GrandeRampel

Corrin is supposed to be a self-insert tho. It's not exactly the same thing.

@Mercakete I think you are misunderstending something, my friend. This wasn't really supposed to be a redemption arc at all, nor does anybody in Askr who isn't a fairy really cares to forgive Freyja or have anything to do with her. Remember how book 4 ended? Unlike with pretty much all the other villains, the Askr Trio didn't go out of their way to kill Freyja, nor did they feel vindictive towards her. "Curses, one day we will make her pay! This isn't over Freyja!" yeah, no. The only thing they cared about was waking everyone up and escaping the nightmare themselves. Once they did that they stopped caring about Freyja since her plans were foiled and the humans were safe. Freyja "died" because she cared to save Triandra and Plumeria's lives, but the Askr Trio didn't know she would do that. They probably thought she would spend the rest of eternity malding that the humans bested her. Or maybe she would make peace with it and grow as a person one day, "good for her" but they didn't care one bit. The vast majority of the humans don't know that Freyja was responsible for the whole incident, and the few that do don't really want an apology, they only want Freyja to never do that sh*t again. An apology COULD still happen, and it would be nice, but even if she apologizes I don't know if the Askr Trio would believe or trust her at first, nor do they need to. It's not like she will join the order, or anything (yes, I know that there are four versions of Freyja in the order already, but they are summoned from other worlds AND are a case of story/gameplay separation, unless you want to tell me that 2 Surtr also redeemed themselves off-screen and joined the order). So, as I just established IMHO this current arc isn't about Freyja at all, let alone being a redemption arc for her. So what kind of arc is it? It's a growth arc for Plumeria, Triandra, Peony and Mirabilis. They are the protagonists of the story, while Freyja is the MacGuffin. The princess in peril for the sake of kick-starting the plot. The story starts with the fairies wanting to save her and ends once they do save her, but the important stuff is in between. So for this kind of story to work Freyja doesn't really need to get focus much, or even change much (the biggest change happened right before this story started when Freyja realized she loved her fairies and acted selflessly for maybe the first time). She can still even hate humans as long as she doesn's cause trouble to them. Now do I think that she will not grow to tolerate humans, or even like them off-screen? I just explained that she doesn't need to get over her hate of humans for the story to make sense, but I do believe that they will be cowards and make her suddenly realize that humans are alright out of nowhere with no explanation, JUST because she IS A WAIFU that they need to sell alts of and "HATING" the potential customers with a passion isn't really an endeering trait that makes her desirable. So they will get rid of that trait of hers with half an explanation as to why. Cowards, all of them! Freyja would be more interesting and unique as a character if she never gets over her biases and simply stops being a villain but remains kind of a shitty person overall. We don't have a lot of them in Fire Emblem. Shitty people that don't do evil actions anymore but are still haters. I can think of just a couple out of 700 characters.

Well, 6/23 isn't a great score but it could have been worse.

Holy sh*t, they finally added Validar! I can't believe he appeared in the freaking announcement video for Heroes and took this long to be released. A shame he didn't bring Goetia as his PRF. It sucks when there is a perfectly good opportunity to add a canon weapon but they invent a new PRF for no reason. I guess now the last possible candidate for it is Excellus? Or an Ascended/Attuned Tharja/Henry/Aversa? R.I.P. my boy Vaike tho, he is the only playable character still not in the game at all. It's kind of wild that all the children, all the Spotpass characters, Say'ri, Basilio and Flavia, freaking mr. forgotten Kellam (not to mention several NPCs) all got in the game before him. But it's one of the quirks of FEH and I don't dislike it overall. I wonder what the next (and final?) Awakening banner will look like. Rearmed + Vaike + Noire + an OC + demote Kellam + Excellus GHB? About the Book 8 stuff. I like the Big Tree as a setting, and it's interesting that they seem to be doing something with Henriette again after teasing us in Book 5. I LOVE the fact that the new OCs all seem to be beast units AND they all seem to transform into brand new animals (Snake, Deer, Squirrel and... Eagle? I hope it's not a repeat of Hawk). Getting new and original beast types is one of the best things they decided to do with the OCs and after the disappointment of Book 7 (just more goats, no brand new animals) it is a breath of fresh air. Also... a bit of a cursed thought but it would be funny if the community somehow made a brand new Snake themed lady win CYL two years in a row. But it's never gonna happen. Gullveig had the luck of weak competition, and she wouldn't have won against Ivy and Yunaka if they were votable, which means the new Snake Lady who doesn't look immediately eye-grabbing like Gullvy has no chance. BUT it would be funny is what I'm saying.

Oops didn't mean to double post.

