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What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?


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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Jugdral could certainly have a lot more in the way of developing side characters, though I think it does a rather good job in Genealogy for the time it was made (not quite so much in Thracia)...but what are you referring to in regards to small things that happened 300 years ago? All we get from that time period is literally the opening timeline.  Maybe you're just misremembering the original war against Loptyr that happened just over a hundred years ago, and is obviously very relevant to the plot. It also contains very scant number of small things as we get it in broadstrokes. Do you have any examples of what you're talking about here?

I was not reffering to anything in particular, just that most discussions that we have are usually about world building, something on irrelevant flavour stuff, while very few dialogues are dedicated to side characters. And i don't think Three Houses has that problem 

 

@Slumber i explain myself better. I read the support before posting, so there was no need to link it. That said, what i mentioned was not just about the support, thesupport itself won't say much, but about the support put into context whit all the informations we got from other sources. It give pieces that can be used to make a puzzle(and i can in fact say a lot if things about Plegia that are not spelled out loud but clearly exist in the story.)

Most sylvain supports mention Miklan at some point, but you only really need him to do that once to understand that disowning crestless children  is a socially acceptable thing in Farghus. You don't even need for someone to say that, the fact that Margrave Gautier did it, everyone know he did, and he is still in power means he could do it.  In many awakening support those "Miklan mentions" do happen and can be patched togheter to get a better understanding of the world. It's still an underdevoloped world, but not by that much. 

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12 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I have one example for both. The tragedy of duscur. Now to be fair this event does hold meaning to Dimitri’s entire character arc as it’s the event that killed his parents but then we learn that the whole thing was a conspiracy instigated by his stepmother. An interesting twist that if elaborated on could lead to Dimitri having to come to terms with the fact that his step mom may not loved him. Too bad we never get that elaboration as it’s just brushed off by Dimitri. That’s fine... It’s not like that event is the major crux of Dimitri’s entire character or anything!! But no don’t elaborate on it. It’s totally not important.

Pretty sure everyone is in disbelief of this. Also, that guy who was involved in the tragedy you meet after you defeat Cornelia conversation is pretty much the ending of that story and probably the closest you'll get.

12 hours ago, Ottservia said:

We also hear a lot about Almyra and the trouble they cause but what the fuck does Almyra have to do with anything regarding the core conflict between Edelgard and the church. Absolutely fuck all that’s what.

Also who the fuck are the agarthans and why do they have nukes?! Why do they hate dragons so much?! The game provides no answers for this!!

Not like three characters, including Claude, are from that area while also being a main reason the Gonreil family is so highly regarded and Claude's main goal is to bring peace to Fodlan and Almyra. Not like that at all.

They were the first human race that was sent to the underground because Sothis slaughtered many of their people for they warred against her children. They then told Nemesis and the 10 Elites to kill the Nabateans and use their bones as weapons and their blood and hearts as crests and crest stones. Now they came back to finish the job. 

Above.

You can find both easily when you finish VW or even SS.

 

E: I'm starting to think you played two or maybe even one path and came here to complain about a story that you haven't even finished. There is a reason there is 4 paths!

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28 minutes ago, Deathcon said:

Pretty sure everyone is in disbelief of this. Also, that guy who was involved in the tragedy you meet after you defeat Cornelia conversation is pretty much the ending of that story and probably the closest you'll get.

Yeah but is there any closure beyond that point? No no there isn’t. It’s a plot point that’s brought up but not explored any deeper and that’s a problem. All that’s really confirmed by merchant man over there is that Dimitri’s mom was indeed involved. Why she did it or even if she’s still alive is barely stated or even implied. It’s somewhat implied that she implied that she missed her family but again it’s not confirmed if that’s truly what happened.

 

32 minutes ago, Deathcon said:
13 hours ago, Ottservia said:

 

Not like three characters, including Claude, are from that area while also being a main reason the Gonreil family is so highly regarded and Claude's main goal is to bring peace to Fodlan and Almyra. Not like that at all.

Okay but what the hell does claude have to do with anything? You could quite literally cut out the entire alliance from the story and absolutely nothing about the story would change like what was even the point of it then? 

 

35 minutes ago, Deathcon said:

They were the first human race that was sent to the underground because Sothis slaughtered many of their people for they warred against her children. They then told Nemesis and the 10 Elites to kill the Nabateans and use their bones as weapons and their blood and hearts as crests and crest stones. Now they came back to finish the job. 

 

I played verdant wind first and all I really got out of any of it was that nemisis raided Sothis’s tomb, made a sword from her corpse, and used it to slaughter her children. As to why, I have no clue. Maybe I’m misremembering but I don’t remember the game ever really explaining that.

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3 hours ago, Flere210 said:

I was not reffering to anything in particular, just that most discussions that we have are usually about world building, something on irrelevant flavour stuff, while very few dialogues are dedicated to side characters. And i don't think Three Houses has that problem 

 

@Slumber i explain myself better. I read the support before posting, so there was no need to link it. That said, what i mentioned was not just about the support, thesupport itself won't say much, but about the support put into context whit all the informations we got from other sources. It give pieces that can be used to make a puzzle(and i can in fact say a lot if things about Plegia that are not spelled out loud but clearly exist in the story.)

Most sylvain supports mention Miklan at some point, but you only really need him to do that once to understand that disowning crestless children  is a socially acceptable thing in Farghus. You don't even need for someone to say that, the fact that Margrave Gautier did it, everyone know he did, and he is still in power means he could do it.  In many awakening support those "Miklan mentions" do happen and can be patched togheter to get a better understanding of the world. It's still an underdevoloped world, but not by that much. 

I was talking directly on your point about Jugdral world building too much by referencing things in the past.

