Fire Emblem 'Casual mode'

[Cpu46]

It increases the target audience to those who aren't in it for the same reasons as you or I. I'm fine with it existing and being in the game, I won't use it ever for my own playthroughs but if I am trying to introduce someone to the game I'll start them on it.

Your avatar wtf? Suplexing a deer..

To be completely honest this anime is one of my all time favorites. I mean I still have no clue what 90% of the story was but it sure was fun watching it.

Spoiler: abandon hope all ye who enter here

Nichijou cares not for logic!​

 

[Talyn Wulf]

I think that the name of the easiest mode in Deus Ex: Human Revolution sums up my feelings on all this: Tell me a Story. It's why I am a gamer instead of a bookworm. I get more engrossed and like a story better if I can interact with it. If the gameplay is good, I will replay it on harder settings, but I ALWAYS begin by beating it on the easiest mode so I can experience the story. Therefore, I cannot "detract from my own experience" by playing with all the ease I want because that makes my first playthrough experience what I want.
On a related note, about the first post in this quote chain, because of this I can't even "play" Dark Souls, period. The story is, shall we say.... Not up to par with the stuff I'm used to. Plus the game is exercise in patience for the reward of having done it rather than getting more exposition. I really couldn't carry on with after a while because I had no motivation to beat the next creature. However, I do not think that it's a bad game, just not one that I can enjoy.
In summary, there are a lot of ways to play and yours is not the "best". If you say it is, you're wrong. Play it your way, I'll play it mine and we'll both have the most amount of fun that we possibly could with that game. And that's what gaming is all about: having fun. And I will hunt for games that give me that fun. Games that tell a compelling or at least interesting/funny story. And are fun to play, or else they just become an exercise in frustration.

What are you talking about? I never said anything about difficulty in other games.

I said that I think that playing the game on classic mode is required for the best experience in Fire Emblem. Reread my post and look at my points before ranting about other games.

Oi. YOU never said anything about difficulty in other games but the rest of the quote chain did, and stop telling me how to have fun. Classic mode will make some people too mad to keep playing, and therefore will not be the best experience for everyone in Fire Emblem. It's probably why they added it in the first place, so more people would be able to have fun with the game.

 

[Talyn Wulf]

Oi. YOU never said anything about difficulty in other games but the rest of the quote chain did, and stop telling me how to have fun. Classic mode will make some people too mad to keep playing, and therefore will not be the best experience for everyone in Fire Emblem. It's probably why they added it in the first place, so more people would be able to have fun with the game.

Ugh... You still didn't read my post... No one's telling you how to have fun, and if classic mode makes you too mad, then you really shouldn't be playing computer games as a whole and should instead be working on improving yourself as a person. You know what? Find me one person who's played Classic mode in Fire Emblem and gotten too stressed and I'll realize your point as being remotely valid.

Now... Read this part carefully, and yes I am being condescending here because you've failed to read my post twice now. Pay special attention to the BIG LETTERS as those words are IMPORTANT.

I. DON'T. CARE. IF. YOU. PLAY. ON. EASY.

HOWEVER! Fire Emblem is a franchise that has been designed around the death system. THE DEATH SYSTEM IS A KEY FEATURE OF FIRE EMBLEM and it is so for IMMERSION and INVESTMENT. When permanent death is in place, you build an EMOTIONAL CONNECTION to your characters, so when they die, IT HAS AN IMPACT ON YOU AS A PLAYER.

If you REMOVE all of the above, then THAT PORTION OF THE EXPERIENCE IS COMPLETELY REMOVED FROM THE GAME.

So from this, I DO NOT care if you play on easy mode, however, to a new player, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND IT.

Fire Emblem has never been the hardest game series unless you play hard mode, which I still think is worse than normal mode in Fire Emblem,[footnote]The reason I think this is because the game hits a difficulty where you HAVE to restart the game, and treat your characters like spreadsheets instead of playing for fun and having the possibility of continuing the game with them deceased[/footnote] If you were to label the normal mode of Fire Emblem as easy mode, I don't think people would see the difference.

Ugh. You are missing my point. You can't recommend anything with regards as to which difficulty a random player should play on and people are looking for different things from a game. The experience of a game is what people want to make of it, which why it's such a popular thing. I, for one, hate permadeath unless you get rewarded for dying (see Realm of the Mad God for how that works). I admit that I have little patience for games like Fire Emblem or XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but I might play them if my units didn't get killed of for good with nothing to help alleviate the issue of being down a strong unit. By saying what difficulty I should play on to get the "whole" experience, you are in fact telling me how I should have fun with the game. Maybe I am missing some part of the game, but what if I don't care about that part? It doesn't detract from the most important part of the game: how I choose to experience it for maximum fun, for me personally. Also, your point about how I shouldn't be playing computer games and should be improving myself as a person? Wow, man, just wow. There's a big difference between being able to and wanting to. I CAN play most any game on the hardest setting, I just don't want to because then I can't advance the story at a good pace. If the gameplay is worthy, I will replay it later on harder settings for the challenge, but I view games as a storytelling medium first and foremost.
EDIT: Just noticed something about the exact wording of your post. You DO care if I play games on easy, particularly Fire Emblem. That's what the word "however" means, it's a negation of what was just said.

