is the worst option, honestly.

For all the faults the avatars have, at least they are characters. Mark is a complete non-entity in gameplay and story except for the few times the characters awkwardly faces the camera to talk to him, the games would be better off not bothering than doing that again.

 

[Caz]

I'd rather not lose the avatar unit for gameplay reasons. Having a unit we can customize their classes and growths is a really interesting layer to add to the game that would be a shame to lose.
I don't really see story as a big draw for this series, so even if I did think the avatar was somehow a cause in making it worse, it wouldn't really be a big loss compared to the far more important gameplay gain. Still, the hate Robin gets seems like trying to find an excuse for why Awakening's story isn't great, when the reality is that the game just has sloppy writing.


I think doing what they did with Mark is the worst option, honestly.

For all the faults the avatars have, at least they are characters. Mark is a complete non-entity in gameplay and story except for the few times the characters awkwardly faces the camera to talk to him, the games would be better off not bothering than doing that again.

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That's primarily why Mark works so well. To quote my review of Birthright:

Mark serves as a means of reinforcing one simple fact: You are not these characters and this is not your story. You're tagging along for their adventure, but that doesn't mean you don't have an important role. Yours is perhaps the most important of all: Commanding everyone on the battlefield and ensuring the best possible strategy is carried out, choosing who is best to fight alongside who and where they're needed. There is a surprisingly clever, almost meta nature to its implementation, in that this tactician shares the same role as the player, guiding their favorite character across the grid in turn-based tactical delight.

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Just because Corrin and Robin are characters doesn't make them better by default when the decisions surrounding them detract from the stories they're a part of. They're not the sole reason why Awakening and Fates' stories aren't good but they do contribute significantly to why said stories are so lackluster.

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

If they specially remake FE6 and FE7, it would be interesting to see if they carry over your noncombatant avatar to FE6.

 

[Lunar15]

The avatars are just characters. I think my only issue is that they can date everyone of the opposite gender. I think that cheapens it a bit, but it's not a deal breaker. Corrin and Robin are definitively their own characters, just as Eliwood, Ike, or Marth are.

Being able to make your own specific looking one is also kind of weird because I tend to like a standard look for a protag, but I get that too. I just don't like that they can't show up in cutscenes.

It's important to note that they were never called avatars, they're called "My Unit", which I always took to meant that they're a unit that you get to create rather than a self-insert. If that makes any sense. (Although, cutscenes are always from a first person perspective, so maybe that wasn't the line of thinking)

Like with marriage/children, I think the idea worked better in Awakening than it did in Fates. Robin is more of a side-character (for most of the story, at least), so the idea that the character you created is part of this world but not quite the main character, or at least not the only main character, works better, as opposed to Fates where said character is the center of the universe.

But even then, Corrin is their own character, and it's not like you choosing their gender or look actually changes their story or dialogue.

 

[Rutger]

That's primarily why Mark works so well. To quote my review of Birthright:

Just because Corrin and Robin are characters doesn't make them beter by default when the decisions surrounding them detract from the stories they're a part of. They're not the sole reason why Awakening and Fates' stories aren't good but they do contribute significantly to why said stories are so lackluster.

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How?
No matter how I look at it, the avatars have the same role past main characters have had, and the only complaints I ever see about the avatar is the fault of poor writing decisions.

As for Mark, they can be removed from FE7's story and absolutely nothing of value is lost, that kind of pointlessness is not good for a story.

If they specially remake FE6 and FE7, it would be interesting to see if they carry over your noncombatant avatar to FE6.

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Hopefully not. One of the few characteristics Roy has going for him is that he is one of the smarter lords when it comes to tactics. They should expand on that to give Roy more character than bring over a character so worthless that FE7 doesn't even force you to put them in the story if you skip Lyn's mode.

 

[PK Gaming]

Robin an Corrin are the main characters, so it's not strange that they are central to their stories.
What are the avatar characters doing to the story that makes it worse?
All the problems with Awakening's or Fates's stories is due to poor writing in general.

