What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Ottservia]

I'm just gonna say fates's story isn't terrible? Like I mean it's bad but it's not as bad as people say it is cause honestly I think people look at fate's story the wrong way. Hell Right now I'd go so far as to say it's a better story than SoV. Not by much mind you but I still feel that way. Then again It's been a while since I've truly sunk my teeth into fates's story and a lot of this coming from memory and passing thoughts about the various plot points of the game but yeah. I appreciate fates's story for what it was trying to do is what I'm trying to say here cause essentially it's just persona 4's story but worse

[henrymidfields]

I'd like to see a endgame chapter that is just purely human, without any supernatural/god villains whatsoever. And the difficulty comes with the numbers and the skills of the enemy units. It's basically Binding Blade in general except without Idoun and Jahn's chapter, and Chapter 22 in particular except with tougher enemies and Fates Conquest battle/stat systems and enemy placements, where you really need to work as a team to finish the chapter. And the most difficult part is to convince the enemy that their cause is lost - which involves fielding various units - including those you haven't used in the game. Otherwise you'll miss out on the best ending out of the multiple ones. No, problem, just kill them all, you say? Sorry, but that is a one-way ticket to the worst ending, where the former invaded country ends up resenting your nation, and other nations see you as just as bad as the villain nation, and a "revenge" war happens further down.

This is the main reason why I like Zephyr as a FE villain - he relied less of the supermagic stuff like other FE did, and more on his political leadership and, implicitly, his country's economic-military complex to realise his continent-wide invasion. (He did use war dragons, but other FE villainous groups used dragons too.)

Edited June 15, 2019 by henrymidfields

[zuibangde]

2 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

Like Priam.

I'm not going to start a debate about Ike/Soren again (even though it will further prove my point earlier) but there are many many people on this forum and Reddit that wrote why Priam is a non-factor regarding Ike/Soren as a couple.

 

 

 

 

2

43 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

Florina only has one paired ending with a dude and it’s with Hector which involves one of the worst supports in the entire game (although their cuteness as a potential couple is admittedly undeniable)

 Also, how is any of their paired ending with men established? Established would to me mean that they either canonically always end up together or that their attraction for one another is at least confirmed but I don’t see how Lyn/Rath or Lyn/Hector for example are any more established than one another.

And how is Lyn referring to Florina as her best friend any more problematic than something like Silas calling F!Corrin his best friend and then ending up married to each other? Best friends into lovers is one of the most common romance plots across all cultures and all forms of media.

 If you dislike the ship that’s fine but I just don’t see how what you listed makes it a bad ship.

 ———————————————

When I say established, I meant that Lyn's endings with Rath/Kent/Eliwood/Hector are all established to be romantic and mentions either their love for each other or how they have a child together. The point is that even if they're not canon, it shows that it is romantic and not platonic. You can't say the same with Florina.

Lyn specifically mentioned wanting Florina to go with her back to the plains as a friend after calling Florina as a best friend in their A Support. Their ending refers to Florina as 'a friend' and how 'Florina returned to Ilia, yet their friendship lasted forever'. Between the A Support and Ending, Florina and Lyn's relationship is repeatedly stated to be a close friendship. Yes, friendships can become romantic but if we are going by what the supports and ending provided back in the GBA game, we can see that their relationship is pretty much platonic. Forcing a platonic friendship into something romantic just feels wrong to me and that is why it's a bad ship.

[NegativeExponents-]

58 minutes ago, zuibangde said:

When I say established, I meant that Lyn's endings with Rath/Kent/Eliwood/Hector are all established to be romantic and mentions either their love for each other or how they have a child together. The point is that even if they're not canon, it shows that it is romantic and not platonic. You can't say the same with Florina.

Lyn specifically mentioned wanting Florina to go with her back to the plains as a friend after calling Florina as a best friend in their A Support. Their ending refers to Florina as 'a friend' and how 'Florina returned to Ilia, yet their friendship lasted forever'. Between the A Support and Ending, Florina and Lyn's relationship is repeatedly stated to be a close friendship. Yes, friendships can become romantic but if we are going by what the supports and ending provided back in the GBA game, we can see that their relationship is pretty much platonic. Forcing a platonic friendship into something romantic just feels wrong to me and that is why it's a bad ship.

Ah okay, I just wanted to understand your reasoning as it felt really vague before but I think I understand your points now.

