Are all the routes so...samey?

[Jotari]

So I've just finished my second playthrough of the game. I've put in a 100 hours getting this far (yeah that's probably a pretty high hour count, I did basically all the additional stuff both times) and I'm thinking of taking a break before tackling the other two routes. Reason 1 being I want to wait until some of the DLC is released so I'm not launching a fifth playthrough merely to see it. Reason 2, being what I want to discuss here, is that I was kind of disappointed by how the two routes I've played so far (Church of Serios and Claude's route) were pretty much identical. Literally the only difference is you talk to Claude instead of Edelgard/Seteth. Also the same plot events happen. All the same chapters. Until the final chapter where they randomly change the final boss, appreciated, but it does leave me scratching my head wondering why Nemesis didn't get released in the Church of Serios route and why Rhea didn't go crazy in the Golden Deer route (and why an authoritarian like Rhea would let you wrest control of the entirety of Fodlan in the scenario where she doesn't die/marry you).

I enjoyed the plot on my firs through mildly enough. I had some issues with it, but I assumed they'd be resolved because I was only getting part of the story. But then on my second playthrough it was just really boring as all the same stuff happens only with different people saying it. Claude's own mini arc with Almayra was cool, and it kind of makes me with I went Golden Deer first (but if I did do that I would have no doubt despised Church of Serios route as it would have offered nothing, as it's basically Claude's route only with less).

Now obviously from it's very nature, Edelgard's true route is going to be very different from either of the two played so far. So what I'm really asking, is Dimitri's route a rehash of the other two? I've heard he kind of goes crazy in his route, which sounds like it's very different, but glancing at the chapter list, it still looks like I'm going to the exact same places and doing the exact same things. Which is basically a death keel to me playing this game until I've waited a few months to distance myself from it. I suppose I could play Edelgard's route to split up the sameyness, but even that comes with me having to go through the same first twelve or so chapters that I've experienced twice already. Anyway, thems my thoughts. Let's hear yours. Tell me if Blue Lions is basically just a different paint job on the same story.

[Garlyle]

I completed Golden Deer first, and then Blue Lions right after that.

I was expecting the story to change after the timeskip happens, but... I had to wait a bit longer. After the battle at Grondel Field, Dimitri's route took a different approach... for 2 chapters that is. The final 3 maps will be back to the war story, but in exchange Dimitri doesn't get the final 2 chapters from the Golden Deer route.

On a final note, on BL route you make the S support choice before Chapter 21, and the final 2 chapters have no calendar month between them.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Garlyle

[psy_wombats]

BL route is entirely concentrated on Dimitri and his conflicts and doesn't really deal with the slitherers or other stuff much at all, and its narrative follows a different, more traditional FE path. I think I liked it more than the other three routes. GD/Church is the only obvious copypaste job and it's unfortunate you went through those two first, but it's hard to say whether you'd actually think BL was different enough to warrant another playthrough. The monastery is going to be identical no matter what. If you decide to do another run right away I'd say play BL over Edelgard's route for sure though, just because this game's character writing is so much stronger than its main plotline and the all the BL characters have nicely interweaving backgrounds and supports.

No harm in waiting a bit or for lunatic mode etc before doing the rest though really. There's not much (if any) lore stuff unique to the Edelgard or BL routes.

[timon]

Places and maps do repeat, albeit slightly different in timing and enemies if anything. If you want a change Edelgard's path is obviously the most different, but also considerably shorter, which on a third playthrough is not necessarily a bad thing I guess.

Though all things considered, you were unlucky playing GD and Church back to back as first playthroughs. They are basically identical, BL is not that similar. While the core concept is obviously the same, you can put the story on the background and focus on the characters which are its strong point.

If you're interested in knowing more about the story then I'd say give it a rest, as with CoS and GD you have an almost full picture. Those are the routes that expand the most on that regard. BL and Empire are a lot more focused on the politics, war and character relationships and backgrounds.

Edited August 28, 2019 by timon

[Jotari]

49 minutes ago, psy_wombats said:

No harm in waiting a bit or for lunatic mode etc before doing the rest though really. There's not much (if any) lore stuff unique to the Edelgard or BL routes.

