What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

The story of Stones is very fine. It rarely screws up and its got quite the neat little collection of villains. Lyon especially seems widely appreciated as a villain.

But personally I never really connected much to the story of Stones. I feel there's a lack of ''weight'' behind everything that happens. The Gemstone generals and Lyon are all great but I think the demons and their king are far too boring to be the threat the story needs them to be, and Grado is also rather pitiful as an enemy nation. The world building in general seems pretty terrible which makes it far harder to care about anything that happens.

The story is very cohesive and competently told but its also very conventional and many important factors such as villains and nations are kinda absent. 

I'd also add to this that Eirika's route prior to Scorched Sands is basically filler. Playing Ephraim route you don't skip a beat when Eirika rejoins, but playing Eirika route, Ephraim conquers the whole damn enemy kingdom off screen while Eirika has yet to achieve the actual goal she set out out achieve. I guess the idea is that she'd be learn more about the lore of the series with the trip to Caer Peyln, too bad the lore is paper thin in this game so she doesn't really learn anything at all. And as widely praised as Lyon is, I personally feel like he's really, really rushed. They try to introduce him earlier with a handful of flashbacks, but for me at least that just doesn't connect. We're left with only a handful of chapters to establish where he's at and an emotional arc. I really wish they'd introduced him and Fomortiis properly earlier in the story, Instead they try to play it off as a mystery, a mystery that doesn't have any clues.

[Murozaki]

8 hours ago, twilitfalchion said:

I have no idea how unpopular this is, but hey.

I think that FE8 actually has one of the better, or more cohesive narratives in the series. I know it's nothing spectacular or unique, but I think the lords and the remaining cast of characters are all portrayed in a way that really makes sense in relation to the overall story. While I wouldn't say the cast of characters is as memorable to me as FE7's cast when taken as a whole, I think that they're woven into the story a bit better than the cast of FE7 was. As to protagonists, I actually find that I like Eirika more than any of the FE7 lords (in Lyn's case, this is due to her relevance to the story basically ending at Ch. 10), and I appreciate her arc (including the scene with Lyon). Again, this may not be that unpopular, but I get the idea from other FE fans that Sacred Stones is pretty unmemorable overall. I actually liked it quite a bit, personally. It's definitely no Tellius, but I think it's quite good in its own right.

FE8's campaign i feel does very well with what little volume it has. It's definitely one of the tighter narratives, character motivations are clear,  no fluff chapters or meaningless detours, the conflict and stakes are well-established and consistent. Another thing that i feel helps it is that while none of the main players in the story (At least in the story itself and not counting things such as support conversations) are super complex or get massive amounts of development, they're all still shown to have clear distinct roles in the story that are befitting of their characterization, this applies to both heroes and villains alike, no one specific character feels extraneous in any capacity.

[Heir of Dragons and Beasts]

Fe8 has a great story but almost little to none lore or worldbuilding. I hope its the GBA game that gets remade instead of BinBla the characters, supports, lore, and kingdoms would be much more appreciated.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Revelation has a better story than both Birthright and Conquest.

[Ottservia]

3 hours ago, Axie said:

oh, i definitely agree. most criticism of sacred stones seems to conflate "eirika does bad decisions" with "eirika is badly written", anyway.

Y’know I could honestly say tge that about most criticisms towards any Fire Emblem story or character. Fates being the most extreme example imo. Hell, that basically summarizes all the criticism I hear of Edelgard’s character. Something I’m starting to grow tired of in terms of fandom discourse is the idea that characters making mistakes somehow equates to bad writing when no that’s not how that works. It just kinda comes off as extremely hypocritical. If you want more flawed characters well these characters are going to make mistakes. They’re gonna do dumb things and they’re gonna make dumb decisions. That’s just how you write a flawed character. It really all boils down to how the story frames it. Like yeah Eirika makes a dumb decision but it doesn’t lead to anything good, now does it? The same can be said of characters like Celica, Xander, Corrin, Chrom, Sigurd, and pretty much every flawed character in the franchise. 
 

Like I am just kind of tired of this fundamental misunderstanding in how flawed characters are supposed to work. Cause again if you want a flawed character, they’re going to make mistakes and bad things are gonna come out of those mistakes. That’s just how these kinds of characters and stories operate. It’s just generally why I hate the “oh this character is so poorly written because they did something stupid” like yeah they did do something stupid but it’s like they were rewarded for their mistake in fact I’d say they made the situation worse. People really need to try be a little morally unbiased when it comes to story criticism.

