Dissapointments with Fates

[SavageVolug]

After playing Fates for a while I thought I would write a little something listing what I like about the game and what I felt were a disappointment.

First of all I recall when I was anticipating the release of Fire Emblem Fates, I had played Awakening a few times and was ready for a new game. I was looking at what was done not only in Awakening but previous Fire Emblem games in general and was hoping and expecting Intelligent Systems to build off of this. One of my first disappointments was the creation system for the avatar was still very basic while not a big thing I was hoping that this would have been expanded upon, my next was a HUGE lack of decisions that you could make that could potentially affect the plot or how you interact with people. Remember how when you are about to kill Grima and you get asked if you will let Chrom land the finishing blow? That's what I'm talking about, I would have liked it a lot if this kind of thing had been built upon especially considering that the avatar was the protagonist. For example maybe "Do you recruit this unit?", or maybe choosing between two given answers for your response to something etc. Before we come to my biggest gripe with Fire Emblem Fates, I will say one thing that I don't like is the insignificance of places, and groups such as the Ice Tribe, the Wind Tribe, the Fire Tribe etc. it feels like their are just two places Hoshido and Nohr this is a big problem as it is not adequate world or lore building. OK the biggest complaint of mine regarding Fates is the stat sealing skills and other stat nerfing abilities of your units and or your enemies (grisly wound, strength seal, speed seal, etc.). I really, REALLY DO NOT LIKE THESE AT ALL. OK why do I not like them? Basically skills like this are a crutch or a cheap and easy way for defeating maybe a boss or simply making a given map easier. It is very possible to come up to a boss and not do any damage at all and either have Florina throw her dagger a couple times or have Oborro attack and activate defense seal and now you can suddenly do a whole bunch of damage. So instead of relying on good tactics or maybe the joint effort of your group the victory is won because of cheap shot skills like seal defense. Now let's suppose a player decides he/she is not going to use these skills and rely on tactics and good units alone. Well the enemy units in the game will still have them, and the problem with that is it makes a map a lot harder. Not because you have a challenging battle or strong units to contend with but because of a cheap skill. If a knight has a defense level of 25 and you are only doing 2 points of damage to him, you should not be able to change that defense to say 20 or lower thus also increasing your damage. If he has a defense of 25 his defense should stay at 25 for the ENTIRE battle. In conclusion I hope that skills like what I've mentioned never return again.

Now let me talk about things that I like about Fates. The music, I like the music especially the tracks with Irish flute music. Another thing I enjoy are the Paladins  I like how they jump around similar to their GBA counterparts. I do wish the Paladins in Fates had a big ol' kite shield like real historical medieval knights had and if you play the GBA games this is also how the paladins looked like, or that they had the canto skill and could use swords, lances and axes but that's just a preference as a whole I enjoy the Paladins in Fates and use them a lot. While I'm on the subject I will touch on the Great Knight, I enjoy this class anytime I can take a knight and get him or her where I want them faster I will do so and the Great Knight class allows me to do so. Overall I enjoy and like the Great Knight class design, my only criticism of the Great Knight is the steed. The Great Knight should be riding on a MASSIVE mount, it shouldn't be the same horse that the Paladin uses but with bulkier armor it just looks weird. If you look at the GBA games the Great Knight was massive, both rider and mount were gigantic this is how the Great Knight should be. Another aspect that I enjoy a lot is the Hero design, Heroes are always one of my favorites and there is at least one in my group. I think what I like most is that it looks very similar to the design of GBA heroes the only exception is that instead of a shield they have a big pauldron on one side. I would prefer if the design had included a shield that the Hero carried that he/she slipped his/her axe or sword into, but again that's just my preference and not a criticism. So, yes the hero design gets a thumbs up from me. Another class I like a lot and is actually one of the new ones is the Weapon Master, this is a great class and i hope it stays as a branch promotion of the myrmidon line. I like the overall stats of this class and that it uses the lance, axe, and sword. I also enjoyed the Wyvern lord/Malig Knight I always thought that the wyverns in Awakening looked like they would have been struggling to carry their rider but I didn't get that at all here, and I appreciated the touch where the rider would pet or stroke their wyvern. I do hope that we go back to the four legged wyverns that the GBA games and Radiant Dawn had again another preference but I like how these look because they look sturdy, strong, reliable, in short I think they look better than the two legged variants but the ones in Fates still look better than those in Awakening. I will now end with my praise of the Swordmaster class design although I could certainly go on more, this reminds me a LOT of the Trueblade class in Radiant Dawn, how the coat looks everything I certainly hope they stay with this look and hopefully build off of and improve it.

To all of you reading this I hope I did not go too long and if there's a post like this already I apologize but I looked and could not find anything so hopefully I'm not breaking any guidelines here.

SavageVolug

[property of nuvelle]

Why did you name this Disappointments with Fates? You could've named this your impressions of Fates, because you still stated what you liked? Whatever, doesn't matter much.

I've only played Birthright and Revelations, but I never made use of the Seal skills but they definitely had uses, and honestly, it's not that big of a deal since not many enemies even had the luxury of owning a useful skill. At least, I don't remember any of them having any. The only major issue with a debuff/damage skill I had was the Pre-Awakening DLC where the ninja's would wreck you hard with Lunge and Poison strike, but that was a very minor issue. Story-wise, Fates could have had a lot more, but was given really bad writing. Various plotholes, a bad protagonist, conflicts that didn't need a place in the game, the way they introduced children, many characters with writing relying on tropes that get old.

Most of the good things you talk about are asthetics and design, which isn't bad, but there were still some other things that I liked. Some of the designs were really good. I really disliked that many of the female classes exposed the thighs just for the heck of it. A lot of the nohrian classes are guilty of this feature. Generals, Paladins, Malig Knights, Noble Princess (Smash 4 literally had to censor it). Dark mages and Sorcerers I didn't mind much, seeing as they we're fully exposed to the elements. The design was wacky, but at least the leg exposure there was less of a problem.

Personal skills was a good addition. It gave each character a touch of uniqueness and their own uses that only they could provide.

One thing I did like in Fates was the rework of Pair Up. Awakening's pair ups seemed a little lacking and pretty broken. The pair up bonuses were decreased, making things a little more challenging. I REALLY liked Attack stance and Guard stance, even though I'm sure many disagree. In Awakening, I didn't like that both attacking and guarding were based on percentages and chance (very ironic considering the game we're talking about). It just seemed like less strategy and more hoping for the best. Fates pair up seemed more strategic with being able to give a good offense or a good defense.

While Fates had good things that could be used in future installations, those things were overshadowed with it's writing and gimmicks that quickly grow old.

[SoulWeaver]

Hey, hey, looks like it's all good. Mind if I add my own disappointments and happy moments with Fates? Spoilers for those who haven't played Awakening/Fates and/or don't know about Laslow, Odin, and Selena's past.

I initially like the Avatar Creator, but after my second playthrough it started to bug me as I realized I was expecting something more open than Awakening, but the way they formatted the whole body type creation thing just made me kind of mad. If you're going to use an Alignment-style chart(Lawful Evil, Neutral Chaotic, etc.), then I feel you should have a slider that the player can move around on the chart, and you should be able to see your Avatar be altered to fit your selection - for example, even a simple "Left = Fat, Right = Thin, Up = Older, Down = Younger" type of system, where moving the slider to the left makes my Male Avatar more rotund or moving it up makes my Female Avatar more curvaceous, would have appealed much more to gamers who have experience with Avatar Creators than "Oh, you can pick exactly this Taller and Older, exactly this Shorter and Younger, or right smack in the very exact center" did for me. Heck, I would have even preferred an exact replica of Awakening's Avatar Creator, with a small list of Left/Right selections that were numbered instead of a bunch of dots that look like they were just arbitrarily thrown onto the board so you can pick from those 3-5 options. Admittedly, they couldn't have done the slider thing with the voices without it getting either really expensive(having to hire a bunch of VAs in a general voice range to make it fit) or really ridiculous(using a synthesizer of some kind to alter the existing voices), but the hair could also have easily been done using a slider-type idea, or at least the hair color. Hopefully they do this if they have an Avatar Creator on any FE games for the Switch, as right now Hardware Limitations is the only real reason I can see for them not putting more effort into the Creator on the 3DS games and the Switch can obviously take WAY more complicated stuff on than the 3DS or even N3DS. Also, while I am sort of grateful they didn't make the Avatar have EVERY Class Tree(well, almost, but I'm getting to that) and therefore make them become a near-deity from the get-go, without the Bond Festivals I don't feel particularly motivated to try and A-Support every character in the game so I can get all the Classes and Skills, plus I'm still waiting for an Avatar I can Class-Change into the Soldier Class, as we were able to go to Spear Fighter, which is basically Hoshido's equivalent of Soldier, but couldn't become a Soldier itself. I know, I know, Soldier's supposed to be a generic Class for a reason, but it still bugs me.