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1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

Yeah but is there any closure beyond that point? No no there isn’t. It’s a plot point that’s brought up but not explored any deeper and that’s a problem. All that’s really confirmed by merchant man over there is that Dimitri’s mom was indeed involved. Why she did it or even if she’s still alive is barely stated or even implied. It’s somewhat implied that she implied that she missed her family but again it’s not confirmed if that’s truly what happened.

Did you really want it spelled out to you? This is left up to interpretation because no one, not even the characters, know the full story. Stories can leave open ended questions like these for the player or viewer to determine themselves. Also, Dimitri just about has a crisis so yeah...

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

Okay but what the hell does claude have to do with anything? You could quite literally cut out the entire alliance from the story and absolutely nothing about the story would change like what was even the point of it then? 

Everything about VW, and before you say that VW doesn't matter in the grand scheme it gives a lot more than BL does with Fodlan lore while BL mainly focuses on characters and the Tragedy instead of the world.

In BL there is the fact Dimitri needs the Alliance to perform the attack that leads to the Empire barricading itself in Enbarr, he uses Dimitri to kill Arundel, and finally the attack on traitors he does early on so you can take the bridge.

In CF he is there to stall Edelgard and knows he will lose so he attempts to negotiate with the player. She attacks them first in fear they will attack her first, showing that her idea isn't as noble as Leicester was just trying to stay out of the war's way. She even celebrates without remorse if you choose to kill him while other parties hated having to kill their classmates. Leicester is used by Edelgard in the rest of the story to make her army bigger to fight against Faerghus and the Church.

Leicester itself is the middle ground between the Empire and the Kingdom, having been under both their rule. Without it no route has enough of a army to battle the antagonist army of their path.

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I played verdant wind first and all I really got out of any of it was that nemisis raided Sothis’s tomb, made a sword from her corpse, and used it to slaughter her children. As to why, I have no clue. Maybe I’m misremembering but I don’t remember the game ever really explaining that.

Then rewatch that scene or the SS one I don't remember which goes into full detail.

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4 minutes ago, Deathcon said:
2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

 

Did you really want it spelled out to you? This is left up to interpretation because no one, not even the characters, know the full story. Stories can leave open ended questions like these for the player or viewer to determine themselves. Also, Dimitri just about has a crisis so yeah...

Not necessarily no, but I do expect Dimitri to not simply freak for a single minute then brush it off and never speak of it again like come on. That event is the crux of his entire character arc but like nothing really comes out of it. There’s no closure, resolution, nothing. I’m fine with it being left vague and open to interpretation but like I at least expect some kind of closure here but we get none of that. 

 

8 minutes ago, Deathcon said:

Everything about VW, and before you say that VW doesn't matter in the grand scheme it gives a lot more than BL does with Fodlan lore while BL mainly focuses on characters and the Tragedy instead of the world.

The thing about all the lore found in VW is that it could just as easily be stuffed into Silver Snow with very little effort and that’s the problem. There is no reason for that route to exist as any relevancey it does have is undermined by Silver Snow’s mere existence.

 

11 minutes ago, Deathcon said:

In BL there is the fact Dimitri needs the Alliance to perform the attack that leads to the Empire barricading itself in Enbarr, he uses Dimitri to kill Arundel, and finally the attack on traitors he does early on so you can take the bridge.

In CF he is there to stall Edelgard and knows he will lose so he attempts to negotiate with the player. She attacks them first in fear they will attack her first, showing that her idea isn't as noble as Leicester was just trying to stay out of the war's way. She even celebrates without remorse if you choose to kill him while other parties hated having to kill their classmates. Leicester is used by Edelgard in the rest of the story to make her army bigger to fight against Faerghus and the Church.

Leicester itself is the middle ground between the Empire and the Kingdom, having been under both their rule. Without it no route has enough of a army to battle the antagonist army of their path

That’s fine and all but even then in all three routes the alliance is just kinda there. It doesn’t really add much to the overall story as the alliance has really no stake and neither does Almyra or Claude. All Claude wants to do really is unite Foldlan with Almyra and end racism which has almost nothing to do with the core conflict between Edelgard and the church which is the main conflict the story wants to focus on. Any visit to the alliance just feels a little unnecessary to me. There’s no thematic conflict between Edelgard and Claude either like she has with Dimitri(though that one is pretty weak too). With Dimitri at least, it shows he’s finally grown out of his boarish tendencies. It just overall feels pointless.

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2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

You could quite literally cut out the entire alliance from the story and absolutely nothing about the story would change like what was even the point of it then? 

...except VW is the only route where the player finds out the truth and deal with Fodlan's lore. Not to mention Claude mirrors Edelgard a bit as one who has ideals close to hers, but absolutely disagrees with her methods. Not to mention it gives an insight into what happens outside Fodlan (even if it's a small one), how Fodlandians and others view each other, how people believe in religious stuff that isn't mentioned in said religion at all...

And how people can come to an understanding. Other Routes are all kinda absolute.

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I played verdant wind first and all I really got out of any of it was that nemisis raided Sothis’s tomb, made a sword from her corpse, and used it to slaughter her children. As to why, I have no clue. Maybe I’m misremembering but I don’t remember the game ever really explaining that.

Sothis gave Humans knowledge. Humans being humans used that knowledge to war against each other and then against Sothis (to the point they sunk islands with Nukes, as DLC points out). Sothis & Dragons won the war and defeated humans were driven underground. Sothis spends time and all her power to heal Fodlan from nuclear fallout, and then goes to sleep...

Then Nemesis & 10 Elites happen.

Except the part in the brackets, it's all mentioned in VW.

9 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

There’s no thematic conflict between Edelgard and Claude

Their methods being different.

