All Fire Emblem DLC Gameplay is Mediocre
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
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this is powerpoint not Excel. unsubbed
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powerpointblem when
This isn't excelblem, it's his cousin powerpointblem
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You underestimate Excel's power!
I remember grinding the Before Awakening paralogue in Conquest, to get a pebble from fredrick each time. I then fused all these pebbles together to form a Pebble +7 as a decent throwing weapon.
That's 128 playthoughs.
Good lord.
Devs: We'll give a Pebble as a reward, a weak dagger-type weapon that heavily debuffs the enemy compared to similar weapons, as a great option to consider for follow-up attacks, etc.
Players:
Yup! I also would recruit a TON of OP Midoris with the Max Luck Money Maker Builds (Merchant Class, Profiteer/Salvage Blow/Hoshidan unity) from other My Castles and grind gold bars and iron weapons to sell. I was never broke on Conquest route.
@@nathaniel1940Come on 128 runs didn't take THAT long! At least, i seemed to think it was a good way to spend my time.
"Eat rock!"
wake up babe, excel just uploaded new powerpointblem content
Tbf, the hot spring and beach dlc maps also let you have various conversations with characters alongside the 4 pngs. I still remember the one with Sumia and Miriel. It was a fun time just booting up the map with different units and seeing what i got. At least for me.
Watching Olivia absolute mald over the fact that Tharja doesn't exercise or watch her diet but still has the hottest body among the army was funny.
"...You are the enemy of young maidens everywhere!"
Also the Tiki bathwater debacle with Aversa (this is real and you can pay for it)
Ah yes, i am the one who would experiment what units interact with who, its just interesting, that is why i seriously dislike limited supports because i would have to replay a ridiculous amount of times any of those FE games featuring limited supports
My favorite DLC is when they add new characters. And those are usually the most miserable to play and repeat on future playthroughs.
I don't think Echoes' Cipher maps are THAT bad
And at the very least the ones from Three Houses (or at least the Cindered Shadows one, don't remember about the others) you don't have to actually repeat the maps where you got them if you actually beaten it once.
@@OriginalGameteer Yeah, those are the most tolerable ones so far.
@swinelias
Fates' Anna on the Run needed to be replayed each file (but it's also just one map, and Anna is barely worth it, so I don't think that's a big deal breaker)
Echoes had the 2 Cipher maps each file but they were fine enough
As mentioned just beating Shadows once meant the Wolves were good to recruit on any 3H file for that cartridge
And Engage's xenolouge was the only one I'd say is an actual issue. Being 6 maps you have to replay each file, on top of the "when do I do these" conundrum the game has
Yeah, for me the most miserable one was Camilla's in Engage. Hers alongside Chrom&Robins and Tikis made me burnt out.
Excelblem played the Xenologue for the KMU on Saturday and immediatly started cooking up a Powerpoint
I loved the Heirs of Fate campaign. It was fun, and actually pretty well written (for Fates)
Hearing Matt Mercer sing the theme song was worth the price of admission honestly
It was honestly shocking in comparison, it put the main story to shame
@@thekiss2083 okay I’ve not heard that one yet 😭
Rainbow Tonic and Dragon Herb for hardest modes were peak DLC
I think the one that has always stood out to me is days of future past DLC. It was interesting because the map would have a twist from the prep screen, and I’m more of a casual player(aka I don’t do LTC/iron man runs, just lots of resets.), and it was a map that actually made me think about using all the tools I had instead of just regular bodyblocking and checking enemy ranges.
Shadows of Valentia had an interesting DLC mix. It had the standard unlimited item, experience, and gold maps. They came in two verities, normal and hard with both being static difficulty wise. You had the shrines to give yourself a second promotion into a third class. You even had the fan service to the nostalgia card pack game fire emblem Cipher. But I think the best was the Rise of the deliverance maps. Yes they were static maps that gave you predetermined characters but it also was the only maps there weren't just route maps with interesting gimmick. You also unlocked it early on, after meeting the deliverance, and the personal weapons you got were good but not overpowered, at least not right away. There's a reason most people I've seen talk about it mention that they think RotD should have been the starting stages instead of what was originally given both because it has great story and character interactions, and by putting it first it's less odd that your character levels don't really matter.
I still think there is hope for good FE DLC. On my most recent playthrough of Engage I did a "DLC Replacement run," where I replaced some of the main game emblems with their DLC counterparts(Hector replaces Lyn, Camilla replaces Corrin, etc). This was my sixth or seventh playthrough of Engage but it was the only one I actually finished since my original playthrough, because it actually made the game feel new again. It created a new challenge trying to complete Engage Maddening without powerful tools including Bonded Shield, Dreadful Aura, and Goddess Dance. Better yet, doing the Divine Paralogues didn't have as much of an impact on the EXP curve because I lost exp by not doing the main game Emblem Paralogues.
It was a great experience, and I think the DLC Replacement Run and Revelations both highlight the path to better Fire Emblem DLC. FE DLC should not add new content to the main campaign or add new side campaigns: FE DLC should REMIX the existing campaign. It should give us reasons to replay the main game after playing it the first time. The main games are good, we just want excuses to go again. These should be options you can pick when starting a new game that fundamentally alter the game like Revelations that automatically implement the rules of a challenge-or-gimmick-run like my DLC Replacement Run while also replacing some maps here or there or remixing enemy placements.
