How do you feel about Fire Emblem Fates 7 years later?

[Use the Falchion]

I'm usually a Character > Story > Gameplay person. Fates is one of the very few exceptions to that rule within the FE franchise. (TMS is the other major exception.) I liked Fates once I started treating units as puzzles and the game as a eugenics simulator rather than carrying about the story of the characters for themselves (for the most part). 

Fates still has some of the best gameplay and worst map design the franchise has ever had. The first roughly 5 levels of Revelation are pure agony, and have on more than one occasion, stopped me from starting playthroughs. I'd honestly rather take Awakening and Three Houses generic map design over this garbage. That being said, most of the gameplay feels rock solid to me. Each class can fill a niche pretty well, and the switch from Pair Up to Attack/Defense Stance was a really good one. Fates brought in a lot of fun classes that I hope return to the franchise soon. 

Overall, I like Fates for its gameplay, and I respect its ambition in its story, even if it probably overextends itself. (Or rather, even if it doesn't live up to the rumored pages upon pages of notes for the story. I have hope those can be revisited in a remake, however.)

[iridium137]

Of all the Fire Emblem games, Fates is the game I find myself replaying the most.

The gameplay is fantastic. I think what I like most about the gameplay is how many options you're given. For example, let's say you have a unit that's struggling with accuracy. You can alleviate that by using a bronze weapon, use attack stance for +10 hit, use Corrin as support for +10 hit, Heartseeker for -20 enemy avoid, Freeze staff for -20 enemy avoid, Fierce Mein for -10 enemy avoid, etc... Obviously, you won't always have all that available, and all those options have opportunity costs and drawbacks, but the point is, you're given those tools.
There's also a few small things I like, such as:
- As somebody that likes mitigating RNG, Fates's bronze weapons are perfect for giving me a peace of mind.
- Most of the mechanics are balanced. For example, I like using attack stance, while others swear by guard stance.
- It's way easier to feed kills in this game, using attack stance and weapons that can't double/crit, which is a nice quality-of-life feature. In fact, I use things like javelins more for kill-feeding than their "intended" use.
Overall, I feel like I'm given way more freedom to employ my own playstyle, and more control of my fate (pun sorta intended) in Fates than any other Fire Emblem game.

The story is honestly a joke, but that's not nearly as bad as I first thought, mainly because:
- You only experience the story once, whereas you experience the gameplay multiple times.
- None of the other Fire Emblem games have great story either.
- The story is so obviously and comically bad that I quickly stopped taking it seriously. I actually prefer that over something like Radiant Dawn or Three Houses, which is more serious, so I get a lot more invested in the story before realizing it's just as flawed.

[Shadow Mir]

On 7/17/2022 at 10:51 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

I actually agree with the first statement here. Binding Blade may have the best plot in the series, but if play Fire Emblem to unironically enjoy the plot, you're off your rocker.

You're being sarcastic, aren't you. Zephiel is as shallow and petty a villain as Hody Jones (as in, the same guy who went on a huge anti-humanity crusade despite the fact that humans never did anything to him personally; Fish-Man Island has had issues with racism in the backstory, but when you haven't personally experienced any mistreatment by humans, your cause just looks shallower than a puddle). I mean, it's unfortunate that his father was an absolute piece of shit that tried to murder him, but Zephiel still looks more like a drama queen that is about as nuanced as a generic Saturday morning cartoon villain. Is it a lot to ask for a story and villains I can at least respect??

Edited August 10, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Is it a lot to ask for a story and villains I can at least respect?

He's a genocidal maniac, you aren't supposed to respect him. The fact that he, despite his many talents and imposing stature, is a little bitch, is the point. His pettiness and self-righteous hypocrisy are characteristic of his kind, people who wallow in self-pity and play the victim. A man with any actual integrity would not decide to exterminate the human race because of personal trauma.

Edited August 10, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[Fire Emblem Fan]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

that is about as nuanced as a generic Saturday morning cartoon villain.

This is literally every single villain in Fates, to be honest.

