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Fire Emblem Community Thread | Together We Ride

Draxal

Member
They're missing a ton of SD characters from cipher, and FE6 charactesr from cipher, just because there were so many of them.
 

Shengar

Member
If there's anything Intelligent Systems should take away from Fates, it's that writing should be treated as a priority. Barring that, if they want to outsource the script they should give it to someone with a proven track record of complex writing within the industry like Yasumi Matsuno.

They actually outsource a professional writer for FE Fates. The problem is, the said writer's portfolio best work only considered as decent. Not to mention that he doesn't have any experience with handling loads of characters, fantasy setting, and dynastic struggle in most of his work (I bet he took the job because he want to try those). To be fair, I do heard troubling development in regard to the story.

If IntSys still want to fix post-Awakening FE story quality, they could and should hired writers that have more fitting track record with their game. Matsuno is one, then there is Yoshitaka Murayama of the first three Suikoden now that he's back to the industry.
 
They actually outsource a professional writer for FE Fates. The problem is, the said writer's portfolio best work only considered as decent. Not to mention that he doesn't have any experience with handling loads of characters, fantasy setting, and dynastic struggle in most of his work (I bet he took the job because he want to try those). To be fair, I do heard troubling development in regard to the story.

If IntSys still want to fix post-Awakening FE story quality, they could and should hired writers that have more fitting track record with their game. Matsuno is one, then there is Yoshitaka Murayama of the first three Suikoden now that he's back to the industry.
They could've even picked a better writer from outside of the videogame space. The writer they got mainly writes manga and anime, right? There are better options in that space as well. They specifically sought him out, though, which is part of the problem. They didn't recognize he wasn't the right writer for the job.
 

Lynx_7

Member
It's a little unfair to pin all the blame on Kibayashi. He wrote the draft but IntSys were the ones responsible for translating that into the game. We'll never know just how much they changed, so at best we could say it was a joint effort of shittiness. There's the skeleton of a good story in Fates, it's just mired with bad writing and contrivances. "Shhh, we can't talk about the thing!" is such a stupid excuse to keep Azura (and later Corrin) quiet, and Garon's entire character is a massive mistake.

That said, I wonder why Kibayashi specifically. Is he a big shot in Japan? Is some higher up in IntSys a huge fan of GetBackers? Because he really shouldn't be the first option to come to mind when thinking about political conflict with massive cast of characters.
That should obviously be Yoshiki Tanaka
 

CazTGG

Member
It's a little unfair to pin all the blame on Kibayashi. He wrote the draft but IntSys were the ones responsible for translating that into the game. We'll never know just how much they changed, so at best we could say it was a joint effort of shittiness. There's the skeleton of a good story in Fates, it's just mired with bad writing and contrivances. "Shhh, we can't talk about the thing!" is such a stupid excuse to keep Azura (and later Corrin) quiet, and Garon's entire character is a massive mistake.

That said, I wonder why Kibayashi specifically. Is he a big shot in Japan? Is some higher up in IntSys a huge fan of GetBackers? Because he really shouldn't be the first option to come to mind when thinking about political conflict with massive cast of characters.
That should obviously be Yoshiki Tanaka

If I recall from when I reviewed Birthright, Hitoshi Yamagami suggested Kibayashi because he's "a legendary manga and screenwriter" in Japane, albeit in the most mythical sense since while everyone in Japan has read his work, they likely weren't aware they were doing so since he wrote under a pen name. As for who to blame...well, there's some debate as to what happened to Kibayashi's initial 500 page draft: According to Shin Kibayashi, various staff members at Intelligent Systems went through it before settling on the final one that appeared in the game(s). However, a passage in "The Making of Fire Emblem" seems to contradict this, stating that Intelligent Systems followed Kibayashi's original draft fairly closely...or at least, supposedly it does. Without a copy of my own and someone to help translate it, verifying whether or not this is true is not possible at the moment.
 

NeonZ

Member
Marth made a likely non-licensed cameo in this week's Digimon Universe episode.

TFDIZ2p.jpg

Game characters are controlled by a villain that attempts to use them as his minions. He only appears in a flashback showing how that started, and was the only (aside from an Agumon... although this is Digimon anyway) who pretty much used an official design, rather than original designs that vaguely reference existing ones.
 

