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What games have your favorite cast of characters? Least favorite?


Favorite/Least Favorite Cast  

44 members have voted

  1. 1. What are your favorite casts? (Pick 3)

    • Shadow Dragon/New Mystery
      4
    • Gaiden/SoV
      13
    • Geneology of the Holy War
      11
    • Thracia 776
      3
    • Binding Blade
      3
    • Blazing Sword
      10
    • Sacred Stones
      12
    • Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
      24
    • Awakening
      8
    • Fates: Birthright
      1
    • Fates: Conquest
      4
    • Three Houses
      26
  2. 2. What game had your least favorite cast? (Pick 1)

    • Shadow Dragon/New Mystery
      11
    • Gaiden/SoV
      2
    • Geneology of the Holy War
      1
    • Thracia 776
      0
    • Binding Blade
      3
    • Blazing Sword
      1
    • Sacred Stones
      1
    • Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
      2
    • Awakening
      3
    • Fates: Birthright
      8
    • Fates: Conquest
      10
    • Three Houses
      2


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Pick three favorite casts and 1 least favorite in the poll and explain your choices in the thread.

 

A little explanation:

PoR/RD and SD/New Mystery have their first and second games combined because the cast of the sequel is, for the most part the same as the original, with some new characters. Conversely, Binding Blade and Blazing Sword were separated because their casts are more distinct and take place over 2 generations.

Fates Birthright and Fates Conquest were separated because each game does have a distinct playable cast. Revelation was not included because it is the combination of the two.

Spinoffs were not included. Sorry, Warriors, but Rowan sucks.

Edited by Etheus
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2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Pretty presumptuous to assume nobody's going to like Conquest's cast, isn't it?

Actually, that was an error on my part. I had to add in Blazing Sword and redo the entire likes list from there. Unfortunately, there is no option to add columns to anywhere but the end (at least on mobile client). Added it back. My apologies.

Edited by Etheus
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Just now, Etheus said:

Actually, that was an error on my part. I had to add in Blazing Sword and redo the entire likes list from there. Added it back. My apologies.

No worries. Not that I would have picked it, I just wanted to get that fixed early on for the sake of the integrity of the poll. I meant it more teasingly rather than accusatory at any rate, sorry about that.

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Favorites: I'll be obvious and say Blazing, Tellius and FETH.

Least favorite: Awakening. Fates is probably the obvious answer for most people here, but even considering characters like Azuma and Peri, I still don't think I can put the Fates cast below Awakening's. Even Conquest at least gives us Nyx and Forrest, and a handful of other characters I enjoy enough to ignore the blight that is Peri.

There's just... nothing to the Awakening cast. Severa's alright, I guess, but other than that, I either feel absolutely nothing to absolute contempt for Awakening's cast.

Edited by Slumber
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My favorite cast is a tie between Path of Radiance and Shadows of Valentia. A lot of them feel very grounded and are very likable, and with the exception of Makalov and Faye, there's not a single character from either game who I dislike. They both also have some of my favorite villains in the series such as the Black Knight and Berkut.

My least favorite cast is Fates bar none. As in like, both Birthright and Conquest. There are some characters from Fates that I really like (Leo, Takumi, Oboro, the Awakening trio, just to name a few), but hoo god there are a lot of characters I dislike (Corrin, Azura, Xander, Camilla, Peri, Hinata, Hisame, Rhajat, Nina, etc.). And don't get me started on the villains. Garon is without a doubt the worst main villain and reeks of wasted potential. Iago and Hans are also some of the worst villains in the series as well, as they aren't memorable, they aren't intimidating, they aren't entertaining, they're nothing characters.

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Anyway, on to my actual answer:

Favorite was Awakening, Tellius and Echoes, least favorite was Three Houses. In fairness my opinion of the cast might stem from its support system. Mostly because Three Houses was the only game in the entire series where I actually dreaded the support window lighting up, because supports come so obscenely easily that you basically unlock every single support in your house by the end of the game without even trying, and it takes soooo long to get through them all. But whatever the case, I just did not give a rat's ass about half the cast. I don't know if I could have told you what a third of those conversations were even about when I beat the game for the first time, they're all such a gigantic blur.

