What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Faellin]

Kris is my favorite of the avatar characters. What? Why is everyone staring at me like they want to slap me across the face?

[Florete]

1 hour ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

I think they should write a better  story with better story telling and world building. I like avatar but THEY ARE NOT NECESSARY. It’s incredibly immersion breaking when you see an axe user like Edelgard fighting an axe wielding ennemis herself and counters with a petty dagger of all things. Its even more so when you as a player role playing the MC and going with flow as better ideas than the character living there themselves. Just to CLARIFY: I am not against LINEAR and STRAIGHTFORWARD stories but I like if my ideas is better to be told why my ideas is refuted.Like the blue Lion choice of invasion but being relegated to the default. I get but why waste text prompts and choice if I DON’T HAVE A CHOICE. Byleth would have benefited WAY BETTER being fully voiced in personality and as an actual Ptotagonist than an Avatar 

Surely you can't think wanting well-written stories is an unpopular opinion.

[Icelerate]

36 minutes ago, Florete said:

Surely you can't think wanting well-written stories is an unpopular opinion.

Okay here is an unpopular opinion, IS should write a story so bad that it is entertaining because of that. Something like the Avatar the Last Airbender movie that makes you laugh whenever you see an important scene. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Okay here is an unpopular opinion, IS should write a story so bad that it is entertaining because of that. Something like the Avatar the Last Airbender movie that makes you laugh whenever you see an important scene. 

That's just Revelation, though. "If your best friend Corrin told you to jump off a bridge, would you?"

[Axie]

9 hours ago, Faellin said:

Kris is my favorite of the avatar characters. What? Why is everyone staring at me like they want to slap me across the face?

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

avatars seem to have gotten progressively worse in my opinion. at least in the games i have played. is byleth worse than corrin? is it possible to be worse than corrin??

[Faellin]

8 hours ago, Axie said:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

avatars seem to have gotten progressively worse in my opinion. at least in the games i have played. is byleth worse than corrin? is it possible to be worse than corrin??

Thing is, Corrin atleast has a character design. Byleth is literally just mute outside of combat and shows 0 personality throughout the entire game.

So its basically comparing "Bad and Nothing"

[Etrurian emperor]

10 hours ago, Axie said:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

avatars seem to have gotten progressively worse in my opinion. at least in the games i have played. is byleth worse than corrin? is it possible to be worse than corrin??

They are bad in different ways. Byleth is problematic because he's everything a player avatar is supposed to be. Corrin is problematic because he's everything a player Avatar is NOT supposed to be. 

Byleth plays the role of mute player Avatar well enough. But that's a problem because that role is inherently empty. Byleth is a boring character who can't ever say anything of interest. 

Corrin does not play the role of Avatar well because he isn't one. He's his own character with an incredibly defined personality and a defined place in the world. And this defined personality is something many players don't recognize themselves in, yet despite this the game acts as if Corrin really is our Avatar. 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Etrurian emperor

[kradeelav]

probably-lukewarm opinion: map design storytelling is the most important part to the FE series after good characters (characters make you give a shit long term, good level design storytelling makes you give a shit short term) ... and to add to that, I feel like the maps have gotten progressively worse and worse, with a peak of PoR/RD.

As much as I love PoR... its plot was generic as hell, and it was only through both of those elements being in 'SS' tier that I loved the duology so much.

Note i emphasize 'story' and not 'gameplay' - a map can be fun as hell to beat, but easy to forget two seconds later as far as emotional resonance goes.  What feels like a good example is 'Shades of Evil' in PoR where you felt cornered and underleveled and kinda had to sneak around for the chests, and seeing Petrine was terrifying .... which is a totally different emotional vibe than when you fight Ena .... which is a similar 'inside a castle and fuck around and find out some chests and you're going after an unknown'

I could give so many more examples like when you have to convince Naesala not to fight you with Reyson with that one snow fight and how that changes everything about how you approach that map... chef kiss.

