Fire Emblem Fates (Birthright)

Pretty much all spoilers here...but I feel like I need to share my experience of Fire Emblem Fates so far. So before I get into it, I like the game quite a bit so far, but I am so damn confused it's hilarious. This is exactly the kind of ridiculousness I was hoping for. It's confusing and random in a good way...I think? I'm not angry, I just find it all funny.

Here's basically a recap of my thought process of how my first few chapters went:

**SPOILER ALERT**



Okay...I'm on a battlefield and two royal families are all here despite the rather large distances that separate them and they are both claiming to be my family. Clearly, like Awakening, this is a future event and there will be a flashback cause...tutorial.

OH NO WAIT IT WAS ALL A DREAM. I'm actually waking up in my bed surrounded by about 7 people all just...watching me sleep. No big deal. Not creepy at all. So I've got these maids and this butler and then all my siblings come in and the maids have some weird magic ice powers and now I'm fighting my brother on the roof. We are literally on the roof and he is on a horse. Why is there a horse on the roof? How did we get it up here? I HAVE QUESTIONS.

So I defeat my brother which means I can leave this fortress for the first time since I lost my memory (convenient?). Also this is the second Fire Emblem game in a row (actually, if you think about it...almost ALL of them have some sort of amnesia plot point) that the main character has some sort of memory loss. Apparently I'm locked in a tower for my own protection because memory loss. But it's okay! I'm strong enough to leave the fortress with all our brothers and sisters who visit all the time (but all don't question why I can't leave despite it just being uh...memory loss) and we're off to see our beloved father, WHO DOESN'T EVEN LOOK REMOTELY EVIL.

That was sarcasm for the kids at home.

So I see our father for the first time in what I can assume is YEARS, and he decides to throw a test our direction. He gives us this sword (which is also totally not evil) and tells us to fight the prisoners from the other country we're at war with. I fight them, dudes die except for the named characters (cause screw the other guys amirite?) who I refuse to execute.

Since I didn't follow orders and our brothers and sisters had to make excuses for us, I had to go and apologize to my father, who is giggling to himself alone in his throne room, and he gives me a special mission that only I can complete all by myself. Because that's not suspicious. All right daddy dearest, I'll take my butler and my knight and this "rehabilitated" criminal who looks like a mutated potato to the border fortress for "assessment."

Also, yes, I have a butler. His class, is "Butler". I have a level 5 butler. This is the greatest thing Fire Emblem has given me. I REALLY want to know what his tier 2 is.

I arrive with my little posse at the fortress and surprise, surprise, it's inhabited by soldiers from the other country! Gasp. We decide to turn back and report, but Mr. Potato Head runs in and attacks, so we need to stay and fight and defend ourselves...despite having a clear escape path. At any rate, we take the fortress, some of the royal family shows up from the other country, we need to make a hasty retreat, but Tayto man decides that he wants to stop us.

My butler just...disappears while Tater guy kills my knight WHO SLIPS THROUGH THE BRIDGE'S FLOORBOARDS. I'm not joking. I don't know if I saw it wrong, or it just looked weird, but it looked like both he, and the horse, turned into jello and slipped through the boards. Then my character got mad, grew stag horns, attacked the man and...fell...off? I'm not sure what happened here either. I actually thought my character jumped off to pull a Gandalf and catch up to the knight to save him...somehow.

Instead...and again, I'm not joking, my maid is suddenly falling after me. SHE is pulling the Gandalf instead. She grabs me and turns into a little dragon and we fly away to the astral plain with rainbows and happy tree houses where I rest for the night. After a good night's sleep I ask to go back to the battlefield where the little dragon maid warns me that there's a fight still on, but I don't care.

I arrive back at the fortress and within seconds I get knocked out and taken back to the other country by the woman I spared from execution. They take me to my REAL family in that country, because it turns out my real father was killed and I was taken hostage by the other king. My family welcomes me back with wide arms despite being fully invested in my family from the other country they're at war with. I meet my mother and then within a day (or so it seems), my REAL sisters are under attack. So my brother king takes me with him to save him so he can show us what evil things the other country is doing.

