Radiant Dawn's four Laguz Lords, Caineghis the Lion King, Tibarn the Hawk King, Naesala the Raven King, and Nailah the Wolf Queen, are extremely powerful characters who deserve special mention. They are Laguz, but because they are so overwhelmingly powerful and do not operate under the same limitations that normal Laguz must suffer through, it is almost unfair to try to compare them directly. Even powerful third tier Beorc characters, who normally are so much more reliable than Laguz, pale in comparison to the mighty Laguz Lords.
The Laguz Lords have many advantages over normal Laguz. They all start at high level, have incredibly good starting stats, and even their stat caps tend to be higher than those of normal Laguz. For example, Caineghis starts at level 36 (four levels short of max level for Laguz), and his stats start out about as high as Skirmir can hope to attain, and a few of his stats (like Speed), start at what would be Skrimir's cap and can go higher still. What is more, most Laguz Lords start with SS-rank innate weapons (which are very difficult to attain for most Laguz), and their weapons are slightly more powerful than normal Laguz's innate weapons (Tibarn's SS Great Talon has 2 more Might and 10 more Hit than any other Hawk's SS Talon). Further, most Laguz Lords have a greater number of innate skills than normal, and far greater skill capacity. Finally, their greatest and most defining advantage is that they have the Formshift skill, which lets them transform at any time and stay transformed indefinitely without any regard for the transformation gauge that restricts every other Laguz. With all things considered, the raw power of the Laguz Lords completely surpass every other Laguz and all but the very strongest Beorc, making them unquestionably the strongest characters in the game.
The existence of these four extremely powerful characters severely distorts the choice of "who will I bring into the final chapter". Any character who specializes in melee physical attacks will ultimately be compared to the Laguz Lords, especially any Laguz. After all, the Laguz Lords can easily tear apart just about anything in the game other than the two strongest final enemies (one of whom is himself the lord of the strongest Laguz type, Dragon King Dheginsea, and the other of which is the final boss), and those two bossess are so powerful that the overwhelming power of the Laguz Lords is practically a necessity. There is almost no way to justify bringing any Laguz other than the Laguz Lords unless you either really like Laguz characters and just want to bring more than the Lords and the required Heron and Dragons, or you are deliberately holding back on bringing some of the Lords because you want to make the final battles a bit more difficult. Truthfully, it is hard enough trying to justify using a normal Laguz even without the all-powerful Laguz lords showing up in the very end.
I will say, though, that I appreciate the presence of the Laguz Lords in the earlier missions of Part 4 of the game. In the Fire Emblem games, it is often extremely useful to have a character who is reliably powerful enough to defeat any foe or hold any position. and having a Laguz Lord along with each of the three groups helped balance them out and let them survive some of the tough battles.
I also think that it was fairly appropriate that such power was given to the laguz royalty, characters who were given an incredibly important story role. Looking at some other data, there is some similar power given to some other characters important to the plot, such as Ike, Micaiah, Elincia, and Sanaki, who all have somewhat higher stat caps than comparable normal characters, though unlike the Laguz Lords their power is not as obvious and guaranteed (and they don't have either the boosted skill capacity or stats that can go above 40). In this regard, the Laguz Lords work very well as characters who are particularly powerful due to their role in the plot (which is usually associated with being royalty). That said, the immense power of Formshift throws things a bit out of balance. In many respects, the limitation of the transformation gauge is what keeps Laguz (whose stats can surpass 40) from surpassing Beorc (whose stats have an absolute limit of 40). As I described in my last post, the transformation gauge overcompensates a bit too much and ends up overly limiting many Laguz compared to Beorc, but because the Lords do not use the transformation gauge at all, they don't have any effect that reins in their power and end up being too powerful. As a result, while powerful Beorc royalty do not completely make normal Beorc characters obsolete despite their greater potential, Laguz Lords do make normal Laguz obsolete.
At this point, I wonder if it would have been better if the Laguz Lords simply had a more favorable version of their own tribe's transformation rates. For example, perhaps Caineghis could have had the high gauge growth rate of a Tiger or Cat, but kept the low decline rates of a Lion or maybe even a Dragon. That way, he would be a lot more flexible than the other Lions, but not absolutely better than them. Even just giving the Lords the ability to start each battle with a full gauge, rather than an empty one, might have been enough. There must be a way to make particularly powerful Laguz without removing the one trait that most defines Laguz as a whole.
Showing posts with label Fire Emblem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fire Emblem. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Laguz
Looking back at it, it has been quite a long time since I talked about the mechanical implementation of the Laguz in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. When I made my original comments about them, I had barely even used a lot of the Laguz characters, and I had not yet seen how they compare to Beorc characters in the final stages of the game. It seems I never went back and corrected some of my observations. I guess I was too wrapped up writing about the plot at the time. I guess now is as good of a time as ever to write at length on the subject.
Most notably, I need to revise the statement I made that the main system of stats for the Laguz, the fact that their stats double when they transform, is a system that works reasonably well. I really don't think that it is the case anymore. It is certainly an interesting way to make even minor changes in stats very important to a Laguz character, but it ultimately results in a Laguz character simply being far too weak in its human form. Because of the huge difference in defense and speed, any enemy who would be a reasonable threat to a transformed Laguz can easily kill an untransformed Laguz, because they are guaranteed to use a high-damage double attack, often against a target who can't fight back. Finally, combined with the different level systems for Beorc and Laguz, the stat doubling just makes it harder to compare the fighting ability of characters of different races.
A major problem for Laguz characters that I didn't mention last time around is the fact that they just don't seem to be able to level up well compared to Beorc. It is just hard to get a Laguz to gain levels and stay at an even level with Beorc characters. Even if a Laguz does gain enough experience (such as with a large amount of bonus experience), they seem to slowly lose effectiveness compared to their Beorc allies.
The reasons for the Laguz's inability to gain experience are a bit complex. Certainly a major part of it involves the fact that laguz just seem to earn less experience while they are transformed. Because Laguz levels mean something different than Beorc levels, a Laguz should require about 1.5 times the amount of experience as a Beorc to go up an equivalent level, but Laguz seem to just earn less than that in battle. A far more certain factor about this issue is that Laguz just can't fight as often as a Beorc character. and thus has a bit more trouble building up experience. Laguz have periods in which they can't fight, but you must fight in order to earn experience, so Laguz just can't earn as much experience as a Beorc given the same period of time. What is more, some of the best ways to build experience, such as holding a choke-point and fighting off a wave of many enemies, are impractical for a Laguz because their transformation gauge empties with each fight. Because of this, most Laguz need to focus on killing at least one enemy every round they can, but most of the time this is impossible. On top of all of this, many Laguz can't be deployed in battle as often as Beorc characters, so they have even less of a chance to earn experience.
The other issue for Laguz characters, the fact that even if they do gain levels they don't seem to compare well, has its own set of reasons. Even though Laguz gain levels more slowly, their stat growth rates tend to be poor, so they often don't level very well. Each Laguz level up benefit is worth twice as much as a Beorc level up benefit, but they get so much fewer that it cancels out that advantage. But because their stat growths for important stats are so low, levels gained from Bonus Experience tend to be absolutely terrible for Laguz characters, often featuring only a boost to HP (less than what they get from normal level-up), Luck (the one stat that doesn't double), and a single major stat. What is more, Laguz characters don't Class Change, and thus don't benefit from the same Class Change stat boosts that Beorc characters do. Finally, even if a Laguz character manages to reach its stat caps (which is harder for them than Beorc), that only puts them on an even level with a Beorc character who has reached its stat caps. Ultimately, a top-level Laguz who can't fight all day and can't use special weapons has the same stats as a Beorc who can, and events in the late game even negate the advantage of their unbreakable claws.
Now that all of that is out of the way, I will take a moment to comment on the individual Laguz tribes.
Wolves: Their transformation gauge fills by 6 for every turn spent untransformed, and it empties by 4 for each turn spent transformed. Fighting while transformed lowers empties the gauge by 3. As such, a wolf will empty the gauge faster than it can fill it, even if it only fights once per transformed turn, and thus it must spend more time untransformed tan transformed, unless it uses Olivi Grass or a Laguz stone to fill the gauge more quickly. Because the gauge fills so slowly for them, they will only be able to transform on the sixth turn of battle, so one of those items is necessary to get them into battle in the first half of a fight, but even Olivi grass only helps that by two turns (it is three points short of getting a third turn, which means three wasted points). It is just hard to effectively use a Wolf in battle.
Cats: Their transformation gauge fills by 10 for every turn spent transformed, and it empties by 5 for every turn spent transformed. Battle is beast form emptied the gauge by 4. A cat's transformation gauge fills very quickly (they are the only Laguz who can afford to wait and let their gauge fill naturally), but it also empties quickly. Fortunately, a cat's transformation gauge fills faster than it empties (slightly, assuming only one battle per turn), so they have no trouble recovering from battle. This makes it seem like Cats should be very useful, but I have always had problems with them. I think the reason for this is the fact that, because their gauge fills and empties so quickly, it is a poor choice to use items on them. An Olivi Grass only speeds initial transformation up by one turn and wastes 5 points. A Laguz Stone would be a waste on them because their gauge would empties so quickly. Cats are not bad, but they are just hard to use to their full potential.
Tigers: Their gauge fills by 8 for every turn spent transformed, and it empties by 4 for every turn in beast form. Battle in beast form empties the gauge by 3. Like Cats, they gain more than they lose, but unlike Cats they don't lose so much per turn that using item is ineffective. Using an Olivi Grass reduces initial transformation time by two turns, at a loss of just 1 or 2 wasted points (depending on how you count). With Olivi Grass, a Tiger can transform just as quickly as a Cat that is using Olivi Grass, and fight quite a bit longer. They are the first kind of Laguz who can actually afford to hold a position and take a number of attacks (though not indirect ones). For them, the math actually works.
Ravens: Ravens use the same numbers as Wolves, with the same poor result. They are simply lackluster.
Hawks: They use the same numbers as the Tigers, and work equally well. One thing that is particularly noteworthy about the Hawks and distinguishes them from other Laguz is their special abilities. The Hawk named Janaff has the skill Vigilance, and the Hawk named Ulki has the skill Insight. Unlike most other skills, these abilities are character-specific and can not be removed. Both skills give a significant boost to combat ability, and Janaff's Vigilance gives him a far greater vision range in Fog of War maps. Because of their reasonable transformation time and powerful skills (not to mention flight and Canto abilities), the two Hawks are some of the few Laguz who are on par with or better than most good Beorc.
Herons: Now we get into something a bit different, but first... Their gauge fills by 3 for every turn spent untransformed (4 for Reyson), and their gauge empties by 5 for every turn spent transformed. They should never get into battle, so battle numbers don't matter much. Obviously, their gauge drains faster than it fills (even without battle), so they spend more time in their human form than in their bird form, but it hardly matters. For Herons, being transformed means they do the same thing they do when not transformed, except they happen to be slightly better at it, so unlike other Laguz they don't need to be transformed in order to be useful. Also, Herons are the ultimate support characters, both able to use Galdr to actively support and Blessing to passively support. Heron Galdr are so useful that a turn spent increasing their transformation gauge with items is a poor choice simply because they could instead be using Galdr. Herons are the one kind of Laguz that are unquestionably useful throughout the game, and might serve as a model on how Laguz should be designed in the future.