Do we have ages for Sharena and Alfonse? Anyway I remember that Sanaki (from RD) said that Veronica was about her age (so 13), and when we got Brave Veronica she was visibly a bit older and they explained that she was 1 year older because 1 year had passed since the launch of the game. Then when Legendary Veronica was released she was older than Brave Veronica. I don't really believe that the passage of time is 1:1 with the real world (Legendary Veronica still doesn't look like the adult she would technically be if that's the case, to quote Leo) but it's clear that years are intended to have passed for the Heroes OCs (see also the TT+ storylines for Eir and the likes). Since Sharena always looked Eliwood aged (so 16) to me (look at her spring alt to see that she has a developed body), that would make her probably over 18 now. Or at least I think that's the case. IS has been careless in the past but I don't think they would make an adult woman hit on a kid. Still this is the same company that gave us Micaiah/Sothe wedding duo.

Or maybe they are introducing her as an alt to give a nod to her fans who got her to be the third most requested RD character (I think, I need to check that guy on reddit who keeps track) because they want to do a certain theme for the next Tellius banner (Dawn Brigade finally?) and they know she wouldn't fit that banner so in seasonal hell she goes. TBH I don't really feel that female characters are more likely to get the seasonal hell treatment than male characters. Just last banner we got Kellam added to the game, and also Seadall. And there's also Rickard, Xane, Boyd, a lot of male students from 3H and so on. About Female characters having more of a chance of being 5* than male characters you are right, but Heather really feels like a random character to get mad at about this. Maybe it's a straw that breaks the camel's back thing but leave the poor girl alone. She is already unlucky enough to be a RD exclusive, which means no supports to flesh her character out, and she also has been mostly ignored by IS in all spin-offs, merchandise and celebrations. Her vocal and loyal fanbase has been starving, and being a 5* instead of a 4* isn't some major offense that she deserves hate for. Also: Can I say that is a very aggressive way to get your point across? If I really am to believe that you don't dislike Heather or her fans, that was a bad way to voice your opinion. As an Heather fan I was ready to go all "EXCUSE YOU?! I will let you know that there are dozens of US! I take full offense with what you said and just so you know I believe that YOUR favorite character is really boring and I don't like them!" But in the meantime you made your better and clearer comment and I decided to respond to that one instead. Anyway I'm really happy to get both Reina and Heather in the game. I would prefer to have their normal versions, but there are still a lot of Tellius and Fates characters to get through so I get why that might not happen. Seasonal Hell isn't a big deal anyway. Also cool to finally have Zelgius Emblem. And Sanaki is always a joy to see.

Mycen's and Sonya's FBs are actually really good, but in different ways. It's one thing to write a good FB using characters all from the same game and making them reflect and all the things that happened to them in their story/find some resolution. Mustafa's FB with Chrom was like this and was very good, Tine's FB was like this and good, Fee's FB was like this, Gustav's FB was like this, and Mycen's FB is like this and is pretty great actually. But it's another thing entirely when they make a really good FB featuring characters from entirely different worlds meeting for the first time and forming a bond. Fallen Dimitri meeting with Nyx was pure genius, as was Midori meeting Eir, Ronan meeting Henriette, and now Sonya meeting Niime. I will admit that not all FB are very deep and well written, and sometimes they don't need to be (purely comedic FBs are nice sometimes), but wow... when they are done well they are REALLY done well, which makes me happy. And people say the developers have no passion for this game anymore/they only keep going for the money.

The problem is that they would never pick characters like them for the FALLEN BANNER one of the most important banners of the year in terms of sales. That banner almost always favors main characters to the point of making some what-ifs for Ike and Chrom to get an alt. And thanks to 3 Hopes and the DLC for Engage we have now the possibility of both genders of Byleth and Shez AND every royal in Engage getting a Fallen Alt. Which means there's no risk of running out of more popular options than MARLA and HESTIA (two characters so unpopular that even I wasn't expecting them, thinking they would give us Nuibaba, Irma and base Rinea instead to make up for the lack of playable women in Valentia), which means that they would never get in the game at all. A similar argument was made when Validar and Bertram were added as GHBs and people brought up the possibility of getting them as Fallen Heroes and how fitting that would be, but the point is that they are both less popular than Orson, who I think is the least popular/important character picked for a Fallen alt, more the exception to the rule than anything. And as for the Halloween banner we run into the same problem. They would only ever add them together (more realistically only with a Sonya alt) which means that two slots on a popular banner would be wasted. Sure, they could pick the GHB and demote slots for them and it seems way more reasonable to waste slots on one of twelve yearly seasonals than the ever important Fallen Banner, but evidently they felt that it still wasn't worth it and chose to screw over Jesse and Nomah rather than screw over the many potential candidates for an Halloween Banner. Not to mention that people are already complaining that Sonya got the Rearmed alt that could have been for Mae, Boey, whoever. Imagine if after a year of no seasonal alts for Valentia, they finally got two alts, and they were for NPCs. The Valentia fans would have murdered everyone who works at IS. Let's face it Marla and Hestia would have caused arguments no matter the banner they were put in because they are unpopular NPCs getting in the game before literally any other playable characters. It was the same story for Mustafa and Phila, for Annand and Dithorba, even for Leila despite her being way more well known than other NPCs. As for me I'm very happy to see them and I hope they are a sign of good things to come. Yes, I unironically want a banner of Irma, Massena and Jesse (with Jedah GHB). The only real problem for me is that they gave us one less character for no reason. That was a great slot to give us Slayde or something IS -.-

