Fixing Fates story issues (spoilers)

[Alazen]

Fates' major cast list has too many irrelevant or underused characters (see the royal sisters) for it to be top-notch.

[Taka-kun]

Ooh, it's soooo good! I also recommend Ace Attorney and Persona 4.

Did Nintendo hype the story up, or did Intelligent Systems? Honestly, the developers were the ones who chose to only talk about it during their interview with Mr. Iwata, not Nintendo, right? I wonder if they straight up lied to his face or actually thought what they had was anything worth bragging about. Both answers scare me.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Sounds like Kamui and Camilla

Yeah, I absolutely loved the Ace Attorney trilogy, with moderate love for the sequels (damn, when will we get Dai Gyakuten Saiban?). I personally prefer Persona 3 over Persona 4. More mystery and less... high school.

Well, I believe most of us got hyped by the direct back in April I believe, where Iwata (may he rest in peace) told about all this choice theme and the trailer emphasizing on it. We really don't know the workings behind the large company and the upper management of Nintendo would probably not care since Fates sold well anyways. We'll have to see if IS ACTUALLY learns this time.

I see what you did there

[Thane]

Yeah, I absolutely loved the Ace Attorney trilogy, with moderate love for the sequels (damn, when will we get Dai Gyakuten Saiban?). I personally prefer Persona 3 over Persona 4. More mystery and less... high school.

Well, I believe most of us got hyped by the direct back in April I believe, where Iwata (may he rest in peace) told about all this choice theme and the trailer emphasizing on it. We really don't know the workings behind the large company and the upper management of Nintendo would probably not care since Fates sold well anyways. We'll have to see if IS ACTUALLY learns this time.

I see what you did there

[spoiler=Ace Attorney summed up in eight seconds] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj7DUuIiWF0

Nah, Persona 3 was alright, but it had some of the worst villains in any video game ever, and the writing was far more stale and cliché - seriously, remember when Akihiko and Shinji met on that beefbowl place in the beginning of the game? Take a shot everytime you hear a line you've heard at least three times in action movies and you'll end up wasted. Speaking of Akihiko, isn't it weird how Minto can't have social links with the guys of the group? I mean, you find out nothing about Akihiko as a character unless you play as the female protagonist, which is another flaw in that game - seriously, aside from the Hermit social link, Minako's storyline is far more interesting and personal than Minato's. It's still the same game, sure, and the stale writing and horrible villains remain, but you still get to know everyone in your group, and not just everyone of the opposite sex which the game FORCES YOU to get into a relationship with.

I will agree that Persona 4 had too much anime in it though - the game is at its strongest when it does its own thing rather than relying on tropes - but the setting was fantastic, and they actually took time to develop Inaba, in stark contrast to whatever the hell the city in Persona 3 is called, and where they just throw random shit in your face and spout exposition the second you start the game. Also, I think people tend to forget the anime stuff in Persona 3 as well - you go to a tropical island, Junpei rates how the girls look in a bikini, later on in the game there's a hot spring episode filled with anime clichés that have been used for decades now. Also, it's a game with sexy robot girls and more than a few anime character archetypes with few surprises - in Persona 4, the game tries very hard - and often succeeds - in showing the player that there's more to the characters than we're first led to believe.

I think they do care. Even if a company will always care about money and sales, trust and costumer satisfaction is also important, not to mention video game companies have more room for passion than many other types of companies, and the product is very personal, meaning that developers want the players to enjoy what they've created, or at least so my little naïve mind tells me.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Thane

[Alazen]

After thinking about it, if Kamui is Mikoto and Sumeragi's birth child in any rewrite then how does he end up in Nohr? Does news spread to Nohr of the youngest Hoshidan royal child having the ears of the gods, leading to Garon sending someone to kidnap Kamui for his dastardly plan? Does Sumeragi take his youngest child out with him on campaign? Is Kamui's dragonness thanks to a ritual Sumeragi finished right before getting waylaid by Garon and Co.?

Edited August 26, 2015 by Alazen

[Yari]

After thinking about it, if Kamui is Mikoto and Sumeragi's birth child in any rewrite then how does he end up in Nohr? Does news spread to Nohr of the youngest Hoshidan royal child having the ears of the gods, leading to Garon sending someone to kidnap Kamui for his dastardly plan? Does Sumeragi take his youngest child out with him on campaign?

