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Rate the character: Alm


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Give a review and a rating of the unit. Whether it's performance or stats. It can be a multitude of things such as what you like about them in general or don't.

I've only played through this game once, so I can't give as solid of an opinion as I was able to for Marth. But regardless, Alm was a good character. Certainly not the best, but still good. He ended up being one of my best characters and his story is pretty good. Although iIrc him becoming a leader when he did was weird, awkward, and random. He was a good hero and his relationship with Celica was cool. I wish there was more I could say about the character and I've had the game since the release, so it's weird that I've only played it once.

Unit rating- 7.5/10

Marth

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Definitely one the best units in the game. Has access to the best combat art in double lions, gets bows upon promotion which great in sov as we all know and just in general is great as a unit. As a character, he's very enjoyable and certainly a character I would follow if I was a soldier. He's just a great all rounder, 9/10 tbh.

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Alm's really good and obviously one of my favorites, and the possible change in Echoes from enjoying fighting to fighting to protect is awesome, his belief in mankind and friendship in the games is really great, and he's one of the most powerful characters in the game with an awesome overclass, his journey becoming a Hero to Zofia by defeating Rudolf but possibly feeling like a failure is great too (with the lack of a relationship with Rudolf and Berkut), and his relationship with Celica is great too, only thing I didn't like is he believed that humanity by themselves would set righteous rules by themselves, when humans are much more likely to fail at setting righteous rules then a perfect god (like Yahweh), but that would add to his imperfections as a character. He's 8.5/10 IMO, really good.

Edited by Fates-Blade
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Good character, although him being a noble kinda undermined a lot of the points of the story. Didn't change him too much as a character, though. Also a great unit, has access to lots of good stuff. 8-9/10 as a character, I dunno what I'd say as a unit. Maybe a 9/10

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From a pure unit standpoint, 8/10.

Alm is definitively one of the better units in his route, having decent enough bases to do well in act 1 while also having a completely free promotion that give him access to bows. Having said all of that, however,  I do believe there are some issues he has that really prevent him from becoming a top tier unit.

For one, he often will not have the speed necessary to double the Cavaliers in Act 1 with the Lighting Sword, which really limits his offense against them, putting him below the performance of mercenary with the same weapon. Another issue is that he is very reliant growths to remain as powerful in Act 3  as he was in the First act. For example, he need 4 procs Speed from base to double all the Cavaliers in 3-5 with the Royal Sword and 5 procs of attack to one round them. Considering that a base Paladin with a Riderbane forge is capable of OHKOing the same enemies without having to rely on level ups, this docks a bit from Alm's favor. 

The Royal Sword also isn't that great. Double lion may seem good on in him, but that's only until the realization that he doesn't really benefit from it in the remaining maps in Act 3 and how he can obtain both a promotion and Killer Bow from Celica before Act 4 even begins. The sword is also very costly to forge, considering that it costs 1 Gold at every level of upgrade when that could be going to other weapons.  

However,  even if he may be overshadowed at point by other units, he's still a great unit that doesn't require much to become a capable unit. The flaws I mentioned above only really occur if one is concerned about efficient play, so it's pretty easy to see why most people would mark him as top tier.

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As a unit, he's really good, if perhaps a little OP. He's no Ike by any means, but he can certainly help carry the army. He is easily a 9.5/10 for me as a unit. 

As a character though... he is much less good. I have said so much about Alm, the good and the bad, in other threads already, so I'll just quote myself (fair warning; there may be a bit of repetition; mainly because I'm quoting stuff I've said in multiple threads):

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Overall I think I have to say no. Alm definitely had potential, and certainly some complaints about his character are more because of faults in the story itself than because of the character. But I still didn't like him. There's a fair bit about his character, which I said more eloquently in other threads, and I am tired right now, so there's no way I'm going to be able to convey everything I want to say about the Alm character, so I'll just say a few things.

Things that I did like:

1. He tries to negotiate for peace initially, only to get no reply from Rigel. This I did like.

2. Him being left-handed. It's a small thing, but I like that they did that.

3. He did have a personality; that I agree. 

4. He does have internal motivations for his goals (wanting to help people; etc.), rather than all his motivations being external in origin and him getting pulled into these circumstances. He is offered the chance to join the deliverance, but, in Gaiden at least, his decision to join is just that: his decision. I'm not a fan of how it's implied in SoV that Mycen vanished to influence Alm into joining the Deliverance. It takes away from the story, but even that is not the only place in the story where he does something based purely on internal motivation, it's just one of only a few.

