BlueL

I admire your dedication to Awakening. I can't say it will always be my favorite because there's almost room for improvement but I can say of the 5 I've played I did love it the most. And that it's my favorite 3DS title. Most time I've ever invested in any game before or since. Literally didn't hesitate to buy all the DLC either. Game was too much fun for me.

Oh yea my bad, I meant Charlotte. I accidentally put Camilla because of my prior paragraph about disliking her panty window lol.

Yea, I thought Lon'qu and Nowi had one of the best romantic build-ups so once I saw all there supports it was hard not to make them married. It's funny to see someone who else who had the same thought process. Part of the reason I wasted the Gale Force fathers was I didn't use them (Gaius because he's a thief in a game with few treasure chests; Donnel because I thought he was annoying my first run). It worked out for me though since all the kids I used who could get galeforce did minus Nah, but she ended up being a powerhouse tank so it didn't matter much.

Finally someone who agrees with me. Everyone focuses on her top, or at least more on her top than her bottom, but her panty window is what bothers me. Nor that skirt-like thing she has in some art to cover it up. This is random but nice outfit redesign of Camilla on your blog. Laughed out loud for for like a minute. Oh Chiki lol...

I'm a sap for romance, so love 80% of the time. Skills and stats, only come into play if I find a unit has multiple suitable partners that they've reached an A support with. In which case I'll choose the parent who will breed the better child. For example in Awakening I almost gave Nowi to Ricken (the first male she A supported with), but I really wanted to see where her A support with Lon'qu would go since I liked their previous supports. Glad I waited. Besides Lon'qu and Nowi having better chemistry, I wanted Nah to have an offensive skill and didn't think she'd get (literally) any benefits from a Sage father. It worked out pretty well for me except I wasted Gaius and Donnell's Galeforce genes, but Nah was my only important kid who lacked it. And I don't regret not pairing up Nowi with either of those since she and Gaius had no chemistry and DonnellxNowi was aight but nowhere as good as Lon'quxNowi. I tried shipping based purely on skills, and to a lesser degree stats, on my 2nd run and I didn't enjoy the supports as much because they were just a means to an end (breeding super soldiers).

I'd also say Nintendo has a kid friendly reputation and almost none of it's first party games are rated M, whereas there's not really such an expectation with Xbox or Sony titles's triple AAA titles. I'd prefer it get an M rating over being censored though. And I plan to preorder the special edition from day one so I can avoid that problem. BTW, if I'm not mistaken this thread doesn't have any kind of spoiler tag so....: spoilers Spoilers. Spoilers.

No you're fine, that was actually my error. I'm knew it was that certain units combined exp determined what version of Pale Flowers of Darkness and 4 fanged offense you got, I just never realized till you're post what their common thread was. I'm guess they just went with the first 4 hero crest users and the first 4 guiding ring users. Or maybe Canas got excluded for being from a bonus chapter. I don't understand why Linus' path is when your Lords are over 50 and Lloyd's are if your below 50. In-game I think big brother Lloyd was stronger (story-wise) so you think it'd be reversed. At least in retrospect for Pale Flowers of Darkness you can see you get the magic boss if those select magic units have a higher level. But... EDIT: Yea, that was exactly what I meant. He just said it better.

I like the return of gaiden-like chapters but I'm not fond of needing to have units reach a certain level of support unless they give you clues. I'm hoping this game is lacking in things like in FE7 where certain chapter choices were determined by 2 random unit's experience total. EDIT: I meant random as in "why do these select units exp determine the factor deciding which chapter version you get", not random as in a "random group of units EXP being higher than the other determines which chapter version you get." Poor wording on my part, thanks for the correction Blaze the Great. Part of me wants to look up everything ahead of time to save everybody, but that would just spoil the story. But I probably will look up the gaiden chapter requirements since they tend to be vague. But I'd only look it up on a per chapter basis, not ahead of time I mean it does, but it's so annoying to lose a key unit forever or long stretches of the game so it's slightly annoying. Like right now I'm playing an RPG where the only real healer/debuffer got kidnapped so for about 2 dungeons I had to rely on much, much inferior healers and could only cure statuses with items. This. I let someone die on PoR and have never stopped regretting it. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Even if the lines didn't fit half the time, if not more, like Taka-kun said it was nice being able to go to the support gallery and just hear their voices. Oh heavens this is probably the truth isn't it. Another reason to hate facerubbing *sigh*.