After Awakening, I thought I'd hate the Pair Up changes, but it turned out not half bad - mostly. I liked Attack Stance always triggering but only being able to trigger once, even if you doubled the opponent, meaning your tag partner had to have a Brave weapon if you wanted more than one helping hand, and I kind of wish that had been Awakening's deal, but Guard Stance kind of bugged me because it could only trigger if you were Paired, which was pointless half the time because then you couldn't use Attack Stance without wasting your turn Separating first, and then you had to build all kinds of Guard Points that usually took four or five attacks unless someone had the Skill that goes with either Lodestar or Great Lord, I forget which, then it was three or four, and that wasn't even helpful because the international players only got one of those Brands because they shafted us on the Bond Festivals. Admittedly, it isn't too late to still get them technically, but to be realistic the only way I can make Guard Stance really viable the way Fates has it is to go buy a Japanese 3DS and copy of Fates. This would be absolute BS if I weren't already planning on doing so and also obtaining JP Echoes because I want Masked "Marth" as a Unit, I'm a fairly committed Cipher player who bought that Structure Deck with the understanding that I'd be getting something in Fates as well, and even then it's still almost absolute BS.

I also didn't like how the Taker Skills were handled - all of them bar Strengthtaker are Heirs of Fate only? At least Strengthtaker came with the map that gave you unlimited Vanguards so I could give everyone Aether while I was at it. Also, thank goodness the Heirs of Fate also played in Phoenix Mode, I was expecting them to lock to Casual after Hidden Truths and thought it wouldn't be worth the time trying to keep everyone alive through a whole map for a Taker Skill that I'd probably never use, so I was pleasantly surprised when I went to try my hand at obtaining Point-Blank(which is beautiful on a Ballistician Takumi, btw) and the dead guys came back.

I wish that the concept of the Awakening-Fates links had been handled better, like having a second Free DLC map where you return to Ylisse between the war against Gangrel and the war against Valm and do…something. I don't know what, but something. I would also have liked Dragon Gate links to other game worlds(like seeing Magvel or Jugdral pre-game) but that's not part of the Awakening-Fates discussion. I wish they had chosen Lissa and Olivia for the Anagram Trio alongside Cordelia, then given said two to Odin and Laslow as children, with unique A-Supports with Selena, or else swapped either Owain or Inigo(probably Inigo, Owain's just too golden to drop from Fates) for Noire, who would've had a unique A-Support with Rhajat. As it is, I understand that Tharja, Gaius, Cordelia, Severa, Inigo, and Owain were the tops on the popularity Polls that I'm reasonably certain decided who got to reappear, and I understand why the other two didn't reappear as they were Chrom and Lucina, who couldn't for simple reasons(Chrom because Before Awakening would've got awkward, Lucina because Amiibo), but that didn't make it less annoying that we had to get another Gaius who apparently also needed a difficult father-son relationship on top of that. Oh well, at least I get to watch Selena have a meltdown over having such a perfect family whenever I play Revelations because why would I marry her to anyone but Subaki? It's just too perfect(yeah, yeah, it was painful, I know) to pass up.

Speaking of father-son relationships, why the heck did ALL the children have to be tied to fathers? Don't try and say I'm ridiculous for only attacking Fates on this, I hated that Awakening Gen 2 was linked exclusively to mothers as well. I'd much rather have a mix so that I can have more than 2 possible sibling conversation sets total, please.

I'd go on, but I have to go, so I'll probably come back and edit this tomorrow with the rest of my stuff(I got LOTS more where this came from).

[property of nuvelle]

52 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

I initially like the Avatar Creator, but after my second playthrough it started to bug me as I realized I was expecting something more open than Awakening, but the way they formatted the whole body type creation thing just made me kind of mad. If you're going to use an Alignment-style chart(Lawful Evil, Neutral Chaotic, etc.), then I feel you should have a slider that the player can move around on the chart, and you should be able to see your Avatar be altered to fit your selection - for example, even a simple "Left = Fat, Right = Thin, Up = Older, Down = Younger" type of system, where moving the slider to the left makes my Male Avatar more rotund or moving it up makes my Female Avatar more curvaceous, would have appealed much more to gamers who have experience with Avatar Creators than "Oh, you can pick exactly this Taller and Older, exactly this Shorter and Younger, or right smack in the very exact center" did for me. Heck, I would have even preferred an exact replica of Awakening's Avatar Creator, with a small list of Left/Right selections that were numbered instead of a bunch of dots that look like they were just arbitrarily thrown onto the board so you can pick from those 3-5 options. Admittedly, they couldn't have done the slider thing with the voices without it getting either really expensive(having to hire a bunch of VAs in a general voice range to make it fit) or really ridiculous(using a synthesizer of some kind to alter the existing voices), but the hair could also have easily been done using a slider-type idea, or at least the hair color. Hopefully they do this if they have an Avatar Creator on any FE games for the Switch, as right now Hardware Limitations is the only real reason I can see for them not putting more effort into the Creator on the 3DS games and the Switch can obviously take WAY more complicated stuff on than the 3DS or even N3DS. Also, while I am sort of grateful they didn't make the Avatar have EVERY Class Tree(well, almost, but I'm getting to that) and therefore make them become a near-deity from the get-go, without the Bond Festivals I don't feel particularly motivated to try and A-Support every character in the game so I can get all the Classes and Skills, plus I'm still waiting for an Avatar I can Class-Change into the Soldier Class, as we were able to go to Spear Fighter, which is basically Hoshido's equivalent of Soldier, but couldn't become a Soldier itself. I know, I know, Soldier's supposed to be a generic Class for a reason, but it still bugs me.

Okay, so a some things I have to say about this.

1. The character customization screen was completely fine to me. Yes it was a bit weird but you encounter once in an entire playthrough and it's easy to navigate through the entire thing.

2. The reason they don't have sliders instead of a few selections is because of the amount of artwork Kozaki would have to do. I don't think he would stick around so he could draw a slightly fat and tallish character and another slightly fatter and shortish character. Having four set body types is good enough. And the artwork cannot just be stretched to fit the desired proportions because it would look lazy and terrible. It works for something like a MMO because that's a 3d model that's easier to deal with when stretching and proportioning. While I didn't necessarily like the options they had, the amount was definitely fine. The 3d models used during cutscenes and battles also cannot be manipulated because they are set and meant for character builds with the exception of a few special units.

