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I think this topic has a good message I agree with it.

So, I decided because I was curious about how others played the game, I would make a poll about it. Several, in fact. Actually, it's like a little survey, for other players to fill out, and enjoy looking over other people's answers as well. This should be fun for just getting a general idea for how the fanbase, or at least those who are members of this forum, tends to play the game, which difficulty settings and styles of play are popular, and what sorts of characters and classes people tend to use. It kinda goes without saying, but please try to remain fairly civil and don't talk down to others for their favored play styles. With that said... Generally I play casually, in Normal mode, using units on the basis of personality, growth rates and appearance. I have an odd fondness for Archers, and I also like Troubadours, Knights and Shamans/Dark Mages and, where they're present, Soldiers. Usually I forsake prepromotes, because they often feel like cop-outs to me. I never, ever allow units to stay dead, unless I'm doing a sidequest run on Shadow Dragon or the unit in question is Orson in FE8's Chapter 5x. However, recently I have been considering doing a self-imposed challenge run, forbidding restarting for the deaths of non-Game Over-inducing allies. Depending on when I'm using them, I either feel pathetic for resorting to them so early in the game or I feel as though I was too lazy to train another member of that class to promotion. Some exceptions are for games wherein the prepromotes are the only recruitable members of their class line (Largo, FE9) or where I simply like the character enough for it to outweigh their prepromotedness. Or it's FE13 where everyone and their mother (in many cases literally) is viable. Inversely, I like Ests and trainees, probably because they take the satisfaction of having trained my own unit up to eleven. The fact that Ests have a tendency to be cute is also a factor, not gonna lie. I almost always promote from level 20, and I will frequently arena- and support-grind where available to keep all my units powerful and up-to-speed. Also, there's just something inexplicably... cozy, I guess? About having the characters support and bond with each other. A sort of feeling of security, I guess. Maybe that's just me, though. So, how do you play? What difficulty level is your cup of tea? Do you ever allow permadeath to actually come into effect? What sorts of characters and classes get you through to the end? Vote here, and see how others play as well!

Where I was going with Shieda was that it's a homophone of Shiida and is also similar to the existing name Sheila, although for that comparison spelling it Sheida would be better. Mostly I was just trying to come up with something that looks and sounds like a reasonably ordinary (read; not overly weird and bizarre) name to a Western audience, while still being fairly true to the Japanese name.

Henry's "I'm gonna kill you!~<3" would have to be my favorite. Although I also am fond of: "Well, I suppose you tried." -Panne, enemy killed. "And so it ends." -Panne, critical hit. "I'll kill you twice." -Sully, critical hit. "Whaddya need?" -Henry, as double partner. "Special delivery!~<3" -Henry, critical hit. "Another spotlight stolen..." -Kellam, enemy killed by double partner. Also, Glixinator, are you sure it's Risen? I'm pretty sure Sully says "Son of a griffon..." Also if anyone else can help confirm one way or the other feel free.

Oh, right, yes, haha, I think my friend made that edit. Dunno if she's the only one to mess with that image but I'm pretty sure that's her work there. And I love that there was actually a sort-of-discussion prompted by my sharing of a silly photoshopped picture.

I am not sure. I really think it's just a made-up name made to sound real-ish. Personally, I think something like Shieda would've been a better translation than either of the official ones: Caeda has a pretty counterintuitive pronunciation and Shiida just looks odd.

She can do it, actually; she can change to Myrmidon and then promote to Assassin, and from there it's just a few level ups to Lethality.

It's Inigolivia.

Make of this what you will.

