If FE11 was the gold standard for a remake, FE12 is the exact opposite. It does everything it can to impose itself onto the original and ruins all the good that FE3 had to offer.
Similarly to FE11, the plot of this remake doesn't do much to deviate from the original. Unlike FE11, FE12 seems to have absolutely no respect for the original game and constantly tries to inject its own concepts with such gracelessness that it makes what good is left difficult to enjoy. FE12 will be damned if it doesn't try to ruin FE3's story every step of the way. The way it tries to do this most is through the one, the only, Kris.
Kris is a self insert character brand new to FE12. This as actually not FE's first swing at this type of character, but FE7's Mark is so irrelevant that most analyses of FE7's story don't even mention them. Kris on the other hand is painfully relevant. They are constantly inserted into story scenes to the detriment of every single character around them. They make Jeigan seem weak and Marth frequently makes out of character decisions in the service of making the player avatar seem cool. Even if you ignored all that and tried to examine Kris in a void, they're still a horribly written character. They frequently act differently which makes it hard to pin down what their personality even is but the one constant is that they give characters bad advice that somehow just works out in the end. For example, in Arran's support with them he confesses that he once killed a village of people who were rebelling against their corrupt king. Kris' response to this? To tell him he isn't to blame. No, Kris, Arran does share some of the blame. He can't just kill an entire village and claim innocence by virtue of "following orders". But of course Kris isn't challenged because they need to do everything in their power to make Kris seem cool.
FE12 brings in every single Archanea character (including those absent from FE3) and makes previously unrecruitable characters available as well. This removes a lot of weight from the story as you're no longer fighting former allies, now you just need to convince them to join your side and they automatically do so no matter how improbable it is for that character. An example that really irks me in this regard is the case of Midia's group. In FE3, it's said that Midia took part in a rebellion within the kingdom and many of her soldiers died. The game never says it but we're meant to assume that Dolph, Macellan, and Tomas are included among the casualties. While they weren't the most memorable characters on earth, the fact remains that people who you once knew are dead because of this war. Not in FE12 though! They're right here ready to fight alongside you. Can't have the player thinking about how deeply war affects people when they're supposed to be engrossed in a self insert power fantasy where every pre established character loves them unconditionally.
FE12 gives at least one support to every character in the game. This seems like a good thing given how little characterization this cast got in FE3. That is it seems that way until you learn that a majority only have one support and that one support is with Kris. The supports tend to focus more on Kris and I walk away from them feeling that I learned as much about the other character there as I did through their minimal (or even non existent) dialogue in FE3. It doesn't help that the writing is atrocious. This easily takes the cake as the worst writing in FE so far, with characters feeling like walking clichés instead of people. Let's take Cecille for example. Her entire character revolves around the fact that she is a woman who doesn't act stereotypically feminine. There are scant scenes that don't revolve around this quirk. This goes for just about every character in this game with all of them having some character trait that the writing completely latches onto. They had the opportunity to better flesh out this cast and they completely dropped the ball.
FE11 introduced new chapters that were fairly inoffensive in terms of writing. They mainly felt like filler but they weren't too bad and it was clear that they designed those chapters with gameplay in mind rather than the story. The opposite is the case in FE12. Granted, they don't have any impact on the main plot but that doesn't atone for just how horribly they're written. It's comprised entirely original material which means that since it can't just look to FE3 for what to do we're treated to 14 chapters of melodrama between pieces of cardboard. The whole assassin guild whatever the hell makes no sense. I cannot believe I am about to complement a GBA game, but even FE7's Black Fang was handled better than this. At least I halfway cared about dome characters in that group. Further, Kris is the sole main character of these chapters with Marthipan taking a backseat which just makes it all the worse. Gameplay wise it doesn't fare well either. The maps range from frustrating to boring and I'm just left wondering why these are here at all (that's a lie. The reason these are here is to make the player insert seem even cooler and give them a waifu in the form of Katarina).
Being a carbon copy of FE11's mechanics, the gameplay is pretty alright. I feel that FE3's map design isn't quite as timeless as FE1 but it's by no means bad. Though bringing over FE11's mechanics verbatim seems ill considered. FE3 was already flyer dominant but reclassing just makes it even worse. In FE3, you could trivialize maps with your group of 5 uber charged flyers. In FE12, you can do the same but this time with 7 fliers and reclass means you can make any unit you want into one of those fliers.
