Is a game still good if the story is shit but the gameplay is great? Because I think so

Is a game still good if the story is shit but the gameplay is great? Because I think so.

Depends on how much you enjoy the gameplay

There's any number of autists on this board that would say no, but I'm OK with the gameplay, even if the story is shit. Waifus also tilt my opinion and my penis toward the positive.

It depends on how much the story has typically been integrated into gameplay for the series. If it's a series that's largely known for tying its cast and setting into objectives and making you want to care about whatever things you like, but then a game in said series manages to make a setting and cast you absolutely cannot give any shit about, then yes it does have an air of inferiority compared to its predecessors.

Let's look at Conquest. If a new game in the series comes out with its gameplay, but has a significantly better story and cast, will there be any reason to go back to Conquest?

MVC:I proved that good gameplay can't carry a game if everything else is shit.

RE6 already proved that years ago and to a more decidedly conclusive degree.

I really do hope the Switch title destroys Conquest in every department. Its maps and gameplay with Echoes presentation really would be the GOAT FE.

Sometimes a good story can carry shit gameplay, and vice versa is true. And Fire Emblem games have never been known for their story. FE7 has a mediocre story and it's still beloved. Conquests isn't offensively bad or anything either so I don't know what the big deal is.

Conquest's story IS offensively bad, though, that's what many people's problem is.

>And Fire Emblem games have never been known for their story.
Except it kinda has because the main draw of the series has always been characters. But when you have characters who have to make very idiotic decisions for the sake of a very bad plot, it really does a lot of harm to the experience. Same goes for world building, you have to have at least some sort of believable world to care about what a character's life is like, but nothing in Fates is believable at all.. Why should I care about Lilith when she just tucks away in a pocket castle and never speaks again? Why should I care about any of the child units when they've bseen spending their life in a completely different world and have absolutely no bearing on anyone or anything? Why should I care about Valla when its rules of existing are so fucking stupid? Why should I care about this conflict between Nohr and Hoshido when it is the most literal black vs white shit ever?

I found it pretty enjoyable outside of anything with Lilith, Takumi was a fun rival.
Most of the "main" characters in FE are already boring as shit though (with exceptions like Ike/Hector/Takumi), the main draw has always been interesting side characters. I'd say awakening and fates both have a good amount of those. I do agree the reason for child characters in fates is pretty retarded though.

Pic unrelated?

Honestly, even as far as gameplay goes it's average at best.

Maybe in FE7's case, but that's because that game was garbage in every aspect. There are some Fire Emblem games with legitimately good story, unfortunately, FE7 is not one of them.

No it's completely related.

I usually swear by gameplay being primary over story but this is a case where the story actively hurt my enjoyment of the game. I wouldn't have cared so much if the story was just an afterthought as opposed to be hot garbage.

As a standard, ideally it'd have at least a tolerable story to complement the gameplay in a series like FE, but if you like it then you like it.
Honestly with Conquest it would have been fine with the pleasant, generic plot of most FE games. It actively dragged the quality down despite having decent map design as far as that is supposedly judged. The rest of the game outside of those maps is also pretty bad too, and that's not something that's easy to ignore. Good music though.

Thinly veiled FE thread

why do people even talk about any FE other than PoR, other than the quality of the graphics everything is perfect about the game

>best story
>best main character
>best weapons
>main character isnt some stuck up retard
>smite
>abilities with a cap (awakening you're shit)
>music (dat SS doe)
>best Protag and bad guys
>BBC
>best dad
>most pirated Gamecube game

give me a better FE?

I couldn't get past the story and hated that I couldn't choose which servant I wanted and play the gender I prefer. I can't stand Felicia or Azura and there's no way to get away from either of them.

I need to play the Tellius games, but there's honestly more games in the series I love than games I don't like. If you don't count remakes there's only 3 games in the series I haven't liked.

Depends on if it's regular shitty or distractingly shitty.

It can be good if the story is shit because it's undeveloped and thrown to the wayside type of shit, but if it's in your face feces that has a moderate focus in game, then that's a huge detriment to the game.

