NekoKnight

Leon isn't upset that his son doesn't play football and love chugging beer. Cross-dressing is a whole 'nother level of breaking gender-roles and would be controversial even in modern society.

TRIGGER WARNING You ready for this? I don't think Leon was being a jerk or especially bigoted for not initially approving of his son's cross dressing. Just because it's someone's right to dress how they want to doesn't mean people can't or won't judge them for it. If I wore a dominatrix suit everywhere I went, I wouldn't think my parents were bigoted if they told me my behavior embarrassed them. Forrest is also the son of royalty, so his reputation, as well as his father's is a pretty big deal. I know characters exist in a separate anime world where their quirky personalities such as a penchant for murdering your servants aren't judged by society but it's weirder that people DON'T have a problem with Forrest.

I'd be for it. When I play a game, I want to use all of my available resources to succeed. If grinding is available, even though I'm not forced to use it, I'm still tempted to because it's a resource presented to me. A well tuned game will be suitably challenging with all the available resources, but if grinding is available, I won't know how much I should use to make my game the experience it's supposed to be. Another argument I'd make is support grinding (this is more relevant for games with a 2nd Gen). What if I don't want to grind exp and weapon exp but I DO want to get those support points? I could do this in Conquest but not in Birthright. "Newbies might be confused" is never a good argument. New players can LEARN what these difficulty options mean, and I'd hope they have the capacity to learn, considering they're playing a strategy RPG. Besides, what's hard to understand about "Difficulty level, Permadeath and Grinding"? Unless you've never played a video game before, these aren't difficult concepts to grasp. Even creating your character is more convoluted than choosing between 2-3 difficulty options.

Aside from the obvious asshole/creep/psycho characters, the Takumi x Orochi one pissed me off. The entire line is Orochi teasing and mocking Takumi about his childhood. Their A support ends with Takumi basically telling her to fuck off and the S support has him yearning for more of her shit. Just why? You mean you haven't played the DLC where you can marry Kana too? Here's a little excerpt. Kana: I received a letter from an alternate reality me, and he said "If you ever find yourself sexually attracted to your mom, read this letter". The letter says that I was conceived via artificial insemination, so even though you gave birth to me and raised me from infancy, we don't share a drop of blood. My real mother is Ashera from Radiant Dawn (go buy the True Radiant History DLC for $4.99) and my father was Grima (go buy the Awakened Revelations DLC for $99.99). I'm also technically an adult, by the way. I'm kidding, of course. I hope.

That makes two of us. I'm not entirely sure the OP is aware of what he's arguing either. He seems to have a warped understanding of how the 3 games fit together.

So how do you feel about plot details being absent from some routes requiring you to play the other routes to understand what's going on. The invisible soldiers, Takumi's possession and the hooded man are never explained unless you play Revelation. Those are some examples of the story becoming worse because of the route split. Whether as a sentient being or a simple maguffin, Fomortiis/Dark Stone was needed for the plot. There wouldn't be a motive to destroy the Sacred Stones if not for some force corrupting Prince Lyon. Valla/Anankos could be completely cut from Fates and it wouldn't really change anything in the first two routes. The idea of a "greater scope" villain is that they create a larger conflict that the one currently present. Conquest + Hoshido is a simple war, and Revelation adds an unnecessary "btw an omnicidal dragon is behind all of this, you should go stop him". There is only one conflict in Sacred Stones and it's fueled exclusively by machinations of Fomortiis.

Fomortiis was very much necessary for the plot of Sacred Stones. Lyon starts doing what he does because the Demon King is subtly (and then not so subtly) influencing his behavior. Garon was always a dick so you didn't need him being possessed to push the plot forward. Fates: Making every other Fire Emblem story better by comparison since 2015.

To add onto these reasons, I suspect that Mamui is seen as a generic shonen hero and Femui seems a bit more exotic for being female.

If that's true than Azura was the most useless character in Fates. She literally didn't have to do a thing for Anankos to become irrelevant to Fateland. Kamui's role in the story also becomes irrelevant despite being the chosen one. Actually, isn't there a line in Invisible History that suggests if Kamui chooses wrong (Birthright and Conquest) that the world is fucked?

It's not that you can't have multiple route stories and make it work, but Fates felt more like a singular story. The story is "Hoshido and Nohr are at war, and Anankos is behind it." You can make a choice of which side of the conflict you fight on but ultimately the story stays the same. Azura, Lilith, the Rainbow Sage, Garon, Iago, Hans, Zola, two siblings and one of the beast tribes die regardless of your choice. Between Conquest and Birthright, the only real difference is who wins the war and either way, everyone loses because Anankos is still alive. Different flavors to the same Bad End. Edit: My original point was that the world of Fates is so empty that not enough happens to warrant multiple games. Had the first two routes led to distinct endings, I could see them as different stories. They had a winning product with just the personal conflict of Kamui and his families but then they derailed that with an unnecessary greater-scope villain. Sacred Stones might be a good example of a character focused game that doesn't need a lot of world-building to get you invested. Still, world-building only makes things better and there is no rule about character focus and world-building not being able to co-exist.

