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MTZehvor on 05 August 2016
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JWeinCom said:
MTZehvor said:

You actually don't have to make the choice at the point of sale. Yeah, you have to purchase either Birthright or Conquest, but the path you choose at launch is not locked in; you can still choose Conquest if you purchase Birthright as long as you're willing to pay the $20 right there (and vice versa). In other words, if you're an FE fan and plan on playing both routes, then which version you buy makes no difference besides which game box gets displayed on your shelf. Setting that to the side, though, much of my excitement was from the trailer(s) released before we even knew that it was a dual release; the decision mechanic was announced several months before we were aware that the game would be sold in two editions. It's more than reasonable to be excited about a concept billed as a difficult decision by its own trailer when the separate release thing isn't made public yet.

And I would argue that it was most certainly billed as a moral dilemma, again, considering that we were informed of the decision before we even knew it was being sold in two separate versions. It's certainly not the same kind of moral choice system that Mass Effect or Deus Ex is, but it is a choice that is at least meant to be somewhat founded in an emotional response, and the fact that that was so shallow is what disappoints me.

Yes, you do have to make the decision at the point of sale.  You have already paid for whichever version you wanted.  You own that version.  You are free to buy the other version if you want, and you could even play that one first.  Doesn't change the fact that you already decided to purchase one version over the other.  

You keep bringing up "before we knew it was being sold in two separate versions" and I don't have the slightest idea why that's relevant.  By the time the game was released, you had much more clarification.  By then it was well established that the purpose of the dual releases was to have a game to appeal to more hardcore fans and one for more recent fans who started with Awakening.  It was also established by that point that the choice is made fairly early in the game, so I don't know how you expected them to form deep and meaningful relationships by that point in the game.  Aside from that, I'm not sure why you would think of an advertising slogan as gospel anyway.

Regardless of what you thought based on the first trailer, it was clear by the time the game released that this would not be what you had in mind, could not be what you had in mind, and was not intended to be what you had in mind.  You can be disappointed if you want, but that's entirely your fault. 

Then allow me to explain myself again, because I'm not sure my point is coming across.

The reason why what was brought up earlier on is revelant is because much of our expectations of the game are formed by the trailers we watch throughout the entirety of the development process. You act like what we form expectations on is simply just what we know about the game at launch, but that's simply not true. It's entirely possible for a game to show us one thing in an early trailer, show us something else in another trailer, and to be disappointed that what was shown or suggested in the aforementioned earlier trailer is not in the game. Mighty No. 9 is arguably the best recent example of this; by the time the game's final trailer was shown off, pretty much everyone expected it to be a mediocre game at best. But that still didn't stop people from being disappointed in it, because of what was shown off in other trailers was so much better than what was shown in the days leading up to launch. That's what I'm largely getting at.

Secondly, though, even if they hadn't suggested some sort of moral dilemma in early trailers, my entire OP would still be just as valid, because the point of the OP is not "Intelligent lied to us and I'm upset at them," but rather "Intelligent missed an opportunity to do something cool and that's kind of disappointing." Even if making a complex moral dilemma had never been the intention or advertised in any way, shape, or form, it can still be a shame that an interesting and unique take on a relatively underexplored concept of storytelling wasn't taken advantage of.

Lastly, as for the point of sale thing, you'll note that I put "if you're an FE fan and plan on playing both routes anyway," which is largely what this would appeal to and what I'm talking about in the first place. In other words, for the target audience, the version you purchase is largely irrelevant, as they were going to play both versions anyway.