Lions: Their transformation gauge fills by 5 each turn spent in human form, and empties by 3 for every turn spent in beast form. Battle empties the gauge by 2. They build up slowly and can stay transformed for very long periods of time, and naturally fill and empty the gauge at the same rate (assuming one battle per turn). Using Olivi Grass reduces initial transformation time by three turns, with no wasted points, and transformation takes so long (and lasts so long) it makes using a Laguz Stone a very good choice. Much like with Tigers and Hawks, the ability to get a lot of benefit from items in order to fight a long time makes Lions a lot more effective than Laguz who rely on natural restoration of the transformation gauge (though it helps that Lions only join late in the game when you can actually afford the kind of items they rely upon).
Dragons: Their transformation gauge fills by 5 for each turn spent in human form (4 for White Dragons), and empties by 2 for each turn spent in dragon form. Battle empties the gauge by only 1 point. They have even better transformation gauge fill/empty rates than Lions (who were pretty good already), and thus gain even more benefit from items like Laguz Stones and Olivi Grass. In addition, they are the one kind of Laguz who can fight using indirect attacks, and White Dragons are the only kind of Laguz who can inflict magical damage. Because of all of this, they are far more useful than most Laguz and can actually match the long-term endurance of the Beorc and Laguz Royalty. Above and beyond their combat strength, though, they have an even greater role: support. Dragons have the powerful passive support skills Night Tide, Blood Tide, White Pool, and Boon that can heal and strengthen their allies, making them incredibly valuable even if they are not transformed, much like a Heron. It is a shame that Dragons only join absurdly late in the game.
As a whole, the entire system of transformation is incredibly dependent on items, so the Laguz that have good synergy with Olivi Grass and Laguz Stones are far more useful than the Laguz who don't. If there was some other way to build the transformation gauge other than natural restoration that also depended on the natural growth rate, it would probably have balanced the system out a bit more (and made Cats very useful). As it stands, though, relying on natural growth is just too slow for any Laguz.
One thing that I can't help but notice is that some of my favorite Laguz, the Herons and Dragons, both use powerful support skills to help allies even when not transformed. They don't have the kinds of unique weapons that boost their own power in special ways like the Beorc, but they have skills that boost the power of allies and add to their value. Unlike the many kinds of Bird and Beast Laguz, Dragons and Herons have advantages that go beyond the mere stat comparisons that tend to favor the more reliable Beorc characters, so it is easier to justify using them in battle. In my opinion, this is an advantage that could become a true niche for all Laguz characters in future games. Many Laguz already have slight nods towards this kind of role (skills like Howl, Glare, and Shriek weaken foes under special conditions, and many Satori Sign skills have similar weakening effects alongside their heavy damage), and there are a number of skills that could be easily altered to add to this (for example, turning an effect like Daunt into a Laguz innate skill). If nothing else, powerful character-defining skills like Vigilance and Insight can become more common. A move towards a combined combat/support role would put Laguz on a more even level with Beorc, help differentiate them from Beorc, and add to the tactical complexity of the game.
That covers most of what I have to say about the Laguz. Well, I still need to write about the Laguz Lords, but they deserve their own topic anyways. I may also write a bit more about the Herons as well. I really hope that the people behind the Fire Emblem games continue to use the Laguz in future games, and continue to improve upon the concept.
Most notably, I need to revise the statement I made that the main system of stats for the Laguz, the fact that their stats double when they transform, is a system that works reasonably well. I really don't think that it is the case anymore. It is certainly an interesting way to make even minor changes in stats very important to a Laguz character, but it ultimately results in a Laguz character simply being far too weak in its human form. Because of the huge difference in defense and speed, any enemy who would be a reasonable threat to a transformed Laguz can easily kill an untransformed Laguz, because they are guaranteed to use a high-damage double attack, often against a target who can't fight back. Finally, combined with the different level systems for Beorc and Laguz, the stat doubling just makes it harder to compare the fighting ability of characters of different races.
A major problem for Laguz characters that I didn't mention last time around is the fact that they just don't seem to be able to level up well compared to Beorc. It is just hard to get a Laguz to gain levels and stay at an even level with Beorc characters. Even if a Laguz does gain enough experience (such as with a large amount of bonus experience), they seem to slowly lose effectiveness compared to their Beorc allies.
The reasons for the Laguz's inability to gain experience are a bit complex. Certainly a major part of it involves the fact that laguz just seem to earn less experience while they are transformed. Because Laguz levels mean something different than Beorc levels, a Laguz should require about 1.5 times the amount of experience as a Beorc to go up an equivalent level, but Laguz seem to just earn less than that in battle. A far more certain factor about this issue is that Laguz just can't fight as often as a Beorc character. and thus has a bit more trouble building up experience. Laguz have periods in which they can't fight, but you must fight in order to earn experience, so Laguz just can't earn as much experience as a Beorc given the same period of time. What is more, some of the best ways to build experience, such as holding a choke-point and fighting off a wave of many enemies, are impractical for a Laguz because their transformation gauge empties with each fight. Because of this, most Laguz need to focus on killing at least one enemy every round they can, but most of the time this is impossible. On top of all of this, many Laguz can't be deployed in battle as often as Beorc characters, so they have even less of a chance to earn experience.
The other issue for Laguz characters, the fact that even if they do gain levels they don't seem to compare well, has its own set of reasons. Even though Laguz gain levels more slowly, their stat growth rates tend to be poor, so they often don't level very well. Each Laguz level up benefit is worth twice as much as a Beorc level up benefit, but they get so much fewer that it cancels out that advantage. But because their stat growths for important stats are so low, levels gained from Bonus Experience tend to be absolutely terrible for Laguz characters, often featuring only a boost to HP (less than what they get from normal level-up), Luck (the one stat that doesn't double), and a single major stat. What is more, Laguz characters don't Class Change, and thus don't benefit from the same Class Change stat boosts that Beorc characters do. Finally, even if a Laguz character manages to reach its stat caps (which is harder for them than Beorc), that only puts them on an even level with a Beorc character who has reached its stat caps. Ultimately, a top-level Laguz who can't fight all day and can't use special weapons has the same stats as a Beorc who can, and events in the late game even negate the advantage of their unbreakable claws.
Now that all of that is out of the way, I will take a moment to comment on the individual Laguz tribes.
Wolves: Their transformation gauge fills by 6 for every turn spent untransformed, and it empties by 4 for each turn spent transformed. Fighting while transformed lowers empties the gauge by 3. As such, a wolf will empty the gauge faster than it can fill it, even if it only fights once per transformed turn, and thus it must spend more time untransformed tan transformed, unless it uses Olivi Grass or a Laguz stone to fill the gauge more quickly. Because the gauge fills so slowly for them, they will only be able to transform on the sixth turn of battle, so one of those items is necessary to get them into battle in the first half of a fight, but even Olivi grass only helps that by two turns (it is three points short of getting a third turn, which means three wasted points). It is just hard to effectively use a Wolf in battle.
Cats: Their transformation gauge fills by 10 for every turn spent transformed, and it empties by 5 for every turn spent transformed. Battle is beast form emptied the gauge by 4. A cat's transformation gauge fills very quickly (they are the only Laguz who can afford to wait and let their gauge fill naturally), but it also empties quickly. Fortunately, a cat's transformation gauge fills faster than it empties (slightly, assuming only one battle per turn), so they have no trouble recovering from battle. This makes it seem like Cats should be very useful, but I have always had problems with them. I think the reason for this is the fact that, because their gauge fills and empties so quickly, it is a poor choice to use items on them. An Olivi Grass only speeds initial transformation up by one turn and wastes 5 points. A Laguz Stone would be a waste on them because their gauge would empties so quickly. Cats are not bad, but they are just hard to use to their full potential.
Tigers: Their gauge fills by 8 for every turn spent transformed, and it empties by 4 for every turn in beast form. Battle in beast form empties the gauge by 3. Like Cats, they gain more than they lose, but unlike Cats they don't lose so much per turn that using item is ineffective. Using an Olivi Grass reduces initial transformation time by two turns, at a loss of just 1 or 2 wasted points (depending on how you count). With Olivi Grass, a Tiger can transform just as quickly as a Cat that is using Olivi Grass, and fight quite a bit longer. They are the first kind of Laguz who can actually afford to hold a position and take a number of attacks (though not indirect ones). For them, the math actually works.
Ravens: Ravens use the same numbers as Wolves, with the same poor result. They are simply lackluster.
Hawks: They use the same numbers as the Tigers, and work equally well. One thing that is particularly noteworthy about the Hawks and distinguishes them from other Laguz is their special abilities. The Hawk named Janaff has the skill Vigilance, and the Hawk named Ulki has the skill Insight. Unlike most other skills, these abilities are character-specific and can not be removed. Both skills give a significant boost to combat ability, and Janaff's Vigilance gives him a far greater vision range in Fog of War maps. Because of their reasonable transformation time and powerful skills (not to mention flight and Canto abilities), the two Hawks are some of the few Laguz who are on par with or better than most good Beorc.
Herons: Now we get into something a bit different, but first... Their gauge fills by 3 for every turn spent untransformed (4 for Reyson), and their gauge empties by 5 for every turn spent transformed. They should never get into battle, so battle numbers don't matter much. Obviously, their gauge drains faster than it fills (even without battle), so they spend more time in their human form than in their bird form, but it hardly matters. For Herons, being transformed means they do the same thing they do when not transformed, except they happen to be slightly better at it, so unlike other Laguz they don't need to be transformed in order to be useful. Also, Herons are the ultimate support characters, both able to use Galdr to actively support and Blessing to passively support. Heron Galdr are so useful that a turn spent increasing their transformation gauge with items is a poor choice simply because they could instead be using Galdr. Herons are the one kind of Laguz that are unquestionably useful throughout the game, and might serve as a model on how Laguz should be designed in the future.
Lions: Their transformation gauge fills by 5 each turn spent in human form, and empties by 3 for every turn spent in beast form. Battle empties the gauge by 2. They build up slowly and can stay transformed for very long periods of time, and naturally fill and empty the gauge at the same rate (assuming one battle per turn). Using Olivi Grass reduces initial transformation time by three turns, with no wasted points, and transformation takes so long (and lasts so long) it makes using a Laguz Stone a very good choice. Much like with Tigers and Hawks, the ability to get a lot of benefit from items in order to fight a long time makes Lions a lot more effective than Laguz who rely on natural restoration of the transformation gauge (though it helps that Lions only join late in the game when you can actually afford the kind of items they rely upon).