DLC ideas I've cooked up in this style for examples:
Heart Seal Campaign: A Remix for Fire Emblem Fates where every character starts in their Heart Seal class. Some units get better, others get worse, others get... different.
Reversed Time: A Remix of Awakening where the Parent and Child Units swap places. Don't ask me how support convos work for this one.
Historic Revision: A Remix of Genealogy of the Holy War where Holy Blood is completely reshuffled. Turns out historic recounting of the Crusader bloodlines was inaccurate.
Then there's all the classic mod game modes we know and love: Reverse Recruitment, Random Recruitment, Rebalances and the like. Official support for that sort of thing would be quality DLC.
This is exactly the stuff I want, it really enhances replayability.
I've tried to make the Heart Seal run myself before by abusing My Castle and the gold map in Fates, which was not fun to set up but very fun to play. Would definitely pay to have this more accessible
Another thing that would be a cool addition is an Ironman mode, called "Cruel Mode", not a difficulty, but a mode akin to Casual and Classic. Ofc, Cruel Mode is the ironman, so like souls games, it autosaves, so if you lose, the save file is deleted.
The best part about Fell Xenologue's weird way of carrying over certain stuff was carrying over Engage weapons. I treated FX as post game and I used my run where I played very passive aggressively (to the meta) and I ended up grinding Corrupted Banes from the tower of trials so I could put Corrupted effectiveness on Ike's Ragnell, Roy's Binding Blade, and Alear's Lyration.
Made Maddening difficulty amusing with all the critical sound effects I kept hearing.
Your criticism of Hot-Spring Scramble as being "just a bunch of enemies on a map" could apply to most Awakening maps imo
Priam Paralogue be like:
For some reason I feel like DLC actually dominated discussion of Engage. Like, not in-depth discussions, but the surface-level discussions. Whenever I was doing a repeat playthrough and wanted to use a character I haven’t yet, I’d google was interesting ways to build them that people had found - but the majority of results were just saying “yeah I put Tiki on them and they turned out amazing” 🤦♂️
Well there's a bit of a perverse effect to DLC (just the one, though !), being that people who did buy it obviously want to discuss it. This actually hurts discourse around the game because that can only thrive with many people having the same frame of reference.
Plus the DLC for Engage was very involved and came out super fast. Even still, it ended up ignored after a while, since as usual it breaks the game in half, leaving a limited amount of things to actually converse about.
To be fair I think the other part of that issue is that there's clear just better units in Engage. Chloe, Citrinne, Amber, Ivy, Kagetsu, Pannete, Fogado, Pandreo, Hortensia, etc all so clearly outclass other options that other characters often will just be doing what they do but worse. Like you can use Diamant but he's just worse than Kagetsu, same for Alcryst who's just worse than Fogado in nearly every way. Units don't feel as unique anyway and often the ones with the better stats are just better due to the lack of other major factors to differentiate them.
Also think Warrior, Wyvern, Giffin knight, Mage knight, Cupido, and Lindwurm also just outclass other combat classes in 90% of situations. Sniper having a niche with Lyn's skill and Great knight having a niche as something bulkier if potentially needed.
@@twigz3214 Can't agree there. You've picked most of the best units in Engage, yes, but so much of your strategic power in Engage is concentrated in the Emblem Rings that character balance isn't as potent. And the stat differences aren't THAT huge. Good class selection, skill inheritance, & Emblem use are way more important than which characters you're running. Sure, Kagetsu has a somewhat better stat allocation than other bruisers, but that is far from what will decide how difficult a map is. Compare this with older, stat-checkier FE games, where the stat differences were both bigger and raw stats were much more decisive. Basically, Engage's character balance is really good and not the cause of a lack of discussion. (I do agree that easy class changing makes uniqueness an issue, though.)
@@twigz3214 Diamant vs Kagetsu and Alcryst vs Fogado occupy different niches on a team and in their emblem choices. I don''t think there's much overlap between either of them.
@@macht242 Statistically Kagetsu is just better than Diamant, same goes for Fogado just being better than Alcryst. Kagetsu just has higher stats than Diamant and is just faster while also having similar bulk and strength while Fogado similarly is also faster but also does more damage since he has the magic to use the massive might radiant bow and is fast enough to quad with the brave bow without a speed boosting emblem. Alcryst is behind so much speed and offers no advantage in comparison other than trying to rely on rng from Luna. Etie, Amber, and Pannette also all do his job better (Amber and Pannette being the better of the two) since they one round reliably with their high strength instead of having to rely on an activation chance and Alcryst isn’t fast enough to reliably double without Lyn anyway so I’d rather one round reliable than rely on chance.
I think you could argue they occupy different roles, but they have no real stat leads over the other to make them better at the role they supposedly perform better at.
"...to invoke some nostalgia for other games that Intelligent Systems will refuse to sell you."
Let me have Binding Blade, IS. Roy's literally half the reason FE even has international releases, let me buy his game.
Lilina Hard Mode where Narcian ganks Roy after chapter 8x and she's forced to rebuild the Lycean/Ilian/Sacaen resistance with the help of 20-year absent characters like Fargus, Lyn, Lowen, and Raven when?
@@maltheopiaactually sounds fun tbh
In all fairness it’s probably more Nintendo’s fault for not having gameboy emulating on switch. The only option IS has would be to make and sell new gba cartridges in goddamn 2024
@@mr.stuffdoer8483 They do have GBA on NSO expansion pack. AND they have FE6 on there, but only in japan.
No, you have to play it through NSO. It's written in the Nintendo Rulebook.
