Your Favorite Route

[PuffPuff]

For me...

Nohr.

-Difficulty Spike (Makes you feel alive whenever accomplishing it!)

-Better Characters including Luna

Severa,

Inigo/Azur and the ancestor of fucking Wood! Screw the Owain name, Wood is MUCH BETTER!

-Better missions

-Better music

-Garbage pits of alignments in some chapters to further make the route more challenging.

-Not for everybody on classic on any difficulty.

-Puts Thracia776's difficulty spike to shame!

-Better Skills

-Better Staves.

-Having to manage your money without Merchants, Anna, Gold DLC, money would be scarce otherwise.

~Best route, Period!

IK is too friendly. (But...flattering!)

Hoshido is too easy.

------

~Nohr is my life.

~Nohr is where it's at!

~My companions

~My Home!

~Only place that I want to be!

~Sakura, Ryoma and Oboro are the only Hoshido's that I respect and can smile to. :D

Edited October 18, 2015 by Princess_Elise

[Ryo]

Gameplay: Nohr.

I'm playing Nohr Lunatic and Hoshido Lunatic at the same time and currently at half-way of the game. Hoshido Lunatic's difficulty is laughable, I can barely tell the difference between Hard and Lunatic. But Nohr Lunatic's is just right for me, challenging but not insane. Doing Nohr Hard/no reclassing, which I played before attempting Lunatic, was also fun. Haven't played IK so can't comment, but I'm not a fan of a majority of the map gimmicks there.

Music: I like both, but my most favorite track in the game ("Justice is here") is a Hoshido theme.

Characters: Hoshido has more of my faves. The only Nohr-exclusive characters I like are Leon, Charlotte, Belka, Harold and Benoit. The others are useful units, but I don't really like them as characters.

Story: Hoshido.

TL;DR: Nohr for gameplay, Hoshido for everything else.

[PuffPuff]

Gameplay: Nohr.

I'm playing Nohr Lunatic and Hoshido Lunatic at the same time and currently at half-way of the game. Hoshido Lunatic's difficulty is laughable, I can barely tell the difference between Hard and Lunatic. But Nohr Lunatic's is just right for me, challenging but not insane. Doing Nohr Hard/no reclassing, which I played before attempting Lunatic, was also fun. Haven't played IK so can't comment, but I'm not a fan of a majority of the map gimmicks there.

Music: I like both, but my most favorite track in the game ("Justice is here") is a Hoshido theme.

Characters: Hoshido has more of my faves. The only Nohr-exclusive characters I like are Leon, Charlotte, Belka, Harold and Benoit. The others are useful units, but I don't really like them as characters.

Story: Hoshido.

TL;DR: Nohr for gameplay, Hoshido for everything else.

Not when hard itself is turned into a roll on the dice on Ch's 10, 21 and 26. -.-

----

Nohr Characters I Respect: Elise, Effie, Zero, Camilla, Luna, Berka, Benoit, Flora, Leo, Xandar/Marx

Everyone: Felicia, Sophie, Kaze

Hoshido Characters I Respect: Sakura, Ryoma and Oboro

Brightest feature of IK is...

Chapter 18 Onward IK Route

..the truth of the game, Ryoma and Xandar/Marx and

Sakura and Elise getting together.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Princess_Elise

[Ryo]

Not when hard itself is turned into a roll on the dice on Ch's 10, 21 and 26. -.-

I would take those over the maps featuring bosses with sky-high avoid any day. There's this one time I had to restart an entire chapter just because nobody could hit Kotarou... -.-

[PuffPuff]

Endgame IK and Nohr(Don't read if you haven't finished both routes)

Garon always hasn't been a bad egg as it says at the Fire Emblem Wiki here that he was kind enough to breed beautiful children that the folks respected him during his time that he was alive until his mistresses murdered one anothers children which is what hardened him into what he is during the game start and that he was possessed by Anakos/Hydra after his death controlling his corpse.

Iago however, we knew he was a bad egg from the start when he was desperately trying to get Garon to kill him/her(Avatar) at the start of the Nohr path test!

