Aren't the games largely Knack pounding away at lots of enemies to begin with?
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Aren't the games largely Knack pounding away at lots of enemies to begin with?
Gotdatmoney
Member
Well I'm convinced now. Where do we bury the franchise?
test_account
XP-39C²
In percentage, its possible, but i think that losing ~4.7 million in sales is a bigger drop regardless. The total number of copies is on another level. And as someone else mentioned, Knack was bundled with every PS4 consoles in the begining. If it wasnt bundled, maybe Knack would be a 30k-50k seller thanks to being a launch title. After the Knack bundles ran out, i dont think that hardly any copies were sold (to consumers buying a regular PS4, as in, not buying a Knack PS4 bundle). Brain Training 2 was sold as a standard game (maybe it had some smaller run bundle too, i dont know).
I don't think the game's flop has much to do with its roster. The game (or any musou game in general tbph) just look bland and boring af; I don't think any roster "improvement" will change that. Plus, the Awakening and Fates characters are popular enough in Japan; I don't think there are that much complaint regarding roster in the Japanese community.
Releasing it after FE Switch on the other hand is what might actually help, in raising both awareness and interest level.
Didn't Knack 2 already come and go without anyone noticing over in the UK (or anywhere else, for that matter)? There doesn't seem like there's going to be much of a show this time around.
Lord of Ostia
Member
Yeah that's what I figured, thanks for the numbers. Zelda is waaaaay more popular in Japan, which isn't a huge surprise. Zelda is Nintendo's #2 franchise, and Fire Emblem was on life support until Awakening blew up domestically and worldwide.
FEW did not great.
The game looks about what I expected though in terms of quality.. I'm not sure what people were expecting tbh. Hyrule Warriors looked cool, but not great (hence why I didn't get it). It seemed like a game with a decent idea. FEW looks the game. Cool, but not great.
I do think it was really dumb to not have Ike and Roy though. And the MCs are ugly.
The game looks about what I expected though in terms of quality.. I'm not sure what people were expecting tbh. Hyrule Warriors looked cool, but not great (hence why I didn't get it). It seemed like a game with a decent idea. FEW looks the game. Cool, but not great.
I do think it was really dumb to not have Ike and Roy though. And the MCs are ugly.
lyrick
Member
The series found quite a following on portable devices, then with someones perfect display of their infinite wisdom they decided to nix a portable release and try to shift 100% focus to a dedicated gaming set-top box which resulted in an over 40% decrease in first week sales. When these companies refuse to try and actually respond to market demands and instead just stay their old course the inevitable outcomes are not going to be surprising to anyone.
Lord of Ostia
Member
No, the roster is definitely an issue. Characters from Awakening and Fates are popular in Japan, but the characters from those games they picked? Not exactly the most popular options. Not to mention how bland the OCs for this game are. Love them or hate them, the OCs from Hyrule Warriors were way more interesting, visually and move set.
I'd wager there's more to it in the background than blissful ignorance of the market, especially for Falcom and hopeful looks to the Asian market. There's probably good Sony money in there to help incentivize attempts at moving/consolidating their audience from two Sony platforms into one.
FEW's low sales are disappointing, but not unexpected. I feel HW had a better presentation and initial characters.
The Zelda universe is more established lore-wise so it's a bit easier to make a spin-off of that (the themes are simple even for those who haven't played the games). FE as a series just went through a resurgence, and there's a bit of a contrast between the new and old games. It's also a bit more complex thematically.
On top of that, the characters are the strongest assets in FE, and FEW (a game meant for fan-service) didn't include most of them (non-DLC).
The Zelda universe is more established lore-wise so it's a bit easier to make a spin-off of that (the themes are simple even for those who haven't played the games). FE as a series just went through a resurgence, and there's a bit of a contrast between the new and old games. It's also a bit more complex thematically.
On top of that, the characters are the strongest assets in FE, and FEW (a game meant for fan-service) didn't include most of them (non-DLC).
Of course proportionately. I thought that was obvious?
And yes there are differences here like Knack 1 being given away. In that spirit, DBT was also double the price of BT1/2, was on a different platform, had uncounted digital sales and also technically wasnt BT3.
Aren't nearly every character that they picked from Awakening and Fates ones that placed high in the Heroes character poll? Aside from the omissions of Tharja and Azura which are almost assuredly going to be "corrected" when the DLC packs are released, it seems like they went with the ones that people know the best.