3. Soldier isn't meant to be a playable class, but it would've definitely been cool to see one.

1 hour ago, SoulWeaver said:

I wish that the concept of the Awakening-Fates links had been handled better, like having a second Free DLC map where you return to Ylisse between the war against Gangrel and the war against Valm and do…something. I don't know what, but something. I would also have liked Dragon Gate links to other game worlds(like seeing Magvel or Jugdral pre-game) but that's not part of the Awakening-Fates discussion. I wish they had chosen Lissa and Olivia for the Anagram Trio alongside Cordelia, then given said two to Odin and Laslow as children, with unique A-Supports with Selena, or else swapped either Owain or Inigo(probably Inigo, Owain's just too golden to drop from Fates) for Noire, who would've had a unique A-Support with Rhajat. As it is, I understand that Tharja, Gaius, Cordelia, Severa, Inigo, and Owain were the tops on the popularity Polls that I'm reasonably certain decided who got to reappear, and I understand why the other two didn't reappear as they were Chrom and Lucina, who couldn't for simple reasons(Chrom because Before Awakening would've got awkward, Lucina because Amiibo), but that didn't make it less annoying that we had to get another Gaius who apparently also needed a difficult father-son relationship on top of that. Oh well, at least I get to watch Selena have a meltdown over having such a perfect family whenever I play Revelations because why would I marry her to anyone but Subaki? It's just too perfect(yeah, yeah, it was painful, I know) to pass up.

 

4. Awakening Gen 1 Fanservice for Birthright Gen 2

Awakening Gen 2 Fanservice for Conquest Gen 1

Equal amount of fanservice for everyone.

5. Lissa would not work because shrine maiden exists on Hoshido only. Olivia would not work because singer is an exclusive to Azura, no exceptions. Those two were also less favorable characters and don't really deserve it anyways (as much as I hate Tharja and Rhajat, they still get their spot). 

6. Having Noire for the sake of Rhajat isn't a reason to have her in really. Selena and Caeldori are a different case, because they were both top in the poll. Plus, it's unfair and unreasonable to have 5 girls and 1 dude from Awakening. Also, Laslow FTW.

7. I'm guessing that's a personal issue with Gaius because his inclusion is apparently annoying when the other two aren't. I honestly found Asugi to be better than a total creep and a self-loathing perfectionist. And it's not like Rhajat didn't have daughter-father difficulties, you can actually say the same with a lot of other characters.

You brought many good suggestions and opinions but some of these I just disagree with heavily.

[FoxyGrandpa]

My personal biggest disappointment with the game is how literally nothing about the game feels remotely realistic. The kingdom of valla feels like pure BS, as did the outrealms. Various other concepts of the game were also explained in bizarre ways as well when there were perfectly valid ways to explain them. My Castle for instance, could have been a castle occupied in either Nohr or Hoshido depending on the version of the game you picked and could have had members of the other kingdom periodically invade, but instead of doing the this, IS decided that it would be a great idea to have the player occupy a random castle with generic rizen ripoffs periodically invading, making the expirience far less immersive.

World building is another huge disappointment I have with this game. Half the time, I don't even know where corrin is going or why he's going there because the game does such a poor job at explaining things.

From a gameplay perspective, Fates mostly delivers, but I didn't really like the fact that the weapons selection was so limited compared to previous games (namely awakening). The Hoshido and Nohr weapons are pretty much the exact same except the Hoshido weapons are literally better in every way (who though this was a good design choice?). The tome selection in particular felt really barren. I really would have loved to see way more dark magic besides nosfuratu in addition to more anima magic like Bologanone and  a Thoron tome usable by everyone, though to be fair, forging Fire and Thunder tomes can somewhat rectify this issue.

[joshcja]

I was disappointed when CQ ran out of maps.

[joshcja]

Mistakes were made.

Edited May 3, 2017 by joshcja

[joshcja]

Unintentional multipost please remove

Edited May 3, 2017 by joshcja

[De Geso]

The main thing I'm disappointed with is people are still making the same complaints without offering anything new to the table more than a year later. 

Yes, the story sucks, yes there is no world building, yes people don't like Corrin, Revelation was gimmicky, etc. So what? We are beating a dead horse with our complaining at this point. 

[Xenomata]

I'm disappointed at the lack of "Legendary" weapons. Or at least, I'm disappointed at what we DID get for "legendary".

Let me clarify, I'm not talking about the exclusive weapons for the Princes and Yato. I'm talking about the S rank weaponry. To be honest, I don't like using them. The advantages they do have over other weapons in the game, namely being naturally strong, accurate, and usually having unique stat alterations, feel heavily null and void when considering A the classes who are allowed to use them (not saying the classes themselves are bad, but I don't put all of my units in those select 7 or so classes), B the weapons that can be much better if forged properly or just have good effects otherwise, and C the negative effects each weapon possess, even if the good outweigh the bad.

But my biggest problem is that they don't FEEL legendary. As far as I can remember, they have no backstory. Nothing explains why these weapons exist in the first place. Did gods forge them? Are they treasures of royal families? Have they been given sacred anti-bad-guy slaying blessings? We don't know. They just feel like "powerful" weapons, not "legendary" weapons. Hell, it's not even that eventful when you DO get them. It just kinda happens. "Ohey, good job remembering to get Aurgelmir from that chest that was slightly off the beaten path. And thanks for snagging that plain ol Silver Lance off that General who happened to be in the way." About the closest we have is Excalibur, but even that feels a little iffy when considering, at least as far as I can tell, it was just really good Wind Magic even in Archanea.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I really like weapons, especially of the ancient or legendary variety, so this is kind of a letdown compared to the likes of almost everything else in the past.

[SavageVolug]

15 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

Hey, hey, looks like it's all good. Mind if I add my own disappointments and happy moments with Fates? Spoilers for those who haven't played Awakening/Fates and/or don't know about Laslow, Odin, and Selena's past.

I initially like the Avatar Creator, but after my second playthrough it started to bug me as I realized I was expecting something more open than Awakening, but the way they formatted the whole body type creation thing just made me kind of mad. If you're going to use an Alignment-style chart(Lawful Evil, Neutral Chaotic, etc.), then I feel you should have a slider that the player can move around on the chart, and you should be able to see your Avatar be altered to fit your selection - for example, even a simple "Left = Fat, Right = Thin, Up = Older, Down = Younger" type of system, where moving the slider to the left makes my Male Avatar more rotund or moving it up makes my Female Avatar more curvaceous, would have appealed much more to gamers who have experience with Avatar Creators than "Oh, you can pick exactly this Taller and Older, exactly this Shorter and Younger, or right smack in the very exact center" did for me. Heck, I would have even preferred an exact replica of Awakening's Avatar Creator, with a small list of Left/Right selections that were numbered instead of a bunch of dots that look like they were just arbitrarily thrown onto the board so you can pick from those 3-5 options. Admittedly, they couldn't have done the slider thing with the voices without it getting either really expensive(having to hire a bunch of VAs in a general voice range to make it fit) or really ridiculous(using a synthesizer of some kind to alter the existing voices), but the hair could also have easily been done using a slider-type idea, or at least the hair color. Hopefully they do this if they have an Avatar Creator on any FE games for the Switch, as right now Hardware Limitations is the only real reason I can see for them not putting more effort into the Creator on the 3DS games and the Switch can obviously take WAY more complicated stuff on than the 3DS or even N3DS. Also, while I am sort of grateful they didn't make the Avatar have EVERY Class Tree(well, almost, but I'm getting to that) and therefore make them become a near-deity from the get-go, without the Bond Festivals I don't feel particularly motivated to try and A-Support every character in the game so I can get all the Classes and Skills, plus I'm still waiting for an Avatar I can Class-Change into the Soldier Class, as we were able to go to Spear Fighter, which is basically Hoshido's equivalent of Soldier, but couldn't become a Soldier itself. I know, I know, Soldier's supposed to be a generic Class for a reason, but it still bugs me.

After Awakening, I thought I'd hate the Pair Up changes, but it turned out not half bad - mostly. I liked Attack Stance always triggering but only being able to trigger once, even if you doubled the opponent, meaning your tag partner had to have a Brave weapon if you wanted more than one helping hand, and I kind of wish that had been Awakening's deal, but Guard Stance kind of bugged me because it could only trigger if you were Paired, which was pointless half the time because then you couldn't use Attack Stance without wasting your turn Separating first, and then you had to build all kinds of Guard Points that usually took four or five attacks unless someone had the Skill that goes with either Lodestar or Great Lord, I forget which, then it was three or four, and that wasn't even helpful because the international players only got one of those Brands because they shafted us on the Bond Festivals. Admittedly, it isn't too late to still get them technically, but to be realistic the only way I can make Guard Stance really viable the way Fates has it is to go buy a Japanese 3DS and copy of Fates. This would be absolute BS if I weren't already planning on doing so and also obtaining JP Echoes because I want Masked "Marth" as a Unit, I'm a fairly committed Cipher player who bought that Structure Deck with the understanding that I'd be getting something in Fates as well, and even then it's still almost absolute BS.