I actually enjoyed Birthright more. Fiona dying to Hans felt way too hamfisted and I wasn't a fan of how Conquest does more to develop Takumi than fucking Birthright does. Maps were still pretty good for the most part, characters in Birthright were better, I think. The Ryoma fight was cooler than Xander's fight.

I liked it, despite the shitty story. Great maps. Varied objectives. Limited resources. Challenging even on Hard. It was fun and I should try playing in Lunatic one day.

Yes, too bad in your example the gameplay is shit too

Literally its sequel. PoR is a joke difficulty and maps.
>good music
>when it only one, maybe two map themes

Depends on how far it goes, luckily you can just fucking skip everything in fates, but there were some points where the story mildly effected gameplay.
>pick hoshido
>kaze dies due to some arbitrary story bullshit
>Oh you got to A rank him! I know that is pants on fucking head retarded because there is no reason for it at all but still!
And there is just like fucking 5 forced hamfisted deaths in this game just for the sake of drama. For fuck sake the box art has flora instead of Felicia of this game which is fucking offensive because the way to recruit her is fucking retarded as well.

desu I dont consider awakening or fates to be good, the first FE i played was gaiden on some shitty website called 1980 games in 2003 or something but the first I finished was PoR

I would like FE switch to be a clone of PoR in terms of gameplay but just with better characters, maybe take the bow range from Gaiden, desu anything will be good aslong as it's not like awakening but chances are they will stick with that formula because it sold the best due to more people owning a 3ds with nothing to play on it than people that own a gamecube

desu I have never got round to playing Radiant Dawn, I even had it for years but because the wii was never plugged in i just didnt play it

most FE music is good though, I think SS has the most tracks that i enjoy listening to though

It can be "good," but without motivation to continue in a game like FE, I won't enjoy it or have a reason to beat the maps.
If I was asked outright I'd say CQ is good, but I don't like it and didn't enjoy it at all.

A game would be better off with no story than a shitty story

>the draw has always been the characters
>"hey guys i'm your new axeman for the mission, i used to be a bandit but now i'm nice"
>spend 50 turns idling him next to another character
>"hey pal remember we're friends"
>"you too"
FE could literally have no text at all and be just as good as it already is.

Seriously this. The gameplay is the main draw not the fucking characters. I seriously can't understand why people shit on the newer games for the characters and their supports when the previous games were even worse because of how boring it was. The GBA games especially have some of the most boring characters in the series.

Supports were always shit like:

1) Characters don't like each other but they end up liking each other.

2) Characters are friends and watch each others backs

3) Unending loyalty to their Lord

I'd agree with you if Conquest didn't have terrible gameplay

>measuring a character by their support conversations
The supports are just condiments you put on the main dish that is their background. Echoes proves you can have better written characters than Awakening and Fates without even needing supports at all. Hell even Genealogy proves this before supports were even a mechanic.

>Seriously this. The gameplay is the main draw not the fucking characters.
I wish it were true but it's not sadly. If it were, Echoes wouldn't be getting passes because of it's presentation while Conquest wouldn't get exaggerated hatred because of it's story/characters.
Although I do agree that GBA characters are boring

How so?

depends on the series, FE games dont have good story so its whatever.

>conquest you play the invading faction but you're mostly defending

I don't see how people think echoes is any better than fates, there were maybe 2 characters I enjoyed seeing in echoes. The voice acting helps but the story itself sucked ass and I hated both protagonists

>Echoes wouldn't be getting passes because of it's presentation
I see plenty of people shit on Echoes all the time though for it's garbage maps

That being said I also see way more people defending it than I would think there would be

Echoes doesn't really have better characters than Fates and Awakening. They're all pretty one dimensional

>I don't see how people think echoes is any better than fates
something something dae presentation meme

Did you mix up Conquest and Birthright?

>the way to recruit her is fucking retarded as well.
There's a specific way of getting her? I figured it was just a number of chapter things like the other servant.

Because the only thing I want from a FE story is a simple, cookie cutter FE plot, and that's what Echoes gave me. I don't see why every plot has to be some revolutionarily good plot on par with award winning novels, I just want a semi-cohesive plot with regular fantasy characters in a regular fantasy world. It gave me that and some gameplay outside of the map battles that I enjoyed as well.