[Sooks]

21 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Revelation has a better story than both Birthright and Conquest.

The only thing wrong with it is that it makes the other two games pointless, story wise, and just delves into “this guy did it!”. If you ignore that than I agree with you.

[null]

29 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Revelation has a better story than both Birthright and Conquest.

I can agree with that. Even if its ambition caused it to flop hard, Rev has the most compelling premise out of all three routes.

[Ottservia]

1 minute ago, Sooks said:

The only thing wrong with it is that it makes the other two games pointless, story wise, and just delves into “this guy did it!”. If you ignore that than I agree with you.

I don’t like this criticism that revelation somehow invalidates Conquest and Birthright as stories because yeah you’re right it kind of does but that’s the point. Think about it out of the three routes Revelation is the only one with any kind of satisfactory ending and every plot point is addressed. Conquest and Birthright’s endings both leave unanswered questions even if you play both of them. Rev does not. This is because Corrin is fundamentally wrong in both Birthright and Conquest. In Birthright they blame everything on Garon which is wrong because Garon isn’t the one to blame. In conquest they initially trust Garon which is also wrong because  obviously trusting Garon is a very dumb thing to do. Only an idiot would do that. Beyond that though in both Birthright and Conquest Corrin puts their faith solely on other people not themselves. They blindly follow what other people tell them. They blindly believe their Hoshidian siblings in birthright who say Garon is to blame for everything while in Conquest they follow everything Garon tells them without much question(at first anyway but then they go to just following what Azura says so my point still stands). Rev is the only path where they believe in themselves and make their own choices. Sure they blindly follow Azura into the bottomless canyon but that’s also a matter of Corrin choosing to trust Azura more or less. 

[Sooks]

8 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I don’t like this criticism that revelation somehow invalidates Conquest and Birthright as stories because yeah you’re right it kind of does but that’s the point. Think about it out of the three routes Revelation is the only one with any kind of satisfactory ending and every plot point is addressed. Conquest and Birthright’s endings both leave unanswered questions even if you play both of them. Rev does not. This is because Corrin is fundamentally wrong in both Birthright and Conquest. In Birthright they blame everything on Garon which is wrong because Garon isn’t the one to blame. In conquest they initially trust Garon which is also wrong because  obviously trusting Garon is a very dumb thing to do. Only an idiot would do that. Beyond that though in both Birthright and Conquest Corrin puts their faith solely on other people not themselves. They blindly follow what other people tell them. They blindly believe their Hoshidian siblings in birthright who say Garon is to blame for everything while in Conquest they follow everything Garon tells them without much question(at first anyway but then they go to just following what Azura says so my point still stands). Rev is the only path where they believe in themselves and make their own choices. Sure they blindly follow Azura into the bottomless canyon but that’s also a matter of Corrin choosing to trust Azura more or less. 

Let me rephrase.

The struggles in the other two stories were basically pointless when the people behind it all just got to get away unknown.

[Ottservia]

4 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Let me rephrase.

The struggles in the other two stories were basically pointless when the people behind it all just got to get away unknown.

Yeah, and like I said that’s kinda the point

[null]

18 minutes ago, Sooks said:

The struggles in the other two stories were basically pointless when the people behind it all just got to get away unknown.

Which is why Fates should never have been released as three separate titles if they were going to have two of them have unsatisfactory endings. Three Houses is far from perfect, but at least IntSys had the sense to package it as one game so you didn't have to pay extra to get the whole story.

[Murozaki]

32 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Let me rephrase.

The struggles in the other two stories were basically pointless when the people behind it all just got to get away unknown.

I can understand what you mean, i don't dislike golden endings in games with multiple endings, but they do feel unsatisfying to me when they're basically just like any other ending instead of being particularly different in any way in how they're implemented. It's why i have some issues with how perfect some of the Neutral Endings in the Megami Tensei games tend to be, and even those are still implemented a little better for me than something like Revelations since at least with the Megami Tensei Neutral Endings you often need to choose the right dialogue options and in some games juggle Chaos and Law points so you don't lean too heavily into one extreme. With Revelations it's literally just "Here are Options A, B and C, C is the best one by the way so there's no reason to ever pick A or B".

Edited November 26, 2020 by Murozaki

[Jotari]

55 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Let me rephrase.

The struggles in the other two stories were basically pointless when the people behind it all just got to get away unknown.

Well it does get resolved in Heirs of Fate at least.