So there are BDSM Hulk Gorillas everywhere (okay they're called Faceless...) and they are attacking our sisters, so I need to rush to their aid by melting mountains with my fire powers. The king refuses to attack the four monsters on the middle hill. I saved these till last the first time and got my ass handed to me, so I figure I'd pre-emptively melt that mountain and make the king fight for me. Nope. He won't touch them. So I huddled up next to him and used him as a meat shield so that when they tried to attack me they'd HAVE to go through them. The jerk got slapped in the face and ended up killing one of them for me so I consider it mission success.

Shortly afterwards we learn about a woman who was taken from the other country as a child as a revenge kidnapping, but apparently the other side doesn't really care and she's happy singing at a pond every day of her life. I learn that my mother is maintaining this special magic barrier that stops actual soldiers from getting into the country if they're from Nohr, which is why they are attacking with evil magic BDSM monsters (because that makes sense).

Also there's some throne that can give me back my memories, but I decide not to use it because feelings.

Instead we go to a festival in the town where my family is going to announce my return and this assassin shows up and takes my sword, and then makes it explode (why did they let me keep the evil sword?). My mother jumps in front of me to save me and she dies. I get mad and then suddenly I'm a stag dragon. I transform into a Stagon...or a Deeragon if you prefer.

So now I'm a dragon and I run around one-shotting everyone. This level caused me some issues because at first I wasn't sure if you were supposed to be able to save the NPC from losing/dying (he doesn't die, just goes away until next level) so I kept restarting to see if there was a pattern. I looked it up to make sure and people said you can't save him. There were also a lot of people getting butt hurt about how hard the level was and I'm like...pish guys, this is easy what's your problem?

Yeah I ate my words. I figured out the way to bait the two dragonslayer sword guys is to throw one of my characters to the right to aggro the mages (because he had a high enough resistance) and bait the swordmen with my character to the left. It split them up nicely. My problem was I was trying to bait them all one direction and sneak around to hit the swordsmen twice, but then my other characters were exposed to the mages.

After that, Miss Songlady comes and calms us down and I turn back into a human. Then glasses dude shows up and tells me that the mother knew she was going to die, but not how or when.

...

So...like everyone then. That literally applies to everyone (unless there are immortal beings). "Ah yes, I will die...but I have no idea how it's going to happen or when"

YOU DON'T SAY.

Whatever. So he shows up and says that she told us about the statue in town that was destroyed, but happens to have a sword in it. Sure enough, on cue, when we mention it, the sword flies out of the rock and shlups to my hand. I guess I'm a special sword dragon now.

After this, the game makes you choose between Birthright and Conquest. I chose Birthright cause...I don't have Conquest yet. I'll download that later. Oh and my butler finds me again, so I'm happy.

Also the way support, inventory etc. is handled between levels now is in the special astral plain that no one asks questions about at all. I think this is where the "petting" aspect came into it, but that doesn't exist in this version anyway. It's...weird though because you run around getting things like peaches and beans and you feed it to the dragon maid and she levels up and you can go to your bedroom and invite people in and you get this closer than comfortable interaction with the one person you decide to invite in as they stare into your eyes on the screen...

Anyway, I just want to take the time, to appreciate the the plan of King Nohr. Let's recap. So, the King kills the King of Hoshido, kidnaps his child, locks the child away for...15+ years in a fortress, allows his children to train that child the entire time to fight, decides that it's time for the child to be let out, gives them the assassination sword, assumes that the character will refuse to execute the prisoners so he can send them on a quest with his hired man to start trouble at the border. After he just assumes that the character won't die (which ALMOST didn't happen because we fell off a bridge and had to be rescued by our dragon maid), will be captured by the other side and taken to the capital where the character would be recognized as the long lost child. THEN he had to assume she'd be allowed to keep the evil sword and that the mother would be there in the square with the character and the evil sword. Then they had to assume that the mother would sacrifice herself to save her child. Like...there are so many things that could have gone wrong with this 15+ year plan.

Overall, game is good. I am confused, but I really like the new things they've added. The enemy support aspect REALLY adds another dimension to strategy. I'm glad I played Birthright first because this may take some getting used to. I'll continue to play and give you updates on any further thoughts I have. For now this...just needed to be shared.