Edited by Alastor15243
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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, on to my actual answer:

Favorite was Awakening, Tellius and Echoes, least favorite was Three Houses. In fairness my opinion of the cast might stem from its support system. Mostly because Three Houses was the only game in the entire series where I actually dreaded the support window lighting up, because supports come so obscenely easily that you basically unlock every single support in your house by the end of the game without even trying, and it takes soooo long to get through them all. But whatever the case, I just did not give a rat's ass about half the cast. I don't know if I could have told you what a third of those conversations were even about when I beat the game for the first time, they're all such a gigantic blur.

That is a valid criticism of Three Houses' support system (it's one I share), but is it really a fair criticism of the characters?

 

Not to say that criticism can't be laid at the characters. The villains suck.

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14 minutes ago, Etheus said:

That is a valid criticism of Three Houses' support system (it's one I share), but is it really a fair criticism of the characters?

 

Not to say that criticism can't be laid at the characters. The villains suck.

I honestly can't tell. It's such an inextricably linked aspect of my first impressions of these characters. But I have some annoying complaint about most of them.

Petra: "Please ignore my absolutely flawless American accent, I no talk English good." She would have been sooooooo much better if they gave her some kind of accent.

Bernadetta: Her low self esteem and whining, while entertaining at times, were incredibly annoying at others.

Dorothea: She was kind of fun in the first half, but through her post-timeskip combat voice clips she just became a killjoy in the second without that aspect of her character really being explored at all in her supports, and it honestly came across as melodramatic. Plus, she does pretty much the exact same thing Sylvain, Lorzen, Inigo, etc. all do, and the game wants me to find it way more different than it actually is.

Ferdinand: His dialogue does not mesh well with his voice actor's performance in a way that's really hard to describe.

Edelgard: Honestly I just think her entire route is poorly handled, mostly due to the fact that the game leaves you almost completely in the dark about why you would want to side with her until after you already have (if it's your first playthrough) and then the rest of the route is a massive game of telling instead of showing, but I also think she's just not remotely interesting until the second half of the game, where she only gets slightly more interesting at that.

Lysithea: Has an annoying whiny tint to half of her lines.

Flayn: A more extreme version of Ferdinand's problem. Her lines are extremely verbose and the voice actress doesn't quite know how to deliver them in a way that sounds natural.

Leonie, Hubert, Linhardt and Caspar were mostly fine, though none of them crack my list of favorite characters.

Edited by Alastor15243
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feth and awakening for the top two, tie for the third a few ways between genealogy, radiant dawn, and sacred stones so i went with sacred stones arbitrarily

 

o.g. fe1/3/11/12 for the other question and binding blade was in the running. gaiden would have been the winner except for echoes happening.

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My favorite cast has got to be the awakening cast: I dunno maybe it's just first game bias but there's something about this cast that just resonates with me. I mean well Severa is an obvious one but there's also Cordelia, Chrom, Robin, Sumia, Cynthia, Owain, Inigo, Gerome, Maribelle, Gaius, Vaike, Lissa, Noire, and just so many more characters that I just can't help but love cause they're all great characters with their own struggles and conflicts that are explored pretty well throughout all of their respective supports. Like there's really no character here I actively dislike or am completely indifferent towards.

My least favorite cast: SoV without question. Every character in this game is just so utterly boring and I couldn't give a shit about any of them say for a few exceptions. Like a good majority of these characters have about as much depth and complexity as a puddle in the middle of the nevada desert and that's not an exaggeration. I mean just look at the ram villagers. Tobin has a kind of inferiority complex but we almost never get to see it manifest in any meaningful way for it to leave any impact. Gray's personality is that he has none. Kliff is kind of stand offish and that's literally it. And Faye well we don't talk about Faye. I don't dislike any of these characters to be clear(well except Faye). It's just that the game gives me no reason to really care about any of them which just leads to complete indifference which I would argue is worse. Cause like for as much as I despise Faye at least she gets me to feel something other than complete and utter indifference which cannot be said about the majority of the other characters in this game unfortunately.