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But IS was doing that with the main characters long before the avatars were a thing. As was said before, there's a reason most FE protagonists are teens.
Rather bland and safe protagonists is standard for this series, and it's a pretty safe bet that that will continue to happen with or without the customization.

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Damn Rutger, stop it

I can only handle so much truth in one post

Seriously, the "Corrin being the avatar ruined Fates's story" is such a bullshit, lazy claim. I'm so sure that being able to choose their fucking hair character had such a disastrous effect on the story (/s).

Corrin is not a good character (IMO), but I still think the bigger problem is Corrin's existence as the center of gravity of the story while being faceless in all but the most rote ways. She's loyal to her family -- ok, who isn't? She was raised in isolation -- ok, so what? this is used mostly as a shield from further characterization ("what are your hobbies?" "oh, sitting at the window and casting forlorn looks at the courtyard I'll never visit")

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It's too bad you couldn't apply this scrutiny to just about every other lord in the franchise.

 

[Fomortiis]

...It's important to note that they were never called avatars, they're called "My Unit", which I always took to meant that they're a unit that you get to create rather than a self-insert. If that makes any sense. (Although, cutscenes are always from a first person perspective, so maybe that wasn't the line of thinking)...

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Awakening clearly calls Robin an Avatar in the creation menu, and the official (English) Awakening website literally calls Robin's profile page "you".

(Unless you meant that Japan doesn't use this kind of direct terminology, then yeah, you are correct with "My Unit" I'm not sure about other nuances or whatever terminology they use on official sites and such in Japanese though)

...Tangentially, this reminds me that the castle in Fates is still called My Castle in the US English digital manual though it was apparently changed to just castle in the European manual...? I read this in a trivia section somewhere, but I only own a US copy.

 

[spiritfox]

I don't mind avatars if they added made them not central to the plot. Both Robin and Corrin took up too much of the plot and it suffered because of it. Also add some characters that you can't just marry cause it just limits the types of characters you can portray.

 

[Normal]

Feels like the only reason why Corrin was an avatar was so that they could please the fanbase that wanted to marry their favorite characters and feel like that they were Corrin lol
The face touching, blowing through the mic and the cutscene of the S support kinda all support that.

If it's like Echoes where no avatar means we won't get any of the above, I'll take it.

 

[Rutger]

The whole not having many limits to S supports is a thing that exists because of the marriage mechanic.

FE4 did not have many limits on who could marry who of the opposite sex.

I'm still not understanding putting the blame on Robin being an avatar as taking the focus away from Chrom. The series has had a lot of trouble balancing multiple main characters, the same neglect happened to Lyn in Micaiah.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

I don't really like avatars because they're always going to be designed to be the best unit in the game, which means we'll never get shitty lords again probably.

Though Seize is mostly dead as an objective as of non-remake FE so unless it comes back I guess that doesn't matter.

 

[Lunar15]

I actually largely agree with PK and Rutger, but my point was to say that having an avatar felt more interesting when they were an ancillary character to the story as in awakening, than in being the main character in fates. Without spoiling, Robin purposefully played with your expectations of a player character. Corrin is literally just the main character with no input but design and gender. But even THEN, if you wrote that character well, it wouldn't matter in the slightest.

I'm just weird and I prefer a set character design with a set name.

In the end, it's a moot point because most FE lords are boring. I'd actually say Robin is on the better side of FE protagonists. Ike is my favorite, obviously, but I also don't deny this has a lot to do with design. He's not outrageously noteworthy characterwise other than the fact that he's a little more gruff and has a decent arc.

 

[Rutger]

I don't really like avatars because they're always going to be designed to be the best unit in the game, which means we'll never get shitty lords again probably.

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Let's be real, a FE6 remake is probably going to be our best hope for that with or without avatars, haha.

I actually largely agree with PK and Rutger, but my point was to say that having an avatar felt more interesting when they were an ancillary character to the story, as in awakening, than in being the main character in fates. But even THEN, if you wrote that character well, it wouldn't matter in the slightest.