The first 5 are better and better with each games. Really excellent series, but the quality drops significantly for Sen 1-2. Still good game overall.
Before the Sen came I thought it would become my new favorite series after losing so many Jrpg but no, it didn't go in the direction I hoped it would.
It's very story/character oriented and can be pretty challenging.
But the latest episodes are crossing the line getting to easy and less interesting when it comes to characters and events.
Dragonmassag77
Neo Member
They also probably didn't want to cut content so they can get it to run on the vita
frankie_baby
Member
I see dq11 ps4 has disappeared
are there any interesting relationships in Fire Emblem?
It seemed like every trailer was "Let's do our best together."
"Together we go!"
"Doubt my blade and you will fall"
"I must be strong"
Is every main character friends or what? I honestly don't know who the bad guy in FEW is? Did they every show him/her?
They should have some cliche uneasy alliance or something, dang. Maybe Marth isn't cool with that Blond guy on the Horse. They don't like how each other operates.
Like dang, do something. I've watched most of the game's trialers, and I have absolutely zero interest in the story mode. None whatsoever. That seems like an issue.
They're amazing games, both were in my top 5 of last year. They have a huge narrative, and can create emotional scenes from time to time, and the gameplay is the absolute star. It definitely isn't good of the weeb variety. It's actually good.
RocknRola
Member
Dragonmassag77
Neo Member
Totally agree
I'm pretty happy about it. Breath of the Wild truly feels like a modern Japanese game; that is, the game Japanese developers would develop when they put effort in creating something new and imaginative. I think this week shows how the game is still tied to hardware sales, so at this point 1m is totally achievable.
5m to 300k is a 94% drop. 400k to 4k is a 99% drop.
Has ANY game done that where the 3rd AND 4th weeks were increases? That's amazing. I hope the Deluxe Edition on PS4 announcement doesn't affect legs.
Outside holiday periods, it happened when stock was initially too low. An example is Etrian Odyssey, even if we miss some data points. Final Fantasy III is another example: second week was at 52553, then it went to 52747, and then to 66280. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker followed a different pattern because enough stock was provided only every 2-3 weeks: stock -> depletion -> stock -> depletion. When stock arrived, sales boomed.
Otherwise, it happened when the IP was gaining popularity due to, for example, anime or word-of-mouth. I'm pretty sure both Pokémon and Yo-kai Watch had many WOW increases.
Lord of Ostia
Member
Only if you restrict the poll results to the games they picked, and even then there are some weird choices. For example, Lonqu, Donnel and Gaius all placed above Owain, yet they aren't in the game and he is. Neither Lissa nor Frederick placed in the top twenty on the male or female lists, yet multiple other Awakening characters did. I was wrong about Cordelia, she placed 7th on the female side of the poll, but Tharja isn't in and she placed 3rd. And if we are going by the polls, more Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance characters should have made it in. They didn't seem to pay that much attention to the poll results given which characters are missing.
Lord of Ostia
Member
You clearly havent played many of the games. Unfortunately, your assessment is largely correct about Awakening and especially Fates. The entire series has much more interesting and complex relationships, but Awakening and Fates don't really showcase that, and in Shadow Dragon the units have virtually no personality or character development.
As I said before, it seems the roster was more influenced by the Japanese fanbase than the global fanbase.
The development of FEW was already far along when the Fire Emblem Heroes CYL poll happened, that's why it's not surprising that they only added in Lyn (and probably only had time to add in Lyn) and not Lyn, Ike, Roy and Hector because Intelligent Systems weren't aware of what the global fanbase liked considering certain comments after the poll finished like Intelligent Systems staff being surprised at the popularity of Lyn considering she won the women's poll.
blitzwolf215
Member
Mainly because people feel the setting works
Thats my thing too. I will be stoke for HW2 but FEW just didn't have characters I really wanted.
I haven't played any of the games.
So if FEW had a story trailer that wasn't all praise and support and cliche encouragement, I wouldn've been more tempted to pick up the game.
like, I honestly can't think of the antagonist.