Also, it quite plainly shows Edelgards hypocrisy when she calls Claude an outsider even though she says she wants a world where blood doesn't matter.

It's a mirror, as i said above.

9 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

With Dimitri at least, it shows he’s finally grown out of his boarish tendencies.

And with Claude it shows how he grows to trust his friends and become close to people. From the beginning Claude didn't trust anyone. He developed into

''Yet we have the stregth to scale the walls between us. To reach out our hands in friendship so we can open our true hearts to one another. That's how we win!''

That's a massive development.

9 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

There is no reason for that route to exist as any relevancey it does have is undermined by Silver Snow’s mere existence.

SS serves a different purpose. It shows Nabateans working with humans, with Seteth and Flayn as the 'lord + retainer', and it deals with Byleth's backstory. If anything, SS is undermined by VW.

Claude wanted to find the truth, that's why he deals with the lore. SS is Byleth wanting to find out who he is. 

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5 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

...except VW is the only route where the player finds out the truth and deal with Fodlan's lore. Not to mention Claude mirrors Edelgard a bit as one who has ideals close to hers, but absolutely disagrees with her methods. Not to mention it gives an insight into what happens outside Fodlan (even if it's a small one), how Fodlandians and others view each other, how people believe in religious stuff that isn't mentioned in said religion at all...

And how people can come to an understanding. Other Routes are all kinda absolute.

Sothis gave Humans knowledge. Humans being humans used that knowledge to war against each other and then against Sothis (to the point they sunk islands with Nukes, as DLC points out). Sothis & Dragons won the war and defeated humans were driven underground. Sothis spends time and all her power to heal Fodlan from nuclear fallout, and then goes to sleep...

Then Nemesis & 10 Elites happen.

Except the part in the brackets, it's all mentioned in VW.

Their methods being different.

Also, it quite plainly shows Edelgards hypocrisy when she calls Claude an outsider even though she says she wants a world where blood doesn't matter.

It's a mirror, as i said above.

And with Claude it shows how he grows to trust his friends and become close to people. From the beginning Claude didn't trust anyone. He developed into

''Yet we have the stregth to scale the walls between us. To reach out our hands in friendship so we can open our true hearts to one another. That's how we win!''

That's a massive development.

SS serves a different purpose. It shows Nabateans working with humans, with Seteth and Flayn as the 'lord + retainer', and it deals with Byleth's backstory. If anything, SS is undermined by VW.

Claude wanted to find the truth, that's why he deals with the lore. SS is Byleth wanting to find out who he is. 

Interesting points on the matter. I’ll definitely have to replay Verdant wind at some point to refresh myself. I still don’t think SS or VW both needed to exist. Either change one or just cut one out of the story entirely.

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3 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I still don’t think SS or VW both needed to exist. Either change one or just cut one out of the story entirely.

Yeah, definetly. However i think it's SS that needed the most changes. 

First one being making Rhea playable and the lord of the route. She really got the short end of the stick for being also a central part of the conflict.

I wrote a 're-imagination' of SS on reddit a few days ago, i shall copy it here.

Spoiler

So a few days ago i finished the game, and while i actually quite like Silver Snow, mainly thanks to Seteth and Flayn, i think there's one Character that got shafted hard...

Rhea.

There's also the fact that it somehow feels like a discount Verdant Winds. So i sat with myself and tried imagining a route with her as the lord, in Part 2.

First of all, let's start with the changes to White Clouds:

  • Instead of being a teacher, Byleth joins the Knights of Seiros. (Edit: As a 4th option)

Now, as teaching and customization is quite an important part of the game, joining the Knights will make this route unique as in that it will be a 'classic' FE experience. Byleth doesn't have students to teach, but he will work with fellow knights who are already sepcialized in their own classes and weapons. Of course, wexp gains will need to be buffed and rebalanced.

You still visit the Monestary between the Missions though, and can interact with everyone. Only once between missions tho.

To continue with the classic FE trend, Jeralt will join as a Jagen. Now as we will eventually lose him, make him max lvl/doesn't get any experience (basically a controlled green unit).

While most Part 1 chapters can get adapted as ''Knight Missions'', 2 chapter pose a problem. The Mock battle and Battle of Eagle and Lion. First chapter can easily enough be changed to a training chapter, but Eagle and Lion is one of the most hype moments in the game, and it needs to be replaced by something really good. Maybe something Agartha related? To hype up the Stors?

No student recruitments in Part 1. However i will speak about recruitments more later in detail.

Now, let's speak about the 2nd major point of divergence:

  • At the end of Part 1, Rhea doesn't get captured. Instead she gets injured and falls asleep.

The main purpose of this is to make Rhea playable again once she wakes up, instead of spending time in prison waiting to be saved. She becomes playable at ''To War'' and all the chapters after it, as the Lord.

Now, as for Rhea herself, i want to talk about her character a bit. Rhea, in a way, mirros the 3 Lords. She is ready to do whatever she wants to reach her goals (mirrors Edelgard), still is haunted by her past and is filled with revenge thoughts (mirrors Dimitri), has deep trusts issues, to the point she doesn't seek council of her 2nd in command and hides stuff from him (mirrors Claude. Cyril also mentions in his Claude how she's similiar to Claude in that she doesn't actually care about status and the like.). They will act as a Mirror to Rhea during the campaign, where she recognizes she isn't any different from them, especially her main Enemy, Edelgard, and becomes disgusted with herself, because this isn't how her mother wanted her to be. Rhea during the campaign also learns from Seteth and Flayn on how to work with humans, instead of working over them.