Then there's Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes' amazing DLC content!
...Oh wait. Mr. Turner's trophy stand moment. 😞
That's where I would have placed my 3 Hopes DLC...
IF IT EXISTED!
Three hopes dlc will be coming soon (im coping)
Three hopes is my favorite fire emblem dlc
Shez joins TWSITD and they conquer Fodland. Empire, Alliance, Kingdom and Church people all die or get made mind controlled slaves.
The only DLC is the owl and it unironically should have been given to all players, not just digital versions. The only other way to get unlimited feathers is through the characters randomly finding them when they get the highest rating for sweeping the floor...RNG placed ontop of RNG. It makes it really tedious to fill out every character's "reaction to present"-list for completionism.(Seriously, the present-mechanic is worthless outside of the checklist)
The fact that their are unique parent/child conversations in the Future Past DLC is the ony time that I think a DLC has been worth anything. It made the whole marriage mechanic feel an actual story presence, and I think that's cool. Just sucks it's locked behind DLC.
I'd like to see more challenge maps like Apotheosis tbh
As someone who gets easily frustrated with hard games, Apotheosis was dope as hell.
Apo really only worked in Awakening. With how different the balancing was for Fates, and the fact that there were 3 separate games there, I can't imagine what Apo would look like for it (and to be fair, neither could the devs lol). 3H wouldn't work thanks to the constant ticking clock of the month system. It could potentially work in Engage, but it'd also need a grinding DLC to make it less monotonous to level up units (and so you could level up units on Maddening period).
A major pet peeve of mine is when QOL updates are unlocked in DLC exclusive areas. This was something Nintendo IPs really liked to do in the early Switch era, as if they wanted to say they're *technically* not purchased as part of the DLC.
The scramble maps also allowed support conversations between characters that didn't have any in the base game
I think the best way to do it would be making it so that, once you've beaten a DLC map with a pre-set party the first time, the content locked behind it is unlocked forever and you can replay the map with custom parties later. Sort of like Pokestar Studios, where you can film a movie with a rental team, then refilm it with your own pokemon later and go off the rails by doing things the provided parties are straight-up unable to do (and get special rewards for doing so).
Imagine a New Super Luigi U of Fire Emblem DLC. Plot, characters and mechanics are exactly the same, but every map is redesigned to be harder.
But the maps take 3 turns and they're filled with enemies
This is what Fell Xenologue should’ve been. Engage without Alear, starring Nel.
It’s funny how I was hoping people would make in-depth guides to beating FX6, but instead mostly just got “FX Maddening sucks too difficult” from many series veterans with the best guide being a reddit post around a day or two after release…and just looking up the map on Triangle Attack and studying it yourself. I guess there are Turn 1 clears with extremely catered builds, but that’s more of a list of instructions and not good advice to form your own strategies.
What is "FX6"?
Fell Xenologue 6, last Engage DLC side story map@@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502
@@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502 Fell Xenologue 6, the final map of the Engage DLC
I beat Fell Xenologue by myself without a guide but the last map. That map is a total shit show. Especially because on maddening the 4 winds are a total liability.
Yeah those Turn 1 clears are miserable to replicate
6:27 that guy does not want to miss
That is a man who missed a 98.
The absolute legend.
"so, axes are inaccurate huh?"
The big thing for me is that I absolutely despise the destruction of the balance of the game via DLC. I think the Engage DLC infuriates me the most. Some of the expansion pass stuff straight up gives you strong weapons and a lot of money early in the game, destroying the early game balance. The bracelets completely destroy the balance as well because the game is balanced around the player having certain rings at certain times (+ some bracelets are deliberately made OP). I’m of the mindset that the FX should’ve been it’s own small campaign where you ONLY use the bracelets (since you could actually integrate the bracelets properly into the story), only get FX characters + Alear, and level up throughout the mini campaign like you would in the normal game (start at a low level, maybe have higher exp gain?). This would make the FX a satisfying independent mini campaign experience that could be worth the money.
I can think of some approaches that could work, but haven't been tried yet.
1. Route Split DLC: This solves the issue of static/dynamic level scaling, as well as excess exp. You design DLC chapters to substitute in for story chapters at specific points.
The issue here is that it players then need to give up part of the main story to access it on any given playthrough, or vice-versa if they decide they want to go with the default route. Still, I think there's potential here.
2. New game mode DLC: You could create a standalone game with unique features that are not suitable to a core Fire Emblem game, but have an appeal in their own right. Creating a roguelike in the vein of the FE8 towers could be fun. Just randomize recruitment, chest placement, level layouts, etc, and there you go.
3. Better Post Game: Design the main campaign so that the last chapter is balanced near the level cap. Then create a bunch of post game maps, also balanced around that level cap. Perhaps include variants of the main game map as well for a New Game+ where you keep your levels.
I don't think Fire Emblem DLC inherently has to be underwhelming. I suspect it will be though.
Woah powerpointblem...
The DLC i did consider good from a gameplay standpoint were the Xenologue maps in Awakening obtained from the Spotpass.
I think they do hold up as maps on their own (if you can look past the awakening gameplay) with some interesting gimmicks that provide a nice challenge after the final map.
The spotpass Xenologue does have the issue of not being (reasonably) playable until the player has advanced to a certain part of the game. I do think this is an issue inevitable for designing DLC.
