[Changes in Echoes]

Casual mode and supports are what I'm waiting to hear on before I decide how quickly I want to pick up the game (which comes out near a lot of other games I'm interested in). I could see both of them being either in or out, given that IS so far has emphasized that the game is pretty faithful.

Other changes they could make that I would appreciate but don't reeeeally need would be...

• A story that's actually substantial. You go through a lot of maps with absolutely zero dialogue, so adding something there seems straightforward enough. Seems they're doing some of this, but execution could go any which way.
• Some more female characters in physical classes that aren't the gender-locked peg knight. It looks like there's a lady villager now... but she's promoted to a mage, so we've no idea what her class set is.
• Make the dungeons and towns more substantial if we can run through them.
• Nosferatu's hit rate is just frustrating, so I wouldn't complain if they buffed that.

[Do you like Corrin?]

I thought she was fine all things considered. Not my favorite Fates character or anything, but then again most lords aren't my favorites in their games anyways.

Her loneliness (mentioned in the m!Kana-father support, so idk if m!Corrin has the same issues) added an interesting layer to her interactions and issues. Since I usually paired her with Xander, it bundled in quite nicely with their support, too.

Maybe I'm just that easy-going, but I didn't really have a problem with her in the story. Her struggles did a pretty good job catching my sympathy, and it was nice having a full-blown, standalone lady lord.

[Let's count who ACTUALLY played FE2 before the remake was announced]

Been there, done that a few months ago.

It was... okay. I got about a third of the way through before I got bored? The game hadn't aged well at all, and while I wanted to enjoy it, I knew the whole time that I'd be happier playing any of the games that came after it. Hopefully, IS drags it into the modern gaming world, but we'll see.

[do you think people who are not FE-obsessed fans will buy this game?]

If they just straight up repainted Gaiden and did nothing more than make the story flow a bit smoother, I wouldn't be surprised if the game's popularity doesn't extend too far outside the hardcore fans. It's not a matter of the game being bad or anything, just that the game will have pretty niche appeal by its very nature. The original Gaiden was pretty much all about the gameplay (which is now comparatively dated and lacking in variety), with skimpy early 90s writing. It doesn't exactly have the same broad appeal the newer games do.

Still, I'm sure it'll sell more than pre-Awakening by merit of the fanbase generally growing and collecting more people who just enjoy the gameplay. Whether or not it appeals to others... Well, we'll see after IS tosses out some more info on what they modernized. Supports are definitely going to be the make or break for more than a few fans.

[Xander and Ryoma.]

Big name popularity polls say Xander every time, if you're just looking for a general opinion or feel of the fanbase overall.

Personally, I'm inclined to agree. I don't dislike Ryoma, but I prefer Xander's character, looks, and unit build to his.

[Female Corrin/Kamui popularity?]

GameFAQs feels like one good place to start, although >GameFAQs and I can't tell if they're every saying anything unironically or not.

Hmm... I'm not really seeing anything, though in fairness, I'm only opening up topics that look like f!Corrin's waifu status could actually be relevant and I stopped clicking through after about 12 pages of topics. Like... there are other things I can see from the titles (GFAQs sure likes talking about pairings, waifus, and Camilla), but even the potentially gross 'is Corrin alpha/beta/omega' was surprisingly tame thank god (and mostly he pronouns to boot) and 'Me and Corrin are pretty hot together' is actually about m!Corrin.

Maybe it's buried in the bowels of GFAQs, I guess? At first glance, there doesn't seem to be a large male fanbase seriously claiming f!Corrin as their waifu.

[Female Corrin/Kamui popularity?]

I have seen people state that the female is better because she's hot. Also, one only needs to look at the sheer volume of fanart and fanfiction to tell that a lot of people only see female Corrin as shipping bait. I mean, seriously, do you really think most people are going to outright admit "I only like this character because I can project myself onto them and use her as a mouthpiece for my thoughts", or even realize it? Too many people try to "justify" their reasonings instead of just admitting they like something and have no deeper basis for it.

I think we all know some people are using f!Corrin for self-inserting or reliability. People do it with m!Corrin, too. It's not a mystery there haha.