Speaking about the campaign, instead of going to the bridge, then Gronder then the Empire like in almost any non-CF route, this Campaign will instead stard by heading west to the Kingdom, then to the Iron Maiden and from there to the Empire (and then the rest of the enemies, like Dubstep edgy bois or even the alliance?). There will be also no Monestary activities. We go from Mission to Mission. Maybe with a camp before each mission (similiar to the one in CF at the end of Part 1).

That brings me to a point i talked about a bit before, Recruitments.

  • Classic Style Recruitments in Part 2.

For example, Manuela could recruit Dorothea. Felix and Anette you get to recruit when you help them save the Kingdom in Part 2 while Dimitri is on his Edgy ride, Marianne while saving her from the Beast, etc.

Not everyone will join you of course.

  • Final Map and Main enemy.

Now this is something i am still thinking about tbh. First of all, SS Final map is my least fav. of the 4 by far margin. Not only is it very unfitting to face Rhea in what is suppossed to be her own route, it's almost the same final Boss as in CF, but with a shitton of Miracle enemies around the map. Pretty annoying.

Honestly, i would've said Monster Edel would've been perfect for this, but she is AM's Final Boss. Nemesis is VW's, and i don't think SS and VW's bosses should be switched, as i find Nemesis to be a very fitting final boss for VW (New Dawn vs. the false Past).

I also had a wild idea. About Edel and Claude teaming up in this route to take out the Dubstep bois first, but i don't how to make it work out without them having conquered the whole of Fodlan while Byleth and Rhea were taking their beauty naps. Maybe they needed 5 years to take out Agartha first, and lost a lot of their forces, but dunno really. Especially since i don't exactly them seeing eye to eye when it comes to Methods. Maybe Edgy bois forced them to act together or something hmmmmm...

to add to my copied post, i think a Claude who has lost all his friends and fallen to the deep end would make a cool final boss for SS.

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On 2/18/2020 at 12:21 PM, Shrimperor said:

To add to my copied post, i think a Claude who has lost all his friends and fallen to the deep end would make a cool final boss for SS.

Honestly, Claude should have been a genuine villain on one of the routes. He feels like a massive third wheel in this conflict and he really didn't need to be.

(VW spoilers)

Spoiler

I suddenly realized upon completing VW that Claude's just as bad as Edelgard is. Not to say he's evil, but he's just as much of an extremist in the name of his goals, willing to take over the continent in order to impose his well-meaning will. He didn't split up Edelgard's empire after defeating her. He kept it. He managed to accomplish everything Edelgard wanted to without any of the bad press by waiting until Edelgard did all of the soul-damning dirty work of building an empire and then just stealing it from her and getting all the good press of being a hero without actually having to be any better than she was.

If Edelgard weren't here to do all the dirty work for him, he would have made possibly an even more interesting villain than she did. A backstabbing, conniving, traitorous scumbag willing to do anything necessary to take over the continent and create a world without racism. Imagine if they actually put him in a situation where he actually had to do awful things to the other teams in order to get what he wants. Instead he barely amounts to a cameo in every route that isn't his, and his own route is just a recycled version of Silver Snow with a final boss that really could have been fought by anyone.

 

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On 2/18/2020 at 3:22 AM, Ottservia said:

It's all a matter about what's important to the story being told. If it's not important, then why include it? Is the ENTIRE history of the ice tribe from its founding and political history necessary to the story fates wants to tell? I don't think so. All we really need to know about the place is that it exists and they're oppressed by nohr. We don't need anymore than that in order to understand felicia and flora's situation as well as Kilma's motivation to rebel. Anything more than that is just added fluff which is nice but ultimately unnecessary. Now do we need a more detailed history about nohr's relationship with hoshido? yeah we kinda do cause what we do know is pretty vague at best and more information about at least a previous war or two(or even why the current war is happening at all) would help contextualize the conflict a lot better. Any more exposition than that is unnecessary or can be told visually(like Samurai's being a part of Hoshido while mercenaries are a more nohrian class. Nohr uses black magic. Hoshido uses scrolls. Small things like that. One off comments by characters can work as well). Do you understand my point? World building is important for the author as they need to make sure the world remains consistent and believable but the audience does not need THAT much information to understand the story being told.  The audience only really needs the bare essentials. The complete history of how each country came to be and a full explanation of the world's politics will only serve to bog the story down with unnecessary information. It's fine to have that information as an author but the audience does not need to know every single minute detail to understand what's happening.

I think the problems with that is that the bare essentials are often only the barest minimum of requirements and not much more. This ensures that the bare essentials are rarely interesting on their own. 

The bare essentials of the ice tribe is that's it a tribe living in a land of nice, and that Garon has been mean to them. That's all that's needed to set up the ice chapters in Fates but its so little that any part the Ice tribe could possible play immediately ends after that chapter. After all they don't have anything other than Garon being mean to them and that they live in ice. They have their little chapter but aside from that there's not a single noteworthy thing about the Ice tribe. I don't think people expect or want the entire history of the ice tribe but they just want some history or even just some traits aside the obvious one that they live in a land of ice. 

Etruria is a nation of artisans but because its not only a nation of artisans much more can be done with it. Etruria's ties to the church further sets it apart and its history of corruption gives birth to two whole arc of Binding Blade's story. It would never have been an interesting nation or an important one in the story if it had just remained a nation of artisans without any traits to go along with this. 

Begnion is a theocracy but because its not just a theocracy a lot more plotpoints can be introduced such as slavery, race relations, genocide and extreme political corruption. If it was only  a mere theocracy Begnion would not be an interesting place. All the extra information on Begnion in Path of Radiance doesn't bog down the story as you claim but enhances it and sets a very strong foundation for the sequel. That we know Tellius entire history is a luxury but the worldbuilding of Tellius was already well regarded before the lore book came out because every country had a set of core traits that motivated the people who came from their. Nohrians are just cartoonishly evil but we can see that Daein has a true warrior culture to go along with the racism.