That's how I feel about most of the fanservice in this game (excluding facerubbing). If you're going to have something like My Castle or the Outer Realms, it makes sense to have fun, relaxing things to do. A lot of people critical of fanservice talk about it dehumanizing the characters, but if you were in a war and had a magical base you went to after every battle, would you only want it to have weapon shops and a prison for foes? No, like Jedi said, you'd be ecstatic about a dining hall and spa. And IDK where these beach pics are coming from (avoiding spoilers), but if you could go to a beach in the middle of the war without losing ground or risking attack (which doesn't seem to be an issue with barracks or My Castle), you'd go. Does it change the fact that they're breaking the immersion of the story for unnecessary additions? No. Is the hot spring likely an excuse just to show characters semi-nude? Very likely. It might slightly pull you out of the story, but I think it's an acceptable sacrifice for most of My Castle's features, and more a player issue than a story issue. And by that I mean no one seriously writing up a detailed plot description will insert how they visited My Castle and did X, Y and Z between each chapter summary. Does it go against how past FE games were? Yes and so I understand why breaking this tradition bothers some other veteran FE fans. True. I thought you meant both but I just wanted to be clear since you say I keep missing your main point. Ok. I'm not going to say I haven't seen those but they're in the minority of the posts I see on the FEsub reddit and here, the only places I really go to for FE discussion. If you're referring to FE Fates discussion on places like 4chan, tumbler, /r/3DS, etc, I don't visit those places. (Emphasis on "I've seen". Not saying you're wrong on it being very common). I can see why you'd be offput if people spent a lot of time discussing that or that attitude in general since FE is traditionally about it's story, cast of characters and the war going on. Ok. Got it. Focused too much on a point. You write like a person who did well in English the way you write about characters. But anyway I think I have a better understanding now what you mean about the bios and liking the the characters for what they do and say rather than first impressions. Well I think you're giving way too much credit to some people who dislike her (you're one of the few people I've seen in arguments about her to make this critique of her, a lot of people literally focus on her being a klutz) but I do understand you're point about her. If you were going to say she has a prominent trait, "self-depreciation moe" would be it. That being said, it truly doesn't come up in almost every support, unless by support you mean the entire group of supports per character rather than each individual C, B, A and S support. It's present in over half of them but I really wouldn't say it's played up, especially not the self depreciating part. At least not played up enough to call her exaggerated (I'm not saying you did). Minus her tripping problems (which don't come in supports) she is one of FE13's characters most capable of fitting in a prior FE game personality/behavior wise. I agree with this. I think Awakening could have done a much better job of, to use vague terms, development and depth. Or as you put it it, making you like a character for what they done and said. I just think a good number of characters I intentionally focused on that minor point because I wanted your opinion on it and I didn't fully understand your evidence. I think I understand your point about the characters and I don't disagree with it. It's obviously ideal for characters to be able to have strong impact or enable self-reflection. Like I said in my prior post that you either ignored or didn't feel like responding too, reading about Jill overcoming the idea of Laguz being sub-human monsters was touching and was a really human moment. I've never claimed (in general, not referring to our argument) that Awakening did a good job at such things with it's characters. But people can still enjoy units who aren't quite 3-Dimensional (not saying you ever said it wasn't possible). *EDIT: 3-Dimensional relative to past FE games) Is it more of a gamble in terms of getting people to like characters this way? Yes because the characters appeal is less about what they do and say but rather about a notable trait that either appeals to you or it doesn't. But I was on the side that found them interesting. My points in defending Awakening's roster are: A) I disagree when people treat the roster as a whole as being inferior to past FE games. There are more than a handful of units in each prior FE game that aren't quite 3-dimensional. Not as many as Awakening, but still there. In short, I feel people gloss over the less interesting and well-rounded units of each past game and only seem to remember the well rounded ones. B) In a roster as big as FE's, you're not going to have an entire cast full of well rounded characters so I think inserting some really quirky characters are fine. Awakening inserted too many as a whole but doesn't stop me from being able to judge them individually. C) While they may seem less human for having certain exaggerated traits, I don't consider a character's with an exaggerated defining trait that lacks depth, motivations or development to be inherently worse than one who lacks such exaggeration but still lacks the depths, motivations or development that many FE13 characters did. But I understand that comes down to personal preference whereas it's harder to go wrong if you build a character who exists for their own sake. Speaking of exaggeration... D) Critical people tend to over exaggerate how often and how long certain exaggerated traits pop-up in FE13's supports. Yes, you'll never read a Miriel support and not be left with impression "well she likes to use big words" but there are many characters whose "gimmick" doesn't show-up in every support or almost every support. For most "gimmicky" characters their "gimmick" pops up at over 50% of the time. That's still a lot considering the quirks they have and relative to past FE characters, but doesn't quite approach being a caricature for me. Like how earlier you said Sumia being a self depreciaton moe is played up almost every support but, without counting each support, I'd say at least 40-50% of her individual supports she doesn't give you the feeling of "a sad puppy trying to climb into your bed, but being too small/silly to do it properly". E) Last, few or none of FE13's roster is actually 1-dimensional. Some might be barely 2-dimensional, and few reach 3-Dimensional status, but most are definitely 2D and I'd say a some are like 2.5 dimensional characters. As I said before, Validar is a 1-D character. He's evil for some illogical reason and we get little backstory on him. He only really expresses one side: being a malicious man bent on world destruction that he won't benefit from. No Awakening unit is nearly as shallow or limited as him. Most units have some combination of the following: motivation, development (granted it doesn't carry over between supports, but that's something that was in the GBA's supports too), history (albeit not explored enough for most of the cast) or do and say things to make them like-able or relatable beyond the impression their bio gives. But I understand that may not be enough to overcome some people's dislike of their exaggerated traits/behavior. edit: I can't speak for anyone else but I'm not addressing the larger issue of "the game enables you to grope all your soldiers or oogle them in underwear whilst they'll say all sorts of gross subservient shit like "It is an honor to be touched by you"." because I don't disagree with you. If I didn't say it anywhere in this or my previous posts, let me make it clear that I dislike that being in the game and think it's a bad addition, I just, as we've already reached a stalemate on, don't think it dehumanizes them individually. I might feel different after playing the game if I have to use it a lot.