I don't think that a country spying on a enemy country is unusual, plus for all we know Kamui could have not been the youngest child at the time they were kidnapped. Maybe Takumi and Sakura had already been born. I don't know why Sumeragi would bring Kamui to Nohr, maybe it wasn't suppose to be fight but something else?

[Ryo]

After thinking about it, if Kamui is Mikoto and Sumeragi's birth child in any rewrite then how does he end up in Nohr? Does news spread to Nohr of the youngest Hoshidan royal child having the ears of the gods, leading to Garon sending someone to kidnap Kamui for his dastardly plan? Does Sumeragi take his youngest child out with him on campaign? Is Kamui's dragonness thanks to a ritual Sumeragi finished right before getting waylaid by Garon and Co.?

But if Kamui didn't have dragon powers beforehand, why would Garon kidnap him considering that he's practically useless?

[Yari]

But if Kamui didn't have dragon powers beforehand, why would Garon kidnap him considering that he's practically useless?

Then the story would be totally diferent. Probably for the better. Or Kamui would have been blessesed by a dragon that gave them dragon power or gotten a "DNA jackpot" thing that gave them dragon powers. Both very hard to pull off options that would make Kamui seem like a Mary Sue if done wrong.

[artishe]

Sorry, but I disagree; Fates has far more problems than just Flubber Garon. The siblings not named Leo and Takumi are painfully underdeveloped, interesting potential subplots are skimmed over (Kamui returns to Nohr and is now able to turn into a dragon; you'd think his family members would at least mention it, but no), the plot is solely moved forward because of contrivances and plot devices, characters' actions and reactions rarely make any sense, Conquest is 3/4 filler and even the the last fourth is a complete and utter mess that feels completely forced and nonsensical. The game itself calls Conquest and Birthright WRONG, so two thirds of the entire game is inconsequential and will most likely be treated as non-canon anyway.

I could go on, but this has been discussed to death - the people who come in now and say "well how about this?" can look up older threads or just browse through this one and probably find their answers there: I can find almost nothing redeemable about the main story other than the premise and the choice itself, but even that is cheapened by the third route.

The story needs to be completely reworked if it is to have any semblance of quality.

And sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you. While Fates definitely has its issues, none of them (or even all of them together) are so extreme that 'the story needs to be completely reworked if it is to have any semblance of quality.'

The siblings not named Leo and Takumi all have plenty of development in their supports at the least and all have solid personalities/motivations. Now, as I've said before, more of it should really be shown in the main plot, but since all that really needs to be done here is move some of that from the supports to the main plot, it's not a complete overhaul to add it. Everything you need to flesh out the siblings is in game, IS just did a crummy job showing it.

Interesting subplots... I'm going to just address your example first. I wouldn't really say that's a subplot because like you said yourself, all it requires is a mention. Would that mention be nice? Yeah, but there's not really much reason to include it (beyond the satisfaction of it being there) unless it's going to spur conflict or develop characters. A story doesn't need subplots, and more subplots doesn't necessarily equal a good story (usually it just comes across as more bogged down/complex unless there's room to space it out anyways). Not to mention Fire Emblem's format isn't good for subplots unless they're gaiden chapters because FE isn't usually text heavy enough to handle it beyond a chapter anyways. Either way, subplots can coexist with the current plot, so I wouldn't say this is rehaul worthy either.

The plot moving forward only because of contrivances/plot devices... Slime-monster Garon, the crystal ball mess, and the IK curse really stand out to me here. This is definitely the worst of the issues, buuut I'd say those three things are a straightforward fix. Slime-monster Garon -> regular human Garon solves two of those and leaves most of the Nohr plot in tact. The end needs to be rewritten, but the Nohr plot isn't unsalvagable. The IK curse, honestly, could just be removed. Aqua's really not in a position of power in either country, and there's no reason for anyone (except for Kamui, who's portrayed as extremely naive) to believe her strange story about an invisible kingdom. Especially not while there's a war going on.

The royals (Nohr at least, I haven't looked into the Hoshidans too closely) all have personalities/backgrounds/motivations that justify their actions. Unfortunately, it's 80% in the supports, but once you move some of that in to the main plot, problem solved. Everything to make sense of the characters' actions is in-game already.

