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Forging bonds vs the "story" in FEH

I find it rather unfortunate, that this side content/timed event has a much better story than the actual story mode, that's included in FEH.

I mean, the forging bonds converstations are nothing groundbreaking, but they give us a straightforward development of each character included. When you compare it to the story, where every single chapter is: "I'm bound by this contract, now I have to fight you" and then either Alfonse or Sharena say: "we have to defeat them. Avatar, go get them."...you can see, that the actual story doesn't even exist.

The fact that Alfonse and Sharena are probably the most uninteresting main characters in FE history, doesn't help at all.

Do you think that something like Forging bonds for the Askr guys would help to somehow give us character development to these guys, or do you think that the story in FEH is not even worth saving?

Asked by Guts3 months 1 week ago
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It would be great if the Askr guys got a forging bonds event, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't say anything interesting other than the stuff they've told us before. Alfonse is a pretty typical protag, and Sharena is the peppy younger sister, then there's Anna who isn't really different from her other iterations. I didn't really expect anything from heroes when it came to story, it's the game play and community that really shine. I would favor a forging bonds event of characters from older games more than oc's. Either way I'm content.

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The gameplay and the interaction between players in the community are the highlights for sure, but I think that it's a shame that FEH doesn't have a strong lead like the other games. It is probably an impossible thing to hope for tho. Maybe the devs will surprise us with an actually good story in Book 3.

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Yea.. Alfonse and Sharena are pretty flat characters. I agree that the Forging Bonds event definitely has better development for the featured characters, a focus on the Askr trio would be interesting to see, maybe once in a while. But IS probably would rather make the monthly events centered around whatever new heroes banner that's currently featured because it seems like its kinda a marketing tool to plug "x" banner to try to get players interested in said characters to want to pull/buy orb packs for it, especially if they know nothing about the characters.

If they really want to actually make Alfonse and Sharena interesting, I personally would like to see them write darker stuff involving the trio. Ok maybe not as dark as Geanology, but I can see they are trying to with the murder of Gunnthra.. which was still really bad because we really knew nothing about her! I don't know.. maybe have Alfonse start acting differently from having ptsd from the wars.. like getting hooked on orb cocaine made from broken down summoning orb dust, and start changing from a polite well mannered prince to a vile despicable womanizing fuck boy, aggressively hitting on all the princesses that have joined the Order and sleeping with some that gave in to his despacito, maybe impregnating say Eirika, Priscilla, Nanna, Elise, Effie? Then his approval ratings suddenly plummets for obvious reasons and he gets beat up by the armored dudes like Hector, Draug, Arden, Zelgius.. oh yea and Ephriam, Xander, Raven and Lief join in on curb stomping him because.. well he boofed their sisters (Lief not really but I dunno what the hell they have going on there) and gets kicked out of the castle and goes on to become.. the Nameless Brazen Hobo.

Sharena falls into deep grief over her brother's troubles and gets into a toxic nsa sexual relationship with Raigh for months and is addicted to stamina potions. After a realization of her ugly lifestyle, she ends up joining a nunnery and becomes one of the first armored healer clerics.

Anna is in complete denial and mentally forces herself into oblivious ignorance and warps herself to the FE game coming out after Three Houses.

All three new alt units of Alfonse, Sharena and Anna will be featured on the new banner after the Muspell Generals banner

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Damn, that would be absolutely amazing. Even though your story couldn't be included for obvious reasons (although I would love that), the devs should really take a bit of a risk and make the Askrans a bit more interesting.

Orb cocaine is my favorite virtual drug.

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Well.. if they really were to be risky they could use a more subtle way of telling that plot, instead of referring to the actual word cocaine, they could use "magic orb dust" and "stamina potions" and use sexual connotations or implications instead of directly saying he boofed all those princesses. They've kinda hinted at stuff like that before in some of their games right? This plot direction would make them controversial and groundbreaking in terms of storytelling for a mobile app game.

If IS wants to buy a detailed script from me, I want to be paid in 999,999 COLD HARD ORBS

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"Loki's magic dust" would fit, although you could interpret that in a variety of ways, some of which could be a bit inapropriate (saying it lightly).
On a bit of a serious note tho, Nintendo probably wouldn't approve of this direction in general, seeing that they want to be seen as the "family friendly" game Publisher. It baffles me why they released the new Senran Kagura pervert simulator on the Switch, but don't want to involve more mature themes in their own games, but that's a different story.

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I know they would never do this shit haha, I was just stretching my wishful thinking farther. I had no idea they released Senran Kagura on the Switch (I haven't been keeping up with current console games in general since GTA V on 360) I had only discovered that game series' existence when Tecmo Koei released Senran Kagura alt outfits as dlc for Dead or Alive 5 Last Round on 360 (back in 2015 I think).. which some had looked pretty cool in that game in the semi-realistic-anime animation style of DOA. But we all knew what that really was for...

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Lol, maybe IS has their spies in this forum and you'll see a job offer soon to become their lead story writer.

Anyway, I only got back into modern games thanks to the Switch, so other than that, I'm also a bit behind.

And yeah, anime boobs sell a lot. Senran Kagura is not a marvelous franchise by any means, but it used to be a decent fighting game. It gained popularity due to cute anime girls and then the devs just went for pure fan-service with every Senran Kagura thing afterwards. The "game" that was released on Switch a while ago is basically about touching one of the characters and doing massages to her. I only saw a review of it, but one line from it got stuck in my head. It was something along these lines: "the tentacle monster squirted some of its goo on me" xD

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Im pretty sure you arent serious with that, but I still felt like pointing out how extremely bad this sounds, just so that noone gets a misunderstanding thinking this is actually good plot because of the amused replies this comment got.

