What do you think of Fates 1 year later?

[Ae†her]

Still love the combat system, still hate the stories.

[Etrurian emperor]

My opinion hasn't changed much from when I first played it.

The story is arguably the worst in the series but on the other end Conquest presents a high point of the series in the gameplay department. The story being so lacking is a big deal but ultimately Gameplay is more important. Conquest provides that so its overall a positive. 
While the story is quite bad I actually quite like the cast. I think the quirks are more interesting then the ones in Awakening where the tropes used were rather by the books. There are a lot of characters who are either good or charming enough for me to forgive their flaws. On the other hand Fates also has some of the worst characters in the series. I'm willing to let the good ones carry the cast to the positive end of the spectrum but I won't quite forget the poor quality of some characters either. 

The ease in which Fates is willing to surrender substance for the sake of fanservice is quite off putting. The best example of this would being able to marry your ''blood'' siblings and the generally quite well written and designed second gen being severely handicapped because of their deeprealm origin. 

All in all I like Fates but I do not respect it. The point about fanservice implies the developers don't quite respect the game either. 

Edited July 5, 2017 by Etrurian emperor

[DeadLuckChris]

Fates still suffers from the same problems a year later, but i still play it a lot, especially conquest. 

[CallieCat]

Still feels like so much wasted potential but I greatly enjoy it otherwise.

[eeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

Localization still annoys me + Never got that great lord/lodestar dlc

Though I do love it and the characters! Getting skills is less obnoxious and it's pretty fun to improve on your characters. 

[Pixelman]

A very mediocre trilogy of games

Conquest has the best gameplay but the worst story (though I believe it to be an enjoyable trainwreck), Birthright is boring on all fronts, and Revelations is one of the weakest Fire Emblems to date

Characters are fun IMO. I couldn't care less for the fanservice.

[Shoblongoo]

10 hours ago, Pixelman said:

an enjoyable trainwreck

...that about sums it up...

No amount of replays makes the writing any more palatable. But there's an undeniable fun to doing and redoing the conquest campaign that few games manage to capture in replay value--every map is such a finely-tuned puzzle, and the game never slows down or lets up.  

Birthright is a snoozefest.

And the more I think about Revelations, the more I come to the conclusion that it was just a lazy cash-grab.

It wasn't even poor design choices or limited resources. It was never meant to be a true "third path." It was $17.00 DLC. No one cared if it was shit-on-a-stick.

They made money on it. It did its job. 

Edited July 6, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Book Bro]

I still like Fates for the gameplay and the characters. I have a weird view on the story/world. I was one of those people who got over-hyped thinking this was going to be a well-written political drama, and was utterly let down when instead we got fanservicey anime #68319 with a story that makes no sense. I still see so much potential there that would have made Fates amazing, so while I hate the story and the fact that the world was so poorly developed, I still like imagining the possibilities.

Conquest wins hands down for gameplay, and while there's plenty of characters I can't stand, there's a lot to like. Birthright is mediocre but decent enough with a likeable cast. Revelation is the only path I don't see myself revisiting because of how bad it is.

[SSbardock84]

Same opinion I had before. Had great potential, great characters, and a great plot. Poor execution and game mechanics. Conquest was better but was lacking things Birthright had, Birthright was worse and far too easy. Revelation is the middle game and it's nice that you get all of the characters, but the storyline for it isn't very good. The game also would have been better if you picked a side like you already do, but you can still gather characters from the other army. Then have the ending chapters that are exclusive to Revelation. Conquest and Birthright by themselves have too few characters and mostly unappealing ones at that, the characters that are good however have some of the best Fire Emblem characters to date. Conquest has the better royal characters and Birthright has the better normal characters. Fire Emblem games definitely need to be longer as well, like Radiant Dawn. Also the no weapon breaking thing is just stupid, it makes things extra easy. Idk if they did it because there were 5 characters with royal weapons or what. But all three games are far easier than Awakening and that's saying something. It was nice to have more of a challenge in Echoes, but I do enjoy hard mode for these Fire Emblem games. It should be called normal mode though. One more thing I'lll say is that this game (or games) was probably the biggest hype I ever had for a video game or probably anything and I have never been more disappointed.

Conquest- 7.5/10

Birthright- 7/10

Revelation- 7.25/10

[Darros]

I still think that the three routes being separate and you have to buy each individually was kind of a money grab and I hope they never do it again.

