Mechanical Failure
Don’t you hate it when one simple design choice ruins an entire game?
As a 3DS Ambassador, I got 10 free Game Boy Advance games via download, including Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. I haven’t played much Fire Emblem despite owning both Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, but James, editor at Nintendo Life, asked me if I’d review it as my first Nintendo Life assignment. I agreed.
I’m not super into strategy RPGs, but I do love me some Shining Force and Final Fantasy Tactics, and I’d always wanted to really get into Fire Emblem. I liked the look of it and the “rock-paper-scissors” weapon balance was super fun. The writing was good and I loved the character designs. Things were looking good!
Everything was going fine until I ran into what broke the game for me: when a character dies in battle, they’re gone FOREVER. Okay, that’s fine I guess. If someone dies, I’ll just reset! No big whoop!
That worked until one chapter in particular where the field was covered in fog and I couldn’t see anything that wasn’t directly around my characters. Despite moving them in a tight formation, enemies would always pour out of the fog and gang up on one character until they died.
I restarted that mission no less than ten times before completely giving up on the game.
I’ve gone into it a bit before in other posts, but I have weird anxiety issues with games. The thought of letting a character die and NOT resetting almost gave me a panic attack. No, I can’t do that. Then they’re gone for the whole rest of the game. What if I need them? What if they had something important to say later? No, I can’t let them die.
I had to email James and apologize, but I couldn’t play enough of the game to review it. I felt really guilty and embarrassed, since it was my first assignment and all, but that game was paralyzing me. I tried really hard to work through it, to put my crazy aside and be a professional, but my constitution stat wasn’t high enough, apparently.
So it looks like I’m going to have to admire the Fire Emblem series from afar. Have any of you ever had an otherwise awesome game ruined by one design choice?
5 Comments
Sounds like you haven’t been grinding Ross. He’s broken, you know. Also, if you have Seth carry Erika around, it becomes too easy.
You know, I only really liked Sacred Stones out of the Fire Emblems I played. Let me explain. In Sacred Stones, there was a tower that you could grind your units up on. Without that ability, I would try too hard to keep all my units the same level, even though I knew that it would cripple me late game. Which got really frustrating because I’m also the kind of person who can’t stand to let people die.
As for design aspects that drove me crazy, I suppose the only thing that has irritated me is games with new game + that won’t let you increase the difficulty level. I mean, really? I beat Dead Space on medium and I have everything that I want exactly where I want it, but I can only play through it again on the same difficulty? Where’s the fun and challenge in that? Or like in RE4, I kind of wish you had the option to at least try Professional Mode with a new game plus.
Hmmm.
I find it odd that it bothers you as much as it does. I know for a fact characters can die permanently in Final Fantasy Tactics and I am pretty sure the can in Shining Force as well. Sure, it is perhaps a little easier to keep them up in those games, but the mechanic is still there.
I personally am the same way, I will just restart the mission if someone dies, but I’ve managed to beat both the Fire Emblems they released for the GBA with minimal restarting and a full roster at the end of the game. In most cases playing the map once was enough to get me familiar enough with it to avoid anyone dieing the second time, barring unlucky critical hits from enemies.
But I guess I can’t really say too much since I just CANNOT play Secret of Mana because of how close your character stays to the edge of the screen to make it scroll instead of being centered…
You can lose characters permanently in Final Fantasy Tactics, yeah, but it’s not immediate like in Fire Emblem. They fall but have a set amount of turns before they disappear forever, during which you can revive them or win the battle so they won’t be gone permanently. In Fire Emblem as soon as their HP reaches zero they’re gone.
I did fine until that fog map. I’m going to give it another try, hopefully not having the added pressure of needing to review the game will make it easier for me.
Surprisingly, the answer to that mission is different than you think. One of the best ways to do it is to take your most tank-like unit and just throw him as far away from the group as you can. The enemies will circle him, and then you can take them out a little more safely. It’s also generally a good idea to get enemies to really low health, and the finish them with a weaker unit so that they get experience and level up.