Jump to content

What do you think about FE:If's 3 path stories?


Is the 3 paths story any good?  

59 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you think of Birthright's story?

    • One of the best!
      6
    • Above par.
      10
    • Good enough.
      34
    • Rather disappointing...
      9
  2. 2. What do you think of Conquest's story?

    • One of the best!
      2
    • Above par.
      5
    • Good enough.
      12
    • Rather disappointing...
      40
  3. 3. What do you think of the Invisible Kingdom's story?

    • One of the best!
      2
    • Above par.
      7
    • Good enough.
      24
    • Rather disappointing...
      26


Recommended Posts

So I just rather want to hear it straight. I like to nit pick and dig down deep into my games. I've done pretty well so far dodging spoilers. Even when I open some up and not even get a cent of what it meant (though I know IK is the true). I played Awakening, I thought the story was meh, I played Blazing Sword and found it exceptional.

So, topic. What do you think about Fire Emblem: Fates story/plot of each path?

I'm aware not every story can be good, but I might not consider this gen if I'm going to play 24+ hours of an RPG and find the story not engaging enough. I'm willing to give these weird characters, mechanics and everything else a try, but only if the story is actually worth it, I'll regret it after a week of play. So I want honest opinions.

- One of the Best!: Fully engaging and you could never say the story was bad in any way. Worth every cent.

- Above Par.: Really good. You'll probably play more playthroughs you usually go through, weather you find the rest of the game mediocre. Worth the money.

- Good Enough.: It's tolerable. Nothing spectacular. You'd probably enjoy it as much as Awakenings story. You probably stick with this version though.

- Rather disappointing...: You wouldn't buy this game for the sake of the story. You better hope you like everything else. This versions story isn't worth it. Just rent or borrow it.

If you going to post something about the story from one of the 3 paths, please put it in "Spoilers".

Votes and Posts from members who've played the game or currently knows the story very well preferably.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's worse than Awakening and even worse than Blazing Sword's story. It feels like a missed opportunity and like you're watching a slideshow rather than being engaged in a story.

The gameplay is fantastic though, and there are several really nice characters as far as Fire Emblem goes, so I definitely don't regret my purchase; I just don't understand why they hyped the story to that extent.

Edit: I should probably point out that I think a lot could've been improved if there were only two routes. As it stands now, the story is too fragmented, most likely as a result of too many writers and executive meddling.

Edited by Thane
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I'm to look at the three versions individually, Birthright is the most passable, slightly better than Awakening. Even though there are still some "dumb moments" here and there, the story flows the most naturally there.

Conquest tries to vow for a "convoluted" story, but the plot itself has missed many good potentials and opportunities for an interesting dynamic between the political entities. The specific execution and writing are awful.

IK is passable, but I personally dislike the concept. There's nothing really special to talk about, really.

Overall, like Thane said, the story is severely fragmented and all over the place. There are many plot conveniences that exist as an excuse for the bad writing. Some characters' actions, thoughts, and knowledge are inconsistent between the three routes. And again, wasted potentials.

On the plus side, I think the cast this time is an overall improvement from Awakening, despite some questionable characters and support conversations. Also,

if you're an emotional person, you can still get quite some feels from this game, especially in Birthright.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright, before I give my opinions, first let me put a couple of things in context. I have yet the play the game myself, and am working mainly on what translated dialogue I've seen as well as the various in depth pop synopsizes produced by various people who have played the games. So I do know the story very well, as I've tried to read every detail I can on it. Secondly, I enjoyed Awakening's story (wait, the person with a Robin x Lucina avatar liked Awakening? Madness!) despite its flaws. My opinion there was that there was nothing particularly awful to the story: it was just very barebones and glossed over every actual interesting idea without ever exploring them or doing anything with it.

Now, onto the three routes.

Birthright is easily the best out of the 3 routes, which is rather depressing considering its the least ambitious of the three. You have a clear good and evil, but with tragedy to it, particularly when it comes to the fates of the (general accepted more as interesting) Nohr route characters. It's story does stumble in places, but it has enough honestly well executed moments to make up for it. The main issue here really is that it feels like a lot of the actual plot resolution and answers were cut out to save them for the Invisible Kingdom route. though it still has at least more resolution than Conquest. All in all, this route is good enough.