I'm just weird and I prefer a set character design with a set name.

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My interest in the avatar unit is largely for their gameplay, so I'm not opposed to them being a side character at all.

I just disagree that the common arguments used against them are the fault of the mechanic, and the comments treating the concept as one of the worst things to happen to the series is pointless negativity.

 

[WolfeTone]

I like having a fixed lord as the main character. I will prefer a lord with a fixed visual design over a unit with even minor customization options like hair or facial features. I know it has no impact on story really, but I don't think I'd like Ike or Hector so much if they had a customizable image, even if they were written the same.

 

[Caz]

Let's be real, a FE6 remake is probably going to be our best hope for that with or without avatars, haha.


My interest in the avatar unit is largely for their gameplay, so I'm not opposed to them being a side character at all.

I just disagree that the common arguments used against them are the fault of the mechanic, and the comments treating the concept as one of the worst things to happen to the series is pointless negativity.

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Literally no one has expressed that strong a disdain for the avatar in this thread. Tone down the hyperbole.

 

[Rutger]

I wasn't really just referring to this thread with that comment, but fair enough.


Anyways, I'm nearing the end of a FE6 playthrough I started a while back.
It's still a good game.

This and my playthrough of FE5 a while back compared to my FE4 and Echoes playthroughs have shown how big of a game changer Rescue was, and how much fun it is to use. It adds so much to both defensive and offensive strategies.
Pair up is a fine substitute, and Fates did a lot to refine it, but there's still room for improvement(it can certainly use some downsides so it isn't always the right answer). I'm really curious if the next game will try to further refine it or if it will go in a different direction. Either way, these kinds of movement options(including shove from the Tellius games) are something I really like having.

 

[Disclaimer]

This and my playthrough of FE5 a while back compared to my FE4 and Echoes playthroughs have shown how big of a game changer Rescue was, and how much fun it is to use. It adds so much to both defensive and offensive strategies.
Pair up is a fine substitute, and Fates did a lot to refine it, but there's still room for improvement(it can certainly use some downsides so it isn't always the right answer). I'm really curious if the next game will try to further refine it or if it will go in a different direction. Either way, these kinds of movement options(including shove from the Tellius games) are something I really like having.

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Agreed about Rescue! I love its balance of utility and statistical trade-off, whereas Pair-Up is heavily skewed in the favor of the user, and can't be used to rescue besides. It also personally irks me that it essentially halves your army; I much prefer to have access to my entire team rather than making super-units.

Looking at the shifts in mechanics between each hardware generation so far, I wouldn't be surprised if Pair-Up is exchanged for something else—perhaps for some of the more dynamic movement effects in Heroes? Who knows.

 

[Chaosblade]

I'll only actually hate avatar characters when there isn't a preset and they make you create one. As of right now my only complaint is that the stories of both Awakening and Fates suffered in part from it, but story is also the least important aspect of the series to me so if that's the only loss I can deal with it. I loved Conquest, after all, and that was so bad I legit skipped most of the dialog and cutscenes late in the game because they weren't worth my time.

 

[NeonZ]

What I think they should bring from Heroes (or Echoes) is the skill activation mechanic, dumping the RNG based chances.

Pair Up works fine in Fates since it's purely defensive and you need units without pair ups for dual attacks.

 

[Drax]

Echoes handles skills better than Heroes imho.

 

[Caz]

I prefer the pair up system to the old rescue mechanic, mostly because the latter rarely saw any interesting usage when it comes to map design; the most memorable I can think of is where they forced Ike to rescue and keep Leanne for the duration of the chapter. For all its faults in Awakening, the pair up system has great synergy with supports and it serves to emphasize the importance of unit positions when non-paired while allowing for some inspired strategies to be pulled off in the more elaborate or challenging maps. Conquest in particular made great use of it with some tense maps while Fates in general refined the concept that made it more balanced compared to Awakening.