[DarkSage861]

I know I'm probably gonna get shit from the super hardcore Fire Emblem elitists for this but the way I feel about Fates is the same way I did back then, it was a positive experience but it seems like it's rare for most hardcore fans (mostly here) to say anything positive about the game. People want to say only the gameplay is good but I overall enjoyed the characters, story and everything it had to offer too. I already go into more detail about why I have somewhat of a emotional tangent to the game in this one post I made but it's a game I go back to every now and again

I'll go as far as to say that it's the last good FE game (i'm ready for your paragraphs elitists), especially since I didn't feel the same enjoyment for the game after Echoes yet it's always praised by the elitists as the best FE game yet to me it feel like IS made everything boring and I couldn't get into it and while I haven't played Three Houses yet, just looking at my brother playing it, it doesn't seem promising (he also plans to sell it soon). Hopefully there's more actual topics about the game so we can actually have people formulate an opinion that isn't the same one that people have been saying for the past 6 years cuz there's no way that it's 2022 and the stupid "if you like Fates and have never played the old games, then you're a stupid casual waifu lover 🤓" mentality is still around. 

I just wish people looked at these games more like how Etika did, I rewatched his Fates streams a while back and the dude played through it with a positive mind (granted the game was new when it happened but still) even as the months when he was playing he had a more cool outlook when it came to the game meanwhile if I went into someone else's stream about the game it'd just be constant bashing all stream. 

All in all, i just hope the people who genuinely like the game finally have a platform to express why they enjoyed it because if we live in a timeline where people now praise Sonic 06 and Unleashed, then this can be the same timeline where Fates can be praised for it's positive because there's definitely more good than bad, who knows maybe someone will make a 2 hour video essay  

[orig4mi]

On 7/17/2022 at 4:18 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I replay them reasonably often (well, not Revelation). Conquest has the best gameplay in the series (which is extremely high praise since i adore this series's gameplay), Birthright is kinda the fast food version of it (which suits my mood sometimes if I want something breezier; the core gameplay is still good, just the map design is much simpler). The story is pretty bad, but I think plenty of other FE stories are pretty bad or even worse in some cases, so eh. (In particular, no FE released between 2007 and 2019 has what I'd consider a good story.) I do like some of the characters, and the music. So overall, my opinion of the games is very positive.

For what it's worth, if you look at any actual aggregate measures, this isn't actually true. Fates did and does consistently well in terms of review scores, various polls, Choose Your Legends results, AO3 presence, etc. It obviously struck a nerve with its detractors, but I wouldn't generalize that to the playerbase as a whole.

 

This is exactly my opinion and I saved some precious minutes typing this out because someone else already did. Conquest has the best gameplay in the series, Birthright is a diet coke version that I still generally enjoy despite its shortcomings, Revelation maps are the worst. Other Fire Emblem games have a subpar story as well, so it's part of the course for me in a sense, even though Fates plot is pretty awful. I like the characters and supports, that's probably where I am different from other people.

The fates routes are my most replayed FE games. The gameplay is fantastic, really enjoy the combination of pair-up, the Conquest maps with interesting terrains (and win conditions that aren't just "route the enemy") and the OST is killer. Fates is my favourite by a large margin for these reasons and no other FE game shares its gameplay finesse.

[CompteSecours]

I often replay Conquest and I'm always amazed by the genius of this game.

How they handle the winning conditions (not the map winning conditions, more like "here I need a sword unit" etc), the difficulty. This game has a lot more replayability than TH.

Yes story is horrible, but I just press Start. To be honest, excluding Tellius/Judgral, FE story's are mid to bad tier.

[henrymidfields]

The gamplay for Conquest is quite good. I think aside from 3H's battalions, a lot of Conquest's system should be added into remakes of past games, particularly Binding Blade to better portray Roy as the tactician.

The story...yeah. At least it was good for a laugh. And for some World War 2 Pacific Theatre shenanigans I did in my LP to make Conquest's story more bearable. 

Edited October 7, 2022 by henrymidfields

[EdeaCreamer]

Still love the gameplay, still find the characters entertaining if not exactly deep, and still take umbrage with the plot (though by this point it's mixed with a healthy dose of indifference).

[Ren_Ambrose]

I realize I'm kinda necro-ing a dead thread here (but hey in the age of discord, aren't most forums way less busy than they used to be?) but I had some thoughts I wanted to try and put into words since the full experience is inaccessible. 

Fates was the first big thing I was excited for after getting into the series proper. I had just finished Awakening the year before and was HEAVILY invested in it, which my Miiverse backup can attest to. I only vaguely remember the leadup to release but after? Oh boy here we go.

