People preference Does Anybody still like Awakening more than Fates.

[TheVinceKnight]

It's funny to wonder why I haven't gone back to playing Fates when I haven't completed a single storyline in the English version (I've done all of them in Japanese).

I actually thought that it was because I preferred Awakening as a game over Fates, despite Fates having better gameplay.

I guess Fates didn't really feel 'complete' the way Awakening did when I played Awakening.

I do prefer Awakening over Fates, but I'm not entirely sure for what reason to be honest.

Maybe it's because I can play as multiple Spotpass characters because of the sheer amount of content put into the game.

[Slyfox]

Maybe Fates is like that large group of cool friends that you hang out with sometimes, and it's fun, but you don't have much in common with them.

Whereas Awakening is that small handful of friends where you act kinda stupid and have a blast all the time.

Well, good thing I can Awaken from this nightmare about Fates.

[Mimikku]

Well, I enjoyed Fates' gameplay but it seems rushed to me. I prefer Awakening as I enjoyed its story way more than Fates.

I really like the Pair-up system in Awakening than I do in Fates. Don't get me wrong, Fates' My Castle thing was cool but... eh.

[Ertrick36]

Aight, after going on about Fates for a bit in some other threads...

It depends. Storywise, I prefer Awakening. It's comparatively simple, but it doesn't try to bite off more than it could chew. It finds a way to involve a lot of the non-royal characters while Fates struggles with figuring out how to involve even some of the main characters, and on a ratio basis, Awakening has more good than bad or mediocre characters than Fates does, though to be fair, I'm pretty sure Fates has quite a few more characters than Awakening. But lots of garbage is still garbage; doesn't make it any prettier.

Gameplay-wise, Fates is an improvement. It can be hard to go back to Awakening because it feels like an alpha version of Fates. Battles don't feel as disjointed, you aren't concerned about your special weapons breaking, and the game found a way to integrate the pairing and reclass systems so that it's far more balanced. Even the simple things like Fates zooming in for battles versus Awakening's fade-to-black deal just make the game feel much more fluid.

Overall, I still have a soft spot for the Ylissean tale. It was my introduction into the franchise, much like it was for many, and it brought FE back to life. Fates is nice, too, but it more just ensured that FE is here to stay.

[Loki Laufeyson]

I found in Awakening that, if you aren't running a super optimal team, grinding is kinda enforced on hard mode and above. There's flat maps and buttloads of equally-leveled enemies in the latter parts; either you tank them all or they chip one of your units to death. That's just my experience, though.

No it really isnt. If you run an average team, you'll be fine as long as you just simply pay attention. Now, if you are running a team of scrubs (like Ricken), maybe yer gonna have a hard time. But grinding is not enforced, and grinding on Lunatic has to be done with DLC because skirmishes are freaking ridiculous otherwise.

[The DanMan]

No it really isnt. If you run an average team, you'll be fine as long as you just simply pay attention. Now, if you are running a team of scrubs (like Ricken), maybe yer gonna have a hard time. But grinding is not enforced, and grinding on Lunatic has to be done with DLC because skirmishes are freaking ridiculous otherwise.

Well, as I said, it's my experience- I'm not the best FE player at all, and I know people out there no-grind Lunatic like nobody's business. I just found that from Valm Castle Interior onward the game relied almost purely on enemy numbers for difficulty- which it had done before, but it did even moreso, causing a spike in difficulty when coupled with the almost completely featureless maps.

[Sunwoo]

I get the feeling that Fates was designed more as a way to "make money" more than Awakening was, and as a result it felt like it had less "soul" or "identity"? If all three campaigns stood on their own, then it would seem more like three separate AUs ... but really both Birthright and Conquest had too many things that obviously screamed "buy Revelation" and Revelation as a path brought up more questions than answered. It's silly that I need to buy DLC for answers and story material that should've been included in one of the base games (or even Revelation).

Although I do prefer the gameplay of Fates now , I played Awakening a lot more. I played Awakening for ... I don't know, two years? I played some 20+ full campaigns and did two avatar run playthroughs that I posted on SF. I was burned out on Japanese Hoshido and Touma paths before Fates was released in the U.S. Fates just didn't keep my interest as long as Awakening did.