 

[Rutger]

Echoes skills were interesting, I wouldn't mind seeing that get reworked.
I don't really care for it being tied mostly to equipment, which part of is due to Echoes only letting units have one equipped thing which limits how creative we can get with builds. I also just think learning skills by fighting with a piece of equipment works as well as the level up system we had in the 3DS games.
But being able to choose when we want to use combat skills is cool, and could give player phase some more importance in a game with better maps. The cost being HP though was often a non-issue, so it would probably be better to add a more traditional style SP system to make that layer of resource management matter.

But yeah, the skill system is probably the thing I liked the most in Echoes(aside from the music).

I prefer the pair up system to the old rescue mechanic, mostly because the latter rarely saw any interesting usage when it comes to map design; the most memorable I can think of is where they forced Ike to rescue and keep Leanne for the duration of the chapter. For all its faults in Awakening, the pair up system has great synergy with supports and it serves to emphasize the importance of unit positions when non-paired while allowing for some inspired strategies to be pulled off in the more elaborate or challenging maps. Conquest in particular made great use of it with some tense maps while Fates in general refined the concept that made it more balanced compared to Awakening.

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Just because it wasn't often a forced mechanic to maps doesn't mean it didn't have interesting use in maps. The kinds of rescue chains we can pull off to move through a map or around obstacles is something else. It especially shines in a game like FE6 with fairly large and complex maps.

 

[PK Gaming]

Went over every FE lord for fun, real talk edition:

Marth: "Kindhearted, but idealistic. Very humble and charming."

Oh boy, I wonder who that describes. Answer: just about every FE lord cribes from him in some way shape or form. Marth as a character doesn't impress, and with the exception of Shadow Dragon's stellar dialogue for him, is kind of bland. What carries him for me, is his Smash Bros incarnation, who's power, style and grace left a far bigger impression than this dork ass due. It's kind of amusing when dudebros dunk on Lucina for being a "female Marth" when in execution, she's a totally different (better) character.

Alm: Basically a 2010 anime sue protagonist. The chosen one, loved by all, always right, cool and stylish but hopelessly humble. Suffers no major loses. As shallow as characters get. I like how they shaved away his warmongering tendencies because they couldn't have him having any flaws. Literally carried by the localization, because Kyle's voice acting makes him incredibly endearing. Still sucks overall, though.

Celica: Promising as fuck, and hopelessly squandered to make a point, a point that is utterly juvenile (Alm = Good, Celica = Bad). Everything about her outside of her characterization is fantastic. Well, she's kind of a mediocre lord gameplay wise due to how badly the maps screw her over.

Sigurd: See Marth, but the game is actually written around that fact, and his character arc is ridiculously ambitious.

Seliph: He's okay.

Leif: No comment.

Roy: Hopelessly bland and generic. At the center of the story but doesn't manage to make me a notable impression on me. To me, Roy is the absolute worst Lord in the franchise because he's a nothing character. I'll take misguided and poorly written over... Roy, any day of the week.

Lyn: She's okay. Her introduction is great, but she doesn't really impress after her arc. FE7 at that point is just Lyn chasing after the "boyz"

Eliwood: A good lord.

Hector: A great lord. Maybe not the deepest, or the best gameplay wise, but Hector is still a strong lord relative to the others.

Eirika: She's actually fairly well-written. Her characterization just goes against the typical power fantasy the series is known for, causing frustration at her (pretty justified) actions.

Ephraim: He's actually fairly well-written. Nobody seems to realize he has a strong arc to go along with his war-mongering ways.

Ike: GOD

Micaiah: Promising, but frustrating in execution. It would be really cool if FE10 tried to move away from Ike and focused on Micaiah more instead of setting her up to be "wrong" and killing her presence by the final chapter. Still, the subversion on "maiden who fights honorable" is neat.

Chrom: Chrom is pretty good

Robin: He's good. I don't think people are really thinking it through when they make the argument that he's bad relative to other FE protagonists, because he really just... isn't. Robin's a pretty fun character, with a personality that makes their supports great (they have so many hits), and they work as a good supporting protagonist / buddy cop to Chrom.