Wheras .... say, 3H - where it felt like IS slapped a generic terrain down based off of the largest structure (a bridge, a swamp, a castle), slapped down a boss, sprinkled some enemies, and called it a day. God I hated those maps.

[Florete]

On avatars: Byleth is easily my favorite avatar in the series, and the reasons why I find are often reasons why detractors don't like her.

One thing I do find funny is that, after Corrin, people were saying they wanted the avatar to not be the protagonist...which is basically how Byleth works, but no one seems to notice that. Byleth really isn't the protagonist, she's just the player perspective and your chosen house leader is the real story protagonist (And Silver Snow is just...weird).

Is Byleth perfect? No. But I do think Byleth is the way avatars should continue to be in the future (and I happen to like avatars so I want them to stay). Despite not having many voices lines, I actually felt like I got a lot more character out of Byleth than I did out of Robin or Corrin, in a "less is more" kind of way. Dialogue choices and lack of voice acting go a long way, for me at least, to helping Byleth feel like an actual player avatar rather than a defined character whose name I can change. Even small things like the sad face and music changing for the month after Jeralt dies really worked for me, because my own interpretation of how she would cope in that time is a lot better - on a character meant to represent the player, at least - than just spelling everything out.

If there's something I would definitely see as an improvement, though, it's allowing voiced dialogue, even just a little, in animated cutscenes where it's called for. Byleth crying over Jeralt as he dies would probably be a lot more impactful even with something really quick and simple like "Please...don't go." For her to not say anything there just feels really weird.

tl;dr People criticized Robin and Corrin for not being like player avatars, then Byleth came and people criticized her for not being like Robin and Corrin.

Hey, look at me, I talked positively about Three Houses over Fates for once.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Florete

[Jotari]

39 minutes ago, Florete said:

On avatars: Byleth is easily my favorite avatar in the series, and the reasons why I find are often reasons why detractors don't like her.

One thing I do find funny is that, after Corrin, people were saying they wanted the avatar to not be the protagonist...which is basically how Byleth works, but no one seems to notice that. Byleth really isn't the protagonist, she's just the player perspective and your chosen house leader is the real story protagonist (And Silver Snow is just...weird).

Is Byleth perfect? No. But I do think Byleth is the way avatars should continue to be in the future (and I happen to like avatars so I want them to stay). Despite not having many voices lines, I actually felt like I got a lot more character out of Byleth than I did out of Robin or Corrin, in a "less is more" kind of way. Dialogue choices and lack of voice acting go a long way, for me at least, to helping Byleth feel like an actual player avatar rather than a defined character whose name I can change. Even small things like the sad face and music changing for the month after Jeralt dies really worked for me, because my own interpretation of how she would cope in that time is a lot better - on a character meant to represent the player, at least - than just spelling everything out.

If there's something I would definitely see as an improvement, though, it's allowing voiced dialogue, even just a little, in animated cutscenes where it's called for. Byleth crying over Jeralt as he dies would probably be a lot more impactful even with something really quick and simple like "Please...don't go." For her to not say anything there just feels really weird.

tl;dr People criticized Robin and Corrin for not being like player avatars, then Byleth came and people criticized her for not being like Robin and Corrin.

Hey, look at me, I talked positively about Three Houses over Fates for once.

I feel like Byleth is more the protagonist than Robin (or Kris) is, though not as much as Corrin is. First off there's White Clouds, which is the longest chunk of the game. And in that part of the story the house lords are completely interchangable, at least up until Edelgard betrays everyone. None of them do anything major to influence the story. And as far as the story goes, it's either a random events plot where something just happens each month, or the focus is squarely on Byleth either learning about Fodlan or seeking revenge for Jearlt's death. In Silver Snow there's no other house leader at all, instead we get Seteth, who less drives the plot and more gives context and exposition of things to make Byleth more informed. In Crimson Flower things are definitely more Edelgard centric, but things were also a stalemate before Byleth showed up, so it's clear that Byleth is the mover of the plot and Edelgard obviously takes a lot of support from Byleth. Verdant Wind probably has Byleth playing the smallest role, despite being identical to Silver Snow, as all the Seteh context stuff is replaced with Claude doing his own thing which is only tangentially related. And lastly Azure Moon obviously has a very large narrative focus on Dimitri, but unfortunately due to the similarities to other routes the way this plays out is Dimitri mutters to himself in a corner for half the route and it's up to Byleth to snap him out of it. Once Byleth does, the story very solidly shifts to Dimitri's story, but before that it's a story about Byleth and his crazy friend.