I also didn't like how the Taker Skills were handled - all of them bar Strengthtaker are Heirs of Fate only? At least Strengthtaker came with the map that gave you unlimited Vanguards so I could give everyone Aether while I was at it. Also, thank goodness the Heirs of Fate also played in Phoenix Mode, I was expecting them to lock to Casual after Hidden Truths and thought it wouldn't be worth the time trying to keep everyone alive through a whole map for a Taker Skill that I'd probably never use, so I was pleasantly surprised when I went to try my hand at obtaining Point-Blank(which is beautiful on a Ballistician Takumi, btw) and the dead guys came back.

I wish that the concept of the Awakening-Fates links had been handled better, like having a second Free DLC map where you return to Ylisse between the war against Gangrel and the war against Valm and do…something. I don't know what, but something. I would also have liked Dragon Gate links to other game worlds(like seeing Magvel or Jugdral pre-game) but that's not part of the Awakening-Fates discussion. I wish they had chosen Lissa and Olivia for the Anagram Trio alongside Cordelia, then given said two to Odin and Laslow as children, with unique A-Supports with Selena, or else swapped either Owain or Inigo(probably Inigo, Owain's just too golden to drop from Fates) for Noire, who would've had a unique A-Support with Rhajat. As it is, I understand that Tharja, Gaius, Cordelia, Severa, Inigo, and Owain were the tops on the popularity Polls that I'm reasonably certain decided who got to reappear, and I understand why the other two didn't reappear as they were Chrom and Lucina, who couldn't for simple reasons(Chrom because Before Awakening would've got awkward, Lucina because Amiibo), but that didn't make it less annoying that we had to get another Gaius who apparently also needed a difficult father-son relationship on top of that. Oh well, at least I get to watch Selena have a meltdown over having such a perfect family whenever I play Revelations because why would I marry her to anyone but Subaki? It's just too perfect(yeah, yeah, it was painful, I know) to pass up.

Speaking of father-son relationships, why the heck did ALL the children have to be tied to fathers? Don't try and say I'm ridiculous for only attacking Fates on this, I hated that Awakening Gen 2 was linked exclusively to mothers as well. I'd much rather have a mix so that I can have more than 2 possible sibling conversation sets total, please.

I'd go on, but I have to go, so I'll probably come back and edit this tomorrow with the rest of my stuff(I got LOTS more where this came from).

Thanks for adding to the discussion SoulWeaver I appreciate it. And you bring up some excellent points such as the lack of customization for the avatarr, the abscence of the soldier class which while it's not my favorite it is a very GOOD class, my favorite soldier would have to be Aran from Radiant Dawn his strength and defense are just amazing. Thank you for your thoughts and I appreciate the compliment. If Laslow, Odin and Selena were going to be in Fates I would have preferred it if it was implied somehow that Ylissia was a neighboring continent or something, but that goes back to the problem of the nonexistent world building.

[SavageVolug]

15 hours ago, KongDude88 said:

Why did you name this Disappointments with Fates? You could've named this your impressions of Fates, because you still stated what you liked? Whatever, doesn't matter much.

I've only played Birthright and Revelations, but I never made use of the Seal skills but they definitely had uses, and honestly, it's not that big of a deal since not many enemies even had the luxury of owning a useful skill. At least, I don't remember any of them having any. The only major issue with a debuff/damage skill I had was the Pre-Awakening DLC where the ninja's would wreck you hard with Lunge and Poison strike, but that was a very minor issue. Story-wise, Fates could have had a lot more, but was given really bad writing. Various plotholes, a bad protagonist, conflicts that didn't need a place in the game, the way they introduced children, many characters with writing relying on tropes that get old.

Most of the good things you talk about are asthetics and design, which isn't bad, but there were still some other things that I liked. Some of the designs were really good. I really disliked that many of the female classes exposed the thighs just for the heck of it. A lot of the nohrian classes are guilty of this feature. Generals, Paladins, Malig Knights, Noble Princess (Smash 4 literally had to censor it). Dark mages and Sorcerers I didn't mind much, seeing as they we're fully exposed to the elements. The design was wacky, but at least the leg exposure there was less of a problem.

Personal skills was a good addition. It gave each character a touch of uniqueness and their own uses that only they could provide.

One thing I did like in Fates was the rework of Pair Up. Awakening's pair ups seemed a little lacking and pretty broken. The pair up bonuses were decreased, making things a little more challenging. I REALLY liked Attack stance and Guard stance, even though I'm sure many disagree. In Awakening, I didn't like that both attacking and guarding were based on percentages and chance (very ironic considering the game we're talking about). It just seemed like less strategy and more hoping for the best. Fates pair up seemed more strategic with being able to give a good offense or a good defense.

While Fates had good things that could be used in future installations, those things were overshadowed with it's writing and gimmicks that quickly grow old.

KongDude88, thank you for commenting and your thoughts on what I wrote. In answer to your question well it was the first thing that came to mind. Regarding me talking largely about the aesthecs of the game, when I was writing this I wanted to focus more on the game play and try to stay away from the story, lack of world building, and the bad world map. Also I didn't want to just criticize Fates as I'm sure plenty of people have done that already, especially when there are things I enjoyed about it and wanted to be as fair and honest about it as possible. I agree whole heartedly with your opinion on the female units having bare legs just for the sake of having bare legs. This bugs me particularly with Piere, no cavalier regardless of gender would dress that way. I brought up the seals because in my play throughs it is what causes me to restart early on in the game usually it's either the defense seal or the speed one which when you already have low defense or speed (comparatively speaking) those skills really make a problem. I agree with you and also like the changes to the pair up system as well, normally I only use the attack stance. 

 

[Lanko]

7 hours ago, Xenomata said:

I'm disappointed at the lack of "Legendary" weapons. Or at least, I'm disappointed at what we DID get for "legendary".

Let me clarify, I'm not talking about the exclusive weapons for the Princes and Yato. I'm talking about the S rank weaponry. To be honest, I don't like using them. The advantages they do have over other weapons in the game, namely being naturally strong, accurate, and usually having unique stat alterations, feel heavily null and void when considering A the classes who are allowed to use them (not saying the classes themselves are bad, but I don't put all of my units in those select 7 or so classes), B the weapons that can be much better if forged properly or just have good effects otherwise, and C the negative effects each weapon possess, even if the good outweigh the bad.

But my biggest problem is that they don't FEEL legendary. As far as I can remember, they have no backstory. Nothing explains why these weapons exist in the first place. Did gods forge them? Are they treasures of royal families? Have they been given sacred anti-bad-guy slaying blessings? We don't know. They just feel like "powerful" weapons, not "legendary" weapons. Hell, it's not even that eventful when you DO get them. It just kinda happens. "Ohey, good job remembering to get Aurgelmir from that chest that was slightly off the beaten path. And thanks for snagging that plain ol Silver Lance off that General who happened to be in the way." About the closest we have is Excalibur, but even that feels a little iffy when considering, at least as far as I can tell, it was just really good Wind Magic even in Archanea.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I really like weapons, especially of the ancient or legendary variety, so this is kind of a letdown compared to the likes of almost everything else in the past.

This.

Not only Weapon Ranks take forever to level, specially if you reclass mid-game and starts again at E the weapons felt a little disappointing with their debuffs. They were supposed to be unique and legendary, after all.

