There is a 4th Route

[Duke of Dozel]

19 minutes ago, Hekselka said:

I actually expect MByleth to be the more popular one this time around if only because of their design compared to FByleth.

To be fair, he looks much more attractive

[Lord of Riva]

3 minutes ago, Duke of Dozel said:

To be fair, he looks much more attractive

She looks like she just cried... 😄

I Concur Male looks more attractive

 

EDIT: I will go BE > BL > GD > BE as well too add something to the topic.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Lord of Riva

[aaronarium]

This kind of confirms for me that I'll be going BL > BE1 > GD > BE2. This way I can start with BL like I wanted, but I can also have the moral dilemma of being in the position of fighting against each house post timeskip after I've already played as that house. I originally intended BE as being last, but BL > GD > BE1 > BE2 doesn't allow me to do this.

[Yexin]

10 hours ago, Hauke said:

Who says the 4th route is the correct one?

the fact that if this 4th route wasn't the correct one, it wouldn't make sense for it to even exist?

i mean, i highly doubt that IntSys' reasoning for this is "hey, we really like black eagles, so here you go, a black eagle-only extra story part"

10 hours ago, Etheus said:

This may just reflect that Edelgard is in a different position from the other house lords.

 

IMO, she's in a position to be in a villain role, and their attempts to paint Dmitri as violent or unhinged are nothing more than marketing subterfuge on their part. The sign posting is pretty obvious, right down to her post timeskip appearance (does she look like a hero to you?), and she could have a choice somewhat akin to Conquest Corrin's choice (embrace the empire or reform it), albeit hopefully better written.

if this is the case, i could be ok with that, but i'd still be quite a bit disappointed

 

10 hours ago, Disclaimer said:

There's no indication that it's the "correct" one, or that either of the other Houses are inferior.

you mean except the fact that, apparently, black eagles get more contents than other houses, right?

 

btw, i'm not here to force my opinions to anyone, i just stated what i felt

if you guys do not agree with me or think i'm wrong, well, deal with it i guess

you won't accomplish anything by showing me why my opinions are flawed

[Rose482]

I wouldn't mind a fourth route, the more there is to the game, the better it is, right? I also wouldn't mind it if it ended up being the "true ending" kind of route.

And now that female lords got brought up...honestly I'm just glad we will be getting another none-avatar one, becasue it feels like it been so long since we got a new one that isn't from a remake or that isn't an avatar. And if you were one of the people that don't consider Lucina to be a true lord, that would make Micaiah the last one we got, and FE10 came out so long ago now lol V_V

Anyway, back to talking about this potential fourth route, if it indeed ended up being another Edelgard route, would that give her more screen time than the other lords? Maybe, and I know some people aren't fan of having one lord take more screen time, but honestly I don't think getting more screen time means that much. Having more screen time might sound nice, but it's what you do in that time is what counts. 

[timon]

I like the 4th route option, even if it's just for one house I don't think that takes away from the other houses, from the leak we know that it's probably not a "true ending", it's just an alternative for one of the lords.

Edelgard has been pushed as being the central character, but I don't see it as a bad thing, it makes the story more interesting. I see a trend lately in whatever work of fiction which is putting inclusion and "balance" before everything else.

You're writing a story, but wait! Have you included at least one character of every ethnicity and one of every gender and one of every sexual orientation? And are you sure that every single one of those characters matters the same so no one gets upset? Good! But wait, are you sure the story's good? Oh... it doesn't matter.

What I'm trying to say is: whatever if Edelgard is pushed, the story makes it so her character has more aspects than the other two (and I'm not even sure we're talking about a positive turn), but if you're a Dimitri/Claude fan then that will be your canon path and you'll appreciate them more.

btw that's all speculation based on the 4th path being on the Black Eagles (based on leak), and do note that that doesn't mean you'll be with Edelgard. The Seiros vs Nemesis / Edelgard vs Byleth analogy has been pushed a lot, it might be a path where you stop supporting her because she's getting out of hand.
In which case it would be interesting, because the Black Eagles path would be the one difficult to accept as "canon" (you either support blindly a crazy emperor or you go against her, thus not making it possible to get an actual "good ending" with the leader you chose).

