FE14 Thoughts So Far
Feb. 20th, 2016 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hakkariI've been playing Conquest on Normal Classic and so far it's been pretty fun. I just cleared Chapter 12 so obviously Things May Change for better or worse.
Honestly if nothing else the gameplay is incredibly good and worth the price, imo. It actually feels very solid and while there's a little bit of the "toss your most powerful units into the center of the ring", I think that it would definitely go away on Hard and Lunatic modes, and even with that I've had to reset quite a bit just because of my own tactical errors. I think only once or twice so far have I reset because of a nonsense critical?
This got long so have a cut. Some spoilers, obviously.
Gameplay Notes:
- Effie (the armor knight) is a fucking machine. She reminds me of Oswin, honestly, in that at a certain point she's basically impenetrable. I don't know if I got lucky with her or if she just has amazing bases and/or growths, but dang. She's awesome. 10/10 would recommend using Effie.
- It took a while but I finally hit the point where I actually have to start thinking about what weapons to use instead of just throwing the default item at them. I really like all of the little penalties and intricacies that each weapon type has... You can definitely customize to your playing style which is great.
- The chapter goals and how they're laid out are great and varied (which everyone already knew but lemme gush about it a little more). There's this one map with pots of medicine and poison (and Ryoma at the other end) and you have to escape in 16 turns. Also Elise (probably your primary healer, honestly) isn't usable. Trying to figure out when to break pots for the best timing was pretty great, as well as seeing all the different status effects you could get.
- All the skills are great so far, though some of the personal ones seem kind of pointless, honestly? The ninja skill that poisons a unit you attack is fun, and there's definitely a lot of skills that encourage you making the first move instead of turtling and waiting for the enemy to come to you (which was an issue I've had with FE for most of the games, honestly).
Overall gameplay is really damn solid. It's worth getting the game just for that if you're more into the actual strategy game part of FE, because good lord the story is. Hm.
Well, before I get to that. Voice acting!
Good Stuff:
- Odin is amazing. If you liked Owain and how he was acted you'll love Odin. I'm pretty sure it's the same VA, but if it is he's improved a ton or at least has the character solidly down. It's silly but I think so far he might be one of my favorite voices in the game.
- Inigo and Severa sound good as well. Haven't heard too much from Inigo yet since I just got him but from what I've heard it's basically the same. Severa... is annoying but her voice reflects what her character is about so I'm not going to trash the actress for that.
- Azura's singing voice is really good. I have no idea why people were hating it and sending terrible messages to her. She's pretty solid overall.
- Camilla sounds pretty much exactly how I imagined her sounding, which is good.
- I'm pretty sure Ryoma is Matthew Mercer because he's just doing his Chrom voice again. Lobster Chrom. Still solid because he's Matthew Mercer.
- Xander and Leo sound pretty good from what I've heard. I haven't actually recruited them yet so I can't say anything for sure on their performances tbh.
- Arthur/Harold sounds exactly how you think he would sound and it's great.
The Ehhhhhh? to Bad
- Effie's voice..... is growing on me. Sort of. Except for this one line which she says after every battle (the "Now I'm hungry" (I think?) line). It feels like she dropped her voice even lower for that one line, and it's actually really hard to understand what she's saying.
- Peri kind of sounds like they're going for a ditzy Harley Quinn type voice? It's not bad or anything, just sort of interesting.
- Felicia just sounds bad. I know people are trying to be nice and defend it but good god it's not good. I'm sure the actress is a very nice person and probably very talented but she was either miscast or given no direction at all.
- I actually don't think Hinoka sounds terrible? Her crying is awful, though.
Now story and support shit. Localization first.
- The localization has been reading very well so far, actually. The stiffest thing that I've come across is Kana's paralogue, which is actually really jarring to encounter after the actual story script proper has been so good. I would say that it might just be the paralogues, but Dwyer's actually read okay to me while Mozu's was also a little bit stiff. Maybe they just had a few different teams doing each?
- The supports also feel pretty good, though I've heard there are some not-so-good support changes. I haven't actually done any of those ones yet, as far as I know. The voice on most of the characters is pretty clear overall, and so far they've all read differently from one another which I think is good.
- Overall the Hoshido enemies still have Japanese (or at least psuedo-Japanese) names, which makes me wonder what the hell happened with Kaden/Selkie and them chopping off things like Suzukaze and Mozume. A lot of the enemies have had harder names than that to pronounce, imo.
- Arthur's hero thing and voice would have sounded one hundred percent better if they used Harold, imo. Arthur still sounds too damn regal (especially when he says it out loud), and the radio announcer voice they use would have fit a Harold perfectly. Oh well.