The only thing I take problem with from this video is that Revelations maps are actually mostly new maps. Counting chapter 6, only 7 of the 23 maps in Revelations are shared with the other routes (Rainbow Sage and Crux of Fate being shared between all routes). Say what you will about the rest of the maps (whether they are well designed or not) but saying many of the maps from Revelations are reskinned is just blatantly wrong, especially when you remove the maps that should be shared across all routes (the 2 I mentioned prior).
Aside from that, yeah FE dlc sucks ass
"Many" just means "a large amount." I think it's fair to consider almost 1/3 of the game's maps being reused as a large amount.
@@siomhagormley not at all. That is without mentioning how the reused maps differ from their other counterparts (an exception being the rainbow sage map and Fuga's wild ride). Chapter 8 is BR chapter 7, but in reverse now, Chapter 11 is another BR map, but your starting position is different, and the dragon veins act in reverse. Chapter 14 is Conquest Chapter 10, but now it's a mid ass rout map. All the Chapter 6 variations are different from each other. Finally, Chapter 19 is Conquest Chapter 15, but now you have an actual army to use. If you're gonna flame Revelations for having less than a third of its maps be reused (even when most are reused in different ways, mind you), then flame the fact that BR and CQ also share 8 maps just between themselves (and they also use them in different ways, just like Rev wow).
7 maps out of 23 total main story maps (2 of which should absolutely be reused across all the routes, so really it is more like 5 out of 21) is not a large amount of maps. That's just nitpicking to nitpick.
@geoshmeo1900 I mean, I do flame BR & CQ for having 8 reused maps. Imo, the sheer amount of identical maps in fates is one of the worst detriments to the gameplay.
This is obviously subjective, but to me Chp 8 & 11 feel very similar to play as their BR counterparts, and the different deployment positions don't really change much.
I agree that all Chp 6s are good and different, and Chp 19 feels very different from the CQ map.
I'm also not sure why you feel that the Rainbow Sage maps *should* feel similar? I can't think of a benefit to the gameplay of that.
Guy tells you large is relative and you go "no, i decided it isnt, so it isnt!" Like bro please get the point
@@leaffinite2001 I mean, it's not a large amount??? I don't quite follow your logic, lmao
The PowerPointblem videos are always a refreshing treat
Also some dlc is japan exclusive in fates bein the hoshidan and nohrian festival dlcs where u can get infinite hero and exalt brands and the cipher minerva
why leave 3 comments?
@@ILiekFishes Some people don't know you can edit your own comment to add things
I'm still mad about that. You can only get one hero and exalt brand each without them, giving you choice paralysis, and the maps provide more characterisation moments (second generation units get unique conversations with each individual mother), which we miss out on.
Maybe it’s just my personal preference, but I actually like the lack of customization in things like Cindered Shadows. Having limited options makes it easier for maps to be designed around those options. Maybe that’s part of why I like the earlier entries in the series, where each character has a specific niche they can fill through their given class, rather than more recent entries where anyone can be anything (though it usually ends up becoming everyone being the same thing).
I have a soft spot for some of Valentia's DLC. Just some extra story with predetermined characters and with the only reward being some personal weapons only good til mid-game. Tho, I can only say this because of my hacked 3ds. With the original prices, I would have some different thoughts
OP new stuff is pretty neat I love all the dlc classes in Fates and 3H
I feel like what could be an interesting implementation of DLC in fire emblem would be to incorporate things such as new characters or maps INTO the main story. Sort of like an enhancement where say for instance a DLC character will show up in the story, but wont actually join the roster until the DLC is implemented, where they can now be talked to and join the army. But again, this would feel exclusionary to the people who do not or are not able to purchase the DLC in the first place. There's unfortunately no real balance from what I can see of making it fair to the whole player base, while also being functional within the story progression of the main game.
I really like the new characters and units and classes they add in DLC.
cool stuff to play around with and make the games more fun
The dlc are very fun when you play them as soon as possible in awakening. They actually had some challenge to them especially with risen with counter.
Wish the dlc kids could inherit skills stats and such to keep them safe longer.
Interesting thing to note is that the new characters and classes provided by the DLC often are considered in Three Houses discussions. Probably because they are less intrusive to the experience as a whole. This is also Maddening mode in Three Houses we are talking about, so…
My favorite DLC’s were the SOV story DLC and the extra characters DLC. Those are so much fun AND you’re rewarded with more dialogue and even new weapons as a reward for completing them.
Great video as usual, thanks!
Can't believe how much I agree with this. Cindered Shadows as a DLC was so disappointing to me that I swore myself to never buy FE DLC going forward.
Probably my favourite FE DLC has to go to Heirs of Fate chapter 5. 1 is that's an original map with an interesting layout and 2 is how they handle master seals.
2 of the bosses drop them so you can promote any of the unpromoted units however it actually affects Heirs of Fates finale, who ever you used the seal on will get an additional weapon for that chapter (making Ophelia a sorcerer gives her Excalibur as an example) as well as using that characters non canon class promotion (making Nina a bow knight instead of an adventurer). I don't know why but I always found this gimmick kind of neat.
On extra playthroughs, I did enjoy going through the DLC maps in Engage from time to time, kinda weaving them into my play through for some experience and access to the DLC stuff, but I do understand that it does kinda break some of the balance in the main story; would honestly love to see more Revelations and Apotheosis style DLC; since having them be either post-game super content or completely separately balanced experiences makes way more sense for a strategy RPG.