Well as of now I have no idea what Edelgard's deal is and that kind of ruins her as a character. The game treats her as if she's somewhat justified in her actions, yet she (and by virtue the non Edelgard route stories) makes zero attempts to ever actually explain herself and just acts like a typical Walhart. The best we get is Hubert's letter saying she wanted to destroy Those Who Slither in the dark, which she accomplishes by...allying herself with Those Who Slither in the dark. If her motivation does just turn out to be "I'm going to kill a shit tonne of people because I'd make a better dictator than Rea," then I'll be...well not dissapointed, but surprised. Having basically Walhart as a lord would be something new, as would be an avatar that intentionally goes along with it. But then I'd question why they keep giving me this melodramatic fmv where she talks about wanting to walk along side Bleyth when she's basically just an asshole.

Also don't know what's up with the Death Knight. They speculate it's that edgy guy with a mask who hangs around the monastery for the first few chapters, but nothing ever comes of it even though he keeps popping up (and keeps doing nothing, decent design and nice gameplay element, but that is such a non character).

Also while I'm on a rant train, they seriously should have made more of an effort to implement the other two house leaders better in part 1. After the choice they almost completely fade out of the story and become just regular npcs in the monastery. And then in part 2 they have only a little more presence than Jugdral's Prince Kurth. Edelgard's melodramatic death is contrived in the Church route, but it's completely and utterly unearned in the Golden Deer route as Bleyth has zero connection to this woman. Church route also gives us a cool scene with Dimitri that similarly comes out of nowhere and is completely unearned as Bleyth has no personal connection to him. It's like if you're not their homeroom teacher then they just poof out of all relevance and never do a damn thing. I'd have Part 1 be mostly the same, but have two or three chapters that are unique to each route as the people assigned to go on the missions were decided based on the house and not Bleyth.

[DragonFlames]

The one thing Church route lacks that Golden Deer has is the best battle in the game (in my opinion): the second battle at Gronder Field - which should have been the final battle, honestly.
Which is precisely why Church route is my personal least favorite path. It's a carbon copy of the Golden Deer route and it's missing the best part of said route; which instead happens off-screen and anybody you didn't recruit, except Ashe, Lorenz (who died in the chapters preceding it), Hubert, and Edelgard, apparently died in it. A cop-out of the highest order, I'd say. Only plus side was that Seteth got some more focus and Byleth's entire backstory was revealed (though there wasn't much reason to withhold that information on GD), but overall, I enjoyed Golden Deer a lot more. The final map of the Church route also came completely out of nowhere and added practically nothing to the entire thing. Seriously, I have never ever seen a more forced final boss fight than here. At least the Nemesis fight at the end of GD was hand-waved with "his resurrection was the Slither Buddies' trump card".

There are a lot of repeated maps, too. Like someone already pointed out: everything up until Gronder Field is the same in GD, BL, and Church. Edelgard's route is missing two chapters and starts off at Myrddin, but from there, it pretty much does its own thing; it's missing Gronder, too, though. The one battle that was heavily advertised before the game came out AND hyped up within the game itself is only on two routes, while the utterly pointless filler stuff (bandits, meeting reinforcements in a f***ing volcano, defending Garreg Mach a second damn time) is practically on all of them. Worst part? Black Eagle players don't even get to see the second battle at Gronder, which the timeskip was advertised with in the trailers (remember the epic E3 trailer? Yeah...), and which was heavily hyped up within the game itself.

/rant

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

The one thing Church route lacks that Golden Deer has is the best battle in the game (in my opinion): the second battle at Gronder Field - which should have been the final battle, honestly.
Which is precisely why Church route is my personal least favorite path. It's a carbon copy of the Golden Deer route and it's missing the best part of said route; which instead happens off-screen and anybody you didn't recruit, except Ashe, Lorenz (who died in the chapters preceding it), Hubert, and Edelgard, apparently died in it. A cop-out of the highest order, I'd say. Only plus side was that Seteth got some more focus and Byleth's entire backstory was revealed (though there wasn't much reason to withhold that information on GD), but overall, I enjoyed Golden Deer a lot more. The final map of the Church route also came completely out of nowhere and added practically nothing to the entire thing. Seriously, I have never ever seen a more forced final boss fight than here. At least the Nemesis fight at the end of GD was hand-waved with "his resurrection was the Slither Buddies' trump card".

