NekoKnight

I like Elibe and Tellius a lot but I have to give my vote to Telllius for the fantastic world building. I didn't know how much I appreciated it until future titles lost it.

We've got trabul and make it dabul~

The knife and bow aren't called Brave weapons because their drawback is different than the other weapons. Rather than lower your defense and resistance, they cut your strength in half for the next attack.

Leon and Elise discuss the conflict in their support.

I'm surprised that no one mentioned Selkie's skill. Adjacent enemies lose 5HP at the start of your turn. Wow, it's nothing. So who wants to play a game? Take a bad personal skill and give them a better one! Selena: If this unit is the support unit and the lead unit does a followup attack, this unit will dual strike twice. Dwyer: When this unit is the support unit, the lead unit gets +10 hit rate and avoid Selkie: When you trigger combat with an adjacent enemy, +20 Avoid. Asugi: When you select Wait, recover 10HP.

Odd. The original link still works for me. Here, I'll re-host it for your viewing pleasure. Technically Fates related because Amiibo. I kicked a puppy. I'll stop abusing small, adorable animals when they stop being punt-able. Disclaimer: NekoKnight doesn't endorse the abuse of adorable animals. Chihuahuas are fair game, however.

[spoiler=There is time and place for everything but not now!]

And then NekoKnight downgraded his forum defenders from a shit-ton to a FUCK-TON. Did I say 'downgrade'? I meant 'upgrade'... [spoiler=Chapter 5 spoiler] Because his mom is deeeeaaaaad!

Tumblr, where every character who has so much as exchanged glances is secretly a raging homosexual. Where we're going, we don't need canon.

*rimshot* Ouch, if you were looking for chill, you won't find it in Hoshido. I like Camilla's Yamcha pose.

Pretty much this. They want us to understand the morality of characters but rather than let the narrative reflect that, they practically shout it through the screen. The double-standard of which lives Kamui spares is the biggest indication of how black and white the conflict is. Revelation even has Garon and Marx say (paraphrasing) "I'm so evil! Evil feels gooooooood!" "Uh, Dad, are you okay?" "Shut up, can't you see I'm doing my Evil Monologue™?" What I find odd about Conquest is how easy it would have been to write the conquest as having a sympathetic motive to really challenge the protagonists morals and make him sympathetic the natural way. As is, the suffering he endures and the supposed lofty morals he has aren't coherent with he plot. There is probably a trope for that.

Speculation and alternative interpretations are fine but the game is pretty clear on how we are supposed to feel about the rebellions. Kamui spares every Hoshidan and rebel that he can but he DOESN'T make much an effort to spare regular Nohrian soldiers. The game doesn't show us why Cheve rebelled but it's implied they did it for good reasons. I think it would be pretty reaching to say they had malevolent intentions because if they did, the game would have told us.

No mention of Corrin's "You intend to trade life for peace? That's madness!"? That line is going to get ironic real fast.

Okay, I see your point. Azura is more integral to the routes existing, but I do feel that Marx is intentionally made a roadblock in ALL routes, so much that he's on a similar level of "contrived plot elements" as Azura. I could get behind Marx's character if Garon was shown to be worthy of his respect and not "Maybe I'll eat a puppy for dinner." It's been mentioned before but if Nohr had a reason for invading Hoshido, such as a need for resources, Marx could be seen as a well intentioned extremist.

Aren't Azura and Marx the same if you view them like that? Marx is mostly an obstinate boob to add more drama to the game just like Azura is forced to be tight-lipped to allow Revelation to exist. But when you take that all away, what is left? That's two thirds of the story effectively ruined by the writers trying to shoehorn a third route in there. The only reason to like either of those characters (in my opinion) is via their supports and ignore everything else. That's the heart of the issue, isn't it? We say "what the character was intended to be" but isn't that just our selective interpretation of what we consider canon characterization? You can't objectively say half of a character's actions are in character and the other half isn't.

The curse is a lot less limiting than I previously thought. In Conquest endgame, Leon questions why Azura couldn't tell anyone what she knows earlier and she responds with the incredibly vague "There are reasons I can't tell you" which would imply she can't talk about the curse. But in Revelations she is able to tell them about the curse and indirectly reference Anankos and Valla. As poor as the Conquest writing is, the existence of Revelation (and the efforts to hide it in Conquest and Birthright) is probably the greatest sin. That's what he was referencing. Elise even mentions that it was thanks to him that she could come. We'd have a very different game if Xander had stronger morals. It's not always easy to separate the character from the writing though. When a character is mostly consistent (and likable) it's easy to write off random stupidity as incompetent writing but what about when a character is largely inconsistent (Xander loving his family and peace but supporting his warmongering dad and threatening to kill Corrin) or drastically affects the story in a negative way (Azura's ooc inaction in Conquest and Birthright that allowed those routes to exist)? I can handwave Kaze joining you in Nohr as being "The writers wanted to give you a loyal ninja retainer but didn't think about the story implications" but I absolutely loathe the former two for their story involvement (support convos paint a different picture). TL;DR Characters are works of fiction so separating one part of fiction from the parts you dislike can be hard.

To be honest, I'd prefer S ranks in Fire Emblem to be replaced with a spin-off Hunie-pop game. As in, a separately sold game.

I've been playing through the NA!Revelations and this part confused me a little. Apparently you are able to directly talk about the curse provided you don't mention Valla or Anankos. Couldn't Azura have told Kamui or any of the royal siblings "I know some REALLY critical information concerning my origin and a world ending threat but I'm under a CURSE that will prevent me from giving specific details here, so we need to go somewhere else."? His "primary agents"? You mean just Garon and Possessed Takumi? Is there any indication that Anankos can't continue to send his forces into Nohr/Hoshido after the conclusion of Birthright and Conquest? If so, that kind of undermines Kamui's role as the "chosen one" when he didn't really need to be there at all.

I laughed hard at both versions of this, especially because I'm mixed on the localization.

Lies, if it were anime, a fountain of blood would erupt from Kamui's nose and he'd say "There is no way my sisters can be this cute!". Good reasoning. It could have been a strong scene for Sakura if her participation in the battle was shown to inspire the other soldiers to fight their hardest.

Noracist but Nohrian scum are literally the worst.

That face when you know it's your mom but you don't care.

"It's not a phase, Chrom. This is who I am."

[spoiler=Can an adult explain this to me?]

You likely won't get anyone to S rank without Arms Scrolls. I had a lot of characters barely breaking through A rank by endgame. Considering how worthless E rank weapons are, I wouldn't mind them being abolished, at the very least for promoted classes.