Honestly with how FEH handles its balance, it really does make me think that an uber powered endgame where you have to take advantage of every possible option and weird strategy to overcome it seems like it would be my ideal spot for DLC, similarly to how Disgaea games handle it's main story and post game story
Honestly Engage's DLC would have been the absolute PERFECT place to have that kind of progression since it's pretty much just ~10 endgame map with new items, classes, and story; but I feel like they wanted to try to make it both post-game viable AND mid game viable with how the new rings / Xenolouge are handled, which makes it super messy in terms of balance.
Cindered Shadows aside, i think Three Houses did a good job including the DLC into the base game in form of the missions and facilities. It didn't break the balance nearly as hard as other games did, some poor balanced Character side stories missions aside, the facilities add more options for the player to interact and spend their earned points and time wisely to stack out their characters with.
Also none of the DLC characters introduced in that game were complete game changer, you COULD advocate for Yuri to be one, but it's not anymore ridiculous than Byleth, Edelgard, Catherine, Dimitri etc.
It's mostly the chalice after completing Cindered Shadows that gets shit on, and people getting a hacked Viskam for their game, lol.
With the fan service maps they also provided conversations that weirdly acted as whole new sets of support conversations. Overall they could have just made a DLC that gives you access to more support conversations I feel but least that was my favorite part of those maps.
Since you didn't complain about it here I'm gonna complain about it now is in Shadows of Valenthia the Super Classes. I often see these complimented I think by people with the mind set of "woah so OP so cool!" where I see them and think "if my character is a high enough level to access the super classes then my character is already strong enough to fight the strongest challenges the game has to provide"
My favourite DLC I've ever used is probably Mila's bounty in FE SOV. Yes, it was a free download, and what probably helped the case is I didn't find it until my second playthrough.
It was three pitchfork, which allowed reclass to villager. I messed around and made super units in my second playthrough, and then for my third playthrough ran a cav only team in both parties. Good fun
Its kind of frustraing how Echoes DLC had 3 tier classes that should have been in the base game
And you had to buy them individually
My guess is they probably were going to be in the game but the pacing wasn't there for them and would have made it easier than it already was.
I still feel that Awakening had the best balance of DLC. There was DLC meant for grinding, DLC with difficult levels for those wanting a challenge, a serious alternate story, DLC focused on lighthearted character interactions, two cool classes, and several throwbacks to previous games. The quality of the maps themselves definitely varied, but in terms of content I bought what appealed to me and could ignore the DLC that didn't. I'll take that over an expansion pass that gives me everything, whether I'm interested or not.
Fates and SoV tried to replicate the success, but both ran into snags. It is easy to tell that the developers had difficulty reconciling the different design philosophies of Birthright and Conquest to sell DLC for both versions, resulting in even more uneven quality. Meanwhile SoV for some reason sold grinding maps in a game that already gave several opportunities to do so, and while the classes are neat, the game will be over by the time your soldiers are strong enough to promote into them. The Rise of Deliverance was awesome for storytelling, so it's a shame it was the only one in Shadows of Valentia, as there were other characters that could have benefitted from time in the spotlight.
I'm not opposed to more DLC for Fire Emblem, but I would prefer a more polished version of how Awakening handled it. There was a mixture of DLC aimed at people who wanted to make the game easier or harder, and story-focused DLC were some was serious and others laid-back. The new classes were incredibly fun when handled well, too. I wouldn't even mind costume DLC, cash-grabby as it is, though I feel that says more about how hit-or-miss the outfits of this series are.
I would pay a good amount if FE brought in Nostolgia clothes dlc.
But what about everything else in Fates that wasn't more than 1 path on a cartridge?
DLC that adds controversial gameplay mechanics would be interesting. Something like bringing back a lot of the Tharcia mechanics (capture and drown the enemy!). I think this would fit what you like about the games. You could boot up a new run with the new mechanics turned on.
Also randomizer and alt growth options could be bundled into one dlc package.
Really it’s more about delivering interesting gameplay for replayability.
You deserve much more subscribers!
I agree that the Divine Paralogues break the difficulty curve in Engage, and that seems hard to work around. But I don't really think that the sloggy map design you mentioned is anything intrinsic to the DLC format. A lot of it is just the product of having reinforcement spam, which could be toned down easily enough.
My favorite DLC was the prologue for Fates with Owain, Inigo, and Severa. Actual story related dlc that isn’t an alternate universe/story and actually had some form of impact on the characters and story in the main game and explained how they got there. Plus didn’t lock new classes or op items behind dlc. Had no impact on the main game, but still enough relevance to the plot that it could have been apart of the main game.
wierdly enough fell xenologue carrying over your skills and emblem rings causes problems imo
depending on when you try fell xenologue you either feel underpowered because you have no skills and the difficulty you are on feels like you need em, or the new units feel underpowered cause THEY have no skills
also sometimes the skills you have just do not function anymore due to fixed class. it also makes certain characters, like anna, basically not an option especially if you play the xenologue later and have more units.
on the note of character feeling fell xenologue gets special mention since both of the dragon siblings were lose conditions, and they were so squishy that using them just becomes a liability. in general it felt like due to all these factors that you didnt want to use the new units at all. especially since, even if they can be equipped with emblem rings, they only get the base benefits from them so usually one of your units gets the job done better.
You’re talking about Anna, but Vander on fixed classes just doesn’t function properly.
@@goroadachi9489 i never tried using vander in my playthrough cause jagen status. thats why i didnt bring him up. anna is just the first who came to mind cause of her insane magic growth and yet her axe class. with no bolt axe or other magic axe in sight. also no killer weapons cause dlc is cowards.
