>>4377702I'm not sure I agree with this viewpoint, but I'll point out one thing in particular.
If you look at the whole of Awakening, there was quite a bit of nostalgiabaiting, which makes sense if you consider the possibility that Awakening would be the franchise's last hurrah. That said, most of the stuff in the main game is relatively subtle and can be enjoyed without prior knowledge, and the more blatant stuff is all DLC, which was smart.
But if the goal was to recreate Awakening massively growing the franchise, nostalgia was clearly the wrong choice for Engage: "old thing cool" is how you try to please and retain older fans, while Awakening's new fans were brought in by the accessibility and the marriage system (which was itself one of those throwbacks that didn't require prior knowledge) and probably the newer writing style that I hate. Besides, many non-JP players don't even have enough connection with the first six games to warrant nostalgiabaiting for; there's a reason why the reactions to Sigurd were mainly "Hey, it's the Lord who dies in that game I never played, haha fire".
Beyond that, trying to recreate Fateswakening's success by referencing it (a number of Alear's attributes are ripped straight from Robin/Corrin, including the mom your MU doesn't remember that gets introduced very early just to immediately die) is a stupid proposition. Even aside from the mass of side content that only seemed to care about Marth's games and Fateswakening for the longest time, Awakening and Fates simply aren't old enough on the release timeline, even if it's been a decade year-wise. Fans have been inundated with those characters and plots for years, and dragging them out yet again when they're only four mainline games old at most feels more like insecurity than reverence.
It's not like my opinion means much, though. I doubt I'll touch another FE at this point unless they make a Binding Blade remake (as if).