Chrom

Junior Member
I wonder if/when there'll ever be a new FE anime adaptation. It feels like something that ought to be a thing by now.
 
I don't think a Fire Emblem anime could really work. The biggest draw other than the gameplay is the massive cast and since almost all characters in Fire Emblem are quickly pretty irrelevant to the plot, I don't think you can really adapt the parts people like about Fire Emblem, especially modern Fire Emblem.

Maybe you could try to adapt the Archanea stuff since the side characters are less important, but I still don't think it could really work. Blazing Sword might be possible if you just cut out all of the non-plot relevant characters, but that's part of the problem (and any Fire Emblem adaptation would almost certainly be either Awakening, Fates, or FE3)
 

Xbro

Member
I don't think a Fire Emblem anime could really work. The biggest draw other than the gameplay is the massive cast and since almost all characters in Fire Emblem are quickly pretty irrelevant to the plot, I don't think you can really adapt the parts people like about Fire Emblem, especially modern Fire Emblem.

Maybe you could try to adapt the Archanea stuff since the side characters are less important, but I still don't think it could really work. Blazing Sword might be possible if you just cut out all of the non-plot relevant characters, but that's part of the problem (and any Fire Emblem adaptation would almost certainly be either Awakening, Fates, or FE3)

They could just make it like the Osawa manga. That did it just fine.
 

Xbro

Member
I'm not familiar with it, how was it written/structured?

It did a good job writing all the characters(except for like 2 that she just left out), granted it was FE4 so there weren't all that many characters to begin with. I'm not quite sure what you're asking though.
 

CazTGG

Member
I don't think a Fire Emblem anime could really work. The biggest draw other than the gameplay is the massive cast and since almost all characters in Fire Emblem are quickly pretty irrelevant to the plot, I don't think you can really adapt the parts people like about Fire Emblem, especially modern Fire Emblem.

Maybe you could try to adapt the Archanea stuff since the side characters are less important, but I still don't think it could really work. Blazing Sword might be possible if you just cut out all of the non-plot relevant characters, but that's part of the problem (and any Fire Emblem adaptation would almost certainly be either Awakening, Fates, or FE3)

Isn't that literally the one thing the show could capitalize on i.e. give less well-known characters an episode or two to shine and flesh out their backstory and relationships over a lengthier period of time than the games especially in entries with lighter stories like the original or, barring that, improve on the overarching story? It's what they did in the 90s OVA by lightly touching on Navarre and Ogma's backstories and giving us the first interpretation of how Marth became a royal in exile, not to mention gave us a glimpse into characters we rarely see mentioned like Marth's father. Granted, it wasn't great but that wasn't due to poor execution so much as it was that they only created two episodes so characters like Barst, Bord & Cord weren't given any opportunities to shine.

Now, a movie on the other hand...
 
While I'd personally prefer something else, Echoes has a small cast, story's fairly shounen, and it's short. If you need to extend an episode, just add cantors.
 
A (full-length) Fire Emblem anime is the biggest holy grail for me.

To be honest, I never thought they'd remake the Fire Emblem card game or make a mobile version, so who knows what'll happen in the future.
 

Erheller

Member
Twist: It's going to be based off of Fire Emblem Heroes and will revolve around the Heroes original characters.

what were their names again?
 

PK Gaming

Member
While I'd personally prefer something else, Echoes has a small cast, story's fairly shounen, and it's short. If you need to extend an episode, just add cantors.

100% agreed.

Echoes even has a cheesy anime-esque cliffhanger.

o4IYQCL.png


"IF I DON'T PERFECT THE TWIN LIONS TECHNIQUE, THEN WE'RE DOOMED...!"
 

Lunar15

Member
Their best bet was just doing a slice of life anime with the Awakening Parents/Kids that took place around the main plot events of awakening, but not really concerning them.

That window's kinda closed now.
 

Draxal

Member
Their best bet was just doing a slice of life anime with the Awakening Parents/Kids that took place around the main plot events of awakening, but not really concerning them.

That window's kinda closed now.

They're going to be pushing the switch fire emblem super hard imho.
 

Draxal

Member
Yeah, I could see them doing an anime on that if the game's popular. God, I just wish it wasn't Kozaki's art.

Tbh, I like Kozaki alot but think we're getting a new artist (maybe Hidari maybe not), making 110 characters burns out all the artists.
 
