NPR

Give me Owain or give me death. I want the sword dork please. He has the mark of the exalt and is in two games, isn't that legendary enough... please?

I second this. When it comes to the most recent school shooting in Texas, there are a number of things that can be done with both mental health and gun regulation that relate directly back to the issue. Gun regulation could easily take the form of a law that mandates properly securing weapons with biometrics systems. This kid got the things out of a dang closet for crying out loud. When it comes to mental health, better access to and less stigmatization of mental health would be a great way to get the ball rolling. Also, government healthcare that covers mental health related check ups would be lovely. As a controversial point here, we already force kids to be vaccinated to come to school, why don't we force mental health checks? (To be my own devil's advocate, this could put more of a financial strain on lower income communities. Still, if the government paid for it that would alleviate the problem...) When it comes to handling bullies, most schools already have fairly strict tolerance policies these days for such things. Although, how teachers can catch and report instances of bullying, much of which is taking place outside the classroom or online nowadays could be difficult to draft legislation on, as this article suggests. http://www.masslive.com/bullying/index.ssf/2011/02/attorney_general_martha_coakley_host_anti-bullying_hearing_h.html Edit: Not saying the above shouldn't be done. It should, it is just the kind of legislation that teacher's unions may push back against. Or it is just hard to balance the civil liberties and the optics of it all. Also, the article doesn't necessarily suggest the online stuff, just that people might want to take the law in a number of far reaching places that may or may not be feasible.

It does de-value money. The system doesn't work very well in Birthright or Revelations because of the virtually infinite supply of it you are given. It makes sense in Conquest and weapon durability is done again the in-game economy will need to be balanced around it. Additionally, the weapon balancing from Conquest, as many people have already said, should be tweaked. Personally, I would prefer it if durability went away. I feel like when weapon durability is removed it gives designers the ability to make more interesting maps. Some of the grindier Conquest maps would have been impossible for me with weapon durability. I wonder if a system where weapons break, but then become ore would work. The player would then use the ore to forge better weapons once enough ore was obtained. This, combined with an economy where some swords can't be bought, but must be forged could incentives players to but less effective weapons and use them knowing that they could become good material for later. Or maybe one could simply melt down two lesser swords immediately if needed. This could help get rid of the hoarding problem where one has too many weapons around the end of the game.

This line of thinking seems to miss the point on why Ephraim isn't that great of a lord though. The problem isn't with Ephraim's personality, the problem is how the writers advance Ephraim through his scenario. There are consequences to his actions, but they are all short lived and don't end up hurting anyone so they don't matter. This is indeed similar to things that happen with Corrin in Fates, but Corrin's issue becomes compounded by his erratic, poorly defined personality and the fact that people actually get hurt quite frequently with little more than a shrug. It is much harder to even attempt to understand Corrin's thought process, while, ironically, it is very easy to understand Ephraim because of his bland (edit) PRECIEVED one note personality. (As noted before he does express self doubt often enough in the supports to know that he would react in a multidimensional way if he failed.) So while Ephraim is similar to Corrin in certain aspects, namely that everybody loves him and that he has little consequences to his actions because of various deus ex machina, there are also a number of differences that make him for more tolerable. That doesn't mean he is a good lord by any stretch of the imagination, just that he is... bland. There's a reason why the Marty Stu has been popular for so long without being called out as bad writing. Additionally, I think you hit the nail on the head about Ephraim in your last paragraph, he has an inability to actually do anything bad, or to be more specific, anything bad he does turns out ok. An Ephraim like character works out great if a few of their bad actions have consequences. It makes for a great fall from grace and redemption arc. Corrin though... you would have to change Corrin first along with the scenario to make that work in my opinion.

Correct me if I am wrong because this is not my area of expertise. I always though that Ephraim's struggle was more about him coming to terms with his own bloodlust. His Erika B support probably shows the most complexity to him. Additionally, he acknowledges he has self doubt in letting Dussel fight against Grado in their supports. Take that as you will I suppose. Generally, I still agree that Ephraim is a lord that is portrayed more poorly than others, but I don't think it is quite as horrible as people seem to be letting on. I can forgive his issues a smidge more than others because the campaign is broken between two lords as well.

