Post game thoughts thread (Spoilers)

[Brimney]

Here’s a thread to post your post-game thoughts. I’ve played through a Golden Deer and am close to finishing my Black Eagle run, going to finish off with Blue Deer and

Spoiler

Maybe do church route last on the save I made specifically on my black eagle run, but I hear church is basically golden deer

I don’t want to make a judgement without playing through all the routes but 

Spoiler

As much as Black Eagles is interesting, Golden Deer will probably stay my favorite. I love Claude so much. I will follow him into battle every time. 

I really hope we get DLC so we can spend more time with the characters.

Spoiler

Every time I see the ending I get teary eyed. Seeing my students go out and change history.  Makes a teacher proud. 

 

[Landmaster]

I just finished the Blue Lions Route, so I'll give my thoughts on it here. Will include spoilers so read at your own discretion.

Things I liked:

Spoiler

I don't want to prematurely say this, but I expect this will be my favorite route. Dimitri has incredible character development and is one the best written Lords in my opinion. He is extremely sympathetic and his story really kept me going. And maybe it's first time bias but I loved my class, they felt like a good mix of characters that weren't too out there and got along well, even if they weren't perfect and some got on my nerves.

I enjoy the story basically being about his rise into his position as king. While it does make the route very Dimitri-centric, I liked how it played out.

Also F!Byelth and Dimitri is best ship~

Things I wish we got more on

Spoiler

I wish we found out what happened to Lady Rhea during the 5 years. As far as I know, she was being held hostage, is saved at the end and...that's it. We never hear from her again, which is disappointing so, I'd like to really know what that was all about.

Things I expect in the other routes

Spoiler

I have already been told there's a lot about Rhea that I don't know. All I know is that she is a dragon. I know Golden Deer explains more of her backstory and I'm sure Black Eagles will also reveal a lot about her that I don't know. I also know I'll find out why Byleth doesn't have a heartbeat in the Golden Deer path, which is also something that interested me but we didn't get much of in BL's Route.

Overall, really really enjoyed Blue Lions. I am currently doing Golden Deer and really look forward to it closing some loose ends and hoping I find out what they were doing with Lady Rhea in the five years.

[Landmaster]

Guess I'll have to double post here, sorry mods~ And Spoiler warning of course in advance (also minor BL spoilers).

Finished Golden Deer 

Things I liked:

Spoiler

I liked that the story is less focused on the war and more focused on the lore of the church, Byleth, Rhea, Sothis. When playing through BL, it occurred to me that I had no idea what the meaning was with the opening cutscene and what it had to do with anything, which I now know is related to everything that is uncovered here.

The final battle actually being against vampire Nemesis and not Edelgard surprised me. Though in a sense, it made Edelgard a bit underwhelming. I feel this route kinda puts Edgy on the backburner and they're only really stopping her because it's the morally right thing to do (whereas, obviously in BL, it's mainly for revenge). But that's fine, since the purpose of the route is on the lore. The Golden Deer House remind me of Scooby Doo and the Mystery Machine. They're more about solving mysteries and achieving their personal goals, but working together to do it, which I did like.

Claude is a very interesting character. He seems like he doesn't care about much at first and him being blatantly nonreligious was really interesting since he's essentially on the side of the church, but it makes his character really interesting to want to know about. As he says, he has a lot of secrets, and the game really gets you wanting to know what they are. Also him not being from Fodlan and wanting to unify it makes for a really interesting ambition (I know I keep saying interesting, but I can't think of a better way to describe Claude. He's just interesting. Even if his S Support with Byleth triggered me.  

Also really enjoyed the last two chapters.

Things I wished we got more on:

Spoiler

Dimitri kinda just shows up in one chapter and dies right away off camera. It's a little underwhelming. It felt like he was there just for the sake of it. Which, I guess his route is so focused on him that it's not particularly a bad thing but I feel like if this is your first route, he's just completely shafted compared to Edgy and Claude. I assume he'll probably be more prominent in BE/Church Route than here, so I guess that's fine. But I feel Golden Deer players probably forget who Dimitri is at that point.

Also, what happens with Dedue? He didn't die in the fight against Edgy but he just disappears off the face of the earth and is never mentioned again. I guess I just have to assume he goes back to the Kingdom?