[NaotoUzumaki]

The thing that doesn’t help Byleth is that they have Sothis in them helping make decisions so it feels less like a mute protagonist and more a puppet of Sothis.While the house leader are the protagonist in fact I will precise one thing about avatar not the being MC. I think that most people of the fan base are sick of Avatar being plot important. Chris was basically the best execution of one since he was a villager like Donnel a recruit not anybody important early on. Robin’s major was flaw was being tied as Grima the Final Boss Vessal. Corrin was just a important Noble heir to both Hoshido and Norh while being a demigod. Anankos and Mikoto child. Byleth having the goddess that the Agarthan have killed and the war of heroes wage which created the church in first place where 2 out of 4 route are based on that connection doesn’t help. All I saying is I want a villager avatar that if it dies doesn’t have a bullshit out of jail card like the hands of time or turn wheel. Seriously Inty it’s like only badass can stand up in this setting 

Edited March 5, 2021 by NaotoUzumaki

[Jotari]

46 minutes ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

The thing that doesn’t help Byleth is that they have Sothis in them helping make decisions so it feels less like a mute protagonist and more a puppet of Sothis.While the house leader are the protagonist in fact I will precise one thing about avatar not the being MC. I think that most people of the fan base are sick of Avatar being plot important. Chris was basically the best execution of one since he was a villager like Donnel a recruit not anybody important early on. Robin’s major was flaw was being tied as Grima the Final Boss Vessal. Corrin was just a important Noble heir to both Hoshido and Norh while being a demigod. Anankos and Mikoto child. Byleth having the goddess that the Agarthan have killed and the war of heroes wage which created the church in first place where 2 out of 4 route are based on that connection doesn’t help. All I saying is I want a villager avatar that if it dies doesn’t have a bullshit out of jail card like the hands of time or turn wheel. Seriously Inty it’s like only badass can stand up in this setting 

I don't think Robin being the vessel of Grima is that widely considered to be a bad plot point. It's all the praise everyone throws at Robin whenever they do anything that generally irks people.

[NaotoUzumaki]

True but the point was that they are TOO INTERTWINED WITH THE PLOT. All I ask is an Avatar that’s mute but like Donnel or Mozu. A random person being attacked in their own village and having to take arm and being noticed by the MC army to be recruited. Byleth or the Mentor Character Arc is about bringing the next generation to face their fault and problems and learn to grow from them. Having a Mute Vessal is a stupid decision in a very talkative and defined role they served. Having a new student being the avatar would have been better at having the Avatar ask questions like the player since they would benefit more then a mentor. Point is an Avatar is a Vessal for the player to experience the world story. That role is the rookie/greenhorn arc. Putting the Player’s character or Avatar in a very story driven role with a husk of no personality isn’t optional for a teacher/mentor figure.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

The thing that doesn’t help Byleth is that they have Sothis in them helping make decisions so it feels less like a mute protagonist and more a puppet of Sothis.While the house leader are the protagonist in fact I will precise one thing about avatar not the being MC. I think that most people of the fan base are sick of Avatar being plot important. Chris was basically the best execution of one since he was a villager like Donnel a recruit not anybody important early on. Robin’s major was flaw was being tied as Grima the Final Boss Vessal. Corrin was just a important Noble heir to both Hoshido and Norh while being a demigod. Anankos and Mikoto child. Byleth having the goddess that the Agarthan have killed and the war of heroes wage which created the church in first place where 2 out of 4 route are based on that connection doesn’t help. All I saying is I want a villager avatar that if it dies doesn’t have a bullshit out of jail card like the hands of time or turn wheel. Seriously Inty it’s like only badass can stand up in this setting 

Sothis is like the only interesting thing about the Professor, though. I found the Professor to become duller and less interesting, once they lost Sothis offering her commentary. Sothis made them feel less empty, and provided someone to vocalize a parallel to their own mental processes. It's a shame Sothis is never there to berate Dimitri's recklessness, question Edelgard's alliances, or prod at the secrets Claude is keeping.

