The Case Against Resetting: A Fire Emblem Analysis
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- Опубліковано 26 лют 2021
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EDITED BY: Nin
This video outlines my case against resetting as both a mechanic in Fire Emblem and as a good basis for Fire Emblem analysis.
NOTE: The Thracia Chapter 4x softlock also requires that Chapter 4 was escaped from without characters that can capture the enemies with door keys in Chapter 4x. This is an important detail, but also doesn't excuse the game for leaving such an obvious issue in place, nor does it undermine the idea that a full reset from such a softlock would be bad. - Ігри
Check out the Birthright Iron Man with SpeedyHawk here! We definitely don't fail the Iron Man in the first chapter. It didn't happen! ua-cam.com/video/YXN7chsHoNg/v-deo.html
In my opinion fire emblem three houses doesn't have much of anything built in to make sure you won't be soft locked if you lose too many characters. My first playthrough of the game with blue lions I found myself often frustrated when losing characters, some of which I figured weren't very good so I won't use divine pulse or reset. I only saved on one file (a bad habit of mine, but in well designed games it shouldn't matter) so by chapter 21 I had four sub par characters or so and it was impossible to progress. Now I save every single character I can on my second playthrough even resetting when divine pulse is no longer an option, because I know every character in three houses is capable of being amazing. The games designed to make any character viable. That said I just want to finish the game this time around. Playing silver snow.
Oh, you just said that
I'm surprised you didn't mention the most important part of resetting in fire emblem: the games are HARD. Losing a unit completely fucks you up and can end up softlocking you very easily.
I never resnt exepet when i am soft loke wich i reeat the entyer game it is much more fair becouse Then the game is litery unpleyavel and resding the hole game is beete then a chapeter beoceus gmes alow you to eres data of a part and geting soft lokce is impotr to theche the player a valuuble leson what not to do becouses resedieng the hole game is much more inpactful than a chapter for a player and will preper for than momene insted of if you resct a chepter form a unit deth you don't ler enguirt of blauy you don't preper you don't iporve your sentgy
Our beef is VERY Organic. That clip is completely in context.
If the developers made content for when your allies died. It would incentive people to not reset. Like be bold; have a funeral, make them unique to the characters, have people question your leadership, if it was a lucky crit then have character dialogue acknowledging how unlucky the character was. If a generic NPC kills your guy, then how about them running away and randomly showing up in a future battle, and you can have a revenge subplot.
So many ideas but no execution, thus their are no incentives to not reset.
the last part is nemesis system and is patented by warner bros.
@@danieladamczyk4024 Can we talk about how the nemesis system doesn't fit in those games at all? like way to go creating a system that revolves around very personal interaction in a game where the combat system is about dealing with completely faceless uninteresting mobs in very inpersonal combat.
@@isStock Never played.
Nemesis system turn those faceless mobs into characters.
This. Literally the only thing that happens if a character dies is one death quote and a "died at x chapter" at the end, people want players to experience personal storytelling, but there is not stake in a character dying, we don't learn what happens to their relatives or family.
They did that with FE11 (1 remake) and apparently it was bashed because "good play hid new content".
But I do see what you mean.
I feel like the only appropriate way to play ironman is to be streaming in front of live audience that can hold you accountable for your mistakes and go be in the journey with you.
Oh yeah, I’m not saying you shouldn’t sneak a reset in or some savestates to be cheeky and to grind up your husbando. But analysis and design should be built around the assumption of never resetting
@@ProfessorBopper "The one at the top of the world is the one who feels no fear." -Dio (part 3 jjba)
I see it like Nuzlocke's. Its a self-imposed ruleset, why would I waste my time not having fun when you could be spending it to have fun. Play how you want.
I feel the games most of the time don't respond to perma death is a problem with it as well. Really in your FE8 Iron Man besides tons of fun with 3% crits stuff or so things happened like Ewan shot down almost next to his sister and she never responded at all to it. Tethys raised her baby brother on the street by dancing to random strangers and her dancing also made Ewan cry less. The fact that she never responded to her baby brother's death is very unlikely.
The game goes through all the trouble of letting you build supports but if someone dies it is like that shit never happened at all. Really why not make some unique events happen from death? I mean even unfun stuff like how FE7 has Pent and Louise leave if just one is 'killed' but say Erk was alive still Pent would ask his student to carry on for him and as a result maybe Erk learns light magic?
This is why I like Echoes so much, in the bonus exp screen, characters will mourn the deaths of their fallen allies, and some characters have custom lines for a certain characters death, like boey and mae, clive and mathilda, python and Forsyth, etc
@@scottallen4569
The reuniting scene you get when a pegasus sister dies is also pretty good.
This is so true! You get a fuller story by having everyone stay alive thanks to supports. When a character dies, the games just don’t really acknowledge it and move on, it feels like permadeath then isn’t integrated to the story enough
Echoes handles this very well, but for some reason it was not really a thing in Three Houses after it. I lost Caspar, Cyril, and Hanneman in my first game and there was nothing at all. No mourning, no acknowledgement that anyone was lost. It was so bad that I even kind of forgot that Caspar was a unit in the game until I saw his death screen at the end. If they would give us something when deaths happen, that would make it so much more bearable to move on without resetting. It just really pains me to rob a character of all emotional impact by leaving them out of the story when it's like they never existed once they die.
@@brendonian4097 Especially in 3 houses it makes no sense that they don't acknowledge it at all. So many characters are nobles and next in line to lead their house yet they are expendable.
Fundamentally the problem is that the fanbase will never be happy. As you've pointed out before, there's two different kinds of fire emblem. There's campaign emblem which has you play through a drawn out campaign focusing on macro strategic difficulty of managing resources, and puzzle emblem which focuses on micro tactical difficulty where every turn every unit's positioning matters. These two styles of gameplay are inherently antagonistic because campaign emblem needs to hand out lots of resources in terms of characters and equipment because it expects you to lose them, while puzzle emblem needs a scarcity of resources to make the puzzles interesting. Turnwheel itself is sort of a mundane problem, it should just be a settings toggle at the start of the campaign like casual/classic is. The real problem for campaign emblem is the rise of a third style of FE with awakening which I'll call RPG emblem. RPG emblem ramps up the RPG elements to 11 through unit customization including class switching, skill combination, forging, combat arts and then further increases your engagement with the characters by deeply integrating them into the story. The problem for campaign emblem is that RPG emblem has many systems that overlap with puzzle emblem since its in that design's interest to keep characters alive in order to enable more elaborate customization, but very few that overlap with campaign emblem; and RPG emblem has been vastly more successful than campaign emblem.
I do agree that Fire Emblem is running on a cursed design and can only achieve some balance between the two while not completely embrassing one aspect in detriment of the other.
That was... insightful🤔
And then there is hack and slash emblem, which also has perma death..... For some reason.
This comment is the best analysis of the issues i have with fire emblem as a series
I don't think that the existence of turnwheel/divine pulse gives the developers more license to be lazy with their map design, mostly because it probably gives them too much credit. I think they were going to be lazy with their map design regardless. Without divine pulse, the game would be equally flawed, just without this quick & easy fix to make it tolerable for the player. For FE3H specifically, the ramped up complexity and troubled development are probably bigger factors.
My critique is more so that divine pulse will allow IS to avoid designing interesting scaffolds like bonus experience and late-game prepromotes IF they allow it to. Map design being bad I think has more to do with growth rates since IS can never accurately predict what a player will have because of permadeath + growth rates
@@ProfessorBopper my thoughts on divine pulse are that it can be a great learning tool. some people want to know what they did wrong, and resetting just doesn't give that becuase you avoid the situation entirly and don't learn from it easily. divine pulse makes it easier to see your mistakes. as my first fire emblem game divine pulse helped me understand my mistakes. but when i tried going into a classic mode playthrough i didn't notice when my ONLY healer died at the end of a side mission and i saved over my save so i had NO HEALER and just quit. i find that divine pulse can act as a great training wheel and then eventualy to try without it. right now i am playing on casual (becuase i don't want to go through the same issues i whent through before) but i am using no divine pulses and trying to avoid loosing any uinits. i am slowly getting better at the game, and i feel like next playthrough/next fire emblem game i will start off playing on classic mode becuase i feel confident about making it through.