EDIT: This song has been playing over and over in my head randomly since I got the game.

War for the Overworld

This was meant to be a surprise since I was going to record and post this game as an LP, but we need to have a little chat about War for the Overworld.

What is this game? Well, this is kind of like the spiritual successor to the Dungeon Keeper series. It IS the Dungeon Keeper series essentially, but at the same time...it is not. The game is a kickstarter game released officially yesterday. It was around for early access, but I had forgotten about it and was none-the-wiser. Oliver told me about the game and I picked it up, because really, when Dungeon Keeper 2 is one of my all-time favourite games, and, incidentally, my first ever LP, I couldn't pass it up. So why do we need to chat?

Because the problems with the game are conflicting with my nostalgia. So last night I booted up the game, albeit not as excited as I should have been (I had a rough night) and was welcomed with a very loud menu screen. I went into the sound options to fix this. It's...not a sound option you can fix. The ambient noise in the menu is not one I can alter, so I need to use the windows sound to lower the overall game volume. Okay, whatever, small issue. I get into the , watch a cinematic (which was...all right yeah makes sense to set the stage) and it is also incredibly loud with no way to fix it. Also it seems to be very similar to Overlord's plot (if it has the same plot twist at the end I'm going to strangle a bear). Then we get to the campaign map. It looks like a Dungeon Keeper map. Swell. I click on the tutorial level and listen to the instructions, narrated by the mentor (who is the same voice actor as the first two games...cool!) Only the sound is still unbalanced and some of the voice acting just seems...weird to me. I want to say it sounds a little forced, but I don't know if it's just the specific inflections, or if the voice just isn't edited to be deep enough. I try and start...and then windows delightfully decides to throw the online permissions pop-up in my face. It crashes Fraps, which then crashes the game. GG.

I boot up the game again, watch the cinematic...again and try to start the level and finally get in. And this is where things get interesting.

Immediately upon entering the game I can see it's all there. The Dungeon Heart...I MEAN DUNGEON CORE. The rooms like the training room (UH BARRACKS), and the hatchery (ER UM SLAUGHTER HOUSE). I can see the gold, you can dig out areas for rooms, there are imps (uh workers?) and the legions of overly pompous and pathetic heroes. Only things are a little different. Rooms aren't simply given or researched by the sorcerers (er cultists...), you need to allocate "evil points" in what looks like a technology tree. And you get them in REALLY WEIRD orders. Yes, I am totally biased, but this is weird guys. I understand why it can't be just like the other games (copyright lollllll), and frankly, I don't mind a little change up. I'm going to still call everything what I'm used to calling it. Deal with it. This goes for the creatures as well.

So what do I like about all this and what do I not like? Well here's a list because I can't organize my thoughts enough right now to form coherent sentences. We'll start with the bad, and then move to the good.

Bad:
1. Buggy as hell - I have found multiple bugs already. For instance, in possession, if you select one of those whip options for the imps and click...your arm becomes a blur of movement in a jittery spazfest. Another one is for some reason, randomly, I could not build rooms, or select minions or sell anything. I think this is tied to the events manager where the game wants you to build something specific, but you ignore it or were doing something else at the time it assaulted you with objectives. Last, which was my all time FAVOURITE (and by this it made me want to start gnawing on my arm) was that if your dungeon heart is under attack, the game decides that this is the best time to drop your frame rate down to 1, as in it freezes for a couple seconds before recovering back to 60fps for a second and then freezes again. It becomes unplayable because you cannot act fast enough, in the 1 second you have to try and do something about it. I will need to start a level over because I just couldn't do anything.

2. Possession sucks - If you played DK2, you'll know that possession was extremely easy to use, had smooth movements and allowed you to fight, claim land and dig tunnels yourself. Here, you move like there's super glue on your feet. If you try to change directions while moving, you come to abrupt halt and get stuck on nothing, causing you to hammer the keys to get you moving again. If you stop and use the

3. The mini-map - What the hell asufhasliukfnaekdrsdfskfasld. This mini-map is messed up. Like really messed up. Okay so you enter the dungeon viewing the dungeon heart at an angle. This element is the same as DK2. That is fine. You can't click on the map and reorient it. You are always at an angle. Maybe I haven't been playing long enough to figure this out, but I'm pretty sure this is the map. You can't bring up the map fullscreen to look at things. AND IT IS CONFUSING. It's on an angle just like the view on the main screen is. So you look at the map and say, oh something is happening to my right...so you scroll to the right...and realize that whatever is happening is not actually to the right. It's actually UP. Not only that, but there's another bug where if you are being attacked, you get pinged, only sometimes you get pinged in a random corner of the map for no reason...