I don't think the audience expects to be told everything about their world because every single thing would indeed clutter the story. But they do need to be told some things and for things to get interesting it should even be many things that the player should be told. Fates doesn't bog down the story but its on that other end of the extreme where they simply don't say anything about its world.  

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16 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think the problems with that is that the bare essentials are often only the barest minimum of requirements and not much more. This ensures that the bare essentials are rarely interesting on their own. 

The bare essentials of the ice tribe is that's it a tribe living in a land of nice, and that Garon has been mean to them. That's all that's needed to set up the ice chapters in Fates but its so little that any part the Ice tribe could possible play immediately ends after that chapter. After all they don't have anything other than Garon being mean to them and that they live in ice. They have their little chapter but aside from that there's not a single noteworthy thing about the Ice tribe. I don't think people expect or want the entire history of the ice tribe but they just want some history or even just some traits aside the obvious one that they live in a land of ice. 

Etruria is a nation of artisans but because its not only a nation of artisans much more can be done with it. Etruria's ties to the church further sets it apart and its history of corruption gives birth to two whole arc of Binding Blade's story. It would never have been an interesting nation or an important one in the story if it had just remained a nation of artisans without any traits to go along with this. 

Begnion is a theocracy but because its not just a theocracy a lot more plotpoints can be introduced such as slavery, race relations, genocide and extreme political corruption. If it was only  a mere theocracy Begnion would not be an interesting place. All the extra information on Begnion in Path of Radiance doesn't bog down the story as you claim but enhances it and sets a very strong foundation for the sequel. That we know Tellius entire history is a luxury but the worldbuilding of Tellius was already well regarded before the lore book came out because every country had a set of core traits that motivated the people who came from their. Nohrians are just cartoonishly evil but we can see that Daein has a true warrior culture to go along with the racism.

I don't think the audience expects to be told everything about their world because every single thing would indeed clutter the story. But they do need to be told some things and for things to get interesting it should even be many things that the player should be told. Fates doesn't bog down the story but its on that other end of the extreme where they simply don't say anything about its world.  

you know this is actually a really good point and I agree with most of it. It's always a good idea to explain some of many aspects of a culture and it's people either through supports, base conversations, or just story dialogue. It doesn't have to be much but some more flavor text to help flesh out the world here or there would be nice. I agree that fates's world building is definitely lacking. It is by far the weakest aspect of the story which is a damn shame because what is there is in my opinion one of the most interesting and diverse worlds in terms of geography and culture we've seen in this franchise. It's not just rome or medieval europe. We have a bit of feudal japan, a Buddhist like society in the wind tribe, and we even have some ancient chinese inspirations with valla.  it's incredibly interesting and it's a shame we hardly get to learn anymore about these places.

My thing is though is that world building is not nearly as important as people like to say it is cause a lot of it doesn't need to be outright explained and can be told visually. I'm not necessarily gonna complain too much about fates's lack of world building too much simply because I just don't see much reason to because we already know what we need to know to get a gist of the conflict. Everything else is either not that important or is told visually through class design, weapon variety, level design, etc. world building to me is secondary to themes, characters, and plot structure.

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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

The bare essentials of the ice tribe is that's it a tribe living in a land of nice, and that Garon has been mean to them. That's all that's needed to set up the ice chapters in Fates but its so little that any part the Ice tribe could possible play immediately ends after that chapter. After all they don't have anything other than Garon being mean to them and that they live in ice.

Though I haven't paid any attention to Fates's plot, I nonetheless liked the notion of the Tribes.

For the Ice, I fanficted some classic "civilization" vs. "barbarian" clashing between them and Nohr since time immemorial. With the Ice Tribe on its best days establishing a Nohrian dynasty or two, and perhaps a distant genetic link in the veins of the current royal family even. Ultimately, brute force won Nohr supremacy over the Ice Tribe in the current day.

For Wind, I went in a different direction. Still an antagonistic history with its big settled neighbor, but presently not so hostile, with Wind choosing a more peaceful acculturation to Hoshidan ways, if still fiercely independent and wanting to be treated as equals to the dawn giant.

For Flame, well, my fanficting did some radical changes, but basically I set their native lands in southwestern Hoshido and southeastern Nohr. When threatened with extermination by Nohr and Hoshido b/c their lands were desired, Valla intervened. Under Valla's protection, the Flame Tribe relocated to the far north, more so on the Hoshidan side of the continental divide, avoiding extermination and being given rights to pilgrimage to and set up permanent businesses related thereto in their sacred indigenous lands in the south. Displacement, but not of the severest and worst kind, culturally and politically, the Flame Tribe survives. Better very arguably than being the Ice Tribe, who are still on their native lands, but now stomped under Nohrian boots.

The Wild Tribes are world unto their own which due to the anatomical differences. Hostilities with the major powers yet again, and other human nations too, but mostly in their own little bubbles. Their continued existence is supported by some old but revered scriptures declaring they are valuable creatures, even if the secular world discriminates against them.

 

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Begnion is a theocracy but because its not just a theocracy a lot more plotpoints can be introduced such as slavery, race relations, genocide and extreme political corruption. If it was only  a mere theocracy Begnion would not be an interesting place. All the extra information on Begnion in Path of Radiance doesn't bog down the story as you claim but enhances it and sets a very strong foundation for the sequel. That we know Tellius entire history is a luxury but the worldbuilding of Tellius was already well regarded before the lore book came out because every country had a set of core traits that motivated the people who came from their. Nohrians are just cartoonishly evil but we can see that Daein has a true warrior culture to go along with the racism.