I also hope that for future installments IS allows us to forge our own legendary weapon, simply because of reclassing. For example, it's a bummer that the main story and in the maps that the Yato can only be a sword and I can't use it because I'm a Mage or Archer and the story makes a big fuss about it, instead of I don't know, the Yato being a material to forge any type of weapon, even if it keeps the same characteristics and effects.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Lanko

[The Geek]

8 hours ago, Xenomata said:

I'm disappointed at the lack of "Legendary" weapons. Or at least, I'm disappointed at what we DID get for "legendary".

Let me clarify, I'm not talking about the exclusive weapons for the Princes and Yato. I'm talking about the S rank weaponry. To be honest, I don't like using them. The advantages they do have over other weapons in the game, namely being naturally strong, accurate, and usually having unique stat alterations, feel heavily null and void when considering A the classes who are allowed to use them (not saying the classes themselves are bad, but I don't put all of my units in those select 7 or so classes), B the weapons that can be much better if forged properly or just have good effects otherwise, and C the negative effects each weapon possess, even if the good outweigh the bad.

But my biggest problem is that they don't FEEL legendary. As far as I can remember, they have no backstory. Nothing explains why these weapons exist in the first place. Did gods forge them? Are they treasures of royal families? Have they been given sacred anti-bad-guy slaying blessings? We don't know. They just feel like "powerful" weapons, not "legendary" weapons. Hell, it's not even that eventful when you DO get them. It just kinda happens. "Ohey, good job remembering to get Aurgelmir from that chest that was slightly off the beaten path. And thanks for snagging that plain ol Silver Lance off that General who happened to be in the way." About the closest we have is Excalibur, but even that feels a little iffy when considering, at least as far as I can tell, it was just really good Wind Magic even in Archanea.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I really like weapons, especially of the ancient or legendary variety, so this is kind of a letdown compared to the likes of almost everything else in the past.

Yeah, that was kind of disappointing.  Though to be fair it isn't just Fates that has that problem.  The S-Rank weapons in Blazing Sword are pretty much the same story except that you're required to get them.

[Interdimensional Observer]

55 minutes ago, The Geek said:

Yeah, that was kind of disappointing.  Though to be fair it isn't just Fates that has that problem.  The S-Rank weapons in Blazing Sword are pretty much the same story except that you're required to get them.

 

9 hours ago, Xenomata said:

I'm disappointed at the lack of "Legendary" weapons. Or at least, I'm disappointed at what we DID get for "legendary".

Let me clarify, I'm not talking about the exclusive weapons for the Princes and Yato. I'm talking about the S rank weaponry. To be honest, I don't like using them. The advantages they do have over other weapons in the game, namely being naturally strong, accurate, and usually having unique stat alterations, feel heavily null and void when considering A the classes who are allowed to use them (not saying the classes themselves are bad, but I don't put all of my units in those select 7 or so classes), B the weapons that can be much better if forged properly or just have good effects otherwise, and C the negative effects each weapon possess, even if the good outweigh the bad.

But my biggest problem is that they don't FEEL legendary. As far as I can remember, they have no backstory. Nothing explains why these weapons exist in the first place. Did gods forge them? Are they treasures of royal families? Have they been given sacred anti-bad-guy slaying blessings? We don't know. They just feel like "powerful" weapons, not "legendary" weapons. Hell, it's not even that eventful when you DO get them. It just kinda happens. "Ohey, good job remembering to get Aurgelmir from that chest that was slightly off the beaten path. And thanks for snagging that plain ol Silver Lance off that General who happened to be in the way." About the closest we have is Excalibur, but even that feels a little iffy when considering, at least as far as I can tell, it was just really good Wind Magic even in Archanea.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I really like weapons, especially of the ancient or legendary variety, so this is kind of a letdown compared to the likes of almost everything else in the past.

Tellius was rather thin on the legendary weapon side too. You couldn't get them all in PoR, and there aren't really any backstories to anything but Urvan. Why Micaiah didn't even get a personal legendary weapon- thanks for stealing the spotlight Ike! Though Amiti, Alondite, Ragnell, and Gurgurant all have some legendary quality to them (the last being that Ashnard's used in patri-regicide).

FE7's S rank weapons were lacking, but you did have Aureola (which isn't locked to Athos), Durandal, Armads and Forblaze all available from FE6. And in the case of Forblaze, you got to use it with its original legendary wielder, a genuinely unique thing.

T776 gives you Forseti and nothing else, not even "fake" legendaries like the FE7 stuff. But it did have a nice number of personal weapons, which kinda compensate.

Then we have the problem of Hauteclere in Archanea, namely it was tossed into the remakes with no backstory whatsoever.

I sort of did like the massive drawbacks on the Fates legendaries, given the absence of durability meant they had to be balanced somehow, but Aurgelmir's I admit was excessive. Waterwheel was cool in that it was different in being less overwhelming offense and instead great defense.

2 hours ago, Lanko said:

I also hope that for future installments IS allows us to forge our own legendary weapon, simply because of reclassing. For example, it's a bummer that the main story and in the maps that the Yato can only be a sword and I can't use it because I'm a Mage or Archer and the story makes a big fuss about it, instead of I don't know, the Yato being a material to forge any type of weapon, even if it keeps the same characteristics and effects.

I think forging the ultimate weapon for the MC would make sense if class customization for them was a thing. Just obtain some legendary forgeable substance (Orichalcum to name one) and then send it to a legendary blacksmith/craftsman to turn it into a weapon. Or, do something like the Monado in Xenoblade. The Monado takes the form of a sword, but really it's just a special substance with special properties that the wielder, if they know how, can mutate into any form they desire.

Alternatively, they should have just made the partial Dragonskin negation property of the Yato apply to whatever weapon Corrin is wielding when it is in their inventory, just as the Yato's stat boosts apply regardless of the weapon being wielded.

[Landmaster]

I also echo some of the complaints here about the weapons. Lack of Dark Tomes (fxxking ruining Nosferatu), removal of the 3 Anima types being separate tomes, Accuracy being complete garbage is a really big one. Limited "good" weapons to choose from (Awakening wanted you to try out a whole bunch of weapons, Fates literally makes it so you have no reason not to use the one that's strongest (which is often a Silver weapon) and it's, frankly, just boring, IMO) The typical aesthetics gripe of them all having the same picture. And on that note, animations for some weapons just being lackluster, or being a carbon copy of another attack. 

May not be the most "serious" of issues, but coming off of Awakening, I was expecting better for Fates since they improved on so many other things. It just makes combat not as exciting as it could be. 

[SoulWeaver]

17 hours ago, KongDude88 said:

Okay, so a some things I have to say about this.

1. The character customization screen was completely fine to me. Yes it was a bit weird but you encounter once in an entire playthrough and it's easy to navigate through the entire thing.

2. The reason they don't have sliders instead of a few selections is because of the amount of artwork Kozaki would have to do. I don't think he would stick around so he could draw a slightly fat and tallish character and another slightly fatter and shortish character. Having four set body types is good enough. And the artwork cannot just be stretched to fit the desired proportions because it would look lazy and terrible. It works for something like a MMO because that's a 3d model that's easier to deal with when stretching and proportioning. While I didn't necessarily like the options they had, the amount was definitely fine. The 3d models used during cutscenes and battles also cannot be manipulated because they are set and meant for character builds with the exception of a few special units.

3. Soldier isn't meant to be a playable class, but it would've definitely been cool to see one.

4. Awakening Gen 1 Fanservice for Birthright Gen 2

Awakening Gen 2 Fanservice for Conquest Gen 1

Equal amount of fanservice for everyone.

5. Lissa would not work because shrine maiden exists on Hoshido only. Olivia would not work because singer is an exclusive to Azura, no exceptions. Those two were also less favorable characters and don't really deserve it anyways (as much as I hate Tharja and Rhajat, they still get their spot). 

6. Having Noire for the sake of Rhajat isn't a reason to have her in really. Selena and Caeldori are a different case, because they were both top in the poll. Plus, it's unfair and unreasonable to have 5 girls and 1 dude from Awakening. Also, Laslow FTW.

