That's right... but the point is: just because they censored something, that doesn't mean you have to complain about it so insistently. I'd rather they didn't censor anything too, but, unless this does heavily alter the gameplay or the story, I wouldn't complain about it so much.

You can totally enjoy the game, like they did in the mid-'90s/early 2000s.

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That's because, as Franzise said, it wasn't all that easy to know that things were being censored. It was also more difficult to import original versions of games - which is easier, given several consoles came out that are region-free, which made importing a little easier on people. Also, in things like FF VI, they mainly covered up some slightly-nudey monsters, removed 'titles' under each of the characters' names, which did nothing in the game, and changed 'Pub' into 'Café'. Those are minute things that honestly do not affect gameplay.

Taking features out - like this face-touching - is an actualy gameplay-thing and, hence, leaves the playerbase with less of a 'game' to play. Rest assured, if TokiMemo Girl's Side was released in the West and they took out 'Love Mode' - a post-date-walking-home moment where you can poke the guy for some affection and hilarious reactions - the players would complain, because that is a huge part of the game and hinders the affection. Something that is necessary to get a good ending.

C-A

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That's exactly what I was trying to say. The face-petting thing is a gameplay feature: taking it out means not giving the player a full game experience. This is not the case for FF.

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Ah, I see your post went up while I was writing my own.

C-A

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What exactly does the face petting do? Does it make the character's relationship with your avatar better? Does it improve their stats? Or is it just there for fan service and provides no effect on the actual main strategy portions?

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From the way I understood it, it increases the character's relationship/affection with the avatar, yes. I don't play FE, but I think affection involves unlocking skills or quests.

And, frankly, here's a different question: WHAT DOES IT MATTER? There is NO reason to cut it out!
The way I saw it, it ISN'T sexualized. You can not touch boobies or undress them; all you can do, is touch their face and hair. If you were capable of groping, I MIGHT understand censoring it, if they want to market it to younger audiences. As it is, if it honestly has no 'risqué' material in it, there's no good reason to cut it out.

And same with the Love Mode I mentioned in TokiMemo. Sure, it's kind of a little risqué, since the guys do gasp a little or sigh and it IS implied that you are pretty much turning them on with this minor touching (you can touch face, hair and shoulder, nothing below), but they DO stop you if you go a little too far and do it too often. It IS gameplay and it DOES serve a purpose.

C-A

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Maybe they took it out because they feel it's demeaning to women, petting them like they're a dog or cat? Other than that, I have no clue why they'd remove it.

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Given that you also 'demean' the male characters that way, that point falls flat immediately. (Unless that screenshot I saw of what looked like a very stout, manly, blonde man is actually a woman) And honestly, it's not 'demeaning' in any way. Touching a person's face can work. Some may not like it, but if it's, say, done by a lover or very close friend, it can help in feeling secure or appreciated.

C-A

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From what I heard, you could also touch the faces of family members.

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Theirs or yours?

C-A

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You can pet all of your units' faces. Doesn't matter who it is as long as you own them. You're the commander of your own army, so you should be entitled to do whatever you want to your subordinates.

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The main character's siblings. Which, if that was the reason for the removal of face-petting, is a defunct point, since 1. they could have just removed the option for those characters, and 2. the player still has the option to marry them.

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Well, in Fates they changed it to where you can still do the "face-petting" part in the West. You still get the cutscene, you still get the boosts or whatever. The only thing you can't do is use your stylus to touch them. And I'm perfectly okay with that. Honestly, I think it's a good change.

And sorry if this offends people, but I like that you still get all the good stuff from it without it being unnecessarily creepy. I never saw Fire Emblem as a series full of unneeded fanservice, but just a series that has full on RPG tactics, where your relationships with your party is strictly just for improvement on the battlefield, not the need to play waifu simulator 2.0. I don't mind all this fanservicey stuff if it's in a game that's catered for that kind of market/genre, but it really feels out of place in the FE franchise, and personally, I'm not too fond of where the series is going with all of this. I'm just not a fan of having sexual fan service in a series where fan service isn't a thing. Optional or not, it just doesn't sit well with me.

I still plan on playing Fates of course. And I hope it's enjoyable. But if the series continues to escalate in the direction it looks like it's going to now, I probably won't have anything to want to do with the newer games. I understand though that this stuff does appeal to people, just not to me.

And to reiterate, I'm fine with fan service in a game if that game or series is catered to be that way, like say Persona 4. I am not okay with fanservice being put into a game or series where it feels needlessly unnecessary.

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Except that that's a terrible lesson for anything ever.



This is exactly how I feel about all this. I haven't personlly played much Fire Emblem, but I know enough that this kind of thing wouldn't be welcome in one of the old games. It started as a Fantasy Strategy RPG, bot a Fantasy Dating Sim Strategy RPG.