Well, I suppose that the good news is that it isn't playing well with anybody and the host has been forced to apologize for not calling his guest out. Also, while this is anecdotal, I come from a family with Republican parents that tend towards the Globalist views of McCain and these comments seem to have stirred them up a lot more than most of the other ridiculous things going on right now. I have a feeling that, probably despite McCain's wishes, this sort of clip is gonna see a lot of play in the midterms to show just how slimy the Republican party is getting and swing old moderates blue.

I feel like this is part of the problem though, the very existence of Fire Emblem Fates has created an anchoring principle where people see a new story that is just 'ok' and eat it up because, 'at least it isn't Fates.' That also seems to give an out to Nintendo for pushing something mediocre because the reviews for the next game will almost surely be able to say that the writing is better than Fates and use that as a selling point.

I think it is because of the strong potential that all the characters have that there is so much fan-fiction about Fates. The characters seem to exist in this, like, primordial state of half-creation. It is like the Overwatch fandom, where there is just enough info on the characters to make them feel real and project something onto them, but within the text itself there isn't much there. To me, the sad thing about this is that it creates a situation where some of the fan-fiction feels like it is written better than the actual plot and story of the main games.

Watch the game get introduced by the main lord being in the new smash bros or something.

I concede that point. From there, the question of why leads to quite a few other questions though. I don't have the link on me, but if I recall correctly, 'Echoes,' is just supposed to be the moniker for Fire Emblem remakes in the future and that Shadows of Valentia was their test run. Now, this is all just wild speculation on my part, but from a developer interview I read a while back they seemed to interested in The Binding Blade... the one with all the children characters from Blazing Blade. That makes me both optimistic and uncomfortable at the same time. It makes me uncomfortable because they may be experimenting with blending the presentation and tone of Shadows of Valentia with the Awakening-esque marriage system. Ironically, that also makes me feel optimistic, because if they pull that off without making everything cringe worthy they might find the sweet spot for old and new fans to enjoy the series. So, bouncing off of that, I don't believe all modern anime troupes are the problem, in fact, they can probably be married (pun intended) to the pre-awakening feel of the games. It is just a few very specific anime troupes that warp the presentation and narrative of the whole game by their inclusion that need to go. To get specific here, the whole Isekai-like atmosphere that was mentioned previously should probably go, forced boob and panty shots need to go, and the current way that the Avatar character is presented needs some re-examining.

The major concern here is that while Fates is almost universally recognized as a narrative disaster, it is also a huge financial success. If it wasn't for Nintendo's predicted low financial projections about Echoes I would agree with you that the series is trending back towards the style and presentation of Echoes, however, the company specifically kept estimates low compared to a new series entry. There could be a number of reasons for this, but I think the most obvious one is that they knew and did enough market research to recognize that many of the new fans they got off the previous 3ds titles wouldn't buy into something that wasn't a dating sim. That makes me question whether new content will ever be able to escape the dating sim elements of the initial 3ds entries and all the current troupes that seem to go with it that users like Modamy highlighted. Hopefully, the next entry we get isn't a mirror held up to what is wrong with the anime industry, but instead 'pulls from the right places,' like Slumber said.

