What is presently the best House/Route? (And Why I think it's Blue Lions/Azure Moon)

[wissenschaft]

2 hours ago, Hekselka said:

Seems like you're not the only one.

A lot of Japanese also really seem to like it.

https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/ctif4p/heres_nintendo_dream_poll_results/

apparently 63.9% of the voters were female and it seems female players picked blue lions the most. That seems to be true even in this forums poll where the most popular blue lion characters are the males while the other 2 houses have female characters as the favorites beside Cluade. 

Edited August 21, 2019 by wissenschaft

[Crysta]

part of the reason why i'm skeptical about the complaints about waifu-ism is because fire emblem has a considerable heterosexual female fanbase lol

[Dark Holy Elf]

5 hours ago, Crysta said:

part of the reason why i'm skeptical about the complaints about waifu-ism is because fire emblem has a considerable heterosexual female fanbase lol

Indeed.

I've always found the complaints of waifuism really weird, the characters accused of benefiting from it are typically perfectly popular with the heterosexual female fanbase.

[Slumber]

21 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Indeed.

I've always found the complaints of waifuism really weird, the characters accused of benefiting from it are typically perfectly popular with the heterosexual female fanbase.

The complaints of "waifu-ism" tend to be from males, who generally hang around with other males and pay attention to what other males are doing.

Also, as Fire Emblem was exploding in popularity... well, Camilla was one of the faces of the series. I think Fates really gave a lot of people weird ideas of what Fire Emblem was. Awakening was a sleeper hit, Fates was the first game that got to benefit from Nintendo really pushing the series.

So those things probably really caused the pervasive idea that Fire Emblem is a waifu series. But it, like Final Fantasy, has always had a strong female audience, and it's also just as much a husbando series.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Slumber

[Strullemia]

7 hours ago, Crysta said:

part of the reason why i'm skeptical about the complaints about waifu-ism is because fire emblem has a considerable heterosexual female fanbase lol

It's nice to have prove yet again that there's a big female fanbase in for FE. Some people like to pretend that those don't exist.

I think the "FE is more of a dating simulator" complaints would fit more considering how highly placed the self inserts are.

[Slumber]

38 minutes ago, Hekselka said:

I think the "FE is more of a dating simulator" complaints would fit more considering how highly placed the self inserts are.

That's straight up how people used to refer to the series before Awakening/Fates, even before the games started pushing Avatars.

[Strullemia]

Just now, Slumber said:

That's straight up how people used to refer to the series before Awakening/Fates, even before the games started pushing Avatars.

Oh really? I didn't join the FE Fanbase till a little bit before the release of Fates so I didn't know that.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Those results seem to support the idea that people favor what attracts them really. Mostly female demographic chooses the one house that is predominantly male while they chose the one house with a female lead the least when we know that statistics show BE as the most deployed overall. They chose Dimitri and Claude over Edelgard, furthering that, and after playing it the predominantly female readers voted less for Edelgard after seeing her role in the story (particularly unsurprising since most chose Blue Lions).

What's actually interesting is the, admittedly small, sample of people that chose favorites among the opposite sex, specifically women choosing Lorentz and Sylvain a lot. That's not what I would have bet money on.

 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Holder of the Heel

[Moonlit Knight]

So, there were some interesting hidden fight quotes revealed from an apparent earlier build of the Blue Lions route, where Annette and Felix were enemies on the map where you retake Fhirdiad. That got me thinking:

Would this game have been even better if, instead of Edelgard being the one that starts the fighting every time, in every route it’s your own chosen lord that feels emboldened to start the war against the church (or whomever is their biggest enemy)? And, consequently, there would be a church-Route equivalent in each route where you are given the option to follow Dimitri and Claude or not.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Moonlit Knight

[Crysta]

If that logic held up entirely, then I don't think BL would have allegedly been the least popular route people started with. You'd think having the most bros and husbandos would put it over the top even with the Black Eagle marketing.

And that'd be interesting, but I don't recall anything in the BL suggesting Dimitri had a significant problem with the church. He seemed more inclined to just try to slowly fix stuff from within.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Crysta

[Holder of the Heel]

1 hour ago, Crysta said:

If that logic held up entirely, then I don't think BL would have allegedly been the least popular route people started with. You'd think having the most bros and husbandos would put it over the top even with the Black Eagle marketing.

Well, I would assume the majority of FE: Three Houses players are heterosexual males, and thus even if Blue Lions is most popular among the heterosexual female playerbase, their statistical contribution ends up being smaller than whatever route hetero-males end up favoring. Golden Deer may be steady across the board in appeal if that is the case.

