Why do people hate Fates' story?

[00000000000000000000000000]

So many people criticizes the story but I'm curious about the reasoning.

[Athena_57]

A bunch of things, basically:

BR: Very basic, just "oh no, we're being attacked, better fight them!"

CQ: Ruined an interesting concept by having Garon be a douchebag the entire time without showing his good side. He could've been a great tragic villain, but no, they just portrayed him as an evil scumbag. Also, Corrin is at his worst in this route, whining all the time, refusing to kill anyone whilst everyone treats him like some god, this is true for all the routes but is shown the most here.

REV: The entire Valla arc was pretty bullshit, contrived and boring. Completely unnecessary and also trivializes everything you did in CQ. Also, there are a number of unfilled plot holes.

[Magical Glace]

Speaking only for Conquest, Chapter 15 is kinda where it went to shit, for a few reasons:

1. Azura and Corrin went to Valla, thus Azura could have explained everything like she did in Revelations.  She just, for some inexplicable reason, chooses not to.  There's no Valla curse preventing her from talking in Conquest Chapter 15.  

2. The way we find out about Gooron is incredibly underwhelming.  And for some inexplicable reason, Azura never approached Leo or Corrin with the plot convenient crystal ball previously, and didn't bother showing it to both at once or something.  

3. Azura's plan to expose Gooron is awful.  Instead of actually reforming from within, Corrin and Azura enable the invasion of an innocent country for the plot throne's powers.  

4. The fact the Nohr sibs hold an idiot ball for the sake of the story.  

5. Corrin is a whiney brat, with inexplicably changing sparing-for-plot powers (the kitsunes die, but Hinoka's soldiers in the Sevenfold Sanctuary don't?)

6. Prior to Chapter 22, which is when the invasion of Hoshido actually starts, the vast majority of the story feels like filler.  

[Slumber]

On top of the things said above, the portrayal of certain characters on certain routes make them wholly unlikable. Birthright Xander and Conquest Takumi in particular. These characters act in nonsensical ways for the sake of being adversaries in the story. 

There's also the choice between Nohr and Hoshido, which is just the worst kind of writing. "Do you side with the people you love, even though they're led by an evil, genocidal maniac to try to fix your home country from the inside? Or do you side with these people you just met that live in a perfect, ideal society?"

... and then you consider Revelation, which makes the choice completely pointless, and Anankos himself pulling everyone's strings makes the conflict between the two countries incredibly insignificant. One character renders 60-80+ hours of story completely irrelevant.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Slumber

[Azz]

Well....

Birthright: Extremely basic. It is literally such a basic Fire Emblem story but as dumb as possible, it hurts. It takes the basic stuff from every other game such as, bad country with no redeeming qualities invades good country with no bad qualities and they fight back. The 'good' guys end up decimating the enemy, insert moment where you are supposed to feel bad for enemy but still kill them, fight evil bad guy that is only evil and that is all and then after him, dragon final boss Ver. 123456789. Game over. You just left an entire country (That  you were raised in btw) in ruins but who cares, they were mean. Also the entire meaning of choosing Birthright is moot if you S rank one of your siblings because a fucking letter whcih tells you, 'You guys aren't actually related, so it you wanna bang, go ahead, we know you want to.'

Conquest: A really interesting idea, reforming a fucked up country from within, too bad you only do that after you do a lot of shit things for the people you want to overthrow and you invade the country of your 'blood' siblings and kill two of them and countless citizens and other people, like the whole Kitsune tribe. Then you actually do what the plot was advertised as. Oh and Corrin is a little bitch for the whole story constantly regretting his choice to side with Nohr and hates doing what he does to his 'blood' family and real home even though he barely fucking knows them since he grew up nearly all his life in fucking Nohr and knows next to nothing about Hoshido.

Revelation: Here we have the very clear canon route that you most pay an extra 20 whatever fucking currency in order to experience it even though it is a massive cop out from actually making a decision on which country to side with so you can get all the waifus!!!! Literally undermines the whole premise of the game which is choosing loyalty over family. Like what was the point of Birthright and Conquest if you are just gonna say they are non-canon compared to the golden route. I'm not gonna lie, the plot is pretty decent, but then Valla comes in and ruins any semblance of a decent plot with its utter bullshitery.

/rant over.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Azz

[Sasori]

Its mostly Garon who is to blame for Fate's bad story. The story has some good potential with choosing between the siblings who raised you or siding with the nation you where stolen from. Norh being the more morally ambigous country would also help develop the Nohr siblings. Sadly Garon is so cartoonishly evil that there isn't any case to be made for Nohr. They aren't an impoverished nation attacking for recources, instead Garon wants to invade Hoshido for reasons he can't be bothered to explain. This forces the Nohr siblings to behave like spineless yes man and undermines everything about how Xander is supposed to be portrayed as.

Corrin being put on a pedestal the entire time is problematic for the story too. You have scenes where Takumi is somehow in the wrong for not setting aside his hatred even when Corrin is siding with the country that is obviously evil and isn't making their Hoshidan invasion a secret. Ryoma admitting his jealousy of Corrin's greatness before he was stolen did't help much either since it makes an established badass come across as pathetic.

Thirdly the fanservice gets in the way of the story. Not the silly costumes, but the marriage system has no reason to exist in the Fates world in its current form. The explenation of the second generation characters is weird at best and horrifying at worst. The Hoshidan siblings being romanceable was also not needed and it makes Ryoma come across as a lying scumbag. True family huh?

But I will give Conquest story some credit. I was pretty invested in the first half where the story doesn't ruin itself. I liked how Corrin's desire to change the country from within seemed to be working at first before completely failing in Chev. Corrin following Leo's advice of seemingly following Garon, while playing damage controll while he wasn't looking would make for an interesting direction if they did't need to invade Hoshido.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Sasori

[Captain Karnage]

I think @Thane could explain it best

to be brief it's full of hypocrisies, terrible writing, Azura's crystal ball, Valla, character deaths that have no meaning, the villans have no real motovation other than their hatred for Corrin, and a really stupid Mary Sue.

[henrymidfields]

I think everyone explained it very well so no need to tread further on that. I find it really depressing when any of our stuff are considered better-written than the official version. I've been reading @Mox's Fates fanfic, and that has got a really good story development. Likewise, a certain Prussian resident historian reckons that my story for my current Fates Conquest LP is better too. It's gone to the point where I decided to strike off Birthright and Revealations from my games backlog list. A huge shame, because I really like some of the Fates characters, whether for being actually good, or being so-bad-it's-rather-awesome good.

Edited June 28, 2017 by henrymidfields

[eclipse]

There is something extremely weird going on here.  I'm going to move this and lock this while I try to figure it out.