There are a lot of repeated maps, too. Like someone already pointed out: everything up until Gronder Field is the same in GD, BL, and Church. Edelgard's route is missing two chapters and starts off at Myrddin, but from there, it pretty much does its own thing; it's missing Gronder, too, though. The one battle that was heavily advertised before the game came out AND hyped up within the game itself is only on two routes, while the utterly pointless filler stuff (bandits, meeting reinforcements in a f***ing volcano, defending Garreg Mach a second damn time) is practically on all of them. Worst part? Black Eagle players don't even get to see the second battle at Gronder, which the timeskip was advertised with in the trailers (remember the epic E3 trailer? Yeah...), and which was heavily hyped up within the game itself.

/rant

I actually do like that gronder field isn't on the church route because A) it if feels logical in the story B) it's something, even a small thing, that differentiates the routes C) First time round it did feel kind of cool to have a moment of whoa, shit is going down elsewhere. I'm only seeing part of this story. Unfortunately when I actually played Golden Deer it was more like I was playing an intentionally reduced part of this story. If they weren't going to provide Gronder field on the church route then they should have replaced it with something else. Instead Church route if just Golden Deer minus.

[Landmaster]

No, you just chose to play the two nearly identical routes back to back. While the maps are similar, Blue Lions is vastly different in terms of story from GD and SS and obviously Crimson Flower is the most different.

[xchickengirlx]

I’ve come across a few players on twitter who saved BE-E for last, yet by that point it was hard for them to enjoy Edelgard as a character since she is a villain in the other 3 routes. Also by playing those routes, you learn lots of things that contradict Edelgard’s beliefs and etc in her route. I’ve seen some players say they tried to go into Edelgard’s route with an open mind to try to try understand her more, but still couldn’t bring themselves to like her. Having the route being shorter and feeling rushed doesn’t help either.

So I guess it’s all a matter of personal perspective? Everyone is going to have a different experience. So going BE-E might be better? Then go BL if you haven’t experienced major burnout yet. Because if you are leery of Edelgard as a character, doing BL next may not make you ever wanna do her route?

[nyainou]

As others have said, you were really unfortunate to go GD -> BE-C. Unlucky, as those routes are identical. I did BL -> GD -> BE-C, and also faced the same disappointment. If you want a break from everything in GD/BE-C, go BL. BL is heavily Dimitri-centric, the church barely even plays a part in BL at all, and its way more interesting story-wise, in my opinion. Dimitri is a really strong character if you ask me, which is what sells the route. 

[Sire]

Yeah, you got unlucky with route choices. Golden Deer and Church are basically identical from what I hear, with the Church Route being an inferior Golden Deer route. I haven't gotten to Church myself yet, but I hope the Black Eagle students and the Church members make it interesting enough to warrant a playthrough. (And I love my Black Eagle students.)

Blue Lions is relatively similar (map wise) to Church and Golden Deer, but then things change up after the Battle for Gronder Field. There are two unique maps for BL, but then it does back to the war story with the finale having its own twist on things. There's also the different perspective of BL and the focus on Dimitri for story purposes. (Compared to Claude which is more about his world-views and finding the truth while the Church explores more of Byleth's backstory.)

Edelgard's path is the most unique out of all the routes, but is also shorter. Not only they have a vastly different perspective, but there is only minimal sharing with the other routes. My favorite route is probably Edelgard's due to its unique perspective and gameplay, but it was also my first route so I may be somewhat biased.

[SHEmperor]

I'm glad I went BE-E first in all honesty.

[CyberNinja]

23 minutes ago, SHEmperor said:

I'm glad I went BE-E first in all honesty.

Agreed, honestly I feel the GD Edelgard confrontation and end lacks something if you don't have any emotional investment for Edelgard. Blue lions at least can stand on its ow. Since you can borrow Dimitris investment.

[xchickengirlx]

44 minutes ago, CyberNinja said:

Agreed, honestly I feel the GD Edelgard confrontation and end lacks something if you don't have any emotional investment for Edelgard. Blue lions at least can stand on its ow. Since you can borrow Dimitris investment.

I just got done with ch. 19 on my GD run, and I agree that the game gives the player little incentive to care about Edelgard? I have no regrets doing GD first. I was pretty much steadfast on doing it first after E3 and wasn;t gonna change my mind....but yeah. I'll could only feel "meh" after defeating her.

