Route Splits (Thracia 776, Binding Blade, and Sacred Stones)

[FailWood]

Factoring things like map quality and the units you get during these routes, which Fire Emblem game do you think handled Route Splits the best?  I'd strongly prefer to keep the focus of this topic between Thracia 776, Binding Blade, and Sacred Stones, as they only affect a portion of your journey and not the vast majority of the game (like what Fates and Three Houses did).

[Use the Falchion]

I only have experience with Sacred Stones between the three (my experience with BB never got to the route split), but I think that handles it the best. I'm personally not a fan of route splits that have exclusive characters in them.* If there's a split, I still want to be able to recruit every character. Of the three, Sacred Stones is the only one that I know allows for that path. (Please correct me if I'm wrong though!)

 

*This is hypocritical of me though, and I realize it. I'm working on a little story for what I think a sequel to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE could look like, and I found myself with a route split at the beginning. The story is more or less the same, but the main characters differ slightly, and there are some route-exclusive characters. HOWEVER, I also made sure that there's a way to gain all characters in NG+ due to the fact that I hate how route splits have exclusive characters. 

[Saint Rubenio]

Blazing Sword has two minor route splits in the same vein as the games you mentioned. If you don't mind, I'll include it as well.

In my opinion, from worst to best:

Blazing Sword

The conditions for both splits are contrived, unclear if you don't follow a guide and demand that you use certain units to be able to pick comfortably. Both splits are awfully balanced, with Kenneth's Pale Flower of Darkness and Linus's Four-Fanged Offense being considered vastly better than their counterparts.

Kenneth's map offers an easier way to choose between Karel and Harken and yields the only aura tome in the game as opposed to a bad light brand that will rot in the convoy forever and that you can obtain elsewhere anyway. Neither map is enjoyable whatsoever, but it's easier to get out of the awful snow gimmick area in Kenneth's map, so that's another thing going for it.

As for the other split, Linus's map offers a better recruitable in Geitz and doesn't make you bother with fog, a feature that everyone has always loved very much. And then there's Wallace. Why is he here? Why is he a missable route split character? He's in Lyn mode! Imagine you play this game for the first time, you grow fond of Wallace in Lyn mode... and then he just vanishes because for some undiscernible reason, the devs decided to make him possible to miss entirely if you level your lords too much. Not to mention, if you play through Lyn hard and don't promote him, he'll be too weak to survive and will just instantly die here. Extremely stupid design, if you ask me.

All in all, quite bad splits both.

Binding Blade

Similar to Blazing Sword's, just slightly better. Very slightly. The condition for the Sacae/Ilia split shares the same problems as the BS splits, but at least the Western Isles split is more straightforward, even if it's still unclear. The only really meaningful difference in the first split is Echidna vs Bartre and an energy ring. Echidna is the better unit, but the gap isn't quite as broad as between Geitz and Wallace. Everything else is mostly the same, units join one map earlier or later, the rewards are similar, energy ring aside; the maps are a bit different, though not as much as one might think... Not too big a split.

Ilia/Sacae, on the other hand, is peak terrible split balance. Sacae is a huge pain to go through, featuring enemies with far higher avoid, speed and damage than Ilia's pathetic pegasus knights, not to mention the place is hell for your own fliers, with all the bows, and features much bigger dickmoves against the player, such as the whole nonsense with the circle of yurts in the Law of Sacae map. And the gaiden for Mulgreis? Awful and tedious too. The gaiden for Maltet is just tedious.

Your reward for putting up with all of this instead of going to Ilia and massacring weighed down pegasi? You get Dayan, who can shoot some fliers in a couple of maps with moderate effectiveness, unlike Juno, who does nothing. He'll be good filler in the remaining maps, with their massive deployment slots and all, but still. It's really not worth going there just for him.

One bad split, one mediocre split. That makes it better than BS.

Thracia 776

Isn't it ironic that the game infamous for being cryptic and hating blind players offers such a simple route split? You just go one way or the other - or, alternatively, you visit the priest and get to choose the way in text form. Simple and self-explanatory.

The split itself isn't very well balanced, however. It's not as hilarious as BB, I don't think, but it's not too far off. Going to Nohrden yields two staffers, in the FE where staves are at their best, one of whom can use the flame sword to boost her magic for even more effective staffing. That'd be enough already, but the route also offers a flier that arrives too late to do much, but is still okay, as well as the very solid mage knight Ilios that can fight reliably and bolting things at base, if you're willing to make the, uh... sacrifice. Compared to the Mirage Forest, where you get the two worst units in the game and a filler horse guy just as the game turns more indoor-heavy... Yeah. Not great. You can also get a stockpile of sleep swords in Nohrden as opposed to just one, as well as better skill manuals and better gear in general. Not to mention, closure on Kempf. That's always important.