14:08 "Look Gary, there I am again!"
While I do think there is some merit to resetting chapters (although I don't want to get sidetracked with a massive wall of text), I 100% agree that Fire Emblem games should be designed with permadeath in mind. Take the Turn wheel for example. On its own, I don't see it as an issue. In fact, it can expedite the process of resetting if players want to protect their precious waifu or husbando. Imagine if Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance got a remake that gave players two or three turn wheel uses per map (I vastly prefer a low number in order to preserve tension). Not using them grants a little extra gold and/or (bonus) experience. This wouldn't undermine the game's features like late game units or the bonus experience system.
The problem becomes when the game is designed entirely around the turn wheel. I adore Three Houses, but letting your units die in that game simply isn't an option for the vast majority of players. The lack of any new units gained in the second half of the game plus your house units being force deployed in the notoriously difficult chapter 13 really hurts. Also, having ambush spawns on maddening because the player can rewind is bullcrap. Ambush spawns always suck @$$, regardless of systems in place like turn wheel, replacement units, bonus experience, grinding, etc.
Many good points being thrown in here! I feel the best anti-reset mechanic is the way the DS games handled things, with new units being recruited if you lose too many character and the save points requiring actual tactical decisions.
And yeah, ambush spawns... these things are WAY too mean for people doing blind playthroughs. Whatever the game these are in, they are traumatizing at higher difficulty levels and for no good reason! Unit loss is no longer the result of poor tactical choices, but simply of not knowing that on turn X, Y reinforcements will spawn, each of which can one-round the fragile healer you unfortunately left out of range of every enemy unit... well every unit you knew of because these guys just popped up !...
I agree with everything said here. A low number of DP uses are great so you don't have to reset if the enemy gets a low % crit and kills one of your units. It can be a great tool to combat bs rng or to test a risky strategy and then if it fails you can use a safer one. A turnwheel on its own however isn't enough to make playing the game without resets a viable playstyle.
I had never thought of the idea of giving bonus gold or something per turnwheel uses saved and that is a brilliant idea. I'm definitely stealing that for my discussions on this topic lol.
@@javgamer722 Although I think it would be a good idea to make such side objectives clearer for the players. On blind playthrough, it can be really easy to miss these, be it extra rewards as in 3H or bonus exp like in the Telius game.
Making a strategy game "harder" by depriving new players of crucial information is imo not a good way to tackle this. It just incentivises players to look for guides.
@@jierdareisa4313
I agree with this. The game can just tell you what the rewards are with a pop up at the beginning. I'm playing shining Force on GBA and that game gives alot of rewards for clearing a map in a specific amount of turns. And it always tells you.
From personal experience in recommending Fire Emblem games to people, those that strive for the most "perfect" playthroughs also tend to get the most frustrated with the games due to suffering from self-inflicted repetition and making minimal progress per unit of time spent on the game. Besides resetting for deaths I have heard of players who reset upon getting a poor level up or losing a relatively worthless item (say, an elixir or something less valuable than that) to an enemy thief. The opposite extreme would likely be an ironman run, and those are fun in and of themselves, but I find that playing an "imperfect" run where you only reset for a strict game over usually offers a pretty relaxed experience, even on higher difficulty levels.
Bruh I lost Hector’s heaven seal to a thief and played through you have gamers resetting for elixirs? XD
I'm doing my first ever run of Genealogy of the Holy War and after spending 3 days playing the first 3 chapters over and over again, I whole heartedly agree.
I used to reset back when Playing conquest if I got 3 bad level ups, I would reset the chapter. I now realize just how toxic it was to play like this, especially when I could have used tonics to patch up a stat if I needed to. It also does not help that people tend to never use what the game gives them (Hoarding). I almost never use Stat boosters until the very end because I don't need them but nowadays I used them If I need the boost to reach a certain stat threshold for 1 map on a unit I want to use for as long they remain relevant.
Casual mode doesn't have that problem 😉 and the rewind Time
I usually reset for character deaths, though I did let one of my thieves stay dead after the fe6 desert chapter cause i did not want to do that again, but aside from that I usually dont give a shit if I get some really bad luck.
three houses is a weird case I think because the game relies so heavily on growth units that playing through a tough loss is almost unthinkable. I think the initial 3 divine pulses is an appropriate amount-enough to give beginner players or players who like to experiment a safety net if something goes wrong, but not so much that it feels like your moves don’t have consequences. The problem is that once you expend those resets, if someone dies, it’s hard to justify playing through, especially post timeskip. Pre-timeskip it’s reasonable to poach someone from another house, assuming you didn’t already recruit everyone and you can meet the requirements, and usually their stats and class will at least be competent for where you are in the game. But 3h units rely heavily on class mastery skills to really excel (esp on maddening) and the fact that you can recruit someone in Chapter 10 and they haven’t even mastered Noble/Commoner is kind of a headache. Plus as Bopper said, you’re hung out to dry post-timeskip.
I’ve seen the argument made that 3h is not designed with permadeath in mind, and I think that’s completely true. In that sense, it’s good that they give you so many divine pulses, so you can prevent those hard losses from happening. Moving forward, though, it would be nice to see some restraint with the turn wheel, maybe 5 uses at most, and design that works with the permadeath rather than against it.
I have a weird love-hate relationship with Fire Emblem Iron Man runs. On the one hand, I find them to be interesting and having the potential for some really fun and exciting playthroughs. On the other, the fear of permadeath and losing a unit I like usually has me just play it safe rather than attempt any fun or interesting strategy. It's actually why I like the introduction of the turn wheel/divine pulse, it lets me experiment with more bold and fun strategy while not needing to worry about unit death from trying to do something interesting. I do agree that divine pulse can and has lead to some more lazy design on the developers part and the potential fear of them leaning to hard on the mechanic to save them from poor design choices does worry me a bit going forward.. But I don't feel the fault lies in the mechanic itself.
I feel Ironman runs are better if you lose an important unit you like early on to something reasonable (easier said than done lol) and you don't reset, then all the times later on you would consider resetting seem far less annoying.
I think the number one thing that lets you do fun and interesting things is showing the player more variables, if there's a chance there's going to be an ambush spawn exactly here or an enemy hidden in fog I'm fucked so I'm not going to do it even though my guy I really want to level up would live on 1 health and kill everything and the enemies have no chance to crit and all my attacks have 100 percent chance to hit.
One time I remember in Fire emblem awakening I did that mission with the tree and I did the most aggressive push ever with only 1 unit and I think it was Say-Ri who I didn't use at all but I actually calculated the numbers and it was impossible for Say-Ri to die, she would live on one health and she was protected from an ambush spawn from the other side of the tree.
Two Pegasus Knights Ambush spawned on the corner of the map over water flew to the edge and hit Say-Ri with a Javelin and killed her, now for the rest of the game all I can think about is no I don't want to do that aggressive push because what about ambush spawns.
TL;DR I feel when you die trying to do something interesting that isn't suicidal in fire emblem it normally doesn't work because of bad mechanics, I feel that turn resets are still mainly just patching up the poor game design, that said having a way to work around bad design is great.
(holy shit why are my TLDR's so long lmao)
@@yaboykirby7789 to be fair I love it but awakening is poorly design. it's not your fault
@@theflashgordon193 I wouldn't spend 500 words moaning about if I could be convinced it was my fault lol
I just think that the amount of turnwheels you get is absurd. The 3H DLC limiting to just 5 I thought was fine, especially considering the difficulty in hard mode of that dlc
I said this before and I'll say it again but the only way to make it so that players will indulge in not resetting is to make differing campaigns or endings depending on how many main lords the player has ran through. I would design not a 2nd generation type story but a story that alters depending on whether or not the main lord has fallen and who will replace them. Either the Jaegan character, charismatic 2nd in command, or lord from another region takes up the fight and they become the main lord after the 1st one's death in battle. Having legitimate outcomes based on your actions is the only way to enforce the idea to the average player as you really would be missing out on 1 or more narratives if you only played the first lord each time with no resets.
