kupomogli said:
I might not have answered the question as you would have liked me to, but I did answer your question. The newest Fire Emblem does have better graphics than the previous portable titles, but as I've said in a previous post, and what you have seemed to ignore twice, these graphics are more than likely going to be used for the next 3-5 games. But for the answer you want to hear. Yeah, SMT games reuse enemies, spell animations, etc. I haven't played SMT4 yet, trying to finish what I'm playing before I get to it, but while I've seen demon's that reuse the Soul Hackers version, the demon's aren't static or hovering and have animations on their basic sprite. The common spells that I've seen also don't look like any other version, although I haven't played Strange Journey either so there's always the possibility of using those spell animations. What about when SMT3 came to the PS2 though. Every single demon was rendered in full 3D. Every demon was animated rather than a static 3D stance. A demon that cast a spell would cast it differently than another while they had several different animations depending on what kind of physical attack they would use. Some demons were different colored versions, but for the ones that weren't, or the ones that were and used a different weapon, that's a lot of time put into the game. DDS and DDS2 reused a lot of demon's and spell effects from SMT Nocturne, but there are new demons and skills, all the characters have their own attacks and critical attacks, cast spells differently, and have different actions when using physical skills. I know you're going to argue DDS reuses assets, the very reason I included it above, but as I stated prior, it's not about whether or not assets are reused. It's that the Atlus titles seem to have larger budgets than the Fire Emblem games and they don't sell as much. If you want to try and take the argument in a different direction then it's going to be a completely different argument which I'll just ignore. It's clear that DDS2 has different gameplay mechanics than Nocturne outside of the press turn system, different dungeons, different looking characters, while there's a very good chance if you were to show a battlefield and the same class on each attacking, even some Fire Emblem fans might not know the difference. SMT3 probably cost more in development than all the GBA Fire Emblem games combined. |
Two major reasons that a lot of Western fans don't seem to pick up on as to why SMTIV went with sprites compared to SMT3/Nocturne
1.) Intentional Throwback: The entire SMTIV game is meant to be an intentional throwback, from the graphics, to the story to the characters. All the major characters you meet in SMTIV are pretty much remixes or in some cases the same ones that existed in the original SMT. By keeping things similar and in case of sprite usage the same they are going after the nostalgia of the original games and keeping the art styles of many of the demons the franchise is built upon.
2.) Money and time: Of course the 3DS could process polygon models on par with those used in the previous game but it would be expensive especially given how the art styles for the games usually are for different demons/angels. I mean Atlus has experience with 3D and have even done 2 full 3D Etrian Odyssey games, if they wanted SMTIV could have been filled with 3D models but it would have taken a while and cost alot. Some people seem to forget... or just don't remember that Atlus had issues with the development of SMTIII leading to them releasing the Maniax upgraded release. It could be a matter of them wanting the game out within a particular period of time and not wanting the problems they had with getting SMTIII out the door.