[NaotoUzumaki]

Here how they should have done it as a what if conversation.            Jeralt : Nothing like that. They want you to teach It seems.      Byleth : Shouldn’t you be more suited for this then me Father a stranger without background for this gig.            Jeralt : True but she forced me to rejoins the knights of seiros. Seem she HAS something planned for you so watch out for lady Rhea.           Byleth : how about I just takeovers the mercenaries instead ? They need you not me. I never known them enough to be wanted here. First I discovered you were a knight here and now she want me to stay after having met a green haired Imp in dream before. DOESNT it raised a red flag Father?   Jeralt : Crimson      Byleth : Then why are we still here ? I’m starting to think you ran away for a reason.

[Samz707]

19 hours ago, Florete said:

On avatars: Byleth is easily my favorite avatar in the series, and the reasons why I find are often reasons why detractors don't like her.

One thing I do find funny is that, after Corrin, people were saying they wanted the avatar to not be the protagonist...which is basically how Byleth works, but no one seems to notice that. Byleth really isn't the protagonist, she's just the player perspective and your chosen house leader is the real story protagonist (And Silver Snow is just...weird).

Is Byleth perfect? No. But I do think Byleth is the way avatars should continue to be in the future (and I happen to like avatars so I want them to stay). Despite not having many voices lines, I actually felt like I got a lot more character out of Byleth than I did out of Robin or Corrin, in a "less is more" kind of way. Dialogue choices and lack of voice acting go a long way, for me at least, to helping Byleth feel like an actual player avatar rather than a defined character whose name I can change. Even small things like the sad face and music changing for the month after Jeralt dies really worked for me, because my own interpretation of how she would cope in that time is a lot better - on a character meant to represent the player, at least - than just spelling everything out.

If there's something I would definitely see as an improvement, though, it's allowing voiced dialogue, even just a little, in animated cutscenes where it's called for. Byleth crying over Jeralt as he dies would probably be a lot more impactful even with something really quick and simple like "Please...don't go." For her to not say anything there just feels really weird.

tl;dr People criticized Robin and Corrin for not being like player avatars, then Byleth came and people criticized her for not being like Robin and Corrin.

Hey, look at me, I talked positively about Three Houses over Fates for once.

I do like how Byleth actually isn't an OP super unit in gameplay. (And their extra EXP skill can actually be used for teamplay now, as opposed to power-creep)

But the problem is...they don't really function as an audience insert beyond being mute, it honestly feels like I'm playing Bramimond at times since Byleth's personality seems to almost change from support tree to support tree and scene to scene, you can't be consistently sarcastic or anything since your dialogue options wildly differ between who you're actually talking to, do you doubt the church? have fun never getting to mention that to Rhea/Seteth during White Clouds because the writers don't want you to piss them off yet, it's extremely limiting to the point where it feels like they might as well not matter. (Also they blatantly tell which choices are "Right" via support gains/losses being displayed on screen.)

Also they do the thing that seriously annoys me, where dialogue options are frequently either A: ignored entirely (they say a line clearly ment for the "intended" dialogue option regardless of what you say, such as going into the history of a location despite me not picking the line asking about it) and B: frequently having "One choice only" Lines.