4. The camera - THAT'S A NICE LOOKING WALL. Okay so whenever the game takes over the camera to show you a new creature entering the dungeon, you hardly SEE the creature because the camera spends 75% of the time jammed in the wall. Great.

5. Story - I have no idea if they're going somewhere, but really, what made the other two games great on this front was the simplicity of it. Hi, you are an evil overlord. You want to take over shit. Great. Let me debrief you on this area, a little background on what you need to do to achieve your goal and GO. If they make this more than that, I will be upset (see previous comment about strangling a bear).

6. Over-explaining and hand-holding - Yeah, I get not everyone has played Dungeon Keeper before. Good on you for having the tutorial, but a lot of this stuff can be explained with a single line of dialogue. We don't need hightlighted areas, we don't need ten lines of dialogue explaining something simple (multiple times). Point to an area once, or move the camera to show, but don't make this excessive people. We can figure it out. We're evil overlords. Just let go and let us figure out on our own how to destroy our enemies, body and soul.

7. Zoom - Since I can't view the map in fullscreen (easily at least...I will look into this again). It'd be great if you could zoom out more. You can't. Only zoom in. In fact you can zoom in so far that you can essentially see the nose hairs on the cultists. Great. I'd prefer to zoom out.

8. Sound balancing - No matter what I do, some of the audio is too loud, and some is too quiet. this is going to take a lot of work to get to reasonable levels. Also some of the voice acting has some REALLY weird pronunciations, and I'm pretty sure that's not an accent issue.

Good:
1. Humour - The humour is still there! And that element is great! Some of the humour is unintentional, but it's still there! I like the dark humour and silliness. Micropigs! Hilarious! This is exactly how it should be.

2. Tone - While it has some significant changes in feel, the basics are still there. It's cut-throat, dark, and has those elements of the first game in it. I even appreciate the constant nagging, cause really that was a thing before (though I will rage before the end). I'm just waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

3. Graphics - Game is fairly pretty. There are some low-res assets, but those can be overlooked unless the camera is jammed places it shouldn't be. The tiles and the rooms look pretty neat. You an see where all the effort went in this game. There are some issues, like particle effects breaking and units turning into a mess of black squares when they die, but overall, its not bad. I could pick out a few other REALLY weird things, but that's just nit-picking at this point.

4. Level design - I see no problems with this so far. Looks like there will be good elements of strategy and a variety of environments to deal with. This is what I will continue to play the game for. I may rage, I may have issues with the interface and whatnot, but as long as the game FUNCTIONS and has the ability to challenge me in terms of the actual intended gameplay, I will play and finish this game.

5. Getting the old voice actor - As forced as it sounds sometimes, the voice actor is a nice touch. He is the same guy from the first two games (as mentioned before). My largest complaint is that his voice isn't deep enough in the campaign overview screen and randomly changes volumes (I still don't know the difference between "campaign voice" and "mentor voice" and if I set them at the same level, one is still quieter than the other and it makes no sense to me at all).


So should you get it?

I don't have a clue. I can see a lot of people playing this for nostalgia reasons. I have seen swaths of good comments and people raving about the game. Is it as good as the hype says it is? No. In my opinion it is not. It needs work. If they fixed the bugs, made possession and the interface more intuitive and smoother, than yes, this would a decent game. Currently, I am playing it solely for the level design and nostalgia aspect. I sincerely hope they fix a lot of things.


EDIT: I hoped and they delivered. Got an update today and they fixed a lot of things. Possession is a little less annoying (but still buggy). Attacks on the Dungeon Core do not freeze the game (though frame rate drops randomly and drastically in places). Sound has been rebalanced so things sound nice. The interface is now easier to interact with and doesn't lock me out anymore. Good job devs =D