@Flutterdark_ yea the only way to really make her work is with shining bow warrior, but thats just a lot of investment.
@@Aeivious thing is, in fell xeno, the equipment is fixed. so unless it gives you a shining boy you cant make her work there.
I love ALL Excelblem videos!!!! ❤
I stan echoes clive fernand map
I would like more side story dlc with a different set of units and post-game challenges where I can put my end-game units to the test since they can both be scaled to provide a worthwhile challenge, if they are well designed that is. But to make sure the maps are actually tuned to your army, the dlc challenges should have a separate difficulty selection, maybe even separate options for enemy strength and enemy tactics. But that would be a lot of work for something that probably only a minority of players will be interested in.
I enjoyed parts of Cindered Shadows like the new units, the final boss and certain maps, but I have little interest in replaying it because some of the maps are just exhausting. It’s to a point where its the only time I’ve played Normal Casual besides my first playthrough of Conquest because I didn’t feel like resetting on reinforcement hell after running out of Divine Pulses, and I abstained from Engage dlc altogether because of how it breaks the game and the narrative. Really hope the next DLC campaign they figure out their shit
I hate how one of the best "support" conversations in the game, the one between Emmeryn and Gangrel, are stuck on a hot springs map if you happen to bring the two there. Heck, Emmeryn gets several, great could-have-been-support conversations there, do people even know about them??
I've always enjoyed the more analytical Excelblem videos. Not sure how to explain why, but I always get a sense of playstyle neutrality whereas other content creators in the space clearly speak from a casual or "efficient" perspective.
On the DLC topic, I think FE Engage almost hit the mark with their DLC implementation up until the Fell Xenologue. If they had made it so you get little to no experience from the DLC maps (or could opt to disable the exp) and staggered the maps throughout the post-11 midgame, people might have been more willing to discuss what they added. The bracelets themselves represented additional playstyle/build options rather than direct power increases, the real problem was that the Tiki stage alone had the experience of 4-5 chapters.
Is the rest of the word Subcsribe dlc?
I really liked engage dlc but its hard to implement in a play through without breaking the difficulty. What would be nice is if the game scaled difficulty significantly when dlc is cleared/used.
Imo dlc emblems ruins Ch11 tension and diffculty.
While it's nice idea enemy scaling is rarely done right so you could end up in situation where DLC could make main story content too difficult so why bother playing or even buying it to make your game worse. There's also a dilemma about whether the player will use the DLC content at all after getting it.
@@nir4s63 Not for me, since said tension is one of the stupidest moments I've ever seen in a video game.
@@AkameGaKillfan777 I think it's cool conceptually but falls littile flat on execution side, especially if you're using DLC emblems at which point is almost a joke.
Imo this moment should happen way ealier if not at the beginning rather than half way thorugh the game.
@@nir4s63 But actually have a good reason for it, not: "Haha, you looked away for 5 seconds, the rings are mine now!"
@@AkameGaKillfan777 Truee, I actually forgot about that Fates level writing part.
Truly, who amongst us doesn't remember the thrilling gameplay of grindng out the iconic nohrian festival of bonds for an easy way to grind supports to get all the child units (and attempting to capture the witch which you can't do)
I'd say that Heirs of Fate was great both story (especially considering that it's Fates) and gameplay wise.
I think FE DLC should be postgame DLC. The current problem with postgame DLC is that the gameplay systems are not designed to remain interesting at that point. All the decisions are made and all character builds in place. A true postgame DLC would need to fundamentally change the mechanics to enable a more effective continuation after the main campaign. One form this could take would be to raise the level cap to 60 by introducing a third tier for units with all new classes or adding and adding a new tier of weapons, thereby truly expanding the base game. This would then enable the creation of a well paced and interesting postgame storyline. However, this would require actual work and quite a bit of thought so it is unlikely to happen.
I would love if fire emblem dlc went more into a "extra campaign/story" direction like revelations or games of other genres like xenoblade's future connected, torna and future redeemed
Imo revelations' issue was a quality issue and not a concept issue. Most FE games have lore that happened in a very distant past, Anri, the 12 crusaders and the miracle of darna, Altina, Dheg and Soan against Ashera, and i've always thought that these kind of scenarios are perfect for making an extra story, completely separate from the main campaign
I've always thought the same thing. I really don't get why FE, a series that's based around developing a strong army and using them for the entire game, gives you DLC that strips away your items/skills/levels/units and makes you battle with a blank slate. Those fights ways feel like the first chapter of an FE title since there's no customization and limited choice, and, surprise surprise, the opening chapters are rarely fun
i actually really like those maps since they feel like fun puzzles to solve
Because they keep making DLC that can be played at any moment.
They shoukd really do a DLC that happen after the game end.
The opening chapters of fire emblem (outside of tedious tutorial maps) are always the best maps in fire emblem.
Most tightly knit well balanced and designed maps. The devs know more or less exactly what you have to a small degree of error and can develope maps accordingly.
Thats why conquest chp 10 is fantastic. The devs know your party is most likley all recruited characters at around level 10, jump 5 chapters later and the devs no longer have any way of knowing what you have.