 

2 hours ago, Duke of Dozel said:

To be fair, he looks much more attractive

I know this seems to be the majority's opinion, but to hell if I understand it. She's got a cute face, a hot bod, lovely flowing hair, she's a beauty. Meanwhile he's over there fighting with Lorenz and Ignatz over who's got a worse haircut rofl

[Ririn]

5 hours ago, Hauke said:

Your choices still matter. Even MORE if you have more choices. A fourth route inside another route proves another choice that matters

Not really in my view since from the start I have to choose a specific route in order to experience the fourth route.

Of course, we don't have an idea what the fourth route entails but I just felt like I got the short end of the stick if I choose Golden Deer or Blue Lion since they don't have extra content compare to the latter. 

That's just my opinion and how I felt on the matter and I'm not pushing my opinion to those who disagree with me since you can't expect all of us of share the same opinion. 

Edited July 16, 2019 by Ririn

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

2 hours ago, Hekselka said:

I actually expect MByleth to be the more popular one this time around if only because of their design compared to FByleth.

Well he is already getting pushed and promoted hard.

Also agreed @Duke of Dozel

Edited July 16, 2019 by Dorothea Joestar Arnold

[Onestep]

39 minutes ago, timon said:

I know this seems to be the majority's opinion, but to hell if I understand it. She's got a cute face, a hot bod, lovely flowing hair, she's a beauty. Meanwhile he's over there fighting with Lorenz and Ignatz over who's got a worse haircut rofl

Male Byleth simply has a better aesthetic. He wears dark armor, is perpetually grim and has a slim. more angled face. He looks like a hardass, and it makes the out-of-character moments where he's smiling or acting excited more notable.

Comparatively, Female Byleth is kind of all over the place. Her armor has way more bright stripes of multiple colours all over it, to the point it stops accentuating the armor and starts clashing with it and her face is rounder and generally more cheerful and expressive.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe that Male Byleth will be more popular.

[Ranadiel]

Had some thoughts regarding the fourth route that I posted to Reddit this morning and figured I should share here:

 

So a fourth route branching off of Edelgard's route was mentioned in Thanibomb's leak. Last night I saw some comments indicating that at least one reviewer had mentioned there being four routes. So that got me thinking as to what the difference between Edelgard's two routes could be. And a theory crystallized in my mind based on what we currently know.

So in the various material for the game we have seen Edelgard associated with two weapons, the sword that Seiros used in the opening battle against Nemesis and an axe associated with a crest that I don't believe we know the name of. We know that she has the crest of Seiros and it seems likely that she also has some version of the axe's crest as well. So one possible conclusion is that the she is going to at some point be pulled into two different directions due to her mixed heritage. One is going to be to follow the church (the Seiros path) and the other would be to follow in the footsteps of the ancestor who bore the axe's crest.

This of course leaves open the question of what the axe ancestor's intentions were. Well, we might be able to piece some of that together in broad strokes. The opening cut scene potentially tells us a lot on this topic. In the opening we see two armies clashing, one full of knights the other "barbarians." Seiros, the leader of the knights, is wielding a traditional looking sword of metal while Nemesi, leader of the "barbarians," is wielding a whip sword with a primal feel due to it appearing to have been made out of bone or stone (probably dragon bone). Which of these does the unknown axe look more like? The primal Nemesis. So, the axe's owner could very well have been a follower of Nemesis and the axe was made in a similar fashion as the Sword of the Creator. Thus, the axe's owner's aim would be to fulfill whatever Nemesis's goal was. Probably to destroy the church.

Now I know what you are thinking. But Claude and Dimitri also have bone like weapons and the crests on those are associated with the Ten Elites that followed Seiros into battle against Nemesis. Well there are several possibilities to explain this discrepancy. My gut feeling is that following Nemesis's defeat, some of his followers swore loyalty to Seiros to save their own skin and the history books were written to make them her followers to validate the power she gave them afterwards, but it could also be that the Ten Elites included (consisted of?) followers of Nemesis that betrayed him prior to the final battle. Also possible that the weapons were stolen before the final battle, but that feels more like a stretch to me.

