Fire Emblem Fates Appreciation Thread

[Lanko]

Forgot to mention the reclass system. So I don't need to grind 15 levels again? Or more if you wanted a T1 skill? Amazing.

[Azure Sen]

Let's see...

• I very much enjoyed Birthright and Revelation's stories. Revelation's in particular may be up there as one of my favorite plots in the series.
• Conquest and Revelation had some really fantastic map designs.
• The music in all three routes is spectacular.
• I liked the aesthetics of both Hoshido and Nohr.
• I liked a lot of the characters, especially Takumi, Oboro, Leo, Shiro more like ShiBRO, Kiragi, Kaden, Benny, Shura, Keaton and Forrest.
• Same goes for the character designs.
• The distribution of growth rates in this game made a lot of characters feel like they were unique, instead of fitting into a template.
• I really adore some of the class designs. The Nohr promoted classes like Hero and Bow Knight in particular. Dark Flier is also really well-designed.
• Malig Knight, Ninja and its line, Spear Master and its line, and the multiple types of Beaststone users are all great new classes.
• Having a Manakete Lord was pretty nifty.
• The dub voices in general fit each character very well. Especially Niles, Azura and Mozu.
• I like that the weapon triangle is actually balanced and meaningful.
• Having a good ranged non-magic weapon in shuriken/daggers is great.
• 2 range normal staffs? Yes please!
• More magic weapons? Also yes!
• Lost in Thoughts All Alone on both routes is great, especially in Conquest.
• I like not having to reclass to an unpromoted class just to get their useful skills.
• The new Pair Up system is actually really useful, well-balanced, and actually requires thought to use properly, unlike Awakening's.

I think that's everything.

[LeDom]

I posted a very passionate and rant-like comment on how I was sick of all of the negativity that has been geared towards the localization of Fire Emblem Fates, and how it seems to me that the people who are actually fine with NoA's localization of Fire Emblem Fates are stuck as a nonvocal minority, due to the mainstream belief on places like YouTube and Twitter being that NoA has done a terrible job of localizing the game and has basically ruined it. I'm sick of constantly seeing all of this negativity, which is why I am creating this thread.

I think you're getting things a little backwards there. People who complain about the localization non-stop are the vocal minority. Everyone else is either gushing over characters, making memes or too busy playing the darn game to even know about the negativity in some online circles.

I for one, think this is a good localization on the same level as Awakening. They spiked up the dialogue to fit the light hearted tone of the game and whatever changes that were made at to happen one way or another because it's NoA's job to sell a game to a western audience the way Japan doesn't always know how. The only things that had me scratch my head were Saizo-Beruka C support, even then I don't think it's anything worth throwing a fit over.

But moving on to point out examples of things I do like

While I liked the Awakening dub much better, I find this game's to be perfectly serviceable. It took some time for me to get used to a few of them, but there were a lot I loved right away. I'm on the fence about how there are so many double/triple casting, but it also shows that some actors have a sick range (can you believe Saizo, Jakob and friggin' Hayato have the same voice actor?)

Speaking of voice actors, Lost in Thoughts All Alone is a rare example of a dubbed song done impeccably. I won't go on details because there was an entire thread on this subject, but Rena Strober knocked it out of the park.

The dialogue in the main story seems perfectly loyal to what the writers' intended. It's only in support conversations that writers took some punches.

I hate how there are people who accuse Treehouse of not caring about Fates solely because of their writing liberties. A translator that doesn't care would do the opposite of what they did: a litteral translation that only translates the words and sentences while entirely ignoring the meaning/intent. A localization team changes dialogues if they think it helps making a more enjoyable product to their target audience. Whether one likes it or not is their own business, but one thing is for certain: changes in localization never happen because they don't care or because they want to upset people.

Edited March 22, 2016 by LeDom

[DorianS]