And right before Tellius, we got Magvel and Rausten, another theocracy. Of which we know... nothing! Quite the contrast in just two games.

We don't even know why Latona, only one of two named heroes out of five, settled near the Demon King's corpse. I had to fancanon Latona's supposed sense of justice led him to entail his family and country to the eternal duty of defeating and restraining evil, and that would be best done by residing besides Darkling Woods.

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15 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And right before Tellius, we got Magvel and Rausten, another theocracy. Of which we know... nothing! Quite the contrast in just two games.

Yeah. Magvel is hardly any better then Fateslandia. 

16 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I had to fancanon Latona's supposed sense of justice led him to entail his family and country to the eternal duty of defeating and restraining evil, and that would be best done by residing besides Darkling Woods.

Wouldn't it be nice if the founder was just as wacky of a justice lover as L'arachel. Rausten probably had the most potential in Magvel due to the demon woods being next door. 

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8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, Claude should have been a genuine villain on one of the routes. He feels like a massive third wheel in this conflict and he really didn't need to be.

(VW spoilers)

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I suddenly realized upon completing VW that Claude's just as bad as Edelgard is. Not to say he's evil, but he's just as much of an extremist in the name of his goals, willing to take over the continent in order to impose his well-meaning will. He didn't split up Edelgard's empire after defeating her. He kept it. He managed to accomplish everything Edelgard wanted to without any of the bad press by waiting until Edelgard did all of the soul-damning dirty work of building an empire and then just stealing it from her and getting all the good press of being a hero without actually having to be any better than she was.

If Edelgard weren't here to do all the dirty work for him, he would have made possibly an even more interesting villain than she did. A backstabbing, conniving, traitorous scumbag willing to do anything necessary to take over the continent and create a world without racism. Imagine if they actually put him in a situation where he actually had to do awful things to the other teams in order to get what he wants. Instead he barely amounts to a cameo in every route that isn't his, and his own route is just a recycled version of Silver Snow with a final boss that really could have been fought by anyone.

 

Expect Claude DIDN'T WANT TO START A WAR. Claude didn't want to create bloodshed. Yes, he agreed with Edelgard, but he didn't "agree" when it came to Edelgard declaring a war. Claude had to fight back in the end though, because Edelgard was going to take over the country and make his dreams of a world without any racism impossible and she was going to kill him, Byleth and the rest of the Golden Deer students eventually. 

If sounds like who you want as a character is not Claude but a 

Spoiler

Yuri. Who was more sneaky and manipulative. Claude comes off as that because of his lack of trust towards others and he originally does start to use Byleth if they teach GD but Claude eventually grows out of that. Who you wanted is a Yuri, a villian Yuri not a villian Claude.

I would say it's the other way around that SS is the recycled version of GD because that's the optional split off from the main Black Eagles route. 

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6 minutes ago, Eurydice said:

Expect Claude DIDN'T WANT TO START A WAR. Claude didn't want to create bloodshed. Yes, he agreed with Edelgard, but he didn't "agree" when it came to Edelgard declaring a war. Claude had to fight back in the end though, because Edelgard was going to take over the country and make his dreams of a world without any racism impossible and she was going to kill him, Byleth and the rest of the Golden Deer students eventually.

My point is that's boring. He shows signs that he's just as capable of being authoritarian and utopian as she is, he just looks way better in the end because he got to set up his one-continent government by "liberating" it from the previous owner. He's a duplicitous, conniving schemer who didn't have to be all that duplicitous or conniving because he was given everything he wanted on a cruelty-free silver platter. I wanted to see a Claude who didn't have an easy way out of achieving his goals. Who actually had to be the conniving, duplicitous trickster he's hyped up as in part 1, if he really wanted his utopian world without racism.

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6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

My point is that's boring. He shows signs that he's just as capable of being authoritarian and utopian as she is, he just looks way better in the end because he got to set up his one-continent government by "liberating" it from the previous owner. He's a duplicitous, conniving schemer who didn't have to be all that duplicitous or conniving because he was given everything he wanted on a cruelty-free silver platter. I wanted to see a Claude who didn't have an easy way out of achieving his goals. Who actually had to be the conniving, duplicitous trickster he's hyped up as in part 1, if he really wanted his utopian world without racism.

Unrealistic maybe, but a world without any racism ? How can that be boring ? It's a world without any racism and any worlds are free to explore and others can all live in peace and harmony no matter what culture and skin colour they have. It's something that this world needs, but will unfortunately, maybe, never have. 

Claude wanted to fight and remove racism because of his upbringing, now that is very realistic and is very understandable and depressing.

Also Claude goes through some serious trust issues and instead of letting them get to him, he instead matures and becomes a trusting person. Again, how is that boring ??

As mentioned before, I think who you actually desire is a 

Spoiler

A Evil ! Yuri. 

 

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7 minutes ago, Eurydice said:

Unrealistic maybe, but a world without any racism ? How can that be boring ? It's a world without any racism and any worlds are free to explore and others can all live in peace and harmony no matter what culture and skin colour they have. It's something that this world needs, but will unfortunately, maybe, never have. 

Claude wanted to fight and remove racism because of his upbringing, now that is very realistic and is very understandable and depressing.

Also Claude goes through some serious trust issues and instead of letting them get to him, he instead matures and becomes a trusting person. Again, how is that boring ??

As mentioned before, I think who you actually desire is a 

  Reveal hidden contents

A Evil ! Yuri. 