What I expect from the other routes

Spoiler

Well, I got all the lore, and I have Dimitri's redemption. Only thing left really is to learn what exactly it is Edgy hates so much about the church. I think I've gotten everything lorewise.

 

[ZeManaphy]

I played Blue Lions first, and Golden Deer 2nd, so here are my thoughts. '

Blue Lions:

Things I liked: 

Spoiler

I loved how each of the student gets plenty of time to be fleshed out, and I really genuinely cared for my students to the point that I recruited every one on my GD playthrough because I couldn't bear fighting them. I'm planning to do Crismson Flower next, so I'm recruiting all of them again. Dimitri is a well-written character  who struggles with Survivor's Guilt, but eventually makes through it, becoming a chivalrous man of compassion. Finally we get a lord, who actually suffers from War-related trauma. I do enjoy the contrast between Edelgard and Dimitri, with the former refusing to find a peaceful way to obtain her goals and not admitting errors, while the latter does admit his errors and tries his best to fix his sins, while showing Mercy. 

Things I didn't like: 

Spoiler

Pretty much everything with the Church, Byleth, and Rhea is dropped off totally. I'm guessing that its because its designed to encourage you to play the Golden Deer for the answers, but its kind of annoying in the sense that the suspicous build up, is dashed, since its a lot harder for Edelgard's goal's to be understood.

Golden Deer:

Things I like: 

Spoiler

While Blue Lions focused on the war and Edelgard and Dimitri's relationship, this path focuses on the Church, Rhea, and TWSID. Aside from caring for my students in the same department as BLs, I liked it because we gained much needed info on the crests, Relics, Byleth, Rhea, and TWSID. I like despite how Claude is seemingly carefree, he actually is very understanding on how the crest system oppresses foreigners and non-believers and does care about his friends deeply. Its those beliefs that encourages Claude to build a world by letting people come from all over by revealing the truth of the church. 

Things I didn't like:

Spoiler

Blue Lions only appear once, and that's in Chapter 17, and everyone almost certainly dies in that chapter. In fact the whole situation in Faerghus remains unsolved, so Its questionable on how they jointed the United Kingdom of Fodlan. I suppose its to encourage the playthrough of Blue Lions. I really dislike how conceptually and map-wise, it was almost identical to Blue Lions. 12-17 used the same maps as Blue Lions, while 18-20 featured the same locations and story, but slightly different maps. The only different ones were 21 and 22, which replaced the Faergus turmoil. 

 

[virtu333]

I finished BL, BE (Edelgard), GD in that order

Brief thoughts:

Spoiler

• BL is a very self-contained, character driven story - a very fun take on the traditional FE lord story. Great class dynamics along with a great lord - best supporting class.
• BE is definitely fun and interesting - definitely disagree with Edelgard but she's a lot of fun in terms of her charisma and as a character. Definitely the Edelgard show though
  • Unfortunately, this felt rushed. Less maps, fewer cutscenes...didn't quite live up to the hype in some cases
• GD was a great capstone because now we understand the other two, we can take a step back and see the context/lore. Also a fun, relevant theme - Claude probably favorite lord overall, but the character arcs aren't as strong as BL/BE

I do think that we need...

Spoiler

Some kind of joint route. Because damn, having to play 120ish hours to do 3 routes to get a fairly full picture of story is a fuck ton to ask.

I also do feel that having single routes of 18-22 chapters is not nearly as epic as something like Radiant Dawn, which got up to like 40 chapters? There's something about that depth that is tough to beat - especially when combined with 30 chapters of PoR

 

Edited August 16, 2019 by virtu333

[Res]

I also played Blue Lions first, then I did Edelgard’s route and finally I’m currently on the Golden Deer.

Blue Lions:

Spoiler

I love this route. I actually kind of like that it’s hyper focused on the characters and that the background stuff becomes irrelevant; it’ll make the Golden Deer playthrough more refreshing.

Dimitri is a fantastic character and Byleth/Dimitri is my OTP.

Black Eagles: Edelgard:

Spoiler

What was disappointing was that you don’t really learn much new information. Most of it I had already gleaned from my Lions playthrough. 

