Will you get Sonia or Dean?

[Sarahtoga104]

I'll probably play the game twice and do a playthrough where I get each one. I like to try to get every unit in a Fire Emblem game at some point if I can.

[Randoman]

I heavily prefer Sonia over Deen. Sonia has really awesome growths for FE2 standards and strong bases for her level (and compared to most of the team at that point. I mean, she's practically Nino with Saleh's bases, combining the best of Est archetypes and prepromote's advantages). Plus, you already get 3 other characters in the mercenary lines in Celica's route and only 2 in the mage line at that point (even if you count Celica as a mage, the fact that she can attack with swords at base as well essentially makes her similar to a mercenary). Also, a mage's versatility in healing and being able to counterattack at 2-3 range is too good to pass up, in my eyes.

I don't have anything against Deen though. It's just that... I find the reasons to choose Sonia heavily outweigh the reasons for choosing Deen. Even if many of the FE2 related points don't carry on to FE15, I still think I'll pick Sonia due to story reasons and her being the daughter of Judah, who's essentially the Gharnef archetype of FE2/15.

[Shadowess]

Probably Sonia, since she sounds cooler + more powerful. I wanna see their redesigns first though.

[Lord Tullus]

I'm going for deen.  I liked using him in my pre-promote run, and he was actually very good with his high magic defense.  I think he had 18?  Also, With Deen on my side, Celica can get into college with ease.

Get it?  I'm good with puns, right guys?

Edited March 24, 2017 by Lord Tullus

[Ebony]

Likely Sonia, but I'll probably go for both. It depends on the redesigns I guess. 

[Kaze]

If Deen and Sonya are indeed locked to being "one or the other" characters for Echoes like they were in Gaiden, I'll probably choose Sonya first playthrough and Deen during the second playthrough.

[Emperor Hardin]

10 hours ago, Iridium said:

Deen is really a tragedy.

Neither character is particularly good to start out with, and you already have Catria and Est by the time you get them (basically), so you're going into the decision already not expecting to get much use out of either of them. Under this context, you choose between:

• One of the most conventionally attractive women in the game (by the standards of Famicom sprites), or a relatively war-worn man who probably isn't hitting many notes not already hit by Saber or Jesse.
• One of the few characters who is actually relevant to the plot, and responsible for probably the last twist in the game, or someone with a standard "he screwed off to somewhere" ending and no real importance.
• A character with the second best magic set in the game, and a character who is an entirely standard member of his class.
• A character who (besides Celica) competes with relatively underwhelming characters, and a character who competes with three very competent characters.
• A character with the some of the best total growths in the game, and a character with the third worst total growths in the game. (30*6 growths might seem unimpressive on paper, but remember: this is Gaiden, and you have an Angel Ring that can convert this to 60*6. That's not bad on the 3DS!)
• A character who requires you to beat a relatively easy chapter, and a character who requires you to beat a relatively obnoxious chapter (think Juno vs Dayan).
• A character who, if left untrained, can at least be bad at 2-3 range, and a character who if left untrained will be bad at point-blank counterattackable range.
• A character who can use Angel to deal effective damage against 80% of the remaining enemies on Celica's side, and a character who cannot.
• A character who can get a basic healing spell if she manages to promote, and a character who almost certainly will not. (if you go out of your way to break the game and make deen a sage you deserve your suffering)

The only advantage poor Deen gets is that his bases are somewhat better than Sonya's and he's substantially closer to promotion (both are level 5, but Deen promotes at level 12 while Sonya promotes at level 20.) And indeed, if this were any game besides Gaiden, these would be incredibly valid and valuable advantage. But to cap off his curse, he ended up being stuck in this game -- where you either are planning to grind Sonya, Jesse, and Est to become world-destroyers, or you don't need him because you already have Celica, Catria, Palla, and Kamui.

Deen won the opposite of the lottery. He's a potentially valid character who gets actively screwed at almost every opportunity because his alternative was clearly given much more thought and attention. The game provides no reason to consider him and every reason to consider his counterpart, even if you're not planning to use either. You can't even just recruit him for his Hero Sword, like many other such "choices" in the series, because he drops it when you kill him anyway. The one useful thing he can do is exploit the Dread Fighter loop to reclass into Villager and then something neat, but by the time you do that Catria could've soloed the rest of Celica's path. It's totally futile.