Edited October 18, 2015 by Princess_Elise

[CocoaGalaxy]

I don't quite understand what you mean by "Garbage pits of alignment"

Also I don't recall any difficulty spikes, and I have no idea about Thracia..or is it about the lack of a difficulty spike?

Skills and Staves are debatable and/or Subjective.

(I personally find having to manage money to be a negative, rather than a positive...but it's not that I feel that it has no good points, just that it's....restrictive, of sorts)

"Easy" is subjective. I haven't really seen (m)any Hoshido Lunatic runs, so I can't say

Also I don't exactly get what part of IK is "friendly" so to speak

Edited October 18, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[PuffPuff]

I don't quite understand what you mean by "Garbage pits of alignment"

Stat reductions, Weakness staves, more Ninjas, conking your characters out with Silence and Freeze. Often having Venom and Deadly Breath enemies than in the other two routes.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Princess_Elise

[OakTree]

I've seen some people in some websites compare Nohr's difficulty to Thracia. (Which i constantly hear as the toughest game in the series)

So yeah, im pretty excited about that, althrough i've seen spoilers, and i must say, nothing about the story seems good at all.

[kelror13]

Should it be wise for us to put a voting poll about which route we prefer considering that several of us have not played the game yet? (Unless its just me who hasn't played it.)

[NekoKnight]

Gameplay: Nohr.

I'm playing Nohr Lunatic and Hoshido Lunatic at the same time and currently at half-way of the game. Hoshido Lunatic's difficulty is laughable, I can barely tell the difference between Hard and Lunatic. But Nohr Lunatic's is just right for me, challenging but not insane. Doing Nohr Hard/no reclassing, which I played before attempting Lunatic, was also fun. Haven't played IK so can't comment, but I'm not a fan of a majority of the map gimmicks there.

Music: I like both, but my most favorite track in the game ("Justice is here") is a Hoshido theme.

Characters: Hoshido has more of my faves. The only Nohr-exclusive characters I like are Leon, Charlotte, Belka, Harold and Benoit. The others are useful units, but I don't really like them as characters.

Story: Hoshido.

TL;DR: Nohr for gameplay, Hoshido for everything else.

This echos my sentiments. Nohr has some really great map design (chapter 10 for example) but a lot of the characters are kind of... eh. Hoshido, while not ambitious with its story, is at least serviceable.

[AbsoluteZer0Nova]

Gameplay: Nohr as everyone else has already mentioned.

Music: I like both, but gotta give it to Nohr here because of Azura's song in Nohr route.

Character Thoughts: Nohr has better overall characters and that isn't to even say Hoshido doesn't have any good characters, but some of them look overshadowed from their Nohr counterpart. The characters I like in Nohr are Elise, Effie, Odin (though I do prefer his Awakening version better), Zero (my favorite Nohrian design wise and is not complete yaoi bait and actually has a heartfelt S support with Male Kamui, especially since he doesn't want him to suffer and displays empathy.) Nyx, Camilla (I like her for her personality in acting motherly like and how she can be kind to allies, but turn around and become a whole another person on the battlefield to her enemies, so no it's not for her sexualized design just like how I feel the same for Tharja's eccentric persoanlity), Luna (she's actually even better than her Awakening version and has gotten better dealing with meeting other people), Berka, Lazward (still my favorite Awakening male child) Charlotte (the first female fighter in the series and actually has good reasons for why she puts a facade in front of men and her supports with Xander are a OTP for me), Leo, Flannel (I like Nishiki, but when this guy was revealed he just overshadowed him), Xander (prefer him in Nohr route than Hoshido because he lets Elise's sacrifice go to waste and I even prefer Ryoma in Nohr route as well because his cutscene for when you're about to battle him is a lot more cooler with the setting and his sacrifice to protect Kamui actually wasn't meaningless unlike poor Elise and he actually stays dead unlike Emmeryn who granted is still dealt a blow because of her crippling memory loss, but the fact that she is alive has healed Chrom and Lissa's hearts), Gunter (originally I thought he was just going to be another boring Jeigan, but he actually surpised me for what we learn about him in the 3rd path and just his supports with Male Kamui acting a bit like a father figure to him when he was a kid made me like him) and lastly Flora (a very well thoughtout character). Oh and has better children characters aside from debates going on with Soliel.