So in summation theory goes:

- Edelgard's two routes are the result of her being torn in two different directions represented by her crests

- The Seiros crest represents her fulfilling her duty as Emperor

- The crest on her axe represents a different path that likely includes opposing the church

Not sure which of those two is more likely to be the "kill them all" path. Although, since I get the vibe that Nemesis was probably the good guy in the war, I suppose opposing the church (and likely throwing away her station in the process?) would probably be the "good" path? That doesn't necessarily rule out having to kill everyone though if they are content with the status quo (other than the war). >.>

Hopefully people like this theory. It might of needed another day baking in my head, but I wanted to get it down before further leaks start popping up."

 

Later Post: "

Thinking about it a bit more, it might actually be more accurate to characterize the two paths as:

Seiros: Choosing duty over personal feelings

Axe Crest: Choosing personal feelings over duty

So with that characterization, the axe crest path might be about destroying the crests, which possibly could have been Nemesis's goal during the ancient war, while Seiros's crest's path would be keeping the system of the crests in place (unless I have it backwards and the church wants to get rid of the crests). Still wouldn't answer which path, if either, is the "kill them all" path or "golden" path, but it might give a better idea of what I'm thinking their different feels would be."

[Fabulously Olivier]

6 hours ago, Yexin said:

the fact that if this 4th route wasn't the correct one, it wouldn't make sense for it to even exist?

i mean, i highly doubt that IntSys' reasoning for this is "hey, we really like black eagles, so here you go, a black eagle-only extra story part"

if this is the case, i could be ok with that, but i'd still be quite a bit disappointed

 

you mean except the fact that, apparently, black eagles get more contents than other houses, right?

 

btw, i'm not here to force my opinions to anyone, i just stated what i felt

if you guys do not agree with me or think i'm wrong, well, deal with it i guess

you won't accomplish anything by showing me why my opinions are flawed

It could be the opposite and Edelgard could come across less favorably than the other lords once people experience all of the stories. More doesn't equate to better, and having more paths could actually dilute the Black Eagles' writing.

[bufkus]

glad i was going to pick Edelgard and only play her to begin with (I don't know about you guys but I don't have time to be maximizing this game and playing every house). Hopefully the paths are spoiled beforehand so I can choose the one I want to go with from the getgo.

[Yexin]

24 minutes ago, bufkus said:

glad i was going to pick Edelgard and only play her to begin with (I don't know about you guys but I don't have time to be maximizing this game and playing every house). Hopefully the paths are spoiled beforehand so I can choose the one I want to go with from the getgo.

why even spending 60$ only to play a third of a game to begin with? nobody forces you to buy a full priced game you don't have the time to play

but hey, your money, your decisions, i'm not here to tell you what to do

 

EDIT:

@Etheus "It could be the opposite and Edelgard could come across less favorably than the other lords once people experience all of the stories. More doesn't equate to better, and having more paths could actually dilute the Black Eagles' writing."

that's not exactly my point, but it doesn't matter

also, i never said that "more = better": what i did say is "why do you advertise a game with the "your choices matter" motto, to the point that the game itself has three different storylines depending of what you choose to do, but lock the true ending to only one branch?"

 

now, about the "finally a female lord worthy of this title": personally, i don't care

i mean, it's not one character's gender that should grant him/her praise, but what s/he does and how s/he acts

i'm not the greatest edelgard fan myself (i generally don't like rigid and cold characters, and her design in general doesn't drive me crazy), but if she ends up being an amazing character with a wonderful character development, i'd be more than happy to welcome her among my favorite FE characters, regardless of what she has between her legs

but this is just me, i guess

Edited July 16, 2019 by Yexin

[Rose482]

47 minutes ago, Yexin said:

also, i never said that "more = better": what i did say is "why do you advertise a game with the "your choices matter" motto, to the point that the game itself has three different storylines depending of what you choose to do, but lock the true ending to only one branch?"

 

Just becasue Edelgard might have two routes, that doesn't mean none of your choices matter here? I mean, you have the choice to NOT pick Edelgard and go with a different lord character. And that's right there is a choice, which matters a lot, and the game is letting you make it. So I believe they have the right here to advertise it the way they had so far.

And honestly, most games with different paths usually have one true ending, so it's not that shocking this could be the same here for FE16.

