warchiefwilliams

Fuga needed more supports. Just like the other CorrinSexuals. There really isn't anything else to say. Heaven forbid the game attempt any world building! That would require too much effort! (sarcasm)

Velouria is gimmicky as all hell, but her design is absolutely adorable and her gimmick is a bit more tolerable than most of the other child characters. Her versatility on the battlefield seals the deal for me, as I noticed that she is a very difficult character to screw up from the eugenics side of things.

#1: Inigo/Laslow: Not going to lie, I initially disliked this character in Awakening, until I did a run with him as Robin's kid, saw their supports and I played the Future Past missions. In Fates I still like him, with how he has matured from his past experiences both over the course of Awakening (or the Future Past, I really don't know which version we have) yet still remaining true to who he is. Overall, Inigo still belongs in the top three characters from this game for me. #2: Shigure: No real opinion. Never even really unlocked him. Azura either gets benched due to poor growths or because of her brittleness gets her kill-I mean, incapacitated before she can get an S support. #3: Selkie: Kinda bland. Just like her father. Damn shame too, because I really like her design. #4: Flora: I feel like a broken record, as my opinion on her is shared by multiple people it seems. She is one of the most developed characters in the game and actually has an interesting character arc. Combine that with her use as a unit, and you have a very solid character. #5: Scarlet: A damn waste of a character. She basically exists to be Fates bottom bitch whenever they want to kill someone to up the stakes. We learn next to nothing about her despite her being one of the leaders of the Cheve Rebellion and being a non-Hoshidoan who can influence Ryoma. I wish there was more to her, but there just isn't. #6: Severa/Selena: Maybe I just have a thing for tsunderes, but I do really like her character. Like Inigo, I was mixed on her at first until I went through the supports and dlc. And like Inigo, she really grew on me. As others have stated, she has definitely matured the most out of the trio since Awakening: "I suppose this would be nothing to you, mother" is now "Look at me now, mother." She is done trying to live up to Cordelia, and now she just hopes that her mom is proud of what she has become. Married her without shame in most of my Conquest runs. #7: Nyx: No opinion. Too fragile gameplay wise for me, and I have never been a fan of the "looks young but actually really old" trope. #8: Takmui: Blame Takmui I kid. Takmui is one of the best characters in the game. An absolute beast on the battlefield and possessing surprising depth to his character off the field. My biggest compaint regarding him was how Conquest treated him. He deserved better than he got. #9: Corrin: The worst self-insert in Fire Emblem and everything wrong with self-inserts in general. He/she stands as my main argument against including another player avatar figure in the next FE. #10: Sophie: I still can't get past the battle panties. I mean, come on! Surely one of the designers has ridden a horse and realized why it is advisable to wear long pants! Character wise, she is meh. #11: Shura: Wasted by being a kamuisexual. He has a really good and memorable design and a very good backstory, but we are not given a chance to see it unfold outside of maybe one or two points (mostly him vs. Kotaro).

Ah, Severa, Owain and Inigo. Three characters that I had initially written off as not something I liked until I unlocked their supports and played through the future past. Now they stand as some of my favorites from the series. I was initially afraid though when I realized they would be in Fates, until I found out that IS actually had the good sense to let the mature and develop, and they still stand as my favorite characters from Fates. As to whether I want to see them again? Not in another mainline Fire Emblem, no. A spin-off title focused just on them? Maybe, but again, not a mainline Fire Emblem. As has been stated already, Fire Emblem is not supposed to be an interconnected universe (multiverse?). Awakening and Fates may have saved the franchise's future outside of Japan, but it is time to move on to something new. As Nekoknight said, if we have fallen in love with these characters, then we can fall in love with new ones as well.

Certain power-hungry/insane characters from A Song of Ice and Fire? I suppose that, at the end of the day, I think that in a more character focused game, Camilla (and to a similar extent, Tharja since we brought her up) would have been given time to develop into something besides the yandere big sister. Something to truly explore all of her issues and to help her develop past that. Alas, this is Fire Emblem, not Shin Megami Tensei or Persona.... If they tolerate Peri killing half of Windmire Castle's staff every month or so (another elephant that needs to be addressed) then they likely tolerate Camilla doing her thing. Honestly, I don't know why the Nohrian royals tolerate half the crap that they do.

