NekoKnight

I wouldn't describe the CQ MU as morally ambiguous. It's more a case of the game telling you at every turn that you are a hero but the actions he takes not being heroic at all. That's the opposite of invoking thought, it's lying to you about who your character is.

I know that Awakening gets its fair share of criticism, but I will say it's overhyped for saving the series. Awakening certainly made the series more popular by broadening the audience, but it selling well doesn't make it the best thing to happen to Fire Emblem. Iirc, the sales target for Awakening wasn't even that high, so the series could have survived even with a more modest success. It's not a bad game, however, and I credit it for being the prototype of Fates' greatly improved gameplay.

Their argument against Hoshido is pretty weak. I'm not sure if there is any value in contradicting their points since aren't here, but I'll do it anyway. 1. Mokushu and Koga (as far as I can tell) are not a part of the kingdom of Hoshido. In other words, it's not the responsibility Hoshido to police their shit. 2. Kitsune kill people who trespass on their mountain because they are often poachers. Nothing in the narrative says that poaching is tolerated by the Hoshidan government. There is no race war going on. It's a tribe protecting themselves from criminals. I think they have the misconception that everything east of the Infinite Chasm is part of Hoshido. It seems that Hoshido is just one small kingdom amongst many independent nations/tribes.

"Our love is like your cum on my butt" Whelp, that's enough internet today.

No offense, but this is equally presumptuous about the character motivations. The food shortage and lack of resources in general is mentioned maybe once, and not even in Conquest. Out of the playable Nohrian characters, we never reallylearn how they feel about the war. As far as we can tell they're all supporting the war out of loyalty to their master and nationalism (EVERYONE IS A CAMUS, even the Awakening Trio). Arthur's whole shtick is JUSTICE but if he ever comments on a just reason for invading Hoshido, I must have missed it. We can speculate and make head canons about character motivations but that's all it is. Guesswork, loosely supported by the writing.

I mean, I guess you can say it's a "focus", in that the plot isn't well developed, but I don't think it was intentional for the plot to be merely a vehicle for presenting the characters. I can't read the writers' minds, but the fact they made 3 games (with an additional story DLC) makes me think that yes, they did want you to appreciate the plot. A game like Shadow of the Colossus has intentional minimalism. Fates is an example of ambition outstripping talent. I won't fault you for liking characters, that's subjective, but if you want to make an argument about the story having value, you need specific examples of their contribution. What story is being told through supports?

Unless you can make a case for a riveting story about the world of Fates told through supports, your argument lacks substance. Yes, supports do help flesh out characters and the world, but this isn't something that started with Awakening or Fates. I will give credit where it's due. SOME supports make characters far more appealing than their main story involvement, and others do make attempts at world building (ex Nohr's court affairs, revealed in Camilla x Niles). I'd disagree that they are enough to fill the void that is the plot, however.

Sounds good. I think the two powers having a mixed relationship (not entirely one-sided, with one country dominating the other) is more interesting. I know people like the kidnapping/hostage premise but I wonder if an alliance formed with a political marriage would have a place in the story. Maybe Azura was going to be married to Kamui but a rebel Hoshidan faction kidnaps her which provokes the wrath of Nohr. Remember Professor NekoKnight's words: There is a time and place for sardonic comments but not now!

It's only been inactive for about a month, so it's not THAT old. I do prefer using a unified thread, it's a bit easier to keep track of. And I'm biased because it's my baby.

Some questions: 1. Why would Nohr send one of it's own royals as a hostage to Hoshido if they decisively defeated Hoshido in a war? Shouldn't it just be Hoshido sending a hostage? It seems unclear which nation holds greater power. 2. The Nohr paragraph says that Hoshido trades with Nohr but the Hoshido paragraph says they send tribute to Nohr. So what is their relationship with each other?

Concerning Avatars, I like them as a concept but they need to be toned down. I think the avatar should be like Soren; a confidant of the MC, maybe have their own character arc, but the story isn't about them. Seeing some neat ideas here. Keep them coming! You could post it in the old Fan Fiction Thread. Seems like everyone is revving up their fanfictions again.

