how do they explain children characters fighting in the army?

[DragonFlames]

Kamui just bicycles back and forth until the man outside the My Room gives him an egg with the kid in it

XD I have not laughed so hard recently, thank you for that, buddy! XD

But yeah, THAT has to be the stupidest explanation I have ever heard. I would have gotten it if they'd just said they were from a parallel universe where time runs faster and they decided: 'Crap, our parents need help! Let's go!' But this? Come on, writers! You can do better than that!

See, this is what really irks me. If I had a kid, I would never say 'Screw it, I'll just stuff it into a pocket dimension'. I want my character to do the effing same thing! But then again... can't have Nine-tailed Demon Fox/Dragon hybrid kids as a male avatar otherwise... not that I'd ever marry a child character anyways.

That felt extremely weird in Awakening, especially considering the future past DLC where *SPOILER ALERT* Grima would just be like: Hey, honey! Good to see you. NOW DIE!!! Oh, and also, you had two kids with me. Don't ask how we made them or how I got them to serve me. But yeah, they are your enemies now. Oh, and they each have the same name, too. Oh! And also! They are as old as you are now!"

Yeah, that isn't awkward at all...

[Neofranky]

Exactly , they should have put one bisexual female in Nohr & one bisexual male in Hoshido.

Nohr does has a bisexual female, but she can't marry other women, not even a bisexual avatar.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

Nohr does has a bisexual female, but she can't marry other women, not even a bisexual avatar.

technically a bisexual female avatar doesn't exist on the nohr route.

but yes Nohr does have a bisexual female, just none of the other women appear to be bisexual.

Edited October 10, 2015 by HF Makalov Fanboy Kai

[Xenomata]

I wholeheartedly believe that if they were going to run with the whole alternate dimension thing, they should have made it so that the mother unit was incapable of battle directly after achieving S-rank and has to sit out, say, 2 battles, a time frame in which she herself was in the other dimension being preggie, before she can jump back into the fray.

Then 2 battles later, the childs Paralogue is unlocked.

They wouldn't even need to be story battle or other Paralogues, just My Castle battles or Fates-equivalent-of-Reeking-box-battles battles. At least then you won't need to have a group of people wondering WTFIS as loudly as it would be shouted now.

[spoiler=To recap...]

1> The Mother and Father achieve S rank support with each other

2> The Mother is immediately sent into the other dimension while she is Pregnant with the child, and cannot be sent into 2 battles.

3> The Mother returns and is capable of battle.

4> After another 2 battles, the Child's Paralogue is unlocked.

The battles in question can be any scenario, be it story battles, My Castle, Paralogues, DLC, etc.

Edited October 10, 2015 by Xenomata

[IceBrand]

All of this, just for children characters. Was it worth it IS? Would people really get upset if their virtual child wasn't in the game?

[Neofranky]

All of this, just for children characters. Was it worth it IS? Would people really get upset if their virtual child wasn't in the game?

It's hard to measure a reaction of it's abscense, who knows maybe we'd be upset over it on the long run. Still I believe the return of proper Gaiden chapters and Marriage affecting gameplay in a different, more immediate way would make up for them just fine. Like transfering skills, stat boosts or the entire class set, rather than only one class.

[Gomez_Addams]

All of this, just for children characters. Was it worth it IS? Would people really get upset if their virtual child wasn't in the game?

The children aren't canon anyways, so I don't think it's that big of a deal.

Just think of them as free DLC.

[Great Geargia Gateway]

I rather swap all that 'free DLC' for just Ike or Marth. They implemented something so useless doh. Even I think it would be better or something, if they just made a couple more characters that you got from the main stories which was just going to be used for the marriage system anyways. Probably could have added Anna instead of being DLC for example.

Edited October 10, 2015 by Great Geargia Gateway

[Nyanko]

I've seen people on here and other sites saying they're going to vote for some of the 2nd gen characters in that favorite characters poll. I thought most people were disappointed with the inclusion of kids. Won't giving them votes send the message to IS that we are happy to have them and increase the chance they'll add kids in the next game? Even if I really liked one of the kids, I wouldn't want to encourage IS to keep adding them in future games. This goes for the Awakening trio, too.

I guess I just had a slight hope past characters and kids wouldn't be pushed into the next game, but that hope is slowly dissipating.

[blinkingbrave]

While I don't particularly care for the way the child mechanic was implemented this time around in story, when you put that aside, I think everything else about them is an improvement over the typical replacement units you usually get. They've got a chapter devoted to them to help you get attached to them despite joining later than your by now standard team, and that chapter is a gaiden, so if you don't want to clog your team with units you aren't using, you don't have to. And since they scale up alongside your team, you don't run into that situation where your replacement unit is ridiculously underleveled should your primary die, get RNG screwed, whatever. Being able to control when you get them is incredibly convenient.