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Favorites:

-Tellius
-Echoes
-Three Houses
(And a honorable mention for Blazing sword)

I feel they are the strongest cast. The most amount of quality characters and a good balance between wacky and nuanced. 

Least favorite:
- Shadow Dragon

That's what happens if a good chunk of the cast are mutes and the villains never show up in the story before their boss fight. 

 

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Favourite's a difficult one to pick. I love Binding Blade, Sacred Stones, Three Houses was all right, Tellius too even if I'm not too familiar with them...

But I'm going to have to go with Archanea. I know, a bit of a weird choice, but I have a soft spot for these guys, always have. Not only does it have some of my favourite gems in the series (Arran, Etzel, SD!Horace, Minerva, NM!Wolfguard, especially Roshea; Frey, Arlen and Merric, SD!Marth, SD!Cain, Frost, Sheena,  Tomas... ), but DSFE are my favourite FE games, so that probably helps. I also like the artstyle of the DS games (shocking, I know), and those designs are for the most part great, in my humble opinion. Archanea has pretty good variety, too. You've got old farts, child soldiers, generic anime teens, veterans in their 30s and 40s, badass women in sensible armor, frail clerics, the occasional fanservice, tragic characters, humorous characters... there's pretty much anything to be found in New Mystery's titanic roster of 70~. Most people hate it, but I love it. Heroes popularity contests be damned, Frost is a great character, I'll die on this hill if I have to.

Least favourite has to be Blazing Sword. I don't hate everyone in it or anything like that, but out of all the FE casts that I'm most familiar with, this is the one that bores me the most. Not sure how to explain it, but I only find like four or five characters to be truly interesting (Wallace, Pent and Louise, Canas, Renault), and the rest are a blurry mess of walking stereotypes and cheesy tropes. I know this series is basically anime and they all have tropes, but characters like Serra, Kent and Sain, Lucius, Rath, Raven... were a weeeee bit too on the nose for my tastes. Not helping matters is how much I despise the absolute travesty that is FE7!Bartre. In FE6, the man was hotheaded, temperamental and boisterous, but he had his own brand of wisdom, and his family life was legitimately deep. In FE7? He's not smart, and that's all his character has. I hate what they did to him.

Edited by Saint Rubenio
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23 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Something that can be said about...

*checks notes*

... almost every Fire Emblem?

Probably. To take a razor's edge:

Spoiler

Archanea- Generic, little screentime.

NES Gaiden- Nonexistent dialogue. SoV- *Insert Berkut/Jedah+Celica/Rudolf/Fernand rants*

Genealogy- Sudden fail of Manfroy. Arvis isn't sympathetic enough. Ishtar is overrated. Julius does what? Eldigan is a doofus for obey such an awful liege.

Thracia 776- Faceless, weak and lacking any strongly central villains.

Binding- Zephiel needs better misanthropic logic. Narcian is just annoying. Idunn is no villain. Jahn is flavorless.

Blazing- Worst. Assassins. Evah. Nergal is a madman.

Sacred- Woe is Eirika!Lyon. Liking Valter is utterly superficial with his psychosis. And just too many villains for too little game.

PoR- Ashnard is as mad as Nergal and as superficially appealing as Valter. Ewww if you like him. Oliver is a meme that should be buried thirty feet under.

RD- Pesky Nobles yet again for FE, Irrelevant 2nd Part villain, a finale with a pity magnet and a powercreep final boss.

Awakening- *Fate inserts a metric ton of horse turd*

Fates- *You choose to insert a US ton of horse turd* (I'm too lazy to write the usual critiques of this and Awakening's villains that everyone has seen).

TearRing Saga- Haven't finished this yet (up to Chapter 30), but I'm seeing the same issue as Thracia- there isn't a clear central villain with a lot of story presence. Guenchaos is the closest thing, and he still hasn't done a very good job.

 

Don't have 3H yet, so I can't judge these "Things That Go Bump in the Night" that I see people mention. But I'd rather have The Order of No Quarter.