Story shit proper.
- Corrin feels more like an actual character than Robin ever did. Honestly I'd put them among the more bottom tier of lords (like... higher than Alm and Celica for sure but no where near Leif, Eliwood, Micaiah, etc), but it does feel like they tried to make an actual character. I think that what they wanted to do was at odds with the "everybody loves me" self insert which is kind of frustrating, because there is definitely a start to something that could have grown into a lot more if they were allowed to actually be at conflict with their party members.
- That being said, as naive as Corrin is they're also actually aware of the situation they're in, and they caught on a hell of a lot sooner than, say, Sigurd or Chrom (which isn't saying much, I know). They're fully aware that their dad wants to kill them but they're also wanting to bring peace which they can't do without their title and it feels like it could be an interesting conflict.... if they ever went in that direction. Which, judging by reviews of the Japanese version and also just the way the story is going in my own game, isn't where they're going with that lol.
- No one was kidding when they say the game makes you feel awful for buying Conquest. It spends a good long while pointing out that the Nohrians killed your mom, want you dead, and that you're Horrible for siding with them. It's actually fairly frustrating! If they wanted the story to slant so much towards Hoshido, they really should not have made two versions.
- I was talking about this on tumblr, but the baby conveniently brought to a battlefield to be kidnapped thing isn't... really a thing FE should have repeated again. It was stupid and contrived in FE4 (sorry, Ethlyn) and it's even worse here since they don't even give a handwave-y "oh she was crying and wouldn't stop unless I brought her with me" excuse. You're just on the ground in the middle of the battlefield. The main character. As a baby. Why? Who knows!
- I vastly prefer the Nohrian family to the Hoshido one, btw. The Hoshido one is really fucking manipulative in a way that reminds me a bit too much of my own previous experiences... The worst part is that (as stated earlier) you're supposed to be siding with them and sympathizing with them. But honestly Ryoma is awful awful awful as far as the manipulation goes, especially after you find out that "surprise! you're not related!" and he knew the entire time. The Nohrian family actually does legitimately seem to care about you and I can 100% buy the sibling dynamic. Would have been better if you couldn't bang them, but we can't have all the nice things.
- Camilla is Camilla. For what it's worth she is actually reading more like an overly protective doting sister who thinks you're five rather than someone who's creepily hitting on you, which I think is a fast improvement over some of the translations I've seen of the Japanese text. So that's... something?
Honestly if nothing else the gameplay is incredibly good and worth the price, imo. It actually feels very solid and while there's a little bit of the "toss your most powerful units into the center of the ring", I think that it would definitely go away on Hard and Lunatic modes, and even with that I've had to reset quite a bit just because of my own tactical errors. I think only once or twice so far have I reset because of a nonsense critical?
This got long so have a cut. Some spoilers, obviously.
Gameplay Notes:
- Effie (the armor knight) is a fucking machine. She reminds me of Oswin, honestly, in that at a certain point she's basically impenetrable. I don't know if I got lucky with her or if she just has amazing bases and/or growths, but dang. She's awesome. 10/10 would recommend using Effie.
- It took a while but I finally hit the point where I actually have to start thinking about what weapons to use instead of just throwing the default item at them. I really like all of the little penalties and intricacies that each weapon type has... You can definitely customize to your playing style which is great.
- The chapter goals and how they're laid out are great and varied (which everyone already knew but lemme gush about it a little more). There's this one map with pots of medicine and poison (and Ryoma at the other end) and you have to escape in 16 turns. Also Elise (probably your primary healer, honestly) isn't usable. Trying to figure out when to break pots for the best timing was pretty great, as well as seeing all the different status effects you could get.
- All the skills are great so far, though some of the personal ones seem kind of pointless, honestly? The ninja skill that poisons a unit you attack is fun, and there's definitely a lot of skills that encourage you making the first move instead of turtling and waiting for the enemy to come to you (which was an issue I've had with FE for most of the games, honestly).
Overall gameplay is really damn solid. It's worth getting the game just for that if you're more into the actual strategy game part of FE, because good lord the story is. Hm.
Well, before I get to that. Voice acting!
Good Stuff:
- Odin is amazing. If you liked Owain and how he was acted you'll love Odin. I'm pretty sure it's the same VA, but if it is he's improved a ton or at least has the character solidly down. It's silly but I think so far he might be one of my favorite voices in the game.
- Inigo and Severa sound good as well. Haven't heard too much from Inigo yet since I just got him but from what I've heard it's basically the same. Severa... is annoying but her voice reflects what her character is about so I'm not going to trash the actress for that.