So yeah, the 'how' behind them from a story standpoint is rather silly, but from a gameplay standpoint, the child mechanic, just as a mechanic, is pretty nice. Though I wish they could've come up with a better reason for their existence, other than that, I think this sort is as good as or better implemented than story replacement units in most other regards.

Edit: As for them getting votes, yeah, I'm totally tossing one in for Shara because representation. But really, though, some of the kids are pretty well-written. The royal brothers' sons also enjoy a decent amount of popularity on pixiv, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see some number of them up there.

Edited October 10, 2015 by blinkingbrave

[NekoKnight]

While I don't particularly care for the way the child mechanic was implemented this time around in story, when you put that aside, I think everything else about them is an improvement over the typical replacement units you usually get. They've got a chapter devoted to them to help you get attached to them despite joining later than your by now standard team, and that chapter is a gaiden, so if you don't want to clog your team with units you aren't using, you don't have to. And since they scale up alongside your team, you don't run into that situation where your replacement unit is ridiculously underleveled should your primary die, get RNG screwed, whatever. Being able to control when you get them is incredibly convenient

These features don't need to be on 2nd gen characters. They could have included characters from other regions (like another character from the fire tribe village) to help with world building.

[Ryo]

You don't need a second gen character for a customizable/flexible late-game unit. Make them new recruits trained by a certain character to explain why they would inherit said character's skill and class set. If marriage is involved, then have both the predetermined unit and their spouse train said recruit.

[blinkingbrave]

These features don't need to be on 2nd gen characters. They could have included characters from other regions (like another character from the fire tribe village) to help with world building.

Yeah, I agree with this. I'm pretty neutral on the whole child thing in general and was in Awakening, too. I wouldn't mind if they decided to take it in a world building route instead. Buuuut I still think there's a distinct advantage in introducing extra characters in gaiden chapters accessible via world map on scaling levels and since that mechanic is tied in with the child units atm, for the purpose of extra story units vs. child units, I count it as a plus for child units.

If they were to introduce non-child replacement units but kept it a similar gaiden chapter, scaled growth system, I'd probably be just as happy. We just don't know if that system would be applied to units other than children, if children weren't there.

Trainees, I think, would be a lil odd, though. Mostly because it would either have to come out of nowhere without build up, or the build up would have to be shoe-horned in to supports, chapter dialogue pre-Gaiden, something. The kids, at least, are a product of the natural progression of a romantic relationship so they don't need to be talked about before hand. There's also a lot less 'awww' factor in training a recruit together, which is a lot of why the children are popular in the first place. I know I, at least, would kinda find the recruit a lil awkward at best, alienating at worse.

Edited October 11, 2015 by blinkingbrave

[Dark Sage]

You could always autoscale lategame story recruits if it's that important. Children are unnecessary for that.

Furthermore, lategame recruits are usually pretty good in FE. The only games where they're mostly or all bad are FE11 and FE12 but tbf, that applied to a lot of the cast in general.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Dark Sage

[CocoaGalaxy]

I dunno. I really don't.

I get the feeling that they're trying to break a lot of the molds of previous games (I.E. Archetypes)

Gunter doesn't even have the stats of a Jeigan, just the growths

Technically Jakob and Felicia are a very "watered down", but in a sense, they are partial Oifeys...support ones though (Kind of like Sothe if he had staves, in a sense)

Blah

............As for the actual topic itself....it's hard to say....

(I personally would be kind of against multiple things, but it could be contradictory)

(But I don't really think a "kill off the first generation" thing would be very.....in taste...)

Edited October 11, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[blinkingbrave]

I don't mean in regards to late joining story recruits, because those are usually scaled up to where they should be (or Ests, but those aren't a thing anymore). I'm only speaking in regards to all the base class units close together early game that serve interchangeable roles. How much of a thing that is kinda seems to be dependent on how large the cast is. FE6 was particularly bad, FE8 was so small there were hardly duplicate units at all. What I'm talking about are situations where you have Sain, Kent, and Lowen, for example, or your myrmidons and mercenaries. Typically, you level one or two and not the others (assuming you're not grinding), so if something happens to them, you're either stuck, you have to baby your back up unit, and/or rework your strategy.

Something like FE14's child system seems like a lil more flexible and forgiving way to handle extra base class units.

Edited October 11, 2015 by blinkingbrave

[Ryo]

Trainees, I think, would be a lil odd, though. Mostly because it would either have to come out of nowhere without build up, or the build up would have to be shoe-horned in to supports, chapter dialogue pre-Gaiden, something. The kids, at least, are a product of the natural progression of a romantic relationship so they don't need to be talked about before hand. There's also a lot less 'awww' factor in training a recruit together, which is a lot of why the children are popular in the first place. I know I, at least, would kinda find the recruit a lil awkward at best, alienating at worse.