I could see it coming back if the staves could inflict status effects on the enemy. Damage-wise it's completely pointless, especially if they have actual weapons to use.

Maybe because to IS, Fates WAS stepping their game up for story? I'll concur on your statement that gameplay was improved greatly since Awakening, however.

But OP, that IS a part of where the story went wrong. This is a meta-explanation but a huge failing of the writing process was trying to split a single story into 3 games. There simply wasn't enough content to fit 3 games and there is a lot of filler in Birthright and Conquest to show for it. Also, if Azura and Kamui weren't morons, there wouldn't even be a "Conquest" and "Birthright". Their stupidity was needed to justify a 3rd route existing. The other principle failings of the story are: 1. A lack of world building. We know next to nothing about the continent and its people. 2. Kamui's black hole Sue-dom. Everything in the plot warps to make you the center of the universe. Two examples would be Iago, who is obsessed with making your life hell, even though you've done nothing to him and Kaze who betrays his nation (and possibly murders his own brother) because you're the swellest person in the world. This. It's really apparent (also evidenced by the fact that Kibiyashi isn't actually credited as a writer) that they just received a loose framework and never really developed it beyond that. But Brightbow hates Awakening so you still have a niche here.

I'll never understand people who rate units/classes in general threads based on their usefulness in LTC. By the way they argue, you'd think they wanted the game balanced around a play style that only a small minority of the fan-base play.

[spoiler=Takumi's Bizarre Adventure] You haven't even kissed Takumi, so he wasn't your first. It was me, Leo!! *kamui washes her mouth with dirty water*

I think the games are intended to be played with knowledge and experience of the whole trilogy. Or perhaps it may be inferred that they thought people would play the games in the order of Birthright > Conquest > Revelation, because Birthright is easier and Revelation was released after the first two games (for non special addition folks).

I wouldn't say that most FE's are without tension. Even when your characters take victory after victory, there are setbacks or at least the sense that the conflict is long from over. Eliwood's father dies after a long search for him, Lucia is captured and nearly hanged, and the Lycian army is roflstomped by Bern offscreen in Sealed Sword. All of these things happen despite you winning every encounter you come across. Still, it would pretty neat if the protagonist lost of major battle (maybe represented by an escape or defense map?) and had to deal with the consequences of that. They could cement that drama by having a plot death as the direct result of the protagonist's blunder (as opposed to the random deaths you see if Fates). My inspiration was mostly from Breaking Bad and Berserk (Walter White and Griffith's character arcs, respectively). I like the idea of the protagonist starting off with wanting to help people but finding in themselves darker ambitions when actually given a taste of power (Walter). The idea of a mercenary group rising through the ranks by the sheer talent and charisma of their leader is Griffith's tale. Seriously, Berserk does Fire Emblem plots better than Fire Emblem does. Edit: I'd totally be on board with another Lance Lord too, but I thought tome-use fit better with the intelligence of the character I was imagining.

I found a lot of use out of knights in Fates. It's really nice to have a high defense unit available, especially when dodge-tanking is so unreliable. Wary Fighter also improves their durability a lot, so they have a good niche. Their lower move is a bit of problem, but with pair up, it's not as big a deal.

For the basics of a protagonist, I'd want him to: 1. Have a character arc. 2. Be competent but flawed. 3. Be charismatic but not universally loved. 4. Gameplay-wise, he should be above average but not too strong. 5. Have him use a tome as a starting weapon. I second this. Here's my protagonist/plot pitch. The protagonist is a low-born child who has grown up in country that is often at war with its neighbors. Tired of being trodden on by the upper classes and victimized because of the constant wars, he vows to one day be king (not that anyone takes that seriously). Flash forward 10 years (the start of the game) and the protagonist is the co-leader of a mercenary group along with a childhood friend. Their group is similar to the Greil Mercenaries, focused on helping out commoners. The friend is satisfied with being the peoples' heroes, but the protagonist wants to take the group to greater and greater heights. The protagonist is a tactical genius and eventually the group catches the eyes of the nobles. The group is elevated to a national level of importance, being responsible for making their country the dominant power on the continent. As the protagonist continues to rise in society and take victories, his confidence leads to arrogance which makes him underestimate his enemies. At a crucial point, he loses a significant battle which takes away a lot of his stature in the country. Still, he is determined to become the king, which leads to some morally ambiguous schemes.

Maybe Geneology because I'll probably never play it otherwise. I wouldn't mind an Elibe reboot either, with updated visuals and some game mechanics from more modern titles like branching promotions and Attack/Guard stance. That said, I don't trust IS not to cock everything up with Avatars.

The point of this thread is to post things you like about the plot, so if you don't have a single positive thing to say, you shouldn't be posting here. Back on topic: To add on to my first post in this thread, I think the premise of the game was really solid. The protagonist being torn between the family he grew up with and the family he was born to is a great recipe for drama and could have made an excellent plot.