The characters who I didn't mention I found to be ok, but I may even like them to if I see more supports because I wish pastebin would update again. Only one I dislike so far is Pieri, though I did find her support with Lazwald sweet... again might change depending on what goes on.

Hoshido characters I like are Rinkah, Subaki, Oboro, Hinata, Takumi (has actually grown on me a bit though the meme BlameTakumi well forever be hillarous and I will say he has the best subordinates in Hoshido), Kagerou, Nishiki, Ryoma and lastly Yukimura.

Once again characters I didn't mention I found to be ok are just lacking in comparison to their Nohr counterpart. I dislike Asama (horrible design and has the worse design child with eyes that are freaking stupid anime like and he probably has the exact same eyes too no wonder they're closed), Setsuna (from what I seen so far I may bump her to ok, but I need to see more supports), Tsukuyomi (he's worse as a character compared to Ricken and makes me appreciate him more in Awakening), Yuugiri (bad design... the scar just ruins her for me) and lastly Crimson (reminds me too much of Sully design and character wise).

Story: None of them, I'm tempted to say Nohr, but only because it kept me interested and entertained along with feeling like instead of being the Marth you're playing as the Camus of the game and also it might have not succeed plot driven it did succeed character driven, while the changing the country from within wasn't true Hoshido does the freaking same with the how you're siblings there are not you're own blood and had Kamui known this it just makes him reuniting with his Nohr siblings make more sense because he known them for most of his life and it annoys me when people say joining Hoshido is a more selfless choice, but like it or not both of them are supposed to be hard choices for Kamui even as far as civilians lives go because we can't use a majority vs minority here for population comparison for these two countries and people want to bring up how you're practically spitting at Mikoto's sacrifice even though all it was supposed to do was save Kamui and Yukimura himself says that if she were still alive she would have a faint smile knowing that Kamui's alive nothing about but being disappointed (and no mention of said disappointment with her spirit talking to unconscious Kamui in Nohr, which by the way I despise how she doesn't show up in Hoshido's segment as if she didn't mean much to Kamui there, that just really bothers me). Mikoto even has some understanding for Kamui not immediately seeing her as his mother because of all of the time he has spent with his Nohr family. Aside from this stuff I just find Hoshido's story while more organized it's downright boring and unexciting (it's nothing to ride home about).

[Shephen]

Voted Hoshido since its the most fun to play and has my favorite characters and sound track. Nohr has pretty great gameplay as well, but chapter 19, 20 and 23 are pretty tedious and annoying and kinda just kills my mood going through them. Also kinda don't like that training an Adventurer for Pass is more or less required to beat the Endgame of Lunatic Nohr efficiently. Reminds me of Thracia's endgame where you kind get screwed over if you don't have any keys. Granted Eponine is fabulous and I'll almost always use her, but getting punished for not using an Adventurer is just bleh. IK is pretty alright, but the atmosphere of the second half of the game and most of the units starting out really bad on Lunatic really hurts it for me.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Shephen

[Nyanko]

Nohr has my favorite characters, amazing music, and great gameplay. The main reason, though... I can't stand the thought of separating Kamui from his family and making them fight. I'm too tenderhearted for stuff like that.

[Dollysama]

In my opinion Hoshido > Nohr > IK.

Story - Hoshido's story is pretty much your typical FE story. You control a relatively small force and have to defend your country from the invaders. The story is simple and pretty difficult to screw up. So long as you can either ignore or accept the fact that Ryouma, Hinoka, Takumi and Sakura are S rankable, the story is fairly decent. Nohr's story, on the other hand, is complete trash. Garon is clearly evil right from the start of the game, pre-game split, even if you ignore the parts where nobody else is in the room with him. Nohr!Kamui and Nohr!Aqua are completely stupid. I'd go into more detail, but I'd just be repeating what's already been said.

