Late Game Maps in Fire Emblem
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- I always hit a wall when I play late games in Fire Emblem, both vanilla and hacks. While part of this is due to my preferences in FE, there are some common issues I see with late game maps that we can work to mitigate in our own work.
About difficulty curves, another thing to consider, and this related to cognitive load, but difficulty spikes shouldn't just be linear imo. I think a good late game difficulty curve is to have with high intensity, high difficulty maps mixed in with low intensity, low difficulty maps. That way, the player has time to relax and recuperate their brain playing more relaxing map before having to engage in another high intensity map again. This means the player won't be worn out playing through late game and can allow for more experimental map design with the easier maps since even if the experiment failed, it's fine, since the map was easy anyways.
Good point on the cognitive load, I totally agree. That, along with the length and size of those maps I just feel exhausted and like I want to stop after every single map.
Now that you mention it... Yeah, lots of Fire Emblem games have these problems. My personal fav example of how to not make Endgame would be Radiant Dawn Part 4.
Radiant Dawn is the prime example of a bad endgame, that defines "These chapters are only here as fillers to make sure that your units will get enough Level Ups."
And that does start with all the Dawn Brigade chapters in Part 3 for me, I think.
Up to this point, the game had lots of different, sometimes unique requirements to solve chapters, alongside the classic things like "Route", or "Defeat the Boss."
But Part 4 is only about "Route the enemy" BUT "We will throw in a bunch of Reinforcement Units." The peak is Olivers Mansion. Without Exaggeration. When the last wave of Reinforcements spawned, which consisted of a handful of powerful promoted units on every single f"$Z)(§ spot where reinforcements spawned before I was like: "Okay, do you want me to play a game, or do you want me to feel like I waste my time?" It was that point where I started to evolve a little... I don't know, I just began to realize that "Route the enemy" isn't a good victory condition, or at least, it can become a very, VERY big pain to fulfill. Especially in the late game chapters where units get a lot more powerful and tank more hits, etc. And mixing that with reinforcements is just... No. NEVER do that. When using "Route" as a goal you should always put these in the early game or mix them up with a little twist. With a time limit, like you did in Vision Quest for example. Or with NPCs that you have to protect (which even makes sense depending on the scenario, there are mercenaries who want to kill a noble child, so you have to defeat all of them that come for it).
Luckily, Radiant Dawn has the Tower Maps, which are also filled with some of the strongest generic enemies in the history of Fire Emblem, but they have enough variety and feel more creative again, the whole feeling in the air is more epic again and if you ignore that you can softlock yourself there pretty easily (they should've allowed to call for backups just in case too many units died, but this game never really tried to be Classic Mode Friendly anyway, so they didn't bother there I guess), it is a very great finale with a pretty cool Final Boss. They should've given you input what her attacks do though, like they did with Duma later on.
Awakening however takes the cake for the WORST Endgame Map of the Series. Which is a shame, since the Endgame started so good. A map where you have to flee, because more and more long range mages show up, then you have a map with 12 Bosses that you have to defeat... But then... Then there is this huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge Square with NOTHING on it. And every 2 metres they placed a promoted enemy. Are you kidding me, this is not babys first FE Romhack, this is an official product and they messed up the "Finale" in the worst possible way. Zero creativity, absolutely annoying and just booooooring. And yeah, all other maps except the last two of the endgame are "Route"-Maps with Reinforcements too.
The biggest problem with these kind of maps is, that it feels unnecessary. Especially in Awakening, your units feel like so powerful. It is fun to blast your way through the first few times. But ones you have beaten a bunch of Fire Emblem games, you start thinking, why should I bother to defeat all of them? Instead I began to try to solve these chapters as fast as possible, blocking forts to stop new reinforcements, etc. to get back to the good stuff. I was so happy that I could skip over a bunch of crap by defeating the boss in Awakenings second last map. BUT THEN, the enemies in the finale all of sudden take steroids and become so strong that the units would be a bit weaker even if you defeated all the enemies beforehand. It gives me a feeling of, I wanna finally beat this game, instead of a slow, and good feeling curve towards the end.
I think the main problem is, that the developers have a hard time about thinking how to make it fair for the player, if some of their units died or they had bad level ups, so they go save and make it a bit too easy on the normal difficulties but overdo it on the harder difficulties.
