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About Silver Snow...(Spoilers)


Osrio12
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Wow it's been a while. Anyway I know these threads are a dime a dozen on the Three Houses section, I think I even made one at one point when the game was just out, but let's try it anyway. 

So I saw some of Silver Snow and yeah, the biggest problem with it and VW is that they share a lottttt of stuff. Not that it's really bad, but it's really annoying if you just beat VW and all you really get technically is just a boss against Rhea. I don't hate it, I still love the game regardless of the slight route inbreeding and length of Crimson Flower, but let's just ask, how would you improve Silver Snow?

Me? I think would've either focused on Seteth and Flayn or on Byleth exclusively. From what I gather, having just beat VW, people are saying one problem is that the route tries to have both Byleth and Seteth as your "lords". Byleth for the action and Seteth for the Claude stand in. I think this could have been mitigated a bit if Byleth actually had been fully voiced, though that would've taken more effort to have Byleth be able to chime in during cutscenes and Supports, so I feel like fleshing out Seteth and Flayn more would've been a good compromise. Sure we get a Paralogue for them, but if Silver Snow is where they play more of a role, I think they should have the spot light more compared to Byleth.  

I'm not fantastic at writing on the fly, but how about a scene where the decked is stacked against the Black Eagles even harder than usual. Have Claude AND Dimitri die without any doubt during the Gronder fight. The morale is low, the Alliance and the Kingdom have been wiped out and now the Black Eagles are the last ones left standing against Edelgard and the Slithery Bois. Seteth, taking some time to think, decides that it's time to break out his old armor and weapon from his days as Cichol. Flayn is obviously quite concerned her father is just basically telling Byleth and the Black Eagles their true identities, but Seteth says that desperate times call for desperate measures. Seteth explains to the Black Eagles that they are in fact the Saints Cichol and Cethleann, having been living under false names for centuries.  The two and Byleth help encourage the Black Eagles to not give up, that they've still gotten this far without huge numbers. 

The following chapter could even be a filler chapter to gain a little extra help for the sneak attack on Enbarr, maybe saving Gilbert and adding the remaining Kingdom Army to their forces, it'd give Silver Snow another extra chapter outside of the final one.

Obviously this is a bit ludicrous, just having Seteth and Flayn come out and say "Yo, we're two of the old Saints bitches.", but I would at least give them more to do than just stand in for Claude and his winning smile. Plus Silver Snow would probably need more than just one extra chapter to help it stick out from VW. But I dunno, I'm just literally throwing stuff at the wall, talking to the voices in my head and seeing what sticks. Some of you are way better writers than me, how could you fix it?

Outside of giving Flayn a fucking glock that is.

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31 minutes ago, Osrio12 said:

So I saw some of Silver Snow and yeah, the biggest problem with it and VW is that they share a lottttt of stuff.

I was of the understanding that Silver Snow was an offshoot of Crimson Flower, not Verdant Wind.

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23 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

I was of the understanding that Silver Snow was an offshoot of Crimson Flower, not Verdant Wind.

Silver Snow and Crimson Flower share the same house but Silver Snow shares a majority of maps with Verdant Wind save for the final one.

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I have many issues with Silver Snow, but yeah I definitely 100% think needed Seteth and Flayn needed to drop their little secrecy act in it. Would have made them feel a bit closer to lords (since you learn key secrets of the lords on their own route); as is, the route lacks a lord, and since the lords carry the story hard in this game, that alone makes the route very weak narratively.

I would also have made it and VW much more different than they are now. Just how would depend on what one wanted the route to accomplish. I'm not sure myself (and neither did the writers, clearly).

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I would also agree with the idea of making Seteth and Flayn more important given that they're basically the close confidants of the SS path.

And while we're on the subject, there's something that came to mind. Anyone else think Claude's paralogue had perhaps a different use originally but got re-purposed for him? I mean, the reward for the mission is Macuil's sword, the Sword of Begalta, yet seems to be associated with Reigan for no other reason than it being Claude's paralogue. Honestly, I can't help but wonder if it would have made more sense for that mission to be a Silver Snow paralogue or main chapter given it involves a Saint.

With all the evidence that points to Silver Snow being the original and Verdant Wind being the copycat, I can believe it.