The maps in the Nohrden route are harder, which I'm thinking is supposed to be the compensating factor (I mean, just look at the whole Saias situation), but this is undermined by the fact that the Mirage Forest route is incredibly annoying, with stuff like the warp tiles, the berserk boss, the ballista spam in the second map, etc. It's certainly easier, but it's not fun to play.

Overall, not a very well balanced split, but it's not as woefully lopsided as Ilia/Sacae, and the straightforward choice that doesn't require you use specific units puts it above the previous two.

Sacred Stones

Another very simple text choice, like in Thracia, so that's one bullet dodged already.

The same characters join in both routes, just at different points in time. Ephraim has the harder maps while I feel Eirika's tend to be bigger and longer, but neither route has maps that can be considered so terrible that they lopside the split too badly, and the treasure in both paths being similar makes this a choice that leaves more room for personal preference.

Worth noting is that this is the one split that meaningfully impacts the story of its game, changing which lord the game focuses on for the final third of the game, the way Lyon behaves and some other bits and pieces here and there. I prefer Ephraim here, mostly for offering my prefered version of Lyon and some worldbuilding for Grado, but it's worth seeing both.

Best route split out of this bunch. Which isn't really saying much. None of them is all that great, when you stop to think about it. But this one is quite harmless, so to speak. Neither of the options is as obscenely superior as in the other splits, nor do you require a guide to choose like in the previous two GBA titles.

 

tl;dr: Sacred Stones > Thracia 776 > Binding Blade > Blazing Sword

[Shadow Mir]

I'd say Sacred Stones did it best... though that says more about how bad Thracia and Binding Blade handle theirs. Especially the latter, where both splits have one obviously bad choice.

[JimmyBeans]

Just wanted to add the the notion that 776's route split is between the more difficult or the more annoying chapter so it's usually pretty on-sided. However, I want to point out that I really like the story elements present in B route despite it's more annoying game play.

When I first played B route and watched the villagers do their thing in that second map my jaw was on the ground, but then again, the 17A experience with Saias brought about some stress and a great introduction to what he would represent to us later in the game.

This may be a little off topic, but I actually love the 776 route split for the story reasons and for the way they both made me feel on my first runs of them. That ones definitely my favorite.

[FailWood]

@Saint Rubenio First of all, I wanted to say I appreciate how detailed your response one the topic was.  You have my thanks for that.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Blazing Sword has two minor route splits in the same vein as the games you mentioned. If you don't mind, I'll include it as well.

I purposely didn't mention it because I thought it was too minor to be worth including, but again I appreciate how detailed your post was.

3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

And then there's Wallace. Why is he here? Why is he a missable route split character? He's in Lyn mode! Imagine you play this game for the first time, you grow fond of Wallace in Lyn mode... and then he just vanishes because for some undiscernible reason, the devs decided to make him possible to miss entirely if you level your lords too much. Not to mention, if you play through Lyn hard and don't promote him, he'll be too weak to survive and will just instantly die here. Extremely stupid design, if you ask me.

That was really dumb of them.  He's also the only other potential General you get in the game besides Oswin.  It's a shame because I really like his supports with Lyn.

3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

The only really meaningful difference in the first split is Echidna vs Bartre and an energy ring. Echidna is the better unit, but the gap isn't quite as broad as between Geitz and Wallace.

I'm still in my first playthrough of Binding Blade, and went Bartre's Route because I wanted to see how he played.  I'm kind of surprised that Echidna is often viewed as the better of the two, is it because of Bartre's base Speed being not good?  Having Bows in a game where there's not bad to have coupled with his very good base Strength I found helpful.

[FailWood]

3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Isn't it ironic that the game infamous for being cryptic and hating blind players offers such a simple route split? You just go one way or the other - or, alternatively, you visit the priest and get to choose the way in text form. Simple and self-explanatory.

Watching Mekkah's Negative Growths LP of Thracia is what got me to create this topic.  It was the last one I got to see, having played both routes of Sacred Stones (Team Ephraim btw, I like his maps more and that he's a rare MC who doesn't use Swords), both versions of the Blazing Sword maps you mentioned, and watched both Binding Blade LP's of Mekkah's (he did Sacae in the first one, then Ilia in the second).