Again, just me intentionally playing devil's advocate. Not intending to trash out of my own opinions necessarily.

 

But, is it possible FE is still better at villains than the Tales franchise? I've only gone through ToS/DotNW, ToA, ToV, ToG, and ToX, and only one of these has a villain that I think could be called "outstanding", and even then, said villain I like not because they're a villain, but just because of their character.

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Favorites

  • Three Houses: Three Houses surprised me with the fact that i actually care about most of the cast. I think between the Houses i'd have to rank them Black Eagles > Blue Lions > Golden Deer. It also helps that the three Lords are the best in the series imo. Among the students, i only dislike Rapahel and Lorenz and even then, i still care about them to an extent. I think the only character outside of Slytherin that i actually don't care for is Cyril. One day he'll shut up about Rhea.
  • Shadows of Valentia: This is an obvious pick for me. Every character is just so likable (yes i'm in the camp that likes Faye). Only character i actively disliked was Deen, who i always kill for that Brave Sword he carries.
  • Blazing Blade: I was debating between this and Binding Blade and ultimately, i found Blazing's cast more enjoyable. It also helps that Support Convos in Blazing Blade are actually relatively easy to get whereas in Binding Blade, anything that wasn't Roy x Lilina took ages to get.

As for my least favorite cast, it's gotta to Shadow Dragon. I don't mind FE1 too much cause like, it's an NES game but the remake had no reason to not give these characters personalities. New Mystery did better but as far as the cast of Shadow Dragon is concerned, this is the worst cast in FE. There are exceptions among them but that's because they appeared in other games (the Whitewings, for example, have far more personality in SoV than in Shadow Dragon). None of the Shadow Dragon cast is particularly bad but they just have no personality.

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Anyway, my favorite cast is PoR/RD.

Not only does it have my favorite character in the entire franchise, the magnificently witty Bastian (whose short support list is an internationally recognized war crime), but it also holds more of my favorite characters than any other game. Nasir, Naesala, Lethe, Zihark, Pelleas, Haar, Jill, and Sothe are all top 20 contenders, with several being top 10.

The game also has several of the best villains in the series, with Black Knight and Sephiran getting huge shout outs.

The weaknesses of the cast are few. Mostly just that most of the RD cast doesn't have room to grow. Makalov and Meg suck. Shut up, Meg!

 

Three Houses is my second:

Edelgard, Claude, and Dimitri are some of the best lords in the series. And in terms of personal favorites, Linhardt, Marianne, and Seteth really stand out. And I like pretty much every playable character to some extent, except Raphael, Flayn, and Cyril. Shut up, Flayn!

 

Shame about those villains though. They aren't the worst (caugh, Fates), but they are up there.

 

Sacred Stones is my third:

I really, really like Innes, Forde, Gilliam, Cormag, Tana, Rennac, Saleh, Gerik, Joshua, and L'Arachel. Sacred Stones also has the distinction of being the only game in the franchise in which I do not dislike any of the playable characters. At worst, a lot of them elicit a meh.

Also, Lyon is a great villain. One of the best alongside Arvis and two particular spoiler Three Houses villains.

 

Conquest is my least:

A lot of Conquest characters destroy my immersion. I despise Elise. Peri is cancer. I dislike Effie. Arthur's stickh is funny, but he doesn't look like a Fire Emblem character. I just really dislike or am indifferent to every single character in this cast whose name isn't Jacob, Xander, or Leo. Awakening may have my least favorite character in the entire franchise (Nowi), but it also has enough likeable characters to make up for that. Conquest... not so much.

Edited by Etheus
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How am.i supposed to vote if my favorite is Path of Radiance and my leaet favorite is Radiant Dawn.

Basically i think 90% of the characters became either worse or did nothing in RD and the newcomers are awful whitout the excuse of coming from a NES game.

Edited by Flere210
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Top favorite is FE Three Houses even though the support system is long it really does a decent job of letting us get to know the characters and I really like almost all the cast.  I also really like Tellius and Sacred Stones, but TH wins it for me. 

Least favorite is Shadow Dragon because I never was able to get attached to 90% of the cast and forget who most of them are. 