[Druplesnubb]

Why do people keep acting like one of the Black Eagle routes will be a "true ending" anyway? The fact that we know it's fully available on the first playthrough with no extra hoops and the game fully warning you of the route split goes completely against that idea. The game is not just gonna ask you "do you want the best ending or a worse ending". The choice between following Ephraim or Eirika in Sacred Stones didn't have one choice be more "correct" than the other, nor did the route splits in Thracia and Binding Blade. Neither did the choice between Hoshido and Nohr (Revelation isn't comparable since it was a special dlc route and also couldn't be picked on your first playthrough from what I remember).

[Disclaimer]

Tactics Ogre has a two route split: Lawful and Chaotic. Chaotic then has a second divergence: Chaotic or Neutral. 

Trust me when I say that did not make Chaotic "more canon" than Lawful. At all. It's very likely to be the same here. It's just *more content*.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Disclaimer

[Florete]

1 hour ago, Druplesnubb said:

(Revelation isn't comparable since it was a special dlc route and also couldn't be picked on your first playthrough from what I remember).

It could be, but the game recommended against picking it on your first time.

[Silverly]

9 hours ago, timon said:

I know this seems to be the majority's opinion, but to hell if I understand it. She's got a cute face, a hot bod, lovely flowing hair, she's a beauty. Meanwhile he's over there fighting with Lorenz and Ignatz over who's got a worse haircut rofl

Finally someone I absolutely agree with! Female Byleth has the superior design to me as well. I think her outfit is very attractive and unique in a good way, and she has gorgeous hair as well. I also don’t mind she has a larger than average bust as well. At least it’s not terribly distracting compared to other characters (I’m looking at you, Loki).

Meanwhile the guy looks generic and barely emotes, kinda like the cliche blank slate protagonist look to him. Not a fan.

[SoulWeaver]

17 hours ago, Duke of Dozel said:

To be fair, he looks much more attractive

And the Persona-Jojo war continues...
That's literally what I thought when I saw this comparison, them facing each other with M-Byleth yelling Persona while pointing a gun at his own head and F-Byleth yelling ORA ORA ORA while striking the signature pose.

14 hours ago, timon said:

You're writing a story, but wait! Have you included at least one character of every ethnicity and one of every gender and one of every sexual orientation? And are you sure that every single one of those characters matters the same so no one gets upset? Good! But wait, are you sure the story's good? Oh... it doesn't matter.

That's precisely why I can't stand half of modern...literally everything, actually. Why on earth would I want to pair M-Corrin with Niles or F-Corrin with Rhajat if it meant sacrificing the entirety of the story quality, just to throw a completely random example I definitely wasn't recently reminded of out there? Same here, if 3H ends up having a meh story but oh boy, I can write lewds about F-Byleth and Edelgard and have it canonically fit into the lore, I'm just going to be even more pissed that this isn't Re:Elibe than I already am...and I'm still pretty pissed about that.

9 hours ago, Yexin said:

i'm not the greatest Edelgard fan myself (i generally don't like rigid and cold characters, and her design in general doesn't drive me crazy), but if she ends up being an amazing character with a wonderful character development, i'd be more than happy to welcome her among my favorite FE characters, regardless of what she has between her legs

but this is just me, i guess

It's me too, I have nothing against them pushing a lady Lord so long as she's actually well done, it's when the fanbase starts to blow it out of proportion with words like 'Finally' that send a specific message that bothers me. Acting like we've somehow been owed a good female protagonist who don't need no man to shine for far too long just gets on my nerves because I hate seeing fandoms that act so entitled - it's not us making the game, if you don't support the lack of a strong female lead then obvious answer is obvious, don't support the game, or learn to hack and make a rom where things go the way you think they should.

[firewitch912]

3 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

That's precisely why I can't stand half of modern...literally everything, actually. Why on earth would I want to pair M-Corrin with Niles or F-Corrin with Rhajat if it meant sacrificing the entirety of the story quality, just to throw a completely random example I definitely wasn't recently reminded of out there? Same here, if 3H ends up having a meh story but oh boy, I can write lewds about F-Byleth and Edelgard and have it canonically fit into the lore, I'm just going to be even more pissed that this isn't Re:Elibe than I already am...and I'm still pretty pissed about that.

People are gay, Stephen.