In my 10 or so years of being a Fire Emblem fan, I had never enjoyed playing as much as I did when I finally started playing with no resets (even though I still do in the games that are clearly not designed around it). I love the feeling of having actual stakes, having to move on with what I have, be forced to be more careful etc. It really makes the game shine as a strategy rpg where your decisions truly matter. One thing I expected to hate and instead I loved, is how RNG can screw you over; I thought it was just me getting punished for no reason, but tbh including probability more into the decision making process only made it even more fun.
I think the turn wheel is a great way to counter bad rng and undue things like being crit by an enemy with a low percentage. The problem is that it's a bandaid solution and not a good one.
To use 3H as an example - there are plenty of unplayable units that could have been used as replacements. Ladislava would have been a great late game replacement unit but we never got use her. Hilda's brother Holst is another example of what could have been.
Markyjoe has a great video about fire emblem balance and talks about how FE is balanced around imperfect play. Since awakening there has been a shift to perfect play being the focus. The newer games just don't give as much leeway to live with mistakes imo.
Permadeath is a bit closely intertwined with the development of the whole series as a whole. Echoes cleary included it as a quality of life feature, but 3 houses then went and made units development more complex, and has the core esemble of characters get many supports and appear in the main story, you build up a character for a long-term role. It's not quite just the ''can you keep going and beat the game'' anyone, but also losing a character screws with the whole gameplay experience, and a lot of the narrative. It's quite likely newer games will experiment a bit like this.
Ironmans are a good concept(and I would like to do one eventually). The case in the video doesn't adress the snowballing of units deaths though. It heavily depends on game, difficulty setting, and players skill, but if particulary reliable frontliner falls, you might have to take more risks to make ends meet later on. Sometimes compensating units indeed creative a compelling narrative, but another thing that often happen is gradually losing more units until a softlock experience happens by having a weak army. The whole argument rests on a certain amount of competence exists. Yet here you can slowly fail over time, instead of like with most games a failstate happens if you don't happen to be good enough at a certain point, and you either pass that or not. In addition to this if you assume a new player, these are more likely to be invested in story/characters, have information shortage regarding avoiding mistakes, or judging the severity of losing a unit/adapting to a new one. Most probably don't take too kindly to the unexpected surprise. I'm taking a Lowest common denominator approach here, but the analysis focused on resetting not being needed on a failstate is encountered, so I took it to a possible logical conclusion.
FE games are usually doable if you keep soldiering on(on a reasonable difficulty, but a player needs to know that, might get unmotivated. Quite a bit of newer games are lengthy too. Casual mode took care of most the fears of first timers, and provides a way to keep going full power/narrative or fail, but it has a bit of a poor reputation. Personally I dislike unit deaths,but am fond of just being able to make regular saves.
Still the earliest simpler games, or the middle of the road(regarding character uniqueness) GBA games are both already quite a bit in the past. The original FE had the whole cast tuned around being able to keep going. Such a approach is increasingly infeasible unless they opt to go for a an explicit ''generics emblem'' game
Personally I think permadeath might be a bit too much of a sacred cow of the series. Ironmans aren't bad but in modern times a very specific appraoch. Casual mode of course has the of cited drawback of some players adopting sacrifical strategy, but I think it's a bit overstated(a lot of people probably dislike having their units KOed on principle). Still, it's a bit slap on the wrist. Yet permadeath is a severe punishment that restricts how characters can be accounted for for gameplay/narrative. I'm curious if they will opt for some alternative form of penalty in the future that discourages KO's but also allows characters to be be counted on to be present for gameplay/narrative. Permadeath probably works better if a series remains heavily tuned for it, like Xcom. With FE this isn't quite the case anymore, by a long shot, although of course different games in the series could go for different things.
Three Houses bigger focus on unit customization, characterization/character development and deeper involvement in the narrative like its a full on rpg leads to some major ludonarrative dissonance. You have the characters in the narrative feel like underdogs, grappling with the horrors of war and how its affecting them yet gameplay wise you are building an invincible, badass party of superwarriors that in each chapter, plow through enemies like a power fantasy, even if there was a process of trial and error with time travel resetting involved.
@@islandboy9381 Well on other days I'd like to get rid of random growths to provide a tighter canon power experience.
What if a game got rid of both permadeath and random growths? Sure this significantly cuts in FE staple experiences, but a game designed on expecting you to be at a certain rough power level has it's own merits.
I totally agree. I never restarted because I thought I lost a valuable unit without which I incorrectly thought I couldn't beat the game. I restarted because I didn't want that character to die, it is that simple. I started playing Fire Emblem because every character had a face and a name and because they all have their own dialogue with each other and mini character arcs. I don't want to lose that, this is what makes Fire Emblem games fun for me, so I can't allow characters to die, specially because I never go on with the mindset I will replay the game latter (I only ever did it with Blazing Sword, actually). Like, there could be a narrative value in allowing a character to die, but it is not like the game usually recognize that was a thing that happened, so most of the time is just literal content lost, and it is the content that makes FE unique among its tactical peers (which is also why I never bothered with the older games with no support conversation or similar features)
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It is why I like casual mode. Awakening and later games definitively showed that the characters are actually a big appeal of the series, it is not just about the hardcore tactical combat. I still play with perma death myself, because I do enjoy facing the maps as a no death challenge, but I think the mode is important to preserve the appeal of the game to many players.
@@wouterW24 Path of Radiance does have a fixed growths mode after you beat it once so there's that, and in Fates Lunatic characters after recruitment all levels are set with a seed so you can't manip them, only way to manip it is by resetting before recruiting.
@@carlosx8603 fixed mode is only a unlockable though, even if normal is not that difficult. And fates locking in levels doesn’t change the randomness much, it just decides early on if you are stuck with a good or bad hand in random growth.
My favourite way to play is resetting if somebody dies on the first few turns of a map (or one of my favourites), but letting permadeath take its toll when somebody dies near the end of a map. It's a happy medium that still allows for player driven narratives/meaning, while keeping my favourites alive and myself sane. I really liked your discussion of turnwheel. I don't think about it often because I don't really play the newer games, but you make a good case for how it excuses design decisions.
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this is very reasonable. It saves from dumb mistakes early on, but makes the stakes go up again when it matters.
On the flipside what I do which I never stick to is say ok I'll only reset if character dies in X way and by the time I've noticed I've stretched the rule so much that I won't stop no matter who dies, now if instead I let my homeboy die early then I can say for the rest of the game eh I think I'm only going to reset if I get practically soft-locked or at least the game becomes so hard I'll have to reset each chapter 3 times.
Some characters have such an important role in my army like Fergus,Asbel, Saber, Leif(FE4),Jill, Sylvain, etc. That I wouldn't even consider letting them die until near endgame. It's weird that I was more lax with permadeath in FE7 and Echoes when I first started but now I reset more. Maybe Thracia ruined how I play Fire Emblem.
I *love* the DS games' mid-battle save system. They allow for resets without having to do the whole chapter again, yes, but they also do something else I like a lot. They, without overwriting a 'safe' save file, allow you to save yourself into bad situations. When you do, resetting isn't just "Oh I guess I'll just not send my flier over there because ambush spawn archers" or w/e, but instead becomes a puzzle, and one that, due to the number of variables in FE, is often unique to that particular playthrough. And sometimes there's no way out without a unit dying, so they can, assuming one doesn't restart the whole chapter, force the player to make the hard decision of "Who can I let die here?" Full resets are pretty boring, and I'm glad I've stopped doing them as much since I started watching you, but these mid-battle saves I think do offer their own kind of fun because of the ability to save in a bad spot.
That doesn't excuse all the *fucking ambush archers* tho. Fuck ambush archers.
Fuck ambush anything period.
Resetting is, and should always be, a voluntary action. If intelligent systems introduces the turn wheel then subsequently introduces bad map design into it because of their own mechanic, the only people that should be criticized are intelligent systems for designing things poorly. Not the players that reset.