As for the friendship thing, I think that a romantic partner still qualify as a best friend J̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶H̶a̶r̶v̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶M̶o̶o̶n̶ ̶D̶S̶ ̶C̶u̶t̶e̶ After all, it’s not like friendship ends once love kicks in. And I honestly wouldn’t expect Fire Emblem of the past to have outright stated it anyway if it were meant to be a romantic relationship. All people have is subtext and Lyn/Florina just oozes out romance potential with friendship, loyalty, overprotectiveness, the common lord/retainer and tomboy/shy girl setup, and lines that can be easily misconstrued such as: “Please, Florina—Don't... I, too, thought it was the way we had to be with each other. But I was wrong—I can't take it anymore. I've been so lonely all this time.” It’s no wonder Lyn/Florina is a decently popular ship. Especially for Florina since her only other paired support sucks even with the explicit romantic mention.

Edited June 15, 2019 by NegativeExponents-

[SubwayBossEmmett]

Well first post here, might as well start off saying something dumb. I also want to see if I made my profile correctly.

Binding Blade is the most thoroughly mediocre FE game that doesn't do anything interesting and tells its story incredibly blandly with the main character that only is the main character because his dad was too sick to do it and proceeds to be out charisma'd by the entire cast. Sure other games in the series are more flawed but those flaws are worth discussing but Binding Blade has nothing going for it outside of introducing the support system which is implemented in an abysmal manner which you're not even likely to get more than a few snippets of a conversation over a playthrough without a conscious effort and then you get 1 full conversation per character at best. Sure this problem exists in other FE games but they're especially slow in FE6.

Oh and Berkut is a bad villain because they can't decide if he's supposed to be sympathetic or detestable.

[Ottservia]

4 hours ago, SubwayBossEmmett said:

Oh and Berkut is a bad villain because they can't decide if he's supposed to be sympathetic or detestable.

Finally someone else gets it. Berkut is such a bad villain. He’s a good character but as a villain he fails on like the most fundamental levels.

[Parrhesia]

I'm a little removed from the Zeitgeist so some of these might actually be popular opinions now. But!

FE15 map design isn't bad. Visually very bland, yes. A couple maps are terrible, but there's a terrible map in every FE. For the most part, though, they're functional.

Bowlock, while obviously suboptimal, is not a death knell. The reason Archers are generally terrible is because they're loaded with terrible statlines, not because the class is fundamentally broken (exception: 7-8, where the entire game is based around 1-2-range EP countering).

The laguz are good and cool, but the racism analogy falls completely flat. Human minorities, it turns out, don't spring fangs and claws and eat people.

His name is Virgil, or Vergil at a stretch.

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Parrhesia said:

The laguz are good and cool, but the racism analogy falls completely flat. Human minorities, it turns out, don't spring fangs and claws and eat people.

I've always wondered, are there any actual instances in FE9/10 of laguz eating people? It's obviously a common threat from laguz towards beorc they don't like, but I don't recall it ever actually happening, or any stories of it happening. But I could be forgetting something super obvious.

Also, laguz are effectively still human. They can crossbreed with beorc and have viable offspring, they share the same genetic ancestor, they take the term "sub-human" as an insult/slur. It'd be safe to say beorc and laguz both make up a singular species of "human". Whether they have claws and fangs or not doesn't really matter in the analogue to IRL human minorities, because they still make up an oppressed human minority in the fiction.

Edited June 16, 2019 by Slumber

[Etrurian emperor]

On 6/15/2019 at 5:47 PM, Ottservia said:

I'm just gonna say fates's story isn't terrible? Like I mean it's bad but it's not as bad as people say it is cause honestly I think people look at fate's story the wrong way. Hell Right now I'd go so far as to say it's a better story than SoV. Not by much mind you but I still feel that way. Then again It's been a while since I've truly sunk my teeth into fates's story and a lot of this coming from memory and passing thoughts about the various plot points of the game but yeah. I appreciate fates's story for what it was trying to do is what I'm trying to say here cause essentially it's just persona 4's story but worse

I'm curious. What would you say is the right way to look at Fates story?

[Ottservia]

35 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'm curious. What would you say is the right way to look at Fates story?

Like I said it's essentially Persona 4's story but worse as in they cover very similar themes and ideas. Fates from what I can tell seems to be a story of truth and lies rather than blood vs bond or whatever. Cause when you think about it like that every plotpoint in conquest and revelations makes so much more sense(It's been years since I've even thought about touching birthright)Like Essentially what the choice in chapter 6 is meant to convey is decide which side to trust or rather which side of the argument you believe is telling the truth(Two of which are lying and there is only one true option). If you choose either Birthright or Conquest well you chose the "wrong answer" and thereby are left with an unsatisfying ending because you didn't "find the truth" as it were only nuggets of it which is also symbolically represented by Azura's death at the end of either path. Azura's role in the story is essentially to act as a kernal of truth in an ocean of lies that's why she's so exposition happy. Within the confines of the story, she's presented as the only one you can really trust which makes sense cause she's a vallite like Corrin/you and knows what the real truth is and is constantly feeding you kernals of it. Again I'd have to replay the games to really get a grasp on this idea/thematic narrative but it seems to make sense. I mean hell the third path is called "Revelations" for crying out loud. I mean I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily well handled but it’s there and I appreciate the attempt.