Also I doubt people write fanfiction really care about canon

3 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

It's me too, I have nothing against them pushing a lady Lord so long as she's actually well done, it's when the fanbase starts to blow it out of proportion with words like 'Finally' that send a specific message that bothers me. Acting like we've somehow been owed a good female protagonist who don't need no man to shine for far too long just gets on my nerves because I hate seeing fandoms that act so entitled - it's not us making the game, if you don't support the lack of a strong female lead then obvious answer is obvious, don't support the game, or learn to hack and make a rom where things go the way you think they should.

True, we aren't making the game, but the game is being made for us as consumers in general. That specific message for me is that people are glad to actually have decent representation, not some sense of entitlement.

And yes, not buying the game is one way to show criticism, but they have no way of knowing your reasons unless you state them. So just not supporting the game is rather useless in actuality.

[0 Def Cleric]

7 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

[snip]

I mean, it's pretty easy to say that something's getting blown out of proportion when you see main characters of your own gender and sexuality in approximately 95% of all video games that exist, but for people who aren't men, it's sometimes nice to see ourselves, ya know? Sacrificing story quality for representation IS a big problem, especially with self-published western lit nowadays, but it sure wasn't the main problem with Fates' story, or for that matter any FE story so far. 
Now, it's not that people are going to boycott Intsys for having a male lead! If we did that, don't you think that none of us would be FE fans in the first place? Sometimes it's nice to have some variety, though. After all, if we had a bunch of Lords that were exactly the same, we'd end up with Marth the Sixteenth rather than a new interesting take on the story. The challenges with being a woman ruler of an entire empire in the medieval/Renaissance time period is certainly something interesting to explore, no? 
After all, if FE was represented by a bunch of lady lords and men who just can't get their act together, I'm sure people would write it off as lazy storytelling to not have any variety in that sense. Why is the opposite problem being remedied an issue to you?

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

18 minutes ago, 0 Def Cleric said:

After all, if we had a bunch of Lords that were exactly the same, we'd end up with Marth the Sixteenth rather than a new interesting take on the story.

Currently we have:

1. Marth
2. Marth the 2nd? (Difficult to say if NES Alm is a second Marth, but SoV one might more clearly be able to say is one.)
3. Celica
4. Sigurd- Skilled warrior, not a soft appearance, but no lust for battle. If at all a Marth, a tragic one.
5. Marth Junior- Seliph is such a straight up Marth 3.0 (or 2.0 if NES Alm not counted).
6. Marth 4.0 "The Struggler"- Leif
7. Marth 5.0 "The Merlinus is Wrong"- Roy
8. Sacaean Sami (Lyn)
9. Ostian Max (Hector)
10. Marth 6.0 "Andy" and Father of Marth 5.0- Eliwood
11. Eirika- Peaceful like Lyn and SoV Celica, but not the same to the point of true imitation.
12. Our Second Lord Who Lusts For War- Ephraim (the first is Hector)
13. Mercenary Who Starts With Marth's Bases- Ike
14. Deidre 3/4.0- Micaiah
15. Physique of Ike, Personality of Marth With A Bit More Toughness- Chrom
16. Looks Like Marth, But Isn't- Lucina
17. Fated To Not Be Marth Unless You Make Them Male and Blue- Corrin
18. Bye and Bye and the Three Amigos

So the number of Marths we've had is arguable based on how similar to Marth you argue each of them to be. If we're being strict, I'd say we just have 4 Marths and Marth-a-likes: Marth, Seliph, Roy, Eliwood. Adding Leif and Alm brings us to 6. But you might be so loose as to include yet others in this category of sameness.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[0 Def Cleric]

7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

So the number of Marths we've had is arguable based on how similar to Marth you argue each of them to be. If we're being strict, I'd say we just have 4 Marths and Marth-a-likes: Marth, Seliph, Roy, Eliwood. Adding Leif and Alm brings us to 6. But you might be so loose as to include yet others in this category of sameness.

Alm's more like the proto-Hector, but yes. We're decidedly below half-Marth status so far. 

[SoulWeaver]

18 minutes ago, firewitch912 said:

People are gay, Stephen.

Also I doubt people write fanfiction really care about canon

True, we aren't making the game, but the game is being made for us as consumers in general. That specific message for me is that people are glad to actually have decent representation, not some sense of entitlement.

And yes, not buying the game is one way to show criticism, but they have no way of knowing your reasons unless you state them. So just not supporting the game is rather useless in actuality.