I reset because I want my first playthrough to feel complete. I wanna see the characters' endings and I don't wanna feel that empty feeling I got when I beat FE7 for the first time as a kid and saw the characters I let die. Arguably, if I were to play through it again for the sake of seeing everything, that's just as much or more time spent than if I were to just reset, so I don't really see a difference.
But on a second playthrough, ironmans are fun. Maybe a little too intense for someone that prefers to play all the modern games on lunatic/maddening, but the earlier ones are very fun for it. I don't agree with everything you've said, but good video.
I just can't bring myself to play without saving everyone. For me that is the main objective of the games: "How do I win this without letting anyone die?"
Maybe try one run with a new mentality of "How can I move on after a certain unit's death." Not saying you are playing wrong, just recommending a new perspective.
Same, i just feel too guilty when i let a characters die.
Right? I tried it once and I realized I was just switching between feeling anxious and feeling sad and not enjoying it in the slightest.
I reset because I'm still pissed about my first ever FE playthrough. It was the Gba game and people died, so many people died. I reached the final map somehow with i think just the lords and only eliwood was promoted, the old magic man you get for only this map i think and maybe 3 or 4 other characters.
The FOMO is real
I've always had two main ideas to make resetting after death less immediately enticing.
Martyrdom- A character dying gives a stat buff for the rest of the mission. Maybe a small blanket stat buff to the whole army and a bigger one to anyone they have support with.
Memorial Banners- One I've put a lot of thought into. A character dying drops a banner memorializing them that can be equipped to a character, giving a buff similar to if that character were doubled up with them awakening/fates style. Banner buff would be based on a combination of character and class, and like pairing up, would be stronger if given to someone they had support with. Maybe it could hold a single skill of theirs as well.
This speedy beef is hilarious. You guys are great together. Also Fear of missing out (FOMO) seems like a big part of it for many players.
I never got to experience FE4 blind because of FOMO.
i hope the turnwheel stays, because being able to rewind after a misclick is an appreciated QOL improvement (accidentally selecting End Turn at the start of my turn and watching the carnage ensue in my last FE6 run didn't have me appreciating the sanctity of permadeath or whatever). most of the time i forget the turnwheel is even there, and play as if it isn't, but with more peace of mind. intelligent systems just needs to relearn the lessons they'd apparently learned for fates (no one likes ambush spawns or fog of war), then we're... probably fine? idk i just see the turnwheel as a necessary mechanic to make a wildly investment-heavy game like three houses function at all, rather than something that portends ill for future fire emblem design. also when i'm in a crowd of units and accidentally heal the wrong person [uncle rico voice] "ohhhh, man i wish i could go back in time."
The two DS games were the only ones I actually liked for the tension
Having the save point as something to plan for was amazing.
They were the two FE games I never used save states the first time
Yeah, plus the whole risk-reward aspect. Do I spend a unit's turn? Do i save now or later, using the resource up but ensuring I don't have to play the intro again? I just got a great level up but I'm only on turn 2... Do I save halfway through this turn or wait until the next to ensure the first half didn't screw me? Do I use my strong frontliner's turn now or use Wrys' turn to save later? I really enjoyed the place it had in strategy in DSemblem
My most memorable fire emblem experience was my first play through of echoes, it was the first game I didn’t reset the level for my units. I lost silque, one of the only good healers on alms route, and on celicas I missed out on palls and catria because I didn’t realize you could find them in one of the villages if you failed to recruit them. I remember loving the map design, and when I heard people hated it, I was very confused. I think the reason I liked it so much was that I HAD to use unique and interesting mechanics to get through most maps, I didn’t have two busted Pegasus knights during all the sand and swamp terrain on celicas route, and on alms, every bit of damage was much more impactful than it would have been otherwise. Writing that out, the experience sounds terrible, but it was fun because of the unique challenges that were determined by MY unique choices throughout that play through.
Interesting, I usually reset all the time during my playthroughs but this video makes some good points. I actually just recently was playing Fates conquest and my Azura died to an archer that previously wasn't moving and I reset but realistically I guess I don't need Azura to finish the game. I think I'm gonna try to do this the next time I play a fire emblem game. Thanks Bopper!
You should have watched out for arrows.
A used to be a singer in Corrin's army like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.
I've always thought that the best way to implement permadeath in a meaningful way was through a life system.
All characters except the lord(s) have 2-3 "lives". Meaning that they can survive getting wounded but aren't immortal gods either. If a unit bites the dust they retreat or you could even make it so that another unit needs to rescue them at the cost of stats like speed or dexterity making it an on the moment decision wether to risk more units or let them die for good. Then they can't be deployed for the next chapter since they would be recovering and their next level up will have a chance to be negative level ups since they have wounds that afflict their growth. Then if the player screws up again the character would permanently die, if they are strong enough (maybe a stat check or some other measure like just a luck roll) then they get 1 more chance albeit with a more prominent chance at negative level ups.
The characters that suffer life threatening wounds should show their disgruntlement towards the player for making the choices that led to that outcome (could even depend on the character how they react) and have the closest friend of that character berate you while they recover (again could also depend).
This is basically the best permadeath i could come up with, since the units get 1 more chance and if they are good enough even 1 extra chance, but it won't be for free and the game will make sure you don't forget that fuck up.
Idk this feels like the best way to tell players to live with their mistakes without giving them the middle finger for losing to a 1% crit.
Anyways good video, loved it
Have you ever played a Warhammer 40k game called Chaos Gate: Daemonhubters? It works kinda like that. It's a game with permadeath, but each of your Grey Knights can be defeated a couple of times before they bite the dust for good. This, however, will put them in an injured state even more severe than regular injuries, and it will take many days of in-game time for them to fully recover. And while you can force them to deploy while they're still recovering from their injuries, they have penalties so severe if you do so that they're all but guaranteed to actually bite it if you do. This encourages to train up a larger roster of Knights beyond the four you can deploy in most missions, to be able to cover for absences when someone is recovering from an injury.
I usually reset on my blind runs with normal difficulty to "test" the game and rerun without resets on hard, it's always painful when your favorite character dies just like Gilliam eating 3%
This was a super enlightening perspective I didn't realize I needed to hear. I've played through every English FE, and have never done an ironman run; however, I HAVE stopped playthroughs for up to months at a time because a death "forced me" to restart a chapter that I really didn't want to replay. For some reason it never even occurred to me that permadeath was there for a reason, as a game mechanic, rather than as an especially real-life-resource consuming failure state. This video was amazing, and you've absolutely convinced me to make my next playthrough an ironman one for sure. Thanks Bopper, love the content as always :)
Same!
i disliked fire emblem because i got burned out from resetting so much, but now that i play without resetting the games are so much more enjoyable
The thing that worries me about the turn wheel so far is that in the two games it's in it almost feels like an excuse to not create or revisit maps so that they actually engage the player in ways that aren't artificial because "the player will just experiment until they find the proper solution" rather than make reasoned decisions based on experiences the devs always expect every player to have. When the most a game has to offer, lets say at it's highest difficulty, is creating forced instances where the players natural tendencies is to reset (be it FOMO, perfectionism, favoritism etc.) it really turns me off from the experience. Its why the imperfect runs I have of FE9 still bring me back because I know the developers behind that game give tutorial maps through the first seven or so chapters that clearly set expectations of the player that are specific and realistic - they have every intention of giving someone everything they need to succeed for the rest of the game (knowledge of different objectives, unit type strengths and weaknesses, a fallback unit via Titania etc.). They don't just throw a time altering device to a newbie and say "see what happens".
In my experience I have seen that the turn wheel strangely is an anti turtling incentive. It gives mainly new players the freedom to try something with the assurance that experimenting is okay.
No it should not be a crutch in design philosophy.
But keeping a way to give players power is incredible. It is similar to the way Chess(FE 0) analysis is engaging. Going back and seeing what could have been done better is a huge learning opportunity for new players. Thus why it is encouraged in chess books.
The Turn wheel has made me play Brutally by just crashing a unit and hoping to crit against the enemy for a kill.