[Saint Rubenio]

13 minutes ago, FailWood said:

@Saint Rubenio First of all, I wanted to say I appreciate how detailed your response one the topic was.  You have my thanks for that.

You're welcome! I saw the topic name and it just got me in the mood for writing.

17 minutes ago, FailWood said:

I purposely didn't mention it because I thought it was too minor to be worth including, but again I appreciate how detailed your post was.

Yeah, come to think of it, these are just single maps, whereas the others are multiple. Frankly, I just wanted an excuse to diss Blazing Sword haha.

13 minutes ago, FailWood said:

That was really dumb of them.  He's also the only other potential General you get in the game besides Oswin.  It's a shame because I really like his supports with Lyn.

Wallace is just bizarre as a route split character. Geitz is what you'd expect, he's just some rando that comes out of nowhere. Obviously, he's missable! But Wallace is a character that you've already met, possibly grown fond of, maybe even decided to use long-term, and then you gave Lyn one too many levels and he's gone forever.

Then again, I suppose Wallace isn't the only one. In the grand scheme of things, Miranda is a pretty major character in Thracia 776. She even gets a good couple of scenes past her recruitment, which isn't a feat a lot of people can claim to have pulled off in these old FEs. And yet... she can just not exist. Oh, well.

13 minutes ago, FailWood said:

I'm still in my first playthrough of Binding Blade, and went Bartre's Route because I wanted to see how he played.  I'm kind of surprised that Echidna is often viewed as the better of the two, is it because of Bartre's base Speed being not good?  Having Bows in a game where there's not bad to have coupled with his very good base Strength I found helpful.

Yeah, speed's what does it. Like I said, the gap isn't quite as broad between Bartre and Echidna, though. Bartre's massive strength, good bulk and bows are definitely assets he can put to good use. But Echidna is often viewed as the best axe wielder in the game, simply because she has speed. Really, speed is her main claim to fame, but it's one heck of a claim to fame, of course. Speed being the best stat and all.

Honestly I just like her because she's green and a female hero. How cool is that?

[FailWood]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

good bulk

I forgot how high his base HP is too.  Fun fact, he has the highest base Strength in the game (barring trial characters), and the 3rd highest base HP, behind Garret and Hard Mode Perceval.  Too bad his other bases (other then Luck) leave a bit to be desired.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Echidna is often viewed as the best axe wielder in the game, simply because she has speed. Really, speed is her main claim to fame, but it's one heck of a claim to fame, of course. Speed being the best stat and all.

Honestly I just like her because she's green and a female hero. How cool is that?

It is a little ironic to call her that as she gets weighed down by every Axe in the game, but it could make her a good Body Ring candidate.  Her base Skill is really high too, not just her Speed.

[Pengaius]

So I dont really have anything to say about Sacae (based)/lIIia (cringe) that hasnt already been said other than the fact that if you dont recruit sue you cant go Sacae. But the other splits are pretty cool. 

For Thracia what i haven't seen brought up in this thread yet is all the cool items that the b route gives you. Luna manual, a 2nd Vouge, Berserk Staff, Heim Scroll and 1-3 master swords depending on how capturey you feel. So the choice becomes do you go A route to get some strong units for your army or do you go B route to make your pre-existing army better. The only problem with B route is that 16b is the 2nd worst map in the game only losing out to the "Whacky Statue Heist of Blindness and Teleportation". Conomore is nice for the few outdoor maps you have left, Shannam helps oufit your goon squad with Silver weapons and I do enjoy Miranda if only for the absolute hilarity that is Wrath meteor shananagins. 

But enough about the best game in the series its time for the real big route split.

Eirika route has some of my favourite map ideas in the series. Revolt at Carcino is such a cool map conceptually. Normally maps where you save a bunch of green units they are on the way to the seize point, but this map has you approach from a weird angle where you need to get to Innes and co and form a defensive position using the little box and the walls while you divert another squad to rush Pablo. It would be such a good map if only Fe8 enemies knew what stats were. 

The aias map is pretty interesting too as it puts the player in a pincer attack and forces the player to rush down Aias (or would if again Fe8 enemies were strong in any way). The maps biggest problem is that if you play too fast you miss Cormag which ruins the payoff for the whole Valter/Glen mini-arc so that kinda blows. I think the map would be better if it didnt have just Aias as a win condition but also Pablo too but hey I actually enjoy 5x so what do I know. 