Somewhat ironically, however, this may be the reason why my favorite FE character is from Fates. I thought Takumi (and Oboro) were really well written compared to the rest of the game, and so what good I thought Fates did stands out a lot. But a game in which I had liked almost everything about (like PoR) means that the characters I like most don't stand out nearly as much because there were so much I liked about the game in general (sorry Tormod, Marcia, and Rath).

[Loki Laufeyson]

Well, as I said, it's my experience- I'm not the best FE player at all, and I know people out there no-grind Lunatic like nobody's business. I just found that from Valm Castle Interior onward the game relied almost purely on enemy numbers for difficulty- which it had done before, but it did even moreso, causing a spike in difficulty when coupled with the almost completely featureless maps.

tbh i play Casual mode on anything above Normal, so /shrug. You do have a point about enemy numbers. The last leg spams guys that try to overpower you despite PairUp.

[Augestein]

No it really isnt. If you run an average team, you'll be fine as long as you just simply pay attention. Now, if you are running a team of scrubs (like Ricken), maybe yer gonna have a hard time. But grinding is not enforced, and grinding on Lunatic has to be done with DLC because skirmishes are freaking ridiculous otherwise.

Awakening Lunatic skirmishes are less playable than the regular maps. It's insane. Beating the game without grinding is definitely possible though. You just won't be able to pair up all of your units that you get. So you might see like 2-3 children per playthrough outside of Lucina.

I also hate how sometimes random encounters can land in the way of your progress. So stupid. Fates doesn't have that garbage at all.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Awakening Lunatic skirmishes are less playable than the regular maps. It's insane. Beating the game without grinding is definitely possible though. You just won't be able to pair up all of your units that you get. So you might see like 2-3 children per playthrough outside of Lucina.

I also hate how sometimes random encounters can land in the way of your progress. So stupid. Fates doesn't have that garbage at all.

Yee. If you wanna grind on Loony, you can really only do it with the DLC. Tbh, Lunatic kinda encourages lowmanning anyway, so its not a big deal if you only get a couple of kid characters. Morgan is really high priority on Loony.

I agree with the skirmish placing. FE8 had the same problem. In Awakening, its like a double skirmish lands right on the shop with the fuggin' Nosferatu tomes and its like rage lmao

[BrightBow]

I agree with the skirmish placing. FE8 had the same problem. In Awakening, its like a double skirmish lands right on the shop with the fuggin' Nosferatu tomes and its like rage lmao

Well, not exactly. In FE8 you had to enter the battle but you didn't need to actually fight in order to get rid of the enemies and gain access to the shops. You could simply retreat immediately.

Edited August 20, 2016 by BrightBow

[Czar_Yoshi]

...So I haven't been here for quite a while. I doubt I'm back to stay.

The main reason I left was that I was tired of people complaining about Fates and dodging prerelease spoilers all the time, so I guess you could say I'm biased against it. Regardless, Fates got some time out of me, and now I'm right back to Awakening.

[Slyfox]

...So I haven't been here for quite a while. I doubt I'm back to stay.

The main reason I left was that I was tired of people complaining about Fates and dodging prerelease spoilers all the time, so I guess you could say I'm biased against it. Regardless, Fates got some time out of me, and now I'm right back to Awakening.

What's wrong with dodging pre-release spoilers? I myself essentially disappeared from the forums when Fates was announced until it was released.

Take a look at Pokemon Sun and Moon. They are practically showing us everything in the game, but I'd like to have some surprises. The only option is to avoid it, really.

[Rydia]

...So I haven't been here for quite a while. I doubt I'm back to stay.

The main reason I left was that I was tired of people complaining about Fates and dodging prerelease spoilers all the time, so I guess you could say I'm biased against it. Regardless, Fates got some time out of me, and now I'm right back to Awakening.

You're not the only one who left the forum to dodge prerelease spoilers... I am back only because I finally played the game and now i don't risk them anymore but I have to admit that all the people tring to spoiler me had me approaching fates with a general "meh" feeling and I think they basically ruined the whole adventure to me.

Heck, for the longest time I kind of professed how Ninian was a better version of Azura because I couldn't stand all the Azura obsessed fan who kept trying to tell me how precious their waifu was even when I still had to see fates. The fact that it arrived really late in europe didn't help and I will be honest, I'd replay Awakening any time, like the other games, but fates? Eh, pass...