> Over half the weapons are useless and most weapons that aren't Iron/Steel/Killer/Legendary aren't worth using
> Gimmicky levels
> Massive emphasis on buffs and debuffs
> Poison skills are cancer
> Majority of personal skills are shitty versions on existing skills, situational or just straight up bad
> Game is only really "hard" due to the fact that a good chuck of your army are terrible units and every other enemy has seal defense

Considering the fact that video GAMES are an interactive medium, GAMEplay should always be the first consideration.
Therefore: Yes, a game is still good if the actual interactive portion (read: the gameplay itself) is good, despite having a bad story.
I can't believe this even warranted a thread, OP. What the fuck.

If you actually care about story in vidya, kill yourself. It should never matter at all, only gameplay matters.

Starting a Hard Mode Conquest soon. Who's the best boy I should marry for EFFICIENCY?

It can be but to enjoy conquest I'd have to end up like one of those "reduced to a function" fighting game people who don't care about what they're playing, just the hitboxes and combos. Almost everything about it is so fucking bad outside of the excellent mechanics and layouts that I can't enjoy it, try as I might. I have no idea how this was considered mercantile quality. Fuck this game was horrible.

There's a drastic difference between something forgettable or just passable for story against something that was constant and utter shit thrown at your face. Games are a complete package, anything that is actively bad drags the whole thing down unless it was something easily ignored or a nonissue.

MUCH better story and characters, better mechanics, skills weren't reliant on rng, balancing wasn't as terrible, game was a lot more unique

>skills weren't reliant on rng
This holy shit. Crits are enough to deal with.
I liked the idea of HP tied to skill usage, part of the reason why I also enjoy Heroes.

But none of that matters when echoes has shit map design, no pair up system, and an awful level curve in act 3 that basically requires grinding if you're on hard mode
The only good thing from echoes is Clair

Whats better, TLP or Fates.

>the main draw of the series has always been characters

But it could be a lot better if it had even a passable story.

>pair up system
Why is this a good thing again? 2/15 games used it, it was alright in Fates bust busted as fuck in Awakening.

Not that MvCI has good gameplay.

There's nothing wrong with not having pairup. And I have no idea what curve you're talking about, Echoes is one of the easier FE games even on hard mode.

You know, I feel like the Cipher art is getting worse over time.

>Over half the weapons are useless and most weapons that aren't Iron/Steel/Killer/Legendary aren't worth using
That's completely false. You can use any weapon and it would work. Sliver for example is useful for attack stance or killing a high profile target quickly
>Gimmicky levels
Great use different map layouts. Gimmicks are fine if use well like Conquest did
>Massive emphasis on buffs and debuffs
This makes it so you and the enemy units don't become so powerful and also makes them much more threatening. Only bad thing about this is you can't revert it, they needed to have a restore staff.
>Poison skills are cancer
Casual as fuck. This makes it so even if you have a high defense unit they can still get rekt, and have enemies, again, be more threating than ever before.
>Majority of personal skills are shitty versions on existing skills, situational or just straight up bad
Most personal skill are really good them being situational is fine. Only bad ones would be Anna, Mozu, Izana, Keaton and Selena.
>Game is only really "hard" due to the fact that a good chuck of your army are terrible units and every other enemy has seal defense
Conquest is one of the most balanced game in the series. Everyone is viable due to reclassing. And the games difficulty comes from skills, good enemy placement, and A.I.. Seal defense is a good way of making it so you can't just place a strong guy in front and watch them rape everything. Lunatic for example isn't just a stat increase from hard and has more to it.

wrong

But the story is still entirely secondary. A good game should be - and is - able to ride purely on the interactive component. Because it's a fucking videogame.

Could you check?

The problem is that Conquest actually IS offensively bad, whereas most FE games have passable plots that while not perfect are serviceable and even memorable sometimes.
Conquest's story is memorable for how god-awful it is, to a point where it affects the enjoyment of the game for a lot of people despite the gameplay.

>This makes it so even if you have a high defense unit they can still get rekt
Then what's even the point in using a high defense unit when being a wall is literally their intended purpose?

You have to be a fucking autist if you actually care about stories in videogames. VideoGAMES, is that so hard to compherend?