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I would say it is a tie between Echoes and Three Houses for my favorite cast of character. It helps that those two games are fully voiced which makes the characters more enjoyable than just reading a textbox. I would say Archanea is a distant third since I tend to like the OG casts in video games.

Least favorite is easily Tellius. I don't really like half-human/half-beast type of characters and the rest of the cast (outside of a few like Haar and Jill) just seemed uninteresting to me.

Edited by NSSKG151
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My favourite cast is fe4. While I wouldn't make the argument that it's the most well written, it's the only game where I like the entire cast (except Sylvia) despite the fact that some characters have almost no dialogue. I would say the same about Three Houses with me liking the entire cast based on my initial reaction, but I haven't played all routes yet so I'm not 100% certain about the placing. Maybe it will become my favourite cast (although that seems unlikely) and maybe it will go down. fe7 is currently my third favourite because while there are some characters that I don't like, there are also some characters that I like a lot and the characters that I dislike aren't bad enough to distract me.

Considering my least favourite cast I will go with Birthright, for the simple reason that while it doesn't have as deep lowpoints as Conquest or Radiant Dawn, I simply can't think of a single character in birthright that I like and despite the fact that each character has like 15 supports, most characters feel like they come from fe12 (AKA a game where most characters only have one support). 

Let me put it this way. If someone would ask me to describe a character from birthright, I could seriously only say one single character trait for most characters. Birthright also shamelessly rips of 3 characters from the previous game without doing anything new with their character despite the fact that they're supposed to be different characters. For how much I don't like the cast in Conquest and Radiant Dawn.I can at least name 5 characters that I like for each game (Nyx, Leo, Laslow, Siegbert & Forrest for Conquest and Haar, Jill, Zihark, Nolan & Elincia for Radiant Dawn). The most positive I can be about the cast in Birthright is Oboro & Takumi who are just ok.

 

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I really like the characters of Genealogy of the Holy War, Three Houses and Binding Blade. The cast I cannot stand is Fates, so I put my vote on Conquest. (although the cast of Shadow Dragon wasn't really great either, New Mystery somehow saved it)

Genealogy is best known for huge maps, great story and it's memorable characters. Sigurd, Quan, Ethlyn, Shannan, Oifey, Eldigan, Arvis, Travant, aaaand the list goes on. The story really makes them interesting overall. Thracia also came to my mind, but honestly it's just mediocre compared to genealogy.

Binding Blade might be a weird choice, but I just love the characters. Roy, Lilina, Rutger, Clarine, Miledy, the Bern Generals, Zephiel, even Gonzales - so many memorable moments with them, and while the characters mostly come through support conversations, it still doesn't do a bad job. It was a start for supports, which came a long way.

Got to say when it came to characters, Three Houses delivered. I am actually trying to unlock as many support conversations as I can to see how comical some conversations can get. There is some weird chemistry in this that I just love.

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Favorite cast is FE4. The characters felt much more toned down and realistic; gimmicks were kept to a minimum, and the focus was on what happened to them, their own story arcs. The game also has some of my favorite characters in the series, Arvis, Julia, Brigid, Azel, Altena to name a few.

Second favorite is Tellius. While this cast had a few more gimmicks, I still found the majority of them compelling. Even the RD newcomers, despite not being fleshed out as much, I mostly liked. Favorites include Naesala, Sanaki, Sephiran, Zelgius, and Callil.

Third favorite is Thracia 776. This game has several characters I warmed to through their in game performance, such as Lara and Pan, but I also liked how grounded and down-to-earth this cast felt. They weren't some grand nobles like Fe4, yet felt fully integrated into the world of Judgral. Favorites include Mareeta, Pan, Lara, Salem and Lithis.

Least favorite is Three Houses. This cast felt heavy on the anime tropes and gimmicks, especially in the story dialogue, which imo is the most important part of character writing. I didn't warm to any of them much at all, but several annoyed me to no end, such as Bernadetta, Petra, Marianne and especially Byleth. The villains were also weak and all over the place, as mentioned before by others.

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