If I had to choose one I'd say aesthetics, but I'd prefer a balance honestly. Aesthetics should be about 60% of the focus for the design. Making the units distinct and appealing is important but this a war game so a good bit of practicality is needed.

Sweet, sounds like a big improvement over Awakening's system.

I'm torn on the difficulty to choose as well. I'd rather a mode be a little too hard than a little too easy. Unless that difficulty comes in the form of cheap enemy skills cough Hawkeye+ cough So in your opinion Hoshido Hard is closer to Awakening's Hard than it's Normal? I usually start games on Normal mode but after the snorefest that was Awakening's first few chapters on Normal mode (ugh) I'm leaning towards starting the game on Hard, especially since I plan to play Hoshido first. I'm still convinced Awakening's Normal and Hard mode were mean to be Easy and Normal but they forgot to change the title....

Is anyone planning on playing on Casual? I'm thinking about it, at least for Hard and Lunatic. If I lose a character on Casual mode due to a mistake on my part I'll just reset anyway for the most part, but I feel like their are certain moments where I won't want to have to restart a whole chapter because I feel like I got screwed by RNG or that the chapter required some luck I don't feel like repeating (like that chapter in FE6 where you recruit Klein and how difficult he is to recruit depends on if he feels like moving from his initial spot or not). Oh ok then. Thank you for your sacrifice.

