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Which route should I try next if I enjoyed Crimson Flower? (spoilers ahoy!)


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I'm in a relatively similar boat. After playing all four routes, I can't side with Rhea or against Edelgard. Aside from an extra AM run to finish my non-S Supports with Dimitri/Dedue/Gilbert, the only non-CF runs I feel up to are VW runs. At least when Byleth goes "I miss Rhea we need to save her", I can pretend like she has the same motivations as Claude.

I also didn't get much out of the "Dimitri's awesome character arc".

Spoiler

For a game full of filler, there wasn't much of an arc, and redeemed Dimitri went right up on his high horse rather than actually learn and empathise with his time as a madman.

 

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I can not bring myself to side against Edelgard or finish other routes. I have seen their endings  but play them myself any further nope.  I know I would have no issues with the Nemsis and TWISD chapters of VW but I can't bring myself to get through the fight the empire arc.

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You should definitely play Silver Snow and not its clone Verdant Wind first, if you really want the focus on Edelgard that is. Her being the misunderstood and tragic antagonist is equally important to her character as Crimson Flower where her dream is fulfilled.  Silver Snow actually makes sense in this aspect and features some more scenes with her. In verdant wind they just don't make sense because the route was blatantly copy pasted from SS. Make it a "recruit all run" since SS is the only route that doesn't have its narrative damaged by doing it.

However, Azure Moon pretty much twists Edelgard into the good old evil emperor from FE in order to redeem Dimitri and justify his insane actions. Not saying you shouldn't play it, but expect some major shenanigans with how much AM worships Dimitri to the detriment of everyone and everything else, from Edelgard to Rhea, to those who slither in the dark and to even Claude and the Blue Lion students.

Edited by Nickdos
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>plays the propaganda route first and considers rhea a villain

Please play other routes and understand the lore. I'm so glad I played VW first because it doesn't color your perspective.

Edited by Ownagepuffs
too aggressive
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This is probably not the thread for this, so I'm gonna spoiler my response:

Spoiler

Ah yes, "lore", a great excuse for why Rhea's tyrannical behaviour in the present is okay. The case for Rhea as a villain can be made very easily using White Clouds alone.

Every route colours your perspective, by the way.

 

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I see a lot of people say VW > SS, but personally, I find VW to just be an inferior SS. It is driven by Claude's personality, but a lot of things make no sense, from the animated scene with Edelgard ripped straight from SS (because it doesn't make sense on VW at all), to Claude somehow being considered neutral/independent while running around with Byleth despite being the leader of the Alliance, to Nader and Judith never helping despite hanging around the monastery, to Claude just up and leaving at the end. If it actually went and made Claude as ruthless and cunning as he is sometimes implied to be, or it was politics-centric with the Alliance split in two, it would be interesting but in the end it's meh. I see people talk about it being the lore route, but you get most of that lore in SS with more focus on Byleth instead of a Claude that talks about his dreams only to leave, handing you the reigns of Fodlan unlike every other path where the main lord rules (SS's lord is Byleth, with Seteth being adjutant). There's also the fact that hearing Catherine, Seteth and Cyril talk about saving Rhea every damn chapter on the other routes (in particular, AM even when Dmitri is still murder-happy) is really annoying when those routes are about winning the war with saving Rhea a happy side benefit whereas SS is the reverse. You learn more about Byleth instead of Claude and both routes' final bosses basically come out of nowhere. Yeah, Nemesis is unique while Rhea is fought in CF but the way the battle is set up and the mechanics of the fight are completely different.

 

As for AM, it was too annoying, between Dmitri being the way he is for half the part, everyone else following him despite knowing he was a mess, and his redemption feels forced, abrupt and completely overdone. We go half the part with a murder hobo, Rodrigue sacrifices himself, we get a rain scene and then suddenly he's the perfect FE lord triumphantly returning to save his people before invading the enemy nation and taking down the "evil" Emperor. IMO it's the worst route. Everyone talks about how they want to help Dmitri but nobody does anything to help. At least in VW the classmates are blatantly just add-ons instead of "friends" that do nothing but enable their buddy's bad habits. You also never address the Slithers in AM where every other route at least plans to.