3 of my wanteds (+ the inevitable Gullveig) aren't a bad result honestly. And I may have listed only Nuibaba but I also wanted Marla and Hestia almost as much and they felt way more unlikely to ever get in so I'll count that as another win for me. If I had to replace the characters I got I would pick Bors, Franz and Pheros.

Technically the only Mikoto we have in the game was the one that came from baby Azura's dream of what having a family would be like. Mikoto even admits that she isn't real in one of her quotes. The entire Adrift banner other than Azura is an illusion given form and life. And there is an interesting disccusion to be had here about whether an "illusion made physical matter" is a human being or not, if they deserve rights or not (Limstella and Sonia can join the discussion since they are similarly artificial), if they are actually "things" or not. But anyway, even if I'm 100% certain that the Order of Heroes treats all the artifically born Heroes right, "Mikoto" still isn't the actual Mikoto (a clone at best) and that's probably why she doesn't appear in this story. Base Mikoto (and Sumeragi) when IS? EDIT: And before someone suggests that they could have included Mikoto in the story anyway even as clone, it's important to remember that Adrift Camilla, the Adrift Corrins and Adrift Mikoto have different personalities than their real selves. This is especially evident with Camilla who is more proper than the real item and dislikes lewdness.

Yeah they tend to always remove the PRF skills from the story TT+ bosses to make them easier to beat.

I'm joining Mozu's squad. It's absurd that she's not in the game.

What a weird and nonsensical banner. Still it has Ivy and a Tharja demote on it so I have to pull. I wonder if many others feel the same way as me.

Who knows, if 3H keeps getting summer banners it may be his turn one day. After all even if they seem to be avoiding the younger looking girls for some reason, they have put the younger looking boys on the banner no problem and he is the only one left (maybe we can half count Arval too).

And with this all the royals from SS have a swimsuit version. Eirika, Ephraim, Lyon, Joshua, L'Arachel, Innes and Tana can all go to the beach together. And in case they need an escort, we have Seth, Selena and Lute already dressed for the job. I will say, even if some have (understantable) issues with it, I like when they complete sets. Sure, completing sets makes it so certain games get the same seasonals in a row and I can see how that sucks, but at the same time having all members of a group of friends come together for a party is exactly the kind of wholesome fanservice the game is built for. And the game itself doesn't take advantage of the situation nearly enough, which is a bummer. Like, think about it for a second. They have art for all the royals in swimsuits, they just need to write the interactions and they can make something really fun with this paralogue. Instead it will be a miracle if Ephraim interacts with his sister from last year. The more time passes, the more opportunities are missed. Stuff like the Tikis interacting with the groom Marth alt from years ago should be the norm for this kind of game, not a pleasant surprise! What the heck are they even doing? But even if they don't do much with it, it's still nice to complete sets since there's stuff like Aether Resort (which has a beach version) where WE can do something about it and create our own fun. But there needs to be some balance and moderation. Something like the Magvel Royals (less than ten members), or the Greil's Mercenaries (a dozen members) is reasonable and can be accomplished in just 2-3 years. The enitre cast of Three Houses/Hopes? That's a bit much, honestly. Like let's count how many characters Have vs Don't have a swimsuit alt at the moment. Ok, things aren't as bad as I thought, I forgot how many playable characters there were in Fodlan. But still 2/5 of the entire cast shouldn't have a swimsuit variant. Even limiting things to the starting playable cast of Three Houses (and considering Shez, Rhea, Shamir and Catherine flukes) it is still too many f***ing characters. There's still 12 characters missing (remaining base students + Male Byleth) and a single swimsuit banner can give us 6 (four on the banner, one backpack, a TT+ reward) which means two more banners of only Three House swimsuits for 2024 and 2025 just to finish the starting roster, exactly as many as they would need if this current banner didn't exist at all since they picked only characters that aren't in the starting roster. And if they did it once, they can do it again. I can't believe that they aren't thinking about swimsuit Ashen Wolves + Manuela + Sothis + Monica at the very least. Enough is enough already, jeez...