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That's true, too, dullahan. If the developers want Fire Emblem to continue in this direction, that's their choice, and I agree with Blak's sentiment that cutting an optional feature out during localization is silly. At the same time, though, fanservice wasn't what got me into Fire Emblem and it's not something I think the series should ever use as a selling point. I'll grant that there have been fanservice-y characters in most--if not all--of the games I've played, but my memory is that the games didn't make any sort of effort to play up that aspect of their designs.

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Honestly, I feel like cutting the feature is drawing MORE attention to the optional fanservicey aspect that's in this game rather than to the core game itself. With all the media coverage at this point, it almost feels like Fates is more like face-petting the game rather than what it should be about, although I know that's not true.

To an extent, I agree with Blak too, but at the same time, despite being optional, that's not something I'm wanting to see in a Fire Emblem game. It's not the fact that it's fanservice that bugs me per se, more like the fact that it's fanservice in Fire Emblem that bugs me.

And while I didn't really care about the small things that were cut out from Xenoblade X, I'm more opposed to the choices of what was cut and censored in this game as opposed to FE, only because what was cut out, I feel, feels more in line to what I'd find in XCX, especially considering the swimsuit options in the original Xenoblade. And while it doesn't detract from the overall feel of the game, I still think cutting those options out was silly. As opposed to FE, where I feel that what was cut really shouldn't have been there in the first place, considering the history of the series.

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I mean, I'm pretty sure the problem wasn't that face petting/hair touching is inherently ~too sexual~, the problem was that it was weirdly and unnecessarily and blatantly fanservicey in an RPG that... really isn't about that, and some of the characters you can pet and fondle the faces of are underage, and some are your own family members. I think taking it out was, overall, a good move that'll leave a stronger game.

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old school fire emblem didn't sell nearly as well as awakening though

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I have trouble believing fanservice was what ultimately gave it that boost, Franzise.

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I mean, Awakening did well for a lot of reasons. But it's also true Fates doubled down on the fanservice aspects.

As someone who's actually played Fates (currently on chapter 24 of Conquest/Hard/Classic)... basically nothing of value is lost by removing the face-rubbing. They kept in the gameplay bonuses it gives you (which are practically nonexistent in the first place, honestly) as well as the models/some of the dialogue. There's a little dialogue that was specific to the actual rubbing portion, but it's mostly stuff like semi-suggestive sighs and "is it really okay to do this?", etc. etc.

It's also not actually a fun gameplay element unless you're really into seeing character X blush. It's literally just rub the screen for a minute until the little heart meter fills up.

I understand the argument for not altering a game's content, but this really isn't a hill worth dying on, I think.

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What IS considered worth dying over though?

If NoA cut out mentions of same-sex relationships? Cause that's censorship too. It's also removing fanservice since it plays into the whole waifu/husbando marrying game that not everybody is a fan of. It can also be considered optional content as well since you don't HAVE to pick Zero or Shara (who are both straight unless Kamui/Corrin s involved). But I feel like this would cause a bigger stir than face rubbing cause sexual equality.

I'm just a man that loves boobs, waifus, Japanese voices, and rubbing. Can't I get what I want too? I guess that's why I also own a Vita.

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Re: the bolded: um... yes, absolutely? With all due respect, removing the only relationship options for a historically marginalized community - especially in mainstream or semi-mainstream gaming, from a traditionally conservative and "family-friendly" company - would be a lot more serious than removing a minigame that's both a. fairly pointless from a story and gameplay perspective and b. is pretty pandery as one of its main goals (though to be fair: only a few characters say really lewd things during it.)

I understand this is a feature you would have liked - and the fact it was optional does mean there's a stronger argument for Nintendo to leave it untouched - but I honestly think it's disingenuous to compare potentially removing one of Nintendo's first mainstream LGBT options to them removing a silly feature that's likely to go over as well as a lead balloon outside of Japan.

For the record, if you're about to ask if I'm glad they removed it: in some ways I am, because it was a feature in the game that like I said skeeved me out a bit, and I feel like it became a "but" when it comes to recommending the game. As in, "yes, Fates has great gameplay, but there's some questionable stuff in it." Again, I realize in the grand scheme of things it was fairly harmless! If they'd left it in, I wouldn't have cared that much. But speaking personally, I didn't like it, and it didn't add much to the game, so I'm not that upset it's gone.

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Ah, didn't know this. So you can still increase the relationship level? That's good. If this is so, the only thing they cut is the touching part. Still, I can see why Blak and a lot of other people are complaining.

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I'm pretty sure nobody (except supreme idiots) will say "FE IS NOTHING BUT FANSERVICE" if this feature was left in. It is a minor, optional feature that has an affect on the gameplay, but it does not need to be done, in order to complete the game. It's there. Using it might change a few things, but nothing huge.