...Or maybe I'm just bad in the modern games, that could be the case as well. I've gotta admit though, that if a game starts to bore me, I naturally don't invest myself too much into it anymore and I think I'm not alone there. However I think by using things like Gotoh Characters, other tools like Special Weapons for your Lords and simple letting the Player know that, if too much of your units die you should start to make your moves more carefully with that in mind - They could make a lot better experience. (Of course you should design in a way that gives the Player Room for Errors, like a good amount and placement of units. It still confuses me why they didn't consider to make classic recruitments a thing in Three Houses Gen 2 like Ingrid telling Sylvain to wake up, or Mercedes telling Annette that she doesn't want to hurt her, etc. They did these things before, for the gameplay, and now they're using it as a tool to create tragic war drama. And the gameplay pays the price.)
While I do spread lots of complains here, I still haven't done an endgame map for myself, so I can't really say how to make it better. And not every single Endgame is terrible, I picked the two that I feel like the cherry on top of a bad cake. But my first thoughts are, that I think it'd be the opposite to make it good. So instead of having a bunch of strong or canonfodder units - Have some of both. A few weaker units that some lower leveled units can manage to defeat for experience. And a good amount of strong but not overpowered units to deal with. Perhaps some groups lead by very important bosses. These guys can be a bit more tougher but shouldn't be too strong as well. They're not the Final Boss, they're his right and left hands. Tools like legendary weapons and stuff to make it more fun for the player also should help. Gotoh-Units should be units like Tibarn and Co, that are present in the story for a while so the player can feel like "Wow, I can use THIS one as a unit?!", and "Oooooh, he is soooo powerful! It's just like they told me/just like in the cutscenes!" And, of course, not a Route-Map (with much of Reinforcements). But different objectives, like defeat the Boss(es), Seize, etc. The Endgame is not supposed to be a bunch of Final Maps. They can have Highlights, hyping you up by killing the ones who are responsible for the war or whatever tragedy is the problem in this game. But the map with the very strongest of all enemies should only be the finale. And even then, it should be realistic. Not like 6 Levels above the average from the few chapters before.
And one last thought I have is that the length of a Game affects how the Endgame should be. If you have a long game like FE6, the enemies there can be stronger than in a shorter one like FE8. You can't just make the Levels similiar, because in one game you're not able to keep up with that, unless you grind a few extra exp. Or to be more precise - Just because it is the finale, that doesn't mean you can ignore all the stuff you did before, like checking the average levels of player units at these points of the game.
An underappreciated topic. Nice job.
I find it odd that you feel a loss in quality when you promote most of your party. I usually find it very satisfying. The gameplay becomes more enemy-phase oriented, and watching your units take on several enemy units coming at them in one turn is amazing.
Though, I agree that having a unit that you really like fall off an not being viable really sucks.
(That's also why I don't usually like higher difficulties, unlike most FE fans. I find that easier games and hacks don't get much attention)
Totally understandable - depends on your priorities and what you enjoy. I dislike when the game becomes too EP oriented and there are a lot of enemies to account for.
I think the loss in quality is after promoting most of your units is that the capabilities of your party becomes too strong (ie fliers x3 and paladin x3) and it allows you to break late game or the rom hack will compensate with brutal difficulty spikes that aren't fun to play.
Fates Conquest's final level on hard mode is the only chapter in the whole FE series that I have never been able to beat no matter how hard I train for it the whole game. Then again I do try to make sure everyone survives. If I played without caring if everyone makes it, then I could probably do it, but man it honestly feels so busted.
This is definitely a topic that isn't discussed enough in Fire Emblem game design because its a very recurring problem in the series. It's why I find part 2 of Three Houses so boring and why I ended up quitting Berwick Saga. Lategame maps in TH feel so repetitive with nothing interesting to explore fire in maps and enemies are a joke so it just became a race to beat the map as quickly as possible. However in Berwick Saga, every map becomes significantly harder than the last to the point where my serviceable units are becoming dead weight, my good units are struggling, Im burning all my expensive resources and money every map, enemies are always a significant threat, and there's barely any time to catch my breath. There needs to be a larger focus on creating engaging and fun maps for the lategame and have that support the increase in scale instead of a disregard for the former.
“Don’t make it so hard”
Not finished watching yet, but I just now finished Vision Quest and the last chapter was way too easy-at least if you saved some Purge, Berserk, etc. 😂
ooor just do like thracia and give you 6 warp staves to abuse for lategame lol
My advice to players for the lategame:
Unironically get good. It's a strategy game. A turn-based one, so you have time to plan.