I blame it on the game's writing honestly. Yeah BE seemed to be the house most people did first, and maybe if I myself did it first I'd have more emotional investment towards Edelgard. Whether or not it would make me like or dislike her is another thing, but I think the game still could have found a way to handle Edelgard's character pre-timeskip much better for all the players who did GD first. I can't really think of any good examples of how they could have fixed it, but I was hoping for more. But I guess that was the intent the writers were going for since the final goal of the GD route after defeating Edelgard is to deal with TWSITD.

Because in GD, Byleth's brief interactions with Edelgard make it seem like they had some kind of established relationship? When they really didn't? They are practically strangers. Seeing Edelgard be all sad and refer to Byleth as teacher was just...kinda pointless? That's why I'm looking forward to my BL run where the story is much more focused on the conflict between Dimitri and Edelgard.

Edited August 28, 2019 by xchickengirlx

[psy_wombats]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well as of now I have no idea what Edelgard's deal is and that kind of ruins her as a character. The game treats her as if she's somewhat justified in her actions, yet she (and by virtue the non Edelgard route stories) makes zero attempts to ever actually explain herself and just acts like a typical Walhart. The best we get is Hubert's letter saying she wanted to destroy Those Who Slither in the dark, which she accomplishes by...allying herself with Those Who Slither in the dark. If her motivation does just turn out to be "I'm going to kill a shit tonne of people because I'd make a better dictator than Rea," then I'll be...well not dissapointed, but surprised. Having basically Walhart as a lord would be something new, as would be an avatar that intentionally goes along with it. But then I'd question why they keep giving me this melodramatic fmv where she talks about wanting to walk along side Bleyth when she's basically just an asshole.

Also don't know what's up with the Death Knight. They speculate it's that edgy guy with a mask who hangs around the monastery for the first few chapters, but nothing ever comes of it even though he keeps popping up (and keeps doing nothing, decent design and nice gameplay element, but that is such a non character).

Edelgard's deal isn't really that well-explained in her route either. The game is sort of framed to have Edelgard vs Dimitri be a ~clash of ideals~ or something but then neglects to really fill in their actual ideals. The most the BE-E route does is humanize Edelgard a bit buuut you actually aren't missing any major parts of the plot. Her motives are shaky because the she needs to be in conflict with the other lords for the rest of the game to make sense and it only sort of works.

and as for the death knight, BE-E actually does the least to expand on him and he vanishes from the game completely on that route haha

[Dark Holy Elf]

4 hours ago, xchickengirlx said:

I’ve come across a few players on twitter who saved BE-E for last

I have to say it kinda baffles me that someone would do this. The fact that there's a route devoted to showing what the antagonist of the other routes is up to would be too tantalizing for me. This is extra true if you read a little about the routes before choosing, because almost nobody thinks CoS is a particularly strong route.

 

11 minutes ago, psy_wombats said:

The game is sort of framed to have Edelgard vs Dimitri be a ~clash of ideals~ or something but then neglects to really fill in their actual ideals.

Really?

Edelgard stands for the ideal that the church and crest obsession is a corrupt, controlling, stagnating negative influence on society, and that it's worth shedding blood to be rid of it.

Dimitri stands for the reverse, that whatever problems exist in Fodlan society can be smoothed over in a more peaceful way.

Granted, the single scene which encapsulates this difference best is on Dimitri's route (their meeting in Chapter 21), but it's laid out very clearly there.

[CyberNinja]

1 hour ago, xchickengirlx said:

I just got done with ch. 19 on my GD run, and I agree that the game gives the player little incentive to care about Edelgard? I have no regrets doing GD first. I was pretty much steadfast on doing it first after E3 and wasn;t gonna change my mind....but yeah. I'll could only feel "meh" after defeating her.

I blame it on the game's writing honestly. Yeah BE seemed to be the house most people did first, and maybe if I myself did it first I'd have more emotional investment towards Edelgard. Whether or not it would make me like or dislike her is another thing, but I think the game still could have found a way to handle Edelgard's character pre-timeskip much better for all the players who did GD first. I can't really think of any good examples of how they could have fixed it, but I was hoping for more. But I guess that was the intent the writers were going for since the final goal of the GD route after defeating Edelgard is to deal with TWSITD.