This is what made the already best class: Dread Fighter, To become even better
This is what made The Extremely good class: Wyvern Rider/Lord, to be considered the best.
Turn Wheel rewards having Good Offensive teams and does not reward having Good Defensive teams. FE games usually offer better offenses but the turn wheel is a boost to any player team to be more wreckless.
@@chillstoneblakeblast3172 It probably also doesn't help that defend objectives are very rare and most maps in the history of Fire Emblem have either been route or seize throne.
@@hennyzhi2261 Fire Emblem in general encourages aggressive play a lot. That's why CQ chapter 10 is a very popular map, it's a defend map where.you need to ply very aggresively to succed. The turnwhell does encourage the player to play more aggresively, but removes a lot of the risks that come with such a playstyle and ultimately make the player pickup bad habits
@@chillstoneblakeblast3172 I don't think the games that reward 'defensive' teams are good though. Like, Awakening is probably the closest game to rewarding having strong defensive teams (aka, having units strong enough to survive ambush spawns + nosferatu-tanking being so ridiculously over powered), but that really only leads to juggernauting and cheesy strategies.
Offensive strategies should generally be rewarded more, both because they have a higher risk, and are (generally) more engaging (aka why Conquest Chapter 10 is the best defense map in the series, because it really encourages you to play offensively and push forward, which then leads to the game pushing back at you when Takumi takes away the water and everyone rushes to the defend point). The map's a lot less fun if you just stay at the chokepoints, hiding behind Effie and Camilla. )
Another refreshing take. I'm glad you're making content and (hopefully) enjoying doing it.
I always seem to get caught in the fomo and strive for a 'perfect' run but maybe I can break that habit next time I start up the game
I am going to contradict myself, but I love that Fire Emblem has permadeath, it makes the game series very unique and encourages you to explore the many colorful characters it has, without intrusively shoving them in your face. By having a cast larger than what you can deploy, then having some of them die, everyone's experience of the same game will be COMPLETELY different. And that's what makes the series so beautiful. Being able to talk about the same game you enjoyed, but sharing completely different stories. I like talking about my game experiences with my friends.
By eliminating permadeath, by resetting, these stories start to become a lot more similar, a lot more boring, and therefore less worth to talk about. Because what is there to talk about if we all just tell the same story?
And yet, I'm a culprit of abusing resets. Why? Fear. It's simple as that. I am scared of letting go of something in a video game. Isn't that crazy? And I'm going to make a wild assumption here, but I'm sure some people might feel the same.
It's this crazy idea I have, that video games may be the one thing I have the control and power over to make perfect. To get the 100% and make it flawless and complete. This fear of losing a 32pixel sprite I like is so deeply rooted within me that I can't just let it go. I never learned to let go. And not letting a safe environment such as a video game teach me, will never help the cause.
But also, I haven't properly played a Fire Emblem Game in a while. I'm soon playing Path of Radiance with my friends for the first time, and I'm actually pretty excited to play past my mistakes. (Not like I would ever make any mistakes)
Saying that "resetting a map is an interesting choice" is legitimately not something I've ever heard, or anything vaguely similar to that
I would definitely argue that resetting is a game mechanic. The developers were well aware of the hardware they were working on. If they didn't want the player to be able to reset they would've made some sort of autosave system that overwrote your save after each action or the midbattle save system from Awakening where it deleted the save once it was loaded.
Game also tracks how often a unit died too, even if you reset, and Kaga himself mentioned most of the staff resetting if a unit dies (and it feeling satisfying in the end to make it to the end with everyone). At same time he also encourages to have a run without saving, to forge your own story, for sake of a different experience (given how bare on dialogue and story earlier games purposely are for people to imagine their own little mini stories).
shmuplations.com/fireemblem/
You're absolutely right about the devs.
Serenes Forest actually contains an interesting article on topic of ironman before the term was coined, with Shozou Kaga encouraging players to try out an iron man run while the rest staff at the time mentioning that they just reset if anyone dies.
It's not, they admit they just reset themselves which is why they don't build mechanics around constant resetting and then added rpg elements later to make you care.
I never feel satisfied without reseting, though the Ironman challenges are memorable, I cannot bear to lose a unit, especially if I actually like the character I lost (Like Lissa, Charlotte and Silque). Resetting also allows me to get to know them better (which is how I learned to appreciate units like Rinkah, Leon, Florina and Nino) as I can read their supports and get to the end. You do raise good points, but sadly, I won't do a "Iron man" challenge anytime soon.
What I find a bit silly is the implication that Kaga and his team didn’t take the save feature or the reset button into account when designing their games. I also advocate for playing past your mistakes, but I do think that “interesting choice” of playing on vs resetting was deliberate.
Kaga once said in an interview that he didn’t want players to reset, so I can’t imagine that they intended the opposite
@@ProfessorBopper Really? I’ve never heard about that, my mistake.
@@romitalia3088 One of Kaga's most famous lines is how players shouldn't be bothered by not getting a perfect ending and use deaths to make their own stories as well.
@@ProfessorBopper Kaga's playtesting team kept resetting, so he was fully aware of the issue. The takeaway from his lines isn't that you shouldn't take resetting into account, but that a player should play in the way that acommodates them the best, be it by saving time or your characters. This is my interpretation of what Kaga designed the FE games to be like, and it's why I personally disagree with you. Good video regardless.
@@vanjagalovic3621 Yes I know that, and I agree.
In my FE8 iron man my tana managed to survive a berserked seth for 4 turns and is something that will always stick in my mind
I’m glad you talked about player-created stories as I feel it’s a very important part of these games that’s not talked about enough.
FE4 is praised for a lot, but one thing I’ve not seen anyone praise is how unique the ending is relative to your experience. Between gen 1 pairings (or lack thereof), gen 2 pairings, and character deaths, FE4’s ending will be drastically different for every player. I’ll never forget Janne mentioning her dead lover, or Patty not being able to be with hers because Faval died and she had to inherit Jungby instead.
I think more mechanics like the FE4 ending, Ilios’ recruitment requirement in Thracia and the 2nd FE6 route split, where the player’s individual experience directly affects the narrative, are great ways to enhance player created stories, and in turn elevate permadeath as more than just a gameplay mechanic.
I will always reset,so I can see each character's post game story
I’m somewhere in the middle. I’ll reset if I lose something super valuable to me, even if it isn’t necessary to beating the game, but I generally want to complete a map on my first try, without resetting.
Over time, I find that newer FE games focus more and more on the player story of raising units and taking ownership of them, so much so that the games actively discourage letting anyone die because the amount of investment you put in makes your units irreplaceable. Sure, the same can be said of other games in the series, but if you consider something like Three Houses or even Awakening, you see just how hard it is to replace a good unit because the game just don't give viable replacements later on into the game.
I personally feel that resetting isn't a choice anymore, or at least, it is as much of a choice as picking what type of Undertale run you're going for - all the decisions are made before you pick up the controller, and you just have to slog through until you feel like the frustration isn't worth the run.
On god this is one of the best eye openers I've ever had the luck to land upon, really made me realize what I dislike and what keeps me going on a fire emblem game.
I am also in awe at how this video is 10 times more eloquent and effective in teaching game design than everyday game design videos.
Wow just wow
Really well thought out arguments! My main draw was the self made stories your run gets from allowing character death. Its a role playing game and it allows for tragedies to happen outside of the main story.
Three houses was my first FE but I'm a long time player of games like x-com. You did a great job of putting into words the awkward feeling I had around the divine pulse mechanic and lack of ability to recover during the campaign. It's also WILD to me that they put permadeath in a character-focused game but don't even account for it in the narrative. No one's story arcs change even a little by someone getting killed! It's like the devs just shrugged their shoulders and assumed no one would let anyone die anyway so why bother.
Because of this video, I was inspired to do an Ironman of Shadow Dragon, one of my favorite FEs.
I got complacent and lost Marth on Chapter 13, so I had to quit the run, but it was still one of the most fun Fire Emblem experiences I’ve had in a really long time. Thanks, Bopper.