Those trainees don't necessarily have to be complete strangers or someone who pops out of nowhere. You can very well make them plot-important characters and/or having close relationship to the unit who's "handling" their training (like a younger brother/sister/friend/acquaintance etc., that way their connections have already been built up, I don't see why it needs to be children), in order to further emphasize their impact in the story. Sort of like Mist, Rolf, or Elincia in FE9, except with FE14's system. Hell, Shinon is Rolf's canon trainer there.

IMO, Fates didn't really handle the "building up" very well either, because the children spent most of their childhood in a hyperbolic time chamber, with their parents occasionally come visit them, if at all. You can hardly feel the fond between them, as compared to say, Awakening, where family relationship is a major theme. Fates' parents don't even raise their own children.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Ryo

[blinkingbrave]

Those trainees don't necessarily have to be complete strangers or someone who pops out of nowhere. You can very well make them plot-important characters and/or having close relationship to the unit who's "handling" their training (like a younger brother/sister/friend/acquaintance etc., that way their connections have already been built up, I don't see why it needs to be children), in order to further emphasize their impact in the story. Sort of like Mist, Rolf, or Elincia in FE9, except with FE14's system. Hell, Shinon is Rolf's canon trainer there.

IMO, Fates didn't really handle the "building up" very well either, because the children spent most of their childhood in a hyperbolic time chamber, with their parents occasionally come visit them, if at all. You can hardly feel the fond between them, as compared to say, Awakening, where family relationship is a major theme. Fates' parents don't even raise their own children.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

As for Fates, I only meant building up as the whole progression of 'when a man and woman love each other very much...' as an explanation that doesn't need explaining for where the children came from and why they weren't there pre-S-support. I feel like we've already established the hyperbolic time chamber half of the explanation as silly.

For the bond between parent and child, I haven't looked into too many of them, but I thought some of them were pulled off quite well. Shigure and Siegbert's gaidens stick out as two I quite liked. I dunno if they're so much going for the familial bond this time like they did in Awakening. Parent-child interactions feel more bittersweet and missed opportunity/understanding type stuff springing from this unfortunately distant familial bond (with a positive resolution). I feel like they even touch on it in Shigure's 4-koma, which is unofficial, sure, but not ooc. As eye roll-y as the hyperbolic time chamber is, I think it at least led to some good stuff in the parent-child supports. Though I will admit I've only read a handful of gaidens and parent-child supports, so perhaps reading more will change my mind.

Edited October 11, 2015 by blinkingbrave

[Ryo]

More of a personal opinion, but the children in Fates don't really come across to me as, well, "children" (except perhaps for the younger ones like Lutz). They feel more like your younger siblings that you just picked up from your hometown at best, and some random buddies at worst. The fact that they look just as old as their parents doesn't help. Awakening also had the same problem, but since familiar bond was the theme there, it felt less unnatural, and the Future Pass DLC also helped to reinforce the children's feelings towards their parents and their mental vulnerability.

[blinkingbrave]

Yeah, I got the vibe that a good number of them had grown beyond children, too, but I liked where it was taken in the supports and gaidens that I read, where it kinda felt like their parents... didn't know them. Or kinda knew them, but had just missed all these moments in their now near adult child's life. Or the no-longer-a-child was just aching for their attention or approval.

Some were just as awkward for me as you described though, so I'm not sure if I've just read more of the 'right' ones or something.

Either way, I get where you're coming from there. Only the really young ones feel like kids. The Awakening children definitely feel a lot younger to me.

Edited October 11, 2015 by blinkingbrave

[ruadath]

They train in the Hyperbolic time chamber in order to defeat Cell.

Lol, this is amazing.

[SaltyPearl]

I've seen people on here and other sites saying they're going to vote for some of the 2nd gen characters in that favorite characters poll. I thought most people were disappointed with the inclusion of kids. Won't giving them votes send the message to IS that we are happy to have them and increase the chance they'll add kids in the next game? Even if I really liked one of the kids, I wouldn't want to encourage IS to keep adding them in future games. This goes for the Awakening trio, too.

I guess I just had a slight hope past characters and kids wouldn't be pushed into the next game, but that hope is slowly dissipating.

They are probably gonna add kids & marriage in future Fire Emblem games , after all that's what made Awakening popular. Even though it would be nice to have no kids or marriage in future games.

[Xenomata]

They are probably gonna add kids & marriage in future Fire Emblem games , after all that's what made Awakening popular. Even though it would be nice to have no kids or marriage in future games.

I feel that Awakening help to set a sort of elites game in which so-and-so can only be done with the absolute best in the world.

I mean, if you tried to do Awakening's Apotheosis with nothing but first-gen units, then you would be laughed out the door after having your everything stolen from you and burned with hellfire. But the second you fire up the second-gen units specifically bred to murder everything, well life becomes a whole lot better apparently.

I don't see them changing the ultra-powerful units thing. But maybe the execution of how you get those ultra-powerful units could use some tweeking. I mean, even with how much they limited things for second gens like much more wild stat mods and limiting the children's ability to class change, they still wind up superior to the parents.