I like Kozaki's art but I'd rather just get something new, I appreciate that Fire Emblem changes it every couple games and I'd hope that that doesn't change now that it's become more successful.
 
I tried imagining Kozaki's designs but in HACCAN's art style in 3D.
Then I begrudgingly cleaned up the art to make it not a nightmare to get right in 3D.
Then I just ended up with Kozaki designs but different eyes. Maybe my imagination just sucks. >.>
 

Draxal

Member
HACCAN is the artist that does old school fire emblem 1-5 perfectly.

He would easily be my choice for an echoes remake of Genealogy.

Rika Suzuki is very hit or miss for me.
 

Golnei

Member
HACCAN is the artist that does old school fire emblem 1-5 perfectly.

He would easily be my choice for an echoes remake of Genealogy.

Haccan wouldn't be a bad choice, but I don't think sticking with Hidari would be a terrible idea either, especially for remakes - as I've said before, compared to how undeniably outdated the actual artwork from Thracia looks, the modernised sprites Thracia gave Jugdral characters wouldn't be totally irreconcilable with the artwork they've produced for Echoes as far as actual character design goes; though I'd imagine the costumes would need to be significantly overhauled regardless of who is behind art direction and character design.

It's obviously something that could change with the direction of an individual project, but I kind of think that Haccan's tendency towards more vibrant, colourful and dynamic art might be a better fit for revisiting the GBA games or Archanea; while the style of what Hidari's done for Echoes (not quite so much the Vocaloid art) might work better with translating the less saturated, sort of worn, earthy look the SNES games tended to have (which was sort of a thing in SNES RPGs in general).

Rika Suzuki is very hit or miss for me.

I have to agree - for how beautiful some of their Sacred Stones artwork is, it's difficult to forget their Cipher meme faces (and Camus de Bergerac).
 

PK Gaming

Member
Ditto on Hidari coming back

I love Kozaki, but I'd like to see new art for the new generation of FE games

Sides, he's probably burnt out on drawing 100+ characters
 

Draxal

Member
Haccan wouldn't be a bad choice, but I don't think sticking with Hidari would be a terrible idea either, especially for remakes - as I've said before, compared to how undeniably outdated the actual artwork from Thracia looks, the modernised sprites Thracia gave Jugdral characters wouldn't be totally irreconcilable with the artwork they've produced for Echoes as far as actual character design goes; though I'd imagine the costumes would need to be significantly overhauled regardless of who is behind art direction and character design.

It's obviously something that could change with the direction of an individual project, but I kind of think that Haccan's tendency towards more vibrant, colourful and dynamic art might be a better fit for revisiting the GBA games or Archanea; while the style of what Hidari's done for Echoes (not quite so much the Vocaloid art) might work better with translating the less saturated, sort of worn, earthy look the SNES games tended to have (which was sort of a thing in SNES RPGs in general).

I have to agree - for how beautiful some of their Sacred Stones artwork is, it's difficult to forget their Cipher meme faces (and Camus de Bergerac).

Hidari pretty much changed some characters 100% which is fine with Gaiden, but I would not want that to happen with Genealogy at all.

While I do like his modern shading, I'm not sure if he wants to ape genealogy's style.

Basically, if Eldigan doesn't keep his mullet I will be very unhappy.
 

Xbro

Member
They should just clean up the thracia sprites for those that have them, and use the same style for those that don't.
 

Golnei

Member
Also, I think Rika Suzuki's Seth might be the only official artwork of him I actually like. The 100 Songs of Heroes card is an abomination, the Heroes art is thoroughly regrettable, and even his original sprite was a little bit off-looking. Just ignore the horse's interesting anatomy.

tumblr_o4vjsrPFON1scuexbo1_1280.jpg



Hidari pretty much changed some characters 100% which is fine with Gaiden, but I would not want that to happen with Genealogy at all.

While I do like his modern shading, I'm not sure if he wants to ape genealogy's style.

Basically, if Eldigan doesn't keep his mullet I will be very unhappy.

It was necessary for Gaiden, but that wasn't my point - I was saying that the established designs for the Jugdral characters as of Thracia would lend themselves very well to being rendered in their style; and that as long as nobody decides to get their look freshened up with a Tatiana-esque iron bra, it'd also provide a solid link between relatively faithful adaptations of the character designs and drastically reinterpreted costumes. Echoes' Blake and Camus + the pegasus trio are a good example of that approach.