I'm going to be honest, I forgot what I was arguing for here so I'm dropping this point. I don't consider any of the fanservice in this game that I've seen blatant except that zoom scene on Camilla and facerubbing (in a weird way) but I've already said I don't think it reduces any of the characters individually so we'll just have to disagree over this. I actually wasn't ignoring the second half of your statement, I honestly just got overly caught up in the bio part of your statement and unintentionally ignored it. I don't disagree with second half of your statement, although I'm not sure if you're blaming that attitude on the amount of fanservice in this game or the kind of characters there creating. I don't consider it a distraction because my point was that their is an increased focus on matchmaking due to not just due marriage existing, but that the system they put in lets basically any character can marry any opposite sex character in their supports, which includes most of the opposite sex characters. Something about having that much room of control (compared to past games where you had no idea if characters had any compatibility until you played the game and even then it didn't guarantee the characters would be together in the epilogue.) As for your other point, I have no idea how people can pair up people they don't know or how they'll interact either. I consider interaction to be the basis of whether two characters should be paired when forming couples in FE13 and will do the same in FE14. The avatar is an exception, I have spent time thinking on who to pair him up with, but like I said last time it's tentative. If I think an opposite sex unit looks like a good unit overall, I think "it'd be nice if I could pair up My unit with a character who I expect to be good". Good referring to their usability in battle and what I've glimpsed of their personality. But like I said last time, that is tentative and fun way to pass the time till the game is released. I can't tell if a character would ship well with the avatar until I've actually seen them interact. And yes the S supports were executed poorly for many pairs but that doesn't stop people from enjoying the end result. As long as the A to S support transition wasn't flat out bad, I just accepted the flaws but not let them prevent me from ignoring the marriage. No, I think I understand what you mean. I just don't understand why you think it matters if you (assuming I interpreted you correctly) yourself some FE13 characters were enjoyed be people for what they did or said rather than their first impression. *sigh* The length of the bios was not my point. It also was not something meant to be taken a part from the notation I put in parenthesizes (I was very tired when I wrote that so I take the blame for using poor spacing with my paragraphs). It was a build-up to my statement about just because a characters bio is a certain way doesn't prevent them from having (going to quote how you put it) "behaviour [which] would be the catalyst through which I could come to like them". You're going to have to tell me what chapter or chapters you're referring to or what he said, because I don't recall that specific conversation (s). Regardless, I believe you're saying you liked Dussell for the high morality in his actions rather than you liking characters who have high morals, right? Until then I won't respond since it ties into my answer. As for the second part of this I don't disagree with anything you said. It's very true the Awakening cast has many units who more people will dislike because of their exaggerated traits rather than if they had a non-exaggerated trait as the most prominent part of their personality. However, and just so we're clear I'm not saying you feel this way or this applies to you (I'm only stating the following because I've heard people who say the same thing you said make similar arguments), there are certain characters whose exaggerated traits/habits don't appear with the frequency or volume that people claim. In short, people who tend to be negative of the Awakening cast exaggerate how much and how often these traits/habits pop up. For example if you don't like Sumia because she's a klutz, that's fine, but it's false to say her being a klutz dominates her supports. Unlike say Cynthia's focus on being a hero and saying cool lines, Sumia's supports are not full of her being clumsy, all though I do recall it pops up in half of her 4 or so appearances in the main story. No, I said that because I was trying to guess what criteria you were going to list to describe the difference in the characters you listed as your favorites vs the characters you listed you liked. Most people say character development, backstory or motivations, but instead you said "that a characters behaviour would be the catalyst through which I could come to like them". I think that partially overlaps, at least in Jill's case, with character development but whatever. (BTW, you may not give 2 cents about my opinion but I'll say this anyway: I just went to read Jill's supports so I could try to see what you were referring to and I found her support with Lethe really touching.) I've already stated I disagree with this so I'm ignoring this part. Are you not saying more people are not like characters based on " exaggerated traits at the forefront so as to allow a player to easily identify their preferential units with which to experience more content/dialogue/etc with." rather than liking them because of character's behavior being the catalyst through which you come to like them? If it's not "right" or "wrong", are you just saying you personally have a problem with characters who exist for the player, rather than their being something wrong with creating a character like created for the player? Because I've never heard that critique used in a positive way. After I understand you're point, sure. But as it is right now, outside of what you say about blatant fanservice dehumanizing them, it's clear I don't really understand your criticism of the characters in the most recent games. It is not pedantry in this case, the way you worded the phrase to me (although it is clear we're not same page, so I likely misinterpreted you) was the equivalent of saying "this character is a wicked villain" vs "this villain is really evil" (I"m sorry I couldn't think of a better example). The former is an example of that technique while the latter is saying that evil isn't enough to describe them so you had to add a modifier In short, I interpreted it as you using exaggerated as way to further emphasis how exaggerated the characters are because calling them caricatures wouldn't describe how exaggerated you view them as.

I'm worried that they'll butcher content, including unnecessary I too am afraid of stuff like this happening. They let people walk around semi-nude in Xenoblade Chronicles so hopefully the fanservice will be left untouched. The only thing I'm worried about boosting the rating is the hentai-like dialogue I hear characters saying while being rubbed if you have an S support with them...but I might be being paranoid.They could always just remove it since altering it would be hard.

But they're still set at level's 5 and 15 for promoted classes right? If so, to get skills from a different class you'd have to use a parallel seal upon reaching lvl 5 or 15 in your current class since there's no way to reset levels?