Dragons: Their transformation gauge fills by 5 for each turn spent in human form (4 for White Dragons), and empties by 2 for each turn spent in dragon form. Battle empties the gauge by only 1 point. They have even better transformation gauge fill/empty rates than Lions (who were pretty good already), and thus gain even more benefit from items like Laguz Stones and Olivi Grass. In addition, they are the one kind of Laguz who can fight using indirect attacks, and White Dragons are the only kind of Laguz who can inflict magical damage. Because of all of this, they are far more useful than most Laguz and can actually match the long-term endurance of the Beorc and Laguz Royalty. Above and beyond their combat strength, though, they have an even greater role: support. Dragons have the powerful passive support skills Night Tide, Blood Tide, White Pool, and Boon that can heal and strengthen their allies, making them incredibly valuable even if they are not transformed, much like a Heron. It is a shame that Dragons only join absurdly late in the game.
As a whole, the entire system of transformation is incredibly dependent on items, so the Laguz that have good synergy with Olivi Grass and Laguz Stones are far more useful than the Laguz who don't. If there was some other way to build the transformation gauge other than natural restoration that also depended on the natural growth rate, it would probably have balanced the system out a bit more (and made Cats very useful). As it stands, though, relying on natural growth is just too slow for any Laguz.
One thing that I can't help but notice is that some of my favorite Laguz, the Herons and Dragons, both use powerful support skills to help allies even when not transformed. They don't have the kinds of unique weapons that boost their own power in special ways like the Beorc, but they have skills that boost the power of allies and add to their value. Unlike the many kinds of Bird and Beast Laguz, Dragons and Herons have advantages that go beyond the mere stat comparisons that tend to favor the more reliable Beorc characters, so it is easier to justify using them in battle. In my opinion, this is an advantage that could become a true niche for all Laguz characters in future games. Many Laguz already have slight nods towards this kind of role (skills like Howl, Glare, and Shriek weaken foes under special conditions, and many Satori Sign skills have similar weakening effects alongside their heavy damage), and there are a number of skills that could be easily altered to add to this (for example, turning an effect like Daunt into a Laguz innate skill). If nothing else, powerful character-defining skills like Vigilance and Insight can become more common. A move towards a combined combat/support role would put Laguz on a more even level with Beorc, help differentiate them from Beorc, and add to the tactical complexity of the game.
That covers most of what I have to say about the Laguz. Well, I still need to write about the Laguz Lords, but they deserve their own topic anyways. I may also write a bit more about the Herons as well. I really hope that the people behind the Fire Emblem games continue to use the Laguz in future games, and continue to improve upon the concept.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Forging Weapons
I don't think I appreciated the real value of the ability to forge custom weapons in my last playthrough of Radiant Dawn. It is an extremely useful system, and one of the many good innovations made in the two Radiance games.
From what I have read online, it seems the Japanese version of Radiant Dawn required you to spend "weapon points" that are acquired by selling old weapons in order to actually forge something. I am glad that is not the case in the US version, because that would have made the system far less useful. With the apparent difficulty of acquiring "weapon points", it would prevent the player from acquiring a large number of forged weapons, and it may have restricted forged weapons to only being used in the final phases of the game, when forged weapons would be already nearly obsolete because of the powerful SS-rank weapons and character-specific weapons. That whole subsystem would just restrict the player's ability to experiment with and have fun with the entire forging system.
The weapon point limitation was fairly unnecessary in large part because the entire system is already fairly well balanced. The whole thing works by taking one of the base weapons (Iron, Steel, and Silver versions of the default weapon types, plus a few thrown weapons and the basic Tomes other than Dark), and letting the player modify the weapon for a price. The cost increases exponentially with how much you modify it (so it is cheaper to get a slightly better weapon and expensive to get a really powerful weapon), with the base price set by the weapon price (so it is more expensive to raise the attack of a Silver Sword by 1 than it is to raise the attack of an Iron Sword by 1). Thus you have the flexibility of either making a cheap slightly-tweaked iron weapon or an incredibly expensive, but powerful buffed-up silver weapon, with both costs being (mostly) fair.
Another great thing about the system is the use of Coins. It is possible to acquire a number of items called "Coins" in the game that can be used to further upgrade an item after all other upgrades have been chosen and paid for, so you get essentially free improvements to the weapon. You can use one Coin per weapon to "choose" a random card (it gives you an illusion of choice, but in truth it is just drawn randomly, and is designed so that even resetting won't let you change the result) and add its benefits to the weapon. You can get simple things like the "Sword" card that adds to the weapon's attack power, or stronger things like the "Goddess" that slightly increases attack power, accuracy, and critical hit rate. Coins are extremely plentiful, so these free bonuses are an extremely economical way of adding to the power of your weapons. It is even possible to create weapons that are slightly better than a normal weapon at no added cost with a Coin. It is an elegant addition to the system that makes it slightly more complex and fun than the simple cost-benefit calculation of the system's main component.
For all of these reasons I really like the forging mechanic, but I still think the system could use a few more improvements. For one thing, this system makes it impossible to create weapons with any of the many special properties that are found on other weapons. For example, it is impossible to make a weapon with the "horseslayer" property that inflicts triple damage to enemy cavalry, or a "brave" weapon that can be used to attack twice. These kinds of weapons are very interesting and add a lot to the kind of tactical choices of the game, so it is a shame that they are excluded from the weapon forging system. That said, it would be somewhat excessive to enable the player to create such powerful weapons just by paying a fee. However, the "Coin" system provides a solution. It would be easy enough to let the player get special properties just by drawing the right card.
At this point, though, I wonder if the "Coin" system could be improved somewhat. As it stands, Coins are a nice treasure, but hardly something that feels particularly valuable or worthy of effort. After all, you may draw a good card with a Coin, but you might also end up drawing the "Vine" card and getting nothing at all for your spent Coin. In addition, you get so many Coins that it reaches a point where you simply don't need any more. Perhaps it would be better if the random element of Coin effects were dropped. Instead of finding Coins, it might be better to find "Sword Coins", "Goddess Coins", and "Brave Coins". Instead of giving up a generic Coin in the hope of getting a good benefit, the player would have to put the effort into finding particularly rare and valuable Coins and then choosing how to spend them wisely. This kind of change would make finding Coins more rewarding and would add to the kinds of choices available to the player.
On a much more minor note, I really like the ability to change the color of a forged weapon, but I would have preferred it if the chosen color overwrote the default color, rather than simply be layered on top of the existing color. The current effect is far from satisfying in many ways. It is impossible to get a pure black weapon, for example, and combining colorful Tomes with any color gets unusual results. I also would not mind the ability to choose the design of the sword in addition to the color. At the very least, the Blade/Greatlance/Poleaxe models should be available in addition to the default weapon models. After all, a lot of smaller weapons look fairly ridiculous in the hands of larger characters like Generals.
Finally, I owe this thought to my brother, but this kind of weapon customization would be a great thing to combine with the Fire Emblem 4 scheme, where weapons can't be easily traded between characters, don't vanish forever after breaking, and can be passed down from one generation to the next. It seems like it would be a lot more fun to pass down an incredibly powerful forged weapon rather than an Iron Sword. This kind of system would also be a good combination with the older and more restrictive Weapon Level scheme which made the distinctions between Iron, Steel, and Silver weapons part of the distinctions between characters and classes.
From what I have read online, it seems the Japanese version of Radiant Dawn required you to spend "weapon points" that are acquired by selling old weapons in order to actually forge something. I am glad that is not the case in the US version, because that would have made the system far less useful. With the apparent difficulty of acquiring "weapon points", it would prevent the player from acquiring a large number of forged weapons, and it may have restricted forged weapons to only being used in the final phases of the game, when forged weapons would be already nearly obsolete because of the powerful SS-rank weapons and character-specific weapons. That whole subsystem would just restrict the player's ability to experiment with and have fun with the entire forging system.
The weapon point limitation was fairly unnecessary in large part because the entire system is already fairly well balanced. The whole thing works by taking one of the base weapons (Iron, Steel, and Silver versions of the default weapon types, plus a few thrown weapons and the basic Tomes other than Dark), and letting the player modify the weapon for a price. The cost increases exponentially with how much you modify it (so it is cheaper to get a slightly better weapon and expensive to get a really powerful weapon), with the base price set by the weapon price (so it is more expensive to raise the attack of a Silver Sword by 1 than it is to raise the attack of an Iron Sword by 1). Thus you have the flexibility of either making a cheap slightly-tweaked iron weapon or an incredibly expensive, but powerful buffed-up silver weapon, with both costs being (mostly) fair.
Another great thing about the system is the use of Coins. It is possible to acquire a number of items called "Coins" in the game that can be used to further upgrade an item after all other upgrades have been chosen and paid for, so you get essentially free improvements to the weapon. You can use one Coin per weapon to "choose" a random card (it gives you an illusion of choice, but in truth it is just drawn randomly, and is designed so that even resetting won't let you change the result) and add its benefits to the weapon. You can get simple things like the "Sword" card that adds to the weapon's attack power, or stronger things like the "Goddess" that slightly increases attack power, accuracy, and critical hit rate. Coins are extremely plentiful, so these free bonuses are an extremely economical way of adding to the power of your weapons. It is even possible to create weapons that are slightly better than a normal weapon at no added cost with a Coin. It is an elegant addition to the system that makes it slightly more complex and fun than the simple cost-benefit calculation of the system's main component.
For all of these reasons I really like the forging mechanic, but I still think the system could use a few more improvements. For one thing, this system makes it impossible to create weapons with any of the many special properties that are found on other weapons. For example, it is impossible to make a weapon with the "horseslayer" property that inflicts triple damage to enemy cavalry, or a "brave" weapon that can be used to attack twice. These kinds of weapons are very interesting and add a lot to the kind of tactical choices of the game, so it is a shame that they are excluded from the weapon forging system. That said, it would be somewhat excessive to enable the player to create such powerful weapons just by paying a fee. However, the "Coin" system provides a solution. It would be easy enough to let the player get special properties just by drawing the right card.
At this point, though, I wonder if the "Coin" system could be improved somewhat. As it stands, Coins are a nice treasure, but hardly something that feels particularly valuable or worthy of effort. After all, you may draw a good card with a Coin, but you might also end up drawing the "Vine" card and getting nothing at all for your spent Coin. In addition, you get so many Coins that it reaches a point where you simply don't need any more. Perhaps it would be better if the random element of Coin effects were dropped. Instead of finding Coins, it might be better to find "Sword Coins", "Goddess Coins", and "Brave Coins". Instead of giving up a generic Coin in the hope of getting a good benefit, the player would have to put the effort into finding particularly rare and valuable Coins and then choosing how to spend them wisely. This kind of change would make finding Coins more rewarding and would add to the kinds of choices available to the player.
On a much more minor note, I really like the ability to change the color of a forged weapon, but I would have preferred it if the chosen color overwrote the default color, rather than simply be layered on top of the existing color. The current effect is far from satisfying in many ways. It is impossible to get a pure black weapon, for example, and combining colorful Tomes with any color gets unusual results. I also would not mind the ability to choose the design of the sword in addition to the color. At the very least, the Blade/Greatlance/Poleaxe models should be available in addition to the default weapon models. After all, a lot of smaller weapons look fairly ridiculous in the hands of larger characters like Generals.