The Ephraim route maps are all kinda bleh with the exception of the Gheb chapter for entirely meme reasons. All the Ephraim maps are just kind of slow and boring. The only map thats more fun than its Eirika mode counterpart is the castle map, but thats just because the architects all suffered from heatstroke when designing Jehanna Hall.

[SnowFire]

On 5/25/2022 at 7:46 PM, FailWood said:

Factoring things like map quality and the units you get during these routes, which Fire Emblem game do you think handled Route Splits the best?

As a slight nitpick here...  I get what you're asking, but I'd argue that the phrasing is conflating two separate things here.  There's the question of the *balance* of map splits and which ones you'll play in-game because they're more fun, give you more powerful stuff, or whatever, and then there's the question of "handling route splits the best."  It's very easy to imagine a route split where one route has awful, difficult maps and doesn't give you a powerful recruit, but the internal reward of having Done The Right Thing, and that could be very impactful and flavorful route split.  ("Do you ally with this comically evil but independent nation and get to recruit DeathSol the Shadow Sorcerer?")  Good, but not balanced.

I guess the closest to that - and this doesn't really count as a route split - is in FE Shadow Dragon's Alterspire, where if you don't have Tiki or the Falchion before Medeus's map, you'll get Marth desperately searching for some sort of miraculous aid to do the trick and summoning Nagi to aid.  That's very flavorful as a desperate, last chance kind of thing.  Per above, I could see a larger route split where one route offered way better rewards but you're only going there if you're in deep trouble and the game thinks you need it.

Anyway, Sacred Stones handles the routesplit fine in my opinion.  Binding Blade's Sacae vs. Illia is reasonably intuitive in going to where the player seems more interested, but the Western Isles routesplit makes zero sense and isn't set up well at all.  Can't comment on Thracia.

If you like routesplits, you might want to try out Triangle Strategy, which has a decent amount (although constrained by the need to get the plot back to the same rough place for the next split, of course).

Edited May 27, 2022 by SnowFire

[X-Naut]

Binding Blade's splits are the most thought-invoking so they're the one I'll talk about. I'll preface by saying the requirements could stand to be less obtuse. Western Isles path isn't so bad, it's just a mutually exclusive house choice which is easy to make on repeat playthroughs. But the EXP split mechanic is obnoxious and affects your unit choice, or demands more attention to EXP gains than would be expected of players. It's also a split that feels like both should be played... maybe if a remake elevates Guinevere or Lilina to proper deuteragonist?

I'm going to speak against conventional consensus on Ilia vs Sacae here. Yes, I'll acknowledge that Sacae has some more pain in the ass elements, but Ilia's not a golden promised land in comparison. Chapters 18 and 19 are a drag to navigate without warping or wings and while pegasi are less irritating than nomads they go too far in the opposite direction. I don't particularly enjoy being in near-constant ballista range either. And at the very least Sacae offers a change of scenery on repeat playthroughs.

The same can't be said of Western Isles' B route, which look like the same two maps but swapped around and redesigned much worse. 10B packs the same pandemonium as 11A while being more claustrophobic and putting Klein/Thea in much worse starting positions. 11B pits you against a damned Iron Ballista (3-15 range!) before you even encounter the standard ballista. For all the headaches 11A can cause it's more palatable than the two maps it takes to skip it. It's a shame Elphin, Bartre and the fighters' world-building are locked to it... well, that and an Energy Ring instead of a Dracoshield. What is it with GBA being so stingy with Energy Rings?

tl;dr Isles A > Ilia > Sacae > Isles B. Remake could stand to be more transparent about the splits.

[FailWood]

From what I've gathered about the Ilia Vs Sacae comparison, it comes down to one question: Do you want to face easier enemies with rougher terrain (Ilia), or do you want better terrain with more difficult enemies (Sacae)?

[FailWood]

4 hours ago, X-Naut said:

the fighters' world-building

I got those village conversations with Lot.  Does his best for those back home.

[Eltosian Kadath]

5 hours ago, JimmyBeans said:

 

This may be a little off topic, but I actually love the 776 route split for the story reasons and for the way they both made me feel on my first runs of them. That ones definitely my favorite.

I thinks its a perspective that has been under represented in this thread, and it shouldn't be, so I think I will address the four, as like @Saint Rubenio I don't see why FE7 should be excluded from this conversation. I think I will do it in order from the one I think had the worst route split from a story perspective, to what I think had the best route split from a story perspective.

