The Holy Druid

When I first read your topic headline, I thought you were talking about the strange, one-sided, or non-existent chemistry some of the game's pairings had (i.e. Gaius and Tharja, Robin and Chrom, etc.), which I would have agreed with. I think this 'first love straight to marriage' thing is kind of over-reading the game. Fire Emblem is fictional (Obviously), so you can't really expect it to match up with everything about modern society when it comes to romance.

Sorry for the delayed response, I don't visit this site that often :P It does kind of seem like some people are kind of misinterpreting what I said, or maybe it just came out wrong. It's not that the old characters not having much dialogue and such that irked me. In fact, I knew that the characters would get minimal-at-best development with their conversations with the new characters, etc. It is pretty unrealistic to think that this gigantic sleuth of characters would be getting a ton of development and fleshing out, with all of these new characters already being a handful. What annoyed me, however, was that you would have to kill them off in certain levels, and instead of being nostalgic, it just kind of sucks the fun out of it because you might be facing your own older favorites. Again, it's much more of a personal issue than anything else; it was just a bit hard to stomach, at least for me. BRIGHTBOW: ... Yeah, I read one of your posts a while back, and it did sort of make me realize how messed up these supposed "heroes" look when they perform skills, criticals, claim victory, etc. I mean, there's being confident in battle (i.e. Fir from Binding Blade), but then there's taking too much enjoyment out of plowing down enemies, especially when those enemies are other people. It's... rather disturbing.

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks. XD

SHADOWOFCHAOS: Hey, I said I'm willing to think I'm overreacting, right? :P By the way, thank you so much for the GBA critical video. It's awesome. JOTARI: *See my reply to Elieson* CZAR_YOSHI: Actually... I don't have Awakening. I found out about all this via the worldwide web. ... Make of that and this post what you will. >_> GABRIELKNIGHT: Don't worry, it's not like it's literally keeping me up at night or anything (I blame Internet addiction for that)! XD I dunno, I guess I've been watching way too much Nostalgia Critic/YMS lately and now it's jammed into my brain. :P ELIESON: ... ... ... So I looked up the dialogue for Champions of Yore 1... ... I think you can go ahead and forget about this topic now. >_< http://mlkshk.com/r/5MUX

... When I found out that a large chunk of characters from previous games were going to make an appearance in Awakening's downloadable content (DLC), I was actually pretty excited. I have a number of characters that I have labelled as my favorites in the past (Particularly in 6 through 8), so if I ever got the game, I could also purchase some DLC on the side to revisit them. What they did with them, in my opinion, is one of the most borderline unforgivable things you could possibly do with these characters, EVER. To be more specific, I'm talking about how in certain levels of the DLC, you actually have to fight AGAINST the legacy units. Yes, that is actually a thing now. Because I SO want to beat down on characters I connected with in the past. Lugh and Raigh from Binding Blade, my all-time favorite duo? I'm supposed to kill them. Other favorites (Sophia, Nino, Jaffar, etc.) from previous games? I'm also supposed to kill them. FUN, RIGHT?! Oh, and they also have their own heart-breaking death quotes when you defeat them. It's not like "Ah, darn it, you beat me," it really looks like they actually die on the pavement while your unit revels in triumph. FUN, RIGHT?! I would say that this is more of a personal problem than a true detriment in that regard, but I strongly feel like if you grew attached to ANY of these characters in the previous games, then chances are you won't have a good time having to kill them off as if they were generic enemy soldiers on a normal battle-field. Now, I understand that these levels are mere downloadable content, and they canonically never happened (Obviously), so I am willing to think I'm overreacting to this since they're completely optional and have nothing to do with Awakening's story, nor that of previous games. But why on Earth would the developers go out of their way to take arguably the most popular characters in their respective games and reduce them to nothing but a bunch of props? What were they thinking when they did this? Did they not at any point think that this would be incredibly distracting and somewhat heart-wrenching? Did they honestly not stop for a moment and think to themselves, "Hey, maybe simplifying fan favorites into a bunch of drones that the player is supposed to exterminate for some prize might not be the brightest idea?" Because that's what I'm thinking right now. TL;DR: The characters you get from previous games, especially with any of them that you've connected with in the past, are insultingly used as mere obstacles for you to sweep away for some kind of bonus item or skill or whatever. ... Yaaaay.