Because in GD, Byleth's brief interactions with Edelgard make it seem like they had some kind of established relationship? When they really didn't? They are practically strangers. Seeing Edelgard be all sad and refer to Byleth as teacher was just...kinda pointless? That's why I'm looking forward to my BL run where the story is much more focused on the conflict between Dimitri and Edelgard.

Spoiler

I mean, even Dimitri's route has Edelgard being unhappy fighting you in her final fight (unique battle text when she attacks long range siege spell) and of course Ferdinand still has his quote about her being obsessed with you. So given that Black Eagles route has explicit romantic scenes and teasing with Edelgard regardless of your actual attempt to S-rank her or not, that she is "obsessed with you" enough to cause jealousy in Ferdinand post time skip in all routes, and her desire to have you on her side and regret for differing paths...

I've concluded that it's not about your abilities at all, Edelgard just wants in your pants.

Spoiler about BL final

Honestly I think the majority of the issues here would have been resolved if we could support non-route lords and have them support each other.

[psy_wombats]

31 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Edelgard stands for the ideal that the church and crest obsession is a corrupt, controlling, stagnating negative influence on society, and that it's worth shedding blood to be rid of it.

Dimitri stands for the reverse, that whatever problems exist in Fodlan society can be smoothed over in a more peaceful way.

Granted, the single scene which encapsulates this difference best is on Dimitri's route (their meeting in Chapter 21), but it's laid out very clearly there.

Yeah, that scene's what I'm talking about. It feels like they say "we will never see eye to eye!!" to each other half a dozen times, and maybe I misremember but beyond Dimitri yelling at Edelgard about sacrificing a lot of people, their positions aren't actually established. I feel like the game /wants/ to set this up as the primary difference between those two characters but skips ahead to this payoff argument scene without setting up Dimitri in opposition to Edelgard at all, and Edelgard's position is undermined by the question of how "invading every single other political entity in Fodlan" translates into achieving her ideals.

I was expecting her route to attempt to explain some of that, but it jumps right back into the whole conquest thing and I don't think it really does a good job of justifying Edelgard so much as making her as a kind of like... more personable Ashnard? It seems like the route is less necessary to understand the plot per se, and more necessary to get x Edelgard endings haha

like, she goes from "person with flimsy excuses to justify actions required by the plot" to "person with flimsy excuse to justify plot-required actions, but finally learns to express feelings and show weakness"

Edited August 28, 2019 by psy_wombats

[TrueNoble]

I think I was lucky to have Crimson Flower be my first route. By the end of it I was certain I'd just done something very wrong, and I've kind of envisioned every route preceding that as like a Groundhog's Day-esque purgatory of trying to make amends for it. All the while, growing more and more distant from Edelgard...seeing her die all pathetic and alone time and time again, knowing exactly why it has to be that way, yet never really feeling any better about it.

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 minutes ago, psy_wombats said:

Yeah, that scene's what I'm talking about. It feels like they say "we will never see eye to eye!!" to each other half a dozen times, and maybe I misremember but beyond Dimitri yelling at Edelgard about sacrificing a lot of people, their positions aren't actually established.

I think you should watch the scene again because it establishes their positions very strongly. I mean I literally just gave you the bite-sized version of it, but there's a lot more going on you can unpack on their feelings there. To say their positions aren't established, or to compare Edelgard's development to that of Saturday morning cartoon villain Ashnard, strikes me as ridiculous.

[timon]

Reading through these comments makes me glad I went CF first, and I don't think it's just an Edelgard thing either. All the 4 paths focus so much on their own inner thing that they forget a bit to show you around the outside. I think this is due do the structure of the game that pushes to do more playthroughs. So if you want to know what you're actually going against you'll have to play other routes.

As I said, I felt very sympatethic of Edelgard in GD and especially in BL because I got to know her before, on the flipside Dimitri in CF is nothing short of a secondary problem and so I really struggled to see the "struggle" (sorry, can't think of another word) in killing him as an enemy. Goes without saying that someone who played BL first will probably get some strong feels facing him, because they know him from another experience.

tl;dr: assuming that people are going to play multiple times to see the characters is a miss. Enemies should be fleshed out a bit more, but the fact that you can replay as your enemy limited the writers imo.

[Jotari]

Tje simplest and most obvious solution is just to have all the house leaders present and doing things in part 1 even though they're not playable. Like say, Tibarn for most of both games. They're not your students but they can still be major characters.