Blazing Sword:

Both the route splits in this game feel incredibly arbitrary, but there are some redeeming story changes with Cog of Destiny. The Four-Fanged Offensive split has a little more logic then the second, that the Lords being stronger inspires the stronger sibling to strike at them first, but the Pale-Flower of Darkness split is entirely arbitrary. The changes story-wise to both of these chapters isn't all that interesting, or even important, barring the way Four-Fanged Offensive ends up impacting Cog of Destiny. The brother that survived Four-Fanged Offensive is the boss of Cog of Destiny, and the two brothers have very different interactions with Nino, and there is an extremely obscure, but rather interesting change to the ending scene if in Hector mode, Hector gets the kill on Linus on Cog of Destiny, where he identifies with the beast, who was only there because he loves his brother. If that scene were less obscure, this might not be in the lowest slot.

Binding Blade:

One notable weakness of how Blazing Blade handles its two route splits is that the routs split conditions aren't telegraphed to blind playthroughs, and I think the Western Isles route split could easily be made stronger with a minor change, but there are interesting thing about it from a narrative perspective. Starting with the first route split in the Western Isle, it is dependent on learning about the Western Isles rebels from a village that is locked off if you visit another village. I think this split would have been made stronger if it were made apparent from the start that the two villages are linked, and if instead of being right next to each other, the one where you learn about the rebels was further away than the other. This small change would make it feel a little more earned, that the Roy that goes out of their way to learn about these out of the way villages is the one who learns about what the occupiers of the Western Isles are hiding. The second split has a lot of similarities to the Blazing Blade style arbitrary level requirement, but it is handled a bit better here. The arbitrary level shift is between the characters & classes that come from the regions that the split will take place, so if you are interested in using the Pegasi of Illia you will have a chance to learn more about them via the route split, or if you prefer the Nomads of Sacae, that is who will be the focus of that section instead. The split still feels a little arbitrary, but that feeling of learning about the characters you care enough to use with this split is a nice touch that meshed well with its support system, and ending system, where what you do in the gameplay determines who and what the story focuses on.

Sacred Stones:

I think the biggest weakness of this split is the disconnect that occurs by most of the playable characters joining you on the route split, which calls into question what else has changed in the other side of the split, but otherwise it is fairly solid. The game having the split be in a menu, where you know the choice you are making before hand, even while playing blind, is an improvement, and like the Sacae/Illia Binding Blade split, it is all about which characters you want the story to focus on. The main issue I see with it from a story perspective is how strange it feels that they force everyone that you have already recruited onto the side you choose, which seems out of character for some of them, and there is a strange feel to some of the people you recruit where it seems like they are in two places at once to accommodate their recruitment on both routes. To make this disconnect more pronounced, there are hints that the same things are happening on the other route, even when you aren't there, which clashes with the idea that you have almost all the other playable characters. If each route felt like they had their own army, it would work a lot better from a story perspective

 

Thracia 776

By far the most interesting from a story perspective, as at its heart the route split is tied to the conflicting philosophies of Leif's two advisors. August has made it clear that he is a utilitarian advisor, the ends justify the means for him even if they are down right villainous (like teaching the Lifis pirates to torture to find Leif) or dishonorable. Dorias in contrast follows a more rigid code of chivalry, how you accomplish your goal matter to him, even if it leads to defeat, and people who act chivalrously are to be respected, even if they do so to accomplish evil acts like the child hunts. You are being asked which moral philosophy you think Leif should follow, as each informs the plans they make, but it also leads to another subtle shift in the story's focus for a little bit, as the Dorias route is more focused on the story of the enemies, whereas August's route more so on the playable characters...

[Interdimensional Observer]

15 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Sacred Stones:

I think the biggest weakness of this split is the disconnect that occurs by most of the playable characters joining you on the route split, which calls into question what else has changed in the other side of the split, but otherwise it is fairly solid. The game having the split be in a menu, where you know the choice you are making before hand, even while playing blind, is an improvement, and like the Sacae/Illia Binding Blade split, it is all about which characters you want the story to focus on. The main issue I see with it from a story perspective is how strange it feels that they force everyone that you have already recruited onto the side you choose, which seems out of character for some of them, and there is a strange feel to some of the people you recruit where it seems like they are in two places at once to accommodate their recruitment on both routes. To make this disconnect more pronounced, there are hints that the same things are happening on the other route, even when you aren't there, which clashes with the idea that you have almost all the other playable characters. If each route felt like they had their own army, it would work a lot better from a story perspective

Amelia, Tana, and maybe Rennac aside (except his royal paymaster fits Eirika better so he gets dragged along with her), I would say most of the cast works better on Eirika's side. Marisa and Ewan feel particularly forced on Ephraim's.