[DragonFlames]

I, too, am about to put Fates down for good. The only thing I want to accomplish is getting all Battle and Visitor rewards from My Castle while helping other people accomplish the same and after that, I think I'm permanently done with Fates.

I just recently started playing Awakening again and I'm having much more fun in the first five chapters than in all of Fates. As I've stated before, Awakening's characters are FAR superior to Fates' and some of you may call me stupid, but... I feel the gameplay is, too, or rather, the game-feel. Yes, pair-ups are broken. Yes, the My Castle and Online features are a blast and a vast improvement over Awakening's Street Pass feature, but overall, Awakening simply feels better to play. Everything in Awakening is much more welcoming compared to Fates, where the game sometimes seems to antagonize you on purpose (incredibly bullshit RNG shenanigans that happen TOO often to be mere coincidence, amongst other stuff). And then there is one other thing that pushes Fates off the cliff: The grinding.

I'd like to open with a quote Zero Punctuation: "If [Fire Emblem Fates] gives you chocolate buns, it has to take away heart medication with its other hand" (From 'Dark Souls 2 - Zero Punctuation')

By which I mean the following: They made the reclassing system easier by not resetting your level and thus you can learn skills faster. Great, right? Well, the problem is that there are now MULTIPLE seals you have to purchase, thus increasing the gold you waste on them and don't even get me started on the price for Eternal Seals. This basically FORCES you to buy the Ghostly Gold DLC map if you want to stand as much as a chance in PvP for example (or even the late- to endgame of harder difficulties).

And then there's the absolute FUCK YOU that is the EXP system. After a while, units in Fates get a measly 1 EXP from killing enemies, so you have to fight FOURHUNDRED ENEMIES to get four measly skills, whereas in Awakening, fourhundred enemies was about the number you needed to completely finish grinding a unit. This forces you to buy the Boo Camp DLC if you want to have a realistic chance of grinding up your units for whatever purpose and even that becomes frickin' impossible once you reach later stages of the game.

And that's not even getting into the fact that the enemies in the DLC scale with your game progress, basically ruining any chances of saving grinding a unit for later or even grinding them at all.

Then there's statues, which seem cool at first until you realize that you need at least 40 of the damn things to even stand a chance in PvP and they make you wish the Limit Break skill book still existed, since farming Dragon Vein points is a royal pain in the ass.

And on the topic of DLC skills: Why do the DLCs for additional Dark Wings, Dread Scrolls, Point Blank, -taker skill books and Fellblood have to be so mind-numbingly hard? I get it, its for a sense of achievement, but that doesn't excuse the absolute atrocity that is the difficulty of the maps themselves, making grinding for these things all but impossible.

Don't get me wrong, I love me a challenge, but Heirs of Fate and especially Hidden Truth and Royal Royale is hard enough that one time is enough for me.

These factors basically defeat the entire purpose of the revamped reclass system: saving you time. It doesn't. Training your units in Fates takes about as much time as it did in Awakening, depending on the path you are on. On Revelations, it takes even longer than that. It is unnessecary inconvenient and proves to be a HUGE barrier for anyone who wants to try out PvP, like myself.

The main argument, from my understanding, for these stupid design choices is 'balance'. To me, this isn't as much 'balancing' as it is 'padding out' and creating unsurmountable barriers for some players who don't have the time to sink hundreds of hours into the game just to stand a small chance against other players.

This is one thing that the 6th Generation of Pokémon got right, as much as I hate the rest of it. Preparing strong PvP teams there takes a lot less time thanks to new features (EXP Share, revamped breeding) that are there simply to save you time, which I feel Awakening did well, too. You can get all necessities for grinding in about an hour max: Paragon, Limit Breaker, Second Seals and Reeking Boxes etc. Sure, you still need the DLC for the Skill books, but at least the maps themselves can be made easy enough to grind everything you desire very quickly and without paying much attention to what you're doing (which is necessary for grinding, since I always do something else at the same time, like watching Youtube, anime or a movie or other stuff).

And then Fates went and butchered it. If they create that many things to inconvenience the player, they could've just as well stuck with the system they introduced in Awakening.