Story wise, Fates I really didn't think much of when it first came out and I still don't think much of it now. I don't have much to elaborate on this. I will say, however, that even though FE13 had a weak plot at least the children were justified in being there. Children had no place in this game and should not have been included.

Fates did some stuff right. They tweaked the attack stance/dual stance from FE13 and made that better, and hidden weapons are great. Not a fan of adding bows and magic to the weapon triangle or having infinite durability, but it worked so I can't complain about that. The braves and silvers sucking on the other hand, that's pretty dumb and I didn't like that implementation. Anyway.

Birthright I found was fairly boring in terms of gameplay. Not like horrifically "I can't finish this" boring, but certainly not something that has a ton of replay value. A lot of the characters are boring or forgettable, and the class balance seems kind of off on this route. It's not bad, it just fails to stand out.

Conquest I actually didn't like for the gameplay much. It starts off strong and is fun, but then there's a tipping point where all the maps become either bullshit hard or total gimmick maps. I feel like this is understated because Revelation by comparison is entirely gimmick maps, but conquest has its fair share of really annoying ones too. At least this route gives you Camilla.

Revelations is just bad. The maps are all gimmicky and very poorly done.

All that said, Fates isn't the worst game I've ever played. It's still a Fire Emblem title and I can play it and enjoy it just because of that. It doesn't pull away from the gameplay so much that it's radically different, so my complaints are to be taken with a grain of salt I guess.

[Zelgius]

The gameplay of Conquest is excellent, although with a few tedious maps. My main issue with Fates is how blatent a cash-grab it is with the different paths that featured much of the same content, such as maps. By the time I got to playing Revelation (after completing Conquest) I already lost interest in the story, which is difficult to take seriously not long after you start playing Fates. And the boring map design of Revelation does not help. Come to think of it, I didn't really like most of the characters either.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I bought the special edition which means that I played and finished all three parts.


Conquest
Conquest was probably the hardest FE game on the lowest difficulty I've played yet, even more difficult than Thracia 776. Tbf I never consired FE5 as hard but rather luckbased in some points. 
The enemy's level rised overproportional to your ally's level.
Since you're very limited with your ressources you can only focus on few units through the entire game not to become underleveled. The consequence was that I couldn't train some underleveled units like Odin or Mozu and never could get all the children. It's almost as unbalanced as FE10's in that way that some underleveled units can't be trained. Since bexp. doesn't exist, it's even harder. So at the end I used pretty much the same characters in each chapter.
As for the gameplay it's the best part since FE10. Defend and time based missions returned - fantastic!
Weapon triangle was increased - well implemented. However the weapon durability became infinite unfortunately - I'd say the only real issue I had.
Some new interesting staves and weapons were added. Same goes for classes and skills. I like the idea of personal skills. They also fit to the character's personality and make everyone unique in their way. However the one might have a better personal skill than the other one. The skill system is the same as in FE13 which is alright.
Storywise all the parts are bad, but I don't play FE only for the story so it's fine for me. It was a really good game overall.


Birthright
I only go for the map design since story and mechanics are the same as in CQ. 
Unfortunately this game feels like FE13 for the most part. Most maps are very simply designed and uncreative. However mission types like defend and escape still exist here too, so it's still a big improvement compared to Awakening. However the difficulty and map design are inferior to CQ. It's a good game for beginner but has no real replay potential.
Though I have to admit that I prefer Hoshido's cast much more than Nohr's.


Revelations
Revelations was "interesting" to say it in this way. 
It featured lots of interesting map mechanics. However they don't work in a FE game.
Warptiles from FE5 returned although the ones in REV are by far less fatal. 
Moving elevators are beloved which slow down the game a lot.
In one chapter you have to play roulette by choosing the right door multiple times. If it's the wrong one, you're doomed. FE is a strategy game, and not a luck based game. 
95% if these mechanics simply don't work.
I have to admit that REV has the only good designed final boss. CQ's and BR's final map and boss are disappointing. The fight in REV reminded me on a boss battle from Devil Survivor 2 which was pretty fun for me.
Nevertheless all in all the worst FE game, tied with FE13.


I have to say only Conquest was worth its money. So I sold the special edition and made even profit from it. Would rebuy CQ sometime.

Edited July 8, 2017 by はたの 秦 こころ

[Lodestar65]

I still really like the game(s).