Conquest... oh dear lord did they screw up Conquest. Billed as a more complex story about revolutionizing an dark kingdom from the inside, you instead get a story where the characters regardless of faction are indecisive idiots (who are otherwise not so in the other two routes) and a hero who blindly follows blatantly evil orders unquestionably. In fact, if you "enjoy" the lots of the following, then you'll "love" Conquest.

  1. Aqua: "I have a technically reasonable, but rather stupid plan to stop the war!". Kamui: "Great! Lets not tell anyone else about this plan, thus make it a million times harder to pull off. Its not like tons of people will die or anything"
  2. Kamui: "Alright, I took a bunch of prisoners and avoided needless death". Evil General Guy: "Sup, I'm going to kill all your prisoners now, since I am cartoonishly evil because reasons." Kamui: "I am shocked and horrified by this, despite the fact this happens mutliple times and yet won't ever do anything about it"
  3. Kamui: "I think your Garon is evil!". Leo&Marx: "I don't believe you. Do you have proof?" Kamui: "No, not really. Never mind". **repeats multiple times until near the end of the game... ** Kamui & Leo & Marx. "Holy crap, Garon is evil! Lets actually do something during the last few chapters!"
  4. And most of all, lots and lots of "Should we do something?" "We should do something!" "Should we do something?" "I think we should do something!" "We should do something!" "But should we do something?" "We should do something!"

The only real saving graces of this route are its gameplay, which is apparently amazing, and the characters, which are generally agreed to be more interesting with better supports. Still, this route in terms of plot is definitely disappointing.

The Invisible Kingdom route is a tricky one, since on one had its overall story its as complete a train wreck as Conquest and like Birthright is has a lot of enjoyable moments. The problem with it is two fold. The first is that it retroactively makes the other two routes worse, since it is only in this route that you actually defeat the true big bad and thus the other two were actually meaningless. Also a lot of the reveals don't jive well with the other two routes, raising so many questions why certain things didn't happen in the other two routes. The second issue is that it has lots of holes, and fails to come together when you really think about it. This one is sort of hard to vote, as while I picked "good enough" I was really tempted to give it a disappointing instead. Consider it a fun ride with some good moments as long as you don't stop to think about it at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not going to actually vote until I've actually finished the game. I'd say:

Dark Night Kingdom

To be honest, I was able to feel the general helplessness of Kamui. Kamui wanted to revolve, but couldn't find a chance to do that. I do agree that Kamui was incredibly stupid for, well, not handling the obviously evil people well enough, and Leon probably makes for a better leader.

The difference between Kamui and the other "kind" characters is that Kamui is just... way too naive. But I guess that's... fine? It is part of the character design, and while it doesn't make for good main character material, it's kind of refreshing in contrast with the usual Marth-type (soft, kind people) or the Hector-type (not the brightest, but strong-willed). Certainly a better leader than Leaf (for other reasons), if anything.

White Night Kingdom

Haven't played it yet. I doubt I'll be as immersed in this route now that I love most characters in the other route.

Invisible Kingdom

I expected Radiant Dawn. Now I'm disappointed because it's still too dark. I actually think they should make a TRUE true route where they slay no playable characters at all.

The Invisible Kingdom curse

I actually find this rather effective. The premise is incredibly lazy, but it did its job in making Kamui and Aqua's jobs difficult. I can't stress it enough that the Blood Pact is far, far stupider than this.

Based on the guideline of the top post, it's probably "above par" to me. It's not really above par, but I'm willing to pay more than the listed price.

Edited by nocturnal YL
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All 3 routes have problems, but I say Conquest is the worst while Hoshido is the best, but "best" here just means ok, nothing amazing.

I think the idea of choosing a side could have made a great plot, but like others said, the execution is just awful, and the third route just made the other routes seem meaningless. If the other routes had better story execution, then it would have been alright, but they didn't.

But at least the characters and supports seem more fleshed out than Awakening's, and the gameplay is improved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly the only story that was outright bad was Nohr's.