Finally, I owe this thought to my brother, but this kind of weapon customization would be a great thing to combine with the Fire Emblem 4 scheme, where weapons can't be easily traded between characters, don't vanish forever after breaking, and can be passed down from one generation to the next. It seems like it would be a lot more fun to pass down an incredibly powerful forged weapon rather than an Iron Sword. This kind of system would also be a good combination with the older and more restrictive Weapon Level scheme which made the distinctions between Iron, Steel, and Silver weapons part of the distinctions between characters and classes.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Second Playthrough
About a week ago, I decided to play through Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn again. It is a good game, so I have been having a lot of fun with it. Knowing what is going to happen next in the game beforehand and remembering some of my old strategies for tricky stages is helping make this playthrough quite a bit easier. However, one thing that is bugging me is that so far there really hasn't been anything new for me to experiment with, and it doesn't seem like the basic game experience is going to be all that different from last time.
Radiant Dawn's predecessor, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, makes a number of additions to the second playthrough that are really interesting. For one, in that game's second playthrough you can acquire item like the Knight Band or Wyvern Band that let you modify the rates at which your characters' stats increase upon level up. Alternatively, you could forego the classic random stat scheme of the fire Emblem series and play in "Fixed Mode" where stat growth is not random at all. These are not major changes, but they are still things that make subsequent playthroughs of the game a bit different than the first time, which adds to the replay value. While I am aware that a second playthrough of Radiant Dawn isn't exactly the same as the first playthrough, it still doesn't have any kind of pervasive game mechanic changes like the Bands or Fixed Mode, which is disappointing.
Still, one thing that is beginning to surprise me about the Fire Emblem series is the extreme influence of the randomness of stat growth upon the game. Because character stats go up randomly based on stat growth probabilities, the same character can turn out very differently depending on how their stats grow. Last time around I completely wrote off the character Nolan because several of his most important stats barely grew at all, resulting in a character who was too weak to even be useful in a fight. Yet this time around Nolan's stat growth has been incredible, and as a result he is one of the characters I have been relying upon the most. When this randomness is combined with the fact that there are more characters than you can even use in one playthrough, and that there are a very large number of different Support combinations, it means that while the challenges you face may be static, the strategies you can use to build a team to overcome that challenge may change every time, and there is never a single set path to victory. In this regard, perhaps it is not strictly necessary that subsequent playthroughs have a large number of added features.
Anyways, I am looking forward to the rest of this second playthrough of the game. Simply knowing basic things like which characters are available in which missions are going to make planning out this playthrough a lot easier, provided that the random number generator doesn't throw me a curve-ball...
Radiant Dawn's predecessor, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, makes a number of additions to the second playthrough that are really interesting. For one, in that game's second playthrough you can acquire item like the Knight Band or Wyvern Band that let you modify the rates at which your characters' stats increase upon level up. Alternatively, you could forego the classic random stat scheme of the fire Emblem series and play in "Fixed Mode" where stat growth is not random at all. These are not major changes, but they are still things that make subsequent playthroughs of the game a bit different than the first time, which adds to the replay value. While I am aware that a second playthrough of Radiant Dawn isn't exactly the same as the first playthrough, it still doesn't have any kind of pervasive game mechanic changes like the Bands or Fixed Mode, which is disappointing.
Still, one thing that is beginning to surprise me about the Fire Emblem series is the extreme influence of the randomness of stat growth upon the game. Because character stats go up randomly based on stat growth probabilities, the same character can turn out very differently depending on how their stats grow. Last time around I completely wrote off the character Nolan because several of his most important stats barely grew at all, resulting in a character who was too weak to even be useful in a fight. Yet this time around Nolan's stat growth has been incredible, and as a result he is one of the characters I have been relying upon the most. When this randomness is combined with the fact that there are more characters than you can even use in one playthrough, and that there are a very large number of different Support combinations, it means that while the challenges you face may be static, the strategies you can use to build a team to overcome that challenge may change every time, and there is never a single set path to victory. In this regard, perhaps it is not strictly necessary that subsequent playthroughs have a large number of added features.
Anyways, I am looking forward to the rest of this second playthrough of the game. Simply knowing basic things like which characters are available in which missions are going to make planning out this playthrough a lot easier, provided that the random number generator doesn't throw me a curve-ball...
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Part 7
Game Completion: 100% Complete (I finished it on Christmas, actually)
I have finally completed this game. It was rather difficult, and counting resets and restarts, must have taken me nearly 100 hours. It was a good game, overall, and I am glad I played it. I guess it is finally time for me to write a bit about the game's story. Again, there will be spoilers of the game's plot below.
Overall, the game has a good story. The game has great characters, a lot of interesting twists, several great dramatic scenes, and interweaves gameplay and story very well. At the very least, the story justifies every battle, and every battle moves the story along, which is the most important element of any videogame's plot. While I can't say it is the best story I have encountered in a videogame, it is very entertaining.
Still, there are a few major weaknesses of the game plot, as both a story and a game.
The biggest weakness of the plot is the uneven length and importance of the first three parts. The first part is excellent, and one of the strongest parts of the game. The third part is also very good, even if it is a bit too long. The problem is the second part. The story of the Crimean rebellion has no real connection to the rest of the plot, and as a whole doesn't fit well with the themes of the game. Also, its short length gives the characters of that chapter very little time to grow, making them fall behind the power curve and unbalancing the gameplay aspect of the differing perspectives. As a whole, it seems that the developers couldn't decide whether to make Elincia one of the main characters (like Ike and Micaiah) or just another normal character, and it seems that though they wanted to have three shifting perspectives, they had trouble fitting that many. I think the whole game should either have been shorter, omitting the third perspective, or the third and fourth parts should have been shorter, and more time should have been spent fleshing the third perspective out. In fact, a lot of good could have been done if more of the game was seen from Sanaki's perspective, which brings me to my next point.
The next major weakness of the plot is that, despite the huge importance of the internal politics of Begnion to the main plot, these politics are essentially invisible to the player. Important events, like Sanaki's imprisonment and escape, occur completely off-screen. and when they are revealed to the player they feel more like Deus ex Machina than a logical progression of events.
As a result of that flaw, the major villains of the game, the Begnion Senators, are not visible enough for them to actually be properly developed. All of them, especially their leader, Lekain, are flat, uninteresting characters. One of the biggest strengths of the last game was the way it developed the Black Knight and King Ashnard as villains, but very little of that kind of development is seen here. And even when major villains like Izuka, Numida, or Lekain are finally slain, there is very little fanfare or discussion of the fact. The Black Knight, himself, is a victim of this lack of development. He was an incredibly interesting character in the last game, so much so that I expected him to be the final villain of Path of Radiance when I was still playing through it. But in this game, despite his interesting role in the first Part, he is mostly invisible and absent, and the revelation of his true identity is not handled well. I blame this on the fact that it is pretty much impossible for the player to guess his true identity beforehand, due to the same lack of visibility for the villains. I suppose I can say the same about Sephiran.
Another point is that the game is a bit slow in the first section of the fourth part. There are five whole chapters that consist of only meaningless battles against Ashera's minions, all with the same winning conditions and general battle flow. It didn't advance the story very well, and it got very repetitive in a game that otherwise has very varied and interesting battles. However, the end of the fourth part, the final battle in the Tower of Guidance, is quite good.
Also, even though Yune is a fantastic character, the fact that she only speaks through Micaiah is something of a weakness of the game, because it restricts Micaiah's own ability to play a role in story scenes. As a result, Micaiah, one of the two main characters of the game, and one of the game's best characters, feels absent from the story, and is not developed very well in this time.
Overall, I think the game would have been a bit better if Elincia's chapter was removed, Ike's chapter was moved to be the second part (but ended at the Laguz Army's retreat from Begnion), a new chapter with Sanaki as the main character followed from there to the release of Yune, the final part was changed somewhat, and more scenes depicting the movement of the Senators, the details of the Blood Pact, and the actions and intents of Zelgius and Sephiran were added.
Still, I don't want this to come across as a statement that plot of the game was bad. I really did enjoy it. Sooner or later, I am going to need to play through this game a second time. After all, from what I have read on GameFAQs, there are a few major plot and gameplay changes for a second time through the game, and I really want to see those. But that will have to wait for another time.
I have finally completed this game. It was rather difficult, and counting resets and restarts, must have taken me nearly 100 hours. It was a good game, overall, and I am glad I played it. I guess it is finally time for me to write a bit about the game's story. Again, there will be spoilers of the game's plot below.
Overall, the game has a good story. The game has great characters, a lot of interesting twists, several great dramatic scenes, and interweaves gameplay and story very well. At the very least, the story justifies every battle, and every battle moves the story along, which is the most important element of any videogame's plot. While I can't say it is the best story I have encountered in a videogame, it is very entertaining.
Still, there are a few major weaknesses of the game plot, as both a story and a game.
The biggest weakness of the plot is the uneven length and importance of the first three parts. The first part is excellent, and one of the strongest parts of the game. The third part is also very good, even if it is a bit too long. The problem is the second part. The story of the Crimean rebellion has no real connection to the rest of the plot, and as a whole doesn't fit well with the themes of the game. Also, its short length gives the characters of that chapter very little time to grow, making them fall behind the power curve and unbalancing the gameplay aspect of the differing perspectives. As a whole, it seems that the developers couldn't decide whether to make Elincia one of the main characters (like Ike and Micaiah) or just another normal character, and it seems that though they wanted to have three shifting perspectives, they had trouble fitting that many. I think the whole game should either have been shorter, omitting the third perspective, or the third and fourth parts should have been shorter, and more time should have been spent fleshing the third perspective out. In fact, a lot of good could have been done if more of the game was seen from Sanaki's perspective, which brings me to my next point.
The next major weakness of the plot is that, despite the huge importance of the internal politics of Begnion to the main plot, these politics are essentially invisible to the player. Important events, like Sanaki's imprisonment and escape, occur completely off-screen. and when they are revealed to the player they feel more like Deus ex Machina than a logical progression of events.
As a result of that flaw, the major villains of the game, the Begnion Senators, are not visible enough for them to actually be properly developed. All of them, especially their leader, Lekain, are flat, uninteresting characters. One of the biggest strengths of the last game was the way it developed the Black Knight and King Ashnard as villains, but very little of that kind of development is seen here. And even when major villains like Izuka, Numida, or Lekain are finally slain, there is very little fanfare or discussion of the fact. The Black Knight, himself, is a victim of this lack of development. He was an incredibly interesting character in the last game, so much so that I expected him to be the final villain of Path of Radiance when I was still playing through it. But in this game, despite his interesting role in the first Part, he is mostly invisible and absent, and the revelation of his true identity is not handled well. I blame this on the fact that it is pretty much impossible for the player to guess his true identity beforehand, due to the same lack of visibility for the villains. I suppose I can say the same about Sephiran.