That's it, this game has peaked. They added Dorothy. There is literally no character left that is a more based pick than her, so it's officialy all downhill from here. That's not to say there's no more fantastic picks left. We still have lesbian Heather, plus-sized Brom and Meg, badass scars Vaida and Reina, older woman Saphir, doesn't-speak-english Volug, male refreshers Seadall and Elphin and many others. But Dorothy is just built different. She's arguably tied with Niime and Saphir for not belonging in a waifu game and yet here she is. I can admit that IS deserves a big W for once, just because they added her. And they also put her on the banner in order to give us a chance to +10 her (RIP Saul enjoyers), how nice of them. And Murdock is finally here! GOOD! Now for the next two GHBs give us Jahn and Sigune IS. I know you want to, come on!

This alt is based after the ending of Conquest in which Hinoka becomes the queen of Hoshido. You can say that becoming the queen of a country in one of the endings isn't much but the bar was already on the ground after "I only exist if you buy a DLC, and even in said DLC I don't do anything that LEGENDARY" Yuri and "I don't do anything legendary and I'm not even the canonical queen of the lord, unlike Caeda and Nanna who had that going for them" Lilina.

Damn, she looks gorgeous. I also don't have Nanna and Ophelia is always useful so I'm pulling on red for sure. ???? Why would you think that Legendary Hinoka being from Conquest means all Hoshidan legendaries need to come from Conquest? Legendary Ryoma exists and comes from Birthright. For all we know Legendary Takumi will come from Revelation.

Yeah they did, and I'm gonna spend a few words on why that is a DUMB thing to do. It's one thing to do canonical couples (Marth + Caeda, Pent + Louise), but doing a character + potential love interests for that character only makes sense if they have a limited pool of options to choose from. Like how Nino and Serra can only marry a couple guys, or Ephraim/Eirika also have limited options. If you really loved to ship Roy/Eliwood with one particular bride there is a low chance you won't be able to redo the wedding in Heroes (only Sue and Fiora fans had bad luck). But Awakening and Fates let you marry so many characters to so many other characters that with the exception of Chrom doing such a theme is useless because you will inevitably disappoint some fans. (seriously if they just did Chrom TT + Maribelle + Sully + Sumia + Olivia Harmonic everyone would have been happy and we wouldn't have this problem right now) Robin, for example, can marry everyone! So unless you married Tharja, Cordelia, Tiki, Say'ri, Flavia or Anna, a.k.a. less than half the options (not even counting 2nd generation) this does NOTHING for you. Having a small pool of characters only Robin can marry isn't the same as Robin only being able to marry a small pool of characters. Most people will not gravitate to marrying Robin to the 4 ladies here just because they will otherwise end up alone, they'll just marry who they want. So even attempting to do a Robin Harem is pointless because you don't have enough slots to please everyone (or the majority like with Eli and Roy). Unless... they are dumb as bricks and will give us Awakening Brides three years in a row just so they can please about half the Robin shippers and retroactively justify the effort while pissing off everyone that wants more game variety. I sincerely hope they don't do this. *sigh* In a vacuum I don't even mind any of the characters picked (except Robin) since they all had zero alts OR are popular enough to justify another alt, but the framing of "Robin and his Harem" is so stupid that it makes me mad. I would have zero problems if they picked a random dude (Stahl, Donnel, Frederick, it doesn't matter) instead of Robin. Having no theme at all other than "characters from Awakening at the Bridal Festival" would have been better than this pathetic excuse for a theme. Anyway, I will pull Green because Anna, but otherwise this banner is a disappointment. Wow, I wasn't expecting that this would be the way we finally get Reina and Scarlet in the game, but you know what? I will take it.