What are you talking about Frederick is my favorite Jagen. I find his relationship with Chrom and Lissa to be quite endearing, actually. Just a shame I'll probably never use him for the main story; using those prepromotes always feels like a cop-out to me, for various reasons depending on when they join: (Nothing I can't overcome without them <-Early--Late-> Too lazy to train my own [class], am I?) Also, ol' Fred's voiced by Kyle Hebert (Kamina), which is cool. Anyway, hm... characters I like... I like Kellam. He's almost never noticed but when I used him he ended up being a grade A badass for me, so that definitely earns him points. Vaike reminds me of Kamina, which is never a bad thing. I actually really like Ricken, too, but I have a soft spot for youngsters trying to prove themselves and he's also voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, who was the voice of Luke and Asch fon Fabre from Tales of the Abyss, as well as Simon from Gurren Lagann. Henry. I don't like how they toned down his backstory (but not Tharja's abusive parenting???), but he's still tragic, psychotic, hilarious and probably the most punderful character in the whole series. His cheerful "I'm gonna kill you~" is hilarious when it kicks in at the right time. Nowi is absolutely freakin' adorable, and I just love how she looks as a mage, as well as a transformed dragon. I don't mind her design much, but maybe that's because the whole "really 1,000 years old" thing actually does make it better for me. I also have a soft spot for cute nonhuman characters, which helps. Chrom is probably one of my favorite Lords now. He's just... I dunno, there's something about him that just makes him so likable to me. Probably because he's so honest and well-intentioned, and he realizes he's not perfect. Saying it that way, he barely sounds any different from the other main characters of the series, but there's just something about Chrom specifically that endears him to me. Kjelle is pretty cool. She's tough and heroic (even though she tries to fight a Sorcerer with amounts to a Brave weapon on her own what the heck) and since I married Chrom to Sully she inherited Aether and much awesomeness was had. Panne. She's a Stoic Woobie and the Avatar knows it (in the S support, at least). Also, I love how she looks (and performs) as a thief. Also, see the last sentence of Nowi's entry. While I don't like Gangrel much as a person, I love his character, and I think he's a great villain. It's also nice to have a major FE antagonist who isn't a General, Sorcerer or derivative thereof. Yeah, I know there are a few others who also aren't any of those, but most major FE baddies are still obvious knockoffs of the two aforementioned classes, if not one of the two outright. Specifically, it's neat that Gangrel is a "lightweight" class, although this did make the battle with him rather anticlimactic as he went down in just one or two hits. Olivia's design is both sexy and adorable and she's a sweet character, too. I wanted to say, "particularly with Henry", but I realized I haven't actually supported her with anyone else, so I wouldn't really know how "particularly" it is. I know of a person on these forums who is a big fan of her. Lucina is also very much a Woobie and is also just plain cute in a lot of instances. Also, I can't help but suspect that she's an ascension of the whole "Marth is girly/really a girl" meme, which is kinda hilarious. Mustafa. I should not have to explain this to anyone who has reached Chapter 10. Wow I just realized that this is like half first generation characters in the game, plus Lucina, Mustafa and Kjelle. Haven't seen a good deal of the second generation ones, but I might update this once I do.

Characters I don't like? Hmm... I don't really hate anyone. There are characters like Gangrel and Tharja who are awful people, but that's not the same as being a bad character. I guess I could say Walhart for his effect on the plot basically being "and now for every Fire Emblem game ever" after a story that was actually pretty interesting and different for a bit. But, even then, my problem is more with the writing decision than anything else. Meh, I guess I don't like Noire that much, either. Don't hate her, but... I was expecting her personality to be more... serious... than it was, and her extreme hamminess makes it seem like parental abuse-induced split personality disorder is being played for comedy, which is... eeehhhhhh...

While one could do that, it would look very ugly and unprofessional, especially if/when it pops up in the character endings. Even reusing Bramimond's mugshot would be better than that, since at least he actually kinda looks like the tactician with their hood up. Although, that still doesn't fix the mini-mug problem... I dunno, mostly it just seems lazy to me, not to make a new mug.

I like the first generation more. Nothing against the second, but due to the nature of their recruitment they (save Lucina of course) often have even less involvement in the main story than the various random first generation characters, because their sidequests are all off to the side. The second generation really feels like add-ons, to me. Like... Beyond Lucina, they're just kind of there to be there; to show that Chrom and his sweetheart weren't the only couple to make babies who came from the future to save people, and of course to benefit players who use the Romance system. After seeing her in some actual story, I do like Kjelle a lot, though. So, I guess my issue is not as much with the children themselves as it is with how they were integrated. I really would've gone more FE4 with it (children recruited in the main story, unless the mother is unpaired, then a replacement is recruited instead) for many of the children, although not, for example, Avatar's child, since that would render certain romance options non-viable. Yes, this would render many child characters potentially lost forever, but recruiting those children would render their equally-developed replacements lost forever as well, so I think it'd work fine.