Another point is that the game is a bit slow in the first section of the fourth part. There are five whole chapters that consist of only meaningless battles against Ashera's minions, all with the same winning conditions and general battle flow. It didn't advance the story very well, and it got very repetitive in a game that otherwise has very varied and interesting battles. However, the end of the fourth part, the final battle in the Tower of Guidance, is quite good.
Also, even though Yune is a fantastic character, the fact that she only speaks through Micaiah is something of a weakness of the game, because it restricts Micaiah's own ability to play a role in story scenes. As a result, Micaiah, one of the two main characters of the game, and one of the game's best characters, feels absent from the story, and is not developed very well in this time.
Overall, I think the game would have been a bit better if Elincia's chapter was removed, Ike's chapter was moved to be the second part (but ended at the Laguz Army's retreat from Begnion), a new chapter with Sanaki as the main character followed from there to the release of Yune, the final part was changed somewhat, and more scenes depicting the movement of the Senators, the details of the Blood Pact, and the actions and intents of Zelgius and Sephiran were added.
Still, I don't want this to come across as a statement that plot of the game was bad. I really did enjoy it. Sooner or later, I am going to need to play through this game a second time. After all, from what I have read on GameFAQs, there are a few major plot and gameplay changes for a second time through the game, and I really want to see those. But that will have to wait for another time.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Part 6
Game Completion: Currently on Chapter 4-5. About 88% complete, I think.
I really want to write about the plot of the game in depth, but I really should wait until I compete the game. So, more gameplay stuff.
Classes: I have mixed opinions on the new three-tier class system used in Radiant Dawn, a significant change from the two-tier class system from the earlier iterations of the series. I think it has a lot of good qualities, but at the same time, the implementation of the idea is a bit uneven.
Even though the addition of a whole tier is a big change to the system, in practice it actually doesn't change the feel of the game very much from earlier iterations, because the majority of the characters start at the second tier. The few characters in first tier classes end up behaving like the three journeyman characters from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, characters who start weaker than normal but end up very powerful (well, some just stay weak in this game). The characters only reach the third tier late in the game, like normal promotion in older Fire Emblem games. However, it lacks the advantage from The Sacred Stones of letting low-tier characters be more flexible than more advanced characters. Also, the very large number of levels each character needs to gain in order to class up exaggerates differences in stat growth, but more importantly, it severely limits the usefulness of characters who are not available for many missions (like the Crimean Royal Knights). Because of this, having more tiers of classes may not be a good match for a game with shifting perspectives.
Another issue with the three tiers of classes is that the benefits from classing up are uneven between the different classes. For example, Falcoknights and Dragonmasters (second tier classes) have access to two weapons, but similar Paladins don't get a second weapon until the third-tier upgrade (when they already have less mobility and lower stats). Many classes don't get the classic benefits of classing up (like sages acquiring staves) until the second class up, while others gain such benefits at the first class up (everyone gets more movement, Swordmasters get improved critical hit rates, etc), and other classes get powerful, unheard of abilities at second class-up (like Marksmen getting improved range for bows).
Still, one of the more interesting things about this system is that it lets the controllable characters rise far above normal enemies. Enemy grunts don't have access to third-tier classes (instead, they just get higher stat caps), so they lack the special abilities, powerful attack skills, and impressive appearance of classed-up characters. It lets fun and deadly attack skills like Sol, Luna, and Astra be available to every character, but keeps them away from enemy grunts, who would easily kill a controllable character with just a little luck with such moves (which would be overly frustrating). Also, it matches a lot of the tone of the story of the game in Part 4.
Weapons: I really don't have much to say about the classic weapon triangle of Fire Emblem (Axes, Swords, and Lances). Those three weapons have a lot of variety and work well in this game. Similarly, I don't have a lot to say about the Anima spells (Fire, Wind, and Thunder), other than that they should probably have at least one spell in each category which does something unique, to differentiate the spell types a bit more than they are. Also, the fact that the mission I am currently in, very late in the game, is the first chance to exploit the special advantages of the Fire spells (bonus damage to Beast Laguz), and Wind spells are barely any better, is something of a flaw in the game.
I think that Light magic and Dark magic could have been handled better in this game. As a whole, neither type of magic has any special property that would make it unique compared to Anima magic. The main benefit of Light magic, its effectiveness against Dark magic, is limited by the severe lack of Dark magic users in the game. Obviously, that lack hurts Dark magic as weapon type as well. As a whole, having two Trinities of Magic has diluted the purpose of these spell types too much, and it might be better if the Fire Emblem series returned to the Fire Emblem 4 system of having both Light and Dark be effective against the Anima types, and neutral against each other.
Bows suffer a bit in this game from the prevalence of good weapons from the main Triangle which have a range of 1-2. This dilutes the niche bows traditionally have had in the series (being the main ranged physical weapon) significantly. Also, the very low accuracy and rarity of longbows with a range of 2-3 removes an advantage. However, the ability of the Marksman class to use all bows effectively at a range of 2-3 restores that advantage, just a bit too late. As a whole, I think the advantage of bows with a range of 2-3 should be maintained more consistently across the game. Otherwise, bows work well.
I think, as it stands, Knives are not really in the same category as other weapons. They still show too many signs of their very recent evolution from thieves using swords. The stats for the silver dagger are nearly identical to the stats for a silver sword, and the only classes to use knives are the rogue variants. It would be better If more classes used them (Archers, maybe?), and they were further differentiated from swords.
Crossbows are actually one of the best innovations in the weapon system of this game. They work well, and feel more distinct from bows than daggers are from swords. Still, it would be better if more classes had access to crossbows, if there was a bit more variety to them, and if they were actually ranked like other weapons. Most importantly, it should be clearer which classes could equip crossbows (since this information is not available on any character information screen in-game).
Finally, I think the whole system of building up weapon levels is a bit flawed. Currently, there are too many ranks (E through SS, making each growth of weapon level mean too little), a class needs to be in at least rank C to even use decent weapons of a category (so even third-tier Marshalls need to equip weak Iron Lances), and physical weapons and magic categories seem to build up at radically different speeds (causing mages to fall far behind). Overall, this system just overly restricts characters from accessing the rare and powerful weapons of the late game (not fun), and has no clear benefit. It would be better to revert to the much older system of having weapon levels build up automatically at class-up, with certain characters having bonuses to certain weapon types.
I really want to write about the plot of the game in depth, but I really should wait until I compete the game. So, more gameplay stuff.
Classes: I have mixed opinions on the new three-tier class system used in Radiant Dawn, a significant change from the two-tier class system from the earlier iterations of the series. I think it has a lot of good qualities, but at the same time, the implementation of the idea is a bit uneven.
Even though the addition of a whole tier is a big change to the system, in practice it actually doesn't change the feel of the game very much from earlier iterations, because the majority of the characters start at the second tier. The few characters in first tier classes end up behaving like the three journeyman characters from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, characters who start weaker than normal but end up very powerful (well, some just stay weak in this game). The characters only reach the third tier late in the game, like normal promotion in older Fire Emblem games. However, it lacks the advantage from The Sacred Stones of letting low-tier characters be more flexible than more advanced characters. Also, the very large number of levels each character needs to gain in order to class up exaggerates differences in stat growth, but more importantly, it severely limits the usefulness of characters who are not available for many missions (like the Crimean Royal Knights). Because of this, having more tiers of classes may not be a good match for a game with shifting perspectives.
Another issue with the three tiers of classes is that the benefits from classing up are uneven between the different classes. For example, Falcoknights and Dragonmasters (second tier classes) have access to two weapons, but similar Paladins don't get a second weapon until the third-tier upgrade (when they already have less mobility and lower stats). Many classes don't get the classic benefits of classing up (like sages acquiring staves) until the second class up, while others gain such benefits at the first class up (everyone gets more movement, Swordmasters get improved critical hit rates, etc), and other classes get powerful, unheard of abilities at second class-up (like Marksmen getting improved range for bows).
Still, one of the more interesting things about this system is that it lets the controllable characters rise far above normal enemies. Enemy grunts don't have access to third-tier classes (instead, they just get higher stat caps), so they lack the special abilities, powerful attack skills, and impressive appearance of classed-up characters. It lets fun and deadly attack skills like Sol, Luna, and Astra be available to every character, but keeps them away from enemy grunts, who would easily kill a controllable character with just a little luck with such moves (which would be overly frustrating). Also, it matches a lot of the tone of the story of the game in Part 4.
Weapons: I really don't have much to say about the classic weapon triangle of Fire Emblem (Axes, Swords, and Lances). Those three weapons have a lot of variety and work well in this game. Similarly, I don't have a lot to say about the Anima spells (Fire, Wind, and Thunder), other than that they should probably have at least one spell in each category which does something unique, to differentiate the spell types a bit more than they are. Also, the fact that the mission I am currently in, very late in the game, is the first chance to exploit the special advantages of the Fire spells (bonus damage to Beast Laguz), and Wind spells are barely any better, is something of a flaw in the game.
I think that Light magic and Dark magic could have been handled better in this game. As a whole, neither type of magic has any special property that would make it unique compared to Anima magic. The main benefit of Light magic, its effectiveness against Dark magic, is limited by the severe lack of Dark magic users in the game. Obviously, that lack hurts Dark magic as weapon type as well. As a whole, having two Trinities of Magic has diluted the purpose of these spell types too much, and it might be better if the Fire Emblem series returned to the Fire Emblem 4 system of having both Light and Dark be effective against the Anima types, and neutral against each other.
Bows suffer a bit in this game from the prevalence of good weapons from the main Triangle which have a range of 1-2. This dilutes the niche bows traditionally have had in the series (being the main ranged physical weapon) significantly. Also, the very low accuracy and rarity of longbows with a range of 2-3 removes an advantage. However, the ability of the Marksman class to use all bows effectively at a range of 2-3 restores that advantage, just a bit too late. As a whole, I think the advantage of bows with a range of 2-3 should be maintained more consistently across the game. Otherwise, bows work well.
I think, as it stands, Knives are not really in the same category as other weapons. They still show too many signs of their very recent evolution from thieves using swords. The stats for the silver dagger are nearly identical to the stats for a silver sword, and the only classes to use knives are the rogue variants. It would be better If more classes used them (Archers, maybe?), and they were further differentiated from swords.
Crossbows are actually one of the best innovations in the weapon system of this game. They work well, and feel more distinct from bows than daggers are from swords. Still, it would be better if more classes had access to crossbows, if there was a bit more variety to them, and if they were actually ranked like other weapons. Most importantly, it should be clearer which classes could equip crossbows (since this information is not available on any character information screen in-game).
Finally, I think the whole system of building up weapon levels is a bit flawed. Currently, there are too many ranks (E through SS, making each growth of weapon level mean too little), a class needs to be in at least rank C to even use decent weapons of a category (so even third-tier Marshalls need to equip weak Iron Lances), and physical weapons and magic categories seem to build up at radically different speeds (causing mages to fall far behind). Overall, this system just overly restricts characters from accessing the rare and powerful weapons of the late game (not fun), and has no clear benefit. It would be better to revert to the much older system of having weapon levels build up automatically at class-up, with certain characters having bonuses to certain weapon types.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Part 5
Game Completion: Starting Chapter 4-1.