Uh... because god forbid you show some affection to your children or family through body contact? I mean, not overt stuff. But, like, hugging or face touching, patting the head. I mean... is... isn't that what gets done to kids, in general? Or families? You give your child/sibling/cousin/parent a hug or, if a younger relative does something great, patting their head or ruffling their hair is a normal thing to do... right?



...so, you go into a cutscene (maybe with a loading screen), don't do anything and the screen suddenly says "X has gained affection for Avatar!" and done? That's... if that's how it's done, it's stupid. At least, sounds really stupid. Or are you doing it with buttons now? The 'touching'? (You can get closer to a guy and press one of the buttons to look, touch their hand or poke in TokiMemo Girl's Side 3rd Story Premium)

C-A

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From my understanding, one of the main reasons Awakening sold more than the other games is because of Casual Mode. Simply adding Casual Mode made the game more accessible for people who didn't think they were good enough at strategy games to handle the perma-death mechanic. Perhaps the marriage had something to do with it, but most people I know bought the game because of Casual Mode.

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idk I haven't heard that personally and usually forget Awakening even has a Casual mode since it's insanely easy even without it (unless you're playing on Hard or higher difficulty, which, uh, kind of negates the point of Casual mode)

I'm not saying waifus and husbandos are the only reason Awakening did better than previous games but I think it's pretty safe to say it contributed, and looking at if/Fates, it seems IS agrees

Might not fit in with "old school FE" but series change all the time. Anyone remember when Final Fantasy was actually about medieval fantasy?

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I'll chime in:

I feel rather than any individual aspect of Fire Emblem being a problem it's all adding together to create a distinct tonal shift in the game. It feels...sillier. The face-petting feels sillier, the fan-service DLC feels sillier, the fact you can marry ANYONE and pair up so many people (as opposed to previous fire emblems where only certain people could interact with certain people to make y'know...believable relationships) feels sillier.

I can't really claim to be a veteran of Fire Emblem, before Awakening I'd only been able to play Sacred Stones and Shadow Dragon but both seemed to convey a far more serious tone throughout the game to my recollection.

I wouldn't have minded if marrying and kids would have been for only one game (as they make it fit the plot of Awakening) but seeing them continue with it...and created self-insert avatar characters is creating new concerns in me. The thought that "perhaps this is what Fire Emblem is now? Perhaps it's went down the Agarest route and is now Fan-Servicey-Dating-Sim with a touch of strategy RPG." and it's THAT that scares me. The fact it's happened twice in a row leads me to fear they think of it as a staple. If Awakening has become a "rebranding" of the game expectations rather than just another sequel. I think that's what really grinds my gears about this.

Well...I'm also really furious about this whole "pokemon" style of selling this game but I'll need to deal. (Seriously why emphasise choice in this game if the choice is decided at purchase point?)

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Oh, god. Are you saying FE decided to tell the insane shippers, "You know what? We give up. Screw you and, here, ship whoever with whomever you want, we won't care anymore"? What is WRONG with them!?

C-A

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Not to the 100% "Anyone can go with anyone!" level but close to it. For the most part as far as I can tell there's a few exceptions but definitely way too many relationships compared to previous Fire Emblem games. It devalues the relationships when everyone can go with anyone, makes them less special and meaningful. Makes it harder to write good chemistry between the characters when you feel they are 'forced relationships' just to meet the requirements of "everyone can make babies."

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And once again I fail to see any problem with that whatsoever. If you don't like a certain pairing, you can just, uh, not use it. Unless it goes against the story (Chrom x Cordelia), there's no reason to limit possible pairings.

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Personally, I just don't like this "pair whomever you want", because it feels like such a cheap cop-out to appeal to insane shippers who ship anyone with everyone, for no reason other than having something to ship. Then again, I'd also be fine with not being able to 'ship' people together or make them have kids. (maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it feels like generalizing things - there are people, who don't want to have kids. Though in Romancing Saga 2, it apparently 'has' to happen, as your kids are your next playable characters)

C-A

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Ok well I'll explain my problems with it then.

So I'm playing through the game and I want a semi-believable well-written story for Henry (because I love that guy). However there is a LOT of options on the table. So I start investing TIME into unlocking these relationships and seeing these. However because a lot of the relationships just don't...work I keep looking for a good one (turns out Lissa is a lovely one) but it took me a long time to get to them and while I had settled for a good one I wondered if there was BETTER ones out there (I'm told HenryXPanne is something special). For some players this might be enough to make them try for more, for me I settled with Lissa. Indeed it's this very urge that led me to pass over all the ones that seemed "tacked on" and "ehhhhhh" that I'd come across before.