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1 hour ago, Osrio12 said:

Silver Snow and Crimson Flower share the same house but Silver Snow shares a majority of maps with Verdant Wind save for the final one.

Yes, but surely you also have to do all the pre-timeskip Crimson Flower maps as well?

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29 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Yes, but surely you also have to do all the pre-timeskip Crimson Flower maps as well?

Okay I'm a bit confused by what you mean by this. 

Crimson Flower isn't the "official" route for BE. The Black Eagles are both Silver Snow and Crimson Flower. Nitpicky I know, but that's just the way it is. The pretime skip chapters mostly the same, save for character introspection from the lords, such as Dimitri digging into the Duscur incident and Claude looking into the history of Fodlan. Yes, you do have to do them all for each route, a minor compliant I have but we're getting side tracked. We're talking mainly about the post timeskip stuff. What we're discussing is the shared content between Silver Snow and Verdant Wind. While they don't share the same house, they seem to share every map save for Gronder and the final chapter. That's what we're discussing.

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Oh, I was thinking about making something like this myself but coming from a different direction. Basically I think Silver Snow should have done a complete departure from the other routes and wrapped up Edelgard early because she lost the power of her strike team. Then, instead of her, the main thrust if the plot is driven by Nemesis.

I fucking love Nemesis's design. He looks like a total bad ass and I wish he played...well an actual role in the game. Even in the game the way it is now, I think it would have been way more thematically relevant to swap the Rhea  and Nemesis boss fights. Verdant Wind is about overthrowing the old superstitions, so having it end with Rhead's defeat would work appropriately. While in Silver Snow, the route where you work closest with the Church and thus Rhea, Nemesis would be the most appropriate as he represents all of Rhea's woes and the will of humans to overthrow the children of the gods. It's also the route that's the most Byleth focused (not that I disagree with making Seteth more of a lord), so having the final enemy be the predecessor of Byleth that s/he has to overcome makes sense too.

TL:Dr, making Nemesis the villain of Silver Snow would have made sense within the logic set up in Part 1 and with the themes of the route.

Edited by Jotari
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Silver Snow could've been a lot better. Out of the 4 routes, it has the weakest narration. Seteth and Flayn are great characters, but they don't have the dynamic that Byleth has with a house leader and their retainer. The Lords drive the plot and it seemed like SS tried to make Byleth that lord, but it definitely needed more focus on the other characters. Byleth is weak on their own in the spotlight. Some things I think would've made this route better:

  • Seteth and Flayn reveal their true identities and have their own saint costumes. They were really missing a huge moment with Byleth.
  • The remaining Black Eagles needed a stronger presence. Especially Ferdinand Von Aegir, who has been leading the resistance against Edelgard within the Empire. Every student deserved their own moment of reflection with Byleth.
  • The knights of Seiros also deserved a scene or two.
  • Scenes and battle with Nemesis.
  • Rhea playable.
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3 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

Seteth and Flayn reveal their true identities and have their own saint costumes. They were really missing a huge moment with Byleth.

Hell, go a step further, give them a unique class tied to their identities as Saints exclusive on this route. Already said this in the initial post but hell, let's explore it again. Since you don't fight at Gronder in SS at the behest of Seteth, maybe the two of you could do recon to see what the heck just happened. What do you find? Dimitri and Claude both dead, along with a majority of the Blue Lions and Golden Deer house members assuming you didn't recruit them. This shatters the morale of the Black Eagles students. Without the Alliance and Kingdom Armies, they quite literally stand alone against the Empire's massive army. Seteth takes some time to think and reaches a decision. 

"Flayn, it's time."

Flayn understands exactly what Seteth means by that, but asks if he's fully sure. To help this moment, give some character building between Seteth and the Black Eagles. Their supports help, but we can totally get more scenes of Seteth becoming comfortable with the Black Eagles and Byleth during the Silver Snow story. He and Flayn grab their old Saint grab, revealing their true identities as Saints. He helps to rekindle the flames of hope in the students. From there, the route proceeds as normal until we rescue Rhea. Once Rhea is healed up, she decides to take a fully active role on the battlefield, donning her old Seiros gear and then stuff at Not Area 51 happens, Nemesis is revived and both Rhea and Byleth get to team up in the CG cutscene to put Nemy down again.