Music - I like all the soundtracks equally tbh, but my vote for music goes to Nohr because Aqua's Nohr dance cutscene is my favourite.

Gameplay - It's a tie between Nohr and Hoshido for gameplay. I like Nohr's varied mission objectives more than Hoshido's lack of varied mission objectives, but I prefer Hoshido's simpler map designs. For most of the game, Nohr's maps have too much going on all at once. IK is way to gimmicky and most of the chapters really drag on. I also like pretty much all of the Hoshidan classes over the Nohrian ones.

Characters - I prefer the majority of the Hoshidan cast over the Nohrian one. For me, the Nohrian characters feel very one dimensional and many of the supports are very repetitive. Such as Charlotte's gold-digging or Pieri's servant killing. That's not to say the Hoshidan supports aren't, I just feel that it's more noticeable (or more common?) with the Nohrians.

TL;DR - Hoshido is my overall favourite route as I prefer the characters, story, class designs and, to some extent, the gameplay despite the game being somewhat too easy.

[Peppy]

I find that i like the Gameplay for Nohr best. This route focuses more on very difficult to break formations rather than stats and enemy numbers and you end up coming up with some interesting strats to break these formations. Nohr Lunatic's lategame can be a bit much with some chapters (Chapters with Negative Chain in particular. A lot enemies have this in Ch. 25 and a few Maids/Mtn. Priests have weakness staff equipped with this skill in Endgame) but I'd take that over open maps with a bunch of enemies any day.

Though a few maps for Hoshido are guilty of open maps with a bunch of enemies bumrushing you, I feel most of the maps will at least have some sort of structure. Even though the gameplay for this route is considered to be easier, there are still a few notable challenges in this route (The gimmick for Ch. 23, for example). I don't know how Easy or Hard Hoshido Lunatic is (I'm only at Ch. 15 as of now. Beat Hoshido Hard before) but i hear difficulty for that picks up lategame.

I feel a bit on the fence about IK. The first half of the route has a lot of gimmicks that get old fast while the second half kinds feels like to me that you're going through the motions to complete the chapter (The typical bait and kill strats are prominent here). I still enjoy the gameplay in this route and whatnot but the other routes are better in terms of gameplay, i find.

I'm also more partial to Nohr's soundtrack (Map B4 is just awesome). Hoshido's story also seems to be the most reasonable of the three and I'm neutral on the characters for each route.

Nohr would be my favorite route since my primary focus for FE games is gameplay and Nohr does that best, i find.

[Thane]

Two thirds of the game are, story-wise, considered by the game itself to be wrong. Since I play the game for the story, I can't vote for anything other than the Invisible Kingdom route, but it's the most boring route gameplay-wise as well as having such a lazy story that it makes me wonder if the writers just stopped working halfway through.

Edit: to be a bit more positive, I'll say that I loved Conquest's gameplay (aside from the wind village and fox mountain due to the RNG factor); that defense map was so intense and made me remember the Warcraft III days.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Thane

[Azz]

I am very split by this cause on one hand Conquest has amazing gameplay and also has more characters that are my favorite(e.g. Zero), Birthright has the better story in general while IK has all playable characters available(With the exception of 3 for some reason)and also there s some better characterization thanks to some of the cross nation supports for example Oboro and Belka.

However, ultimately I prefer Conquest. I like more characters, the gameplay is amazing and I just happen to prefer some of the classes(Like Butler and Maid>War Priest(ess) any day).While the story is complete and utter shit, and normally I go for story>gameplay, the flaws of the other two campaigns just make me like them less despite having somewhat better stories, and even then IK having a better story is very subjective since it is not that good either.

[SniperGYS]

IK

Didn't played the games, but I will love IK more just because I prefer the happy ending, I can have both families, Takumi is alive and fine and happy and yeah, just because I can have both sides together

[Ownagepuffs]

I like Hoshido most. It's hella chill. It's like, use whoever you want and beat game. I love the classes more (Holy Bowman <3), I love the characters more (mai waifu Hana and my 2nd favorite character ever Takumi), I love the music more (A2, A3, and A4 <3) although B2 is my favorite song in the soundtrack. I also dig the atmosphere more. Nohr's got better chapters though I feel the difficulty difference between Nohr and Hosh is overstated. Nohr has some brutal (some tedious) maps over Hosh but otherwise if you know how to stomp Nohr (spam Camilia, give Marx Charlotte support and all the speedwings, pair Leo with Luna, have a 1-2 range Kamui), it's mostly the same.