• I really love the voice acting for Conquest. Some of the characters do an excellent job with just what little they have to say.
• Rena Strober did an awesome, fantastically good job with the song. Kudos to her, because I was not expecting that at all. Also, thank you for doing Azura. Much appreciated. Also, LisaandLie(AmaLee) did a great cover that I wanna mention, go
  for it. That's how awesome this song is!
• The combat system is fantastic and wonderful. I literally restarted Conquest just to replay fights. Tons of fun there and considering this could have totally backfired with the no weapon degrading, it is wasn't.
• Archers are amazing and actually worth having around. Especially if you give them a Shining Bow or Yumi.
• Magical weapons are priceless for people who have terrible strength, but are in a strength class.
• While Nohr and Hoshido both seem to represent Western and Eastern cultures, they actually feel like they aren't something just based off of, but seem to come alive with their own flavouring.
• Whoever decided that unpromoted classes do not need to be leveled up in after getting out of them, deserves a raise.
• So many classes, so many ways to flesh out my army. Nom, nom.
• The different seals, while at first seem daunting, is a great way for people to plan their characters out. I like that.
• Forrest is just a guy who likes fashion. Soliel is a girl who likes being with anyone. Camilla just loves to love. Frankly, these could've been awful characters, but they were just characters and not a big deal was made about it. Well, except Leo of Forrest and I think that was him worrying that everyone else wouldn't accept Forrest. As he turned around awfully quickly!
• Arthur's VA is perfect and I'd so join his League of Justice. FOR GREAT JUSTICE~!
• For making me like the female Avatar more than the male Avatar. Yeah, Corrin's shown as male for a lot of the promotional material, but Corrin feels much better as a female than male. Also helps that she's so pretty... I am not drooling! Also, FOR NOHR~!
• The clothes for each country feel like they'd be lived in. Rather than just something that they'd wear.
• For giving me reasons to keep weaker weapons around. I hoard all the weapons. Then smith them.
• For changing up smithing to something I constantly will and do use.
• Jakob is the best butler I could ask for.
• Flora is the worst maid I could ask for, and I'm okay with that.
• Takumi is a loveable jerk in Conquest. What I mean is that I love to hate him.
• That Conquest isn't unforgiving, just unreasonable. I like my brutality in my Fire Emblems.
• Hans is an awesome character and I'm sad I'm not able to recruit him. He's that awesome.
• Iago is a good foil for us, planning out his own plans for things.
• That I can skip the tutorial and just head straight into the Fates.
• That Trio haven't changed much. Selena's more confident, Laslow's able to really smile and Odin's well, more Odin.
• Each Fate is more or less feels like a different game. I was sort of miffed when I originally heard about it, but quite thankful after playing Conquest and watching my friend play Birthright to see that it isn't like I'm paying for the same again. Kudos.
• Also, can we please have more of that in future games? I am in love with the idea of "what ifs" like this seems to do.
• That the stat roles seem different than someone being pigeoned holed into a particular class.

I've got way more than this, but I think I'll stop here. Thanks guys.

Edited March 22, 2016 by DorianS

[Thor Odinson]

I like that Birthright is relaxing to play and Conquest puts up a solid challenge, especially later on. A few maps aside I'm genuinely impressed by Conquest's level of thought in those maps, but I also really like Birthright for its flexibility in what I can do there, from a first run perspective. This is speaking on Lunatic for both. Conquest was challenging, but with the challenge I felt more limited (I would've favored Charlotte otherwise--thought I might be able to pull it off were I to play CQ L again now that i know resource distribution better), while BR was pretty easy but that let me dick around with what I want to pull with the characters more. Really good to run my Rinkah test build with, which was a success.

Also for what it's worth I didn't think I'd get /this/ attached to a fictional character ever again since the days of being a dumbshit teenager but I'm wrong and I'm lobster trash, so they clearly did something right (please don't do this again, I don't want to write another 10k words worth of meta I really don't like writing)

Rinkah's design is everything I ever wanted

Female Berserkers and Male Peg/Troub is also everything I ever wanted--also aforementioned rinkah is my zerk of choice

Edited March 22, 2016 by Thor Odinson

[Sire]

1: Gameplay is amazing all round. New weapon triangle, new durability system and reworked weapons, weapon variety, forging, Conquest's map design, there is too many to list.

2: Arthur is amazing. For me, he's the "New Gregor".

3: Lots of enjoyable characters, especially on Nohr's side.

4: The new Reclass system, and more importantly, the new way to obtain skills. This is amazing for those who want really personalized armies.

5: My Castle. I love almost everything about it, but I can live without the spa and My Room though, move character development there elsewhere.

6: For the most part, the English voice cast nailed their parts.

7+: There's too many good things to list. Honestly, it's easier to talk about the negatives because there aren't that many as the positives for Fates. But that is a different topic for a different time.

[PeaceRibbon]

From a Birthright only perspective:

1. Voice acting is great. Even the characters I think didn't have the greatest voice acting grew on me and became more or less funny as opposed to cringe worthy.

2. The characters are varied and it's fun to read the supports.

3. The story, while maybe a bit boring from chapter 14 onwards, was still an emotional ride that I can give credit to. It was doing something right if I borrowed my friend's copy of Conquest for a bit and felt like a total **** by the end of chapter 6.