Just like real life huh? Speaking of skills, is level reseting possible? If not, than how do characters get 6 skills? Also, 5 more questions: 1) is walking in on the opposite sex while they're bathing something that randomly happens or can you do it on purpose? 1a) Does female avatar get chased out of the bath house while dodging objects like Male Kamui does in the above situation? 2) Is chest rubbing in or not? I've heard conflicting reports and even though I don't plan on using it, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious 3) Does Pieri's skill last during the enemy turn if it's activated on player turn? Also, can it be activate on the enemy turn? 4) So far is the normal mode closer to the difficulty of Awakening's normal mode or it's hard mode? Want to know for both games?

Fine with me. I always (aside from FE13) made an effort to use an archer so I'm already prepared mentally. But doesn't this also make mages even more powerful as range attackers? Or did magic get nerfed as well?

I have no idea what I'll choose as a flaw. Considering how I love using tomes however, magic isn't an option to dump. I'd lean towards luck if anything. NO, Dragonbreath is back to being 1 range again?! I think it actually makes sense considering you're not attacking with anything physical. For me it's that I love being spoiler free so I can experience the game myself more than wanting to know everything their is about Fates. That or SF/ FEsub/etc abstinence

I don't think it's categorically wrong at all. When people in the future examine what they like and don't like about the characters, I'm willing to guess the facerubbing dialogue will not factor in except as trivia when something really weird is said. I don't see why it being blatant matters but I can see discussing this would be a waste of time. No, but you did say that the characters of FE13 could be easily summarized by a bio and an image, implying this was not true or was less true than previous games. Anyway I get your point, but I think you're ignoring the marriage factor. If Awakening lacked marriage but still had the same character bios and images, I don't think there would be as much matchmaking and enthusiasm going on. I think the reverse is also true, at least of the post FE5 games. After all, at least in my experience, part of the enthusiasm behind certain units is he thought of being able to marry them. And your point about knowing what to expect, isn't that the point of a bio? You want readers to have an idea of what kind of character they'll be. They could intentionally limit the bios on the official site for FE13 & 14 to be short long like the in-game character bios of past FE games, but there's no need to. If Dussell's bio was twice as long, they'd likely mention him possessing high morals as that's one of his most prominent character traits. Likewise, if Maribelle was in an older FE game we probably would have to actually observe her in-game to see that she's "cold to strangers, particularly to commoners, but warms up to them quickly", which is the second of her 3 sentences in her bio. (all the FE games with NA sites link to the FE:A site, so I have no way of comparing Awakening's bios to 8-10 sadly) And just because you can make expectations about a character from their bio doesn't prevent them from being able to have the character development or backstory that you mentioned for Dussell and Jill. My point is there's nothing wrong with liking a character off of design and their bio, and it's not as if these feelings are set in-stone. I have a number of characters who I'm excited to try in Fates, but those feelings are all tentative. I think majority is an overstatement, and I also don't think most of them quite reach the level of being caricatures, but I will say that compared to past FE games there is a higher concentration of unique personality traits. But that's just my opinion. I also didn't say caricatures was inappropriate to use, I said "exaggerated caricatures" was. Caricatures already means " ludicrously exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of persons or things", so that calling them exaggerated caricatures is basically putting them on the level of a side character in a cartoon who only exists to express one emotion. That's a description much more adept for Validar than say Noire, Lon'qu, Nah or even Tharja.

As long as he eventually chills, I'll be fine. But if he spends most of the game being a prick it will annoy me.

This should be a rule for the entire sub, not just this thread imo. Shouldn't risk being spoiled in a spoiler free thread. I wasn't even brave enough to go to the Hype thread, I just knew I'd be spoiled. Also, no need to ride the hype train for a game at least 6 months away *sigh* And that's how I believe that skill will be localized personally. If you want to find in-game music without risking going to the Hype thread, there's a thread on Reddit with a link to soundfiles and the entire OST (or at least many songs). It's like 2 days old though so you'd probably need to use search bar.

I'd actually be more sympathetic to complaints about fan service in that game since, at least in XC, the nude armor was at certain points in the game likely the best you had. In other words it was much more important and relevant to the main game than stripping is in FE Fates. I made fun of some of the outfits in XC too. I sometimes refused to put an outfit on certain characters because I thought it would ruin the seriousness of potential cutscene (i.e. the wingged hat on Shulk) But also didn't say it ruined the game for me and bring it up as negative that affected my evaluation of it either.

True. Heck, everyone in that game had a nude option. if you're referring to my post, I specifically said I don't know why people would have a problem with this picture when similar content was in Xenoblade without a fuss being made. I agree that hot springs and dressing up or down aren't the issue.