That being said, I also really like Nohr and some of its characters (Effie <3, Lutz, LEO!).

[Neofranky]

I feel I can't comment on gameplay because I'm a dirty Gaijin who hasn't learned japanese nor has the money to import (and was too stupid to update his 3DS as well).

But I am definetly more hype about Nohr's challenging maps than any other, from what I've heard and I, by far, prefer the Nohrian cast than the Hoshidan cast. In fact the only characters I'm looking forward in Hoshido are Orochi and Syalla, I'm not too exited about the rest.

As far as the story goes... let's just say I'm holding on to the details, because I don't want to lose my hopes on it more than what I already have.

[DLNarshen]

I really wanted to like Nohr, but all things considered I enjoyed Hoshido the most. It wasn't as adventurous as the other two routes in terms of story and gameplay but maybe that's why I liked it. I found many of the map gimmicks present in Nohr and IK to be more frustrating than they were fun, and I knew things weren't right when I began to rush through my first playthrough of Nohr due to sympathizing more with the Hoshido cause and annoyance with Kamui seemingly being able to do nothing but stand and watch helplessly as any "good" thing he/she did be undermined by Macbeth and Ganz.

I'll give Nohr some credit for its Lunatic difficulty; fair for most of the game, but soured somewhat by Ch. 21 and Endgame, which crank the dial just a little too high for my liking.

[tacticianwhite]

Hmm.

I suppose...gameplay wise, I'd probably prefer Hoshido, I guess? Since outside of DLC, money and such is extremely limited on Nohr, and I'm still not all that good at Fire Emblem. So the easier (although not necessarily EASY) difficulty might be better for me. *shrug*

Overall though, I think I'd have to say Nohr. Quite honestly, from what I've read, I don't hate the story. It's nothing amazing, sure, but I wouldn't say it's absolutely awful.

But the main reason I prefer Nohr are the characters.

Specifically, I feel like... I just CAN'T abandon my siblings... the ones who have raised me and loved me since I was a child. Going against them just... doesn't sit well with me at all.

Edited October 21, 2015 by spiderbrush

[mimasho]

I want to say IK, but probably Hoshido ???

Not voting for now since I can't figure out which yet.

The only reason I like IK though, is because you get both sides (and a happy end?) which is a win in my book -however,

I've been on the last two chapters for the past four months so I have no idea how exactly it all ends yet xD

In all honesty though, Nohr's plot is terrible.

I actually had to delete my game because of how bad it was, and no amount of gameplay // interesting maps could make it up for me.

There are definitely a few characters that I like, but the vast majority of my favorites are in Hoshido, mostly because I found their personalities to be a lot more interesting and unclichéd.

Also, another thing that I have a huge problem with -

one thing that I love about the Hoshido route is how you're able to see the better sides of some of your Nohr siblings (basically all of them except maybe Marx, though that's debatable; Hoshido route is actually what made me start liking the Nohr royal siblings, such as Leon), but in the Nohr route, everyone just seems mindless and cruel -including Kamui, who is just so wishy-washy, like please stop and actually make your own decisions for once ?? It's also pretty ridiculous that even in the Nohr version you basically have to defeat yourself (by that I mean King Garon, who represents Nohr) and Hoshido just wasn't in the wrong but was forced to suffer for their mistakes. The plot probably could have been improved if they vilified Hoshido a bit, but the problem lies in the fact that they didn't.

Anyways just my two cents ~

[CyborgZeta]

I don't like Invisible Kingdom at all, but it's the route I've played the most.

So I'll go with that.

[NekoKnight]

Is IK worth getting if you already have Hoshido and Nohr? I've heard it's gimmicky but I don't really know what that entails. Is the gameplay good? I'm not interested in the story.