The stylus is more or less entirely superfluous in Awakening as far as actual gameplay is concerned, so I usually just play with buttons, keeping the stylus safely tucked away. In general, though, I don't like games requiring/encouraging heavy use of the stylus, or motion control for that matter. I'm a buttons guy.

Having staff-using Mage Knights and Valkyries in the same game would be pointless, though, since they'd be almost the exact same class. If male availability is what you're after, Mage Knights can take Valkyries' place, but there's no reason to have two different horseriding Tome/Staff-using classes in one game, unless one is a character-specific class. Anyway, I was about to say Troubadours, but they kind of just did make a comeback. I also love you FE13. With Troubadours already back in action, I'd like to jump on the Nomad train, as well. Maybe they could balance them with Archers by giving Archers better skills to compensate for Nomads' superior movement and speed? Also jumping on the Soldier train. Love those guys, despite their incredible incompetence as enemies. they're like the goombas of fire emblem

Blazing Sword's holds so much nostalgia for me it's not even funny, but recently I have become partial to Conquest from Awakening, which has the series' main theme mixed into it; I especially like the battle mix of the song. I hope that counts?

Since female Lords have been brought up, while five exist in the series, (although only two are actually labeled as "Lords" within their games) none of them are actually the definite main character (i.e: the "Marth") of their game. The closest we get is Eirika, and even then we have the choice of opting out in favor of her brother. Celica would be a pretty close second, though. I would certainly enjoy having a female lead in a new FE game, especially if she also had a class that was notably different from the standard sword-using Lord archetype IS is oh-so-fond of. As for the Lord x Pegasus Knight couples, I think the deal with that is that it's a recurring callback to Marth and Caeda's romance in the very first game. It doesn't seem to go much deeper than that, as the Pegasus Knight love options are usually pretty arbitrary or off to the side in later games, with the exceptions of Ike and Elincia and Chrom and Sumia, who actually do have a bit of ship tease in the main stories even if you don't support them. Although if you really want them to be any one of Chrom's loves save Sully could be a Peggy And, the pairings being sexist? Maybe there's something I'm missing by being a guy, but I don't really find them sexist at all. I don't really think it'd get into being sexist unless they did something that rubbed the "romantic superiority" of the frilly froo froo girls in the other girls' faces. Since Chrom can be paired with Sumia or Olivia (both rather meek personalities), Sully or Maribelle (both rather strong personalities), or a female Avatar (his number one BFF), I'd say Chrom's romance options aren't really all that sexist at all, and it just comes down to the player's own thoughts and preferences as to who he should end up with. On a whole, the PeggyxLord pairings from other games don't seem all that sexist to me either, although part of that might be due to the gameplay driving home the fact that the girls are often every bit as capable and badass as the guys. Sorry if I don't really make sense here, or if I misunderstood what people meant to convey. I understood me perfectly in my head, but many people do and that doesn't really mean anything so if my post is nonsensical or I misunderstood, please do speak up and I will gladly attempt to remedy the situation.

My avatar's named Turks. That's not my real name; I doubt anyone in real life would name their kid that, but it's his name. His birthday is February 10th, because that's the day I first got the game, so it's the character's actual birthday, instead of an arbitrarily-assigned number. He uses the smallest build, has slanted eyes (type 2), ruffled hair with a stringy headband thing (type 3), and that hair is purple (color 8). His best stat is Resistance and his worst stat is HP; these were chosen entirely based on what I thought would fit his appearance, and were not selected for maximum effectiveness from a gameplay perspective. He's set to marry Panne, although that might change depending on how I feel about my pairing setup in general. So, there, now you all have the recipe to create your own Turks, although he's probably far inferior to your own Avatars so I don't really know why you'd want to. Also, wow, someone else who plays Tales of Phantasia. I wasn't aware that game really had fans, at least not within the scope of its own series. It's like the Mother 1 of the Tales series, except we did get the GBA port of ToP...