#83 Waluigi (Super Mario) #84 Shantae (Shantae) #85 Tails (Sonic) #86 Medusa (Kid Icarus) #87 Kasumi (Dead or Alive/Ninja Gaiden) mostly to give Koei Tecmo its deserved rep in the roster, and picking her over Ryu to boost the amount of women in the roster #87ε Ayane (Dead or Alive/Ninja Gaiden) as an easy echo fighter of Kasumi #88 Crash Bandicoot (Crash Bandicoot) who by then will be 100% owned by Microsoft so it feels easier to achieve than in the past. And would be awesome #36ε Dixie Kong (Donkey Kong) as an easy echo fighter of Diddy #89 Fio (Metal Slug) or even better, all four characters as skins like Hero, but if you can't do that pick Fio as the rep #90 Skull Kid (The Legend of Zelda) but really, any Zelda rep would be welcome and necessary #91 Leon (Resident Evil) to me would be the most sensible pick and RE is one of the biggest IPs from Japan missing a rep You may notice that I only picked characters from companies that already are involved with Smash (even Shantae has a spirit and icons and Koei Tecmo has ton of stuff including an AT). This is my way of being "realistic" and "reasonable" since I imagine it will be more difficult to get new companies involved in the future without Sakurai at the helm. And still there are many more than I'm probably forgetting (can't believe I didn't add an ASW rep since they also have spirits, and Octolings are probably inevitable so my list is less realistic for not having them) but this list feels alright. If those were the last character added to the game I would feel satisfied with it.

The Fallen Byleth we just got is surely a contender for best art in the game.

Yikes at all the Mark-discourse, who would have thought they would be such a controversial addition. I will just not touch it even with a 10-foot stick and leave it at that. I will just plainly state that I was 100% sure that they wouldn't add Mark to this game since they never added them to Cipher despite it being so much easier to do so. And now they are here. So as of right now there is not a single character who I believe is "impossible" to get, or that they can't implement. The sky is the limit. This doesn't mean that they will implement all the characters, it just means that they consciously made the choice to not include some characters. Because maybe they were too minor an antagonist, maybe they had the lowest popularity, maybe they didn't feel there was much clamoring for a specific game (poor Rowan and Lianna, they deserve to get into FEH yesterday), maybe something I'm not even thinking about, but it will never be that they were considering which characters to add, a character was brought up and they went "nah, we can't do that character". Because if they didn't say "nah, we can't do that character" when someone suggested Mark (or Xane, or Ullr, or Fomortiis) it means nobody will ever utter those words there.

Most people here are focusing on the fact that this is our first Grail resplendent and what it means, so I'll be the first to say: IT WAS ABOUT TIME WE GOT MORE AVERSA CONTENT! I always wondered why they never did anything more with her when she is from a modern game, a very beatiful and sexy woman, and was lucky enough to get a unique niche that made her good and memorable for the FEH-only players and also F2P which meant we all got her. By all accounts it didn't make sense. So major props to IS for finally treating my girl right. Now give Petrine and Kronya an alt next for the same reasons (both beautiful women who have a unique niche in FEH that gave them exposure with the new fans because they are also F2P).

My first reaction to this chapter was to laugh so much it hurt. My second reaction was "nah, I don't buy it. It will be a red herring to confuse us. They wouldn't just randomly give us a kid". But then I stopped to consider it for a second. It sure has been an awful long time since an Avatar had a kid and both Morgna and Kana were pretty popular, with so many players loving the build-a-family mechanics of the 3DS' games. So even if it's crazy they might just do it. But there are some things to consider. If it's really Gullveig or something it would be kind of shitty since they showed the character to us months before revealing that she is our kid, which is really messed up when some people might already be attached to her as a waifu and would hate the Surprise Incest (like when they revealed that Azura is your biological cousin at the last possible second after you might have already made babies with her). I honestly would prefer it if the kid isn't anyone we know at all, and possibly a character we meet at the very end of the book with a different design depending on our choice of Avatar in game (like they have purple hair if we play as purple haired Kiran). That I could accept and I would actually really love it, but it isn't a perfect solution either. The first problem with this is that it would be a kid forced by the story like Lucina, and not like the Avatar Kids which you can just not have if you want to play as an Aro-Ace Robin or something. The second problem is that it would force us to be either a single parent based on how they worded it, or married to Seithr if they backpedal on that detail. Both options aren't great. Many people feel a deep affection towards Kana and Morgan, but they feel an even deeper affection towards their chosen spouse. Forcing us to pick Seithr is not ideal. The third problem is that Kiran, unlike every other Avatar (even the FE 7 one), is literally supposed to be us! And I can see people having problems with that, even people who loved having children in Awakening and Fates. So yeah, no matter what this wasn't a great choice. There only three options: It's a red herring, and if so why would they intentionally waste our time with something that is honestly in poor taste. Our kid is Gullveig (or some other character we already know) which is yikes for the Surprise Incest effect. Our kid is a brand new character (maybe with customization like Kiran, maybe not). Which has its own set of problems Of the three options I prefer the third one for entirely selfish reasons (I missed having a Morgan/Kana in 3H and Engage), but I recognize that it's better for everyone if it's the first one.