- Azura's singing voice is really good. I have no idea why people were hating it and sending terrible messages to her. She's pretty solid overall.
- Camilla sounds pretty much exactly how I imagined her sounding, which is good.
- I'm pretty sure Ryoma is Matthew Mercer because he's just doing his Chrom voice again. Lobster Chrom. Still solid because he's Matthew Mercer.
- Xander and Leo sound pretty good from what I've heard. I haven't actually recruited them yet so I can't say anything for sure on their performances tbh.
- Arthur/Harold sounds exactly how you think he would sound and it's great.
The Ehhhhhh? to Bad
- Effie's voice..... is growing on me. Sort of. Except for this one line which she says after every battle (the "Now I'm hungry" (I think?) line). It feels like she dropped her voice even lower for that one line, and it's actually really hard to understand what she's saying.
- Peri kind of sounds like they're going for a ditzy Harley Quinn type voice? It's not bad or anything, just sort of interesting.
- Felicia just sounds bad. I know people are trying to be nice and defend it but good god it's not good. I'm sure the actress is a very nice person and probably very talented but she was either miscast or given no direction at all.
- I actually don't think Hinoka sounds terrible? Her crying is awful, though.
Now story and support shit. Localization first.
- The localization has been reading very well so far, actually. The stiffest thing that I've come across is Kana's paralogue, which is actually really jarring to encounter after the actual story script proper has been so good. I would say that it might just be the paralogues, but Dwyer's actually read okay to me while Mozu's was also a little bit stiff. Maybe they just had a few different teams doing each?
- The supports also feel pretty good, though I've heard there are some not-so-good support changes. I haven't actually done any of those ones yet, as far as I know. The voice on most of the characters is pretty clear overall, and so far they've all read differently from one another which I think is good.
- Overall the Hoshido enemies still have Japanese (or at least psuedo-Japanese) names, which makes me wonder what the hell happened with Kaden/Selkie and them chopping off things like Suzukaze and Mozume. A lot of the enemies have had harder names than that to pronounce, imo.
- Arthur's hero thing and voice would have sounded one hundred percent better if they used Harold, imo. Arthur still sounds too damn regal (especially when he says it out loud), and the radio announcer voice they use would have fit a Harold perfectly. Oh well.
Story shit proper.
- Corrin feels more like an actual character than Robin ever did. Honestly I'd put them among the more bottom tier of lords (like... higher than Alm and Celica for sure but no where near Leif, Eliwood, Micaiah, etc), but it does feel like they tried to make an actual character. I think that what they wanted to do was at odds with the "everybody loves me" self insert which is kind of frustrating, because there is definitely a start to something that could have grown into a lot more if they were allowed to actually be at conflict with their party members.
- That being said, as naive as Corrin is they're also actually aware of the situation they're in, and they caught on a hell of a lot sooner than, say, Sigurd or Chrom (which isn't saying much, I know). They're fully aware that their dad wants to kill them but they're also wanting to bring peace which they can't do without their title and it feels like it could be an interesting conflict.... if they ever went in that direction. Which, judging by reviews of the Japanese version and also just the way the story is going in my own game, isn't where they're going with that lol.
- No one was kidding when they say the game makes you feel awful for buying Conquest. It spends a good long while pointing out that the Nohrians killed your mom, want you dead, and that you're Horrible for siding with them. It's actually fairly frustrating! If they wanted the story to slant so much towards Hoshido, they really should not have made two versions.
- I was talking about this on tumblr, but the baby conveniently brought to a battlefield to be kidnapped thing isn't... really a thing FE should have repeated again. It was stupid and contrived in FE4 (sorry, Ethlyn) and it's even worse here since they don't even give a handwave-y "oh she was crying and wouldn't stop unless I brought her with me" excuse. You're just on the ground in the middle of the battlefield. The main character. As a baby. Why? Who knows!
- I vastly prefer the Nohrian family to the Hoshido one, btw. The Hoshido one is really fucking manipulative in a way that reminds me a bit too much of my own previous experiences... The worst part is that (as stated earlier) you're supposed to be siding with them and sympathizing with them. But honestly Ryoma is awful awful awful as far as the manipulation goes, especially after you find out that "surprise! you're not related!" and he knew the entire time. The Nohrian family actually does legitimately seem to care about you and I can 100% buy the sibling dynamic. Would have been better if you couldn't bang them, but we can't have all the nice things.
- Camilla is Camilla. For what it's worth she is actually reading more like an overly protective doting sister who thinks you're five rather than someone who's creepily hitting on you, which I think is a fast improvement over some of the translations I've seen of the Japanese text. So that's... something?