[Benice]

14 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Which is why Fates should never have been released as three separate titles if they were going to have two of them have unsatisfactory endings. Three Houses is far from perfect, but at least IntSys had the sense to package it as one game so you didn't have to pay extra to get the whole story.

True, but the thing with Fates is that it's three whole games. Conquest isn't Birthright recolored-They are independent experiences and both have complete narratives, and IIRC they usually have full endings then a sad note at the end which admittedly says "GET THE DLC!! MONEYEYYEYEYEYYYYYY!" but the story still functions on its own. TH is one game for the price of one game, but the sense that I have so far is "Wanna know about plot point X? Play route B or route C!" and the story just hasn't really stood up by itself in terms of each route telling a complete story. Maybe it's not the point to have each route be a full story, but I'd have much preferred if they had done it that way. TH at least isn't a scam because "Route B" is still in the same game, but I greatly dislike the way routes were handled in TH. But I'm totally off-topic because now I'm ranting about TH rather than discussing Fates. Blimey...

Um, my point being that Fates' routes were handled okay but not perfectly. You at least get what you pay for when you buy the games, which is better than nothing. I feel like if Revelations were less gimmicky and were handled differently, people wouldn't object to its existence so much.

 

 

Dunno if this is unpopular, but I feel like Claude is a very pointless character. I am pretty sure that he's basically a one-off in all non-VW routes and he kinda doesn't do much in VW. Sure, he's there, but that's about all he's done. He does bring up the idea of busting open Fodlan's throat, but that plot point got swept away very quickly. He's more involved with the plot than the likes of Lyn in FE7, but he's entirely inconsequential in many ways.

...Such as when he literally just pisses off to elsewhere in his ending, leaving Byleth to rule Fodlan. Again, I feel like he gets screentime, (Unlike Lyn or Mark) but that screentime doesn't amount to much in terms of importance.

 

Also, this is probably unpopular, but I really, really wish Kronya were playable. Or some other Agarthan character, for that matter. That would have been really interesting, just to see TWISTD from a different perspective and also explain why they have Bishops of Seiros if they hate Seiros so much. That still weirds me out.

[null]

3 minutes ago, Benice said:

Dunno if this is unpopular, but I feel like Claude is a very pointless character. I am pretty sure that he's basically a one-off in all non-VW routes and he kinda doesn't do much in VW. Sure, he's there, but that's about all he's done. He does bring up the idea of busting open Fodlan's throat, but that plot point got swept away very quickly. He's more involved with the plot than the likes of Lyn in FE7, but he's entirely inconsequential in many ways.

Eh, I’d agree. Claude feels like he could’ve been a side character and nothing would’ve been lost. 3H feels like a conflict between Dimitri and Edelgard anyway.

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Benice said:

Also, this is probably unpopular, but I really, really wish Kronya were playable. Or some other Agarthan character, for that matter. That would have been really interesting, just to see TWISTD from a different perspective and also explain why they have Bishops of Seiros if they hate Seiros so much. That still weirds me out.

Didn't they pretty much have the Eastern Church in their pocket?

[Benice]

20 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Eh, I’d agree. Claude feels like he could’ve been a side character and nothing would’ve been lost. 3H feels like a conflict between Dimitri and Edelgard anyway.

Yep, but I'll talk about that in a non-rantish way when I do my write-up on VW in the Teehee thread.

17 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Didn't they pretty much have the Eastern Church in their pocket?

Possibly? I thought the point of the Slitheries was to eradicate all teachings of Seiros and on the other end we were trying to get rid of 'em as well. I could be missing something, though.

(Although my headcanon is that they're just Agarthians who were established as heretics and were forced to fight. Or...Something.)

[joevar]

51 minutes ago, Benice said:

Dunno if this is unpopular, but I feel like Claude is a very pointless character. I am pretty sure that he's basically a one-off in all non-VW routes and he kinda doesn't do much in VW. Sure, he's there, but that's about all he's done. He does bring up the idea of busting open Fodlan's throat, but that plot point got swept away very quickly. He's more involved with the plot than the likes of Lyn in FE7, but he's entirely inconsequential in many ways

i already made that point in this thread i think. But then again his route funnily enough (to me) make a sudden turn near the end and try to defeat the very thing that other route should have done, and not specifically his route. like it wants to make sure his story are related to Dimitri and Edelgard route, not doing his own thing which imo more in line with his supposed personality trait and background

Edited November 26, 2020 by joevar

[Heir of Dragons and Beasts]

They should add Claude into the conflict of 3H .