This. Instead of giving us needless filler about how our ship is under attack by pirates and how we are just pissing around before getting to Hoshido, give us an arc in Conquest about the Nohrian Family's hidden daemons. Every single one of them have something gnawing away at their soul like a skaven slave with a bone, an arc delving into this would help to both develop the Nohrian characters and to make us as players more attached to them. EDIT: I noticed that a lot of character's issues in this game are played for laughs. We are supposed to find Peri's servant genocide as quirky, though it speaks to deep problems mentally that any sane person would be concerned about enough to section her. We are supposed to find Niles's sadism/masochism quirky as well, but the way he describes himself in his supports with Leo, it speaks of much deeper scars on his psyche that really should be addressed rather than be glossed over.

I honestly feel a fair amount of empathy and sympathy for the situation that Camilla, and by extension the entire Nohrian Family, are in, and as a result, I do like her character. Looking at Camilla's past, we have an individual who likely had to kill a large amount of her extended family on the whims of her mother, who treated her daughter as little more than a tool to further her own prestige in the eyes of Garon. Some people, myself included, head-canon that Camilla killed her own mother at some point during the Concubine Wars. Yeah, her mother was not a good mother, but parricide (the act of slaying one's own parents) is likely not good for one's mental health. As a result of all this carnage, she is fanatically devoted to protecting and caring for her remaining family, though the scars of the bloodshed that she has both caused and been witness to prevents her from getting as close as she wants to. This is why, in my view, she tries to be so close to Corrin. She sees them as an outsider, one who will never try and betray her like so many have. This is why she snaps so badly in Birthright. Corrin may express regrets behind the scenes of betraying their Nohrian Family, but most of the time since chapter 6 when Corrin encounters them, Corrin just comes off as not caring about what he/she has done to them. For Camilla, this is the one person who she thought she could get away with showing affection and trust, more than she could show her other half-siblings, and now that person is spitting on her and all she holds dear, and Camilla just simply can't deal with the powerful, conflicting emotions crossing her psyche. Even in Conquest, she is torn between trying to help Corrin, and keeping to her father's orders, knowing full well after 20+ years of living under his roof what happens to those who disappoint him. But no matter what happens, she will try to keep up a confident image for the rest of her family, as to her, all that she has left are her retainers, Xander, Leo, Corrin and Elise. TLDR: She is one slip away from being broken mentally. If the wrong person leaves her or betrays her, she will snap, never to be whole again. I empathize and sympathize with characters like her. I could do without her armor design though. Seriously? Who thought that boob window armor of that degree and battle panties were appropriate for the fields of war?

In my current conquest run, I have Effie equipped with a +2 forged Effie's Lance. Looking at about 20 Mt, plus her own considerably high Strength. That weapon allowed her to obliterate an entire wave of reinforcements in chapter 22 on her own.

There is nothing I can add that hasn't already been said, but here we go. Perhaps it is because I see more of myself in Robin. We both read for fun and love learning new things, we both study tactics, we both occasionally lack self-confidence and we both tend to insert ourselves into social situations that we are completely unprepared for (I know I can't pair up wyverns!). If nothing else, I saw Robin as a natural progression from a character like Mark, the tactician from FE7. Going from being a background character only occasionally referenced to a deuteragonist is no easy feat, and I thought that with Robin was well done in this regard. Gameplay wise, Robin is a wee bit overpowered thanks to the their ability to be any class and their kid/s inheriting that boon, but all well, the eugenics system of Awakening was fun to play with. I was looking forward to what IS could put out for Corrin. I figured they knew how to handle a player-character now. Boy, I was about as wrong as Chamberlain when he said "Peace for our time." Corrin, well I find it really hard to relate to Corrin. I can't relate to a character which causes me to yell at the screen at the sheer absurdity playing out before my eyes. As Alastor put it, I felt like half of a personality. My role was simply to ensure that this piece animu shite didn't get everyone killed during the battles. The other half of their personality was busy blindly following garbage plans (Especially in Conquest) or trusting people that even the most inbred of individuals would question, let alone trust said suspicious individuals leading them into a death trap. I feel like so many problems scattered throughout Fates can be traced back to Corrin, or at least how Corrin's character was written. Which is a damn shame, because I think that Corrin (especially Nohr Princess F/Corrin) is a very aesthetically well-done design. TLDR: I much prefer Robin for their character and their story role, though I will concede that Corrin is far better balanced gameplay wise..