I am finally in the final stretch of the game. The story has been great the whole way and the gameplay is a lot of fun, but the difficulty has been fairly high for a while now, so I am going rather slowly. I hope I can beat this game by Christmas.
The biggest difference between this game and previous Fire Emblem games is the way the story shifts perspectives between different groups. It is a great storytelling device, that lets the player see the plot from different perspectives and adds to the complexity of the story. Because the different perspectives are often on different sides of the main conflict for large stretches of the story, it prevents the story from degenerating into a simple story of heroes against villains, and lets the many tragic elements of the story play out effectively. Suikoden 3 is another RPG that makes great use of this to tell a story about a tragic war, and I imagine that any game that wants to portray a conflict as senseless or tragic needs to make some use of this technique in order to be effective.
One of the more surprising things that results from the shifting perspectives in this game is the way that it affects the characterization of Ike, the main character of the previous game and a major character of this game. In the chapters where he is an ally he is the same kind, trusting, and noble warrior he has always been, but in the missions where he is the enemy commander, he takes on a fierce, ruthless quality, without the creators even changing the way he speaks or acts. When he went onto the field of battle himself and advanced towards my units, it was one of the more terrifying things I experienced in the game. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.
Anyways, enough about story, it's time to talk about gameplay.
Having the game shift between three or so groups of characters drastically changes the way a Fire Emblem game is played. Traditionally, the series has been about recruiting characters and slowly turning a small army into a large one, as well as slowly sifting out the characters you recruit, ignoring weak ones and building up characters with potential. Radiant Dawn turns that upside down. Because of the shifting perspective, the player must use about 60-70% of the available characters at a time, and in many missions, you must use every character available to you, rather than the old formula of choosing your favorite dozen characters for every mission and ignoring the rest. Even though there are even more characters than in the last game, there are fewer characters you can ignore, and there are even far less people you recruit in the traditional style of the series (instead, you tend to get a large block of characters every time the perspective switches to a new group).
One of the less obvious ways that this change affects the game is the way it changes the difficulty of the game, In older Fire Emblem games, you could usually count of having the best possible team for any given chapter, built only from characters with high levels, good equipment, and good stat growth. Because Radiant Dawn forces you to use a larger percentage of your team, and you can't choose from your whole lineup for any given mission, you are forced to use sub-optimal teams and below average characters on a regular basis. Also, your few powerful weapons and skills need to be stretched between a wider group of characters, so any individual character has fewer options than in the previous game. These effects are compensated for somewhat by evening out character power a bit more than usual, making bonus experience plentiful, and giving out more powerful, character-specific weapons, but it does a lot to add to the game's difficulty.
Finally, Radiant Dawn makes very good use of the combination of shifting perspectives and the iconic Fire Emblem rule that any character who dies in battle is permanently lost. Missions where you have to fight against the characters you like and have worked hard to build up are even more dramatic and complex than normal missions. Killing controllable characters is not fun, and hurts your chances at completing the game, so the player naturally wants to avoid hurting them, and the game designers integrate that emotional reaction into mission design and the story. They turn that impulse into an unspoken mission objective, and write ways to avoid such losses into the mission objectives, so the player is never forced into killing a controllable character, while at the same time making the battle and mission objectives believable. These battles are stressful and difficult, but are also some of the best missions in the game.
One of these missions, Chapter 3-Endgame, deserves a whole post dedicated to it, so I will write more on it another day.
I am finally in the final stretch of the game. The story has been great the whole way and the gameplay is a lot of fun, but the difficulty has been fairly high for a while now, so I am going rather slowly. I hope I can beat this game by Christmas.
The biggest difference between this game and previous Fire Emblem games is the way the story shifts perspectives between different groups. It is a great storytelling device, that lets the player see the plot from different perspectives and adds to the complexity of the story. Because the different perspectives are often on different sides of the main conflict for large stretches of the story, it prevents the story from degenerating into a simple story of heroes against villains, and lets the many tragic elements of the story play out effectively. Suikoden 3 is another RPG that makes great use of this to tell a story about a tragic war, and I imagine that any game that wants to portray a conflict as senseless or tragic needs to make some use of this technique in order to be effective.
One of the more surprising things that results from the shifting perspectives in this game is the way that it affects the characterization of Ike, the main character of the previous game and a major character of this game. In the chapters where he is an ally he is the same kind, trusting, and noble warrior he has always been, but in the missions where he is the enemy commander, he takes on a fierce, ruthless quality, without the creators even changing the way he speaks or acts. When he went onto the field of battle himself and advanced towards my units, it was one of the more terrifying things I experienced in the game. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.
Anyways, enough about story, it's time to talk about gameplay.
Having the game shift between three or so groups of characters drastically changes the way a Fire Emblem game is played. Traditionally, the series has been about recruiting characters and slowly turning a small army into a large one, as well as slowly sifting out the characters you recruit, ignoring weak ones and building up characters with potential. Radiant Dawn turns that upside down. Because of the shifting perspective, the player must use about 60-70% of the available characters at a time, and in many missions, you must use every character available to you, rather than the old formula of choosing your favorite dozen characters for every mission and ignoring the rest. Even though there are even more characters than in the last game, there are fewer characters you can ignore, and there are even far less people you recruit in the traditional style of the series (instead, you tend to get a large block of characters every time the perspective switches to a new group).
One of the less obvious ways that this change affects the game is the way it changes the difficulty of the game, In older Fire Emblem games, you could usually count of having the best possible team for any given chapter, built only from characters with high levels, good equipment, and good stat growth. Because Radiant Dawn forces you to use a larger percentage of your team, and you can't choose from your whole lineup for any given mission, you are forced to use sub-optimal teams and below average characters on a regular basis. Also, your few powerful weapons and skills need to be stretched between a wider group of characters, so any individual character has fewer options than in the previous game. These effects are compensated for somewhat by evening out character power a bit more than usual, making bonus experience plentiful, and giving out more powerful, character-specific weapons, but it does a lot to add to the game's difficulty.
Finally, Radiant Dawn makes very good use of the combination of shifting perspectives and the iconic Fire Emblem rule that any character who dies in battle is permanently lost. Missions where you have to fight against the characters you like and have worked hard to build up are even more dramatic and complex than normal missions. Killing controllable characters is not fun, and hurts your chances at completing the game, so the player naturally wants to avoid hurting them, and the game designers integrate that emotional reaction into mission design and the story. They turn that impulse into an unspoken mission objective, and write ways to avoid such losses into the mission objectives, so the player is never forced into killing a controllable character, while at the same time making the battle and mission objectives believable. These battles are stressful and difficult, but are also some of the best missions in the game.
One of these missions, Chapter 3-Endgame, deserves a whole post dedicated to it, so I will write more on it another day.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Part 4
It is Thursday again, so time for the next entry about the big game I am playing right now.
Game Completion: In the middle of Chapter 3-10
A few more details worthy of mention:
Shops in Radiant Dawn show the signs of the gradual improvement of the Fire Emblem system. In older Fire Emblem games, you can only buy weapons if you bring a character to a Shop or Armory square during a battle, and few missions even had Shops or Armories. Buying items was a fairly stressful task of somehow guessing the number of weapons you needed to buy in order to last your army until the next shop became available, determining what weapons to buy and how much you could afford, and balancing this with the limited item capacity of your individual soldiers and the needs of actually trying to win the battle at the same time. In addition to the strain on the player, it limits map design, because it is required to have visitable shops every few stages, regardless of what makes sense for the plot or what makes sense for a particular mission.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones made a slight improvement, in which you could buy from battle shops in the overworld after you cleared the mission and at the preparation screen before battles (albeit at higher than normal prices and with a limited inventory). Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance made the significant improvement of moving all shops (except the secret shop) to the new Base screen, which clears up all of the problems caused by shopping in the middle of a battle. Radiant Dawn takes this a step further, by adding the "special inventory" of unique items in the main Shop, which mostly replaces the role of the secret shop that lets the player buy rare and powerful items. I don't know if there is a secret shop in Radiant Dawn, but it is no longer needed. The special inventory, which changes with each mission, also is an interesting way of providing hints about the challenges of the coming mission by providing special weapons and items that improve your chances at beating the mission.
The Forge, introduced in Path of Radiance, is another useful addition to the series. The ability to forge weapons of much greater than normal power helps even out normal characters against more powerful characters like Ike, the main hero of Path of Radiance, especially since there were very few powerful "S-Rank" weapons in Path of Radiance, and it was difficult to even find characters capable of using A-rank weapons. In Radiant Dawn, the forge is mostly the same, except it seems to be cheaper, the arbitrary limitation of one use per chapter has been removed, and the ability to add small boosts to a forged item by using rare items has been added. There is supposed to be a system of expanding the options of the forge by selling your old weapons, but the options of the forge seem to shift from stage to stage as well, so I am unsure how useful that function is. Like many things in Fire Emblem, a bit more documentation and transparency would be appreciated.
The Skill system, returning in Path of Radiance after being introduced in Fire Emblem 4 and missing from the GBA games, has been improved somewhat in Radiant Dawn. I am honestly baffled as to why basic abilities like Shove and Canto, which are inherent to whole categories of characters, cost valuable skill points, but other than that, I like the system. Unlike in Path of Radiance, when you remove a skill from a character it is now moved to your inventroy, rather than just disappearing. This makes skill assignment more flexible and less stressful, and encourages experimentation. At the same time, the skills a character starts with will cost nothing unless they are removed, so there is both a distinct advantage to leaving those skills equipped, and the freedom to remove them and use them on someone else. It is quite elegent. Also, the addition of third-tier Beorc unique class skils and the Satori Sign skills for Laguz, which are powerful, can not be removed, and don't have a net cost for the character, is an improvement on the useful but somewhat limiting and scarce Occult Skills from the previous game.
I will need to discuss the addition of a third-tier class upgrade for Beorc after I get more of a chance to actually use those classes.
Game Completion: In the middle of Chapter 3-10
A few more details worthy of mention:
Shops in Radiant Dawn show the signs of the gradual improvement of the Fire Emblem system. In older Fire Emblem games, you can only buy weapons if you bring a character to a Shop or Armory square during a battle, and few missions even had Shops or Armories. Buying items was a fairly stressful task of somehow guessing the number of weapons you needed to buy in order to last your army until the next shop became available, determining what weapons to buy and how much you could afford, and balancing this with the limited item capacity of your individual soldiers and the needs of actually trying to win the battle at the same time. In addition to the strain on the player, it limits map design, because it is required to have visitable shops every few stages, regardless of what makes sense for the plot or what makes sense for a particular mission.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones made a slight improvement, in which you could buy from battle shops in the overworld after you cleared the mission and at the preparation screen before battles (albeit at higher than normal prices and with a limited inventory). Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance made the significant improvement of moving all shops (except the secret shop) to the new Base screen, which clears up all of the problems caused by shopping in the middle of a battle. Radiant Dawn takes this a step further, by adding the "special inventory" of unique items in the main Shop, which mostly replaces the role of the secret shop that lets the player buy rare and powerful items. I don't know if there is a secret shop in Radiant Dawn, but it is no longer needed. The special inventory, which changes with each mission, also is an interesting way of providing hints about the challenges of the coming mission by providing special weapons and items that improve your chances at beating the mission.