That could be neat! What I think would really be interesting, though, would be completely DLC-original storylines and characters. Whether these are single-player, cooperative or competetive doesn't really matter to me. Of course, multiplayer DLC would still be fun if done correctly.

Your Avatar doesn't always have to be you, you know... You can have a male Avatar based on yourself, and then make a character to be a female Avatar so you can still see what everything's like but not have to feel awkward about pairing "yourself" with someone of the sex you're not attracted to. Anyway, I really don't know. I may have a female custom character, because I already have a character in mind, and I like the idea of her with Chrom or especially Libra (the supports are just so in-character for her). Then again, I may also make a male custom character, in which case I don't really know who he'll be with, mostly because I already ship a lot of the girls I like in this game with other guys, and that's who THEY'RE gonna be paired with, obviously, so... I don't know what I am going to do in that case. I'll likely have a female Avatar because of this. I need to work out what she'll look like, though. Rather, how I'll adapt her appearence to FE13.

I did jump the gun a bit there. I apologize. Haha, my post was more a sort of "how would this be possible" suggestion, anyway, rather than a real serious theory. Glad to see you've got a counterargument, though. Certainly, I was actually expecting much ruder counterarguments, so thank you for being fairly polite about it.

Soren is FtM in a world without sex change operations. And everyone is super-duper politically-correct about it because they're either nice people, they don't know about it or they already have his brandedness to pick on him for and doubling up mockery would just be mean. Ike and Soren leave on a magical sea-sailing dimension-hopping adventure, they sleep together, Soren gets preggers and has baby, and generations later... Parion. Problem solved. ...In all seriousness, though, that's really the best theory I can come up with. I know lots of people will disagree with me, but Ike X Soren really seems like the most likely pairing for Ike to me. Soren is the person with whom Ike shares his closest non-familial bond, and Ike's supports with girls aren't really any MORE romantic than his supports with Soren, taking the final conversation in Radiant Dawn into account. And just look at Soren. He may act like a male and be one socially, but he sure doesn't look like one, and he's dressed in such heavy robes, who's to say he's not biologically female? Soren's concept art even shows that he's fairly curvy, and his chest is never seen uncovered. ... Food for thought. Note: As a disclaimer, I don't at all mean to imply that this is, or should be, canon. It's just an idea as to how Paris could've come about given the circumstances of Ike's departure. Remember that for Paris to have been descended from Ike, Ike would still need to have at least one kid, otherwise his bloodline would end with him and there would be no descendant. Also, to Anacybele: Please do not take offense at my post. I don't mean to say that IkeElincia is a bad pairing (heck, I shipped it too when I first played PoR), I'm just saying that I honestly think IkeSoren is more likely based on the characters' relationships at the end of the Tellius saga, as Ike's ending pretty much locks him out of canonically being with ANY girl from the Tellius games, with only Soren, Ranulf and offscreen people as his potential hookups. And, to be honest, Ranulf looks pretty definitely biologically-male. So, it's either Ike X FtM Soren or Ike X Unseen Female as Parion's ancestors. I think I just got myself into something that may prove... chaotic. EDIT: Heehee actually this entire section that was here was completely irrelevant nevermind~

Wouldn't you still need to make a mug for the status sheet, though?

Yep, that's pretty much it. Well, that and don't go overboard trying to "fit in". I can see where people would find this an appealing prospect, but... I don't know, whenever I try to make a character who is me I just feel so incredibly awkward and like an egotistical idiot and it's just so much more fun to make an original character to fill that role. You get to be all kinds of creative, and the character is more likely to really fit in with the world and cast and not be out-of-place if they're made for that role rather that simply being "you". Besides, it's much more interesting hearing about someone's original character than it is hearing about their fantasy adaptation of themselves. Not that I look down on people who do make self-inserts as their custom characters, it's just not my cup of tea. Um, anyway, that said, I started gaming when I was, what, like 4 or 5? I'm 18 now, and I have no intention of stopping anytime in the remotely foreseeable future. Do what you enjoy, unless it's illegal and/or harmful to yourself and/or others, in which case never do it ever for the rest of the eternity of time.