Awakening level fan-service is tolerable for me, but it isn't something I particularly want either. Fates pushed that way too far over the top and I can safely say that I won't even buy a game like that again. There is a reason I never played #FE or whatever you call it. I literally can't stand it. Not because it is 'too anime,' but because it is tacky, tone deaf, and reduces characters that can already be somewhat one noted into straight up sex objects. Be honest, out of Camilla's massive fanbase, how many do you think really JUST appreciate her for her 'complexity.' The answer is basically nobody. Not only that, on average, I believe people that do appreciate her for her character do so in spite of her particularly fan-service-y nature. On another note, there are quite a few people that are trying to run some kind of equivalence between the level of fan service we have now and what the series has had before. That is wrong. There may have been undertones that were equally racy, but when it comes to Fates, fan service and anime troupes are infecting the game so completely that they are impacting the narrative integrity of the game. (rant incoming) Everybody at Nintendo seemed to be too busy figuring out how to make a more popular face to be pet than to actually weave a cohesive story together, or for that matter, create a likeable protagonist. In fairness, that is a little hard to do when one of their key features is taking people into a backroom for molestation, but wow does Corrin fall into the trap of a stupid visual novel self insert character who always says the literal worst thing at any given moment. People complain about Robin, but at least the guy seemed to have his act together. Corrin even seems to fail at being a self insert because he HAD TO be a top tier anime boi moron. That kind of anime troupe in FE needs to be dealt away with immediately. Being introduced to your 'hot twin maid girls' at the start of the whole thing is a far cry from Lyn waking the self-insert mark up on the plains. Entirely different implications. Not only that, but I feel as if the misogyny got kicked up to 11 somehow in Fates where the female characters are intentionally made to be thought more of as sex objects through the use of forced perspective like when you run into a certain character's boobs, or are CONSTANTLY given body shots in cut scenes. Or how Felicia is OMG such a CLUTZ l0LZ. Or how your sister not sister is TOTALLY 18. Like, these are things that SORT OF happen in other FE games, but they aren't highlighted, they aren't on display, they aren't the most prominent things you will see when you play through the games and if you choose to play casually without digging too deep you won't even find much of that in other FE. In Fates that is your big take away from the entire game. The plot feels like a means to drive more fan service than it does to advance the narrative. *I'm looking at you not blood siblings reveal.* *And you children that are only relevant after 3 games and DLC* So I guess, yeah, you can have weird somewhat fanservice like troupes in Fire Emblem, why not, people are weird, you can have a little bit of weird stuff, or just normal sexy stuff, but don't make it one of the most prominent features of the game. That not only doesn't feel real, it compromises the experience to a lot of people by making it almost feel like a social stigma to play what is known as 'that weird fan service waifu simulator battle game.'

The key difference with my proposal is that mages can still initiate from one space away, but archers still couldn't. Additionally, my proposed atk nerf would still dissuade people from using them as enemy turn units. I don't want them to be standing at choke points killing dudes on the backswing, I just want them to be able to do some chip damage to whoever initiates from one space away. I suppose you can give everyone a longbow ability upon promotion, but I would be more concerned with that than just giving them a countering ability for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'm not sure if I would want every enemy sniper to have that sort of range. Secondly, and I suppose this is tied to my first point, it feels like having innate 3 range units would make map design a lot trickier. If they can pull it off without compromising playability or limiting their map design options I would be on board though. Radiant Dawn's tier 3 promotion system comes to mind as a way to make that happen, but that is so late into the game that we fall back on the question of why anyone would invest in an archer in the first place.

I wouldn't say this is an improvement, but as far as balancing goes I would like the implementation of something like trenches so that cavalry units aren't super OP. MOV is often seen as one of the most important stats in the game. By having environmental tiles that are harder for mounted units to travel over it could help increase the viability of other units. As far as actual class improvements, archer class units should have some form of close counter. It doesn't even have to be off their full strength stat, it can be a fraction of it if need be. I am just tired of having any unit, aside from maybe the cleric/priest, being entirely useless on enemy phase. As far as the assassin class goes, I mostly like them as they are in Fates. Debuffing is an interesting niche that needs to be explored a bit more. That being said, I can see them experimenting with an assassin class getting an effective against bonus on armored units whose speed they double or something like that. I can imagine the in-game justification to be that the assassin is too fast for the armored unit to deal with. Now that I have said that though, the idea sounds way too niche.

I agree with this. Now that we know from the new financial reports that Smash and Fire Emblem Switch seem to still be slated for the same year, it becomes a lot more reasonable to assume that Nintendo will continue the trend of promoting new Fire Emblem games with a Smash character. Additionally, due to the popularity of Fire Emblem Heroes, I wouldn't doubt it if we got an older character that has been recognized as popular in the Heroes polls.