The kind of reinterpretation seen in Echoes pretty much couldn't have happened in anything other than a Gaiden remake - Archanea had a solid baseline in FE3 which all future media and the remakes drew on; and I'd expect any revisiting of other games to do the same. Nothing had quite as much room for interpretation (seen through things such as Alm's hair colour not being solidly defined, and more generally the fact that unlike FE1, it wasn't immediately followed by an expanded reimagining and sequel to make its characters more concrete and fully-realised on more powerful hardware) or was regarded with the same kind of general obscurity which made it easier to make the decision to 'reinvent' certain aspects of the presentation, and/or make that desirable - due to adding necessary detail that simply wasn't there before.

I wonder if Heroes already using Genealogy and Tracia's designs would make it harder to change them drastically.

Just the fact that those designs are solidly established between two SNES games (ignoring all other appearances in Heroes, Cipher, Awakening DLC etc.) is enough to make the situation different from Echoes in that regard - the characters aren't so much blank slates that'll need to be built from the ground up, but rather known quantities that need to be consciously updated and reinterpreted.

As before, I think Camus and the pegasus sisters would be the best example of the sort of updates that FE4 and 5's cast might see - their designs aren't totally unchanging, but their core characteristics aren't discarded between incarnations.
 

Draxal

Member
It was necessary for Gaiden, but that wasn't my point - I was saying that the established designs for the Jugdral characters as of Thracia would lend themselves very well to being rendered in their style; and that as long as nobody decides to get their look freshened up with a Tatiana-esque iron bra, it'd also provide a solid link between relatively faithful adaptations of the character designs and drastically reinterpreted costumes. Echoes' Blake and Camus + the pegasus trio are a good example of that approach.

That wasn't my point exactly, I was questioning Hidari's desire to take over such a game, designing your own characters is always a much more attractive option then drawing somebody's else characters.
 

spiritfox

Member
If I have a complaint about Echoes design is that all the female armored parts are stupidly designed. I don't even know what are the helmets Clair and Matilda are supposed to be wearing. Also the prevalence of armored bras.
 

Lunar15

Member
I too have a few dislikes with Hidari's art, but something about it is so outrageously appealing to me. As golnei mentioned, there's this warm, earthy feeling to it which fits the feeling of the older games in the series. It might be my favorite art style in the whole series. Actually, I'm glad someone brought up the "earthy, worn" feeling, because that's exactly how I've been trying to describe what I like about echoes. The maps, the music, the character art, everything has this worn-in feeling that just feels real cozy. The game's got a ton of problems, but I enjoy it as an occasional "curl-up" game. This, of course, is not really attributable to HIdari, but just the team's focus for the project in general. Gives me a ton of hope for the inevitable FE4 remake.

As for Kozaki, it's hard to explain why I'm not fond of his stuff. I used to just think that it was because I was being a curmudgeon who only liked the "old way" of doing things, but after seeing Hidari's take, as well as some of cipher/heroes artists, I've realized that I just don't like the way he draws faces.
 

Draxal

Member
1. Kozaki has sameface, not so bad when it was just Awakening, but once you get to 115 characters and they all have to be supermodels, it was blatant.

2. Kozaki has his characters eyes smaller. Hidari while not Wadaesque with the giant freaky eyes, definitely has them larger then Kozaki. I just get really annoyed by that technique (yes eyes get smaller when you are older but look at the Picture of Seth and Eirika there, his eyes are 1/2 the size of Eirika's and yeah I know that is Suzuki).
 

Golnei

Member
(yes eyes get smaller when you are older but look at the Picture of Seth and Eirika there, his eyes are 1/2 the size of Eirika's and yeah I know that is Suzuki).

Comparatively the Joshua and Ismaire piece has them drawn with relatively similar facial proportions, while the main cover contrasts Lyon and Ephraim with Eirika's freakish bug eyes, made to stand out more by the reflective gloss bisecting them.

 
Marth made a likely non-licensed cameo in this week's Digimon Universe episode.



Game characters are controlled by a villain that attempts to use them as his minions. He only appears in a flashback showing how that started, and was the only (aside from an Agumon... although this is Digimon anyway) who pretty much used an official design, rather than original designs that vaguely reference existing ones.
Nice find! Didn't expect Marth to show up there lol
 
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