This is why 3 houses has the worst maps in a long time, each map can't be designed around anything because theres thousands of different combinations of units available at any time
Fates casually having 2 of its 4 routes be dlc means the majority of fans never actually finished the story and I think is why it gets so much hate, sure Rev has severe writing problems, but not quite as bad as the first 2 routes, and Heirs really pays off everything that has slowly been building up to in a roundabout way. Then there’s the lore dlc…why did they make us pay money for the lore? It’s already a colossal task to figure it out.
Heirs of Fate also has really good gameplay, but most people don’t know that. Real shame. You make some nice points I disagree with some of them but it’s just a matter of taste that I consider these puzzle like maps with optimal solutions that can just be looked up to be fine because you can look up how to beat any game, it just sucks the fun out of it and discovering a scuffed solution on your own.
preach king
Fire emblem Perun style
I would watch "the defense economics of Fodlan"
It's just funny/dumb how the adaptative difficulty maps work in Fates (paralogues included) because someone probably placed a few brigands and myrmidons around the map and said "yup looks nice" disregarding that the moment you hit that sweet spot it suddenly becomes HOLY SHIT THIS ROOM IS FULL OF BERSERKERS AND SWORDMASTERS and dealing with them TOGETHER is a nightmare. I think the worst contender for me is Soleil's map where they throw you a bunch of Berserkers and Sorcerers mixed together, the two classes with the highest attack stats of their respective kind. (Also funny to consider Nosferatu Odin can actually tank them)
What are your opinions on Shadows of Valentia's DLC?
I can't think of any DLC maps that I went back to for the fun value. Honestly, the only reason to buy DLC is the new classes
I love museum melee in fates lol
RIP Echoes and rise of the deliverance
Stuff like Echoes, Archanea Saga and the bonus chapters in FE12 are cool since it shows you thinks that happened in the world before the conflict.
Perunblem
"Cavalry in the Begnion-Gallian War - losses, lessons and will Crimean Paladins matter?"
Need to use this as a source for the Fire emblem Class
"Giving you no way to obtain it" legally!
I feel like the DLC emblems blunt the impact of a story segment in Engage. I’m considering going back to play a no DLC run (despite there being 6,000 games on my backlog)
They only do that if you think the reason why the rings get stolen was a well-written plot point imo
@@AkameGaKillfan777 well I meant for gameplay. When I played the game, I had all the DLC emblems by the time that happened, so while it was kinda annoying, I didn’t feel the loss as much like I would if I hadn’t done that
@@joshbittner My point was about the story specifically
but lets talk about it the real mediocre thing in fire emblem is multiplayer. fire emblem was from ground up designed to be single player and making fire emblem to chess ruins how you are supposed to interact with the game. you could say that it just takes other things then but like everything is build around you taking 10 actions and then the enemy takes 30 actions, and repeat until you killed every last on of them.
not even talking about how you would need to grind out to cap stats to even start considering multiplayer
Do you have a liftime subscription for MS office?
I don't know whether to like or dislike there being no background music
I keep hoping for a return of an Apotheosis like map.... was genuinely fun.
i feel like heroes is the natural progression of the swimsuit dlc maps. complete maps with enemies scattered to look at the pngs
ignore this comment i wrote it before finishing your video and seeing you had the same conclusion LMAO
I thought the ashen wolves one was some of my favorite 3h content just because things were more set in stone character wise so you couln't just make everyone a wyvern.
The side story DLC could work if Nintendo reworked it a little. Make the DLC about characters in the world that are not apart of the main party. These characters will go through several chapters by themselves. At the end of this mini campaign, the player will have the ability to recruit them at a certain point in the main story.
I'd give an A+ but you left off the references page. Overall solid and great presentation 190/200
These new gamedesign videos been fire
Pokémon rom hackers figured out how to have scaling gym leaders based on number of badges earned, and making them available to play in any order so that each experience fits your progression. Intelligent systems could probably figure it out if they wanted to.
This scaling system exists in Fire Emblem since Fates.
@@losernerd9291*In Fates
@losernerd9291 scaling diffictuly in dlc never really works. Most of the time it just hits points where its way overtuned.
Dlc should be designed one way then just have it unlock at specific chapters er something.
I'd rather have a well designed dlc that i can play at the designed experience or make it easier if I want.
The problem with scaling dlc's is at some point they will fundamentally break apart and not at all comparable to pokemon.
I think Fire Emblem 3H could have had more effective DLC gameplay if it had used the paralogue system. I mean, besides the character paralogies that were added for the new characters.
It doesn't add too much extra power, since (on the non-piss easy difficulties) you can do a limited amount of grinding each month and doing extra paralogues takes up that slot. So unless you give out overpowerer rewards, you'd be fine. And the paralogues already are available only at certain points in the story, meaning somewhat predictable level ranges, so that helps with the balancing it.
What they could have added was a overall story line to the paralogues, maybe with minor changes depending on if and how you did the previous paralogues.
FE DLC. would be fine if they went back to the series’ roots and made it about solving tasks (maps) with resources (Units+Items) instead of being focused around builds/metagaming and rewards translating to the main game.
Excelblem seems to have a strong aversion towards more ”self-contained” DLC put personally I think FE game design is at its best in situations where the devs have complete control over player resources.
Revelations doesn’t have a lot of reused maps. It has exactly 3 reused maps.
Between 3H's "4" routes (excluding part 1) they share minimally 5 maps and maximally 11. That's between half the route and almost all the route.