What I'm interested in hearing about is the idea that f!Corrin has a large male fanbase that just wants to bang her. It's not that I don't think these people exist (because I'm sure they do), but the idea that this base is really big confuses me because I haven't seen it anywhere while other things (f!Corrin/royal bro shippers, LTCers wanting 1st Jakob, better design claimers) have been ubiquitous. So I'm just curious if there are numbers/polls/surveys and some line of reasoning to go with that, ya know? Because my knee jerk thought is that as far as the general fanbase goes, most people playing as f!Corrin are girls, and atm, I haven't see anything to refute that. I'd be happy to incorporate it into my understanding of her fanbase if there's a significant reason to think it's not just some small subgroup of guys on 4chan though, so I'm interested to hear where people are getting this from, if it's a thing.

[Female Corrin/Kamui popularity?]

Meh, I honestly view Leo/Corrin S-rank as possibly the best written S-rank in the game, and I certainly don't ship myself with Leo, ew.

Yeah, I can understand a few reasons why people would pair Leo/Corrin, like the support, story interactions, favorite character, and/or self-insert-ing reasons (honestly, I don't even see the problem with people self-inserting. just let them do their thing, yeah?), even if they don't apply to me. I haven't paired them together, and I don't intend to, but it's still tooootally in the top five f!Corrin S-supports in my eyes, just in terms of checking off boxes that traditionally work well.

Leo's totally a familiar shojo trope. Of course girls are gonna like him.

[[Question] The Best Bromance/Sismance in the game ?]

Personally, I'm partial to Xander/Camilla (if it counts), Arthur/Benny, and Hana/Setsuna.

There are a lot more m/m and f/f pairs I like (like Kagero/Orochi which already got a shoutout), but frankly, I tend to interpret them with some degree of romance in there, so... not exactly platonic material. It's definitely the sheer number of them that skewers it, but I think I've got more platonic m/f relationships than m/m or f/f.

[Opinions on that Fire Emblem Fates character #1 - #65 (Check first page)]

Xander: Actually perfect. Or perfectly imperfect I suppose haha. Any rate, he's my male fave. Gets a nice blend of internal and external conflicts to resolve, plenty of story focus to give him that extra boost, the sort of writing I really like, complicated relationships, and a personality type I'm generally just really partial to. Gimme tragic princes and writing that doesn't beat you over the head all day err'yday. My only real complaints are that 1) I liked him even more unlocalized than localized and 2) the nature of his personality type means he gets a lot of kinda... unrevealing supports, which is a good and bad thing. He's got a lot he could reveal, but it's well established it'd be out of character for him to confide in anyone except Corrin (and maybe Nyx) with some prodding so not blabbing junk is probably best anyways.

Any rate, he's refreshingly well-written (or... written in a style I like which is the crux of the well-written argument anyways haha).

Asugi: Shrug. He's here. I liked the Saizo support, but generally speaking, he's kinda unremarkable to me.

[Female Corrin/Kamui popularity?]

Eh, people are probably going to use the pronouns that match the avatar they used. I mean, I started using they/them for Corrin but kept instinctively using male pronouns and just went 'fuck it'.

I mean, I'm sure most people aren't doing it to be malicious. But that doesn't mean it's not going to annoy me a little haha.

It's just a nice lil accommodating/welcoming touch type thing. If someone takes the extra second to write 's/he' instead of 'he' that's totally a detail I notice and appreciate. And it can be the difference in whether or not I bother to share my interpretations/opinions sometimes, depending on the type of discussion and my mood.

It's not a big thing or anything (unless I'm already crabby when I pop online haha), but it's something I notice.

[Female Corrin/Kamui popularity?]

Honestly I don't mind if you're a dude and pick the other gender character or vice versa but what annoys me to no end at least in Smash is when I hear MRobin and Corn being called she and her.

I mean, it goes both ways. I've heard Corrin called 'him' waaaaaay too many times for my liking when people are talking about the actual game, and that's annoying af too. Why you gotta erase the character I picked?

Any rate, it's hard to say because there aren't any demographics or anything. You'd have had better luck asking people which Corrin they picked, why, and what their gender is to get an idea because atm it's just people making vague guesses about the fanbase (and tending to the worst assumptions for whatever reasons?).