Edited August 24, 2016 by DragonFlames

[shadowofchaos]

You are overestimating the generosity of the second seal level cap for Awakening.

On Lunatic mode, grinding for skills is just as bad as Fates, since the level cap is much higher.

At max, you get 8 experience per kill. Paragon and Veteran can only give you so much.

Genealogy Map 3 DLC has 40 enemies and give you at most, 8 level ups on a Paragon and Veteran'd unit.

You are putting the expectation pedestal to online PvP for Fates as a standard while Awakening has the luxury of not having that.

If you were to compare the efficiency threshold of grinding if both games, it is the same.

I did the math creating the Lunatic+ grinding without DLC guide. The tedium is just as bad there.

The revamed reclass system's purpose isn't defeated. The purpose of the system was to be able to switch between classes to get the skill that you needed most at that time quickly during a resource limited time. Gaining the skills from lower levels through normal level ups during a campaign during a fresh switch is streamlined for game play, not for the infinite grind to collect skills for online PvP.

Edited August 24, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[Ragna_Oblivion]

You are overestimating the generosity of the second seal level cap for Awakening.

On Lunatic mode, grinding for skills is just as bad as Fates, since the level cap is much higher.

At max, you get 8 experience per kill. Paragon and Veteran can only give you so much.

Genealogy Map 3 DLC has 40 enemies and give you at most, 8 level ups on a Paragon and Veteran'd unit.

You are putting the expectation pedestal to online PvP for Fates as a standard while Awakening has the luxury of not having that.

If you were to compare the efficiency threshold of grinding if both games, it is the same.

I did the math creating the Lunatic+ grinding without DLC guide. The tedium is just as bad there.

The revamed reclass system's purpose isn't defeated. The purpose of the system was to be able to switch between classes to get the skill that you needed most at that time quickly during a resource limited time. Gaining the skills from lower levels through normal level ups during a campaign during a fresh switch is streamlined for game play, not for the infinite grind to collect skills for online PvP.

First off, just wanna say that I love your channel, and I agree with a lot of the things you're saying. However, shouldn't IS have taken into account how popular the online PvP could get? I'm certainly not trying to trash them, but streamlining such a pivotal part of the game for just single-player gameplay seems like a bad move on their part.

[DragonFlames]

You are overestimating the generosity of the second seal level cap for Awakening.

On Lunatic mode, grinding for skills is just as bad as Fates, since the level cap is much higher.

At max, you get 8 experience per kill. Paragon and Veteran can only give you so much.

Genealogy Map 3 DLC has 40 enemies and give you at most, 8 level ups on a Paragon and Veteran'd unit.

You are putting the expectation pedestal to online PvP for Fates as a standard while Awakening has the luxury of not having that.

If you were to compare the efficiency threshold of grinding if both games, it is the same.

I did the math creating the Lunatic+ grinding without DLC guide. The tedium is just as bad there.

The revamed reclass system's purpose isn't defeated. The purpose of the system was to be able to switch between classes to get the skill that you needed most at that time quickly during a resource limited time. Gaining the skills from lower levels through normal level ups during a campaign during a fresh switch is streamlined for game play, not for the infinite grind to collect skills for online PvP.

Okay, I didn't take Lunatic or Lunatic+ into account, you're right. It's leagues apart from Normal or Hard... Not that I experienced it myself. I just watched your video on it and it looked really harsh. I honestly forgot about that until you reminded me.

First off, just wanna say that I love your channel, and I agree with a lot of the things you're saying. However, shouldn't IS have taken into account how popular the online PvP could get? I'm certainly not trying to trash them, but streamlining such a pivotal part of the game for just single-player gameplay seems like a bad move on their part.

You've got a point there.

Edited August 24, 2016 by DragonFlames

[shadowofchaos]

Fire Emblem has always been tailored to Player Phase combat with hordes of generic AI throwing themselves at you. If the AI cared about their units like a human opponent would, the game wouldn't be very fun.

There's a reason you have to have "rulesets" to prevent PvP from being even crappier than the Shadow Dragon variety.

PvP streamlining would detract from the designs provided to streamline a normal single player campaign. Designing the system around ease of grinding for playthroughs simply for PvP wasn't at the top of their priorities.