I got Conquest just to be a contrarian, cause everyone else I knew got Birthright. Only to, before even finishing chapter 3, cave and play Birthright first because the first few chapters do basically nothing to make you want to side with Nohr. Played through that, by the time I finished, Revelations was out so I picked that up too. Did Conquest next, then took a break for a while. After I got back and finished Revelations, I started grinding out on the other aspects of the game, like the dlc and whatnot. 

I was not expecting to get as into the online as I ended up doing. Visiting my friends' castles, making weird layouts and challenge battles for each other, the whole shebang. We all kinda knew the plot was terrible but the online features were surprisingly well-rounded, especially for a first party Nintendo title no less.

But my fondest memories are actually from this forum. Dakota's War Journal, by @Alastor15243 who took an absolute trainwreck of a plot and made something great with it. I initially found the thread, binged reading all of it over the course of like, two days, and immediately shared it with my in-person friends, who did something similar but don't have accounts (as far as I know anyway). Once I caught up, which judging by my earliest posts in the thread, was a bit before Conquest endgame, I finally broke out of my shell a bit and stopped lurking so much. 

Some small part of me hopes that it'll continue one day but if they wanna just keep those memories as just that, I won't mind. I am curious how the battle on the castle I set up went though.

[Alastor15243]

10 hours ago, Ren_Ambrose said:

But my fondest memories are actually from this forum. Dakota's War Journal, by @Alastor15243 who took an absolute trainwreck of a plot and made something great with it. I initially found the thread, binged reading all of it over the course of like, two days, and immediately shared it with my in-person friends, who did something similar but don't have accounts (as far as I know anyway). Once I caught up, which judging by my earliest posts in the thread, was a bit before Conquest endgame, I finally broke out of my shell a bit and stopped lurking so much.

I am beyond flattered to hear my work still sticks with you all these years later. I had a lot of fun writing it. Unfortunately, I doubt a completion is ever happening. In essence, the corners I unknowingly wrote myself into in the act of improv gradually built up until I was backed into all of them at once. I don't know how I would ever come up with a satisfying conclusion to that thing, especially so long after having initially started it, however much I may wish I could.

I haven't given up on writing in general, though, and hopefully you'll see something from me in the future!

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

To me, Fateswakening occupy an awkward sot of being "modern" Fire Emblem games... without the Turnwheel. See, the GBA titles, I can get frustrated at myself over a unit death, but recognize that I either need to move on, or totally reset. It's just how they designed the games back then. Fareswakening, though... I've been spoiled by the fact that Echoes, a fellow 3DS title, introduced rewinding. So when I get a death in those games, I remind myself, "I could be in Valentia right now".

That said, I might just lean in to the lack of resetting, and revisit Fates for an Ironman. The good news is, I don't care enough about any of the characters to feel all torn up about not resetting for them. I already beat Revelation on Hard, so maybe Birthright Hard in the near future? Conquest has too many enemy skills whizzing around for my tastes. More power to the players who really loved this game (was it one, two, or three of them?), but it's not one I ever really crave replaying.

[LamerGamer776]

22 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

To me, Fateswakening occupy an awkward sot of being "modern" Fire Emblem games... without the Turnwheel. See, the GBA titles, I can get frustrated at myself over a unit death, but recognize that I either need to move on, or totally reset. It's just how they designed the games back then. Fareswakening, though... I've been spoiled by the fact that Echoes, a fellow 3DS title, introduced rewinding. So when I get a death in those games, I remind myself, "I could be in Valentia right now".

That said, I might just lean in to the lack of resetting, and revisit Fates for an Ironman. The good news is, I don't care enough about any of the characters to feel all torn up about not resetting for them. I already beat Revelation on Hard, so maybe Birthright Hard in the near future? Conquest has too many enemy skills whizzing around for my tastes. More power to the players who really loved this game (was it one, two, or three of them?), but it's not one I ever really crave replaying.

Try playing on Casual Mode with a self imposed rule of resetting when a unit dies. In Casual Mode, you can create Battle Saves, which while not 1-to-1 with the Turnwheel, has very similar functionality in that you can reset your game after a bad turn without losing all your progress. Normally, I like creating a Battle Save at the start of each turn, as its usually an enemy-phase misplay or random skill that I forgot the enemy had that forces me to restart.

One benefit to being forced to SR is that you can go to the shops and buy Tonics to let the characters reach certain thresholds that might have caused them to die in a certain chapter.

Edited July 5, 2023 by LamerGamer776