Not really sure why this one is compared so much to Thracia. Yeah it's what this game is succeeding from, but the mechanics and character balance are more akin to FE1. Thracia gives you the tools to basically make any character good with low stat caps, scrolls and skill manuals while Binding Blade follows the FE1 philosophy of late-game units being worse replacements for your earlier ones.
Map design is not good. I struggle to really think of any maps I like compared to those I don't. A lot of them devolve into turtling with some side of bullshit (I never want to recruit Douglas ever again) and having only a single objective serves to make the maps more forgettable and leaves no room for interesting boss design.
I also dislike how the true ending is supposed to be achieved. Having to arbitrarily keep characters alive to play a set of some of the worst maps in this series and having to keep weapons with too many low uses (That you might actually need for the late-game.) intact is not fun. Having the biggest explanation for the lore hidden behind so many hurdles sucks and is just an insult to people who actually care for this stuff.
The story is nothing, the leads are a bunch of bores (Especially coming on the heels of Thracia!!) and side characters do not exist in cutscenes. There's a very vocal part of the fanbase that claims that FE7's story is a travesty that tramples all over the world that FE6 built but I frankly don't see it. We never spend enough time in any location for us to get a good feel for it. Early on there's an island that has a slavery problem and there's a resistance and shit, but it never truly feels explored properly like in a game like FE9 and after we drive the tyrant out of the islands it just ends and this arc never revisited???? The scope of the story isn't really anything bigger than Roy's army and Bern.
Idfk. On paper there's nothing really that appealing to this game but nothing offensive either. It's a perfectly mediocre Fire Emblem that doesn't strive to be much and as a result it's not much, kudos.
Shout out to the soundtrack and art direction tho, some of the best in the series <3
Map design is not good. I struggle to really think of any maps I like compared to those I don't. A lot of them devolve into turtling with some side of bullshit (I never want to recruit Douglas ever again) and having only a single objective serves to make the maps more forgettable and leaves no room for interesting boss design.
I also dislike how the true ending is supposed to be achieved. Having to arbitrarily keep characters alive to play a set of some of the worst maps in this series and having to keep weapons with too many low uses (That you might actually need for the late-game.) intact is not fun. Having the biggest explanation for the lore hidden behind so many hurdles sucks and is just an insult to people who actually care for this stuff.
The story is nothing, the leads are a bunch of bores (Especially coming on the heels of Thracia!!) and side characters do not exist in cutscenes. There's a very vocal part of the fanbase that claims that FE7's story is a travesty that tramples all over the world that FE6 built but I frankly don't see it. We never spend enough time in any location for us to get a good feel for it. Early on there's an island that has a slavery problem and there's a resistance and shit, but it never truly feels explored properly like in a game like FE9 and after we drive the tyrant out of the islands it just ends and this arc never revisited???? The scope of the story isn't really anything bigger than Roy's army and Bern.
Idfk. On paper there's nothing really that appealing to this game but nothing offensive either. It's a perfectly mediocre Fire Emblem that doesn't strive to be much and as a result it's not much, kudos.
Shout out to the soundtrack and art direction tho, some of the best in the series <3
2 Comments
I think FE7's narrative is flawed on its own right (Bad antagonists and the like) but it's self contained and has a good core cast. There's nothing wrong with preferring a world focused narrative over a character one but the hate is overblown, especially when FE6 is far from the best than what the series has to offer.
fascinator
1 year ago