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I have to say it kinda baffles me that someone would do this. The fact that there's a route devoted to showing what the antagonist of the other routes is up to would be too tantalizing for me. This is extra true if you read a little about the routes before choosing, because almost nobody thinks CoS is a particularly strong route.

 

Really?

Edelgard stands for the ideal that the church and crest obsession is a corrupt, controlling, stagnating negative influence on society, and that it's worth shedding blood to be rid of it.

Dimitri stands for the reverse, that whatever problems exist in Fodlan society can be smoothed over in a more peaceful way.

Granted, the single scene which encapsulates this difference best is on Dimitri's route (their meeting in Chapter 21), but it's laid out very clearly there.

Instead of making her deal just conquest, I think it would have been better if they made her hat straight up genocide. She send out mandate saying every crest bearer in Fodlan must join her or die. Then her allies in the other nations would be more minor lords who feel jealous of crest high lords. It would also make her more popular with the commoners as she's promising to overthrow the entire system. As Rhea said, Sothis never intended humanity have that power and Edelgard is going to right that wrong.

This would have made her more evil (cause you know, it is straight up genocide) in one way, but also more relatable in another, especially on the Church route when you know her backstory. Then it's an actual clash of ideals instead of the vague "Church bad imma gonna take over the world (and ally myself with the people who tortured me and killed all my siblings)."

[psy_wombats]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think you should watch the scene again because it establishes their positions very strongly. I mean I literally just gave you the bite-sized version of it, but there's a lot more going on you can unpack on their feelings there. To say their positions aren't established, or to compare Edelgard's development to that of Saturday morning cartoon villain Ashnard, strikes me as ridiculous.

I'll admit that I've played basically all of this game half-drunk so my reading comprehension might not be the best for these scenes, especially first run through. I'll look this back over when I have access to my switch again but I was just so confused by this scene because neither character's actions seemed to justify what they were saying to each other. I really wanted this to be like what RD "Ideals Collide!!" wanted to be but I couldn't understand Edelgard's actions playing to what she was speaking, or Dimitri's turnaround from haunted homicidal maniac to protector of the status quo for some reason? and opposed to sacrifice? after he's personally slaughtered legions of imperial soldiers

And yeah Ashnard's actions seem dumb and villain-ish to me, but so do Edelgard's sort of. They both have a nominally noble goal in mind but they approach it in such a dumb manor (continent-wide war) that I couldn't help but discount their spoken motivation and look at the outcome. I also played BL first and post-timeskip seemed like a hellscape to me so maybe I'm biased though haha. (in that first few chapters seeing how characters like Ashe were changed in the five year intermezzo kind of cemented how the world had gone to shit)

I guess my point is, in the context of this thread, Edelgard's route doesn't really expand on lore plot stuff more than church/GD does. On the church route in particular you can get a decent insight into her character.

Spoiler

and I think on church route her death scene is the most affecting. on every route but her own she dies alone and isolated but on this route you fully know who she is, what motivates her, and have a fleshed-out relationship between her and the protagonist.

I Insert other media

[MegaGax]

I always had Edelgard pegged as a "ends justify the means" vibe whenever the E3 trailer showcased her in the TS trailer. Her actions and route seemed to confirm that to me, in her mind she believes that causing this war while causing bloodshed on a large scale, would ultimately save lives that would otherwise be lost over decades due to the cruelty of the crest machinations breeding individuals such as Miklan, and experiments. There is a point I will agree with her on: nobility, stature of birth, neither of these things should matter when it comes time to dole out rewards based on reputable acts. Gains made through strong character and accolades achieved via hard-work should always be rewarded appropriately.

However, I do largely understand Dimitri's point of view, she has some good points, but I do believe she ultimately went about it the wrong way. There were certainly people within the nobility, and future rulers themselves that felt as she does, together they could have made more ground via a more peaceful solution, kinda a shame that she didn't really seem to try to give it a fair shake.

On-topic: I went with Crimson Flower first, followed by Azure Moon. I felt this was a pretty okay order since I didn't know much about things ahead of time, and it didn't feel samey because the perspectives were plenty different.

In retrospect, maybe going: Crimson Flower, Verdant Wind, Azure Moon, Silver Snow would have been the best order?

Edited August 29, 2019 by MegaGax