They could design a dlc that takes place during a time skip and have progression carry over. The rest of the game could then be scaled difficulty wise if you play the dlc
The only DLC I never bothered to get was the Overclasses one from Echoes, I just didn't really find the point to keep grinding to get them once your units promote to third tier, especially in a game as easy as Echoes, even on hard mode. And you don't actually need to use them for the post game, since you can complete the Thabes Labyrinth with no problem with just your third tiers and the necesary weapon arts that you should already have by then.
Fell xe maddening IA pretty fun, if they just twiked some enemy stats here and there it would be 7.7/10
I feel this video very deeply. I hope one day IS stops with the rando grind maps and 5 chapter campaigns and does what Xenoblade has been doing. Fun ignorable bonuses for the maingame alongside an actually well designed standalone sidegame with unique mechanics that are well suited for the game being shorter than a full game.
FE and Xenoblade DLC have the exact same appeal tho. "Get you to the postgame much more reliably, then give you optional challenges later". The only real diffrence is that the Xenoblade community embraced the DLC while the FE community didn't.
Fates Revelation is the Half Life: Opposing Force of Fire Emblem. A game that really doesn't feel like it should be DLC.
Though, really, why make swimsuit images the DLC awards on the 3DS of everything? I adore Awakening/Fates art style, its my favourite of the franchise, but it was thoroughly shafted into a 480p resolution for no good reason.
Really should have made a HD version of those like the HD cutscenes sold on bluray. And now the series is on the switch they no longer do that stuff.
You mean 240p?
when excelblem drops a fire emblem essay video, you drops everything, sit down and listen
(this is not excel btw, false advertising?)
Office Suiteblem
What's kinda funny about Three Houses DLC in particular (at least for me) was that I actually really enjoyed everthhing about it... except the new side campaign. All the new items, characters, and paralouges you get access to in the main routes are all great additions that add a lot of depth and make the early game a lot more interesting since you have more options to work with, but Cindered Shadows itself is such a poorly designed mess I could never bring myself to play it again.
That cindered shadows escape map rules though. Also engage's version of the birthright Camilla map is good imo
I want to point out something for contrast: Super Robot Wars 30 is a game that also comes from a long running strategy RPG series, and while the DLC maps in SRW have the same issue of "they just give you free resources", they have unique storylines that give a small number of the characters a chance to shine with units that temporarily have their power reduced, leading to a more consistent experience. Something that's cool though is that once you completed these bonus maps you can skip them in NG+ and just get the rewards, BUT you can only get the rewards when you've gotten to the point where these maps would be unlocked in the story, so there's at least an attempt at balance(Even if NG+ is busted by design).
Not just that, but there's more DLC maps that actually give new characters from new series(As SRW is a crossover game of various mecha series. And Netflix Ultraman in 30 for some reason. Iunno, it's pretty rad). Not only are these new maps unlocked and balanced for specific points in the story, but the new characters are woven into the story as well, and actually get to chime in and make comments AND they get maps that focus on them, making them feel like actual parts of the story.
SRW 30 did DLC far better than any Fire Emblem game. Sure it's not particularly balanced too well, but it's so wonderfully woven into the story in comparison to Fire Emblem's that it's not even funny. In Engage you're paying $30 for a bunch of Emblems and characters that do literally nothing once they join. Sadly this is just something that is frustrating about the series in general, because the writing suffers so heavily in Fire Emblem when they're so unwilling to write anything about a character just because they'd have to do an alternate scene if the character is dead or not acquired, it's peak laziness, an adversity to doing anything remotely interesting. We want more scenes like FE9 where Rolf ends up being sad that his brothers are dead, dammit!
About that last part, I don't think it's due to laziness, but how the series has changed overtime. In the really old games, permadeath was the main way to get a narrative with units. Later games leaned into that with special dialouge if certain units were dead, but at some point I think IS realized most players would rather reset to keep their units alive. Which may be why they added things like casual mode and divine pulse, but even without those, the new games favor using explorable bases with activites to build the character attachment. And in order to get the most out of those, players are incentivized to keep all their units alive, which means the devs don't have much of a reason to make dialouge changes for dead characters. I wouldn't call that laziness.
@@kiwikarp9509 Naw, I disagree full on to be honest.
Shoving all the dialogue into a base where they just kinda generically comment on what happened while during the moment they stand in the background and awkwardly gape is absolutely awful writing. Not only does it make them have less presence, it takes away their impact on the story and usually just reduces them to a walking mouthpiece of "Well THAT just happened!"
As it stands, anyone running through the story and not wanting to spend an hour between each map running around the same area and talking to everyone to see if they actually have anything interesting to say are going to recruit these guys, see maybe a few support conversations, and then forget about these characters until the end of the game. There's a reason why most people talk about these characters as walking stats, classes, and skills outside of maybe the one cutscene they have prior to joining.
That's not even getting into the fact that the writing these days is oftentimes lazy. Yes, we like Bernadetta, yes we get it she likes to hide in her room ha ha you can do something else with her character now please.
Fire Emblem's writing is a mess, and you know what proves this? The fact that Kaga did it SO much better 20 years ago with Tear Ring Saga. Before FE7 even came out. Or Super Robot Wars which works in secret characters that you recruit into the plot, or DLC characters in 30, or even let you acquire characters in different orders and plans the writing around that. That's why it's lazy, because there are devs and writers out there who have handled the permadeath(or missing party member) issue so much more cleanly TWO DECADES ago and IS would rather just keep to the status quo that they've had since the NES days. That is lazy.
And that is why, as much as I like Fire Emblem, I will always prefer the writing of other SRPGs.