The Forge, introduced in Path of Radiance, is another useful addition to the series. The ability to forge weapons of much greater than normal power helps even out normal characters against more powerful characters like Ike, the main hero of Path of Radiance, especially since there were very few powerful "S-Rank" weapons in Path of Radiance, and it was difficult to even find characters capable of using A-rank weapons. In Radiant Dawn, the forge is mostly the same, except it seems to be cheaper, the arbitrary limitation of one use per chapter has been removed, and the ability to add small boosts to a forged item by using rare items has been added. There is supposed to be a system of expanding the options of the forge by selling your old weapons, but the options of the forge seem to shift from stage to stage as well, so I am unsure how useful that function is. Like many things in Fire Emblem, a bit more documentation and transparency would be appreciated.
The Skill system, returning in Path of Radiance after being introduced in Fire Emblem 4 and missing from the GBA games, has been improved somewhat in Radiant Dawn. I am honestly baffled as to why basic abilities like Shove and Canto, which are inherent to whole categories of characters, cost valuable skill points, but other than that, I like the system. Unlike in Path of Radiance, when you remove a skill from a character it is now moved to your inventroy, rather than just disappearing. This makes skill assignment more flexible and less stressful, and encourages experimentation. At the same time, the skills a character starts with will cost nothing unless they are removed, so there is both a distinct advantage to leaving those skills equipped, and the freedom to remove them and use them on someone else. It is quite elegent. Also, the addition of third-tier Beorc unique class skils and the Satori Sign skills for Laguz, which are powerful, can not be removed, and don't have a net cost for the character, is an improvement on the useful but somewhat limiting and scarce Occult Skills from the previous game.
I will need to discuss the addition of a third-tier class upgrade for Beorc after I get more of a chance to actually use those classes.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Part 3
Game Completion: In the middle of Part 3, Chapter 5
I really like the level design in this game. Each chapter feels fairly unique, with distinct objectives and complications. I can only recall one or two stages so far that are simple battles in which you just need to rout an enemy or defeat a boss. Interesting objectives are so common that, in one mission, the lack of any such complications made me rather paranoid that something would happen towards the end to make things more difficult (I admit I was rather disappointed when it turned out it was just a simple battle).
Some interesting things this game does in level design, especially compared to previous Fire Emblm games, are:
1) The different chapters have many kinds of Victory Objective. With distinct Rout, Defeat Boss, Defend, Arrive, Sieze, and Escape objectives, as well as few which are outside of those common types (like the objective of mission 3-3). Various creative uses of these objectives, especially the Arrive command (such as in mission 3-Prologue), keeps the stages from feeling repetative. Having multiple wining conditions, especially in the otherwise long and potentially boring Defend missions, is also a nice feature.
2) Most levels have some kind of incentive that encourage the player to stay on the offensive. The Fire Emblem games are easiest if you play cautiously and advance slowly, but are much more fun if you push as quickly as you can and push your ability to respond to attacks to the limit. This game rewards the latter by both traditional methods for a Fire Emblem game, like having Thieves and Bandits who will destroy towns and rob treasure chests if you progress too slowly, and a newer, but very common in this game, method of having civilians and allied soldiers on the battlefied who can be saved. As far as I can tell, keeping allied and civilian units alive and letting them escapape the battle rewards the player with valuable bonus experience in this game. There are even some stages which ask the player to avoid killing enemies, an interesting and novel challenge for the series. Previous Fire Emblem games might only have a single stage with nameless allies that need rescuing, and often you only receive an item for saving them, so the fact that they apear so often in this game is a nice change.
3) The actual terrain of the battle is often quite varied and interesting. The addition of different levels of height, and gaps that can be climbed, both add a lot to the game experience.
Of course, there are a few problems with the level design, mostly stemming from excessively powerful defensive locations, and terrain that is more difficult to traverse than is necessary. In a game where three-to-one odds can be fatal, one mission (2-Endgame) has a choke-point that allowed a single character on my side hold back a constantly spawning group of enemies which could number up to sixteen or more at a time, and in other missions the enemies hold almost equally powerful locations. Another problem is that heavily armored characters and mounted characters seem to be punished too much by rough terrain, especially gaps that require climbing. Armored characters already have less movement than other characters, and mounted characters suffer lower caps on their stats (and penalties on movement in indoor stages), so these characters end up being all but useless on some stages. At the same time, flying characters (who might be stronger and more common than mounted characters) don't suffer these penalties and are necessary to get through some stages with a large number of choke-points, so they end up being rather unbalanced with horse-riding units.
That about covers stage design so far... Before I forget, I should mention that I really like the addition of a mid-battle save (rather than just a suspend) to the fire Emblem series. It eases a lot of frustrations with replaying a mission many times to make up for a minor mistake, and permits the player to be more daring in battle (which adds to the effect of #2 above), making the game more fun.
I really like the level design in this game. Each chapter feels fairly unique, with distinct objectives and complications. I can only recall one or two stages so far that are simple battles in which you just need to rout an enemy or defeat a boss. Interesting objectives are so common that, in one mission, the lack of any such complications made me rather paranoid that something would happen towards the end to make things more difficult (I admit I was rather disappointed when it turned out it was just a simple battle).
Some interesting things this game does in level design, especially compared to previous Fire Emblm games, are:
1) The different chapters have many kinds of Victory Objective. With distinct Rout, Defeat Boss, Defend, Arrive, Sieze, and Escape objectives, as well as few which are outside of those common types (like the objective of mission 3-3). Various creative uses of these objectives, especially the Arrive command (such as in mission 3-Prologue), keeps the stages from feeling repetative. Having multiple wining conditions, especially in the otherwise long and potentially boring Defend missions, is also a nice feature.
2) Most levels have some kind of incentive that encourage the player to stay on the offensive. The Fire Emblem games are easiest if you play cautiously and advance slowly, but are much more fun if you push as quickly as you can and push your ability to respond to attacks to the limit. This game rewards the latter by both traditional methods for a Fire Emblem game, like having Thieves and Bandits who will destroy towns and rob treasure chests if you progress too slowly, and a newer, but very common in this game, method of having civilians and allied soldiers on the battlefied who can be saved. As far as I can tell, keeping allied and civilian units alive and letting them escapape the battle rewards the player with valuable bonus experience in this game. There are even some stages which ask the player to avoid killing enemies, an interesting and novel challenge for the series. Previous Fire Emblem games might only have a single stage with nameless allies that need rescuing, and often you only receive an item for saving them, so the fact that they apear so often in this game is a nice change.
3) The actual terrain of the battle is often quite varied and interesting. The addition of different levels of height, and gaps that can be climbed, both add a lot to the game experience.
Of course, there are a few problems with the level design, mostly stemming from excessively powerful defensive locations, and terrain that is more difficult to traverse than is necessary. In a game where three-to-one odds can be fatal, one mission (2-Endgame) has a choke-point that allowed a single character on my side hold back a constantly spawning group of enemies which could number up to sixteen or more at a time, and in other missions the enemies hold almost equally powerful locations. Another problem is that heavily armored characters and mounted characters seem to be punished too much by rough terrain, especially gaps that require climbing. Armored characters already have less movement than other characters, and mounted characters suffer lower caps on their stats (and penalties on movement in indoor stages), so these characters end up being all but useless on some stages. At the same time, flying characters (who might be stronger and more common than mounted characters) don't suffer these penalties and are necessary to get through some stages with a large number of choke-points, so they end up being rather unbalanced with horse-riding units.
That about covers stage design so far... Before I forget, I should mention that I really like the addition of a mid-battle save (rather than just a suspend) to the fire Emblem series. It eases a lot of frustrations with replaying a mission many times to make up for a minor mistake, and permits the player to be more daring in battle (which adds to the effect of #2 above), making the game more fun.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Part 2
Game Completion: In the middle of Part III, Chapter 2
Now that I know a lot more about the game, it seems it is time for me to talk a bit more about some system elements of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.
The Laguz: The Laguz characters of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and this game represent one of the hardest things to balance: a character or unit that is weaker than others half of the time, and stronger than others the other half of the time. In addition to that issue, they are different from other Fire Emblem units because they don't equip weapons, which is both a benefit (their weapons don't wear out) and a problem (they can't use different weapons for different situations). Finally, unlike other Fire Emblem characters, they don't class change when they increase in level.
The implementation of laguz characters in Path of radiance was fairly good, but was flawed. The way the transformation guage fills with every turn and attack while the laguz is in human form, and then drains for each turn and battle the laguz is in beast form, is quite elegant. However, all laguz were the equivalents of a class-changed character, which limited their availability in the early parts of the game as either allies or enemies. Also, they did not tend to gain enough power from levelling up that they stayed competitive given their limitations of use. In the final battle, only the exceptionaly powerful lagiz charqacters could keep up with the beorc characters who have been used across the entire game and are equiped with the most powerful weapons.
In Radiant Dawn changes many aspects of this system.
The most important changes are made to how the transformation guage works, and the power of the transformation. They changed the system so that every type of laguz gains and loses points on the guage at differing speeds, so some laguz can change on the fourth turn, but others will change on the eleventh. More importantly, the player can now let the guage remain at full without the laguz transforming, and can order a laguz to return to human form before the guage empties. These, along with an increase in the number of items that fill the guage, greatly increases the tactical options of the laguz, and are a much needed improvement. However, I am still confused by the way the guage seems to only fill irregularly when the laguz is attacked in human form.
Another important change in the game is the way stats are modified by a laguz's transformation. In Path of Radiance, transforming added set values to each stat. In Radiant Dawn, transforming doubles each stat. These means that laguz benefit more form each increase in level, but also that their human forms are extremely fragile, and become even more fragile as the game progresses. It seems to work out pretty well.
Finally, laguz use a different system of levelling than beorc. This is results in a lot of confusion about how the levels of laguz are supposed to compare to beorc levels when determining who to give kills and experience points to. This is made worse by the fact that an untransformed laguz gains experience at a different rate than a transformed laguz.
The Support System: The support system, the system whch lets you form ties between allies to give them combat bonuses and see optional conversations between them, is an important recurring elements of the Fire Emblem series. Path of Radiance used pretty much the same syustem as was used in the Fire Emblem games for the Game Boy Advance did, except made an improvement by basing the availability of support links on battles fought as a team, rather than the older system of basing it on turns spent adjacent. Also (like shops), it moved support conversations from the battlefield to the Base screen, making them more plausible and easier to manage. The only problem was that many support links between early characters took far too long to be built up properly, which punished experimenting with different characters and teams.