4. 2D live models are excellently crafted and I hope Nintendo uses the tech in future titles. (where applicable of course)

5. DA SOUNDTRACK.

6. Difficulty curve that really doesn't punish you until the final boss.

7. Battle animations that reflect the immediate environment are welcome.

8. Redone weapon system that doesn't punish me for using my favorite weapons (like paper).

9. Avatar characters! (not better than Awakening, but still!)

[SageOfAnys]

Logged on just for this post. I honestly love Fates and I will take any chance to praise it:

• Localization was great, I don't care what anyone says. Yes, they took lots of liberties with the supports, but at the end of the day, I felt the changes never truly impacted a character so much to make me feel like they're a completely changed person or just bland in comparison to the Japanese. In some regards, I actually like some characters better because of it (Soleil comes to mind immediately). The only thing that remotely bothered me was Saizo x Beruka C-rank, but I still think it's hilarious and in-character, and that makes me totally okay with it. But seriously, kudos to the translation team, as Fates could've ended up far worse than the way people act like.
• Oh my god the voice acting is great. Arthur, Odin, Kaden, Keaton, Gunter... even voices I initially hated like Xander's and Hinoka's I enjoy a lot. I personally think it's just as fine as Awakening's but maybe I just have low standards....
• Gameplay is a fantastic growth from Awakening's. Lowmanning is discouraged, children are implemented wonderfully gameplay wise (storywise though... hahahaha...), gender-locked classes are almost completely gone at this point, archers are useful, it's great. I'm probably going to be spending the next 2 years or so playing this game to be honest.
• The aesthetics are absolutely wonderful, and stunning, that's really all I can say, I mean holy cow.

[Kazemozu]

Despite what everyone else says, I absolutely loved both games. I played Conquest on hard mode casual (gonna do classic later) and it was still very challenging. Having to plan out which characters would kill which in order to get experience was tough, as I wanted to avoid Corrin stealing all the exp or Camilla and Xander killing everyone. The limited gold made choosing which weapons and skills to get was difficult, too. The level design and variety of victory conditions made me think of past games. In Birthright, I found it to be much easier, but it still was difficult at certain parts. In both paths, the story was amazing, and I felt legitimate guilt each time I saw characters from the other path pop up as enemies on the game I was playing. The cutscenes were absolutely gorgeous and the soundtrack was phenomenal. There was a unique cast of characters in each version, all with different personalities and attire. I really feel that each game is worth paying full price for, and buying one and getting the other half off is a steal. I can't wait to try out the 3rd path later down the line.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Kazemozu

[KoolioKenneth]

Wow. I guess I was wrong when I made that post at the bottom of the first page. Maybe this thread is going somewhere. A big thank-you to all of the people who have contributed to the thread, so far, and a big shout-out to the OP and my homie Hunter Nightblood. Let's get this thread going strong, everyone. TOGETHER WE RIDE! I'm not sorry.

[maybe]

and a big shout-out to the OP

why did you shout-out to yourself

[Dark Holy Elf]

Sure, I'm all for some positivity. I've played the first two routes, for reference.

-Conquest may have the most meticulous, thoughtful map design in any Strategy RPG I have ever played. You can just feel the love put into the different maps, the enemy placements and their skill loadouts.
-I really like the new reclassing/skill system.

-In particular, tactical skills like Lunge, Shove, Shelter, Swap return something to the series which had been sorely missing in the last three games.
-I love love LOVE that ninja reinforcements (er, that is, reinforcements ho attack as soon they appear, not reinforcements in the Ninja class..) are gone, even on the hardest difficulties. And that fog of war is also gone. The game may be tough, but it is always fair and respects you and gives you all the information you need. If I die, it's my fault, and I love that feeling.
-The new pairup and dual strike system is non-random and strategic, preserving everything about the system that was a good idea and actually making it good in practice.
-I wasn't sure what I would think about weapon durability being gone, but I really like it in practice. It's really hard to go back to games like FE7 with the stupid durability/shop system where you constantly had to worry about running out of weapons if you didn't check a guide to see what would be storebought in what chapter. Meanwhile, weapons are now individually balanced against each other and the choices are interesting ones.
-I thought the Norhian siblings had considerably more depth than I expect from Fire Emblem characters.
-I like how Conquest's plot features a protagonist who does some bad things and made me consider the morality of her actions, again not something I'm used to out of Fire Emblem. (Only the Tellius games have so much as flirted with it before, unsurprisingly I think they're the high point of the series for writing.)
-I've praised Conquest a lot so let me throw something in for Birthright: Chapter 26 is a powerful sequence.
-The music is just amazing. Special shout-out to the final battle theme; I normally hate Japanese pop vocals remixed into a final battle theme (e.g. the later Wild Arms games) but Fates' composers and Rena Strober really nailed it.

