eastcanman

FE4 or FE5. The openings of most newer FEs, while generally lovely, really just feel like trailers for those games. FE4 and FE5's intros throw you into the story hard and fast, especially FE5's.

Having just beaten Conquest for the first time, I'm currently playing through my first-ever run of Birthright, on Hard. Man... Birthright on Hard is still absurdly easy compared to Conquest on Normal - or even compared to FE7 on Hard, for that matter - and I don't consider myself any sort of pro (*shakes fist at Ninja Hallway of Death in Conquest's Chapter 25*). And I'm using Subaki... so count me in the "cares about him" tally! I'll probably eventually replace him with Caeldori, though. I second your love of Sain. I would buy a Sain-centric spin-off.

I'm fine if we never see story-based promotions ever again. I never miss them in games that don't have them. If you *must* weave a character's class-growth into the story, go the "you're now ready/worthy to possess this holy promotion item" route and let the player decide when and how to use it.

I found out about Roy/Marth through Smash Bros. Melee and did an internet search to find out more about the series. I discovered that FE7 was about to be released in North America, and already being a fan of Advance Wars, I thought, "Cool, medieval fantasy Advance Wars. Do want."

Despite how much he seems to be loathed around here, Sigurd has an interesting concept. Unlike the gaggle of adolescent would-be Caesars running around in the FE Lord universe, Sigurd actually demonstrates the capacity to govern. He rules *two* separate foreign countries... though one of his reigns ends disastrously. He's a hero-jock who does everything right, everything for the sake of the people he cares about, everything by the book, and he gets burned (ahem...) in the end because of it. Seliph and Leif are also interesting concepts for the fact that they're both fugitives from birth... with Leif being a fugitive in the very country he's supposed to rule. Lyn also has an interesting concept for reasons already mentioned. It's too bad her story development basically stops when her campaign does.

My problem with Sacred Stones' writing is that the attempt it makes at humanizing and eliciting sympathy for villains seems so... inorganic. Lyon is only vaguely sympathetic because we're repeatedly smacked over the head with flashbacks of him venting about his insecurities to his less-insecure friends who happen to be the protagonists. There isn't much at all to Lyon's character outside of this. "I like you guys, but I'm insecure, so I summoned a demon, and now I *am* the demon." Full stop. Orson's motives for betrayal are backfilled with a fairly uninteresting "consumed by grief at loss of spouse" story, and the game is so short that there's never any time to let Orson's relationship with the rest of the cast "cook" enough so that we even care about his betrayal. The Imperial Six, to me, are either flat chaotic-evil killbots (Caellach, Riev, Valter), blind loyaltybots until it's too late (Glen, Selena), or Duessel, who's... actually pretty cool, but who isn't a villain. I don't mean to come off as too intense in my views on Sacred Stones' plot, but I see it praised so heavily around here while seeing an (in my view) unwarranted amount of criticism heaped on far-superior stories like FE4 and FE10, and I don't quite understand it.

- Over-reliance on Marcus in FE7 and completely neglecting my Lords. - Saving all the long-range spells and good weapons and then never using them. (No, I still don't care about the funds rank).

The Fenrir and Hell spells from FE4/5 - dark magic that actually feels evil.

- Sacred Stones is the most absurdly overrated entry in the series. Its story feels like it was written on the back of a napkin at an IS staff party held to celebrate the success of FE7. Lyon's "I'm actually a nice guy and I like you/A DEMON IS POSSESSING ME SO I HATE YOU" schtick does not make him deep. Even Nergal has a deeper backstory. Heck, even *Garon* has a deeper backstory. Too much of the game is just fighting hordes of monsters. No antagonist in this game seems to have any motives outside of ambiguous chaotic-evilness or blind loyalty. Even Hard Mode is easy. And the game is too short, which is made worse by the fact that a good chunk of missions are just monster brawls. That said... I'm still thinking of revisiting it to do an Eirika HM run soon, since it's one of the quicker FEs to complete and I haven't done a runthrough of it in years - Conquest's plot is *far* from being the worst in the series, and its cast of characters is actually pretty decent. - Radiant Dawn is better than Path of Radiance. - Ilyana is not garbage. - The series would be better if Kaga were still at the helm.

- I think an easier difficulty level would need to be added to make it more broadly-accessible (and I'm usually the first to complain about JP-to-NA difficulty nerfing). Alternatively, make the whole game a DLC expansion for a Genealogy remake and market it as a super-challenging side story. - Fix some of the mechanics that cross the line from challenging to irritating (making healing staves no longer miss, making "escape" chapters into "escape all" chapters or having it so that Leif escaping first doesn't leave your other units behind, the 1%-to-99% system, rework the fatigue system)

I won't make a full list, but I'll address a few of the things I've seen come up multiple times in the thread: - A modernized support system would be great, verging on absolutely necessary, I think we (nearly) unanimously agree. - Do not, do not, DO NOT break up the maps or make them smaller. The main appeal of FE4 is the grand scale of the battles that take place, the multiple armies on the maps at once, the sense that these are countries at war. Yes, there's too much down time at certain points, that's a valid criticism (though I frankly think that a lot of that criticism of this escalates to being melodramatic around here, TBH). If you really want to fix the down time, though, address it by adding a sub-boss here and there for the especially slow segments, or maybe by adding trip-wire bandit/mercenary encounters or something. - As for the Horse Emblem/balancing issue, just tweak the Move of some of the more sluggish units. Or don't. This is war, bring a horse. Or make bandit incursions against your home base a bigger issue so that there's an additional niche purpose for lower-Move units. - No avatars, please. Why the ability to insert a simulacrum of yourself into a game has become a must-have selling point for so many people is beyond me. - Post-game content (or, more realistically, DLC content) of some of the major off-screen events would take the story to a new level. - I don't know what to do about the lack of a trading system/lack of common funds, but the mechanic fits the royal houses/family heirlooms/bloodline inheritances aspect of the game. Actually, the biggest complaint about the system seems to be that, if the wrong person happens to go to the village/defeat the enemy with the droppable item, it's a headache to give that item to someone else. This could be fixed by simply having a "who gets this item?" prompt upon initially receiving it.

A full-on Baroque-era costume drama filled with powdered wigs and shirt ruffles would be amazing. A hardscrabble dark-age world with a Celts vs. Vikings theme would be pretty cool, too. I also wouldn't mind seeing some sort of swashbuckling seafaring theme with a pirate-lord.

I really loved Genealogy of a Holy War. It's the FE that gives you the greatest sense of a "grand conflict" of several nations at war (mainly because the maps are so dang huge and involve multiple armies fighting over entire countries in each chapter). It's also the origin point of a lot of the more gameplay-enhancing elements of the FE series, many of which got left out of the GBA games. I see a lot of love on here for Sacred Stones, but I personally found it to be too easy and too short. It felt like story chapters were sacrificed for the sake of adding extra monster-grinding levels. Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn together form quite a magnum opus together if you can get your hands on them.

I went with Elincia, since she's the female lead of the most consequence in her universe who gets the least sidelined by that universe. Also... a flying lord. Yes. I like Micaiah too, but she isn't even Micaiah half the time, so she loses points for that. Lyn might as well not exist once her prologue is done. As for Eirika... "I'm going to go become embroiled in second-tier regionalized conflicts while my brother fights the empire, resolves most of the important plot points, and ultimately becomes king." Lucina is completely uninteresting once she takes off her disguise. Corrin isn't quite as horrid as she's made out to be, but still not great. Haven't played Echoes, so can't assess Celica.