While the video was great, I have a couple of disagreements. The comparison with gacha games is pretty iffy at best. I get what you're saying, but I don't think it works because time is a resource that we spend on basically everything. I don't begrudge resetting in the same way I don't begrudge the training room in a fighting game or the time spent learning a song on an instrument.
When it comes to bad design choices, I don't think resets normalize it, but make them more noticeable. If someone plays the same chapter multiples times, the bad design decisions should become apparent by virtue of exposure. At the very least, the frustration from losing a unit to ambush reinforcements in either an ironman or reset run is most likely comparable.
Personally I think you're underselling player-created stories that can occur with resets.
I don't see resetting as comparable to a training room because training rooms are much better paced around starting over and over again while giving information on what to improve, resetting gives no info and no pace to re-adjust it's just winging it again till it somehow works, which is fine as your own indulgence but not as a normal trial and error process.
@@islandboy9381 I think training mode is a fine comparison. It's not a perfect comparison due to the tools most training modes give you, but the general idea of spending time to learn is the same. Also the only way resetting is "just winging it again till it somehow works," is if you choose to not pay attention to what got you to reset in the first place and at that point there's little difference between that and using training mode to lab combos and nothing else.
Even in the GBA games, they aknowledge the soft resets in a way. they count the number of times a character dies and show it to the player. Which would be pointless outside of the lords if they didn't consider that players would reset upon losing characters
I understand why people don't like resetting on deaths but I really enjoy the challenge of doing deathless runs. It forces me to play more tactically and I like feeling like I'm overcoming serious obstacles.
Interesting! I'll try out a no-resets playthrough as you've suggested.
Thanks for this video, Professor. I appreciate it.
I had a run of radiant dawn in like 2010 where I just gave up at Rebirth 4 because I would always lose someone and reset (Boyd and his crap res).
I came back to that file 8 years later equipped with more knowledge of fire emblem games, benched Boyd, and played the chapter super carefully for several turns. I was taking full advantage of the terrain until I lost Rhys to a random crit. I was already like a half hour in and I was NOT doing all that again, so I just forged ahead without him since there was one chapter left anyway. It's something my fire emblem friend won't let me live down but it's still the most memorable event of any fire emblem I've had to this day.
I've got a lot of other games on my plate right now, but watching your videos really make me want to do an iron man of my own one day.
Dark deity grave wounds system. Deaths give small stat penalties rather than actually killing people.
True but even Dark Deity will kill the unit once you get enough wounds.
@@wereweed2070 actually chip said he removed the eventual death mechanic in the discord server for various reasons
@@jerry3115 Wow really? So the injuries just infinitely stack now?
@@wereweed2070 well technically not infinite cuz there are only so many maps and you can only die once per map but yea
Vestaria Saga (by Shozo Kaga himself) has permanent mid-chapter saves, but only once per 5 turns or so.
I was not expecting to see a Hotline Miami reference already a minute within the video, but I am very grateful for it
So I do admittedly have a few issues with this. While resetting is, indeed often player indulgence, the fact is that the game has often had mechanics that encourage resetting to get out of bad situations that you put yourself into. Not just in modern FEs, not just the save points in Shadow Dragon, but all the way back in Fire Emblem 4, where you can save at the start of each turn(Which, yeah, you mention, but the way I look at it, I feel like it's just acknowledging and justifying that the general feel towards the game is different than their original intentions and shifting to meet it).
And fact of the matter is that, let's be blunt here, the games are literally designed around the notion that they'll push you into soft-resetting. I actually have a very strong memory of fighting Walhart, going one on one between him and Chrom, it was a hype fight and I was on the edge of my seat. I thought I had a good chance of winning...
Until Walhart ran past Chrom, ran past all my army, just to get to Gaius in the back and smack him to death. Cue soft reset.
This is why I play on casual mode when it's available now: Because the AI doesn't play like it's a living, breathing world so why should I? There's no acknowledgement of character deaths 95% of the time, the AI constantly does petty over-extensions and kill units that, in a war-like setting would be completely useless, just to whittle you down, and ultimately the games have many times supported this choice anyway. I'm there for a fun story and an enjoyable ride, and y'know what? If I can't take that journey without Bernie, Panne, Ross, Guy, etc, then I don't want to take that journey at all.
Another thing is, I understand your argument about how Iron Man creates "memorable moments", but I'd argue that it's less Iron Man and more just moments that stick out. Like, using Sacred Stones, yeah I reset during it at times, like when I lost Ross, and y'know what? One of my most memorable moments of that playthrough came later on when I was pinned down in Fluorspar's Oath, Ch.13 on the Ephraim Route. I was having a rough time moving in, but Selena was going to hammer us with the Bolting tome, and it kept some of my weaker-in-resistance units from approaching, it was a pretty hairy situation.
So I did the one thing I could: I used careful positioning to get the Barrier staff safely with Vanessa, brought it over to Moulder, who then used the newly acquired Barrier staff on Ross, who could walk on water because he had become a Pirate(and then a Berserker), and sent him out. He fought brilliantly, pushing through until he got close enough to Selena and, although roughed up, managed to get a strong hit to take her out. My boy Ross saved the day there.
Another one was on a recent playthrough of Shadow Dragon, in Chapter 8. Wolf and Sedgar were fighting the enemy, and I had initially written off Roger...but then I started to feel bad. I did the mental math and figured that Caeda could, possibly, recruit him and Roger could tank some hits while making his escape as long as Wolf took care of the archers. Cue a tense battle of Wolf taking hit after hit, ensuring the archers were down, before Caeda ran in to recruit Roger, with the both of them quickly making their escape after and leaving the rest to Wolf who could actually fight back now.
So y'see, sure, I didn't "Ironman" it, but I had two incredibly tense, exciting fights there, ones that I'll always remember far more than..well, pretty much anything I did in my first FE game's run(Blazing Blade) where I didn't reset too often, 'cause really, a death sucked, but didn't really make me feel sad because the game never tried to affect me that way(Ironically enough, if I had lost Matthew on a certain chapter, that probably would have had that effect...). Ironmans can be exciting, but it's entirely on the person who does it. For someone like me: It's not my bag.
Honestly, I think Permadeath is the series' greatest weakness, it really holds the whole plot of the game back. So many of the characters are reduced to just "into+support" because IS refuses to take into account these characters and their potential deaths for the stories. And it's such a damn shame, it's such wasted potential. I know people give the Monastery some shit in 3 Houses, but y'know what? I think it was brilliant because it actually let us interact with these characters, to get a feel for their personalities and understand their depth, and it actually makes those character deaths feel impactful and meaningful for once in the game's existence.
Great points!
Sometimes, you just don’t want Florina to die.
wow the resident evil comparison is fantastic, I didn't realize how similar these two series are in their design philosophy of supplying resources! great work on this video!! I've been trying to get back into playing fire emblems ironman style like I did when I first played awakening and fe7 nearly a decade ago haha.
on a side note, as nice as divine pulse/turnwheel is I found myself abusing it multiple times for "risky" strategies that weren't actually risky since you could just undo them if they didn't work. I think having the ability to do so is actually a good thing, but at the same time you're given so many undos that the tension of meaningful decision-making is largely stripped away. but it's difficult to balance its limitation in a way that would satisfy all players as people playing more casually like in a first playthrough would want more uses while people playing for more challenge would want less uses. it's an interesting topic for sure because it's a genius QoL addition to fire emblem and allows you to play in ways you couldn't before but the lack of limitation has caused that classic fire emblem "every decision counts" feeling to disappear.
Watched a friend finish FE7 for the first time and Athos died on the first round and he kept going despite me feeling very anxious (i had developed an instinct to reset whenever someone important died) and watching him play through the mistakes and get some lucky crits to beat the chapter made for a much more enjoyable experience then slowly grinding myself down trying to get perfect runs.
Great vid my guy, gave me a lot to think about in terms of how I approach my FE experiences (though the only game I've actually beaten is Awakening).