Lord of Ostia
Member
That's certainly possible, but I doubt the popularity of the Awakening characters I mentioned differs between the West and Japan. And honestly, characters from older entries are even more likely to be popular in Japan alone due to increased visibility.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Legend of Heroes did bomb though?
test_account
XP-39C²
Sure, that was indeed obvious, in the same way i think it was kinda obvious that i didnt mean that Knack 2 could drop as many copies as Devilish Brain Traning did
Maybe i was a bit unclear when i mentioned "number of copies being on another level", but there was only talk about drop in general, and to me, theres more to this than just looking at percentage drop alone. If a game sell 1k, and the sequel sells 5k, thats a 400% increase. I wouldnt exactly say that this would be the most amazing performance and increase in popularity ever, even if that might be the case looking at the percentage isolated. Or if someothing drops from 10k to 1k, or 1 million to 100k, that these drops are viewed exaclty the same overall because both have a drop of 90%.Thats true, but do you think that Devlish Brain Training would have been a multi million seller if they changed those three factors that you mention? Devilish Brain Training was released in an era were mobile games were getting more and more popular, which i think is probably the biggest reason for the drop.
EDIT:
See my reply above. I think its more to drops than just looking at the percentage isolated. I'd consider a 1 million to 100k drop to be much bigger in that regards comparing to a drop from 10k to 1k, despite both being a 90% drop.
I did that.
twothunder
Member
i guess those were the picks the newer FE fans like the best. however. as seen with echoes and now warriors sales. i think they aren't the "buy most FE stuff" type.
those are most likely the older fans that warriors pretty much ignored in most of it's roster
yes. they were quite surprised about some of the results.
still. IS is the one that pushed koei to include lucina , lyn and celica
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
I'm lost, aren't Sen 3's sales inline with previous releases? I see people acting like this is a bad opening. What exactly were some of you expecting? It's a Trails game.
Yes they both did poorly...? I am confused.
No its a very large decline. We were expecting ~100k+ which was still a very large decline but it ended up even worse.
Musous are just fucking boringand no, that doesn't seem to be a good result for a FE spin-off
Knack 2 not even charting, Crash Bandicoot underperforming - Japan must hate good 3D platformers 🤔
Switch approaching behemoth status - people want to play Picross S at their favorite ramen spots and not be bound by TVs and stationary electricity 👈
Are any of these Trails games actually good or just weeb-good
Capcom should thank god that they have the FGC
Trails in the sky is probably my favourite trilogy and i highly suggest you to try them out if u want some old fashioned jrpg. It has a slow start though.
Most of the characters in the games are pretty decent. Even all 3 SD characters, who are some of the few good ones from that game. Apparently the support conversations are pretty good too. Story trailers were awful though, not that I'd expect anything from a Musou game.
It's in line with the Vita sales, but in addition there are 60k-65k sales on PS3, so it's a drop of over 40% compared to 1 and 2.
Edit: Compare this:
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Lack of Tharja still made no sense especially considering the new emblem focus. Regardless of what you think of the character she's undeniably popular both in Japan and worldwide. I guess they thought Lynn may offset that? The game was never an easy sell.
That game is guaranteed to have a 100% attach rate, Nintendo is waiting for the Switch to hit 100 million first.
BrokenJohnCena
Member
I only bought the vita because of two Sen games,they are that goodMusous are just fucking boringand no, that doesn't seem to be a good result for a FE spin-off
Knack 2 not even charting, Crash Bandicoot underperforming - Japan must hate good 3D platformers 🤔
Switch approaching behemoth status - people want to play Picross S at their favorite ramen spots and not be bound by TVs and stationary electricity 👈
Are any of these Trails games actually good or just weeb-good
Capcom should thank god that they have the FGC
kuroneko0509
Member
having done with the game story mode, I can see why they picked the characters, especially for awakening side. koei tecmo is hell set on having the shepherds as the early helper for the mc, so replacing the core members replaced by lon'qu or donnel means that plan won't work
There isn't a problem with the characters chosen for Shadow Dragon, Awakening and Fates.
The problem is that they restricted it to those games when you have characters that are unreasonably popular due to Smash Bros. Sure, they added in Lyn, but it does seem more likely she was a late entry after the fact from the results of the CYL poll.
For a game that was expected to only feature characters from three games of the franchise that suddenly has Lyn and Celica appear. If they were going to bungle up their arbitrary rules, they should have just put in Ike, Roy and Hector to ensure some worldwide sales. (Of course part of this feels like speaking in hindsight because of how bad it's doing in Japan, that's why it might not do so bad worldwide but there were definitely things they could have done better.)
RoboGeorgeForeman
Banned
Same more or less. I have some small interest in a PS4, but I hate being tethered to my TV/couch when I play games.
I'm really hoping that they release their games on Switch
or Sony announces a new portable