I think the flier problem stated in the previous paragraph is exacerbated by the fact that unit individuality has been completely forsaken in FE12's pursuit to make every single Archanea character recruitable. There are 77 recruitable characters in this game. It doesn't take long before you just start getting pelted by pre promotes in every chapters and they all blend in with one another as generic blobs of stats with nothing to make them stand out. I know I praised FE11 for consistently giving you new units, but this is absolutely too much.
The difficulties of FE12 are also questionably designed. The lower difficulties are fine, but at higher levels the game starts to crack. The ambush spawns are particularly egregious. They're incredibly strong which results in many maps devolving into trial and error and the enemy strength often results in maps just becoming more tedious.
FE12 added a base which is pretty alright but it makes grinding way too easy. There have historically been 2 ways to grind in FE, either going to optional maps or visiting the arena. Both of these are balanced by their unpredictability. You never really know what you're getting into meaning that there is always a risk of death. The arena present in FE12's base is not unpredictable, it literally gives you a battle forecast beforehand. There's also no time investment given that you can access in battle preps, meaning that all it costs is a couple thousand gold and maybe 5 or so minutes to make a unit into a juggernaut.
There's also FE12's biggest change, casual mode. Permadeath is one of the core tenets of Fire Emblem and removing it does nothing but water down the game for the purpose of appealing to the lowest common denominator. FE should resist players who don't want to engage with the game, not bend to their whim. What if a Zelda game had an optional mode where it would automatically tell you the solution to puzzles? What if Final Fantasy had a mode where you would start the game at max level? What if Resident Evil had a mode that gave you infinite resources? Just because it's an optional mode doesn't make it a good addition and if a series' core mechanic scares you away from playing it then that's on you, not the game.
The one good thing I have to say about FE12 is that it remade the Archanea Saga stories. They're devoid of anything original to FE12 making them actually enjoyable. There are some dlc chapters but I haven't played them and, knowing what the next few games are like, I would honestly prefer not to discuss dlc in these reviews.
After FE11 was a nearly perfect remake, FE12 was thoroughly disappointing. Easilt the worst writing in the series and uninspired gameplay makes this one of the worst games so far. At the very least Intelligent Systems can learn from this and get rid of that "Kouhei Maeda" guy and get on a director who knows how to make a half decent game. Haha.
Similarly to FE11, the plot of this remake doesn't do much to deviate from the original. Unlike FE11, FE12 seems to have absolutely no respect for the original game and constantly tries to inject its own concepts with such gracelessness that it makes what good is left difficult to enjoy. FE12 will be damned if it doesn't try to ruin FE3's story every step of the way. The way it tries to do this most is through the one, the only, Kris.
Kris is a self insert character brand new to FE12. This as actually not FE's first swing at this type of character, but FE7's Mark is so irrelevant that most analyses of FE7's story don't even mention them. Kris on the other hand is painfully relevant. They are constantly inserted into story scenes to the detriment of every single character around them. They make Jeigan seem weak and Marth frequently makes out of character decisions in the service of making the player avatar seem cool. Even if you ignored all that and tried to examine Kris in a void, they're still a horribly written character. They frequently act differently which makes it hard to pin down what their personality even is but the one constant is that they give characters bad advice that somehow just works out in the end. For example, in Arran's support with them he confesses that he once killed a village of people who were rebelling against their corrupt king. Kris' response to this? To tell him he isn't to blame. No, Kris, Arran does share some of the blame. He can't just kill an entire village and claim innocence by virtue of "following orders". But of course Kris isn't challenged because they need to do everything in their power to make Kris seem cool.
FE12 brings in every single Archanea character (including those absent from FE3) and makes previously unrecruitable characters available as well. This removes a lot of weight from the story as you're no longer fighting former allies, now you just need to convince them to join your side and they automatically do so no matter how improbable it is for that character. An example that really irks me in this regard is the case of Midia's group. In FE3, it's said that Midia took part in a rebellion within the kingdom and many of her soldiers died. The game never says it but we're meant to assume that Dolph, Macellan, and Tomas are included among the casualties. While they weren't the most memorable characters on earth, the fact remains that people who you once knew are dead because of this war. Not in FE12 though! They're right here ready to fight alongside you. Can't have the player thinking about how deeply war affects people when they're supposed to be engrossed in a self insert power fantasy where every pre established character loves them unconditionally.