I was going to type up a long rebuttal for your original reply, but it was more about whether I think Xander is a likable character (I dislike him greatly) than a pure disagreement of why he does what he does. It would seem you are trying to make an objective analysis of his behavior, so I'll keep my subjective opinions to myself for now. Now for this post: 1. The Grado generals were not family to Vigarde but they were very close. Glen and Selena knew Vigarde since they were children and observed his kindness, so they are quite similar to Xander in this regard. This is where Sacred Stone takes a different turn. Duessel straight up defects because he can't reconcile Grado's actions with his morals. Glen was in the midst of questioning Vigarde and may have defected as well if not for his untimely death. The only general who stays loyal to the end is Selena. Just as the quote I gave earlier suggests, Duessel was a principled character, who despite his fierce loyalty, knew when it was better to side against his liege for the betterment of his own country. Xander does not side with his country's interests, and Garon is a lot more openly evil than Vigarde was (Vigarde is known as the Silent Emperor, whereas Garon is a cackling-mad tyrant.) 2. There are two points in the story where Xander values his country over Garon. The first instance is in Conquest after Garon reveals himself as Gooron and the second was in Revelation when Garon spouts off like a man possessed that he intends to destroy Nohr along with Hoshido. What these two events have in common is Garon no longer being himself. Xander didn't turn on Garon for any of his prior behavior (no matter how much of a threat he was to his country and siblings) until Garon proved to be literally a monster. The priorities are Garon > Country > Siblings For how unabashedly evil Garon is (again, he casually orders the execution of his own children), it strains belief that Xander could support him, even if he is his father.

I have Dark Souls on the brain again so I'm going to give another go at the Deprived class that came up earlier in this thread. Credit to cgRIPPER and Sire for the inspiration. Chosen Undead E rank* A cursed being that will play a big role in the preservation of the world. *This class gains no weapon experience and instead will have its weapon rank determined by its stats. D rank: 10 C rank: 15 B rank: 20 A rank: 25 S rank: 30 Sword, Lance and Axe weapon rank determined by strength, Bow and Dagger rank by skill and Tome rank by magic. When creating the character, the base stats will be the same as the chosen secondary class. You can choose not to take these bases and instead start with; Base Stats HP STR MAG SKL SPD LCK DEF RES MOV Avoid + 10 17 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 6 Stat caps (besides HP) change per level and are the equal to Base stats + level. Max stats (at level 40) HP STR MAG SKL SPD LCK DEF RES MOV 60 45 45 45 45 45 45 45 6 Pair Up Stats HP STR MAG SKL SPD LCK DEF RES MOV 0 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 0 Skills Class Passive - Darksign: This unit won't gain stats after leveling up and returns to it's starting position after being killed. All souls are lost after reviving. Level 1 Collector of Souls: After defeating an enemy, gain souls. The number of souls earned depends on the enemy.** Level 10 Estus Flask: Select the "Estus" command to regain 30% HP Level 25 Riposte: After avoiding an attack, automatically perform a critical hit. Level 35 Rekindle Humanity: You may consume all currently held souls to temporarily raise all stats by the number of souls. This buff last until the end of the chapter or until you die. **Souls are stackable items that can't be traded and can only be used between battles. After using a soul, this character will get +1 in a stat of your choosing. Stats can't be raised pass the stat cap in this way. This character will gain 1 soul for equal or lower level enemies, 2 for higher level enemies and 5 for defeating bosses. Notes: I tried to keep the mechanic of souls and reviving similar to the original game but some things need to be tweaked to fit Fire Emblem. Normally souls would be used to level up, but that would be a difficult formula to think about so instead they just increase your stats. Also in the original game, it would be possible to recover loss souls but I opted to leave that part out, because otherwise you just have a free Phoenix Mode. There are other mechanics I'd like to represent through skills but these seem like the basic principles of the game.

I recommend getting Conquest and Birthright. If you have both, you'll be able to experience all the characters, use all the classes and all the items (although not all at once). Conquest has the best map design of the 3 routes but the most aggravating story. Birthright is Awakening 2.0 for map design but it's not too bad, and the story is tolerable. You'll notice I left out Revelation. You can get most of the characters and all the items in one route, which may be worth your while if you want the most flexible team building/intend to do multiplayer. That said, the story is incredibly bare-bones and it would be hard getting invested, especially if you haven't played the other two routes. Even though the Revelation is supposed to be the definitive, golden path, the story is nothing to write home about (and it makes the other route stories even worse in hindsight). The map design is the worst of the three routes with many maps being too gimmicky and artificially long. It also has poor unit balance with many characters being nigh unusable because their stats don't match up with where they show up in game. Revelation is the only route I would discourage people from buying.

You should post your ideas in this thread, friendo. Also, host your images on a website where we can see them! :P Welcome to Serenes.