They imagined you'd take a break from the story to play PvP simply because of the inherent flaws in FE multiplayer. Not treat it like Pokemon.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

FE PvP was crap competitively and always will be. It had to be reworked completely.

"Pivotal part of the game" is debatable, as the feature feels like an "extra" and just an expansion of the previous Streetpass features from Awakening. Multiplayer isn't necessary. You have no need to flex your strategic muscles at an unknown opponent.

If you've ever played FETO, you'd know how much of an improvement Fates PvP is and that it is the ceiling of what you can do with Fire Emblem's game format.

Fire Emblem at heart is a single player campaign game. Trying to prioritize an extra feature is a mistake. If they did, Conquest's nice map design might have possibly suffered.

And there's already enough reasons to rip on Conquest. We don't want more.

Can someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Super Robot Taisen lacks multiplayer, yes?

And wouldn't it be a disaster to design it for that? Especially with all the insta-kill moves they would have scaling to player HP?

Edited August 24, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[Ragna_Oblivion]

Fire Emblem has always been tailored to Player Phase combat with hordes of generic AI throwing themselves at you. If the AI cared about their units like a human opponent would, the game wouldn't be very fun.

There's a reason you have to have "rulesets" to prevent PvP from being even crappier than the Shadow Dragon variety.

PvP streamlining would detract from the designs provided to streamline a normal single player campaign. Designing the system around ease of grinding for playthroughs simply for PvP wasn't at the top of their priorities.

They imagined you'd take a break from the story to play PvP simply because I the inherent flaws in FE multiplayer. Not treat it like Pokemon.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

FE PvP was crap competitively and always will be. It had to be reworked completely.

"Pivotal part of the game" is debatable, as the feature feels like an "extra" and just an expansion of the previous Streetpass features from Awakening.

If you've ever played FETO, you'd know how much of an improvement Fates PvP is and that it is the ceiling of what you can do with Fire Emblem's game format.

Fire Emblem at heart is a single player campaign game. Trying to prioritize an extra feature is a mistake. If they did, Conquest's nice map design might have possibly suffered.

And there's already enough reasons to rip on Conquest. We don't want more.

Can someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Super Robot Taisen lacks multiplayer, yes?

And wouldn't it be a disaster to design it for that? Especially with all the insta-kill moves they would have scaling to player HP?

Pivotal part of the game was meant to refer to the reclassing, but you've sold me at this point.

[shadowofchaos]

Pivotal part of the game was meant to refer to the reclassing, but you've sold me at this point.

Apologies for getting distracted and going off point. I'm not against liking PvP by any means and discussion about the reclass system for it.

I'm just very passionate against taking it more seriously than a "casual" standpoint from the people way back during Awakening's release simply wanting to show off their Pokémon Eugenics skills.

I was on mobile so it took a while editing typos.

Edited August 24, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[TheSilentChloey]

Now that I have fully "finished" Fates (all pathways) I can finally make my full conclusions about the game in full. Be warned potential ranting ahead, I am not going to sugar coat this and I need to get this crap out of my system because I am sick of it. Also this will be each version to its own bit with the over all view of Fates vs Awakening being the last point.

Conquest:

To be fair there was a few things that I actually enjoyed out of Conquest. Some of the characters were alright, the gameplay is a bit better than Awakening's with a few more balanced elements than Awakening that worked well. I found the maps to be reasonably enjoyable; although some maps drove me to distraction to the point of wanting to tear my hair out because a certain Avatar wanted to commit suicide all the time and kept getting RNG screwed the entire playthrough. Lilith's death was pointless, Ryoma's death was meaningless as there wasn't enough time to develop his character and completing Conquest wasn't the most satisfiying thing I have done to date. That said there are things about Conquest I hate, and despite the more popular opinion out there this is mostly personal and doesn't apply to anyone. Unless of course they feel the same.

I HATE phoenix mode. I don't like being reduced to it because my team likes committing suicide and getting RNG screwed to hell and back. The Avatar included. In fact she was the worst offender of this. It was annoying and there was nothing I could do at the time to fix the problem. So for all those cries of "use DLC" realise that at the time you were all talking about it, sure I'd bought it, but I couldn't use it even if I wanted to save for the Before Awakening map because those maps hadn't been released in my region at that time. And I used Before Awakening because I missed Awakening. And it was the closest I had to my more prefered game, even if it wasn't the same.

