Sid Starkiller

IIRC Hilda won't move if you're not in her attack range, but yeah, it's a pain in the ass to spare her.

You attack Leicester in CF because El assumes Claude will pull a sneak attack on her while she's invading Faerghus. Taking him out of the equation (without necessarily killing him) is the best option.

Considering your presence literally determines the outcome of the war on every route, I fail to see what's wrong with her relying on you.

Way to deal with that privately and maturely, dude.

I think it's more that no playable units have Macuil's Crest than it being Claude's paralogue. The Inexhaustible is given in a paralogue tied to Leonie, but still has Indech's Crest, which Leonie lacks. So even though Leonie can use it, Bernadetta can better take advantage of its power. EDIT: Just thought of something: Jeritza! CF, aka the route where El refuses the most ruthless of tactics, is the only route where Jeritza fights as himself and not as the Death Knight. Maybe she encourages the Death Knight to kill on the other routes, and encourages Jeritza to control himself in CF.

The statues of Saints Indech, Cichol, and Cethleann are depicted holding The Inexhaustible, The Spear of Assal, and the Caduceus Staff respectively. The same items you get for completing the paralogues related to those characters.

...sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who doesn't give a shit about the gatekeeper.

It gives absolutely no solid information either way. I would assume, if her heart is gone, so is she, but that's just my opinion.

Steve - Aesthetically he would just stick out too much. Waluigi - The character himself doesn't bother me, but his legions of fans are so obnoxious that I can't stand mention of him. Shadow the Hedgehog - I actually do like Shadow as a character, and his powers are diverse enough to have a fully unique moveset. I just feel that there's a 99.99% chance that if he does get in, he'll just be an echo fighter. If Shadow is at minimum Sonic's equivalent of Luigi (meaning roughly 50% of their moves are unique to each other), then I'd be fine with him.

All the Black Eagles, but special mention to Caspar and Dorothea. Absolute favorites in the game. Beyond that, Felix, Annette, Claude, Marianne, Alois, and Shamir. The only units I don't like are Dimitri and Rhea (I was gonna say Cyril, but that's really "complete and utter indifference", which isn't the same thing). Special mentions for characters I grew to like: Sylvain: Hated him at first, then his support with Dorothea showed me just how alike they are. And it's hard to like one and hate the other. Hilda: Seemed too goddamn whiny at first, later came to see that she really does care for her friends. Seteth: Seemed like such a stick-in-the-mud, but came to respect him as Rhea's conscience of sorts. Obviously, I can only speak for myself, but here goes:

Sorry, I wasn't thinking about the spoilers. But thinking more, I guess this kind of exemplifies how Slither is the weakest part of the game's writing.

But...there aren't. I've put a LOT of thought into this because it sucks that my preferred route has less content, but I really don't think it could work any other way. Want Edelgard to make a move on Slither before finishing the fight with Rhea? She wouldn't, she knows trying to start a second war while still fighting the first would be suicide, not just for her, but her whole army. Want Thales to make a move on Edelgard? He wouldn't, he is so smug in the belief that she is beneath him. His bombing Arianrhod in retaliation for Cornelia's death is a symbol of that. It's him saying, "Don't go getting ideas, Edelgard, I'm in charge here, and this is the price of crossing me." Want to play out the battle against Slither afterward? That was my initial desire when the game came out, but while it makes sense for Edelgard to do so, it doesn't fit the narrative of CF. CF is about Edelgard finally having someone reach out a hand of friendship to her, finally showing her humanity, finally getting to realize her dream of a world without Crests, without the Church of Seiros, and without Rhea the Dragon Lady secretly ruling over everyone. It's plot has to end with that showdown, with Edelgard and her beloved professor taking out the final obstacle in her path. To have the plot continue, to go from chasing a dream to a personal revenge plot, would be a huge anti-climax. That Dimitri idea is a new one, but he wouldn't do that. Dimitri in every Part 2 I've seen has such single-minded focus that tactics are completely foreign to him. That's why Rodrigue's death in AM is so pivotal to his arc. That's why he gets such a pathetic death in VW. All he has in him is that lust for revenge. He is a bit calmer in CF, but that path's circumstances (being directly allied with and harboring Rhea) forces him into a more defensive position, so he couldn't conquer Leicester even if he wanted to. Trust me, I would love to have more CF content. But there's a limit to what can be done to it without undermining its themes. My hope would be a DLC epilogue, separate from the main story, tackling the Slither issue. I've played every route except SS, and all of those that I have leave Slither as a loose end. Yes, Thales is killed in AM/VW, but that's hardly the only forces at their command. I could see Abyss Mode being a branched epilogue, where you choose which main story path you've come from, and wipe out their remaining forces.