Perhaps this "future sight" takes the form of us as players seeing the "to-hit" and "damage" variables? Also, some more stuff from me. References to "Europans" and "Twin Europas" are relevant to my own writings, so disregard them if you wish. Regardless, brace yourself for a wall of text!

I'm just beating a dead horse at this point, but here we go. Conquest is the best Fire Emblem I have played. Every chapter presented a new tactical challenge that forced me to think, plan, and adapt when things inevitably did not work out. Do not expect the AI to go easy on you even on normal mode, and expect to have to do a lot of save-scumming if you want to keep all your units alive. Pray to whatever gods you hold dear that you don't get RNG-screwed. Otherwise some of your best units will be benched, but that is fine. What better chance to use units you wouldn't have considered otherwise. As a final note on the gameplay, Birthright is Age of Sigmar, Conquest is Warhammer Fantasy, and you can guess which one I prefer based on my title and profile picture (Fun fact: Bretonnia no longer exists according to AoS). As for the story... It is a fine example of flawed execution. Part of me wants to say that Conquest's story gets panned (especially here on this forum) due to how it was marketed as being this darker story more about reforming a corrupt kingdom while trying to ensure that its enemies (including your blood family) don't destroy it, and it just didn't live up to the hype. But the other part of me can't ignore all the problems; the protagonist being an incredibly cringe-worthy mary-sue/gary-stu, the questionable use of plot macguffins, turning what should have been a purely human conflict and adding fantastical elements that hurt it overall rather than aid it, e.c.t e.c.t. There still things I like about Conquest's story, but they are all hidden in the cracks, the dark and blooddy past of the Nohrian royals, the tension between Nohr and its various vassals/territories, the resentment that the population of Nohr feels towards Hoshido and vice versa. There are so many things that could have made the story good, but they botched it. Mr. Blah's analysis, that Conquest feels like revisionist history, does ring true. Especially during the ending. But I won't spoil that for you. Go enjoy the game. It is without a doubt the best Fire Emblem to be released outside of Japan. Just be aware that the story, or at least the story they presented, is not the best.

You could easily say the same thing about the design of so many of the generic units. It is just how Kozaki draws. As for her story role, you can probably once again blame the writers biting off more than they can chew, trying to create new characters and subplots where they are not required.

Did someone say ideas thread? World building ideas incoming! Well, at least for Nohr and for the Bottomless Canyon. Still need to do Hoshido. (edit: hrm, looks like I forgot to remove some stuff relating to my own writings trying to tie another continent into the fates world. All well) (warning: Wall of text)

My problem with the whole "Ryoma promises to send aid" line is that in the Conquest!Corrin/Azura support lines, assassination attempts by Hoshidoan Ninjas occurs more than once. This sort of implies that Hoshido does have at least some form of a spy network, which further implies that Ryoma should be aware of the lack of food in Nohr. Yeah, they shouldn't give away goods for free, but to feign ignorance at the problem and promise aid just makes me dislike the lobster lord even more. I concur regarding the train wreck in execution part. It is a damn shame that the game gave us such a kick-ass pretense and squandered it. All well, that is what head-canons are for right?

Yet another problem that proper world building could solve. And another problem that the game simply glosses over in Birthright (Ryoma, you have ninja spy networks everywhere. How did you not know that your neighboring country and regional rival was in the midst of a famine?) and ignores in both Conquest and Revelations. Instead it all gets blamed on a blob of grey goo. Fan-service. She may have an interesting history being used as a tool (assassin, maybe?) but the game only explores it in a single support. So bollocks to making her an engaging character, put her in skimpy armor that shows off what people want to see! Isn't the former what Conquest was supposed to be? Or at least what we were expecting?

