The War Story Genre



strike from behind, back to the wall

I like these games, I just wish gamers did, or at least for the reasons I do. Not many genres got so aspirational with their narratives as early as the TRPG. And if you’re about to ask about Advance Wars, it’s addressed partway through. I know there’s about 10000 I missed or didn’t discuss, but, and I know this is hard to believe – I haven’t played every video game.

If you’d like to help support the show, check me out on (B)atreon: https://www.patreon.com/kbash?fan_landing=true

This video better have the fattest dislike bar ohhhhh my god please tell me about the characters you enjoy petting in Fire Emblem Fates PLEASE I NEED IT

If you’d like to see videos related to TRPGs, check out my videos on Gungnir, and Yggdra Union:
https://youtu.be/OY0flDHjC6s
https://youtu.be/GEpyGovWh0Q

Please like, subscribe, shower me with your support that I can only partly aspire to deserving, for I am a low-power individual, dear god spare me fr

This article was helpful for blasting through the history at light speed:
https://toucharcade.com/2017/04/13/rpg-reload-glossary-the-early-history-of-tactical-rpg-video-games/

Advance Wars sales data (alongside other Nintendo IPs) found here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/9mi3s0/a_comparative_analysis_of_the_review_scores_sales/

Sampled this for the reference to solo lunatic FE Fates. awakening stuff can be found everywhere if you’re looking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6pkHrqfJxk

#trpg #srpg #kbash

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48 thoughts on “The War Story Genre”

  1. honestly really hate how much you shit on 3houses, i will admit i like fates but i cant say its a good game compared to the rest
    but your whole basis is "waifu bad" without looking at basically anything else of the game or any other lines the characters had beyond it.

    and for anyone looking at valkryia chronicles…..dont, just dont, if you dont like fates and 3houses story your not gonna like valkryia 4s story much either. i stopped playing it because of the fact of how stupid it got even if i liked the gameplay alot

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  2. My guy you Cannot talk about the weak stories of FE Fates and Awakening and Not compare it to the games with actually good stories/writings other than the gba games and POR/RD. Like honestly FE4 is really good in it's story telling and lack of short maps in order to make it more meaningful to the player. FE5 is great as a personal journey story. And FE15 is a really good mix of odd gameplay and great story that it's shoved its way into my heart as my favorite game and soundtrack in the whole goddamn series. Three Houses is also really good for what it is and in my opinion the story hardly suffers for having 3 1/2 routes like Fates did, though I'm sure fates sucked because of internal struggles. Theses games are GOOD, they just suffer from poor writing sure, but at least the gameplay of each game is fun and mostly fair.

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  3. raises hand I… like the easier difficulty options and ability to turn off permadeath. Allows me to enjoy the story and characters and not have to beat my head against a wall for hours and hours.

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  4. I love Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, FFT, Knight of Lodis, Ogre Battle 64, Advance Wars, Disgaia, Phantom Brave, Devil Summoner games, and Fire Emblem from playing the SNES games on emulators before the GBA ones, and the GBA series, and the Cube/Wii series, and I have no problem with anything Awakening did, especially given the context of its creation (make a game that sells or the series is over). The romance/children thing was brought back from Genealogy, and even though it is admittedly cheapened with time travel nonsense (and the parents living lol), it's a mechanic from the most iconic game in the series and yeah, it's a lot of fun. Playing Awakening was the most fun I had had with a Fire Emblem game since playing Genealogy of the Holy War all those years ago, just because the combination of systems for efficient delivery of content, as you say, was so finely engineered. I have no criticisms of something designed to please if it does that excellently.

    The PSP port of Tactics Ogre is resplendent (wasn't clear if you'd played any version of it, but it's as close to FFT as you can get, written when Yasumi Matsuno was at the height of his powers) if you miss Matsuno's storytelling. I certainly do.

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  5. Advance Wars came out at around an unfortunate time. 9/11. Yeah. Although it did well enough for IntSys to consider localizing FE. Although Days of Ruin also had problems with it's release in Japan, eventually never releasing to stores but only in there Club Nintendo program. Series had a rough time. time

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  6. I'd also like to add that FE3H has been surprisingly popular amongst a ton of different demographics, including women and older players, so it must have more going on than horny waifu trash bait. You're welcome to your opinions, but generalizing and lumping things together isn't very fair.

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  7. >>Video on war stories and tactical RPGs.
    >>Not a single mention of SUPER ROBOT WARS, a crossover franchise of tactical RPGs that has been running for 30 years now.

    I am sad and dissapointed this is our reality, do yourself a favor, and check it out, it has everything you asked for and more, and the best animation department on the entire genre.

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  8. You really need to play three houses, aside from the weird camera thing you're allowed to do after a perfect tea time with a character it doesn't have any of the pandering that fates did. The stories and characters are well written and the themes covered in that game fall a lot more in line with the themes of older war story games you mentioned in this video. Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is another good one, not sure if you played that or not since you didn't mention it.

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  9. Please try out three houses it’s actually answers a lot of your complaints with awakening and fates and manages to speak a genuinely complex and interesting story all or stories with surprisingly deep characters while still having a good gameplay and characters

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  10. Completely agree on awakening and fates being ruined by their writing but three houses is an entirely different kinda game. It reminds me way more of classic fe than 3ds fe and the game is about as far as you can get from a dating sim

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  11. its kind of funny to me how Fire Emblem has went from that series people wanted to be more popular, to the one that a lot of people wish would go away so there personal favorite to take its place. Hell, even Fire Emblem fans have somehow gotten more and more snobbish over the years. The "SNES-era vs GBA-era vs Modern-era" battles are probably more long lasting than any war in the series at this point. I do also find it funny that you skipped the titles with probably the least amount of things you hate about the current franchise. Though I think a lot of the comments section. . . echoes that sentiment. But yeah, Three Houses is pretty good.

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  12. I truly sympathize with your feelings about Fire Emblem; though I also think it's moved away from the gameplay I look for. I'm not a fan of the amount of customization you have now. Since shadow dragon, probably, it's moved more and more towards being an rpg rather than Srpg. It flattens the uniqueness of each character when they can be anything, even if it takes a little work.

    RPG's lend themselves to power fantasies much more easily. Fire Emblem wasn't strong in that regard before. However it's become possible to do solo, or near solo, runs in the game and that does break the immersion.

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  13. You 100% should play 3 Houses; the support conversations are some of the best in the entire series and they've chosen to focus on a smaller cast with more logical support options

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  14. Soooo…are we just skipping Advanced Wars: Dual Strike? or Advanced Wars: Days of Ruin? Yeah, the series is dead now, but there were two entries passed the first one that if I recall did fairly well. Great video overall, I would have loved to see them covered, just felt like you ran out of time to do research on them or something since you skipped them.

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  15. There's a really good SRPG that came out late in 2019 you should give a try, it's basically a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics. It's called "Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark". It's understandably not up to FFT's level of depth in terms of the story, but the gameplay is absolutely top-notch.

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  16. I also remember people criticizing the last Advance Wars game from going dark (as well as the loss of a few gameplay mechanics we all enjoy. So which is it? I honestly think the light bubbly atmosphere in the first two installments played a big part in Advance Wars appeal. I personally did not want to even try out the last entry after I've heard so much about how dark it went. I like my advance wars to not take itself seriously personally. There are other series for that.

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  17. I can tell you ain’t played Three Houses because while the ‘romantic’ stuff is there, it’s basically ignorable. The overarching stories are really thought provoking as well. Trust me dude give it a try (pick Kingdom or Aliance) and you’ll have a blast

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