Is there a particular FE game where you'd say the permadeath balance is at its best? I'd like to curb my soft-reset habits and want to know what one would be best to try that with
Path of Radiance is a pretty good starting point as the enemies are fairly weak, bonus exp can make anyone good, and there’s a decent influx of strong prepromotes throughout the game
I think there is also some context to when the unit death occurs that causes a slippery slope of thinking. When a unit dies in the first couple turns it feels pretty bad to continue when it's much easier, even a trivial amount of time to restart. Suddenly the threshold for when the player would want to restart starts to increase. It goes from the first couple turns to then 5 turns or even 10, to then entirety of the map that the player is willing to spend time to reset.
You have me convinced! I'm playing FE7 Hector hard mode right now, which I've played many times, but with resetting along with savestates... I had gotten into the habit of resetting for any small mistake or bad luck and it's been VERY refreshing to play without being as concerned about missed objectives. I'm not a full iron man yet, as I did reset once for an early Matthew death, but Rebecca is gone (bait to save Eliwood in False Friends woops) and I've missed a couple villages which I certainly would have reset for in previous playthroughs.
Another good argument against resetting, in recent Awakening playthroughs I’ve gotten frustrated any time a unit dies and had to reset because I’ve put hours into their build and have considered playing my next run on casual but I think I’ll just play with deaths and see how that goes
Thought: (this went on way longer than I initially intended once I started writing)
How would you feel if the Enemy had a turnwheel use?
How would you feel if the enemy had a Shadow Drag / New mystery point to return to?
I think that second one would make for quite a neat twist in a level. Especially if you add story to make it make a little bit of sense. Like imagine you see the main baddie walk over to a mysterious ruin (or whatever context you want to provide) and is doing... something. You don't know what it is but you know they can't be up to any good.
X amount of turns later, you go to slay the enemy and they pull this trump card out. Maybe they escape now with this new attempt. Now this also sets up for if you want the bad guy to use it again, you can now know of it and plan around it.
The best parts of Fire emblem are always those you can reasonably plan around. Sure, you may not be able to do so for that first use, but then again, the most you could have lost was a lucky roll or two that occurred in that time.
Now imagine the devs build the stage this first occurs around this, making it easy to get to the baddie, but have a bunch of bad guys on your tail and presenting the win condition as defeat boss. You've lured the player into finding a clever strategy that they were planning on using just to survive what was about to be a heavy onslaught, one that very well may have taken some of your units from you if you weren't fast enough to getting to the boss. BAM this design just made the ENEMY save/reload into something likely to reward the player with a second chance for their characters.
The only piece I'm missing right now creatively is how the objective changes in the second chance at the stage, because just doing the same thing would likely be boring and arbitrary, so you have to mix something up. That's why my initial thought is the bad guy bails, but now I just need a good option on what happens now. The only thing I've got so far would be a very defensible position back towards the beginning of the map that can now be utilized. The problem with that is players might just do that from the start if it allows them to fight the "onslaught." Perhaps the magic ruin creates a crack in the terrain/mountain/etc that creates a new position from which to either allow big advantage over the onslaught forces or simply flee.
I don't see an enemy turn wheel bringing any interesting ideas in gameplay or narrative like this. It would likely just be a "nah I'm not going to actually die here" button for them. Granted my option does the same, but I've rather easily made an engaging scenario of it.
I always use save states, but I might try a run where I don't reset. Thanks for this video!
10:35 I was also thinking exactly about that moment in POR with all the dragons that you could be soft-locked.
Nowadays I tend to avoid resetting in general, unless I’m playing the 3DS games, where deaths result in me having less content.. I’m also a fan of rewinding time, but with a stricter cap on how often you can use it (maybe even to how many turns you can go back) cause it allows me (a big dummy) to learn from mistakes and get better at strategising in the future, or to avoid snowballing death scenarios to unexpected RNG. Good video btw~ they should definitely bring back those mid battle saves.
I played the GBA Fire Emblems with resetting, and by the time I got to Path of Radiance, I was so sick of all the time wasted. So I just let things happen as they would and I had a much better time for it. I think resetting is one of those things we do, thinking it improves our experience when it really sabotages it.
True. Plus, there's something hilarious about using your friends like disposable pawns.
You've changed my mind bopper.
I don't really have a strong opinion on whether resetting is intended or not, but I do think that chapters in Thracia specifically show that it is expected. The intro dialogue to 12x essentially tells the player "hey bro maybe you should bring Lara instead of Lifis this time" and 21's intro says "yeah you should probably bring Linoan". There's probably a few more, but these are the ones that I remember off the top of my head.
The problem is that these conversations happen after you've started the chapter, so it's too late to make these changes in game, meaning that you have to restart if you want to cash in. Personally I think it would've been much better in general if these kinds of conversations happened before deployment, but given that they happen after I think it shows that the devs were definitely planning at least some interactions leading to the player restarting (if not more than a few).
The good thing there is that Lara and Linoin don’t even need to be there for the player to beat the game. My current blind Thracia run is at endgame with unprompted Linoin and dead Lara, so the game still works (almost) perfectly fine with no resets. That said, I do agree that those conversations should happen before deployment
playing ironman in fire emblem is soooo fun and more engaging experience
Love your videos
I was going in expecting something really preachy, like “people who pick Casual Mode shouldn’t even play the game” but I was pleasantly surprised that it was more about it being a fault of game design, rather than player choice. I’ll be honest, I will never not use Casual Mode when given the option, it’s just how I enjoy the game. But I also do a lot of Pokémon Nuzlockes, so I understand the appeal of never resetting. All in all, good video!
Yeah I've heard a lot "casual mode is for pussies" type of talk. The annoying part is that when these same "hardcore classic players" lose a unit they reset. Whats the point of playing classic if you just reset? Just sounds like casual mode with extra steps so they can keep claiming they're a hardcore classic player.
I've always felt that resetting is just casual mode with extra steps
It's not, in casual you can just keep going, in classic you can actually lose a character because you spent too much time on a stage so you realize: "is it REALLY worth my real life time replaying ALL THAT vs not using this unit again?"
What really turned me around was the realization of the following:
You'd think that an Iron Man run, which is a challenge run by nature, where you aren't allowed to go back and undo your mistakes wouldn't be fun or even frustrating.
However, the fact that I never have to play a single part of the game more than once helps the pacing, and also allows me to take a breather here and there because I know that I'm only ever going to deal with this section once, and then I'll be done.
Essentially, Iron Man Runs are somehow more relaxing than my usual playthroughs, which you wouldn't expect from a challenge run.
The stories that ensue are great as well. I poayed my own Sacred Stones Randomizer Iron Man along with Boppers SS Iron Man. I remember killing the Demon King with Swordmaster Eirika and Ranger Seth. I remember losing Ross in the Arena. I remember Wyvern Knight Joshua's Death in the Desert right after he got all the stat boosters, including the Swift Soles.
I remember Ephraim dodging two lethal attacks at 50% in 19 and 20.
I don't remember anything like that from my first playthrough, which was only 2 years ago. But I'm just rambling at this point.
Bottom Line, Iron Man Runs are super fun.
I'll be frank, I love the old mechanics for replacement units and stuff, specially generic playable characters which I find hilarious. But that's it, I find them interesting and funny. I like the idea of having them available, I certainly do not like the idea of relying on them. All in all, i like the idea of having the games be designed around not resetting, BUT giving the schnazzy overkill Casual Mode and Turnwheel mechanics a chance to also exists. I feel like having options are better than not having them, even if they would detract from the "ideal play" envisioned. As you can probably tell, I am quite partial to games having built in "cheat" menus.
0:38 is probably one of my favorite bopper quotes
This is a pretty good video. Surprisingly, when I did my first ever iron man play through with Awakening, I didn't lose a single unit. Granted, I did play on Normal mode, but still.
I'd argue that at the very least radiant dawn and three houses resetting is a mechanic even even if it's never said. Soft resetting was added specifically in those games as a game feature, and was not a function of the console itself. Not to say I disagree with your points, I definitely think they should build the game around people who do let their units die, and not people who go out of their way not let them die. Three Houses felt like it had a classic mode option just so people didn't freak out when it was gone, and that's not okay.