7 hours ago, Moonlit Knight said:

So, there were some interesting hidden fight quotes revealed from an apparent earlier build of the Blue Lions route, where Annette and Felix were enemies on the map where you retake Fhirdiad. That got me thinking:

Would this game have been even better if, instead of Edelgard being the one that starts the fighting every time, in every route it’s your own chosen lord that feels emboldened to start the war against the church (or whomever is their biggest enemy)? And, consequently, there would be a church-Route equivalent in each route where you are given the option to follow Dimitri and Claude or not.

That would be interesting for sure, but also more work, and this game already has signs of being rushed unfortunately.

Dimitri could definitely be written to oppose the Church since none of his motives are rooted in the defense of the central church . In this hypothetical Three Houses, the writing would already have to be quite different. For it to be even possible that the other Houses start the conflict and not the Empire, that means Edelgard's actions either need to disappear or be spread out among other characters to spread culpability (something I actually just think would have been better period for her and the plot, as it would mean the Kingdom is less just reactionary and the Alliance isn't just awkwardly stuck in the middle, and Edelgard becomes much easier to justify if she's done less baddy stuff). Idealism, peace, revenge. Simple shifts in the writing would make it pretty natural to motivate the other House leaders to cast the first stone in the direction of the Church.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Holder of the Heel

[Crysta]

1 minute ago, Holder of the Heel said:

Well, I would assume the majority of FE: Three Houses players are heterosexual males, and thus even if Blue Lions is most popular among the heterosexual female playerbase, their statistical contribution ends up being smaller than whatever route hetero-males end up favoring. Golden Deer may be steady across the board in appeal if that is the case.

I don't think it's the great majority the more vocal (male) fanbase thinks it is, but unless there's hard statistical data out there I can't really back that up.

But if you have the girls who want the bishi prince/husbandos, I would still expect it to do better than GD... who just has Claude, really.

In order to have a convincing lord versus Church storyline, I think you need to make the church more unambiguously evil. Which honestly isn't very hard to do as standard fantasy fiction tropes go. As it stands in the story currently, Rhea only flagrantly shows her smiling tyrant colors when she's openly defied - otherwise she just sort of leaves you feeling uneasy. It is the dominant religion of the continent and has been that way for centuries, so there's likely to be too much civil strife within the territories to make it convincing otherwise.

 

 

 

 

[Slumber]

7 hours ago, Moonlit Knight said:

Would this game have been even better if, instead of Edelgard being the one that starts the fighting every time, in every route it’s your own chosen lord that feels emboldened to start the war against the church (or whomever is their biggest enemy)? And, consequently, there would be a church-Route equivalent in each route where you are given the option to follow Dimitri and Claude or not.

I think the game is stronger for sticking with Edelgard being the main antagonist. It'd feel like the game had less weight and those early actions would seem less important if everything led to every path having a "Destroy the Church/Side with the Church" route.

[Strullemia]

7 hours ago, Holder of the Heel said:

Well, I would assume the majority of FE: Three Houses players are heterosexual males, and thus even if Blue Lions is most popular among the heterosexual female playerbase, their statistical contribution ends up being smaller than whatever route hetero-males end up favoring. Golden Deer may be steady across the board in appeal if that is the case.

This is at least not true in Japan if we’re to look at the recent Nintendo Dream poll.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Hekselka

[Tarul]

tbh, outside of Fates (which reaaaaally pushed it), Fire Emblem has never been that waifu-heavy... especially when compared to other JRPG's. Sure, there's a character here and there in each entry, but overall the games don't feel as such. My main quip with 3H is the sometimes questionable attire- why does Leonie start wearing short shorts? What the heck is female Byleth wearing? The biggest letdown seems to be some of the weirder costume choices, which maybe were chosen to increase sex appeal, but instead came off as a little out-of-touch with the setting (IMO, obviously).

[Mikethemaster2018]

7 hours ago, Slumber said:

I think the game is stronger for sticking with Edelgard being the main antagonist. It'd feel like the game had less weight and those early actions would seem less important if everything led to every path having a "Destroy the Church/Side with the Church" route.

she only the main villain in like one route that Dmitri and she a minor one in the 2nd black eagle route or church route. Rhea the big boss in like two routes and Nemesis the big bad in golden deer route.

[Slumber]

23 minutes ago, Mikethemaster2018 said:

she only the main villain in like one route that Dmitri and she a minor one in the 2nd black eagle route or church route. Rhea the big boss in like two routes and Nemesis the big bad in golden deer route.

She kicks off the plot in every route. She is, by literal(And I mean the most literal form of literal) definition, the antagonist. 

She's not always the core bad guy, but her antagonistic actions are the whole reason the game happens for every route. 

[Mikethemaster2018]

5 minutes ago, Slumber said:

She kicks off the plot in every route. She is, by literal(And I mean the most literal form of literal) definition, the antagonist. 