I wasn’t on board with invading the Kingdom or Alliance and didn’t find Edelgard too sympathetic.

 

[Landmaster]

The trifecta is completed and I've finished Black Eagles and I'll leave my thoughts~

Things I liked:

Spoiler

Crimson Flower not only takes on the perspective of the people actually leading the war, but it also shows this pretty well by giving them different maps than BL and GD~ While majority of them are just starting on the other side, it's at least nice for the variance.

When you leave the Monastery for that one chapter and stay at the hideout was really cool! It was something I wish was the case for the timeskip and that we actually took base somewhere other than the Monastery (which I'll talk about more in the next section).

Seeing Rhea go crazy was absolutely wild~

Things I didn't like:

Spoiler

Unfortunately, even though I still have the Church Route to play, I already know BE will be my least favorite route. I personally just didn't find it fun playing on Edelgard's side. It was fine for the first few maps, but her attitude towards invading the Alliance and Kingdom progressively got worse and worse. I can't get behind her ideals, she never made it feel like we were fighting the evil church and Crest system, it felt like we're invading the Alliance and Kingdom and oh, we'll also kill Rhea because she's evil and all that. But you do that last. That is Edelgard's last priority. She clearly desires to rule Fodlan as Emperor more than she cares about abolishing the Crest System.

I never understood why we take base at the Monastery. Edelgard should want nothing to do with the place because she hates everything it stands for. The game still even lets you celebrate the Saints' Holidays which is very questionable for the same reason. I would have loved if we stayed at some place in the Empire instead. I know, gameplay wise, it's easier to just stay at the Monastery, but it just felt so out of place.

The Black Eagle class were insultingly mindless on this route. Nevermind the fact that I can't ever see Linhardt, Bernadetta, or Petra ever siding with her (Ferdie is questionable), but they just barely seem to even agree with her cause. Caspar spouts nonsense every month about just wanting to fight whoever Edelgard is telling him to fight. Petra babbles on about pretty much the same. Neither ever really seem to be doing this because they agree with Edelgard's cause. Linhardt admits on Day 1 he's only on Edelgard's side because it's easier than standing against her. Bernadetta says they have to win because if they don't "the world will be really bad forever". Like what??? I'm sorry, but they just seem absurdly stupid in choosing to side with her and only function as mindless drones doing whatever she says without question.

Even worse is when you recruit extremely religious characters like Mercedes and Marianne. Marianne had absolutely no reason not to leave in the time skip, she has no incentive at all to ever side against the church given how devout she is. It just didn't make sense.

I know for gameplay reasons, they're not going to have you go through the effort to recruit certain characters and not let you use them. But I also can't really get behind GD or BL members staying on her side. Talking to Ingrid has basically affirmed that she had absolutely no reason to turn against her homeland. She is only doing this because she believed in the path that Byleth chose. Not Edelgard. She trusts her teacher. But she never agreed outright with Edelgard. None of the other students I recruited said as much, either. They all are here for Byleth and their trust in them, more so than Edelgard. Again, Edelgard's route does a really bad job of convincing me that her ideals are worth considering.

This route has a grand total of ONE cutscene. ONE at the very end. Why? This is the route that was the most hyped and it is not only the shortest, but gets paid complete dust in terms of cutscenes. It was a cool cutscene, don't get me wrong, but why do we only get one? It honestly feels so underwhelming compared to the stuff we got in BL and GD. We don't even get more than a Still when Byleth and Edelgard are reunited. I wasn't a fan, at all.

TWSITD are paid dust. Claude defeats all of them. Dimitri defeats all of them. Edelgard is the only one who truly knows who they are right off the bat but the game never gives any confrontation against them which is stupid because they had another good 5 chapter left to make it the same length as the other routes. So why does this not happen in the game?

I'm really trying not to be so critical but there was just so much not adding up while playing this. Maybe if I had played it in another order, I would be a bit less critical, but as it stands, CF just wasn't all that enjoyable for me. I really think the lack of cutscenes made it even worse since there's nothing to draw me in

Things I expect from the Church Route:

Spoiler

I basically have everything down. I expect the last thing is for the Church Route to probably give a bit more Lore about Byleth and the Church itself since we don't have Claude and the Alliance as our driving force this time.