Why Can't Reina Support With Orochi? (possible spoilers)

[DaimaoBF]

So, I've been pondering this thought for a while now. Every game has the "that-game locked" character, Conquest has Gunter, Revelations has Fuga, and Birthright has Reina. The thing about these characters is that they're all "Corrin-sexual," and as such they can only S-support with the MU. The thing is, that Reina can't support with ANYONE other than the MU. I find that weird because:

Gunter, in Conquest, can support with Jakob. I haven't seen anything other than their C-support so far but I think they can support because they both are retainers of MU, and from what I see Jakob kinda has some sort of rivalry to the old man. I dunno why, but whatever.

Fuga, in Revelations, can support with Hayato. This is because Fuga is Hayato's adopted father, and they both hail from the Wind Tribe. In these supports Fuga is teaching Hayato some "Special Technique" or whatever, and helping Hayato grow to be a man.

Reina gets absolutely no one! I don't personally like Reina as a character, I'm on team Peri for the whole killing and bloodshed thing, and I personally hate Birthright and Hoshido as a whole because... well that's another story. Anyways, Reina doesn't get to support with anyone other than the MU (and Kana, I guess) which is strange. Gunter gets an A+, Fuga gets an A+, yet Reina doesn't. When I was thinking about possible candidates for Reina's friendship support, the only two I could think of was Orochi and Kagero. The reason being that both Orochi and Reina were retainers of Queen Mikoto before she died, and that in one of her supports (can't remember who) Kagero tells someone that she used to be a retainer of Queen Mikoto, presumably while Reina and Orochi were there.

And I've also thought about the other "that game-specific" characters, and then it got me thinking. Flora can also support with Felicia, giving another support to Conquest version. While Scarlet can't support with anyone in Birthright either. Scarlet is another "Corrin-sexual" character, and she has no other supports than the MU. I was trying to think of a possible A+ for her and I couldn't find anyone. Seriously, no one comes to mind. The only non-MU support I could think of is between her and Ryoma, since they show some sort of love-interest in Revelations, but she doesn't show ANY of that in Birthright. She's just there to kick ass and take names.

Any reason for these?

Also, on an unrelated note:

"I'm gonna get Nohrian on your butt!" Scarlet is from Nohr...

Gunter should always be the Vanguard Class. Not because the Vanguard is a good class or anything, because it isn't really, but because he looks like an older version of Ike. It makes think I have the hero of the blue flames on my team after he came back from a 30 year rest.

[Thinks Their Own Way]

And it's characters like Reina (or any Avatar only ones) is the reason why I don't like limited support options. Also, why can't she have supports with the Hoshido royals? Still not as outrageous as some of Awakening's Avatar only support's (*cough Emmeryn *cough*).

[Augestein]

Why can't Scarlet of all people support with other people? She doesn't seem any older either. The whole "Corrin-sexual" thing is mess and makes no sense overall. Hell, she should at least have Ryoma.

[Aircalipoor]

I guess Reina was supposed to support with every male + Orochi but they had to time/resources for that.

[Agro]

I would guesstimate that many characters (Shura, Reina, Scarlet, Yukimura) were added toward the end of the development cycle as a way to balance the game and as Aircapiloor said, IS probably didn't have the time/resources to devote to the newer characters.

[MrMcThrasher]

And it's characters like Reina (or any Avatar only ones) is the reason why I don't like limited support options. Also, why can't she have supports with the Hoshido royals? Still not as outrageous as some of Awakening's Avatar only support's (*cough Emmeryn *cough*).

Can I just focus on this for a moment, because I thought it was SUPER creepy you could have your character fall in love with someone with amnesia and brain damage to the point they are almost childlike, and then BAM you have a child with them...

[NekoKnight]

Scarlet and Yukimura are the Birthright exclusive characters, not Reina.

I really wish they didn't make Kamui-sexuals considering supports are the only way for most characters to get any development. There are several people Reina could have supported. Orochi, Kagero, Yukimura, Ryoma or Hinoka (it wouldn't surprise me if Reina was a trainer to some of the royal children).

Hopefully future games will give everyone a reasonable support pool just for characterization, whether or not marriage is a factor in the game.

Can I just focus on this for a moment, because I thought it was SUPER creepy you could have your character fall in love with someone with amnesia and brain damage to the point they are almost childlike, and then BAM you have a child with them...

My friend, have you played Fates? Sketchy relationships are the face of Fire Emblem now.

[BlueBloodEmblazer]

If Reina or Scarlet could S support other characters that would fix the, not getting all the kids if you marry first gen problem.

[BANRYU]

Honestly, I'd rather have 6-10 support options for every character than the 'childbearing units' being able to support with everyone and the 'barren ones' being able to support with your character and that's it. Hell, even the Robinsexuals in Awakening had at least a FEW options each, IIRC (barring the spotpass DLC characters but they shouldn't have existed anyway besides maybe Priam lol).