I would only call CF rushed insofar as having such a small portion of the budget to work with. It was clearly planned from the outset (I refuse to believe they would give El such plot focus and not let you side with her, and there are subtle hints to her real intentions strewn all throughout BE Part 1), but may have been the last route programmed into the game. And after giving it thought, I'm not sure if its short length was entirely due to time constraints. I think it's a combination of that and the Adrestian Empire being stronger than the other armies. I will admit I am biased toward CF, but ask yourself this: the winner in each route is the side Byleth joins, so who wins if they had actually died in Chapter 12? In non-CF routes, Adrestia is basically on victory's doorstep until Byleth shows up. In CF, El refuses to use the most drastic of Slither's tech and abilities because Byleth sides with her before "dying," and even then the war has been at a stalemate until Byleth resurfaces. I really do think, everything carrying on as it had without your presence, Adrestia would have easily won the war.

I wouldn't say "rushed," so much as "poorly thought out." I admit I haven't played it, but I've heard enough to know some things that don't work. In addition to the things you pointed out, the 6 BE students who leave El to join you reunite with you 5 years later, just like they promised. But here's the thing, they didn't make that promise to you, but to El! Why would they still honor it? Were they hoping everyone but her would honor it? Were they hoping she would be dumb and show up alone so they could gang up on her? There's no way where it makes sense. I've been thinking about something else as well: there's been a lot of talk since release about justifying recruiting characters away from their houses. Usually it takes the form of "which BEs would leave El" and "which non-BEs would join El." But that's it. How would you justify having BLs join GD and vice versa? I could see Felix leaving because he hated Dimitri that much, but who's going to march up to Byleth and say, "Up until now I was happy serving my lord and fighting the empire, but I know that if I join you I can fight the empire!"? Why join us when you were already doing that?

Grab Daddy's arm/leg and tug at it until he feeds you. Problem solved.

For myself, you mean? I just moved 3 weeks ago, so I needed another Chromecast, and a bookshelf to display Legos (SO MANY Marvel Legos, and some Star Wars, too). I also got a Switch for my nieces for Christmas.

I kinda feel like that's just an example of gameplay and story segregation: the plot assumes you're doing the whole quest and checking Jeritza's room in one sitting. It's similar to how in the various Part 2s you're marching all around the continent, fighting either for or against Adrestia, and yet you still keep returning to Garreg Mach for lessons, even though logically the characters wouldn't/aren't.

On that note, I feel I should address this: The first playthrough I felt bad killing most of the units, so for my second, I recruited everyone I could. It was exhausting. Boosting my stats to get everyone as well as having to manage that many units left me feeling drained. That made me somewhat more comfortable killing units off.

Really? I may play on Classic next time and "accidentally" kill off the other houses' units. You can't get mission assistance on unrecruitable units, can you? Wouldn't mind not having to deal with Transformer Dedue.

Jeritza doesn't actually appear in the story cutscenes. Do GD, then CF (make sure to recruit Mercedes for their support).

One person is not a boycott.

Which is why I'm letting Nintendo off the hook and pinning the blame 100% on Game Freak. Zelda, Mario, and of course FE all got wonderful new games on the Switch, but this is the best Pokemon can muster?

To the Jeralt stuff, I would say they were probably testing to see if they could purposefully activate the Crest Stones and control the Demonic Beasts, so Thales was probably supervising the whole thing. Kronya killed Jeralt on a whim because he interfered in her work. My interpretation of the bandit scene was that Edelgard hired someone she thought she could take in a fight, but could kill Dimitri and Claude. All she has to do is hide while they die, then "get revenge" while actually cleaning up witnesses. I'd assume the decision at the Holy Tomb was due to time constraints. What I would've done (with time and budget) is have the decision come after the coronation scene, on their way back from Enbarr. Edelgard would come clean with Byleth, explaining all her plans and that she's the Flame Emperor, and ask you to join her. I'll put the next bits in spolier tags to separate the branches a bit better. If you refuse, If you join,

I was expecting the only old starters present to be the Kanto ones. I was not expecting Charizard to get YET ANOTHER FUCKING FORM while Squirtle and Bulbasaur got the axe. Blastoise, Nidoking, Primeape, Poliwrath, Alakazam, Seadra, Starmie, Scyther, Electabuzz, Articuno, Feraligatr, Mareep, Marill, Murkrow, Heracross, Houndoom, Skarmory, Suicune, Lugia, Aggron, Zangoose, Infernape, Luxray, Garchomp, Samurott, Zebstrika, Lilligant, Tirtouga, Archeops, Zoroark, Thundurus-T, Zekrom, Chesnaught, Greninja, Talonflame, Tyrantrum, Yveltal. All gone. And what was the fucking point of introducing Meltan and Melmetal in Let's Go just to IMMEDIATELY cut them? There's not enough SMH in the world for this.

I don't think any death really "affected" me per se, but I will say that I did feel bad killing Seteth and Flayn, and Claude the one time I did (solely to see how that version of the scene played out). I was pissed off that El was killed MID-SENTENCE in VW (she's given up on herself, and opening up to someone for the first time in 5 years, and you just tell her to fuck off and die? I used to think Byleth was a nice guy). And I still, absolutely, under any circumstances, REFUSE to kill Dorothea. Edelgard I don't want to, but I will if the story dictates it. Dorothea, never.