FE12 gives at least one support to every character in the game. This seems like a good thing given how little characterization this cast got in FE3. That is it seems that way until you learn that a majority only have one support and that one support is with Kris. The supports tend to focus more on Kris and I walk away from them feeling that I learned as much about the other character there as I did through their minimal (or even non existent) dialogue in FE3. It doesn't help that the writing is atrocious. This easily takes the cake as the worst writing in FE so far, with characters feeling like walking clichés instead of people. Let's take Cecille for example. Her entire character revolves around the fact that she is a woman who doesn't act stereotypically feminine. There are scant scenes that don't revolve around this quirk. This goes for just about every character in this game with all of them having some character trait that the writing completely latches onto. They had the opportunity to better flesh out this cast and they completely dropped the ball.
FE11 introduced new chapters that were fairly inoffensive in terms of writing. They mainly felt like filler but they weren't too bad and it was clear that they designed those chapters with gameplay in mind rather than the story. The opposite is the case in FE12. Granted, they don't have any impact on the main plot but that doesn't atone for just how horribly they're written. It's comprised entirely original material which means that since it can't just look to FE3 for what to do we're treated to 14 chapters of melodrama between pieces of cardboard. The whole assassin guild whatever the hell makes no sense. I cannot believe I am about to complement a GBA game, but even FE7's Black Fang was handled better than this. At least I halfway cared about dome characters in that group. Further, Kris is the sole main character of these chapters with Marthipan taking a backseat which just makes it all the worse. Gameplay wise it doesn't fare well either. The maps range from frustrating to boring and I'm just left wondering why these are here at all (that's a lie. The reason these are here is to make the player insert seem even cooler and give them a waifu in the form of Katarina).
Being a carbon copy of FE11's mechanics, the gameplay is pretty alright. I feel that FE3's map design isn't quite as timeless as FE1 but it's by no means bad. Though bringing over FE11's mechanics verbatim seems ill considered. FE3 was already flyer dominant but reclassing just makes it even worse. In FE3, you could trivialize maps with your group of 5 uber charged flyers. In FE12, you can do the same but this time with 7 fliers and reclass means you can make any unit you want into one of those fliers.
I think the flier problem stated in the previous paragraph is exacerbated by the fact that unit individuality has been completely forsaken in FE12's pursuit to make every single Archanea character recruitable. There are 77 recruitable characters in this game. It doesn't take long before you just start getting pelted by pre promotes in every chapters and they all blend in with one another as generic blobs of stats with nothing to make them stand out. I know I praised FE11 for consistently giving you new units, but this is absolutely too much.
The difficulties of FE12 are also questionably designed. The lower difficulties are fine, but at higher levels the game starts to crack. The ambush spawns are particularly egregious. They're incredibly strong which results in many maps devolving into trial and error and the enemy strength often results in maps just becoming more tedious.
FE12 added a base which is pretty alright but it makes grinding way too easy. There have historically been 2 ways to grind in FE, either going to optional maps or visiting the arena. Both of these are balanced by their unpredictability. You never really know what you're getting into meaning that there is always a risk of death. The arena present in FE12's base is not unpredictable, it literally gives you a battle forecast beforehand. There's also no time investment given that you can access in battle preps, meaning that all it costs is a couple thousand gold and maybe 5 or so minutes to make a unit into a juggernaut.
There's also FE12's biggest change, casual mode. Permadeath is one of the core tenets of Fire Emblem and removing it does nothing but water down the game for the purpose of appealing to the lowest common denominator. FE should resist players who don't want to engage with the game, not bend to their whim. What if a Zelda game had an optional mode where it would automatically tell you the solution to puzzles? What if Final Fantasy had a mode where you would start the game at max level? What if Resident Evil had a mode that gave you infinite resources? Just because it's an optional mode doesn't make it a good addition and if a series' core mechanic scares you away from playing it then that's on you, not the game.
The one good thing I have to say about FE12 is that it remade the Archanea Saga stories. They're devoid of anything original to FE12 making them actually enjoyable. There are some dlc chapters but I haven't played them and, knowing what the next few games are like, I would honestly prefer not to discuss dlc in these reviews.
After FE11 was a nearly perfect remake, FE12 was thoroughly disappointing. Easilt the worst writing in the series and uninspired gameplay makes this one of the worst games so far. At the very least Intelligent Systems can learn from this and get rid of that "Kouhei Maeda" guy and get on a director who knows how to make a half decent game. Haha.