7. I'm guessing that's a personal issue with Gaius because his inclusion is apparently annoying when the other two aren't. I honestly found Asugi to be better than a total creep and a self-loathing perfectionist. And it's not like Rhajat didn't have daughter-father difficulties, you can actually say the same with a lot of other characters.

You brought many good suggestions and opinions but some of these I just disagree with heavily.

Addressing these in reverse order because.

7: It's not an issue with Gaius, I just had other Units I would have preferred to see make a return and Asugi's relationship with Saizo is kind of stupid when you break it down - Asugi doesn't want to be the fifth "Saizo, son of Saizo" which frankly seems kind of reasonable(would any of us really like the idea of saying "Hi, I'm Steve, son of Steve, son of Steve, son of Steve, son of Steve, son of Steve"?) and Saizo basically throws a tantrum about it at the start. Really, the entire Paralogue kind of just pained me because I've got Saizo having a fit about his son wanting to be his own person as opposed to trying to deal with it in a calmer manner(like suggesting that Asugi be his son's real name but he still accept the title of Saizo kind of like having one of them be a middle name for example), which doesn't really lead me personally to see Saizo as particularly mature until the very end of the Paralogue, where he finally agrees(somewhat grudgingly if I recall correctly) to let his son make his own choice on the matter, and I have Gaius Asugi doing some weird teenager freakout thing about how he's not going to be tied down to the family destiny, which feels like the exact opposite of the personality Awakening gave Gaius, who seemed fairly cool and collected as long as sugar wasn't involved. There were other annoying Paralogues, yeah(Screw Shigure's annoying moving ships for example), but the only Paralogue that bugged me more was Sophie's because I expected Avel to make it actually interesting by doing his own thing every second or third turn and the blasted horse let me down. Even then, at least Nichol was a cool-looking Boss to capture and subjugate recruit, not to mention the only capturable Unit with a Critical Cut-In.

6: I'll admit, a fair part of wanting Noire instead of Inigo is personal preference - I personally can't help but like Noire better than Inigo, in part because I don't particularly like being associated with Inigo's kind of person and also because Noire strikes me as a real sweetheart at least for the 30% of the time she's not screaming about blood and thunder, which also ended up being kind of cute for me because she's all timid until the exact wrong thing happens and then complete 180. However, Laslow also felt more shallow to me than Inigo did because Inigo held his smile together in spite of the fact that the guy was living in hell in order to give people hope and Laslow doesn't really bring the same kind of feel to the table - it feels like he's so used to flirting from his time in Awakening that he doesn't know how to do anything else, plus nobody in Fates really needed a shot of hope so that idea wouldn't have been as effective anyways. I had the same issue comparing Selena to Severa - Severa struck me as being rude to keep people from hurting her by becoming close to her and then dying like her parents did, while Selena was pretty much just a straight-up (self-censored) for the heck of it with no real softer side as far as I can tell, though I haven't S-Supported her yet so it might be buried somewhere in there.

5: I agree with the reasoning for Olivia not returning as I can't think of any other Class that would fit her, but Lissa could have been given Troubadour with only minor issues. My reasoning for why I'm glad we didn't get Re:Lissa is actually why I'm also glad we didn't get a Re:Chrom - Before Awakening would have just gotten more awkward, and it's already awkward enough with just Odin and Lissa's conversation, so having a Lissa/Re:Lissa conversation would have been very weird and difficult to properly pull off. Also, for anyone wondering, I have nothing against Ophelia, she's probably my second favorite Gen 2 Fates character after Velouria, I just would also have liked to see a Re:Lissa. I do have some issues with Soleil, though, that don't need to be discussed here, so I'd be fine ditching her.

4: Yeah, I noticed after a replay of the Scramble DLC from Awakening that the three non-Chrom/Lucina characters from each map who won their little artworks also happened to be the same characters redone in Fates, and figured that was intentional. I do wish they'd tried for some other reasoning behind their choices, though.

3: I know it's not supposed to be a playable Class, but it's always bothered me that there are a total of like two Soldiers in all of FE that can be played(at least I think there are, correct me if I'm wrong), and neither of them were Avatar-Style characters, plus they had 'Ephraim' as a Soldier in the early Awakening DLC so it's not like they couldn't have done it. I think mostly I just wanted a Nohrian version of Spear Fighter, to be honest.

2/1: I'll admit, yes, you only have to deal with it once a playthrough, but when you can whiz through the Story because you know it all and are just trying to get a Max Support Log like I am right now, you start seeing it a lot more often than most people think, so I've had a bit more of the Fates AC screens than I'd like. Admittedly, the Awakening one isn't perfect either, but again, my preferences are showing through here so this issue with the game can honestly be ignored by you all. If it were me, I'd probably have done a slider for the 3D in-game model of your character, and limited the characters to just headshots for the portraits, meaning skin tone and facial features would be the only thing needed to alter, which would be easy enough. Again, though, that's personal preference.

Anyways, thanks for addressing my stuff like a reasonable human, I'm sorry to admit I'm not used to that on internet forums, though here's been better about it than most places I'm on. Hopefully I managed to be respectful of your opinions as well. This took longer than I thought, though, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to add in the rest of my commentary, but hopefully you guys can discuss that with me as well!

[property of nuvelle]

1 hour ago, SoulWeaver said:

Addressing these in reverse order because.

7: It's not an issue with Gaius, I just had other Units I would have preferred to see make a return and Asugi's relationship with Saizo is kind of stupid when you break it down - Asugi doesn't want to be the fifth "Saizo, son of Saizo" which frankly seems kind of reasonable(would any of us really like the idea of saying "Hi, I'm Steve, son of Steve, son of Steve, son of Steve, son of Steve, son of Steve"?) and Saizo basically throws a tantrum about it at the start. Really, the entire Paralogue kind of just pained me because I've got Saizo having a fit about his son wanting to be his own person as opposed to trying to deal with it in a calmer manner(like suggesting that Asugi be his son's real name but he still accept the title of Saizo kind of like having one of them be a middle name for example), which doesn't really lead me personally to see Saizo as particularly mature until the very end of the Paralogue, where he finally agrees(somewhat grudgingly if I recall correctly) to let his son make his own choice on the matter, and I have Gaius Asugi doing some weird teenager freakout thing about how he's not going to be tied down to the family destiny, which feels like the exact opposite of the personality Awakening gave Gaius, who seemed fairly cool and collected as long as sugar wasn't involved. There were other annoying Paralogues, yeah(Screw Shigure's annoying moving ships for example), but the only Paralogue that bugged me more was Sophie's because I expected Avel to make it actually interesting by doing his own thing every second or third turn and the blasted horse let me down. Even then, at least Nichol was a cool-looking Boss to capture and subjugate recruit, not to mention the only capturable Unit with a Critical Cut-In.

6: I'll admit, a fair part of wanting Noire instead of Inigo is personal preference - I personally can't help but like Noire better than Inigo, in part because I don't particularly like being associated with Inigo's kind of person and also because Noire strikes me as a real sweetheart at least for the 30% of the time she's not screaming about blood and thunder, which also ended up being kind of cute for me because she's all timid until the exact wrong thing happens and then complete 180. However, Laslow also felt more shallow to me than Inigo did because Inigo held his smile together in spite of the fact that the guy was living in hell in order to give people hope and Laslow doesn't really bring the same kind of feel to the table - it feels like he's so used to flirting from his time in Awakening that he doesn't know how to do anything else, plus nobody in Fates really needed a shot of hope so that idea wouldn't have been as effective anyways. I had the same issue comparing Selena to Severa - Severa struck me as being rude to keep people from hurting her by becoming close to her and then dying like her parents did, while Selena was pretty much just a straight-up (self-censored) for the heck of it with no real softer side as far as I can tell, though I haven't S-Supported her yet so it might be buried somewhere in there.