Well, for one thing, the character herself is very likable. Her personality is very kind, cheerful, and really enthusiastic about her goal of becoming a strong fighter. I especially enjoyed her conversation with Duessel, which sort of revolved around her backstory involving her mother being taken away by bandits. As for the unit herself, I currently have her as a Great Knight, and she's holding her ground really well, with high but very balanced stats. There's also the fact that she can use swords, axes, and lances in this class, so that's another major plus. Also, based on what Nobody said, I am a very casual gamer (I only play video-games whenever I really feel like it), so I don't mind the grinding to get her to catch up with the other units that much.

... Nah, I don't think that would be a good idea. I don't know, something about having an Avatar character doesn't feel right...

I've read the support conversations for a decent chunk of the characters of Awakening, and so far, I'm kind of disappointed. In the GBA installments I've played, the games did a great job of creating some memorable, likable, and even complex characters that really stuck to me (I can name five from Binding Blade that I absolutely adore right off the top of my head). Sure, not all of them we're that good, but the characters that WERE good heavily outweighed the former. This time however, the vast majority of the characters seem to range from okay-ish to rather unlikable. Ricken's sort of your typical kid character (Brave but naive, doesn't like to be treated like a child, etc.), Tharja is far too one-noted (Her obsession with hexes got stale relatively fast... And yes, her treatment of Noire is just awful, I don't know why the developers played it for laughs), Kellam is very bland and way too reliant on that invisibility gimmick (Though I will admit, his death quote is pretty saddening), Severa is pretty unlikable (I do appreciate that the developers tried to give her some backstory and depth, but she's just too much of a jerk for me to really be invested), etc. A lot of the characters seem to be way too reliant on character gimmicks and quirks, and they don't feel human, or at the very least, credible. To be fair, however, there aren't many characters that absolutely grated on me so far, except for one: Nowi. In my opinion, you have to be very careful in writing child characters, because they can go one of two ways: Cute and endearing, or pandering and annoying. For me, it's safe to say Nowi fits into the latter category. Almost every single line of her dialogue beats you over the head with over-the-top cutesy-ness, and there's only so much of that you can take until you want to grind your teeth into dust. She's sort of like what the Nostalgia Critic thinks of the Olson twins from Full House that way. Actually, the more I think about it, there's a character from Binding Blade that is very similar to Nowi, but a billion times more likable: Fa (Or Fae, depending on which translation you go by). Both are dragons, they're biologically children but centuries old, they have energetic, cheery personalities, etc. So what makes Fa better than Nowi? Firstly, her personality is much more credible and less grating. She is innocent, sweet, naive, stubborn, cheerful, curious, etc. That is a lot like Nowi's character, but Fa's is played out in a way that doesn't constantly shove cuteness into your face; she behaves like a normal but likable child. Secondly, her depth. The support conversations Fa has, as light-hearted as they seem, do tend to hold dark implications behind her background as a full-blooded dragon. For an example, in her conversation with Sophia, she starts off wondering as to why Sophia has grown a little bit since they last spoke but not herself. Later, when Sophia tells Fa that this might be a good thing, as even when she dies Fa will still be alive, Fa starts crying in a particularly heart-breaking scene. Another example is when Sue wants to show Fa around, knowing that she was locked away in order to be kept safe as a Divine Dragon. The game takes the time to convey the difficulties she is having and will have to endure because of her bloodline, and that makes her complex and interesting. With Nowi, you do get... a little bit of depth, but it's usually merely glossed over, especially in her supports with Ricken and Tharja. With Ricken, she briefly mentions how she was rather lonely and couldn't be with other people, but not enough time is given to really flesh this out. With Tharja, the conversation does revolve around Nowi realizing that her parents are dead, but the aftermath feels really rushed. Considering the number of people she can have support conversations with, the developers could've done a lot more. But as it is, Nowi is probably one of my least favorites in all the franchise. If you find something likable about her, great. But for me... I just couldn't get invested in the slightest. *Deep breath* So that's my long-winded rambling about this topic for now. Your thoughts?