I could really go on. Conquest in particular is my favourite game in years.

[DeoxyRibose]

I love this game. I love the characters, I love the gameplay, I love the music, I love the interactions, I love the localization, I love the supports, I love sooooooo much, and especially love the singing. The voice acting is good, too. I was never critical about it, because so just assume that's how they'd sound if they were real. Effie sounds like someone who'd be at the gym 24/7, Hayato sounds like an overconfident child striving to be an adult, etcetera, etcetera. I should wrap it up, or else there will be an entire page for this one post.

[KoolioKenneth]

Never mind about the thread becoming popular, I guess...

[s07195]

I came back to this thread after playing Echoes...

I did like Echoes, but having actual map design in Fates was nice. Also, a variety of different music tracks (I get that Echoes was a remake).

I also think there's room for 'anime'-y characters and more subdued characters to exist... I really liked the cast here, even if the range and amount meant that most were benched.

[s07195]

I came back to this thread after playing Echoes...

I did like Echoes, but having actual map design in Fates was nice. Also, a variety of different music tracks (I get that Echoes was a remake).

I also think there's room for 'anime'-y characters and more subdued characters to exist... I really liked the cast here, even if the range and amount meant that most were benched.

[Megan]

This fire emblem game introduced me to the series and it made me interested in playing awakening. I loved them both so much I played the previous games and now fire emblem is one of my favorite game titles. I love fates and I still replay it all the time. I never get sick of it. I loved the dubbing, the writing, the evolution of the game as i see it from the first game till current. Like when I met Odin I fucking love everything about him. I laugh so hard at everything he says and all his supports. I think it's a great game and there's always someone who wants to bitch everything. 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Megan

[Interdimensional Observer]

My first playthrough of Fates was Conquest Classic Hard. I began thinking the game was like Awakening, and threw all my exp at Corrin thinking I could make them incredibly powerful very quickly.

Then came C10. Here, I hit a wall, but through intense struggle, i overcame this masterpiece of a chapter. Every chapter thereafter on Conquest a repeat of C10- intense struggle with much, much frustration and resets abound, but the joy from completing each fight was so, so worth it.

On subsequent playthroughs and runs of Birthright and Revelation, the sense of awe and wonder faded as Nohr and Hoshido became familiar. The mystique of Outlaw and Spear Fighter or skills like Poison Strike couldn't survive for forever. As I learned the fine details of the gameplay, the maps increasingly lost their majesty and became tedious. Nonetheless, I do consider Conquest to be particularly incredible in my heart due to that first run.

I too love the absence of weapon durability. As I always hoard rare weaponry in older games, not having to fear some "emergency situation" springing up where I needed those weapons and thus had to hoard them, freed me to actually use those weapons (and said "emergency situation" never arise so the weapons never see use- which defeats the purpose of having them). Plus, as I never bothered with forging, I didn't feel Silvers to be underpowered or anything, and I'll always recommend buying Niles a Silver Bow.

[Shogus00]

Cool, I'll join too. 

Gameplay wise this is definitely one of my favs in the series. I love the absence of weapon durability and how they balanced the game in turn. I feel the pluses and minuses make each weapon viable in their own way. 

I also like the personal skill system that helped each unit stand out from the rest. I think the reclass system was much improved with the holding levels as well. I am also fond of many of the maps in Conquest. 

I liked most of the character designs and was actually fond of a number of characters from the Nohr and Neutral side of things, as well as Rinkah, Takumi and Ryoma. I also liked the strange class picks for the lords, with one being a Manakete(with swords) and the other a dancer. We need more of this in the future IS! The sound track and english voices were great as well. 

[KoolioKenneth]

Geez, this thread is ANCIENT. I can't believe someone decided to pick it back up. Well, thanks for that, I suppose.

[Thinks Their Own Way]

I like that all 3 routes feel like different games, even when they would re-use maps; they would more often than not play differently. 

I like that every skill is useful in their own way.

I like the Japanese inspired designs for Hoshido and want future games to incorporate different cultures into their designs.

1-2 range healing and Live to Serve should be the new standard for healers from now on.