[ping]

8 hours ago, Axie said:

BlaBla

...I wasn't convinced about this naming scheme, but you're making an excellent point here.

[Florete]

6 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Y’know I could honestly say tge that about most criticisms towards any Fire Emblem story or character. Fates being the most extreme example imo. Hell, that basically summarizes all the criticism I hear of Edelgard’s character. Something I’m starting to grow tired of in terms of fandom discourse is the idea that characters making mistakes somehow equates to bad writing when no that’s not how that works. It just kinda comes off as extremely hypocritical. If you want more flawed characters well these characters are going to make mistakes. They’re gonna do dumb things and they’re gonna make dumb decisions. That’s just how you write a flawed character. It really all boils down to how the story frames it. Like yeah Eirika makes a dumb decision but it doesn’t lead to anything good, now does it? The same can be said of characters like Celica, Xander, Corrin, Chrom, Sigurd, and pretty much every flawed character in the franchise. 
 

Like I am just kind of tired of this fundamental misunderstanding in how flawed characters are supposed to work. Cause again if you want a flawed character, they’re going to make mistakes and bad things are gonna come out of those mistakes. That’s just how these kinds of characters and stories operate. It’s just generally why I hate the “oh this character is so poorly written because they did something stupid” like yeah they did do something stupid but it’s like they were rewarded for their mistake in fact I’d say they made the situation worse. People really need to try be a little morally unbiased when it comes to story criticism.

This is a lot of why I like Celica but don't like Alm. Celica feels like a real person to me with her own worldview who makes mistakes as a result of it. I never felt like any of Celica's decisions were unreasonable from her own point of view, yet she gets criticized constantly for it.

Alm is just perfect. He's a lot like Rey from the new Star Wars trilogy, but unlike Alm, it's actually quite common to criticize Rey's character writing.

[Axie]

1 hour ago, ping said:

...I wasn't convinced about this naming scheme, but you're making an excellent point here.

thank you!! this is why blazing sword was the inferior translation, we'd just be calling the game BS. only its story is that, you guys.

as for fates' storyline: while people do conflate "characters making bad decisions" with "characters being badly written" in their rush to criticize the game(s), it's srill very much in the badly written territory for me indeed. not so much the characters (though apparently that's a point of contention because of anime tropes or something? which, newsflash, this is a japanese game franchise and the only thing stopping us from seeing more of this as soon as BinBla wasn't superior writing but the fact fire emblem wasn't yet doing supports as a dating sim, the real sin of awakening and beyond), but conquest basically never has a leg to stand on, revelations isn't much better, and birthright as the conventional route was putting up a fighting chance until the ice tribe then it fell into the abyss and never came back. i think if i did a ranking of all fire emblem storylines (without 3H because i am a pahr brazilian whose currency can't even look at nintendo without cowering in shame), all three fates titles would be the bottom 3. it's a shame because i like the gameplay so, so much, even for the less heralded non-conquest routes which i think are underrated gameplay-wise just because conquest is there being so good.

also fates single-handedly lifted BlaBla from being the worst storyline to me (as i actually like awakening more) to out of my bottom 3. incredible work by the game.

[Jotari]

29 minutes ago, Florete said:

This is a lot of why I like Celica but don't like Alm. Celica feels like a real person to me with her own worldview who makes mistakes as a result of it. I never felt like any of Celica's decisions were unreasonable from her own point of view, yet she gets criticized constantly for it.

Alm is just perfect. He's a lot like Rey from the new Star Wars trilogy, but unlike Alm, it's actually quite common to criticize Rey's character writing.

What are you smoking? It's super popular to criticize Alm's character writing. I literally have criticism for him in my sig. It's not a radical take at all that Alm is a sue.

[Etrurian emperor]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Didn't they pretty much have the Eastern Church in their pocket?

Don't you mean the Western Church? Its the western one that's involved in their schemes while the eastern one never really did anything of note. Its even made somewhat of a plot point that its such a weak branch that its not even possible for them to do anything of note. 

[Axie]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

What are you smoking? It's super popular to criticize Alm's character writing. I literally have criticism for him in my sig. It's not a radical take at all that Alm is a sue.

not as nearly as common as criticising rey even considering the size of the fandoms, though. alm being a gary stu isn't as nearly as big of an issue in this fandom as micaiah supposedly being a mary sue (for being a more nuanced and flawed character, even) was, for example.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Axie