Revelation:

Because I paid for the top notch Fire Emblem Fates pre order I had Revelation before it was released as DLC. Now Revelation did fix some of my issues with Conquest (allowing me to train my units and actually getting certain supports like Kana and Xander as well as Siebert and a mother Avatar) but it added more issues. In the tune of the WORST boss I have ever encountered in Anakos who has to be the most meaningless bad guy I have seen that just won't quit. And that's in comparision to the pathetic thing that is Grima. I thought Grima was my least favourite boss. Nope move over Grima you're actually not that pathetic, Anakos is and that's not what I expected at all.

And to add insult to injury it added one of my most hated characters in all of the Fire Emblem games that I have ever played (FE13 and FE14)...the Tharja clone Rhajat. I know now that I didn't have to get her and that I don't have to actually marry her father off to anyone, but I foolishly did so and she was the result. Tharja I tolerated because she is Noire's mother and if I want Noire I have to have Tharja marry some poor bastard, Rhajat...no...just no I want to use classic mode just to be rid of her.

Birthright:

Where do I even begin? The fact that it's so mind numbingly easy I played hard mode up to Ninja Village or the fact that I skipped through so much of the story because I was only there to get the game done and have at least completed all of Fates to formulate my opinion fully. I will say this though, Xander's death was the worst part of the game because that did make me cry (perhaps because he's one of the few characters that I like of Fates overall?), as well as Elise. Again Lilith's death was meaningless and Susukaze's was no better, with Flora's being actually understandable but ultimately useless. And the Avatar was a dark flier so why the hell couldn't she have called her pegasus to save them both why the hell did Susukaze's death have to be scripted like that? I had nothing to do with my castle and practically auto battled the way through the entire game. That is the extent of how bad it is, even if I gave it chance.

Overall vs Awakening:

I don't mind the PvP but it's ultimately pointless for me. As shadowofchaos so elegantly put it Fire Emblem is a single player game that really doesn't need PvP like Pokemon seems to in order to work and keep you busy for a few minutes.

It's nice to visit other people to help them out with things like accessories (I give out accessories fyi) or resources to help them out. I enjoyed some of the DLC classes (Witches being my top favourite class followed by Great Lord because female avatar is limited to those classes and the skills are useful. Sad to say that Dark Fliers are pointless in Fates because Galeforce was needless nerfed and to get Ebon Wings is just too difficult for what it's worth).

The PvP system has made getting skills onto certain children pointless as you can just buy them if you're able to beat the other team that has the skills that you want.

In Awakening you had to think about who married who to a much greater degree beacuse of what skill you wanted the children to have (Galeforce for the boys for example because they couldn't get it anywhere else except their mother) or what stats you wanted them to make the most of (like Lon'qu!Severa for speed, Ricken!Laurent for magic or Robin!All-child-units for class freedom and skills as well as stats). I will add that the children in Awakening had more of a reason to be near the same age as their parents (time travel) than the children of Fates did. (I believe the term is "shoehorned"? Please correct me if I am wrong I am human after all and I tend to make mistakes) It makes little sense for the couples you make in Fates to have children let alone for those kids to be the same age as their parents. Now if there were a time skip where the children grew up, that would actually be ok because then you would have a reason to have them in the army. Deep Realms? Nah too damned pointless even for fantasy.

Sure pair ups are broken as fuck in Awakening but that's what made the game so much more fun for me to playthrough. I know when I went up against Grima (twice in one day...follwoing the exact same moves as I posted in my LP) and I got a surprise dual strike the first time, and the second time Chrom landed a critical dual strike that I did not honestly see coming and I expected my avatar to have to kill Grima all by herself with Waste hitting 4 times. And it was AMAZING! I couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear because it was so awesome and so unexpected.

Of course on the flip side pair ups in Awakening can be equally annoying. For example a unit that is allergic to archers gets killed because his/her partner doesn't dual guard even though they're S-Ranked, or the dual stike that misses four or five times in a row, or the unit that does no damage in the back who won't get the exp that they might need. Or the unit in the front is being trained and dies before they get meaningful EXP to pick up the skill that they need. It was for me the most worrying part of any playthrough. Would my units dual strike or dual guard or both? It was fun.