 

I think you're completely missing my point. As I said before, Claude feels like a third wheel in this whole conflict because his goals never put him into conflict with anyone but Edelgard for any remotely organic-feeling reasons. The reason why he fights in Azure Moon in particular is idiotic and seems to serve only to make the obligatory three-way battle. He's barely even a detour in the Crimson Flower route, and could have been written out of the story entirely for all the story impact it made. The way he's written now, he's just a different flavor of opposition to Edelgard who's only relevant on his own route, which isn't even really unique to him. My point is that with a little tweaking he could have been so much more. We could have had a real, genuine three-way clash of ideals and values, if they just let him be a bit more extreme in his well-intentioned extremism.

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20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

if they just let him be a bit more extreme

That is Edelgard's role though. She is the extreme one. Adding another extreme one with similiar ideals won't make it more interesting. In fact, it will make even less sense then why they fight.

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On 2/17/2020 at 12:06 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

There is no reason.

I should also note that Karel FE6 Edition joins you with 3 maps remaining in the game. Most of his supports are 1+1, which means they start at one point and increase by one every turn two units are adjacent. You can only get one support per chapter, and each additional support rank requires 80 support points.

This means that, if you want to read Karel's A supports with Rutger, Zeiss, or Noah, you have to take at least 239 turns to complete the last three maps of FE6. Even his fastest support is 30+3, which would require you to have Fir and Karel stand next to each other for 70 turns over the course of three maps, one of which is just Idunn.

Or your could just look them up. Karel is actually kind of interesting in this game, it might be worth it.

Dang. Guess I'll just take your advice and look them up online, then. I have some serious questions for the playtester that thought that spending 70 turns on each map three times in a row was a reasonable requirement. Maybe the same one that thought that having a minimum of 15 units was a good amount to unlock Shadow Dragon's gaiden mechanic?

On 2/17/2020 at 5:42 AM, DragonFlames said:

Something, something "faithful to the source material", I imagine. I'd personally blame laziness for it, but that's just me.
Then they got flack for it and decided to implement supports in the other remakes. Didn't exactly help the atrociously boring cast of Archanea (with exceptions, of course), but hey, it was something.

I really need to research Shadow Dragon's development sometime to see how much time and resources they had to create the game. I love the Shadow Dragon's writing and can tell a lot of heart went into the localization, but admittedly it can make me forget that the rest of the game didn't get the same amount of love. Far from saying that the game lacked passion behind it, but it can seem like there was a "get 'er done" attitude towards certain sections of the game, and several times it can seem like something was added without being fully thought out first.

On 2/17/2020 at 12:01 PM, Ottservia said:

I agree with this as well. Honestly when it comes to writing world building only needs to pop up when it’s relevant to provide context to the reader as to what is happening. We don’t need a 50 paragraph info dump about the logistics, politics, and history of the world at large in order to understand what’s going on. That shit can be read up on in artbooks or whatever for those curious. The audience only needs so much information. I honestly don’t think world building is as important as people make it out to be. It’s important obviously but it’s not the be all end all of a story. 

Personally, world-building is one of those things that I eat up if it is there but don't mind too much if it is absent. Context is more important to me, as I want a reason for why I'm going through each mission and level, even if it's as simple as "the aliens are attacking your spaceship". It's not a necessity, as I don't mind Super Mario Bros. or Sonic not providing a reason for why we go from level A to B or why Pac-Man needs to eat all the pellets in the maze to move on, but those games don't need a deep story and already have a clear goal. I also find that worldbuilding, like character development, to be something that should happen naturally instead of having moments that can be pointed out, but that's just me.

With that said, wordlbuilding does give the sense that the game's world expands beyond the player, that it has a history and a future that doesn't revolve around a main character. The Star Wars Expanded Universe grew as large as it did because we were given hints, both visually and verbally, about other planets, alien races, spaceships, technologies, and so on, which various writers wished to explore. They were unimportant to the plot, but they gave the sense that things were happening in a galaxy that didn't relate to the main heroes, giving the series a lot of freedom and room to expand upon the universe that was created. Not every work needs to be as expansive as Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, but it helps give the illusion that a fictional world is a living, breathing place that has a history. The lack of relevance to the current story isn't a negative; it just shows that the world wasn't built around the story and characters but rather than the story and characters are taking place in the world.

And worldbuilding isn't "we're told the entire history of a certain place/nation/character" but rather we learn about different aspects about said nation or place. @Etrurian emperor more or less took the words out of my mouth here, but the point is to show that while nation or place may have X characteristic to continue the story, it's not the only aspect about them, making them more than just a narrative device. Sometimes these aspects can can reinforce an already established point already even though the story would have worked just fine with its absence.

I do agree that the details that aren't readily necessary towards the story and can't be easily inserted without breaking the pace should be optional, which most games do. In hindsight, something like Three Houses library would have worked well in Awakening and especially Fates, and helped expand upon the details brought up or glossed over during the main story (Echoes could have had readable books and notes during the Visual Novel sections, although there I wonder if they were considering the idea but ended up scrapping it).

7 hours ago, Ottservia said:

My thing is though is that world building is not nearly as important as people like to say it is cause a lot of it doesn't need to be outright explained and can be told visually. I'm not necessarily gonna complain too much about fates's lack of world building too much simply because I just don't see much reason to because we already know what we need to know to get a gist of the conflict. Everything else is either not that important or is told visually through class design, weapon variety, level design, etc. world building to me is secondary to themes, characters, and plot structure.