Personally, speaking for myself, I picked f!Corrin because I'm a girl and she's a girl. The two characters are essentially identical in writing, so I'm going to pick as my main/first the one that matches me.

If I had to make a vague guess about the fanbase... well, I'd assume it's primarily the same thing. The only thing we really have demographics for is the Famitsu poll, which included a remark that they had more women poll than usual (about half of the polled audience) and showed an about 50/50 between m!Corrin and f!Corrin (or Kamui I suppose haha). So... I'd guess most people are just picking the character whose gender matches theirs.

This would also match which characters are more popular when a particular gender Corrin is more popular. I.E. no, I don't think most guys are pushing Leo/Takumi/Xander gettin' down 'n dirty with f!Corrin. That f!Corrin topped the official ladies poll & Leo, Takumi, and Xander all topped the mens isn't coincidence to me. Similarly, that Azura and m!Corrin both faltered together makes sense when Azura was the most married character in the Famitsu poll.

So... it's probably about where you're looking. A lot of the English fanart content you see proooobably comes from Tumblr, which has a heavy female demographic. So... More f!Corrin. Meanwhile, if you were to go onto Reddit, you'll probably see more m!Corrin, which matches the lack of Xander/Takumi/Leo as husbands shilling.

It's also worth noting that there's the psychological thing where people will perceive there being more women than men... in a room with a 50/50 gender split. That's probably affecting things, too, because based on the one poll with gender that we have, f/m Corrin generally runs down player gender lines.

Oh, and all that's just talking about FE. Don't know anything about Smash, so... not gonna bother making even vaguer guesses haha.

Edit: With Smash, I do know that back when it was on the Wii, my sisters and I liked picking female characters because the game had very few of them, so they were novel. Now, the game's moved towards incorporating more girls, hasn't it? So it may just be a design preference thing. On top of a gender thing, because if I'm given a gender choice for something meaningless like that, I always pick the one that matches mine.

[Most Forgettable Royal]

No Takumi? Really? He's easily one of the most relevant/memorable. Also, Takumi has the most amount of fan art.

Different strokes for different folks haha.

I think he's certainly relevant in the game... but his role isn't really... that original to me? So I don't find him memorable. He's just another angsty, misunderstood squish-baby boy to me. And I've already got Leo there as the flavor of angsty, misunderstood squish-baby boy I prefer anyways (which isn't saying much bc I just don't care about this character type).

Takumi certainly has a lot of art (though Leo or f!Corrin probably challenge him for the most?). I just meant he doesn't get any art from me. I draw characters and relationships I like, but I'm pretty sure I've drawn this kid... once? And it was because he won a fan poll I ran to boot. So that's what I mean by personally unmemorable. It doesn't occur to me to draw him myself.

To be clear, I don't think he's everyone's most forgettable royal, but for me, he's the one that gets the least thought outside of when the game tosses him at me.

[Most Forgettable Royal]

Mm... In the context of the game itself from most memorable to least it probably goes... Xander>Camilla>Elise>Sakura>everyone else about equal.

When I'm creating fanfic/fanart though, generally speaking Takumi gets next to nothing from me, so him, I suppose? He doesn't really have anything that captures my interest, while Leo, Ryoma, Azura, and Hinoka can at least lay claim to participating in various character dynamics (platonic and/or romantic) that I find interesting.

[Opinions on that Fire Emblem Fates character #1 - #65 (Check first page)]

Setsuna: After hearing people complain about her, I figured I'd hate her... but she's super funny and totally one of my faves! Yeah, she's not deep, but they don't all have to be deep, ya know? The only reason I don't use her as much is because she's gimped on Revelation and that's the route I play the most atm.

Soliel: Ugh. People like to say how Niles and Rhajat are crummy LGBT reps (a discussion for another day haha), but here's some really crummy rep. If your character gropes girls and still has a character crow about how you can't have a problem with her... perhaps you should take a closer look at your message. Outside of that, I like the rest of her (oblivious and socially awkward totally fits her age), but unfortunately, 'girls' is her big thing. And they major league screwed that up by having her prey on girls... and then having the girl apologize to her (yikes Soleil/Ophelia). Fortunately, I think the hype has generally cooled on her after getting the localized game.