Spoiler

 

Of course there are gays and other people like them out there, one of my friends claims to be a being of unknown gender and she has a girlfriend, but that's precisely the problem - if enough people are too busy trying to add in token gay/black/insert-other-character-type-here to bother with making the story or gameplay good, eventually it becomes the minority's fault in the minds of the players that those issues exist, and not the devs' fault for trying to please the more varied members of their audience rather than just make something actually good.
In addition, to explain so you understand exactly where I'm coming from on this particular issue, I play fantasy games to get away from the real world, not to see the real world turn the fantasy world into the real world but with magic, and Fire Emblem in particular I play for the tactical aspect of the game - these could be sentient bushes with weaponry and I'd still enjoy the gameplay part of it all. I understand not everyone feels this way, but if I want to see gay and lesbian relationships in a game entirely about people hitting each other with swords, I can just go search 'Fire Emblem' or better yet 'Super Smash Bros' on DeviantArt and get that plus a whole lot more that I also didn't need to see but accepted as a natural consequence of being on DeviantArt in the first place.

True, I was mostly just throwing a random example out there with that. I would still take Re:Elibe over this game no matter how good it ends up being, though.

I think you may have missed what I was saying - announcing you're glad to get decent representation is all well and good, it's the wording thereof that bothers me, because using stronger words like 'Finally' implies that really I should have had whatever I'm talking about forever ago, but I guess I can accept it this late if you grovel and beg a little bit, dev peasants. While obviously that isn't what all individuals making this statement mean, that's what the word 'Finally' in this instance is usually seen to imply, regardless of intent. This could be, though, because my mother and grandfather often stressed to me the importance of choosing one's words carefully while I was growing up, so I like to think I have a slightly more cautious outlook on wordage than most people I converse with on the internet...that is, when I'm not being a hateful racist bigot, according to several of those people. It's actually one of the reasons I like conversations involving the aboveposted Interdimensional Observer, as he's someone who also understands the importance of using words carefully and properly, and usually manages to do so in an enjoyable manner.

Oh, of course, but one problem is that it can be quite difficult to actually get in touch with devs to properly explain one's issues with a game - it's not like we can all just schedule an interview with Sakurai and tell him exactly why Ultimate should have been Melee 2.0, so some of us are rather limited in our methods of response to a game. In addition, buying a game also sends the message that you approve of it enough to spend however much money the store asked for on it, but unless the game has a site with a survey or review system the devs won't hear that you bought it in spite of certain features rather than because of those features, so while not buying a game doesn't get your exact point across, neither does buying it in spite of your issues with it. If anything, not buying the game says more assuming as mentioned just above the game doesn't have any sort of survey/review system, since it's obvious enough was bad that you decided it wasn't worth your money.

 

58 minutes ago, 0 Def Cleric said:

I mean, it's pretty easy to say that something's getting blown out of proportion when you see main characters of your own gender and sexuality in approximately 95% of all video games that exist, but for people who aren't men, it's sometimes nice to see ourselves, ya know? Sacrificing story quality for representation IS a big problem, especially with self-published western lit nowadays, but it sure wasn't the main problem with Fates' story, or for that matter any FE story so far. 
Now, it's not that people are going to boycott Intsys for having a male lead! If we did that, don't you think that none of us would be FE fans in the first place? Sometimes it's nice to have some variety, though. After all, if we had a bunch of Lords that were exactly the same, we'd end up with Marth the Sixteenth rather than a new interesting take on the story. The challenges with being a woman ruler of an entire empire in the medieval/Renaissance time period is certainly something interesting to explore, no? 
After all, if FE was represented by a bunch of lady lords and men who just can't get their act together, I'm sure people would write it off as lazy storytelling to not have any variety in that sense. Why is the opposite problem being remedied an issue to you?