I lol'ed at Mikoto saying yolo after coming back from the dead. Apparently some people only live twice.

One more weak point in the narrative. The Avatar. Kamui's story is probably the most intriguing of any FE protagonist to date. Him being torn between to families and nations is great for adding personal investment to the greater narrative. Sadly, this unique background is poorly utilized. In order to make him a better self-insert, he's made a blank canvas where a personality should be. He doesn't grow up embracing Nohrian values and he doesn't experience any culture shock by switching to Hoshido. Worse still is his lack of character growth. Even if the writers wanted to start him off as a naive everyman, he should still be allowed to develop as a character. But his siblings shelter him incessantly, preventing him from learning anything. Revelations makes a point of stomping on his growth by having the siblings tell him "No matter how often and badly you screw up, we'll always bail you out. Your naivete is a good thing!" Which brings me to another point; Player Worship. A story like this should be morally ambiguous (why give the players a choice if one is so obviously the wrong one?), so neither choice should be the perfect answer to the protagonist's values. Unfortunately, Kamui is never allowed to be wrong, and bad things that happen are blamed on others or excused. It goes to such ridiculous lengths in Conquest that you are actually portrayed as a hero, despite being responsible for the invasion of an innocent nation and the death of two of your siblings. In a similar vein to pleasing the player at the expense of the narrative is allowing you to marry your siblings. Family is a strong theme to work with but it's completely undermined by the forced pseudo-incest. In short, making the protagonist a consequence-free self-insert was the worst possible thing they could do with the story.

Your ideas for Conquest is basically what they advertised and people got hyped for, pre-release. It certainly would have been an improvement over the mess we got in the actual story. Here's what I would identify as the critical failures of the story: All Routes World building. This game has 2 primary factions (and one hidden kingdom) but we learn next to nothing about them. These are completely separate and unique cultures (one would think) but never is the difference of cultures or the structure of their societies discussed. What are the politics, economics, history and religion? What am I supposed to get invested in when County X invades Country Y? We have all these actors but they forgot to include the setting! Nuanced villains. I'll get into this more later but a good story has a good antagonist. Fates villains' evilness is so contrived, it falls into self-parody. Conquest Apart from not living up to its premise of "revolutionizing the country from within", Conquest fails because its protagonist doesn't fit the story they're trying to tell. Kamui is a moral paragon so everything he does in Conquest is lunacy. He (and all of his siblings) serve an obviously evil overlord on his quest for world domination. It's clear that they aren't doing the right thing but they go along with it because they've convinced themselves that somehow they're doing the world a favor by conquering a peaceful nation. There are two ways I might go about fixing this issue. 1. Make the conquest sympathetic. Say the conquest is necessary because Nohr is starving and Hoshido has all the food and resources they need to survive. Say that Hoshido wrong them in the past, or that Hoshido is just has opportunistic and power hungry. If you want to have a heroic protagonist involved in a conquest, you're going to need some heroic motivations. What we got was a spineless coward who deluded himself into thinking he was a hero. 2. Make the villainous faction (Nohr) human and sympathetic. Look at the way the Lannisters are handled in GoT. They often act as an antagonistic force to the "good" characters but they have good (albeit flawed) characters as well as evil ones. Even the ones who are quite villainous are well developed and do what they do for more than petty evilness. This is what Nohr lacks. Garon, Iago and Hanz are as one-dimensional as you can get and it's a wonder that murdering them isn't the top point of the heroes' agenda. Revelations As this represents the "full story" (although I'd call it the most empty and boring route), this has all the flaws of other two routes. Concerning the curse, from a meta perspective, it only exists to allow the 3rd route to exist. There would be no reason for a Birthright or Conquest if Aqua actually focused on getting everyone to Valla. This doesn't mean the curse is necessarily a bad element. The curse by itself is fine, the flaw is that it's not nearly as ironclad as the story wants to admit. You can actually mention the curse and it's affects without triggering it. You can even speak of Valla vaguely, as long as you don't mention the specifics or names. Personally, I wouldn't have the 3rd kingdom at all because there is already a goldmine of potential for the first two kingdoms. Going back to the world building aspect, Valla is the worst because everyone is already dead, so no one exists to talk about anything. We don't learn anything about this mysterious realm, or even the antagonist who made it that way. It's just a void, that eventually disappears altogether. If I were to redo the story, I would go a lot more in depth about this kingdom and Anankos. This guy can bring back even the souls of the dead and all it's used for is Naruto-esque "Well done son" moments with the main characters' parents. Conclusion Fates has an awesome framework that is completely squandered.