Edited June 16, 2019 by Ottservia

[Etrurian emperor]

11 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Like I said it's essentially Persona 4's story but worse as in they cover very similar themes and ideas. Fates from what I can tell seems to be a story of truth and lies rather than blood vs bond or whatever. Cause when you think about it like that every plotpoint in conquest and revelations makes so much more sense(It's been years since I've even thought about touching birthright)Like Essentially what the choice in chapter 6 is meant to convey is decide which side to trust or rather which side of the argument you believe is telling the truth(Two of which are lying and there is only one true option). If you choose either Birthright or Conquest well you chose the "wrong answer" and thereby are left with an unsatisfying ending because you didn't "find the truth" as it were only nuggets of it which is also symbolically represented by Azura's death at the end of either path. Azura's role in the story is essentially to act as a kernal of truth in an ocean of lies that's why she's so exposition happy. Within the confines of the story, she's presented as the only one you can really trust which makes sense cause she's a vallite like Corrin/you and knows what the real truth is and is constantly feeding you kernals of it. Again I'd have to replay the games to really get a grasp on this idea/thematic narrative but it seems to make sense. I mean hell the third path is called "Revelations" for crying out loud. 

Well something being like Persona 4's story doesn't help me much because I only played 5 😄

While interesting I don't think your approach would fix most people's perspective of Fates. Its not the themes and ideas of Fates that people object to but the extremely shody execution of the story. Even if we were to see the plot as a story of truth and lies then we would still have Garon who wasted every single bit of potential his character ever had, we would still have Iago being a complete loser in two routes and managing to constantly win against Corrin and Xander despite being a complete loser in one route, we'd still have Hans being a generic bandit with more screentime, Kotaro trying to massacre the entire Nohrian royal family because he can't bear Corrin being weirdly upset about prisoners of war and Corrin constantly bumbling into mistakes but getting shielded from having to learn from there. 

The story of Fates isn't bad because of it themes but because it often screws up at a very basic level and always goes out of its way to be less interesting then it should logically be. Norh for example is said to be evil because its poor and desperate but its shown to be evil because its just really, really evil for no reason. 

Fates could deal with the themes you describe in an incredibly competent way but if the very basics like the villains, the main characters, the lore and such things remains a mess then the story will remain incredibly bad. 

[Ottservia]

2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Well something being like Persona 4's story doesn't help me much because I only played 5 😄

While interesting I don't think your approach would fix most people's perspective of Fates. Its not the themes and ideas of Fates that people object to but the extremely shody execution of the story. Even if we were to see the plot as a story of truth and lies then we would still have Garon who wasted every single bit of potential his character ever had, we would still have Iago being a complete loser in two routes and managing to constantly win against Corrin and Xander despite being a complete loser in one route, we'd still have Hans being a generic bandit with more screentime, Kotaro trying to massacre the entire Nohrian royal family because he can't bear Corrin being weirdly upset about prisoners of war and Corrin constantly bumbling into mistakes but getting shielded from having to learn from there. 

The story of Fates isn't bad because of it themes but because it often screws up at a very basic level and always goes out of its way to be less interesting then it should logically be. Norh for example is said to be evil because its poor and desperate but its shown to be evil because its just really, really evil for no reason. 

Fates could deal with the themes you describe in an incredibly competent way but if the very basics like the villains, the main characters, the lore and such things remains a mess then the story will remain incredibly bad. 

Hey I never said it was particularly good at conveying those themes and ideas. I'm just saying I appreciate the attempt that was made There are ideas here and for what it's worth it does some things right. At least it's not contradicting itself unlike a certain other Fire Emblem game(CoughEchoesCough). Cause a lot of you're saying here is correct. Fates does a lot of shit wrong but again I appreciate the attempt. It wasn't a very successful attempt but it was an attempt. Like for me I can at least understand a lot of the narrative decisions that were made and why they were made. That to me is enough to at least again appreciate the story for what it is tried to be but ultimately failed to quite hit the mark.