>Literal doodles
What the fuck

>this is from the set immediately before that one
What the fuck indeed

One part of a game being amazing can patch the flaws of it's other elements, yes.
With Conquest the map layouts and robust unit mechanics made up for the fecal story, the shit child mechanics being thrown in, the shit dub, retarded armor and character clothing choices, and the MyCastle being an out for casual players who wanted to escape difficulty and replace dead units. Has ballistician though so it's automatically not shit, wooden tanks are wonderful.
With Echoes (since people always bring it up for some retarded reason when discussing Fates I might as well), the wonderful character art, less thrown about supports, and amazing presentation overall that showed the amount of passion poured into the game made up for being easy with 90% of the maps being shitty open fields with FUCKING CANTORS FUCK CANTORS and effect tiles that slow it to a crawl. There's also the dungeons, which are take it or leave it but I personally liked, gave it some life outside of the battles.

I can't hate Conquest despite the story making the main story campaign so unenjoyable, and I can't hate Echoes despite being slow as shit and full of fodder enemies.

>THESE are from right before that
How can they get away with this?

>Then what's even the point in using a high defense unit when being a wall is literally their intended purpose?

>good way of making it so you can't just place a strong guy in front and watch them rape everything
Having a knight just shield blocking all damage is stupid and easy. Conquest fixed this by making the AI avoid them or still inflict some damage on them despite having defense. Echoes also did it another way with always have at least 1 damage when hit and I hope they combine all three for the future.

these are all WIP, not final art

Oh.

My bad.

The real answer is, it depends on the type of game.

SPRG's in particular the answer is going to fall into no territory
knight of lodis had a somehwat serviceable gameplay but was completely marred by it's inexcusable story
Valkyria Chronicles 2 (doesn't really count) was doomed by it's setting, story, and characters
Eternal Poison is the opposite. Good story. Bad gameplay. Bad game.
This is purely from an outer objective look however.

First and foremost, the most important quality that should matter to YOU is "was it fun" if yes, than the game was good to you. The objective qualities that makes a game good or bad only matter as far as review sites. Personal and subjective experiences are always going to be what influences a games true worth in the eyes of the individual.

Videogames are not only gameplay, they also include their visual and plot presentation; otherwise why even bother with those?

Because weak units aren't immune to seal defense or anything

> Weapons are balanced
You have got to be memeing, javelins, noseferatu, special weapons gained from sparking titles are all so ridiculously awful
> Gimmicks are fine if use well like Conquest did
The only good gimmick was chapter 15
> Buffs/debuffs were good
It if were just limited to ninja, but you can't have enemies going around crippling someone's atttack or defense for up to six turns without some sort of dispel
> Poison skills were good
Oh yeah, because unavoidable damage is fantastic design
> Most personal skill are really good
What are you on, most personal skills had such a minimal effect they basically were worthless. Only good ones were Corrin, Effie, Elise, Camilla and Leo
> Conquest is one of the most balanced game in the series
Corrin and the royals could so stupidly good and could easily cheese the game

>Conquest fixed this by making the AI avoid them or still inflict some damage on them despite having defense
I appreciate the fact that the AI was smart enough to target my lower HP units, but it was still infuriating when they'd send a bunch of mooks after someone because they knew on the third try that they'd kill 'em.

Radiant Dawn and Conquest are both better than PoR in my opinion. PoR isn't a bad game at all, but the complete lack of any difficulty whatsoever really holds it back. If you like PoR that much though, you absolutely need to give Genealogy a shot.

Did you enjoy it? Then the game was good.
Did you just make this thread to ascertain if you could recommend it to others? Because that's the only non-pathetic reason to do so, why the fuck would how much other people enjoy a singleplayer game affect if it was good to you?

>Except it kinda has because the main draw of the series has always been characters.

jesus christ i hate nu-FE fans

EVERYONE IS KILLABLE. THEY ARE ALMOST ALL BAD BECAUSE OF THAT. And that focus on having killable party members over permanent ones is because Fire Emblem is always more of a strategy game than a story focused experience.

Yeah, they put a lot of effort into Cipher. That card game and Heroes are basically what's keeping the franchise afloat, morally and financially.