All in all this takes up a lot of time...and a great deal of that will be spent passing over pairings that I found rather unsatisfying and unbelievable. It's a lot of time grinding relationships without much pay off.

Now I repeat that with every other character and encounter a lot of the same problems, poor quality pairings, time spent dissatisfied with the game, a nice payoff IN THE END, a lot of time lost.

So it's a lot of Time lost is one problem. Yes I don't NEED to invest the time, but I won't know whether it's worth my time until I've seen the results. Yes I could resort to Youtube and see the outcomes there but then it takes me out of the game and defeats the point of the system being a reward.


My other problem is it detracts from the characters that they have NO preferences. Not one person looked at Nowi and went "Nah too weird for me," or looked at Gregor and thought "Too old!" It makes them less than characters and more...playthings. Sure there's a perfect chance for a good character arc to explain why seemingly opposite people overcome their differences or people with no connection or interests would hook up but like I said the writing in Awakening wasn't really GOOD enough to do that believably all the time. To the point it feels like "Yo we're getting old? Wanna marry?" for some characters.

It's the same problem I had with Dragon Age 2. I didn't feel the characters...were characters in themselves because they had no preferences. I'm fine with bisexual and gay characters but having every character you can romance be bisexual (and even not care if they hated your guts) detracted from them.

I want characters as people, they just become playthings.

It becomes even more like playthings when you put the breeding mechanics into play. Suddenly people are paired up because it's "Mechanically optimal" for their children rather than for the social investment.

And that's ultimately fair that last point - It's on the player how and why they match their characters and I tended towards the "believable romance" and "I like these people" rules. However I'd be lying if it didn't niggle at the back of my head how "Yeah their kid probably isn't going to get much from this" or "I wonder if I could do this one better for the kid" at the end of the day.

Which is why I would prefer better chosen relationships that FIT the characters involved. If the character's can't be written well together or have nothing to interest each other in the long run they don't necessarily NEED to have a relationship.

Of course this is based on a matter of opinion - Someone might think that there was no problems in any of the relationships in Fire Emblem. Maybe I'm a harsh critic in what I judge as a "good romance". They might have enjoyed all the time spent because every conversation was solid gold to them. However I don't feel I'm alone in my opinion as I recall hearing similar complaints when the game came out. Ultimately it's out of my hands and it might be fine (I've not played Fates after all).

It's just voicing uncertain concerns for the future and if Fates shows some of these same problems then it might impact my decision to buy whatever follows, and it'll impact my word-of-mouth to other people interested in the game negatively.

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See, if you feel like certain pairings could have been written better, that's one thing. But saying "these characters shouldn't be able to pair up because I don't think they should" is something Cat would say is expecting the game to conform to your own standards. "Good writing" is largely subjective.

Besides, some people like to experiment with different pairings. It's a game, after all.

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Haha "is something Cat would say" is probably the greatest most scathing critique I could get, but I'm not so horrible as to say Cat NEVER has good points (and don't tell nobody I said that).

I acknowledged it was largely subjective yeah, it's only what's a problem for me. There's a way to spin all my problems into positives.

Characters are nothing more than playthings for the player/I like the freedom to pair up who I wish

Relationships are devalued by it being overly mechanical/It's got a really in-depth system for developing characters

A lot of the relationships are poorly written and it requires a lot of time with limited payoff because they made so many/It's got a ton of content and plenty of replay value by exploring so many character relationships.

I know how things look, it's just how *I* lean on these issues. If I said it earlier consider this my correction: I don't want to say these are ABSOLUTE OBJECTIVE problems with the game, but they are problems for me. I'm not saying the game is AWFUL for it, but it's giving me concerns about future instalments that I'm going to see how it develops.

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Double negative. Unless sarcastic, you want her to tell everyone.



While I can see the good in that, you also have to consider how each player would feel about trying out those relationships or spending time, seeing them develop. As you say, some of them come across as "Eeeeh", which can really annoy a player. Like, I spent X amount of hours to get you two to get together and you still don't show any remotely genuine affection for each other? Could make the player wonder why they just wasted time on that and decide to ignore one or more characters, because they don't want to run the risk of 'falling for this' again.

C-A

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I may be an idiot, but why does Chrom x Cordelia go against the story? I honestly can't figure out why.

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"Story" was a bad way of putting it but a big part of Cordelia's character is angsting about this guy she can't have and most of her supports revolve around her dealing with it

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Oh right. I mean, they can't have support conversation in the first place either.

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Yeah, I feel sorry for her husband, kinda sucked they it still shows itself in her level up dialogue: "Everything I do, I do for him" or something along those lines.

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also I missed this before but Pierre how dare you suggest Gregor should not have the picking from all the beautiful girls to share in the bells of wedding

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