Conquest being 3/4 filler... If you mean most of the Hoshidan war/ Garon mess is in the last quarter of the plot, then yeah. But the main conflict in Conquest centered around slime-Garon trying to break Kamui's spirit/naivety/whatever. He blatantly says multiple times how he sends her on all the tasks to bring her to despair. And then wants to bring her more despair after that. And Kamui usually comes out triumphant killing the minimal number of people while remaining relatively pure. Conquest is a character driven plotline. Birthright isn't. I wouldn't say you can really compare the amount of content in the two because they're apples and oranges. The big issue here is that it wasn't what people were expecting based on advertising, not that it's an incomplete story. It's also worth mentioning Birthright, Conquest, and IK are meant to all be played for a complete narrative arc, so Birthright and Conquest tackle different parts of that story.

As for the game calling Conquest and Birthright wrong, I guess I don't see the issue here. Whether or not they're right/wrong/whatever, it doesn't really invalidate what's happening in the current route unless you decide IK is the only route. IK might be the 'best' route, but that doesn't mean what happens in Birthright can't be your canon. I want to say IS explained it as timeline mess (looping timeline maybe? Something with Kamui doing it again til they get it right?) but don't quote me on that.

So while I would say some of those points merit work, there's more than enough in-game material to fix most of it. Unless you're writing a major FE14 AU, like turning Nohr into a plot-driven rebellion storyline, (which is fun! I've got an AU, too!), you don't really have to change too much. There's quality material already there.

Edited August 26, 2015 by artishe

[Alazen]

The siblings not named Leo and Takumi all have plenty of development in their supports at the least

The point is that the siblings besides Takumi and Leon are at large irrelevant or underused for how close they supposedly are to Kamui.

Conquest being 3/4 filler... If you mean most of the Hoshidan war/ Garon mess is in the last quarter of the plot, then yeah. But the main conflict in Conquest centered around slime-Garon trying to break Kamui's spirit/naivety/whatever.

Which is shoddy since Kamui is too underwhelming a character (at best) for such a large amount of Conquest's Chapters to be so fixated on Fake Garon or whoever trying to make him cry.

He blatantly says multiple times how he sends her on all the tasks to bring her to despair. And then wants to bring her more despair after that.

In other words, Fake Garon is a baby eating foe who apparently has nothing better to do than to try to make Kamui cry.

And Kamui usually comes out triumphant killing the minimal number of people while remaining relatively pure.

Heaven help us if the narrative doesn't go out of its way to back or excuse Kamui.

Conquest is a character driven plotline. Birthright isn't.

The Nohr royal sisters are irrelevant, Aqua provides magical devices and terrible plans, Nohr's opposing leadership consists of either baby eaters like Macbeth or lackey Marx, Kamui is a shining paragon who is backed or otherwise excused throughout the narrative.

Conquest's list of characters who are actually relevant and better characterized is too small to call it character driven.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Alazen

[NekoKnight]

tl;dr: The siblings oppose Garon not because that is their own resolution, nor because they've grown out of their own fears or struggles, but because he's a monster. This is not good writing IMO.

Well said. The idea that the siblings oppose Garon in the end because of how he looks, rather than all of his actions up to that point doesn't say positive things about them. What would have happened if Garon wasn't a goo monster? Marx tells Kamui to fuck off and Garon continues his evil mustache twirling ways?

After thinking about it, if Kamui is Mikoto and Sumeragi's birth child in any rewrite then how does he end up in Nohr? Does news spread to Nohr of the youngest Hoshidan royal child having the ears of the gods, leading to Garon sending someone to kidnap Kamui for his dastardly plan? Does Sumeragi take his youngest child out with him on campaign? Is Kamui's dragonness thanks to a ritual Sumeragi finished right before getting waylaid by Garon and Co.?

In my rewrite, Sumeragi is invited to Chevalier to discuss a peace treaty, which turns out to be a trap. Originally, he was going to take Ryoma to observe political affairs (Garon's original target for kidnapping) but Ryoma suddenly took ill and Kamui was brought along instead (I might age up Kamui to where he is old enough to appreciate the gesture). Garon's goal was to kill Sumeragi and abduct his legal successor to force isolationist Hoshido to accept a trade agreement but the plan failed when Kamui was taken instead (the Hoshido royal court overrules Mikoto's wishes to recover Kamui, saying that it isn't worth it when they still have Ryoma.) Normally, Garon would have killed his useless hostage but when he saw Kamui's special features, he sensed he may prove useful in the future.

As for why Sumeragi was naive enough to fall for the trap, I'm imagining a situation like the Red Wedding (GoT stuff) where Chevalier (a neutral party) promised sanctuary to Hoshido, but made a backdoor deal with Nohr to retain their autonomy after Nohrs conquest in exchange for betraying Hoshido.