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if playing with the same cast isn't a problem for you, i suggest picking SS next, it just feels like a natural consequence, like hearing both sides of an argument

CF was my first route, and i didn't regret at all, because:
1) i managed to feel how "wrong" was to side with Edelgard for me, so i'm happy i got rid of that route first;
2) i managed to enjoy SS much, much more after CF

now i know this isn't your case, but even so i still think you should play SS after CF, since in my opinion "CF -> SS -> AM -> VW" is the best way to play 3H (free to disagree)

am i biased? sure i am, but who isn't when this topic comes out?

Edited by Yexin
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On 7/31/2020 at 10:57 AM, Ownagepuffs said:

>plays the propaganda route first and considers rhea a villain

Right, it's the "propaganda route" beacuse it commits the unforgiveable sin of starring your least favorite lord. Every route can be looked at that way depending on who you agree with. Please keep your bias out of this.

On 7/31/2020 at 11:35 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

 

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Ah yes, "lore", a great excuse for why Rhea's tyrannical behaviour in the present is okay. The case for Rhea as a villain can be made very easily using White Clouds alone.

Every route colours your perspective, by the way.

 

Thank you! I wasn't even talking about CF Rhea. She pulls enough crap in White Clouds that I don't even need to mention what she does after the timeskip.

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Verdant Wind was my first route, and my personal suggestion for next playthrough. It deals with Edelgard as a villain, but also lets you face down Those Who Slither in the Dark. And it lets you see Nemesis and the Elites as they really are, rather than what either the Church or Empire says he is. The Almyrans, who were among your enemies, become your allies. Claude's exclusive paralogue features a neat boss and offers some lore, while his relationship with Judith is really cute. And the Golden Deer are probably my favorite bunch of misfits, all things considered.

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55 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

And it lets you see Nemesis and the Elites as they really are

 

Spoiler

I don't think that's really accurate. Claude's boss conversation with Riegan indicates that the elites faced in VW, at least, are mindless automata. For this reason, along with the fact that he does little more than spout lines from a book of villain cliches, I'm also rather skeptical that the Nemesis we see here reflects the real Nemesis, although it's hard to say for sure.

 

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11 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

 

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I don't think that's really accurate. Claude's boss conversation with Riegan indicates that the elites faced in VW, at least, are mindless automata. For this reason, along with the fact that he does little more than spout lines from a book of villain cliches, I'm also rather skeptical that the Nemesis we see here reflects the real Nemesis, although it's hard to say for sure.

 

That's a fair point. It's unclear if the one we fight is "mindless zombie" or "single-minded bandit". And it's possible that Those Who Slither altered him in some fashion, to use as a weapon. Still, it makes for a cool boss fight, even if it comes way out of right field.

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On 7/31/2020 at 5:57 PM, Ownagepuffs said:

>plays the propaganda route first and considers rhea a villain

Please play other routes and understand the lore. I'm so glad I played VW first because it doesn't color your perspective.

This is what Rhea is like and is foreshadowed in part 1 even on all routes. Is that route "propaganda" by the devs to make us hate Rhea? Is this an elaborate attempt at Edelgard to alter our perception of the game? Is the game even real? Crazy stuff. 

Honestly at this point I don't even know why I bother to read what people like this have to say. There should be some way to just filter all that worthless stuff out.

Edited by SRPG Tryhard
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46 minutes ago, SRPG Tryhard said:

This is what Rhea is like and is foreshadowed in part 1 even on all routes. Is that route "propaganda" by the devs to make us hate Rhea? Is this an elaborate attempt at Edelgard to alter our perception of the game? Is the game even real? Crazy stuff. 