5: I agree with the reasoning for Olivia not returning as I can't think of any other Class that would fit her, but Lissa could have been given Troubadour with only minor issues. My reasoning for why I'm glad we didn't get Re:Lissa is actually why I'm also glad we didn't get a Re:Chrom - Before Awakening would have just gotten more awkward, and it's already awkward enough with just Odin and Lissa's conversation, so having a Lissa/Re:Lissa conversation would have been very weird and difficult to properly pull off. Also, for anyone wondering, I have nothing against Ophelia, she's probably my second favorite Gen 2 Fates character after Velouria, I just would also have liked to see a Re:Lissa. I do have some issues with Soleil, though, that don't need to be discussed here, so I'd be fine ditching her.

4: Yeah, I noticed after a replay of the Scramble DLC from Awakening that the three non-Chrom/Lucina characters from each map who won their little artworks also happened to be the same characters redone in Fates, and figured that was intentional. I do wish they'd tried for some other reasoning behind their choices, though.

3: I know it's not supposed to be a playable Class, but it's always bothered me that there are a total of like two Soldiers in all of FE that can be played(at least I think there are, correct me if I'm wrong), and neither of them were Avatar-Style characters, plus they had 'Ephraim' as a Soldier in the early Awakening DLC so it's not like they couldn't have done it. I think mostly I just wanted a Nohrian version of Spear Fighter, to be honest.

2/1: I'll admit, yes, you only have to deal with it once a playthrough, but when you can whiz through the Story because you know it all and are just trying to get a Max Support Log like I am right now, you start seeing it a lot more often than most people think, so I've had a bit more of the Fates AC screens than I'd like. Admittedly, the Awakening one isn't perfect either, but again, my preferences are showing through here so this issue with the game can honestly be ignored by you all. If it were me, I'd probably have done a slider for the 3D in-game model of your character, and limited the characters to just headshots for the portraits, meaning skin tone and facial features would be the only thing needed to alter, which would be easy enough. Again, though, that's personal preference.

Anyways, thanks for addressing my stuff like a reasonable human, I'm sorry to admit I'm not used to that on internet forums, though here's been better about it than most places I'm on. Hopefully I managed to be respectful of your opinions as well. This took longer than I thought, though, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to add in the rest of my commentary, but hopefully you guys can discuss that with me as well!

It's all good. Having differences and opinions on forums are more preferable. I'm sorry if I might have been a little harsh or too forward with my thoughts, too though. Inigo is still mah boy tho.

[SoulWeaver]

22 hours ago, KongDude88 said:

It's all good. Having differences and opinions on forums are more preferable. I'm sorry if I might have been a little harsh or too forward with my thoughts, too though. Inigo is still mah boy tho.

Nah, you did great, and I can't fault ya for liking Inigo, considering my title on half the stuff I do is "RoyBoy"

Now let's see what else I can remember about Fates that I liked or disliked...

Thumbs Down: Camilla - Before everyone starts jumping around screaming about feminism and who knows what else gets brought up every time the topic of Camilla in general appears, I'm not being a Feminist or a Mysogynist or whatever else you want to call me(unless you want to call me RoyBoy, then by all means be my guest) - I would have had this exact same issue with any Male character who appeared to be in the game for eyecandy purposes, and for those who want to argue about Camilla not being put in the game for her figure I would ask them to first refer to the video that plays at the start of the level in Birthright where you fight her and then accept their apology. I actually got Birthright before Conquest because I didn't want people to think I was one of those guys who just picked Conquest first because of Camilla. Do I dislike everything about Camilla? Definitely not - for one thing, she's generally the best Flier in the entire Fates set for what I'm usually looking for(a good Axe wielder with a better long-range option than a Hand Axe), and she only gets better when I give her an Ebon Wing to get GaleForce for her(My record for Boo Brawl is 2 turns thanks to GaleForce Camilla). I also feel that her weird semi-lust relationship with the Avatar, while disturbing in multiple different conversations(like when she starts acting like she's going to kill her own father because he tried to hurt you in Birthright), is also somewhat endearing as it extends to all her siblings(albeit on slightly less obsessive levels) because Ganon's Garon's wives hardly had time for something as trivial as their own children and so someone had to be the mother for everyone, which shows that Camilla is a very caring person on the inside, even if it sometimes gets twisted("I love you too much to let you go on…" comes to mind). Does this mean I'm not bothered that I can't say she's one of my two favorite Fates Gen 1 Female characters without people getting the wrong idea about why I play Fire Emblem? Heck to the no - I can't stand it when people go "Ah, you like that kind of girl, eh?" just like I can't stand the looks people give me when I say Sakura is my other favorite Fates G1 Female because they think I'm not looking at Sakura in a Big Brother/Little Sister type of way. For one thing, yes, I think Camilla's pretty hot, but that's not the main reason I like her, and for another thing, people frankly should be asking for more details before they start drawing conclusions about that kind of thing. I have no real issues with her outfit by itself - if I got married and my wife wanted to wear that outfit for when it was just the two of us I'd give her one thumb up while plugging my bleeding nose with the other hand - I just feel that it was unnecessary and ridiculous for them to make that her default outfit for the entire game as opposed to, say, a unique outfit for the Private Quarters Husband/Wife stuff, which leads into the next subject...

Thumbs Down: Handling of Private Quarters - The Private Quarters felt like a great idea that just kind of fell flat because they didn't or couldn't do it properly. No, this isn't going to be another rant about how I can't touch (insert Waifu here)'s breasts because #LOLcalization took out petting - I think that was a good call considering that the game seems to me to be aimed at a younger audience as well as the Awakening fans and I don't want to have to explain to my aunt why my 10 and 14 year old cousins have a petting minigame in the game I recommended for them. If Fates were specifically aimed at an adult audience, then perhaps I might have had an issue with all the censorship, but so much censored content shows that they were also trying to make Fire Emblem in general family-friendly, which is another big reason why it bugs me that Camilla slipped through(that's clearly her underwear, guys, we're not idiots and can see it isn't connected to her leg armor at all). I felt like the Private Quarters was a kind of unnecessary part of the whole My Castle thing, one that really couldn't show its full potential as long as they were trying to aim it towards families being able to play the game together. I know I for one would have appreciated alternate outfits for my Avatar and his/her Husband/Wife that would only have been used in the Private Quarters because let's be honest, are you really going to come home to find your wife just got out of the bath and decided to put on her Dread Fighter gear(that she's been wearing for half a war campaign, might I add) instead of something more casual? Seems a little unlikely to me. Even something as simple as a Yukata for Hoshidan characters and a bathrobe for Nohrian characters would have been a really cool way to show that the game isn't all war, which I felt was what the Private Quarters were aiming to show. If they'd aimed Fates at older players(say 17+ for example) I would have gone so far as to suggest a second alternate outfit for said husband/wife for when they wanted to 'surprise' you when you came home, but they didn't so I probably would have been bothered if that had been added. Instead, we got a bunch of bare thighs in a war zone(NOT a tactically sound decision for those who've never got hit by anything even as light as a Nerf sword in the leg while not wearing some kind of protective stuff) and this awkward building that just takes up My Castle space and doesn't really do much on its own, which leads to my next subject...

Thumbs Up: My Castle - Could they have done My Castle better? Yes, they could, they said as much during an interview involving Echoes where they said they could have made it so you could run around with the over-the-shoulder camera back in Fates, and that's just what the people who made the game came up with. Does that mean I dislike My Castle? Definitely not - it was great to have this little area all my own and make it look however I want, plus I got to go visit other people and get ideas from their My Castles, which was super cool. This is actually one of the few things I wish they'd had in Awakening because it's the Barracks but better - if Awakening had included a "Camp" option where you could run around the Shepherds' camp and interact with other Units that would have been way cooler than the Barracks option. Another really nice thing about the My Castle was that it appealed - and for the most part delivered - to all players. If you specifically wanted your My Castle to be as practical for your campaign as possible, visitors would find buildings like the Smithy, Lottery, Food/Gem supply locations, Arena and Shops taking priority with lots of Rank 3 Statues to buff Units during the Storyline, while if you just wanted to play around and see your Units doing their own thing more, visitors might instead discover a My Castle with the Mess Hall or Hot Springs prominently displayed, and if you were the kind of player who wants to be a complete (self-censored) to other players, visitors may be frustrated with a complicated mess like my own My Castle, designed to be impregnable to mere StreetPass casuals and vanquished only by the most diehard players, though I'm not sure how well I did there. Overall, My Castle is probably the biggest plus I had from Fates and I really hope they build on the concept in future Fire Emblem games. On to the next subject...