She's not always the core bad guy, but her antagonistic actions are the whole reason the game happens for every route. 

She kicks thing okay doesn't mean the all over all antagonist of the story. An example is Madara and Obito from Naruto he was the primary dudes who set the naruto 4th great war but Kagura was the all big bad of the whole story. it a bad example but an example non the less. Never said she an wasn't antagonist. I said not the main one in all routes

Edited August 23, 2019 by Mikethemaster2018

[GreatTacticianMoon]

3 hours ago, Mikethemaster2018 said:

She kicks off the plot in every route. She is, by literal(And I mean the most literal form of literal) definition, the antagonist. 

She's not always the core bad guy, but her antagonistic actions are the whole reason the game happens for every route. 

I Disagree, It's meant to be played like this Blue Lions, Black eagles, Golden deer, and finally the church.  blue lions don't spoil the other routes, while the black eagles route spoils the blue lions route, and golden deer tells you about most of the lore/ truth, and the church tells your Byleth who he/she really is. if you think its any other ways OK, just know i wont know anything about the black eagles so correct  me if I'm wrong but i think it does, tell about why Dimitri is so crazed. (I'm skipping Edelgard's route, I'm just not interested....I don't have enough save files for them all, I have to delete one so... I'm picking my least favorite, so it's OK if you spoil that route) and I do agree with the creator, I personally like Dimitri.

Edited August 23, 2019 by GreatTacticianMoon

[Mikethemaster2018]

5 hours ago, GreatTacticianMoon said:

I Disagree, It's meant to be played like this Blue Lions, Black eagles, Golden deer, and finally the church.  blue lions don't spoil the other routes, while the black eagles route spoils the blue lions route, and golden deer tells you about most of the lore/ truth, and the church tells your Byleth who he/she really is. if you think its any other ways OK, just know i wont know anything about the black eagles so correct  me if I'm wrong but i think it does, tell about why Dimitri is so crazed. (I'm skipping Edelgard's route, I'm just not interested....I don't have enough save files for them all, I have to delete one so... I'm picking my least favorite, so it's OK if you spoil that route) and I do agree with the creator, I personally like Dimitri.

No it meant to he played how you wants to play them and your overall bias toward the blue lions is how think the game should be played. No the BE route doesnt spoil anything both routes are kind two different POs of the same war and that about it even though the stories and character are different the major war parts are between the lions and Eagles. Claudes does his own thing and the chruch does it own thing.

[Landmaster]

So as it was pointed out in later pages, BL does actually confront most members of TWSITD. They just do so by chance and it's not given as much as a focus as it is in GD (and I assume, the Church Route). In that regard, it makes total sense why none of it is mentioned in the Epilogue and why it appears on surface that this is a huge missing hole in the BL Route. I will admit (since I missed making the connection that they do this myself), I personally am fine with this. As someone else pointed out, Dimitri's enemy is Edelgard, they don't need to make a huge confrontation with TWSITD, as well. They're dealt with in the background, so it really makes the biggest Con for BL's route not finding out any of the Lore with Rhea/Byleth.

On 8/22/2019 at 12:51 PM, Moonlit Knight said:

Would this game have been even better if, instead of Edelgard being the one that starts the fighting every time, in every route it’s your own chosen lord that feels emboldened to start the war against the church (or whomever is their biggest enemy)? And, consequently, there would be a church-Route equivalent in each route where you are given the option to follow Dimitri and Claude or not.

I'm going to say a hard no. The game works perfectly well with only Edelgard having a problem with the church. On the contrary, I would have found it very forced for this to happen in every Route. Dimitri has no reason to have any confrontation with the church and the fact that they take refuge in Faerghus in the BE Path suggests he would likely not side against them. Also, several BL members are highly religious (Mercedes, Gilbert) so I don't see any universe where this would have happened.

Claude is not religious and outright thinks the Church is sus. However, he clearly has no blatant antagonism towards them and just wants answers. He never wanted to wage any kind of war with them. While he could have definitely been written to have a similar stance as Edelgard, he simply just doesn't have the reasons to wage war against the church of a continent he's neither from, nor has no intention to even stay in. So I don't see him ever choosing to go to war with them. It simply doesn't align with his goals. I would even argue that it hinders his end goal.

TL;DR, it would have been very forced to have the split path in every Route. Dimitri has flat out no reason to go to war with the church as they are not related to any of the trauma he suffers in his route, while Claude, despite not particularly trusting the church, also has no reason to go to war with them.

[Fujin Yummy]

You deal with those who slither in the dark in Blue Lions though, you just don't avtually know. You kill Arundel. You kill Cornelia. You kill the mages that appear in the final battle. You kill all the major players, which ig probably shatters their ambitions.