Boom, very very rough idea on how to make Silver Snow a better route. More character for Seteth and Flayn, playable Rhea for at least four chapters, and developing a bond of trust between the Black Eagles and Seteth that would cause Seteth to embrace his old identity as Cichol, along with switching the final bosses of VW and SS. 

Thank you all for coming to my TED Talk.
 

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Personally, I feel that Rhea should`ve been the "lord" character of Silver Snow. If not that, she should have been playable on this route. I will also agree that Nemesis would`ve been a cool antagonist, especially if Rhea had a central role.

Seteth being a lord would`ve been neat, but I feel he has a big enough role on other paths as is. The Black Eagle students got a bit shafted, which a shame.

Having Seteth and Flayn reveal their true identeties would`ve been awesome and is something I feel this route needed. As it stands, the only reveal this route has is Byleth`s connection to Rhea and Sothis. A reveal I feel they should`ve had on all routes in some fashion. Silver Snow needed something else to call it`s own. Nice to see that others on this forum who have ideas for how this route could`ve been to improved.

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2 hours ago, Osrio12 said:

Hell, go a step further, give them a unique class tied to their identities as Saints exclusive on this route. Already said this in the initial post but hell, let's explore it again. Since you don't fight at Gronder in SS at the behest of Seteth, maybe the two of you could do recon to see what the heck just happened. What do you find? Dimitri and Claude both dead, along with a majority of the Blue Lions and Golden Deer house members assuming you didn't recruit them. This shatters the morale of the Black Eagles students. Without the Alliance and Kingdom Armies, they quite literally stand alone against the Empire's massive army. Seteth takes some time to think and reaches a decision. 

"Flayn, it's time."

Flayn understands exactly what Seteth means by that, but asks if he's fully sure. To help this moment, give some character building between Seteth and the Black Eagles. Their supports help, but we can totally get more scenes of Seteth becoming comfortable with the Black Eagles and Byleth during the Silver Snow story. He and Flayn grab their old Saint grab, revealing their true identities as Saints. He helps to rekindle the flames of hope in the students. From there, the route proceeds as normal until we rescue Rhea. Once Rhea is healed up, she decides to take a fully active role on the battlefield, donning her old Seiros gear and then stuff at Not Area 51 happens, Nemesis is revived and both Rhea and Byleth get to team up in the CG cutscene to put Nemy down again.

Boom, very very rough idea on how to make Silver Snow a better route. More character for Seteth and Flayn, playable Rhea for at least four chapters, and developing a bond of trust between the Black Eagles and Seteth that would cause Seteth to embrace his old identity as Cichol, along with switching the final bosses of VW and SS. 

Thank you all for coming to my TED Talk.
 

I was considering proposing giving them unique classes to match the "real lords". The only issue I have is that I'm not sure what they could be without coming across as a different pain job. Wyvern Lord already covers Seteth pretty well and we already have Barbarossa for giving him bows. The only remaining option would be to give him exclusive access to flying magic which would be a bit of a deviation for him (granted since we're speculating possibilities he could just be a different unit from the outset). A flying armoured unit could be possible too I suppose. Actually that would fit him pretty well.

Regarding Flayne I can't really think of anything that could outsell Greomorie for her. Unless we make her flying Greomorie. Although a variation of Holy Knight that grants White Magic uses X2 instead of Tome Fair might work as well.

Edited by Jotari
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6 hours ago, Metal Flash said:

Personally, I feel that Rhea should`ve been the "lord" character of Silver Snow. If not that, she should have been playable on this route. I will also agree that Nemesis would`ve been a cool antagonist, especially if Rhea had a central role.

Seteth being a lord would`ve been neat, but I feel he has a big enough role on other paths as is. The Black Eagle students got a bit shafted, which a shame.

Having Seteth and Flayn reveal their true identeties would`ve been awesome and is something I feel this route needed. As it stands, the only reveal this route has is Byleth`s connection to Rhea and Sothis. A reveal I feel they should`ve had on all routes in some fashion. Silver Snow needed something else to call it`s own. Nice to see that others on this forum who have ideas for how this route could`ve been to improved.