Radiant Dawn makes many major changes to the system. First, it limits a character to a single support partner, though now that partner can be changed, Second, it seems that it has returned to a loosened up version of spending turns adjacent to characters, rather than battles fought (I'm not sure, since like in other Fire Emblem games, it isn't explained well). Third, any character can now form support with any other character, rather than a limited set. Finally, the optional conversations which occur between support characters have been moved back to the battlefield, and have been trimmed down to just short greetings. The first two changes are tolerable, but the fourth, an obvious result of the third, is a grave mistake on the designers' part.
The greatest benefit of the support system in recent Fire Emblem games have been the way they provide character development for the cast of characters. Because Fire Emblem characters can die permanently, most members of the cast tend to fade away once they join the team. They cease to appear in the main plot, so they can only be developed and made interesting through optional dialogue. Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones both did a lot good character development and examination of the plot with these conversations, so their absence is quite noticable. In fact, a lot of the main plot elements of Radiant Dawn and character backstory elements of recurring characters were only hinted at in the optional conversations of Path of Radiance.
I guess I should save more for another post.
Now that I know a lot more about the game, it seems it is time for me to talk a bit more about some system elements of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.
The Laguz: The Laguz characters of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and this game represent one of the hardest things to balance: a character or unit that is weaker than others half of the time, and stronger than others the other half of the time. In addition to that issue, they are different from other Fire Emblem units because they don't equip weapons, which is both a benefit (their weapons don't wear out) and a problem (they can't use different weapons for different situations). Finally, unlike other Fire Emblem characters, they don't class change when they increase in level.
The implementation of laguz characters in Path of radiance was fairly good, but was flawed. The way the transformation guage fills with every turn and attack while the laguz is in human form, and then drains for each turn and battle the laguz is in beast form, is quite elegant. However, all laguz were the equivalents of a class-changed character, which limited their availability in the early parts of the game as either allies or enemies. Also, they did not tend to gain enough power from levelling up that they stayed competitive given their limitations of use. In the final battle, only the exceptionaly powerful lagiz charqacters could keep up with the beorc characters who have been used across the entire game and are equiped with the most powerful weapons.
In Radiant Dawn changes many aspects of this system.
The most important changes are made to how the transformation guage works, and the power of the transformation. They changed the system so that every type of laguz gains and loses points on the guage at differing speeds, so some laguz can change on the fourth turn, but others will change on the eleventh. More importantly, the player can now let the guage remain at full without the laguz transforming, and can order a laguz to return to human form before the guage empties. These, along with an increase in the number of items that fill the guage, greatly increases the tactical options of the laguz, and are a much needed improvement. However, I am still confused by the way the guage seems to only fill irregularly when the laguz is attacked in human form.
Another important change in the game is the way stats are modified by a laguz's transformation. In Path of Radiance, transforming added set values to each stat. In Radiant Dawn, transforming doubles each stat. These means that laguz benefit more form each increase in level, but also that their human forms are extremely fragile, and become even more fragile as the game progresses. It seems to work out pretty well.
Finally, laguz use a different system of levelling than beorc. This is results in a lot of confusion about how the levels of laguz are supposed to compare to beorc levels when determining who to give kills and experience points to. This is made worse by the fact that an untransformed laguz gains experience at a different rate than a transformed laguz.
The Support System: The support system, the system whch lets you form ties between allies to give them combat bonuses and see optional conversations between them, is an important recurring elements of the Fire Emblem series. Path of Radiance used pretty much the same syustem as was used in the Fire Emblem games for the Game Boy Advance did, except made an improvement by basing the availability of support links on battles fought as a team, rather than the older system of basing it on turns spent adjacent. Also (like shops), it moved support conversations from the battlefield to the Base screen, making them more plausible and easier to manage. The only problem was that many support links between early characters took far too long to be built up properly, which punished experimenting with different characters and teams.
Radiant Dawn makes many major changes to the system. First, it limits a character to a single support partner, though now that partner can be changed, Second, it seems that it has returned to a loosened up version of spending turns adjacent to characters, rather than battles fought (I'm not sure, since like in other Fire Emblem games, it isn't explained well). Third, any character can now form support with any other character, rather than a limited set. Finally, the optional conversations which occur between support characters have been moved back to the battlefield, and have been trimmed down to just short greetings. The first two changes are tolerable, but the fourth, an obvious result of the third, is a grave mistake on the designers' part.
The greatest benefit of the support system in recent Fire Emblem games have been the way they provide character development for the cast of characters. Because Fire Emblem characters can die permanently, most members of the cast tend to fade away once they join the team. They cease to appear in the main plot, so they can only be developed and made interesting through optional dialogue. Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones both did a lot good character development and examination of the plot with these conversations, so their absence is quite noticable. In fact, a lot of the main plot elements of Radiant Dawn and character backstory elements of recurring characters were only hinted at in the optional conversations of Path of Radiance.
I guess I should save more for another post.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Fire Emblem:Radiant Dawn, Part 1
Game Completion: Through Chapter 1:1
I am a long-time fan of the Fire Emblem series, so I have been anticipating this game for a while. Obviously enough, I got it as quickly as I could (it was released yesterday after all). For those who don't know much about the series, Radiant Dawn is a direct sequel to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and is the tenth game in the Fire Emblem series, though only the fourth to have been released in the United States.
The game has just been released, so I will avoid spoilers.
So far, early impressions are mixed.
First off, I had a severe problem when I tried starting a new game using data from Path of Radiance. The game froze, and a load buzz sound persisted until I shut off the console completley. This was repeated every time I tried. As such. I ended up giving up on that, and just started a new game without old data. Since I was looking forward to using my old data, I'm not very pleased.
However, the game itself so far is playing very well. It very quickly recaps the important elements of the last game's plot, and establishes the basic elements of the new plot. The heroine Micaiah's kindness and special abilities are laid out quickly, the dark, somber mood of an occupied country is felt, and the heartless cruelty of the occupying army is made crystal clear in short order. I already have a character on my "must see die" list, which is pretty impressive, actually. The music, while subdued, is beautiful, and sets the mood nicely. I also like how the first two missions transition in such a clear and logical manner, with the second mission being a direct logical result from the first, and how these missions solidify the character portrayal of the heroes so nicely.
In terms of gameplay, it is classic Fire Emblem. I am playing on Normal difficulty, and it is already surprisingly tricky. I had a few close calls with a few characters, and a lucky dodge of an attack is all that saved me from having to restart the second stage. I like games with this kind of challenge, so I am quite happy. Also, the use of more complicated objectives then "defeat all opponents" so early in the game is quite a nice change of pace from the rest of the series. I hope it persists.
One problem so far is in stage design. Traditionally in Fire Emblem games, houses that you can visit during a mission have a red roof, and a clearly seen. Path of radiance added a clearly open front door. In the second mission of Radiant Dawn, this was not the case, so I nearly missed some places to visit, becaise I did not recognize them. I understand that red roofs do not match the grim visuals the devoloper was aiming for, but some visual elements should have been added to make visitable locations clearer.
Anyways, my wishes and fears concerning the game are as follows:
Wishes:
1) The good speed and mood of the plot gets maintained over the course of the game.
2) The new systems and modifications to the Fire Emblem formula work out.
3) All the mysteries and plot threads that persist from Path of Radiance get a satisfying resolution.
Fears:
1) That, like the last game, the Laguz characters will lack a clear role, and have more drawbacks then strengths.
2) That the many interesting characters returning from Path of Radiance will outshine the new cast, and prevent them from being interesting. Also, the opposite, in which the good characters from the last game will be completely overshadowed.
3) The classic elements of a Fire Emblem game get implemented poorly.
Finally, I have a few closing comments about the manual. As a whole, it is good, but like most other Fire Emblem game manuals, it doesn't explain many important elements in enough depth. Among other things, I don't know how the Support system works in this game (whether it works like it did in Path of Radiance, or the older system, or something else), and I don't know how it relates to or is different from the new "Bond" system.
I will post about more things in depth when I get to play the game some more.
I am a long-time fan of the Fire Emblem series, so I have been anticipating this game for a while. Obviously enough, I got it as quickly as I could (it was released yesterday after all). For those who don't know much about the series, Radiant Dawn is a direct sequel to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and is the tenth game in the Fire Emblem series, though only the fourth to have been released in the United States.
The game has just been released, so I will avoid spoilers.
So far, early impressions are mixed.
First off, I had a severe problem when I tried starting a new game using data from Path of Radiance. The game froze, and a load buzz sound persisted until I shut off the console completley. This was repeated every time I tried. As such. I ended up giving up on that, and just started a new game without old data. Since I was looking forward to using my old data, I'm not very pleased.
However, the game itself so far is playing very well. It very quickly recaps the important elements of the last game's plot, and establishes the basic elements of the new plot. The heroine Micaiah's kindness and special abilities are laid out quickly, the dark, somber mood of an occupied country is felt, and the heartless cruelty of the occupying army is made crystal clear in short order. I already have a character on my "must see die" list, which is pretty impressive, actually. The music, while subdued, is beautiful, and sets the mood nicely. I also like how the first two missions transition in such a clear and logical manner, with the second mission being a direct logical result from the first, and how these missions solidify the character portrayal of the heroes so nicely.
In terms of gameplay, it is classic Fire Emblem. I am playing on Normal difficulty, and it is already surprisingly tricky. I had a few close calls with a few characters, and a lucky dodge of an attack is all that saved me from having to restart the second stage. I like games with this kind of challenge, so I am quite happy. Also, the use of more complicated objectives then "defeat all opponents" so early in the game is quite a nice change of pace from the rest of the series. I hope it persists.
One problem so far is in stage design. Traditionally in Fire Emblem games, houses that you can visit during a mission have a red roof, and a clearly seen. Path of radiance added a clearly open front door. In the second mission of Radiant Dawn, this was not the case, so I nearly missed some places to visit, becaise I did not recognize them. I understand that red roofs do not match the grim visuals the devoloper was aiming for, but some visual elements should have been added to make visitable locations clearer.
Anyways, my wishes and fears concerning the game are as follows:
Wishes:
1) The good speed and mood of the plot gets maintained over the course of the game.
2) The new systems and modifications to the Fire Emblem formula work out.
3) All the mysteries and plot threads that persist from Path of Radiance get a satisfying resolution.
Fears:
1) That, like the last game, the Laguz characters will lack a clear role, and have more drawbacks then strengths.
2) That the many interesting characters returning from Path of Radiance will outshine the new cast, and prevent them from being interesting. Also, the opposite, in which the good characters from the last game will be completely overshadowed.
3) The classic elements of a Fire Emblem game get implemented poorly.
Finally, I have a few closing comments about the manual. As a whole, it is good, but like most other Fire Emblem game manuals, it doesn't explain many important elements in enough depth. Among other things, I don't know how the Support system works in this game (whether it works like it did in Path of Radiance, or the older system, or something else), and I don't know how it relates to or is different from the new "Bond" system.
I will post about more things in depth when I get to play the game some more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)