So I’ve been wanting to weigh in for a long time on the “elitism” problem that’s been happening in the Fire Emblem community. It’s not exactly rocket science that Awakening brought about a huge shift to Fire Emblem as we know it. It got Fire Emblem on the map, it brought in tons of new fans to the series and it shifted the way Fire Emblem presented itself. Naturally this caused a lot of different opinions in the fanbase. Some people liked this new direction while other people didn’t. Some people, myself being one of them, felt as if Fire Emblem sold its soul to the devil and lost sight of everything that made it great in the first place (#makefireemblemgreatagain). Other people liked this new direction.
From here there’s been a lot of back and forth between the old and new fans. Within these discussions the fans of Awakening and Fates started throwing around the word “elitist” to describe anybody who appreciates the old Fire Emblem games while hating the new ones. Plus in addition to this there seems to be an ongoing narrative of how the old fans are elitist and toxic and are making the Fire Emblem fanbase unfun to be a part of. I realize that this is a topic that has been done to death but I think I have something new to bring to this discussion.
For starters, calling someone an elitist does not invalidate their argument. If somebody is bashing the everliving daylights out of one set of games calling them a name does nothing to prove them wrong. I often see the word “elitist” get used as a substitute for an actual argument. If you don’t think the newer games are that bad then you need to make AN ACTUAL ARGUMENT IN THEIR FAVOR. What you need to do is explain why the stories or the characters “aren’t that bad”. Another problem I have with this is that there’s an underlying assumption that disliking a certain number of games automatically makes you a bad person. Not only is that assumption wrong, but that’s just as intolerant as somebody accusing a newer fan of “being a weeb” or an “Awakening baby”.
In conflicts like this it’s rare for one side to be completely innocent while the other side is 100 % to blame for everything that happens. Usually both sides are simultaneously right and wrong. There’s nothing wrong about disliking the newer games, just like there’s nothing wrong about hating on the old ones either. In some circles I see fans of the newer games say that fans of the older games automatically view the older titles as “the Mona Lisa of gaming”. While I can understand why someone may have this view I’ll have to respectfully disagree. Before Fates came out I had already made a series of ten posts detailing what I saw as major problems with the Fire Emblem franchise alongside giving my opinions on how to fix it:
So yeah, I’m definitely not blind to the flaws of previous Fire Emblem games. Also there have been plenty of criticisms that have been given toward older Fire Emblem titles. For example, most people generally find Shadow Dragon boring. Holy War’s map design has been routinely criticized, Radiant Dawn’s story still gets a lot of crap even after Awakening and Fates came out and Binding Blade’s unit balance has been torn apart. These are only a small list of examples of things real people have said about previous Fire Emblem games. At this point I’ve been in the fandom long enough to where I’ve seen literally every Fire Emblem that’s come out get criticized about something. So no, the older games aren’t as high up on a pedestal as one might come to believe. It goes to show just how diverse the fanbase is.
Does anybody remember the fiasco that happened after the news got out that face rubbing would be removed from western titles of Fates? I remember, and it was a dark day for the fandom. Who made up the majority of people that threw a fuss over this? It wasn’t the older vets (at least the vast majority of them). They were all rejoicing over its demise. It was mostly the newer fans to the series. My point in bringing this example up is to show that reality is more nuanced than things seem. There may be problems with some older fans, but newer fans aren’t innocent either.
The fact of the matter is that people will always have different opinions about certain things and rather than try to tear each other apart why not try to see things from the other side? Why not share and discuss in a civil manner rather than bash and insult? There’s a happy compromise that can be made somewhere in the middle and there’s going to need to be a good dose of tolerance on both sides. Fortunately I do think things have died down a little and now that Shadows of Valencia is only a couple months away I’m feeling more optimistic about the future of the franchise.
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ReplyDelete(Rewriting this post.)
ReplyDeleteBoth sides have their faults. By stereotype, the old fans want challenge at any cost and will try to claim it's their way or the highway; and the fresh blood will be lurid just to enjoy what they get. Of course, this proves how problematic it is that too many people fall under and thereby contribute to stereotypes.
I think a key factor is how.....stentorian Fire Emblem is and pretty much has always been even before Awakening. I have remarked before on YouTube how people get so attracted to loud stuff, even when it's clearly just loud for its own sake. It's how I feel about the Nintendo Switch, and it's how some people I know feel about Donald Trump, not something I blame them about of course. Fire Emblem having excessive attempts to appeal to the audience has come at the cost of maintenance of its integrity, something that has actively turned off a friend of mine on Skype from considering playing Fire Emblem. Marth's design in SSBM and the resulting elitism to accommodate it doesn't help matters either, given how brain-dead in usability Marth manages to be even in Smash 4.
You can see why for example people were saying "good riddance" to face-rubbing, finding it to be just material that is lewd for its own sake that Nintendo of Japan thought wouldn't be questionable at best because apparently 18+ sites don't already exist.
Fire Emblem needs to have working counterbalance to its energy more than anything to catch its biggest problems. Otherwise, it is all too likely to make the same brand of mistakes that Kid Icarus Uprising did. I recently did a blog post that uses its penultimate chapter as explanation of its own problems:
https://warriorsuprising.wordpress.com/2017/03/09/chapter-24s-inane-existence/
There's an old saying: those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And Fire Emblem is at high risk of not learning from Kid Icarus Uprising's mistakes.
@Grant: What are your thoughts on Fire Emblem Heroes?
ReplyDeleteHaven't played very much of it. I like the idea though.
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