I will never see the logic of writing a ton of largely-throwaway or inconsequential supports (with maybe 2-3, a few more than that at best, that actually give valuable insight into the character and their backstory), while other, potentially-interesting characters get few or none.

Also, I want to see more gen 2 x gen 1 supports with people the kids aren't related to-- to my knowledge, the only one in these last two games that has been like that is Tiki x Nah in Awakening. Why not have more mentor-figure type supports....??

[SalShich10N]

Probably because, thanks to the current marriage system, the workload just for the pairable characters is tremendous. Hell in Awakening's artbook one third of the book is just supports transcripts and the letter is small. Just picture it, it's so damn much text to write that in translations many supports got their text reduced in about half and one was outright replaced with just ellipses. To reduce the workload, chances are they restricted the same-gender supports to about 2-3 per unit (which hurts Azura because she doesn't support with Camilla because of this) and those units that are not part of the "1st gen" were left with minimal supports. It might also reflect that some units like Scarlet, Shura and Reina might have been added in later in development. Chances they did, in fact, wanted to add more, but time was an issue and that's what the Scramble DLC in Awakening and the Bonds DLC exist. Marriage and children need to go.

[Etrurian emperor]

Marriage and children need to go.

I wouldn't voice it so strongly but I do think that the supports all being so heavily devoted to pairing characters is to blame for certain characters being avatarsexuals and for characters lacking support options they should logically have.

And that ties in to the answer of this topic's question: Its because Reina is middle aged and of the same gender as Orochi.

What most avatar sexuals have in common is that they are a lot older than the barely adult cast of the latest games. Basilio, Gunther, Reina, Fuuga and Izama are all either middle aged or actually old. This gets in the way of most pairing because as Basilio tells Flavia ''You could be Chrom's mother!''. The avatar can get a pass on this because being able to pair them with everyone is the point.

At the current stage the supports of Fire emblem's new style are all designed to lead to a romance. Even if characters are already married their next C support is there to set up a chain of events that eventually leads to a romance. This just ensures there isn't as much place for old hermits like Niime or battle hardened veterans like Tauroneo. It also means that the support between characters of a different gender takes precedence because that's what is going to lead to a pairing. So a male can generally support with at least half of the females while same gendered supports take a backseat. There isn't a good reason as to why Basilio can't talk to his right hand or his former rival, or Ricken not being able to chat with his hero but it not being able to lead to a romance is the probable reason why they cannot. Same for Azura and Camilla though I wouldn't actually put a romance past the later.

There have always been some odd support choices. Ike can't support with Tauroneo, his fathers old friend for instance and Tormod can't support with his foster father either. But that always seemed more like a freak accident while in the newer games those commissions are likely a part of the design philosophy.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Etrurian emperor

[Sunwoo]

There have always been some odd support choices. Ike can't support with Tauroneo, his fathers old friend for instance and Tormod can't support with his foster father either. But that always seemed more like a freak accident while in the newer games those commissions are likely a part of the design philosophy.

To be fair, PoR didn't have a lot of the "obvious" supports. Ike didn't support Mist, his own sister, while the three brothers didn't support each other, and Marcia didn't support Makalov or Lucia with Geoffrey. Or Janaff and Ulki with each other. There are no sibling supports in PoR, but the character talked to each other enough to make up for that, and they had bond supports to make up for the lack of support conversations. Muarim and Tormod are like family, so the developers may have thought it unnecessary to give them supports.

[SalShich10N]

At the current stage the supports of Fire emblem's new style are all designed to lead to a romance.

I wish. In most supports the confession is so sudden it feels downright shoehorned. Anyways I completely agree with you, but I take it to another direction. I feel the current system limits a lot what kind of characters we have and what roles, restricting them to cookie-cutter stereotypes. As you said we no longer have units in a wide variety of ages, instead most units have to be relatively young and be in a marriageable age (or at least have Treehouse attempt to convince us they are). They cannot dislike the player character either, so we no longer have people like Shinon who outright dislikes Ike or Innes who is bitter against Ephraim, but still follows him because it's his job. I mean if it's in your party your avatar has to be able to make a child with it. And also gameplay has to revolve around this, which restricts the characters the player can use because deploying too many men or women won't allow you to use the very powerful Attack and Guard Stance properly.

Overall, I feel it's growing stale if it wasn't already in Fates. Saddly most new players of the series treat this game as a dating sim and shit like Phoenix Mode only enables it. Worst part is that, even if they don't even beat the game, their sold copy has equal voice and value to the developers as those who enjoy the game to it's fullest, so chances are it's not going away any time soon. Kind of like the new Paper Mario game where the knee-jerk reaction to buying the game initially gave the devs the impression people liked it which caused Color Splash to exist.

It's just depressing to think of the future of the series, really... at least Conquest sold well, I guess?