>You have got to be memeing, javelins, noseferatu, special weapons gained from sparking titles are all so ridiculously awful
Hand axes, javalins and, noseferatu were nerfed for how overpowered they were. They're useable anyway and shouldn't be use all the time like you could do in the previous games. Also the special weapons you get are good like the nohr sword with +5 defense.
>The only good gimmick was chapter 15
Not true. The only bad map is 10 due to being a RNG fest.
>It if were just limited to ninja, but you can't have enemies going around crippling someone's atttack or defense for up to six turns without some sort of dispel
Yeah, which is why they need restore staff. It's still fine otherwise.
>Oh yeah, because unavoidable damage is fantastic design
It is in a game where it's all based on RNG. Poison skill keep enemies threatening and stop the cheese of a high defense unit being undamaged for the map.
>What are you on, most personal skills had such a minimal effect they basically were worthless. Only good ones were Corrin, Effie, Elise, Camilla and Leo
Having a minimal effect isn't bad, they don't need to be overpowered to be good. Marx, Effie, Flora, Peri, Lazward, just for example
>Corrin and the royals could so stupidly good and could easily cheese the game
No they can't. Even Marx being the strongest royal can't solo the game. He would get destroyed by any kind of magic and ninjas. Unless you use DLC and or spend tons of gold on castle skills you can't really cheese. Besides them being good doesn't make everyone else shit. I guess FE7 has bad balanced because Hector is god tier and can solo on non-HHM. Or 4 with Sigurd.

>morally
Explain

>gacha shit is moral
okay retard

Conquest is the peak of the series, anyone who says otherwise deserves a filter. Conquest saved the series, introduced good gameplay which is the first in the series after 15 fucking games, best maps, and to top it off, sexiest waifus. Story fags need to leave Sup Forums

>The only bad map is 10 due to being a RNG fest.
*19

>EVERYONE IS KILLABLE. THEY ARE ALMOST ALL BAD BECAUSE OF THAT.
Characters being killable actually helps more than it hurts. In fact one of my problems with how Awakening and Fates handles its characters is like half the entire cast don't "die" when beaten, they just "retreat" even on Classic.

A lot of effort goes into both and they make efforts to appease oldfags and newfags alike. The only complaint I've ever seen regarding Cipher is "it's not in English", they constantly churn out quality art and release a new set every three months.

As for Heroes, they go out of their way to add popular characters, and they make it much easier to get those characters than in some other gacha games. In addition, the gameplay isn't bad for a gacha game. At the very least, they seem to be making an effort.

Compared to a game where you have to pay more than double for the extra downloadable maps, story missions, and characters? Compared to a musou crossover with five characters who aren't from the newest games, with them saying "if you buy this game, maybe we'll add more games in the sequel"?

yes but it depends on how good the gameplay is

sometimes the story and everything about the game is so bad i can't even play it even if the gameplay is alright.

like Star Ocean 4. the gameplay is fairly standard action JRPG but everything else from the art style to the writing and the characters was embarrassingly bad. never dropped a game so fast

>best weapons
>when pic related gives you outrageously strong weapons like Tyrfing, Mystletainn, Forseti, Balmung, Gae Bolg, Book of Naga, etc

>Forseti
>makes you so fast that the value overflows and loop around to being alright in speed

That's because of the stupid children shit.

This but unironically fuck echoes

I'm pretty sure the newest translation actually fixed that. I've played through it twice with said patch and Ced's speed hasn't glitched back to 15. And it's really Erin and Lewyn's genes giving Ced 105% growth in Speed that are to blame.

That's good, I recall that you had to stop leveling both parents at a certain point to make sure you didn't break the cap.

>paying for extra maps, most of which are only there for grinding purposes
>or
>An entire system based around complete luck designed to exploit people with ocd or prone to gambling addiction
>A system where you could spend hundreds of dollars and not even get the character you want
>more moral

Holy shit you're fucking stupid if you think having to buy a gold farming map that you don't need is comparable to gacha shit. Even the story maps and characters aren't even necessary and you can get through the games just fine without it
The only way that would even be remotely comparable is if you spend money on a map and the game flips a coin and if lands on heads it keeps you money and you don't get the fucking map

PoR has eight map themes. Nine if you count the victory map theme. Ten if you count the Light and Dark arrangement.