Reina: Favorite Corrin-sexual! Unfortunately, being a Corrin-sexual means that she probably ends up about average in the grand scheme of characters. But that aside, FE could totally use more older ladies that look older, so even if she's a Corrin-sexual, it's a big step forward!

[What went wrong with Fates overall story?(Spoilers!)]

Frankly, I generally enjoyed the Fates story. For me it was the strong point of the game. (Coincidentally, I hated FE4, so maybe we're just on opposite ends of the taste spectrum haha)

Really, my only issue (which is an issue I have for every FE game honestly) is that the game sometimes tried to get too quickly to the next map and the writing kinda felt like it hurt for it. Whether that's because the game skipped giving basic world-building info (I don't really need to know how the Hoshidan government works because it's not relevant... but the continent name???), skipped filling out emotional drama (perhaps it's because I adore romance novels, but I'm a firm believer in the sort of dual conflict they employ), or used a throwaway device to get there (the crystal ball could've been reasonable if it had more context, but it's just there and gone for example). You can totally tell when gameplay comes before story, and FE's definitely that type of series.

Not touching actual subject matter so much, because that's even more subjective. I think we can mostly agree that the crystal ball and not having the name to the continent are kinda poor decisions, but whether or not the story should've been edgier or something isn't so cut and dry.

Edit: As for the story writer... yeah, I think that's kinda people getting their hopes up before the game was released. A lot of what I hear regarding that is 'it wasn't what I expected/wanted,' which... I have sympathy for of course, but... Anything's going to be worse than the fantasy story that you created because your fantasy story is exactly catered to you and has perfect execution because it doesn't actually rely on writing, ya know? Of course my ideal FE14 story is better imo than what we got haha, but I don't think that means the current story is bad.

And for that matter, my ideal FE14 story totally lacks general appeal, so from a mass game standpoint, it's probably not the best decision. Most of y'all probably don't want a YA fantasy/romance/drama with a Xander/f!Corrin/Ryoma love triangle, no Azura, no m!Corrin, and way more gay, right haha?

There's that sort of general appeal thing to consider, too, I think. And FE14 does have general appeal as it is, else the general video game reviewers would've mentioned a terrible story (iirc, the consensus was about average with highlights).

[Dragonstone Shenanigans]

Doesn't Azura actually crystallize something for Corrin? Corrin's dragon powers maybe? iirc, the game already has some explanation beyond 'hey, look there's this rock in my pocket,' so you could probably run with that if you wanted. Expand it some.

If that's not your flavor though, you could always use Arete, but that's more a justification for Azura having a rock in her pocket, so as I'm typing this, I'm beginning to suspect it's not gonna help you.

Honestly, the game gives you a lot of flexibility to do what you want in fanfiction. If you have some idea already, it's probably safe to run with it.

[Opinions on that Fire Emblem Fates character #1 - #65 (Check first page)]

Azura: Y'know you screwed up somewhere when your poster girl loses a popularity poll to a character that didn't even have story presence. Personally, I just found everything about her so... pushed on me that it entirely missed making me like her and made me sick of her instead. Might've been less of an issue if she didn't have a high story presence and all those supports, or if her writing just... chilled a lil on pushing certain things. Frankly, I'm not sure (though I am very sure I'm the ocean's grey waves). Tbf, she does have some moments I like, and thinking on it, those moments can all be tied in to Ryoma. Ryoma/Azura for the win~

Mozu: Generally love her supports, though I'm sure there are some clunkers in there I just haven't gotten. Her lil shivery fighting animation is the cutest.

Yukimura: Eh... Tbf, I haven't gotten his support. Frankly, he just left me with a sour impression on Revelation, and on Birthright, he didn't have enough presence to motivate me to use a Corrinsexual.

[Who did Male Corrin marry?]