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I feel like there are aspects of Alfonse and Sherena that are pretty interesting, but they do not come in focus often enough.

I feel like the forging bond events are probably quite a bit easier to write, they don't have to move any plot forward.
And Surtr as villain was quite a mistake, there's not much you can do with him
As for the 'saving' of the story, the story's quality depents on the villains, Veronica was ok but very simple, Surtr was a more unlikable Garon (at least Garon had backstory), but the next arc wil hopefully center around Loki or the faction Loki's from

And I think the best parts of the story/side stories were from Loki (and Helbindi)

edit:
Why I think Alfonse at least isn't horrible.
I like how he's accually kinda smart, saving the villages and generally being a tacticly sound leader in the story. It's just that the story structure is so meh that it is hard to follow sometimes.
'stuff happends, we fight>stuff happends, we fight'

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Those are actually good points.
I think that the forging bonds stories work well, because we get much more space to get to know each of those characters, even though the actual plot is something simple (like making a tea in this one).

I mean, I haven't played Fates, but from one conversation with Ophelia, I got to know her character better than Alfonse after two books of main story and all the paralogues/side content. The problem with Alfonse (and the Askrans in general) is that they are too "good", which leaves them as empty husks when it comes to actual appeal.
I definitely agree that Surtr was a dissapointing villain. He was just evil for the sake of being evil with no real motivation behind that, other than that he was just evil.

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I think another problem is that Alfonse and Sherena have more subdued personality, which isn't great for a simple game.

Ophelia is a very outspoken character, I think her character is just very easy to show off. (Like her daddy)

With Surtr I feel like he should have been less in the story, he's maybe too much on the frontline. I think he would be better if the story and characters treated him as some kind of force of nature, in the background.
And with that they should have introduced the 3 generals way earlier than him, focus on them and why they subject themselfs to him.

I'm glad that every book has basicly a new story, since it allows them to try again without a previous part ruining it (like how revelations kinda suffered because it was liked to the lesser parts of fates)

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Something cool that maybe IS could have done to make Surtr more interesting is to give him a reason why he hates the Nifl kingdom. Simple: Introduce that he had a child before Laegjarn and that they wanted to traval the kingdoms, during their travels they wounded up in Nifl where they somehow turned up dead. Torn from the grief of his first child's death he wanted to have more children that could fill the void thus Laegjarn and Laevitaen. Knowing such greif is hard and not wanting his daughters to harbor resentment towards Nifl he kept his first child's death a secret. Realizing that nothing could make him forget his first born child he slowly starts to descend into insanity thus his wife leaving(while Laegjarn and Laevitaen were still young). His daughters witnessing their father's hatred for Nifl made them want to help him in any way possible(Because he's their dad right). The two then become Generals for Muspell to help their father conquer Nifl so their family can live normally again. After Surtr goes completely insane and tries to offer Laevitaen to their fire dragon god thing, Laegjarn finally notices that they can't bring him back from the despair he fell into. With this realization she would do anything to protect her sister. That's all I have what do you guys think? Creative enough?

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Another thing:

I would love for the banner character to have more to do with the story instead of being fodder.

I think it has happened twice now, one time with Seth and Xander discussing the latter's loyalty for Veronica.
The second was with Katarina, luring the team into a trap.

My hope is that book III introduces a villain character that likes to talk with the 'fodder' characters.

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That would be interesting. I also always wondered why the devs chose Xander as a friend for Veronica.

As for Book 3, I wonder what part of Norse mythology will the devs borrow for the next kingdom(s). We have Muspelheim as the fire realm, Niflheim as the misty cold realm, which leaves us with Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Helheim, Midgar and Asgard + Jotunnheim.

I would love Helheim to be the next thing, because the Norse mythology had probably the coolest depiction of "hell" in their tales, where Helheim was extremely cold, as opposed to the other mythological/religious beliefs of hell being just a big fiery place.

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Most uninteresting main characters? Rowan and Lianna would like to have a word with you. E̶p̶h̶r̶a̶i̶m̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶E̶i̶r̶i̶k̶a̶,̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶.

I'm not really sure if tea hunting can be considered better than the main story, though that isn't really saying that much. But I do see what you mean. The Brave Heroes one was much better and probably the most interesting story driven section we've had in this game in a while. What I like about Forging Bonds is that it gives us more about the character than just a couple voice lines, even if some character's tropes overshadow their actual development (I'm looking at you, Nina).

Regarding FEH's story as a whole, it's been picking up. I'm not going to call it earth-shattering writing, but stuff is happening now. Surtr was an effective villain who had his time, and now Loki is shaping up to be the (or at least a) next major antagonist. I can especially appreciate what the story has been doing for Alfonse. When Heroes first started out, he was about as interesting as a feature-length viewing of paint drying, but now he's doing stuff. Unfortunately on the other end, Sharena has been a static "nice bubbly girl." Not quite boring, but not really going anywhere. I hope that changes, too.

Now, I'm not going to expect a phenomenal story out of this. For any mobile game not named Fate/Grand Order, I don't look for a compelling story and I'm fine if I don't get one, but Heroes is finally picking up some ground.

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I have yet to play FE Warriors, but yeah, I heard that the protags are terrible. As for stories in mobile games in general, I would have to agree with you, that it's not the main selling point. It's just that with such a powerful roster of characters, the devs could have done something interesting like forging bonds a bit earlier. Before FB, the only real involvement all those characters had in the story was: "I'm under this contract. let's fight". FB was a step in a right direction in this regard, but I still hope that the devs will manage to give us a bit more, because it seems to me like a wasted potential.

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