Things I did not like: 

1. He is named leader of the Deliverance just for being Mycen's grandson, and immediately succeeds in retaking Zofia Castle. I did not mind him being named leader at all. I completely understood that it had nothing to do with Alm; it was purely a morality boost and Clive thinking he himself was failing at leading the Deliverance. I'll also give him immediately taking Zofia Castle a pass, because that's more a story/gameplay fault. Though he was never shown prior at having any knowledge or skill when it came to storming a castle; something very difficult to actually do, because castles worked. 

2. He's supposed to contrast Celica. More than that; they're supposed to resemble Mila and Duma, but differ in that they don't let their differences tear each other apart. I never thought Alm needed to be particularly aggressive; I thought they could do some of what Awakening did with the, "How do you compassionately stab someone" while still keeping his original character. Going through the story, it was easy to see what they could easily have written as Alm's biggest flaw: he only thinks of the next battle; never the larger picture. They could have easily written that as being his flaw; going hand-in-hand with being reckless, and it would have perfectly fit into the story and have been very interesting, especially when contrasted with Celica trying to find Mila in order to end the war. Yet, instead, they portray him as having no real flaws. He does everything correctly, has no setbacks, and, at the same time, Celica is made worse because of it, and, because Celica is made worse, so is he due to the way the characters are connected.

3. Extending from 2, his lack of faults kind of make him bland. Yes, you don't need character development to be an interesting character (though it's nice when it's there, and even already good characters can always find reasons to want to improve who they are), but he just goes through the events in the story, and it can be quite bland at times. Even moral paragon characters (something he shouldn't necessarily even be anyways since the whole point was supposed to be balancing the ideals of Alm and Celica) can be flawed, but he isn't, and that's just boring. We don't see him try to cope with being in charge, as leadership just comes to him just like that. We don't see him struggle with his ideals, because they're essentially portrayed as perfect. And that's boring.

4. He breaks his own morals of the story. He is the character who keeps spouting about what's the real difference between commoners and nobility, and, while he does say he's willing to plough the earth even as Emperor, he still breaks the moral he's trying to convey. Him turning out to be actually royalty would not break this, but everything surrounding it does. He's all perfect, and the game pretty much outright says that the reason he's so great is because he's royalty. Again; more the plot's fault, so I'll give it a partial pass, but Alm never deals with this dilemma, so that's a character problem.

Overall, Alm as a character is an interesting concept, marred by plot problems outside his character, and by wasted potential.

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My main problem though with the siege of Zofia Castle in SoV is not so much how easy it was, but that the Deliverance lost the castle to the forces now occupying it, lose a few good members, such as Fernand and Mathilda, and then Alm comes in with next to no prior experience and no known training in siege warfare, and  bringing only three untrained guys with him, and suddenly the Deliverance is able to retake the very castle they had previously lost, and Alm is given all the credit for the victory.

Even something as small as the Deliverance discussing how to take the castle, and then Alm interjecting with something along the lines of, "Sorry; I know you pretty much put me in charge solely to boost morale, but I remember something my grandpa once told me about his time in Zofia Castle/how to take castles..." Would have made it a whole lot better, especially because then it really would be at least in part thanks to Alm, and they could've then gone further by having some people say something along the lines of, "That kid may be Zofian, but I know Rigelian tactics when I see them", further hinting at Mycen and Alm's true origins, and giving a better understanding of Alm's skills, so they don't come nearly as out-of-nowhere. 

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As someone who is left-handed, I bought SoV and thought, "Okay Alm; let's hope you're a good enough character to make up for Link being right-handed in Breath of the Wild for no good reason." To be honest; he had potential. It looked like there was going to be an interesting story of him and Celica each trying to save the world their own way based on their respective ideologies, and nearly tear themselves apart like Mila and Duma did, but they reconcile and balance each other out unlike Mila and Duma. They learn from Mila and Duma's mistakes and save the world. Oh; what a story that would have been.

It was obvious throughout the game what Celica thought: the world needed Mila; Mila would solve everything. It was obviously clear what Celica's flaws were. But for Alm? It seemed like the game was maybe going to try to make it that Alm thought they needed to stand up for themselves, and the flaw that would come about from this would be that his mind only thought in terms of the next battle, and him unknowingly killing his father would make him see where it all went wrong. I thought they would perhaps have even made it that Rudolf, with his mad plan born of the Rigelian battle and strength is everything mindset, is what Alm would've become if it weren't for Celica. It certainly seemed like that's what some of the writers were going for. That they would both, in effect, save each other.