Honestly at this point I don't even know why I bother to read what people like this have to say. There should be some way to just filter all that worthless stuff out.

but you can't deny that the game does literally everything it can to make Rhea look suspicious and make you wary of every word she says, even so early on in the game when you hardly know any character

and this is kinda hypocritical since the devs themselves said they consider Edelgard as the villain, but when you think about it, she doesn't get the same treatment Rhea gets

this can seriously shape many players' view on her character, and more on topic, influence their will to play other routes

Edited by Yexin
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11 hours ago, Yexin said:

but you can't deny that the game does literally everything it can to make Rhea look suspicious and make you wary of every word she says, even so early on in the game when you hardly know any character

and this is kinda hypocritical since the devs themselves said they consider Edelgard as the villain, but when you think about it, she doesn't get the same treatment Rhea gets

this can seriously shape many players' view on her character, and more on topic, influence their will to play other routes

They make Rhea "look suspicious" because she is suspicious. That is what they wanted to present her as such and as I said, is consistent with her actions in the war phase in the case she doesn't get restrained. The game is not "biased", this is the story it wants to tell. 

Edelgard is an antagonist not a villain. That is already a contradiction between this and how the game presents her and you already mentioned it. As did the interview. Kusagihara contradicts himself by calling the *antagonist* a "villain" when he also says the story is morally grey and that everyone is good in their own way. We all know that "villain" is a word used for children's Saturday morning cartoon evil villains, which just doesn't apply here in both how the game presents them and how the game was advertised as. It is a Fire Emblem game and someone needs to start a war. He called Edelgard a villain because traditionally the villain of the story starts it. People who hate Edelgard love taking this out of context for their hate rhetoric. Nothing in the game supports this, not only does Edelgard get her own ""villain"" route but that route also is presented as anything but, with the most progressive and peaceful ending for Fodlan.

Edited by SRPG Tryhard
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2 hours ago, Ownagepuffs said:

Lmao damn at least I had the sense not to further derail the topic.

Well to be fair, the original topic is over. I'm already three chapters into Blue Lions.

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On 8/6/2020 at 7:03 PM, RainbowMoon said:

Well to be fair, the original topic is over. I'm already three chapters into Blue Lions.

I just wanted to tell you this, I am really glad you like Edelgard so much.

I would really recommend Azure Moon , even if I never could fully get behind Dimitri, it did make me understand him better however and the route also have a lot of sweet flashbacks between Dimitri and Edelgard while they were young, their old friendship actually makes their future as mortal enemies really tragic

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On 8/7/2020 at 10:22 PM, Darkmoon6789 said:

I just wanted to tell you this, I am really glad you like Edelgard so much.

I would really recommend Azure Moon , even if I never could fully get behind Dimitri, it did make me understand him better however and the route also have a lot of sweet flashbacks between Dimitri and Edelgard while they were young, their old friendship actually makes their future as mortal enemies really tragic

Thanks! El and Dimitri are such beautifully written characters it's hard not to love them both. Which makes experiencing the war from both sides all the more impactful, especially when their stories stay so connected even as the two become mirrors of each other. Azure Moon just seems like the perfect route to play alongside my second Crimson Flower. And I like that technically the Blue Lions can still achieve El's dreams for Fódlan (Rhea's removed from power and Sylvain's solo ending puts an end to the crest system). A nice way of honoring El and not letting her death be in vain.

Edited by RainbowMoon
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18 hours ago, RainbowMoon said:

Thanks! El and Dimitri are such beautifully written characters it's hard not to love them both. Which makes experiencing the war from both sides all the more impactful, especially when their stories stay so connected even as the two become mirrors of each other. Azure Moon just seems like the perfect route to play alongside my second Crimson Flower. And I like that technically the Blue Lions can still achieve El's dreams for Fódlan (Rhea's removed from power and Sylvain's solo ending puts an end to the crest system). A nice way of honoring El and not letting her death be in vain.

Yeah, the thing is, it might not actually matters who win the war, by the very act of starting this conflict, Edelgard has brought people's attention to the problem with the crest system, and that it needs fixing. Regardless of who wins Fodlan always becomes a better place than it was before the war. 

Some would say that Edelgard always loses, I would say the opposite, Edelgard is always successful in some manner, even when she loses. I think Edelgard would be okay with giving her life, if it meant the end of the crest system and a better future for Fodlan. I hope that Dimitri in the end honoured the memory of the real Edelgard, and not the scapegoat created to deal with his trauma.

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