Spoiler

 

The bolded section, just to nitpick for a second here, could have been worded better - taken at face value, this could imply that a female gamer doesn't find Camilla or Peri an insulting way to portray women. Obviously that wasn't what you meant, but I felt like I needed to point that out for future reference. Also you're assuming I'm not just pretending to be male on here, lol.
Actually, I don't play games so that the main character can match me - usually I play games because the concept interests me, like Conception 2, which was awfully handled with a garbage protagonist and fairly trope-y Heroines(Fuuko is still best girl though) but a cool combat system and a uniquely intriguing gimmick so I ended up enjoying it anyways despite its many flaws. I actually specifically went into both Awakening and Fates with a Female Avatar first so I could at least have a pretty character to look at if the plot ended up being boring or predictable, only starting the Male Avatar playthroughs after finishing the games, enjoying the story(or not), and establishing which characters I might like to S-Support on future playthroughs.

Of course not, boycotting a company at all is generally ridiculous because you miss out on opportunities to find things you might like simply because the company did something in the past that happened to bother you to a specific level. If I'd boycotted FE for Niles and Rhajat, I'd have missed out on SoV, which I enjoyed, and if I boycott them because 3H happens to not seem that great to me, I miss out on potentially enjoyable future games, like Re:Elibe when that finally happens. To address the variety bit, I'll refer you to the second half of my first paragraph above.
It's not the problem being remedied that's the issue, it's the fanbase's reaction to it - to restate, that we act like it's outrageous that we didn't get this three or four games ago, when in reality, as I stated in my first post on this thread(a whole page back, so I assume you never saw it, nobody bothers to read the entirety of a thread when responding to one post for obvious reasons), we pretty much did. I consider Awakening to be a game where the female Lord ended up outshining both her father and the Avatar character, both in overall popularity and in plot relevancy. Let's be real here, how important was Chrom really, outside of impregnating his wife with Lucina? You could have played pretty much the entire game after Gangrel's defeat without him being involved at all and the game would have been none the worse. Robin does provide a better argument, as he/she actually does stuff that's important, like deciding to set the ships on fire and ram them into the Valmese fleet, but even then half the Robins out there just further the case by being female and providing the majorly-important/competent female lead that overshadowed the game's male Lord character without Lucina getting involved. Speaking of Awakening, if Emmeryn's backstory had been expounded on at all, it would have covered the challenges of being a female leader of a country thing too, and almost guaranteed done it better than whatever Edelgard's backstory turns out to be, since Emmeryn also had to deal with the issue of hey, my dad just spent years sending most if not all of our able-bodied workforce and citizenry(to say nothing of their positions as beloved fathers and sons) to their deaths, then died himself so you can't just let all your anger out on him. Sadly, it didn't go into this, I actually would have liked more Emmeryn screentime, but Awakening literally handled - if not completely then at least competently considering that wasn't even the game's goal - multiple issues I hear people acting like FE has completely ignored up until 3H.

 

Spoilered for size convenience. I'd prefer to just call the discussion here to prevent any derailing of the thread, but please feel free to reply to this - even if I don't respond, I do read when people respond to things I say, and I like to understand where other people are coming from, provided they can explain themselves in a respectful manner. I do apologize if anything I've said bothers you, I'm simply stating my opinion, if perhaps in not always the nicest manner.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Currently we have

1. Marth
2. Marth the 2nd? (Difficult to say if NES Alm is a second Marth, but SoV one might more clearly be able to say is one.)
3. Celica
4. Sigurd- Skilled warrior, not a soft appearance, but no lust for battle. If at all a Marth, a tragic one.
5. Marth Junior- Seliph is such a straight up Marth 3.0 (or 2.0 if NES Alm not counted).
6. Marth 4.0 "The Struggler"- Leif
7. Marth 5.0 "The Merlinus is Wrong"- Roy
8. Sacaean Sami (Lyn)
9. Ostian Max (Hector)
10. Marth 6.0 "Andy" and Father of Marth 5.0- Eliwood
11. Eirika- Peaceful like Lyn and SoV Celica, but not the same to the point of true imitation.
12. Our Second Lord Who Lusts For War- Ephraim (the first is Hector)
13. Mercenary Who Starts With Marth's Bases- Ike
14. Deidre 3/4.0- Micaiah
15. Physique of Ike, Personality of Marth With A Bit More Toughness- Chrom
16. Looks Like Marth, But Isn't- Lucina
17. Fated To Not Be Marth Unless You Make Them Male and Blue Corrin
18. Bye and Bye and the Three Amigos

So the number of Marths we've had is arguable based on how similar to Marth you argue each of them to be. If we're being strict, I'd say we just have 4 Marths and Marth-a-likes: Marth, Seliph, Roy, Eliwood. Adding Leif and Alm brings us to 6. But you might be so loose as to include yet others in this category of sameness.