Corrin: One of the most low-ambition lords in the franchise. She fits into a generic shonen protagonist with a heart (BR). In Conquest she had promise because having a lord actually react to the atrocities of war is interesting, it's just the writing is simply too bad to support that kind of character. Chapter 15 cratered any chance at her having any potential. Any argument levied against her that starts with "WELL, THEY'RE THE AVATAR SO AUTOMATIC BAD" is trash. I mean it.

 

[Rutger]

Roy: Hopelessly bland and generic. At the center of the story but doesn't manage to make me a notable impression on me. To me, Roy is the absolute worst Lord in the franchise because he's a nothing character. I'll take misguided and poorly written over... Roy, any day of the week.

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In a move that is probably laughably predictable, I have to disagree with this somewhat.

Roy is not a nothing character, they just didn't do anything with what's there. He has a weak but smart thing going which can be pretty compelling compared to the other lords if used right, and some of the supports in the game show he has a bit of an inferiority complex(which is why he uses swords instead of following his teacher Cecilia as well as Lilina with magic). Those character flaws could make for an interesting character arc if handled well, and one of the things I hope they look at whenever they get around to remaking FE6.

You skipped over Leif, I'd like to add to that. He's kind of just a figurehead to raise morale in his army due to his birth, he doesn't make the strategical choices for much of the game and one of the few calls he makes is a hopeless suicide mission that gets people killed. It's an interesting idea, but undercut a little by being connected to a game where holy blood makes people special.


And yeah, Ike is the best.

 

[Disclaimer]

Point being that most internationally-released Fire Emblems had quite decent-to-good Lords, something everyone would prefer held true? Haha.

Most aren't saying that Avatar = Automatic Bad Game/Story (at least on this forum), just that some aspects of Kris, Robin, and Corrin's avatar status contributed to their respective flawed implementations, and that could be reduced by either (1) recognizing and fixing what they did wrong, or (2) putting the avatar in a less story-relevant position, by which the flaws are automatically removed. Avatars can be quite fun mechanically, they just need to be handled with more self-awareness on the writers' part.

Kris and Corrin are both worshipped by everyone in their games to the point that it's farcical—more than any other Lord, even Alm. Corrin straight-up has a love shack where they rub everyone's bodies, and the crux of the narrative divergence is "nuh uh, they're my sibling!" Neither of those things would have been the case for a non-Avatar character, because they were fundamentally built for one.

Robin was a fine implementation, IMO, until the narrative decided Chrom should butt out because Robin was the Important One, also something I don't think would have happened if the narrative had been created without an Avatar in mind. We needed more Chrom! There was a lot more room for his development with regard to his hotheaded tendencies mirroring his father, and him choosing to follow Emmeryn's path instead.

So nothing's inherently wrong with them, IS just needs to iterate on their implementation, or handle it differently. I'd also like one who's less story-relevant because I personally preferred picking Kris' class, rather than having a unique one that's potentially OP—something I simply doubt they'd do for a story MC.

 

[Rutger]

Robin was a fine implementation, IMO, until the narrative decided Chrom should butt out because Robin was the Important One, also something I don't think would have happened if the narrative had been created without an Avatar in mind. We needed more Chrom! There was a lot more room for his development with regard to his hotheaded tendencies mirroring his father, and him choosing to follow Emmeryn's path instead.

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Well, it did happen to Micaiah, which is a big part of why I can't really agree with this argument.

But yes, we did need more Tomokazu Sugita.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Roy: Hopelessly bland and generic. At the center of the story but doesn't manage to make me a notable impression on me. To me, Roy is the absolute worst Lord in the franchise because he's a nothing character. I'll take misguided and poorly written over... Roy, any day of the week.

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PK we've talked about this before

 

[Disclaimer]

Well, it did happen to Micaiah, which is a big part of why I can't really agree with this argument.

But yes, we did need more Tomokazu Sugita.