 

[McMarbles]

If you play Casual Mode in Fire Emblem, you are not playing Fire Emblem.
If you play Easy Mode in Dark Souls, you are not playing Dark Souls.
If you play Kids Mode in Viewtiful Joe, you are not playing Viewtiful Joe.

If you actually care about anyone's difficulty level other than your own, then there's something seriously wrong with you.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I think its a good idea. Having to reset the game everytime some guy gets a crit at the wrong time and kills your guy, no matter how well you planned, is frustrating. I think adding the ability to not have to deal with that changes the game but not necessarily making it worse. The same strategy is there and the same game is there but the invisible rule of "and never let any unit die or the level restarts" is gone.

I like the idea.

Of course then again, I've learn that some gamers are just masochist that want the game to punish them when they fail. (even if its only a perceived punishment... No, I will not stop being angry about PoP 2008)

 

[RomanceIsDead]

as if you didn't just turn your gameboy off everytime your hero died...

 

[Cheesepower5]

I dunno if this has been said yet, but you actually can unlock a difficulty above Lunatic. Not sure what the new name is for it, since even though I'm in Canada, I can't afford it yet. :/

 

[Talyn Wulf]

Ugh. You are missing my point. You can't recommend anything with regards as to which difficulty a random player should play on and people are looking for different things from a game. The experience of a game is what people want to make of it, which why it's such a popular thing.

No... No it isn't...

It's a fact that if a portion of the game is taken away, then everything that the portion of the game brought IS TAKEN AWAY. You can't dispute that, so stop trying.

No, I mean it. Stop trying.

I'm done here, ignorance is way too bliss.

You're right about one thing: Ignorance is way too bliss.
I can buy 500 Lego pieces and make a castle using only 400, and nothing is lost. Yes, I have an extra 100 pieces that I didn't use, but that didn't stop me from making a cool 400 block castle, and the next smallest set is only 300. So, it might not be the WHOLE game but that doesn't mean that I need it to have the most amount of fun.

 

[Lunar Templar]

the game play style you like is still in the game right?

you can still play the 'punishingly difficult' version right?

then wheres the problem?

 

[TaboriHK]

Rule number one of gaming should always be: the way YOU prefer to play the game is not the ONLY right way a game should be able to be enjoyed.

 

[Cheesepower5]

the game play style you like is still in the game right?

you can still play the 'punishingly difficult' version right?

then wheres the problem?

There is no such thing as punishingly difficult after you get Nosferatu and Galeforce, trust me.

 

[RandV80]

Honestly, it's there to make the game more accessible to newcomers and for people who don't really have a head for strategy. If having the mode there gets more people to buy the game, so be it, I just won't play in that mode myself. I like the fact that lsing the characters means they are gone, it adds that extra caution to your game. I suppose this mode will introduce the problem of 'if [character] dies they won't get any more experience from this level at all and I'll be down a fighter', putting you at a disadvantage anyway.

I dislike not being able to save at any point though, quick-saving was a feature I needed since I often have to leave at a moments noticed and some chapters are long.

Yeah this mode sounds nice to me because the bolded is how I'm used to playing these kinds of games. Shining Force, Vandal Hearts, FFTactics, Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre (it starts with permadeath but you get a resurrection spell partway through), Disgaea, and so on. Also to me the funnest & most rewarding battles are the ones where you just get by the skin of your teeth with a rag tag group of survivors. I recall on a play through of the 1st Vandal Hearts on the PS1 there's a level where you're ambushed in the streets by powerful foes and a number of bosses and to 'win' you just have to get your main character to the exit alive. The map setup allowed for some divide and conquer, so I decided to attack rather than retreat... and actually managed to beat them all. I had like 4 characters battered and bruised left by the end but I pulled it off and felt great. This wouldn't be an option if there was permadeath.