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Samz707

[NaotoUzumaki]

Exactly They suffered from poor decisions in making them the professor role and having an inconsistent. Being Sarcastic and being nice one conversation later is not consistent enough to know their implied personality like being a passive quite kind of person. They gave us 2 avatar where the problem was THAT THEY WERE TOO DEFINED AS CHARACTER and Made them AVATAR WHEN THEY ARE ACTUALLY PROTAGONIST.( cough cough ...Awakening Fates..) and they decided that the next one Byleth should be Mute But made him the protagonist but full of inconsistencies. Intys DOESNT understand that we want TOTAL CONTROL OF THE AVATAR FOR THOSE WHO WANT ONE. If I want to say fuck the Church to Seteth or Rhea early let me and have a mini version of Crimson Flower. Hell the only instance I could in White Clouds was when Rhea asked me about Sothis and I responded who is Sothis. Got massive support drop from her and Sothis called me out on it like the devs saying No to my ideas. Hell then afterwards Sothis forces Byleth to always follow THEIR OWN PATH after I just got called out on it.

Edited March 6, 2021 by NaotoUzumaki

[Ottservia]

On the idea of avatars, I still personally think Robin is the best one in the series. He’s written like a persona protagonist just with actual dialogue and that to me is probably the best way to handle an avatar. Cause the thing about most persona protagonists is that they do have a personality and a character arc. It’s just subtle and deeply interwoven with the game’s mechanics and storytelling beats. The same is true of Robin. Who’s arc is about establishing bonds and overcoming doubt. The establishing bonds part is obvious. That’s what the support system is for. Also another thing about Robin that makes them work is how vague and subdued their personality is to the point where it’s really easy to kind of project almost any personality trait onto them and it would still make sense to a degree. He can be almost any character you want him to be so long as he fits within his vaguely defined mold of:

-Is a tactician

-Friends with Chrom

-likes helping others

and that’s really about it. Everything else about Robin is mostly up to interpretation.

[Benice]

Personally, I think Byleth is my second least favorite avatar, basically for one reason: Anti-TH bias The fact that they're not customizeable any more than any other unit; not being able to change their appearance is fine, but being unable to select their boons/banes, (Which could be chosen by the game asking you what Mastery class you want to be) bases or growths is kinda sad. I do rank them well above Mark, though.

[Samz707]

5 hours ago, Ottservia said:

On the idea of avatars, I still personally think Robin is the best one in the series. He’s written like a persona protagonist just with actual dialogue and that to me is probably the best way to handle an avatar. Cause the thing about most persona protagonists is that they do have a personality and a character arc. It’s just subtle and deeply interwoven with the game’s mechanics and storytelling beats. The same is true of Robin. Who’s arc is about establishing bonds and overcoming doubt. The establishing bonds part is obvious. That’s what the support system is for. Also another thing about Robin that makes them work is how vague and subdued their personality is to the point where it’s really easy to kind of project almost any personality trait onto them and it would still make sense to a degree. He can be almost any character you want him to be so long as he fits within his vaguely defined mold of:

-Is a tactician

-Friends with Chrom

-likes helping others

and that’s really about it. Everything else about Robin is mostly up to interpretation.

They still have their link to Grima/Validar and almost certainly being from Pelgia which is more than a little bit.

And that's kinda why they fell apart for me, I do not like Chrom, nor do I like the vast majority of characters in Awakening. (as well as having Avatar-Worship, which is always annoying.)

The Establishing Bonds bit just came across as ham-fisted writing (Especially since other games in the series have it be teamwork usually rather than the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP while Robin can just suddenly not lose control to Grima because FRIENDSHIP.) and that fell flat hard due to the fact the Awakening cast are flat-out scum to each other in ways that make them iredeemable for me.

Such as Nah threatening to eat Ichigo, Tharja hexing her family/tricking Donnel into a ring that's heavily implied to be cursed and the entire Shepards taking years to notice Kellam is gone which all just stack up to eventually make it so I honestly don't care for these characters, so the story insisting these characters have "Bonds" when one of them can vanish for years and no one else notices just makes it fall flat on it's face.

 

26 minutes ago, Benice said:

Personally, I think Byleth is my second least favorite avatar, basically for one reason: Anti-TH bias The fact that they're not customizeable any more than any other unit; not being able to change their appearance is fine, but being unable to select their boons/banes, (Which could be chosen by the game asking you what Mastery class you want to be) bases or growths is kinda sad. I do rank them well above Mark, though.