Liking the story of Fates? Calm down. Just a joke. In all seriousness, there are many, MANY things wrong with the story, but let's focus on one for a bit, shall we? As many have brought up both here and in the past, one of Fates (and for that matter, Awakening's) biggest flaws, besides the mess of a plot that is conquest, is the lack of world building. We know next to nothing about how all the different duchies, principalities, empires and city-states interact with each other and how that pushes the plot forward. I.E: What role does Izumo serve in relation to Hoshido? They clearly share many of the cultural mores with Hoshido, but we get nothing. Why does the Ice Clan and Cheve want to rebell against Nohr? We have an idea of the atrocities committed against the Ice Clan (Flora and Felicia as political prisoners) but what happened to Cheve? We know next to nothing. And some character's entire arc relies on non-existent world building. What atrocity did Nohr commit that convinced Scarlet to lead a rebellion against them? 1. I third that opinion on Xander. I want to like the guy, but his choices... I swear. 2. To be honest, I kinda was hoping for that. Assuming IS actually pays attentions to the these forums, hopefully they will. Or they will think that we just want more fan-service and double down on that... who knows at this point.

Right, so I was (and kinda still am) working on outlines for a rather strange fanfic that involved an industrial power from across the ocean west of Hoshido. So here are some of the characters and useful info about the classes and weapons.

All three routes attempt to up the stakes by killing off various characters, but most of them fail to have the required impact necessary to make the player care. Even without internet spoils, I found Flora's death to be simply nonsensical, and that is coming from someone who really likes her character. It would be diffident if she insisted on fighting to the bitter end and the avatar had to put her down. That would give me more reason to be emotionaly invested as my avatar had to kill someone he really quite liked, and who liked him back. Actually, all the deaths could be improved (other than Elise) or at least better written. But as has already been stated, IS seemed to think that you up the stakes by killing people like they are characters in a George RR Martin book.

Here are some old ones that I put out before Fates released state side: World building (I'm just going to limit it to a few tidbits for Nohr and Hoshido) Nohr's actual territory is ill-suited for farming, but contains several rich mineral nodes and the population contains some of the best blacksmiths in the world. This allows the Nohrian military to ensure that every soldier, whether noble or commoner, are very well equipped with high-quality steel weapons and armor. The Nohrian levy system requires service from every man and woman over a certain age, meaning that the vast majority of population can quickly mobilize to fight. Hoshido operates on a caste system that prevents social mobility except for in very pressing circumstances (hence why a lot of the retainers are nobles or otherwise high ranking members of their respective social standing. (i.e Asama being a high ranking priest)). This system also breeds contempt and racism towards outsiders, as their status outside of the system places them lower than even peasants. Hoshido may have fertile farmland, but it is lacking in metals and other mineral resources. While members of the Samurai Caste are able to import metals from neutral powers (and certain Nohrian Vassals) west of the Infinite Chasm, most of their ashigaru (peasant soldiers) have to make do with inferior pig iron weapons. Adults (Just limiting it to the royals and the three amigos. This is their what they are like at the start of the game in addition to their already established characters and they can change over the course of the game) EDITS: Work with me, spoiler tags....

I can only speak for the F!Morgans and F!Kannas. In my view (and what appears to be the conventional view) F!Morgan wins by a landslide. I guess I just enjoyed Morgan's personality more. She's a obsessive (remembering mom, study tactics) psychotic (antagonizing taugels, taunting Inigo) and sweet (she tries to cheer up those around her) little bitch and I honestly found myself getting real defensive of her (not letting her get beyond A support with anyone) as if she was my own daughter. She felt like she was her own character, not another member of the "make the avatar perfect" brigade. The fact that I also see myself sharing many of her traits helped the bonding process. Conversely, Kanna has had all personality other than "I love papa!" sanded off with an industrial strength sander used to refurbish M1 Abrams tanks. Her "personality" revolves around Corrin and I personally find that both annoying and infuriating. All in all, Moe for moe's sake is an empty thing. And Kanna proves that.

A friend of mine was playing FE7 soon after it came out stateside and he lent it to me for a few weeks. Needless to say, it both got me into the series, and honestly helped me into the field of turn-based strategy games.

I strongly dislike Tharja (the only reason I didn't kill her in her introduction mission was because I adore Noire). Given how Rhajat is Tharja 2.0, that hatred extends to her. Does she deserve it? No, not as much. Rhajat actually had some interesting moments in her supports that made her come off as more socially awkward rather than outright yandere stalker. I actually thought there was some development even on that front in her and Corrin's A support, though that went right out the window in the S. Combine that with the selective personalities described by Volo, and I can't help but feel nothing about her as a character, and the comparisons to Tharja just make my blood boil. The fact that she is the sole bi option for female avatars is also annoying, especially when you have a character like Soleil running around. As a whole, Rhajat is, in my view, the best of the three awakening re/pre-incarnations. However, I feel that those three are the worst characters in Hoshido, so her position as "the best expy" isn't exactly a point in her favor.