[-Cynthia-]

From what I've read of the summaries, the siblings decide to side with Kamui and oppose Ganz/Macbeth/Garon regardless, the slime monster reveal comes afterwards.

Edited August 27, 2015 by -Cynthia-

[Alazen]

In my rewrite, Sumeragi is invited to Chevalier to discuss a peace treaty, which turns out to be a trap. Originally, he was going to take Ryoma to observe political affairs (Garon's original target for kidnapping) but Ryoma suddenly took ill and Kamui was brought along instead (I might age up Kamui to where he is old enough to appreciate the gesture). Garon's goal was to kill Sumeragi and abduct his legal successor to force isolationist Hoshido to accept a trade agreement but the plan failed when Kamui was taken instead (the Hoshido royal court overrules Mikoto's wishes to recover Kamui, saying that it isn't worth it when they still have Ryoma.) Normally, Garon would have killed his useless hostage but when he saw Kamui's special features, he sensed he may prove useful in the future.

As for why Sumeragi was naive enough to fall for the trap, I'm imagining a situation like the Red Wedding (GoT stuff) where Chevalier (a neutral party) promised sanctuary to Hoshido, but made a backdoor deal with Nohr to retain their autonomy after Nohrs conquest in exchange for betraying Hoshido.

Hmmm, might work. Anything else? Have you tossed out reforming Nohr since Conquest failed to set room for both that and fighting Hoshido? Edited August 27, 2015 by Alazen

[NekoKnight]

Hmmm, might work. Anything else? Have you tossed out reforming Nohr since Fates failed to set room for both that and fighting Hoshido?

No, I am slowly but surely writing the framework for the Nohr story and where the conquest ends and the reform begins. The conquest of Hoshido will be complete around chapter 15 after which Garon's control of Hoshido will become increasingly more brutal in response to Hoshidan resistance. By the end of chapter 18, half the Hoshidan siblings are dead and Hinoka will convince Kamui that Garon won't stop until Hoshido is completely destroyed. Elise, Leon and Camilla will be on board for dethroning Garon (Kamui wanted to rebel against Garon since his mother died but his siblings were hesitant until now) but it won't be until around chapter 20/21 that Marx is convinced that things need to change.

Even writing chapter summaries is a tiring affair. Props to the writers for the effort, at least.

Edited August 27, 2015 by NekoKnight

[Ryo]

From what I've read of the summaries, the siblings decide to side with Kamui and oppose Ganz/Macbeth/Garon regardless, the slime monster reveal comes afterwards.

They do things behind his back, but have never actually stood up against him, and cooperate with him regardless. They killed Ganz and Macbeth (whom they have always despised anyways), but didn't have any intention of doing something to Garon (not even opposing him). Marx even suspected that Kamui's betraying them when they told the siblings to go against Garon (and that's like... 2 chapters before endgame), only when the monster was uncovered and was about to kill them did they take any direct action. None of the siblings has ever grown out of their inner dilemmas in Conquest (which most of them do in Birthright and IK to a lesser degree), because the plot conveniently spared them all the drama.

In the third route, despite blatantly in cahoot with their former enemies, the siblings also don't have any plans for Garon, who is conveniently eaten up by Hydra.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Ryo

[artishe]

The point is that the siblings besides Takumi and Leon are at large irrelevant or underused for how close they supposedly are to Kamui.

You can't take Marx and Ryouma out of the plot and have the same story, and I'd think that's pretty clear. You can't take Elise out of the Hoshido route. The only siblings that have weaker arguments are the older sisters and Sakura. With all three of them being more important for the endings and Sakura/Hinoka functioning as motivation for Ryouma at the end.

Which is shoddy since Kamui is too underwhelming a character (at best) for such a large amount of Conquest's Chapters to be so fixated on Fake Garon or whoever trying to make him cry.

And I'd say I didn't find it shoddy and found Kamui a fine character, if nothing else no worse than any of the other lords I played. Opinions on the plot aside, though, my point is that there is one. I mean... I don't particularly like the plot of Wuthering Heights, for example, but I wouldn't call 80% of the book filler for the 20% I liked.

In other words, Fake Garon is a baby eating foe who apparently has nothing better to do than to try to make Kamui cry.

