Notes for my series replay:
- See my SD review about this games' presentation (if you care).
- I want to get the elephant in the room addressed before I talk about anything else. Kris is a fucking wild addition to this game. I think that the drawn-out prologue the exposition dumps Kris and Katarina's relationship is kinda terrible, and their chemistry even worse. Kris absolutely obliterates any semblance of balance that Mystery had, which wasn't much to begin with, mind you. Kris is the most malleable unit in the game, with essentially infinite potential. I don't know how they didn't expect this character to snap the game over their leg, or maybe they just didn't care, but honestly Kris' presence diminishes Marth's story in this game, and I didn't really care for it. FE3 is fucking awesome because Marth travels the path of Anri, this untouchable hero whose legacy he's expected to fulfill, but rather he rises above that and breaks the curse of Anri and Artemis, as well as putting Medeus back in the ground. So tell me why they decided to put his OP Gary Stew bodyguard in this remake, completely negating that entire arc for Marth??? Wild.
-Previous anger aside, I think that this game is super interesting from a gameplay perspective. Kris obviously trivializes the difficulty, but this game has so many tools for the player to abuse other than Kris, I wanted to note a few. The Again staff is a dancer staff that is never seen again after this, which is a shame. Warp and Rescue are back, as well as Hammerne. This game has an abundance of powerful staves, making it feel like this game very breakable aside from Kris (on lower difficulties, that is).
- Seize maps. Again, it's a remake, I get it. But seize maps that are fucking massive, which involves moving Marth long ass distances across the map, despite being a foot-locked unit. Those boots can't come fast enough. Oh, and no rescue dropping either, just like Shadow Dragon.
- All of that hate aside, I still love the reclass system, as having half a dozen Dracoknights bowling across a map is really satisfying. It also helps a lot with getting through some of the tougher maps in the mid-game, as there are flying dragons, and if you don't intercept them, they can be a serious threat to your weaker supportive units.
- I gotta hop back on the hate bus for my last point, but I honestly prefer the FE3 soundtrack to this game. I find that the tracks lose a lot of their luster given the more "grounded" tone they were going for this time. For instance, "Holy War" sounds a lot less emotionally driven in this game, which was a huge blow for me. There are some tracks I prefer in this game, like the Hardin battle theme, but ultimately, this game feels like a more washed out take on the original's OST.
I feel bad writing such a negative review on this game, as it's honestly not too bad to play, but having just played the game it's based off of, I found myself sorely disappointed in many areas. It's kind of ironic, because I get on Shadow Dragon's case for being too close to the original source material, but then most of the changes this game made were kinda downgrades, so I still prefer Shadow Dragon of the two? It's strange. Tl;dr, fun gameplay, but seriously neutered version of FE3.
- See my SD review about this games' presentation (if you care).
- I want to get the elephant in the room addressed before I talk about anything else. Kris is a fucking wild addition to this game. I think that the drawn-out prologue the exposition dumps Kris and Katarina's relationship is kinda terrible, and their chemistry even worse. Kris absolutely obliterates any semblance of balance that Mystery had, which wasn't much to begin with, mind you. Kris is the most malleable unit in the game, with essentially infinite potential. I don't know how they didn't expect this character to snap the game over their leg, or maybe they just didn't care, but honestly Kris' presence diminishes Marth's story in this game, and I didn't really care for it. FE3 is fucking awesome because Marth travels the path of Anri, this untouchable hero whose legacy he's expected to fulfill, but rather he rises above that and breaks the curse of Anri and Artemis, as well as putting Medeus back in the ground. So tell me why they decided to put his OP Gary Stew bodyguard in this remake, completely negating that entire arc for Marth??? Wild.
-Previous anger aside, I think that this game is super interesting from a gameplay perspective. Kris obviously trivializes the difficulty, but this game has so many tools for the player to abuse other than Kris, I wanted to note a few. The Again staff is a dancer staff that is never seen again after this, which is a shame. Warp and Rescue are back, as well as Hammerne. This game has an abundance of powerful staves, making it feel like this game very breakable aside from Kris (on lower difficulties, that is).
- Seize maps. Again, it's a remake, I get it. But seize maps that are fucking massive, which involves moving Marth long ass distances across the map, despite being a foot-locked unit. Those boots can't come fast enough. Oh, and no rescue dropping either, just like Shadow Dragon.
- All of that hate aside, I still love the reclass system, as having half a dozen Dracoknights bowling across a map is really satisfying. It also helps a lot with getting through some of the tougher maps in the mid-game, as there are flying dragons, and if you don't intercept them, they can be a serious threat to your weaker supportive units.
- I gotta hop back on the hate bus for my last point, but I honestly prefer the FE3 soundtrack to this game. I find that the tracks lose a lot of their luster given the more "grounded" tone they were going for this time. For instance, "Holy War" sounds a lot less emotionally driven in this game, which was a huge blow for me. There are some tracks I prefer in this game, like the Hardin battle theme, but ultimately, this game feels like a more washed out take on the original's OST.
I feel bad writing such a negative review on this game, as it's honestly not too bad to play, but having just played the game it's based off of, I found myself sorely disappointed in many areas. It's kind of ironic, because I get on Shadow Dragon's case for being too close to the original source material, but then most of the changes this game made were kinda downgrades, so I still prefer Shadow Dragon of the two? It's strange. Tl;dr, fun gameplay, but seriously neutered version of FE3.
2 Comments
@Torri800 I don't think there is like a notification or reply feature and I doubt you'll see this but tbh I agree that FE12 is over hated for sure. You might be right about Kris but honestly I just don't see the point. He/She breaks the game to an insane degree in every difficulty and I dunno maybe I'm reaching here but it feels like Marth often times defers to Kris' judgement in the game rather than relying on his own and that just irks me a little bit, as it feels like the Marth and Kris show now rather than a journey that proves Marth is a King that rivals the might of Anri. Again, Kris might not detract from that story all that much, but they don't really add anything either. I'd recommend playing FE3 because it shows a lot of the series' roots and is actually quite fun, unlike FE1 and Gaiden, as well as the fact you might start to understand where all of the FE12 haters are coming from lol
Torri800
1 year ago