[spoiler=Cheer up Dad] [spoiler=Happy Dad Day!]

Kamui doesn't need to be in charge for him to be present in the invasion. If Garon wants to make Kamui suffer, he should put him in an army company that forces him to do evil. Kamui being in charge makes it so he can choose his own methods. Kamui spends most of the campaign trying to avoid fighting the Hoshidans and when he does, he spares them as often as he can. Garon didn't think this through. Despite Garon's alleged plan to sacrifice Kamui to Anankos, it's never brought up again. It's a plot thread that doesn't go anywhere and just looks like pettiness (slipping into suicidal idiocy) by the Trinity of Evil.

Revelations is the only route where it sort of makes sense. The other two routes are complete nonsense in this regard. 1. Kamui spent the majority of his life under house arrest and is the naivest member of his siblings. 2. Kamui has 2 older siblings on either side and Takumi and Leo probably have more battlefield experience as well. 3. In Nohr, the leadership is out to get him and in Hoshido he's practically a foreigner. Neither faction should be putting him in a position of authority. Every excuse I've heard for the above just opens even more jarring plot holes.

I don't think the three weapon type units need to be nerfed. They might have more options AFTER they cap all their weapons, until then you are spreading yourself thin on weapon exp. In the current game, you pretty much won't be getting your Master of Arms even close to capped without arms scroll usage. A B B is a fair spread of weapon ranks to me, Also, there is no reason for promoted classes to suffer through E rank (lol). It's just a void that must be grinded through before getting usable weapons.

That was the one time I laughed at that character. "Btw, I'm dying. Go save the world gais." Uh, okay? Was there a reason for that death other than the roster getting too big?

I had fun with a Orochi!Selkie in one playthrough. Selkie is one of the few children who doesn't suffer much from Orochi's speed and her magic will be raised to an acceptable level.

That's terrible and amazing. [spoiler=Well done, you magnificent bastard.]

The first time I saw it, I was playing the Japanese version so it took me a long time to read through her speech. Ever burning, ever calm. There were two main faults in the execution (heh) of the scene. 1. Death by fire is an extremely horrible way to die, and if Flora was determined to end her life, she should have used a knife. Also, as mentioned above, you aren't going to be giving a speech while burning to death. 2. The game doesn't do a good job at selling that Flora's tribe is in serious danger. The Hoshidans are already deep in Nohr on their way to kill Garon. If Flora's failure meant the death of her people, she might as well place her bets on Kamui rather than kill herself for some unneeded penance.

Like many things in Fates, the details are lacking and the implications suspect. I wouldn't think about it too hard. The best answer I've heard is that the "subjects" of Neo Valla were refugees displaced from Old Valla, that couldn't return or speak of their origin until after Anankos' death. Your guess is as good as mine about where geographically this new kingdom would be.

I wouldn't describe it as limiting, just better planned. Base classes would still have two promotion options but there wouldn't be a 'lesser' choice because of weapon rank caps. There are some alternative solutions (to the problems in Fates). One is to have custom weapon rank caps based on the base class, ex. a Fighter!Hero will A rank Axes and B rank Swords. This sounds reasonable, but if reclassing is an option, you'll still need class specific caps. Another option is letting you determine your own max rank (the GBA games did this, iirc) by whatever you reach first, but personally I prefer the ranks determined by the class to make classes more distinct (ex Hero and Blacksmith use the same weapons but their max rank is different). Just my opinion. So long as the character can max rank their primary weapon, it's a step forward.

It's the face she'd make if she saw what people on Serenes said about her. Or she saw your porn folder.