Meh, I'd be surprised if Corrin ever had a canon love interest even if he was a fixed character. It's not exactly some new avatar specific phenomenon that a main character lacks a canon pairing or anything, even if there's ship teasing. And it's not really something to pin on Tumblr or whatever else related to the newer fanbase either seeing as they weren't really around for Eliwood/Ninian, Roy/Lilina, Seth/Eirika, Leif/Nanna, Chrom/Sumia, and all of the other big candidate non-canon pairings.

I'd also be surprised if Azura wasn't intended as a pushed pairing if Corrin was fixed because she's still forced down your throat now, but FE's started moving away from canon pairings since FE4. It would be more out of character for FE if she was a canon romance.

[Who did Male Corrin marry?]

For m!Corrin, I suppose I'd go with Felicia, Azura, or Camilla.

It's essentially just a personal interpretation thing (like... personally, I immediately knocked off any girl that didn't have a story/backstory connection with him as a 'less canon' pick) though, as IS has definitely been very careful about not locking either Corrin in to a particular pairing.

Edit: Personally, I paired him with Charlotte because I liked the support, fwiw... but yeah, I wouldn't say that one felt like the path his character would've gone down if this had been a book and not a choose your own adventure.

[Opinions on that Fire Emblem Fates character #1 - #65 (Check first page)]

Kaze: Meh. Perhaps it's because I've played a few otome games & read a lot of shojou stuff back in the day, but the bulk of his shtick is entirely unoriginal in my eyes. I get why he's here, particularly in the context of the shipping elements in the game, but it's a pretty straightforward depiction of a common romance trope, imo. He just doesn't catch my interest.

Azama: He's fun and probably one of my Birthright faves. Mixes up the support dialogue/formula for whoever his partner is.

Gunter: He's here. Not much to say, honestly. I do like his voice lines, fwiw, but for me he tends to get lost in the rest of the far more present cast.

[My FemAvatar's Marriage in Revelation?]

I'd say...

Xander > Leo > Takumi > Jakob > Subaki

In regards to Xander/Corrin as my top pick, I find it pretty natural, and it does good stuff for Corrin and Xander, both of whom have a lot of unremarkable marriage options imo.

[Opinions on that Fire Emblem Fates character #1 - #65 (Check first page)]

Nina: Cute design, and I like her more than I thought I would. That said, I'm still not a fan of the general premise of her character & if it had been turned on her male support partners more properly (like Soleil creepin' on her female partners), I'd probably be far more turned off. Can't tell if she's supposed to be poking fun at fujoshi & shipper culture or just a simple face value joke.

Dwyer: Eh... He's got some supports I like, and others I really just don't. Ultimately, the localization decision with the whole 'slappy-face' deal really turned me off his character because it's just not my brand of humor. Hard to get around a first impression like that.

[Opinions on that Fire Emblem Fates character #1 - #65 (Check first page)]

Benny: He's sweet. I wouldn't really say he's ~deep~ or anything, but it doesn't really matter for me when other cast members have that covered. His supports usually bring a smile to my face, and he's probably one of the few characters I really like in several different pairings (as opposed to one or two OTP-ish type things).

Arthur: Similar to Benny but with a few more serious supports & less pairings I like. Their support together was fun, btw.

Iago: Eh, a case where I remember liking him more unlocalized than localized. He gets some of what I like about the evil advisor trope, but at the same time he had other qualities/lines I liked never localized or never in his character in the first place. In the grand scheme of FE villains, he's more memorable for me (I remember his name, which is a lot already), but in the scheme of the Fates cast, he's probably middle/bottom. Character writing time was allocated elsewhere in the story, so it is what it is. He's not going to do as well for me personally without some writing to either round him or cement his flat character traits.

[Things you like about FE14's Plot (Spoilers)]

I liked moooost of Conquest (easier to name the parts I didn't like than did because there are less of them, but that's the entire opposite point of the topic).

Then, Birthright had the Xander fights, Camilla fights, and Leo's last fight.

And Revelation had the Xander-Corrin-Ryoma dynamic, which I really enjoyed seeing. Generally speaking, I also enjoyed all the recruitment scenes/dialogue, too, more than in Birthright or Conquest.

Revelation & Conquest also had pacing I really liked, which isn't so much a story thing but it kinda is.