Deen also gets a direct palette swap as a minor boss of no importance, poor dude.

[Kaze]

1 minute ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Deen also gets a direct palette swap as a minor boss of no importance, poor dude.

Sonya does get palette swaps as her own sisters in Gaiden, doesn't she?

[Emperor Hardin]

1 minute ago, KazeNinja17 said:

Sonya does get palette swaps as her own sisters in Gaiden, doesn't she?

They use her portrait as a base but aren't a mere palette swap. There backstory and presence is also explained, while Bly doesn't even merit a single line of dialogue.

[Kaze]

Just now, Emperor Hardin said:

They use her portrait as a base but aren't a mere palette swap. There backstory and presence is also explained, while Bly doesn't even merit a single line of dialogue.

Ahh. That does make you pity Deen a bit, though.

[Emperor Hardin]

4 minutes ago, KazeNinja17 said:

Ahh. That does make you pity Deen a bit, though.

Yeah, the choice is so in favor of Sonya its quite unfair to Deen. As mentioned, Sonya has story importance on her side in addition to gameplay.

I wonder what Bly's story is: Deen's forgotten twin brother who scarred his brother while getting scarred himself, and like his brother was forced into Grieth's service?

Edited March 24, 2017 by Emperor Hardin

[DaloDask]

I think the real question from this point is:

Will Dean be redeemed through supports?

Sonya's already got a decent bit of plot relevance, but how will the addition of supports in this game help this man?

Also kind of interested to see his redesign. And by extension what they'll do with that generic boss that had him as a palette swap.

I'll be picking Dean when the time comes because scars are an instant sell in the character design department. (Unless Sonya's design is so godlike it puts anything and everything else in the game to shame)

Then again, I've not beaten Gaiden, so I've no prior knowledge to support this other than Sonya looks like a generic witch while Dean's a generic mercenary. And as far as the two go, I see myself having more fun with a physical unit considering the silly hit rates Gaiden is known for as opposed to Sonya's guaranteed EZ-PZ lemon-squeezy.

[Emperor Hardin]

1 hour ago, DaloDask said:

I think the real question from this point is:

Will Dean be redeemed through supports?

Sonya's already got a decent bit of plot relevance, but how will the addition of supports in this game help this man?

Also kind of interested to see his redesign. And by extension what they'll do with that generic boss that had him as a palette swap.

I'll be picking Dean when the time comes because scars are an instant sell in the character design department. (Unless Sonya's design is so godlike it puts anything and everything else in the game to shame)

Then again, I've not beaten Gaiden, so I've no prior knowledge to support this other than Sonya looks like a generic witch while Dean's a generic mercenary. And as far as the two go, I see myself having more fun with a physical unit considering the silly hit rates Gaiden is known for as opposed to Sonya's guaranteed EZ-PZ lemon-squeezy.

The witch is Sonya's twin sister, so there is an explanation for that resemblance.

Bly, Deen's direct palette swap, is just a boss with no background or lines

[Vier Mill]

6 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

The witch is Sonya's twin sister, so there is an explanation for that resemblance.

Bly, Deen's direct palette swap, is just a boss with no background or lines

Actually... 

Spoiler

They are three sisters, all of three witches. Marla and Heste are Sonya's older sisters, Sonya is the youngest as stated in her ending.

No mention to Bly at all though... poor Deen just didn't even deserve an unique sprite.

[The DanMan]

Sonia, for reasons everyone else has said and because I have a friend named Dean who jokes about being a pyromaniac and I'd end up ruining what character SoV Dean has.

[Kil0]

The only reason I got Deen on my first playthrough is because I didn't know he actually sucked.

[Emperor Hardin]

6 hours ago, Vier Mill said:

Actually... 

  Hide contents

They are three sisters, all of three witches. Marla and Heste are Sonya's older sisters, Sonya is the youngest as stated in her ending.

No mention to Bly at all though... poor Deen just didn't even deserve an unique sprite.

I'm aware of Heste. Doesn't change that Marla and Heste are portrait edits rather then a straight palette swap, have a direct relation to Sonya, and have a role in the story.

[The Fir Coat]

The map where you fight Sonia (and recruit Dean) is much more difficult than the one where you fight Dean. Considering neither of them is tons better than the other I usually just fight Dean and recruit Sonia.

[Shadow Mir]

Probably Sonya, assuming they remain mutually exclusive.