Far from saying that worldbuilding can't be done visually (I'd be doing an injustice a multitude of "show, don't tell" works if I did), but what did Fates class and weapons design and maps really add in this regard? The western and eastern flavoring of the classes helped Hoshido and Nohr come off as different nations and reinforced their influences, but what aside from that what else did they add to the games world? Mechanists and automations establish that advanced puppetry exists in the world of Fates, but not much is done with it outside of gameplay. Basara have an interesting design that isn't explained. Shapeshifters wear clothes in this universe (thank God), but the Kitsune and Wolfskins only appear in a single map, and while I'll criticize Awakening's handling of the Taguel, Panne at least says a surprising amount about them if you pay attention. I'm not saying worldbuilding via classes is completely absent, seeing as Nohr uses outlaws which helps show they don't care where someone comes from as long as they can fight which is reinforced elsewhere, and ninja's are brought up a number of times in the story, but overall the designs don't come off as worldbuilding being their top priority. And this is ignoring the criticisms towards how impractical some of them are (which to be fair is not limited to Fates or Fire Emblem).

Likewise, while I'm thankful for them in gameplay and they definitely look cool, the most we know about the legendary weapons in Fates were that they were forged by the Rainbow Sage in the past and they affect the Yato, and that's it. Granted, the minimal history of the legendary weapons is a recurring issue in Fire Emblem, which sticks out more in Fates due to how little worldbuilding the game has as a whole and how they are quite literally handed to you with little fanfare. Outside of legendary weapons, iron swords look like they were quite literally made out of scrap metal, and Kodachi and Wakizashi are throwing weapons in the world of Fates, whereas in the real world they where meant for fighting indoors (Wakizashi's, anyway. The intended use of Kodachi's is unknown, although they are theorized to have been training weapons). Similar to classes, worldbuilding wasn't the a high priority when designing the weapons.

I'd actually argue that the excellent map design worked against Fates worldbuilding. It seemed like several of these fortresses and buildings that we fight in had a history and some stories of their won, but we're not told or even hinted at about what may have happened there in the past. It piqued my interest, but lead to disappointment because these locations weren't built upon.

I know that came off as overly negative, but I'm curious how you thought they added to Fates world outside of gameplay.

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6 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

That is Edelgard's role though. She is the extreme one. Adding another extreme one with similiar ideals won't make it more interesting. In fact, it will make even less sense then why they fight.

But if you're gonna have two (arguably three) of the factions be fundamentally on the same side, what's the point of even having multiple factions then? I've played tons of rpgs with multiple factions with mutually exclusive goals, where you have to fight most of the others when you pick a side. Having more than one "extreme" faction didn't make things less interesting there.

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4 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But if you're gonna have two (arguably three) of the factions be fundamentally on the same side, what's the point of even having multiple factions then? I've played tons of rpgs with multiple factions with mutually exclusive goals, where you have to fight most of the others when you pick a side. Having more than one "extreme" faction didn't make things less interesting there.

except in our case, making Claude 'extreme' will just make him Edelgard's ally, as that will the only thing that will make sense then. Except if you are suggesting making him (a bit) evil, then i agree with @Eurydicein that Claude wasn't really the character you are looking for. His story is one more of trust, belonging, friendship and finding out the truth. They tried to sell him on the whole ''mistrusting schemer'' thing, but that's how Claude was at the beginning, the guy who left his comrades behind and was searching for power, and not the one he developed into, who cares for their allies and their lives, and eventually trusts (In every route, he orders his allies to retreat if in danger. And in alot of cases they fight to the death for him), while searching for the world's truth.

I'll agree though, it would've been fun to see a 'fallen' Claude in one route as an enemy, one who lost all his friends, and thus, does everything for his goals. 

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10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, Claude should have been a genuine villain on one of the routes. He feels like a massive third wheel in this conflict and he really didn't need to be.

(VW spoilers)

  Hide contents

I suddenly realized upon completing VW that Claude's just as bad as Edelgard is. Not to say he's evil, but he's just as much of an extremist in the name of his goals, willing to take over the continent in order to impose his well-meaning will. He didn't split up Edelgard's empire after defeating her. He kept it. He managed to accomplish everything Edelgard wanted to without any of the bad press by waiting until Edelgard did all of the soul-damning dirty work of building an empire and then just stealing it from her and getting all the good press of being a hero without actually having to be any better than she was.

If Edelgard weren't here to do all the dirty work for him, he would have made possibly an even more interesting villain than she did. A backstabbing, conniving, traitorous scumbag willing to do anything necessary to take over the continent and create a world without racism. Imagine if they actually put him in a situation where he actually had to do awful things to the other teams in order to get what he wants. Instead he barely amounts to a cameo in every route that isn't his, and his own route is just a recycled version of Silver Snow with a final boss that really could have been fought by anyone.

 

I agree with this. Claude being so tacitly against Edelgard also kind of unbalances the story a bit. The thrust of the story is Edelgard vs Rhea, but the game kind of feels pretty Rhea heavy when Edelgard is the bad guy in three quarters of the routes. Honestly I think they had more plans for Claude but he got shafted by the over ambition of the project. I'd love to see a documentary on the making of Three Houses, because it was obviously not quite as finished as it intended to be, yet there's so many contrasting theories as to where the focus actually was between the routes.

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1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

 

I'll agree though, it would've been fun to see a 'fallen' Claude in one route as an enemy, one who lost all his friends, and thus, does everything for his goals. 

Maybe if you spare Claude in CF ? I can't imagine him being a good mental state after losing his dreams, his classmates and Hilda. 

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15 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Claude feels like a third wheel in this whole conflict

The whole "Claude is a third wheel" thing ties back into the (confirmed, as far as I know) theory that the basic premise of Three Houses was heavily inspired by the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is practically Koei's home turf when it comes to game stories.
The basic structure of what is depicted as the main conflict in both is "the ruthless, ambitious conqueror against the benevolent ruler", which, in Three Houses terms, is Edelgard vs. Dimitri. Claude is the third faction, the wild card, whose allegiance and aim in the conflict isn't clear to the other two, but it is seperate from them, making that third faction appear as a third wheel.

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