Yeah that sucked.

At least their personal more EXP skill actually applies to others instead of encouraging Robin Emblem, as well as the fact I can make them use Lances instead of Swords (Which is what I did) early on without second seals so I can start focusing on non-sword weapons early on. (though being able to select to be using Lances from the start would have been better.)

Personally, for a strategy  game a "Commander" PC who doesn't actually fight, such as how it's handled in Command and Conquer is what simply feels the most fitting for the genre.

 

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Samz707

[NaotoUzumaki]

Exactly by ties to Grima it’s still a massive background and therefore are predefined.They GAVE A SHITTIER AVATAR ON A MORE POWERFUL HARDWARE THAN THE 3DS. The 3ds was also harder to develop on. Awakening and Fates had Androgynous cutscenes to help but didn’t on a better hardware. I think they announced it WAY TOO EARLY and the Hype got too uncontrollable and the devs said finally said : Story and Character and everything dones. Employees: Boss we still need an Avatar or sales will tanks. : KUSO! Make Byleth the avatar without choices they WILL UNDERSTAND otherwise WERE FUCKED.

[Samz707]

23 minutes ago, NaotoUzumaki said:

Exactly by ties to Grima it’s still a massive background and therefore are predefined.They GAVE A SHITTIER AVATAR ON A MORE POWERFUL HARDWARE THAN THE 3DS. The 3ds was also harder to develop on. Awakening and Fates had Androgynous cutscenes to help but didn’t on a better hardware. I think they announced it WAY TOO EARLY and the Hype got too uncontrollable and the devs said finally said : Story and Character and everything dones. Employees: Boss we still need an Avatar or sales will tanks. : KUSO! Make Byleth the avatar without choices they WILL UNDERSTAND otherwise WERE FUCKED.

Honestly the Androgynous cut scenes don't work, I think if I recall on that Fates LP there's some errors there I think and the "hooded" Grima sprite is blatantly Male Robin and not Female Robin.

Also am I mad, or is Robin's design literally a plot-hole? they have the Grima Mark on their hand/uniform but no one notices for several in-game years despite Chrom's dad invading Pelgia, How did not a single person notice either of these things? it's never commented in the entire game despite how it clearly marks Robin as being from Pelgia at the least but no one notices.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Samz707

[Jotari]

10 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Honestly the Androgynous cut scenes don't work, I think if I recall on that Fates LP there's some errors there I think and the "hooded" Grima is blatantly Male Robin and not Female Robin.

Also am I mad, or is Robin's design literally a plot-hole? they have the Grima Mark on their hand/uniform but no one notices for several in-game years despite Chrom's dad invading Pelgia, How did not a single person notice either of these things? it's never commented in the entire game.

You know I've never considered it but you're absolutely right. And we can't even say the mark of Grima is some unknown secret symbol that only elite Grimleal wouldn't recognize because Henry wears it too. They should have known Robin was from Plegia at the very least.

Also all this avatar talk has promoted me to make a poll.

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Jotari

[Ottservia]

47 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You know I've never considered it but you're absolutely right. And we can't even say the mark of Grima is some unknown secret symbol that only elite Grimleal wouldn't recognize because Henry wears it too. They should have known Robin was from Plegia at the very least.

That’s actually explained in the artbook. The brand part at least. It’s not a good explanation but it’s an explanation at least. Basically it’s because Robin didn’t know it was there so nobody questioned it. Like I said not the best explanation but it is at least an explanation.

[Samz707]

26 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

That’s actually explained in the artbook. The brand part at least. It’s not a good explanation but it’s an explanation at least. Basically it’s because Robin didn’t know it was there so nobody questioned it. Like I said not the best explanation but it is at least an explanation.

...But doesn't Robin literally look at their hand in the intro? We see it in a Robin POV shot. (Not to mention the other person would probably notice when you have sex.)

Even then, it's on their robes too.