Wasn't there already a poll about this? Eh, regardless, No for the first question and Maybe for the second. The problem lies with weaving the mechanic into the narrative and the quality of the characters that are in the second generation. Awakening's time travel was wonky, but the 2nd gen, in my opinion were all good characters, which kind of mitigates the wonky time travel, so they worked... somewhat... As for Fates, hyperbolic time chambers are even more convoluted than time travel, and combined with the relatively poor characters (especially when compared to their parents and especially certain expys) meant that the child mechanic is gimmicky as hell and their only use is for extra bodies for the army and experience for the 1st gen characters you actually use. IS has proven they know how to make this system work. They just need a good way to implement it from a narrative sense. Pulling a Genealogy is always a good idea, if a bit uninspired.

Time to jump back into the recurring shit-show that is child units in Fates.... Do I like them as characters? Certain individuals yes, but as a whole not really. Many of the child units lack the same depth of personality that their parents had. While I wouldn't call most of the 1st gen walking stereotypes there are a few amongst the 2nd gen which would count as such. It really feels like they were an afterthought, included because it was a popular mechanic in Awakening, not because there is a good plot justification for their appearance. Personally, I like Ophelia, Solei, Shiro, Sigbert and Eponine/Nina (why'd ya have to change that Treehouse?). They proved to be both entertaining characters and powerful units while the rest so far have just been... meh at best (except for the furies, they are adorable (inner commissar rages at those words)). Even though it has been talked about to death already, I still must mention the absurdity that is the Hyperbolic-Time-Chambers-Outrealms whatever they are called these days. Am I just creating more disposable bodies for my army, or is my player avatar actually having a daughter with his spouse? Those damn chambers really lessen the emotional impact that any child unit has. Can't we just have a Fire Emblem where the alternate dimensional shenanigans are kept to a minimum? If they want to include a 2nd gen again, IS really needs to pull a Genealogy. Let there be a time skip, let the first gen fall and let us play as the characters we effectively created to replace them. It would make for both interesting gameplay and a good twist from a narrative perspective. I could rant about this for a while longer, but I got things to do today still. Mechanically speaking, IS has shown us twice now that they are capable of programming a good (or at least decent) eugenics system into Fire Emblem. The trick now is that they need a good story to utilize it, and they haven't found a good story yet. As a little side note about children, and Nina in particular, something isn't quite right here, and why do I get a sense of deja vu regarding another artistic goof up looking at this still ?

I really don't want to keep hitting this dead horse, but I kinda have to so I can get my view out there. Azura Pros Lovely voice: Bother her JP and her English voices are absolutely beautiful. They complement her design and are just wonderful to listen to. Good Design. Dances/Songstresses aren't supposed to be heavily armored, so I can appreciate how her design is supposed to complement her form. Her Nohr!Concert outfit is stunning and I wish she wore it more. She's a sweetie: Her supports show as much. She seems like she would be a nice person to know in reality. Azura Cons (which in some situations outweigh the pros) Her story role: I don't know whether to blame this on her, or on the shoddy writing, but there were so many points where Azura could have diffused a situation involving Valla dickery but she doesn't for whatever reason UNLESS Revelations is downloaded. She is an Exposition Bot: And she is selective about when she is one. At least in Conquest, and for the first part of Revelations, all she does is spout exposition to Corrin/the Player. Her role as this Exposition bot unfortunately makes her irritating, as I can't help but wonder if we could have averted some bad events prior if she had just opened her mouth. Not an amazing unit: Perhaps this is just me, speaking as someone who has never been fond of dancers as a class, but I found Azura almost impossible to use as a unit without serious grinding. Even then, at least in my games, she got shit tanking growths (HP, Res, Def) making her go down in one hit if something looked at her funny. I want to like Azura, I really do, but she tries so hard to make me hate her. Azura as the protagonist.... (looks at her record in Fates as it is) ... implications, unsettling....