As much as I love the tension that meaningful death brings in other genre's, as much as I want to I just can't get behind it in a JRPG, strategy or otherwise. Whenever I play a Fire Emblem game the perfectionist in my just can't allow for anyone to be lost so as much as I hate it I end up save scumming. And Fire Emblem isn't the only one, in the Suikoden series tactical section, or the game Suikoden Tactics, if a character 'dies' there's a random chance they're dead permanently. Dragon Force, a great game for the Sega Saturn that probably not a lot of people played because it was on the Sega Saturn, did this as well. There was one other Genesis series that was more similar to Fire Emblem than Shining Force that I think did it, but can't remember the name (It let you buy troops to surround your hero characters and battles played out like Advance Wars).

So yeah I think the option to do either or sounds great. I don't know if I'll be able to play it because I may never get a 3DS, but I'd certainly like to and if I could I'd probably set it to Lunatic/Casual mode.

 

[Dogstile]

Again with an "oh no, my niche game has become more accessible" issue. The last one didn't even make it out of japan, if I recall. Hopefully this'll help them pick up sales elsewhere so I can actually play the bloody games again.

 

[longboardfan]

But back to this Casual mode, it kind of bugs me. I'll never play it because it goes against everything I know about Fire Emblem, so it doesn't affect me. Should I be mad that it is there? Well, I think people who pick it are doing it because they don't want that much of a challenge in the game. Maybe they just want to play the story and get through the combat easily. This additional mode doesn't affect my experience of the game. Halo has an easy and normal difficulty which I never touch, and they don't bug me.

So is there anything wrong with this Casual mode? Since it doesn't affect me in any way, no, there is nothing wrong with it. Do I like it? No, I think it takes away from the experience of Fire Emblem, but it is impossible for me to say what other people enjoy about Fire Emblem.

TL;DR: This extremely easy mode bothers me, but since I don't have to use it and can play the game the way I want to, its not a bad thing. I can understand why people might want to use it, but its not for me.

Discussion value:
This kind of ties into the "easy mode" for Dark Souls or other games that have "easier than normal" difficulties discussion. It doesn't affect you in any way, you can play the game your way, and other people can play the game their way. If you feel that it takes away from the core experience of the game, then that is just being narrow minded. There is no way that you can say, "this is the way that the game is meant to be played". What you actually mean is, "this is the way I enjoy the game, and I think it is the best way to enjoy this game to the fullest. Any other way is inferior to my way of playing" which is extremely narrow minded. You are welcome to your opinions, but expecting other people to follow them is just silly. Yes, I know how ironic it is for me to say that.

Meh, I don't really count this as casual mode because its a game mechanics unlock. See unlike Dark Souls where save points are a double edged sword and everything respawns, this merely unlocks the save and doesn't let people perma-die. There's nothing that prevents you from losing a battle and having to start the battle over again. Just like you'd have to in order to keep someone from dying in classic mode. Nothing fundamentally changes though. The classic mode is still there, and those of us that have never played a Fire Emblem game can play a run through in a mode where features that we're use to in other games are present (saving between battles, and fallen units aren't perma-dead).

What you're missing about Dark Souls isn't that it was going to be easier, they were going to simplify the story and game play to do the whole "appeal to a wider audience" crap. A toggle switch to set difficulty to easy/normal/hard or to allow game states and non-permadeath aren't core mechanics shifts nor do they simplify or alter the game in any significant way. In other words, you can turn it all off. But simplifying gameplay and story, etc to allow less 1337 players to dominate Dark Souls 2 is kinda bs. That's the difference.

 

[ecoho]

If you play Casual Mode in Fire Emblem, you are not playing Fire Emblem.
If you play Easy Mode in Dark Souls, you are not playing Dark Souls.
If you play Kids Mode in Viewtiful Joe, you are not playing Viewtiful Joe.

If all that matters to you is the difficaulty your not worth talking to

OT: i gotta say im in favor of this cause its getting my nephew to actually play the games.

Thank you. Where did I say, that difficulty is all that matters?

im sorry but your post read like this to me:

"if you cant play the game at the same level as me your not really playing it"

and if you go back and read your post youll notice it comes off like that.

I didn't mean it like that. I don't care how anybody plays their games. If you think, you'll have more fun with casual mode, go ahead, hf. All I'm saying is, that's not Fire Emblem. Like diet coke is not real coke. The tension is part of the design.
Also, if you are so interested in video games that you are discussing it on the escapist forums, you are probably "experienced" enough to enjoy Fire Emblem's normal mode. They didn't include casual mode for you. It's just there to widen the audience, to get people playing that normaly don't play video games.

ok i think i understand your point, i may not agree mind you,but i do understand it. That said your comments could be taken the wrong way and while im old enough to know what you mean kids just picking up the series with this game like my nephew would take it as a challenge to their ability and play the game on normal and end up hateing it(untill i reached 15 i hated the game for the perma death)

 

[Random Argument Man]

For fuck's sake guys, it's an option. You're not obligated to choose it. It's there for those who want it.

Just let it go.