All in all Awakening had for me the more likeable music, characters and maps despite the gameplay differences and flaws. Fates seemed to me like half a game with the rest of the story it being held hostage as DLC that if anyone wanted to play it would cost them money that they may not have wanted to spend. Awakening did have Future Past as DLC but you didn't need it to get Awakening's story. You could do perfectly fine without the DLC in Awakening all together if you wanted to. Fates...well like I said you'd be missing out on what is actually crutial story details that you should have gotten through the main game.

As for the reclassing system no comment. I'd say that both games are about the same in terms of grinding time cost. Although Awakening does it slightly better with EXPontial Growth and the Golden Gaffe as well as having Despoil as a skill option if you don't have the DLC.

Edited August 25, 2016 by TheSilentChloey

[shadowofchaos]

The rest of your post seems reasonable, but I'm still going to rip on you for two things:

I HATE phoenix mode. I don't like being reduced to it because my team likes committing suicide and getting RNG screwed to hell and back. The Avatar included. In fact she was the worst offender of this. It was annoying and there was nothing I could do at the time to fix the problem. So for all those cries of "use DLC" realise that at the time you were all talking about it, sure I'd bought it, but I couldn't use it even if I wanted to save for the Before Awakening map because those maps hadn't been released in my region at that time. And I used Before Awakening because I missed Awakening. And it was the closest I had to my more prefered game, even if it wasn't the same.

"I hate being reduced to use Phoenix Mode".

I will again reiterate, that Conquest's lack of grinding is not a design flaw.

You see as being "reduced" to use Phoenix Mode means that you think it is beneath you.

...You have literally hundreds if not thousands of people that use it. It's existence is probably due to Conquest returning to Fire Emblem roots and advertised as such. Art thou greater than them?

This is literally the one time I'm going to blame skill and lack of effort. You are dissatisfied and talking crap with the game difficulty that is tailored to your skill level to make the game accessible to you. You are faulting Conquest design for being not tailored to you when it was advertised as for veterans.

Now that I have fully "finished" Fates (all pathways) I can finally make my full conclusions about the game in full.

And... during all of this, you were talking all of that crap on Fates earlier... without ever finishing the game? Classy. Edited August 25, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[Gradivus.]

I HATE phoenix mode. I don't like being reduced to it because my team likes committing suicide and getting RNG screwed to hell and back. The Avatar included. In fact she was the worst offender of this. It was annoying and there was nothing I could do at the time to fix the problem. So for all those cries of "use DLC" realise that at the time you were all talking about it, sure I'd bought it, but I couldn't use it even if I wanted to save for the Before Awakening map because those maps hadn't been released in my region at that time. And I used Before Awakening because I missed Awakening. And it was the closest I had to my more prefered game, even if it wasn't the same.

What do you mean by committing suicide? Unless you play with autobattle frequently (in which case, Phoenix mode makes sense because of the AI's non-strategic nature), your units shouldn't be doing that, since it isn't a good idea to attack with a unit who would die from the counterattack.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Gradivus.

[shadowofchaos]

Birthright:

Where do I even begin? The fact that it's so mind numbingly easy I played hard mode up to Ninja Village or the fact that I skipped through so much of the story because I was only there to get the game done and have at least completed all of Fates to formulate my opinion fully. I will say this though, Xander's death was the worst part of the game because that did make me cry (perhaps because he's one of the few characters that I like of Fates overall?), as well as Elise. Again Lilith's death was meaningless and Susukaze's was no better, with Flora's being actually understandable but ultimately useless. And the Avatar was a dark flier so why the hell couldn't she have called her pegasus to save them both why the hell did Susukaze's death have to be scripted like that? I had nothing to do with my castle and practically auto battled the way through the entire game. That is the extent of how bad it is, even if I gave it chance.

If you're going to talk shit about the difficulty in one route for not having grinding and being mind-numbingly hard....

And too easy in the other simply because you grinded...

You could, you know... not grind.

Like how the maps were designed in mind?

Did you seriously talk shit about the game being too easy and too difficult in the same post?

You clearly have no concept of difficulty scaling and you blame it all on the game.

Edited August 25, 2016 by shadowofchaos