It's the main plot, so yeah, that's what he spends most of his time trying to do. It's not like he doesn't have motivation. If you pick the Hoshido route, Marx pushes the war. If you pick the Nohr route, he's a far softer character (someone even comments on how he's unrecognizable if Kamui leaves him to Garon on the Hoshido route). On the Hoshido route, Camilla doesn't even want to fight after discovering Kamui's pure nature is untainted. Leon's persuaded away by her, too. It makes sense for Garon to want Kamui gone/broken (and he's even surprised she stayed on the Nohr route). The Nohr siblings really aren't helping his war otherwise, and you can see it on the Nohr route, where they low-key disobey him from the very beginning of the route split for her.

Heaven help us if the narrative doesn't go out of its way to back or excuse Kamui.

All I'm saying there is that the conflict in the plot centers around Kamui and her nature. The narrative doesn't go out of its way to back/excuse Kamui because Kamui and her nature are at the center of the Nohr story. Whether or not people like the narrative is a different matter.

Conquest's list of characters who are actually relevant and better characterized is too small to call it character driven.

The number of characters relevant and better characterized is irrelevant to whether or not a plot is character driven. The point is, if you take Kamui out of the Nohr route, the story is different. If you take Kamui out of the Hoshido route, they still have to fight Nohr in the same war. The Nohr/Hoshido routes even show you this.

Edit: I'm not saying you have to like the plot just that it's there.

Edited August 27, 2015 by artishe

[Damosel]

Definitely agree with the comments of the character archs for the Nohr royal sibs falling flat in the face of Gooran. Even if they'd all agreed to support Kamui beforehand, there's not any downside or moral conflict about putting down a goo monster- as opposed to their actual father whom they'd at least be conflicted over. (ug, if only Garon was like Trabant and had some kind of positive relationship to add tension to the situation- but no)

I don't think that a country spying on a enemy country is unusual, plus for all we know Kamui could have not been the youngest child at the time they were kidnapped. Maybe Takumi and Sakura had already been born. I don't know why Sumeragi would bring Kamui to Nohr, maybe it wasn't suppose to be fight but something else?

There's totally spying going on, If the Saizou/Belka supports are any indication ninja from Hoshido even go incognito to preform assassinations across the border. I did a bit of number crunching and if twelve years passed since the kidnapping and Sakura's currently 14-15 then she was 2-3 at the time, if Elise is 12 then she could've been 1 or even just in months for age. I definitely think Leo and Takumi had been born by that time (along with Sakura being at least concieved cause of what Ryouma tells her about Sumeragi/Ikona naming her), though I project the younger bros to be in their late teens.

As for the latter... I keep trying to reconcile the Sumeragi-brings-Kamui-to-Chevalier thing, and I always feel like the context doesn't fit together well. From the game we know Crimson is part of a rebellion, one that wants to out Nohr from Chevalier- whether it's regarding rule or just infulence, I really can't tell. It seems like Chevalier is a tributary state to Nohr, which if it was at that time Sumeragi knowingly went into enemy territory rather than neutral ground.

In my rewrite, Sumeragi is invited to Chevalier to discuss a peace treaty, which turns out to be a trap. [...] As for why Sumeragi was naive enough to fall for the trap, I'm imagining a situation like the Red Wedding (GoT stuff) where Chevalier (a neutral party) promised sanctuary to Hoshido, but made a backdoor deal with Nohr to retain their autonomy after Nohrs conquest in exchange for betraying Hoshido.

But maybe at they time on the edge of emanicipation? Or they were neutral? Or maybe Garon broke the sanctuary and THEN proceeded to conquer Chevalier, turning them into a tributary. Ug, I wish the game gave us more flavor text on these things!

edit:

That is some very good ideas there that could work well in the setting. As you might know, a number of us here are also in the process of our own fics which will never get released, so I hope you don't mind if we take cues from your worldbuilding.

Also feel free since it's a factiod out of history, I just did the research and spinning to see if it'd fit in the setting.

Also also I have major beef with the fact that Sakura's statement of "All people in Hoshido are good!" is treated as 100% fact. So booooooooooooooringly perfect.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Damosel

[Ryo]

About the "defeat Hoshido first then overthrow Garon in the later half" plot that some have been suggesting, I wonder why IS didn't just take that direction (many people actually expected it to go like that when the initial promotion materials came out). It's a lot simpler yet still effective because it could have achieved many important objectives at the same time:

- You still have to go to war with Hoshido, there's no avoiding that, but not because of some forced plot device or horrible tactic from Aqua's part. The tragedy is still there, if not more than what we're having now.

- Hinoka or whoever survives out of that mess would receive more character developments.