 

Exactly my thoughts. Also give them back their abilities as manaketes.

 

Now that I think about it. It also should happen in the Crimson Flower Route. It would give some credibillity to Edelgards claim about evil drgon people controlling the continent.

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1 hour ago, Nihilem said:

Exactly my thoughts. Also give them back their abilities as manaketes.

 

Now that I think about it. It also should happen in the Crimson Flower Route. It would give some credibillity to Edelgards claim about evil drgon people controlling the continent.

Very true, though one could argue that it could risk them losing a large part of their army due to shock.

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Silver Snow had a lot of potential that just fell flat when they decided to make it a worse version of Verdant Wind.

While Verdant Wind definitely could have focused more on the Alliance than it did to differentiate the two, Silver Snow could have at least felt like some thought was put into it.

You have Seteth do everything Claude does which really downgrades how much of a genius Claude is made out to be. You randomly off Claude and Dimitri off-screen and the two are never heard from again as far as what happened (other than the stupid Ghost Dimitri that made no sense). Rhea gives an absolute minimal difference in lore between the two paths and is not playable for some reason. And then you have her as the final boss out of nowhere, with no buildup, and it ends so ambiguously, I can't even tell if she really died unless I get certain endings or marry her.

I really don't understand what the thought process behind the decision to just take VW, erase Claude, drop in Seteth, and go on about our day as if it's a totally different route. 

Azure Moon and Verdant Wind may share a lot of maps but the story between them is vastly different due to what each route chooses to focus on. Silver Snow could have been in the same vein as Azure Moon and been very Rhea/Church-centric, but they just didn't capitalize on it~

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As well as the story crossover stuff, I think that another area where Silver Snow really suffers is with its units. The way that Three Houses is set up, you're supposed to get your units early on and then be able to see them grow, to customise them to fit the role you want, and so on. But then we have Silver Snow which is more reliant on (relatively) late-game recruits than any other route. The most zealously pro-Rhea characters -- Seteth, Catherine and Cyril -- aren't available at all until chapter 12 so you have much less opportunity to customise them. This is especially egregious for Cyril, since he's been leveling up as a Commoner up until that point; the one route where he makes the most thematic and narrative sense is also the one where he's the worst performing and least usable.

I assume that the reason that Cyril and Catherine aren't recruitable at their normal times for Black Eagles is to avoid the possibility of having too many units leave if you choose the Crimson Flower route, which makes some degree of sense. Losing Flayn can already be painful if you've invested in her and don't know it's coming, so I can see why they wouldn't want to have more units leave. That said, Silver Snow has two units leave, and they're units that have been with you from the start and that most players will be even more invested in. I don't think it would have hurt Crimson Flower all that much if we'd been able to recruit at least Cyril at the normal time and the benefit to Silver Snow would have been worth it.

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4 hours ago, lenticular said:

As well as the story crossover stuff, I think that another area where Silver Snow really suffers is with its units. The way that Three Houses is set up, you're supposed to get your units early on and then be able to see them grow, to customise them to fit the role you want, and so on. But then we have Silver Snow which is more reliant on (relatively) late-game recruits than any other route. The most zealously pro-Rhea characters -- Seteth, Catherine and Cyril -- aren't available at all until chapter 12 so you have much less opportunity to customise them. This is especially egregious for Cyril, since he's been leveling up as a Commoner up until that point; the one route where he makes the most thematic and narrative sense is also the one where he's the worst performing and least usable.

I assume that the reason that Cyril and Catherine aren't recruitable at their normal times for Black Eagles is to avoid the possibility of having too many units leave if you choose the Crimson Flower route, which makes some degree of sense. Losing Flayn can already be painful if you've invested in her and don't know it's coming, so I can see why they wouldn't want to have more units leave. That said, Silver Snow has two units leave, and they're units that have been with you from the start and that most players will be even more invested in. I don't think it would have hurt Crimson Flower all that much if we'd been able to recruit at least Cyril at the normal time and the benefit to Silver Snow would have been worth it.

Edelgard left with my Leg Ring on my first playthrough T.T Still hurts.

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I think it's pretty clear that some content from Silver Snow was cut, because a few scene transitions were very awkward.