As always, sir, you give me an excellent laugh without even appearing to try, thank you.

[firewitch912]

35 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

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Of course there are gays and other people like them out there, one of my friends claims to be a being of unknown gender and she has a girlfriend, but that's precisely the problem - if enough people are too busy trying to add in token gay/black/insert-other-character-type-here to bother with making the story or gameplay good, eventually it becomes the minority's fault in the minds of the players that those issues exist, and not the devs' fault for trying to please the more varied members of their audience rather than just make something actually good.
In addition, to explain so you understand exactly where I'm coming from on this particular issue, I play fantasy games to get away from the real world, not to see the real world turn the fantasy world into the real world but with magic, and Fire Emblem in particular I play for the tactical aspect of the game - these could be sentient bushes with weaponry and I'd still enjoy the gameplay part of it all. I understand not everyone feels this way, but if I want to see gay and lesbian relationships in a game entirely about people hitting each other with swords, I can just go search 'Fire Emblem' or better yet 'Super Smash Bros' on DeviantArt and get that plus a whole lot more that I also didn't need to see but accepted as a natural consequence of being on DeviantArt in the first place.

True, I was mostly just throwing a random example out there with that. I would still take Re:Elibe over this game no matter how good it ends up being, though.

I think you may have missed what I was saying - announcing you're glad to get decent representation is all well and good, it's the wording thereof that bothers me, because using stronger words like 'Finally' implies that really I should have had whatever I'm talking about forever ago, but I guess I can accept it this late if you grovel and beg a little bit, dev peasants. While obviously that isn't what all individuals making this statement mean, that's what the word 'Finally' in this instance is usually seen to imply, regardless of intent. This could be, though, because my mother and grandfather often stressed to me the importance of choosing one's words carefully while I was growing up, so I like to think I have a slightly more cautious outlook on wordage than most people I converse with on the internet...that is, when I'm not being a hateful racist bigot, according to several of those people. It's actually one of the reasons I like conversations involving the aboveposted Interdimensional Observer, as he's someone who also understands the importance of using words carefully and properly, and usually manages to do so in an enjoyable manner.

Oh, of course, but one problem is that it can be quite difficult to actually get in touch with devs to properly explain one's issues with a game - it's not like we can all just schedule an interview with Sakurai and tell him exactly why Ultimate should have been Melee 2.0, so some of us are rather limited in our methods of response to a game. In addition, buying a game also sends the message that you approve of it enough to spend however much money the store asked for on it, but unless the game has a site with a survey or review system the devs won't hear that you bought it in spite of certain features rather than because of those features, so while not buying a game doesn't get your exact point across, neither does buying it in spite of your issues with it. If anything, not buying the game says more assuming as mentioned just above the game doesn't have any sort of survey/review system, since it's obvious enough was bad that you decided it wasn't worth your money.

 

 

You just sound so supportive of your friend. Also it sounds like the problem of the players if they blame the minority representation. That's nice that you play to get away, so do we. But adding in minority representation doesn't take away from that, unless you personally have a problem with it. If you play fire emblem purely for tactics, then why would you even care about the romance options, much less which ones are available for queer people. Also, Deviantart isn't representation, and we shouldn't have to resort to fantasizing about how we could have been included.

I understand you like RE:Elibe, but it's not exactly relevant.

Oh I understood what you thought. But all of these minorities have existed for ages, we can say finally after it takes so long to get representation. And respectability politics, i.e. the idea that people must be polite and phrase everything in a particular way, is really only used to try and dismiss complaints from minority groups. It's especially ironic that you claim a desire for carefully chosen words, given that you have so far failed to be tactful about your disdain for people in these minorities. Also after so many people say something about you, you might want to consider the possibility that they're telling the truth.

I think you missed my point here- buying or not buying is ultimately useless because the developer will have no way to know your reason, or that you even wanted to buy the game. The most logical assumption for them would be that people weren't interested in the game itself and its main focus, rather than having issues with specific parts. That's why people should talk about it, and loudly, so that the developers can take notice about these more specific issues.

Edited July 17, 2019 by firewitch912