As a new player, I'm okay with the turn wheel partially cause I suck at strategy. But more importantly, I see it as a interesting mechanic that can be done well. In three houses, you have a limit to how many you can use it, so I think that's the best approach to treating it, as a resource. Then again, I almost always play on casual mode so this might be a moot point, but still.
I'll never forget my first Awakening run because of how much I forgot most of the cast. It was my first Fire Emblem and I didn't even consider resetting the game as an option. For the first few chapters I also didn't quite understand that I had to give unarmed characters weapons, so many died because of their dumb tactician. Chrom even lost his sister quite early on.
After all that loss, coming to understand the game better, and reaching the final map, I looked at all the empty spaces with no units to fill them, watched Chrom and my tactician take the whole battle on their own like it was nothing, and I thought to myself "wow I played this game wrong". Now I look back on it kinda fondly though, there's a personal story there but I know I could never play the game like that again without feeling that need to reset.
I know for me personally I just love the tension created when I play with resets. It forces you to really think about your moves before you make them. I think Ironman or Draft runs are great fun too. The only way I don’t really suggest people play is Casual mode where units come right back. To me that’s the equivalent of when a previously quarter munching beat’em up is played with unlimited continues. It just devolves into mindlessness.
Interesting video mate
Wasn't expecting my unbridled hatred for code veronica to turn up in an FE video but my god thank you for it.
Very interesting thoughts on this - as someone who has a habit of resetting, you’ve convinced me to try an ironman run.
Hot take: casual mode has a place in fire emblem games
It creates a more relaxing experience that lets people who are bad at these games still experience the characters and stories while still keeping a sort of challenge
It allows you to take risk. The main lesson you learn while playing a FE games is that taking any risk can cost you dearly. Hell, even while playing relatively safe, an ambush spawn can ruin your precious strategy. Or a 3% Crit.
It's not really about being "bad at game", it's how you wish to play the game.
Do the inherent tension of Permadeath makes for a more intense gameplay experience? Or is it just endlessly frustrating and time consuming.
And that's actually why resetting is bad. It's for those that are too stubborn and proud to play Casual Mode instead.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 Nah. Casual mode does actually change the way you play, as the consequences of letting a unit die are now incredibly light. It doesn't matter if Sumia dies while attacking the boss, as she'll be back immediately afterwards. It lets sacrificial strategies essentially become the dominant meta, as death now has no permanent consequence (aside from missed exp, but every game that's had casual mode (except sorta Conquest) has a way to mitigate it).
That said, it should definitely exist. It provides another way to play the game for those that don't like a stressful/perfect playthrough, and some people like sacrificial strategies. It just isn't for me.
Phoenix mode on the other hand... is a bit too far.
Anyone knows the song that starts playing at 10:40?
I found the best mechanic between turnwheel and full resetting is battle save from fates. If you forget to save and need to reset you're fault, but it's a mechanic that rewards you for using it while discouraging you over its tediousness. I played conquest hard classic blind and the battle save was a huge time saver but also punished me for not using it by keeping the permadeath active and made me weigh up my time or the character (mozu, silas and kaze) that I had grown attached to.
Ah nice, new video essay.
Ok so at 8:22 there appears to be a slight video glitch lasting for about two seconds
The crazy thing is, is that my very first Fire Emblem game was FE7, and I iron manned it without even knowing what that was. I lost so many units, Nino, Mathew, Kent, and Florina are the 4 I most remember. Then I started to do that with Sacred Stones, but that’s when I started soft resetting. I do realize the memorability of iron man challenges, as I remember challenges I have overcome more than things that were a cakewalk. On my first playthrough of Awakening, I soft-resetted all the time. Then I got to the map with those mages that surround the whole place and launch bolts at your army. I had soft resetted so much for Gaius before this, as I think he’s pretty cool and sunk cost fallacy. I ended up doing pretty well, although Gaius somehow is the only one getting hit by the bolts consistently, despite having the lowest hit percentage on him. I ended up getting greedy towards the end and had him go lockpick a chest. Enemy’s turn happens and he gets hit with 2 bolts with a 30 percent hit chance and dies. I’m starting to think about whether or not I should reset since it was the end of the map. I was gonna ponder some more once the enemy’s turn was over, only for the boss to kill himself attacking Vaike😂. It’s one of the more memorable moments from that playthrough and I’m glad I decided to just move on
I just enjoy doing no death runs, so I reset if a character dies so I can redo the chapter with better strategy based on what I learn from the chapter and learn to not make the same mistakes in the future to get better at Fire Emblem. Especially because I'm relatively new to FE and always trying to improve my skills
Not done yet but loving the video so far, but "steel fill" is sending me lmao
I think alot of it comes down to whether you play a fire emblem game as a single playthrough or a series of playthroughs, which depends on the game really. It's much easier to accept a loss knowing you'll be able to catch them next time.
I'd say Engage could be Ironman friendly despite the presence of rewind. I haven't tried it yet but the fact that you get new units constantly and the absence of ambush spawns means that you're unlikely to run out of units. Alear is also a very good unit so even in a worst case scenario it's possible to continue.
Still, I don't understand people choosing Classic and resetting upon death. When you have the option, you may as well play Casual directly.
My first copy of FireEmblem was a bootleg FE6 cartridge that literally didn't let me save because the save battery died. Every time I tried to play was an iron run. It was surprisingly satisfying! Each time was like an alternate universe. There were a few runs where an unexpected character became absolutely jacked. A few where old Marcus died. A few where I couldn't recruit Rutger.
It was a surprisingly liberating way of playing the game. I think I might do more iron runs of games now.
A radical (if jarring) solution: in-battle auto saves without an option to duplicate save files a la roguelikes (Hades, Binding of Isaac).
There's also the Diablo idea of only implementing and advertising such a feature as a higher difficulty or "hardcore" mode.
This makes sense, but I keep going in blind on the hardest difficulties I can and I don't want to lose my mind on those playthroughs. Like I'm okay with letting things roll on the ever standard hard mode, but above that I don't know sometimes.
Sometimes it feels like the hardest difficulties in some unnamed more modern fire emblem games were designed intentionally with resets in mind
It might help if you got some benefit for the rest of a mission when someone dies as it would mean sometimes that death is why you can win
Even though my first was Awakening and I played on Casual (then) I played as if PermaDeath was a thing.
I planned out my *whole turn* before moving a single unit. Always considered "am I comfortable with the units HP if ambush enemies appear?"
Each map took me an hour or longer but I never lost anyone.
After that I took the same mindset into Conquest. And while I didn't beat it (good GOD the plot was bad) I remember it more than anything because of how beautifully designed the maps were and how much my playstyle meshed with the map design.
I know I'm an outlier. And many would look at my playstyle and say "that's boring" but there's nothing quite like a well laid plan coming to fruition.
1000% agree. Although, I think part of the problem is the paradox of keeping permadeath as a central mechanic while continuously upping how invested you are/have to be in the characters each game (and theres far less of them). I played Project Ember as first ever ironman, i can't believe I didn't play this way before, its so much better, but to be fair the hack does a lot to stop the cheap stuff described in this video, and so many units are ready out of the box...
This has made me entirely rethink how I view resets in this game series. I have only beaten Three Houses--but I am currently playing Awakening (Normal/Classic), and have both Fates and Echoes in my backlog. Whenever I lose a character, I just immediately reset--aside from the one time I let Caspar die in my initial 3 Houses playthrough. As a kid, I always thought the permadeath feature in Fire Emblem was really cool, but I never had an opportunity to play the any games in the franchise until just last year when I got to play Three Houses, and it never really occurred to me until watching this video that it's a bit silly of me to want a challenge, actively choose Classic mode, and then erase all of my consequences when I make mistakes anyway. For all that, I should have just chosen Casual mode. You have made an excellent case for not resetting, and I'm going to actually going to try to do so moving forward. I don't know if I'll NEVER reset because I think the circumstances do matter in regards to whether a reset is really necessary or not, but I think I will continue playing Awakening with the mindset of not resetting because I actually do want to see what kind of unique experience it presents. I've always felt some shame in resetting after a mistake, too, so a part of me has always wanted to do a reset-free run of these games.