- In Chapter 13, when you found Seteth, Byleth asked him why he comes back. Seteth and Flayn told you there was something very important to show you in the Holy Mausoleum, it was never addressed nor mentioned again. The game simply moved to the next chapter once you arrived there, some thing clearly was cut out here. What's so important that Flayn would come back for?

 

- After you rescued Rhea, she insisted to join you in the war so much so that she made scene that over ruling Seteth and others' concern. But again this was never addressed, she wasn't a playable character despite being fully functional character with two unique classes, with support chain in the menu (unlike Jeralt and a few other supporting characters).

 

------

on the other hand, people above mentioned about possibility of Rhea against Nemesis. I think it's likely the original plan by dev:

- Nemesis cutscene was placed right after Siege of Enbarr, before Shambhala

- Rhea talks about joining the war

- The battlefield was set between Enbarr and Shambhala

- Silver Snow is one level short compared to two other similar paths.

My guess is that original plan was TWISTD sent Nemesis with their army to confront Rhea and Byleth before they reached Shambhala, Rhea fought a rematch against Nemesis which she and Byleth won again and decimated TWISTD field army, they then attacked Shambhala like current game where Thales used more Javelin since he lost everything by this point.

Edited by Timlugia
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5 hours ago, Timlugia said:

I think it's pretty clear that some content from Silver Snow was cut, because a few scene transitions were very awkward.

- In Chapter 13, when you found Seteth, Byleth asked him why he comes back. Seteth and Flayn told you there was something very important to show you in the Holy Mausoleum, it was never addressed nor mentioned again. The game simply moved to the next chapter once you arrived there, some thing clearly was cut out here. What's so important that Flayn would come back for?

 

- After you rescued Rhea, she insisted to join you in the war so much so that she made scene that over ruling Seteth and others' concern. But again this was never addressed, she wasn't a playable character despite being fully functional character with two unique classes, with support chain in the menu (unlike Jeralt and a few other supporting characters).

 

------

on the other hand, people above mentioned about possibility of Rhea against Nemesis. I think it's likely the original plan by dev:

- Nemesis cutscene was placed right after Siege of Enbarr, before Shambhala

- Rhea talks about joining the war

- The battlefield was set between Enbarr and Shambhala

My guess is that original plan was TWISTD sent Nemesis with their army to confront Rhea and Byleth before they reached Shambhala, Rhea fought a rematch against Nemesis which she and Byleth won again and decimated TWISTD field army, they then attacked Shambhala like current game where Thales used more Javelin since he lost everything by this point.

I don't really see Thales being the final boss over Nemesis. Unless he showed up on magetec or something and all traces of it have been completely erased (I would personally have liked Mech Thales or Demon Thales as a final boss rather than repeating Rhea).

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9 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't really see Thales being the final boss over Nemesis. Unless he showed up on magetec or something and all traces of it have been completely erased (I would personally have liked Mech Thales or Demon Thales as a final boss rather than repeating Rhea).

I wasn't saying he's final boss, Rhea still is. Her level is literally called "The Final Battle" btw.

I was saying there was probably a level of fighting Nemesis before Shabhala got cut, given how Nemesis cutscene was placed in between Enbarr and Shambhala in the library. And how Nemesis in Verdant Wind has almost no background, just randomly pop out as final enemy.

Edited by Timlugia
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I don't like Nemesis ressurecting at random. He is not an "as long as there is evil" demon lord, he is just a guy whit a crest and a sword that got revived because someone tought that fighting legendary figures is cool.

They need to rework him a bit for it to work, like making him impossible to kill for good whitout a Sothis ex machina.

Edited by Flere210
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21 minutes ago, Timlugia said:

I wasn't saying he's final boss, Rhea still is. Her level is literally called "The Final Battle" btw.

I was saying there was probably a level of fighting Nemesis before Shabhala got cut, given how Nemesis cutscene was placed in between Enbarr and Shambhala in the library. And how Nemesis in Verdant Wind has almost no background, just randomly pop out as final enemy.

So then Nemesis is fought in both Verdant Wind and Silver Snow and is inexplicably more powerful in Verdant Wind as a final boss? Or Rhea is the final boss in both routes?

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