But; no. They made Alm a generic Marth lord, in a game where a generic Marth lord does not fit. They tried to compensate for this with some sort of societal-class doesn't matter subplot like Ike had, except it was completely undercut by Alm being secret royalty, all his greatness that other characters kept yapping about being due to his heritage, and even him becoming head of the Deliverance not being something he earned, but something he was just given for being Mycen's supposed grandson.

What were Alm's flaws? He certainly had some, as I mentioned, but they weren't properly explored. A lot of people have described Celica as being naïve and/or idiotic in Part 4, but I am willing to bet no one would be saying anything like that if a) it had been handled a little better, and b) the game actually bothered to explore Alm's flaws, rather than have Alm be this special guy who's always in the right: this character who every single girl wants and who every guy seems to want to be, all for no reason. No one can relate to that; no one can believe that. 

Alm could have been a great character, but instead, he was bland, generic, treated as perfect, and right up to the edge of being a gary sue. 

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So, basically, how I feel about Alm is that he had a lot of potential, but that potential was not used nearly as well as it could have been. And yes, this basically is me listing the criticisms that JimmyBeans pointed out, but also with me establishing why I feel these criticisms apply to Alm.

To be clear; I do not think Alm, as he is written, is without character flaws; he definitely has some, but they are neither properly explored, nor treated as flaws by the game itself or any of the characters within. Gratification of his character was given priority over exploring his character. It's the same problem as Corrin: he definitely had flaws; he was rash and naïve. But not one of the three versions of Fates actually explored them or even presented them as flaws. 

Don't get me wrong; Alm is far better than Corrin. I'm just saying they both suffered the same character-writing flaw: gratification of the character taking priority over establishing the character. It's the biggest symptom of a mary sue/gary stu; hence the accusations. 

I would just quickly like to point out one thing JimmyBeans also said:

On 8/14/2018 at 3:19 PM, JimmyBeans said:

On him being a Mary Sue I have to say that to stay true to the original Alm had to become the leader of the deliverance at that time, but there is one key factor that I feel like a lot of people miss because I find myself very confused that people criticize this part so hard. Clive wants Alm to be leader to raise the soldiers morale because his "lineage" is a spectacle to the men. Clive even says that he will handle all the day to day affairs and that Alm is required to do one thing and one thing only; Lead. This means he just has to point and say charge, and deliver the occasional speech. This part is extremely similar to when Micaiah is made leader of the Daein Rebellion army in part 1 of RD and Sothe catches on and isn't a fan of the idea because she is being made a spectacle. What Pelleas and Izuka had planned is almost identical to why Clive made that decision as well, and I baffled that Alm becoming leader of the deliverance is criticized and that the same scene in RD gets not even a bat of the eye. I for one think Clive's plan is very reasonable.

 There's a very good reason why Alm being handed leadership is criticized and Micaiah being handed leadership isn't: with Micaiah, it's far more organic. Micaiah was already a Joan-of-arc figure to the Daein people and an experienced leader of the Dawn Brigade from day 1. Izuka's plan was built on the name Micaiah had already earned in the eyes of the people. Clive's plan was, "Well; I've let everybody down. I'm going to give the position of leader to this kid just because he's Mycen's supposed grandson." Clive's plan is not unreasonable; especially for one built entirely on his own self-loathing at that point. The problem isn't his plan being "unreasonable"; it's that it undermines Alm's relatability in that he's just given the role because of Mycen, and believability in that Alm's first mission immediately afterwards is take the capital and its castle, and he just... succeeds. 

 

So... yeah. Alm has a lot of problems; namely in that, while decently well-characterised, his character really does not fit Shadows of Valentia thematically at all, and the plot wraps around him and gratifies him without him having to actually do much. He suffers the classic symptoms of a Gary Stu, while being better-written than Fire Emblem's other Gary Stu (Corrin).

Overall, as a unit, Alm's a 9.5/10. However, as a character, I have to say he's about a 4.5/10, and that is being generous. 

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gameplay-wise, he's basicly an improved version of Marth that can also use bows after promotion.

however, since weapons are limited and only one can be equipped, he will eventually become an hybrid tank/dragon killer/flying unit killer in end-game. lacks mobility too. 8/10.

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I'm biased but I'm giving him a 10/10. He was a phenomenal unit, literally crits everything on his own the later you are in the game, a great character with a hilarious and relatable personality and was just a good Lord character in general~ He handles things in a realistic manner and he just really grew on me as a character throughout the game with his own personal growth through the challenges he faces~

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