Tales of Symphonia.... well, Fire Emblem

[A Black Falcon]

The AW story matters because, relative to how good the story is, they spend way too much time telling it. Yeah, they really don't spend that much time, but that proves my point about how bad it is... it reminds me of P.N.03. Like that game AW2 would probably be better off with a simpler story told in less depth. Either that or a better story, but the latter is a lot to ask...

GR, sorry, I highly doubt that they think it's a simulation. :) It's just utterly bizarre... and as I said, not right.

Ya know, I don't even mind the idea of kids leading armies or whatever. They might be very skilled prodigies after all, and in another world, the way everything works could be different. It's how these people could SEEM to have an attitude of "justice" and being friendly to everyone, and at the same time get into huge fights, killing their OWN men for NO reason, just to "test something", and then they are still "good caring people" after it all. THAT'S the part that makes the story just totally stupid. You are right, if they are going to give something like THAT to us, they might as well not even HAVE any story at ALL, just present you with bad guys and allies and let you figure out a story. A 5 year old's idea of what's going on is sure to be better than that.

'Hi buddy, let's talk! ... what, this army with me? Oh, I'm just passing through... don't mind the inevitable devastation and leave me alone, I'm your friend! Fight? Oh, fine, if you want to... I have more guys here than I need anyway, why not?'

They just show absolutely no understanding in what they are doing. Real people would react to being in battle like that! Especially teenagers like the main characters in AW1... sure, they well might eventually get used to it. But in these games there is no hint of moral issues. In AW1 they fight all these other countries for flimsy reasons and don't care at all about the devastation they cause on both sides... no one really acts like a real person, I'd say. AW2 is a bit better, but it's still bizarre. The characters all happily waste lives nearly equally... sure, Black Hole is worse. But after AW1 are the "good guys" so much different? Uh...

But anyway, yeah, definitely the best way to go with the AW games is just to ignore the story. But I can't totally do that...

To tell you the truth I think the story got too convoluted at times and relied on way too much dialog for what was a very simple plot. But it was entertaining, and did make the game better.

However I think AW's non-existent plot works very well for it because it really is the kind of game you pick up and play every once in a while, doing single missions here and there. I haven't finished FE and play it every so often, confused by some of the story elements that I forgot about. So they both serve their purposes. AW is a terrific, pure strategy title that is perfect for a handheld since you can stop playing the game for a year and come back to it and know what to do, and FE is a strategy-RPG that requires long, consecutive days or weeks of play.

Too convoluted? How? Like with all the plot twists? How all the characters that leave your party reappear later? Okay, a few fine... but ALL? Um... :) As I said, it's reliant on 'cooincidence' quite heavily. Yeah, the plot isn't super deep, but it's got a decent amount of depth and is revealed at a good slow rate as you progress. And all that conversation lets them tell it at a good pace... not in big bunches every so often but at a steady rate. It also makes the missions more interesting as it definitely fleshes out the action a lot more. They could have made it a really simple plot with no detail, but the game is MUCH better off with a nicely detailed plot. I like the fact that it's got a lot of conversation between missions, certainly (while recognizing that it isn't exactly the most innovative story design of all time).

You're right about the playtimes, for sure, though. With a story like this, and this save system, you really have to keep going or I can definitely see getting confused fairly easilly. AW is pretty resistant to that and certainly is better for short spurts. And they're quite different games and play very differently... it's tough to compare them, really. But though I loved AW2 FE is probably the better game.

Well, except for multiplayer. Now I haven't played FE in multi, and I don't know if I will, but based on reading about what it is it's obvious that AW blows it away. For one there's no single-system multiplayer mode, which is one of the best features of AW!