Fated not to be

I've always been ambivalent on the Fire Emblem series, mainly because I felt it was too mechanically punishing due to "death" being permanent, making it more of a puzzle game than actual strategy. (Having to reload and play through the same scenario a half-dozen times just to preserve my own units is not fun, especially when it isn't exactly realistic to expect NOT to lose people on a battlefield.)

I was somewhat impressed by the news that the newest game, Fire Emblem Fates, would feature a "Casual" mode where characters wouldn't die permanently. My first thought was "about time", since the social interactions and story were far more important than any fake challenge brought about by the questionable mechanics. So, I decided to look up the game to see if it was worth buying.

The short answer: NO.

What I did not know was about the two versions, in which you can only pursue one storyline. The second's storyline, along with third, were to be offered as DLC, or you could buy a special edition that contained all three...for the combined price of them all, a whopping eighty dollars. Did I mention that they were upfront about the third DLC-only storyline being the canon one?

I then went out to see if anyone else saw this the same way I did (among major reviewers and websites), and it turns out, sadly, not really. To take a step back, I suspect this is due to the long-running divide between PC and console gamers and the games they play, to the point where each has different expectations. It follows that the reviews and media covering each would be somewhat different.

However, as the differences between consoles, handhelds, and the PC begin to fade (as the ubiquitous presence of DLC now indicates), it becomes more and more important to judge all games, regardless of platform(s), by the same standards. A video game is a video game is a video game, and such is a very good mantra to take into mind when evaluating them.

Which brings me back to Fire Emblem Fates. You see, branching stories have been a staple of PC games for years, to the point of becoming fairly accepted and traditional. A good comparison here would be the first Warlords Battlecry, a real-time strategy game that feature a branching single-player campaign...where both options were included in the vanilla game, no extra payment required.

In that sense, charging more than the base forty dollars for all three storylines on one cartridge seems shady, very much so. I will give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt here though, as almost all of their prior games have purely linear stories. Still, they need to be sent the message; branching stories are a standard feature, not something that should be charged extra for.

As interested as I was in the game, I have to decline to purchase it, as well as urge anyone else not to buy it. And I do feel sorry for the people who already bought it. It's just not worth it, and won't ever be until that "special edition" drops in price to something reasonable. Which isn't likely to happen, so...bleh.

For shame, Nintendo, for shame.