[Flere210]

 

17 hours ago, Slumber said:

Also, laguz are effectively still human. They can crossbreed with beorc and have viable offspring, they share the same genetic ancestor, they take the term "sub-human" as an insult/slur. It'd be safe to say beorc and laguz both make up a singular species of "human". Whether they have claws and fangs or not doesn't really matter in the analogue to IRL human minorities, because they still make up an oppressed human minority in the fiction.

This is the classic X-men problem. If you think about it X-men don't work as a metaphor of actual racism. The fundamental point of racism is that it is unreadonable, but is not unreasonable in the slightest to think that the guy that shot laser beams from his eyes is dangerous. As much as a mutant can lear to control their power, they just need to slip up for one moment to kill someone. 

Similarly, the Laguz are just better than the Beorc. Humans need to use advanced tools to keep up and there is nothing that truly prevent the laguz from using them too, they are just not culturally accustomed to do so. 

Laguz are empowered humans, not simple humans. Fearing the catgirl that can slaughter you, your friends, and any city guard that try to stop her is again not unreasonable. 

[Slumber]

30 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

 

This is the classic X-men problem. If you think about it X-men don't work as a metaphor of actual racism. The fundamental point of racism is that it is unreadonable, but is not unreasonable in the slightest to think that the guy that shot laser beams from his eyes is dangerous. As much as a mutant can lear to control their power, they just need to slip up for one moment to kill someone. 

Similarly, the Laguz are just better than the Beorc. Humans need to use advanced tools to keep up and there is nothing that truly prevent the laguz from using them too, they are just not culturally accustomed to do so. 

Laguz are empowered humans, not simple humans. Fearing the catgirl that can slaughter you, your friends, and any city guard that try to stop her is again not unreasonable. 

This is a bit more fair as a criticism, and definitely where Tellius' racism allegory doesn't translate as well to IRL.

[Etrurian emperor]

For my part I don't think the message in Tellius doesn't work because its objectively untrue. 

''Both races are equal so you shouldn't discriminate'' seems to be the message but the two races aren't equal. The Laguz are objectively the moral superior of the Beorc. That there is even a race conflict to begin with is entirely due to the Beorc themselves. Every conflict was started by Beorcs being racist and its always the Beorc who escalate the relation between races in something truly vile. 

Beorc lynch Laguz in the streets when they find one
Beorc enslave the Laguz and try keeping it up even after slavery is supposedly abolished
Beorc commit genocide on one of the Laguz races
Beorc kidnap Laguz and commit horrible experiments on them. 
Beorc repeatedly try to destroy Laguz countries. 

In contrast all the Laguz ever do to the Beorc is being rightfully distrustful of this race that keeps going out of their way to torture Laguz for no real reason. Even the bad Laguz are doing the things they do because the Beorc either went way to far or blackmailed them into doing evil things. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

I'll just add the Laguz circumstance that is possible to the persecuted to also be persecutors, both at the same time, and at separate times.

The Poles in World War II everyone can agree were persecuted by the Nazis. But it did not always take a Nazi to be even within ten miles of a village for ethnic Poles to decide to expunge their Jewish neighbors. If villagers killed/handed over their local Jews to the Nazis before the Nazis even approached the village, then it is fair to argue the ethnic Poles were not just trying to survive a terrible Nazi overlord- they were being active persecutors.

The Jews themselves provide a case for separate instances of being persecuted and being the persecutors. In Europe, the Jews were, and still are in some places, being persecuted. The state/government/administration of Israel on the other hand, staffed and willed by members of the Jewish ethnicity/nation/people, has certainly engaged in activity against the Palestinian people which can be defined as persecution. Not to treat Palestinian violent reaction to said persecution as pardonable, violence is not. And again, I do not intend to say the majority of Israelis are active, conscious supporters of the persecuting actions. But a state has no life of its own, an elite at least has to shape its behaviors, and a larger group of workers for the elite must exist to carry out what the elite decides on.

...I know I am getting into touchy territory here. IRL, it is easier to teach one side as always persecuted and the other side as always persecutors. Nor are there always true equivalents, nor is any persecution ever justified. But a more nuanced anti-discrimination story in a video game could benefit from less black and white.

Another form they could use is the lesson of say European colonialism in Africa. The Europeans were absolutely the persecutors here. Where the nuance comes in for a discrimination story would be between Africans who work with the European administrations, and those choose not to. Not all Africans who worked for the European colonial governments were corrupt individuals. Here too we find room with say Indian migrants, who formed an economic elite minority in some parts of British East Africa, despite Indians in India being under the British boot themselves.