With re-classing and inheritances, I like that the marriage partner also benefits from the pairing.

I love characters like: Charlotte, Niles, Elise, Takumi, Effie, Azama, Laslow, Setsuna, Felicia, etc... even Iago is entertainingly campy to me.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

There's a lot that I like about Fates. I can honestly say that it's my favorite 3DS game.

[Ertrick36]

Is it considered necroposting if the thread was sort of revived recently?

I've been criticizing this game for months, but I can and will say its one of my favorite games and that I still come back to it.  I can't say I hate any of the characters, and both casts have some terrific characters (BR has Oboro, Takumi, Saizo, and Mitama, while CQ has Laslow, Charlotte, Beruka, and Forrest, among others).  Gameplay and map design is tight for both the base paths, and Revelation at least brings together supporting pairs that normally wouldn't exist.  The rebalancing done in this game really helped solidify Fire Emblem as the go-to strategy RPG for me.  And the refinements to the support system made an already good system better.  There's a lot to be said about the gameplay and how it was improved; in fact, there's a big grocery list of things you could say were improvements.

Localization-wise, I know some of us already pooled together kind words for Rena Strober's role in this game, so I won't go into much detail about her or any of the other voice actors.  I think they did a fine job capturing the essence of each character, even if it was mostly through ad-libs.  And while the localization wasn't 100% faithful to the original, I think they did a decent job of making the game more appealing to the west while retaining the tone and themes of the original.

23 hours ago, I'm a Spheal said:

I like the Japanese inspired designs for Hoshido and want future games to incorporate different cultures into their designs.

I did, too, and that helped draw me into playing BR first.  I just wanted to know how a FE game would implement a non-European culture into the game, and I liked seeing all the different classes.

I'm fine with the various different European subcultures IS uses for inspiration, but I think Fates proved that FE doesn't always have to be reliant on that.  And there's a wealth of cultures they could use to inspire the dominating cultures of future FE verses.

[SniperGYS]

I like Fates a lot, maybe not at Radiant Dawn level (that I played like 20 times consecutively), but I really love the game. Is portable, is fun, great characters, good music, the concept of 3 different stories showing different sides was good too, even if they didn't apply it how everyone wanted, but the concept was good... The game was a lot of fun to me, even if the story is not the best one.

My Castle was pretty fun, looking at the characters hanging around the castle and working in the resources, was something I loved. The option to buy skills from other players was freaking good, saving me of grind like a mad! Specially because I don't have that much time to play. I also liked the option to "buy" characters from my logbook, because it allowed me to play Conquest with the characters I wanted that aren't available in that route.

The DLC and paralogues becoming more difficult depending on which chapter of the story you are was good too, because in Awakening, you can make pretty easy the kids paralogues if you do them very late. And the music, I loved it , that I ended buying the OST.

I liked the gameplay of Fates a lot more than Awakening, that is for sure!

[Roy's Our Boy]

I had the same problem with Call of Duty. Modern Warfare 3 is everything Modern Warfare 2 was except better. But everyone only seems to praise MW2 and bash MW3. Fates is hands down better than Awakening and yet everyone likes the latter more. You could argue about story and characters all day but lets look at the game play.

• They fixed the pair up system and cleaned it up to make it consistent
• Simplified the Reclassing system 
• Balanced a lot of skills and items (galeforce was busted in awakening)
• New classes 
• New weapons
• Fairly Priced DLC
• Online Multiplayer 
• Redesigning the weapon triangle
• Updated graphics (no more horse feet)

I also didn't think the story was bad. Its by no means on Tellius level, but is still solid. You have to play the DLC to understand the Valla route and Anakos. The way the developers articulated the story was very poor which is why a lot of people probably didn't like it. If you do some of your own research and read in between the lines, the story was excellent and very thought provking. And a hell of a lot better than the Grima BS. And finally the music was amazing. Road Taken, Alight, Far Dawn, Dusk Falls, and Justice RIP were just some of the amazing map themes. End of All was probably one of the most well done video game peaces I have ever heard, Simply amazing. Plus the subtle lyric changes depending on which version you were playing. A true masterpiece. Plus we got 3 games in 1 release. I know that it was more expensive but each route truly was its own game. 3 games for the price of 2 is amazing value The replay value is amazing as their are so many characters in 3 routes to pick from. Overall my second favorite FE game behind only Radiant Dawn. I though Echoes was a step down from this masterpiece but that's a story for another time. 

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by Roy's Our Boy