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It felt like there was a robust story to be told revolving around the Ylissean royal family, which was put on the back burner for Robin's Mysterious Avatarness—a major part of why Awakening felt so disjointed with too many narrative arcs, each being meagerly fleshed out.

Radiant Dawn was a mess. Epic in scope, but with proportionate blunders, and the whole Dawn Brigade's handling was one. Been awhile since I've experienced it, so I'll refrain from commenting further. But yes, between Micaiah and Celica, IS needs to handle its female protagonists much better.

Lyn being shelved isn't as egregious to me, because her story was told; it had a beginning, middle, and end, during which she never relied on a male counterpart, and after which she decided to assist her allies in their journey. I wish she'd been around more (and I hope she'll retroactively be added into a FE6 remake for closure), but that was a flaw in the structure of the mission-to-mission Fire Emblem games, allowing for few interpersonal non-support conversations. She had a fair amount of scenes to endear us further post-prologue, given the constraints.

 

[Caz]

Just because it wasn't often a forced mechanic to maps doesn't mean it didn't have interesting use in maps. The kinds of rescue chains we can pull off to move through a map or around obstacles is something else. It especially shines in a game like FE6 with fairly large and complex maps.

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I never said the lack of being forced to use it was why it wasn't particularly good, moreso that there were few opportunities to make use of it in the maps featured from FE5 going forward, to the point where I rarely find an opportunity to use it outside of (maybe) protecting weaker characters in Radiant Dawn Part 4.

Well, it did happen to Micaiah, which is a big part of why I can't really agree with this argument.

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The difference is that Micaiah was awful from the start and Radiant Dawn is so unfocused that it essentially starts and stops three times whereas Awakening, for all its narrative faults, was strongly focused on Chrom and co.'s journey before it jumped into Robin's Paradox Power Hour and Robin was a decent character. Radiant Dawn should have picked one character as the lord and stuck with them rather than the trainwreck of a trio that we got instead.

 

[NeonZ]

Robin was a fine implementation, IMO, until the narrative decided Chrom should butt out because Robin was the Important One, also something I don't think would have happened if the narrative had been created without an Avatar in mind. We needed more Chrom! There was a lot more room for his development with regard to his hotheaded tendencies mirroring his father, and him choosing to follow Emmeryn's path instead.

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I think this part mostly suffers due to Awakening's story becoming pretty minimalist after the first third of the game. With the reduced main story scenes, there was just no way Chrom ever would have gotten that kind of development even if Robin's importance didn't rise towards the ending. Robin still doesn't have the spotlight in the Valm arc, and yet all the issues with the reign of Chrom's father are already irrelevant here.

Also, regarding that change of focus, we have Radiant Dawn where Micaiah goes from protagonist in the first part to meat suit for Yune in the final part while Ike takes over (in the multi-part final chapter Micaiah only actually speaks in battle dialogue, it's always Yune in the intermission scenes). Even more recently in Echoes we had Alm's take over of the narrative towards the ending just expanded further, rather than minimized. IS various writing teams just seem to be unable to really push equal protagonists.

Kris and Corrin are both worshipped by everyone in their games to the point that it's farcical—more than any other Lord, even Alm. Corrin straight-up has a love shack where they rub everyone's bodies, and the crux of the narrative divergence is "nuh uh, they're my sibling!" Neither of those things would have been the case for a non-Avatar character, because they were fundamentally built for one.

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Robin is only really "worshiped" by the support system and Chrom's initial party, but every character is friendly with each other by the time of the A support in Awakening.

Corrin gets a death threat from a party member right before the final chapter, and gets overruled by other characters several times on conquest. And in spite of their "love" for him we get moments like Takumi only joining in Revelation after Izana kills himself for that. I'm not disputing that they have two big families (I don't think any previous lord even had 4 siblings), but Corrin doesn't really carry the same presence that a character like (Radiant Dawn) Ike or Alm do. They're loved as a person, but their actions often seem to be questioned.