[Landmaster]

Loli Dragons are the best characters and we need more of them~

[MrMinus]

Archers aren't nearly as bad as they're made out to be and Kent is not a boring character

[Icelerate]

10 hours ago, Landmaster said:

Loli Dragons are the best characters and we need more of them~

Then you're going to hate the Tellius games. 

[Anaphora]

Not even sure how unpopular this is, but Saizo was my favorite character in Fates.  None of my friends or coworkers who play FE used him in their playthroughs and I think he's an overlooked character that should be used more often.  His story is far more interesting than his initial personality reveals. 

[SubwayBossEmmett]

4 hours ago, MrMinus said:

Archers aren't nearly as bad as they're made out to be and Kent is not a boring character

I mean it really really depends on the game, in FE7 they're basically trash (Louise as the best archer is solid but not as good as a lot of other units at that point) but in Fates, for example, they're pretty good with all the unique types of bows. Also FE6 deserves a shoutout for the scary Wyverns and how Archers are very helpful for that Chapter 7 early on.  Oh yeah and Virion is complete trash in Awakening too.

Kent is a bit Vanilla but Vanilla is alright sometimes. Fiora and Kent unironically have one of my favorite supports in the series, the perfect amount of Meta about supports. 

On 6/15/2019 at 10:47 AM, Ottservia said:

I'm just gonna say fates's story isn't terrible? Like I mean it's bad but it's not as bad as people say it is cause honestly I think people look at fate's story the wrong way. Hell Right now I'd go so far as to say it's a better story than SoV. Not by much mind you but I still feel that way. Then again It's been a while since I've truly sunk my teeth into fates's story and a lot of this coming from memory and passing thoughts about the various plot points of the game but yeah. I appreciate fates's story for what it was trying to do is what I'm trying to say here cause essentially it's just persona 4's story but worse

Basically, Fates and its story is a lot like Camilla, there's actually interesting stuff there despite what others say but try not to forget they quite literally have you run into her boobs. 

[Ottservia]

I don't think Garon is a shit villain. Yeah you read that correctly. Ok he is a bad villain but I'm starting to wonder if that was actually the point because in essence he's supposed to be a red herring so him being unsatisfying to beat and overcome is the entire point so maybe Garon being a bad villain is intentional which actually makes him a "good" villain ironically enough

[OrcaWolf]

I have plenty.

 

I like Nina

Iago isn’t shit.

Henry isn’t written that badly. Though there were a few questionable writing decisions 

Say’ri is my most hated Fire Emblem character

I’m a casual player so yeah. I don’t hate casual mode.

I don’t think every character should be bisexual for the sake of LGBTQ representation. I’m fine with having homosexual, bisexual and etc characters but I don’t think all he characters should be that. I mean there’s Soleil, Leon and Niles. I’m fine if more come in Three Houses but I don’t think every character needs to be bisexual. I don’t think one needs to find a character relatable based on sexual orientation or something similar. You can find a character relatable for simpler reasons (example, Leo being clumsy and putting clothes on backwards). Let’s say you’re depressed. I don’t think every character in the game needs to be depressed, if you get what I’m saying. 

 

 

 

i have a few others. 

Edited June 22, 2019 by OrcaWolf

[TowerOfTartarus]

Lucina and Chrom are possibly the most bland lord characters in the entire franchise so far. (Also restricting an entire version of a scene to only having Lucina as your daughter/wife was bs)

Chrom and Robin as a pairing is like slamming two boards together, there's no personality between either of them.

Edelgard seems to be a massive hypocrite and probably a very unsympathetic and uninteresting lord character. (Could change when Three Houses comes out but we'll see)

Casual mode is just a general quality of life improvement because I know I'd just reload to bring the character back anyways. (I understand the appeal of Classic, but I just don't like having my characters die unless if the plot warrants it.)

EDIT: The characters in newer games shouldn't just all be bisexual, it really ruins the character of them, it should go for a more Dragon Age style with specific characters having different sexual preferences. (Not just two characters that are Avatarsexual tho please)

Edited June 20, 2019 by TowerOfTartarus
Added another opinion

[Violectrolysis]

- Nah and Kjelle are the worst characters in the 3DS games

- Chrom is a decent character and by far the most interesting of the 3DS lords

- Shadows of Valentia's story is overrated and it has a lot of Fates-worthy moments (like Alm preventing the apocalypse with a lucky charm that Celica happened to give him and Conrad showing up every 5 minutes out of nowhere to save Celica) but people don't notice it as much because of the presentation and full voice acting

- People wouldn't care about Berkut half as much if he wasn't voiced by Ian Sinclair