Thumbs Down: Handling of Fates Gen 2 - The reasons I think Awakening Gen 2 worked as well as it did is because 1) It was a fresh new idea for Fire Emblem, 2) They thought Awakening would be the last game and so didn't really center it on fanservice or moneymaking as much, making the concept seem more real(at least to me) than I initially thought it would be considering Lucina is pretty much just a Marth the guys can get hard for without their sexuality being called into question, and 3) because Time Travel was involved and nobody really questions Time Travel all that much as the idea itself kind of defies logical thought. Fates Gen 2 had none of these things going for it. Reason 1? We literally JUST did this, so it's not really that fresh. Reason 2? I think Caeldori, Rhajat, and Asugi alone shatter the argument against Fates Gen 2 being fanservice, and my opinion is that at least Soleil and Ophelia were intentionally made into semi-clones of their fathers because Owain and Inigo were popular enough to lead Nintendo to believe that their character ideas could sell. Don't get me wrong there, I think Ophelia is great, the only Fates Gen 2 character I like more is Velouria. Reason 3? Time Travel is definitely not involved - the DeepRealms OutRealms weren't the same world from the past/future, they were different worlds on different timelines that apparently only moved faster than ours, never slower(you remember that one Gen 2 character where you came back after two years to find your kid had aged three days? Yeah, me neither. What about the one where you left for a week and bam, the baby can get married to your brother/sister/liege? Oh, right, that's all of them) so that wasn't the same as Time Travel. Fates Gen 2 could have been handled really well if they'd tried, but I got the feeling they didn't try all that hard. Admittedly, people still love the idea, but it really rubs me wrong for some strange reason, not to mention that I still can't have anyone other than Shigure or Kana have sibling conversations, just like how in Awakening it always bugged me that I could never see a sibling interaction that didn't involve Morgan or Lucina. It also bugged me that all the sibling conversations are straight up cookie-cutter - every Kana sibling conversation is about Kana wanting to be more useful so come on, let's go patrol, every Shigure sibling conversation is about Shigure sneaking off to sing to all the bunnies and birds who have more important things like staying alive to worry about, every Morgan sibling conversation is about Morgan trying to remember his/her past(though frankly I can't think of anything else Morgan could even have a sibling conversation about considering the whole I-don't-remember-our-freakish-past-and-can't-reminisce-with-you-guys thing, so that doesn't bother me as much), and every Lucina sibling conversation is about her younger sibling maybe needing to use Falchion one day, which would be really cool if her sibling could, you know…actually use Falchion instead of these conversations ending up going nowhere. Frankly, after about 3 or 4 playthroughs, the English version of Saizo and Beruka's C-Support becomes more interesting. I wish they'd given the sibling conversations more variation and depth, like, for example, having Soleil 'help' Shigure with his flirting, or having Selkie take Kana on a forest romp as Kitsune and Dragon. This of course also applies to Awakening, with something like Lucina helping Cynthia to understand more about how heroes aren't always all special moves and mystic weapons(unless you're Owain but he's a special exception) contrasting with say her conversation with Brady, which could be about Lucina helping to teach Brady to actually fight properly.

I'm sure I could go on for days about stuff I liked or disliked, but I think I'll stop here.

Edited May 5, 2017 by SoulWeaver
added more things

[Xenomata]

On 5/3/2017 at 5:59 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

 

T776 gives you Forseti and nothing else, not even "fake" legendaries like the FE7 stuff. But it did have a nice number of personal weapons, which kinda compensate.

Then we have the problem of Hauteclere in Archanea, namely it was tossed into the remakes with no backstory whatsoever.

To be fair to Thracia, all of Jugdrals legendary weapons were locked to Major Holy Blood descendants, of which (at least out of what is available to the player) it's not exactly stated who has what in Holy War Gen 2. The best users don't count for the most part.

Though I did not know about Hauteclair... what the hell?

Edited May 8, 2017 by Xenomata

[ckc22]

Ultimately the source of my disappointment with fates was a few things that basically add up to there being no interesting post game - there's no 5* or Insane maps in the dlc + the mycastle features completely invalidate any strategy in pairing units for min/max. There's a reason that a year later there's no meta discussion or pairing thread with any real development. Compared to Awakening the min/max is shallow. 

I spent hundreds of hours playing Awakening and Fates got a couple of quick play throughs through the story - which in every route is lackluster. 

I think they over stretched themselves in order to sell three 60% games instead of making one truly great experience. 

Edited May 10, 2017 by ckc22

[desertbriar]

Although it's been a year or two since Fates was released, I haven't really had a chance to give my two cents on Fates yet.

Cons

• Worldbuilding: Where even is everything. I miss the world map you can wander around/the game shows you wandering around like in Awakening and FE 7. It just feels like the game is dragging you around to some isolated important location every chapter. I still don't know what the continent is called.
• Plot: Too many to even list. Plus everyone's already said it.
• The Astral world or whatever: It's creepy that the kids grow up so fast, it's crappy parenting that you're even locking your kid there for their entire lifetime, and how Lilith transports Corrin there in ch 5 unnecessarily interrupts the story. Awakening handled the kids less stupidly and in a more plot relevant way.
• (also plot but something that's been bugging me) The dragonstone Azura gives Corrin after their rampage is too convenient. I was hoping for the story to address Corrin's struggle/lack of control over their transformation after watching the trailers.

Pro

• The gameplay is absolutely fantastic and improved from Awakening. Conquest's, that is. Birthright is too dull. I thought Awakening's pair up system was too op, happy they fixed that a bit in fates with dual guard/attack stance. Plus, the Conquest maps are fun and challenging.
• I do like the characters. There's so many though. 
• The music from both games is fantastic. 
• MyCastle is great. I liked how you could interact with the characters more, and battling other castles is fun. I also like the skill inheritance from other players. I'm not going to spend 40+ hours playing eugenics or second sealing like Awakening requires.

[maninbluejumpsuit]

4 hours ago, desertbriar said:

•  I also like the skill inheritance from other players. I'm not going to spend 40+ hours playing eugenics or second sealing like Awakening requires.

I'm on the fence on this.

I rather liked a bit of planning, and working within class set restrictions to make a character as strong as they could be within their own limitations, and finding interesting niche uses for characters like Sumia, and forcing me to make the best with what characters had

With Fate's friendship seals, partner seals, and any non-dlc skills in the game from castles in less than 5 minutes, you could turn anyone into a god with little effort. That feels lame/cheap on two levels.

The convenience was alright, but it came with way too much freedom to abuse it, imo.

Edited May 17, 2017 by maninbluejumpsuit

[MeddlingMage]

Sometimes I wish you can pass on the Avatar's secondary class to a kid instead of it being Nohr or Hoshidan Noble.  For example if you have the avatar marry Odin and you want to pass on Diviner to Ophelia instead of the Noble.

[SniperGYS]

My bigger disappointment on Fates was that supports don't changes the background!!! They left it like in Awakening...

Oh yeah, look at Kiragi and Forrest talking about the beautiful view over a mountain... But the background is the same boring wall. Look at Niles and Beruka visiting the tombs of their parents... In the same room with the same wall!

I thought they were going to learn to make the bg fit the supports, but no, what a dissapointment for me :(. Another one is the fact that Tree House played a coward and never localised the Festival maps, but that is not the game fault.

But talking about the good side, I really liked the gameplay of the game, I find the game more fun to play than Awakening, and how someone already said, the option to buy skills from other players it was really good, and it save us from hours and hours of tedious grinding, plus beautiful music and some pretty good characters