- The non-Marx siblings have legitimate reasons to overthrow or even kill Garon (while getting a chance to grow out of their fears), because he's crossed the line. They're also backed up by the Hoshidan rebellions, so it's not like executing them would be easy even if Garon wants to ----> one of the fundamental problems solved.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Ryo

[Yari]

I am getting a gist of what you are trying to do and honestly, that's a good start of where you want to go with them. But they are in all three stories? What's the difference between your Conquest and Birthright?

Yup. All three stories. I'm a crazy sadomasochist.

The base storylines are diferent, the hardships the characters go through are diferent, the political stuff is diferent, Hoshido tries defends/tries to prevent attacks, Nohr starts the attacks, etc... I don't think that was the best way to explain but it's all I have.I'm sorry it took me three days to answer but I've been having a fangirl attack.

[Alazen]

I have figured that Fates shouldn't have tried to include "The War of the Two Kingdoms", ''The Reformation of Nohr'', and ''Invisible Kingdom Shenanigans'' all across Fates.

Fates is another Awakening situation in that the development team bit off more than it could chew. The narrative suffers from shoving in so much yet spreading it so thin. The lack of relevance for the royal sisters demonstrates this.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Alazen

[Sunwoo]

There's totally spying going on, If the Saizou/Belka supports are any indication ninja from Hoshido even go incognito to preform assassinations across the border. I did a bit of number crunching and if twelve years passed since the kidnapping and Sakura's currently 14-15 then she was 2-3 at the time, if Elise is 12 then she could've been 1 or even just in months for age. I definitely think Leo and Takumi had been born by that time (along with Sakura being at least concieved cause of what Ryouma tells her about Sumeragi/Ikona naming her), though I project the younger bros to be in their late teens.

I think it was implied, if not outright said, in Elise and Aqua's B support that Elise was born after Aqua was kidnapped and already in Hoshido. Sakura, on the other hand, would definitely have been born already.

[NekoKnight]

They are probably mentioned in chapter summaries somewhere but does anyone have a list of the locations/territories/factions that exist in Hoshido and Nohr? I want to get a better idea of the locations for worldbuilding organization but only a few of the big ones come to mind. Izumo, Fuuma, Chevalier...

[The DanMan]

They are probably mentioned in chapter summaries somewhere but does anyone have a list of the locations/territories/factions that exist in Hoshido and Nohr? I want to get a better idea of the locations for worldbuilding organization but only a few of the big ones come to mind. Izumo, Fuuma, Chevalier...

Vincent dug around with the files and assembled a complete world map with all the locations marked and with names not too long after release. Here:

http://serenesforest.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/world-map-all.jpg

[NekoKnight]

Vincent dug around with the files and assembled a complete world map with all the locations marked and with names not too long after release. Here:

http://serenesforest.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/world-map-all.jpg

Wow, thanks, that's just what I needed.

[Alazen]

Honestly, cleaning up Nohr was doomed to failure since it's apparent that the development team either has a poor grasp of actual coups and/or revolts or knowingly held the narrative down.

The French Revolutionaries didn't just have to behead Louis XVI, they had to take on assorted advocates of the ancien regime. They had to put down a counter-revolutionary movement. And guess what? Men died who weren't mustache twirlers. Fates is so fixated on not letting Kamui be vilified that the game sidesteps the issue by not only making most of Nohr's opposing leadership over-the-top dastardly, but having Aqua pop-up with a convenient crystal ball that conveniently reveals Fake Garon.

Even the point that Nohr is a harsher land goes out the window when it turns out Ryoma can have supplies sent to Nohr, showing that apparently all the Nohrians had to was ask.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Alazen

[Dark Sage]

You know one thing I'm surprised hasn't been brought up is Iago/Macbeth

Like, when I saw him in the trailer, I figured he was probably going to be the evil chancellor or adviser, poisoning Garon's mind and making him grow increasingly paranoid, to the point where he'd eventually try to have Kamui killed. In other words, he'd basically act like Othello's Iago or Lady Macbeth. Nope, he's basically just a thug who licks Garon's boots and this Garon isn't even the real Garon, just a slime monster.

I am 90% sure that my first impression is what Iago/Macbeth was intended to be in the original draft that ended up getting botched for some reason. I don't understand why they didn't just go with that, he's named Macbeth for crying out loud, it practically writes itself. I mean it's a trope or cliche, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Any rewrite of Fates should address this in some way and it would probably be the easiest to change. Ganz should just be a midboss or Iago's lackey. Ganz is one of those who guys who you'd kill in some of the first chapters of other Fire Emblems, why does he survive most of the game.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Dark Sage