Personally, from a gameplay perspective, I'd be all for adding about 7 new playable characters for SS remake which allowed you to play the midgame route split simultaneously. I'd even go a bit further in this pipe dream remake and extend the duration of the split, as SS is rather short as it is, it could benefit from additional length without being overlong. SS has a small cast of 33 playable characters without Creature Campaign, it could afford to be bigger without becoming bloated IMO.

Rechecking an old topic I had made years ago... several years' younger me thought of the following gameplay-oriented additions:

1. Knight for Eirika
2. Archer for Ephraim
3. Pirate for Ephraim
4. Wyvern Rider for Ephraim
5. Mercenary, Hero, or Swordmaster for Ephraim.
6. Jagen-type character. Probably for Ephraim since Seth between his earlygame importance and lack of Ephraim support leans him toward Eirika.
   1. Class uncertain, but since we only have 1 Thief at the moment the split starts, I was thinking a high-level Thief or Assassin prepromote to kill two birds with one stone. A Frelian (female b/c why not?) officer who serves as Ephraim's aide de camp for managing the invisible Frelian army he is given when his invasion of Grado begins.
7. Mage or Monk for Ephraim, as Knoll doesn't join until the route split is basically over.

If we're not extending the story with additional battles, then...

• Eirika get her Knight either during Chapter 9 or Chapter 13 like Amelia. The latter is fairly late, but the former appearance of Grado soldiers felt pretty forced. Although, the new Knight doesn't have to be from Grado, and could be tweaked into a mercenary instead, from Carcino to add a second playable from the country would be nice.
• Ephraim Archer & Pirate... why not take L'Arachel & Dozla's place in the Phantom Ship battle? Sounds reasonable.
• Ephraim's Wyvern Rider replaces Cormag in Turning Traitor.
• The Mage can replace Ewan.
• The Sword Infantry can replace Gerik in Fluorspar's Oath.

-Although this still leaves the slot Eirika had for Tana, and the slots Ephraim had for Marisa and Tethys, without replacements. Not that they necessarily need to be filled in.

Adding Hayden and Mansel as lategame recruits wouldn't be the worst idea either. Some would go as far as making Selena playable too.

 

On 5/28/2022 at 8:29 AM, X-Naut said:

It's also a split that feels like both should be played...

Particularly when you look at a map. If you're invading Ilia for the sake of getting to Bern, you still have to pass through Sacae first! And I don't believe the game even bothers to explain this issue, other than having Yoder join with the divine weapon of the country that you didn't visit. Implying that somehow, a second Etrurian army did stuff offscreen, which sounds feasible, but the game doesn't say anything about it.

Making both sides of the Ilia-Sacae divide playable would extend the game's single playthrough by five chapters using what we've got. And it'd demand a somewhat stronger plot for this portion of the game. As is, the story place some focus on those pesky corrupt Etrurian nobles, who couldn't be relevant for much longer, and who the game already spends too much time on.

[FailWood]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Making both sides of the Ilia-Sacae divide playable would extend the game's single playthrough by five chapters using what we've got.

It would also mean leaving Roy unpromoted for longer.

[Jotari]

Thracia. Because the game just straight up asks you. I think it even suggests to you which of the two is more difficult. The only issue is Miranda being a route split character when her existence is kind of important for Leif's character development.

Sacred Stones also just let's you straight up choose, but there's  a much bigger Miranda problem there in that I feel like I'm missing half of the story and characters retroactively change their position in time and space like some kind of Zero Escape game.

Elibe is basically "gee it's nice to get more game, but you didn't even try to integrate this naturally, did you?"

Edited June 4, 2022 by Jotari

[AnonymousSpeed]

I actually quite like the Elibe games' EXP-based route-splits. It's a fascinating strategic consideration for the aware player, while the unaware player has a mysterious and subtle way that the game changes on repeat playthroughs. Perhaps what I like most about it, and why I would consider it the most naturally integrated form route split, is that the decision is made based on the moment-to-moment gameplay, and not a menu.