Invisible Kingdom is fine and the only Issue I have with Hoshido's is that

during chapter 6 you're getting invaded by Nohr, then after that they never invade again, it doesn't make much sense when you're supposed to be the ones on the defensive.

Nohr is just riddled with plotholes though for example

When you visit the Invisible Kingdom with Aqua and meet Gunther, how come she doesn't tell you about the IK and Hydra there? It makes no sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah it felt pretty strange for the Hoshido story to have you just smash through Nohr forces in simple, easy chapters while the Nohr story had more difficult and complex fights to combat all the tricks Hoshido was throwing at you. It fit the stated premises of the stories but made the two kingdoms' respective military forces seem off when considered together.

I haven't read many dialogue translations, but looking mostly at how the stories were told through gameplay, it was pretty cool fighting your siblings and other recognizable characters from the other side. The Hoshido story seemed to me to have the best set of antagonists, such as the Nohr siblings who are important to you but are doing the wrong thing, but the execution for the battles with them was usually lacking. In contrast, in the Nohr story, the Hoshido siblings didn't feel like they should be antagonists, they were defending against you when you were on the wrong side, but the battles with them were executed phenomenally and really made the most of the concept of fighting characters from the other route. Invisible Kingdom didn't Invisible Kingdom only had a few battles with siblings and other playable characters before they joined, and they weren't handled particularly well. The battles with the Invisible Kingdom itself were often strange and lacked the excitement of fighting more familiar characters, although I imagine I'll appreciate it more when I do more reading up on exactly what was going on to understand it better, especially pertaining to a few obvious things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nohr-I'm the least familiar with this one, but I do know the whole 'revolutionizing from the inside' thing wasn't actually true. And that the characters don't actually do anything about resisting Garon until the final chapters of the story. Overall, I can't say much do to a lack of familiarity, but I do take others at their word that its a mess.

Hoshido-Probably the best of the three stories (though not my favorite), its your classic 'plucky resistance vs invading empire' type story, with tragic deaths that feel appropriate, and a bittersweet, but satisfying ending. Its not super impressive, but it falls firmly into the realm of 'good enough.'

Invisible Kingdom

My personal favorite of the three routes. The first key to enjoying this route is to simply pretend the other two routes don't exist and take this as its own individual story. In other words, its best not to question the plot holes it induces in the other routes, and take it standalone. Out of the three routes, this is the one that actually feels the most like 'Fire Emblem' to me. Appropriately enough, its also the only route where the complete Fire Emblem itself comes into play.

Aqua's whole 'can't tell anyone about IK outside IK' seems stupid because of the other two routes, but again, pretend the other two routes don't exist. It then becomes a fairly refreshing twist on the 'greater threat playing both sides' plot. To me, making it so that even if people discover the 'man behind the man' they can't tell anyone was incredibly genre savvy on the part of Anankos. I know most people hated this, but I actually really liked it.

My main issues with the plot is how the Fire Emblem itself became a 'final hour power-up' for the protagonist, when in the past the Fire Emblem in games has been more pivotal to the conflict, causing it as much as resolving it in many cases. And also how Leo and Xander defected because Garon was stupid enough to announce his intent to destroy the word in a place where he could be overheard.

Overall, I rated this as 'good enough.' Out of the three routes, this is the one I actually want to play, but I've mentioned how I'm very upset that's its been made DLC instead of sold as a seperate route like Birthright and Conquest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Conquest: Let me put it this way. I love my characters more than the story, meaning I can enjoy a generic or even shallow plot, as long as the execution and the characters are good. And playing Conquest actually pained me. If you enjoy tormenting yourself and wallow in your own repetitive helplessness, this route might be for you. I agree with all the points TheWerdna made regarding Conquest story.

Birthright: I have yet to buy since I am already playing IK. But based on people's comments, sounds like this may actually be the most well executed one. (No vote for me)

Invisible Kingdom: Plot-wise, it's not amazing nor is it bad. You fight for what you actually believe in and you get the real bad guy. You also get characters from both paths and can have them interact (support) which is not possible in the other 2 paths, so it is interesting in that regard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...